Chapter 6: 5 – Dad Jokes & Sad Folks

On one side of the room sits Makoto and Zuri. Makoto sits with his head in his hands and Zuri is rubbing his back with a disappointed look on her face. Kasumi is sitting on a chair on the other side facing them with an embarrassed blush on her face. Her dad looks up at her and sighs,

"Haaaah… Kasumi… I think it's time we had 'The Talk.'"

*SMACK!*

Zuri smacks the back of his head,

"THE HELL YOU ARE! Kasumi, what this doofus means is that eating metal is bad for your teeth, so please don't do that anymore. Kay?"

Kasumi shakes her head and wonders what 'The Talk' could entail,

"Mom, it's because of my quirk. When I get low on iron, some metals start smelling like steak! When I was in the park, I was practicing on a big boulder with my punches, and all of a sudden I got really hungry and ate all of the iron pills. I guess that wasn't enough because I was still really hungry. I smelled the same smell coming from the rock I was using to train, so… I ate the iron from the rock… And I think it caused a mini-awakening."

Kasumi shows them her fingers. All of her fingers and halfway down her palm is slightly bronze-tinged.

"Oi, twerp, why'd you get a spray-tan?"

Makoto makes a dad joke, while Zuri's eyes get filled with stars.

"HAAAAAH! MY DAUGHTER IS GONNA BE THE BEST HERO!"

Zuri jumps up and grabs Kasumi's hands, feeling her fingers. Her fingers feel like regular skin, but when pressed on they don't give way at all. Like solid metal. Kasumi gave her mom a glance of confusion and started talking again,

"Umm, yeah… Anyways, this also changed the Mystic Hands to be bronze colored, they're also bigger."

She summons the energy and just has it float.

Something she found out is that just having the energy out costs nothing, but using it actively; as in, punching, grabbing, or pushing, uses iron.

She goes to her room and takes out a piece of bronze. She holds it in the energy and crushes it like a weirdo who likes squeezing butter. She takes the bronze and starts munching on it, which causes her mom and dad to try to smack it out of her hand. However; due to her powering up, Kasumi is incredible amounts stronger and more dexterous. She simply moves out of the way as her parents feel as if they're moving in slow motion. Kasumi stuffs the ingot in her mouth and swallows it, with the color on her hand moves up even more towards her wrists.

Eventually, after many hours of back and forth, her parents relent. Her display that her weird eating habits actually help her… helped her case. After a visit to the doctor, they confirmed that her body seems to somehow convert other metals into differing amounts of iron. Eating a piece of bronze was equal to about five iron, eating a piece of silver was equal to about twenty iron, and a piece of gold was about one hundred iron. Her parents couldn't get their hands on any platinum in time for the appointment, so they couldn't test that. The doctor hypothesized that any time she experiences uncontrollable hunger and eats literal tonnes of metal, her quirk will go through pseudo-awakenings. They believe that, considering the metals she likes to horde, silver is next. This led to Kasumi's parents buying her more silver and bronze than other ingots.

For the next two years, Kasumi ate bronze and silver exclusively (except meals cuz she does need to eat actual food).

—--------- Two Years Later —---------

Kasumi is walking home from school with Uraraka, humming All Might's theme song from the YouTube channel she watches.

"You're really obsessed with heroes, huh?"

Kasumi nods her head,

"Indeed I am U-chan. Unlike SOMEONE I want to be a hero to save people."

Uraraka's face gets red as she yells out,

"I wanna save people too! It's just that the money will help my parents out…"

Kasumi rustles Uraraka's hair and gives her a big toothy smile,

"I know U-chan, I'm just messing with you!"

[BREAKING NEWS: WATER HO- ZZT]

"Stupid thing, work for once!"

Kasumi hears Water Hose's name being said on a radio in a nearby food stand. She immediately gets a bad feeling and stands still with a blank look on her face.

[THE VILL- ZZT -INJURED HIS- ZZT -ILL AT LAR- ZZT]

Thinking that this just means Water Hose injured a villain who managed to get away, Kasumi breathes out a sigh of relief, unaware of how visibly shaken she was. Uraraka looks up at Kasumi, who is about five inches taller than her, with worry. She also feels relief when Kasumi goes back to normal, but decides to come over to her house just in case.

All the way there, they hear people talking about Water Hose.

'Wow, they must have injured and scared off an S-rank villain for people to talk about them so much!'

