I sat with my hands folded in my lap, and I was almost buzzing with energy. Uncommon for me as I usually tried to stay calm. However, this time I couldn't help but feel jittery not because of anxiety or tics, but because I was eagerly waiting for my morning classes to be over. The next period during lunch would be my class's last chance to work with 1-A on our projects.

    The rest of the day where I worked outside of school, I spent my time building a prototype of Rose's gadget idea. I barely got any sleep over the weekend, but it was worth it. The mock-version of the Pyro-Kinetic Glove looked almost real. Built-in support plates and hand-stitched under armor made up the interior of the glove while the motion sensors and heating filters covered the top. I admitted that I might have gone overboard with the design, but seeing as a couple of days ago I couldn't think of anything at all, I was in no position to be anything less than grateful.

    I planned to show my prototype to my Heroics partner during lunch. Most of my friends had finished up their costume designs, so they told me they would just wait in the cafeteria until I was done.

    I faced up at the clock hanging up in Professor Q's classroom. After counting down the last 60 seconds of class, I quickly stood up from my desk along with my classmates. Double stayed by my side as we stopped outside the 1-H classroom and patiently waited on the rest of our group. Correction: he was waiting patiently, whereas I was trying to mask my antsy foot taps.

    Finally, Rose, Dani, and Snake all made it out the door of the 1-H classroom, and it looked like we could get a move on. I took a step in the direction of where we needed to head until I was stopped by a student of metallic blue hair, and the floating esse of a UA girl's uniform.

    "Well, if it isn't the Bratty Bunch," my arch-rival, Siri Remata, commented, holding her hand in front of me before placing her hands on her waist.

    Oh, my God, why‽

    I did not have the energy to deal with whatever crap she had for me. I only had half an hour to meet with my partner then make it back to lunch, and I would guarantee that I didn't set time aside to patronize this psycho.

    I looked over my shoulder to find Double in the same position of being fed up with this girl. I shook my head at him, redacting any offer that said I would speak to her first.

    Double got the hint and addressed her on the group's behalf. "What do you— what do you want, Remata?" He asked, pulling on the red bandana around his neck.

    "My partner and I were just trying to get into the shop to finish up her Hero costume." Siri brushed a loose strand of her bright hair over her shoulder before taking time to respond to Double. The partner she had mentioned more or less was behind her.

    Just as I remembered, Siri was paired with the one invisible student at UA. All we could see of this girl was the outline of her uniform carved out as she lifted an arm to wave at us.

    The way this girl moved around made me think she was talking to us. I couldn't read a word of what she said, but the way her jacket sleeves bounced around and her shoes dipped upwards gave me the impression she was a very cheery and friendly person— opposite to the Support kid she was next to.

    "I told you not to talk to them," Siri snapped at her partner. The invisible girl took a step back as her arms fell behind her back in a reserved position.

    As much as I mentally begged her not to, Siri kept talking. "I just thought you all would want to know that I'm pretty much done with Toru's costume, and we're both ready to destroy all five of you with it." As she threatened us with her own skill, the floating uniform sleeves behind her started moving as if Toru was adding on. I could assume that what she said was either an apology or something of encouragement to us by the way Siri told her to shut up after.

    Interested in what my friends had to say, I glanced back at them. It appeared that no one wanted this conversation to go on any longer. However, Rose, who likely hadn't been tormented by Siri as much as the rest of us, took her chances and asked, "Why would we want to know that?"

    I looked back in time to see Siri face up at Rose and twitch her eyebrow in instant disgust. She didn't recognize the much taller girl as being a part of our little party of losers. Although, that failed to stop Siri from picking on her too.

    Siri's cold eyes glanced from up at Rose down to the shiny prosthetic that replaced her arm. I was nearly scared as to what she would say as she didn't skip a beat to ask, "What are you, some sort of cyborg?"

    I was so quick to look back at the people standing around me that I thought I'd break my neck doing so. I only caught Double's repeated interjections of "Okay-Okay." But as he was nervous and stumbling over words, Rose stayed silent. She still seemed shocked to hear such a derogatory insult, and a small part of me was curious to know what she would say back.

