Chapter 66: Exploring Pain

In the early hours of the day, is when Yami left the house.

It's not like he really needed to sneak out. Going into the forest was not really something special, and since no one was watching he could just...leave.

The only thing that would really stop any of the children from just leaving was the Seers...which Yami controlled so not much of an issue.

While Yami was sure his father would be worried if he noticed he was gone, Yami needed to see these things himself, by himself.

If he had gone with a supervisor, they likely would have restricted what Yami could see. And he didn't want that.

And so Yami went out into the city.

After a bit of walking, Yami reached the city streets and was immediately met with the feeling of negativity rushing into, coming from the people around him.

To explain Yami's vision, Yami would see aura's around people, with numerous different colors flowing around them, with the dominant emotion being the dominant color. He wasn't sure what all the colors meant exactly, but he'd figured a few things out. Red was anger, black was sadness, purple was fear and yellow was happiness. There were of course more colors, and the colors came in different shades, Yami didn't quite know what that meant.

These auras would always be clear to Yami. He could even see them through walls. The more intense a person's emotions, the higher the person's aura, some of them reaching above some of the buildings.

Which is what he was seeing right now. Pillars of negative emotions, blazing like huge fires above some of the smaller buildings.

Yami reasoned that if he wanted to see the suffering of the people firsthand, then he should probably head to the highest sources of negativity he could find.

And so he made his way towards the largest concentration of negativity that he could see from here.

But as he walked, he noticed something.

When he walked past the people on the sidewalk, they would look down at him. He would see the look in their eyes change, and their fear rise, before they walked slightly faster.

It didn't take a genius to figure out what was scaring them.

He walked past a plane of glass and took a look at his reflection.

His pale skin, his black nails, his sharp jagged teeth, his black sclera, and his beedy red pupils.

His form was frightening. He'd been told so numerous times. He'd even scared Eri a bit at first, although she'd gotten over it rather quickly.

But these people seemed far more fearful of him than Eri was. Which told him that this was something he'd just have to expect in the outside world.

Still, not much he could do about that, so Yami just continued to head towards the negativity.

XXXXXXXX

The source of the field of what Yami now called, "Negativity Geysers" had led him to the poorer neighborhoods.

The slums of the city contained much worse-looking buildings. Most of them were just run-down houses, and abandoned structures, along with some small stores, with the nicest looking buildings being apartment buildings, but even they didn't look all too nice.

Trash littered the cracked streets and sidewalks, and even the air here seemed worse somehow.

Also, the types of people he'd seen around had changed. Now you could tell they had less money or less care for their appearance.

There was the occasional homeless person from time to time, all of them carrying some sort of alcohol.

Yami had actually seen a bit of this type of neighborhood before when U.A drove him around, but that was just a glimpse.

Now that he was seeing the full thing, it was...shocking.

Yami had only known two types of living. His life in the forest, and his life at the house with Izuku. Two very different types of lifestyle, but they shared something in that their surroundings weren't this depressing, at least the forest looked nice. He would have rather slept in a cave than slept in an alleyway like he saw some of these people doing.

And somehow they smelled worse than he ever did.

Now Yami understands why there was so much negativity here. These people looked miserable even without looking at their auras.

Something Izuku taught them was the power of money. It provided them food, a home, all those games, and other things they used to keep them entertained. You couldn't really live without money, and Izuku had a LOT of it.

This was seemingly what happened when people barely had any money.

They didn't have good food, or good houses, or anything that Yami had.

So Yami looked around the area with pity. These people were so sad and scared. He doubted that therapy could help THESE people. What they seemed to need was money.

Why didn't they have money? Why were they so poor? Couldn't they just get jobs? Why didn't anyone help them?

"AHHHHHH!"

Speaking of helping.

Yami turned his head towards the sound of the scream, and saw nearby, a young girl was getting her bag snatched by a disheveled looking man.

"Help! Someone help!" The girl cried out as she hung tightly to her bag.

"Just! Just give me the bag!" The man shouted desperately, as his weak, skinny arms tried to steal the bag.

Now, something Yami noticed about this encounter was that they were both terrified. In fact, the man was actually more terrified than the girl was, much to his surprise.

That didn't seem to make sense to Yami. He wasn't being robbed, and it's not like he had much to fear from a girl who was a third of his size.

However, looking at him, and thinking about more. It started to make more sense.

This man looked like he hadn't tasted food in weeks. That must be why he was so desperate for this little girl's bag. He wanted money for food.

Dad was right...suffering makes more suffering. Yami noticed. ...I should do something.

And so Yami ran in and did what he thought was best to end the issue.

He took a stack of cash out of his pocket and tossed it at the man's face.

