Touya's POV:
He didn't like Aya's plan in the slightest. Primarily because she hadn't told him a damn thing about it. Because of the cameras, it was too dangerous for her to provide any details. So all she'd told him to do was 'follow her lead.'
Touya didn't like blindly trusting others, especially with such high-risk things like this. Whatever happened, it needed to be completely foolproof. They had one chance to escape. It had been hours since his last conversation with the girl, and he'd waited anxiously for her to do something.
"Anytime now," he grumbled. With every minute that passed, the Commission was given more time to hurt you. The sounds of your screams had played on loop in his head ever since the president's visit. He would kill her, kill every single one of them.
"As I said," Aya whispered aggressively. "Wait for my signal. This needs to be timed right."
He hated not being in control, relying on someone who shouldn't have been able to figure out a way to escape before he did. Touya paced the width of his cell like he'd been doing for over an hour now. He wasn't used to feeling so... helpless. His brain was hardwired for action.
When the guard came in for the first meal of the day, Touya didn't think anything of it. He just ignored them, knowing that there wasn't anything he could say to make them talk. Aya, however, greeted them with a light, bubbly voice.
Touya furrowed his brows. She hadn't tried speaking to them before. Why would she start now?
He was startled as the sound of a sudden shout echoed through the room, and the sound of metal crashing rang in his ears. Touya ran to the bars of his cell, trying to get a glimpse of what had happened. But the guard was no longer visible.
Instead, it was Aya who stepped before him.
"How-" Touya balked. From the other cell, the guard began banging on the bars and shouting loudly.
Aya smiled and held up a key card. "Shouldn't have doubted me." Pressing her hand to the metal bars, Touya watched as the material disappeared underneath her touch. There was still a faint outline of where they'd been, but you would have to focus to see it. He tentatively waved a hand, finding that nothing blocked his movements. And when he stepped out of the cell, it was like the barrier had never been there in the first place.
Part of him was trying to figure out how the hell this had happened, but the stronger part of him didn't care. He was out. Aya had the key to the door, and Touya could feel his power returning to his body. Like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders as soon as he'd stepped out of that restrictive cell.
Aya ran to the door and used the stolen card to push it open. The two of them stepped into a large room, filled with masked guards and long hallways stretching out on either side.
"Stay behind me," he said to your friend.
Everyone's heads turned, people began to shout and alarms began to blare. They were incredibly outnumbered, and more reinforcements would likely arrive shortly. He liked the odds.
Holding his hand out with a smirk, Touya set the room ablaze.
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Y/N's POV:
Now, the universe had some pretty cruel punishments, some of which you'd had the displeasure of experiencing. But this one took the cake. Looking at the man above you, it was as though you could hear some deity laughing at you from the cosmos.
"You arrived early," you recognized Sadis's voice. "We would've had her look a little more decent if we'd known."
All of your basic functions seemed to have shut down as you stared blankly up at your father. Why was he here? It made no sense. He was a retired hero working as a teacher for high schoolers.
Two guards appeared on either side and lifted you from the box, but your gaze didn't shift. Your father studied you, and you wondered if he even recognized you in this wounded state. Your left eye was swollen almost completely shut from the blow Sadis had inflicted earlier. Your arm was bleeding and your lips stung with each throb.
If you didn't know better, you'd say the man looked angry, but his voice was level when he spoke. "Why is she in such poor condition? In our conversation, the president told me that she was being well taken care of. This could hurt our trials." He looked you over like he was observing a foreign lab specimen.
Still shaking as remnants from your previous breakdown continued, you swallowed. Your throat was scratched raw, and when you tried to speak it was barely a whisper. "What are you doing here?"
Sadis glared at you. "This is our lead investigator. Now, girl, I would recommend showing some respect. You may know him as a former top hero, but this man is extremely intelligent. He's been studying your power for years. He knows more about you than you do."
You blinked. "You-"
"Two years ago I volunteered my services to the Commission to research and help find the weapon that they were searching for." Your father said, still analyzing you. "I've studied Izanagi and its powers tirelessly, but I never considered the possibility that it could be inside of a person. Imagine how shocked I was when learning that you'd been discovered. I immediately requested a meeting so that I could get a better understanding of you before continuing with my work."
This couldn't be real. Him, of all people, was one of the people who'd been helping the Commission search for the weapon? A lead investigator? That meant he had to know what the Commission was doing with the children. He knew what their plans were and he'd still helped them. And now, he was going to be the one studying you. He'd made it clear that he had no interest in being a father. What other horrors would he inflict as a way to experiment with your power?
"if you don't mind," he said to the Higher Up. "I'd like to take her to one of the medical offices and have her cleaned up before we start."
"If you think that that will make your examination easier, sure," Sadis sounded a bit unhappy about the idea of getting you any sort of treatment. Jesus, these people hated you more than you'd thought. "I'll be back in the meeting room with the others. Join us whenever you are finished."
