Darkest Before Dawn - 9 (Patreon)

Chapter 9

It hit him like a wrecking ball against his whole body. It washed over him like he’d been thrown into one of those pools in frozen lakes. His body started shaking immediately, his breathing becoming erratic and the world around him started swirling.

Panic.

Fear and nerves and desperation and anxiety and-

Panic.

Kazuki’s stomach twisted and turned. He started sweating and breathing was a struggle. There were screams all around and people were moving really fast, but he could barely see them. Instead, he was too busy not throwing up and keeping himself sitting instead of just passing out. His vision was getting worse and the noises were getting distant.

‘Panic attack,’ Kazuki realized in a corner of his mind. It had been so long since his last one. ‘Focus, focus,’ he told himself, remembering how to deal with it and closing his eyes. He breathed in slowly, deeply and gently through his nose, counting in his mind. ‘One, two, three, four, five.’ Then he breathed out slowly, deeply and gently through his mouth, counting backwards. ‘Five, four, three, two, one.’

“Creepy?... Endo, are you ok?!” a voice reached him as his mind came back to the present when he opened his eyes. Next to him was Mineta, looking at him like he’d die any second now. He took a few deep breaths after that, nodding slowly. “What was that, man?”

“Panic attack,” he mumbled, his voice barely audible over the crowd of students that was rushing out of the hall and towards the corridors, screaming and panicking.

“Oh…” Mineta mumbled, looking towards the aforementioned group of people. “Can we help?” he asked, and it was then that Kazuki noticed that the rest of their little group was still around, looking at him.

“We should be leaving with everyone else, are you okay there, Creepy?” Hagakure asked, before he nodded again. He was still being hit by immense amounts of panic and many other things. It was then that he noticed there was a fair bit of pain too, and he could guess why, seeing the crowd so incredibly unhinged in its desperation to get out.

“Just… let me… do something…” he said, struggling to get the words out over the overwhelming emotions. However, he knew one last trick when dealing with strong feelings in such a way. One way that had always worked well, even if the results could have been better. At that moment though, he needed to do something or he’d go crazy and nobody wanted that to happen.

So, he pulled on those nerves, and that fear, and the pain, and the panic…

And he channeled it into something else.

Anger.

Slamming his hand on the table, Kazuki drew himself onto a standing position. There, his shadow extended over the now mostly empty lunch hall and a beowulf appeared then and there. He could feel the confusion coming from his friends, almost overshadowed by everyone else if not for their proximity. He didn’t pay that much attention, however.

The beowolf howled, loud enough to be heard over the panicked screams and the shouts and the siren. Another beowolf joined the first a moment later, making the sound even louder. Then the third one came and there was little else that could be heard over them at all. That’s when Kazuki saw, as he walked towards the corridor, that people close by seemed to have noticed what he was doing and had fallen silent.

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” he screamed, his voice distorting as he let the negativity flow through him like he hardly ever did. He could almost feel the pull of it on his mind, to give in, to let it run wild. It would be so easy too… “ARE YOU U.A. STUDENTS OR JUST TODDLERS, FOR FUCK’S SAKE?! ACT LIKE THE ELITE YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE AND CALM THE HELL DOWN, WILL YOU?!”

‘Get a grip of yourself,’ he thought, doing his best to keep his emotions under control. The last thing he wanted was to lose control, again. ‘Focus, calm, breathe, focus,’ he chanted.

“Isn’t that-” someone called in the silence that followed Kazuki’s shouts. He was pretty sure that voice was familiar for some reason, but he couldn’t bring himself to care at the moment. “-Just the press?!”

Judging by the wave of shame that Kazuki felt coming from closer to the outside walls, that person had been right. He almost felt like letting his Grimm run rampant, if only because of how fucking ridiculous it was that he had to put up with that positively massive amount of panic because of the press. ‘Killing people isn’t gonna make things better, Kazuki,’ he reminded himself, closing his eyes for a moment.

