The Marked Trajectory

Morning started with Koji oversleeping. No, really. That ginger electric whisk of a guy, who usually sprang up at the bang of a ladle on the door and started tearing around the room, flailing his ridiculously long fingers, was today simply conked out. Blanket hanging off onto the floor, drooling on his pillow. I stood over his bunk, arms crossed, and considered my options. I could, of course, show mercy. Let the guy sleep. After all, yesterday he'd done a fair bit of sprinting around the beach, dodging my projectiles. Ha, "dodging" was a strong word. Mostly he just tore in circles yelling, "Miss, Seiha, miss!" until the rubber found his backside on its own. But mercy isn't my forte. "Koji," I called softly. Zero reaction. Just snuffling back at me. "Koji, get up. They're handing out free mochi in the kitchen." He snorted and rolled onto his other side, mumbling something unintelligible. I think I caught the word "anko." I sighed. Well, you asked for it. Pulling the glove off my right hand, I lightly touched his forehead with my fingertips. Purely symbolic. The Mark settled instantly. Then I scooped Koji's crumpled sock off the floor — filthy, naturally, he didn't own any other kind — and, with a sense of deep moral satisfaction, hurled it at the opposite wall. The sock traced a beautiful arc, flipped in mid-air, curved around Takumi's scarf hanging on the line, and landed with a wet smack square on the ginger's face. "MMMFPHMM?!" Koji shot up like he'd been stung, flailing his arms and spitting. "What the— Ugh, Seiha! That's my sock!" "Yep," I agreed, pulling my glove back on. "And it was pining for its owner. Positively aching with longing. I merely helped it reunite with its beloved face." "You're sick!" He hurled the sock back at me, but without the quirk, it just pathetically flopped onto the floor a meter away. "I thought we were friends!" "Friends wake friends up in the morning," I pronounced didactically. "Come on. Today's training hits a new level." Koji rubbed his eyes and stared at me with suspicion. "A new level — where you throw something more dangerous instead of chunks of rubber?" "You could say that," I smirked, already pulling on my training jacket. "Today we'll be throwing... me." Silence fell over the room. Even the usually unflappable Ryohei looked up from what he was doing — changing his skin color from pale pink to bright green, training, apparently — and stared at me with an expression that said, "have you completely lost your mind?" Takumi, reading a book in the corner, just shook his head and turned a page. "You?" Koji repeated slowly, as if tasting the word. "So... you want me to throw you?" "No, dummy. I want to throw myself. You're on backup." "What's the difference?!" "The difference is who exactly flies headfirst into piles of scrap metal," I clarified. "Spoiler: it'll be me. You just make sure I don't have to be scraped off the beach in pieces afterward." "That's not very reassuring, you know." "It's not meant to be reassuring. It's meant to work. Theoretically." Koji shuddered. The word "theoretically" in my delivery apparently didn't inspire trust in him. Well, the guy had good instincts.

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Dagobah Beach greeted us with the same old picture: mountains of trash, the smell of rust and salt, the cries of seagulls. My training labyrinth, lovingly assembled from old junk and plywood, stood where I'd left it. Supervisor Honda-san let us go in peace, just seeing us off with the signature stare of her three-hundred-sixty-degree eyes. It seemed everyone had already resigned themselves to the fact that I'd find a way to sneak off to train anyway, so they preferred to control the process through Koji, even if he was an airhead. Having received the official status of "the psycho's supervisor" yesterday, he was now carrying it around like a title of honor. "Right, here's the deal," I tossed my jacket onto the sand and surveyed the work ahead. "Watch closely." With those words, I walked over to an old, massive door sticking out forlornly from a pile of construction debris. Wooden, edged with rusted metal, with remnants of peeling paint. It looked like it had been hauled out of a house that, fifty years ago, had survived a fire, a flood, and a visit from a particularly high-strung tax collector. On the plus side, the surface was flat — roomy enough for four to sit on. And it weighed a decent amount; thirty kilos, easy. I laid my right palm on the door, already gloveless, and focused. I'd pre-assigned the target: an old rusted-out car husk about twenty meters away. A single effort of will, and the door shuddered. "Seiha," Koji called cautiously, backing away. "Are you sure you—" "Shut up and watch." I opened my fingers. The door twitched, lifted off the sand, and hurtled toward the target. Have you ever seen thirty kilos of wood and rusted metal fly through the air with the grace of a drunk rhinoceros? The sight was mesmerizing. The door slammed into the car husk with such a crash that a couple of tin cans slid off the nearest trash heap. The seagulls panicked and fled far away with indignant shrieks. An impressive dent remained in the husk's body. "Cool!" Koji marveled. "Now what? You gonna train throwing concrete slabs? 