MHA - The Rise of Psion - Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Rei bounded happily on his heels as he stood in front of Aizawa waiting for the man to go through the rigorous authentication process required to access the settings of his dampener. Today he was having his limits upper from one percent to two percent! That might not seem like much but he'd had to work really hard to earn it! Plus, it was literally double what he had access to right now.

For the last week he'd been working non-stop on his control of both aspects of his Quirk. He'd gotten so good with his telekinesis that he could use it as good as he could use his own hands! Even better, his fine control over it progressed to an amazing degree. Aizawa had actually had him look through a microscope and use his telekinesis to move around individual cells! It was pretty cool and pushed his control to the limit, but they'd only done it the one time and he still didn't see what the big deal was.

The most important thing though? His mental defenses. The lunch-time lessons where he focused on building a mental wall to keep other peoples feelings out had produced good results. Now, instead of a constant stream of other peoples feelings, he just felt a general murmur. It was like walking through a crowded area and hearing the murmur of peoples conversations as a general din of noise. It was there, you knew it was there, but you couldn't make out anything specific unless you focused. His empathy now worked the same way. He just felt a general din of emotions until he focused on a specific one.

Naturally, if there were fewer people around, he felt more from any nearby individuals, but even then he had to focus to get real details. It just generally made him more aware of the people around him. As a side effect, or maybe not, he could always tell where people were around him, even if he couldn't identify specific individuals without focusing on them. A sort of mental radar of people around him and how close or far they were. He could now walk through a crowd with his eyes closed and never run into anyone. Not that he would ever do that.

Aizawa finally finished putting in the last bio-metric clearance and password, “Prepare yourself, I'm increasing your limit now.”

Rei closed his eyes while Aizawa focused on him and lifted the limits on the dampener. Rei immediately, and literally, felt his mind expand as his capacity was literally doubled from what it had been. This would be the biggest bump in his power, mathematically speaking, and should make subsequent bumps easier to handle in the future.

Aizawa had explained it to him. Going from one percent to two percent was an increase of one hundred percent. But going from two to three percent was only an increase of fifty percent. From three to four was only thirty-three percent. Four to five was twenty-five percent, and so on with a smaller and smaller increase over time. The whole point was that he should be able to improve his control over every increase in a cumulative fashion making each increase easier to handle. Eventually it would all snowball and the different between ninety-nine and one hundred percent of his Quirk would be meaningless, a slightly only more than one percent increase in his capabilities.

With his eyes still closed, Rei focused on checking his mental walls. They held, but there was some strain that he would need to work on. Over all, it was pretty much what they expected. With the increase in power his telepathy range was just under five hundred and fifty feet and his telekinetic lift capacity should be around half a ton.

Definitely nothing to sniff at, but also not something record breaking or anything. After all, regular Quirkless humans had been able to dead lift the same amount of weight. He wouldn't qualify as 'super' until he could lift a full ton, or two thousand pounds. That would happen when he had access to roughly four or five percent of his Quirk's total power.

With his limits increased, Aizawa put him through the same tests as they'd done when he first gained access to his Quirk. The point was to map the increase in his powers and to go through familiar things to regain any potentially lost control. The only thing they were really keeping a close eye on though was for when he would shift from Empathy to Telepathy. He was still only an empath so clearly not yet.

Rei spent a while stretching his metaphorical muscles and getting used to his new limits when he felt a blinding bundle of joy and excitement enter his mental range. He paused in his block stacking and turned towards the door in curiosity. Seeing Rei look toward the door, Aizawa suddenly had a pensive look on his face that changed to resignation.

It took Rei a moment to realize that Nemuri was right next to the bundle of joy, it was that blinding to his senses. He looked at Aizawa questioningly, but the taciturn man didn't say anything, just adjusted his scarf and looked anywhere but the door.

It wasn't long before his curiosity was answered. Nemuri pushed the door open and walked in with the new guest at her side. Rei noted Nemuri's presence, but his eyes were focused solely on the girl by her side.

Obviously the first thing he noticed about her was the feelings she was giving off through his empathy. The second thing was her long bright purplish-blue, which he didn't know the name of, that flowed in cascading waves down her back past her knees. The next thing he noticed was her big, round, wide, and curious bright blue eyes. The girl was looking around at everything, trying to take it all in. It was then that he noticed she was talking... a LOT.

