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Cute Dog Videos.
Makima gasps, taking in great draughts of the muggy air in her room that somehow sends freezing darts down to her lungs. Her covers and pajamas are sodden with cold sweat, and as consciousness makes its slow return she doesn't know whether to be grateful or afraid that this memory is blurry and indistinct.
Her hands feel itchy, like they'd gone numb, and pins and needles blaze through them like fire. Frantically, she slams them together and rubs them, trying to rid herself of the maddening feeling. The second they made contact, she got a flash.
"Say Shuzo Mishima"
"Shuzo Mishima…"
The blindfolded man toppled over.
Giving up, she slams her hands against the mattress and rubs them raw on the sheets, trying desperately to get rid of the itch to little avail.
What did it mean? The memory- no, the dream, all she registered was a muted, grim satisfaction. And, of course, the expected loneliness. Ho answer makes itself known. For half an hour she breathes into her sheets until feeling returns to her fingers, and when she calms down she decides to have an early breakfast.
Hitoshi is waiting for her at the table. "Bad Dream?" he asks knowingly. She nods. Masato and Nori come downstairs soon after, and she decides that drowning the feeling in chocolate croissants is a workable method.
Afterwards, she resorts to calming her mind by watching movies on the TV, a well-ingrained enough habit by now that all three Shonsous have learned to flitter on by, join and leave when they want, and put up with her exhaustive critiques. Not a single movie is perfect, and many of them are straightforwardly terrible, but she can't seem to stop seeking those ones out, seeing what makes them tick.
What makes perfection less compelling than its absence? Perhaps the answer lies in flipping it around. Why are flaws more compelling than the flawless?
Perhaps it's familiarity. Makima herself is imperfect, a fact she begrudgingly accepts. Everybody else is too, and that fact helps her feel more human than she usually does, even though she is human.
There's a flash of memory that's forgotten. Something about what she thought doesn't feel right.
She flips through the smart TV on the sixth page of the archive site she frequents, and picks one whose title draws her eye. USSR, 1959: Ballad of a Soldier.
An hour and half later, her face is streaked with tears. There's many things she could criticize, and perhaps will later, but for now her heart aches to the tune of the movie's soundtrack and she desperately, desperately misses Masato and Nori.
And as luck would have it, Nori walks through the living room a moment later, and the split second she sees Makima's face she's approaching the couch. Makima's already mediocre eyesight is fully engulfed by thick tears but by then the woman's arms are around her, and she's making whatever sounds she can to comfort the girl she adopted, and the crazy part is it's working.
And, Makima reflects later in the day, she probably wouldn't have had that moment if she wasn't ugly-crying on the couch for all to see. Perhaps the imperfection's worth it.
Eventually, the emotional moment subsides, as all moments do, and she goes about her day. Down the road she walks, wandering around, taking in the familiar yet alien scenery of the streets around the Shinsou house, ruminating and introspecting. Introspecting is something she often used to do to try and understand why nobody liked her, to reaffirm her goals in life. Now, that old habit accumulates dust. What next, she asks herself, but to wonder if her goals in life are the same? Can eternal peace be achieved? Or is it hopeless to strive for utopia?
'What do I want?' she asks herself.
Down the street, fenced off from everyone else, a camera crew and a few tents mark the location of a film's shooting. Actors playing heroes and villains fly around and clash, with the quirks used to achieve the effects necessary heavily mitigating the old requirements of computer-generated effects. Two telekinetic quirk uses work in sync, one to lift the actor playing the hero and the other to flap his cape in a convincing way that he appears to be flying.
The hero himself is a facsimile of All Might, the omnipresent totem of peace as she knows it. It's a shoddy copy without a lick of the man's aura, but she's still captivated by the performance. No man could ever measure up. Is trying to measure up admirable in and of itself?
She remembers, what feels like a lifetime ago, a man who showed her a phone video of All Might to lure her to the authorities, after she was discovered in an alleyway with no trace of any sort of background. The man may not have been a hero, and the orphanage may have been terrible, but she's logical enough to recognize it was the right, sensible thing to do. And it led her to here. To… home, as she's beginning to think of it. A tentative brother in Hitoshi, and hope in her heart for Masato and Nori to call her their daughter in the far future.
Yes, Makima realizes, this is what she wants. Not what she wants for life, maybe, but what she wants in her life. There are now two pillars by which 'Makima' stands - world peace and family. She just wants to stay with the Shinsous, damn whatever interference her memories- no, her dreams run.
She smells Hitoshi approach before she sees him, and gives him a light smile that surprises him. He reciprocates in his dry, nonchalant way, and it's comforting in its familiarity.
"What's up? What are they filming?"
"Hero movie. Not sure what kind," she answers. "Look at the way the camera's moving. It's so choppy. They're doing take after take of quick action shots. This film's going to be terrible."
He snorts. "I'll take your word for it."
She nods amicably, and the two watch for a few minutes in comfortable silence.
"Hitoshi?"
"Yeah?"
"Remember what I told you up on the roof that night before you had to go sick in the toilet?"
"Did you have to put it that way?"
She bulldozes past his whining, and fastidiously ignores her own shames that night. "Do you remember?"
"...Kinda?" he scratches his neck. "I was pretty smashed, so it's a bit blurry. Eternal peace, right?"
