Chapter 13: Midnight's Awakening! The Forbidden Drop and the Coldest Call of My Life!

Nemuri stood in the middle of the gym with her arms crossed, giving Izuku a smile with a playful edge that would've made any ordinary man nervous.

"Right here. Right now," she repeated, stepping forward with a challenging smile. "No pretty speeches, Midoriya-kun. I want to see the professional you claim to be. Prove it to me through action… because if you don't, I'm afraid I'll keep believing you're just a boy with a great talent for talking… and very little to back those words up."

Izuku looked at her for a moment before answering.

"That's fair," he said. "Though I should warn you about a small awkward detail before we start."

"Awkward?" Nemuri tilted her head, the mischievous glint in her eyes lighting up a little more. "Sweetheart, I work dressed as a dominatrix. You're gonna have to try a whole lot harder if you actually want to make me nervous."

"It's not about you, it's about how this works," he replied, scratching the back of his neck. "As you already know, my Quirk needs direct contact. I have to touch the person in order to use it. That's the tricky part."

Nemuri uncrossed her arms and stepped forward until she was right in front of him, hips tilted slightly to one side.

"Direct contact…" she purred. "Well, well… this is starting to get interesting. And tell me something, Midoriya-kun… how exactly did you convince those two anonymous heroines?"

"Professional secret, Midnight-san," Izuku answered without flinching.

She let out a short, delighted laugh. The boy wasn't blushing or stammering, and that alone made him more entertaining than half the adults she knew.

"Mmm… alright, I give up." Nemuri raised her hands with a satisfied smile and struck a pose so exaggeratedly theatrical it looked pulled straight off a magazine cover. "Today I'm all yours, expert. So surprise me… where are you planning to start? Ah, but choose well, alright? Because I'm not gonna miss a single detail. I'll be judging every move you make… and trust me, I'm a pretty demanding judge."

Izuku looked her up and down with more seriousness than the situation required.

Now comes the problem, he thought. With Yu it was easy, all her strength was in her legs, and it was the same with Mirko. But Midnight-san's power doesn't work through muscle. Her Quirk comes from the skin, spreads through the air, so the point where it originates has to be right where her costume shows off the most skin on purpose.

He looked up.

"The chest," he said.

Nemuri blinked, slightly confused.

"Excuse me?"

"Your gas comes from the skin and disperses through the air, right? You told me yourself that your costume shows so much skin so the aroma can release faster," Izuku explained, counting off the points on his fingers, completely enthusiastic. "That means the highest concentration of your power is near the chest. I swear it's completely necessary, Midnight-san."

"Completely necessary," she repeated, and a slow smile grew across her face. "Well, that's a new one. I've been hearing every kind of excuse from men trying to impress me for years… but I gotta admit yours has been one of the most sincere. It almost worries me how little you hesitated before saying it."

"Would you rather I trembled? I can fake it if that makes you feel more comfortable with all this."

"Don't you dare." Nemuri took the last step and, without a shred of embarrassment, grabbed his wrists and guided his hands herself. "I hate cowards. If you're gonna do it, do it with your head held high. Go on. Prove to me that brain of yours is worth everything it brags about."

Izuku's hands closed over the heroine's chest, and the firmness of his grip left no room for the whole thing to look like an accident. Nemuri felt the contact and let out a soft startled sound, more from the boy's confidence than anything else.

"Alright, now listen to me," she said, fully reclaiming control of the situation. "Like I told you before, stop paying attention to me and focus on my Quirk. Forget the rest. I want to check if your Quirk is really capable of boosting mine. So prove it."

"That's exactly what makes me nervous," Izuku admitted. "The only thing I know how to do well is swap bodies, enlarge or shrink things… Everything I've done so far has been by accident, but actually getting into the power itself and wanting to change something… I haven't tried that yet, so I can't promise you anything pretty. I'm gonna focus and we'll see what comes out."

"Then do it, young man." Nemuri smiled confidently. "I'll tell you if I notice anything out of the ordinary. So stop doubting and focus on what you came here to do."

Izuku closed his eyes and sent his Quirk inward, not entirely sure where he was aiming. At first he didn't find anything different from other times, just the familiar warmth rising through his hands.

"Midoriya-kun…?"

Nemuri's voice lost all its usual confidence for an instant.

"…Midoriya-kun, stop. Hold still. What exactly are you supposed to be doing to my Quirk…? No… wait."

She furrowed her brow and looked down, clearly puzzled.

"That feeling… it's coming from my chest. What's happening?"

