2They woke up cold, stiff, and confined. Searching the kid's memory, they found that she was a street kid, and that her quirk allowed her to make cocoons. Well, that certainly explained why they were looking up at the floor of the seemingly abandoned building. Anyways, they were just glad that they hadn't woken up in a situation with overbearing parents or in the middle of an emergency or anything, because they had something very fucking important to do today. They'd already had to reschedule this, because last time, they'd been roped into attending a fucking wedding. But they weren't going to fucking miss it again.
These meetings were the culmination of all their effort. When they were finally over, all the paperwork was filled out, and everything was finally filed, they'd have their own legal identity, finally be able to truly exist as their own person, go to their own school under their own name, open their own bank account (granted, it wasn't exactly like they had anywhere to store any stuff, even had they found a way to actually earn money for themself (they'd tried to stash some of their body's spare cash under a bush in a park once, but by the time they'd managed to get back to it, it had been gone)). They'd finally get to really, truly, have their own life (a small voice in the back of their mind whispered that even with identification and emancipation and existing in the systems, they'd still be subject to the whims of their quirk for the rest of their life.)
Their meeting was at 2 PM. They'd like to wash up somehow (they had some fucking pride, alright?), but right now, the priority was figuring out what time the girl had woken up at and where exactly they were. They were not going to miss another fucking meeting. They rooted through where the girl's things were (a flash of memory told them that they were hidden in another cocoon tucked away in the rafters (like the girl had been). Pulling the layers of webbing apart with the oil the girl secreted and rooting through the duffel bag inside, they found some clothes and a meagre amount of cash. They changed as quickly as they could, approving of the practical clothes.
They put the cash back where it was and stored the duffel bag back away with webbing. Now to figure out how the girl had even managed to get up here in the first place. They couldn't get out if they couldn't get down.
Oh, right. The girl had woven a rope ladder out of her webbing, apparently. It was... ah, there it was. Fucking finally.
They swung it over the beams, tugged on it to make sure it was secure, and climbed down to the floor of the warehouse.
Going outside, they saw that it was only midmorning. That was a fucking relief, at least. They turned around, trying to see if they could recognize any landmarks, trying to orient themself in their mental map of the city. If this was the industrial district that they thought it was, there ought to be a library close by, they thought. They should be able to wash up there. They looked at the building they had just come out of again, trying to etch where it was in their memory (the girl probably wouldn't have much reason to go to any government offices, so they couldn't rely on her memories to lead them back tonight).
They shoved their hands in their pockets and started their walk out of the line of warehouses.
Before too long they were at an area they actually recognized with some confidence. And lucky them, there actually was a library around there.
They slipped in behind a family and made their way to the restrooms, but not before checking out one of the clocks. 10:17. Not bad.
As they undid the braid and fingercombed their hair at the sinks, they got a chance to check themself out in the mirror. Dark blue hair and black sclerae. Not too shabby. The eyes might even give them a bit of an intimidation factor.
When they had gotten themself as neat as they could, they braided their hair back up and went back out. If they had the location right, it should be about a two hours walk to the bureau of whatever. They could afford to waste a bit of time here. Ignoring the hollow feeling in their stomach, they looked through the books the library had to offer. There was an interesting one they'd gotten partway through a few weeks ago before they had to sleep. Luckily, they managed to find it, and got through a few more chapters before they had to go. They would have checked it out, but, like an idiot, they'd left the girl's library card in her bag, along with her cash.
As they headed towards the bureau, they focused on the way they actually wanted to walk instead of the way the girl's body was used to walking. Walking was one of those muscle memory things that you could actually change with some concentrated effort at the beginning of the day, lucky for them. They shoved their hands in their pockets and deliberately widened their stance, slouched their torso back, made themself visible, noticeable. It felt awkward at first, but as they kept walking it began to feel more and more natural, until they could keep it up without focusing on it.