"Eternal perfect peace among all people of the world, and everything negative excised from existence itself," she elaborates. "Unrealistic, I know, but I know it's possible. In my heart I know it, I just don't have a method. I… don't think my powers are the answer for it. I can't force people to be good. Everyone will hate me. And I don't even know what's good anymore. I know I'm smart with schoolwork and controlling birds and things like that but I barely understand anything like you do. I barely understand anyone. How can I fix the world if I don't know how to fix it right so people will like it the most?"
Hitoshi, as characteristic of the frustratingly deadpan boy, answers her philosophical crisis with a shrug. "Not sure. But if you're asking how to do it right instead of just… forcing everyone with what you think is right, you're probably on the right track.
"I wanted to get rid of everything bad. I've been thinking about that," she continues. "Everything bad… selfishness, evil, lies, pain, wars, conquest, so many terrible things the world would be better without… they're all…" she gulps. "It was never everything bad about the world, was it? It was everything bad about me."
Hitoshi grabs her by the shoulders and forces her to meet his eyes, even though it's clear one look in hers already slows his thoughts. "Makima. Look at me. Seriously, look. You're not any of those things, alright? Never will be. You scared me yesterday, sure, but that's basically nothing. I'm not gonna pretend that people are always good or whatever when we both know that's full of shit, but… if you choose to be good you can be. It's why I want to be a hero. To prove it."
She stares back in his eyes, before averting her own to spare him her captivating gaze, which he's silently grateful for. "I won't strive for anything less than utopia. But, now more than ever before, I don't know what that is. The only thing I do know there's things not worth sacrificing to get there. People like you. You're the first person I really know, you know? Hitoshi, I… I love you… bro."
"Love you too, sis," he replies, equally awkward. "But, uh, 'bro' sounds really weird coming from you."
"...I appreciate you as a brother."
"That's more like it."
"That was gratifying to say but also uniquely unpleasant so don;t expect me to say it often."
"Right back at you."
They take the scenic route on the way back home as the sun sets on an unproductive yet eventful day. Makima walks alongside Hitoshi with peace in her mind and a load off her shoulders. She hasn't taken this route before, and the grassy smell in the air is sublime. It's just what the doctor ordered.
Hitoshi glances to the right as they walk, seeing the old christian church nearby. The small garden outside is usually tended to by a girl his age with vines for hair, who's probably left by now, seeing as it's getting dark. He's talked to her once or twice, and he's pretty sure she wants to be a hero too. He'd consider introrucing her to Makima but she seems judgy, so they probably wouldn't get along.
He turns to her, about to say something to Makima, only to see her standing stock-still, head tilted upwards and an expression of absolute terror and dismay on her face.
He waves a hand in front of her eyes, but they're stuck on something. He tilts his head up to match and…
The cross. Is she… afraid of crosses?
"Makima?" he tries. "You okay? Do you want to get out of here?"
"Pochita…" she whispers. "He tricked me…"
"Pochita? Who's Pochita? Are you okay? Can you hear me?"
She begins to shiver, legs quivering, eyes transfixed."I-I can't- what? What's going on?"
"Makima, breathe!"
Her eyes snap back to his. "I-I-I have no idea! I don't know who Pochita is! I don't know why I said that! I c-can't- it all smells like blood! All I can smell is blood! Help me, Hitoshi!"
"How can I help you? Tell me!" he urges. Makima tries to tear her braid and he tries to move her hands but her baffling strength ensures she doesn't budge an inch.
"I want to go home! I don't want to see these dreams! Get me out of here!" she screams. "I want to go I want to go I want to go I want to go I want to GO!
Her voice reverberates like an iron law of the world and before he can even question it, a manhole pops open, and rats stream out in the hundreds.
"Makima, what are you-!"
They pool at her feet and climb up her legs, enshrouding her in a brown furry pestilent tide, and he digs his arms deep into the clump of rats and overpowers his disgust to try and pry her out, only succeeding in being pulled further in. They're both covered entirely by the rats, and his stomach swims, and he feels like he's going to be sick, and-!
And the rats pool away, the scratching and itching ends, and his stomach lurches back into place.
And then lurches a third time for good measure, because standing across from him are Mom and Dad, at home preparing dinner, who've now seen a horde of rats form and dissipate, warping he and Makima into their house. It's… completely unexplainable.
And when his eyes meet Makima's, he can see her panicking anew, no longer over the cross but over herself, and her fears echo in his head. She doesn't want to be thrown away, and in this moment it's the same fear she felt when she thought he hated her for using her contract on him.
Before she can run again, his arm darts out and grabs her own, and though she pulls against him with what feels like enough force to wrench his shoulder out of its socket he keeps her there through sheer force of will.
"Makima!" he whisper-shouts, Mom and Dad still standing there gaping. "Stay. Please. You'll never get a better chance."
And in his eyes he knows she sees the truth reflected back at her, at the inevitable confrontation. He's had his turn. It's time Mom and Dad had theirs.
Masato and Nori stared at Makima, the sight they had seen beyond words. The girl herself cowered under their attention, something that seemed out of character for her, but Hitoshi noted she seemed to be expressing herself a lot more lately. A consequence of breaking out of her shell, most likely. But if she was to ever move past this state of transition, she'd have to face his parents…
"Hitoshi?" Nori asked, voice shaking. "Why did… you two… come in from a swarm of rats?"
