No one bothered me for three and a half days.
My gifted room of solace was plain- clean, even, with crisp sheets and only a handful of smears on the window, but bare of any sort of feeling. The essence of decay still seeped through the walls, smelling of mildew and age.
For three days I slept without dream or interruption, save the miasma-man who quietly brought in a trays of food every so often. Someone must have given him to me; I could feel his shifting presence sitting outside the door between meals. Were there Nomu wandering about to fend off, is that why he stood guard? Or was I yet again a prisoner, kept in a cage?
I couldn't care less.
In fact, I couldn't seem to care about anything at all.
The ripe stench of my skin was starting to get to me, though. Upon a trudging inspection I found a small bathroom behind a white door, tidied just like the attached room.
A bathtub.
I'd never had one growing up, though there was an odd stain in Mom's bathroom as if she'd had one, at some point.
I flinched at the word, mental or not.
With showers, you can escape the water when it's too hot, too cold; a bathtub holds you accountable. I couldn't tell which extreme it was at first, sinking in till the water grazed my shoulders. The biting tingle was the first sensation I'd felt in days.
Mom. The woman who knew me best in the world, kissing every scraped knee and blubbering face.
How much of it had been real?
The notebook provided a careful analysis of what I had thought was happening. I could now attest to its validity; she did have a quirk. A quirk she used on me like second nature, fitting me into the cookie cut-out of the daughter she wanted. A safe daughter. A careful daughter. I had witnessed her in action. If Shota Aizawa hadn't stopped her, where would I be now? Tucked in her bed, watching reruns of old sitcoms without a care in the world?
And how did he fit in all this?
Page after page describing our friendship. How he saved me at a crazy seminar, our lunchtime conversations, the USJ attack. We shared the same students, but was that all we had shared? There was a distinct...inflection, in how I had written about him. Like glimmers of gold just beneath the river's turbulent surface. The way he said my name at the store. The way he had looked at me.
But I had asked him. I asked, and he answered with silence.
My skin gave me the appearance of a lobster. The water was hot, I realized.
"Knock knock." A lilting voice called. I startled and the bathwater answered, rising like a porcupine's quills around me. "We've given you enough nap time. Master wants to see you. Now."
Shigaraki had enough decency not to enter the bathroom, at least. I counted his footsteps until he was safely out of the bedroom, into whatever lay outside. The quills reverted back to bath water and I stood before going rigid, caught off guard by my body's stilled movements.
The tremors had subsided.
A shallow pain still pushed against my cranium and several ribs were still, at the very least, fractured, but my limbs, from the smallest toe to the tips of my fingers, were dormant.
Had enough time passed already since Mom's last brainwashing? I raised my hand. The fingers waved back, only in answer to my request. Is this how it worked before, too?
"Chiyo Tsutomi." Another voice- deep and oddly formal- spoke from the bedroom now. The misting man who had brought us here, I ventured. "I have acquired a change of clothes for you. I will leave them on the bed."
"Thank you." Thank you? Even in this bizarre state my manners peeked through, strong after so many years of discipline. But was it discipline of my own making?
My voice sounded coated in gravel. The mist-man seemed to also take notice.
"I will bring something for your throat, as well. Please be ready within twenty minutes."
Twenty. That was rather generous, considering how little patience Tomura Shigaraki had shown in the few instances I'd seen him. But maybe he wasn't the true leader of this organization- he kept referring to someone as Master, after all.
The clothes were simple, if not a little strange: a pair of sweatpants both too long and too large, and a black v-neck. A wave of deja vu shuddered through as I pulled the shirt over my head. I paused to assess the memory.
A shadow of a girl doing the same action in a soft-lit apartment emerged before fading away just as quickly, leaving me hollow.
I tied the shirt in the front and rolled up the pant legs. By the time I'd rubbed my face clean of any remaining slobber the polite one was back, flickering outside the door when I turned the handle. He held a steaming cup of tea in what I assumed to be his hand, but seemed otherwise unarmed.
"For your throat," He said by way of explanation. I nodded, took the cup with calm hands.
"Your trembling has subsided."
Had he been watching me? He waited outside the door, ever polite, as I sat on the edge of the now-made bed. Is he really a League member? I drank deeply before speaking; "Who are you? I'm Chiyo Tsutomi, but you already know that. I didn't catch your name."
"I am Kurogiri." He spoke as formally as the suit he wore. My eyebrows rose and he emphasized further, "Just Kurogiri. I protect Tomura Shigaraki from all harm."
Are you implying I'm a threat? Is that why you're here?
"I see."
"When you are finished, I will escort you to meet our Master."
Kurogiri only entered the room after I ushered for him to do so, still keeping a polite distance from my bedside. With the clothing and voice his frightening factor seemed underwhelming, though there was something decidedly off about him. Submersion reached out and nothing seemed to respond. He has to have blood, a heart...Right?
I wondered if- aside from delivering my meals- he was the one producing them, as well. The question rose in my throat before a deadened will struck it down. What did it even matter? Everything tasted like ash anyway.
The emptied mug disappeared into his shifting hand. That's a neat trick.
We were in a run down motel.
The decaying smell increased tenfold as soon as we stepped out of my room, with carpet that could've been mistaken as moss and walls the color of molding bananas. Apparently a considerable amount of work had gone into my little guest room.
Was this their normal hangout, or chosen specifically for me? I glanced at Kurogiri, who continued to keep a respectable girth between us.
In case I go ballistic and try to murder them all?
I couldn't even control a glass of water from spilling, let alone hurt someone.
"Please, take a seat."
