TW: Graphic scenes of violence, death/murder, graphic descriptions of injury
You knew that the day would come. The coliseum was obscured by a high wall and towering doors, two guards on each side, standing there with their rigid postures, faces obscured by veils. They were like those tiny plastic figurines of army soldiers, only with real guns and blood caked onto their clothes.
You walked over there followed by another guard. They did not push you or even touch you at all but none the less their presence loomed over your form. Seeping a quiet sort of fear into your body.
This would mark your first time in a fight, a real fight. Not one where you get to leave with a bruised eye, but one in which your opponent will be set out to kill you. Of course, you knew that that wouldn't happen, you were unable to die, that was your whole quirk. Yet still, that just made you more nervous. Your quirk made things so much more uncertain, how would your opponent react to a resurrecting enemy?
Your thoughts were cut short when a hilt of a gun pushed against your back towards the doors as they began to open. You looked back at the guard who nudged you, into those absent eyes obscured by a veil. They didn't say anything only pushing you again until your presumed eye contact was broken and you focused your gaze on the entrance.
As you walked in you were greeted with a wide-open arena, with high walls that culminated at the top in a sort of dome. There were also these ascending staircases at the sides that were situated high up, keeping a safe distance from the actual battle ring. And on those stairs.
Sat people.
It was the first thing you noticed and it was so jarring for a second you thought you were hallucinating. They were just...there. Dressed in various high-class outfits with these white masks on their faces with tiny slits for eyes. Immediately as you stepped fully into the ring you nearly recoiled back once the mass of people started yelling at the top of their lungs.
They were cheering...?
You could feel the back of your thin shirt stick to your crass skin as sweat began to gather at your spine.
They were yelling as if this was some kind of sporting event, how could...how could something like that be real...?
Then you heard a drumming click on the other end of the arena and the doors opposite of you opened slowly revealing a figure.
It was a kid... Maybe your age. He stepped into the ring, clearly more accustomed to the whole ordeal yet the sweat covering his body was so thick he practically glistened underneath the fluorescent light. His eyes met yours and you could feel the muscles around your jaw tighten, it was as if his gaze scorched you, the blue rings around his irises turning his pupil into a sinking hole. For a second the yelling died down and you could only focus on the way his eyes seemed to tremble slightly.
"WELCOME EVERYONE TO ANOTHER THRILLING MATCH!" A booming voice coming from one of the speakers on the ceiling overwhelmed the audience's screams. With that, your eye contact was broken as you both looked up.
"TODAY 067 AND 572 WILL BE BATTLING IT OUT! 572 IS NEW TO THE RING SO TODAY WE MAY JUST WITNESS A NEW STAR RISE THEIR WAY THROUGH THE RANKS, OR POSSIBLY SUFFER A HEART-WRENCHING DEFEAT!! OH MY, WHAT WILL IT BE!?"
Once the announcer mentioned you being new 067's eyes snapped back onto your face. Your optics met again but this time he looked petrified. As if he was looking at a dying animal his eyebrows creased and he closed his eyes.
"REMEMBER TO PLACE YOUR BETS NOW! AND LET THE SHOW BEGIN!" The speaker's voice was cut short, replaced by the screams of the audience.
You looked back to your opponent to notice the way his eyes opened back up and the way he flexed the individual fingers of his hands.
The space between his fingers started to light up before it began to rotate around the bases of his digits. They spun faster and faster until they became these orange rings that slowly began to peel themselves away from his skin until they were levitating in the air. Spinning continuously with this quiet whirring they took the form of steady orange rings.
"Forgive me for this." Your opponent suddenly stated looking into your eyes once more. His voice was shaky and held an unbearable amount of remorse. "I'll make it quick. I promise."
With that, he lifted his hand before sweeping it to the side. You didn't even register it, only seeing a couple of flashing lights as the orange rings bolted towards you and before you knew it they impaled themselves into your shoulder blades, digging in so deep you felt the strain of your bones and the exact moment they caved in, snapping like twigs.
You nearly lifted your gaze back up before another light flickered across your optics and you felt the third wheel dig through your ribcage and into your heart.
The sound of the audience roaring at the stands completely suffocated your ears as you toppled to your knees, seeing red pull at your feet.
"WHAT A MATCH!! IS 572 FINISHED AFTER ONE ATTACK?! NOT EVEN PUTTING UP A FIGHT?!" they sounded more dejected now, both the speaker and the audience.
Something stirred within your heart, that familiar pulling sensation before you felt your entire body twitch before lifting yourself up slowly with shaky movements.