“Let’s all act like civilized people and calmly do as the protocols say, ok?!” Kazuki called then, still shouting to be heard but no longer tearing apart his throat while he was at it. He really hoped nobody would ask for what the protocols were in that scenario, because he had no idea. “The fucking press, honestly,” he grumbled, moving back towards the lunch hall instead of following the other students through the corridor.

The room was mostly empty now, he noticed absently, but his mind wasn’t focused on that. Instead, he took shaky breaths as he looked down at his trembling hands. The panic was mostly over, but the aftereffects were certainly still being felt, however.

“Creepy?” someone asked behind him but he was already taking a few steps forward before all but throwing himself to the ground and throwing up inside a trash can. “Endo!”

“Fucking hell… that was awful,” he muttered, the bitter taste of stomach acid filling his mouth while the harsh smell did so with his nose. “Someone please kill me,” he mumbled, still feeling his insides rebelling against him.

“Here, Endo, take this,” someone said – ‘Hagakure?’ – while passing him a bottle of water a moment later. Looking away from the trash can, Kazuki took it with shaky hands that almost dropped the item. Struggling to open it, he eventually managed to take a gulp of it.

“Thank you,” he whispered, staying on the ground as he leaned his back against the wall and looked at the ceiling. “I hate my Quirk,” he mumbled, closing his eyes and taking deep breaths in as he continued drinking from the bottle. Washing away the taste of vomit was going to be hard, he already knew, and it wasn’t really helping him calm down.

“Come on, man, we should go,” Mineta commented, placing a hand on his shoulder and squeezing. “We’re here if you need a moment, but we could get in trouble, yeah?”

“You said before that talking helped, right? We just need to keep you distracted,” Hagakure said, bouncing on her feet. “Come on, I’m sure we can talk about something on our way out of here.”

“Come on, Creepy,” Kirishima said, offering him a hand to stand up with a grin. Taking it with a groan, Kazuki started dragging his feet after his friends. “You were really manly for a bit there when you called everyone out.”

“Honestly, I don’t know why they panicked so hard. It’s like this wasn’t a normal school that trains heroes and has actual heroes for teachers,” he grumbled, taking another gulp of water.

“Yeah, I guess… it took people off guard,” Ashido suggested uncertainly. It really didn’t make things look better in Kazuki’s eyes, but oh well.

“I think I’ll see if I can come up with a Grimm for a situation like that. Having to make three beowolves for that was a bit much,” he muttered under his breath. Left unsaid was the fact that it stretched his control very thin when he was already feeling overwhelmed by emotions in such a situation. The less Grimm he needed to make for such eventualities, the better.

“What would it be like? Maybe you can make a siren or something like that?” Hagakure asked rather enthusiastically from next to him. Kazuki, however, could feel her concern and nerves, but he appreciated the effort she seemed to be putting in pushing that aside. She wasn’t having much success but… Well, it was more than most people ever did in consideration for him.

“That’d be kind of water limited, wouldn’t it?” he asked idly, wondering how he could go about that. He had several Grimm ideas, of course, but he needed time to develop them, really. ‘Now, if shit could stop happening every fucking day, I might be able to get some time to train,’ he grumbled in his mind.

“Maybe just a person-like one? Like, what’s it called? Imp?” Mineta suggested, and Kazuki simply nodded in answer. “But one made for screaming.”

“Yeah, I guess that would work… Now if only I could get some time to train and try my ideas, it’d be nice,” he mumbled, drawing a laugh from Kirishima.

“I feel you, Creepy. I want to train too, not gonna lie,” the red-haired teen commented as they moved.

“Well, I’m thinking that what you did there was very class president-ish, Creepy,” Ashido said then, drawing a groan from Kazuki. “Really laying down the law on everyone, huh? 9/10, the cursing took the last point though.”

“For real!” Hagakure exclaimed, perking up at that. “That was great!”

