17 Chapter 16:

(6 months later)

The past six months have been relatively calm.

Momo and I turned fourteen. The celebration was just a small family and friends scenario instead of the usual high-class balls held previously. I have mastered the art of throwing sharp pointy things in my stopped time.

One of the maids bore witness to the aftermath of one such training session. She walked into the underground gym area to deliver some refreshments for me to be met with the sight of three hundred-ish~ throwing knives lodged into pictures of Elmo and Big Bird. I had to go to therapy the following day.

I kept up with my physical training regime. Of course, I don't ever really need to do it, as with my pseudo biological manipulation technique, I can give myself as much muscle mass I desire. But it's more of a therapeutic thing now. The feeling of working my body to its limits is a gratifying experience.

My apprenticeship with Chiyo is finally over, and she has recommended me for a higher level MQP, the MHP (Medical Hero Permit). The higher level will grant me the privileges and temporary title of a doctor, such as access to medical databases, open access to medical hospitals, free medical care, the ability to prescribe medicine, and many other beneficial things.

I would still need to pass medical exams and be successful through the monitoring period of my higher MHP trial period, where they will check if I abuse my privileges before I become a full-fledged doctor/hero hybrid. It was a lot of work, but thankfully my observer is Chiyo. She is too respected and valued in the medical community to be rejected when she asks for observation rights over an applicant.

Unfortunately, this means that I will be spending less time at school as I will be needed for exams and in hospitals/UA throughout the following year. Granny Chihiro and Chiyo have also been talking about taking me on relief missions with them and thirteen. The ability to revert any injury and demolished buildings is an invaluable tool in those scenarios, and depending on my performance during those, my trial period may be shortened.

It's too surreal, the chance that I could be a fourteen-year-old with a medical hero license. It was, quite frankly, absurd. A fourteen-year-old with a doctorate, anime logic is crazy. Dr. Izayoi does have a nice ring to it, though. I never once thought that I would eventually become a doctor when I yeeted myself down the stairs all those months ago.

Chiyo has begun seeing me as her own granddaughter. It was a late June night, and we were just finished sterilizing the equipment when she spilled her heart out to me. It turns out that the life of the medic hero for Chiyo was a sad one.

She lost her only daughter to a villain attack six years ago. She would have been able to save her if she was in the area. But, unfortunately, she was in Kyoto in the middle of life-saving surgery for a stranger.

She couldn't even hear the last words from her daughter when she called through the phone because she had to turn it off during surgery. So she had to listen to it through a voicemail. A voicemail that I'm sure replays in her head every single night.

She saved a stranger at the cost of her family.

She said that she didn't regret her decision a single bit, but anyone could see she was lying. Her tears were dripping down her cheeks onto the recently sterilized scalpels; the choked sobs and the shaky voice leaden with guilt. She hated it, and she hated herself for prioritizing her job over family. She felt something was off the night she left Mustafa. If only she listened to her gut. Thousands of 'what if' scenarios plagued her mind over the years.

I couldn't ever fill the void in the older woman's heart. So I happily called her grandma in hopes that it helped her out even a tiny bit. It was the least I could do for Chiyo, after all the help she gave me throughout my budding medical career.

I am currently three months into my year-long observational period, and I haven't really used, let alone abused, my privileges. I don't have the time or a reason to abuse the privileges. I saw a lot of gruesome injuries during my time in the hospital's ER ward. I am slowly becoming more and more desensitized to gore and blood. It helps me out during movie nights where the deaths happen. I'm still a scaredy-cat, though.

Eri has been roughly the same over the last six months. The only noticeable difference is that she has grown her hair out longer and has been trying to braid it to look like mine. It was adorable when I saw how she would look after Momo used some extensions to give Eri an idea of what she would look like if she did decide to copy her mama. Of course, she would have copied her mommy, but it would take too long and wouldn't feel the same due to their hair colors being so vastly different.

She is still sleeping in the same bed as us, despite there being a room fully furnished to her specifications right next door. We both gladly let her sleep with us. Sadly, there are some nights where she has nightmares. They are often about when she was abandoned and what that strange bird man might have done to her if I didn't come into the alley that night. It usually takes a lot of kisses and cuddles to calm her down enough to where she would be able to sleep again.

Eri made a big splash during her upper-class debut. She acted in a prim and proper manner that perfectly depicted what was expected of her as a child that connected two major families even more. How did we get her to do all this, you ask? A lot of bribing with choccy milk, cuddles, and apple pie with ice cream on top. She hated every single second of it. But, to be fair, almost everyone else did too.

The party was full of pompous and pious pricks. They tried to play matchmaker with her and their children. Someone tried to use his status and age as a means to strong-arm me into accepting on Eri's behalf. I gave him the biggest, most formal, verbal lashing anyone has ever bore witness to right in front of the cameras. His company's stock lost a lot of value the following weeks after the scandal of him trying to strong-arm a fourteen-year-old into forcing their adopted child into a quirk/political marriage came to light.

