Author's Note: I do not own BNHA or any other elements from other fandom, just my character Keiyu and the village of Tsurukosa.

Chapter 17: Priestly Sentence.

When she woke up, it was because of a sudden pain in her wrists as whatever she was sitting shook. There was a gag around her mouth and her hands were zip tied to the seat in front of her. Looking down at her legs revealed that they had taken her shoes off but that they were not tied together like her hands were.

Then she looked up and met her grandfather's cold eyes in the rearview mirror, shrinking into her seat as far as she could at his expression.

"She's awake," he addressed this to the person in the passenger seat who turned and Keiyu flinched as her grandmother gave her a scowl.

"You're lucky it was someone else who found you first and not me you ungrateful demon," 'demon?' "That'll remain in your mouth till we reach the temple, any attempts to escape again and we will no longer be lenient with you, you can forget about living with us," she didn't think she even wanted to live with them anymore, unfortunately the gag prevented her from saying just that.

Breathing soon became very difficult, and it was only because of the countless breathing exercises for stretching that she could even breathe properly through her nose. The car ride went on for twenty minutes, making several sharp turns and going over bumps in the road that made her body jerk and the ties around her wrists to protest by tightening even more. She could even see blood dripping from her right hand from how tight it was. Tears were in her eyes from the pain and the current situation, but she knew that if she made any noise at all, her grandmother would punish her.

She wanted Papa.

When they finally arrived at their destination, Grandma opened the door and freed her from the seat but left the ties on her hands. However, instead of having her come out of the car herself, she grabbed Keiyu by the hair and yanked, causing her to almost fall out as she scrambled to leave the car. The older woman didn't wait for her to gather herself and continued on, dragging her by the hair as Keiyu tried to keep up with the longer strides of her grandmother. Grandpa walked ahead of them and opened the door, slamming it behind them, and Keiyu flinched as it barely missed slamming on her left heel.

The interior looked similar to a church with pews on either side and she started having a sinking feeling as someone appeared in front of them.

"Is this Keiko's child?" his voice made her want to jerk back and risk having Grandma rip all her hair out to get out of there, but she knew the likelihood of escaping was zero. The man was in priest clothes from what she could see with Grandma still holding her hair.

"Yes, we failed in cleansing the taint, please look and give us your wisdom," the worship in her grandmother's voice creeped her out, and she stiffened as bony fingers grabbed her chin and lifted her head up. Sharp, unnerving black eyes stared into hers, the priest giving her what he probably thought was a smile but looked more like a leer. He looked like he could be over a hundred years old and reminded her of that one ghost from Ghost Hunt in the labyrinth. It did not make her feel any better as she also spotted the symbol on the necklace he was wearing and felt the blood drain from her face.

It took everything in her not to react as his fingers traced her face going up before touching the crown of her head where they tapped against the bumps that had been there since her fall down the waterfall.

Giving a thoughtful hum, he straightened and took his hand off, the wrinkled skin on his head seeming to disappear as he gave her an assessing look.

"Rather interesting, prepare the x-rays, we need to understand the taint that this one wields to learn how to cure her. Take her to the machine," she tried not to cry out when Grandma grabbed her hair and twisted it sharply and dragged her to another room where they bound her against a metal slab. Her glasses were ripped from her head and it was suddenly hard to see right in front of her.

"Do not move," was the harsh order before the top of the machine she was on closed, the zipties still on her wrists.

Too fearful to disobey, Keiyu could only wait helplessly as lights turned on and bit her lip as the heat from them seemed to melt the zipties.

'It hurts' tears were at her eyes, were zip ties supposed to cause this kind of damage or is it because of her small wrists. The lights were too bright, making it hard to even close her eyes, wishing that this was not happening to her at all. That symbol from the priest swum around her head, her entire being wanting to deny it but denial got nowhere. If, if that symbol existed then it meant she was in a lot of trouble, and it gave new meaning to what she knew about this world. She had read about this kind of organization in the Catalyst books, and had cried during Book 7 when during their search of the member that had gone missing, the whole team was caught up in an ambush between the organization and the guardians. The ice girl was thought to have been killed after getting caught in an earthquake and it shattered the morale of the team who split at the end of the book to do other stuff. Did guardians actually exist? Was the book based on actual events that had happened? Why did Mikan-san entrust her with the story in the first place, what was his goal?

