Mavis' pov
I woke up in a dimly lit room, something that felt like a blessing, because my eyes don't take long to adjust and drink in the room. It got too hot in the sheets, so I removed the blanket off my body and swung my legs over the edge of the comfortable bed that I was in.
The floor was heated, making me hum as my bare feet touched the ground.
Bare feet.
I looked down at my clothes, and saw that I was in an oversized t-shirt and some black sweatpants. My bra is gone. My hair braided back, couple of strands falling loosely besides my face.
"You are awake, thank goodness." I jumped slightly, didn't know that someone else was here. But it shouldn't really have surprised me, it's the room's owner.
"How long was I out?" My throat felt like the Sahara, dry as fuck and making my voice come out hoarsely. Ahma moved slowly to the shelve besides her bed and filled up a glass of water, reaching out to slowly give it to me.
After gulping down the water embarrassingly fast, I gave the glass back to Ahma. "Thanks." She nodded. "Nearly 4 hours. Hideyoshi just took out the needle from inside your vein." She nodded towards my left hand, there was nothing but a speck of old, crusted blood.
I scratched it away. Ahma sighed, walking over to me and then seating herself down on her bed. She picked at something from under one of her spiky metal finger-rings. They were there so she has extended, long sharp nails. She uses them for various things, and only takes them off in the bathroom.
When I once asked her why she always had them on, she said, "A woman needs every possible thing to protect herself from men that can't keep their hands to themselves. What could a man do to a woman if he can't see anymore?" She made a stabbing move to her eye with one of her sharp metal nails, and indicated with that, that if someone would ever try to attack her, she would immediately go for their eyes.
"I took a great look at your art. To be honest, that wasn't your best piece, maybe do what I told you the first time."
I furrowed my brows. "I'm not ripping his eyes out." She eyed me. "Nor his heart." I added, and she huffed. Turning her head forwards and letting me get a good view of her tattoo on the side of her forehead. I always loved her tattoos. This woman had a tattoo on every limb. Her tattoo on her left side of her forehead was something that could only be described as black swivels that start from her hairline, reach her eyebrow, and go up to the middle of her forehead.
"You don't actually need to, anyways. Kazue raged at Jukka for shooting you. He let Hideyoshi heal Jukka's face, then bashed Jukka's head into his own desk." She pressed her blood red tinted lips in a thin line. "He needs a new one."
I couldn't keep the grimace out of my face. Nearly feeling bad for Horse face. Nearly. "And, he is forbidden to let someone heal him."
"What happened after I blacked out?" Ahma let herself fall back on her bed and looked up the ceiling.
"I heard Akito was the first one that got to you, but before he could even get you up, Daichi and Kazue came running. Daichi said they heard some kind of commotion, and Akito literally shouting at the Consigliere made them sprinting as if they were being chased by hellhounds." She bristled while imagining it in her head. "Kazue took you immediately to Hideyoshi, to the lounge, laid you carefully on a couch, after the ones that occupied it stood up confused, then he went back down again. You can imagine the rest with Jukka." She waved a hand lazily in dismissal, before letting it fall down limply.
"Akito wanted you in his room, so that you could have it more comfortably, but saints, if I would ever let you in his room without it being thoroughly cleaned before hand." We- I mean, they have people who clean this place every two days, but Akito doesn't want someone inside his room. So who knows how messy it is down there, without me literally dragging his ass out from his bed to clean his room.
"Oh, and your suit is getting patched up from Nan, she worked her ass off to get here, and she is useful, to say the least."
"What happened to my bra?" I blurted out, and Ahma blinked for a couple of seconds. "Hideyoshi needed to have a good look at your lower stomach, but he could only get one when he undressed you out from your suit. By the way, I really love your suit. Anyways, where was I? Ah, your suit got stuck with your bra, so he needed to cut it, because he couldn't cut your suit."
'Aw, man. That was my favorite sports bra.'
It doesn't creep me out that Hideyoshi probably saw some of my skin, because I know that he covered me up with something good enough as soon as he cut through the fabric. He is a lovely old man, who never walked over any boundaries.
"I dressed you after he was done." I'm sure it didn't take long for him to remove the bullet and then use his quirk on me. My hand reached down to the end of the oversized t-shirt, and I pulled it up enough for me to look at the spot where a bullet penetrated through skin just hours ago.
"Doc said Jukka nearly got your uterus." Ahma left it at that, which got me drowning in thoughts. I never planned on having children. They annoy me, and I actually really hate them. But the thought of leaving someone or something behind that would always remember you or remind people of you is so appealing...