"WHAT IS THIS!? IT LOOKS LIKE 572 IS NOT DONE!!!"
You gazed at your opponent. 067 looked deeply confused, sweat pushing past his eyebrows and falling down his face. "H-How..." He whispered.
The taste of copper in your mouth was so potent you barely tasted it as it cascaded down your chin and from your nose.
Without saying anything, seemingly under the influence of great fear 067 stumbled back before releasing the remaining spheres around his fingers. They zipped through the air quick as lightning before embedding themselves into your ribcage arms and shoulder blades. You felt like a tettered doll as you once again slumped to the ground, your legs giving out completely.
They were saying something again, the buzz of screams rumbled somewhere far away but you only managed to gaze forward at your opponent.
He looked like he was seeing a ghost.
Well, maybe he was.
You stood up once again, not really knowing for what exact reason, the pain was so great every muscle in your body spasmed and caved onto itself.
It's like the wounds became these points of absurd gravity, that crushed every bone and nerve insight. All you managed to vocalize out of that mind-numbing pain was a low guttural whine that echoed between the static in your ears.
He was yelling something...with an expression of utter confusion and terror. He kept chucking at you the spinning rings but they became smaller and smaller with his growing hysteria as you moved forward, dragging your bloodied feet towards him.
And as they embedded themselves in your body with less and less impact you reached out your red-coated hands seeking to grasp at his orange vest.
"GET AWAY FROM ME!!" his terrified scream echoed across the cheer-filled room, the audience was going absolutely ballistic. They were shouting, chanting, writhing around like a pack of feral dogs.
You launched yourself forward, something in the screams of the audience compelling you to do so as you firmly grasped his shirt.
Blood trickled out of your mouth down your neck, it was hard, so hard to breathe. It was like your lungs were being crushed and all the forced out air was now pressing to the back of your eyes and pushing bile up your throat.
He was screaming at the top of his lungs, so mortified as he clawed his small stumpy fingernails against your arms.
Pain, all that pain. You needed to stop it, crush it at the source, squeeze it until it popped.
Your hands went further up his body and your bloody, gnarled fingers curled around his throat like a metal clasp. You seek to crush it, make it stop. Cease its relentless squirming and thrashing.
Pushing yourself onto him the boy's knees gave out under him and you fell right over his frame. Barely registering the changed position.
His two beady eyes, elapsed in blue circles looked up into yours, wide with horror and prickled with blood. You kept pushing, your knuckles turning white as his windpipe caved underneath the power of your monstrous strength that somehow clawed its way out of the deepest and most feral parts of your soul.
Spit shot out of his mouth as he squirmed around on the floors, blood that still trickled out of your nose falling from your chin and onto his tear-stained cheekbones.
His eyes locked onto yours. Pupils shrunken into tiny specks, all of his humanity, every word that ever left his lips, each thought, and memory reflected itself in the tiny mirrors in his glossy optics.
Until those mirrors shattered.
With a final strangled whine, his body stretched itself out across the floors in a final flail before he stilled completely. His form, limp as a final speck of light fizzled out from his eyes. The boy's purplish lips ceased their fight for air.
Numbly you moved back, your palms sticking to his skin from the sweat-slicked over your hands. The place of your assault turning a deep red instantaneously.
Words could not describe anything that was happening. The pain in your body was still so great, people were yelling, chanting words you could not decipher. A high-pitched ringing thumped within your ears, you felt the pressure behind your eyes drumming against every curved wall of your skull.
What was happening? What was going on??
You felt someone grab you from behind, restricting your movements completely, not that you had any energy to fight against them. Everything was red and everything was screaming. You wanted to scream too but you lacked voice.
You lacked thoughts.
Everything blurred in front of you, chanting yelling, the faint sound of two people shouting behind you, barking out orders.
A surge of temperature, a change of light in your strained eyesight, and soon you felt yourself being flung forward and dropped onto a cold tiled floor. Every muscle in your body screamed upon impact, white pain surging through your veins as you let out a quiet whine.
Only once you heard the characteristic sound of doors slamming shut did you faintly realize that you were back in a cell, you didn't know which one but it was enough. Your body slumped completely against the ground, like a corpse you laid there.
In the total darkness and the coat of unknowingness pressing against your mind you allowed yourself to slip completely. The depths of death welcoming, with their merciless grip they tugged and torn until there was nothing left of you but a pathetic speck.
How quiet, all that pain was gone in an instant. Not a person, not anymore you floated without a purpose. There were no quirks, no power, money.
