I don't know why this site hasn't been working for me, but now that I can log in again, I'll work on getting this back up to date.

Thursday

"Give me three hours."

"For the most secure prison in the country?"

"Yes, any other prison would take three minutes."

"...That works. I'll be back in three hours, then."

"Where are you going?"

"Tomb raiding."

"...I am SO glad we'll be free of this."

"Oi."

Five years, two months, and seventeen days. That was how long she'd been down in this hole.

The hours or minutes didn't make much difference to her. Not like those she would occasionally hear, wailing over the cell's sound dampening that the warden liked to periodically turn off. Why they did it, she didn't know. She didn't really care, either.

She couldn't find it within herself to care about a lot of things, these days. Hearing the anguish in her first week incarcerated, the screams from these monsters tortured by their own monsters, had broken her heart. After the first month, she'd run out of tears to shed. After the first year, any sympathy in her heart had smouldered to little more than cinders of her previous passion.

Even now, it wouldn't die on her. The sheer willpower that had turned her into the Commission's most dangerous asset was the only thing that kept her sane. Embittered and angry at the world, but she wouldn't let them take her mind. Not when it was all she had left.

Lady Nagant was dead, her life thrown away in her superior's office. Kaina Tsutsumi wasn't much better off, her body steadily rotting away to match her future. She was thin. Pale. Her hair, once worn long and flowing like the cape she'd never been allowed to include on her Hero costume, had been sheared short. An attempt to stymie her Quirk, should every other method spontaneously fail.

She wasn't about to tell them that it wouldn't make a difference. Even if they broke their half-decade long streak and decided to allow her visitors, they were too stupid to listen.

When the footsteps first began to echo along the corridor outside her cell, she paid them no mind. She was situated on the floor that the public had been led to believe was the lowest Tartarus went, guards randomly patrolling was a common occurrence. Good on them, really. Even if they weren't doing anything to remedy the twenty-five other loopholes in their security that she'd found so far.

Hopefully this wouldn't be one of the guards that thought she'd be desperate enough to accept their lecherous passes. For all she cared, they could go bother the cannibal a few cells over. At least then they could bond over their shared craving for flesh, and inability to chase down a girl.

The footsteps stopping right outside her cell had her falling back onto her threadbare bed, her bare arms doing a better job of cushioning her head than her pillow ever would, now that they were devoid of her hard-earned muscle. The sound of the door opening had her shooting up so quickly that she had to steady herself on the wall, her vision swimming, her body no longer used to such abrupt movement.

The guards never opened the door. All her meals came through the slot beside it. She didn't get free time to wander around or exercise. Hell, she had to bathe in here. Out of sight, out of mind, because the Commission had done a better job training her than even they'd realised, until it was too late.

She didn't recognise the man standing in the doorway. He was tall enough to tower over her despite her also being above average, dressed in an immaculate three piece suit. Her sniper's eye picked out no wrinkles, the fabric seeming to settle perfectly into place no matter what minuscule movement he made. His hair was long, much longer than she'd ever worn hers; a wine purple much darker than her own, fashioned into a ponytail that flowed down to his waist.

She didn't recognise his eyes in the low fluorescent light, the most she'd seen of any other person through the food slot in a long time. He certainly wasn't dressed like a guard, and she had her doubts that the warden would randomly decide to visit the lower floors, unless the spineless cretin had been replaced at some point.

"Lady Nagant." His voice was low. It felt like her soul was being evaluated. "Or do you prefer Kaina Tsutsumi, nowadays?"

Not for the first time, she wished she had access to her Quirk.

This wasn't a Commission stooge. He held himself like she did; like a killer. He was alone in the corridor, she could tell by how the air flowed into her now opened cell. That had been a significant reason behind how she'd gotten so good at sniping, and it had also been a skill that she'd kept to herself, having been mastered only after she'd lost her faith in their cause. Alone, then, or accompanied by people who were somehow concealing their position despite the Quirk dampeners.

