[MHA] Shoto Todoroki : Modern-Day Terrorist

[Nar_cisse]

Fulgenzio Scarsella was a small man with olive skin and a trumpet nose.

He had deep wrinkles that furrowed his face and cheeks that hung like a bulldog's, chubby little fingers with no nails, and short legs that wouldn't get him very far if he had to run.

Fulgenzio was no threat.

He was a retired old man, a prominent member of the Mustafu Bridge Club, married to an equally old woman, an active practitioner of yoga and tennis.

Fulgenzio was my psychologist made in Italy and paid for generously by Teka for almost six years.

He was one of the few people I could describe as incorruptible - or at least fairly aware of the consequences of opening his mouth in the wrong place to the wrong person.

He didn't aspire to much more than eating out with his wife on Sundays and donating most of his six-figure salary to charity.

A rare breed. The kind of man you don't find on the streets anymore.

- How was your week, Shoto ? he asked me, stretched out on a sofa, his eyes looking up at the glass ceiling.

Lying on my own sofa, I watched the clouds move across the sunny blue sky.

Fulgenzio had arranged our 'lazy session', as he liked to call it, because I'd once told him that being the only one lying down while he watched me made me nervous, as if I were sitting an exam that I'd have to cheat to pass.

- Fine. I guess.

He listened to me talk about my days in Nagano, the countless restaurants Hawks had dragged me to and the distinctly endless feeling I got at each new lenghtened meal.

I had the uncomfortable feeling that I was wasting my time repeating nonsense, but at the same time I knew it was necessary.

I've got enough to worry about without having my psyche threaten to collapse.

- Be positive, Shoto. Be positive: 'It could have been worse'

- It could have been worse, I admitted.

I knew he was smiling, his little moustache shadowing his upper lip.

- This Hawks doesn't look like a bad guy to me, he added. He seems to take good care of you.

I shrugged, though he couldn't see it.

- I suppose

- He could have told you to look after yourself, that managing you in a town that had suffered such a tragedy was part of your 'punishment'.

I didn't know Hawks very well, but that seemed to me to be the antithesis of his personality.

- I can't imagine him doing that.

A sudden thought flashed through my mind.

Maybe he's trying to gain my trust so I'll side with the Commission.

- Exactly! You have to trust your judgement, Shoto.

The last time I trusted my 'judgement', I decapitated a man in a public place.

- Hmm

- You're a very logical and rational boy, Shoto. If you don't let your emotions get the better of you, you can trust yourself.

Could I ?

I frowned and concentrated on a cloud that floated like cotton wool above our heads.

If I focused hard enough, I could make the black outlines of the glass tiles that made up the ceiling disappear.

- I've... had other episodes.

For a moment Fulgenzio said nothing, and I knew that the turn of the conversation had taken him by surprise.

- Didn't you tell me that your paranoia had practically disappeared?

His voice was high, three octaves above normal.
He asked the question even though he already knew the answer: his Quirk was absolute memory, the impossibility of forgetting even the smallest sound, the slightest smell, the faintest sensation.

But he gave me a way out, a way to explain myself without feeling as if he had cornered me.

- I lied

Fulgenzio didn't answer.

He knew that I more or less occasionally lied for more or less benign reasons.

- How are the episodes ?

They're spaced out, but more intense.

- Spaced out but more intense

- How exactly ?

I didn't answer.

Fulgenzio continued:

- Has anything important happened recently?

My left hand twitched nervously, but I didn't answer.

- Does it have anything to do with the quarrel between you and your father?

- No, I...

I remained silent, my ability to express myself fading as I searched for the proper words - or at least the correct words.

- Take your time, Fulgenzio said.

From anyone else, these words would have sounded patronising.

But I knew Fulgenzio well enough to know that he could keep quiet for an hour if that's how long it took me to express myself properly.

- There's this thing I did recently. A very big mistake.

- The kind I'd rather not know about, right ?

- Exactly

I licked my dry lips, trying to get my thoughts straight.

- It was... I had a sudden burst of anger and I did... something I could have avoided. That's why Hawks 'punished' me.

- Does your father know?

- No, he doesn't.

I heard Fulgenzio inhale sharply and then close his mouth again, his lips slapping together with a smack.
I could hear his thoughts without having to be telepathic: 'What? The crazy boy didn't tell daddy Todoroki, even though he always tells him everything ?'

- Why ?

Because I'm afraid of how he'll react, because I'm afraid that the gap between us will widen.

- Because I'm afraid he'll realise there's something wrong with me.

Because I'm afraid he'll think I'm not worth it and abandon me.

- Don't say that, Shoto. You've come a long way: don't let a simple relapse ruin years of hard work.

- I still can't control myself, I said. I'm trying, but there's this thing...

I am already at a loss for words.

- The ball of anger

- Yes, the ball of anger : it gets stuck in my throat, my thoughts become blurred and then- then- I can't control myself.

I grew silent, unable to go on.

- But it's better than before, isn't it?, said Fulgenzio.

I'm not so sure.

- You don't fight with your comrades for no reason now, right ?

True.

- Yes, I muttered.

- You see ? That's progress !

Maybe he's right.

Suddenly the colourful, vivid, perfect image of the man with his legs crushed in the burning shopping centre came back to me.

I remembered his smell and the metallic flavor of blood I could already taste on my tongue.

I remembered his shining eyes and the way he had begged me to put him out of his misery.

I remembered the ease with which I had accepted, the way my hand had covered his mouth as his warm, living breath, brushed my fingers.

He had died like all the other men I had killed, no more spectacular or ordinary than the others.

I knew that if I hadn't activated my sharingan at that moment, the outline of his face would have already faded from my memory.

- Fulgenzio ?

- Yes ?

- What is a murdered?

Fulgenzio squirmed, his clothes rubbing against the sofa, and I imagined him wriggling like an earthworm emerging from the ground after rain.

- A murderer ? Hmm, if I remember the terms correctly, a murderer is a person who commits voluntary manslaughter without premeditation. That's the big difference with an assassin, who commits voluntary manslaughter with premeditation.

Without premeditation...

- Furthermore, murder is considered a crime against humanity, whereas assassination is a crime against public order...

I smoothed my perfectly pressed trousers several times in a row. My knee twitched and I put my hand on it to force myself to calm down.

I could no longer see the blue sky or the clouds passing overhead.

- Do you think...

My heart stopped in my chest and for a second I thought I wouldn't dare finish my sentence.

- Do you think I'm a murderer ?

There was a moment of silence.

- What makes you think that?

- Sometimes I get the impression that...

...that I could kill people without realising how grave it is.

- What?, Fulgenzio asked gently.

- I just...

I raised my arms slightly before letting them fall back onto the sofa, helpless.

- Sometimes I feel disconnected. Like nothing makes sense.

As if I didn't make sense.

- Meaning ?

Is he doing it on purpose ?

I suddenly became angry, and for a second I imagined straddling the old man and strangling him.

Then I blinked and the only thing I could see was the pure, fluffy clouds.

I took deep, discreet breaths to calm myself and counted to ten three times in a row until the ball of rage returned to its dark lair.

Slowly, almost in fear that it would wake if I spoke too loudly, I continued:

- I'm just trying to... make sense of it all.

And I vaguely waved my hand to indicate the famous 'it'.

- You mean life, Fulgenzio murmured, his tone as hushed as mine.

Life, death, everything in between.

- Indeed, that's an excellent question, Fulgenzio said. The answer is not something you can find after a few hours of reflection, but something you have to live to understand.

- And what do you think ?

- Well, to tell you the truth, I don't really know.

He laughed and I felt disappointed.

- But I think we find meaning in the little things, you know ? In the beauty of a sunset or the joy of a laugh shared with loved ones. In a meal prepared with care, or a gesture of comfort when things go wrong. In the hand of a stranger who reaches out to us when we've hit rock bottom.

I leaned on one elbow, all my attention on Fulgenzio.

He kept looking up at the clouds, his hands crossed over his chest, his eyes glazed over, as if he wasn't really there anymore.

- I don't believe that life has a 'hidden meaning' or that we have to do 'great things' to make our lives meaningful. We're the ones who give it meaning, you know ? It's you and me and everybody else on this earth and what we choose. There is no past or future: only the present and what we choose to do with it. Do you understand that?

- I... think I do.

I thought about the fishing rods left on a rock while my father and I swam, about Teka showing me around the Italian countryside for hours in the blazing sun, about my father's face when I gave him the original copy of Lorenzaccio, about the short stay I'd had with the future members of my Familia, all the mischief Leo, Natsu and I had gotten into that should have gotten us expelled from our schools, the time I'd almost gotten into a fight with Katsuki in the locker room, the way Hawks - Keigo - had reached out to me and forgiven me for something no one else but my father would have done.

Maybe I'd been wrong.

Maybe I hadn't blown it all yet.

- Out of curiosity, Shoto, why did you bring advance our appointment to this week ?

- I needed to talk, I said.

My first thought was that I'd already said too much, that he'd use it against me, that it would all come back to bite me.

My second thought was that even if he did use it against me, it wouldn't be a problem because it didn't really matter.

Fulgenzio turned his head towards me and smiled.

- I'm glad, Shoto. I hope this has made you feel better.

It did.

- I know you must have good reasons for not telling me about your recent 'mistake', and I won't ask you to explain it to me - and I certainly won't tell your father. But I would like you to take this opportunity to discuss it with someone: someone you trust, someone who might understand.

- ... I'll think about it

Fulgenzio's smile widened.

- That's all I ask.

For the first time in weeks, I had real hope that I could change.
*

Author's note :

We finally reached 300,000 words on every platform !

Very happy about it, honestly I didn't think I was cut out to write as much lmao.

Tell me what you thought of the chapter in the comments or whatever else you want to talk about.

Also, started 'Battle Royale' by Houshun Takami (you know, there's even this movie adaptation with the teens killing each other) and it is giving me plenty of ideas for my next fanfic (yeah I know, should only focus on one thing at a time but the closer I get to the end the more my mind drifts away).
Anyway, if you want to read ahead of schedule, then go check the story's P@treon, Nar_cisseENG

See you in the next update everyone !

 

[Nar_cisse]

Just as my brush traced the last loop of the seal, I flung it aside and let out a grunt.

I rolled my shoulders to get rid of the stiffness in my muscles, grunting as I felt the beginnings of soreness.

That'll teach you to not hunch over your desk for hours like an old man with a crooked back.

I stretched my arms back and stood up, pacing around to get the blood circulating in my body.

I shook my legs and arms and cracked my neck several times.

I stifled a yawn and rubbed my eyes with two fingers.

An owl leapt from its perch, wings wide open, and swooped down on a mouse. Its talons dug into the mouse's furry skin, and the owl flew away, while the mouse let out a small cry that faded into the darkness.

How long ago has the night fallen ?

I blinked, my attention returning to my desk.

Dozens and dozens of incomplete, crossed out, or torn matrices covered my desk from one side to the other.

Even though most of my clones were focused on the 'final' project, I'd still got quite a large team working here.

But the prospect of eating Genjutsu all evening didn't appeal to me, so I preferred to work on it myself.

My life has become so pathetic that I have to choose between something I don't want to do and something I want to do even less.

I smiled and pushed my hair back.

I really need to cut it before it starts falling in front of my eyes.

I sit back down at my desk and took a few sips from my water bottle before putting it back on the floor.

Clearing my throat, I took the ultimate fruit of my labor and studied the matrice one last time, trying to find any problems.

Three concentric circles inside each other, the entry key and the exit key, the instructions didn't drool...

I reread the various kanji that made up the circles to make sure none of them had smudged on the others and compromised the seal.

I blew a lukewarm breeze over the sheet to dry the last of the glossy ink stains, then made the Ram handsign with my right hand.

From the outer edges to the center, the circles began to glow.

My heart raced and I leaned forward, my mouth open.

Don't tell me I-

Then a puff of black smoke exploded in my face.

