Hello everyone! Here is the seventh chapter, I hope you will enjoy it. Am I done making the characters suffer? Obviously not. Hehehehe.
Fencer29: Hello! :D Ujiko would surely be impressed; it would help to create nomus after all lol. I won't spoil the doctor's fate, you will discover it in time ;) It's what happened with Hana/Momo yes :3 It's "explained" in this chapter, but it might be summed up by "quirk fuckery" ^^''''
Pain. Anguish. Horror. Cold. Darkness.
A silence rhythmed by the thundering of a little heart, pattering like a machine gun against broken ribs. The senses of the body were gone, and the conscious was asleep. Only mere flashes of feelings existed in the small broken being. It had been a human child at some point but now, it was nothing but gore. If it was not for the soft light emanating from it, it would be believed dead. By all accounts, it should be. No gender was discernible. Only blood and missing limbs scattered around a gory sight.
Comfort. Safety. Calm. Warmth. Light.
It was a miracle. A little girl broken and bloodied, but alive. An impressive quirk performing impossible deeds. Was it due to the adrenaline? The will to live? Something else? The heart was always beating, never faltering. People were in awe. How could it be possible? How could a child survive? How could a body reconstruct itself? She would live. But she would first be in a coma. No one could tell for long, but the child would eventually awake.
Emptiness. Loneliness. Heartache. Nameless. Scarred.
The child could not remember her name, just her brother's. She had been asleep for her for six years, and a couple adopted her and took her to a new home. She asked for her brother. He was gone, and the child cried herself to sleep for years. The couple gave her a new name, but it was not hers. The child felt nameless and clanged to her brother's name. Sometimes, she would have nightmares or dreams and would remember events of her past. And one day, she recalled her real name. Yet, her brother was still missing, and the child grew angry and sad. Why could they not find her brother?
Anger. Injustice. Alone. Renamed. Failed.
If no one could find her brother, she would find him herself. She would become a heroine, and she would find him. She would be his heroine.
000
Night had fallen hours ago, but sleep would not come to Mirko. She was used to be a night owl and suffered from insomnia, but she had not felt such grief in years, and it made the sleepless night all the more painful. Momo Yaoyorozu was missing. The soft-spoken, loving onyx-haired motherly student had been kidnapped by a cult, and their only lead was being questioned by Naomasa and his colleagues. She had been banned from the interrogation room after almost kicking the bastard to kingdom come. She had regretted her decision to bring the man to the station at the moment, but she knew it was the best decision. They could not rely on fucking villains.
Her blood was akin to blazing ice in his veins, her body too cold and too hot at the same time. It was an excruciatingly unbearable feeling, and she found herself pacing his balcony back and forth, her mind frantically trying to come up with something, anything that might help the case.
The Yaoyorozu couple had been made aware of their daughter's kidnapping, obviously, and Mirko had been amazed at the astounding faith the parents had in their child's ability to survive anything the cult would throw at her. She did not know whether it was blind faith or founded trust. Perhaps a bit of both; Momo was a resourceful girl, although she was still a sixteen years old child. But who knew what her companion of misfortune, Tomura fucking Shigaraki, would do to her? The villain was a man child, impatient and petulant, and Mirko feared the killer would pass his anger on her. She prayed they were not held in the same room by the Ashuva cult, but nothing was less certain.
Before she realized it, several hours had passed, and the sun was rising. Mirko sighed and rubbed her temples. She had not seen time pass, and her second meeting with the Yaoyorozu couple was in a few hours. Trying to get some sleep would be completely useless now, and she would have to rely on coffee and a long shower to look professional. The Yaoyorozus were well-mannered people, she had to at least try to look decent. They had been the one to ask her to come to meet them to talk about Momo, but it did not mean she would not do her best to look presentable to the parents of a recently kidnapped teenager.
A few hours later, she was welcomed at the Yaoyorozu mansion and led to one of the many living rooms of the house by a maid. The couple was looking at a picture of their daughter, and Mirko gulped. She could not begin to imagine the pain they were currently going through; it was unfathomable.
"Sir, madam, Mirko-sama has arrived", the maid announced.
"Oh, Mirko-san! Please, sit, there was something we wanted to discuss with you", Emi Yaoyorozu said.
"Of course, anything", she replied, sitting across the couple.
Kota Yaoyorozu grabbed a file on the table and handed it over to her. Mirko grabbed it and glanced at it, uncertain.