Your father smiled appreciatively and then motioned for the guards to follow him out. As much as you hated everything that was happening, you felt a bit of tension ease as room fifty-seven left your sight.
It was a short-lived relief as you remembered what had happened before you'd been locked inside that box again. Aya, Touya, what had they done to them? Aya wasn't a fighter, she was kind, and energizing. The idea of her spirit being hurt by these people drilled a hole in your chest. And Touya, You knew he could handle a lot, but he shouldn't have to, especially not because of you. What he'd done to you, the lies he'd told, your heart couldn't bring itself to care anymore. All you wanted was his safety.
When you stepped into the medical office, the guards sat you on the examination table and positioned themselves near the door. Your father waved a hand, "Your presence isn't necessary for this. You may go to one of your other posts."
"But sir-" one of them protested but was interrupted.
"I am perfectly capable of defending myself from a beat-up girl whose powers are being restricted. Now, please, I work better whenever there is nobody around."
That was a little insulting to you. But it worked to convince the guards. Both of them exited the room, shutting the door behind them. Leaving you with the asshole who you shared half of your genetics with.
He blinked a few times, bending down to look at your arms before clicking his tongue.
"This is exactly what we were afraid of." Your father went to the corner, gathering supplies from one of the cabinets hanging above. He shook his head, mumbling. "They weren't supposed to find you. How the hell did they find out?"
He walked back to the table and sighed. You furrowed your brows, confused by the sudden stress that had befallen him. What was there for him to be stressed about? Maybe he was worried about your relationship to him being outed. You thought about it. Could be a good blackmailing tool.
"Your mother is going to murder me," he said softly, cleaning one of the cuts on your arm. "Not that I don't deserve it."
Ok, so he did recognize you. You nervously eyed the camera in the room. "Don't talk about my mom." You'd worked hard to make it sound like she didn't care enough to check in on you. That way, the Commission wouldn't see her as a threat and wouldn't try and target her.
His eyes followed yours. "The cameras in the offices don't record sound."
You weren't sure if that was a reassurance or a threat. And you also weren't sure why he was suddenly acknowledging the fact that he knew who you were. Both times you'd spoken to him since he'd left, the man hadn't bothered to show that he recognized you at all.
"It's pointless to heal me," you said. "I'm not going to help you people. Whether I'm at my full strength or not."
He shut his eyes briefly before wrapping another bandage below the mark you already had. "I'm assuming you've told them that and the Higher Up's weren't happy about it."
Despite the pain, the confusion and fear still eating at your thoughts, you laughed, the sound coming out strangled and forced. "Oh, no, they were totally fine with it. Why else would they have done any of this," you gestured to the wounds scattered across your skin.
"This wasn't supposed to happen," he said again, more to himself than to you. "I did everything I could to keep them from finding out about you."
"Everything you could? What the hell are you talking about?" He was talking like he hadn't been completely absent from your life for the past seventeen years. Like he'd been trying to protect you somehow. As if he wasn't working for the people who were holding your loved ones in cells. The man was either a liar or completely delusional.
He started dabbing something on your swollen eye. "Listen, I can't explain everything right now. And I know that you probably don't want to listen to me. But I promise you that everything I did was for a reason." He sat you up a bit to inspect the bruises around your neck and you heard his breath catch. "What happened to your back?"
This man was pulling your brain left and right. you had no idea what to believe and couldn't understand a word of what he was saying. "It was a surgical procedure."
You looked over as he cursed, quite loudly in fact. It startled you. "They took the blocker out, didn't they."
How could he have known about the blocker? In fact, how did he know you had this power at all? By the way he was speaking, it sounded like he knew about it before any of this stuff with the Commission had happened. But that was impossible. He'd left after finding out that you were quirkless. That was the entire reason he'd wanted a child in the first place, to raise a successor with a quirk as powerful as his own.
Or maybe that wasn't the whole truth. Small pieces began to fall into place even as you fought to keep them apart. You didn't want to think anything else. Everything in your life had already fallen apart, this couldn't be another lie.
"How do you know about that?" You asked.
There was a long stretch of silence before he answered. "Because your mother and I were the ones who put it there."
Him and—- him and your mom? They both knew? No. There was no way. Your head spun and you lay back down as the room started to tilt. "But-"
The door to the room was suddenly pushed open. Three guards stepped inside, one of them was the one who'd been assigned to you. "Sorry for the intrusion, sir. But your presence is requested in the meeting rooms as soon as possible. We were sent to help you finish your examination."
"I forget how impatient they are sometimes," your father chuckled. "I'm almost finished here." Flashing you a look that seemed somewhat apologetic, your father continued working in silence. You were still too shocked to try and say anything else.
