So, just, some trigger warnings as usual, for fear, death, and some...let's just describe them as yandere-esque thoughts. Music for this chapter: Rapture by OK Goodnight.
The bar sure is crowded tonight, Toda thinks to himself as he sits in the corner away from the other villains sitting around as if they already owned the place. His skin crawls, taking in each and every one of their faces. The blonde girl with fangs and a seemingly permanent smile etched on her face-she couldn't be much older than Leinei. The reptilian with purple hair leaning against the wall in the corner, trying to look mysterious and cool, his eyes closed. A magician with a white theater mask on his face sitting upright and proper in a chair, his hands clasped around his crossed knees. A woman(or a man, Toda truly couldn't tell) sat at the bar a few seats down from Shigaraki, drinking a glass of water. A black and white masked man in a full rubber body suit, mumbling to himself in the corner, laughing one minute and crying the next, screaming and whispering. And finally, the black haired, scarred and stapled man standing lazily by the wall with his hands in his pockets.
Giran had outdone himself, finding this ragtag group of villains following Stain's defeat, and even Toda had to admit he felt more terrified than usual coming here. He surely had almost peed himself walking in the door and being met with a handful of blue flames. Of course, a simple word of assurance from Kurogiri and Shigaraki called the scarred man who dubbed himself Dabi away from the poor informant(if you can have pity for the man selling out his boss' baby sister to the monsters keeping his lover alive), and Toda took his seat in the corner, feeling like a child surrounded by thugs about to have his head bashed in for looking the wrong way at any of them.
"It-it seems you have some new friends, Shigaraki," Toda says, trying to make small talk to ease the nerves he had twisting in his stomach and bladder. "I-I guess Stain was useful in a way...huh?"
"Yeah I guess," the blue haired man grumbles, scratching at his neck. "Enough small talk, the brats from UA I told you to keep an eye on?"
"Ah-um...well, like I said the last time we met a month ago," he whimpers softly. "Leinei's quirk leveled up a significant amount-she can track people with it now, which is a lot more than I thought she could do with it before, but the only thing I really learned about Katsuki Bakugo is that they're good friends. Well, somewhat good friends." He notices that Dabi perks up a bit, hearing Leinei's name. "An-and well, they're taking their semester exams soon, then they're going to be going to a training camp at a remote location."
"And I'm going to assume you know this remote location?" Mr. Compress coos, leaning forward with his chin in hand. "Otherwise I'm sure you wouldn't be sharing that information with us."
"Yeah. Have you gotten that information or did you fuck up again?" Shigaraki rasps out, pulling his hand from his neck for a moment. "I told you what would happen the last time-"
"N-no sir, I have the information," Toda says quickly, swallowing and feeling his face grow hot with shame. "The school has to let Elementia know where Leinei is at all times, so they had to divulge that information to her. They'll be attending a summer camp located on the reserved land bought by the Wild Wild Pussycats, and personally trained by Mandalay, Pixie-Bob, Ragdoll, and Tiger themselves. It's to be a week-long excursion in the Beast's Forest. The only pros there will be Eraserhead, Vlad King, and the Wild Wild Pussycats."
"I like that name," Toga says, her face flushing. "Leinei. It's pretty. But why do we care about them?"
"Have any of you ever heard of the Shiketsu Slaughterer?" a digital voice asks, a tv in the back of the room flickering onto the static snow. The villains turn their gazes towards it, Spinner and Dabi seemingly bored. "I suppose not. A year ago, there was an incident where a girl's quirk went haywire and was used on more than a dozen students and teachers. There six casualties, and it has since been massively covered up due to the negative PR it would have given two certain heroes and the child involved. The girl who's quirk went haywire is named Leinei Salinsa, and she currently attends UA."
"She was one of the kids that was involved in the Hosu City incident too," Spinner says. "That Endeavor saved from Stain."
"Her Hero Name is Naimles," Dabi adds, leaning back against the wall with the heel of his boot propped up against it. "She's a scaredy cat and has this dumb notion everyone can be saved, no matter what they've done."
