Chapter 26: Path
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ThierryScott
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Chapter 26: Path
I looked indifferently at the piece of meat that had once been the pimp of this place and committed his answers to memory. The names of those who had protected this establishment. Anonymous bank accounts with addresses of hidden stashes. Everyone involved in this.
Anger burned inside me, screaming at me to kill everyone connected to the appearance of that empty gaze. I didn't understand myself. I had killed so many people and witnessed just as many deaths. Addicts, villains, heroes, police officers, civilians, homeless people, people with Quirks and without. Their deaths were all in my memory.
How the necks of my victims went cold in my hands. How the spark of life in their eyes faded. Eyes full of various emotions: disbelief, surprise, hatred, despair, reproach, fear, resignation. I accepted their deaths, my guilt in action and inaction, for not preventing them. Because that was life. People just die, are born, and live. They kill and save, they rejoice and grieve, they hate and love, they take and they share.
So why was I angry about some girl I didn't even know? There were hundreds, if not thousands, like her. Was it only because she reminded me of that boy?
I looked at my knife covered hand, now wet with blood. The touch of the blood of these bastards made me feel sick. One mental command, and "Rejection" pushed all the blood off me. The surrounding walls were painted red.
I turned and walked toward the room with the little girl. The sound of blood sloshing under my feet echoed through the space, pushed away by "Rejection." I didn't pay attention to my instinctive use of the ability, nor to the frightened prostitutes in the rooms.
I opened the wooden door. The same red toned room. The same little girl on the bed. She hadn't moved. Her black hair was spread across the bed, her bare chest rising and falling slightly.
I examined the location of the closed fracture and gave her first aid. Then I took the pitcher of water from the table in the room and tried to wash away some of the signs of violence. I covered her body with the clean part of the bedsheet. I sat on the edge of the bed and looked at my hands. The anger was gone. Only emptiness remained.
I finally understood why those empty eyes affected me so much. I was still terrified of becoming like that girl. That gaze had been reflected in the transparent wall of my white cell just a few days before that dream. To become that weak, useless, empty.
And I sincerely hate the scum who drive people to that state. Who deprive them of their freedom and their will to live. To become indifferent to the possibility of living, and to lack the strength to defend one's freedom to live as one wants. These fears drive me forward. My dream guides me. My goals pave the way to it.
A winding path, full of bumps, sometimes breaking off. But I walk it. I live. I study, I become stronger, I meet new people, I steal and I kill, I rejoice and I grieve, I make friends and enemies. And that is why it hurts me all the more to see empty people. People who don't live, but merely exist. They chose this path themselves, so I ignored them. But the fact that a ten year old girl had made such a choice, just waiting for death, infuriated me.
New screams and shouts began to come from the corridor. I stood up and walked out. A few guys looked at the massacre in shock. One of them held a half naked woman, clearly about to ask her who had done all this. They immediately stared at me, their eyes beginning to show fear.
I raised my left hand. "Rejection." A stream of air, without touching the woman or the man holding her, slammed them into the wall, breaking their bones. The man froze in fear. I started walking toward him. He threw the woman aside and fell to his knees, begging for mercy. Begging just like the pimp.
I wondered, had that girl also begged them to stop?
My knife sank into his eye socket. I searched his pockets and pulled out a phone. I dialed the police. In response to the operator's standard phrase, I told them about the underground brothel and the mass murder, giving them the address of the nightclub "Devil's Pleasure" at the end. I threw the phone away.
I walked back to the girl's room. I stopped by the bed and looked at her. I was glad I had become a villain. Heroes are bound by their rules and laws. They are so dependent on public opinion that they can't always do what they want. They have voluntarily limited their freedom of action.
For me, being a villain doesn't just mean killing and stealing. For me, being a villain means achieving my goals, regardless of society, laws, and the morals of people I don't know. Being myself.
I don't know how long I stood in that room until I heard the pounding of boots. I realized the police special units had arrived. It was time for me to leave. I used "Choice" to make myself permeable and walked toward the wall.
* * *
The dark figure disappeared into the wall, not noticing the shining eyes staring at it.
- - -
*
*
*
[Naomasa Tsukauchi's Pov ]
A tall man in a black suit with a brown trench coat thrown over it walked down the hospital corridor. Stopping near the room where one of the victims of the high profile case had just been brought, he knocked and entered. There were six beds in the room, only one of which was occupied. A girl with a bandaged arm lay on it, leaning against the headboard. Her head was turned toward the window, where the setting sun was visible. She didn't pay any attention to the man.
Looking at the sun, Tsukauchi could only sigh. The phone call from work at four in the morning had not boded well. The sight of the blood stained walls and numerous corpses under one of the city's most popular nightclubs had hammered the final nail into the coffin of his hope for a normal workday.
