~Hawks POV~

Flashback (Inki Age 9, Hawks Age 7)

I stepped into the giant training hall, where I was instructed on combat techniques and other skills I'd need in order to become a hero. There was something unusual about the giant room. There was someone new, lying on their side curled into a tight ball. As I got closer, I realized it was a girl, she was small, undernourished and had alarmingly pale skin. It was paper white. Her inky black hair was matted and messy. She was wearing a plain white shift that resembled prison garb. Or perhaps she was from some kind of mental institution given her catatonic state.

I paused once I got a few feet away from her as I noticed everything around her appeared to be drained of its color. She looked like she was trapped in a black and white movie. Who was she? Why was she here?

"I see you've discovered your new training partner." A cold voice sounded from above, in the observation deck.

I looked down at the scrawny girl and frowned. How exactly was I supposed to improve my skills training with a girl who looked as if a breeze would topple her. "...I don't understand..."

"A demonstration then, to see how much you've grown." The cold voice sounded from above before uttering a single word, "hopscotch."

The girl on the ground suddenly let out a cry of pain and crumpled into herself.

"Hey, are you okay?" I asked worriedly and reached out toward her only to freeze in place as I saw her appearance shift. Her matted inky black hair turned to a bright cotton candy pink. She lashed out lightning quick and caught my wrist in her thin hand. Her lips twisted into a horrifying maniacal grin.

"It's been so long since I've gotten to play with anyone." Her voice was airy with an impish lilt to it. "I hope you won't break like all the others." She grinned.

I tried to break from her grasp but her grip was tight and much stronger than I had expected.

"Release him and begin again." The cold voice sounded above.

The girl's juniper eyes flicked upward and she let out an annoyed "tch" sound before reluctantly releasing me from her hold. I quickly put some distance between us.

"Again." The voice commanded.

I felt a bit calmer, I was faster, I could avoid her. My heart dropped as she completely vanished from sight. I took to the air and narrowly avoided her thin fist as she struck from above. I stared in awe as her fist struck the ground where I'd been standing. The concrete flooring broke apart and there was now a small crater where I'd once been. She was freakishly strong, and fast.

After nearly five minutes of me desperately trying to avoid her attacks, I noticed she was slowing down. A strange black ichor began to seep from her eyes like tar. "Useless." The cold voice growled from above, "hopscotch." They grumbled before I heard their footsteps retreating, leaving us alone.

The girl dropped to her hands and knees with a scream of agony. Her body shuddered and she shifted back to her monochromatic self. She expelled an alarming amount of black ichor from her mouth. There was blood mixed in with the ichor. Her liquid steel eyes flicked upward as she shakily surveyed her surroundings, seeming disoriented.

I shook myself from thoughts of darker days long since past only to feel my heart leap into the back of my throat as I spotted Inki in my kitchen with a massive meat cleaver in hand about to chop some vegetables. "AH! You have no reason to use that! Put it down!" I panicked and sent a single feather to disarm the monochromatic beauty. The feather managed to get the knife away before setting it on a shelf far out of her reach.

Inki turned her liquid steel gaze to me, "...but it's the biggest one, won't it be the quickest?"

I sighed and rubbed my temples, though she was technically older than me, Inki had lived a mostly secluded life. This led to her being naïve in many things and lacking many life skills...like cooking. "...no..." I replied softly, trying to be patient with her.

"...oh..." She responded morosely. "I knew I wouldn't be good at this."

"It's okay. Just, use that one." I pointed to a much smaller knife suited to chopping vegetables.

"...okay..." Inki mumbled dejectedly before slashing at the vegetables on her cutting board at random, slicing in every which way.

"No. No. No" I groaned and sent another feather to disarm her. "This isn't a slasher film...it's a kitchen."

She looked up at me, hopelessly lost. Normally by this point she'd be reduced to one of her sad puddles on the floor and nearly impossible to pick up, but she oddly wasn't giving up. "...I have to do this..." She mumbled softly to herself as if trying to encourage herself.

"How come we're doing this anyway?" I pondered as I saved what vegetables I could from her massacre and set her cutting board up for her a second time.

"...she made me lunch today...I wanted to return the favor..." She said softly.

"Colors?" I pondered.

She nodded.

"How was it?" I asked.

"The worst thing I've ever eaten...but it was nice..." She looked odd. It was the first time I'd ever seen such a serene look on her face. Even when she was sleeping she usually looked sad and hopeless.

I chuckled softly and gently pat her on the head, "great, you're both terrible cooks, this should go well."

