Chapter 4: The Ashen Quirk
Their entire small family: Teruko, Kurose, and the already five-year-old Nobu with Nezu. Teruko especially hoped for the speedy manifestation of Nobu's quirk, and then they would finally be able to leave this run-down village. However, by his fifth birthday, this had not happened, at least there were no signs of uncontrolled activation or awakening. While Nobu was sometimes bullied, and Nezu stood up for him several times, he understood the nature of people, earlier he tried to solve the riddle, but it turns out there is nothing to solve - they are just people. He stopped trying to be in the group and detached himself.
"Nezu is my hero."
During all this time, Teruko was able to save up a small amount and gave it to the girl. It was decided to say goodbye, because she is not Himura, of course, she did not tell her this. And she also planned to get rid of Nezu: "But it seems that Nezu will be a good company for Nobu." Because the cunning woman started telling fairy tales and convinced the girl that she couldn't provide for her on her own, so she dumped her far away. The old woman cruelly and cynically used and threw away the girl like a toy, even though she gave her a chance at a heroic career. This is the character of the members of the Himura house. Maybe it is because of this that the clan awaits final oblivion.
"They spend more and more time together." the old woman thought about Nezu and Nobu. Kurose and Teruko went to the city, and she simply showed up after years of disappearance in the city services, a real furor occurred. A real sensation and a bunch of journalists, while Teruko stood aside from everyone.
"The girl who survived an accident on the highway five years ago showed up!" - was depicted on the new newspaper "NewHeroTimes". For her, it was all new, a lot of responsibility and the collapsed red tape practically erased the particles of separation from Nobu and her grandmother.
There was a special fund responsible for victims of accidents and villainy, sponsored by a hero who had suddenly gained popularity - Allmite. Kurose was hit by a huge boulder of popularity, people felt sorry for her and the reputation of a victim was fixed on her. After analyzing her quirk, the doctors were horrified by such a destructive force, they immediately reported to the heroes, so she also got into the range of attention of the special services and heroes.
Instead of a typical shelter, she was sent to study in a private school of a heroic profile for unique quirks, often graduates of this institution become heroes. Much later, it will become known as "Thirteen".
Separation had a strange effect on Nobu. He was not sad, as people usually do. But he expressed his thoughts to his grandmother, the idea of visiting the city, seeing heroes, people, culture. To which she replied: "Everything has its time, patience my dear." Unfortunately, heroic culture is as fragile as an eggshell if you press it in the right place.
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Teruko stopped working in the field, most often troubling herself with simple cleaning around the house. All responsibilities fell on Nobu. Last time, Grandma brought a lot of books from the city, among them somehow were books on astronomy, mathematics and physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, geography - a little bit of everything, general education, even English. Looking at how easily and quickly the boy assimilated the material, and also realized that Nobu's favorite habit - dissecting animals is not at all due to a trait of sadism, but pure childish curiosity, did not manifest itself for a long time, but it left its traces. Curiosity did not disappear at all, so she decided to somehow compensate and throw firewood into the young, flexible mind.
Studying and working were all that was left to do during his time in the village.
Nezu read all of these books himself and was very inspired, he spent a lot of time with Nobu, they talked and shared information on various topics. Not only did the boy speak better, his diction, speech structure, and stress were perfect. Nezu truly discovered a talent for teaching, so easily presenting complex material with simple comparisons. Nobu and Nezu now knew Japanese and English well.
However, Nezu himself was still cautious with other people, even with Teruko. Only this boy aroused pride, respect, and even affection in him, as well as mystery, he did not notice such things in ordinary people, but Nobu did not have that spark that is inherent in every child who wants to become a unique and popular hero.
One day, Nobu was thinking alone in a clearing and wondered, "I wonder why my grandmother treats me more gently than others? But these spontaneous outbursts of anger..." With Nezu, they came to the conclusion that it was bipolar disorder. Nobu felt a burning sensation on his skin while under the sun, but he wanted to lie down a little longer, but with each passing minute the pain grew until it became unbearable. This heat that fell on him was quite pleasant, but at the same time it brought pain. Unnoticed by Nobu's eyes, the heat in a certain area around his body began to flow into his body, thereby cooling the surrounding air.
