Shoto formed a series of ice crystals in his hand.
Immediately, he felt the heating pads of his powers kick in. Again.
"Any weaker?"
"No."
The pink-haired inventor nodded enthusiastically.
"Good, good, that's way better than the previous version. Hopefully, this one will continue like this for the next 60 bursts of cold."
Shoto didn't argue, instead nodding.
They'd been working like this for a while now, ever since Shoto had discovered the first real big mechanical problem with his Aokiji suits. If the power was turned off, and on again by lack of it, then there were more sudden bursts of cold to activate it, and it would short circuit.
It wasn't something he'd experienced at first, as his style was to create attacks that either hit a massive area at once with enough power to freeze but not much more, or with massive, and all-engulfing attacks. Smaller, but numerous uses of his power weren't something he'd experienced before a training exercise forced him to use his powers that way.
Mei didn't seem too bothered by the suit she'd made failing.
He dumped the crystals he'd made into a wat of extremely hot wat mei had heated up for the purpose.
The steam in turn was sucked up into a vent that in turn led to another tank Mei had set up where the water vapor gathered.
"I could just erase it with my fire, you know."
Mei nodded again, as she wrote something down while he continued the cycle of creating, dumping the ice in the wat, waiting, then creating again.
"Yes, I suppose you could. But that's why I want to study this ice you make. It's amazing, isn't it? You conjure up ice from nowhere, and you create matter, thus seemingly breaking one of the fundamental laws of the universe. Then, if you yourself melt it, it usually just disappears, but if another source melts it, it sticks. So interesting. Is it your fire that has unusual properties? Or is it your ice? Maybe I'll discover some great secret about your ice once I study the water from it."
He shrugged.
"I've never really thought about it. I have… More important things to worry about."
"Mhm… There is important information for you to be gleaned here though. Like your body being resistant to heat in general, but not boiling heat."
Memories came to Shoto's mind at that.
"Does it matter? I can't change the past no matter how much I want to."
Of course, it does! This blatant weak spot might be even larger than you realize. What if you one day need to traverse a volcano? Only to discover your resistance to fire does absolutely nothing against molten rock?"
He had not considered that.
"All Quirks are in essence unique. And they work by their own rules. The important thing here is to discover how it works for you."
Unexpectedly, the suit's heat packs short-circuited on the 15th cycle.
"That's way less than last time."
"Yes, obviously there's a mistake somewhere in the new version, take it off, We need to discover it before I can patch it up."
She quickly began undressing his upper body, which in turn made quite a lot of the other girls in the room giddy, as they blushed and looked over while pretending they did not.
The sight of his abbs apparently had that kind of effect on a lot of girls.
Personally, he did not understand why.
Mei, however, was not one of them, as she completely ignored his now naked chest, and instead unfurled the jacket across the workbench.
"Hmmm… Let's see, is this part…? Nooo… Not there… How about here…? Not that either huh?"
She had a tendency to do this instead. Just start to work and not say a single thing to the people she had just been talking to, instead ignoring everything except her work.
He did not mind, but he was rather sure by now this was one of the main reasons she did not have many friends within her department.
It was just how she was. Which was why her suddenly asking her a question while acting like this, took him completely off guard. Though to be fair, the question matter didn't help.
"Hmmm… By the way… Speaking of patching things up… Are you planning to reach out to your mother? You mentioned you wanted to see her again."
He froze… Then relaxed.
"I do. But no, I won't."
"Why not?"
He leaned back and considered.
"...Because my mother has made it clear she doesn't want to see me. Even if she is better now… Which I don't know she is… It would be irresponsible of me as a son to seek her out when the part of me that I inherited from my father was what drove her to madness, to begin with."
There was a bit of silence afterwards, as Mei considered that, all the while tampering and looking over his suit.
"Hmm… That so? So you're okay with how things stand right now? What if either of you dies without having seen the other again? There will be a lot of regret on both parts if so."
"If my mother wants to see me… She will ask for me. You speak like she wants to. But I don't think she does. If she did… She would have contacted me long ago. The fact is, she is better off without me or my father in her life."
Mei did not answer, instead letting the silence hang as she continued the work on the suit, and finally figured out the problems. Apparently, she had used a less-than-perfect bit of electronic wires from the school's storage, which she quickly replaced with a more sturdy one before they resumed their test.
"Now, let's see if you get past 15 cycles on this one."
He nodded and started resuming the test as Mei went back to writing on her block.
"Oh by the way, could you visit Recovery Girl's office before you leave school tonight? I need you to get a pint of blood taken out to run an experiment on."
He nodded, having a pretty good idea of what sort of experiments she was planning, just from their previous conversation.
"Sure. Will that take a while?"
"No, I'll have it done over the weekend."
"That's good."
Mei shook her head.
"Not necessarily. Experiments don't always have results . But we'll see. If it tracks out, it'll be a great benefit for you."
He didn't question the words.
He just assumed Mei knew what she was doing.
---
Hatsume Mei looked over the container she held in her hands as she let her fingers run over the transparent material.
Blood.
The oil that kept the body running.
And the key to the Human soul.
Scientists of all stripes would scoff at that description. To prescribe such ancient superstition and supernatural qualities to simple Plasma created by a completely natural process, all so it could keep running through your veins and make your body function.
Mei knew better.
She had touched the abyss after all.
The threshold beyond sanity, and true, inescapable madness.
She knew what lurked beyond that threshold… And she knew how to move beyond the basic, material world.
The machine was not something she had had storage for such an occasion. She'd built this piece from scratch for this occasion.
As she prepared it for activation, she considered her course of action.
Shoto wasn't her friend. Not really. She was only starting to remember his face beyond their fleeting meetings. She had genuine trouble remembering what he looked like in her mind's eye, as she had with most people.
She didn't owe him anything.
But… Then there was his mother.
The thought of Mother and Son not even talking to each other at all for the rest of their lives, despite having any and all opportunity to do so… Well, that hit her far harder than she would have thought it would.
The memory of her own mothers came to mind, unbidden, and unwanted.
The flash of a brilliant dancing rainbow of light that had engulfed her birth parents the last time she had seen them, and the final day of the woman who had given her her family name…
She had not been well enough to speak then. Mei didn't know what her last words would have been.