A/N: Happy Halloween! ALSO! It's my birthday! It would be the best present in the world if you'd leave a like/kudos and comment/review. 3 In appreciation for the spooky holiday, here's a chapter that is over 5,000 words! Please enjoy and let me know what you think!
Instead of having me sit at the table with them, they brought my dinner to my room. Probably because they were going to talk strategy and didn't want me to overhear, but still. The League had enough tact to eat dinner with me on my first day. Looking back, I remembered feeling intimidated. I thought it was unusual to include me, but with the quirk-cancelling cuffs, they really had nothing to worry about.
I snorted at my thoughts. Not that they knew that, based on their little experiment when they had stabbed Hawks… repeatedly.
It was Port, actually, who brought my dinner. I guess they really believed that the quirk-cancelling drug was doing its job if they were confident enough to send in the newest Masayoshi member.
The sudden flash of navy-blue hair attached to a person who had not been standing in the middle of my room previously had startled me, but I quickly wiped any evidence off of my face. It was a jump scare and would not have given away anything about me or my fears, but I still needed to do better. The last thing I needed was to give them anything to use against me.
I watched the back of her head, my heartrate already slowing back down to normal, as Port looked across the room and noted the empty bathroom from the open door. When she turned around, I saw her confused look before she finally saw me and just about spilled the plate she was holding.
"Shi—z nit," she blurted, placing a hand over her chest to calm her beating heart. "What are you doing?"
"What are you doing?" I retorted. "Bursting into my room with no warning? What if I had been lying on the floor right there? You could have landed right on me."
Port opened her mouth to retort, probably something along the lines of 'why would anyone be lying in the middle of the floor?' She had snapped her mouth shut, though, as she observed me with my back against the wall and my legs straight out against the wall.
"What are you doing?" she asked instead, placing the plate on the nightstand next to my bed, turning her back on me in the process.
She did not have the instincts of someone involved in any kind of action-based work. It was safe to say that if she was a hero, villain, or vigilante before joining Masayoshi, she wasn't a very good one. Based on her quirk, though, I could safely deduce that she wasn't involved in anything similar before Masayoshi recruited her. It made me wonder what the reason behind her involvement in the first place was.
It was obvious that they initially wanted her because of her powerful quirk, but I wondered how the story evolved after that; however, now was not the time to ask. Why would she tell me anything? Even if she was inexperienced, Fog would have warned her about me asking important questions that she should not answer under any circumstance.
Plus, this was the perfect opportunity to undermine Fog, even in just a small way. If he filled her head with what to expect from me and told her how underhanded I was, and I was nothing like that, I could plant the seed of doubt and disrupt her loyalty toward him. Every little thing counted, so I was going to enact every little plan like it was the backbone of my escape, because for all I knew, it could be.
"I'm bored," I stated. "There's nothing to do in here. The League supplied me with some novels when I had first arrived and didn't want to leave my room. Do you think you could manage getting me something to entertain myself while I'm locked in here?"
It wasn't a complete lie. I was bored. I just didn't go into details about how I'd been relieving my boredom. There was no benefit to them knowing that I planned on keeping up with my training. Bakugou's orders from when I was with the League, you know.
"Um," she hesitated, but obviously didn't see anything malicious in my simple request. "I can try. I think Fog has some extra Rubik's cubes lying around, and if it's okay, I can always lend you some of my own books."
I sat up, switching my position so that my back was against the wall and my legs rested on the floor so I could look at her straight on instead of from a weird upward angle.
"I'd appreciate it," I said genuinely. "What do you like to read?"
She opened her mouth to respond, eyes sparking at the chance to talk about her interests, but a loud knock came from the door, and we heard Fog's voice yelling her name through the door. When I looked back to where she should have been, she was gone, so I quickly and silently made my way to the door and pressed my ear against it.
"You're taking too long. Can't you do anything right? All you had to do was give her the food, let her ask you a question to see where her mind is, and then come back," Fog ranted. "What did she ask you and what the fuck did you tell her?"
Port's response was immediate. "She asked me for something to read. Or, well, something to entertain herself, more specifically."
Fog grumbled, and I could feel his frustration through the door of not being able to check the cameras to see if she was telling the truth or not. Fog was suspicious of Port; noted.
"You forgot to give her this," he stated, and I rushed back to my position against the wall just in time for Port to teleport back into the room.
"Sorry about that!" she chirped, completely unphased at having been torn into and degraded by Fog. "I forgot to bring you a roll to eat with your dinner."
