Chapter 30: Into the Deep Water
Every doll in the room began to laugh, different laughs that filled her head and made her see red. She reached to the nearest doll and grasped it.
"Not me!" It cackled at her, its head twisting in circles.
"Sophie, calm down." Tokoyami grasped her shoulder gently, his teeth were clenched though, the sound was offensive.
She tossed the doll down and looked around her. There were too many of them to tell, and they all looked real.
"Sophie...cast a light over the room," Tokoyami whispered to her.
Sophie could barely hear him, the word light and room was all she could gather from the cackling of the dolls. She balled her hand into a fist and pushed light into it until her hand was glowing, then she splayed her fingers open, and the light filled the room casting everything in its glow. The dolls all started to quiet down, their glassy eyes looking to her hand as she raised it above her head. Tokoyami struck while they were distracted, his hand deftly lifted the doll in the center of a pyramid of them. He pulled it out and the girl let out a squeak of surprise, her little body wiggled in his grasp and he set her down gently.
"Found you." He announced to her.
"Tee hee. That was a funny trick, but you won fair and square. On to the next room." She skipped out of the room and disappeared.
"Thank the Gods." Sophie rubbed her temples and closed her eyes. "Smart idea." She remarked.
"Think so? I just couldn't see in there, Dark Shadow probably would have found her eventually but the sound and lack of light were driving me nuts." He admitted.
"Then how did you know which one was her?" Sophie looked at him confused.
"Well, she was the only one looking away. The others were stuck to your light but she looked away as if it blinded her." He walked out of the room with her. The next room was unlocked, above the door, it was written: Simon Says.
"Damn, another annoying one." Sophie sighed.
"Where is your child-like spirit?" He teased her as they entered the room.
"Dead." She answered mutinously.
"You should revive it, cause we are playing with a child." He remarked.
"Next is Simon Says! We each take turns! first-team out loses. If even one of you wins the whole team wins."
"But you are playing by yourself," Kage informed her.
"No worries, I brought someone to join me." She giggled, appearing in the room with a child beside her, one who clung to a torn stuffed All Might doll, his hair was long and shaggy, matted and clumped with dirt and his clothes were mere rags hung around a skeletal frame.
"Who is this?" Sophie asked, dropping to her knees and reaching out to the child.
"This is my brother, he's San. He's a good little boy." Shii announced quite proudly.
"San? Shouldn't he be older?" Sophie asked confused.
"When someone manipulates the very genetic structure of another person, you can make them any age you want," Shii explained, her eyes bore into Sophie then. "Now, to the game!" She exclaimed excitedly. "San, you are on my team, we are playing Sion says."
"O-o-okay...nii-ch-ch-chan." The little boy looked up at Sophie now, his eyes were beautiful gold set along the deepest green she had ever seen. He was a magnificent child but his body was clearly emaciated, she could see his bones tightly wrapped in skin pale as snow except where the deepest darkest bruises were set in the curve of his inner elbow. Needle marks.
"You are just children..." Sophie covered her mouth, her eyes filled with tears.
"Sophie, we have a game to play. Don't cry over something you cannot change." Shii told her.
Sophie nodded and stood back up. Necrose had dug himself a hole so deep it would take decades to find the light. She would rip him from his dark world and expose his heinous face to the world, his last sight would be her burning his work to the ground before she slit his throat. The game started and Sophie was so focused on winning that she didn't lose a single time, she even managed to trick Shii and San into failing. She won by a landslide and San asked to stay longer, his interest in the game growing.
"Sophie, what's wrong?" Tokoyami asked her, she was looking sick.
"My head is really hurting and, it's so disgusting the way he treats them, his arms had needle marks all over. He looks like he hasn't eaten in months."
"Sophie, don't forget they were made by a mad man. You must focus if you want to escape this house and make him pay for everything he did."
She nodded, her throat tight. The next room was labeled Hopscotch. She sighed a long-suffering sigh, Tokoyami found her distaste for this amusing.
"Next game! Make it to the end before we do and you win." Shii explained.
"Let's do this." Sophie stepped into the room and found a huge endless space of chalk marks on the ground.
"Oh, by the way, it's the insane version." Shii giggled.
Sophie looked into the distance of this impossibly large room and put her head in her hands. "Fuck."
Tokoyami laughed and San tugged on his sleeve, his eyes wide as an owl. He knelt down beside the boy still chuckling.
"Sh-she said-said a sw-swear." He pointed at Sophie who glared at Tokoyami now.
"She is a bit of a bad girl, but don't hold it against her, she has a headache right now." He explained.
"Oh." San looked at Sophie in awe and then touched her wrist with his thin tiny fingers.