'Cause honestly, I'm not sure I can dodge—" "Now," I cut him off, "I fly with the door." A pause. "Say what?" "You see, Koji," I sat down on the wreck of some engine and began thinking out loud, which usually scared him even more. "My quirk has an interesting property. Everything I throw with a marked hand flies to the target. Question: what exactly counts as a 'thrown object'? Does my perception determine that? And if so, can I consider 'myself' the projectile?" "Wait, wait," Koji shook his head so vigorously that his ginger mop whipped across his face. "You want to grab onto something bulky and... fly along with it? Like a magic carpet?" "Well, not quite like a carpet. More like an unguided rocket flying the shortest path to the target. But yeah, you've grasped the general principle." "That's insane!" "It's an experiment. And I intend to conduct it. Right now." "Seiha," Koji came closer and looked me in the eye. Serious now, without his usual fooling around. "Are you even in your right mind? You'll get yourself killed." "Nope. The beach is covered in junk. I'll aim for big piles of soft garbage — old mattresses, heaps of rags, that sort of thing. A couple of bruises at most. Frankly, bruises don't scare me." "And what if you miss? What if the door flies differently than you think?" "That's why you're here," I clapped him on the shoulder. "If anything goes wrong — run for help. Or catch me. Your fingers are long; maybe you'll reach." Koji looked at his hands. Then at me. Then at his hands again. And sighed heavily, with that particular expression people get when they're suddenly entrusted with looking after a madman. "You know, when I volunteered to be your supervisor, I thought I'd just be watching you throw junk around." "Boring." "But safe!" "Safety is the enemy of progress," I declared. "So, ready to roll?"

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I decided to conduct the first experiment with maximum precautions. "The target — that pile of rags over there," I pointed at a heap of old clothes, blankets, and assorted tatters about fifteen meters away. "The projectile... let's use that piece of plywood over there. Not too heavy, for a trial run." The plywood was so-so: a big sheet, cracked along the edges, but overall solid. On my way to it, I plunged my hand into the depths of the rags, planting a Mark. Then, with a springy stride, I walked over to the plywood. Now for the interesting part. If I just pushed the plywood, it would fly off. I needed to grip it — firmly, but in such a way that the quirk still considered it the "projectile" and not "a part of me holding an object." The line was razor-thin. Last time, when I just touched objects, everything worked. But then I hadn't tried to fly along with them. "On three," I announced. "One..." "Seiha, maybe don't?" Koji whined pitifully. "Two..." "I'm serious!" "Three!" I squeezed the plywood sheet with both hands, simultaneously giving the quirk a mental command: This is the projectile. Fly to the target. The plywood jerked. I was yanked after it. For a brief moment, I genuinely flew — five meters, at least! The air whistled in my ears, my stomach dropped somewhere into my heels, and my whole life flashed before my eyes. Well, not my whole life — just the last few days — but still something. And then the plywood flipped in mid-air. I lost my grip, tumbled head over heels, and landed flat on my back in the very pile of rags I'd aimed for. Soft, I have to admit. Almost like a featherbed. Except my mouth filled with some kind of dust, and an old t-shirt reading "Best Dad" got tangled in my hair. "SEIHA!" Koji ran up to me, waving his arms. "Are you alive?! Did you break anything?!" "Alive," I sat up, spitting out dust. "And didn't break anything. Though we seem to have lost the plywood." The plywood sheet, having done its duty, had slammed into the rag pile next to me and now stuck out forlornly, like a gravestone. "Astounding," I muttered, prodding my ribs. "It works. It actually works!" "You flew five meters and crashed," Koji reminded me. "That's not 'works,' that's 'miraculously didn't die.'" "Nonsense. I flew five meters, fell into something soft, and stayed in one piece. That's a success." "You have very strange criteria for success." I got to my feet and dusted myself off. Okay, let's analyze. What went wrong? The plywood was light; the airflow flipped it. My grip wasn't strong enough. I needed something heavier, sturdier. Something that wouldn't spin in flight. And I needed to hold on with both hands. Or better yet — not hold on at all. Like Vander Decken's Noah; he just sat on the ship, and the ship flew. But for that, the projectile needs to be big enough for me to ride it, not hang off it. I scanned the beach. My gaze caught on an old, battered sofa with no legs. Green upholstery, singed in places, springs poking out. Perfect. "This one," I said. Koji followed my gaze and groaned. "Oh no. Please tell me you're not going to..." "I am."

