Chapter 18: Time skip of 2 years (part 2)

[1 year 5 months]

During this past one and a half year, I kept visiting Aunty Hana time to time. Randomly, but only after telling her about my visit.

She talked about all this to her husband about me. Which is why he treats me like a relative. Well, we ARE relatives, but you can understand what I mean.

Eri also got a lot more familiar with me. After knowing I am actually her 'Nii-san' in a way, she was even more active in her demands for me playing with her. Which I happily obliged to.

So, I'd often take her to play at the park.

It was one of those evenings I took her there.

Everything was fine until I saw that her horn has started glowing. I realised this must be her quirk manifesting.

I didn't want to intervene and make something go wrong. But I had to check whether she's alright. I waited for a few moments, only to find out that Eri can't seem to be able to turn it off.

I tried to use Chakra to relax her. I just hoped it will work.

But it didn't. Her quirk was making my chakra to be split back into physical energy and spiritual energy and then completely reducing it to nothing.

I knew I'll need huge amount of chakra to help her. So that's what I did. I let go of almost all my chakra and all of it was used just to make me reach close to her without being split apart into different cells. I don't have any idea what her quirk is but it's dangerous. That much I'm sure of.

After I reached close enough, I deployed [ Quirk Suppression Field ] seal. Soon her quirk stopped working and she herself was about to fall because of quirk exhaustion.

Before she could fall, I quickly grabbed her in my arms.

She had already fainted. I put [ Quirk Suppression Seal ] on her horn while also making it invisible. I don't want her to lose control and use it on someone. She'll be devastated if such an accident occurs.

I'll be training her to control it though. That's the best way to avoid disasters that may come from it. Her quirk is someone that can split Chakra too. I won't underestimate such a quirk. I'm pretty sure it's already trying to corrode the seal.

It's a good thing I made the seals with self recovering properties and also it's very fast self recovery.

"Ell, can you make a clone to stay with Eri, please? We'll need it to observe her condition all times? While you're at it, also check what exactly her quirk is." I said to Ell.

She's now strong enough to fight with Rika as a good sparring partner. Because of that their relationship seems much better now. Ell often hangs out with Rika which she sternly refused to do so before. Although Ell is still just learning how to talk properly by using chakra to create vocal box. But in any case, she can somewhat speak.

"Mmm" She came out and just gave a nod while humming in her cute baby voice.

She instantly made a clone of hers which flew right into Eri's horn.

After a few moments, Ell said,

"Dad. Her quirk. Flip back living being time."

"You mean reversing time of any living being? That makes sense why chakra got split before vanishing."

"Mm. Chakra is living?" Ell asked.

"To some extent yes. You are a clear example of it."

I replied to her question while standing up carrying Eri with me. I really want to take her to the hospital, but a quirk like this will definitely bring her problems. I need to first take her back to home and talk to Aunty and Uncle.

'I wonder if me controlling chakra consciously was the reason it was qualified as living through her quirk?'

I didn't realise that I've been in that area for longer than I should have. My passive ability to absorb Natural Energy was slowly absorbing the relatively fresh Temporal Quirk Energy Eri released and also the Chakra that I used to resist it, some if it adapted and was able to evolve into having Temporal Attribute.

It was slowly breaking and restructuring my body. I was unaware of it at that time. I was too focused on Eri. Moreover, it was also very subtle.

When I reached to Aunty Hana's house, I felt really tired. It was really something I was feeling after a long time out side of exercising. I shrugged it off as me using too much chakra at once.

I rang the doorbell.

Aunty was smiling when she saw Eri sleeping in my arms, but that quickly changed when she saw my pale face. She realised that this is something serious.

"Are you alright? Why is your face is so pale?!" She asked in shock.

"I will explain let me out her in her bed first" I replied.

After settling Eri back to her bed I sat with uncle and aunty, explained all that had transpired in the park.

"If we let her quirk to be known in the register, Eri will undoubtedly become a target for many people. Time related quirks are extremely rare. Aside from Eri I doubt the number of people with similar type of quirk will barely exceed double digits in the this whole world. Although that's just my guess, but regardless, Eri will be endangered." I told them about my opinion.