She looked at him curiously, the pain ebbed away until it was nothing and she gasped.
"All bet-better?" He asked her meekly.
"Yes..how are you able to..."
"Let's play!" Shii called out annoyed.
San ran off to join his sister and Sophie lost her chance to ask about this ability. She played absently, the rock was tossed as far as one could without using quirks and only normal ability. Thanks to Tokoyami with his extra strength they were pretty far ahead. The children didn't really stand a chance. Shii looked like she was having a lot of fun though. The next room was one she did not enjoy at all, Marco Polo.
"How to hell did you get water in here?" Sophie grumbled as she slipped into the dark pool and closed her eyes.
The children laughed. Another game won by the older kids. The rooms were all boring kids games, games she could not be bothered to play as a child, but the more she played with Shii and San the more Sophie began to realize. She was starting to have fun too. Tokoyami watched her closely, he could see the curve of her lips and the way she would cover her mouth over one of the kids doing something silly or sweet. He smiled, so she was finally opening up was she?
The final room was the most difficult. Tic-Tac-Toe, extra-large version.
"Alright, this is going to be so easy." Sophie cracked her knuckles and grinned.
Shii giggled. "I'm pretty smart."
"Ha! I wrote the book on smart!" Sophie boasted.
San giggled and Tokoyami was please by her behavior, for the first time in years Sophie Griffin was playing a game and having actual fun doing so. They tied for fifteen rounds. Because Sophie and Shii both refused to let San and Tokoyami play the two boys sat out and tossed a pair of dice around. They were so engrossed in the gameplay they didn't notice the banging until it was insanely loud and finally Shii shivered. She looked sharply to the side and frowned at the wall, trying to see through it.
She quickly ended the game. "Time is up."
"What's going on? We have one game left." Sophie instantly went into defense mode.
"Shark is here, and he knows you are in here with me. He wants you very bad." Shii walked towards the door. "San, take them out the back while I hold off Shark, he will stop at nothing to have you, Sophie." She informed her.
"Alright, I will fight him then, and then you can tell me everything I need to know." Sophie followed.
"No, he's been juicing a lot lately on master's little serums in an attempt to get stronger than you, right now if you fought him it would cause horrible damage to everything around us."
"What serums?" Sophie frowned.
"The ones he is making using the last of his supply." Shii opened the path in the house directly to the back door.
"What supply?" Sophie asked.
"If you keep asking these questions Shark will get through and you will only ask more questions." Shii looked at her annoyed.
"I am going to kill Necrose, if I have to take down Shark, or you or whoever gets in my way I will."
Shii smiled at Sophie now. "I have no doubt you would do anything you needed to, in order to right the wrongs done to your mother and to prove you are not just an experiment by a mad man. But Griffin, did you ever think to ask yourself, what if I am not an experiment?"
Sophie was confused by this but she couldn't ask any more questions, San had gripped her hand in his fingers, the little things so thin but so strong. He pulled her along and the walls closed down behind them. Tokoyami pushed her from behind to keep her moving, not looking forward to fighting whoever that was. There was a massive explosion and the house shuddered around them.
"San wait! I will fight Shark!"
"Can-can't fight Sh-Shark," San explained. "Mas-master gave him s-s-serum from your d-dna."
She gaped, her mind completely shut down. Her DNA...which meant, that Necrose still had blood from her mother, blood that he used to make some sort of juiced-up monster drug that powered up his creations. She didn't think about the implications of the serum, how long it could last or how powerful it was. The only thing she could think of was that even now, even in this very moment that bastard was still abusing her mother. Down to the last molecule of her being. It was...It Was...
!INFURIATING!
Darkness exploded around Sophie as they left the dollhouse. It surrounded her throwing off Tokoyami and San who quickly tried to get back to her but unable to get through the thick fog of rage and hurt that spilled over. There was a scream from the other side of the dollhouse and it flickered out of existence. Tokoyami turned to see that a man who looked more like some thug for a gang holding Shii up by her neck, his whole body seemed to radiate toxic masculinity. The man looked over at them, his eyes lit up on the darkness that was Sophie.
"Damn! Not now!" Tokoyami turned to her, the pulsing mass seemed to expand for a moment, pushing at him and San until it was drawn in and Sophie stood there, her hand's claws tipped dark, her eyes completely black and swirling darkness coming off her body.
"No...don't...let it out..." Shii winced, her throat screaming in pain.
"There you are!" Shark tossed Shii aside and headed straight for Sophie.
"GRAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!"
"Sophie no!" Tokoyami called out.
She was gone, launching at Shark with a cry of rage more animal than human.