After cleaning the common hall, Luke entered his dorm room.
For several minutes, he lay flat on his bed, staring up at the slowly spinning ceiling fan.
Things were working out well, he noted, largely due to the unreadable silence he maintained.
If one of the students happened to return to the dorm for an errand, there was far less chance of them stopping by his room to check on him.
The only three Luke truly had to account for were Momo, Hagakure, and Midoriya.
Momo was far too diligent to skip classes. Hagakure… already knew who and what he was. Midoriya might have proved troublesome, but Luke had already visited the Vestiges, asking Nana Shimura to urge the boy to give him space for a while.
Then there was Aina.
Luke grimaced at the fleeting thought of her being entangled with Singularity.
Recalling the events of the past year, however, it seemed a farfetched probability.
The way Rikuya had reacted when pressed about Aina further corroborated Luke's theory.
For now, the only thing sparing Luke from Aina's wrath was his confinement. Moreover, as Sir Nighteye's official sidekick, she was far too busy to camp outside Class 2-A's dorm. Otherwise, he would have ended up carrying a few bruised knots on his skull just like Rikuya.
In the end, it had taken him four days to cultivate this environment — turning his afternoons into an entirely solitary affair.
Aizawa and the other faculty members were still assigning him coursework, but Luke only needed to submit it by the end of each day, leaving him completely free to utilize the intervening hours as he saw fit.
After waiting a few moments longer, he reached beneath his pillow and retrieved the Point Glove, slipping it onto his left hand.
Then, Luke vanished.
…
Dr. Blessed materialized in the conference hall of the Apostles of Mr. Fool HQ, the glove on his left hand immediately peeling off and mutating on the spot.
Before the grotesque flesh could foul the hall's filtered air, it burst into crimson flames and burned away to ash.
"A thank you would be nice."
Luke — currently wearing the face of his mid-twenties persona — smirked at Nyx. "Thank you."
Nyx clicked her beak. "Tch… Why made it so easy… No fun at all! Why do I even try?"
Just then, Melissa entered the hall, her eyes glued to a tablet. She was so engrossed in the readouts that the only reason she didn't walk directly into Luke was her heightened Clown instincts, her head snapping up just in the nick of time.
"Ah… Leader… When did you—"
Nyx fluttered off the head chair and landed neatly on Melissa's shoulder. "Ahem…" the raven cleared her throat. "Could you repeat those words — exactly like that — but just the first one…?"
"Nyx!" Luke shot the bird a sharp look before turning a warm smile toward the girl. "Miss Shield. Did you find anything?"
Melissa, blinking past the raven's antics, frowned and shook her head. "There are no sightings of anything remotely matching Mushroom-nimi's signature. I even tapped into several orbital telescopes to scan the upper atmosphere, but… nothing."
Luke's expression mirrored her frustration. "I'm sorry about the New Moon," he said, referring to their destroyed vessel. "Creating the components for a replacement will take time…"
"Umu…" Melissa nodded softly. "Can't you… I mean, with your abilities…"
Luke shook his head. "There are too many watchful eyes trained on orbit right now," he explained. "Not to mention, Star is actively hunting for answers. Many nations lost good men aboard ORIGIN. We're already in their crosshairs as it is… It's best not to provoke them. Let's hope Mushroom-nimi remains well-hidden. In the meantime, we have pressing matters of our own to handle."
"Pressing matters?" Melissa asked, tilting her head.
"Follow me," Luke said.
The three Apostles walked deep into Dr. Blessed's private research wing, traversing a central corridor that branched into several laboratories.
They entered a lab far larger than the conference hall.
Beyond the arrays of precision instruments, the facility housed thousands of categorized ingredients, including preserved biological specimens suspended in stasis fluid.
"Wait—wait…" Nyx's beady eyes widened in alarm. "Are you seriously doing this now?!"
"Huh?" Melissa looked between Dr. Blessed and the raven. "… What are we doing?"
"No," Luke answered, keeping his back turned to them as he prepared the workstation. "I'm not brewing another Potion. In fact, I couldn't if I wanted to. We lack the necessary materials — specifically the organic components. So… I need to create them first."
Nyx's pupils contracted.
Melissa's eyes went wide as well, though for an entirely different reason.
Like Iron Mentor and Trick-Step, she had formed a working theory of how their Leader's Quirk operated — by granting Quirks to various biological organisms.
Yet as a Clown, and as the operational manager of the Apostles' HQ, Melissa had always harbored a nagging intuition that a mere Quirk-bestowing ability could never account for his true power. It was impossible. Not after witnessing him perform feats terrifying enough to scare the soul right out of anyone who didn't know how gentle, considerate, and handsome Dr. Blessed actually was.
Melissa suddenly caught the raven staring intently at her from the corner of its eye.
"… What?" she stammered, flustered.
"Why are you blushing?" Nyx asked bluntly, keeping her voice low.
Melissa's jaw dropped, and she hurriedly engaged her Clown abilities to wrench her facial muscles back into complete composure.
She executed the shift so rapidly and seamlessly that it visibly advanced the digestion of her Potion on the spot, triggering an immediate feedback from Nyx — a higher-Sequence Beyonder of the same Pathway.
"Oi… Doctor!" Nyx cawed.
"Don't you dare—!" Melissa gasped.
Luke glanced back over his shoulder to find the two of them locked in a silent staring contest — the raven sporting a smug tilt of its head, while Melissa struggled desperately to suppress a renewed flush of embarrassment.
"You shouldn't keep a lady cooped up in this bunker," Nyx remarked amusedly as Melissa's shoulders relaxed. "How about letting Shield venture out to the mainland with me to accelerate her Potion's digestion?"
"Hmm…" Luke rested his chin on his knuckles. "A sound idea. Once I finish this work — so roughly a week from now — we can arrange it. For now… take a seat, Miss Shield."
Shaking the stray thoughts from her mind, Melissa pulled up a chair beside her Leader, while Nyx's demeanor turned uncharacteristically serious.
"… I think it's time you learned a few secrets," Luke murmured, retrieving the vial of silvery liquid Momo had given him. "Starting with how Potions are truly made."