I dropped the sheet and coughed, pulling my chair back as ash fell on my desk and knees.

I grabbed the first book I could find in my open drawer and it instantly transformed, a fluorescent bluish light enveloping it, the words on the pages running in all directions before stabilizing.

With my left hand, I took my bottle and drank a few sips to soothe my irritated throat, reading the lines that appeared in my Chakra Encyclopedia.

'It is impossible to reproduce the Mokuton without the genetic mutation of Hashirama Senju. It is impossible to reproduce any hereditary bloodline without being a descendant of this line. It is highly unadvised to place unstable seals on individuals at the risk of their premature death'.

I clicked my tongue against my palate in displeasure.

I licked the tip of my thumb, then flipped backwards through the pages at high speed, sharingan activated for faster reading.

The encyclopedia had said the same about the Sharingan, but I'd still managed to reverse-engineer it from the insect with the best reflexes in the world...

Well, that wasn't entirely true.

I'd managed to recreate the tenfold perception of the Sharingan, which gave me the impression of seeing everything in slow motion, as well as the best visual abilities possible without a proper Quirk.

However, there was no Mangekyo Sharingan or Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan: I couldn't recreate the illogicality of these two evolutions because I didn't understand how to do it in the first place.

Seals are complex products, where each kanji must be written and connected to the others with meticulous precision: to miss even the smallest loop is to ruin the whole thing...

Wasn't that my problem? Did my inability to understand how they worked make it impossible for me to recreate them?

Is it even possible to reproduce it ?

Recreating the Mokuton from a seal was only my second option - the first had been a silly theory that by injecting the exact ratio of Suiton, Doton and Chakra, I, too, could make entire forests sprout from the ground.

But this possibility required two things:

- Exceptional control of one's chakra, which I had
- Exceptional mastery of Suiton and Doton.

While Suiton was as easy as breathing, my control of Doton was abysmal.

And when I say abysmal, I mean that I hadn't been able to learn more than one E-rank jutsu in almost eleven years.

Be positive, Shoto. The things you can do with Raiton are just unreal - and I'm not even talking about Katon and Suiton.

I couldn't be too stingy.

But it still pissed me off.

I lifted the sheet with the Mokuton matrice up to my face, looking at my hours of hard work from a new angle, hoping that the solution would jump out at me.

Shit... I think I'm going to have to give up on this project.

I hated giving up - it was like telling myself that I was a coward unable to carry out my own will.

But the recent events in Nagano had shown me that All for One would soon be leaving its hideout, and that I had to be ready for any eventuality: I couldn't decently waste my time on a project that would surely never bear fruit.

If reproducing the Sharingan in its entirety is impossible because all of its abilities are illogical, if trying to recreate the Mokuton is impossible because Senju Hashirama had a mutation that defied the laws of reality, then I'm not even talking about trying to recreate something like the Edo Tensei...

If only I had data to fall back on...

The essence of Mokuton was its ability to drain chakra from Bijuus.

Once I'd succeeded in recreating it, I could have looked into Aizawa's case, understodd exactly how his Quirk canceled out others', and then try to modify the Mokuton to suit the inhabitants of this world.

I'd cover the planet with lush forests that would drain the energy from everyone's Quirk.

I would have succeeded in rendering humanity impotent and would have made meta-human society a parenthesis in history.

Three generations later, people would believe that their grandparents, who told them stories of flying heroes and fire-breathing villains, were the victims of a collective hallucination.

I could have made all my problems disappear with the snap of my fingers...

It sounds so quixotic now that I know I can't.

I looked up at the moon.

It shone coldly, stretching the world's shadows ominously.

Let's call it a night.

I got up, hands in my pockets, and shuffled through the house.

The creaking hardwood floors made no sound under the lightness of my ninja steps.

The door next to mine was ajar.

I stopped in front of it.

I tilted my head to one side and listened intently.

Steady breathing.

Suddenly there was movement and the purr of a hibernating bear.

I smiled and quietly closed the door.

He's still snoring like a chainsaw.

I left again, mechanically extending my senses to the entire Todoroki estate.

I could feel my father sleeping in his room, my two clones watching over him day and night, the servants in the outhouse, Rei and the other two in the east wing and Teka's two henchmen, who were as much responsible for watching over Touya as they were for protecting my father if he tried to kill him.

Of course he's the only one not sleep.

Touya had trouble sleeping, it seemed. He was always awake at odd hours and slept very little during the day.

My theory was that he was afraid that I would kill him in his sleep.

It was, of course, a tempting idea. Although I'd managed to control myself so far, it would have been harder if I'd been forced to see his horrible rat face every day.

I guess that's why Dad refused Rei's suggestion that everyone move in with us in the west wing.

I took a bottle of water from the refrigerator and drank, leaning against the sink.

When my thirst was quenched, I wiped my mouth with the back of my sleeve and put my mask back on before dipping my head into the refrigerator.

I'm so damn hungry.

I had a very strict diet, adapted to my daily training level, from which I was not allowed to deviate.

My eyes fell on a chocolate cake under a dome, only one slice missing.

....we're all going to die one day anyway.

Dying of a chocolate overdose seemed enviable, considering my current prospects.

I grabbed a fork, pulled a chair from the kitchen island, and sat down with my improvised meal facing the porch.

The edge of the forest rustled under the caress of the wind, the leaves crumpling like paper rolled into a ball.

Soon winter would come, and with it the snow.

And the rainy season will soon give way to the biting cold, but everyone knows it's easier to hide a body when it's raining...

I thought of Nagano and the rivers of pink water that had carried the evidence of my murder into the city's sewers. I thought again of Hawks with a burned back and of Fulgenzio telling me that I had to confide in someone.

This time I had narrowly escaped the social earthquake.

Even if I had participated in the rescue of Nagano, the consequences of killing a man - even a terrorist - after my grand speeches about my "lack of choice" would have been tragic.

No matter how much I thought I was in control, there was always something or someone - me - that would betray me in the end.

I made mistake after mistake, I didn't care about the consequences, and if someone other than a PAN's fanatic farmer had found that head, I don't know how I would have gotten out of it.

My fork hit the plate with a shrill sound.

I strained my ear, motionless.

He's still asleep.

My shoulders relaxed.

I took another bite of cake.

I had decapitated a man who stood in my way, and I wasn't sorry I had done it, only that I had been caught.

I killed a defenseless old man because he begged me to end his suffering, and I felt more guilty about that than anything else, even though he'd guided my hand.

Try to find the logic in that.

In my mind, it all made sense.

Rationally, I wondered if I wasn't just talking nonsense to justify all my bullshit.

'Murder is a crime against humanity'.

I ran a hand over my face, feeling the icy chill in my dark circles that meant I needed at least a good ten hours of sleep to make up for all this.

But since I don't have the time, I'll just sleep four hours and pat myself on the back for another excellent night of sleep.

What could I do now that my 'Mokuton: The Quirks Devourer' project was gone?

Shit, if Edo Tensei was impossible, this means I can't reverse-engineer Izuku's Quirk to automatically resurrect me if I ever hit the bucket prematurely.

I had to find a way to drastically increase my power: the 'Capitals' project couldn't be the only trick I had up my sleeve.

That would only scare the officials. What I need to do is find a way to make sure that no criminal ever comes after me...

And then there was All for One and his Nomus and who knows what else trying to take over the world behind him.

Why had I decided to be the 'protagonist' again?

Maybe it's time for me to withdraw from everything.

My father had paid enough because of my lack of brains, and the more days passed, the more I risked getting a one way ticket to Tartarus.

But the old man will kill himself if - when - All for One decides to blow it all up.

My Hero Academia was originally supposed to be a Shonen - and in Shonen, the heroes always win in the end.

Does this mean that Dek- that Izuku is the key to all my problems?

If he wins back the One for All, he'll be able to deal with All for One and all the other villains lurking in the shadows, and all will be well that ends well.

All I have to do is get All Might to give him his power, and everything will be alright.

But All Might hate my guts and he probably thinks Izuku is a whiner...

And then there was the problem with Touya.

If I really decided to get out of the whole thing, work for the Special Forces or become the Don or whatever, I refused to move on until he was six feet under.

I had to find a way to kill him that was natural, logical, and that I couldn't be blamed for.

I thought of Hawks and his burns.

...I'd be a really shitty person if I did that.

And yet...

I hesitated, weighing the pros and cons.

At that moment, the clock struck four.

I blinked, chasing away the jelly that had clouded my thoughts.

Forget it, we'll think about it tomorrow.

I finished the cake in a few bites and stood up.

I put the bowl in the sink and walked away with my hands in my pockets.

Someone will clean it...

I stopped on the threshold of the room and hesitated for a second.

Then I turned abruptly, picked up the plate and cutlery and put everything in the dishwasher before walking away just as abruptly.

If I do one last bad deed to save myself from thousands of others... isn't that a good deed ?

I didn't have to submit my reasoning to general objectivity to know that I was clearly persuading myself to do something stupid.

And yet...

If my father's life is at stake, I'm capable of anything.


*

Author's note :

I have been told that the cover of the story and the description were not very readers attractive.

I want to know if it's a common sentiment shared by many among you (if you skipped the story many times before starting it because the cover was not nice or the description too boring).

Either way, see you in the next update everyone !

 

[Nar_cisse]

Further out on the lawn, dressed in shorts and t-shirts that almost made me wonder if they'd all developed a resistance to the cold during the night, were a mix of students from Elite Class and 1-A.

They were stretching, doing push-ups, laughing merrily before slapping each other on the back to encourgage each other to get back to work.

Hands in my pockets, I stopped at the bottom of the stairs and looked up, feeling Katsuki getting out of the shared showers.

My attention was caught by the shadow of a body suddenly moving in my periphery.

Kirishima and Dek-Izuku were in full hand-to-hand combat, exchanging blows more for the sake of form than to actually hurt each other.

Kirishima stopped, spoke quickly and mimed a blow, taking care not to overdo it.

Izuku nodded and imitated him, but his poorly supported right leg twitched as if it wanted to follow the movement.

Kirishima nodded and the two boys smiled, then clapped their hands.

Immediately, Izuku turned around and I raised my head towards the door, looking as if I had something else on my mind.

There was an imperceptible creak, as if he'd just stepped on the season's icy beginnings and, seeing me, hesitated to move forward.

He hung there for a moment, hesitating, then trotted over to the faucet that came out of the wall and served as a water fountain.

I turned my head toward him and he suddenly looked away, leaning forward to drink from the hose.

The sound of his wet, disgusting sucking annoyed me almost as much as the lack of diligence of the group of teenagers behind him.

Izuku sat up, wiped his wet lips with the back of his hand, gave me a hesitant look, looked away, pretended to walk away, stopped, and finally stammered nervously:

- Are you waiting for Katchan?

He seemed to shrink into himself.

Even under his baggy T-shirt, I could see the hardened line of his once sluggish shoulders.

I looked away.

- Yeah

Izuku continued to fidget nervously with his hands and I was suddenly very irritated to see so much anxiety in one loose body.

I looked at the time on my cell phone again and my irritation increased.

What the hell is he doing?

I was almost tempted to go up and drag him out by his hair.

I glanced sideways at Izuku, who was watching the other students.

Hesitantly, his lower lip quivering, his right foot twitching nervously, as if he wanted to walk towards them, but something held him back.

He met my gaze and gasped.

- Hey

He stopped, rigid as a pillar set in cement.

He stuttered.

- Yes ?

I felt like grabbing him by the collar of his T-shirt and slap hm.

Urging myself to calm down, I continued in an indifferent tone:

- When you strike, your posture must be more solid.

He blinked like an owl waking up in the middle of the day.

- What ?

I clicked my tongue against the roof of my mouth, looked up to the second floor where I could still feel Katsuki's pampering himself, and then took two steps towards Izuku.

I spread my legs and put both my fists in front of my face.

- Each of your punches must start from the bottom of your body, I said. If your posture isn't solid, you'll lose power.

