02| School Mishaps

『ARC ONE: EXAMS AND MISHAPS』

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Nine years later - Present time.

The warm rays of light bathed the bustling city in its grand blessing, breathing life into those who gratefully walked into its luminance. Puffy billows floated about in the sky in random spots as the wind eagerly pushed them across the cerulean sky. A fruitful breeze tickled the trees, blowing teasingly at the healthy leaves and playfully kissed the fragrant cherry blossoms. The beautiful chime of chirps emitted by the lavishing birds that dove down to settle themselves on the ground brightened the area around them.

A porpoise colored car hummed pleasantly down the pavement. It strummed past, the person inside shifting their gaze for a split second to read the silver plating with engraved lettering on the gold painted column connected to the elegant, auric fence.

Komorebi Middle School.

Komorebi was known to be a prestigious school, one of the top five middle schools to attend. Only those with high connections or those with exquisite test scores and grades could enter. Either way, to attend a school that was eight stories high and embellished with metallic designs of different flowers and sporting a frost paint was a dead giveaway that only certain children could attend. Not to mention the rows and rows of flourishing nature surrounding the structure.

Overall, the day had presented itself to be a joyous, peaceful one as everything was running its course smoothly- is what Tanami Mochizuki would like to say.

"You interrupt my reading once more, and this book will indeed become a projectile."

"Oh, please, enough with the snarky remarks. They're so loud that I can't even hear myself losing the will to live."

The faint glow of sunlight striking Tanami's crystal hair made the ivory table she sat at illuminate dimly. Propping one elbow onto the table with a heavy sigh, she placed the curve of her jaw into her palm. She picked at one of her carrots in her bento box, wondering if its meaningless life was worth the trouble of flinging it at her brother and their friend. With a deadpan stare, the fourteen-year-old girl watched with little interest at the banter between the two 'friends' that sat across from each other while she sat at the end of the table.

Settled perfectly in Akihiko's hands was an old green copy of some boring book that they had to read for English. The only part she got to was the part of someone dying and she deemed it to be lackluster and dropped it. His periwinkle eyes had narrowed and his lips had curled up mildly to form a scowl. His fingers lightly tightened around the cover, nails digging into the material. If you gazed close enough, you could see the crescent indents left behind. Sitting across from her twin brother was Kagemi Onishi, their longtime friend that lived next door to them.

After all the troubles and stress with the adoption process, the two twins had finally been given legal permission to formally live under their new legal guardian, Tomohiro Mochizuki, or the Illustration Hero, Inscribe. At first, the trio had a hard time connecting with each other. Tanami was a tad bit quick to warm up to Tomohiro as the majority of their encounters were only witnessed by her. Akihiko took a bit longer as he was still slightly worried that the crystals they produced would be sold.

However, the gemstones they accidentally created from emotional outbursts were used as chew toys for Shishi. The ink dog gnawed on the shiny things despite having no teeth to sink in. Sometimes if the crystals had a low enough density and hardness, Shishi would break them and they would stick to the inside of his mouth. It was pretty strange when they would come home to see the shiba inu smiling with a row of glittering, broken shards stuck in the ink.

By the time the twins were comfortable with society and less certain that they would be used for profit once more, two years had gone by and they were seven. During that time frame, Tomohiro or one of his teammates, Sumiko, Tsumugi, or Haichi would homeschool and babysit them.

The first and only friend they made was a seven-year-old boy with sharp eyes and glinting rectangular glasses who had just moved in next door to their house. Tanami was the first to approach him, dragging Akihiko along as Tomohiro said it would be nice for them to actually talk with someone their own age and not listen to a bunch of adults who had their lives somewhat in check.

Since Tanami was the one who was more outgoing between the two siblings, she was the one who sparked the conversation. It was going well until the mentioning of Quirks.

Kagemi's Quirk was known as Smoke Mirror. Practically, he can emit a special type of smoke that was entirely white but glinted with the colors of the rainbow. The smoke itself reflected the light that struck it like diamonds before it materialized into a misty mirror. Standing in it made it appear as if you were inside a house of mirrors as your reflection never disappeared no matter what you did.

A few days later, Akihiko had discovered that he could extract the reflective properties from the smoke and transform them into crystals. The downside was that it dispersed the smoke unless there was enough of the fog covering the area. It left a sour taste in Kagemi's mouth knowing that his Quirk could be pulled apart and turned into expensive jewels.

Afterward, those two absolutely despised each other. Akihiko because he just hated Kagemi's attitude toward him once that occurred. Kagemi hated Akihiko because his Quirk just happened to compliment the gem's.

They never tried to fix that problem, so it stayed that way even now.

Kagemi had brushed the white with charcoal tipped bangs from his onyx eyes before pushing the rectangular glasses to the bridge of his nose. A confident spark resonated in his irises as the corner of his lip had pointed upward in a smirk. Tanami leaned over a bit to see Kagemi's tamagoyaki sitting innocently in his bento box. She pondered for a second if he would notice her swipe the food from him.