They got a bit turned around on their walk, but they made it on time (they thought. They didn't exactly have a watch or a cellphone on them. They had given themself about 45 minutes extra, though. They liked to be early, so sue them). They marched in through the automatic doors straight up to the counter, and repeated what they'd been told to say last time.
"The goshawk cries at dawn. 39732."
"Oh! Ka-san? Just follow me and someone will be with you shortly."
"Stupid-ass code phrases," they grumbled under their breath as they followed.
"They are necessary, you know. There's really not many other reliable methods of identification, from what you've told us."
"Who would want to impersonate me?" they asked incredulously.w
"You never know."
"Fine." They could tell they weren't about to get any sort of decent answer anytime soon. "Let's just do this."
They were taken down a twisting maze of halls, each one identical to the next, and finally, parked in a bland room to wait for another bureaucrat.
"I'll just let them know you're here, shall I?" Desk Lady said as she left.
"Yeah, you do that."
They leaned the chair back and propped their feet up on the desk, looking the epitome of bored teenager.
As the time ticked by, they wished they'd thought to grab the girl's library card. At least then they'd have something to read while they were here, waiting to go through the same questions again. Weren't there people around with fucking truth quirks or something? Wasn't there any way they could confirm they were who they said they were and that they needed what they said they needed (namely, a legal identity), besides this sort of repetitive interrogation, trying to trip them up?
The man who came into the room had a smarmy smile on his face. He practically leered at them as he sat down, which they returned with a glare and a pointed refusal to take their feet off the table.
"Now… Ka, was it?"
"That's my name, don't wear it out."
"You say that you… 'don't remember' any sort of identifying information." His eyebrow was cocked.
At that, they tipped their chair back forwards and leaned over the desk, slamming their hands down, fire in their eyes. "I was fucking four! How well do you fucking remember your toddler years?!"
"Point taken. And yet… are you positive you remember nothing? Nothing at all?"
They crossed their arms. "Nothing that means any shit, anyways. There was probably a 'ka' somewhere in my fucking name, that's all I can tell you."
"Hmm." He marked something down on his clipboard. They fought back the urge to rip it right out of his smug hands.
"Tell me… Ka, do you actually have any proof that you are, indeed, a Japanese citizen?"
They were already simmering over with frustration, eye twitching, but at that, they exploded.
"Isn't that what this entire fucking thing is for?! Isn't the whole reason why I'm spending weekend after fucking weekend in this shitty place, going through all this mind-numbing bullshit, so that I can actually fucking get citizenship?! What the fuck has all of this even been for if not that?!"
"Now, Ka, you must understand. It simply wouldn't do to have an unregistered person, much less an unregistered person with a quirk like the one you claim to have, run about Japan unsupervised. Supervision is not the same thing as citizenship, however. Really, Japan has rules and regulations regarding who is and is not eligible for citizenship, rules and regulations that are there for a reason. So, unless you have some kind of proof-"
"Wait! I mean- Look here, asshole."
"Now, now-"
"Just fucking listen to me! Look, my shitty quirk has a range limit, okay? Which you'd fucking know if you'd actually read the fucking interview transcripts! I've basically spent my life, long as I can fucking remember, in and around Musutafu. I've never woken up too far outside city limits that I can tell. So I think it's pretty fucking safe to say that I was born 'round these parts too. That fucking good enough for you, huh?"
"Thank you for your cooperation, Ka."
"Fucking whatever." They crossed their arms with a grumble, trying not to let their thoughts show on their face. Sure, they'd managed to convince the fucker that they were actually Japanese, but it had never crossed their mind that the government might actually deny their application after all of this. And then what, huh? Where else could they fucking go? It was the determination to be their own person that had pulled them out of their funk, and without that, with a life stretching ahead of them exactly the same as it had always been- fuck no. They weren't fucking thinking about that. It had just been their shitty luck to get them stuck with the one pissy interviewer. That was it. That was all it was.