“Ugh, I think I preferred puking my insides out,” he grumbled as he walked. That was the absolute last thing he wanted to talk about at the moment. Now that the moment of resolution had passed, all the will he’d managed to muster to tell them the truth had left him. “Why won’t you shut up about that?”

“You gotta admit that it’s kind of weird how against this you are, Creepy,” Mineta pointed out, making him sigh.

“I just don’t want to be vice-president or even president, why can’t I just not want to?” he asked then, all but growling the question before taking a deep breath in and taking another gulp from his drink. ‘Calm down, Kazuki. It’s not their fault,’ he told himself in his mind.

“I guess that’s that, but it’s kind of a shame,” Hagakure mused from his side. “I think you’d do a good job.”

“...” Kazuki remained silent then, as they walked by themselves. It seemed that the students had already emptied the building. The most they could see was some people a little further down the corridor, but they were basically by themselves.

Gulping down, his own saliva this time, Kazuki wondered… ‘Should I? Should I not?...’ his mind repeated again and again. His hands started shaking again and this time it wasn’t from outside emotions. Could he gather the courage? He’d done it before but that was before he had time to chicken out. Now… Now it felt even harder than before.

‘Better get it over with, wasn’t it?’ he mused to himself as he continued walking, unconsciously walking slower.

“Creepy?” Mineta asked, turning to look at him as he trailed behind the group. Kazuki didn’t answer him, however. Instead, he took out his phone and started typing on it while walking. ‘Do it, you coward,’ he thought to himself.

Eventually, he found what he was looking for.

“Guys?” he called, making them stop. “Could you see this really quick?” he asked them, before passing his phone to Mineta and walking past the group. He was running away, he knew, but he didn’t feel like staying to see their reactions. He really didn’t want to be there when they read through the news article about him.

About the Black Rampage.

‘Besides…’ he thought as he got closer to the crowd that was moving out of the building. He could distantly hear Present Mic issuing directives. ‘I’ll know how it goes regardless,’ he finished, a sad smile on his face as his heart broke.

After all, he could feel the apprehension coming from behind him.

‘It was good while it lasted,’ he thought, blinking to stop the tears from falling.

[}-o-{]

After the whole shitshow with the press and the school’s siren, things calmed down and everyone was sent back to their classrooms. Things continued business as usual from there, really. Kazuki, however, couldn’t focus too much on that. He was too busy resolutely not looking at any of his friends in the classroom.

He was almost positive that he wasn’t feeling much from Mineta and Hagakure, but he was definitely feeling stuff from Ashido and Kirishima. Apprehension, nerves, uncertainty. It hurt, it hurt more than he thought it would, which was saying something. However, at least Kazuki had seen the blow coming, so he was prepared for it.

Thus, he pushed all his emotions to the side and focused on the classes. Even if classes had just gotten started, really, they were dull enough to help him in that endeavor. Better to be bored out of his mind than to be constantly reminded that his friends now knew who he was and what he’d done. His phone, that had been left on his desk at some point, almost weighed him down against the chair.

Eventually, however, classes were over, but he didn’t move. He waited until everyone was out.

“Do you think it’s a good idea for me to be vice-president?” he asked Aizawa, trying not to let the man’s weariness and annoyance get to him. He needed a second opinion on the topic and… Well, there wasn’t anyone else he could ask that question too, really.

“Do you?”

“Isn’t it a terrible idea?” Kazuki replied instantly at his teacher’s non-answer. “It’d look terrible, whenever people learn about me and that they’ve made me vice-president.”

“I guess I can see that,” Aizawa said, making him deflate. “Ultimately, it depends on you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Simple,” the teacher answered, raising an eyebrow as if Kazuki should have been able to figure the answer by himself. “If you are afraid that you being vice-president will make your classmates look bad, then make sure it doesn’t. Be a model student, be a great hero-in-training, be so good that the reporters won’t have anything to say about you but the one incident that was completely out of your control. U.A. gave you a place here, Endo, do you think we aren’t prepared for the backlash that decision will inevitably bring?”

