Violence really does seem to solve everything [Miku]

When Miku asked why Alex was not there at the start of the school year, his facial expression froze for a second. The bottom of his lip tugged downward for a moment before the self-assured grin was back on his face in an instant. It was like a glitch, almost, lasting only for a split-second before vanishing completely. ”It took a while for my paperwork to be processed.” he stated shorty, voice clipped and shorter than usual. The words didn’t extend like they normally did, fully finishing the sounds. It was like he was talking more efficiently, not wasting breath pronouncing syllables for any longer than absolutely necessary. It was a subtle shift, but it was there and again gone in the next sentence when he was back to his usual smooth tone of voice. ”You come here first day, then? Your dad seems to care a lot, so it makes sense that he’d have the paperwork done super early.”

To the point where Miku said they needed to work hard to catch up to the people who got that experience fighting villains, the delinquent gave a sharp nod in reply, the grin on his face spreading wider than it already was. ”I was wrong about you at first. I underestimated you, but I won’t make that mistake again. Anytime you want to practice against another ranged emitter, let me know and I’d be happy to help. I may have to keep a few tricks up my sleeve secret, though, just in case we ever have to match up for real. You’re still ahead of me in the rankings, so I gotta have some secret weapon handy to surprise everyone with.” he conceded with a smile that now threatened to crack his face in two.

The smile had lessened when Miku talked about how she seemed to have given up entirely on rescue courses due to a few bad experiences to focus on being a combat hero. ”I mean, you can be a combat hero and still do some rescue right?” he asked, gently, being careful not to sound confrontational about this. ”Like, your quirk is awesome for combat, don’t get me wrong. Your plants are absolutely amazing and you can carry the seeds and stuff so you can grow them basically anywhere for long enough to be effective. You learn how to throw some hits, hit ‘em with the old one two…”

The delinquent paused for a second to mimic throwing a left hand jab feint into a right hook at nothing in particular and putting some speed on it. ”That’ll make you able to kick ass and save people even when your quirk doesn’t work well. Like, if a villain wanted to fight me on an open field at noon I’d be fucked. I’m all quirk, and it’s not useful all the time. I’m fine admitting that much, even though I think my quirk is enough by itself. So you can go, like, in an alley where there are no plants and you weren’t expecting anything so you don’t have any seeds and you’re still able to do stuff. I get it, but, uh, and I realize this might sound weird coming from me…” he paused, for longer than it took to take a breath. He even closed his eyes for a moment before opening them as if he was trying to center himself for what he was going to say next.

”But rescue is a huge part of being a hero too, and like I’m not the best at it either. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I am slow when I’m using my quirk for the most part. A big fire happens, I’ll be way too slow to save most of the people.” there was a split-second vocal hitch on the word ‘slow’ almost like the word got stuck in his throat, but he continued speaking normally afterwards and did not acknowledge this. ”Other people will have to do that. What I can do, though, is charge into the fire for a bit and save a few that are closest to the entrance that my slow ass can actually get to. The rescue classes will help with stuff like that, being able to rescue someone who’s unconscious or is an idiot and doesn’t want to be rescued and fights back and stuff.” he continued, his voice becoming more wistful as time went on like he was still trying to justify the logic to himself as much as Miku. There was no fire or real passion in his voice, with the delinquent being almost uncharacteristically subdued at this point in a way that was rarely seen. Most people knew him for his bluster and his arrogance, and that was for good reason. On this point, though, he wasn’t entirely sure if his logic was even correct much like the bit about being a more well-rounded hero. He had no idea if his method or way of thinking was correct and would not find out until his method failed and another succeeded in the same task. It really was as simple as that.

”What kind of costume did you have in mind, by the way?” the American asked, lips curling up in a grin as his voice turned a little bit higher as he teased her a bit, his usual energy returned in an instant. ”You don’t have a habit of stuttering, so I imagine it must be something pretty great for you to do it twice.” he concluded as he turned his red gaze back to Miku with the naked smirk fully spread across his features. He wasn’t quite sure how she’d react to it, but he felt like he had a good enough read on her to know that she wouldn’t flip her shit from a little teasing. Or at least he hoped he did, because he didn’t want the blonde girl to actually get angry. It was hard to tell with people what buttons not to press until you accidentally hit them.