He had no weapons concealed, from what she could tell. He didn't seem to have much of anything, aside from the clothes on his back. Unlikely to be an assassin, especially considering that nobody had tried to silence her before now. Another prisoner?

…Probably not.

"Who-" She hadn't been expecting the croak that came out of her own throat. She'd not had a reason to use her voice in weeks, and the simple exertion made her vocal chords feel like they'd been dunked in acid. "Who are you?"

He frowned at her, his eyes running up and down her seated form. She could see that his nose was slightly wrinkled, though his face smoothed out a moment later. It took her a moment to realise that with her minimalistic supplies, along with the lack of maintenance to her amenities, her cell probably smelled awful. Not that she could tell; it was all she had been able to smell for a long time.

She tensed slightly when he reached to the side of the doorway, his arm out of sight. That tension turned into a jump that almost sent her careening off her bed as his muscles tensed under his sleeve, and a section of her solid steel wall was torn away. The lights in the hallway flickered for a moment as he drew his arm back, her cell's Quirk dampener in his hand.

A rush of warmth filled her right arm. Her body moved on instinct, her arm bending up to her shoulder like it had done many times since she'd been thrown away like the Commission's trash. Unlike all those other times, however, this time her elbow opened up, expelling her birthright for the first time in years.

It was shorter than she remembered, the barrel thinner. She'd probably lost some range as her muscles atrophied. Her palm opened up as it always had, and she was only knocked out of her trance before she could form a hair bullet by her mysterious visitor clearing his throat.

He almost sounded amused. As if her rediscovering a crucial part of her identity was the punchline for a lukewarm joke. Perhaps more confused than ever and emboldened by the recovery of her precious weapon, she glanced back up at him, her words dying in her throat as she laid eyes on the picnic table that was now taking up most of the room in her cell.

The cherubic smile he was sporting was the least innocent thing she'd ever seen, including during her time as a sanctioned killer.

"...What?" When the actual fuck had he gotten the time to bring this in? Plates and bowls had been laid carefully out across the table, filled with different types of food that she'd given up on ever seeing again. Sandwiches with bread that wasn't tougher than her mattress, soups that didn't resemble the water in her toilet, fruit that wasn't hours away from turning mouldy.

The yogurt didn't smell sour. The vegetables weren't sodden. She almost burst into tears when she saw the salmon, though she managed to contain it to a few shaky breaths. Throughout it all, he slowly poured three cups of tea that smelled somewhat flowery, politely pretending that he couldn't see her wiping her damp eyes.

A moment later, he took a small sip from one of the cups, before offering it to her. She remained hunched over on her bed, her stare alternating between him, the cup, and the food with no diminishing amount of confusion.

"Drink." He placed the cup on the table, twitching it around so the handle faced her and pushing it forth slightly. The cup that he'd already taken a drag from… to convince her that it wasn't poisoned? What the actual fuck was he playing at here? "You'll feel better."

A stray strand of purple hair had stuck itself to the rim of the cup. She picked it up, circling the rim with her hand rather than grabbing the handle, and ignored the way the hair stuck onto her finger as she took a gulp.

The effect was instantaneous. A rush of warmth not unlike the sensation her rifle usually triggered rushed throughout her body, starting at the tips of her fingers and moving inwards. Bone and muscle aches she'd resigned herself to always feeling melted away. Her spine, misaligned from years of sleeping without support, drifted back into position perfectly. Her hair, matted and filthy, felt softer against her neck than it had even when she'd had the means of maintaining it. Even her fingernails, chewed away out of boredom or occasional anxiety, were perfectly evened out.

Her stomach rumbled. For the first time in half a decade, it wasn't immediately followed up with crippling nausea.

She felt… decent. Not good, definitely not great, but for the first time in years, she actually felt alive.