Izuku opened his eyes and looked down. Under his fingers, Nemuri's bust had grown in size in a matter of seconds.

"Ah… I got carried away. Sorry. My Quirk tends to start by strengthening the body; it's a habit at this point. Give me a second…"

Nemuri arched an eyebrow and let out a brief laugh.

"And now you plan to stop? What nerve, Midoriya-kun. Since you started this mess, finish it properly. But this time focus on my Quirk… and stop enhancing attributes I didn't ask for."

Izuku closed his eyes again, and this time he completely forgot about shape, size, and anything that had to do with chests.

Nemuri felt a shiver run through her body. It didn't come from the skin or the muscles, but from somewhere much deeper, a place whose existence she hadn't even perceived until that moment.

Her Quirk reacted immediately.

The gas started coming out as usual, ready to flood the gym… but suddenly, it stopped. Instead of expanding, the smoke made a sharp turn back on itself and began compressing. Layer after layer, it kept shrinking until there wasn't a single wisp left floating in the air.

All that violet vapor turned into a fine lavender thread that traveled down her arm with an almost hypnotic slowness. It ran along her wrist, reached the tip of her index finger, and there, it finally condensed.

A single drop.

Thick, gleaming, and tinted a soft violet, it trembled on her fingertip as if it concentrated the entire power of her Quirk into that tiny volume.

Both of them went silent.

"Did I do that?" Izuku asked, staring at the drop with wide eyes. "T-this… what is this?"

"No idea…" Nemuri murmured, watching the tip of her finger carefully. Her playful smile had vanished, replaced by a curious expression. "It's… liquid. My Quirk has never worked like this. In all my years as a heroine it's always been a fragrance in gas form; it disperses and disappears. This… is completely different." She looked up at Izuku and recovered part of her usual confidence. "Wait. Before jumping to conclusions, let me check something."

Nemuri took a slow breath and raised her hand in front of her face. She fixed her eyes on that tiny drop and, with a concentration she'd never needed to use her Quirk before, tried to move it as if it were another part of her own body.

The drop responded.

It unraveled into an extremely thin thread of violet mist. But instead of dispersing like it always did, it stayed suspended next to her fingers.

Nemuri turned her wrist slightly to the left.

The thread followed her instantly, obedient, tracing a gentle curve through the air.

She made it return and the mist gathered again over the palm of her hand. Then she pushed it upward. The smoke rose in a perfect spiral, clean, without losing a single bit of its shape.

Never, not once in her entire life, had she achieved control like this over her Quirk.

"Do you see…?" she whispered, eyes locked on the violet cloud. "It's responding to me… Midoriya-kun, it's responding to me! I can direct it at will… Incredible. All this time I just released it and trusted the wind to do the rest."

Izuku finally pulled his hands away, and the heroine didn't even notice, too busy making the drop dance between her fingers.

Then she turned her gaze back to him. Her expression still overflowed with excitement, though a mischievous smile was already starting to appear at the corner of her lips.

"What a hazard you are, Midoriya-kun…" she chuckled. "In one single experiment you've revolutionized my Quirk… and along the way nearly forced me to have my costume let out. If you keep working miracles like this, I'm gonna start booking appointments with you every morning. Now I understand perfectly why there's a certain heroine who doesn't want to let you out of her sight for a single second."

"Well, it turned out way better than I expected," Izuku commented. "And while we're at it, there's something I'm dying to try. Can I touch the drop?"

Nemuri gathered the mist thread back onto her fingertip, where the lavender drop formed again.

"Touch it?" She arched an eyebrow with an amused smile. "Sweetheart, that's my sleeping aroma… but concentrated. Normally it disperses in the air and takes a few seconds to take effect. This condensed…" Her expression turned more serious for an instant. "I can't tell you what will happen. I've never seen it in that state, and trust me, I'm not planning to experiment on myself either."

"That's exactly why," Izuku said, eyes bright with curiosity. "Someone has to find out, and I'd rather it be me than one of your future students by accident."

"You're a really weird kid. I'm starting to like you."

"I hear that a lot."

Before she could stop him, Izuku extended his finger and brushed the drop.

The result was immediate.

"Huh…?!"

Izuku's eyes rolled back, his legs stopped supporting him, and his whole body pitched forward.

"Oh, no…!"

Nemuri reacted on reflex and caught him before he crashed into the floor. The boy ended up collapsed against her, completely unconscious, his face buried in her chest while she held him up by the back.

