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The movement of her hands was steady and smooth, gracefully slicing through the air. The appearance of effortlessness stemming from years of formal training, and having a quirk made for exactly what she wanted to do brought confidence. She looked at ease dancing apart from the crowd, she looked beautiful. The music stopped, and she froze onstage. Her heavy breathing could be heard from the back of the auditorium due to how silent the room had been. Everyone was entranced by her performance. All at once, the audience snapped out of their trance and began to applaud her. Smiling wide, the girl took a deep bow and walked offstage. An older woman came onstage holding a microphone, also clapping. Eiji recognized her as the junior high guidance counselor.“Thank you, Nakamura Ichika, for that lovely performance,” the guidance counselors voice calmed the audience, and they settled down to wait for her to announce the next act. “Next up we have Namashī Daichi and Nagata Sora, with their third annual piano battle.” Eiji sat up straighter, waiting for her brother to enter the stage. The crowd began clapping once more as they saw Nagata and Daichi set up their sound equipment. This would be the final piano battle, the end of a tradition between the two of them that lasted for the three years that they performed in the junior high talent show. Daichi had never even spoken to Nagata before they started their piano battles, though Eiji had been in the same class as her during their last year of elementary school. It was strange to watch someone go from being a classmate, to being her brothers best friend. It was difficult watching someone so quiet become someone so well known. Eiji struggled not to think of Nagata as someone who blends into the background.The two pianists sat on their respective benches, and the crowd went dead quiet. The piano battles were somewhat of a schoolwide event, even though there were only two students who participated. That final year, someone had even been selling piano battle t-shirts before the talent show. Several people in the audience, mostly those of them who had been cheering and screaming the loudest, were wearing those very shirts during the talent show. The shirts became so popular that Daichi had brought it up with the principal, but they still had no clue who had started selling them. Eiji didn’t blink. She stared straight ahead, willing herself so stay focused. Concentrate, she told herself, listen to the music. What songs are they playing? Who begins the battle by playing first? Who plays the last song? Who wins the final piano battle? But before she could even focus enough to answer the first question she had asked herself, the battle was over. Over the crowd’s roaring applause, Daichi and Nagata stood up from the piano benches and bowed. Eiji let out a cry of frustration and slammed her laptop shut loudly. She was right, someone had to have tampered with the video footage of the final piano battle. There was no recording of the first two, so she couldn’t check for a pattern that way, but every video she could find online, every person from junior high who owned a camera that she asked, no one could remember anything about the final piano battle. It was frustrating, it was driving Eiji insane. She just couldn’t figure out why. Why would anyone waste their time on ruining every memory of a piano performance by two kids in junior high? Why Nagata Sora of all people? Why Namashī Daichi?As if on cue, Eiji’s phone chimed from her desk across the room. She was sitting on her bed, hunched cross-legged over her poor laptop computer. It was a wonder that the thing hadn’t broken yet, after years of her consistent abuse. The ringtone alone told Eiji that her younger brother had texted her. It was rare for him to contact her, he was usually too busy with hero training to text Eiji. Daichi was too busy with his new friends, his hero friends with cool, flashy quirks. She wasn’t going to lie to herself, she could admit that she used to be jealous. Not anymore, she was over it. And not in the way that people say they’re over something but secretly mope about it when no one’s watching, she actually didn’t mind anymore. Eiji was honestly proud of herself for being so mature about it. If she had gotten in but Daichi hadn’t, he definitely would have blown up about it....Okay that was a lie, Daichi wouldn’t care. At all. He would have congratulated her, and then he would move on. He would probably play piano for a living or whatever. He might be salty for a few days quietly, but he’d confront her about it, and after they’d talked about it he’d be back to normal. At least, that’s what Eiji likes to think would have happened if she’d gotten into a hero school and he hadn’t. That would have been impossible though. Eiji hadn’t even taken the entrance exam. Her quirk wasn’t suited for battle. While tree branches could be used as a weapon in some cases, detaching it from her head just turns it back into hair, unfortunately. It wasn’t like she hadn’t tried. Eiji has worked so hard towards that goal, she had spent so much of her time and energy obsessing over it as a child. But it wasn’t ever going to happen. She had to give up eventually, and now she had other things on her mind. Things like who tampered with the footage of her brother playing piano.Eiji ignored her phone as another text came in. If he was really that desperate to talk to her, he would call her. If he called, she’d answer, but until then she had to focus. The phone started to ring....She did say she’d answer, didn’t she?She would, she was going to pick up the phone and talk to her brother. ...No she wasn’t.Eiji sighed, cracking her neck as she stood. She crossed the room quickly, and powered off her phone. She had work to do.