I mimed a sharp blow to my opponent's jaw.

- People are fragile. If you use the right amount of power in the right place, you can beat just about anyone.

People made fun of martial arts more than ever now that children could be born with the ability to fart fire.

What's a flamethrower against good hand-to-hand combat ? Answer: barbecued meat.

I threw a few more hooks at my imaginary opponent for form's sake before straightening up, feeling Katsuki the princess finally bring her royal butt outside.

Izuku lost his air of frightened childishness, mimicked my stance to perfection and sent three sharp blows straight ahead.

His gaze was resolute, determined, the opposite of the fragile boy who walked around with his head in his shoulders, so much so that it took me another second to connect this assertive version of him with the fragility he usually exuded.

An immortal able of giving back blow for blow...

I suddenly felt a thrill of excitement.

Izuku straightened up and looked at me questioningly.

-... t's not as disastrous as it used to be...

The corners of his mouth turned up, uncertain, but I was already standing next to a grumbling Katsuki (for a change) who had just kicked open the front door, startling everyone within a ten kilometer radius.

- You took so long I really thought I'd have come and pull you out by your ass

He raised an eyebrow, then slipped his cell phone into his pocket.

- Waiting for me? (Then his lips curled over his sharp teeth) Oh yeah, I forgot I was the only one of us with a real Hero job. How's the community service going ?

- Don't make me believe that apart from bringing coffee to my old man's meetings, you're good for anything else

- Says the guy who wears a bricklayer's uniform and spends his days chasing pigeons

- Your dreams of glory must seem far away when you spend your days watching All Might in his tighter-than-a-thong suit.

Katsuki landed a blunt blow on my shoulder.

- Fuck you

I smiled.

- Did I hit a nerve?

And from the look he gave me, I knew I'd hit a nerve.

*

- Are you kidding me?

Hands in my pockets, bag on my back, I looked at the front of the noodle bar, then at my phone, then back at the bar.

- That's what Maps says.

I put my cell phone in my pocket.

Katsuki to my left was foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog.

- You made me miss training fo-

I pushed open the door and a bell rang, drowning out Katchan's barrage of insults.

To my right was a counter overlooking an open kitchen where two sweaty men in gloves and aprons were busy.

One of them poured oil into a deep frying pan and suddenly a geyser of flames erupted.

He barely pulled his head back, looking as if he was used to it, and I watched him appreciatively.

An old woman returning from what appeared to be the storeroom wiped her forehead with her sleeve, smiled at me and handed me a menu.

She had a strange scar from her ear to her chin.

I looked at the menu, fascinated, not used to restaurants without table service.

The bell rang again and I heard Katsuki's angry footsteps.

He stood next to me, shouting, and I didn't have to look up to know that his mouth was twisted like a scowling hen's ass.

- Do you think I should get soba or udon?

I've always been partial to cold soba.

- You made me miss training with All Might to eat at some restaurant?

Katsuki's fingers bent and unfolded frantically as if he was going to strangle me at any moment.

- Tsukemen doesn't look bad either, I said.

Katsuki opened his mouth and I closed the menu.

- Two katsudon, two portions of yakitori, two portions of tempura and teriyaki.

- Don't pretend that you can't hear me!

- Add some takoyaki to go

The hostess made a note in her notebook, typed quickly on the calculator, and asked me for the appropriate amount, which I paid by card.

It's the first time I've ever been asked to pay before eating.

Don't judge, Shoto: you need to be more open-minded.

I quickly scanned the room, then moved to the farthest seat, choosing the one facing the wall with its shabby wallpaper.

Katsuki, lagging behind (for a change), dragged his carcass to the corner of the sofa and eyed me suspiciously.

- What are you waiting for ? Sit down, I'm getting tired just looking at you

And his thick jacket and the scarf he wore around his neck as if he were Santa Claus made me feel hot by procuration.

Katsuki squinted, looking at me the way I'd looked at izuku after he'd suddenly discovered his immortal's Quirk.

- Hawks gave me the afternoon off, I said, knowing exactly what he was getting at.

- And ?

- I was starving.

Katsuki's eyes narrowed.

- That doesn't explain anything

- It does

It explains everything, if you leave out the fact that Hawks gave me the afternoon off on the sole condition that I spend it 'with friends' to 'clear my head' - and that one of his feathers has been stuck to my bottom all morning.

- I thought you had something to tell me, he said. About All Might and Endeavor

The reference to our conversation in my hospital room a few weeks earlier didn't get past me.

- I don't know what could have made you think that.

- I don't know, maybe your 'urgent' message, he said sarcastically.

- Yes, I needed to eat urgently

The hostess came and laid out the silverware and the first plates.

The cooks seemed to be having a blast cooking all the plates.

- Sit down and eat instead of complaining, I said. Besides, you're in the way.

And as if to support my suggestion, the hostess tapped Katsuki lightly on the shoulder as she walked by.

He gave me a sideways glance, his mouth still open.

Then, looking around the almost empty room, he slowly relaxed, crossed his arms and sat down.

- If you hadn't ordered so much food, I'd be long gone by now

The hostess came back with new plates.

- If I'd known you were going to be such a pain, I would have just taken enough for myself

He gave me a dirty look and called the waitress.

- Two large Cokes and a sushi platter, please.

Within minutes, a veritable buffet was laid out on our table.

Katsuki pulled out a bowl of rice and began to eat, dipping in and out of other dishes.

He pointed at me with his chopsticks, head down in his food.

- Stop being a wimp and eat

I felt the corner of my mouth turn up in spite of myself: I lowered my mask and started eating, glancing sideways at Katsuki, who didn't raise his head.

- Just because I'm not looking at you doesn't mean I don't know when you're looking at me, he growled.

- It's very honorable of you to protect my youthful honor.

He snorted and laughed dryly at the same time.

- I swear I'll never look at you again if you pay me lunch like this every day of my life

- Don't count on it

One of the clear soups at a nearby table caught my eye, and I asked the waitress to bring me some, my face hidden under a genjutsu.

I took a few sips, surprised by the spicy taste, then drank it all in one gulp, letting out an "ah" of satisfaction when I'd finished and slammed the bowl dry against the table.

- So, is it true ?

- About what ?, he asked casually

- That All Might's suit is tighter than a thong ?

Katsuki, his fork filled with fried chicken and vegetables a hair's breadth from his parted lips, closed his mouth and put it down.

- Stop it, I'm getting visions of horror

- I see him a lot these days in his red suit. It's a good thing he wears a cape, because it's winter, otherwise...

A shudder of disgust crossed his shoulders.

- Did you invite me here to eat or to make me throw up ?

I smiled.

- Weren't you the number 1 fan of All Might? You should be used to it by now.

- The Heroes' nut is Inaza, not I

A vague memory of the beginning of summer camp came back to me.

- Do you remember the case of his cell phone ?

Katsuki smiled ambiguously and started to eat again.

- How can I ever forget something like that ?

The nonsensical excuses he'd tried to make right after that had only cemented his craziness in everyone's eyes.

- In fact, I see him everywhere these days: he spends all his time training on my grounds.

- 'Your' grounds?

Katsuki shrugged.

- I'm the only one who's used them for training so far

Katsuki picked at the strips of raw salmon and devoured them one by one.

- By the way, have you heard about the new guy who's going to join the class ?

- Who is he?

- A guy from another school. Since there are less of us because of... you know (Katsuki glanced to the side), well, the teachers decided to swell the ranks a bit. At least that's what Aizawa said.

- In the Elite class?

- No, just the normal one. The others weren't too happy about it. They think we're trying to replace those who left.

Which is true.

- Which is true in itself, I said

- Yeah, but I don't know, I think it's still really early. I mean, it's only been a few weeks since Kaminari... left, and we're already trying to fill his shoes. Not to mention Iida and Hagakure who are still in the hospital...

Katsuki began to play with the rice at the bottom of his bowl.

He spoke in a low voice, much calmer than usual.

- Hey, about that traitor thing...

I leaned forward, suddenly very interested.

- Do you have any idea who it might be ?

Should I tell him ?

But Uraraka was the only thing that kept me on the All for One path: if I told Katsuki, it would come back to Nezu sooner or later.

And if they found out that I had known all along but hadn't said anything, what would happen?

No, no, you're thinking too far ahead, Shoto: we don't care about the others or what they think - what matters is that we find All for One and kill him to put an end to all this shit once and for all.

I looked up at Katsuki.

He was frozen, head down, shoulders hunched, fork motionless, ears alert.

I felt torn between putting my own interests first and helping the one who had defended me against the others in class when he had nothing to gain.

- I think it might be Uraraka

*

Author's note :

Only for webnovels readers : someone suggested to me that I should unpublish the story on webnovel and reupload chapters 3 times a day to create more traction on the website.

I think I want to do it, but I don't want to do it if it delete all of the comments I already have.

Also I heard the story's cover look a bit chuuni, dark sasuke and stuff like that - guess I am not the incredible designer I thought I was lmao.

Anyway, if you have suggestions or anything I would gladly take it.

If you want to read the story ahead of schedule, then go check the story's P@treon, Nar_cisseENG

See you in the next update everyone !

 

[Nar_cisse]

A warning costs nothing.

Katsuki suddenly raised her head and immediately lowered it to avoid breaking my 'vow of chastity'.

- Ochaco? No, she's the one who saved me at the camp. Without her, I wouldn't have made it to school before it was too late. She had no reason to help me if it was her.

I shifted in my seat, trying to figure out the best way to convince him without arousing his suspicions that I really knew what I was talking about.

- I don't know, I replied. But there is something about her that I don't like.

Katsuki smiled.

- Since when are you the kind of guy to have hunches?

He started to eat again, more relaxed.

I don't like that.

- It's not a hunch, it's just...

...that I fucking know.

-.... that her behavior is strange. She's the one who found Kaminari dea... out of it in his hospital room, right?

On the morning of the break-in at Yuei and the theft of the Aizawa card, Uraraka was the only one to leave class.

- Monoma was also there to see him, Katsuki countered. It's not secret information, everyone knows about it.

- Remember in the desert ? She screamed three times because of a bug

A bug I remembered perfectly well calling invisible - shit, how could she get me like that ?

- And then Kaminari blew up every camera and microphone in the oasis. Odd coincidence.

- What, you think she and Kaminari were in cahoots and she got rid of him?

I opened my mouth and closed it again, all my attention focused on Katsuki.

I was surprised to see that Katsuki rejected each of my suggestions without giving them a second thought.

He had no problem believing my flimsy theory about a potential spy in the oasis even before Aizawa confirmed anything...

- ... I've been seeing you with Uraraka a lot lately

- Yeah, so ?

The defensive tone gave me a bad feeling.

- I was just making an observation

He rolled his eyes.

- Don't think I'm biased or anything, but your arguments are completely wrong. Because she went to see Kaminari in his room - as did 90% of the class - that makes her a traitor ? I also don't see anything wrong with yelling at a mosquito, whether it's 3 times or 5 times (he smiled). You'd probably yell just as much if someone threw a dirty towel at you.

He's right.

- Okay, I said, shaking my hand. Forget about it.

- What would be her motives ?, Katsuki insisted?

Money.

I blinked for a second, feverish, hands shaking, puzzle pieces rattling together.

Holy shit, it's fucking money !

- See ? It doesn't make any sense. If you'd said Kaminari alone, it would have made more sense...

I frantically smoothed the folds of my pants, forcing myself to keep the excitement out of my voice.

- You're right, I said. It's just that I find it strange that despite the whole camp fiasco, the principal hasn't managed to catch anyone. It makes me a little paranoid.

- Yeah, totally get ut. I never imagined that high school would be like... this

And he waved his hand vaguely to encompass whatever 'this' was supposed to be.

- Life is hard

I nodded, surprisingly sincerely.

- And we're only sixteen, he added.