"Ack!" The man was so taken aback by the sudden attack(?) to the face and stumbled back, releasing the bag as the money fell to the ground. "What the-"

"Huh?" The girl's eyes went wide in confusion, as she didn't expect someone to throw cash at her attacker's face.

The man picked up the stack of money, looking down at it with shock and confusion, before looking back at Yami. "Did...did you just throw money at my face?"

"Go! Leave! Buy food!" Yami commanded aggressively.

The man paused for one moment, before running away as fast as he could, holding the money to his chest.

After Yami watched him walk off he turned to the girl.

It was clear that she didn't live around here. Her bright yellow blonde hair was very well kept, and styled. She wore a clean white dress with frills and decorations that implied it was rather expensive, her red shoes telling the same story, as well as her sun hat with the red ribbon in it.

As for her aura, it was mostly white right now, which guessing from her expression, indicated shock.

When people are shocked I should...wait for them to calm down. Yami thought, trying to recall the advice Izuku had given him.

And so he waited. And the two stood there in awkward silence for a couple of minutes, Yami just staring at her.

Eventually, the girl got over her shock and was just...confused, and somewhat frightened by Yami's eyes boring into her.

Seeing the fear in her rise a bit, Yami assumed it was because of his appearance again, and so he decided to try to say something to ease her fears.

"I'm not going to hurt you," Yami said bluntly, his expression unchanging.

"Oh uh...thank you?" The girl said awkwardly, her fear subsiding just a little bit but not much. "I mean! Thank you! For saving me! But...was it really ok to throw money at that man?"

"It's fine." Yami shrugged.

Yami, despite not falling into the Gacha craze, did start getting an allowance. Seeing as his Grimm did so much around the house, Izuku decided that he was one of the kids who'd gain passive income. Yami didn't have anything to do with this money, so he just hoarded it.

He figured he should take it with him, in case he wanted to buy food or something. And so throwing a little bit of that crash away really didn't bother him.

"Oh, well. Thank you again! You really saved me!" The girl gave him a bow. "My name is Amai Nigai! It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Yami Midoriya." He introduced himself. "You don't live here."

"Uh, yeah. I don't." Amai said awkwardly. "I...came here to give out my candies to the people here, so they wouldn't be so sad."

"Candy?" Yami titled his head in confusion.

"Yes, my candies!" Amai's face brightened, and she quickly dug into her bag and took out a small yellow piece of candy that looked like a skittle or M&M. "Here, try one!"

Yami took the small piece of candy and immediately popped it into his mouth.

And immediately, he felt a sense of euphoria. The candy tasted like happiness and filled him with a feeling of warmth and joy.

When Yami finished chewing it he was wide-eyed, as the joy the candy had given him continued, as his mood improved.

Amai's smile brightened as she saw Yami's wide-eyed look. "It's part of my quirk. Mood Candy. It lets me make candy that tastes like my mood!"

"That's a very nice quirk." Yami praised her. "Very good quirk."

"O-Oh! Um...no one's ever said that about my quirk before." Amai blushed a bit, and Yami saw her aura become mostly yellow. "Thank you. You're really nice too."

Yami nodded. "So you came to give people happy candies to make them feel not so sad anymore?"

"Uh-huh. I heard that the people in the poorer neighborhoods were so sad, so I thought if I gave them my candies I could give them a little hope." Amai said bashfully, shuffling her feet. "I've been doing this for a while now but...I'm not sure I feel safe doing that now."

Yami saw her aura turn black, as sadness washed over her, along with fear.

And so without thinking too much about it, he made a decision.

"Why don't we go together?" Yami asked. "I can protect you."

"Really!?" Amai asked, taken aback by the offer, but was ecstatic for it nonetheless. She felt like Yami could really protect her, seeing as he looked absolutely terrifying.

Yami nodded. "I wanted to see upset people."

Amai once again looked confused. "Why?"

"I want...to understand them," Yami answered.

The blonde girl gave him a curious look. "Under...stand them? Do you want to help them?"

Yami paused. "...Maybe. Things are...confusing me. I want to look at them...and figure out what I want to do."

"Hmmm. Well, I think that helping people who are sad is just the right thing to do. Maybe if you see them you'll think so too!" Amai thought. "Come on, let's go!"

Amai offered her hand to Yami, who tentatively took it, as she dragged him off to go cheer up the less fortunate.

XXXXXXXXXX

"Bless you two." A disheveled old lady with a trash cart said, smiling at them as she walked away with her garbage.

Yami watched the lady as she walked away. Before they'd gotten to her, her aura had been a soft black, but now it was a soft yellow. Not bursting with joy, but much happier than she'd been before they got to them.

This had been the case for many of the people Yami and Amai had gone to.