    I didn't get the witty comeback I had almost hoped for as I watched Rose take a step forward and pull her hand over her right ear.

    "One of you, hold my earrings," she warned until Dani put a hand on her shoulder and stopped her from taking it any farther.

    "I think what she means is we're just surprised you got done so quickly," Dani said to Siri. "Considering that your partner has such a challenging Quirk, and how you're such a challenging person."

    From in front of him but still behind me, I saw Snake smile and the rattles on her hair shake: her way of laughing. "Yeah, I almost feel bad for her, having to put up with you for over a week."

   Turning back to Siri, I watched the evil girl roll her eyes. "You know, I thought Buddhists were supposed to be passive."

    Snake shrugged to herself then swiftly replied. "Well, I'm Hindu. . .so you can expect two of these after one of us kicks your ass in the contest." I averted my stare at her after catching Snake's bold use of sign language. While I didn't encourage her, Dani had to hold a hand over his mouth to keep himself from laughing out loud.

   Siri's mouth dropped open. The heated argument seemed to come to an end as she finished with, "I don't have to take this." It wasn't long after when she grabbed Toru by the invisible hand and stormed off into the classroom.

    Rose stepped up from behind Dani, shaking her head as she did so.

    "Wow. So you guys weren't kidding when you mentioned how horrible that one is," she said. Double nodded along as we all regrouped and started moving down the hallway.

    I stopped once the halls split off, and I signed as best as I could that I would be going to 1-A to meet with my Heroics student, and I'd catch them later. They eventually got the idea, and I knew I could always text the group chat if there was any confusion.

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    It didn't take me too long to navigate my way from the Support Department up into the Heroics Department. My luck had all the classroom doors labeled in big, red letters, so narrowing down 1-A was a breeze.

    I was again filled with so much anticipation when opening the door. I had put up with this short-tempered guy for the entirety of this project, and this was the first time I actually looked forward to what he was going to say. He was going to love this gadget idea, and I was sure of it.

    The door to Class A slid open to show me a classroom almost identical to ours. The individual desks were all empty as most of the Heroics kids were also in lunch. While looking around, I immediately saw my partner standing at the other side of the room, not wasting a moment to greet me.

    "I have training soon, so hurry up and show me what you made," he demanded. I honestly didn't care about the harsh tone as the idea of presenting my work was enough to keep me optimistic.

    I grabbed my backpack from my shoulder and set it on the front desk, dumping out all my notebooks and papers until the box I kept my prototype glove in was in my hands. I managed to keep a steady hand when taking out the glove and holding it out to Bakugo.

    My partner grabbed the gadget from me and held it up while looking at it. His eyes displayed no emotion, which wasn't a bad sight necessarily. However, when his red eyes flicked back to lock onto mine, I knew it wasn't a good one either.

    "You're kidding me, right?" I watched him mouth. Speaking to him had proved to be a challenge in the past, so I had a hard time trying to find my words.

    I didn't have to though, as Bakugo went on.

    "It's supposed to be a glove. Gauntlets are already boring and cliche, so what made you think a wimpier version of one would be much better?" His words shut me up, and I lowered my hands from signing. Bakugo had put my glove on and pushed some of the buttons on the palm and wrist. When nothing happened, it only provoked him further.

    "And it doesn't even work?" Whether he raised his voice or not, I couldn't tell. Even if he did keep the same tone, it wouldn't have made me feel any better.

    Bakugo was hating my idea. I desperately grabbed my notepad out and wrote as fast as I could. I knew this guy was irked when I wrote to him, but it was all I could do. I showed him my note:

    "I'm sorry it doesn't work, but it's a prototype. I can build it functioning soon, I promise. Your Quirk is really dangerous. The glove will let you control your fire better, so please just give it a chance."

    A breath of relief passed by me as I saw Bakugo take a second to read it. But the relief was short come as he began to argue back. I hugged onto my notepad, unsure if I would be able to use it again.

    "I'll have you know I can handle my Quirk just fine, and I don't need training advice from some lab rat!" He unhooked the straps to my glove before dropping it to the ground. I didn't hear the sound all my hard work made as it collided with the tile floor, but I flinched as if I could.

