On top of everything else, on the fourth day, a pair of police officers showed up at the orphanage.
In the tiny world called a “children’s home,” any event instantly became common knowledge.
A certain “spirit of adventure” that seemed to follow law enforcement officials wherever they went only added to the universal childhood affliction known as “ants in the pants.”
Samuel recognized Yuriko in the pair.
Seeing the boy watching them, she smiled warmly and waved her hand.
The officers’ path led to the office of the “most dangerous person in the orphanage.”
“…Come in,” the woman said, slightly raising her voice in response to the knock on the wooden door.
The door opened almost soundlessly, and two people in blue police uniforms entered the cozy office.
“Miyamoto-san,” the three-eyed girl bowed.
“It’s nice to see you.”
“Yuriko-kun!” the woman said with genuine joy.
“I’m very glad to see you too! Please, come in.” Yasuko fussed about.
“Would you like some coffee? Or tea? I have a wonderful oolong blend.”
“Sorry, but no,” the second police officer said, clearly cutting off the already almost-agreeing Yuriko.
“We’re in a hurry.” He drilled the pouting girl with a look.
“What a pity,” the woman said, slightly embarrassed.
“Hanzo. Danko Hanzo,” the man introduced himself, understanding the woman’s hesitation in his own way.
“We’re here about the boy.”
“‘The boy’… Have you still not managed to learn his name?” Yasuko pursed her lips.
“Unfortunately, no,” the officer said, ignoring the note of displeasure in the woman’s voice.
“No birth certificate, no admission documents from the orphanage from which the villain gang took him. Nothing. There are almost no records of this child’s existence, except for verbal confirmation from the children and some ‘caretakers.'” Hanzo spat out the last word with disgust.
“But even they don’t know anything. Just that the boy was Quirkless and was very troubled by it, constantly trying to ‘find’ his Quirk.”
“…And he succeeded.”
“Yes.” Yuriko shuddered slightly, remembering the recent incident in the police trailer.
“He succeeded.”
“Our department has submitted a request to create new documents,” the man said, digging into a folder of papers he was holding.
“The process is still ongoing, but the first and last names have already been chosen. The given name will be Ryota. The surname will be Arai. The characters mean ‘New’ and ‘Well,’ the latter in the sense of ‘Deep.’ All documents will be created with this name. Your duty is to convey this to the boy. Since he doesn’t remember anything, there shouldn’t be any problems.”
“…How cynical,” Yasuko said, squinting with displeasure.
“And you didn’t put much effort into the name either. Though it does suit him.”
“I thought so too,” Yuriko hurried to interject.
“Ryota means ‘strong, sturdy.’ That’s definitely this guy.” She smiled.
“…How is he doing here, by the way? He looked somewhat… different to me than he did four days ago.”
“You’re as observant as always,” the woman said, slightly saddened.
“…I think he’s having nightmares. He’s developed several strands of gray hair.”
“Oh!” Yuriko covered her mouth with her hands.
Even the usually impenetrable Hanzo frowned slightly.
“Fortunately, he doesn’t remember them. At least, that’s what he says. As for the situation with… Ryota in general… I’ve never seen a child so wary of everything. He won’t even open up to me.”
At these words, Yuriko gasped in shock and covered her mouth with her hands.
As a former pupil of this orphanage, she was well aware of the nature of Miyamoto Yasuko’s Quirk.
It was weak and not very effective.
The young police officer could confidently say that, of all the mental-influence Quirks she had ever seen, the orphanage director’s was the most inconvenient.
Its main drawback was that the target of the influence understood that someone was trying to influence them.
The induced emotions contrasted too sharply with their own (which, by the way, they also continued to feel), creating a certain duality.
If the woman used her Quirk on a person who was initially negatively disposed toward her, she would most likely receive even more negativity in return.
If the person was neutral toward Yasuko, after the influence, they would be at least somewhat wary of someone trying to mentally influence them.
That’s just how human nature works.
People are too afraid for their thoughts and their own “self.” So they react very sharply to any attempts to influence them.
And so, it seemed like another useless, no-good Quirk.
Easier to forget and not use.
But the woman found a way.
Children.
Even the most wary and beaten by life, they still retain a spark of trust and a belief in better things.
It might look unattractive from the outside, but Yasuko never abused her Quirk.
She never gave anyone reason to doubt her intentions, being utterly devoted to her work.
“When I tried to smooth out his wariness with my Quirk… it worked for only a moment. Then I felt…” The woman shuddered and rubbed her shoulders with her palms.
In Yuriko’s head, the report she had read after the trailer incident immediately surfaced.
Looking at the crushed, twisted, burned, impaled, and drooling bodies in the photos, and reading the analysis of what had happened, written personally by Naomasa-san, she had felt genuine terror for the first time since joining the police force.
“…After that, I didn’t try to influence him too much. Just the bare minimum. Absolutely zero result. Except that he began to make contact somewhat. But that’s probably due to his own efforts.”
“Please explain,” Hanzo said, having been silently analyzing the woman’s words up to that point.
“…He doesn’t give the impression of a child. He’s extremely serious and collected. Not to mention his anomalous erudition in some areas.”
“For example?”
“Mathematics,” Yasuko answered instantly, without hesitation.
“I had to almost forcefully fight off Kageyama-san, who insisted that the boy was a genius and that his talents in mathematics required the finest polishing. All the other teachers also spoke very highly of the boy. ‘Stunning learning ability.’ That’s the description everyone who had the chance to work with him gave me.”
