MHA: Exchange

All was quiet as Jugram followed his daily routine and returned Blood Manipulation to his grandfather before heading to bed. As he climbed into bed, he let out a contented sigh. With the new blood he had received from Yuto's family, everything was looking up regarding his training. As he drifted off to sleep with a smile, he had no doubts that it wouldn't be long before he could compress blood to perform more elaborate techniques. 

However, it didn't feel like much time had passed until he awoke again. He snapped into focus as the earth trembled below the house, causing a crash from the kitchen as plates fell to the ground and shattered. 'An earthquake?' he questioned. After all, they lived in Japan, where earthquakes were common, so he wasn't that concerned. 

Following the protocols he had been taught, Jugram rolled off his bed and crawled under the solid desk in his room as the tremors began to settle down. While waiting out the quake, he turned and looked out the window, seeing that the sky was still dark, but there was an orange glow in the distance. 'It must be near morning, then,' he figured, then yawned loudly. 

It certainly didn't feel like he had gotten enough sleep for it to be morning already, but he must have woken up in the middle of a REM cycle, making him feel more tired. He shook his head to clear it, then stood up as the trembling subsided and moved toward the kitchen area, where he found his grandfather already examining the damage.

"Lucky that it was a short earthquake," Jugram commented as he looked at the shattered plates.

"Yeah," his grandfather replied tiredly, "You head on back to bed, and I'll get this cleaned up quickly."

"Bed? Isn't it almost dawn? I'll probably just stay up and get an early start today." Jugram said with a shrug.

"Dawn?" Ren questioned with a puzzled look, "It's 2:30 in the morning."

"But there was an orange glow outs-" Jugram began before stopping.

Both grandfather and grandson looked at each other before rushing into Jugram's room and straight to the window. There was indeed an orange glow in the distance, but it wasn't coming from the horizon. Far off, on the other side of the town and among the vast terraced fields filled with crops and livestock, a ruin burned.

"That's Yuto's house," Jugram whispered.

The blaze was enormous, highlighting the entire area surrounding the house with bright light. The inferno raged and stretched burning tendrils dozens of meters into the sky. Jugram had seen bondfires before, big ones, but they were nothing compared to this. The entire house was wreathed in flames. Even if everyone in town appeared at the house with endless buckets of water right then, they could have only watched without doing anything to help.

"Stay here, Jugram." His grandfather said, "I'll gather others to provide aid."

He could only nod dumbly as his grandfather rushed off to put on his jacket and other clothes. Remaining at the window, he continued to look at the blaze. It really was enormous. The only good thing about the situation was that the house was mostly isolated from any other materials that could catch fire, but that was little consolation for Yuto and his family, who had just lost their home. 'If they are even still alive.' a small part of him added. 

While thoughts of the worse swirled through his mind in a violent whirlwind, something caught his attention. It looked as though part of the fire had abruptly ended. 'No,' he realized, 'Something is standing in front of the fire and blocking it from view. Something close!' 

Now, the entire blaze was lost from view as a large shadow drew in front of the view. Jugram expected it to be a person or animal that would quickly move out of the way again, but nothing happened. The shadow remained still, and a feeling of dread started to pool in the pit of his stomach. What had caused the fire? While it could have been a candle or stove left running too long, it could also have been a quirk used maliciously. 

Suddenly, the shadow in front of the inferno felt much more threatening. Yet, at that moment, the fire must have caught the attention of more than just him and his grandfather as the lights in a nearby house came on. They illuminated the surroundings in a wide area around the house, including the shadowed figure.

The shadow was then revealed to be a deer with large antlers. 'Not just large antlers, ' Jugram corrected himself. The entire animal was massive for a deer. If he couldn't see its antlers and spotted hide, he may have guessed it was a horse blocking his view instead of a deer. The animal was just standing there, looking toward him where he stood just inside the window, which was thankfully closed.