The remaining nails were hammered in by the knowledge that many of the missing girls had been found here, in a brothel operated right under their noses. The detective knew that pulling this off without connections in the government was incredibly difficult, and even police officers could be involved. No, they were already involved, because one of the corpses found under "Devil's Pleasure" had been identified as a police officer. The realization of what an officer was doing there outside of work hours didn't improve Naomasa's mood. Nor did the murders of several people from the city administration and the local police precinct that had occurred throughout the day.
"Hello, Hana chan. My name is Naomasa Tsukauchi, and I'm a detective. Some people have already come to ask you questions today, but I have a few new ones. You don't mind answering them, do you?"
The man asked with a friendly smile, looking at the girl who had turned her head toward him. He felt sorry for her. Children shouldn't have to go through that. Her indifferent face with its emotionless gaze just stared at him.
"I'll take that as a yes. Your name is Hana Yoshioka. Your parents died five years ago in a car accident. Your current guardian is your father's sister, Ayame Yoshioka, who lives in Musutafu. Am I correct?"
"Yes."
A quiet child's voice answered.
"Good. We've already asked you what you remember about the three months from the time you went missing until today. Is there anything you'd like to add?"
"No."
Naomasa frowned at the even quieter answer. His Quirk, "Human Lie Detector," had activated. But if he thought about it, she probably didn't want to remember the details or talk about what had been done to her. That was understandable.
"Okay. According to other witnesses, the person in the room with you was a man in a black costume and a mask, presumably the A class villain Ticci Micc. And, according to you, he gave you first aid and then just stayed in the room. Did he do anything else?"
The girl's slightly more animated gaze did not escape the man's eyes.
"He sat on the edge of the bed. There was a noise outside. He left. The noise stopped. Then he came back into the room and stood by the bed."
She spoke in the same quiet voice, with small pauses between sentences.
"Can you describe his appearance in more detail?"
Naomasa listened carefully to her answers. The police had very little information about this villain. If the first thefts of the villain who could pass through walls had been relatively easy to track, later it became increasingly difficult. Until the incident at the police station and the murder of the hero Snatch, he had been classified as a C class. After the incident, he had been spotted no more than six times. And now he appeared for the seventh time and committed a real massacre. For what purpose? Unknown.
And that gave him a headache. A good night's sleep was not in his near future. His closest friend would be a cup of coffee.
[End Pov Naomasa Tsukauchi]
I looked indifferently at the piece of meat that had once been the pimp of this place and committed his answers to memory. The names of those who had protected this establishment. Anonymous bank accounts with addresses of hidden stashes. Everyone involved in this.
Anger burned inside me, screaming at me to kill everyone connected to the appearance of that empty gaze. I didn't understand myself. I had killed so many people and witnessed just as many deaths. Addicts, villains, heroes, police officers, civilians, homeless people, people with Quirks and without. Their deaths were all in my memory.
How the necks of my victims went cold in my hands. How the spark of life in their eyes faded. Eyes full of various emotions: disbelief, surprise, hatred, despair, reproach, fear, resignation. I accepted their deaths, my guilt in action and inaction, for not preventing them. Because that was life. People just die, are born, and live. They kill and save, they rejoice and grieve, they hate and love, they take and they share.
So why was I angry about some girl I didn't even know? There were hundreds, if not thousands, like her. Was it only because she reminded me of that boy?
I looked at my knife covered hand, now wet with blood. The touch of the blood of these bastards made me feel sick. One mental command, and "Rejection" pushed all the blood off me. The surrounding walls were painted red.
I turned and walked toward the room with the little girl. The sound of blood sloshing under my feet echoed through the space, pushed away by "Rejection." I didn't pay attention to my instinctive use of the ability, nor to the frightened prostitutes in the rooms.
I opened the wooden door. The same red toned room. The same little girl on the bed. She hadn't moved. Her black hair was spread across the bed, her bare chest rising and falling slightly.
I examined the location of the closed fracture and gave her first aid. Then I took the pitcher of water from the table in the room and tried to wash away some of the signs of violence. I covered her body with the clean part of the bedsheet. I sat on the edge of the bed and looked at my hands. The anger was gone. Only emptiness remained.
I finally understood why those empty eyes affected me so much. I was still terrified of becoming like that girl. That gaze had been reflected in the transparent wall of my white cell just a few days before that dream. To become that weak, useless, empty.
And I sincerely hate the scum who drive people to that state. Who deprive them of their freedom and their will to live. To become indifferent to the possibility of living, and to lack the strength to defend one's freedom to live as one wants. These fears drive me forward. My dream guides me. My goals pave the way to it.