"See?" He dropped a wad of cloth into the trash. "All done. If you could escort the subject back to her room, I will go on and meet with the others."
Without another word and barely a glance in your direction, the man cleaned up the area and exited the room. Two of the guards followed him, leaving you with another person that you were extremely confused about.
"You really enjoy pissing the Higher Up's off, don't you?" Your guard asked.
Slowly, you were able to slide off of the table. A numbing cream must've been applied to your eye because you were able to blink painlessly now. And you were starting to get used to the other injuries, adapting your movements to keep from irritating them too much. "It's not my fault that they're extremely easy to piss off."
Sure, you'd gotten a little mouthy with Sadis. But anyone with basic anger management skills would've been able to refrain from hitting you against the wall and throwing you to the ground. Zankoku had been the same way. Did all of the Higher Up's have fragile egos and anger issues?
You walked with your guard back to your room. She didn't stay and chat like last time. Hell, she didn't even say goodbye or anything, not that you expected it. But you'd been kind of hoping for a chance to talk to someone again. She could've given you insight into what had happened to Aya and Touya, or given you more information about your father and why the hell he was here.
His presence had thrown you for a total loop. Nothing could've prepared you for it. And his words about how 'they shouldn't have found you.' It was all too much for your addled brain to handle. Limply, you made your way over to your bed and lied down.
Nothing he'd ever done would have hinted toward the fact that he knew about your power. He'd completely disregarded you, erased you from his life. You'd come to terms with that the last time you'd seen him a little over two years ago. From that point forward, you'd come to terms with the fact that you didn't mean anything to him.
It was a bad memory, one that had occurred on the same night you and Ami had nearly been drowned in the icy river. It wasn't a time you made an effort to remember. But now, thinking back to the scene in the medical office, you found yourself replaying that interaction in your head as your mind tried to connect things and make them make sense.
The fire in your lungs had fizzled out by the time you awoke in the hospital bed. Looking over, you searched for Ami. In the brief moments you'd been conscious before now, she'd been next to you. Now, she was gone.
You sat up, a sudden hand of terror gripping you by the throat. She'd survived, hadn't she? You didn't remember how you'd gotten here or what had happened to the men who'd drugged the drinks, but you clearly remembered seeing your best friend by your side. It was too vivid to be a hallucination.
Ripping the monitors off of your body, you got out of the bed and stumbled toward the doors leading to the hallway. Maybe she was in a different room now. Machines behind you started beeping incessantly, but you ignored them. You needed to find Ami.
When you fell into the hallway, you were surprised to find it almost empty, save for the two figures against the wall a few feet ahead of you. Both of them turned at the sound of your unsubtle entrance.
Relief slammed into you like a bullet train at the sight of your friend standing before you. There was a bandage over one side of her face, and bruises spotted her skin, but she was alive. She was standing and she was ok and-
You finally registered who it was that stood beside her. And it felt like you'd been hit in the head all over again. Sure, you'd seen his face on TV and magazine pages. But in person, you hadn't seen your father in over fifteen years.
"You-" the word was an accusatory gasp. "What are you doing here?"
Ami went to your side, tenderly brushing her hand against your arm as if to make sure that you were really there and not a figment of her imagination. "He saved us, brought us here before we died of hypothermia."
You blinked a few times, shaking your head. "No. No. You couldn't have-"
"You've just been through an extremely traumatizing ordeal," your father interrupted. "I know you must be feeling all kinds of things right now. It would be best if you went back to your room and let the Doctors continue treatment. I'll go grab one of them for you," he began walking in the opposite direction.
You choked on a breath. "Really? That's all I get? After fifteen years you're gonna give me that bullshit hero speil and walk away?"
You knew you weren't supposed to talk about it. You'd been told time and time again that there would be extreme consequences if you did, but the emotions swirling through your chest were causing too much turmoil for you to care. Maybe the pain meds were keeping you from thinking straight.
He stopped, "Again, I know you have just experienced-"
"Shut up!" Ami had to hold you against her to keep you from storming forward. "All I've gotten for most of my life has been unsigned envelopes in my mailbox and documents from that damn lawyer of yours. Now you wanna show up?! Now you want to do something good for me?!"
Maybe you should've been grateful. He'd just saved your best friend's life, something you hadn't been strong enough to do. But all you could think about while looking at his face were your mother's locked doors, her sudden, overwhelming desire to make you stronger and faster and sharper than everyone around you. You heard your pleas as you cried, begging her to let you stay home and rest for just one day.
The man before you had walked out the door and taken all of the warmth from your life with him. He served as a reminder of everything that you hated about yourself.
A storm brewed in the hero's eyes as a sympathetic sigh fell from his lips. "I'm sorry for the unrest you must be experiencing after what happened. I'm not sure what you mean about lawyers and envelopes, but if you're upset with me for saving your life, I will not apologize for that. You're a civilian under my protection. I would never have left you to die."
