34: ░▒▓Cracks▓▒░

░▒▓Cracks▓▒░

He doesn't remember much after the altercation. This journey into this phantasmagoric dimension came to a screeching halt after he realized that even the heroes affiliated with All Might were no better than the others. Of course, Felix understood the reason for their distrust, it was obvious, but initially, he was giving his time to help, hoping that maybe someone who represents the mold of society could understand and act for the small voices that are stifled and that because of the nature of their quirks simply can't go against their natures for their whole lives.2

To put him through a brutal interrogation where he couldn't resist because their seven wills overcame his will as petty as any righteous or wrongeous schemer. They had stripped him of all privacy, so of course, he would try to do something. Sadly, that alone undermined the words Nana was trying to say to him, but he managed to receive the message she wanted him to pass to two individuals.

Although two of them, a young boy and this woman, had expressed their displeasure with the actions of their companions, it would seem that they couldn't do a thing as their wills amounted to only 2 versus 5.

The first question that popped into his head after crossing the sort of cracks in his path as he fled the grip of the seven predecessors of All Might was:

—Was this all planned by All Might or Nighteye? Trapping me here, or…

However, the fact that he could manage to escape answered his question more quickly than expected. Although he was no longer in this dimension, he was bathed in this strange black ocean, in which he was neither body nor matter, nothing more than a consciousness floating in the void, as in a lucid dream.

It was impossible to know how much time had passed since the one they had called "the third" had attacked him, but he had managed to touch him just long enough to see if even here, with his limitations, he could access the super-hormones. Who knows, maybe it would work.

In a comatose state and as time went by, specific shapes began to appear around him, he stopped moving forward at full speed and for no reason, as more distinct things appeared, doors, walls, rubble, buildings, remnants of screams, howls, whispers of agony, he stopped. The smell of iron coming from a purple puddle on the ground made him realize that everything around him was nothing more than a hallucination, or at least, an afterglow of something... but even so, he could touch, feel, see as if it were all real.

An arm was sticking out of the rubble, twisted, a bone clearly visible, an open fracture. Felix could hear noises from everywhere, below him, above. The buildings beside him were nothing but ruins torn apart by a disaster, and some skyscrapers were on the verge of collapsing, paper sheets flying in all directions in an atmosphere saturated by the toxic dust of concrete and cement.

Different scenes like this one were repeated for what seemed endlessly before him. Pieces of ground of several hundred meters flew around him, further to his right and left, vertically or above him, upside down, the roofs of the skyscrapers almost touching. The "afterglow" that's how the predecessors called this phenomenon. Although they didn't talk to him too much about it, the fact that Nana was a woman made things more accessible; even here, his pheromones seemed to have an effect, so she had given him information without him even asking for it.

At least, it was a small victory as far as he was concerned.

That said, these afterimages only appeared if the memory owner wanted them to, or at least thought about them; it was unlikely that everyone would think of so many different warlike scenes at the same time. What was at work here came from an additional source than the people he talked to a while ago.

Felix assumed that it came from a process other than the will of the quirk users. Something more primary. In these cases, if we follow the consensus, it comes from something unconscious, inside the person's psyche, or it would come from the reptilian brain that manages everything, like the innate sense of fear or instinct.

He who had entered in resonance with OFA understood a little how it all worked, especially since he knew now that he was "immersed" in a quirk. He couldn't help but think once again that all this was just life looking for a way to survive longer by trying to toughen up more and more, even if it was hurting his host's body.

His quirk had undergone two awakenings; maybe OFA was acting as a kind of quirk and memory storage in the last effort to preserve itself, to protect life, creating almost like a deity to create its own dimension and universe through the memories of its former hosts, like a parasite. Now that it all made sense, the theory that quirks came from a virus seemed more plausible, an organism seeking to evolve with humans… needing a host.

Only a theory, it has never been proven, but maybe someone really knew something about it.

A white flash blinded him soon after; a large crack more than several feet high was there in the air, like a crack in an invisible wall. The light that came out of it dazzled but was black and seemed to plunge the place he was in into darkness as if a shadow was cast everywhere. The area became wholly plunged in the blackness before a much whiter light made him close the eyelids.

"What the heck is going on… Is this Jesus?"

"It's Chiyo, you idiot kid. I was checking if your retinas still reacted to light. You were unconscious for several minutes." she explained by moving away from the sofa on which he was lying. "You got me scared for a second."

"It's still 'dead,' even our phones..." Tsukauchi interjected after the door to the room opened. "The power still isn't back on since the fuses blew. Impossible to get anything to react, the same thing on the street, apparently. It seems the cables themselves have been damaged... Oh, you're awake, Mr. Fortier. To be quite honest, we didn't know it was going to end like this."

"Mhm... I've had worse."

"No pain?" asked Chiyo as she sat down on the couch after Felix sat up, rubbing his eyes.

"No, nothing, it's just itchy on the hand where I touched All Might's shoulder," he said before looking at that one; three small black cracks appeared on it, tiny but discernible.

"What is this…?" Recovery Girl muttered, taking Felix's hand to check it. "No blood… You really don't feel any pain? You don't use any hormone right now?"

"No, I'm clean," Felix answered while turning his glance towards Chiyo which tried to see where could come from its cracks; he had the impression to move away from her gradually as if she sank into the ground.

