i love you

"Quirks are systems of strong emergence" ©Kyudai

How ironic. All these three years of suffering without Kuinn, Taiko couldn't even imagine that she was waiting for him in the next room all this time. He didn't care about Grimm, his reputation, everything he had acquired and experienced, if there was a place for Kuinn in this world, he needed nothing else. He promised himself to end all illegal activities for her sake. Kuinn has always been and will be his only light, support and hope in life.

It remains a question how Taiko was able to generate new personalities inside a dream. The only incomprehensible person is Ojiro. Kyudai said that he never mentioned him in conversations. Most likely, this is a personality invented by his mind.

He told about Tomura and Giran. The fact about AFO, who sees Tomura as an heir, was very amusing, but it was precisely because of this that Kyudai changed his plans. The doctor wanted Taiko to duplicate the main quirk of AFO and probably all the other quirks stolen from inside AFO, but Sensei beat Kyudai to it by providing his heir. Taiko knew about all this, Kyudai told him, but he had absolutely no desire to get involved in it, especially when Kuinn turned out to be alive.

- Ojiro wanted me to go to UA... - now that his life has completely changed, this idea does not seem so bad. Now with his new quirk, the doors to such a prestigious institution that changes lives were open. Not only those who wanted to become a hero entered there, but in general, they teach very important professions and skills in society. There will be an entrance exam in six months, so he left an application to take it.

Unable to sleep, he sat close to the vat of Kuinn, missing her very much, and tried to understand the new concept of his quirk, but did not come to anything.

It's funny. Now he uses his imagination, which created a whole world for him only a day ago. Once his imagination was an enemy, and now it's an ally. After a little mental training, Taiko decided to do some physical training, but put this idea aside, because he is still weak. He needs to return to the form of at least an ordinary person, let alone the form like in a dream. Nevertheless, Taiko continues to have HalfNomu Power. Also, Kyudai brought him vitamins and healthy food to normalize his weight, strongly discouraging himself from overdoing it with training now.

Day after day, preparations for Kuinn's awakening were coming to an end, while Taiko actively ate, removing the unnatural thinness and getting used to the new quirk. Kyudai gave him all the money that he saved from the insurance company. Yes, after all, the dream repeated Kyudai's words. Tying his long hair, which had grown for three years, into a bun, Taiko wanted to escape from this place with Kuinn every day, away from AFO, so that she would not be taken away from him again. Kyudai supported this idea, claiming that it was unsafe here.

Pressing the lever, the water from the vat flowed out, and with it the thin body of Kuinn. Fortunately, Taiko could not allow her body to unpleasantly flop and picked her up, immediately wrapping her in a blanket. A few seconds later, she opened her only eye.

-Taiko?

One tear of happiness welled up in his eyes, and the other was bloody.

- Yes, it's me, Akiko.

She became perplexed. - I... asked you to call me Kuinn. - she said in a weak voice. - I had such a bad and long dream...

- Me too... Don't be afraid, now you're awake and everything is fine. - Taiko smiled.

Already in the shower, Kuinn noticed how she was missing an eye, and scars from knife wounds all over her body. Through the skin, taut ribs from thinness were visible. She was horrified, screaming. Taiko immediately knocked on the door.

-Kuinn, are you okay!? - hearing her cry, he ran into the shower.

-Taiko, what happened to me?! What did they do to me!

-Forgive me, it's my fault... It's all my fault...

Only now, up close, she noticed how much thinner Taiko had become, he had suffered too.

-Don't look at me! I'm a monster! - she bitterly shrank into the corner of the shower.

-Then I'm an even bigger monster. - he walked under the warm water of the shower, fully clothed. -You will always be my little Kuinn, and I will always be your little Taiko. - He sat down next to her and put his hand on her hair, then they hugged each other. Even in the most difficult times, they stayed together no matter what, because besides themselves, they had no one left in their lives.

A terrible quirk made Kuinn kill her parents, and Taiko was always alone. One on one against an embittered and cruel environment, he almost fell into madness and resentment just like Tomura.

He hoped that she would not remember the horror that she experienced. What a vile crime these monsters committed, and AFO was the organizer of all this. On the one hand, he needed to know who did it, and on the other, without her direct answer, without her descriptions of who it was, he would never be able to find someone. It was in a dream that his own mind gave him a hint in order to get rid of hatred, but everything is not so simple.