Hot tears began to spill down your cheeks and Ami held you tighter. You were no longer sure if she was holding you back or trying to console you. "So that's what I am to you, then?" Your voice broke. "Just another civilian that you're sworn to protect."
He spared you one final glance before turning away once more. "What else would you be?"
That was the day Ami had learned the truth about your parentage. She hadn't looked too surprised when you'd told her while crying into her shoulder.
Later on, you'd tried to ask her what she'd been talking to your father about in that hallway. She'd told you that she'd only been thanking him for saving your lives, but now you weren't so sure that that was the truth.
You'd killed those two men at the river using a power you'd been oblivious to at the time. If your father was to be believed in saying he'd known about said power since you were a child, could that have been what he'd been speaking to your friend about?
It hurt your head, trying to think about all of this. After a little while, a guard came around and brought you a tray with food and water, the first you'd gotten since you'd been here. They left without a word and you studied the items suspiciously. They could be drugged, or poisoned.
But even with that in mind, your stomach voiced its need for some sort of sustenance, and your headache wouldn't be going away anytime soon if you continued to dehydrate yourself. So, you ate, only because your body demanded it. And although you tried to take small sips, the water glass was empty within seconds.
Once you'd finished, you crawled back into bed, awaiting your next summons. What trial would you have to face? You hoped that it was something doable. Or, if they were truly intent on having you kill someone and steal their quirk, you hoped they would throw one of the guards or any of the other employees who worked for this hellish place into a room with you.
What felt to be around half an hour passed before your door was opened again. The female guard that you'd grown familiar with stepped inside. "You've been invited to the meeting room."
"Invited makes it sound like I have a choice."
She stood there, not bothering to comment on your remark. You pulled yourself out of bed. "Hey, my hands are pretty fucked up. Do you think... do you think you could help me in the bathroom before we go?"
It was true, your hands were torn and bruised, your fingernails broken after an hour spent trying to claw your way out of that box, but it would take a lot more than that to get you to ask someone to help you take a piss. No, you needed to talk to this girl after she left you hanging last time.
She nodded, and you figured she knew what you meant. The urgency in her stance told you there wasn't much time.
She held the door open to the bathroom, allowing you to go in, and let it close behind her. "I'm assuming that you want me to elaborate on what I told you?"
"Yes, but before that I need you to tell me what happened to my friends. What did the President have done to them?"
The girl shook her head. "I honestly don't have an answer for that. I haven't heard anything about them since yesterday."
She must've seen the stress on your face because when she spoke next it sounded like she was trying to be reassuring, but comfort didn't seem to be in her nature. "Look, I don't know what happened to them, but it's a little weird to me that none of the Higher Up's have shown up and made you watch your friend's punishment. They wouldn't just say they were going to do it and then not show proof."
You thought about that. It made sense, considering their sadistic natures. The men would want you to see your loved ones suffering. They would revel in forcing you to watch it over and over again. So why hadn't they done it yet?
"Ok," she looked back at the door. "They're gonna be pissed if we don't show up to that meeting room soon."
"Wait just one more thing. You said you worked with Ami, as a vigilante right?"
She nodded.
Something sort of like hope bloomed. "So does that mean that others survived? Not all of the Seigi members are dead?"
You saw her head droop low. "Most of them are. I mean, it was a complete massacre. Nobody had been expecting an attack like that. Nearly everyone was killed. Except for the ones that the Commission believed could be... molded back into shape."
You didn't totally understand what that meant. "So, if they thought that you could be turned to their side, they offered to spare your life if you came and worked for them?"
"Offered," she scoffed, and if the mask wasn't covering her entire face you thought there would've been offense in her expression. "You think I would've betrayed everything I ever fought for to come and work for these people willingly? I'm a prisoner, same as you."
The revelation stunned you for a moment, but then it began to make sense. Why the clothes you'd been given were similar to the uniforms worn by the guards. Why some of them had been sympathetic toward your pain and helped in the slightest ways that they could. "What do they have over you?"
Turning her head, she said softly. "My little brother," she clenched a fist. "I couldn't care less about my life, but his? I couldn't stand it if that kid died because of me."
You watched the girl in front of you with sympathetic eyes. "So, are all of the guards-"
"Not all of them," she cleared her throat. "Some of them are willing volunteers. They're usually ex-villains or sadistic people who wanted a way to legally commit crimes. But a good chunk of us are just people like me. Strong enough to be useful, but not strong enough to fight back."
You wanted to say that there could be a way to fight back. If everyone came together and pushed against these people there would be a fighting chance. But you kept quiet. What type of person would you be if you tried to tell them to risk the lives of the people they loved for something that may not even succeed? Shit, you didn't know if you could do that yourself.
Turning away, your guard pushed through the door. "Let's go. We're already gonna be late."
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