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Dragging the sofa to the launch site turned out to be a whole ordeal. It weighed a ton and kept snagging on junk. Koji huffed, helped, and periodically cursed under his breath. I pretended not to hear — his entire arsenal of swear words was laughably childish anyway. "'Poopy' isn't a swear word, Koji." "I think it very much is. If there's an actual poopy stuck in the sofa, then it's an entirely accurate description of the situation!" To be fair, something suspicious was indeed stuck in the sofa. But I chose not to sniff around. At last, we set the projectile in position. I sat down in the center of the sofa, legs crossed, like a meditating monk. For the full picture, I only lacked an orange robe. The Mark — this time I placed it on a pile of mattresses about ten meters away. Right hand touching the sofa's backrest. "Listen, Seiha..." Koji stood off to the side, nervously shifting from foot to foot. "Maybe we could at least rig up a helmet? Or tie a pillow to your head?" "Too late to think about protection when you're sitting on the projectile," I observed philosophically. "Ready?" "No!" "Excellent. Here we go." I commanded the sofa to fly. The sensation was... strange. The sofa jerked at first, like it was alive — the springs creaked piteously, the upholstery crackled. And then it simply tore from the spot. Not smoothly, not gently — a violent jolt, as if someone gigantic had kicked it from behind. I was pressed into the sagging seat, the wind struck my face. We covered ten meters in a couple of seconds. The landing was hard. Very hard. The sofa crashed into the pile of mattresses, I was thrown upward, and I executed an unscheduled flight over the backrest — straight into a mountain of rags. This time, it wasn't a t-shirt that landed on my head but an old brassiere. The size of a small parachute. Apparently, the former owner could boast of impressive... dimensions. "This is a historic moment!" I hollered, surfacing from under the heap of rags. "The first controlled human flight on a sofa using a quirk! Where are the cameras?! Where are the reporters?!" "You're an idiot!" Koji yelled, running up. "You're an absolutely insane, thickheaded idiot! Your spine! Is it intact?!" I stirred. My back ached, my ribs protested, and my left knee was clearly signaling its disapproval of my life choices. But all in all — tolerable. "Spine's intact, intact. I'll live. But we need to do that again." "WHAT?!" "No, you don't get it. The sofa flies. I'm on the sofa. I reach the target. The problem is I can't control the flight — only the destination point. And the landing itself turns out... hm... excessively energetic. I need a way to cancel inertia. Or to maneuver. Or both." I fell silent. A thought began to stir in my head. Two hands. Two Marks. I could, of course, use one for a target ahead, the second for a target behind. Launch two projectiles: one pulls me toward the enemy, the second pulls me back — brakes me. But that only works if both targets are stationary. Like in training — mattresses and a fridge. In a real fight, a villain won't stand there like a post. He'll move. And if he shifts sideways, the "brake" behind me becomes useless. Worse — if the villain ends up on the same line as my braking projectile, I'll just be pulled by two forces in the same direction. I'll fly past the target like a terrified hamster out of a slingshot. No. Two stationary targets are a dead end. What about reassigning the Mark mid-flight? Physically. Touching a new target with my hand at the moment of approach. Say, I'm flying on the sofa, and the enemy dodges. I erase the old Mark by touching some object and immediately touch a new target. A wall next to him, at least. Then the sofa changes course. Wait! I tried to picture myself reaching for a wall with my bare palm at full speed. Crunching fingers, a fractured wrist, somersaulting headfirst into the asphalt. No, that won't work. At those speeds, touching hard surfaces is a guaranteed way to lose your hands. "What are you thinking about?" Koji noticed I'd zoned out. "About me being an idiot," I admitted honestly. "Reassigning a Mark by touch in mid-flight is suicide. At speed, I'll just smash my hand against any surface I try to reach." "Well..." Koji considered. "What if you don't touch a wall but something soft?" "In a fight, soft stuff won't always be at hand. And even something soft at speed can dislocate fingers." "Then what?" I paused. A thought was worming around somewhere at the back of my mind, still unformed. What if I don't touch things directly? What if I use an intermediary? Some kind of cable with a hook on the end that I can hurl at a target — it sticks in, and the touch transmits through it? Or a long pole with a bare end that I hold with my bare hand? Technically I'm touching the pole, the pole touches the target — does that count as a touch? I have no idea. The original fruit definitely didn't work like that, but maybe Vander Decken just never thought of it? But if I hold a conductor that acts as an extension of my hand... That needs testing. But not today. "I don't know yet," I said aloud. "Got to think. Maybe use something as an extension of my