“Oh! So this is the new building! Everyone was so curious about it! I can't wait to tell them about it! What's it for? Oh! Who's that? A new student? But he's not in a uniform. Oh! Is he a transfer student?! We don't get those often! So is he the one you wanted me to teach to fly? He can fly right? You can fly right? Oh! This is going to be so much fun! I've never gotten to be a mentor before! I wonder if I'll make a good mentor like Ryukyu? Oh I can't wait! This is...”

He never found out the rest as Nemuri unceremoniously clamped her hand over the girls mouth to silence her, “Nejire-chan, no one can answer any of your questions if you keep asking them non-stop.”

With Nejire silenced, for the moment, Rei could finally take in the rest of her appearance. She was tall, taller than him thanks to his mild case of malnutrition (prison food was not known for being super healthy). She was also pretty shapely and rather attractive. Though, after seeing her in action, he labeled her as cute, rather than sexy. Even if the U.A. skirt did show off a fair amount of her pale legs.

He wondered why he noticed that. Was he a leg man? That would be nifty to know!

Finally, Nemuri continued to address Nejire, “Nejire, this is Rei. Due to certain circumstances, he hasn't had any opportunities to practice with his Quirk. Recently he learned how to use it to make himself fly. I would like you to teach him how to fly properly along with the rules and regulations that come with the ability to fly. Alright?”

Nejire nodded enthusiastically prompting Nemuri to cautiously remove her hand. The moment her lips were free Nejire was using them.

“I can totally teach him everything he needs to know! But why doesn't he know how to use his Quirk? Why don't you know how to use your Quirk? Are you a late bloomer? Oh! Or is it some super secret thing! I bet it's super secret! What're those things on the side of your head? They're all flashing lights and curious looking! Come on, let's fly! Only my friend Tamaki has a Quirk that can let him fly! But only if he eats something with wings. But he never wants to because he's afraid of heights! Well, he's afraid of everything but that's besides the point! He should fly with me more often. But now I have a new friend that can fly with me!”

Nejire literally only stopped talking to inhale a deep breath. Rei's voice echoed into the sudden silence as he very seriously asked Aizawa, “Is this... normal?”

Aizawa's gaze flickered over to Nejire, who was panting to catch her breath, then back to Rei, “For her... yes. For normal people... no.”

Rei, not knowing what else to do, fell back onto the manners that Nemuri had been teaching him over the last few weeks. First, he gave Nejire and polite bow, “It's nice to meet you Miss Nejire. My name is Rei, I don't have a last name yet. I'm only now learning how to use my Quirk because I was only recently released from Tartarus. The things on my head are there to control my Quirk and limit it's power so I don't accidentally murder anyone again.”

The whole room seemed to sag at his statements. Even Nejire's seemingly limitless optimism and enthusiasm wavered for a moment as she processed what he'd said. For once Nejire didn't have anything to say or any questions to ask. Only the two adults in the room seemed to notice the stragenly depressing miracle that had happened before them.

Rei had rendered Nejire speechless.

It didn't last long though as Nemuri broke the silence and addressed Rei, “I know I told you to be honest and truthful Rei, but there is such a thing as too truthful. I'm not saying you need to lie about your past, but you also don't have to tell everyone you meet about it either.”

Rei frowned slightly as he considered Nemuri's words. As far as most things went, he was a blank slate and took anything his teachers, and Nezu, said as the gospel truth. Especially when they gave him advice or instructions on how he should behave in public. What little common sense he'd managed to absorb by the age of five had long been lost in Tartarus. Hell, Nemuri had to tell him, multiple times, that he should change clothes in private. There was no such thing as privacy in prison. This left him with zero sense of modesty and a feeling that it was overrated, something a blonde friend of Nejire's would wholeheartedly agree with.

Aizawa decided to put an end to the silence and get things back on track instead of wasting time doing nothing, “When Rei awoke his Quirk ate age five, he couldn't control it at all and it went out of control. People died as a result. It wasn't his fault, but they still threw the book at him and locked him in the deepest level of Tartarus. Nezu believes he can become a hero and got him released. The device installed in his head is to control the strength of his Quirk and keep any accidents from happening. He is no danger to anyone.”