And then you felt a tug, you scrambled away from it trying to rip yourself out from the agony that sought you but you were powerless against it.
You opened your eyes as the fluorescent light from the outside forced itself into your vision. Somebody was standing in the doorway.
Kohaku. Your heart jumped up to your throat as you scrambled on the floors against your own blood that smeared the surface. The boy who visited you that they with his parents, the boy who you grew up with in the orphanage. The one who gave you the necklace. Memories assaulted your brain, clear and vivid.
"I watched you." He stated with a blank look on his face, his frame hugged by expensive yet simple clothes. "I never knew you were capable of such things, your quirk I mean." You couldn't tell what he was thinking, was he angry? Sad? His body twitched ever so slightly. "I never thought it would be like this. We both found our families, and yet...our situations turned out so different."
You wanted to call out to him, but your vocal cords failed you. Scrambling onto your knees you looked deeper into the boys
s eyes, he was no longer that shy boy that tried his best to blend in with the other children. He was far from it, completely removed from his former image like a tiny caterpillar that morphed into a scary black-winged butterfly. He did not exude power or spark fear but his body has been straightened up from the previous nervous curl he had his entire childhood.
"My parents knew they could make bank off of your quirk, and your father was more than willing to comply." Something buzzed in those optics of his, he didn't break eye contact with you for even a second. "It was the first 'business trip' that I ever went on with my parents. Those 4 years ago..."
"4...years...?" You croaked out for the first time as disbelief flooded your system. Only then did you notice the changed features of his face, the slightly larger stature. Panic both boiling hot and ice cold numbed every fiber of your being as you patted yourself down expecting some kind of instant change. "You got to be kidding...?" You whispered, watching Kohakus eyes widen. "I-I haven't been here for that long- This has to be a mistake!" Sweat gathered at your forehead as your mind jumped from memory to memory of the facility, the meals you ate, the times you woke up and went back to sleep, every gruesome experiment. You tried looking for anything, any points, signs of the passing time. But it all felt so blended together, muddied and dark. There was no sun and there was no moon and the people around you didn't really grow, they just deteriorated. They wilted. "This- this has to be some kind of misunderstanding..!" You wailed, not even trying to wipe away the rows of tears streaming down your face.
"Kohaku! Hurry up, sweetheart!" A woman's voice came from outside the room, somewhere in the hallway.
Kohaku stiffened before turning his head back and replying: "I'll be there in a second, mother."
His gaze returned to you and he reached out before taking something from the front pocket of his black pants. "Here." He said before throwing the object in front of you onto the dirty floors. The silver necklace with an attached amber stone clicked against the tiles. You reached out for it. You thought you had lost it once you came into the facility. "I gave it to you, so I'm returning it since it's yours." He watched as you picked it up from the ground, cradling the object in your dirtied palms. "In this world," Kohaku whispered "this is one of the only moving pieces and I entrust it onto you. It's my moving piece. Wear it and keep it safe." The boy looked deep into your eyes at that statement, a spark of determination flashing in his optics as if it wanted to tell you something but wasn't able to outright.
He turned in his heel sharply and barked out a stiff "goodbye" before he closed the doors, the metal strain of the entrance echoing across the room.
You clenched the necklace in your palm, feeling it already warm with how tightly you've been gripping it before shakingly reaching up and clasping it around your neck and hiding it underneath your vest.
Then, encompassed by the smell of iron, slicked with sweat and blood you deflated, allowing all that stress and agony to seep out and flood every inch of your mind, body, and soul. You allowed for the entire world to crash at that second before lurching forward and throwing up onto the stone floors. Your body wrenching with sobs as complete and utter terror finally got ahold of all your senses.
The amber stone underneath your clothes stayed completely cool against your feverish skin.
Eyyy, how are y'all doing? I as always have been procrastinating! 😁 Writing is hard man, not actually the writing part but just getting through to actually start writing. Fun fact I wrote like 40% of this chapter in one day because I finally had that spark of inspiration.
Anyways regarding the book, I finally have the plot completed and mapped out! It's a huge relief honestly, I always hate writing in the dark with just a vague idea of the ending.
I also wanted to apologize. I realize that this story doesn't really follow the typical ways of an MHA fanfic, it's more of a spin-off than anything. Tbh the main thing that inspired it is just the concept of quirks in general and what society would look like if we did have them. And how a lot of people would seek to exploit the living hell out of a thing like this. I've been getting a little antsy about it after comparing my work to the likes of others, but I hope you guys like this book regardless.
Thank you so much for reading!