- Tell me about it

In my previous life I died when I was barely twenty, not even old enough to know what 'living' meant. That life was so strange that even though I was mentally over thirty, I didn't even feel eighteen.

I figured that was why all those old people liked to say that age was just a number and that they felt as young as ever inside.

I started to eat again, whereas Katsuki continued to shovel everything like a black hole.

The comfortable silence, the sound of conversations, the clatter of cutlery against plates and the smell of freshly cooked spicy noodles blended into a strangely soothing whole.

When the dishes were nearly empty, I sat back and pulled my mask over my nose.

- Hey, say...

Katsuki looked up at me.

- Yeah?

His red eyes swept me from side to side, attentive.

I hesitated for a second.

I took the easy way out:

- Your parents don't feed you ?

- Haha, very funny

He reached into the unopened bag of Takoyaki at the end of the table.

I pulled out the kraft paper bag.

- Don't touch

- I only want one, he said, leaning forward.

I pulled the bag back.

- Finish your plate.

He rolled his eyes.

- You sound like the old hag

The hostess came back with a new bill.

I slid it over to Katsuki.

He frowned.

- You're the one who invites, you're the one who pays

- You're the one who ordered the extras when I had already paid.

- I don't have any money with me

I blinked, suddenly remembering an expression I'd heard repeated several times by the students in the class.

- You're a rat

I slammed the bank card down on the bill.

Katsuki smiled triumphantly, took a sip of his coke, looked distractedly at the card and then coughed violently, almost choking on his own stupidity.

- Eat slowly, idiot.

The last thing he needs is to die because he's too happy to get a free meal.

Since I had paid for his meal, would I be responsible for manslaughter ?

I almost smiled at the thought of my one way ticket to Tartarus because no one had ever taught Katchan how to chew.

That would be really anticlimactic.

- You have a fucking black card ?

- Hmm ? Yeah I do. What's the point ?

Katsuki, his eyes shining, quickly tucked in his coat, threw his scarf over his shoulder, walked past the hostess who lifted the payment terminal, swiped the contactless card and left without looking back.

What's wrong with him ?

I followed him at a brisk pace, holding the bag of takoyaki in one hand and turning the collar of my jacket around with the other.

The bell rang behind me and I caught up with Katsuki on the street.

He didn't even look up at me, holding the card in both hands as if it were the most precious thing in the world.

- What's the limit on it ?

- I'm not sure. A lot. Care to share why you ran away like that ?

- Man, you know what you can do with that?

- Buy stuff ?

Katsuki stopped and I pivoted slightly to avoid bumping into him.

He shook his head.

- Buy stuff ? You don't buy things with that kind of money, you live experiences

I was skeptical.

- What kind of experience do you have in mind?

- You told me you had a fight with your old man, didn't you? And he's the one who gave you this card?

I nodded.

Katsuki held up three fingers.

- First experiment: find the limit of this card. Second experiment : Blow the limit of this card.

Katsuki smiled and showed his sharp teeth.

- Third experiment : avoid being killed by your old man

I smiled, feeling my blood boiling with excitement.

- Where shall we start ?

*

Bonus 1 :

Standing on the roof of one of the city's tallest skyscrapers, Katsuki and I watched the city below, the pedestrians wrapped in layers of clothing to withstand the bitter cold.

I exhaled a cloud of steam and turned to Katsuki, who, like me, was at the height of excitement.

- If we provoke an accident, I'll say it was you who got me into this

Katsuki pointed at the pile of luxury bags, jewelry boxes, ribboned new consoles, laptops, high-end phones, board games, and a whole lot of other useless stuff we'd bought.

- We paid for all this stuff with your card. If we get caught, I'll just say you forced my hand.

I picked up a dozen bags and Katsuki imitated me.

- Hey !

I turned to him.

- We're not going to cause an accident by throwing a PS5 at a driver's windshield, are we ?

- Let's throw the soft stuff and drop the big stuff on different street corners.

Katsuki nodded and tucked the straps of the bags into his mouth.

- Ready to go?

He nodded and with a geyser of flames we took off into the sky, raining Valentino and Prada on Mustafu.

Bonus 2 :

- It's Christmas before time in Mustafu, as an anonymous Santa Claus seems to have decided to spoil the town's inhabitants. We're not talking about sweets or board games, but gifts such as luxury watches, designer clothes and real top-of-the-line cars, which the lucky ones have been able to collect from garages.

The anchor's eyes lit up when he mentioned the expensive cars.

- Mr Shingeki here was one of the lucky ones to receive a gift that literally fell from the sky. Mr. Shingeki, can you tell us what happened?

The presenter turned to an old man in a beret and pointed the foam microphone at his mouth.

- Yes, so I was walking home when suddenly a bag fell in front of me, right at my feet.

He picked up the bag and showed the contents to the camera.

Inside was a black crocodile skin bag, a watch with shiny stones in a silk pouch, and a wad of cash.

- I'm told, said the anchorman, that the bag in question appears to be one of the famous Birkin 25s, which don't sell for less than a million and a half yen

Suddenly, a PS5 fell from the sky directly on the old man's head, splattering him like a starfish on a public highway.

The camera zoomed in on the upside-down luxury bag, and then on the old man, his mouth agape, stunned.

- Mr. Shingeki ? Mr. Shingeki !

Bonus 3:

Enji, on the phone with his banker, blinked stupidly.

- He spent how much ?

*

Author's note :

The cover you now see is the last one I will ever make.

This is the limit of my capabilities, I can't do better nor more coherent with the story than that (I am also not the genius graphic designer I thought I was, sadly).

Concerning webnovel readers : starting from this week-end and from monday onwards, I will unpublish all of the chapters of this story on webnovel to publish them in bulk and get way more attraction (yeah yeah, I don't know why I wrote 'traction' last chapter).

You'll still be able to get the new updates but for that you'll have to check one of the following websites : scribblehub, royal road, ao3, fanfiction.net, spacebattle or sufficient velocity. I believe you're present on at least one of these websites and if not, nice opportunity for you to discover new stories.

Anyway, if you want to read ahead of schedule (and see what Shoto's 'last' bad deed is) then go check the story's P@treon, Nar_cisseENG

Otherwise see you in the next update everyone !

 

[Eggmaster]

I like the old old covet image but this new one is absolutely better in my opinion.

 

[Nar_cisse]

Tartarus: the underworld, the kingdom of darkness in ancient Greek mythology.

It was from the titans trapped within it that the inspiration for the creation of Tartarus, the prison island that was the glory of Japanese justice, had come.

If those who had once been above the gods couldn't escape it, how could ordinary men - albeit endowed with extraordinary powers - dream of getting out?

The island, lost in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, was only a few kilometers in circumference.
Black, menacing rocks closed around the island like the sharp teeth of a monstrous mouth.
No sea creature dared to approach, preferring to keep their distance from the anomaly that was this outcrop in the middle of the waves.

The sea around Tartarus was always choppy, the sky always the same deep gray, heralding the imminent onset of a storm.

Nezu watched the sky above the island swell and darken, as if it were waking from a long sleep to swallow them all.

Tartarus had many names: military prison, concentration camp, Japanese Camp 22...

But Tartarus wasn't really a prison.

Or at least not a prison in the traditional sense.

On the surface, a twenty-story building of pure armored steel served as a decoy.

The real prison was below, submerged beneath the ocean, more durable and resistant than any of the purest metals.
There were no windows and no means of access from below.

A single entrance also served as the only exit: it was the armored door that separated the steel prison from the organic underground.

Tartarus was more than a prison: it was also the executioner.

The speedboat made a quarter turn and docked between two large rocks.

One of the soldiers turned off the engine, and Nezu immediately wanted to go ashore.

But one of the soldiers forced him to sit down again.

A team of hooded men - only their eyes were visible - in fatigues, armed to the teeth, came towards them.

The soldier who had led their boat from the ship stayed on board with Nezu, while the second soldier stood up and pulled out a stack of accreditation cards.

He chatted in a low voice with the island soldier, who nodded; the cold, salty wind picked up, drowning out the murmur of their conversation.

Nezu stood still, paws together, smiling and letting the good soldiers take care of the umpteenth checkpoint of his journey.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the rest of the welcoming squad looking at him sideways, their hands on the machine-guns strapped to their shoulders.

All he could see were their narrowed, suspicious, almost paranoid eyes.

Nezu continued to smile, but didn't risk rocking back and forth.

With a gesture, he was invited to step out of the boat.

His shoes landed on the shore with a splash, and the mud on the pebbles nearly made him fall over.

No one stepped forward to help him.

Nezu took only two steps forward, then stopped when he saw the raised hand of one of the soldiers.

He let himself be searched by two different people in a row, and saw the eyes of one of them suddenly fluoresce as he felt his fur.

Then the men stepped aside and nodded to his guide.

The rest of the group - six men - formed an honor guard that resembled a firing squad about to do its duty.

The floor of black pebbles gave way to a large, smooth, cemented runway that served as a helipad.

All around them, the waves raged against the rocks, smashing them violently as if trying to break them.
The wind whistled, pushing the newcomers away as if to chase them off the island.

Above the noise, Nezu could still hear the faint murmur of the boat that had brought them back to the ship a few kilometers away.

It was protocol: no flying or aquatic object or person was allowed within five kilometers of Tartarus without permission from the island.
Breaking this rule was tantamount to being shot down, regardless of the individual or the reason for such an approach.

They reached the first door of the steel building.

A series of clicks sounded and suddenly, the door creaked open from the inside.

Nezu saw two of the three soldiers inside finish opening it, while the third held Nezu and his guide at gunpoint.

They were stopped by a new team - only three men - who searched him again.
The hands of one of them glowed piss yellow, and Nezu was intrigued, though he refrained from asking any questions.

His guide again presented the commission's access pass.

They stepped aside to let them pass.

- Thank you, Nezu said.

The soldiers looked down at him, but didn't answer.

Security and professionalism in Tartarus were so perfect that it was almost frightening.

Nezu followed his guide as he led the way and saw a soldier break away from the trio to follow them.

He was so close to Nezu that had he been taller, Nezu was sure he could have felt his breath on his neck.





With a single gesture, the guide and the second soldier clicked on their large, opaque goggles that resembled ski goggles.

The guide led him down a different path than the last two times Nezu had been here.

He might have known that the door to the real prison was on the first floor, but it would have been impossible to find it by chance.

The corridors were gray, smooth, perfectly intact and clean, so much so that you couldn't tell one branch from another.
Thanks to a strange architectural trick, each corridor was just as long as the one before, and there were no right angles: everything was twisted and turned in a way that made you want to throw up.

Nezu had to close his eyes several times as he walked to regain his composure and continue to mentally map the place.

He counted the steps and focused all his attention on the shoes in front of him, memorizing and filing away in a corner of his memory every slight movement to the right or left of the soldier in front of him that indicated they were turning right or left.

He couldn't rely on his own footsteps or movements to the right or left as his weakened legs kept shaking and lurching illogically to one side or the other, his vision blurred against the unnatural infinity of gray.

A sudden urge to vomit rose to his lips, and Nezu admired - not for the first time - who had built the structure.

He himself had suggested a few years ago that the prison's labyrinth system be updated to make it more 'efficient'.

The Commission had had the good sense to reject his 'help' before he could even finish his sentence.

This had been Nezu's only opportunity to study the scientific mystery that was Tartarus, and it had been snatched away from him in the blink of an eye.

The humans may have been less intelligent, but there was indeed wisdom in those fragile skulls...

They walked for so long that Nezu almost lost his way more than once.

Then his guide stopped, and Nezu, a little late, followed suit.

The second soldier behind him pointed his weapon at him, as was protocol, while the first soldier slid the shoulder strap of his weapon behind his back, then leaned over the huge concrete slab nailed to the ground.

No retinal scanner or complex code to enter: a heavy, rusty black handle set into the gray slab was the only way to open the door.

Tartarus didn't need to be protected: rather, it was from her that the Japanese government sought to defend itself.

