Oni nodded. "A small hiccup or two, but aside from those, I agree. I think today went really well."
She came closer, smiling as she reached a hand out to trace along one of his horns. "How long will you be out tonight, in case she has a nightmare?"
"I'll be leaving Tamako with her." He answered, leaning into the contact. "The moment she wakes up, they'll return to me and I'll come back immediately."
"Alright then." Rei said, moving her hand down to his cheek. "Have fun."
He smirked. "Of course."
Oni let out a deep, guttural laugh, the harsh noise echoing through the hallways of the Triad base he'd chosen to torment tonight. One of them at least.
Dropping the two criminals he'd just been holding in the air, he charged forwards towards the rest of the group present in the room.
He ducked underneath a thrown punch, bringing his palm up to strike them in the chest, sending them flying into the wall behind them. He caught another thrown fist in his hand, crushing the bones within with a quick squeeze, before dropping them with an even quicker exertion of 'Conqueror.' A third criminal swiped at him with claws that looked like scissors, while a fourth swung a baseball bat at him.
Metal flashed across his scaled hands, and he caught the claws in them, shattering them a moment later and eliciting a harsh scream from the person they were attached to. He let the baseball bat hit him across the back of his head. 'Shock absorption' ensured it did nothing to him, but it was left vibrating so harshly that the criminal was forced to drop it. Placing a foot in the center of Scissor-Claws' chest, he kicked them away into the same wall as the first criminal, before bending over to pick the baseball bat up. Twisting around, he brought it down on the final criminal's leg hard enough to shatter both it and the bone within, leaving shards of wood behind, embedded in the flesh. Both they and Scissor-Claws, who was still screaming on the other side of the room, were silenced with an exertion of 'Conqueror.'
Oni took a quick moment to smile at his handiwork, before darting away towards a door, scouting out his path as he did. The next room had only a single person in it, but it led to a group of ten, who ought to be such fun to play with.
Barely slowing as he entered the room and approached the lone criminal, Oni brought up a still–metal fist and swung it forwards for a hit that would have the man unconscious before he even hit the wall behind him.
Only for the man's head to be clear out of the path of his fist almost as soon as he started to throw it.
Skidding to a halt right next to the man, not missing a beat, Oni pulled his extended arm back with the intent to hit him with his elbow, now also coated in metal. Only for the man's head to once again be out of the path as soon as he threw it.
Oni's eyes narrowed, and his mind raced to analyze the situation, even as he twisted to bring a leg up in a way that the man wouldn't be able to dodge unless the explanation for his dodging the first two blows was a speed quirk. He pulled on 'Quick Thinker' as he moved, slowing the world to a crawl and giving him even more time to analyze.
Before he'd even fully shifted his weight to even begin to lift his foot, the man was already leaning back. Comparing the speed at which the man was moving to how quickly Oni figured his kick would be completed assuming he didn't speed it up, the man would be out of its path completely before Oni's foot reached him.
Forming a new theory, Oni changed tactics, switching his shift in balance to launch himself backwards, landing on the wall behind him and sticking to it with a pull on 'Gecko.'
Staring the criminal down, he pulled on the tongue extension quirk he'd acquired the same night he'd found Tamako. As soon as the change took hold, and he'd coated his new tongue in metal, he struck again, keeping it simple with nothing but his tongue darting out at the man at a speed that would be difficult for most to follow.
Or at least, he intended to.
The moment, the exact instant he'd thought to put his plan into motion, and his tongue had just barely begun to move, not even leaving his mouth yet, the man moved. He twisted to the side, in a way that would've definitely dodged Oni's attack.
'He's predicting what I'm going to do.' Oni thought.
The man had clearly known, to some degree, what Oni would do, despite having—presumably—no way of knowing that Izuku's tongue had changed.
'Is it mind reading? Or something else entirely?'
If it was mind reading, then that might explain how the man knew to move. Read a target's thoughts to know what they're going to do as soon as they do, then dodge it.
Oni smiled as he thought of a great way to put that to the test.
All of his parallel minds, every single layer of his mind that could focus on something separate, went to work. Each and every one came up with several different plans to attack the criminal standing in front of him. From straight and simple charging forward, to a series of feints, not unlike the move Gran Torino had pulled during their meeting, to pulling on a new quirk or combination of quirks. The plans all filled his mind, and each one held the full focus of his mind.
After a few seconds of no reaction from the man—potentially indicating that it wasn't a mind reading quirk at play, or at the very least indicating that the man was very experienced and could remain composed—Izuku took it a step further and began putting intent into some of those plans. The separate parallel minds all began to focus on their plans with intent to follow through with them.