The gem-haired female had no time to think any further as the 'friendly' banter continued to trickle down the drain.

"What are the chances of there being the cruel irony of you seemingly losing your glasses?" Akihiko questioned with his nose scrunching.

Clapping his hands together in a sarcastic manner, Kagemi chuckled half-heartedly with little amusement. "My, my, Aki-kun, you've seemingly lost your bark today, haven't you? It's not up for debate about who is going to win this little conversation of ours, now is it? Come up with a better comeback, will you? Violence is such a tedious retort."

Tanami decided it was high time she swiped the omelet from Kagemi. If she had to listen to these two idiots try to one up each other every day, she should be given the opportunity to snatch their food for relishing in their stupidity. With a mischievous smile, she jabbed her chopsticks at the food.

Sadly, the glasses wearing boy had noticed in the nick of time as he slammed her chopsticks down with his own. The female pouted, retracting her utensils in defeat.

"Nami, you have your own lunch to eat. Don't steal mine." Kagemi informed with a fixed point of his chopsticks.

Tanami drummed her fingertips on the desk. "If I got to deal with you two every single day, I should be paid in return."

"And stealing his food was the answer? I am not complaining as Kage deserves it." Akihiko said before popping a small sausage into his mouth.

"Well, it's not like you have yen to buy me pocky."

The male crystal nearly spat out his food. He managed to chew and swallow properly though. "That is because you have an unhealthy obsession with pocky."

"T-that's-" Tanami stuttered, her almost white cheeks fading into a slight mauve from embarrassment. "Because it goes with my Quirk!"

"Sure." Both responded in an equally dry tone.

Tanami responded by flinging a carrot at both of their heads. Lucky for her that she managed to nail the two of them on the tip of their noses. She flashed them a victorious smile but it quickly fell as she groaned. She promptly slammed her forehead onto the table as she was seemingly ignored by the two males.

With a huff escaping her thin lips, her periwinkle eyes scanned the lunch area with little interest. Much like herself, the entirety of the school population adorned a charcoal blazer, buttoned or unbuttoned, with a white undershirt, and either black and white plaid pants or skirt. All the students were either drowning out the conversations of their friends because they were falling asleep or engaging ecstatically in their random chitchat.

Not too soon after did Kagemi and Akihiko begin their verbal conversation once more. Sometimes Tanami wondered if it was so hard to have a peaceful, normal day without any ruckus or problems or-

Tanami's thought process was quickly interrupted as she witnessed the spiral of the book slam into Kagemi's glasses.

Was it too much to ask for a normal day?

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The dark brown shoes Akihiko wore squeaked with every step he took on the polished ivory tiles. His hands were tucked into the pocket's of his plaid pants. He had just stepped outside of the principal's office after being reprimanded for the last three hours of classes. Why he was in there for too long was mostly due to the fact that he had to wait his turn. Apparently the soccer club had decided to go to war with the baseball team or something like that. Whatever happened had left the goal posts bent and a gigantic hole in the middle of the baseball field.

Releasing a tired sigh, he rolled his left shoulder to make sure his bag did not fall off his shoulder. He should not have been sent to the principles office in the first place. Seriously, it was not his fault that Kagemi thinned his patience enough to chuck his English book at Kagemi's face. It is his fault for not ducking or moving out of the way. He could have dodged.

Akihiko's crystal hair shined a bit as he strode past the empty nurse's office. When he threw the book, it hit the middle of Kagemi's glasses. It was unfortunate that they broke, but on the bright side the shards did not cut his face. Tanami had only stared at him momentarily before shrugging her shoulders and walked off to math class. She was so used to it that she honestly forgot to take Kagemi to the nurse's office that she only realized it when she was halfway to class and bolted back to the cafeteria.

By the time the male twin stepped onto the grey brick road that twisted toward the entrance of the school, the sky had been streaked with purple, magenta, orange, and yellow all blended together to make a beautiful painting. He glanced around. Only a few stray students still lingered on the campus for random reasons. Most of them were in pairs, exhaustion coating their human and or animalistic features.

Once he exited the golden gates, he was greeted by the sight of an irritated Tomohiro. The hero had been leaning on the side of the sleek black car he owned with a slightly hunched posture. His hands were shoved into the depths of the navy blue jacket he wore. A black hat covered the majority of his inky hair. Crimson shoes with grey laces tapped against the cement in a rhythmic pattern.

Tanami was seated in the front passenger seat, shaking the life out of her phone as it appeared to be covered in a black substance. His twin's face was twisted into one of disgust as she would sometimes tilt her head and glare at something in the driver's seat.