The soldier grasped the handle with both hands and pulled with audible effort.

Nezu stayed at a safe distance, admiring what a force of nature this man was, able to practically lift a door weighing over a hundred kilos with the strength of his arms.

The hinges creaked and the door - like a trapdoor to the cellar - opened like a gaping maw to the real Tartarus.

A wind of decay and suffering blew from the monster's guts,

Pink protrusions as thin as fingers covered the metal door.

The first soldier took the stairs and Nezu followed.

He was careful not to step on any of the pink veins that seemed to beat like human hearts.

Nezu remembered a quote that was supposed to be engraved on the gate to the underworld: "Abandon all hope, you who enter here".

The second soldier did not follow: Nezu glanced over his shoulder and saw him kneeling, Swiss knife in hand, cutting away the veins that had covered the trapdoor.

Nezu's soles squeaked as they hit the floor.

Absolutely everything in the basement was covered in the pinkish mucus: from the floor to the walls to the ceiling, the whole of Tartarus gave the impression of walking in the bowels of a titanic beast.

The soldier activated a one-hour stopwatch on his watch and set off. Nezu followed quickly.

His shoes whistled, the spongy floor sinking slightly under his footsteps before rising again as the pressure disappeared, like a sponge being squeezed and then released.

On the walls, pale pink brambles moved with the slowness of a snail, so gently you'd think you'd hallucinated. Short vines tumbled down from the plateau like filaments, brushing the shoulders of anyone who ventured inside.

As always, Nezu felt uneasy in the prison corridors.

He felt as if the prison floor was beating beneath his feet, as if it had a heart. The shifting walls gave him the vivid feeling of knowingly walking into a rat trap.

He tilted his head slightly to the side and watched the watch on the soldier's wrist.

54 minutes.

If the building on the surface was a decoy, so was the second floor of the underground.

There had never been any prisoners on this level: the goal was to waste as much time as possible on anyone who, by some miracle, managed to get in.

Then they would be locked in and waited for an hour.

After that, the prison would begin to devour them.

Nezu didn't know exactly how Tartarus consumed its inhabitants.

But he knew that madness lay in wait for them all.





They walked to the other end of the floor and then down the spiral staircase.

The mucus barely covered the ends of the stairs, as if metal wasn't Tartarus's favorite food and she wasn't interested in it.

The first cells were at level -2.

Armored glass doors opened into small white rooms, every fourth wall covered in metal, the rest nothing but mucus.

At each end of the steel wall was a camera. In the middle was a bulletproof glass window overlooking a room presumably used for interrogation.

In the very first cell, a violet-haired woman lay on the floor with her back to the mucous membrane, large pink veins winding around her neck, arms, and throat.

From the widest veins, tiny pink branches separated like twigs from a tree, covering her skin like blood vessels.

Her skin was translucent, revealing the pink threads running through her flesh.

The former hero's eyes were glassy, her chin resting on her chest, a trickle of saliva dripping from the corner of her mouth.

Her chin quivered as she seemed to pick up the sound of their footsteps, but she didn't look up.

They walked on in oppressive silence, deeper into the interior of Tartarus.

Everywhere, the same desolate scene repeated itself.

Nezu wondered what would happen to the world if they stopped feeding Tartarus and removed the metal walls.

Would they face an apocalypse caused by an organism created thanks to the arrival of the Quirks ?

They went down to level -4.

Then they stopped in front of the door that Nezu had come to see.

Tomura Shigaraki was written on it.

 

[Nar_cisse]

Shigaraki sat against a pink membrane wall, arms outstretched on his thighs, palms limply turned towards the ceiling.

Veins ran from the walls and wrapped around his neck and forearms, fine threads breaking off and burying themselves in his flesh.

Nezu knew from the last director of the Commission that it wasn't painful: on the other hand, he also knew that no one really knew what it was.

Tartarus was one of the many anomalies that had appeared at the same time as Quirks : it was an organic, living mass that fed on and devoured any living being that remained within its reach long enough.

It would plunge its captives into a state of dreamlike euphoria, gnawing away at them until they were as meek as lambs.

They would die after a few months, consumed by ecstasy, but not before the Commission had extracted as much knowledge as they could out of them.

- Hello Shigaraki

The young man did not move.

- I'd like to ask you a few questions about All for One.

He tilted his head to one side, his eyes wide open. His mouth, pasty, had all the difficulty in the world to function.

- Sensei... Sensei...

Shigaraki continued to look left and right as if the man would appear out of nowhere.

- You said you'd come for me...

Shigaraki burst into tears.

Nezu watched him, unperturbed, sensing an opportunity.

- He has abandoned you, he said. He is the reason why you are here.

Shigaraki shook his head with less conviction, his chin rubbing against his chest as he moved.

- No, no... I'm here because one of my own betrayed me...

His tongue slipped from his mouth, grazing the hollow of his chin, his head following the gesture as if weighting heavily.

- It was your body he desired before, wasn't it ? It was you that All for One wanted to inhabit

Shigaraki rolled his shoulders and managed to sit up, pushing his tongue back into his mouth with a tired hand.

- I recognise you, he murmured. I know your voice. You're the failed lab experiment, aren't you ? The thing that acts like a human...

- Where's hiding All for One ?

Shigaraki didn't answer, chin up, head against the wall, mouth slightly open.

His glassy, haggard eyes could see nothing, as if he were already dead.

- You gave it to him, didn't you ? The video of the boy

Nezu stood as still as a statue.

He felt the camera pointed at him with the same intensity as if a whole crowd of people were watching him.

- What video ?

A silent laugh shook Shigaraki, his shoulders jerking against the pink membrane wall.

- Sensei was right. It's a good thing you're just a rat without a Quirk, because otherwise you'd be the most dangerous of them all

- What video are you talking about ? Nezu insisted. Which boy are you referring to?

Shigaraki stopped laughing but continued to smile, his cheek resting on his shoulder.

- I thought he was going to kill me in the police station. He grabbed me by the throat and held me like this

Shigaraki raised a limp arm and pretended to strangle someone with one hand. Then he let his arm fall dry against his thigh.

- He didn't hesitate, you understand ? I know he also didn't hesitate when he killed Twice and all the others.

Nezu opted for silence, hoping that Shigaraki would continue to talk and let him learn things he didn't already know.

- Do you think he'll hesitate when he'll learns that everyone knows about his Quirks because of you?

Nezu had never been more aware of the presence of cameras than at this moment.

- Shoto? Are you talking about Shoto Todoroki?

- Sensei said he was a threat because he was strong but had no purpose

A trickle of saliva ran from Shigaraki's lip to his chin.

He continued to speak, eyelids down, eyes staring into the void, spraying his shirt.

- He said that his weakness was his father, but that we shouldn't pick on him until we knew for sure what his abilities were

Nezu had easily deduced that, but he was surprised by All for One's interest in the question.

- Why is… Sensei so interested in Shoto?

- Sensei... it's something the doctor said

Nezu tilted.

- All Quirks come from somewhere, you understand ? He said you could make a genealogy of Quirks starting from the children all the way back to the parents to the grandparents. He did the same for the boy.

Nezu felt a mixture of excitement and worry that made him nervous.

- Are All for One and Shoto Todoroki related ?

The scientific implications of such a breakthrough...

- I don't know. Maybe. Maybe not.

- What was the doctor trying to do?

- He said... he repeated that if the All for the One took, the One for All gave and the boy created, then by combining the three, we could reach the Origin of Quirks.

Nezu froze in astonishment.

The Origin of Quirks was a purely speculative scientific theory based on the history of the appearance of Quirks : it was assumed that the time between the very first Quirk and the possession of such a power by over 90% of the population was far too short to be the result of the evolution of a single mutated individual.


The Origin of Quirks was based on the premise that there was a primordial individual, an Original Adam, who would have carried all the Quirks and all their possible variants, and that from his blood the powers would have been divided and distributed among his descendants.

Genetically speaking, all individuals endowed with Quirks carried the gene for the Origin of Alters: on the other hand, only a combination of very specific alleles was activated in each, which explains why an individual had only one Quirk or - in very rare cases - at most two.

If the origin of Quirks really exists, it means that any Quirk can be created synthetically...

Nezu, feverishly drunk on the revelation, felt his blood heated by pure adrenalin rush to his head.

He held on to the thick glass that separated him from Shigaraki, blinking rapidly to dispel the dizziness that had taken hold of him.

Synthetically create Quirks and grant them to whomever you want...

Head bowed, a wide smile revealed his small rodent teeth, giving him the frightening air of someone about to commit a crime.

He didn't care if the Commission knew what he had just learned since they didn't even know what One for All was.

But Nezu didn't want to give them any more food for thought than they already had: he pretended to rub his face with a paw and stood up with his mouth open in astonishment, looking as if he had just learned that he was going to die.

- But that's impossible, he muttered. The Origin of Quirks can't even be scientifically proven

Or at least undemonstrable given the ridiculous level of current superhuman DNA sequencing.

Shigaraki smiled almost lazily.

Nezu's heart began to pound furiously against his chest.

- Does All for One have the means to create it ? Can he reproduce the Origin of Quirks ?

If All for One has such a weapon between his hands...

Shigaraki's head rolled from one shoulder to the other, as if to say 'no'.

- If he could do that, you'd all be dead by now.

Nezu felt his heart slowing.

- But that doesn't mean he won't try.

*
Ochaco, towel in hand, absentmindedly dried her hair.

She leaned against the corner of her desk, her eyes glued to a mathematical formula she'd been trying to memorise for far too long.

She reached for the apple on her desk and bit into it, the sweet juice running down her chin.
She wiped her lip with the back of her hand, her eyes never leaving the paper as she nodded at each new line of the demonstration she read, trying to take it all in.

She ate the apple in silence, the sound of the clock clicking steadily in the background, and-

Wait a minute. Since when did Ochaco have a clock in her room?

Surprised, the girl looked up at the wall on the other side of her bed.

There was no clock.

But the seconds were ticking away on the blank wall.

Ochaco put her apple on her maths sheet and carefully crossed the distance to the wall.

The ticking increased. The clock seemed to be inside the wall.

Ochaco raised her hand hesitantly.

She brushed her fingertip against the wall and felt it vibrate like a beating heart.

Suddenly there was a howl from the bowels of the building and the wall shuddered under the fists of someone trying to escape.

Ochaco stumbled backwards and fell, her chest rising and falling rapidly, recoiling onto her buttocks, her eyes riveted to the wall, which vibrated like the shimmering surface of water.

With each new blow, the wall lost its consistency, becoming as thick as milk and as supple as elastic.

Ochaco saw a fist strike the wall, the imprint of his fingers in the thick liquid. With each new blow, the whitish fabric expanded like the roof of a tent, the thing trapped within the wall pushing against it again and again until a whitish pyramid was formed.

Pale and wobbly, Ochaco crawled backwards.

She raised her hand to the thing coming out of the wall, ready to use her Quirk, but nothing happened.

Terrified, unable to understand what was happening, Ochaco's back hit the foot of her bed.

The thing continued to press against the wall, its body glued to the white canvas that covered it like a second skin.

An ovoid skull continued to push against the wall, then a wide open mouth - as if screaming - appeared, and suddenly long hands with unnaturally slender fingers at the end of arms, bent like the mandibles of an insect, pushed the wall back violently.

The thick veil moved abruptly forward, and suddenly the creature disappeared behind it.

Throat dry, hands clammy, Ochaco lay trembling against her bed, knees bent.

The wall, smooth and thick, had advanced a good half meter, stopping at the end of the rainbow carpet, barely big enough to encompass both feet of her bed.

Ochaco waited, heart pounding.

The wall remained motionless, smooth as stone.

Ochaco raised her hand again, Quirk activated.

The wall didn't move.

She faltered, then finally touched it.

The wall vibrated at her touch, like the shimmering surface of a pool when a stone is dropped into its midst.

Ochaco stood still.

The wall did not move.