"So you've had a run in with her then, Dabi?" Mr. Compress asks, turning his head to look at the young man, who shrugs. He tilts his head back, closing his eyes as the image he had embedded in his mind of her watery, fear filled eyes flickers on the back of his eyelids. The way she had stiffened when he called her by his little nickname for her had a smile tugging at the corner of his lips, pulling at the staples.
"She ran into me," he says simply, eyes still closed. "In return, I just instilled the fear of hell into her."
"Isn't the saying the fear of god?" Twice asks, perking up before twitching. "Good job, scare her more next time!"
"So what? We're just supposed to sneak into the forest, blow some shit up, and get out?" Spinner asks, tilting his head. Shigaraki giggles to himself, drawing the others' attention back to him. Toda sinks lower in his seat, feeling his stomach twist around itself. He feels so sick hearing that giggle of the apprentice to the monster he worked for.
"Of course not," Shigaraki remarks, composing himself and turning in his seat to hold up a picture of Bakugo from the Sports Festival with the muzzle and chains, and a picture of Leinei's UA student ID. "We're recruiting them. By any means necessary."
"Heh, you're not gonna get the girl," Dabi snorts, opening his eyes and lowering his chin to look at the people looking at him. "She may have blood on her hands, but she has a Pro for an older sister with a strong sense of justice."
"You talk like you know her," Toga whines. "Can you get us to be friends? I'd love to be friends with her."
"You don't even know what her quirk is," Twice pipes up before twitching. "Let's all be friends!"
"Just leave her to me," he says, rubbing the back of his head with a small sigh. "It's easy to break something that's already fractured." He looks at Toda. "You guys have Commission sanctioned quirk suppressants at that damned agency, don't you?"
"Ah, ye-yes," he says, nodding his head and not liking where this was going. "But Leinei has a high, and I do mean high, tolerance to them. She requires four times the normal amount recommended for the strongest quirks."
"Then you'll get me six times that amount," he tells him matter of factly. "As well as a sedative strong enough to put an elephant to sleep. She's going to put up a fight or run, and I want to make sure she doesn't get far."
"And what about the angry boy?" Spinner asks. "What do we do about him?"
"Just leave that to me," Mr. Compress says. "I have many ideas on how to showcase my tricks, and make this child disappear. Just need distractions."
"Giran can scrounge some more of those up, can't he, Kurogiri?" Shigaraki asks, looking at the purple misted man. He nods, or makes some semblance of a nod. "Good. Toda, you'll get us those dates, won't you? Oh, and if you do tip anyone off, I'm sure you don't need any ideas what will happen to you?"
"I understand," the sidekick murmurs before standing up and excusing himself. They watch him as he walks out, a snicker escaping Toga's lips as she leans back off the edge of the bar and sighs happily. She starts singing under her breath about new friends, a glazed over look coming across her eyes. Compress had started to perform card tricks for Twice, who gave him the usual split reactions. Spinner and Magna had started up some conversation, and Shigaraki simply sat at the bar doing...whatever Shigaraki does sitting at the bar.
Dabi scratches the back of his head, letting out a soft sigh as he starts towards the door. His steps echo softly in the quieted bar, his hand on the door knob when anyone decides to ask him what he's doing. What is he doing? What was he in the mood for?
"I'm bored," he says simply, turning the knob and pulling the door open. "I'll be back later."
"Don't get caught!" Toga calls after him, waving as he walks out and closes the door behind him. As he walks, he pulls his hood over his head and his face mask up to cover his mouth and chin. His hands are shoved in his jacket pockets as he walks out of the alley and onto the sidewalk, melding with the various personalities walking down the concrete with their noses in their phones, or the phones on their ears. Some were reading books, others the newspaper, most likely still detailing the Hero Killer's capture by the valiant number two after attacking those poor little high school students.
He couldn't help but to smile a bit to himself, his head down as he joined the faceless, indiscriminate crowd crossing the road. The way the news outlets described those four kids, made them seem incompetent, stupid, weak, despite each's performance almost two months prior at the Sports Festival. And since they're so incompetent, Shigaraki is assembling such an elite team to kidnap two of them. Sure, reporters, keep painting them as weak. It'll only break down hope for the future generations more, instill more fear and doubt into people as these new heroes are trained and brought out to fix the hell their predecessors left them.
