"...Eh?"
Tomoko, who had been resting in a nearby café, blinked in surprise.
One moment, the boy was there—and the next, he wasn't.
"...It was actually that boy?!" Tomoko shot up from her chair in shock, startling the café patrons and earning a few irritated glares.
"Aha… sorry…" she muttered, quickly sitting back down.
'I need to call Nezu and tell him this.'
But judging by how far the marker had traveled, there was no way the boy was still in the prefecture.
Wasn't his maximum diameter supposed to be an estimated four kilometers?
What happened to that?!
Tomoko pulled out her phone and immediately placed the call.
As it connected, Principal Nezu's curious voice came through the speaker.
"Hello, Miss Ragdoll. Is Student Shunkan Isshun a teleporter?" he asked, as if he'd been expecting this.
"Hmm…" Tomoko hesitated, searching for the right words. "I'm pretty sure he is, but your information was off. Like, plus ultra off."
"How curious… What do you mean by that?"
"If I'm right, the kid isn't even in the prefecture anymore."
"Was there any delay between teleports?" Nezu asked calmly.
"No. He was just there, and then he was gone, like poof." Tomoko opened her map app, her brow furrowing as she tracked the brightness of the marker and referencing the map. "All the way around… Musutafu?"
"So we did find a teleporter then." Tomoko heard a humming noise on the other side of the call. "Is there anything else you would like to note?"
"Well… when I used my Quirk on him, something weird happened."
"Weird?" Nezu prompted.
"My Quirk couldn't find any weak points on him."
There was a pause.
"Pardon me, Miss Ragdoll. Are you certain?"
"I'm one hundred percent sure," she said firmly. There was no way she could mistake what her Quirk had—or rather, hadn't—shown her.
"…Thank you for the information, Miss Ragdoll," Nezu replied. "I will take it from here."
"Uh… yeah."
As Nezu ended the call, Tomoko was still staring blankly at the distant shining star, signifying Shunkan Isshun's position.
'...Isn't that kid kind of dangerous, then?'
'I just hope Principal Nezu doesn't do anything too drastic…'
--+--
'...Did I miscalculate?'
Nezu stared down at his phone after the call ended.
Based on the collected data, Blink's maximum teleportation range should have only slightly exceeded four kilometers.
What Nezu had expected, then, was for the teleporter to move in gaps, jumping that distance repeatedly. After all, the distance from Tokyo to Musutafu exceeded 150 kilometers.
Even considering the Sky Egg Stasis Incident, where the subject displayed near-instant successive teleports fast enough to create a time stasis-like effect, reaching Musutafu should have taken at least a few seconds.
And yet…
Hmm.
Could there truly be two different teleporters?
"It seems a more thorough background check is necessary," Nezu murmured to himself.
"On Student Shunkan Isshun."
--<>--
"Congrats on graduating, Shun-chan!"
"You've said that five times already."
Isshun sighed.
He had already transported both his parents home after Nejire asked if he could stay over for a sleepover.
Kako, of course, would never refuse. So after Isshun teleported back with his pajamas, he now found himself sitting in Nejire's room, letting her braid the back of his hair.
"So I was thinking, Shun-chan," Nejire said thoughtfully, fingers working through his hair, "since I'll be going to U.A. next year, should I grow my hair out? You know, fix up my whole vibe!"
Her twin spiral curls had gotten longer lately, and she'd been itching to try something new.
"Why are you asking me?" Isshun replied. "And why are you so confident you're getting in?"
"Well, because I have you to help me!" Nejire said cheerfully.
"Smooth talker," Isshun hummed. "If you can't decide, just grow it out. The only reason I haven't cut mine yet is because I can't decide either."
"You're going to cut your hair?" Nejire stopped braiding him. "Why? It's so cute right now!"
"I can't keep long hair forever." He shrugged. As long as it wasn't egregiously bad, he honestly didn't care what haircut he had.
"Why not?"
"Who knows." Isshun shifted slightly. "So, do you actually need help getting into U.A.? We already work out a lot after school, and we're probably going to keep doing that anyway."
"Uh… well, I heard the entrance exam is part written and part practical…" Nejire trailed off.
It was a little embarrassing to admit her grades were only average. Isshun hadn't said anything about his own grades, but he was easily the smartest person she knew.
"Oh," Isshun said, glancing back at her, "you're worried your mediocre grades won't cut it?"
"They're not mediocre!" Nejire pouted. "They're perfectly fine!"
She finished braiding Isshun's hair into a single long braid just as a folder suddenly appeared in his hand.
Nejire blinked in confusion, then froze.
"That's… my folder."
"Shun-chan, wait!" She lunged for it.
Isshun immediately dodged and teleported her safely onto her bed before she could hit the floor.
Nejire tried once more, only to get the same result.
Defeated, Nejire slumped dramatically while Isshun flipped through her test papers.
"...This is worse than I thought."
He genuinely didn't think it was possible to score below a 60 on a middle school exam.
"…Aren't you Japanese?" Isshun asked, baffled. "Why is Japanese your worst subject?"
Nejire's face burned as she looked away, like he'd just found out something deeply embarrassing.
Noticing that, Isshun closed the folder and nodded.
"Well, your math grades are pretty high."
Coming from Isshun, the one who'd taught her most of it, that was enough to make Nejire perk up immediately, shoulders lifting with pride.
"Hehe! How could I forget Shun-chan-sensei's lessons!"
"I've heard U.A.'s entrance exams favor the practical portion," Isshun continued. "As long as your written scores aren't that bad, you'll probably be fine."
"But it's better to be safe than sorry!" Nejire declared.
"I guess…" Isshun muttered. "But this is supposed to be a sleepover, so we can deal with that later."
"Yay!" Nejire cheered.
"You don't need to be that happy about it," Isshun said flatly.
"Ehe…"
Isshun ignored the awkward giggle. "So what do you want to do?"
Nejire looked around the room before spotting a stack of paper. "Ooh! Let's try origami! I heard from a friend that if you fold a thousand paper cranes, your wish will come true!"
"We don't even have a thousand sheets of paper," Isshun replied, though a box full of paper still teleported into the middle of the room.
"Then one hundred should be enough!" Nejire said happily, already grabbing a sheet.
Isshun looked down at his own paper, mentally retracing the steps to fold a crane. Then he paused and glanced at her.
"…Do you even know how to make one?"
"…" Nejire just smiled at him.
"Hah…" Isshun sighed. "Come here. I'll teach you."
As if she'd been waiting for that exact answer, Nejire immediately scooted over and sat beside him, paper in hand.
"…I'm surprised you suggested this when you didn't even know how to fold a crane."
"I might not know a lot of things, Shun-chan," Nejire said, nodding seriously.
"But I know you do!"
--<>--
3750PS - Complete
7500PS - Not Complete