The thing screeched and threw itself against the wall.

The wall buckled and the hooked fingers pounced on Ochaco, mouthfuls of fangs tearing through the canvas.

Ochaco screamed and fell onto her back, her arms clutching her face as bits of canvas and saliva splattered onto her face.

The fangs were a hair's breadth from her throat.

Suddenly Ochaco fell.

The thing let out a howl of rage, then tried to grab her with its clawed paw.

But Ochaco continued to fall into a black hole, the window of the howling monster fading like the headlights of a car in the night.

She fell violently onto her back.

Her breath caught in her throat.

Jolts of electricity shot between her vertebrae, making it painful to breath.

Ochaco rolled onto her side and propped herself up on one hand, breathing through her nose until the pain subsided.

The floor under her fingers was black and cold.

She cleared her throat, felt her breathing return to more or less normal, then massaged her neck with one hand as she looked around.

There was no horizon, no sky : everything was black and still.

Ochaco looked up at the window of light, hundreds of metres into the sky.

The thing was gone.

Ochaco staggered to her feet.

The sound of her footsteps echoed in the void.

Suddenly, Ochaco felt her stomach growl.

Then something rose to her mouth.

She put her hand to her throat and suddenly her gullet tightened violently.

Ochaco bent over and vomited all over her feet.

Maggots spewed from her mouth and fell in layers on her shoes.

They swarmed, alive, wriggled against her and began to crawl up her legs.

Ochaco screamed and began to push them away with loud slaps on her shins.

She jumped to escape, but another convulsion split her in two.

She regurgitated a mountain of bloody maggots.

The two groups merged into one, crawling along the floor, up her shoes and arms.

Ochaco tried to activate her Quirk again.

The maggots stirred and swarmed, damp against her skin.

Ochaco screamed.

Then she blinked, and suddenly she was back in the middle of her room, standing at the foot of her bed.

Facing the wall where the heartbeat had come from was Shoto Todoroki.

*

Author's note :

Wanted to portray what it would feel like to be caught in a Genjutsu without knowing.

Pretty sure you'd feel as if you were in a nightmare, hence the title.

Tell me what you thought of the chapter in the comments, if there are things that were not clear enough/could be improved

If you want to support the story/read up to 27 chapters ahead of schedule, then go check the story's P@treon, Nar_cisseENG

See you in the next update everyone !

 

[Eggmaster]

Genjutsus are scary man. They represent why mind controlling powers are one of the scariest things out there.

 

[Nar_cisse]

Hands clasped behind his back, head raised towards the white wall, the teenager stood motionless.

In front of him, the wall suddenly appeared gigantic, distorted, as big as an iceberg and as menacing as the gate to hell.

Shoto turned towards her calmly, as if everything was normal.

- Ah, Uraraka. Please sit down.

She followed his outstretched hand and saw, a hair's breadth from her knees, a metal chair she'd never seen before in her life.

She didn't sit down.

Shoto smiled - his eyes turned into crescent moons - grimly, and suddenly Ochaco was sitting in the chair.

- Did you like my little game?

Ochaco wanted to bite her nails, but forced herself to remain calm and spread her fingers across her lap.

- What have you done to me?

- A better question would be, 'What are you going to do to me?'

He eyed her, his eyes gleaming with malice.

- What do you want? she growled, feeling the tension begin to leave her body, though the nervousness remained.

She was neither mad nor in the grip of a dangerous psychopath with a Quirk capable of altering reality: even if she was wary of Todoroki, the familiarity of his personality calmed her somewhat.

- Ah, you've obviously misunderstood the situation

Suddenly, Shoto's eyes turned red and Ochaco screamed, struggling against the leather straps holding her to the wooden chair.

She felt as if liquid fire was being poured into her ears, seeping like poison into her veins, melting her body from the inside out.

She writhed against her bonds, scraping the armrests of her chair until she was bleeding, splinters digging into her bloody fingers, screaming against a gag that was pressing down on her throat and choking her.

Her skin heated and, lacking air, Ochaco pressed the flat of her feet against the floor, trying to break the straps with the pressure.

Lava poison runned inside her torso, her elbows, rolled down her forearms, descended into her pelvis, seeped into her thighs...

Ochaco blinked and was back in her room, her damp hair clinging to her neck.

- Even if your mind knows it's an illusion, all I have to do is convince your body that you're dead and it will stop working

A flash of red crossed his heterochromatic eyes.

- But perhaps you'd like a demonstration?

Ochaco felt panic tighten her throat.

- No, no, no ! I'm sorry, I'm sorry !

Shoto eyed her with unhealthy attention, as if he really intended to carry out his threat.

Ochaco felt something stirring and swarming in her stomach, and suddenly she was sure it was the maggots, and they were going to rip her belly open to get out.

- Please

Then Shoto smiled - his eyes crinkled - and the rumbling in her stomach subsided.

Ochaco's desk appeared behind him and he leaned against it, his arms crossed over his chest.

- I saw what you did with Denki, he said. Clever, since no one else should know about the cards.

Ochaco felt her blood run cold.

- I don't-

He raised his hand and Ochaco fell silent.

- No lies if you don't want me to get really angry

The teenager's mouth closed.

- I've been thinking a lot about you, you know. I could kill you after staging your runaway. I'd make you write a letter confessing to Ashido and Kaminari's murders and you'd just disappear.

He snapped his fingers.

Ochaco, dripping with sweat, jerked at the straps that dug painfully into her skin.
Her dry, rough tongue, rubbed against her teeth.

Shoto watched her squirm like a fish out of water with relish and turned up the heat.

- But I talked to Katchan recently and he gave me an excellent idea...

The gleam in her eyes at the mention of the teenager displeased Shoto greatly.

- What are you smiling at, you imbecile ?

The maggots began to swarm violently in her stomach again: looking down, Ochaco could see them pushing against the barrier of her stomach, buzzing against her skin like bees in a hive.

- I'm sorry, she said hastily. I'm sorry !

The maggots subsided.

Worried, she asked quietly:

- What did you discuss?

- I've been thinking about your behaviour during the championship. Do you remember the way you waited for me in the locker room after I announced that I'd offer a million to the winner ?

He smiled (his eyes turned into crescent moons).

- Katchan made me wonder what could have made you switch to All for One's side. That's right: what could have brought you to work for him?

He held up two fingers.

- He couldn't have threatened you and your family : you cut all ties with them almost a year ago.

The hairs on the back of Ochaco's neck stood up.

How did he know ?

- He must have offered you something you desperately wanted, something you'd be willing to die for. It could be many things. But I think I know you well enough to know that you're only interested in money.

Shoto suddenly clapped his hands together.

Ochaco jumped, startled.

- That's good : I've got plenty of money !

Ochaco, uncomfortable, deflected the question.

- What do you want ?


- The exact location of All for One

Ochaco swallowed, hesitant, but asked anyway:

- What are you going to do with it ?

Shoto's eyes narrowed and, for a moment, Ochaco thought she felt the maggots stirring again in her stomach.

- What do you think I'm gonna do with it ?

- I don't know it, the teenager murmured. He never tells us where he is : he only tells us what to do.

Shoto's gaze was icy.

- 'Us' ?

Ochaco bit the inside of her cheek.

- Be very careful what you say next

His eyes turned blood red.

She cleared her throat.

- He's... we...

She dropped her eyes, intimidated.

She'd only killed because she had no choice, because her cover was in danger of being blown.

He, on the other hand, had no reason to kill the villains in the camp - and yet he'd done it in cold blood, showing no remorse, even shamelessly blaming Aizawa-sensei for his actions.

He'll have no problem killing me.

A lump tightened her throat.

- There's another spy in the class, she muttered. It's Aoyama.

Shoto made no sound.

- Does he know where All for One is?

- No, she replied hastily. If I don't know, then it's impossible for him to know.

If I lose my usefulness, he'll kill me.

- Hmm

The toes of Shoto's shoes entered Ochaco's peripheral vision.

- I'll give you two options: either I kill you here and now with, let's say, a nice little cardiac arrest...

Ochaco stiffened, her eyes riveted to the ground.

Beads of sweat rolled down her neck.

- Look me in the eyes when I speak to you

She obeyed.

Her cheeks were flushed, her hair a mess, her eyes filled with tears she refused to shed.

Shoto sniffed, scornful, not the least bit impressed.

He tapped her head with his fingertip.

- But I'll put you through a thousand years of suffering in there before I end your torment, so that you'll beg me for mercy and death

His eyes crinkled into a crescent.

- Or maybe the second All for One comes out of his hole, you let me know. In that case, I won't kill you and I'll even give you some money to get the hell out of here.

Something must have changed in Ochaco's expression because Shoto spat in disgust :

- You really like money, don't you ? A real whore

Ochaco, humiliated, swallowed all her weakness, tears and mucus.

- Why do you want to hurt me ?, she snapped. I've never done anything to you !

He could have given her money, told her he'd turn her in or kill her if she didn't do what he wanted, but to torture her - to make her suffer before killing her - was like saying he had a personal grudge against her.

The boy's expression darkened.

- You seem to think that just because a few bad weeks have passed since the camp, everyone has forgotten what happened

There was something malicious in his look.

- But I haven't forgotten that it was you who distributed the explosive cards to everyone

Ochaco's fingernails dug into the palms of her hands.

Shoto spread his hands as if to encompass the whole room, like a politician in the middle of a campaign to show his voters that the world will be within their reach if they elect him.

- The choice is yours, Ochaco. Will I keep you here a little longer, or will you choose to leave this nightmare ?

Her nails hurt so badly she thought they would bleed.

He whispered.

- Remember : there are worse things than death

Instinctively, Ochaco sank back into her seat, trying to get away from Shoto.

All for One inspired a well-founded fear in her, but also a healthy dose of respect for his almost professional pragmatism. He had clear goals and would do whatever it took to achieve them.
There was a pattern, a logic to All for One. You could criticise him all you wanted, but All for One was no fool.

Shoto, on the other hand...

Shoto frightened her because he was an unruly cold-blooded killer.

He scoffed at villains and had no intention of being a hero, yet he was born with powers beyond logic.

He had no ambitions, nothing he wanted to achieve : he moved forward blindly, acting on his whim without thinking of the consequences. He was often violent and sometimes irrational.

Ochaco had once thought of him as a villain on the rise, but perhaps it wasn't quite that.

If villains and heroes were to clash, which side would he take ?

His powers could change the course of any war.

Both sides would tear him apart until there was nothing left of him.

If I could guess it... then he must know it too, right ?

Ochaco swallowed the knot in her throat.

- As soon as I hear from All for One, I'll let you know

Shoto smiled and leaned forward.

- Good girl

Then he grabbed her hair with one hand and lifted her head violently.

- I guess you don't need to hear what will happen to you if you try to play it smart ?

Ochaco shook her head in horror.

Shoto studied her in silence, disgusted.

Then he unceremoniously released her, almost shoving her away.

He looked down at her with bloodshot eyes before exploding like a supernova at the end of its life, illuminating the surroundings with a blinding white light.

Ochaco covered her face with her forearm and turned her head away.

When she opened her eyes, she was standing in the doorway of her room, the towel around her neck, her damp hair clinging to her face, her maths paper in one hand.

But the apple on the table was gone.

*

Author's note :

Genjutsu in full action everyone !

This was so funny to write, honestly had a blast.

Tell me what you thought in the comments, if some things could be clearer or anything else you want to talk about.

If you want to support the story (or me and my reading addiction)/read ahead of schedule up to 27 chapters, then go check the story's P@treon, Nar_cisseENG

See you in the next update everyone !

 

[Eggmaster]

Yooo was that some ochako and bakugo insinuation there??

I loved the horror aspect of being trapped in a genjutsu and having no way to escape it.

 

[Nar_cisse]

Hawks liked me.

It was less an idle remark than a certainty.