“You are, I know, but the rest of the class… they aren’t. They don’t even know… most of them, at least,” Kazuki replied. He almost got angry at the still raised eyebrow his teacher kept on his face. “What?”

“Everyone has a story, Endo,” Aizawa told him. “Just because yours is a little darker than the rest of your classmates’ doesn’t mean you’ll be discriminated against. We offered you a chance to be a student here, to become a hero. That’s what we are going to give you. As far as we are concerned, you are just another student. At least, outside of the rules you’ve been given and so long as you don’t make that change with your own actions.”

Honestly, Kazuki forgot about those rules himself more often than not. They were just that lax, really. It was basically that he had to keep them informed of where he was when and what he was doing. He just needed to keep them up to date so they knew he wasn’t doing something he shouldn’t. It was a little annoying at times, but… But it was basically nothing, in the grand scheme of things.

“I… Are you sure?”

“I’m starting to think this is less about your classmates and more about you, problem child,” Aizawa told him, making him smile nervously. “If you don’t think you are up to the task or if you have some other reason to not take the post, then just decline it. It’s as simple as that. However, I won’t make a decision for you.”

That last sentence, more than anything else the man had said, struck Kazuki. He’d been afraid and frustrated before, that he wouldn’t have any freedom. Now, it was a bit ironic that he wished he had a little less freedom. He wasn’t used to making decisions for himself, as much as he had wished he could while growing up. Now that he could… He didn’t know what to do.

“I’ll think about it, I guess,” he mumbled.

“For what it’s worth,” Aizawa started then, making him pause as he started turning around. “Considering your results during the Entrance Exam, the Quirk Apprehension Test and the Battle Trials, nevermind what happened today… I think you’ll make a good vice-president, Endo.”

“... Thank you,” he replied, a slight smile on his face as he made his way to the door. “I’ll stay here in the training facilities, just to let you guys know.”

“Good idea,” Aizawa praised and if Kazuki hadn’t known any better, he’d have thought the man was smiling under that scarf of his. “And I’ll note it down. You know the drill, keep us up to date.”

“I will,” Kazuki replied hesitating where he stood at the door. “See you later.”

“Just go away already, will you? I wanna take a nap,” his teacher grumbled, making him laugh. He wasn’t even sure that was that funny, but he couldn’t help it. It just seemed so… random.

“Sure thing. Rest well,” he said, finally leaving the classroom.

As he walked through the school halls, Kazuki didn’t feel so burdened by his past as he usually was. Sure, things were still likely to blow up at some point. What happened would come back to haunt him at some point. However… he could move past that. He could continue onwards to a new life with this chance he’d been given.

Maybe it wasn’t the life he wanted or the life he expected, but it was a life nonetheless. It was more than he’d thought he would get, so he’d try and make the most of it. And, if he was lucky, maybe he’d find himself a happy ending down the line.

‘That’s so naive,’ he thought to himself with a soft smile. ‘And yet…’

[}-o-{]

Kazuki didn’t know if it was because of the alarm incident or what, but nobody was in U.A.’s training facilities. So, he went straight to the open area for Quirk usage. He’d expected to have to leave that for the last part of his training, since he thought it’d be occupied for quite a bit. No way other people wouldn’t want to train their Quirks, right? However, with the place being empty, he had all the space he could want to tinker with his powers.

There wasn’t all that much negativity around with most if not all students leaving, but Kazuki’s reserves were full, considering the shitshow that the day had been. It wouldn't allow him much experimentation, but who knew? Maybe he’d gather some more energy while he trained in other stuff after he emptied his reserves. For the moment, it’d have to do.

‘What to try, I have mobility, I have utility and I have combat…’ he mused, nodding to himself as he pulled his ideas regarding new Grimm. ‘First idea is something more durable, because Midoriya was breezing through the beowolves… Then something with more… siren-like power? Something that screams? Something for crowd control, actually. Something to help against a group? The Nevermore can shoot feathers but those are kind of… dangerous…’

‘Maybe I can sort of… combine the siren and the control one? Something that can get really loud?’ Kazuki started deciding. That idea sounded about right to him. Maybe he could make that work. ‘Do I try for another shape or try using one of the ones I already have? Something that screams or is loud… I think a person fits? Let’s try with the Imp for now. Might need to look up ideas for that latter…’ he mused.