Kurogiri stood to the side, ushering at a plain, wooden chair in front of a computer monitor. Was this Master person not even here? Again, was this in fear of something I could do? The idea started to stir my brain, amused by the notion. Too tired to complain about the un-cushioned chair, I eased into the chair with no more than a sigh.
"Hello, Chiyo."
A shiver cut down my spine. The screen was grey, no image to behold. But the sound alone, the feeling he could still see me, yet again roused my senses, pulled me from the fog I'd willingly dived into.
"It's a pleasure to finally meet you. Forgive me for not greeting you in person."
His polite tone reminded me of Kurogiri. Older, perhaps, with less timbre. My mouth felt parched again. I licked my lips, swallowed the unease.
"Why did you seek me out?"
"I seek out those who are lost. Who have fallen to a system of false heroes and lies. I believe a great injustice has been done to you, Chiyo. I wish to assist you in any way I can."
There wasn't any malice in his tone. Just a simple answer to what he considered a simple question.
"Who are you?"
"I'm known by many names. As you've seen, my...affiliates, know me as Master." Good for them. "You may address me however you prefer."
This was already tedious. I was talking to a fuzzy computer screen with no real clue who sat on the other end. Submersion kept my face calm, even if my organs wanted to crawl back to bed. Refocus. You came here for a reason...right?
"What do you know about my father?"
"Your father's name was Kotaro Shimura, grandson of Nana Shimura. Your parents were never married; in fact, the relationship lasted only long enough to conceive you."
What did that mean? "I...They had me intentionally?" But that didn't make sense; he was never in my life, I'd assumed he was why-
"Not at all." The computer answered.
"Not at all." A different voice murmured in my mind.
A flash of a living room and the figure of a man, something heavy and cold falling over my eyes.
With it, the return to the present, where the whirring computer screen sat waiting.
"He- Kotaro didn't know about me."
"Kotaro Shimura attempted to drown your mother in a lake when he discovered her quirk; a powerful, unique quirk, capable of bending any mind to her will."
Could you blame him? The thought rose to the surface before I could catch it, sink it back into the depths. Even if she had betrayed my trust, fragmented my life into a puzzle with missing pieces, I wouldn't- couldn't- ever wish her pain.
The realization dried out my heart like a traveler in the desert, uncertain how to respond.
He tried to drown her in a lake.
All those nightmares, stretched on a frozen surface waiting to fracture and swallow me whole. Of hands, wrapped around my neck, drowning me.
Fear turned into reality.
"Is he still alive? In prison?"
"Kotaro Shimura was not imprisoned for his crime against your mother."
"You just said he tried to drown her," I argued. "Were there no witnesses?"
"On the contrary- both the police and a professional hero responded to the call."
What? I shook my head, even if he couldn't see it.
Then again, maybe he could.
"These...heroes, they live under a facade of justice, righteousness, but they all suffer from their own agendas. The hero who saved your mother chose Kotaro Shimura's life over hers. Kotaro went on to live his life, continued to harm others, while your mother lived in constant fear of his return."
The hatred of quirks. Her aversion to heroism.
My padded cage, to protect me from her fears.
They weren't so hard to understand after all.
"We live in a world where a man can don a cape and call himself a hero, all the while wearing blinders to what they wish not to see."
Had she suffered, under the water? How long did he hold her down, deprive her brain of oxygen? Mom.
"Nana Shimura was All Might's mentor, yes, but Gran Torino was his teacher. Do you know who protected Kotaro Shimura from imprisonment, Chiyo?" The computer posed the question like a riddle. I looked up, shaken from my thoughts. His voice was rising beyond the polite tone of before.
"Gran Torino, the man who shaped the mind of this world's greatest hero, protected a person who would have murdered your mother as well as yourself without so much as a second thought. And then you acquired a job at UA, the very year All Might joined their little system. Curious, isn't it? How the men with the most power always seem to achieve their goals, no matter the cost."
Bile encased my stomach, burnt holes through the lining.
But there was something else, too. A weak but violently defiant voice, whispering protests in my ear.
He hasn't once referred to All Might as Toshinori Yagi.
He doesn't know of his weakened form.
You read the notes. You know the League's involvement in dark crimes.
You aren't as weak as they take you for.
"But why? Why, after all this time?" I'd lived in this area all my life, as far as I knew. "Why not seek me out earlier?"
"Because the world is at last changing, my dear girl. The age of the false hero is drawing to an end. As it was bestowed upon his teacher to protect Kotaro, All Might believes it is his duty to now guard you. His world is crumbling around him. The idea of failing once more must pain him-"
"So what's your part in this? What do you get from keeping me here?"
The screen fizzled grey, thinking over my interruption. "No one is keeping you anywhere, Chiyo Tsutomi. You are free to leave at any time." He knew I wouldn't; there was nowhere to go. "I merely wish to allow you the free will which you have been denied for far too long."
The computer's whirring filled the void as my mind tried and failed to process anything other than the tiredness of my bones, the weariness of my soul. Staying upright felt like a monumental task. There were questions I still had- whether Toshinori had known all along, how this...person knew so much about my past, but the quiet voice pointed to the tears in the fabric, revealing the lies within.
Those who tell the truth needn't hide behind shadows.
"You have much to think about, my girl. Please, we may speak again another time. For now, get some rest."
Another person, deciding what's best for me.
But we both knew, once again, I had no alternative.
Kurogiri disconnected the computer. I continued to stare at the dark screen, spots dancing before my eyes. Somehow I'd expected more, even if he'd answered every one of my questions with clarity. But there are still so many more.
Would he know how to break my mom's brainwashing? And if so, would he actually assist me without cost? He said he wanted to help.
So why did it sound like just the opposite.
Kurogiri didn't speak as he led me back to my room.
I didn't get out of bed again for three days.