"One second they weren't there, the next they just… came barreling in," Masato similarly breathed. "It was like you teleported in. That's not a thing you can do, right?"
"I-Isn't your quirk mind control?" Nori continued, jumping off from her husband's point of questioning. "Makima, did you lie… but the records… do you have two quirks? That's impossible, right? Your quirk is Brain Chain!"
"I-" Makima gulped, stopping herself, and the house went silent. "I… my quirk… isn't just Brain Chain."
"But how do you get mind control and teleportation?" Masato inquired.
"...I don't know what my quirk is. I don't understand it at all," she admitted. "I-! I-!"
Like she'd stopped at a barrier, Makima couldn't quite make the leap. Hitoshi watches as his parents' brows furrow, concern rising. Carefully, he puts his hand on her back, a physical reminder that he's there for her, supporting her. 'Can't live with someone half-decent for this long and not help them out here and there,'he thought in usual tsundere fashion.
"-I don't know how to say it! I'm… scared," she whispered the last word. "The dreams have been getting worse, and more vivid, and my powers are getting stronger- and it's not just the training, Hitoshi, I know it's not just the training, it's tied to the memories and- the dreams! They're dreams!"
"What dreams?"
Makima's head ripped up to her. "I-I don't know! I… I think it has to do with where I come from, but they don't make sense!"
"Where you come from?"
Makima shivered. "If I tell you some of it you'll want to hear the rest. If I tell you the rest you'll hate me."
Both mother and father disagreed vehemently, as did Hitoshi. "You already told me," he reassured her. "They can handle it too."
"That's different. You're different. They don't understand, they don't have the same quirks- they don't even have similar quirks! A-And I know the contract is still in your head, I already changed it, so you can't-!"
Hitoshi sneered. "Oh, for christ's sake , Makima, my head's fine, I can tell you didn't change anything at all! Is it that hard for you to believe you're LOVED!?!"
"Of course it-! You don't know anything! You have everything you could ever want! A heart! A home! Parents!"
"You have all those things too!" he retorts. "If you just-!"
He freezes. Makima's finger was points at his head. Her other points as his Mom and Dadi.
"I don't," she intones, voice bland like it used to be. "But I could. I could take it all right now. I wanted it so badly in my dreams, but for some reason I was too stupid to take it then…"
"Makima, please just listen to us…" Nori struggled to say, fighting through confusion and a mounting fear for the girl in front of her, but that fear was proven unwarranted.
"...Why can't I take it now?" Makima finished. "I used to be able to. I could take what I wanted. Everyone listened to me, they didn't argue. They just did what they were told, back at the orphanage. I didn't have to think about things like this. I couldn't go lower. I was content."
"You don't sound content," Masato interrupted. "Back when we were first adopting you, you seemed almost… adamant that we wouldn't want you.You haven't been the most… conventional child, but we've had you here for a while now, and we're not hurrying to throw you back out! You're a good kid. You help Hitoshi with his homework. You eat all your food. You watch movies with us. You're wicked smart. You know I haven't even heard of most of the ones you put on?"
"I was fine before you brought me here," she grumbles. "I was fine before you made me feel all these ways, and want so much more that I can't have!"
"What do you want, Makima?" Nori asks, firmly but kindly. "We're your- well, we'd like to be your parents, and we'll support you, always. That's what we decided when we adopted you! You seemed so sad and lonely, and reminded us so much of Hitoshi. We could tell you didn't enjoy it there. It must have been terrible for you!"
"But it was easy! I did what was necessary!" she shouts back, face as red as her hair. "I knew my place! It was simple!"
"Maybe it was!" Hitoshi challenges, stepping out from behind her. He joins his parents, and there's an invisible line between them now. On one side, Makima. On the other the Shinsous. She wants to step over the line more than anything she's ever wanted before. Her chains are an empty threat - she knows she won't fire them. That's beyond her now. But to step over the line, not just for Hitoshi, but the other two… then, it becomes more, more than her single friend in the world.
Family. A forbidden idea. One that she never could have accepted as a possibility for herself so long ago, that she now stares in the eyes, daring herself not to blink.
And Hitoshi's still speaking. "Maybe it was easy! Maybe it was, to just… control everyone, to use your quirk and make everything straightforward. I… I… never make me admit this again, but I pretend to not care a lot more than I do, okay? But having you over showed me how dumb that was, and I can't believe I didn't realize sooner! It was a two-way street, and I had to change too. Maybe it's hard, but… you told me there's things you didn't want to give up to get to your life's goal. That you didn't want to give up me!"
He takes a breath. His parents look at him like they've never seen him before, the proudest he can recall in his entire life. Tears dribble silently down Makima's face. "What I'm trying to say is… it might hurt to keep trying, but that's the only way you'll have what you want… properly, honestly. You can scare people or trick them or fool them to like you but deep down you'll never be really loved in a meaningful way unless you take that chance, like you took with me. You can have a family."
Makima sniffs noisily, a sad wet sound. She's far from the proud, stoic, composed individual she usually is. "I… but… I threatened you again… I promised not to…"
"Yeah, dick move." Nori clips Hitoshi around the back of the head.