Eri has grown considerably closer to all of the girls in my life. However, she still doesn't really like touching males in fear of her quirk activating as it did for her father. As a result, she dislikes Kirishima and tenses up whenever he touches her, which he doesn't do anymore because of that.

She has gotten over her fear of the 'cuddle demon' Nejire and now, at times, will approach her for a hug whenever she isn't asleep. Her favorite people are Me, Momo, Grayfia, Itsuka, Chiyo, Mina, Toga, and then Nejire in that order. Why is Chiyo so high up? It's because she slips her some lollipops whenever she accompanies me to UA.

Eri also shares my fear of horror movies. She would be huddled up against me, hoping that I would give her some form of security. Too bad I'm crying my eyes out right there with her. Whenever Nejire and Yuyu are invited over, Nejire would join in on the 'safety pile' as she was terrified too. Yuyu would be too busy laughing to comfort her girlfriend as it's super rare seeing the upbeat Nejire like that. She will join in on the pile eventually, though.

Momo had progressed a lot in the six months when I wasn't looking. She has grown great at CQC under the tutelage of Sir Nighteye and has begun forward-thinking and adapting to combat scenarios a lot more. She would often ask to spar with a few of my clones in the 'time chamber' alone. The time chamber is just a walk-in wardrobe that I altered so that one hour inside is a minute outside.

She has begun designing her hero costume, which I heavily modified and suggested improvements to. She kept the color scheme and patterns, but the material used was one of her own creation. It is a malleable metal alloy that works as a one-way pathway and a synthetic skin.

It was a lot more form-fitting than her canon costume, but there was also no boob window that gave people a perfect place to stab. It's also a lot more durable, and as she keeps working on her imagination and designs regarding the imaginative alloy she created, it will only improve. She also no longer needs to carry around a dictionary on her back like in canon as she only needs to imagine what she wants. I could never imagine how she could possibly keep a dictionary balanced on her back like that and never have it fall off.

Momo has also begun some firearms training under the watchful eye of Snipe. It took a lot of iced tea, but I convinced him to take Momo on as a student. I may have slipped him some of the Infinity pistols from the Borderlands games Momo made. She has grown to enjoy firearms a lot more and has now developed a vested interest in FPS games.

Her aim has improved a lot, and she can hit moving targets with varying degrees of accuracy. But for a few weeks of training, she has improved immensely. That's if Snipe's bragging in the staff room is to be believed. Thankfully, every time she has Snipe's lessons, she is in UA, which means we can spend more time together whenever our schedules line up accordingly.

Momo's imagination and creative uses of her quirk have come a long way. She no longer makes a bulky metal shield, and Bo staff as her first combat implements like her canon counterpart does. Instead, there's a lot more electricity and tactical grenade usage. Sometimes she even uses electrical grenades. Those fucking hurt.

She wanted to make a super-soldier serum, but I shot that idea down until she got it thoroughly tested by Chiyo to make sure it would be safe for use. I didn't want her accidentally making herself into some weird flash sack due to mutations. Sure, I could reverse it and would, but I would never want to see that in the first place.

Toga has been taken under the wing of Homeless-san in stealth training and undercover hero training while her adoptive father Vlad King teaches her more about her quirk and laws. She hated all this training but stuck through it all as she didn't want to be left behind by Momo or me.

She managed to get a 'Great Onee-sama' title in school. Naturally, she embraces the new title with open arms. It turns out when your original family hates and neglects you, you openly embrace and love it when people want to have any sort of familial bond with you.

Toga's fourteenth birthday was a huge sleepover with everyone bar Kirishima. I got her a Chi-chan plushie that she adores. I also decided to do Vlad King's wife a favor and repair her womb. She can now have children and is expecting in two months.

Toga also began drawing up preliminary sketches for her hero costume. She's stuck between a cute school uniform look (canon costume), a costume reminiscent of black widow, or a skin-tight suit like Vlad King's one. All of the designs have the mouthpiece and syringes, which is the most integral part of her costume.

Mina hasn't been doing much apart from trying her best to get Eri into meme culture and continue her dance practice. But, of course, Eri couldn't care less about yeeting things when there's choccy milk and Oreos to be devoured.

Mina has been studying a lot more in school and has started requesting mentoring sessions whenever big tests come around. It may have had something to do with me mentioning that you have to pass a written test to get into UA, too, not just fight some stupid robots. After all, nobody wants an illiterate hero that can't fill in paperwork correctly.

Mina requested that I awaken her quirk too. I was apprehensive at first. Why? She secretes acid when she's scared or in pain as a bodily response. She would melt through my floorboards in no time at all as soon as the pain started kicking in. Guess what happened when I did awaken her quirk? Nothing.

