I was still trying to think everything through. It was a lot.
I had slept it off, or at least most of it, it wasn't bad like it had been bad. It was just a lot.
All Might had killed someone. All for One. A man who could steal quirks, who had terrorized Japan for generations. Being able to steal quirks. It was such a powerful ability. My hand found itself on my chest, feeling my heart pump out mana with every beat.
Could he steal mine? The thought crept in uninvited. Would Excalibur and Avalon even count as a quirk? They felt different. They had always felt different. But then again, what did I know about the boundaries of such an ability? Nothing. I knew nothing.
I shook my head trying not to think about it. I didn't want to get hung up on it. I didn't want to get hung up on anything. There was work to be done today. Patrol. Being a hero, for the second time in a long time.
Still... one thing did stay with me. Nezu's words. I hadn't really known how to respond at the time. I still don't. Family was a weird word. What was it that made us family? What was it that made my mother and I family?
Was it the blood we shared? No, that couldn't be it. Blood was just blood. Adopted children are still part of families.
Was it the experiences we had been through? That also felt wrong. I had experienced things with friends I had never experienced with my family or Nezu. Laughter, awkwardness, all new and each unique in their own ways.
So. What was it? And more importantly could I be Nezu's family while he wasn't mine?
It felt wrong. I couldn't think of it in any other manner. I couldn't think of Nezu as my family. I couldn't think of him as a friend. I couldn't even think of him as my mentor.
All of those felt wrong. Each a small piece in a puzzle that would never fit, that I'd never figure out, that I'd never see finished. The image of him gripping my shirt, those small paws trembling slightly as he said those words, played through my mind on repeat.
I love you, Arthur.
When had anyone last said that to me? When had I last let myself hear it?
My hand instinctively went to Excalibur's hilt, my grip was about to tighten but I stopped myself before I could, almost with the same instinct the movement had begun.
I had been doing that less. I hadn't even noticed until now. They had been mine and I theirs. They had been the sole things that kept me going when I should have fallen. Were they family?
I released a short sigh, my hands falling to my side. Relationships were hard. Maybe that was okay. Perhaps just like with all of the information I had from yesterday, all I needed was time. Just a little more time.
"Arthur!" Nejire's voice called me from whatever pit of the mind I had fallen into. She was standing in front of me, waving her arms wildly in front of my face. "You okay? You looked a little spaced out?"
"I'm fine," I replied, my gaze tearing from her and landing on Ryukyu. The pro hero stood with her arms crossed, studying me with those sharp eyes of hers, almost reptilian in their likeness. "So Ryukyu-senpai, what are we going to do today?"
"Same as yesterday, we'll be patrolling. However seeing you work yesterday, I have decided that you will be with Nejire and I all day. Understood?"
Her tone brooked no argument. I wondered briefly what I had done to warrant such close supervision, but perhaps that wasn't the right question. Perhaps the question was what she had seen in me that made her decide I needed watching.
"Understood."
"Understood."
Both of us replied, Nejire a little more cheerfully than me. Her enthusiasm was infectious on most days. Today it simply reminded me of everything I wasn't feeling.
As we prepared to leave, I had forgotten, but I needed to talk with Iida about healing his brother. Ingenium. Another name, another life hanging in the balance of what I could or couldn't do. The weight of it settled somewhere in my chest and refused to move.
Narration POV
In the meanwhile as they patrolled and the day began to pass, elsewhere. In a building's first floor, a bar, dingy and yet perfectly clean. Four people lay in wait.
The establishment sat tucked away. No sign marked its entrance. No light spilled from its windows. It was as if it had been left to rot, a building of a time long past.
Shigaraki of course, seated at the bar with his shoulders hunched, quiet, his remaining hand curled into a fist. Kurogiri wearing a bartender outfit and tending the bar with a wet towel, polishing glasses, like those baristas from movies. The mist that comprised his form swirled slowly.
At his other side was Stain, the insidious hero killer. He stood rather than sat, his back against the wall where he could see every entrance and exit. His weapons remained sheathed but his hands never strayed far from them.
And sitting on a red couch was a child, a girl around seven or eight. She had twin tails that were shaped to look like wings, bobbing slightly with each movement of her head. She was sitting upside down, kicking her legs joyfully against the backrest.
The silence stretched. None of them seemed willing to break it.
"So..." the girl began, her high pitched voice ringing out, shattering the tension like glass against stone. Her head turned to the side, to the Hero Killer. "What are you doing here? Not that I really care, but I find you such a bore and I don't like boring people. So please buzz off."
Stain said nothing. His eyes however looked the girl up and down, cataloguing everything from the ribbons in her hair to the shine of her patent leather shoes. Nothing about her made sense. He spoke nevertheless his ambition and code betraying him.
"Child go home, this is no place for you."
"Agree to disagree you bore. How about you leave and kill some other weak hero who is of no importance whatsoever, except for feeding your stupid philosophy," she replied her legs still kicking the air in that infuriating rhythm. "As for you two, I heard you weren't a bore, so why are you all quiet, come on do something already. Life is fleeting."
The room went quiet. The only sound was the soft squeak of Kurogiri's towel against glass.
"Oh wait, that's not what a little girl would say," she knocked her fist against her head in an exaggerated gesture of embarrassment. "Teehee. Silly me."
The wrongness of it would have troubled any other person.
Shigaraki's voice came next. It was soft, almost elegant, and only one of the other three noticed what drove it... fear, all encompassing fear. His fist was no longer balled up. His entire body had gone still.
"Join us, Stain. Join us and carry out your ideals. Join us and be who you could be. Join us and-"
"Weren't you the ones that attacked U.A.," Stain interrupted, pushing himself off the wall. His presence seemed to fill the room suddenly, Kurogiri stopped cleaning the glass at that, ready to defend Shigaraki. "To go after the young like that, the future of heroism. The truth of heroism."
