16 Chapter 14: Futari Kemono Taiyku

It wasn't always like this. My name wasn't always Futari Taikyu and Shukuchi wasn't always my dad. My biological father's name was Hanta Kemono. He was a stocky, black man who was known as one of the best animal trackers in the world. His quirk was called "Manifestation". His body could produce a chemical similar to plasma that could manifest outside his body to make weapons. He could only make weapons that he understood, so his office was filled with books about all sorts of weapons, medieval, hunting you name it. My mom's name was Ninaru Kemono. She was a lean Japanese woman, extremely athletic. She was a hero who was specialized in tracking and stakeouts. Her quirk was "Animal Shifting." She could shapeshift into different animals but had to teach herself the different ways of movement for each animal. She pretty much knew all the ways animals on the planet could move; knuckle walking, walking on all fours, flying, slithering, etc. She had it mastered. My biological mom and biological dad met on a joint mission where they had to track down a villain that used animals as the base of their operations.

My name was Futari Kemono and I used to live in Chiba, Japan. I was 5 years old, soon to be 6 years old and I was getting ready to go the first grade. My quirk had not manifested yet. It was clear that I should have a quirk because I only had one joint on my pinky toe, but the doctors were baffled that my quirk had not come yet. One doctor had a theory that my quirk would activate when I need it most but there had not tested that theory yet. At school, the other kids would try to bully me for not having a quirk, but I was…not easily pushed around and I got in a lot of trouble for getting into fights with my bullies. I had just walked into my house and both parents happened to be home, a rare occurrence.

"Dad? Mom? You are both home early!" I said excitedly jumping up and down.

"Yes! We have something exciting to tell you but first-." My dad said in a somewhat serious tone.

Then suddenly my mom exploded and yelled at me saying, "you NEED to stop fighting these kids! You have gotten into 3 fights in the last two weeks! The school is very upset with you and it makes your father and I look bad!"

I became very upset. These two probably had some kind of concern for me but they mostly cared about their public image, especially my mother since she was a pro-hero. I was harassed almost every day by these bratty children, but I didn't let them bully me because I guess subconsciously I knew the importance of standing up for myself. Instead of being proud that I didn't allow myself to be bullied, my parents simply got upset that I had to defend myself. "I'm…I'm sorry…they just try to hurt me and call me horrible names…"

"Maybe I need to go to the school and get this sorted out. I'm not sure I have time..." My dad said crossing his legs. I almost rolled my eyes. This was the 3rd or 4th time he said he'd go to the school to help me, but he always ends up being too busy. He cleared his throat. "Anyway, I have a surprise for you…" My dad began to tap the table in a drumroll like sound. "I won a contest yesterday. This contest decided who was the best animal tracker in Japan and I won!" Ah yes. You can do a contest but not come help me with my bullies at school. Of course, I thought to myself. "I have been declared the greatest tracker in Japan! So, of course, we are going to celebrate! This weekend we are going to a resort," He continued.

"YAAAAAAAY!!!" I said while jumping up and down and running around. It's funny. Most kids would be excited that they are going to a resort, but I was more excited to get away from my bullies. It was true. My father became the best tracker in Japan. He would be shown in tv shows and probably get his own brands. However, with success comes jealousy from others. My father beat many people in this contest but none were as devastated about it as the man who got 8th place, who identified himself as "Confession". Confession was in massive debt, but he had a talent for tracking animals and tried to use his talents to become famous to get money. He did a great job. From out of nowhere, he got 8th place out of 67, but some people cannot see their success; only their failures. Confession lost his home and all his possessions. He could have easily gotten sponsorships and jobs himself had he attempted to do so, but he became mentally unstable because he wanted first place; he wanted instant recognition and gratification for what he did. He blamed my father. He used him as a scapegoat for his problems. He wanted to hurt my father.

I went to the park because I always enjoyed being outside. When I had run out of the house to enjoy myself, Confession made his move. Confession had ties with the underground so he had a few "friends" who may or may not have already spent time in jail. There were 3 of them; one who's quirk was to create a soundproof aura, one had a quirk that produced steel chains that he could manipulate, and Confession himself was quirk less but he had a magnum. The three snuck into my house while I was gone. After about 10 minutes, I had realized that I forgot to get money for the ice cream truck, so I ran back home as fast as I could.