He had some notes and already researched projects but most of them were mostly covered by stuff he already had. That made them less of a priority, but things with more varied uses, well, that was something he had hardly tried just yet. ‘Actually, maybe I should try with something easier to get a feel of it, right? 1+1 instead of a whole equation, huh?’ Kazuki thought to himself before nodding.

‘Durable one and then the screamer some other time,’ he decided.

Fortunately, he had several ideas for that. Ideas that he’d already researched for a better mental image of what he wanted to accomplish. So, if he was going for the least amount of changes from what he usually worked with, that closed his options quite a bit. From there, he narrowed his eyes.

The Battle Trials might have gone well for him, but he’d seen what his classmates were capable of now and he’d need better options if it came to fighting them again. He didn’t know when that’d happen, but he thought it’d be better to cover that before it was a problem again. Beowolves were good for attack, but he needed some better for defense. Something that could withstand stronger attacks.

With that in mind, he started focusing.

The Beowolf was the closest thing he had, so he started twisting that as his shadow lengthened and the darkness kneaded itself into shapes as he worked. He saw the shape of the Beowolf try to form itself, but he kept pulling back when it was too much like what he usually did. He needed something different.

Something less humanoid, for once. Something with more muscle, even if it sacrificed agility. Something that could take hits. For that, he’d need more of the bone material the masks and spikes were made of. It needed to be more covered with that. Less mobility, more endurance. Muscle and plating, strength, but maybe not necessarily speed nor agility. ‘Come on,’ Kazuki thought to himself, the image of what he wanted was clear in his head if not so clear with his Quirk.

His negativity reserves were draining faster than he was used to. Evidently, trying for something new wasn’t as efficient as a tried and tested design. Then again, he was having to pull back with the shaping to retry a whole lot, so that could be it too. Difficult to tell, but maybe he could test that whenever he had a better source of negativity than… Well, than basically nothing.

Eventually, however, his efforts gave results.

Deflating as he sighed, he looked at the creature in front of him.

“Boarbatusk,” he decided for a name, with a slight smile on his face. A bit on the nose, considering the thing was basically a big black boar with white plates along its back and huge tusks that curved up all the way until they pointed back to its masked face and two smaller tusks pointing down in between the formers. He looked at the four eyes on its head as he walked forward and rubbed his hand on the mask. “The first of many, I hope. I’ll need a lot of help if I want to go far,” he mumbled, his grin turning sad then.

‘After all, I might need to do everything on my own so… I better get all the bases covered with Grimm as soon as possible,’ he mused.

“That’s cool,” a voice said, almost making him jump. “That’s a new one, isn’t it?” they said and Kazuki turned towards the new arrival, blinking. ‘How did I miss him?’ he wondered, because he could feel the nerves coming from them. ‘I was more distracted making the Boarbatusk than I thought I’d be,’ he mused, gulping down nerves that had nothing to do with those two.

“I hope we are not interrupting?” the second person to… stand there off to the side asked.

“We were waiting for-”

“We kind of wanted to train too!” the second person interrupted the first, seemingly placing their hand over the first’s mouth. “So, uh, can we join you?”

“... Sure,” Kazuki replied with the slightest of smiles. A smile that was quite the understatement, what with the amount of relief and happiness he was feeling at that moment. “What do you want to start with, Tiny, Bubbly?”

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

Very unsure about how I handled this chapter, not so much the first part as much as the rest of it. However, I don’t think I can see where I would make any changes, so I guess it’s gonna stay as it is. Maybe it’s just a me thing.

I hope you enjoyed the chapter.

Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: What color is your shirt? Mine is dark gray.

See you.