Golden Touch (BnHA)

Chapter 16: Birth of a Vigilante

The weekend soon arrived and Kula was sitting in the back room, screwing two pieces of metal together. They didn't match in color— the right side bein the typical silver metal color and the left being a rust color.

After telling Ms. Ito that she wanted to work on something extra for school, the older woman was more than happy to let Kula use the back room as well as the tools in the shop. She felt kind of bad lying to the older woman, but Kula needed some way of creating what she had planned out the night before as she paced her room after another mental breakdown.

"Is that a mask?" Ms. Ito asked, breaking Kula out of her concentration and causing the said girl to jump slightly.

"Oh, uh, yeah!" Kula said, a small smile appearing on her face. "It's just the main frame right now, I want to add something else to it... it seems kind of bare." Kula said, looking at the plain mask in an attempt to figure out what it was missing.

The two sides were connected in a gear-like pattern, the top flat while the bottom curved just enough to fit her face almost perfectly— it was a bit longer than her face but she didn't know how to fix that without ruining the entire shape of the mask. On the copper side of the mask, Kula had cut out a sharp curved smile which she planned to somehow implant a voice changer to further disguise her identity— a voice changer should be easier to make than the other aspects of the mask she wanted to incorporate.

After looking at the ask and the sketch in Kula's idea book, Ms. Ito placed a hand to her chin. "Maybe make it look somewhat animalistic, or, more so base it off of an animal." She said, grabbing a pencil and glancing at Kula for the younger girl's permission to sketch in Kula's idea book. Once Kula gave Ms. Ito a nod, she watched as Ms. Ito sketched out a few ideas.

Looking at the sheet once the older woman pulled away, Kula looked at what she had drawn, three different pictures were drawn on the bottom half of the page with the original mask idea.

The first picture had cat-like ears that curved into sharp points, appearing to be cat or fox themed. The second one had round ears on the side— more monkey like. The third one had two tall rabbit ears on the top, one standing straight up and the other bent so it covered one of the eyes.

As Kula was looking over the designs there was a chime to notify the two of them in the back room that someone had walked into the store. After patting kula on the back, the older woman walked into the front room and the muffled chatter of Ms. Ito and Toshinori drifted off as Kula made some more sketches and over back to her invention.

***

Days later, the mask was finally finished. She had used the idea of the goggles she had been working in in class and made a similar pair that would fit into the mask, the silver side having a red eye and the copper side having a blue eye. The blue eye was just a normal lense she was able to see through, the red eye was connected to a sensor that would tell her what her vitals were— heart rate, injuries, and her mental condition. She had to have Power Loader help her with the one she was making in the class and she just copied what she had done in class. As well as the goggles, Power Loader helped her with making a voice changer— albeit he was a bit hesitant due to the possibilities. If only he knew it was going to be used to help Kula keep her identity hidden behind a changed voice.

After leaving the shop, Kula immediately made her way home- slight anxiety rising up as she was on her way due to the ten missed called from Mrs. Saito and three missed calls from Mr. Saito. She would of just not gone to the house that afternoon but she needed to grab some materials from her room.

Instant regret hit her as she opened the door, in the form of a fist to her cheek.

"I've been calling you for hours!" The golden haired woman in front of her screeched, anger blazing in her eyes. She didn't say anything before she grabbed Kula's wrist, despite the teen's efforts to keep her hands behind her back and took off her glove. After Mrs. Saito got what she wanted from Kula, she turned away from the hyperventilating teen. "At least you're good for something, be grateful." She said before walking down the hallway.