The machine interrupted her thoughts by powering down and the pain on her wrists were becoming unbearable. They took her out and someone finally took the zipties off, the bloody mess making her whimper (which earned a swat to the head and order to be quiet.) Grandma poured a bottle of liquid on her hands and she wanted to scream as it 'cleansed' the wounds on her wrists.

"Maybe next time take them off, cleaning the blood from the machine isn't worth it," the priest said this so casually and Grandma went from being cold and cruel to reverent and remorseful as she apologized.

"I didn't want her to try anything like she did before, are there any results yet?" the question had him going over to the machine and taking out a tablet.

"Unfortunately, this technology is still dicey and slow, so we must wait a total of twelve hours for them to come through. In the meantime, she is still your granddaughter, we do not need her afraid of her grandmother when the ritual is complete." her grandmother grabbed her shoulder this time and forced her to bow to the priest before showing her to a room with no window and no lights and chained her legs to the wall and put her hands in ropes that rubbed against her skin. As soon as the door shut she felt the tears going down her cheeks once again, which she hated, crying was not going to solve anything. She lost track of time, her senses cut off and no visitors to tell her how much time has passed. Her stomach growled and started to hurt, telling her it had been quite a while since she last ate. She'd only have a bar on the day she went to find Daichi, and who knows how long she'd been unconscious. Her 'map' didn't tell her anything either when she glanced at it in the car, in fact it looked like she was in an entirely new area which was not good. The lack of water made her throat dry and her body ached from the lack of exercise as she couldn't even get up to do so.

Finally, someone came in, though she wished it had been someone, anyone else.

Grandma threw the door open out of nowhere and marched up to her with a glare. Again her hand grabbed her hair and jerked Keith's face up so she was looking her in the eyes.

"Did you stop taking your medicine at any point for over five days before I took you off them?" Medicine? Keiyu recalled the vitamins that Mama always gave her and felt sick as she realized why Grandma was asking. Unfortunately, she was too weak to answer, and even as the woman got angrier and repeated her question again, the six-year-old couldn't even speak.

"That's enough Maiko, I've already called for the information," the priest was back and his arm was around Mao's shoulder, well that certainly explained a lot. The boy looked smug as he entered, though it faltered a little at spotting her state.

"Grandson, please explain," the priest's tone was cold and Mao paled as he spoke.

"We dared her to stop taking the medicine for a whole week and to bury all the pills on the mountain," her grandma's palm met his cheek which echoed through the room.

"You foolish boy, do you not realize the amount of effort it takes to create the suppressant pills? My granddaughter's taint exists because of this foolish tradition!" Keiyu couldn't see their expressions, too exhausted to even lift her head back up.

"Enough, there is one thing we can do," he motioned to someone outside the room who entered, another person in a priest outfit came in and undid the chains.

"Let's look at the results," he brought out a folder and as the man dragged Keiyu next to them, showed the folder to her grandmother.

"Hm, the taint activated itself almost two years ago during that incident (he cut a look to Mao who shrunk back) but with the medicine it was forced to grow inside the body itself. This explains the bumps on her head that stopped growing. So it is like what afflicted your daughter," wait, Mom had an ability as well?

"So its possible to cleanse, to cure her?" she felt sick at her grandmother's tone, as if what she had was too bad to be cured.

"Unfortunately, it can not be done the same way. The antennas were forced to grow in her head and attached themselves to her eyes, which will make it rather difficult in the expulsion procedure. Plus, we are not sure exactly what she can do other than locate people, we'll need an exact breakdown of her taint. It will take time to prepare her for the procedure, unfortunately the only way to ensure that the taint does not take over the rest of her body is to remove the source," he pointed at her eyes and she flinched back even as her grandfather's hand gripped her shoulder to prevent her from moving away.

"If you wish to be a part of our family, tell us everything you know about how your taint works, so that we can take the taint safely from you," she found the strength to talk

"If it means taking my eyes, then no," her grandmother clamped both shoulders and sneered at her.

"Do you not want to live with your family, is your ability that important that you'll cast us aside for it?" Keiyu felt disbelief as she stared at them. They want to take her eyes and act like her refusal is unreasonable?

"I want to live with Papa on the mainland," a mix between a smirk and snarl appeared on the older woman's face.

"Your father has agreed to move to the island, so that's rather moot, if you won't comply, we'll have to educate you on your error," Keiyu's eyes met Mao's as once again something sharp pierced her skin and she fell unconscious.

How was she going to get out of this?