"It's Momo's medical record. She had always wished for its content to remain private unless it became necessary, but it's an emergency…"
"Of course. Does she suffer from any chronic illness? Something hereditary, perhaps?"
Emi Yaoyorozu sighed, fidgeting, and looked at him with immensely sad eyes.
"Momo isn't our biological child. We adopted when she was eight after there was an… incident with her family." Mirko nodded, encouraging the woman to continue. "You know how Momo's quirk works, right? It's not supposed to be able to create living things, but there is one exception. When Momo was eight, her brother awoke a very destructive quirk that broke her body. Or rather decayed her body."
Mirko blanched. She did not like where this was going at all. Especially after having heard that fucking Archangel's last words. Restless, she took a sip of the coffee brought by the maid, hoping it would ease the drying in her throat and unknot her stomach. Maybe it would even warm her body, which was starting to feel horribly cold.
"As your face tells me, you already understood where we are going. Momo's quirk went out of control and, with the overabundance of adrenaline in her body, started to repair her own body, creating the missing parts from the fat. She spent eight years in the hospital in a coma and did not aged a day whilst being there. Her brother remained missing and was eventually declared dead by the state. As it turned out a few months ago at the USJ, he is not dead nor missing at all," Kota intervened.
"Her brother is Shigaraki Tomura", Mirko breathed out. It was bad. Really, really bad. "Is she aware of this?"
"Yes. She has never forgotten about him and has made it her life mission to find him. She feels incredibly guilty over who he became, and no amount of therapy seems to help. We have faith in our daughter, she is a blessing on this earth, but we're so worried the cult might do to her mental health…"
"I understand. I assure you we're doing our very best to find her. But there is something I must tell you…"
Mirko coughed, her throat suddenly tighter and painful. What was going on? She looked up at the couple and finds them smiling strangely, their eyes shining. She frowned; her head dizzy. A moment later, she was on the ground, the world spinning around her. Fuck, fuck, fuck!
"Thank you for your concerns, Mirko-san. But you must understand that our daughter serves a greater purpose."
A greater purpose? I'll show you a greater purpose, assholes! Mirko roared in her mind, using all her might to stand up and kick the couple in the stomach, sending them crash on the ground. Panting, she shot a hand to her head. Standing up was horribly painful, and she had no idea what to do. If Momo's own parents were part of this cult, who was not? Adrenaline and survival instinct taking over her muscles, Mirko jumped out of the mansion through one of the windows, quickly escaping the premises. Jumping in jeans was not exactly easy or comfortable, especially with the drug running in her system. She was thankful her mutation allowed her to be more resistant to poisons, but she would not be able to fight it much longer.
Once in an alleyway, she grabbed her phone. She needed help. Naomasa was out of the question. Something about him made her sixth sense setting alarms off all over her mind, and she was not about to test his loyalty and integrity when she was in this state. Her vision was getting blurrier with each second, but her eyes finally landed on a name. Spinner. She hated relying on villains, loathed the very thought of what she was about to do, but she needed someone with a mutation whom she knew for certain was not part of this fucking cult.
"Hello?", the villain's voice brought Mirko back to Earth.
"Track my phone and get me. Move your ass", she panted, nausea hitting her like a tidal wave.
"I ain't your personal driver –"
"Move your fucking ass, her parents are part of it!"
There was a pause. And then, someone else's voice.
"We're on our way, miss. Please hold on."
Compress, if she remembered him correctly. Mirko mumbled something, and silent darkness engulfed her.
000
It felt like dying again and this time, Momo hoped she would not wake up to see the disastrous consequences of this sick experiment on her body; the pain was too much. Why must she be broken again? Had she not enough scars? Was it her punishment for abandoning Tenko all these years ago? It had to be. Why else would she be subjected to such horrendous pain? The universe was punishing her, and it was right to do so. If she had been a better sister to Tenko, if she had not lied to their father all these years ago, Tenko would have never disappeared, he would never have become Tomura Shigaraki, he would never have attacked the USJ, caused all these deaths. All of this was her fault, every injury, Bakugō's kidnapping, All Might's retirement. When another scream of pain erupted from her mouth, it was not only because of the pain setting her body ablaze. It came from her heart, expressed her guilt.