hand. A cable, a pole, a chain — something I hold with my bare palm that touches the target for me. But that's a whole separate topic for experiments." "So for now, you can't maneuver in the air?" "In the air — no," I admitted. "On the ground I can reassign Marks by touch while running. I can use two Marks from two hands on stationary targets. That's the foundation. Aerial maneuvering is the next level. I'll get there, just not today." "That," Koji jabbed a finger at me, "is the most sensible sentence I've heard from you all day. Just for the record." "Write it down. Might not happen again." "Not reassuring." We agreed to revisit the issue of aerial maneuvering later. We both understood: flying at speed and touching something with a bare hand is a surefire way to end up fingerless. Either an intermediary or a whole different approach is needed. But not today. "So for now, we only fly in a straight line?" Koji clarified. "For now, straight line," I nodded. "But even that's not bad. The main thing is to learn how to dismount smoothly before the target turns me into a meat patty." We chased the sofa around a bit more — just to get the hang of it. I got used to the jolt at launch, learned to tuck in mid-flight, and to slip off the sofa at the very last moment. By the end of the session, I wasn't falling anymore — I was rolling quite controllably across the sand next to the mattresses. Koji even stopped flinching; either he'd gotten used to it, or he'd resigned himself to the inevitable. When the sun began dipping toward the horizon, I realized it was time to wrap up. My muscles ached, and my jacket had split at the seam. But inside, pure, unclouded satisfaction was bubbling. Today, for the first time in this life, I had truly flown. And even if only in a straight line for now — it was enough to feel it: the sky is closer than it seems. "Tomorrow we continue," I said, gathering up my gloves. "Thanks, Koji." "For what?" He raised his eyebrows in surprise. "For not running off. For spotting me. For... well, just being here. Training alone is way more boring." He smiled — wide, open, genuine. "Ah, it's nothing. I'm your supervisor, right? If you get yourself killed, Honda-san will chew me out. And her eagle eye sees everything. Even what you're doing in your thoughts. She's terrifying, honestly." "I know," I smirked. "But you're still a champ." "Hey, Seiha..." He hesitated. "Can I ask something? Honestly." "Shoot." "Your quirk... what you're doing with it now. This flying... Did you come up with that yourself?" "Well..." I paused. I didn't want to lie, but I couldn't tell the truth either. "Let's just say, I had some inspiration. A story I once heard. There was this guy in it who used a very similar ability. Though he mostly chased a girl, but that's beside the point. The main thing — I understood that any quirk can be awesome if you use your head about it." "Any?" Koji looked at his hands. His fingers elongated slightly, then retracted. "Even mine?" "Even yours. Have you ever tried fighting with your fingers? Not just reaching for stuff, but, say, delivering pinpoint strikes? Or grabbing an opponent's legs from a distance? Or..." "Alright, alright, enough!" He held his hands out. "You've got more ideas than I have guts to try them." "No worries," I clapped him on the shoulder. "Time will come — we'll workshop your quirk too. But for now... let's head home before Honda-san puts out an APB on us."

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We got back to the children's home after dark. Tired, dirty, reeking of the trash beach. Honda-san met us at the entrance. Her three-hundred-sixty-degree gaze seemed to x-ray us through and through — from our tangled hair to our grimy sneakers. She was, as always, still knitting — something long, gray, endless, like eternity itself. "Kaburaya," she pronounced in her creaky voice. "The superintendent wants to see you." I froze. Koji froze too. We exchanged a look. "Uh... what for?" I asked cautiously. "We didn't break any rules. The training was approved, the supervisor was present..." "Not for disciplinary action," Honda-san cut me off, not looking up from her knitting. The needles flickered in her fingers at some unnatural speed. "Regarding your schooling. The superintendent is waiting." Schooling? Oh, right. School. They did tell me — about a week and a half, two weeks after discharge. I mentally ran through the dates. Yeah, it was probably time. "Understood," I said. "I'll just clean myself up and—" "Immediately," Honda-san clipped. "Go as you are. The superintendent does not like to be kept waiting." Well then. So I'd be presenting myself to the management covered in sand, rust, and with a parachute-sized brassiere in my hair. Wait a second... I hastily ran a hand through my hair. No brassiere. Small mercies. "I'm coming with you," Koji stepped forward. "Unnecessary," Honda-san didn't even turn her head. "Wait in the room. Kaburaya, go." I shrugged and headed to the superintendent's office. Well, let's see what kind of surprise awaits me this time. Maybe it's for the best that I'm filthy — gives me an excuse to blame my battered appearance on rigorous training rather than experimental sofa flights.