"I understand what you're saying. But we have to register her quirk. What do we do about it? We can't just not register it. That's illegal. If it's found out, it'll be even more of a headache." Uncle Akira said. That's the name of Eri's father by the way. Akira Shiba.

At the mention of this fact, Aunty and Uncle both had helpless expression on their face. I don't like seeing people around me who I care about feeling like that.

So, I made an arrogant smile and prepared myself for cringe I was about to spout and said,

"You are in the presence of the youngest person in Japan to ever hold official status equal to the decision makers of Hero Association or whatever they call themselve! Do you think government can be of any kind of trouble as long as I'm alive?! My words hold equal weight to the words of All Might himself."

What I said here was all true. I do have that much authority. The amounts of money they save every single day just because of my [ Quirk Suppression Seals ] is enormous. They can't afford to antagonize me right now. They can afford to pay for the damages done by the villains or Overpowered quirk holders losing control, but not after they have seen how much they save when they avoid having to do so.

Even if they somehow feel generous enough to squander that money and try to undermine my authority, I still have my Mom. She's like the spine of Hero Association right now.

But common populace have no idea of this kind of power structure imbalance.

That's why Aunty and Uncle seem to be giving me a wry smile. Uncle patted me on the shoulder as if showing that he appreciates me trying to cheer them up.

"*sigh* Fine, I'll just ask Mom to help. Is that assuring enough." I said to them.

I never expected them to believe in me with such matters. I said those cringey words only to lighten the mood of the room, which I already succeeded in.

"I thought about asking her too, but... I just don't want to burden her."

Aunty still feels guilty about her past. Although she's visiting her therapists, it's hard to deal with such traumas. It takes a lot of time to treat someone out of it, especially when it's left untreated for as long as she did.

Mom and Aunty Nana have already reassured her that they don't blame her for anything. It's her trauma speaking up right now.

"If mom could hear you, she'd be really disappointed. It's her niece we are talking about. She'd help even if you don't ask her to." I said with a smile.

"Just let me call her. I need her to pick me up too." I didn't wait for her response to what I said and walked out of the room with my phone.

After I went out of the room, I could finally let go of the act I've been putting up. My breathes became heavy. With each breath, it was getting hard for me to breath. I quickly went to the washroom and locked the door.

I started to let my chakra flow in my body to know what's happening.

I found that my body is in some sort of reconstruction stage for some reasons. I guessed it must be adaptation to Eri's quirk, because that's the only thing stimulating enough to result in such. It was slow. But also a little painful.

My chakra-flow was slower than before. Right now, my body had four energies running through it. My own base chakra, Nature's Energy, Remnants of Eri's Quirk Energy and adapted Chakra.

Quirk Energy wanted to rewind the time of my body while adapted Chakra stopped it by moving time forward. Nature's Energy was just doing it's own thing, strengthening my chakra. My own chakra was slowly adapting and becoming similar to the adapted Chakra.

All this clash and changes in my body was also affecting my body. In other words, my body was also trying to adapt to this changes.

Now that I knew what's happening in my body, I started to move my chakra and collected all the remnant energy of Eri's Quirk towards my chest and put it inside [ Energy Storage Seal ] on my body while also keeping it connected with [ Energy Redirecting Seal ], so that my chakra can keep on flowing and adapt to it but the process will be slowed down and made a lot calmer than it was a while ago.

This made me feel a little relieved. If anything, a huge amount of my chakra kept vanishing while some of it kept adapting.

The lost amount of chakra was huge but the recovery speed of [ Sage Body ] kind of offsets this problem.

After a while, my pale face regained some of its original colour. My breathing was back to normal and I wasn't feeling as tired. So, I came out of there.

I was in there for about half an hour and as I'd expected, Uncle was there to check if I was okay. He does know what happened in the park afterall.

"Are you Ok? You look much better than before but still, I had to ask." He said.

"Yeah I'm fine. I was too focused on getting back home that I forgot that I overused my quirk. I just needed some time to settle down the unrest it caused inside of me. It's fine now."

I am best when it comes to half truths! At least that's what I'd like to believe in.