She took a small bite of the roll and swallowed before tossing it my way. I caught it easily, and my mind flashed back to my first dinner with the League when Dabi had thrown a roll at Shigaraki. I looked at the roll in my hand and didn't realize that I had given any reaction until Port asked if I was okay. I must have looked absolutely insane with a smile stretched across my face even as tears leaked down my cheeks.
I cleared my throat as I wiped at my eyes, returning my attention to Port, who still looked concerned. I wasn't too hard on myself for showing emotion in this instance. Port didn't have enough experience to really read into it, and even if she could, all she would realize was that I missed being with the League of Villains, which was already obvious enough by the way that I continued to demand my return to them.
After one more concerned glance my way, Port took a bite out of each thing on my plate as I stood up and started making my way over to where she stood. She finished with a sip of the water before offering the glass to me instead of placing it back down on the nightstand.
"Thanks, Port," I said as I took the proffered glass, truly grateful that she had the compassion to recognize that I'd be hesitant to eat or drink anything without proof that it wasn't drugged. As far as they knew, I was already drugged against the use of my quirk, so with me being as helpless as someone who strongly relied on their quirk for it to suddenly disappear (Ha! That's what they thought!), I already suspected that they weren't going to drug me further.
Yang was already upset at the wasted technology that I had destroyed, and they were using quirk-cancelling drugs instead of mechanical technology, so I figured they didn't have the money to spare or favors to cash in. They wouldn't be able to afford something new and extreme, and the weaker, common drugs would not give them a great advantage over me.
I had already determined that Port was new to this whole vigilante thing, with no experience as a hero or villain to draw from, so I wondered what drove her to show me that the food was okay. Did one of the others suggest it? She did it so nonchalantly, though, that I wonder if she had personal experience in this area. Had she been drugged before? Or maybe she had offered food to a different hostage of theirs and had been requested to test the food first, so it became a common courteous ritual for her to do for the hostages when she delivered food. It was dangerous on their end, though, because if she brought me food again and didn't taste it, it would make me suspicious. Based on the way that Fog was already treating her, I hoped that she didn't invertedly ruin any future plans of drugging me for her sake.
The next morning, I got to see Port's quirk in action once again. She teleported Yang away with her, and about a minute later, she popped back up where she had stood before, but with Kaminari beside her instead of Yang. Then she was gone again, only to come back seconds later with Yang at her side.
Can she only teleport one person at a time? That would be a steep limitation, but even then, her quirk was amazing.
"Kei!" Kaminari greeted, hurrying to greet the others as well before making his way over to me. "I brought you some things to make you more comfortable!"
"Any books?" I asked, my eyes darkening when he shook his head, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly from the oversight.
"Sorry. Maybe I can grab some the next time I get the chance to go back to your home. I'll run this back to your room. Do you want to go get changed before we start?" he asked, pausing his momentum down the hallway to give the invitation for me to go with him.
Before anyone could object, I shook my head, pulling on the strings of the hood of the burned and tattered hoodie I still wore. Kaminari seemed to have understand that I was not yet trusting enough of the group to leave Shigaraki's hoodie unattended. Plus, it looked better on our end.
It would only be a good thing if they thought that I wasn't conniving enough to take the opportunity to really talk to Kaminari alone now that the cameras and bugs have been removed from the room. They might even suspect that I no longer trust Kaminari, or I am holding a grudge against him for getting me into this mess. And that was fine, even beneficial to allow them to think that. That would give us more wiggle room in the future to be alone when it mattered more. For now, I would get the information that I could from observing and maybe asking the right questions of the right people.
When Kaminari came back, he rounded around to the dining room first to grab a chair to put in the middle of the floor. Once again, I knew it was for me, so I sat without having to be asked. I was curious of what they were going to do next, and it was better on my end if I didn't fight over every little thing so that when I did fight back, they knew that it mattered, like if they were to ask me to use the negative side of my quirk against someone.
Kaminari's hands were on either side of my face again and my hair stood up on end. Just like last time, he was putting more electricity through me than necessary. Yang stepped up to give another quirk-cancelling injection, and I allowed him to do so without any resistance.
Of course, Fog had to make a smart-ass comment about it, didn't he?
"If you keep this level of obedience up, you'll fit in just fine, Kei," he said. I really think he meant it as encouragement, genuinely. It was gross. But I didn't even roll my eyes. I acted like he didn't even speak, my eyes opting to glance around the other faces in the room instead. I hated when he called me by my first name.
My eyes trailed over everyone that was there when I was initially brought here. There was Kaminari, Port, Fog, Freece, Yin and Yang, Dizz, and the two women who I had yet to be introduced to.