There was only a light scar that would remind me of this day every time I would look at it. Hideyoshi can multiply cells and control them as his liking, but even not leaving a scar is out of his reach. If it was easy for him, he would erase every scar that we have, if we wanted him to.
But I don't know if I would be one of the people that would want that. Sometimes, I hate my scars. I hate to be reminded every time I look at my skin what I went through. There weren't many scars, but there were enough for me to sometimes break down and just cry, or rage, or throw up, or workout till I fall limp to the ground.
But then there are times where I would willingly look at my scars, to be reminded of who I am, and what I survived. That my past is something that no one could take away from me, doesn't matter how much they would try.
I slowly pulled back down the t-shirt and chewed on my bottom lip. Thinking if I really should ask this. "Who is training the newbies how to fight?... After, you know..."
"After Seven died?" Ahma finished the sentence for me, and let out a breath. "Boss is still looking, but Handoff is currently teaching them. Kazue actually first wanted to get one of the Capos here, Killer Eye, but they still need to figure out who to give the Capo's position to when he leaves Tokyo to teach the babies here how to fight properly."
Seven was a strong believer in fighting without quirks. They always said that we depend too much on our quirks, that we don't use our body enough. I was one of their students some time ago. When I first started here as the Consigliere, actually. They handed me my ass back quite often.
If I think about it, I picked up traits from a lot of people from my past. I once read that you are never really you, you could never really be you, because everyone picks up traits from other people and combine them.
If I wouldn't have met Seven, I would have been pretty okay in combat. But 'pretty okay' is not enough to survive out here. That's why I mostly only trained with the people in my class without a quirk. Because I picked that up from Seven.
~
I don't understand anything. Not one single thing.
I'm sitting in a chair in front of the big dark wood desk in the room where I met the president of the HPSC the first time. It's dark outside. Night. I was halfway through undressing myself when Hawks knocked on my balcony door.
My windows were covered, but not my balcony door. He probably saw some of my skin, saw me undressing, because when I looked his way, he was turned around to give me some privacy. To be respectful.
Funny.
After I stopped being so oblivious about his intentions, I started thinking back more. Writing down the most important thinks I can remember so I won't forget it half an hour later.
And I wanted to punch myself in the face for not noticing. I sensed him often when I was outside, going to school or just in my kitchen. But I thought that maybe I just became so accustomed with his presence, that I started to imagine it. That maybe I started to obsess over him. But in truth, he was stalking me. He watched me. Reported back, like the good obedient bird he is, and used me.
He fucking used me.
The elderly woman stopped looking outside through the window, and walked slowly, without looking at me, to her seat behind the desk. Her desk. It was organized. Papers in one corner, a cup of coffee in the middle of the desk, a picture frame in the other corner. Her laptop was closed, placed in front of the coffee, and as she sat down at last, she reached out for her steaming hot coffee and took a long sip.
It was black coffee, just like how I like it.
I was offered something to drink, but I don't want something to drink. I want to be back in my dorm, in my bed, and go to sleep. I'm tired. But even if I'm tired, I don't think I could fall asleep.
She looked at me as I looked at her. We both stared at each other for a good minute. Neither of us said something, neither of us tried to break the silence. While she was in a dark suit, her shoulder length hair slicked back, I was in my pjs.
Some grey sweatpants and a hoodie, with some slippers, which I regretted the moment Keigo took off to fly. Because I nearly lost them when we were high above. And it was freezing as hell outside.
"Comfortable, I hope?"
"Pretty much."
"I won't beat around the meat. I wanted Hawks to bring you here so we could talk things out." She admitted, leaning back in her chair and drumming her fingers on one arm of her chair.
"I don't have something to say."
"But I have."
"Then start talking. It's dark and I would be asleep by now." I said clipped, and she smiled at me knowingly. It wasn't a kind smile. It was a smile someone would give you when they feel smug. When they know about you something that you tried to hide from them.
"Oh, I'm sure you would." She says. She sits up more straight and looks at me with such intensity, I would have broken our eye contact if I didn't know how to play with power. How something as simple as that would mean a lot.
"Have you never wondered why you got foster parents so fast after your parents died?" My body tensed suddenly at the mention of my parents. Both, my foster and biological ones. "Never thought about why KJ. was obsessed with training you?"
KJ.
I haven't heard someone speak out his initial in so long. His wife always called out for him like that. Or someone I only met once. Never again after that. It was unusual to have a guest at the house, that's why I knew it was something serious. But I was sent up to my room before I could have really met the guest. If you can call it a room.