When the topic turned to that of what type of hero they wanted to be, there was renewed focus in the delinquent’s eyes and he responded near instantaneously to verbal cues, including interrupting for the first time. ”Hey,” he started a bit too early to cut Miku off as she made the distinction, voice clipped and short for a moment as his red eyes widened with a momentary flash of intensity before continuing in a more normal cadence afterwards: ”Sidekicks are heroes too. Sorry, didn’t mean to cut you off.” he added with a slight bow of his head in her direction in addition to the verbal apology.

”What type of hero and why, whew. That’s a hard question to just toss on someone…” the delinquent started as the blonde girl finished her question. His right hand went to the back of his neck to rub it for a second or two before he ran it through his hair as he stared off into the distance ahead of him for several more seconds before responding. ”I think… I think being a sidekick would be the best, for at least a year or two, but only if I thought the Pro was significantly better than me and I could learn a lot from them. Like, Darkshine. She has the same basic style that I do. Low mobility, precision attacks, offense over defense, quirk reliant, all that good stuff. She’s much better than me in all of those respects, and I know that she won’t falter when the pressure is on. Like, it takes some sort of insane bravery to start from floor one of the Tokyo Hospital that was under attack by villains with no durability, armor, or way to protect yourself from getting shot dead and going up floor by floor knowing that one miss with your quirk would kill an innocent hostage or yourself. She went from the ground floor, fighting her way up step by step when the villains knew she was coming and did so perfectly up until the very end when Thunder was clever enough to trick her. But the way up, though? I don’t know how many floors are in the Tokyo Hospital, but that building is huge.” the delinquent’s voice did not raise, with his obvious idolization of Darkshine done through word choice and the way he framed her actions rather than shouted across the rooftops and having a tone that obviously favored her. He would just frame the argument and the scenario in a way where it was completely obvious how above and beyond her actions were, because in his mind they really were above and beyond what was to be expected of even a pro hero to do.

”I couldn’t even attempt to do that, and I don’t think most Pros could either. Either they would sit there outside, scared to go in alone and wait for backup or go in and not have the chops to not get their head blasted open by a stray bullet on one of the dozens of floors they’d have to fight through. That’s a suicide mission. I would have no problem being the sidekick of a pro like Darkshine, absolutely none. I could improve at a much faster pace learning from someone who is better at my style than I am. If I can’t do that, I don’t know. With hero schools popping up around Japan, there will be this huge explosion of Pros that come out of the woodwork the next few years. Why settle for just being one type of hero when you can work together with a few others and cover all the bases?” he asked, his eyes widening once again as he posed that last question and the intensity returning to his tone in full force in that last sentence. A grin spread across his face as he said it, too, quickly threatening to split his face in half with how much ground it covered in the span of just a few seconds.

”I’d probably be best as a combat hero, but if I can get a team of people who are strong where I’m weak and we work together… The number one pro might not be a singular person anymore.” he continued, his tone becoming much more smug as he did so and the grin simply refusing to be dampened even one iota from its current range.

When the blonde girl responded with her costume choice and covered her face, that did absolutely nothing to dampen that smile at all. There were a couple of sharp exhales from the American as he couldn’t stop himself from at least giving the beginnings of a laugh and managed to gallantly soldier on and prevented himself from falling into a genuine laugh for several exhales before his body overpowered his will and he giggled like an idiot at the way she was reacting to something so simple as a Halloween costume.

”Sorry, I just,” he breathed out between giggles before finally forcing himself to calm down. ”I’m just imagining Akio’s face when you walk in with that.” he managed to get out before falling into another round of giggles, clamping his hand over his mouth to stifle the sound for a few seconds this time to preserve some dignity before recovering once more. ”I just imagine him like looking over at you and then just, like, falling over like a tree onto the ground and just flopping. Nose bleeding, eyes popping out of his head, like everything. If you do end up doing that, please let it be a surprise so I can see his face at the Halloween Party.” he asked, tone much lighter than the usual seriousness that he exuded. The mental scenario was just too good to pass up seeing in real life, especially because he knew Akio was even more of a prude than Alex was when it came to this sort of thing. The modest boy would probably actually panic at the sight of something like that, and by God would it be funny to watch.