As soon as he did that, the criminal's eyes widened, and he moved, but it was an awkward, stilted movement, like he was trying to do two or more things at the same time, or in this case, dodge multiple incoming attacks at once.
'So you don't read a target's mind. You read their intent.'
"How fascinating." Oni said. "Though, I wonder. How well can your quirk compensate for the speed of your opponent? If they were to move too fast for you to react to them, what would you do?"
Oni crouched down on the wall, tensing his legs in preparation and forming a number of new plans, intending to actually make use of a few of them to push this man to his limits. He was a split–second away from launching himself forwards to begin when he felt Tamako dart into his mind, freezing him in place.
"She's having a nightmare." They said. "If she isn't already awake, she will be soon."
Before they were even finished speaking, Izuku had pulled on a few more enhancers, his muscles burning with their power.
The wall beneath him shattered, and he had a hand on the back of the criminal's head, ripping his quirk from him and throwing him into the hole in the wall he's just created.
Pushing 'Conqueror' almost to its limit, he let out a shockwave that tore through the building, shattering every piece of glass and every light inside, and instantly dropping every last criminal he'd yet to reach.
Before they even hit the ground, Izuku was falling backwards and sinking into the newly created shadows, emerging an instant later from the shadows in his room.
Grabbing handfuls of his clothes, he activated 'Hotbar' to store them away without wasting time with taking them off, sorting through his quirks to restore his appearance at the same time. A quick activation of 'Shower in a Can' had him cleaned of the slight bit of blood and grime that had built up since the night began.
As he worked, he saw that Iona was indeed awake. She was out of bed, holding one of the stuffed animals she'd brought from the orphanage, and was reaching out towards her door, which opened automatically once she drew close enough.
Izuku's tail finished growing, and he was pulling on one of the more casual shirts he wore around the apartment, just as Iona knocked on his door.
Waiting a few short seconds, to give the appearance of waking up at her knock and not being made aware the moment she woke up, Izuku took a deep breath, releasing the excitement he'd just had a few moments ago because of the criminal, and the sense of urgency Tamako's arrival had caused.
Once he was suitably calmed, Izuku moved towards the door, forcing his expression into a gentle one, that was maybe slightly tired looking having just woken up.
His door opened automatically at his approach, as Iona's had done for her. They worked on a timed schedule, set up by Rei of course. During the day, they would open automatically at an approach from either side, unless they were specifically locked, but at night, they would only open automatically at an approach from inside the room, remaining closed if someone approached from the outside.
He looked down at Iona as his door opened to reveal her, and she looked back up at him with a slightly nervous expression. Her hands fidgeted with the animal they held.
"Iona?" He said. "What's wrong?"
"U-um. I had a nightmare."
His hearts hurt just a little bit at how small her voice was. Brushing past that though, he lowered himself down closer to her level.
"I'm so sorry that happened. Are you okay? Do you want to talk about it?"
She shook her head.
"Is there anything you'd like me to do?"
Her fidgeting increased slightly in intensity. "U-um. Can I-? Is it okay if I sleep with you?"
"Of course, Iona. You're more than welcome to."
"Here." He reached for her, and she lifted her arms up to him, letting him scoop her up off her feet. Once again, her arms wrapped around his neck as he held her.
Turning around, he moved towards the mess of pillows and blankets that made up his—mostly unused—bed. Coiling his tail overtop of itself, he settled himself and Iona into the center of it, ignoring the slight twinge of discomfort as he laid back onto his wings, and pulling a blanket from off to the side to cover both of them.
Neither of them spoke as they settled in. Izuku simply watched and listened for any further signs of nervousness or distress from Iona, feeling relief when, a few short minutes after lying down, her breathing began to slow to a steady rhythm, indicating that she'd managed to fall back asleep.
Izuku remained there as she slept, silent and as still as he could manage, simply watching over her, all thoughts and excitement from his vigilante work forgotten in the face of something much more important.
As she slept, and as Izuku watched over her, he diverted a small amount of his focus towards the quirk he'd just stolen, pulling it from its new place in his chest.
Immediately, he felt a new form of input entering his mind, a new… feeling.
The closest thing he could compare it to was the input of some of his less usual sensory quirks. Like the new extension to his senses offered by 'Proximity,' or 'Sciakinesis,' or even by 'All Sight.' A new form of sensory input.
Focusing on the new input he was feeling, he realized after a moment that the source of the input was following back from his focus on Iona. The new feeling was coming from her.
Pulling just a bit of focus away from focusing directly on Iona, he set to work attempting to decipher what this new feeling was.