Fog started in by introducing everyone.
"I'm Fog. You already know Zap. This is Freece; she has a paralyzing quirk, as you've gotten acquainted with. Same with Port and her teleportation quirk. This is Dizz. You'll see his quirk in action soon enough, I'm sure. The twins are Yin and Yang, and the sisters are Drift and Draft," he said, gesturing around the room as he introduced everyone.
It did not go past me that he only included the quirks that I already knew about. He didn't divulge his own, Dizz's, the twins', or the sisters' quirks. If I had to guess based on what had transpired so far, though, I would assume that Yin and Yang have some kind of lie-detecting quirk. That would explain why Fog looks at them after I answer a question. It was only a guess though and acting in a way that I was sure of a quirk would not be beneficial to me if I was wrong in any way, so I only kept it at the back of my mind and didn't make any solid plans based on the assumption. I would just be careful in the ways I answered any questions, just in case. Based on Kaminari being called Zap, I imagined that many, if not all, of their codenames were based somehow on their quirks, whether it was outright stating it or just hinting at it. That could also be a way to throw me off, though, so I was wary and didn't put too much at stake based on any assumptions I had come up with.
"I'm Seijin Kei. Or Succubus if you prefer," I introduced, hoping that everyone else would keep healthy boundaries and not try to call me by my first name like we were all good friends.
"Let's get started. We're going to ask you some questions now that you've gotten a good night's sleep and have a better view of the situation you find yourself in, yeah?"
I snorted. "You think I slept at all, let alone got a 'good night's sleep'? Too bad you didn't have the cameras to watch me twiddling my thumbs all night, huh?"
Fog's face twitched in irritation, but to his credit, he quickly schooled his facial features and dived right into the questions. And even though he was leading with the questions, I still felt in control in a way because my answers led to the next set of questions instead of going in a specific direction. They were probably not getting to ask the pertinent questions because they were led to ask different ones to get more details from the answers I was giving. Ultimately, my goal was to answer in a way that left them with more questions than they had before.
"Did you sleep well when you were taken by the League of Villains?"
Easy.
"No. Not at first at least," I answered, mindful of Yin's shaking of her head at the same time Yang nodded. I watched them out of the corner of my eye, not wanting to give away that I might be catching onto them. It would be dangerous either way to give that away. If it was a trap to think that they could detect my lies, they could use that against me. Or they could change tactics and make it harder for me to catch on if I truly was catching on to exactly what they were doing. It seemed that Fog was using the same strategy as me, keeping his eyes directly on me, but I figured he was paying attention to their movements from his peripherals as well.
"How did you get to sleep then?" he asked with a level gaze.
"They tried giving me trazodone and alprazolam, but nothing worked. I just got more uncoordinated and clumsier, but didn't actually get any sleep, so I recommend not trying to drug me, thanks," I hedged. It was better to make them think I was bad at trying to not answer their questions so that it wouldn't be noticeable when I was subtle and successful.
Yin shook her head and Yang nodded and Fog took the bait. "How did you get to sleep?" he repeated, a little sterner than before.
"Shigaraki did it. Nothing knocks me out like having Shigaraki around," I answered vaguely.
"He… what? He scared you into submission? Physically knocked you out?"
"You guys keep saying things like he was abusing me or something. That's not it at all. I felt safe and was able to sleep because my stress levels decreased," I bit back with a shrug.
When Yin shook her head and Yang nodded, Fog didn't seem upset this time. "That's just the kind of answer that would come from someone with Stockholm Syndrome," he muttered, eyes trailing across my face to watch for my reaction.
"You're delusional. You might rely on underhanded tactics, but the League was nothing but kind to me."
Yin shook her head and Yang nodded. Fog stepped closer and crouched down so that he was at eye level with me.
"It didn't look very kind when you arrived here with burns and bruises all over you. They tortured you, didn't they?"
The fake sympathy was evident in his voice, and it made me mad. I was mad that he was pitying me. I was mad that he didn't believe me that the League was comprised of decent people who didn't hurt me. I was mad that anyone could say or think such things about the League based on rumors and assumptions and stereotypes without actually knowing any of them. But, the professional I was, I showed none of that on my face.
"I don't know."
Yin shook her head and Yang nodded and I had him. Hook, line, and sinker. Fog whipped his head around to double check that he was seeing things clearly through his blurry peripheral vision. His careful control dropped, and he sneered.
"What do you mean you don't know? How could you not know?" he sneered, leaning forward to grab the arms of the chair, trapping me in.