Low and behold, Shishi had a smile plastered on its muzzle as it wagged its tail joyfully. Akihiko was just going to assume Shishi ate Tanami's phone and she was trying to get the ink out of the charging port. For some odd reason, Shishi had developed this habit of swallowing electronics for the past year. So much that they have tried to lock all of their electronics away. Unfortunately, that proved to be no good as Shishi can just liquify itself and squeeze through cracks of drawers and cupboards.

More often than not did they wake up with a toaster or blender full of ink.

In the back seat was Kagemi holding a small pack of ice to his nose. His cheeks and bits of his nose were slathered in an irritating shade of red. Since his eyesight was blurry, he could only glare at the seat in front of him while listening to Tanami mutter insults.

Akihiko's eyes trailed back to Tomohiro. The ink-haired male usually preferred to wear the same blank expression with a bit of a frown. It was easy to tell when he was angry or happy though, as he was not the type of person to hold back his facial expressions. However at the current moment, the crystal-haired male could see that his father was more disappointed than mad. Tomohiro's left eyebrow was crooked a bit down, the slight clench of his jaw, and the unimpressed glint in his white irises.

At that moment, the male twin decided to keep his gaze on his shoelaces. He preferred not to be in the way of that look. He hated that look. He preferred Tomohiro be angry instead.

The loud huff of a disappointed sigh left Tomohiro's lips. "Do I need to question why you threw a book at Kagemi?"

"Uh," Akihiko awkwardly tapped the large piece of crystal that framed the side of his face. "...no?"

If the male twin could, he would like to shrink into himself. Today was one of the few days that Tomohiro had a day off from hero work. Most of the time, Tomohiro would leave before the sun rose or after the sun set. Usually, the hero would stumble back home exhausted as the crime rate started to suddenly climb in the last two years. And Akihiko was utterly sure that receiving a call from the school did not make him anywhere near ecstatic.

Gesturing to the car, Tomohiro turned around to walk to the driver's seat without another word. Akihiko followed with little complaint as he opened the car door and seated himself in the seat next to Kagemi. Since the white-and-black-haired boy could hear the other shuffling beside him, he jabbed his heel into the bridge of Akihiko's foot. A cracked yet wheezing sound escaped Akihiko's throat and the urge to jab Kagemi suddenly appeared. That urge vanished quickly as he did not want to be in more trouble than he already was. Tomohiro was already glowering at him through the rearview mirror.

In the front it seemed that Tanami managed to free her phone of any more ink as she huffed in victory. Shoving her phone in her blazer's pocket, she flicked Shishi's forehead. "That's your punishment."

Once she finished that, she turned to Tomohiro who had just drove onto the street. "I understand you're mad at him, but it's not like you don't fight with Kohei-san all the time."

Piping into the conversation, Akihiko said, "Yeah, last week you threw a lamp at the back of his head."

Tomohiro's knuckles began to turn white as they gripped the wheel. "You do not get as say in this. And two, that is because he is a dumbass with only one working brain cell. Perhaps if you hit him hard enough, he will gain a second one."

"Or give him brain damage instead," Kagemi muttered as he leaned back.

"Either one is fine." Tomohiro replied as he pressed on the brake to slow the car to a stop. "But my relationship with Kohei should not be compared to Akihiko and Kagemi's. Your two quirks complement each other. What if you two get paired together in Mizu's tag team exam a week from now?"

Tanami snorted. "They'd both fail that's for sure."

Pressing the ice pack to the bridge of his nose, Kagemi's eyes narrowed. "Oh, did you say something? I couldn't hear it because you're so short."

"Hey! It's not my fault that the two of you are half a foot taller than me!"

"Both of you, quiet." Tomohiro said sternly. "Besides, all three of you know that you will either be paired with a Pillar or a Powerhouse. Akihiko and Tanami with Pillars and Kagemi with a Powerhouse."

"If I'm being paired with a Powerhouse, I hope it's not you," Kagemi declared in a spiteful tone. "I don't want someone who complements my Quirk. That means I'd have to rely on someone else. A team relies on each other, not one to the other."

Petting Shishi in her lap, Tanami looked over her shoulder. "Well, I get what you mean but, you can't do anything if you two get miraculously stuck in a situation where Akihiko has no mirrors or glass or even any of my crystals?"

"Tanami's right," Tomohiro stated. "There may be a time when Akihiko needs to pull the reflective properties from your smoke."

"Oh my gosh! Tomo praised me!" Tanami cheered. "Yay! You're the one in trouble and I'm the one who is not!"

That comment was ignored.

Kagemi allowed a fruitful laughter escaped him. "The day that happens is the day I almost die."

"I would be careful about what you say, Kagemi," Tomohiro warned. "Those words of yours may betray you one day."

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Author's note:

Well, there's the beginning of the actual story. Kagemi is honestly a petty child soooo...

Anyway, if your oc has a certain Quirk, what would complement them?

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