    Bakugo stepped up to me and looked down. "I told you that if you can't make me the best damn hero costume there is, then don't even bother. I'd rather go out there in my gym uniform than these embarrassing failures." His words were silent to me. Still, I felt each of them cut through to bring me down. Painfully.

    As if what he just said wasn't effective enough, Bakugo added one last comment before leaving the room. "Next time, just try to stick to something you're good at and stop wasting my time."

    I looked back to see the door close behind him, and I was left alone, no choices left. My deep try was a bust, and I didn't have enough time to look for any other way to fix this. I was hopeless, and there was nothing else I could do.

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    I had packed up my things and left the 1-A classroom as quickly as I could. The feeling going through my chest, stomach, and head could be described as if my high hopes finally came down to crush me with harsh reality. Hearing that every hour and day I wasted was painful, and the only thing to top it would be the stress that my project was due in two days. And if I didn't have anything to show my entire class, then I'd lose every prayer I had at blending into the background because I would never hear the end of it.

    By the time I reached the entrance of the cafeteria, I was a stressed-out wreck. My breath felt short as if I didn't have the strength to hold a steady pace. Going into the cafeteria only seemed to make things worse, but my pride was in no shape to turn around and run away from anything else. As much as it killed me to be in that crowded room with a million kids I didn't give a shit about, I pushed on.

    Trying to find the seat my friends were at was difficult. Thanks to my tics, my eyes were blinking and twitching every second. I finally made it past all the people by clinging to the wall until I reached the back of the room. The four of them all sat at the same booth, and as they saw me, Rose and Dani moved over.

    Not like I was itching for things to complain about, but cramming two really tall people and myself into one side of the booth wasn't a cakewalk. I faced the table with my head down, but I couldn't even do that right with my agitated tics twitching my head up again and again.

    My neck was starting to hurt. There's the thing about Tourette's: even though I couldn't control every fidget, twitch, jerk, and impulse, I could still feel all of them. My eyes were blinking so much they hurt, and my neck began to cramp anytime I tried to stop the embarrassing nods to nothing.

    I ignored the things around me for the moment and tried to grab ahold of myself. I placed my hands on either side of my head until the ringing of my heartbeat became quieter. I didn't even realize that my hands were shaking until I held them up. Even so, I tried to chill out for just one second.

   But it was as if every aggravating thought had the power to trigger a tic. I replayed the argument I had with my Heroics partner, and my eyes would blink. I thought about the idea of Siri beating me in two days with her skills, and my shoulders pulled themselves to my head. I heard the ghosts' voices in my head and considered any of them trying to help, and my hands flinched to pull at my hair. All of me was distressed with all that was falling apart, and my tics and anxiety continued to get the better of me. That was until I felt something cold grab my left hand.

    The sudden feeling was enough for a tic to flinch my head back. I looked over to see the cold metal be nothing but the prosthetic hand of my classmate Rose. Her hand pulled mine away from my head, but my fingers still flexed out every other second in hers. Rose said something, but I didn't get the chance to read her. Embarrassed I had to be liberated from my tic attack, I just faced forward to the other two sitting across from us.

    Keeping my eyes slightly above the lunch table, I just barely saw Double sign to me. If I wasn't being so overstimulated, I'd be interested in seeing my friend use sign, but it was far down the list of concerns. I watched him repeat what he said, signing the letters "U", "O", and "K" with his best effort.

    I tried to nod, but woe was me that another unwanted tic twisted my head down. The quick motion hurt as I had attempted to fight against it, only causing pain at the base of my neck. My right hand flexed and twitched while my left wanted to do the same if it wasn't being held down by a certain bionic appendage.

    Snake had her head laid in her arms over the table, and I saw her lean over Double to look at me. "You seem s-stressed," she hissed. Her hand pulled back to grab a glass from her end of the table.

    "Take a breath and drink some water. It'll help ground you," she advised. I wasn't in a mindset to pass up much help, so I accepted her offer.