Taiko remembered that malicious grin of AFO. - "I'll erase your grin, monster. I swear, I'll find a way to destroy you."

...

Having calmed Kuinn down, Taiko went to ask Kyudai about the Cult, but did not find him. He left a note on the table next to a simple computer. Kyudai specially placed computers in remote rooms of the huge complex so that he could access his files at any time and not run to the same main computer a hundred times.

The note said to sit quietly, because AFO had visited the complex. Clenching a piece of paper in despair and powerlessness, Taiko decided to find out about the Cult from the news.

-Not that...not that... - he scrolled through the news feed until he came across an article about a gang of men detained, called the Cult of Grimm's Revenge. These are former yakuza bandits or just street hooligans, drug addicts. They were caught for storing and selling drugs. The pro-hero Eraser Head played a significant role in this.

-Suck bustards. Justice triumphs after all. -against this background, his attitude towards this pro-hero improved.

right here – Lil Peep

-Taiko, what did you dream about? -Quinn asked, while Taiko was combing her long brown hair.

-The world without you. The worst thing I've ever seen. I thought I'd go crazy.

-Taiko...-she turned around and awkwardly kissed him on the lips. -Now no one will dare to separate us.

Such an awkward, but so sweet as honey kiss.

-I...love you.

-I love you too. -both teenagers, flushed from their feelings, dissolved in hugs and kisses.

...

-I applied for the entrance exam at UA...-they were lying on a mattress, covered with a blanket in the corner of a cold room with a single source of bluish light. Their naked bodies were tightly intertwined and warmed each other.❤️

Remembering Kyudai's words about their blood connection, Taiko couldn't help but think that they had just resorted to incest. "How the hell did this happen. I love and always loved that Kuinn, but this...new Kuinn...I can't see her as a sister...She doesn't know this and I'm afraid of how she will react to this...She always saw me as her boyfriend, and I always saw her as my girlfriend. Why did it all get so complicated..." Eventually, Taiko stopped seeing her as a sister, simply because circumstances made them that way. They were not born from the same womb, so they are not related. That was Taiko's simple logic.

-Really? That's great, I hope you can do it. But what about Grimm? -Kuinn was winding a lock of Taiko's black hair around her finger.

-Grimm is dead. That's in the past now. Grimm did terrible things, I don't want to repeat his fate. -Taiko began to separate himself from his past self. -Okay, you need to eat well. Once we get out of here, you can eat whatever you want and ask for any clothes you want.

-Hooray! I'll drag you around the mall day and night.

And what about Taiko? Taiko is only happy about it.

-Taiko, what happened to our house? -Kuinn asked a little sadder.

- He's gone, but don't be upset. The insurance company paid us a lot of money. Enough to find a new home. - In reality, the amount exceeded the one stated in the dream tenfold. About 120 million yen.

It's surprising that he managed to learn anything in his dream. He didn't know how a computer worked before his dream, nor did he know many aspects of hand-to-hand combat. Even a little programming somehow ended up in his mind. Maybe Kyudai read him something here out of boredom?

After waiting for AFO to leave, they got dressed and walked out of the hospital holding hands. As a parting gift, Taiko thanked Kyudai and hoped that they would never meet again. A new life awaited them. Until now, he couldn't believe his own happiness. All the horrors were behind him, and now he was riding the train to Musutafu to look for a new home, while the love of his life slept, leaning against his shoulder. Her left eye regenerated while she was in the vat, so she didn't have to worry about it.

"In the end, nothing was in vain." - thanks to the dream, he had matured morally and mentally, and the scars on his soul had turned into a sharp blade, now he was ready to go forward with this blade at the ready. He no longer cared what kind of nonsense AFO had planned. Be it changing the world order or destroying all the heroes, if this creature stood in Taiko's way, he would do everything to lock this monster in the dungeons of Tartarus for the rest of his days, until the bastard turned into mold.

Wearing sunglasses, with scars on his lip and right eye, he smiled and looked out the window, squeezing Kuinn's thin and delicate hand, not paying attention to the rare passengers passing by, staring at his face. With a smile, he met the dawn of the Sun with a warm hope for the future.

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End of Second Arc

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