Nyx grunted in pain, lying flat on the floor of the dark corridor, black bits of paper scattered all around her like flowers on a grave.
"#$#$&* Radiant, #$#$# your 3$##$#$," she cursed again, panting.
One.
Just one use of Alex's Quirk had kicked her to the threshold of death's door.
At the LA Villains Detention Center, if it weren't for Luke supporting her, then she would have died a dozen times over.
A great reason behind Mushroom-nimi's existence was not Luke's wish to experiment with Intelligence and symbiosis-related Quirks, but his desperation to save Nyx.
Still, after surviving that fate, Nyx had no choice but to prepare herself for something like that happening again in the future.
She hated it when Luke forced himself into situations with uncontrolled outcomes.
She hated it even more when he did this for her.
So, ever since that day, Nyx had been practicing how to survive another random increase in gravity.
That had turned out to be more difficult than she had imagined, though.
First, Nyx was a bird — a fact that dictated her physical limit.
Second, her Path was that of a Seer.
No matter how many Spirit Points she gained with each Sequence, it didn't do shit to her Stamina.
Which meant that unless Nyx used a strengthening Quirk, she would never be able to tank a weight as large as Alex's.
Which, in turn, meant she had no choice but to play according to her abilities without depending upon overly on Bioalchemy.
It wasn't like they could afford such a Quirk at the space station anyway.
At the moment, Nyx held three Quirks on her — two of Super Complexity and one of Simple Complexity.
To avoid depending upon spatial teleportation, especially with the Radiant of Gravity's involvement, Star Shift was a must. It was also her and Luke's fastest way to escape, making it their favorite Quirk.
The second Super Quirk was something Luke had never bestowed upon her.
…
[
Quirk: Return
Complexity: S
Consumption:
— Spirit 115
— Stamina 28
Contact Time: 10 seconds
Activation Time: 5 minutes
]
…
At first, Nyx had never wanted Luke to give it to her.
A Plus Ultra Quirk, purely focused on offense, like Absolute Zero, would have made much more sense, given the monstrous difficulty and stakes of the mission.
But Luke had ultimately chosen Return — a Quirk that could let Nyx return any living or non-living thing to its original state, as long as she knew what that thing looked like originally.
It would have been one of the worst Super Complexity Quirks Nyx had ever used, if it weren't for one fact.
Nyx was a Seer.
Not only could she accurately find out how a thing looked originally, but, as a Sequence 7 Magician, she could do so fast enough during a pinch.
Returning things to their original state didn't sound like much, but the greatest use of the Quirk wasn't to repair objects but… to heal people, including herself!
The only restriction was that Nyx couldn't return a thing to its original state beyond a five-minute limit.
But, within that five-minute limit, if a person hadn't died… actually died… no matter how bad an injury he had suffered, then she could heal him completely.
And that had been enough to make Return a Super Complexity Quirk, which was closest to Plus Ultra.
The only reason Luke hadn't pushed it to the Plus Ultra category, other than the fact that it would have locked a great chunk of their Spirit Points, was that he had wanted to bestow a Simple Quirk upon her as well.
…
[
Quirk: Quick Reaction
Complexity: C
Consumption:
— Spirit 25
— Stamina 10
Contact Time: 2 seconds
Activation Time: 42 minutes
]
…
Simple Quirk.
Simpler function.
But, combined with a Magician's Danger Intuition, it was almost a High Complexity Quirk.
It was the only Quirk that was currently in Active mode.
It was also the only ability that had let Nyx survive the sudden fall of weight, holding onto her senses as much as she could.
The moment her Danger Intuition had picked up on Alex's use of his Quirk to enhance gravity, Nyx had taken herself as close to the ceiling as possible before loosening up all her bones using Clown's innate abilities.
Then had come the most difficult part — something Nyx couldn't have done without Quick Reaction.
The moment the massive force had fallen upon her, she had used Paper Substitution, letting it undergo the fate that should have been hers.
Then, right after appearing at another location, she had used Paper Substitution again, all the while falling toward the floor like an arrow.
If it hadn't been for Quick Reaction and the fact that Alex had barely spread the accumulated weight before canceling it almost instantly, then Nyx would have still broken many bones just from the impact.
Even then, by the time the increased gravity disappeared, Nyx had suffered the load enough times to feel as if her bones had broken.
Luke's constant chatter, asking if she was okay, through the mushroom sticking out from the right side of her head, only made things worse.
Now, Nyx knew how Miss Justice was aiming to let Luke digest the Faceless Potion faster.
It turned out that the System had a much deeper intention behind separating the two of them.
Acting as Gehrman Sparrow was clearly not enough, even if Luke had a Radiant as an audience.
But what if Luke acted both as himself and Gehrman Sparrow… simultaneously?!
By separating Nyx from Luke, Miss Justice had all but ensured that he would constantly ask Nyx how she was doing and if she needed him to activate a Super Quirk.
"… Bitch!" Nyx cursed, pushing herself up. "I am gonna…"
"Nyx!" Luke's worried voice rang in her ear. "Something's coming right toward you!"
Even as she heard those words, Nyx saw a massive blob of gel, glowing deep red, appear at the end of the module.
And, trapped within that featureless mound of gel, was a man, looking right toward her with his dead, hollow eyes.
"Fuck!"