Why? It was because I had the foresight to have Momo make some acid-proof tarp that I could lay down. I should have thought of that months ago. Mina's awakened quirk allowed her to become acid itself, like a logia from one piece.

She can't breathe whenever she changes her head or chest into acid, so eventually, she will reform when she runs out of breath. The only way to hit her would be to have an alkaline of a sufficient PH level to neutralize the acid before attacking.

She has begun enhancing her instincts, so she would be able to transform her body into acid on reflex whenever something was about to hit her. It took many bruises and busted lips, but she managed to get her reaction speed down to an acceptable level.

Not much has changed in Itsuka's routine over the past six months. She's still as studious as ever, still works extremely hard in her martial arts training, still the mom of the group, and still a colossal motorcycle fanatic. So we all chipped in, mainly Momo and me, to buy her a motorcycle she wanted as a birthday gift. It's currently sitting in her garage, where she dotes over it until she is old enough for a license. A lot of happy tears were shed that day.

Ah, right. Something that has happened in Itsuka's life over the months is that she has a part-time job in a maid cafe near the school. Ahh~ having a flustered Itsuka serve me coffee while calling me master, what a great life I live. I did offer to awaken her quirk, but she declined. Saying she'd like to fully understand and incorporate her current quirk into her martial arts before adding an unknown element on top of her workload.

Mine and Momo's parents were busier than usual over the past months. The IzaYao conglomerate has been expanding rapidly after some huge scandals in China took place with various support equipment providers and media outlets. So naturally, our parents took complete advantage of this, and we are now a big name in China. It was an excellent opportunity for our company to get an in for the Chinese market because even in this world, they are an economic superpower.

The formal events and dinners that Momo and I had to attend over in China were tedious and totally not worth traveling for. The only upside was that we got to experience some new cultural things. There was a lot of food that was great, especially anything involving pork. Some random kid tried to convince me to eat a century egg while we were in a restaurant. I didn't want to even smell that damn egg.

Fluffy-chan is still the imposing chimera overlord that UA fears. But, he and I also have been a lot closer over the past months. We mostly spend time with strategy-based board games and such. It took one week for us to end our Monopoly match finally. It turns out that the staff was betting on who would win. Snipe, Present Mic, and Midnight won big-time upon my victory. We do talk about a few personal things here and there. But Nedzu is a very private person, so those types of talks are few and far between when compared to the everyday banter we typically have.

I haven't really been keeping up with whatever Kirishima or Tsuyu were doing. Kirishima, whenever he speaks to us, is usually about heroes and other things, so I don't know much about his personal life. Tsuyu, on the other hand, doesn't really talk much apart from over text. She has gotten a stalker by the name of Habuko Mongoose, though. She was terrified and felt as if a predator was stalking her throughout her school life.

Thankfully, I knew that Habuko was just lonely and wanted a friend in Tsuyu. Mainly due to them both having animal-like mutation quirks. After some 'theories' about why she was stalking the poor froggy, Tsuyu decided to approach her. I was happy that Tsuyu could make a friend who lived near her as I was worried she would be a little lonely.

Reiko and Yui have been working on more dangerous super move combinations during their time at a different school. They haven't neglected their physical training either. It's just more fun throwing boulders in deserted areas. I have awakened both of their quirks. Their reactions to the process were vastly different from the previous. Yui was completely silent the entire time. That was if you didn't poke her. She would then let out an adorable squeak, glaring at whoever was the one poking. Reiko was letting out banshee screeches. I guess looking like a ghost wasn't just for show.

Yui's quirk awakened to one similar to her mother's. It allows her to increase the size of organic objects as well. Thankfully she tested her giant transformation outside after dressing in clothing made out of similar material to Mt Lady's hero outfit. Reiko's quirk awakening was just an increase in lifting capacity. Previously she was only able to lift objects around the weight of an average human. Now she can lift the average weight of a car. Not a flashy upgrade but a great one nonetheless. It'll help her majorly in rescue operations and potential car collisions she may come across.

Currently, I'm sitting in the study in my house, and I stopped reminiscing over the past half a year. Looking down in my lap Eri is curled up asleep. In my right hand, there's the bedtime story I just read to her. Closing the book shut, I set it off to the side before scooping the unicorn in my arms.

Turning the lights to the study off, I made my way to the bedroom; it was just Eri and me tonight as Momo was busy with her parents all day and slept at the Yaoyorozu estate. Pulling the blanket down over itself. As soon as I set Eri down, she immediately started squirming and frowned instinctively at the loss of body heat. Then, lying down next to her, she immediately latched onto my blouse and snuggled into me. Her previous frown turned into a content smile as I planted a kiss on her forehead.

"Goodnight, sweetie."

Pulling the blankets over us, I drifted off.