Nejire seemed to absorb that information for a moment. When the moment passed her whole being returned to normal. Rei could feel the excitement and enthusiasm return to her emotions. Yellow spirals of energy erupted from her feet and propelled her into the air. Without any hesitation she flew over to Rei, her mouth running a mile a minute as she peppered him with questions and comments that didn't stop until she ran out of breath.

Rei joined her in the air when she challenged him to a game of tag by tagging him and taking off at high speed. The two chased each other back and forth, Nejire laughing happily the entire time.

Aizawa stepped next to Nemuri as the pair of teachers watched over their students. Finally, he spoke in a low gruff tone, “This was a good idea.”

Nemuri smirked at Aizawa, “I know. Hopefully she'll introduce him to Mirio and Tamaki. Mirio would be another good positive influence while Rei might help Tamaki come out of his shell some more.”

Aizawa had no argument for that. Mirio Togata was... bright was the best word he could think of. The boy would make a great hero and his more recent improvements on the usage of his Quirk in combat just proved that point. Though, it would be extremely helpful if the boy didn't end up completely naked every time he used said Quirk.

Then there was Tamaki Amajiki. The boy was almost the exact opposite of his friends Mirio and Nejire. While the two of them were enthusiastic extroverts, Tamaki was a shy introvert with lingering inferiority issues. All that despite his Quirk which was not only powerful, but varied, practically limitless in its potential.

This year all three of them had shown drastic improvements leading to rumors of them being the three most powerful second year students. He wouldn't be surprised if they earned themselves some silly name before they graduated.

His gaze focused on Rei and Nejire as they played in the air. He could already see improvement in Rei's ability to fly as the boy chased after the elusive girl. Not only had Nejire been flying for years, but she'd trained hard in her maneuvers giving her a distinct advantage over Rei.

He would never admit it aloud, but it was good to see Rei acting like a kid. He found the way Rei normally behaved to be... disturbing and unnatural. Obviously he understood it wasn't Rei's fault, but that didn't make it any less creepy when the boy leapt to obey anything he even remotely perceived as an order or command. It was even worse when he saw the security footage from Rei's apartment. No child should be capable of sitting still and staring at nothing for hours on end without complaint or even seeming to notice it had happened!

His normal modus operandi was to rein in the children he taught to try and make them more mature and responsible while teaching them life lessons. His job was to prepare them for the cruelties of the real world. Rei had already seen how cruel the world was and how fragile life itself was. Aizawa had to not just teach Rei, but to try and turn him into a real boy at the same time. It was a new challenge and one he wished he'd never had. No kid deserved what happened to Rei.

So, he stood, silent, and let Rei and Nejire mix training with playtime without his normal complaints about such a thing being a waste of time. Rei put in all the effort Aizawa could want so letting him be a child was the least the man could do for his student.

-----Line Break-----

Rei rubbed his temples as he worked on his mental defenses to keep the constant hum of other peoples thoughts and feelings from flooding his mind. It had been eight months since he met Nejire, nine since he was released from Tartarus, and he was up to a full twenty percent of his Quirk. His telepathy range had reached a full mile.

Thankfully, U.A.'s grounds covered several miles leaving him with only the students and teachers within his range, most of the time. That changed when he went him to his apartment. At U.A. there were only a few hundred minds in his range. At home? There were well over a thousand in that same range.

Worse, within his expanded range was the train station. That location provided a constant rise and fall of minds moving in and out of his range. It was extremely distracting to suddenly have a hundred or more minds just suddenly drive into his range. It was a constant barrage of new minds hammering at his mental walls trying to get in.

On the bright side, it did provide him an excellent mental workout. The constant jolts helped him find weaknesses in his defenses and shore them up. It additionally helped him deal with the sudden spikes in emotions he could feel, preparing him for future events where he might have to help with disasters. He was certain that emotions would run rampant when an earthquake hit and people had to deal with the devastating aftermath.

Aside from his telepathy, his telekinesis had also improved dramatically. His current limit was twenty-five tons, or fifty thousand pounds. Previously they'd believed that to be his upper limit, but they'd been wrong. Each percentage of his power that was released led to a drastic growth in his telekinetic might. They weren't certain what his limit would turn out to be anymore, but Nezu was estimating somewhere around two hundred and fifty tons, or half a million pounds.

Of course, all estimates were subject to change as more information became available.