It didn't seem to be related to movement as far as he could tell, as aside from the tiny rise-and-fall motions of her breathing, she wasn't moving at all, and his intuition told him that wasn't the case.
Focusing directly on the feeling itself, he noticed that it almost felt like a few different feelings, all coming from Iona.
His eyes widened a bit when he realized that-that was exactly the case. This wasn't sensory input that his mind was interpreting as feelings, these were feelings that the quirk felt from Iona. These were emotions that he was receiving.
With that knowledge in hand, Izuku tried to decipher the specific emotions the quirk was feeling from Iona, assuming that was truly what it was.
There were a few distinct feelings that he could discern. The most prominent was something that felt almost… sticky? Not physically sticky, but the sort of sticky when one's words got caught in their throat, like when one is-.
Sadness. That feeling was sadness.
That made sense. As much as he didn't like the fact that sadness was Iona's currently most prominent emotion, she'd lost her parents just a few months ago, and she'd just recently woken up from a nightmare. It was understandable.
Underneath the sadness, there was something that felt incredibly calm and smooth, like silk, or calm water. Maybe this one was contentment? Or maybe relaxation? She was currently asleep, so it would make sense. Especially since… yes, he could feel that emotion growing more prominent as the seconds passed.
Directing a bit of focus towards Rei and Ochako, and marveling at the input he got from them as soon as he did, he felt similar things from them, that same calm emotion was the most prominent one from both of them, supporting his theory.
Just beyond that contentment, there was a light warmth that Izuku almost immediately associated with happiness. Something that brought a smile to his face as he realized that Iona was able to feel happiness here.
Everything else he felt from her was too small or too indistinct for him to properly feel and discern, just a small kaleidoscope of emotion slowly shifting beneath the surface.
Izuku found himself smiling as he considered this quirk. He still had no idea how the criminal had been using it to read Oni's intent—maybe it was simply him being so experienced with reading emotion that he was able to pick out the minute changes in it to predict movements?—but at the very least, at its basest level, it was an empath quirk. That was an incredibly useful quirk, that he couldn't wait to show off to Rei in the morning.
Still smiling to himself, Izuku settled in for the night, watching the gentle shifting of Iona's emotions.
The entire night passed like this, with Izuku not moving a single muscle, ignoring the soreness in his limbs or his muscles when it came. He would remain still for as long as Iona slept, silently watching over her.
He would be ready when she awoke.
Oni nodded. "A small hiccup or two, but aside from those, I agree. I think today went really well."
She came closer, smiling as she reached a hand out to trace along one of his horns. "How long will you be out tonight, in case she has a nightmare?"
"I'll be leaving Tamako with her." He answered, leaning into the contact. "The moment she wakes up, they'll return to me and I'll come back immediately."
"Alright then." Rei said, moving her hand down to his cheek. "Have fun."
He smirked. "Of course."
Oni let out a deep, guttural laugh, the harsh noise echoing through the hallways of the Triad base he'd chosen to torment tonight. One of them at least.
Dropping the two criminals he'd just been holding in the air, he charged forwards towards the rest of the group present in the room.
He ducked underneath a thrown punch, bringing his palm up to strike them in the chest, sending them flying into the wall behind them. He caught another thrown fist in his hand, crushing the bones within with a quick squeeze, before dropping them with an even quicker exertion of 'Conqueror.' A third criminal swiped at him with claws that looked like scissors, while a fourth swung a baseball bat at him.
Metal flashed across his scaled hands, and he caught the claws in them, shattering them a moment later and eliciting a harsh scream from the person they were attached to. He let the baseball bat hit him across the back of his head. 'Shock absorption' ensured it did nothing to him, but it was left vibrating so harshly that the criminal was forced to drop it. Placing a foot in the center of Scissor-Claws' chest, he kicked them away into the same wall as the first criminal, before bending over to pick the baseball bat up. Twisting around, he brought it down on the final criminal's leg hard enough to shatter both it and the bone within, leaving shards of wood behind, embedded in the flesh. Both they and Scissor-Claws, who was still screaming on the other side of the room, were silenced with an exertion of 'Conqueror.'
Oni took a quick moment to smile at his handiwork, before darting away towards a door, scouting out his path as he did. The next room had only a single person in it, but it led to a group of ten, who ought to be such fun to play with.
Barely slowing as he entered the room and approached the lone criminal, Oni brought up a still–metal fist and swung it forwards for a hit that would have the man unconscious before he even hit the wall behind him.
Only for the man's head to be clear out of the path of his fist almost as soon as he started to throw it.
Skidding to a halt right next to the man, not missing a beat, Oni pulled his extended arm back with the intent to hit him with his elbow, now also coated in metal. Only for the man's head to once again be out of the path as soon as he threw it.