"I don't remember."
Once again, Yin shook her head and Yang nodded and Fog snarled his command while backing away from me, but not taking his eyes off of me. "Dizz, check her memories."
Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw Yin and Yang shift their weight. It seemed that Fog either did not trust them or didn't trust their quirks completely. Were they nervous that Dizz would find something that might make them seem like they were lying to Fog? I knew that I was telling the truth, and I'd bet Kaminari knew I was telling the truth, but even Yin and Yang might be questioning if I had a way to get around their quirk that they were not sure about. Maybe I'd throw out a lie to reassure them that they could pick out the difference between a truth and a lie. Something obvious, though…
Dizz stepped forward, grabbed my head, and turned my head to face him head-on. I jerked back from the sudden contact, not used to people grabbing me when they knew what I could do with my quirk, but I guess that is the kind of confidence that cheap drugs gave them. I braced myself, already knowing that Dizz's quirk was somewhat comparable to Shinsou's from Freece's earlier statement. If I tried hard enough, I might have been able to completely block him out for at least a few minutes. (Shinsou always wondered why I had been such a willing and constant participant, and I wish he could have seen me then, with the advantage that all of his quirk practice allowed me. He was doing me a favor just as much as I was doing him one, but he never saw it that way.) That strategy had risks, though. They would be able to know that I could block him out in the first place, and without ever having encountered his quirk before. No, it would be better to feel out his quirk, guide it to do the most beneficial things for me, and later block it when it mattered. They wouldn't see it coming because who else would be able to resist blocking an unknown, powerful quirk coming at them if they were perfectly able to? This crazy bitch who was extensively trained in undercover protocol and methods, that's who. But they didn't know that!
Dizz's quirk slammed into me, but it wasn't so bad because I grabbed it and pulled it in further, getting a real feel for it.
I could imagine Shinsou's quirk as fingers, caressing and prodding with his easy suggestions, gripping and digging his fingers in, even squeezing, when trying to force a more complicated action from me against my will. When I was finally able to push back and pry his fingers off of and out of my mind, he would come back even stronger the next time. It gave him terrible migraines when I fought back, but he insisted that I do this so we could both get stronger: Him at keeping control over someone who is good at resisting, and me at keeping someone out who has incredible stamina and endurance and strength. It didn't take much convincing, especially because he was always so open to me healing him right after, sighing in relief as he leaned further into my hands instead of pulling away like so many others did.
I was fortunate that Dizz's felt similar, like fingers, but his were pinching and pulling and kneading instead. With my own mind, I outlined Dizz's quirk's fingers, getting the hang of the pattern he moved in quickly. What surprised me, though, was when I was pulled out of that task, not by force, but because I was distracted.
My vision of the room and Dizz's creepy, spiraling eyes faded, replaced instead by memories flipping quickly through. I caught many flashes of powder blue hair and red eyes, along with some black hair and bright blue eyes, as well.
Dizz was bringing my memories forward, reviewing them while I also reviewed them, pulling out memories of Shigaraki and Dabi, looking for any sign of torture or the handprints that I arrived with.
The flipping stopped briefly on Shigaraki yanking me up by the wrist in the dark, the night that I had tried to find the exit under the table in the kitchen while he watched me stumble around with my own invention allowing him perfect vision of me in the harsh darkness of the living quarters with no windows.
Could Dizz pick up that my heartrate had increased, and I had been scared? Is that why he stopped on that memory? He didn't find what he was looking for and flipped through some more memories. I hadn't realized until then that Shigaraki had looked so calm and serene around me for a majority of the time. The tenseness of his face from the first dinner wasn't obvious to me at the time but comparing that older memory to the more recent ones, I could tell the difference easily.
Dizz flipped through some more, stopping on my training session with Dabi. Did he see the blue flames coming at me, or did he feel the heat that I had felt? At first, I thought I imagined that I could feel Dizz's emotions. First, his initial confusion, and then his understanding of why I was unphased when Dabi had blasted his flames directly at me when they had taken me. I could feel his curiosity of Dabi's motivation in the first place, but luckily, he continued flipping through instead of taking the new avenue to find some answers. Was his quirk limited that he could only explore one trail of thought at a time? Or would he only use his quirk in a way directed by Fog?
The next time Dizz stopped, it was when I was waking up next to Shigaraki, the handprints already littering my body with no memory to be found of how they got there. I could feel his frustration, which must have been a drawback of his insanely powerful quirk. I wondered if he could feel my lack of frustration of not knowing what had happened for me to wake up that way. On second thought, it was helpful that I couldn't remember. It wasn't something critical for me, and it was a missing piece that if I played my cards right, could drive Masayoshi absolutely up the wall.