Despite Kasumi reassuring herself in her mind, deep down she knew she was wrong. Her hands were shaking, her heart was threatening to break her ribs, and she was sweating enough to fill a bathtub. Her breathing was irregular, and she felt like she was getting lightheaded. By the time Uraraka and Kasumi got to Kasumi's house, Uraraka was having to help her stand. When they got through the front door, Kasumi's parents were standing in front of the TV. Zuri was standing with her hands over her mouth, and Makoto was rubbing the back of his head.

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[BREAKING NEWS: WATER HOSE KILLED IN THE LINE OF DUTY!]

Kasumi freezes. Her parents look over at her and notice her haggard appearance. Zuri runs over to her and hugs her tightly.

"Th-th-they're lying, r-r-right mommy?"

Zuri holds her tightly with tears coming from her eyes.

"They're lying, right daddy?"

Makoto walks over and wraps his arms around the two.

"Uraraka, they're lying right?"

Uraraka puts a hand on her shoulder and cries along with her parents.

Suddenly, Kasumi's eyes glaze over and she passes out.

—---------------------

Kasumi wakes up and looks around. She's in an alley, surrounded by trash and rat corpses. She stands up, almost feeling at home, and walks towards the street. As she gets to the sidewalk, someone blindsides her, kicking her in the head. She falls over and hits her head on the wall beside her. The dream shifts to a dirty house with several empty glass bottles around. She tries to get up from the wall, but is hit in the head by a flying glass bottle. A man stands up and starts yelling at her, but she can't understand what he's saying. She tries summoning the Mystic Hands, but realizes she no longer feels connected to them. She realizes blood is flowing from her head as she tries to stand up again, but falls back once more.

As she opens her eyes again, she's sitting with her back to a dumpster. She had blood on her hands and mouth as she looks up, in front of her is a dead rotting dog. She's been eating the dog raw. As she stands up, another person comes up to her. A homeless man. He walks towards her with a broken bottle in his hand. He swings at her wildly, missing her entirely as she dodges out of the way. She tries summoning the hands again but can't. She punches his stomach as he keels over, unmoving. She gets further away and picks up a long pipe. She pokes him, but he doesn't move. She walks over to him and flips him over.

His stomach is covered in blood. Apparently, he had something wrong with his stomach and wherever she punched was a weak point in his body. He's dead.

Kasumi feels her hands start shaking as she looks at the blood on her hands. She starts running, where? She doesn't care. She runs further and further and further away, not noticing the scenery around her changing from disgusting back alleys, to nice looking streets, to a comfortable house, to a dirty house. She keeps running. She doesn't understand what happened to her. This dream feels almost normal to her, like she's lived all of this before. Eventually, she runs into a wall. Behind her is a long brick hallway with no openings anywhere in sight. The hallway goes as long as the eye can see, ending with a cloud of fog.

Out of the fog, the angry man who kicked her for coming out onto the streets walks towards her. The man who threw a bottle at her comes next, then the homeless man she killed walks towards her like a zombie.

The dog she ate.

The woman she stole from.

The homeless kid she had to fight for food who ended up dying from a brain hemorrhage.

The man who tried to rape her that she stabbed.

The policeman who tried to arrest her for stabbing the rapist.

And several other dozen people all walk towards her.

She starts trying to climb the wall, but it quickly turns into a solid concrete surface.

She starts punching it, over and over and over again. Every time she punches, her hands get more and more bloody. She keeps punching, even past her skin on her hands sticking to the wall and coming off her hand. She punches with her boney knuckles, ignoring the pain.

The homeless man she killed is about four feet away from her now, reaching towards her with dead eyes.

She yells out wildly and rears back her hand.

Her eyes glow with a silver light, and her hands are covered with silver energy. She shoots her hand forward.

*BOOM!*

The wall crumbles and the figures that were chasing her disappear. On the other side of the broken wall are her parents. They both are smiling at her warmly. She runs over to them with tears falling from her eyes. Her figure changes from that of a 9 year old malnutritioned girl to a healthy 13 year old girl. She falls to her knees in front of her parents and gets wrapped in a warm hug. Her dad holds her tightly to him and she hugs him back.

"Daddy… Mommy…"

The family sits in a black space alone, wrapped in a warm hug.

In the darkness stands a woman with blonde hair. Tears flow from her eyes as she clutches her chest and falls to her knees.

"Thank you…"

She says to no one.

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