The lavender drop dissolved in silence and traveled back up her finger until it disappeared under her skin.

Nemuri gave him a couple of soft taps on the cheek.

"Midoriya-kun…? Hey, wake up. Don't tell me you just knocked yourself out with your own experiment… Oh, honestly, what a reckless boy…"

The only response she got was a soft snore and a sleepy mumble against her chest. Izuku was completely knocked out, wearing the face of a satisfied cat pressed against her cleavage.

Nemuri stayed still, and little by little the magnitude of what had just happened began to settle in her head.

My Quirk… it worked through the skin? Did it actually take effect through skin contact?

She let herself drop down to sit on the gym floor, Izuku still settled on top of her, and let out a laugh that bounced through the entire empty hangar.

"Seriously…?" she said to herself, shaking her head with a smile of disbelief. "You erased all my weak points in a single stroke, Midoriya-kun… and now it turns out you fall asleep before you can hear me thank you. What an extraordinary brat."

She brushed a green lock of hair from his forehead, with a movement that was carefully tender.

"Rest, then, you earned it." Nemuri leaned her head against the wall and closed her eyes, a little worn out from the new discovery. "Though I'm warning you right now, the moment you open your eyes, you're gonna return my chest to normal and you're gonna explain very carefully how you expect me to tell the principal about this without it sounding like I let a civilian feel me up in the main gym."

And so the two of them stayed there for a good while, the exhausted heroine and the sleeping boy, in the middle of the silence of UA's largest hangar, celebrating in their own way the birth of a result that neither of them yet knew how to name.

✦ ✦ ✦

Izuku's phone started vibrating against the floor just as he opened one eye, his cheek still resting on a place too comfortable to be prudent. It took him a second to remember where he was, why the ceiling looked so tall, and why his pillow was so comfortable.

"Ah. Midnight-san. Hey."

"Good afternoon, Sleeping Beauty," Nemuri answered, without making the slightest effort to move him. "You slept like a baby. You should answer, it's been ringing for a while."

Izuku stretched out his arm, grabbed the phone, and answered still half dazed from sleep.

"Hello?"

"Miiiidooooriyaaa?!" Yu's voice exploded from the other end, cheerful and purring. "Guess who finally deigned to have a free afternoon. I wrapped up all my hero business, I'm dying of hunger and, worse, of boredom… so I decided to be magnanimous with you. I'm treating you to lunch. Yeah, yeah, I'm paying, don't get too excited. You just show up, keep me company, and while you're at it, carry the bags while we walk around a bit. Consider it an exclusive prize for surviving me all week. Not just anyone can put up with a heroine of my caliber~"

"Ah, sounds awesome, boss," Izuku said, rubbing his eyes. "Honestly, grabbing something to eat would be amazing. Though I'm at UA right now and it's gonna take me a while to get out."

There was a curious pause on the other end.

"At UA?" Yu lowered her tone a bit, still in a good mood, but with the first hint of strangeness. "And what are you doing at UA, if I may ask? Did you go spy on teachers for that weird little notebook of yours?"

"No, nothing like that. I actually accepted a position," he answered, with his usual sincerity. "The principal made me a weird offer, long story, and if it goes well I'll stay working here. Honestly, I'm super happy. Oh, and they assigned me an official supervisor who's gonna be on top of everything I do."

"A supervisor," Yu repeated. "How nice… And who's the lucky lady?"

"Midnight-san," Izuku said, not picking up on where the conversation was heading. "She's my official supervisor now, she gave me a tour of UA, today we did something incredible with her…"

At that point, Nemuri, who'd been listening to every word with a smile, couldn't take it anymore. She gently pushed his head back against her chest to shut him up, and with her other hand covered her own lips to keep from letting out the laugh shaking her shoulders. This boy's social clumsiness was, without a doubt, the most entertaining thing that had happened to her in months.

"Ah, and hey, boss, I just thought of something!" Izuku continued, trying to speak against Nemuri's chest. "Since we're going out to eat, why don't we invite Midnight-san too? That way we can talk about the project stuff all at once, and it'd also be another chance for you two to hang out as friends."

Silence.

Nemuri felt the shift in the air even without hearing the other voice.

"…Yu?" Izuku asked, pulling back a little from Midnight's chest. "You still there? The call cut out or something, I don't hear anything."

When Yu finally spoke, all the bubbly cheerfulness from a minute ago was gone, replaced by a low, cold tone that would've frozen the blood of anyone who wasn't half asleep.

"Where."

********

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