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"Kaburaya Seiha," he said. The voice matched the appearance — low, tired, but with an undercurrent of steel. "Sit down." I sat on the chair in front of his desk. I tried to appear calm, but inside I was already running through the possibilities. What was this conversation going to be about? "You have been on home study since your placement at Tsuin Sandzu-en," the superintendent began without preamble. "That was a temporary measure. An adjustment period following your hospitalization. However, your physical and psychological condition no longer raises concerns. The doctor has submitted a report; the social worker, Tanaka-san, has signed the referral. Starting tomorrow, you will attend school." I blinked. Tomorrow? They move fast. Though, on the other hand, why drag it out? Nearly two weeks have passed, I'm already training full throttle, I've adapted. Time to get behind a desk. "Right," I said. "And where exactly am I going?" The superintendent flipped over a sheet of paper on his desk and squinted short-sightedly: "Aldera Junior High. It's in our district. Classes begin tomorrow at eight-thirty. You will be issued a uniform, textbooks, and everything necessary. Questions?" Aldera. "Orudera," as I'd mentally dubbed it. The very school where... wait. Aldera. That's Izuku Midoriya's school. And Katsuki Bakugo's. I wonder, are they already attending or still in elementary? Assuming they even went to this school. I remembered the canon poorly, but something along those lines rang a bell. "Aldera," I repeated, tasting the name. "Sounds like some fantasy RPG guild. 'The Aldera Adventurers.' 'The Aldera Warriors.' 'The Aldera Bureaucrats'..." "The school is named after a tree," the superintendent remarked dryly. "Kindly take this seriously." "Of course, of course. No questions." "Very well. Tomorrow at seven a.m. you will report to Honda-san; she will issue your uniform. A teacher will escort you to your classroom. I do hope, Kaburaya, you won't give us cause to regret this." "I'll be a good little boy," I promised, rising. "At least on day one." The superintendent gave me a long look. The kind normally reserved for a grenade with the pin already pulled. Then he sighed, much like Koji, and waved me off. "Go. And... clean yourself up. You smell like a dump." "Yes, sir." I sketched something vaguely resembling a military salute and slipped out the door. In the corridor, Koji was waiting for me. He was shifting from foot to foot, clearly burning with curiosity. "Well?! What?! Are you being punished?!" "They're shipping me off to school," I broke into a grin. "Tomorrow at eight-thirty. Aldera." "Aldera?" Koji whistled. "That's just two blocks away. Well, at least you won't have far to walk." "Where do you go?" "Kasuido," he waved a hand in some vague direction. "Other end of the district. A real dump. But your Aldera's a stone's throw from here." "So after classes we meet up here and straight to the beach," I summarized. "No one's canceled my training." "Damn right," Koji perked up. "I'll wait for you at the gate. If you get held up in detention — you owe me mochi." "Why would I owe you?" "Because I'm your supervisor and I'm entitled to compensation for moral damages." "That's robbery." "That's the union," he clipped. I snorted. It was good when, even after a stupid day, you had someone to share a laugh with before bed. "Fine. Aldera it is. Let's see what kind of people study there. Maybe I'll run into someone with a decent quirk — I'll have someone to spar with." "And if you don't?" "Then I'll spar with you." "I've changed my mind," Koji said immediately. "Go to your Aldera and don't come back." "Too late. You're already in the union."

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At night, lying in bed and staring at the ceiling, I replayed the day in my head. The sofa flights worked, even if it was nowhere near controlled flight. Tomorrow — school. A new stage. New people, new rules, new possibilities. I had no clue what to expect. I remembered the canon in fragments, mixed up names, didn't know dates. But one thing I knew for certain: this body was healthy. It could run, jump, fall, and get back up. It could hurl massive doors and fly on a sofa. It could breathe deeply and not fear that tomorrow it wouldn't be able to get out of bed. Fuck, how awesome it was to feel life in every cell again. I smirked into the darkness and closed my eyes. Tomorrow would be a new day. Tomorrow I'm going to school. And who knows — maybe that's where I'll meet someone who becomes a new friend. Or a first enemy. Or a fresh victim for my experiments. Either way, it wouldn't be dull.