But that wasn't the reason he smiled. Originally he had only one goal, and that was to expose Endeavor and hero society for the frauds they are, the abuse they manipulate to train these next generations and even their own children to become willing weapons to fight a war humanity has been struggling with since the first flames were introduced to the world. He lived only to make them suffer, to make that perfect child suffer, to make that monster suffer, to make the woman who birthed him suffer. But of course, if he did it right, the mere mention of his existence would be more than enough to break all of them, and hopefully finally end the man who brought him into this disgusting and cruel world.
And now, he had a new goal tacked onto the original. His little mouse has emerged into the world, a hero trainee at that, working with the golden child that is Shoto Todoroki. As a child, he always looked forward to seeing the crybaby lavender haired girl, whose face always lit up the moment she saw him. She used to hang off his every word, and follow him around like a lost dog, like the mouse after the cat in that stupid story his mother would read them. He hadn't seen her since before the incident on the mountain, before her family had taken that trip to the beach for a family vacation, and before the accident that left her and Reina orphans.
She has to be...sixteen now right? He thinks to himself, looking up as he turns to walk into an alley where a man was scrounging in the dumpster for food. His nose twitched at the stench of rotten food, of filth and disease that the man must have been riddled with eating such disgusting food. On the other hand, Dabi himself had eaten quite a few times out of dumpsters, but at least he never tried to look like the thing he was having to scavenge from. Especially after Giran found him, helped him out, fed and clothed him. I'll have to thank him the next time I see him, he adds onto his thought as he stops at the man ravenously eating a maggot infested apple.
Disgust turns his mouth into a dark frown, taking one hand out of his pocket. No matter how hungry he was, he wouldn't ever stoop to digesting literal maggot food. Scum like that are beyond saving, beyond rehabilitation and reintroduction to society. At that thought, Leinei's words ran through his head, the way her voice trembled as she said the line, the genuine terror in those beautiful blue eyes of hers. Anyone could be rehabilitated.
Blue flames escape through the seams in his hand, curling around his fingers and finally catching the vagrant's eye as he lifts it to reach out to him. He looks up at Dabi, his empty eyes already dead and reflecting the deep sapphire color of his flames as they come to envelope the filth lining the alleyway. The man doesn't even have time to scream, his skin melting from his bones, his bones turning to ash. All that lingers of the man is the faint scent of burning filthy flesh and the charred remains of the maggot filled apple that dropped from his hands before the flames engulfed him. Smoke unfurls from his hand as he lowers it back to his side, letting out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding as he uses his other hand to lower his mask and take a deep breath of air.
He replays the memory of the color leaving Leinei's face, the way she trembled when face to face with him. The way she winced when she fell to the ground and her bottom lip quivering as he got closer to her made his stomach flutter. The way her eyes watered and her face flushed made him drool, a smile coming across his face. He wanted to make her cry more, he wanted to hear her scream. He wanted to break her, mind and soul. He wanted to hear her breath hitch again, feel her stiffen as he whispered his pet name for her.
"My little mouse," he coos to himself.
Leinei sneezes into her arm, shaking her head after. Bakugo looks up from his textbook, his eyebrow raised as he looks at her. She looks at him, her face pink.
"What was that?"
"I dunno," she replies, looking at the snoring Kaminari and Kirishima on the floor. She closes one eye as she aims her pen at them, moving her hand back and forth before throwing it and getting Kaminari on the ear. Bakugo snorts as the blond reaches up and swats Kirishima in the face. "I guess someone was talking about me."
"I thought that was your ears burning?" he asks, tilting his head as he looks at her. She shrugs and leans over to pick her pen back up. Her stomach was twisting, a bad feeling suddenly flooding her. But she pushes it down, smiling at Bakugo, who blushes and turns his head away. Mitsuki pokes her head into the living room, laughing when she sees the two boys passed out on the floor.
"Dinner's ready if you guys are eating here," she tells the teenagers. Leinei looks over her shoulder and nods, thanking her with a big smile.
I never want these days to end...