    Rose let go of my other hand so I could wrap both of them around the cold glass, and I tried to ground myself. My breathing was more steady than before, which was a start. I still felt tics push behind my eyes until I blinked them away, but I focused on the glass. It was colder on my palms, but oddly didn't trigger any flinches because of it. I took it as a sign to move forward.

    I pulled the glass to my face and felt the cool water go down my throat. I didn't feel any tics stop me, and that alone was calming. Things seemed fine enough that I couldn't remember what set me off in the first place.

    Oh, right.

    In less than a single second, I recalled it all. Every horrible thought, all the stinging insults, and the important deadline that was approaching faster and faster. All of it flooded my mind so fast and so uncontrollably that I didn't have a second of warning before feeling the effects of one last tic.

    I felt a snap, then a crack, and then my entire jaw was in agonizing pain.

    I dropped my hands to the table after feeling the water leave the glass and fall to either the table or all across by uniform button-down. Still unsure of what happened, I pushed the hair out of my eyes to get a clear look at myself. The glass I was coping with had been shattered at the rim, and all of the water and ice began to spill out.

    The only explanation I could give myself was this happened because of a tic. As unsatisfying as it was to say it, I knew there was nothing I could have done to stop my nerves from making me bite through the glass.

    Though, I couldn't quite give that story to the people at the booth who started to freak out. Snake had leaned back in the seat rather than over the table that was flooding with water as Dani uses his bandages and sand to stop it. Double looked terrified when facing the glass than myself, and I didn't understand what the dramatic reaction was about. I held my hand against my face to wipe off the water, and moving it back I could then see what he was panicking over.

    My hand was stained red, and just to confirm, I slid the other one over my mouth. Just like the first one, my second hand was coated in blood the minute it touched my mouth. I had earlier thought I couldn't have humiliated myself anymore, but chomping through the glass and cutting my mouth and fingers with it was a new record.

    I grabbed any napkins, papers, or hell, even the sleeve of my jacket to clean up the water. I prayed none of them would make a big deal out of it all, but I saw Double stand up from his seat.

    "Come on— come on, Snake and Dani got this," he stuttered, waving a hand to get me to follow him. I didn't feel like getting up, but staying in the tiny puddle that was my seat also didn't sound too appealing.

    I slid out of the booth to find Rose following behind me. I noticed she had her prosthetic arm held up, away from the table, and I felt horrible thinking that my tics could have ruined her bionics in some way. She walked behind me as I followed Double until the three of us left the cafeteria.

    I held my hand tight around my mouth and chin. I felt the corners of my lips sting with every step I moved, but no other tics were around to make it worse. I could at least be happy with that.

    Double walked with his hand on my shoulder to keep me from lagging behind as he led the way to the school bathrooms. The area was set up so that the boys' bathrooms were on one side, the girls' on the other side, and the sinks in between. Double stopped at the first sink while Rose grabbed two handfuls of paper towels, and I washed the blood off my hands.

    After picking the small flakes of glass out of my fingers, I took the paper towels from Rose to stop the bleeding from my mouth. She wet a few of them under the sink and continued to help me clean my mess up. When the corners of my mouth had stopped bleeding for a minute, Double asked to look at the cuts on my hands.

    Rose stepped up behind him and itched at the back of her head. "So, can I ask why?"

    I didn't have any material to write with, so I was stuck having to sign. I shrugged and shook my head when my attempts didn't work. I couldn't get through to Rose or Double, but even if I could, I wasn't sure how to explain why I felt like biting through glass during a panic attack.

    I gave my silent apologies to both of them, and when closing my teeth, I felt something sharp stab at my molars. I leaned over the sink and spit out another sharp object to realize it was just another stray piece of glass.

    I couldn't have felt worse. Not only do I make an idiot of myself with my annoying Tourette's, but I also dragged my friends into it. Double probably had better things to do than stick around me, and Rose shouldn't have to risk getting her automail ruined just because I can't hold a glass of water properly.

    By the time I got all the leftover glass out of my mouth, I was done. There was nothing left in the day for me at that point. I knew sticking around would only provide more opportunities to humiliate myself.

