This Thing A Quiet Madness Made

Chapter 33

"Nice! Though I'm kinda surprised, he's been a bit quiet lately, huh?"

"Right? He gets these moods where he's super deep in thought, he even looks calm and everything! It's kinda scary, honestly, but then he goes right back to yelling and screaming like nothing happened!"

"Man, Bakugo's really been through it, huh?"

"Yea, it must be hard," Mina hummed, "Like imagine if your girlfriend turned out to be evil, then later it turned out she wasn't actually evil, just pretending? But actually she might have been a little evil before, but she's trying to change, and she did this huge good thing, but you're not sure if it makes up for all the stuff she already did, and you feel super betrayed but also a little bad because of everything but you still don't know how you feel or what you should do and- ugh, nevermind, my brain hurts."

"Woah, I think you just tapped straight into Bakugo's brain there, Mina."

"Agreed, that's wild."

"Though it probably would have been a lot worse if they had actually been dating, right? Do you think he still likes her?"

"Hard to say, dude."

"Well, do you think she likes him?"

"Even harder to say, dude."

"Man, this is crazy, huh? It's been months but people are still in a frenzy over all this."

"Tell me about it. All sorts of people have been bombarding me with questions since the news broke, even upperclassmen! They even made me late to class last week!"

"I'm glad the press isn't allowed on campus, otherwise it'd really be chaos."

"So... how's Bakugo, Kiri? You've spent the most time with him lately."

"Well, he seems... I don't know, mostly ok? I mean, besides his weird trances, he's gotten a lot better. He's still kind of reclusive and all, and he'll go off on me if I so much as mention the whole thing with... you know, her... but I think he's better than he has been in a long time! I still wish he'd talk about his problems though."

"He must still be upset considering everything that happened. Do you think there's anything we can do to help?"

"Nothing we're not already doing, unless we can lock them in a room together and force them to talk it out."

"I mean..."

"No, Denki. Absolutely not."

"But I mean-!"

"Do you actually want to die, man?"

"Come on! You know Bakugo sucks when it comes to feelings and all! How else is he supposed to get over her?!"

"I value my life, bro."

"Mina, you agree with me, right?"

"Sorry, Denki, it's not my time to go. But I'll watch if you want to give it a try!"

"Aw, man! I'm just trying to help!"

"I mean, maybe we should just give him some time?"

"Yea, I'm sure Bakubro wouldn't want us meddling anyways. He'll be ok!"

"Hold on. Kiri, did you say we have a test next week?"

"Denki..."

"Oh my god."

"Did you seriously forget again?"

"Uh... w-well... no?"

_______________________________________________

A middle aged woman, clad in a white lab coat, leaned back in her padded office chair. She sighed before sliding open the top drawer of her desk, revealing a neatly arranged collection of sticky notes, memo pads, paperclips, and various other mundane office supplies. She picked up a black leather notebook from the inner corner of the drawer before closing it once again. She flipped the journal open, unfolding her glasses from where they hung around her neck and placing them at the bridge of her nose. Flipping backwards from the most recent page, she skimmed through the sheets of neat writing, shifting to lean against her palm once she found the one she was looking for.

Traceback- Sacrosanct case.

Her eyes slowly traveled down the page, reading over the session notes she had taken: brief phrases such as 'physical-verbal abuse,' 'Stolkholm,' or 'grooming, insecurity.' These were from the first and only time she was able to speak to the girl named Traceback.

She had spent well over twenty years as a psychiatrist. In her time, she had seen many types of people: those from troubled backgrounds, those with broken families, those who carried debilitating trauma. This case was, unfortunately, not nearly the worst she had seen, but it was a very specific type of terrible.

It was awful, truly awful.

She had never spoken with the man they called the Manager, but she was all too familiar with his kind. He was the type of person who relished in having power over those weaker than him, the type of person who loved being in control, the type of person who had to get his way or else. His tactics were outstanding; adults were difficult to control, so he used children instead. He only chose the ones he knew wouldn't be missed, then destroyed the evidence just in case. He took them while they were young, moldable, so they had to rely on him, so they would grow up only knowing what he wanted them to know. The amount of work must have been extraordinary, but the so-called rewards were even better. Unknown was the earliest of the four children, but there had been others before her. Those others had told Unknown, when she was young, that there had also been others before them. How far this went, the doctor could only imagine. Where those other children were now, she could only hope was a better place.

Her heart ached whenever she thought too much about it.

Despite how immoral, repulsive, and utterly terrible he was, she wondered how much of it was truly his fault. A strange question to ask, certainly, but his quirk put him in a unique conundrum. The mind-affecting chemical he released was powerful, but it was also involuntary. From the medical reports, she learned it emitted from his skin at all times and he had very little control over it. He couldn't have stopped it even if he wanted to, which meant everyone around him was constantly being affected, including himself. This begged the question, how much had his quirk influenced his own mind? Had he inadvertently convinced himself of an ideology he otherwise would never have believed in? Had someone else affected him when he was young? Could he have started off as just another person, but circumstances caused him to fall victim to his own quirk? According to everything she had learned from Unknown and Traceback, the Manager certainly seemed to believe everything he told them, from the evil of modern heroes to the righteous fight for a better world; did he believe those things because he had accidentally convinced himself of them over time? Did he fall for his own myth? It was certainly no excuse for his actions, but that didn't mean he wasn't also a victim, right?

Regardless of the origin, his mind was certainly complex, not to mention deluded to an extraordinary extent. His most frequent demeanor was "kind", though she used the term very loosely, and cheerful, but his frequent fits of rage were indicators of an underlying disorder. She would have to speak to him to be certain, but she wouldn't be surprised if that was the case. He believed the children he kidnapped to be his family, and himself, their father. He punished them as he saw fit, and his opinion was the only one that mattered. His personal instability and radical beliefs, combined with his influence over multiple highly impressionable children, was doomed for tragedy from the start.

This might not have been the worst case she had ever seen, but it may well have been the most dismal.

The doctor sighed and closed her notebook, setting it down as she took off her glasses. She rubbed her forehead tiredly, resting her head in her hands. After a long moment, she sighed again and shook her head. She straightened up before rolling her chair closer to the desk, turning on her computer and pulling up a blank document.

If they wouldn't listen to her proposal the first time around, she would just have to write a better one.