Oni's eyes narrowed, and his mind raced to analyze the situation, even as he twisted to bring a leg up in a way that the man wouldn't be able to dodge unless the explanation for his dodging the first two blows was a speed quirk. He pulled on 'Quick Thinker' as he moved, slowing the world to a crawl and giving him even more time to analyze.
Before he'd even fully shifted his weight to even begin to lift his foot, the man was already leaning back. Comparing the speed at which the man was moving to how quickly Oni figured his kick would be completed assuming he didn't speed it up, the man would be out of its path completely before Oni's foot reached him.
Forming a new theory, Oni changed tactics, switching his shift in balance to launch himself backwards, landing on the wall behind him and sticking to it with a pull on 'Gecko.'
Staring the criminal down, he pulled on the tongue extension quirk he'd acquired the same night he'd found Tamako. As soon as the change took hold, and he'd coated his new tongue in metal, he struck again, keeping it simple with nothing but his tongue darting out at the man at a speed that would be difficult for most to follow.
Or at least, he intended to.
The moment, the exact instant he'd thought to put his plan into motion, and his tongue had just barely begun to move, not even leaving his mouth yet, the man moved. He twisted to the side, in a way that would've definitely dodged Oni's attack.
'He's predicting what I'm going to do.' Oni thought.
The man had clearly known, to some degree, what Oni would do, despite having—presumably—no way of knowing that Izuku's tongue had changed.
'Is it mind reading? Or something else entirely?'
If it was mind reading, then that might explain how the man knew to move. Read a target's thoughts to know what they're going to do as soon as they do, then dodge it.
Oni smiled as he thought of a great way to put that to the test.
All of his parallel minds, every single layer of his mind that could focus on something separate, went to work. Each and every one came up with several different plans to attack the criminal standing in front of him. From straight and simple charging forward, to a series of feints, not unlike the move Gran Torino had pulled during their meeting, to pulling on a new quirk or combination of quirks. The plans all filled his mind, and each one held the full focus of his mind.
After a few seconds of no reaction from the man—potentially indicating that it wasn't a mind reading quirk at play, or at the very least indicating that the man was very experienced and could remain composed—Izuku took it a step further and began putting intent into some of those plans. The separate parallel minds all began to focus on their plans with intent to follow through with them.
As soon as he did that, the criminal's eyes widened, and he moved, but it was an awkward, stilted movement, like he was trying to do two or more things at the same time, or in this case, dodge multiple incoming attacks at once.
'So you don't read a target's mind. You read their intent.'
"How fascinating." Oni said. "Though, I wonder. How well can your quirk compensate for the speed of your opponent? If they were to move too fast for you to react to them, what would you do?"
Oni crouched down on the wall, tensing his legs in preparation and forming a number of new plans, intending to actually make use of a few of them to push this man to his limits. He was a split–second away from launching himself forwards to begin when he felt Tamako dart into his mind, freezing him in place.
"She's having a nightmare." They said. "If she isn't already awake, she will be soon."
Before they were even finished speaking, Izuku had pulled on a few more enhancers, his muscles burning with their power.
The wall beneath him shattered, and he had a hand on the back of the criminal's head, ripping his quirk from him and throwing him into the hole in the wall he's just created.
Pushing 'Conqueror' almost to its limit, he let out a shockwave that tore through the building, shattering every piece of glass and every light inside, and instantly dropping every last criminal he'd yet to reach.
Before they even hit the ground, Izuku was falling backwards and sinking into the newly created shadows, emerging an instant later from the shadows in his room.
Grabbing handfuls of his clothes, he activated 'Hotbar' to store them away without wasting time with taking them off, sorting through his quirks to restore his appearance at the same time. A quick activation of 'Shower in a Can' had him cleaned of the slight bit of blood and grime that had built up since the night began.
As he worked, he saw that Iona was indeed awake. She was out of bed, holding one of the stuffed animals she'd brought from the orphanage, and was reaching out towards her door, which opened automatically once she drew close enough.
Izuku's tail finished growing, and he was pulling on one of the more casual shirts he wore around the apartment, just as Iona knocked on his door.
Waiting a few short seconds, to give the appearance of waking up at her knock and not being made aware the moment she woke up, Izuku took a deep breath, releasing the excitement he'd just had a few moments ago because of the criminal, and the sense of urgency Tamako's arrival had caused.
Once he was suitably calmed, Izuku moved towards the door, forcing his expression into a gentle one, that was maybe slightly tired looking having just woken up.