I got to the front door and knocked. "Hey, mom! Dad! I need to get to my money jar!" I looked to my right. Both of their cars are still home. That's weird. Are they upstairs?I thought to myself. I knocked again and waited. Silence. Ok, whatever. I thought as I walked to my secret entrance which was just the garage door. The garage door had a keypad code that I knew by heart from all the times I had come home and my nanny hadn't arrived yet. I opened the garage door and notice something, a purple hazy essence. I stepped into the garage and looked at the purple haze. It extended throughout the garage, but it almost seemed like a barrier. It curved into the wall on both sides of the garage like the outer end of a circle. I picked up a stick and stuck it through the aura. Nothing happened. Then I stuck my hand through the purple haze. Nothing. So, I casually walked through it but I once I did I was immediately paralyzed with fear from my mother's screams.

Confession sat in a chair pointing his gun at my mom and dad who were wrapped in chains. This was happening in the basement. The thug with the soundproof aura sat in a meditation pose to focus on keeping the aura up. The other made sure his chains were tight. "Do you know why I have you here? Don't answer that. Of course, you don't. You have no idea how you affect other people, Hanta." Confession rambled.

"I haven't done anything to anyone. I'm just an anim-." My dad started to say before getting smacked on the side of the head by the gun. My mom began to scream, the same scream that I heard.

"STOP TALKING! I am Confession! I got 8th at the contest yesterday. I needed to win. Needed it to keep my house. But YOU! You are the reason I didn't win. Do you understand what it's like to lose EVERYTHING you own because of one guy?! Confession explained with a crazy look on his face.

"My husband didn't cause you to lose! You got 8th place. You-." Confession grabbed my mom's hair and put the gun to her forehead to shut her up.

"You have quite the wife here. The Animal Hero, Huntress. It's a shame that you will get your head blown off if you try to become an animal." Confession turns to look at my father. "Your wife is quite pretty…"

"Don't hurt her! Please! I'll do anything! Just not my wife…"

"Your husband is quite the beta." Confession laughed to himself.

"Says the man who is upset over getting 8th place and blaming the man who got first." My mom said with a tone of arrogance. That might be where I get my attitude from. As this was said as I opened the door at the top of the staircase.

Confession smacked her in the face with his gun. "You've got quite the mouth on you huh?" Confession points at the chain thug. "Make sure those chains are tight on her. I'm going to beat the crap out of her and make him listen." Confession then turns back to my father. "Then I'll be sure to blow your head off."

My father became angry and tried to break out of the chains but he couldn't with his own strength and he couldn't manifest any weapons without putting both of his palms together. Confession laughed and began to hit my mom as hard as he could with his fists. He got about 4 or 5 hits in.

I finally got to a part of the staircase where I could see what was going on. The sight was unimaginable for a 5-year-old boy. My parents were both beaten, bruised and wrapped in chains. A random was pummeling my mother. I guess I didn't realize it at the time but seeing this sight activated my quirk for the first time. "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING TO MY FAMILY?!" I shrieked to the top of lungs in my distorted voice within my quirk. Confession and his men were startled.

Confession swung his gun towards me while pointing at the man with the silence quirk. "Oi don't you dare lose concentration! We need this to be silent! And keep them chains tight." He pointed the gun at me and began to laugh. "This?! This is your son?! He looks more like Satan!"

"Futari! RUN! He will kill you! Call the police!" My mom screamed. I could barely hear her. I was going to kill Confession.

"You think I'm gonna let him run?! It'd be different if he was an actual kid, but this THING is no child. Now hold still so this bullet goes clean through your skull." Bear claws began to grow out of my hand. I saw Confession remove the safety on the gun, but I didn't give him the space to shoot. The stairs detonated from my leap to Confession. I slashed Confession abdomen with the claws. He accidentally fired off a shot and missed. I slashed the arm holding the gun, causing him to drop it. I, then in an instant, slashed the throat of the chain user before he could even deactivate his quirk and then quickly rushed to the silence quirk man biting into his shoulder blade, ripping it off, and then stabbing through his torso. I turned back around to face my now freed parents and Confession who was kneeling on the floor in pain while staring at me in horror. I could imagine the view. A small child with pitch black skin, red eyes and blood dripping out his mouth and claws. Certainly disturbing.