When the pleasant warmth began to disappear, he became indignant.
"Why did it become so cool-pleasantly?"
Nobu picked up a stone, which had been lying next to him in the clearing all this time, but it was cold. "What?!" He threw the stone away in shock. If it had been any other child his age, he would not have noticed the difference. However, it was Nobu, and at the zenith, a stone that had been lying under the scorching sun the entire time, and for it to feel like it was about zero degrees Celsius. "Impossible! Stones, and any other thing, when under the sun, became very warm, sometimes even too hot."
Going into the shadows of the forest, he rushed to wander through it, thinking about the feeling of warmth and the stone, being under the sun's harsh rays. The sun is also associated with the sun goddess Amaterasu, whom he read about in an old book, unfortunately, it soon disintegrated into almost dust after reading. "It didn't seem so fragile that it would turn into trash after reading. Maybe it was cursed?" Even though he doubted the existence of curses, he did not deny that this moment was extremely strange.
The book mentioned a quote: "The Imperial family were descendants of the goddess Amaterasu, who bestowed upon their family a Divine gift that would only be fully manifested in a true descendant." There were no more details. "What if this gift is some special quirk? Too much time has passed since then, it is highly unlikely. And quirks appeared only relatively recently in human history."
"Wait, what if this stone was a manifestation of my quirk?" Nobu could not resist and spoke out loud. No one heard him, and his voice spread among the shadows of the forest. Sitting under a tree, he thought and analyzed what had happened. "Obviously, this was not an accident." Nobu picked up other stones lying under the sun and the tree, comparing them with each other. "Because I'm holding another stone, and it's quite warm, and the one that was in the forest under the shade was just cool." Nobu threw both stones away.
"Hm, could this be an ability that affects consciousness? Including mine…" Nobu said it quietly so that no one would hear. Suddenly, there were quirks that could listen not only to words, but also to thoughts, and it made him sick. "For someone to eavesdrop on thoughts? So far, I can't protect my mind or body from this. Can this be called healthy paranoia?"
"Quirks have weaknesses, but I know too little to say anything, obviously there are not just limits, but weaknesses, and from what I've observed, they manifest themselves in limited time of use or area of application, activation conditions."
The longer he thought, the more he understood and realized. It could be assumed that Nobu realized himself as a mind at the age of five. It was an analytical style of thinking that had formed within Nobu, sometimes it would run counter to his emotional spectrum, creating a chaotic mess.
In his mind, Nobu was the master, so he couldn't create an illusion for himself to deceive himself. "Most likely, it was a one-time manifestation of a quirk due to its fleeting awakening, affecting the material world..."
"...which I could have missed and not noticed..."
- Next. - He looked at the well and headed towards it to confirm the possible nature of the quirk. "It is definitely related to heat, because the heat disappeared from the stone and that feeling of warmth in the body was quite strange, almost imperceptible"
In the philosophical movement, this method of study is called empiricism, however, unlike scientists, Nobu was not one, but he knew that knowledge is not limited to sensory experience. There is matter and non-matter, interacting and non-interacting. Everything. Maybe this is how the quirks appeared, a person was simply able to interact with it one day.
Having collected one bucket of water, he went to the shade, so that the sun would not scorch. Having filled his palms with water, he sat down on the grass and began to wait, holding his palms open in front of him. After some time, Nobu felt a tingling sensation in his hands, then his chest and then his entire body, a moment later the water in his palms boiled, even the one in the wooden bucket, and the air around him suddenly heated up so much that it became difficult to breathe.
Steam appeared, the water evaporated. The grass around Nobu withered from the evaporation of the liquids inside it and caught fire. "Hey, stop it!" the boy suffering from albinism was shocked, but it was also necessary to act to avoid harmful consequences. While he felt how the heat inside stopped coming out - half of the bucket evaporated, and there was scorched grass around, a minute later a small cloud of moisture appeared in the sky.
For the first time in his life, a genuine smile appeared on his face. "There's a lot you can do with this."