Inki looked strangely determined, it wasn't an expression I was used to seeing on her face unless she found a new dark hiding spot she wanted to melt into or people she wanted to avoid. "...I want to make her something that isn't terrible..." Her liquid steel eyes turned pleading, "help me."

Two small kitchen fires and one medium kitchen fire that singed quite a few of my feathers later and Inki hadn't lost her determination. I was surprised she hadn't melted into a sad puddle yet and even more surprised she wasn't verbally berating herself as usual. The tips of her fingers were blackened, there were several tiny cuts on her hands and my kitchen looked like a warzone. Inki still looked fired up.

"...I suppose you two could live on takeout..." I remarked warily as I stared hopelessly at my destroyed kitchen.

"...No...I'm gonna make something that isn't terrible." She said determined.

I smiled. "Alright, try again."

By two in the morning, when I was struggling to stay awake with a fire extinguisher in hand, Inki let out the tiniest cheer. "I did it!"

I shook myself awake and approached her. There were three small bento boxes sitting atop the counter arranged with rice that looked a little brown in some spots but not enough to ruin the taste. There were a few small pieces of fried chicken that looked slightly overdone but still edible. In the smaller portion of the bento there were freshly cut vegetables. The carrots were cut to look like flowers and had given her a lot of trouble and was responsible for most of the bandaids now lining her fingers.

"It looks good." I smiled. "But why did you make three?"

"One is for you, for helping me." She said quietly before promptly slipping to the floor, exhausted from all of her effort.

I sighed and put the lunches away so they could stay fresh. Inki was sprawled across the floor pretending her bones had left her body and making everything much more difficult as I had to step over her constantly while trying to get my kitchen back in some sort of order.

"Hawks?" Inki's eerie voice sounded softly from the floor.

"Yes?"

"...is it safe for me to be around her?"

I assumed her meant the person Inki was able to see in color. Inki lived in constant fear of her quirk and since her quirk had a second layer that only activated and was controlled entirely by whoever triggered her, I couldn't blame her for being scared. Many in the Hero Public Safety Commission and even myself had the capability to activate the second and most terrifying layer of her quirk. It didn't take much, just hand to hand contact, skin to skin then the odd magic word, hopscotch.

"...well, you could wear gloves for the rest of your life, I'm sure we could find you some that fit your aesthetic, or you could do nothing let things progress naturally and just pray she never says the h-word," I began but saw her visibly flinch at the mere thought of the word, "...or when you're comfortable, you could open up to her about it."

"...this was a bad idea...I should have just kept avoiding her...I shouldn't be around people..." Inki groaned and flopped over onto her stomach.

I winced sympathetically as I heard her head thunk against the tile. "Did you concuss yourself?" I chuckled.

She mumbled something incoherent but the tone was even more morose than usual. She was spiraling. I noticed the colors around the room begin to lift away, shifting into a black inky ichor and begin to collect around her. That was never a good sign.

"Hey, stop that! You're going to pull the entire apartment complex into a depression if you keep that up." I groaned as my entire kitchen soon began to look like a black and white movie. "Inki!"

"Existing is painful." Inki groaned on the floor, wrapping her arms around herself.

"Inki, focus. I'm not in the mood to join you in your sad puddle and I'm fairly certain the rest of the people in this building aren't either." I tried to shake her out of it before her quirk began to spread from my kitchen to the rest of the building. When she was focused and energetic enough to do hero work, she had one of the highest villain capture rates of all the pros since her quirk essentially sapped their will to live and they just gave up and joined her in a sad puddle until the police showed up to arrest them.

"Inki!" I snapped as I snatched up my treasured Endeavor plushie off my mantle as her quirk began to spread, "I'll say the h-word!"

The line where her monochromatic world touched the colorful real world shuddered and shrank back returning my apartment to normal. I breathed a sigh of relief. Things would have gotten messy if she'd engulfed the whole building in her doom and gloom world of black and white.

I inched into the kitchen. She was lying motionless on the floor, curled into a ball, her long inky black hair splayed across the marble tiles. "It's late, you should get some sleep. Stay here tonight."

She didn't respond, withdrawing into her own self-loathsome thoughts.

"You're such a handful." I shook my head and stooped down to pick her up. Her body oddly kept slipping out of my grasp. It was something cats did all the time, where their bodies seemed almost liquid like and impossible to grasp. "Inki." I groaned as I had to use several feathers to help me get her off the ground and over to the sofa.

She didn't stir from her sad little ball as I dropped her onto the sofa.

I draped a blanket over top of her and tucked the plushie into her arms. "Goodnight, Inki."