I proceeded to maul Confession for what he did to my mother, but she stopped me before I killed him. This incident caused my parents to disown me out of fear and to preserve their reputation as heroes. Can't be hero when you have a son saving your life by murdering your attackers, I guess. At the end of the day, they loved their reputations more than me and this decision made that clear. However, luckily for me, the cop who investigated the case was a rookie named Shukuchi Taiyku. Shukuchi saw the havoc that I had caused and brought me to a doctor, during the investigation, to figure out how a five year could do something like this.

The doctor explained that, like my dad, my quirk causes my body to produce a chemical that can only be used if a condition is met. The chemical is black hence why I become completely black when using the quirk. Anyhow, the condition is that I have to use it to adopt a physical trait of any animal as long as I understand the use of the trait of the animal I'm trying to copy. Unlike my mom, I don't fully turn into an animal. I retain a humanoid form. The animal part came from my mom and the chemical in my veins linked to a condition comes from my dad. The chemical has to be able to give me amazing senses, massive strength or agility as well as access to an almost infinite number of traits from animals on the planet. Since the chemical is flowing in my veins and has to be able to provide me with all the augmentation, it, naturally but passively, gives me peak physical human strength and advanced senses (for a human) as long as I stay physically fit and constantly train. The downside is that when using the quirk, my body uses more on the primal part of the brain as opposed to normal humans who primarily use the frontal cortex. This happens because my body tries to become more like an animal, I guess. The primal part of the brain is responsible for survival and instincts hence why I become far more aggressive, bloodthirsty and favor my impulses when I use my quirk.

There are more downsides to the quirk as well. Since it allows me to grow more limbs or shape-shift my current limbs, my body has to be able to warp itself to match the traits I want. That warping can lead to pain. These augmented limbs also produce lactic acid when using them so I have to deal with increased muscle fatigue especially after using my quirk. The biggest downside, however, is the fact that I need to thoroughly study animals in order to be able to adopt their traits. For example, it's not enough for me to see gills on a fish. If I don't know the function of the gills, the gills will appear on my body but I won't be able to breathe underwater. It goes much deeper than this as well. Certain fish can swim in deeper depths of the sea. If I wanted to go that deep in the water, I'd need to know what fish can swim that deep and then adopt that species' gills specifically. Another example of the complexity of my quirk is a dog's nose. I can understand that they have a strong sense of smell but how strong specifically is that sense? If I don't know the answer to that question my version of the dog nose will be significantly weaker. Even if I do know everything about the animal trait I adopt, at my best I can only unlock about 70% of the trait's potential. For example, if we're to adopt a shark's face and use hypersonic waves next to Gang Orca, his hypersonic waves would be 30% more potent than my own. If a person with a gorilla quirk trained as hard as me, he'd hit 30% harder and lift 30% more weight. I'm certainly not slow or physically weak by any means but the real strength of my quirk is its versatility and its ability to combine multiple animal traits together.

Anyway, Shukuchi had taken note that I was able to kill 2 men and fatally injure another in a few seconds and destroy a hard wood staircase just by leaping from it. He saw a lot of potential in me. Shukuchi argued vehemently with my parents to not disown me because he felt foster care would probably hurt my potential. But, they disagreed, so he decided to adopt as soon as I was disowned to try to help me learn how to control my quirk and teach me how to fight. He lived in Musutafu so I had to move there. At first, I hated Shukuchi. He changed my name, my home, and forced me to train with him. However, over time I realized how much he cared about me and how much he helped me. I began to love him as my actual father. Nine years passed and I had made some progress. I was a purple belt in MMA (I would be a black belt, but I needed to be 18 to officially earn it) and I learned how to use all sorts of animal traits with my quirk. I even mastered a partial transformation because I still couldn't quite control a full transformation in stressful situations. Only Shukuchi could stop me from my rampages. I was 14 years old and getting ready to graduate from middle school. I had already taken final exams including the written hero exam. I was debating if I'd actually go to hero school if I did well on the exam. I wasn't too fond of heroes because of my biological mother, but Shukuchi urged me to try it.

