Plans and Meditation

Jugram quickly agreed to meet Gran Torino early the following day to train the new quirks, then walked into his room where Yuto was lounging on a couch, reading a book. The room's open design hadn't changed as the two boys had aged. Now, the room was zoned into different areas. There was the spot with their beds, which was the only private location thanks to a curtain running around each boy's bed to provide some privacy, an exercise area with loose weights scattered across the floor, a small kitchen zone, and the lounging area.

Choosing to join his brother, Jugram flopped down on one of the soft couches and settled in. Yuto glanced up at him, paused, and then lowered his book, setting it down on the table. Then, he glanced around the room secretively as if to make sure that they were truly alone.

"Jugram," Yuto whispered, although they were alone.

"Yes?" Jugram replied in a normal tone, making Yuto cringe.

"Keep it down." Yuto insisted.

"What?" Jugram said in the same low tone, rolling his eyes as he did.

"I dropped out of the dojo," Yuto said.

Of all the things Jugram expected, this wasn't one. If there was any one thing that Yuto took seriously more than anything else, it was his fighting skills. Their traumatic past had engrained the wish to be a hero into the boy, specifically, a hero fighting on the frontlines against villainy. So, for Yuto to drop out, something significant must have happened.

"Why?" Jugram whispered, now fully invested.

"There is nothing left for them to teach me." Yuto shrugged, "I am already the most skilled and the strongest one there. Master Yamamoto told me that the only thing I lack is practical experience, so I left."

"Go on," Jugram said, rubbing his eyes since he felt he knew where this was going.

"As I was leaving, one of the other students pulled me aside and told me that his brother knows of an underground fight club," Yuto said seriously.

The Underground Masquerade? No, that should have happened years ago at this point in time, Jugram thought before shaking his head free of thoughts and coming up with a response.

"You want to attend an illegal underground fighting club?" Jugram asked.

"Yes, but I want you to come with me as my backup," Yuto confirmed. I am being secretive about this, but part of me wonders if we should just ask Dad if he will help us with this. It could never hurt to have more backup."

"Not this time. While he can turn a blind eye to my work and take quirks from people at the care facility, this directly violates the law. If he is found to be helping two minors participate in an underground fighting club, forget being forced to retire as a hero; that's undoubtedly jail time." Jugram said, shaking his head.

"So we do it without telling him then," Yuto said.

As much as Jugram wanted to say it was an idiotic idea with no merit, he couldn't deny that he was interested. It would be a good place to try and acquire some quirks. It would be risky for sure, but potentially worth it. 

"Alright, I'll help you, but give me a week to get some things together. There will definitely be some sketchy people cheating in this kind of setting, so I will get you a quirk or two to balance the scales." Jugram said.

"Okay. In the meantime, I will try to find more details about the Fight Club itself," Yuto promised.

x-X-x

With their conversation done and the plan set for the time being, both boys retired to their beds. Soon, there was the loud rhythmic sound of Yuto's snores, but Jugram couldn't close his eyes and got to sleep just yet. He knew that he would be up until the contracts activated, and he gained both quirks, so he simply meditated in the meantime to zone out Yuto.

As he meditated, his mind naturally slipped to the place where his quirks were stored. He saw the familiar vessels filled with liquid representing each of his quirks. Exhange was the quirk holding the extra power granted from the one awakening he had access to. 

It wasn't often that he let his mind's eye stay focused on this sight. He mainly 'came' to this space to quickly transfer the awakening from one quirk to another quickly. He never remained long just to stare at the vessels and his quirks, so it surprised him to hear a soft sound emanating from the quirks. At first, he thought the sound was imagined, but once he heard the noise, it only grew louder.

It sounded like the hum of electric lights flickering to life, but only at first. The longer he remained, the more the sound morphed. Eventually, the sounds split into three distinct 'songs', one for each of the quirks before him. 

Exchange had the most dominant sound of the three. It was a single high note, imperious and unyielding, like the glass-shattering call of an opera singer. It completely dominated the other two quirks' sounds, nearly drowning them out. In contrast, Blood Manipulate made a steady rhythmic sound, like a heartbeat or a never-ending pattering of drums. Finally, Threat Detection gave off an eerie whine, constantly blaring and changing like a whistle. 

After long minutes of listening to each sound, Jugram pulled the awakening off of Exchange to see if it would enhance the sounds generated by the other quirks, but as soon as he removed it, the sounds died. It was only when Exchange was in its awakened state that the sounds were produced. 

Curious. So it has to do with the awakening then, Jugram thought, crinkling his eyes in confusion. Yet, I didn't get any information about this when awakening the quirk. What could the use of this possibly be?

Quirk awakenings usually change a fundamental aspect of the power. Jugram had assumed that the physical contracts were all he would get from the awakening, but now it seemed that there was more to Exchange than he realized. No matter how hard he puzzled, he couldn't figure it out. That was until suddenly, there were two new voices in the choir within his soul courtesy of Aura and Amplify. 

First, the sounds of the other quirks swelled noticeably. Amplify made no sound of its own but made the noise produced by each other quirks sharper and more distinguishable. Then, a new noise joined. It was rhythmic like Blood Manipulation but had a much faster tempo. Whereas Blood Manipulation was a heartbeat, Aura was like a drum roll. 

Once the two new quirks arrived, it wasn't hard to figure out that the type of quirk affected the noise it produced, but he still couldn't tell what the purpose of the noise was. He felt that it was important but couldn't quite place his finger on anything. It seemed like such a sudden curveball for Exchange to be the cause of the noise. Nothing about it made much sense to Jugram, no matter how hard or long he tried to puzzle it out.

x-X-x

In the end, morning came too soon with Jugram getting very little sleep. Luckily, Aura had already begun to show its usefulness. The feeling of fatigue that he was currently feeling was much less than it should have been. Aura was subtly enhancing his body and mind while recovering his mental fatigue simultaneously. While the speed of the recovery and enhancement wasn't incredible, it was still noticeable.

Once he took a quick cold shower, Jugram was only half-zombie instead of a complete zombie. Still feeling slightly off but much better, he marched out of his room and into Gran Torino's living space, where the two boys usually trained with their adopted father. He grinned as Torino emerged, pausing at the sight of the slight distortion in the air around Jugram.

"It seems you've got some new quirks, Boyo." Torino said with a lazy grin, "Let's see just what they can do."