Sometimes, silence said more than words ever could. While the delinquent was not socially aware enough to catch the fake nodding along, he was aware and specifically looking for the response on the hero team idea. It wasn’t entirely unexpected, and if anything it was really the opposite. He kind of expected this sort of thing from most people, and it would be a tough sell to pitch to people who thought they could do everything themselves. For all of his faults, perhaps because of the inherent and very obvious weaknesses of his own quirk Alex was never under the illusion that going through this hero thing along was a good course of action.

Flashbangs, the time of day, and other quirkers who were able to generate light gave him varying degrees of trouble that far exceeded the norm for quirk weaknesses. The fact that he relied entirely upon his quirk for any sort of offense only exacerbated the problem, making it so that he was either at his full strength or completely useless with very little in between. If his concentration was broken or his original shadows were depleted, he was essentially completely and utterly helpless to do anything other than take a beating. He had no ability to move more quickly or have more body control than an average human, and though his stamina was improving at a steady pace it wasn’t even what he would call to be particularly above average at the present. His body would likely always be immensely behind the power of his quirk, and that was a huge limitation that he would never truly get away from. It was something inherent in him because his body simply could not reach the heights that other students could get theirs to, whether it was from their quirk or through a lifetime of training. The fact of the matter was, Alex didn’t have either of those to improve his physical form, and would never catch up in that respect when others had this enormous biological advantage over him. It simply wasn’t possible, and he was fine with that. He would just have to make up the physical gap between him and people like Jaz or Darren through other means.

A hero team was one way he could circumvent this natural disadvantage, much like technology and equipment like armor could make up for the weakness in his physical body. He could not win in the same manner as people who have spent their whole lives preparing for this moment, and that was fine. He didn’t expect to be able to do it, but at the same time he needed a way to equalize the playing field. If the self-sufficient heroes had egos too big to join in with others in order to be more effective, then he would gather a team of heroes like himself with clearly defined weaknesses but weaknesses that the other members could cover. Those who were more arrogant might call it cowardly or lazy, but that was how the American would end up winning. By ruthlessly exploiting the weaknesses and flaws of those who were more naturally gifted than he was, including their fixation on tradition and a narrow definition of honor.

Alex would not be constrained by such things, and that was why he would be the one left standing at the end of all of this. He didn’t come in with a preconceived notion of how things should be done, and that was his biggest strength. He acknowledged he knew nothing and would learn by experience and merit instead of being constrained by tradition and perception. He was hated by a large subsection of the school anyway, right? Nothing he did that wasn’t the norm would make that group get any noticeably bigger, and even if it did what was the drawback when one was already hated? The Akios, the Rins, the Jasmines, and the Mikus will all think they have a better way. That their way is correct, and they might even be right. The difference between them, though, is if Alex was proven wrong he would adapt and steal every part of how his adversary’s plan was better than his. He would not reject the reality, and instead would adapt his behavior to better fit the reality.

The truth of the matter is that he had misjudged Miku in that respect, and the way she reacted with silence meant there was basically no recovery from such a thing at least in this conversation. When next they talked, he could just pretend this whole experience didn’t exist. For now, though, he just needed a way to get out of this situation because the fact of the matter was that he didn’t want to be stuck in a situation where he would be forced to talk about Akio of all people. It was a fate worse than death, really, and he had unwittingly sentenced himself to such a fate if he didn’t find a way to save himself.

Thankfully, thinking quickly was one of the delinquent’s strong suits and he had just the idea to save him from the disgusting need to speak about that half baked giant in any sort of positive light. It was unethical, really, and beyond the scope of what could be considered reasonable punishment for any living creature with a soul. There were some lines that one simply could not cross while keeping their humanity, and the delinquent would rather stab out his own eyes with a fork than gush about Akio of all people. So he did what any self-serving teenager would do in this situation, and that is to pull out his phone and bring it to his ear as if he had a phone call. It was not uncommon for people to have their phones on a lower vibrate setting, and Alex did that anyway as his norm.

”Yeah? Hey, Aki! …. Yeah…. Okay… Sounds good!” he faked, trying his best to mimic one end of a phone conversation before putting the phone back into his pocket and turning back to Miku. ”Hey, sorry to cut this short but I gotta go now. It was nice talking to you – we should do this again sometime.” he said in the friendliest and nicest voice he could muster before waving and heading off in a random direction away from here. He didn’t deal with awkward situations the best, sure, but he knew how to get the hell out of a bad one at a moment’s notice pretty well.