“Interesting,” the man said thoughtfully, looking up at the ceiling.
“…What about his ‘Quirk’?”
“I can’t say anything specific,” the woman shook her head.
“Except that his ability is extremely versatile and works on principles I don’t understand.”
“…In All Might’s report, there was a suggestion about this,” Hanzo muttered to himself, flipping through the folder that still hadn’t left his hands.
“Here… ‘Influence on surrounding phenomena within a radius of at least one and a half meters.’ Some clarity was provided by the testimony of one of the villains, code-named ‘The Beast’… ‘Conceptual reflection of physical phenomena.'”
“That fits with what I’ve already seen,” Yasuko nodded.
“However, whatever his ability is, it’s not just reflection.”
“Hmm… Have you tried asking him directly?”
“Yes. No result.”
“Too bad. Well,” the man said, slightly stirring, and glanced at his wristwatch.
“Call him here. We need to ensure that the information about his identity is conveyed to the boy. Then we’ll take our leave. We’ve already stayed too long.”
“Of course,” the woman nodded submissively and pulled the microphone connected to the secretary’s office toward her.
***
The conversation with the orphanage director and the police officers was somewhat rushed and unsettling.
Ryota Arai.
Not a bad first and last name, considering they clearly didn’t belong to the body the boy had inhabited.
Samuel understood this was inevitable.
The slight constraint of Miyamoto Yasuko and the reaction of the “old” acquaintance from the police easily formed a single picture.
In principle, everything was clear.
If the police couldn’t find any information about the child’s parents, and the documents in the previous orphanage had been wiped clean, creating new ones was a perfectly ordinary step.
Especially since Samuel truthfully claimed that he didn’t remember his past first or last name.
This outcome was the most logical.
Although, Samuel wouldn’t have minded participating in the choice of his new name, at least as a kind of “judge.” Simply put, he would have liked to have more than one option.
But here his inflated ego was probably acting up.
After the conversation ended, the police officers left, promising to stop by again in a few days.
The cute girl, despite having an extra organ of vision, wished him luck.
Miyamoto-san also didn’t keep the guy long.
She sent him back to the evening walk, from which he had been pulled for this conversation.
Though “walk” was a bit of an overstatement.
The orphanage’s boarding house was on the outskirts of the city and occupied a considerable area.
Most of it was a vast park, where “walks” were arranged for the children.
Ignoring the smiling caretaker who was watching over the order, Samuel rejoined the group of children.
Only to separate from them again, inconspicuously, a few seconds later.
His attitude toward the little brats hadn’t changed.
He still tried to keep to himself.
Stopping at the edge of the paved path, Samuel raised his gaze to the sky. The source of this chapter is g.com.
The vector shield calmly muted the surrounding children’s voices and energetic shouts.
It extremely accurately filtered out the sound vibrations that the guy had absolutely no desire to hear.
Right now, he heard only the rustle of leaves in the wind and the distant chirping of cicadas.
For some reason, sadness washed over him.
This whole situation.
The name that didn’t belong to him.
The new environment.
The child’s body.
The complete uncertainty.
Why did they all suddenly weigh down on his shoulders at this very moment?
Samuel suddenly wanted to be somewhere far, far away.
Preferably alone.
Just for a couple of hours.
He continued to look at the clouds.
The sky beckoned.
With its boundlessness and freedom.
With its silence.
A simple equation surfaced in his head on its own.
From the first moment he realized his power, Samuel had thought about this.
But the solution came only recently, during experiments with water control.
He had learned to control an already running system of equations without entering the state of Personal Reality.
He couldn’t influence the structure or the basis of the equation itself.
But he could change the values of the variables without stopping the flow of time in his perception.
A moment, and the whole world around him turned gray and froze.
All surrounding sounds disappeared.
Activating his ability still required an initial push, which could only be done by entering Personal Reality.
A couple of moments to create the structure.
An imperceptible moment for calculations.
The energy of the AIM field pushed the reconstructed algorithm into objective reality.
The world regained its colors and speed.
Samuel, with a slight mental effort, picked up the suspended equation and began to slowly change it according to pre-considered parameters.
His body filled with lightness.
The vector of gravitational attraction, directed straight down, weakened little by little.
Despite the apparent simplicity of the effect, the equation itself took many things into account.
He didn’t want to completely zero out his mass and, having ceased to be part of the gravitational field, simply leave the Earth’s atmosphere.
A soft push with the very tips of his fingers.
The almost weightless body was lifted slightly upward.
Only about thirty centimeters, no more.
But that was enough for Samuel’s heart to suddenly accelerate from the overwhelming delight.
Having assessed the distance to the ground, the guy returned his gaze to the sky.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the shocked, wide-open eyes of the female caretaker.
But he paid it no attention.
All his attention was focused only on the sky and the smooth correction of the equation imprinted in his consciousness.
Never reaching zero, the vector of gravity was redirected by 180 degrees.
Instead of slowly settling to the ground, Samuel began to rise higher and higher.
Another moment, and the force of the vector, under constant infusions of energy, began to increase.
The speed of his ascent grew.
The caretaker rushed toward him in a panic, shouting something.
But it was all useless.
The vector shield reliably cut off extraneous noise, letting only the increasing rustle of leaves reach its owner as he ascended.
Just a couple of minutes were enough for this noise to begin to subside.
But now it was because the altitude was increasing more and more, moving Samuel further away from the ground.