I liked to venture to Tokyo on the weekends to walk around and explore. I bought a walkie-talkie at a convenience store because my dad needed one for a project he was doing. It was 6 pm. The sun was going down.

I wonder what Dad needs this walkie talkie for. I thought to myself as I kept turning it on and off. I need to stop doing this before I break it, I reminded myself. I stopped fiddling with it but little to my knowledge, I accidentally left it on. I looked around and took in the sight that was Tokyo at sunset. All the cars were stuck in rush hour traffic, pro heroes were walking around on patrol, people were walking all over the place conversating about business, life, and other things. I smiled while taking this all in. Eventually, I came to the block before the train station I always take home. The neighborhood was a bit shady, but I never really minded it.

"Hello?" Said a random woman. I looked around confused. There was no one in street. "Please…someone if you can hear this help me." This time there was static, and I realized that it was coming from my walkie-talkie.

"Hello?" I said back into the device as I lifted it up.

The woman began to cry a bit. "Thank god…someone heard me."

"What's going on, ma'am?"

"I…I have been kidnapped. Me and a dozen others. I managed to steal one of their walkie-talkies that they use to communicate and hide. Please help us." She didn't have to tell me that. Once I heard "kidnapping" I already pulled out my phone to call the police.

"Ma'am I'm calling the police to come help. Stay on the talky with me please." The police answered but I cut them off before they could say anything. "There have been multiple kidnappings on 3rd South street near the South Tokyo Train Station. Please help."

As I finished that sentence something happened on the walky-talky. A door was getting kicked and I heard a man. "So, you are trying to contact the outside before I could find you huh?! It doesn't matter! I'll make sure to kill you and escape with my pals. The woman was screaming, and I heard the man stomping forward towards her. I dropped my phone. She'd be killed before the police got here. Considering what my dad has told me it'll be roughly 3 minutes before the police came by. My walkie talkie was basically a toy one. It could only communicate in about a 50 ft radius around me. This man was about to kill a screaming woman, so it was likely that it was in an abandoned building and there happened to be one right down the alley I was next to. I activated my "Veins" as I ran to the building. I could hear the door being kicked in a few floors up.

The door was kicked in. "It was smart to hide behind a metal door, woman but it's over now. Such a dumb plan. No one uses walkie talkies anymore besides the police and those don't go more than 50 feet so they are only used to communicate between the four floors in this building."

She smiled nervously. "You are wrong! I contacted a young boy and he called the police. This trafficking operation is done! You've already wasted so much time. The police and heroes will come, and you'll be arrested."

"You are lying. There is simply no way. Now you'll die." The man stuck out his hand. I came through the drywall startling both the man and woman. I stood between them. He instantly contacted his radio. "Hey, we got a situation up here. Help me contain it."

"Ma'am, are you okay?" I asked.

"Yes, but why did you come? Are you a student hero?" She asked.

"No. Just a civilian doing the right thing."

"Well 'doing the right thing' will now get you killed. The man said as the smoke cleared. My eyes widened. I knew exactly who he was. Chikara Fudotokuno. He was a known human trafficker that has evaded police for the last several weeks. They had just decided to employ some heroes to help find him. A cold sweat formed on me. He began to laugh as his two partners appeared. "Judging by your expression, you know who I am, kid. Then you know that we can quickly kill you both, load the rest of cargo and escape before the police capture us."

I began to smile. "I don't have a sweat because I can't beat you. I have a sweat because-." The black chemical began to spread out of my veins to the rest of my body. "my quirk may cause me to kill scum like you. Human traffickers are the worst variety of people." As I finished that sentence I had fully shifted into my monstrous form and Chikara's two goons arrived. "Lady grab my back and don't let go."

"You aren't going anywhere!" Shitara said as him and his goons attempted to swarm me.