"F-Felix-shonen… you're… somehow floating above the couch…"

Upon realization, Chiyo's eyes widened as she watched Felix fly gently towards the ceiling. The sight seemed to bring back memories to her and All Might as they looked at each other; Felix was surprised too but couldn't control his trajectory; he was just floating there, gravity just not having any effect on him anymore, a strange sensation for someone like him who was doing a lot of physical exercises and with a lot of soreness.

He pushed himself down with his foot from the ceiling but missed his landing as he had no sense of up and down; in this kind of environment, the five senses have a hard time finding their way even if we can see everything around us. Still on the ground, he clung to the foot of the couch before his body finally fell back to the ground after this strange event took place, all the weight of his body coming back at once and tackling him to the ground without warning.

"Ow...! For fuck sake…"

"Felix-shonen… what have you done when you were copying my quirk…?"

"It's not like I was the one in control in here. But I have a message for you and 'Gran Torino,' from someone named Nana, she wanted to thanks you both, and that she was proud, that's the only thing she had the time to say before a bunch of dickhead try to attack me for things I haven't done, then I was back to consciousness. I think you already know what I'm talking about, right? Did you try to trick me?"

"She… told you that…" Toshinori whispered with an emotional look before coming back to his senses. "I… somehow knew that you will encounter something, but I myself never seen that much of my own quirks during the last decades. It's like everything's blocked; that's why I wanted you to help me. Nighteye thought it would work; that's maybe it could change the future where I die gruesomely."

"Yeah, it was my idea, selfish in a way, but I think you can understand that. I don't want the only person I admire to die that way."

"What way?"

"That's not something I can tell you here," Nighteye said with a sad and fleeting gaze. "I do not want to use you if that what you're implying… I know that you despise people acting only for their own interest, but All Might life isn't only important for one random person."

"No apologies for that; it's fine. You want to help someone you admire or love… I dunno…" Felix said with an ironic tone that made Nighteye smiled. "If it would be to save Kaoruko or Miss Mir- …If it would be to save her, I would do the same."

"Miss what?" asked Chiyo by raising an eyebrow. "Are you two-timing someone, kiddo?"

"Well, it's not two-timing if both girls are okay with it." Felix smiled before going back to the conversation. "Now, as long as it's not to scheme behind my back to better manipulate other people afterward, to then put the blame on me if everything goes wrong, I can accept it; I'm good with it."

"It's not what I want to do. All Might wanted to help people like you want to do by showing the harsh reality to the Japanese society-"

"When did I explained my goal to you? ...Whatever. It's okay for this one. Just try not to spy on me like a vulture again like the HSPC, or you will end up like them."

His sentence threw a cold in the room, the silence was justified for several reasons, firstly, threats could be punished, especially since he was in a police station in the presence of a senior ally of the police and two great heroes, rather ballsy to dare to open his mouth was ballsy, but at least it showed that he was serious about what he was doing, further demonstrating that he was the right person to call for help despite his real intention.

Yeah, his real intention. Since he first met Felix, Mirai Sasaki, most likely known by Nighteye, was interested in his potential and accepted a contract like this one. Nobody sane would accept to be part of the shenanigans of a government that need to be changed, where he was nothing else but a pawn. Mirai knew the wrongdoing done by his superiors; it didn't stop only to Lady Nagant, Hawk, and Felix; they used a lot more "techniques" to maintains the country's peaceful appearance. Mirai knew because he used his quirks on heroes and citizens incriminated by them; he saw several times that are some of them were innocent but used by the HPSC and tried to defend them when he still was a young attorney.

Why hasn't he done anything to change this? Simply because they threatened him. If he tried to tell the truth, he would be thrown into the same procedure. They demanded that he quit his job as a lawyer and become a hero so that he could work for them and never say anything. It was later that he met All Might, which finally gave him some hope.

He couldn't be controlled; he was literally a free-electron who went around the country and solved people's problems.

When he met Felix, he felt the same way. Someone likely to have sense wouldn't jump into the lion's den without a plan while knowing he was in for a rough ride. So, to support his own convictions, he accepted Felix as a trainee for several reasons, but the first was to use his quirk on him and probe his future. To see what he would do even though everything will be against him as an ex-con, foreigner, and HPSC.

Even if he had promised himself to never use his power to its fullest again, to be able to see something that would make him realize that someone would change things and that as a representative of justice, he changed his mind.

During the fight against Felix, Mirai lied, he had drunk his coffee, and he was well awake; the reason he made mistakes was that he wanted to touch Felix and then look him in the eyes to activate his quirk.

Several days, months, maybe years of Felix futures passed before his very eyes with great precision within the span of a second, he avoided most of his private life, luckily… But one image remained in his head: Felix Fortier, standing on a stage, holding a speech in a suit and tie, microphones and camera all around him, Chitoze Kizuki not far behind him.

A major turning point.

So he knew that even if Felix didn't like him, he now has done what has to be done to unlock a worthy future. That's all he wanted.

—Whether fate exists or not, I'm sure there's a way to change that dark part of your future… Otherwise, everything wouldn't turn black before it suddenly returns to normal… right, Felix? After that, it's impossible to see the rest… What will you do then…?

Nighteye wasn't really listening to the conversation anymore; for all that, he was sitting there on the couch staring into space, seeing again the blood that would flow from Felix's hands and the problems he would solve. The ruins, fighting to the last breath, the people he will heal, the ones he will turn into real heroes or those he will launch to hell, the medicines, the creations, the syringes…

Felix didn't realize it yet, but Nighteye did.

The first cracks in this ungrateful and unfair hero society were already forming.

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