By the time she was paying attention again, her hand was empty. The strand of hair had apparently been knocked off her finger, and the cup was on the ground in several pieces, having slipped from her lax grip at the first opportunity. Another cup was sitting on the table, steam wafting steadily up from it as though it and the man who had poured it hadn't just turned her world on its head.

He was drinking from the third cup he'd poured. His other hand held a half eaten sandwich, not the least bit wary of the fact that her arm was still transformed into a deadly weapon. Her stomach grumbled again, loud enough to echo in the limited space.

The plate of salmon had a fork on it, probably in case she didn't have enough finesse in her fingers to use chopsticks. Taking that as her cue, she dragged the entire plate over to her side of the table, viciously spearing the fish through the middle and not bothering to offer him any.

He muffled a laugh into his sandwich, watching her attack her food with a fondness that made no sense. Her stomach would be hurting with the pace she was setting right now, demolishing the salmon in less time than it took him to eat another sandwich and moving on to the fruit bowl.

His voice almost caused her to miss the apple she was holding and bite her fingers instead.

"Vitaceae." He inclined his head in an approximation of a bow, a gesture she didn't reciprocate. He didn't seem the least bit offended, grabbing another sandwich from the only plate that was actually out of her reach. "You can call me Vitaceae."

"Your name is Grapes?"

She hadn't been expecting him to burst out laughing, thankfully turning to the side before he could spray her with half chewed food. She leaned back on her bed slightly, her face finally having fallen back into the blank mask that it had been wearing before today. It was nice to feel some semblance of control, especially when she still had no clue what this man's Quirk even was.

"Well, yes. But Vitaceae sounds cooler."

She wasn't stupid. Whoever this was, he was either important enough, or powerful enough to wander into Japan's closest approximation of Hell. And it was almost certainly the latter, because why else would he decide to tear the wall of her cell apart?

What would someone like that want with her?

"It really doesn't." He didn't seem to hear her, preoccupied with his cup of tea. It was suspended from his hair, which seemed to be moving on its own volition. Part of his Quirk, perhaps?

The apple was devoured almost as quickly as the salmon had been. She placed the core on the table, trying not to think about why he was staring at it so intently.

She cleared her throat. He hadn't been lying; after drinking the tea, she really did feel much better.

"Why are you here?"

Really, that was the million yen question, wasn't it? Monsters in human flesh existed throughout the world. She'd been sent on the trail of some of them before. Whether it was their influence, their Quirks, or a combination of other factors, ever since the Dawn there had been a subset of people who humanity was right to fear.

All for One, the Boogeyman, came to mind. A titan of darkness that had existed for centuries, whose forays out of the shadows often resulted in the deaths of many prominent heroes. He was one of Japan's best kept secrets, only known to her because she'd been a bit too good at her job and a bit too far away for a clean shot.

This man sitting before her now, however, was no All for One. Danger clung to him like a veil, tainting the easy grins he wore with inbound peril. A completely different sensation against her instincts and skin than the wraith of malice.

All for One would take her, destroy her and everything she loved, and would keep her alive just so she could suffer. All of which she'd already experienced and learned to live with.

She had no idea what this man would do, and that scared her more.

A grin spread across his face then, very divorced from the smiles he'd been throwing out previously. His teeth were gleaming unnaturally in the low light, free from imperfections and scraps of food despite the fact that they were eating. Her rifle arm twitched, the barrel coming around to face him without her consciously moving it.

She could chamber a round in less than a second. Her hair could pierce solid concrete from three kilometres away. She was perfectly accurate in any weather.

With her rifle pointed at this man over a small table, she'd never felt less in control.

He chuckled, pushing himself up to his feet. Her rifle tracked him, not that he seemed to pay any mind, turning and showing her his back as he paced the small cell idly. Whatever he was hoping to see, he wouldn't find it in any of the corners. Unless he wanted to see her collection of crushed mosquitoes, she was quite proud of that corner.

After a full tour of that half of the cell, he turned back to her slowly.