    I grabbed my phone and started walking. Once I was at the other side of the hallway, I texted the group chat, saying, "I'm going home."

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    Rose nor Double went after me when I walked out of the school. Even if they did, I likely would have ignored them. I had shut my phone off as soon as I got onto the train and took the first ride home.

    My headache lingered as I made it home, but thankfully my tics weren't going off every instant. I held my hands to my temples, and I braced myself for the number of voices about to get stuck in my head as I opened the door.

    Strangely though, I didn't see a single spirit crowding my home. Just this morning, the air was packed with ghosts shouting and pushing, but just as quickly as they showed up, they were gone. Why?

    I walked around the lobby, hoping to find one of the people I was used to seeing, but even they appeared to have vanished. I looked into all the rooms, but each one proved to be identically empty. I was getting impatient and used my Quirk to listen for any voices within the mile radius.

    For a while, I didn't get anything. Although, just as I was about to lose interest in trying, I caught a very dim voice from across the house.

    "Mordecai!" I heard Cleopatra's high voice exclaim. I started following the voice through the kitchen and the service rooms until I found her, Jack, and Edison.

    "Where have you been‽ We've been trying to reach you for a while now," Cleo cried out.

    "I had turned my phone off. What's going on?"

    Cleo looked too choked up to speak, which scared me for a minute. Behind her, Jack pushed his way up to the front.

    "It's Marie," he warned. "Something's up with her. It's bad, kid." The sinking fear about what might have happened grew by the second. I looked to Edison for answers, hoping he could tell me it's not as serious as it seems. When things looked unwell, it was as if Edison always had an answer.

    But this time, I was sorely let down. My nervous feeling grew when Edison hung his head low. "I've already cleared the house of all the visiting ghosts. Curie is downstairs, and she wants to speak with you."

    I didn't give myself a chance to think about it before I was running down every hallway and pushing past every door in my path. The idea of anything happening to Marie, my one constant, was terrifying. So scary that I hesitated before opening the door to our basement.

    When I got there, I felt my heart skip after seeing her hover over the ground as normal. She was still there, and that was a good sign.

    Marie didn't look like herself though. Even as a ghost, she managed to feel the need to rub away the tears as they rolled down her face. I ran up to her and stopped with my hand grabbing onto the table of lab equipment. All the stress of the day and this new fear building inside of me was overwhelming, but I refused to stop until I knew what was going on.

    "What's happening? Are you okay?"

    I tried to ask her these in my head without sounding pushy. Marie looked down at me, and her teary face slowly curved into a smile.

    "I'm better than okay," she told me. I wasn't sure what she meant, and I quietly urged her to continue.

    "You understand how I've been spending more time down here while you're at school. I've used my time to work on my theory on radiant black bodies with humans. Well. . . I had just reached my breakthrough."

    Her explanation had me dazed. Marie started her theory just before she died long ago, and ever since, she's been stuck in the living world until she could finish it. I couldn't understand how she managed to make a breakthrough so suddenly after everyone else admitted it was a lost cause.

    Marie likely sensed I wasn't following, and she moved on to tell the details of her research. "I know what you're thinking, and yes, it doesn't sound too feasible. I've been studying this theory for more years than I could have ever kept track of. For so long, it's looked the same, and I've never been able to find a breaking point. But today, I found it.

    "My theory has always been caught with the idea of what the limit is in radioactive humans. People generate energy in their cells every day, so shouldn't there be the possibility of humans growing to have the ability to reflect their energy? A black body is something that can radiate the maximum intensity of a wavelength and survive. My work says that humans are naturally bound by biological limits from being able to reflect levels of radiation equivalent to the sun. Although, I could never pinpoint where those limits are."

    Growing up with Marie, I had learned all about her theory since I was little. Her whole purpose as a ghost was to find this limit in her hypothetical work. The entire theory rested on the idea that humans could radiate energy like a black body. There was one problem: her theory had been disproven.

    I explained it to Maire, "Kirchoff's law says radiation intensity increases with temperatures. For humans to radiate as a black body, with maximum intensity, we would be forced to go back to temperatures that would kill us."