He liked to tell me irrelevant facts about his life, to take me to many restaurants for long meals and to lecture me endlessly. When the days were 'good' ones - according to my deductions - he liked to drink, and when he drank, his tongue loosened.

Or maybe he was just a chatterbox.

A chatterbox. Surely that was a species of bird that already existed, wasn't it?

- Hey, you're not listening to me

- If you want me to listen to you stop telling me useless things

- Am I boring you ?

- Absolutely

Hawks laughed.

He raised his hand and called to the barman to bring him some more spirits with long names and more synthetic smells than the previous ones.

I pointed with my chin at the brownish liquid that rolled like a wave in his glass, smashing against the ice cubes like a raging ocean against icebergs.

- I don't know how you drink this stuff, I said, wrinkling my nose. Or how you can stand the smell of it

Even strong perfumes had a way of irritating me because of my overdeveloped sense of smell: I couldn't even imagine what something as stinky as this would do to someone with senses as acute as his.

Hawks took the glass, eyes half closed, and raised it to his face, looking at the alcohol as if it were gold.

- When you can't feel anything like I do, you need at least this much to feel alive

He drank the glass in one gulp and let out a satisfied 'ah'.

His comment piqued my interest.

I asked in a conversational tone:

- When you say you don't feel anything, do you mean...?

His mouth curved into an amused smile, but his eyes narrowed menacingly.

When he looked at me like that, his eyelids heavy, his vertically slit pupils scrutinising me intently, he made me feel more like an animal than a man.

Sometimes the way he acts is really familiar...

Hawk's smile widened as he looked around.

Then he took off his jacket and threw it on the sofa beside him.

Hawks was wearing only a black sleeveless top.

Whitish burn scars covered his arms down to his neck.

They curled around his forearms and elbows, wrapping around his skin like snakes.

He looked as if someone had thrown him down a chimney to burn like a log.

It was the ugliest thing I had ever seen.

Hawks scratched absently at his right cheek, the only part of his face the flames had managed to reach.
There was a small white triangle on his jaw, its tip pointing towards his eye.

- Ugly, isn't it ?

I looked up at Hawks.

He smiled casually.

- It's something that happened when I was a child. That day, some of the nerves connected to my brain just snapped. I was in so much pain that I had a stroke on the operating table as the doctors tried to save the charred lump of flesh that I was.

He spoke nonchalantly, as I would have done in his place.

I had the distinct impression of seeing myself in the third person as I told my psychiatrist how my brother had tried to drown me and why I was glad he was dead.

- After that, all my senses: poof!

He mimed an explosion, or maybe it was something flying away.

- I've had hypoesthesia ever since. I can't feel hot or cold or pain.

He pointed to the row of empty glasses piled up on the coffee table between us.

- Now you understand why this is my thing ?


I especially don't understand how you haven't gone mad.

Hawks raised his arm and asked for a new glass, which was brought to him along with a full bottle of Daniel's. I stared at Hawks without thinking.

I leered shamelessly at him, trying to imagine the pain of burning alive while no one helped you.


The burns are too clean, too precise to be the result of an accident...

- How did it happen?

Hawks smiled enigmatically and looked at me over the top of his glass.

- Don't pretend you haven't guessed

I didn't answer.

- Why didn't they erase them ?

The Commission's golden goose must have been worth at least that much.

Hawks picked up the glass and the bottle, looked at them both, put the glass down, pulled the pin out of the bottle and took a big gulp from the swig.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve, wedged the bottle between his thighs, pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lit one.

I turned my head towards the barman, who was cutting slices of lemon without paying any attention to us.

The lights in the bar were dimmed, the chairs almost empty, the customers glassy-eyed and rarely accompanied.

Even though we were at the far end of the bar, in the most isolated corner of the sofa, there was no reason why the barman shouldn't see us.

If Hawks is indulging in a shit show of himself in such a public place, he has to know that no one is going to bother him here...

- I know what you must be saying to yourself, said Hawks. 'What? He's their golden boy and they haven't even thought about his public image?'

He took a drag, the tip of his cigarette reddening like embers. He pushed his cigarette aside and took a sip of Daniel's with his left hand. Then he reached for the crackers with the free fingers of his right hand and took a bite.

- The thing is, I wasn't 'Hawks' back then: I was just 'Keigo', a kid with a decent Quirk who'd survived... well, who'd survived something else no one should have survived. It would have cost far too much money compared to my potential. The cost-benefit ratio wasn't really in my favour.

Hawks smoked slowly, thoughtfully.

- I couldn't even walk back then. That's how worthless I was.

- Why ?

Ash fell on his hand.

He didn't notice.

- Burnt nerves, he said. It's the sense of touch that allows you to walk and balance. If I hadn't had my wings to help me...

He opened his arms wide, smiled suddenly - as if his face had convulsed - before resuming his apathetic expression.

- But I managed to get the hang of it. They were very happy. But it was too late for the scars

Hawks shrugged indifferently, as if he didn't care.

But when he took another drink and looked up at the ceiling, the cold, restrained rage I saw in his eyes was all the answer I needed.

Hawks smoked slowly, his eyes glassy but his gaze intense.

When he finished, he looked at me again.

- And you? he said. What's your tragic story?

He had already lit another cigarette.

I looked away, watching some sickly-looking old people walk away.

- There's nothing tragic in my life.

Just a little too much drama in my personnal opinion.

Hawks pointed with his chin to my left middle finger, where a whitish, barely visible scar in the shape of a spiked crown hugged the base of my first phalanx.

- Ah, this

I raised my finger to my face, pretending to recall an old story as my brain spun at breakneck speed.

Hawks - Keigo - was confiding in me, telling me a little bit about who he was, why he was, exposing his weaknesses, knowing full well how much damage I could do to him and his career with this information.

He was trying to cut me some slack, to give me the means to counter-attack (albeit on a smaller scale) if I ever feared he'd spill the beans about what had happened in Nagano.

Suddenly I understood why he'd taken me to a bar in the middle of the day on an average Thursday.

He's trying to show you that you can trust him.

Nagano wasn't information I'd willingly shared. But the story of Keigo's burns was. He asked me to do the same, to tell him a bit about who I really was.

I hesitated.

In a way, I understood Keigo.

His way of talking, acting and observing was so familiar to me because it mirrored my own.

He hadn't been raised to be a functional adult, but a weapon: my father had tried to make a decent man out of me, but I'd never been able to shake the idea that my powers were my essence, that I was worthless without the blood I could spill.

I was pretty sure that Hawks had already killed for the Commission, and I'd spilled more than just blood for my own sake.

Keigo and I had led similar lives in some ways, and yet we were completely different.

I was... I had a lot to work on.

Keigo, on the other hand, had chosen to turn to others, to become a hero and help people. The way he lit up inside when he helped a fallen old woman to her feet, the sparkle in his eyes when he managed to persuade villains to surrender without violence...

Sometimes, when I looked at him, I felt like I was looking at my father.

- Come on, he urged. You can't expect me to believe that life was easy with a brother as crazy as yours...

A sudden smile strectched my lips.

Keigo was the man who had decided to put himself aside for the common good, but who at one o'clock in the afternoon was drinking and smoking to stave off who knows what.

He had made his public persona that of an angel, but the look on his face the first time I gazed at one of his burns was the opposite.

- I was five, I think, I said. That was about ten years ago.

Eleven years, seventy-eight days and thirteen hours.

- Touya...

I raised my hand to the light of the dim ceiling lamps.

The pale, whitish scar looked like it was made of fire in the light.

- He didn't really like me, you see. So one night he came into my room and tried to kill me.

I put my hand down and smiled.
Hawks, his cigarette floating a few millimetres from his mouth, watched me in silence.

A thin puff of smoke rose from it as it burned itself out.

- We fought. He bite me and nearly tore my finger off.

The intensity of Hawk's gaze made me uncomfortable.

I continued in a playful tone:

- My father arrived, Touya disappeared and I had eleven years of peace. I'd rather he'd gone with the whole finger if it meant a lifetime of peace and quiet.

I smiled.

Hawks didn't imitate me and slowly went back to smoking, his eyes glued to the wall behind my shoulder.

His silence made me nervous, itched my nerves to the point where I could feel the blood in my veins heating up.

- What was that ? You shouldn't have asked if you aren't satisfied with the answer

Keigo turned his gaze to me.

I saw my reflection in his unusually bright eyes : smooth face, hard eyes.

- There's no need to get upset, he said.

- I'm not upset, I replied evenly.

Hawks smiled indulgently.

- You may wear a mask, but I can see all your emotions in your eyes.

I found Hawks condescending, contemptuous, belittling.

My blood began to boil.

- Do you hate him ?

- I'd love him to die

Hawks stopped.

What are you going to do with that, Hawks?

He joked.

- That's the kind of brotherly love I like.

My fingers brushed the underside of the coffee table and a seal unfolded to silence our conversation to the outside world.

- You hate him too, don't you?

Hawks smoked quietly.

- I don't have any particular feelings about him

- How long were you in hospital, I asked. How many summers alone, wondering if you'd ever get out ? How many nights crying over your ruined life ?

Hawk's wings quivered, rising sharply before falling back, like a bird of prey about to swoop down on its target.

- What's the matter with you?

His jaws were clenched, a hard line crossing his forehead.

I inhaled sharply, the suggestion about to leave my mouth.

No, not yet.

I bit my tongue until it bled, forcing myself to remain silent.

I swallowed my misplaced anger and fever into the depths of my insides.

- Tell me you hate him.

Hawks studied me in silence, one elbow on the back of the leather sofa, smoking slowly. He refused to answer.

- Tell me you haven't forgiven him.

He stared at me, chin up, whitish smoke coming from his lips as if he were exhaling snow.

If I am the only one driven mad by his very existence, then-

- I wished he'd stayed dead.

His eyelids were low, almost closed, his lashes forming two iron curtains that framed eyes of icy brilliance.

He smiled wickedly.

- Even if he had to keep a finger with him.

The pounding in my chest subsided.

Somehow, I understood Keigo. In a way, he and I were the same.

That's why I knew that he would have done the same thing in my place.

The last remorse I'd had about carrying out my plan died down like burning logs on which a bucket of ice water is poured.

*

Author's note :

I wonder what kind of game Shoto is playing...

If you want to read up to 27 chapters ahead of schedule/support the story, then go check the story's P@treon, Nar_cisseENG

And as always, see you in the next update everyone !

 

[Nar_cisse]

- As the winter holidays get closer, the Japanese are used to...

The presenter paused: a technician wearing a headset with a microphone stepped into the camera's field of view. He handed her a piece of paper.

The presenter glanced quickly through the documents, then raised her sharp eyes to the camera: her face hardened, her gaze became sharper.

- We've just learned that a new Hero was found murdered in his Tokyo home last night

Ryota turned up the volume.

- Investigators immediately ruled out suicide, as the method of murder was similar to that of Heroes Yoneda Mitsuharu and Kikyo Kosami, from Maebashi and Saitama respectively.

Ryota leaned forward, his mouth half open, his leg twitching nervously from lack.

- An internal source has informed us that this is a gang dispute and that the aforementioned heroes are part of a drug importing network that was recently dismantled by agents of the Heroic Commission.

Ryota smiled.

Divert attention and seize the moment.

The Commission had just killed two birds with one stone, avoiding the social uproar that would have inevitably followed if it had become known that Tokyo's terrorist kingpin, All for One, was still alive and targeting Japanese Heroes from now on, while at the same time highlighting the Commission's excellent skills.

All for One may have been trying to destabilise the country, but it wasn't the first terrorist group Ryota had had to undermine.

It had taken nearly a decade to wipe out the Yakuza, but they'd done it: he refused to let his predecessor's clean sweep be ruined because some cockroach who refused to die wanted to kidnap a weird teenager.

Even if his Quirk was worrying, there was no need to panic : All for One wasn't the first, and certainly wouldn't be the last, to possess a power capable of threatening the integrity of a nation.

The proof : Shoto Todoroki.