A winding path, full of bumps, sometimes breaking off. But I walk it. I live. I study, I become stronger, I meet new people, I steal and I kill, I rejoice and I grieve, I make friends and enemies. And that is why it hurts me all the more to see empty people. People who don't live, but merely exist. They chose this path themselves, so I ignored them. But the fact that a ten year old girl had made such a choice, just waiting for death, infuriated me.
New screams and shouts began to come from the corridor. I stood up and walked out. A few guys looked at the massacre in shock. One of them held a half naked woman, clearly about to ask her who had done all this. They immediately stared at me, their eyes beginning to show fear.
I raised my left hand. "Rejection." A stream of air, without touching the woman or the man holding her, slammed them into the wall, breaking their bones. The man froze in fear. I started walking toward him. He threw the woman aside and fell to his knees, begging for mercy. Begging just like the pimp.
I wondered, had that girl also begged them to stop?
My knife sank into his eye socket. I searched his pockets and pulled out a phone. I dialed the police. In response to the operator's standard phrase, I told them about the underground brothel and the mass murder, giving them the address of the nightclub "Devil's Pleasure" at the end. I threw the phone away.
I walked back to the girl's room. I stopped by the bed and looked at her. I was glad I had become a villain. Heroes are bound by their rules and laws. They are so dependent on public opinion that they can't always do what they want. They have voluntarily limited their freedom of action.
For me, being a villain doesn't just mean killing and stealing. For me, being a villain means achieving my goals, regardless of society, laws, and the morals of people I don't know. Being myself.
I don't know how long I stood in that room until I heard the pounding of boots. I realized the police special units had arrived. It was time for me to leave. I used "Choice" to make myself permeable and walked toward the wall.
* * *
The dark figure disappeared into the wall, not noticing the shining eyes staring at it.
- - -
*
*
*
[Naomasa Tsukauchi's Pov ]
A tall man in a black suit with a brown trench coat thrown over it walked down the hospital corridor. Stopping near the room where one of the victims of the high profile case had just been brought, he knocked and entered. There were six beds in the room, only one of which was occupied. A girl with a bandaged arm lay on it, leaning against the headboard. Her head was turned toward the window, where the setting sun was visible. She didn't pay any attention to the man.
Looking at the sun, Tsukauchi could only sigh. The phone call from work at four in the morning had not boded well. The sight of the blood stained walls and numerous corpses under one of the city's most popular nightclubs had hammered the final nail into the coffin of his hope for a normal workday.
The remaining nails were hammered in by the knowledge that many of the missing girls had been found here, in a brothel operated right under their noses. The detective knew that pulling this off without connections in the government was incredibly difficult, and even police officers could be involved. No, they were already involved, because one of the corpses found under "Devil's Pleasure" had been identified as a police officer. The realization of what an officer was doing there outside of work hours didn't improve Naomasa's mood. Nor did the murders of several people from the city administration and the local police precinct that had occurred throughout the day.
"Hello, Hana chan. My name is Naomasa Tsukauchi, and I'm a detective. Some people have already come to ask you questions today, but I have a few new ones. You don't mind answering them, do you?"
The man asked with a friendly smile, looking at the girl who had turned her head toward him. He felt sorry for her. Children shouldn't have to go through that. Her indifferent face with its emotionless gaze just stared at him.
"I'll take that as a yes. Your name is Hana Yoshioka. Your parents died five years ago in a car accident. Your current guardian is your father's sister, Ayame Yoshioka, who lives in Musutafu. Am I correct?"
"Yes."
A quiet child's voice answered.
"Good. We've already asked you what you remember about the three months from the time you went missing until today. Is there anything you'd like to add?"
"No."
Naomasa frowned at the even quieter answer. His Quirk, "Human Lie Detector," had activated. But if he thought about it, she probably didn't want to remember the details or talk about what had been done to her. That was understandable.
"Okay. According to other witnesses, the person in the room with you was a man in a black costume and a mask, presumably the A class villain Ticci Micc. And, according to you, he gave you first aid and then just stayed in the room. Did he do anything else?"
The girl's slightly more animated gaze did not escape the man's eyes.
"He sat on the edge of the bed. There was a noise outside. He left. The noise stopped. Then he came back into the room and stood by the bed."
She spoke in the same quiet voice, with small pauses between sentences.
"Can you describe his appearance in more detail?"
Naomasa listened carefully to her answers. The police had very little information about this villain. If the first thefts of the villain who could pass through walls had been relatively easy to track, later it became increasingly difficult. Until the incident at the police station and the murder of the hero Snatch, he had been classified as a C class. After the incident, he had been spotted no more than six times. And now he appeared for the seventh time and committed a real massacre. For what purpose? Unknown.
And that gave him a headache. A good night's sleep was not in his near future. His closest friend would be a cup of coffee.
[End Pov Naomasa Tsukauchi]