"What my son was trying to say was… Makima, dear, you've opened yourself up to Hitoshi so much more than us, and he's your brother, but he can't look after you properly like we can. And we want to. The only ways you scare us, really, is that you make us scared for you. That you'll misuse your power and feel terrible about it, like Hitoshi's afraid of."
"And, frankly, we don't think you'll even do that much," Masato adds. "You… want to stay, right?"
Makima makes a rough, quiet noise. When she realizes nobody heard what she said, she blushes, and speaks a little louder.
"...more than anything."
"Then as long as you're here, trust that we'll be reasonable with you. Even if you screw up, we won't blow up on you. Why, if we did that, Hitoshi'd be awful jumpy!"
"Y-You mean it?" Makima stutters. "E-Even if I accidentally threaten to use my quirk, o-or made a contract…?"
"Even then."
"O-Or if I almost use my powers to terrorize a hero just 'cause he was mean?"
"Even then."
"Or if I made Hitoshi unable to show he was drunk when you came home that night?"
"Even th- wait, what?"
"Whoa, whoa!" Hitoshi shouts. "I-I know I said honesty and the other thing but maybe we don't need to cover everything today-!"
"SHINSOU HITOSHI." Frozen solid under his mother's icy stare, Shinsou swivels around with an almost audible creaking sound, a pathetic shaky smile plastered over his frightful expression. "We will have words about that. Luckily for you, now isn't the time."
"Yesmaa'am."
"Don't sass me." Nori turns back to Makima expectantly, Masato following her lead. "Tell us what you want from us, Makima. You don't need to feel like you're forced to use your quirk or anything like that. We're more than happy to provide it, as whoever you want us to be."
"Then…" she deliberates, choosing her words very carefully. But at the end of the day, Makima's true feelings, her control over them looser than ever, slip right through her lips. "...then I-I want to be a family!"
And, like a heavenly sight, Nori and Masato's arms open towards her in unison, inviting her into their embrace. "Then you're our daughter."
It's a foregone conclusion that Makima launches herself into their arms, restraint abandoned, cold exterior shattered, letting herself fully feel for the first time ever, and as the sobs and wails begin anew, they hold her tight, promising without word never to let her go.
And for the first time, Shinsou Makima truly believes it. She burrows into those arms and holds them tight, and it feels like her voice wails for hours. Every emotion hidden behind the controlled facade, emotions she doesn't even know she was feeling, let themselves loose into Nori's sweater and Masato's sleeves.
When her eyes eventually dry - albeit still being rather crusty - she looks back up and them and grabs their hands, one each. "I-I'll make a contract. So I can't hurt you," she promises, and opens her mouth to say the binding words on the tip of her tongue. ' Makima receives nothing,' she is about to assert. 'In return, Shinsou Nori and Shinsou Masato will be immune to any form of control from Makima and will be unable to be harmed by her'
Masato's finger sticks itself in front of her lips before she can say them, and he shakes his head. "There's no need for that. We know you wouldn't want to hurt us. We trust you."
To trust them, and be trusted in return… what is this feeling?
At last, after a lifetime, Makima has a family.
At last, after a lifetime, Makima is among equals.
And it's all she's ever wanted.
A few days pass.
Makima doesn't settle into the new normal like it's natural. In fact, it's exceedingly awkward. She's expended more emotional energy than she ever has before, and feels lethargic in the period following the big teary family moment that only Masato seems to keep getting soft over, the other Shinsous - and Makima, because she has to keep reminding herself she's a Shinsou now - dance around acknowledging.
And then, a few weeks pass.
Normalcy finally returns, at least in her mind. Makima tutors Hitoshi, fulfilled just by the notion that she's better than him at math and science and the other intellectual subjects. The two of them sit in the corridor, or under the stairs, or on the roof, anywhere the other bullies can't bug them. His companionship is quiet and sardonic, but dependable and consistent, which she values a lot more than platitudes or whimsy.
And then, a few months pass.
When asked, Makima asserts she doesn't have a birthday, so they decide it's adoption day for her instead. She's twelve now, apparently, which is pretty darn cool. What Makima doesn't realize - or just didn't internalize, at least - is that this warrants a big exciting celebration. Makima's not one for events, but she does like it when people give her things. Hitoshi gives her a gift card and she makes fun of him for how lame it is and then hugs him. Masato buys a cookbook that specializes in desserts. Makima gives him a good firm hug. Nori gifts her an encyclopedia of dog breeds. She gets the tightest hug of all. She then proceeds to eat half the birthday cake in delight as they watch, confused as to how she isn't getting sick or slowing down. Nori comments that she wishes she could eat that much junk and keep her figure. How exactly that works, Makima isn't sure, but she's very glad it does.
Eventually, a year passes since the day the three of them swarmed around her and fully accepted her into their family, and she full accepted being part of it.
Being Shinsou Makima feels far, far better than being plain old Makima. Hitoshi comments that she's picking up his dry wit. His mother jokes that it's because of her own dominant genes. Masato sobs that both his children are stoics and all three of them rib him for it. Within her heart, Makima feels a warm thrum at being referred to as his child.
And as for the dreams, they… abate. Or at least, they seem to plateau. She doesn't wake up in pools of cold sweat anymore.
Is there an explanation for how taking her hands off the reins makes her feel more in control of her life than ever before? Before, it was a dizzy fumbling for survival, for love. Now, it's a cozy, steady, safe jaunt down the riverside. She's never felt more secure. She watches a lot of arthouse movies than deal with this sort of thing, all of them with provocative imagery and well-considered dialogue, and comes to the conclusion that this is just one of life's many contradictions.