My grandparents always told me that if I was ever kidnapped, they would quickly return my annoying, useless ass. Maybe I could prove them right.
When Dizz retracted his quirk from my mind, it was sudden and disorienting to go from looking at Shigaraki as he stared at me from the fire escape stairs with that look in his eyes to looking at the room full of vigilantes who were decidedly not pleased by Dizz's frustrated reaction alone before even getting any details.
"It's not there. I flipped through everything involving Shigaraki and Dabi, and there was nothing that explained the condition she came here in. I didn't even see anything that could be considered abuse, even by a stretch."
"How is that possible?" Fog muttered, placing his face in his hand, rubbing at the side of his face.
"Because they didn't abuse me. Like I've been saying," I spat, swaying a little in my chair. Yin shook her head and Yang nodded.
Dizz's quirk made me a little queasy. Is it possible to get motion sickness from flipping through memories? After I had so easily conquered the nausea and disorientation that came along with Kurogiri's warp gates, I figured it would not take me long to get used to Dizz darting around my memories if he did it a few more times.
They were all frustrated and not getting much more out of me.
Fog tried asking if they would leave my door unlocked if I would try to escape.
My sarcastic answer was, "no! Never!"
Fog didn't need to see the twins' indication to know that I was lying, but it was a huge hint that I was on the right track when the twins switched. Yin had nodded for once, and Yang shook his head. They switched when I lied; noted.
I was locked inside of my room once again, Fog himself escorting me and locking me inside before stomping away to reconvene with the others about how that did not go at all how they were expecting.
I flopped onto the bed, still trying to dampen the remaining queasiness from Dizz's quirk.
My eyes slid over to the duffel bag that still sat on the floor where Kaminari had placed it earlier. I admit that I was hesitant to even go through the clothes, let alone put something else on. What if someone threw this tattered hoodie away? I already lost my bracelet from Shigaraki, so I definitely didn't want to risk losing the hoodie or necklace.
On the other hand, I didn't want Fog to find out that these items meant so much to me, either. He'd just use them against me.
With that in mind, I plopped down on the floor to go through what Kaminari had brought me, but I didn't move over toward the provided dresser. I was hoping to not be here long enough to use it.
My eyes widened when I touched the familiar fabric.
Kaminari had said that he'd get clothes from my house… no… he said my home.
I felt tears prick my eyes when I pulled out the familiar, inky black clothing. The same clothing with no tags, that had a tight fit, and that could withstand Dabi's flames. The same clothing that was gifted to me from Dabi himself. The same clothing that was in my dresser at the League's base, and not in my dresser in my abandoned apartment.
I let out a shuddering breath, very thankful toward myself for having gotten rid of the cameras in my room, because this would have given me away otherwise.
There was no way Kaminari would have been able to get these if he had betrayed the League. And, even if he somehow deceived them, he wouldn't have called the base my home. I wiped my tears away, but more quickly replaced them when I pulled out another hoodie from the bottom of the duffel bag. A gift from Shigaraki, perhaps? Pressing it against my face, I breathed in. My tears soaked into the fabric that still smelled of Shigaraki himself: Tears of relief and happiness. I was taking this as a sign that Shigaraki was aware of the situation, and he would be coming for me when the time was right.
But why wasn't the right time right at that moment? What was I missing?
I thought back to what Kaminari had told me about why I'm here. There had to have been some semblance of truth in what he said, but it didn't make any sense.
He said that Port had just passed a test recently, indicating that it was skills or quirk-based and that it was about becoming an asset to the vigilantes. He said that I wouldn't have a problem because I had passed the test the League gave me, but the only test the League ever gave me was to check for Stockholm Syndrome…
I kept my face schooled as I had a realization: Kaminari had said that Port barely passed. He also told me to be kind to her.
If I had to guess from what I have learned to this point alone, I would guess that Port is the main reason why I'm here. It aligned well with her inexperience, too. I had already suspected that she did not come from a hero or villain background and wondered where they had found such an asset to their cause. Kidnapping and forcing her against her will until she broke down and conceded would not be above them, would it?
The vigilantes probably think the main reason I'm here is because they brought me here to work for them, but they are sorely mistaken. The League allowed me to be here because I have a job to do.
Who would've thought that my first and only undercover mission would be given to me by the League of Villains? It was overwhelming at times how I was consistently reminded of how much faith they actually had in me.