He unsheathed his machete and katana in a single fluid motion. Steel ripped against leather. The blades were dented and filled with rust. "Tell me did you try anything against Arthur. Is that how you lost your arm? You are truly the worst kind of people."
Shigaraki's hand twitched toward the stump where his arm used to be. An involuntary movement.
"Now, now," Kurogiri interrupted, setting down the towel. His voice was calming and polite, a gentleman in a way. "No need to get aggressive over this."
"I disagree, please get more aggressive over this, it's very entertaining," the girl spoke out, clapping her small hands together once. Her eyes glittering as a grin began to form on her face.
"Please, don't escalate the situation," Kurogiri replied, though his mist seemed to shift more rapidly now, preparing for eventualities. "We all want the same thing, to see the downfall of hero society and replace it with something new."
Before he could continue, he felt something rake across his face. A blade, faster than he could react. He stopped where he was, his form suddenly rigid. Shigaraki felt the same, his body locking into place mid-motion. They were both now paralyzed. Stain licked the remainder of the blood from both of his blades, his tongue dragging across steel.
"You both disgust me, your ideals are not ones to be followed," he struck forward with his blade pushing Shigaraki to the ground. The villain fell without resistance, his body betraying him completely. Their eyes met. Stain had expected to see fear. The same fear the pros had for him, that delicious terror that validated everything he believed.
But he didn't. Shigaraki wasn't afraid of him, no matter how close the edge of his katana came to his jugular. It nicked the skin, a droplet of blood running down Shigaraki's neck and onto the floor, spreading into a small dark pool.
No fear. At least none for Stain. There was fear there, certainly. But it was aimed elsewhere. At something or rather someone Stain couldn't see.
Stain didn't know why but he stood up, turning his back to both. A sign of either supreme confidence or utter disregard. "I may not agree but you stayed true to your ideals, that is enough for me not to kill you," he turned his head to the girl who was grinning from ear to ear, clapping her hands so slowly none of the three could hear it. "Child get out of this life. Live well."
"I'm fine thanks."
Stain nodded at those words, something like disappointment flickering across features before vanishing the next instant. He sheathed his blades and left the bar at the next moment, not looking back. At the same time as the door clicked shut both Shigaraki and Kurogiri's paralysis wore off, their bodies their own once more.
"That's disappointing, he could have been a good asset," Kurogiri said exasperated, rolling his shoulders as if testing that everything still worked.
Shigaraki's hand moved to his neck where the blood had already begun to coagulate, a single finger probing the small wound with annoyance. "Don't worry about it Kurogiri, it wasn't meant to happen."
His head then turned to the girl who was still clapping happily, that same unsettling rhythm.
"Why are you here? Do you want to join?"
The girl's smile widened, stretching her face, the edge of her lips beginning to tear. She swung her legs back and as she was already facing upside down she fell from the couch, flipping in the air as she did so, landing on her feet. Her hands stretched out, doing jazz hands.
"Tadaa! Finally my turn, I am a very special, supremely important person you see. I hear much and know more, and what I am here for is one simple thing. I want to see the world in chaos for no other reason than I know what staleness can do. It's so dreadfully boring. I have no revenge plots, no qualms and grievances, even though I should, I really should," she spoke, now throwing her body over the couch like some damsel in a melodrama, her face turning to a camera placed in the upper corner of the bar, completely obscured by shadow.
Her grin widened further, the skin now ripping, two small streaks of blood flowing from the edges. "So I want to join you. I'll even give you two little presents for all of you. Arthur can heal you. Truly heal you. He has also healed All Might of all people. If you want some of my other presents I'm afraid you'll have to actually do things with what I give you. Please, do not be a bore. It would be such a waste."
The words hung in the air. Arthur. Healing. All Might. Each revelation more devastating than the last.
She twirled off the sofa again, movements graceful and grotesque in equal measure. Bowing to both Kurogiri and Shigaraki. Both of them were weirded out to say the least, they didn't know how to approach this information. As her bow held, a strange thing began to happen.
A pop resounded in the room, ringing in both of their ears. Her left eye had burst.
Blood pouring onto the floor without preamble, thick and dark against the wood. The skin on her face began to bubble, almost as if it was being boiled or expanded from the inside. Something moved beneath the surface, writhing. The skin couldn't hold and with a simple pop. The girl's head burst.
Blood sprayed out in all directions. It landed on the floors, couches, seats, and both of the people in front of her. Warm and wet. Laying in the pool of blood, brain matter, hair and skin that used to be the girl's face was a bee.
Its thorax burst. Twitching its legs for the last time.
Silence. Neither of the two could get their bearings before something new happened. The the tv flickered to life, a deep voice sounding out from speakers hidden somewhere in the walls.
"Shigaraki. Plans have changed, release the nomus in Shibuya."
"Master, why?" Shigaraki interrupted, wiping blood from his face with the back of his remaining hand. "This week is the internship for the U.A. students according to the schedule we managed to steal, won't we be risking a lot if he shows up."
"It's good of you to be cautious but this is for that very purpose. Tests. Besides we have to do something enjoyable for our newest member do we not." The feed went quiet for a second, only to return in full force. "And Shigaraki if you ever question me again. That will be the last."
A/N: Shibuya?! What's going on? Wasn't it supposed to be Hosu City? They are both wards in Tokyo but why the change? And why does AFO want to test? And why wouldn't Shigaraki want to release the nomus? And who is the girl, why did she kill herself?
Find out next time in Dragon Ball...
Shit wrong verse. Either way sorry for being gone for so long. Had some free time so I was able to write this out. Oh, and Shigaraki is getting flabbergasted by more information than even Arthur himself lol.
Thx for reading. See yall soon.
Author out.