As he watched, the deer continued looking at him without shifting or twitching. He wondered if this was a case of "a deer caught in headlights," but the lights from the nearby houses only brightened as more houses' lights flickered on, revealing the deer's eyes. There was no fear in those eyes, but there was intelligence within those eyes—intelligence and burning insanity. 

'Danger' was the only thought Jugram could process before the world exploded in a wash of heat and burning light. He felt the wall before him buckle under the force of the blast. Then, it was him getting thrown back as the wall collapsed entirely and the roof was blasted up. His body smashed into the wall, leaving him gasping with the wind knocked out of him. 

Jugram lay there, laboring to get his lungs to listen to him and inhale, all while the deer watched from beyond the shattered wall as shouts began to rise from the houses around. Soon, people poured out and froze as the deer gathered a burning ball of explosive power between its antlers before turning toward the onlookers. 

There was no time to scream before the ball transformed into a stream of concussive burning energy as it fanned out in a large arc, blasting into the crowd. From his spot inside his crippled room, Jugram couldn't see the specifics of the attack, but he didn't have any hope that there were any survivors. 

With jerky movements, the animal snorted loudly before gathering more energy. Its dark eyes turned back toward him, but before the gathered energy could release and turn him into a charred corpse, his grandfather was there at his side. The old man was using Blood Manipulation to augment his physical abilities as he pulled Jugram up and away moments before the house was hit again.

The outer walls were instantly transformed into a deadly rain of splinters that ripped through the house's interior. Not only that, but the house had been blasted off its foundations, sending them flying into the wall and roof as the floor suddenly became the ceiling, and the roof became the floor. 

The two sat there gasping deeply for a moment before trying to move. Jugram attempted to push himself to his feet but found one of his legs broken. Bone poked through his skin in a grizzly display, but luckily, it looked like the breaks were clean and could be easily fixed if he managed to survive this catastrophe. 

However, his grandfather hadn't moved since the detonation. He had only been gasping, but the sounds were oddly wet. Then Jugram turned to see his grandfather, who had shielded him from the blast, now peppered with a half dozen splinters sticking out of his aged body. Most of them were small and easily manageable, but three were worse than the rest.

The first was around the size of a railroad spike and was the cause of his grandfather's wet rasping. It had spiked the old man through the lung, passing all the way through his body so that its front and back were visible at the same time. The second was about the same size but went straight through his hip, effectively crippling his ability to move. 

The third was only the size of a finger but was the most deadly. The third spike of wood was in the old man's neck. One didn't need to be a doctor to realize it was bad. It was honestly a surprise that the old man wasn't dead already. It seemed like the pressure from the wood was what was keeping him alive, but that wouldn't last long unless he got immediate medical attention. 

"Grand-" Jugram began, his voice choked with emotion.

"Jugram," his grandfather said, cutting him off, "I'll trade you my quirk and ability to store it safely in exchange for a memory."

It took the old man a few moments to get everything else, but once he did, he looked over at his grandson. The light in his eyes was fading quickly, but there was a strange sort of serenity there. His gaze was filled with affection, but his eyes were already beginning to droop. Blood pooled from his lung injury in a dark puddle, while his breathing became weaker and weaker.

"Deal," Jugram whispered, reaching inside himself and sending over a memory as he felt the transfer complete.

Ren Orihara watched as the memory merged with him, transporting the old man to a different place and time. He was now a child on a swing set, looking back at an old man who was him. Golden light highlighted the entire scene in a halo of nostalgia, and everything but the old man and the swingset was merely a blur.

"Higher grandpa, higher." the boy giggled, feeling overwhelming joy and affection. 

This was the memory where Jugram felt the most affection for his grandfather. Of course, this memory was taken from the body before he had woken up in it, so it was filled with the unfiltered joy of a child.

'Jugram,' Ren thought, his mind becoming a blur, but he held onto the memory, tears streaming down his face, 'Hana, I hope you never get to see your son and how great of a man I am sure he will become.' With that final thought, the old man breathed out a final time and never drew a breath back in.

. . .

Deep in a well-guarded prison, a woman in a padded cell began to laugh wildly.