His current telekinesis put him firmly on the level of many heroes with super strength. He still had nothing on heroes like All Might, but that was irrelevant because almost no one was that strong! Still, it did make him extremely powerful so the plan was to leave him sitting at twenty percent for the next few months since the entrance exams would be soon followed by school that would focus on technique and skill rather than upping his power.

Honestly? Rei was looking forward to the break. They'd expected it would get easier for him to handle his telepathy as he got used to it over time. That's what the math said, anyway. The math was wrong. The more of his Quirk he accessed, the more his mind expanded and the more information his telepathy gained. Not only was he no longer limited to being an empath, but his ability to read minds and process the information had expanded as well.

His brain was vastly different in its limitations than a normal human brain. It had to be to even survive what his telepathy did to it. He could feel the emotions and hear the thoughts of everyone within his range. Without the mental defenses he'd built up over the months, all that information would stream into his mind non-stop. It was little wonder he'd lost himself when his Quirk first awoke.

Now, his defenses did NOT stop his mind from receiving and processing the streams of information his telepathy forced into his brain. His defenses were more like selectively ignoring things. Just because he didn't pay attention to them didn't mean those things weren't still happening. This meant his mind wasn't only processing his thoughts and feelings, but the thoughts and feelings of hundreds, even thousands, of people all at once.

The load could become so intense that a normal person's brain would have literally fried itself from all the neural activity. The brain was simply not meant to handle such extreme levels of activity. Rei's was, but, there was a complication.

His mind was atrophied.

The complete shut down of his Quirk for a decade had left his mind weakened. Like every muscle in his body, his mind needed to be worked out to grow stronger and more capable. Completely shutting his Quirk down had denied his mind the ability to grow stronger and left it stagnant. His earlier success was attributed to his mind being capable of handling his severely limited abilities since they were well below the threshold of his powers right after they activated.

Now, given the range in which he'd killed people, they estimated he was at, or near, what his initial limit had been at age five. They believed he was now, at least telepathically, as strong as he'd been back then. Maybe slightly stronger. This is what was leading to his difficulty with control. His mind now needed to get used to the load and grow stronger and, like a muscle, this meant pain. Like getting sore muscles after a hard workout, his brain was now constantly working out and giving him a headache in exchange.

Only once he no longer got headaches while in highly crowded areas, would his current limited be increased. He was perfectly happy with that. If he was being honest, he felt he was strong enough to be a hero now and didn't necessarily need his full power. Recovery Girl didn't agree. She'd been monitoring him closely and come to a singular conclusion.

Rei needed to gain control over his full Quirk within the next five years or he would suffer brain damage.

It's obvious to anyone with even a shred of a brain that medically installing a device specifically meant to suppress brain function was NOT conducive to good brain health. The device David Shield had designed and produced was far gentler than the original device, which is what gave Rei so much time. If he'd been left with his original device in Tartarus, Recovery Girl estimated that he would have been brain dead before he reached the age of eighteen. Now, the estimate was pushed to twenty.

So, that left him with just five years to fully master his Quirk. His hard limit was how much of his telepathy he could control. He just hoped he'd be able to maintain his current growth rate of around twenty percent per year. If he could, he'd be able to use his whole Quirk by the age of nineteen or so. He'd be cutting it close, but it was his best guess given the power of his Quirk.

He was pulled out of his introspection and mental defense reinforcement by a mind entering his range that practically shown like a light in the darkness. His lips curled into a wide smile while he hopped to his feet. A glance to the calendar showed that today was the day. His best, and only, friend was coming to pick him up and take him to U.A. that morning.

After all, today was the day for the entrance exam and what kind of best friend would Nejire be if she didn't at least fly with him to the gates?

Yes, today was the day. The day he had trained to catch up to his peers for. The first real step on his path to becoming a hero.

-----Line Break-----

AN

3,700 words.

This marks the last chapter before we enter U.A. and the events that will unfold after that. Let me know what you think. Oh! And for those curious, I left Rei's current limits down below. He's definitely strong, but there are still others stronger than him. Let's also not forget his complete and utter lack of experience in almost everything. That's changed some over the almost year these three chapters cover, but not THAT much.

Until next time!

Current range: 5,600 feet (1.06 miles)

Current weight: 1% 500lbs, 2% 1,000lbs, 20% 50,000lbs (25 tons)