Even though the shooting pain of her having her back torn open was slowly receding over time, she could not contain her sobs and did not react when the hands finally let go of her. Her body was exhausted, charring pain burning her skin and muscles, but her brain would not allow her to go unconscious. Survival instinct and adrenaline were in charge, her mind going frantic. She had to protect Tenko, she had to keep him safe, she had to make sure he was unscathed. Nothing less would be fine by her, and she might go mad if he had been hurt. He was all she had left in the world. Forcing her eyes to open, Momo dragged her arms beneath her torso for support, grunting in pain, jaws clenched. She was shaking and unstable, but she did not care.
Her eyes went to her right and widened in horror. Tenko, her baby Tenko, was laying on his front, back covered in blood and torn open. From the ghastly wounds lacerating his pale skin came out two big, feathery wings like parasites invading another living being. They were white under the blood covering them, with the tips getting bluish, just like the end of his hair used to be back when he had attacked the USJ. Her brother did not seem conscious; her stomach clenched, and Momo staggered off the bed, crying out his name as she collapsed next to him.
"Tenko! Tenko please wake up", she begged, voice breaking.
He could not be gone, it could not be happening, he had to be fine, he had to be, she could not lose him again, she could be alone again, she could not be so cold again, she –
A grunt suddenly answered her, and a tidal wave of relief washed over her, extinguishing the fire in her own back. Momo turned around, her eyes falling on the cultists, and she glared at them with all her might. She would not let them lay another finger on her brother. She would not let anyone lay a finger on her brother. She finally had him back in her arms after sixteen years without him, and no one would take him away from her. She could not handle losing him again, not when she was the reason he had become the way he was. She would never abandon him again.
"Mother, please allow us to escort you back to your room, dinner will be brought shortly. You must rest," the Prophet, extending a hand.
"Escort us? Don't hide the truth behind your pretty words. We're your prisoners, you've taken our quirks and experimented on our bodies!" she snapped, jumping off the bed, fists clenched.
She disliked unnecessary violence, but she would definitely not regret punching those people. The pity she had once felt for the miserable souls who had been desperate, lonely enough to join the Ashuva cult was gone. They had kidnapped her, her baby brother, were blackmailing them and using them for their twisted experiments and delusional beliefs. She felt the new appendices on her back spread out as if answering to her feelings. It was true in some way. They were part of her now, no matter how much she loathed it. The feeling of their presence on her body was bizarre, a nuisance she abhorred. How was she supposed to live with these new limbs? Was there a way to remove them? All these questions would have to wait for the time being. Her priority was Tenko; she ought to protect him from these people. She had already failed him too much.
"Mother, please follow us without resistance. You're in no state of fighting back, and, although none of us want to hurt you or Father, we will, should you resist."
"You need us, or you will never have your god," she replied, her muscles tensed.
"You don't need arms to complete your task, Mother, and I wouldn't mind denying your friend the treatment he needs. He would die a long and painful death due to the infection of his wounds… A horrible way to join God."
Momo winced. They would not hesitate to torture them or Dabi if they disobeyed. She had no choice but to comply. Cults rarely had any limits, and she could not risk Tenko's and Dabi's lives, not when neither could fight back. She slowly nodded, and a grunt of pain attracted her attention. She whirled around; Tenko was slowly sitting up, holding his head and panting. He was even paler than usual, and his shirt was in a sore state, the front covered in vomit and sweat while the back had been torn to allow the wings to come out. They exchanged a glance and a for a brief second, his ruby eyes slightly widened before squinting, murder shining in them. He turned to the cultists, who were all watching them with both unhinged adoration and veiled menace. The silence that followed was ear-shattering and gave Momo a headache but thankfully, her brother finally spoke up.
"We're goin' back to the bloody room. But if any of you fuckin' brush us, I'll snap their fuckin' neck where they stand. Am I clear?"
"Of course, Father. We wouldn't touch you without your consent unless it's necessary!" one of the guys in black cheerfully said.
"Are you fuckin' kiddin' me? No, don't answer, I don't wanna know", Tenko growled, pinching his nose.
Walking back to the bedroom was horrendously painful. Each step sent vibrations up her new limbs, but Momo gritted her teeth and swallowed back every whine of pain building in her throat. She would not let them hear her pain. Her pride was objectively misplaced, for she had screamed and wailed in pain as the wings ripped her back apart. Yet, she wanted to salvage whatever was left of her ego, no matter how stupid it was.