"Anyways, I texted Mom, she'll be here in 5 minutes."

I said while walking back to the living room. Where I found Eri hugging her mother and crying. I guess she had a nightmare after going through that strain(?)

I went closer and sat beside her. When she looked up and saw me sitting there, smiling at her, she jumped on me hugging me tight and started crying even more.

"There there, everything is fine, everything is fine. It was just a bad dream."

Although I didn't understand what brought that reaction, I ignored it and focused on comforting her first.

"She had a nightmare that you disappeared when you touched her. She probably got scared when she found herself alone on the bed and thought it was real. She's been crying since then."

Aunty explained in soft voice noticing that Eri was calming down and by the time she finished, Eri was back to sleep.

After I settled her back to her bed... again... I heard familiar sound of Mom's car engine. She was already here. It was time for me to take my leave.

[ 2 years, 1 month ]

It was my 14th birthday. Everything seemed great.

Ell has started talking more fluently, she can use [ Shift ] seal now. That made it possible to set up a spy network for me. I had already started working on it a few month ago.

Dealing with all that 'making Eri's information confidential' made me understand even further about how deadly information can be if used accordingly. So, I wanted to made myself stronger in that aspect too. I don't want to be b*tch-slapped because I was careless.

Rika has grown a lot stronger now. She can manifest her flames on her body now. It's not that hot to burn things, but the power boost is huge.

Her highest punching force is almost 7% of All Might's. That much in just a years worth of training. This kind of growth is monstrous at the very least.

Talking about her training. It's similar to any body training, with only difference being it's a hundred times more difficult than a human's upper limit can handle. Perspective-wise, for her it's just like a human training in their upper limits.

After body strengthening is done, she trains for controlling the fire. It works subconsciously on it's own but there's also option for her to take control over it. That's how she learned, as she likes to call it, [Flame Boost] using flames. Whenever she uses it, her enhanced body part will glow in a pale golden light. Same colour as the [ Life Flame ].

Currently, she can use it only for about 15 minutes at full power. If she manages to hold it back then maybe 3 hours. After that, she'll have to let [ Life Flame ] to replenish itself. It takes about half an hour for it to be back in full strength.

Her stamina recovery is also unbelievably fast now. During this growth period of hers, she sparred with me so many times that I even lost count of it. Her skills had improved a lot. If not for the lack of experience, she can already become a Hero.

Her behaviour though, it has become a little weird ever since she merged with [ Life Flames ]. Is it affecting her? I am damn sure that it's not the case. With all those failsafes I put in there and also the alert system I put on her which will alert me whenever someone or something messes with her mind, I don't believe that could be the case.

I just don't understand why she's changing like that?

Right! Puberty! It must be! She's at that age, well so am I, but mine has just started whereas hers must've had long started developing. Girls hit puberty much earlier than boys afterall.

Well, if that's the case, I can be at ease and welcome this change. It's not like it's unpleasant or anything. Just a little annoying how much she avoids me whenever I try to praise her for something. But if that means she's growing up, I don't mind.

Mom had started get busier. I help her out with her job as much as I can. She told me that she's part of board that is discussing about how to deal with MLA (Meta-Liberation Army).

This group, they have no mention about them in my notes. Were they dealt with even before the plot started? Or maybe I forgot about them before I could write down notes about them? Whatever it is, they are a threat. That's all that matters.

Mom, is trying to find a way to gather information about MLA, that's why she's too busy.

I felt a little relieved that it's just gathering intel. I can help her easily. Just need a little more time. That's all.

Aunty, well she's got a boyfriend now. So she's busy with her life too. I miss spending time with her, but I can't just demand it from her like that. Can I? She has her own life too. Besides, I don't have to ask for it. She spends as much time as she can with me. Although most of those are spent without doing anything but relaxing while watching TV or talking with each other with any random thing.

While I was making sure I was enjoying my life, not even once ever since I awakened my memories, have I stopped training or thinking or working on my plans to become stronger and make preparations for my plans.

Now that it's just one year away from my plan to begin, I am not going to slack off at all.

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That's the end of the chapter.

Hope you enjoyed it.

Stay safe folks! See you in the next chapter.