My lack of response gave her the hint to continue to speak. "I was the one that wanted it. You are thanks to me here. You can fight because I paid him to teach you."
That short time of silence was so loud, my eardrums felt like bursting out. My blood ran cold as I watched her lips start moving again.
'You went through this because of me. I paid him to constantly beat you when your body couldn't move. When you even once fell down. When you couldn't lift up the weight that he ordered you to do. When your small body collapsed because of overworking.'
I could only hear these things out. And my mind couldn't stop.
"I knew your Dad." She continues. Dragging her finger over the desk, rubbing her two fingers against each other. Dropping her hand on the desk. "He was working for the HPSC, too. Not when I was the president, but I still knew him. He had a good quirk."
'A quirk that you posses, but better. Modified. A quirk I want you to use for me. Because your dad couldn't.'
"Your parents died short after I took over. He spoke highly of you before that. How you finally developed you quirk, and play with water every second you got. You would make everything wet."
'Do you still remember how free you were in these moments? How much your father loved you? Before he died?'
"His friends, of course, would tell it to other colleagues of theirs. How their friend has a daughter that can manipulate water. Its' temperature. That's how word got to me."
'That's the moment I claimed you as my little doll. The moment I started fantasizing about what I could do with you under my command.'
My head started pounding. My mind screaming accusations, wanting to be heard. But I could barely catch some of them. It were too many. I don't even try to hide how I feel right now. How my heart started pounding so loudly, I could bet that the woman in front of me could hear it.
"I told KJ. to train you. He was a trainer once, before moving on to being a costume maker. A waste if you ask me." All of a sudden, everything stopped. Even the voices in my head quieted down.
"After hearing how he trained you," 'how much he beat you.' "I went to him personally and wanted to demand an explanation."
My mind started picturing what she would have said. "Why would you hurt my little toy? I need her functioning. I don't need someone questioning her bruises and scars when I go public with her."
"But when I saw you perform, my mind changed and I paid him double just so he would go harder on you."
'Your bruises. Your scars. Your broken bones. Your lack of friends. No freedom. The constant fear that you had. How you felt weak in front of him. Small. Like trash. That all was because I wanted it so.'
"I thought you guys were meant to protect people." I couldn't even recognize my own voice. It sounded like it was a child's voice. A small, fragile thing.
She cocked her head to the right, humming, letting her head fall back and looking up to the ceiling. "Sometimes, you need to sacrifice something to get something better. To archive what you want."
'You aren't important. Not to me, not to anyone. You are only a weapon that I want.'
All of a sudden, I wished to never have had my dad's quirk. I wished to be born quirkless. I wished I could rip out this woman's throat. 'You could.' I said to myself. 'You could and then just walk away. Maybe go back to Yamaguchi. I'm sick of these wanna be heroes.'
As if reading my mind, she stood up and walked slowly back to the windows. "Don't worry. I was watching from afar. Reading the weekly report that I got from KJ." As if that would change something, she added. "I picked out Hawks because I thought his easy, laid back personality would ease its way through you. So you could have someone to trust."
'I did. And that reminded me why I should never trust a hero. Or anyone.' "And it went quite well how I see it." 'The only things you see is what I want you to see.' I think inside my head. Imagining disgustingly how I would spit in her face and push her into one of the big windows and watch her fall down the tall building.
"He's quite charming." I say coldly. Still seated in the chair.
She sighed. "KJ. always brought me a new problem to fix. That one incident in the hospital, where he hurt you in front of patients and workers." I raced through all the memories my mind tried to cover up. Tried to forget that it ever happened. Right. When I tried to resist him. To disobey and stay in the hospital, because I felt more safe there than under the same roof as him alone.
Back then, the hospital reminded me of my mom.
"It was much work to let them all forget what they saw. To get the footage from the camera that filmed the whole disaster." She sighed again, reaching her hand up to massage her forehead as if it gives her a headache for only thinking back.
"Why are you telling me all this?"
She turned around, her hands clasped behind her. "Because I want us to work as a team without secrets."
I had the urge to laugh at her. Show her how ridiculous she sounded. But the lump in my throat prevented me from doing it.
"A team only functions if they can trust each other." I stood up from my seat and faced her with my whole body, while she watched.
"Are you saying I can't trust you?"
I bristled. "You would be a fool to trust me." Straightening my back, lifting up my chin. "I'm a woman of my word, but you won't get more than I promised. Don't expect me to be loyal, obedient or blindly kill someone for you. I'm not someone you can call when you like.
"And I would watch your back if I were you." I smiled at her. "Accidents can always happen."
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