His door opened automatically at his approach, as Iona's had done for her. They worked on a timed schedule, set up by Rei of course. During the day, they would open automatically at an approach from either side, unless they were specifically locked, but at night, they would only open automatically at an approach from inside the room, remaining closed if someone approached from the outside.
He looked down at Iona as his door opened to reveal her, and she looked back up at him with a slightly nervous expression. Her hands fidgeted with the animal they held.
"Iona?" He said. "What's wrong?"
"U-um. I had a nightmare."
His hearts hurt just a little bit at how small her voice was. Brushing past that though, he lowered himself down closer to her level.
"I'm so sorry that happened. Are you okay? Do you want to talk about it?"
She shook her head.
"Is there anything you'd like me to do?"
Her fidgeting increased slightly in intensity. "U-um. Can I-? Is it okay if I sleep with you?"
"Of course, Iona. You're more than welcome to."
"Here." He reached for her, and she lifted her arms up to him, letting him scoop her up off her feet. Once again, her arms wrapped around his neck as he held her.
Turning around, he moved towards the mess of pillows and blankets that made up his—mostly unused—bed. Coiling his tail overtop of itself, he settled himself and Iona into the center of it, ignoring the slight twinge of discomfort as he laid back onto his wings, and pulling a blanket from off to the side to cover both of them.
Neither of them spoke as they settled in. Izuku simply watched and listened for any further signs of nervousness or distress from Iona, feeling relief when, a few short minutes after lying down, her breathing began to slow to a steady rhythm, indicating that she'd managed to fall back asleep.
Izuku remained there as she slept, silent and as still as he could manage, simply watching over her, all thoughts and excitement from his vigilante work forgotten in the face of something much more important.
As she slept, and as Izuku watched over her, he diverted a small amount of his focus towards the quirk he'd just stolen, pulling it from its new place in his chest.
Immediately, he felt a new form of input entering his mind, a new… feeling.
The closest thing he could compare it to was the input of some of his less usual sensory quirks. Like the new extension to his senses offered by 'Proximity,' or 'Sciakinesis,' or even by 'All Sight.' A new form of sensory input.
Focusing on the new input he was feeling, he realized after a moment that the source of the input was following back from his focus on Iona. The new feeling was coming from her.
Pulling just a bit of focus away from focusing directly on Iona, he set to work attempting to decipher what this new feeling was.
It didn't seem to be related to movement as far as he could tell, as aside from the tiny rise-and-fall motions of her breathing, she wasn't moving at all, and his intuition told him that wasn't the case.
Focusing directly on the feeling itself, he noticed that it almost felt like a few different feelings, all coming from Iona.
His eyes widened a bit when he realized that-that was exactly the case. This wasn't sensory input that his mind was interpreting as feelings, these were feelings that the quirk felt from Iona. These were emotions that he was receiving.
With that knowledge in hand, Izuku tried to decipher the specific emotions the quirk was feeling from Iona, assuming that was truly what it was.
There were a few distinct feelings that he could discern. The most prominent was something that felt almost… sticky? Not physically sticky, but the sort of sticky when one's words got caught in their throat, like when one is-.
Sadness. That feeling was sadness.
That made sense. As much as he didn't like the fact that sadness was Iona's currently most prominent emotion, she'd lost her parents just a few months ago, and she'd just recently woken up from a nightmare. It was understandable.
Underneath the sadness, there was something that felt incredibly calm and smooth, like silk, or calm water. Maybe this one was contentment? Or maybe relaxation? She was currently asleep, so it would make sense. Especially since… yes, he could feel that emotion growing more prominent as the seconds passed.
Directing a bit of focus towards Rei and Ochako, and marveling at the input he got from them as soon as he did, he felt similar things from them, that same calm emotion was the most prominent one from both of them, supporting his theory.
Just beyond that contentment, there was a light warmth that Izuku almost immediately associated with happiness. Something that brought a smile to his face as he realized that Iona was able to feel happiness here.
Everything else he felt from her was too small or too indistinct for him to properly feel and discern, just a small kaleidoscope of emotion slowly shifting beneath the surface.
Izuku found himself smiling as he considered this quirk. He still had no idea how the criminal had been using it to read Oni's intent—maybe it was simply him being so experienced with reading emotion that he was able to pick out the minute changes in it to predict movements?—but at the very least, at its basest level, it was an empath quirk. That was an incredibly useful quirk, that he couldn't wait to show off to Rei in the morning.
Still smiling to himself, Izuku settled in for the night, watching the gentle shifting of Iona's emotions.
The entire night passed like this, with Izuku not moving a single muscle, ignoring the soreness in his limbs or his muscles when it came. He would remain still for as long as Iona slept, silently watching over her.
He would be ready when she awoke.