And it's not just home movies. Hitoshi and Masato invite her to watch films in the cinema proper, not just lounged in front of the couch watching the TV. Makima's instantly hooked and wants to go every day, but the tickets are exorbitantly priced. Masato's always keen to talk films with her, prompting hour-long debates that last until the table's cleared and the room's vacated.
And on the topic of the dinner table, some evenings she's invited to cook. Makima enjoys cooking, especially the rare night when she's at least partially in charge. It warms her heart to prepare a meal and provide it to her family, and the most fun part is making dessert - scratch that, eating dessert. And the whole at the faux-bar the kitchen has, the significantly less culinarily-adept Nori provides an open ear for her endless repository of dog trivia.
Life is steady, normal, and good. It could be perfect, but the Shinsous all veto getting a dog, so it's nine out of ten.
SLAM!
"DAD! DAD! HOLY SHIT, DAD!"
"MASATO! MASATO!"
Masato rolls his eyes as his two kids come barreling through the front door. "Language! What's up, Hitoshi, Makima?"
Instead of answering, Hitoshi, gestures wildly at Makima, who looks oddly disheveled. He does this for about ten seconds before realizing it explains precisely nothing and sucks in a deep breath, right before Makima beats him to the punch.
A golden chain fires through his head and phases out from the back like its going through air. It'll always look disconcerting, no matter how many times any of them see it - and seen it Masato has, as Makima has slowly and surely opened up and used her quirk around everyone more. Usually this just consists of lifting gravy boxes, because she's somehow physically stronger than Masato and his wife put together. Weird quirk. At least it can't get weirder.
Or so it can, because Hitoshi's standing there like nothing happened, and Masato has had enough experience here (read: letting Makima use it on himself once or twice to prove their trust during her worse insecurity episodes) to know it's meant to make his son stiff and blank, with glazed eyes and a clearly suggestible demeanour. Yet the boy stands there, unruffled, eyes as dead as normal, not mind-controlled dead - an important but subtle distinction.
"Is he…" he begins, before Makima interrupts. It's a bad habit of hers.
"Yes. My quirk's broken! I-I can't use my chains or anything on him!"
"Hmm…" Masato steeples his fingers. "Run me through what happened. Maybe we can go to the doctor's?"
Makima nods. "We were at the park, and after looking at dogs-"
"-for two hours-" Hitoshi butts in.
"-I don't know why you brought up that because it's irrelevant and we already went to that hero signing and the line was three hours long so I should've got an extra hour of dogs!"
"It was not, it was barely one hour! That's a blatant lie."
"It felt like three hours. Anyway, we were at the park and I tried to use my chains on Hitoshi and just… nothing happened. I keep trying but nothing's working!"
Masato rubbed his chin studiously. "Maybe it's an off day? Here, why don't you try it on me?"
She hesitates, before curling her thumb and forefinger into a gun shape and firing them through his forehead. If there's an effect, he doesn't feel it. It's like the chain's a holographic projection.
"...Weird. Not working on me either. Hey, Nori?"
"Yes?" his darling wife's voice calls from the other end of the house.
"Can you come over here and let Makima shoot you?"
A pause.
"Sure, okay!"
A minute later, Nori stands in the centre of the room with an ineffectual chain through her head. Is this the art where Massato's meant to be inured to the sight? Because he isn't. It does look a little funny though, but he suppresses that feeling to focus on Makima.
The girl looks disturbed, tugging on her oddly-fitting chain braid, her ringed eyes panicked. "Why isn't it working?" she mumbles.
"Did you try it on anybody else? Maybe animals?" Nori suggests. Makima shakes her head.
"What's the point? I… it's gone…"
Masato rushes in to give her a hug, which she leans into. Hitoshi leaves through the front door, Nori joining him, while Masato comforts his adopted daughter in his arms. His quirk, paper knife, lets him manifest a butter knife made of paper on command. It's objectively terrible, but if it were gone… he'd feel like a chunk of himself was missing too.
"Let's go over the facts," he murmurs when she seems to have recovered a bit. "You can still shoot the chain, right? You can still see through birds? Still super-strong?"
She answers it by lifting him into the air. "Yup, you've still got it."
Twenty minutes later, Nori and Hitoshi come running back in, having captured a frog. This befuddles everyone involved, but nonetheless they set it down in front of Makima, prompting her to point a finger at it, and in the chain goes.
"Jump."
The frog does a little hop, the chain following it as it does. All four of them stare at it.
"So it just… works on frogs?" Masato asks. Nori gives him an exasperated clip across the back of the head.
"It just doesn't work on us, you lug."
"Why not?" Hitoshi broaches.
"I…" his sister's voice trails off. Like a coin dropping in a silent room, everyone can see the exact moment the realization hits Makima like a brick, and her eyes shine with tears.
"I… I-It's because… you're my family. I see you as equals. That's why," she whispers, speaking like she's seeing a waking dream. "I don't know how I know that's how it works, I can't control people I feel equal to."
"Convenient ass quirk," Hitoshi grumbles.