But something Yami noticed is that sometimes, Amai wouldn't even have to give them the candy for them to feel better.

Sometimes all they would have to do is approach them and tell them of their intentions, and they would smile and feel better. Not all better, but noticeably better.

It taught Yami that maybe sometimes just showing that you cared could brighten someone's mood.

Of course, the candy would do wonders for their mood. And it was pleasing to see these people gain a little bit of happiness in their seemingly sad lives.

After doing this for a couple of hours, it seemed Amai was finished here.

"That's all the people I can find around here, but I still have so much candy." Amai frowned as she looked into her bag.

"Hmm." Yami looked up. The amount of negativity in the area had subsided quite a bit, but that was just in this part of the city. There were still other parts of the city, with negative geysers. "We can go to other places where people are sad."

"That's a good idea, but how would we find them?" Amai asked.

"I can see them," Yami explained. "With my quirk."

"Your quirk lets you see people's emotions?" Amai asked with a slightly amazed face.

Yami nodded before pointing somewhere."There's more bad feeling's over there. Lots of them."

"Well then let's go cheer them up!" Amai said with a determined look in her eyes and a smile on her face. "Show me the way please."

Yami nodded and led the way to negative geysers.

XXXXXXXXXX

As it turns out, the negative geysers had led to a battle. A battle between heroes and villains.

The villain Rikiya Katsukame, a former member of the Yakuza had broken out of prison, and was on a horrible rampage, having stolen some trigger that further boosted his abilities, allowing him to steal vitality from people without even touching them.

Meanwhile, the heroes that had arrived to stop him, Death Arms, Ryukyu, and Crust, were all struggling to even stay upright, as all the other lower rank heroes had fallen.

The area around the fight was in ruins, buildings had been smashed apart and collapsed, stores were in complete shambles, and there was rubble everywhere, and Yami could see that there were lots of people trapped under it, with their vitality drained and too exhausted to move a finger.

There wasn't even a police perimeter, as any of the police that showed up had had their vitality drained, and they were left immobile on the ground.

"Oh my." Amai put her hands over her mouth, as she looked at this disaster in horror.

"RAH" Death Arms threw a punch at Rikiya and punched back, and when their fist clashed, Death Arms was thrown back on the ground, his arm nearly breaking from the blow. "Agh!"

Rikiya stood above Death Arms, raising both his fists, ready to end the pro hero.

But then Crust jumped in and raised and created a shield, blocking the attack, but Rikiya just kept attacking.

Crust grit his teeth as Rikiya's fist pounded on his shield. Each attack made him want to collapse. As Rikiya drained more and more of his stamina with each passing second, he could just barely keep up this defense.

Ryukyu jumped on Rikiya's back and bit into his shoulder, the dragon hero making sure to sink her teeth deep into the huge muscle-bound villains.

"Get off me you crazy bitch!" Rikyia grabbed onto Ryukyu's head, draining her stamina even faster, as he forced the dragoness off of him, as she was too exhausted to resist, and he threw her to the side.

"This is terrible!" Amai gasped, tears sparkling in her eyes as she bore witness to this disaster.

Meanwhile, Yami just observed everything around him.

Unlike the last place, they went to which was full of sadness, here the prime emotion was fear. The civilians were afraid, the police were afraid, even the heroes were afraid.

Everyone was afraid, except for Rikiya himself. He was engulfed in happiness, taking joy in the destruction and pain he was causing.

And that somehow made it all worse. Not just the pain around them, but that the person causing it was taking pleasure in it.

Rikiya grabbed Crust and started draining his vitality faster, while crushing him, in his massive hand.

Yami, seeing how bad the situation was, prepared to intervene. He knew using his quirk like this in public was illegal, but given the situation, he was willing to break the law.

Fortunately, he didn't need to.

Suddenly, Rikiya shrunk down to his normal size, his strength faded, and he stopped absorbing other people's vitality.

"Huh!? What happened to my qu-agh!" Rikiya didn't get the chance to finish his sentence, as Mirko kicked him in the face, knocking him out as his body flew to the side, before skidding to the ground.

"Hah! Got the bastard!" Mirko said, before looking back at a nearby alleyway. "Hey, Eraser! I didn't need your freaking help!"

Aizawa came out of hiding and revealed that he was the one who weakened the villain. "That remains to be seen."

"Ah, Eraserhead! Mirko!" Crust shouted with pure relief. "Thank you for coming to our aid! The villain injected himself with Trigger, and proved to be more powerful than we initially thought!"

"We need to get him restrained immediately," Ryukyu said, reverting to her human form, panting heavily as she struggled to stay upright.