Even if no one really understood what he was capable of, Ryota wasn't worried.
Hawks - not one to get ahead of himself - had repeatedly assured him in his weekly reports that he was developing a relationship of trust with the boy, and that if the need arose, he could easily convince him to join forces with them.

Yes, All for One wasn't exactly Ryota's main concern: the Peace Symbol duo wanted him dead just as much as he did, and they'd swoop in as soon as they heard he'd grazed Japanese soil.

On top of that, the Commission's agents had spent the last few weeks flushing out the All for One bases and destroying them one by one...

Perhaps he should thank Todoroki for that. Without his legendary violence, they wouldn't have been able to identify any of Nagano's attackers.

All they had to do now was wait for the day when All for One would come out of his hole.

If things got out of hand, Ryota would ask his superiors to call in the special forces. As long as Jin Woo was around...

All for One was not Ryota's top priority.

What preoccupied him at the moment was the rat.

- I'm not sure I understand what you're referring to, Nezu's smooth voice replied on the other end of the phone. Could you be more specific?

Ryota blinked.

He opened his desk drawer, rummaged around and pulled out an old caramel candy still in its wrapper.


He unwrapped it, smelled it, licked one of its sides and then, feeling no sourd taste, tossed it into his mouth and began to suck on it.

Leaning back in his chair, hands clasped over his stomach, Ryota stared at the ceiling, hoping to catch a glimpse of one of the dreamlike images that had populated his days for the past few years.

His leg twitched violently.

Ryota put his hands on it to immobilise it, his eyes still up.

- What is the one for all ?

Silence.

Of course.

- Are you referring to the conversation I had with Tomura Shigaraki?

Ryota snorted disdainfully.

A short pause for thought, then a question to divert the conversation.

The rat really thought he was a complete idiot.

- Have you ever mentioned the One for All in any other conversation ?, Ryota asked calmly.

- It was the first time I'd heard of it.

Fluid, imperturbable.

Lies flowed as easily as truth from his verminous mouth.

- And yet you seemed to know everything about what Shigaraki was talking about, since you didn't see fit to question him.

- You yourself know that the lucidity of the prisoners of Tartarus is more than limited, countered Nezu. I decided to concentrate on what seemed to be the most important thing before I lost all his attention.

- So you preferred to waste your time discussing children's stories? (Ryota laughed dryly) And you're the one who's supposed to have the superior intellect !

A pause.

Ryota put his hand over his mouth to hide his smile, although Nezu couldn't see it.

- I decided, Nezu said, articulating every syllable correctly, That since we didn't have access to All for One's location, we'd better find out what his plans were.

Which was exactly what anyone else in his position would have done.

- And what plans, Ryota said, scorn oozing from his voice. All for One wants to turn a myth into reality

Another pause.

Nezu may have been the smartest thing in the world, but he was still an animal with more instinct than reason. And he had a monstrous ego to boot.

All you had to do was brush his fur in the wrong way long enough and he'd go off the rails.

After all, intelligence didn't equal wisdom.

- ...until proven otherwise, All for One isn't crazy. If he's interested in the Origin of Quirks, he must see a possibility in it...

Which - Ryota painfully admitted - he agreed with.

But once again, Nezu tried to distract him.
Even if Ryota was sure that All for One was really trying to recreate the Origin of Quirks, he wouldn't be able to predict his course of action until he had a global view of the situation - which included understanding point 2 of 3 of All for One's delirious project, i.e. understanding what the One for All was all about.

Worst of all, Ryota was sure that Nezu had this global view.

And if Nezu had it, then Ryota could only imagine the worst.

Because if the rat managed to get one over All for One and get his hands on the method for making synthetic Quirks...

- This One for All, you must have some idea what it is, right?

Short wait.

- In name, it seems to be a power opposite to that of All for One.

Ryota didn't answer.

He'd deduced as much: on the other hand, he'd expected Nezu to evade or even force his hand.

But perhaps Nezu had anticipated Ryota's predictions and cut him off to silence his suspicions.

- What kind of Quirk does that make you think of ?

Ryota was pushing his luck as much as he was testing Nezu.

- If we consider that the All for the One takes the Quirks, then I imagine that the One for All should be able to redistribute them. Hence the name, which would imply the idea of 'all powers for one' and 'one power for all'.

Ryota didn't answer, pondering.

- Well, that would only cover part of All for One's power, since we know he's able to take and give Quirks. I'm afraid the semantics don't shed much light on the matter.

Perhaps he was telling the truth.

Or maybe he was trying to fool him with false benevolence.

Ryota began to pick dead skin from his lower lip, his sharp gaze riveted on the phone.

He'd completely forgotten his craving.

- If you have nothing else to tell me, I'll leave you to it. I've got some worrying business to attend to.

- Nothing serious, I hope, Ryota replied in a tone that both he and Nezu knew was indifferent.

Ryota would have loved to have Nezu followed, but it was impossible : even if he wasn't the only one to distrust him as if he were the devil himself, Nezu was very powerful and had an excellent network of friends.

And this country was a democracy : dubious practices were good for dictatorships.

- Nothing serious compared to the matters that concern you, said Nezu. Have a nice day, Mr Nishimura. Don't worry, if I ever find out more about this famous One for All, I'll come to your office as soon as possible to tell you in person.

Bastar-

He hung up.

*

Author's note :

Is it merely a theory or the truth ?

Meh, who knows...

Tell me about your theories (or whatever else you want in the comments).

If you want to support the story/read ahead of schedule up to 27 chapters, then go check the story's P@treon, Nar_cisseENG

As always, see you in the next update everyone !

 

[Nar_cisse]

- Have you ever copied Shoto's Quirk?

The question surprised Monoma.

Eyelids heavy, mouth dry, the boy ran his hand over his face to wake himself up.

The headmaster had summoned him on a sunday for something so... trivial?

- At the USJ, yes

He remembered touching his neck, and he also knew that Shoto had let him do it without flinching.

- Did you feel anything strange when you used his Quirk?

Ah, so that was what he was getting at.

Monoma himself had tried to remember what it felt like to use Todoroki's power after learning all the unimaginable things he could do.

Except for the duality of his power, Todoroki's Quirk had been no different from anyone else's.

He shook his head.

- I could try again

The headmaster seemed thoughtful.

- Not the slightest strange tingling sensation? Not the faintest hint that there was more to it than fire and ice?

- It was a Quirk like any others, Monoma said. I just copied what there was to copy.

The remark seemed to plunge Nezu into a new abyss of reflection.

Behind him, the sun was rising, turning the treetops pink.

Monoma, dazed and confused, was painfully aware that the question wasn't as harmless as it seemed: he tucked the information away in a corner of his mind, to think about it later, when he was less inclined to fall headfirst to the floor and sleep on the carpet.

- I could, uh

Nezu turned his inscrutable gaze on him. Neito cleared his throat. His voice was hoarse.

- His room is not far from mine. I could-

The headmaster shook his hand.

- I thank you for your concern, boy, but it won't be necessary to take such measures. Shoto is in no way our enemy : I only asked out of scientific curiosity.

Neito wondered what kind of scientific curiosity it was to keep him up at five in the morning.

And the strange way the headmaster talked to Neito without really looking at him - as if he wasn't talking to him...

He felt a corner of his mind stir, felt the veil of sleep lift over his nosy side.

He forced himself to turn off the cogs of his seething brain before the machine could really get going.

It didn't matter to him anyway: for all he cared, Nezu could be fomenting a coup with Shoto as his key player and he would still fall asleep as soon as he left that damned office.

Besides, his uncle owed Nezu a debt : Neito wouldn't stick his nose into his business unless he was specifically asked to do so.

- I'd like to organise something, Nezu murmured. I think you're free on Wednesday afternoon, right?

- I'm training with Aizawa Sensei, the boy reminded him. He had planned to take us out of town in the early afternoon and let us work through the night in an unfamiliar environment.

To see how they would react in an 'unfamiliar' environment, Aizawa had said.

Uraraka had been happy because she 'wanted to be an international hero' and 'this is a great opportunity'.

Monoma had found her enthusiasm worrying and had tried to talk to Aizawa-sensei about it, who had brushed aside her concerns by telling him, quote, 'I know what I'm doing'.

Surprisingly, Nezu mimicked the exact same gesture that Aizawa-sensei had used to shrug him off - a dismissive hand gesture with the tip of the hand hanging down arrogantly, accompanied by a dry flick of the wrist.

- Don't worry about Aizawa, Nezu says. I'll take care of it

Which meant that Neito wouldn't be allowed a night out in the middle of the week.

Great: he could tell his uncle that he didn't need to keep his men on the lookout in case something happened.

- Just out of curiosity, Neito asked, What do you want me to do on Wednesday?

The headmaster smiled.

- Curiosity is a bad habit, Neito.

Eyelids down, body limp, Neito offered his contrite smile - half asymmetrical - which made him look strange and, above all, very, very harmless.

He started to apologise, but the headmaster cut him off:

- I was thinking of making you copy All Might's Quirk

Neito's heart pounded in his throat.

Shit, testing the Quirk of the Number 1 had to be in the top ten of 'things Neito would dream of doing before he died but which will never happen'.

- I see you like the idea, Nezu said.

Neito replied modestly :

- I'd be lying if I said I hadn't wanted to do it more than once when we had lessons with him.

Nezu smiled indulgently.

- Curious, eh ? We're a lot alike in that way

Neito smiled politely and Nezu added nothing.

- I'll let you go back to sleep and won't take up any more of your time.

- Of course, thank you

He was about to leave, but hesitated.

- Yes?, the headmaster asked, seeing his reluctance to leave

- I was wondering about the camp... You know, about what I told you...

The headmaster's face lit up, as if he already knew what the boy was talking about.

- Don't worry, Nezu said. I've got everything under control.

Neito wanted to insist. Nezu cut him off:

- Everything is really under control. Sleep well

Nezu smiled without showing his teeth.

Neito nodded confidently, because that was what the headmaster expected of him.

He left, closing the door behind him, his mind - which he would have preferred to shut down - already buzzing with activity.

When you find a traitor, logic dictates that you get rid of him, right?

Neito racked his brain, trying to piece together what little information he had.

Neito was clever - cleverer than most people gave him credit for - but he was no Holmes. Understanding the headmaster's nebulous thoughts was a world-class mystery.

Still, he had the unpleasant impression that Nezu was playing several games simultaneously.

*

Panting, Katsuki looked Ochaco straight in the eye.

His forearms were on either side of her face, his leg wedged between the teenager's, slightly apart.

He could feel the warmth emanating from her skin without even touching it, intoxicated by the scent of sweat and fruity deodorant emanating from her skin, as if it had been the most delicious drink and he'd been thirsty for a lifetime.

Out of breath from the effort, Ochaco breathed loudly, her chest brushing against Katsuki's with each exhale.

Still dizzy from the fall, she looked around in confusion.

Katsuki watched her skin, reddened by the training, admired the soft curve of her neck, looked up at her rosy cheeks, where strands of hair clung to her lips and jaw.

A bead of sweat rolled from her ear to the hollow of her neck, leaving a wet, salty groove on the skin he knew was soft.

He clenched his fists to keep himself from falling on top of her and lapping her throat with relish.

His heart was pounding in his throat, his blood was pounding in his ears, his foggy brain was just the bead of sweat he wanted to drink and his reason preventing him from moving a millimeter for fear of breaking the spell.

Katsuki was on dangerous ground, he knew that.

He should have stood up. He should have.

She looked up at him, chocolate eyes with low lids and a misty expression.

Katsuki leaned over and kissed her.

*

Author's note :

What ? Romance ?

There's also romance in this story ?

I know many of you saw it coming (hoping I still surprised some).

If you want to read ahead of schedule up to 27 chapters, the go check the story's P@treon, Nar_cisseENG

See you in the next update everyone !

 

[Eggmaster]

Goddammit bakugo don't sleep with the enemy!!