"Language, Hitoshi!" Nori chastises. He ignores her. There's a slight vacant look in Makima's eyes, one they all recognize as a familiar self-loathing. In the past year, one constant has been detangling Makima's very… malformed ideas about social interaction.
School is partly to blame, and the orphanage is the rest. Even after being accepted into their family, Makima is often too eager to please, falling back on habits to control their opinions of her and make them need her rather than just being authentic. For all of Hitoshi's faults, he is authentic - apart from being a massive tsundere about everything and everyone - and both Masato and Nori have tried to impress the importance of that upon Makima. It's slow going, but they have all the time in the world.
"Why is my quirk like this?" Makima mumbles. "Why am I like this? It's like I was born to be a bad person. It's egotistical. Monstrous. Made to dominate. I'm stronger if I see everyone as beneath me. What kind of power is that?"
Nori scoffs. "Lots of fancy words for saying you feel like your quirk's villainous, but we've told you there's no such thing how many times now?"
"Calmer, honey," Masato chastises her. "Makima, it's… it's not like that. It's a great power, as long as you use it right, like any other. And we know you'd never hurt us."
Makima nods silently in his arms, and he speaks up again, coming to a realization.
"Plus… isn't it kind of great that your quirk won't let you hurt the people you care about, ever? It must mean a lot of trust. I'm proud of you, Makima."
"You are?"
"We all are," he reassures. "You're my favourite daughter. Well, unless Hitoshi changes his mind, but then you'd still be tied for first."
"No way in hell," his son quips. "Blegh. Imagine being a girl. I can't stand the thought of it, yuck."
"What's wrong with being a girl?" Makima challenges.
"Well for one, you're a girl."
"Kids, please, c'mon," Nori placates, trying to stop another spat of bickering from starting, but secretly relieved that her daughter's mood seems to be lifting. "Stop fighting. Why don't we all go out to the city, hm? Have a family outing."
Hitoshi and Makima both nod, throwing each other faux-glares. Their sibling rivalry is so strong you'd be forgiven for thinking they were born as twins. All four of them pile into the car and take off, the newest revelation about Makima's abilities on the backs of their minds.
Unbeknownst to any of them, it's not even the biggest revelation they'll have that day.
Shinsou groans loudly. Makima doesn't appear to hear him, so he groans louder. Her attention is unswayed from the crowds surrounding the two and their parents.
"I don't know why you even bothered coming if you're just gonna watch the crowds all day," he sulks.
"But it's fun," Makima protests. People-watching has become something of a hobby for her. Perhaps it hails back to that first day she remembers standing in the alleyway and watching everyone go past, but there's a distant interest she feels watching them go to and fro, milling about their daily business.
Hitoshi sticks his tongue out from behind her head. Unfortunately for him she has eyes in the trees and sticks her own out in turn.
Nori laughs at their antics. It's a warm, sunny, idyllic afternoon for them to be out in town, and the Shinsou family came across quite the large crowd. While Makima was content to sit back and watch, Hitoshi muscles through the edges to discover that there was a hero signing taking place in the square, and immediately dashed back to his mother's side demanding they get a signature.
"Which hero was it again you wanted to see, Hitoshi?" Masato asks.
Hitoshi scoffs. "I already told you, it's Ryukyu! She's the one that turns into a huge dragon! She had that fight in the centre of Tokyo against the flying tortoise tankz remember?"
"Ah, all their names sound the same to me. Pretty sure the tortoise tank guy was doing some villainous copyright infringements, right?"
"No, you're thinking of a turtle tank." Hitoshi huffs. "The specifics don't matter! She's only gonna be here so long and usually she's around her agency, so this is a rare chance!"
"It's just paper," Makima remarks. "If you want, I could forge one for you. It's not like anyone at school would believe you met her either way."
Nori affectionately rolls her eyes, giving Makima a pat on the head she leans intom "Now, Makima, this is important to Shinsou. I'm positive you'll enjoy watching the crowd from inside it. Shall we?"
"We shall," Masato links arms with his wife, and the two enter the fray. It's a whirling maelstrom of elbows and legs, and Makima and Hitoshi are at that awkward age where they're subject to the absolutely worst of it. It's a small blessing that Makima's physically strong enough to tank the hits, and Hitoshi is simply that determined.
An elbow brushes Makima's face, and she sighs. "Hitoshi, there's a dog nearby and I have a bird near it, so if you need something shake me." Her focus leaves her, the visual clues of a Makima whose focus has left her actual eyes, leaving them glassy. With the infinitely deep red spirals, the effect is uncanny, and Hitoshi drags his eyes back onto the prize, the hero ahead.
Makima grumbles behind him. "The dog left."
" Daaaaarrrnnnnnnnn ," Hitoshi drawls, clearly not giving a darn. "Guess you'll just have to focus on boring old Ryukyu. Hey, maybe she can give you a signature too."
"I don't get what's so cool about heroes anyway," she pouts. It's a trite topic between the two of them.
"Well, I want my quirk to be seen as not villainous," he recites. "If I was a hero, even a less prominent one, I could do that. Also, saving people seems neat."
"I guess.. but the costumes, and the catchphrases…" she trails off.
"Not every hero wears a dumb costume or has dumb catchphrases," he lectures her. "There's a pretty cool one I've been looking up online, only a few videos. Eraserhead, the comments think he can erase people's quirks with a single look. No matter how strong, so even All Might or Endeavour! Hell, even you."