Meanwhile, Thirteen was running in, having followed Aizawa here. "I'm here. Let's get the rescue operation started. There's no doubt that people are trapped under all this rubble! We need to get them out before they run out of air, or before the rubble shifts and crushes them!"

"Do we know when Uwamami or any other rescue heroes are gonna arrive?" Death Arms said.

"She's out of the city doing a photoshoot," Aizawa said, not doing much to hide his disdain. "Ragdoll's doing a mission on the other side of the city. And without them, it'll take us hours to find everyone under this rubble."

"Someone might die if we take that long!" Crust pointed out.

Yami heard that conversation, and he realized something.

He could see them. He could see all the people trapped under the rubble. He could see everyone that was trapped.

He could do something here.

And so Yami ran forward.

"Wait! Yami I don't think you are supposed to be here!" Amai objected.

Yami stopped and turned back to her. "You wanted to help people feeling bad. So let's do that."

Amai looked hesitant but ceased her objection, and so Yami moved forward, with her slowly following him from a distance.

Thirteen noticed the two children approaching them, and called out to them. "Hey, kids! You can't wait...you're one of Midoriya's kids!"

"Huh?" Aizawa noticed Yami and looked at him confused. "What are you doing here?"

"There!" Yami pointed at one of the collapsed buildings. "One there! And there! And there!"

"What's he doing?" Death Arms asked.

"Wait...his quirk. You can see the people through the rubble can't you." Aizawa said, recalling what he knew about Yami's quirk.

Yami nodded.

Aizawa paused for a moment, before picking Yami up. "Point out where the people are. Everyone, let's get the operation underway."

"Wait, Eraserhead, you can't seriously think of using a kid to help us?" Death Arms asked him.

"We're low on manpower, people's lives are in danger, and he can help without putting himself in danger," Aizawa said in a rushed tone. "If he wants to help. I say let him."

"Listen to the justice hobo," Yami said.

Aizawa's eyebrow twitched when a few other heroes tried to keep themselves from laughing after hearing that.

"Yeah, guys. The justice hobo's right! Let the kid help!" Mirko snickered.

"We don't have much of a choice." Thirteen said. "Kid, show us where they are."

XXXXXXXXXX

Izuku felt like he was going to explode from sheer frustration.

Ever since he'd read Yami's note about him leaving to see the city for the day, he'd nearly fainted.

Unlike many of the other kids, Yami didn't have the inherent ability to defend himself, having to rely on his Grimm, and he obviously didn't take any of them with him, because he would have heard about it on the news by now.

Yami could make a Grimm to defend himself if need be, but that would take a small amount of time, long enough that a villain could take advantage of it and hurt, kidnap, or kill him.

So he immediately dispatched Shoji, Jiro, and Koda to find him. All three of them specializing in finding people.

Still, that was only three people to cover the entire city. He wanted to send more or go out and look for him himself, but he'd just started walking again, he was in no condition to go on a city-wide search, and he still needed the others to look after the remaining children.

And so all he could do right now was sitting at his desk, hoping Yami would return.

DING

That was until now.

Izuku took out his phone and saw that it was a text from Namae, with a link to a video. With message under it saying "lose something?"

Immediately Izuku pressed on it, hoping that it was information on Yami's whereabouts.

And he was absolutely correct.

"Breaking news!" Said a newswoman from H.N.N. "A disastrous villain attack unfolded today, as Rikiya Yotsubashi, a former member of the Yakuza, broke out of prison today after obtaining a dose of the drug, Trigger, and went on a rampage, attacking and injuring many pro heroes, before eventually being subdued by Mirko. The battle left a horrendous amount of collateral damage, with people trapped under collapsed buildings and rubble, and not enough heroes around to find all of them quickly enough. Fortunately, two little heroes stepped up to plate."

The video then showed pictures of Amai and Yami.

"These two are known as Yami Midoriya and Amai Nigai." The woman identified. "Midoriya's quirk involves the ability to see people's emotions, even through solid objects. Nigai's quirk is called Mood Candy. It creates a candy that tastes like how she's feeling when she created them. Midoriya was used to help search for people hidden under the rubble and debris, while Nigai gave all the people still conscious, candy to help calm them down and brighten their moods after this horrific event."

Izuku felt a surge of pride bubble up in him and a small smile came to his face.

But he had to focus on the video, try and figure out where Yami was.

"These two assisted the heroes in their rescue, before leaving to go elsewhere. But this reporter would just like to say. Well done kids!"

"Damn it!" Izuku muttered.

While the video didn't tell him where Yami was at the moment, it did tell him where he was. All he had to do was figure out where this was and when it happened, and he could get a good idea of the area they were in, and then tell the three he sent to find him.

Izuku was going to find his son. And then...well he figure it out but for now, he needed to find him.