"I'm here because you're here."

Fuck it. She'd take her chances with the guards when they eventually came to investigate. Better to face whatever music they decided to play for her, rather than experience the fate the devil before her had in mind.

Her hair was easier to tear than it ever had been before. Twirling a lock into a perfect bullet, she slammed it down the port in her hand, her muscles locked to keep her rifle on target. Offering a quick, silent apology, even if only he'd decided to bring her food, she let the bullet fly, her aim as perfect as it ever had been.

Half a second after the decision had been made, the bullet slammed into the centre of his forehead. His neck snapped back from the force, almost sending him to the ground.

His body stopped before he could fall over entirely. Her rifle, which had been disappearing back into her arm, snapped back to full attention as he slowly rotated his head back down.

A thin trickle of blood running down his face was all the evidence that her shot had hit. The hair fell to the ground, leaving behind a tiny hole that sealed up between the time it took her to blink in mounting confusion and horror.

There was no additional concern in his features as he bent down to examine her bullet. No anger in his eyes, no betrayal in his smile. If anything, he just looked even more amused.

"Perhaps I phrased that poorly." With the hair rotating around his fingers, he turned to the side, facing the side of the corridor wall that he hadn't already mutilated. With his tongue poking out slightly, he lined his hand up, the hair cradled against his thumb and index finger.

After some corrections to his aim, he flicked his fingers. The hair left behind a perfect circular hole in the solid metal wall, slamming harshly into the cell across the hall and eliciting some panicked screams. When he turned back to her, the sweat dripping down the back of her neck felt like tiny icicles.

"We don't know each other, but I know of you."

The table shifted off to the side as he tapped it, the uneaten food being covered with metal trays and sinking into the wood. The seat he'd been using was tapped next, though rather than moving along, the top of the stone tipped to the side as though cut perfectly in two.

A pike of solid granite slowly rose out of the hollow seat. If her sweat had felt cold before, it was glacial now.

The eyes may have been long gone, but the hollow sockets of the skull still felt like they were staring directly through her. Much of the lower jaw was missing, an injury that they'd never asked her about while she was being interrogated, but there was no mistaking the positions of the forehead bullet wound, or the exit wound near the temple.

"How…" Her stomach flipped, the first time in quite a while that death made her feel queasy. "How did you…"

He plucked the skull off the pike with contemptuous ease, and she almost stumbled off the bed. The man that had facilitated her dream, trained her, given her goals, destroyed her life…

She could still clearly remember the look on his face when she'd shot him.

"I was hoping you'd recognise him."

The man, Vitaceae, tilted the skull to and fro, bending his hand around so they were face to face. A huff of unamused laughter escaped through his nose, and she wondered what he was thinking about as he stared into those empty eye sockets.

"The ideals of heroics have certainly hit a decline, haven't they?" He glanced over to her, tilting an eyebrow and gesturing around them with the hand holding her old superior. "You do your job, and they reward your service with a lifetime in the dungeons without a trial."

It happened too quickly for her to react.

The stone seat was still open, though the pike had since retracted into the ground. Holding the skull over the open pit, Vitaceae stared at her for a moment, before nodding silently to himself.

His hand clenched. The skull shattered into tiny fragments, what few didn't remain in his fist falling into the opening made by his seat.

Her rifle fell off to the side, retracted as she straightened out her arm. She watched as squeezed his hand further, before opening it and allowing the fine dust that had once been remains to drift into the hollow pit.

He dusted his hands off to the side, away from where the food was sitting. It was the first time she'd seen a grimace on his face. A grimace that lasted for all of a few seconds before he turned back to her, his lips tilted back up into a friendly smile.

It was the most horrifying thing she'd ever seen.

"I'm going to change the world, and I'm probably going to accidentally tear down the Hero Public Safety Commission while I do it."

He offered her his hand.

A fine layer of dust still covered it.

"Care to join me?"