"Mm," she hums. Makima's quirk is still a sensitive topic. "It's good there's people out there who can stop even the most powerful quirks."
"Yeah. Mine's the same that way!" he proudly chuffs, before tacking on "Yours too. Anyway, if I get into UA or Shiketsu or Ketsubusu or… hell, I'd take any school, but UA's my pick. What are you gonna do once I get into UA?"
"I'm not sure," she admits, glancing at the crowds around them. There's a small crevice formed in the waves of people that she and her brother slot themselves through. "Maybe filmmaking? But… I don't know. It doesn't feel right. Do you ever feel like you were… meant for something?"
"Nah," he scoffs. "Fuck destiny. If I listened to what everyone else told me my life would be like I'd be under a bridge brainwashing girls or something gross like that."
"I don't even know what I want, in words, now," she sighs. "I want to stay with you, and Masato, and Nori. I want… world peace. I've never stopped wanting it. I still want the world to be perfect, but I… I can't do it the only way that makes sense. It wouldn't be worth it."
"You don't have to be the only one to do it," Hitoshi encourages. "Find some other people. You could be a pretty cool hero, or politician, or something. Use your power to stop people from getting stage fright, or keep a lookout for villains. Mind control's a neat quirk and yours is way more versatile than mine."
"But I don't want to control people anymore," she protests. Hitoshi raises an eyebrow.
"Heroes control a crime scene though. And teachers control their students, right? Control doesn't have to be bad."
"Fame would help me accrue the support needed to actually change things. Resources too. Top heroes have both of those…" Makima muses, before she's cut off by a sharp tug on her arm and Hitoshi's voice pitching up two octaves like a kid on Christmas morning.
"Holy shit it's Ryukyu!!!" he screeches. "Makima, c'mon!"
"I'm coming!" she grits out, yanked through the final barriers and in front of the Dragoon Hero herself, an up-and-coming blonde beauty who was climbing every chart there was. She stood regally, an iron dragon claw secured over her face and covering an eye, yet bent down slightly with a kind smile. Makima noticed a hint of weariness in those eyes. Evidently, she'd been doing fan signings all day.
"I'm guessing you two are here for signatures too?" she asks, not unkindly. Hitoshi babbles something, trying to look cool, before nodding and presenting a little bound book he keeps in his back pocket. It has twenty or so minor heroes enclosed within, but nobody of Ryukyu's prestige. With a flourish of the pen her signature is down, sharp and elegant. "It's great to see so many of my fans out today!" she beams at Hitoshi, who barrages her with a cavalcade of questions. Eventually, she turns to Makima. "And you…"
Her voice trails off. For a moment Makima wonders why, before she realizes it's because the hero made the mistake of looking her in the eye. The effect is muted on her family, and nobody at school has looked her in the eye for some time now, so she hadn't realized the effect was so potent. Ryukyu's gaze has a glazed sheen to it, and with both horror and intrigue a little link makes itself present in Makima's mind, marionette strings entwining themselves across a new person's brain. She has a top hero in the palm of her hand.
That kind of power is intoxicating. Reluctantly, she severs the link, looking away sheepishly. "Sorry," she sighs, thinking of an excuse. "Accidental… quirk thing."
"...R-Right," Ryukyu stammers, shaking herself awake. "I know how it feels. Some say when I was a kid my quirk was as hard to tame as… well, as a dragon!" she laughs awkwardly. Makima doesn't. All the scene needs is somebody coughing to complete it. Luckily, Hitoshi provides.
"You're uncomfortable," Makima notes. Ryukyu chuckles under her breath, before glancing surreptitiously to the side.
"Between you and me, I'm really not a social person. This kind of stuff can tire me out" She's clearly trying to gain Makima's rapport back, but her words are honest. Makima knows the social maneuvering being employed here, but knowing doesn't mean it's ineffective. "I still enjoy seeing fans out though. You're with your friend, right? What do you want to do when you grow up?"
"Brother, actually," she corrects. "And… I'm not sure. I'm stuck between filmmaker, politician, and… hero."
Ryukyu chuckles. "Well, I'm a bit biased, but I think you could be a great hero! The best time to start training is early. I'll keep an eye out for you and your brother in the future."
"Thank you," Makima nods politely. "Let's go, Hitoshi. Where are Masato and-"
BOOM!
A fireball blasts through the side of a nearby building. In a split second, Ryukyu darts off into the air, transforming into a humongous dragon that grabs the crumbling concrete and bent steel, holding it aloft. From behind the city's skyline swoops in a tortoise, fire blasting out of its shell like thrusters, and what looks alike a battleship cannon affixed to its top. "RYUKYU! I'VE COME TO SETTLE OUR SCORE!"
Whatever Ryukyu roars back is indecipherable over the blood rushing in Makima's ears. The crowd goes ballistic, elbowing and shoving each other. Makima throws herself over Hiroshi, protecting him with her superhuman strength, and searches for birds nearby. They'd all been scared off by the explosion. 'Drat.'
"MASATO! NORI!" She cries out, but her voice is drowned out by the chaos. Another explosion happens, and she doesn't hear it so much as feel the shockwave hit her, making her stumble.
People are running every which way, and the square is in chaos. The ground shakes. Only mere moments before the day had been idyllic, and now her mind detachedly remarks that it resembles a disaster movie.