    It was a point that I and many others have brought up to her. It was a simple fact that humans weren't strong enough to withstand that much power and energy at once.

    Marie nodded along, having already heard time and time again about Kirchoff's law. She glanced from her opened notebook with sloppy notes and rushed equations, giving me only one sentence as an answer.

    "That was before Quirks."

    I got ready to tell her she was mad for considering bringing superpowers into her research. Before I did though, she defended herself.

    "As a scientist, I've always resented how humans viewed their Quirks. It left us with no limits at all, and anyone could bend their reality without any regard to scientific law. But I've been doing some research, and I found this kid at your school." She turned the pages in her notebook to show me data and information about a kid in 1-A.

    "This boy's Quirk lets him emit powerful energy to increase his force and speed. It sounds like something so bizarrely unrealistic, but the consequence is even accurate as that much radiation and energy crush his bones every time he uses it. This looks like such an intense amount of power that a black body couldn't handle, but this child succeeds with his training. That means there isn't a limit to what he can take.

    "Mordecai, I've been spending my entire afterlife looking for the limit of what amount of power humans can handle, but with Quirks carrying on our accurate principles. . . The limit does not exist."

    I was beyond speechless. Marie had just told me she finished the theory she's spent centuries on, and I was proud of her. It felt like a happy moment, but she was crying again. Tears fell down her cheek next to her small smile.

    "What does this mean?" I asked her.

    Marie turned another page in her notebook back and mopped a hand over her eyes. "It means that as soon as I finish my signature at the end of my statement, I will have completed my unfinished destiny."

    The scared instincts sitting like a rock at the pit of my stomach were back. I knew exactly what she meant, and it was something I didn't want to ever hear from her.

    "So you're leaving me?" I knew that if a ghost could finish their life's goal that's held them back, then they would disappear from our world and travel on. Some died without anything unfinished, such as my parents, and for those who were tethered to this world, I would try to help. But Marie, Edison, Cleo, and Jack were my exceptions. I could never bring myself to encourage my family to ditch me, no matter what.

    Marie's hand brushed against my head. I only felt cold air in place of her touch, but she did what she could to comfort me.

    "Mordecai, I love you more than anything, but this isn't my time. I have a family on the other side that needs me—"

    I stopped her there, arguing, "But I need you." The idea of her just ditching me and everyone else she's spent the last ten years with hurt worse than the scabbing cuts on my hands and mouth. I was nearly insulted by how she managed to make such a big decision without me at all.

    "I wouldn't ever want you to feel abandoned. However, it isn't fair to keep me stuck in a time long after mine." Once again, I stopped her talking short.

    "It's not fair to me to be left alone. You know, I was stuck with the shittiest Quirk that lets me talk to anyone but the ones I care about. And if you don't want me to feel abandoned, then don't abandon me because that's what you're doing! I already lost my parents; I can't lose another one too." The thoughts in my head reflected my fear and anxiety as they were even shaky in my head.

    My breath was shallow and quick, and my mind wanted to spiral into a mess of terrifying possibilities that would happen because of this. But above all, I was stuck in the present, and how I knew I wasn't ready to let Marie go. It didn't feel like anything she could say would help me feel better, but she still tried.

    Her foggy eyes were clouded with tears while she shook her head. "No, Mordecai. You need to understand that the reason you can't see your parents is that their only goal was to raise a brilliant and independent son. And they already have. You never held them back, and that let them die in peace. All I ask is for the same." In a soft and polite voice, Maire wanted my blessing before she left.

    She added, "Please don't be mad. Remember that this isn't real, and I won't leave you, Mordecai. The pain you feel now is just your mind going through what it feels like it needs to go through for you to move on."

    With that, she leaned in and hugged me. I didn't bother moving my hands around the cold area where her spirit stayed, knowing my arms would just go through. I only stood where I was and let her be as the only sense of warmth I received came from the few tears I failed to hold back.

    "I love you, and farewell," she told me and pushed away, holding her hand against my face. I couldn't feel her touch, and that was the worst part of it all. Someone I loved so much had left me for good, and I couldn't even hug her goodbye.