Kamui Woods, who was still an upcoming hero at this point, arrived at where I had called the police. He looked up to the building and was shocked. He contacted his hero agency. "Oi. Didn't you say no one else has gotten to the scene yet?"

"Yes. No one is there yet." A man answered.

"What in the hell…" What Kamui saw was the wall of the abandoned building exploding. Out of it came, Shitaka and his two goons who were thrown by octopus tentacles along with who was welding the tentacles with a woman on my back.

Wings grew out of my back to chase them. I grabbed Shitaka's face first. "I'll make sure you NEVER kidnap anyone again!" I dove down like a bird going to catch its prey and slammed Shitaka into the concrete street floor, breaking many bones. I flew back up into the air until I was directly above one of the other goons. My wings disappeared, and my right arm became a bit more muscular with fur. I switched to a gorilla's arm. "You can join him!" I drove my fist into his stomach causing him to cough up blood and sent him crashing into a thankfully empty sidewalk. The final goon began to recover and began to try and fly away with his quirk I'm guessing. My right arm became an elephant trunk and ensnared the man's leg. "You aren't going anywhere!" I whipped him to the ground with enough force to crack the pavement. I stuck the landing and woman was uninjured though a bit dizzy. I looked and saw Kamui Woods.

"Kamui Woods! This woman is the victim. Apparently, there are more in the building. You should find them!" My quirk began to deactivate, and the woman thanked me but as I went to grab my phone I was restrained by wood along with the other villains.

"You aren't a student hero nor are you a hero, right? You just illegally used your quirk and caused public property damage. Not mention the individuals you fought have taken serious damage. Vigilante work is strictly against law," Kamui explained.

I looked at the three human traffickers. Each one had extensive damage done to them. Cracked spines, internal bleeding, punctured arteries but I honestly couldn't care less about their wellbeing. "Huh?! That woman would have been beaten to death and they would have tried to escape before you guys got here!" I yelled angrily.

"It's still illegal kid." He called a medical unit to extract the villains then walked towards me and whispered in my ear. And so, I was arrested essentially for saving 13 human trafficking victims and leading to the destruction of a human trafficking organization all because I wasn't a licensed hero. This incident became known as the Tokyo Trafficking Incident. My father pulled some strings using his position as head of the Tokyo Espionage Unit to make sure I wasn't publicly mentioned in the incident. My father was both proud of me and pissed at me for saving that woman and getting myself arrested. I ended up being put on trial as a formality. I assumed that the worst I'd get is some kind of community service, but I ended up getting sentenced to 1 year in youth detention under the charges of assault and illegal use of y quirk. What I didn't know is how competitive hero society was. The judge's son went to the same school as me and wanted to be a hero. The judge was intimidated by me, a middle schooler who was able to stop a gang that evaded police for 2 weeks and defeated all of them at once. He did not want his son to have to compete with a monster like that so to ruin my chances of getting into hero school he made sure I had been put in a youth detention center so that it was on my record. My dad told me all this much later when he visited me in the detention center. Every hero school had the right to background check their applicants and being sentenced to a detention center would dramatically hurt my chances of going to a hero school. My dad had a rage like I never seen. Not only did he appeal to the court system but he went out of his way to prove the corruptness of my judge. However, the judge stalled both the appeal and his own case as long as possible not to mention that the process of appealing was already quite long. Because of this, my dad quit his job because he couldn't handle the corruption. I ended up spending 11 months in jail, but I did not let it go to waste. In the detention center, I used trained 6 days a week for 3 hours. I had more time to get in longer training so I did it. It was a good way to channel my rage at hero society for screwing me over. I wasn't allowed to use my quirk, but I practiced my hand to hand, my strength, my flexibility, and studied different animals to improve my quirk. Until this point, I didn't really have a goal but during my time in the detention center I figured it out. I'd become a powerful individual and prove to the world that you don't need to be a licensed hero or be an officer to be heroic; to know right from wrong; to help others; to respect others. Society can become its own symbol of peace if they stopped being so complacent with waiting for heroes to save them and began to help heroes by saving themselves in certain situations. I am Futari Kemono Taiyku, and I am nothing more than a strong civilian. For now, that's all I need to be.