A leg slams into her side. A person trips over her. She feels something close to contempt for those people, running around like animals, and clutches Hitoshi closer as that annoyance bubbles out. The crowd is completely out of control, running amok like headless chickens, and-
And-
And the crowd is completely out of control.
Out of control.
Acting on instinct, Makima throws out a chain, not knowing how much of herself it'll expend. It's been a while since she's tested on anyone but family, but if the potency of her hypnotic gaze is any indication, she has many more in the tank. The glowing yellow chain pierces three heads.
Makima barely feels the strain. That might just be the adrenaline, though. She points another hand out. This time, she hits two. Both people freeze.
Out of hands, she instead forces those tendrils of control through each person's head. The five she's captured point their hands out, and shoot chains out from their own hands in turn. Their gazes are connected. Twenty-seven ensnared now, her vision expands. They raise their hands.
Her head is throbbing with pain, the exertion weighing on her, and she has over a hundred and fifty under her control. She sees through a hundred and fifty eyes, sharing her power and her vision through a hundred and fifty heads, each an extension of her will. When rubble comes flying, she has a panoramic perspective of it, and she conducts the crowd like an orchestra, letting them part around danger.
She can see Hitoshi staring at her, gobsmacked, from every angle a person can be viewed. At once, the command pulses out through her chains to leave the square in an orderly fashion. Another explosion rings out.
With all their minds connected, not a single person bumps into each other. They move in unison. And when she has the ball rolling and that last command entrenched, so that they'll only leave the daze once they're a safe distance away, she relaxes, and the chains shatter into golden dust. The backlash is immense, and Makima collapses onto her knees at once.
But even with a hundred and fifty sets of eyes, Makima can make a mistake. And she does.
A particularly sharp shard of stone, blown off the side of a building, comes flying her way. Head overstimulated, she doesn't notice it. In the split second Hitoshi is looking at her, a chunk of her waist is blown clean off, bright red blood staining her clothes and gushing out. Her head barely avoids hitting the ground because Hitoshi grabs it.
Her eyes are still open. It's a testament to her superhuman physique that she's even awake, and not going into shock. If anything, she's supremely calm, Hitoshi looking more like that, with his pale face and contracted pupils.
"No… fuck, fuck, please, no…! Makima! MOM! DAD!!!" he shrieks, tearing off his shirt and pressing it ineffectually against the wound in a facsimile of what people do in movies. The shirt goes crimson in seconds. Fumbling through his pants, he rips out his phone and dials paramedics. "MY SISTER'S BLEEDING OUT, I NEED-! WE'RE AT RINNETENSEI SQUARE! PLEASE, AS FAST AS YOU CAN, SHE'S GONNA FUCKING DIE- YOU CALM DOWN!"
He keeps yelling. Makima tunes him out. Is this how she dies? At least she can die happy. It doesn't feel final. Why doesn't it feel final? Why is she thinking of so many questions?
If she dies, at least she'll die next to the family she loves. The family she chooses. The thought strikes her as odd. Did she have family before? Yet more questions.
She registers the sudden presence of Masato and Nori beside her. They're starting to yell, looking teary, indistinct. Death should feel cold, but Makima only feels warm. They truly, truly care, don't they?
Her eyes drop downwards. There's a scrape on her adoptive mother's arm. A little bead of blood appears. And that warmth is pushed aside, replaced with a tremendous thirst.
Makima's pupils dilate. Like many times before, and understanding she doesn't understand floods her consciousness, and laying there on the pavement, surrounded by her family, she feels it.
That instinct.
That urge.
That knowledge of how to fix this. She can scarcely believe it when the knowledge presents itself, what her brain is telling her she must do to keep herself alive, but there it is. It's like it's transplanted into her mind from outside, yet it slots in as cleanly as a memory that's never left, the edges of it where it connects to everything else still hazy.
The world comes back into focus. "B-b-" she chokes out. Masato snaps to attention.
"Makima!? Keep speaking, you're still awake, keep speaking, alright? The EMTs are on the way, you'll be okay-"
He's cut off by a raspy cough, and in a freak instance of hysterical strength she pushes herself upwards, clinging onto his arm as he yelps in alarm. "B-Bl-Bl… Blood! I need blood!"
"I- what? Masato, call them faster, she's speaking nonsense now!"
"BLOOD! " Makima screams. Nobody else is nearby to hear it. "I'm- I'm lucid, I can't explain, n- cough -no time, I need to drink blood! Please! I'm not lying!"
"O-Okay," Hitoshi breathes. "Let me-"
"Absolutely not! You're a child," Masato roars, before his voice softens, a hushed urgency underlying it. "Makima, are you absolutely sure? This is… you're serious?"
"Deadly." Nobody appreciates the humour in the statement, and so Masato glances around. Finding nothing to cut his arm with, he settles for bracing himself before he bites it hard enough to draw blood, holding it over Makima's mouth.
The red ichor trickles in, staining her teeth and bobbing down her throat, and the strangest thing occurs. The Shinsous watch, awestruck, as for every gulp, every drop of blood down her throat, her flesh forms anew, seemingly growing from nothing. Sinews of muscle, the ugly lumps of fat tissue, and finally porcelain skin reform until not even a scar is left on her wound.
And the second it's finished healing, she blacks out.