Takuma did not like the C.R.C, not in the slightest. His friend would say he had a hard-on when it came to messing up their shit, not that they were any better themselves. The gang/terrorist organization known as the Creature Rejection Clan was an old beast that dated back to the first appearance of mutations in humans. Murder was their weapon of choice; to purify the blood of humanity, they slaughtered thousands of innocents each year. Not that the organization didn't use other depraved means as a weapon of war too, in their own terms, 'thin the blood.' They weren't alone in that regard. The mutant supremacists did the same to those without mutations. And Takuma didn't like them much either. Either way, they were both sides of the same coin, leaving many corpses in their wake. That's why it was rare for a gang aligned with either camp to last long. No one wanted fanatics in their midst, especially crooks who needed to be discreet to avoid shiny new bracelets, courtesy of a local hero.
The Founders were aligned with the C.R.C, which meant it was open season for every single one of their members. Even if Takuma had a job to do, he wouldn't leave this place without ensuring a few of them had lifelong injuries as a parting gift. As for the other gangs, they weren't anything special.
Sundered Will were a bunch of drug addicts who got off on pulling the trigger daily. They weren't much of a threat unless they could call upon the sheer number of low-lives in their ranks.
The Black Dragon were an established group well-known in the area for running a protection racket and actually following through with the protection side of the business. Most shops that paid them had been spared from the Founders' onslaught on the area. Takuma knew them by reputation alone; they were assumed to be the next big candidates to join the high table of crime syndicates. The fact that such a big player hadn't already stopped the C.R.C and the serial killer was a good indicator the situation was more fucked than Nova let on.
Then there were The Carmine, a gang made of Blood-Quirk users who had initially been a charity and had turned to crime to make ends meet. They were the ones at war with the C.R.C, and the group Nova lacked the most information on. The Carmine were the smallest group of the three, and given the terrorists' tendency to go after those weaker than them, it explained why they'd gone after them first.
As for notable figures, there was the leader of the Black Dragon. He was known for his militaristic attitude, enforcing training in the lower echelons, and for choosing to title himself with a villain name: The Hydra. A name that played on his ability to breathe multiple kinds of fire. Not someone Takuma wanted to go near, and he was glad he had no reason to approach such a man.
Sundered Will lacked a figurehead. Only The Carmine had someone notable in their ranks. One of their lieutenants was known for his regeneration capability and healing. Not much was known about him despite his Quirk, only that his calling card was a spike of hardened blood through the chest. Looking at Nova's report, it was assumed he had killed more than a dozen people in the last few months alone. For a low- to medium-sized gang, it was an astronomical number.
Which then brought Takuma to think about what the heroes were doing, because, fuck, the situation was bad. And three of their number were already dead.
Silent, Shatterstar, and Whisp. All underground heroes. Nova had an explanation for each of their Quirks. Silent could cancel noise around her, Shatterstar could harden light and use it as a weapon, and Whisp could turn into some sort of mist.
Stealth, combat, and evasion. All three had failed at catching the killer and had been turned into pincushions with about two hundred stab wounds between them. Nova didn't have much info on the other seventeen corpses. Men, women, young and old. The killer didn't have specific targets.
For his first day on the case, Takuma planned to scan the surrounding area where the murders took place. He wouldn't go as far as when he had scouted around Mei's school. His girlfriend was safe and sound in school, meaning he had all the time in the world to take things slow and steady. It was unlikely he would find anything interesting for the first few days of his search, and he needed to pace himself if he wanted to be able to fight in case trouble found him. Trouble always found him; it was not a question of if but when. Also, there were a bunch of members of the C.R.C making the mistake of breathing, and he needed to rectify that.
Sadly, as much as he wanted to wring some necks, it wouldn't be before he was done with his scouting. Being the middle of the day, there wasn't much criminal activity going on. He could already tell he would need to come at night to further his search, and he knew Mei would like that idea about as much as she liked him taking this job. Not very much. The people living in this part of town were poorer than the rest of the city. It was close to a slum in parts, and it explained the lack of heroes around; not much money to make on people barely scraping by. Only those in the business to help people bothered coming here, and three of them had already paid for it.
With all of this taken into account, Takuma walked at a sedated pace, feeling the minds of the people around him. He worked not to find a specific individual but a group with aligned interests. He was looking for safe houses or staging grounds first as a way to know which parts of the local area were under whose control. The Carmine were the easiest to find; most of them were starving and didn't hold much more than the street surrounding the rundown hotel they used as a base of operations. The nearby butcher was busy bleeding pigs, dogs, and anything he could get his hands on to feed the members of the gang. For obvious reasons, Takuma didn't enjoy feeling his skin being slit and moved to distance himself from them quickly. Dying animals were only marginally better than feeling a human being die.
He had a rough idea where The Carmine operated, and there were a good number of children in their midst. Not active members, he figured, but since he could feel all of them were well cared for, he chalked it up to another reason to give the blood-suckers a hand.
The Black Dragon were out in force. He noticed it after leaving what he knew to be The Carmine territory. Of course, they weren't walking around in military fatigues looking for trouble. His Quirk allowed him to pinpoint every member. All were on high alert and hanging around street corners, bars, and mixing into the crowd. They wore civilian clothing and did a good enough job at keeping a low profile, even if the straight-backed members with short haircuts and sharp eyes weren't hard to spot if someone knew what to look for.
Sundered Will was absent for the most part. Unsurprising, he didn't expect to see much of them, since their trade was easier done at night away from prying eyes. The few he could maybe find were dealing drugs in the open between drinks or puffs of smoke as they sat inside a bar. Nothing relevant to his case, so he moved on.
And finally, Takuma found what really interested him besides the serial killer. A C.R.C safehouse. An apartment, in fact, safe only because of the anonymity. Inside a building complex holding around two hundred people, he felt the mind of a woman that caught his attention due to the negative emotions she was broadcasting. So without further ado, he linked himself to her mind and tapped into her sight and hearing as he took a seat away from the crowd on a nearby bench.
A low-lit room with a television running in the background. The woman, Satori, was alone, tearing through the house as she looked for something. Alcohol. Satori wasn't having the best of days; her hands were shaky, and her mood was terrible. Her neighbor, a young man with a strong mutation—a pair of goat-like horns on his head—had angered her so much that she needed something to cope with her feelings. She was disgusted, and the lack of anything to drink didn't help much. Through her eyes, he saw her look at the sleeping forms of a boy and a girl. Not alone then. Both looked to be in their early twenties, from Takuma's opinion, and he tapped into the woman's memory to see what she knew of them. Two runaways.
The C.R.C used every trick in the book to lure people into their grasp; taking in two homeless kids so they could work on them and bring them into the fold wouldn't be surprising. Satori had her eyes on the older girl, older than her brother, he learned. The woman's hand twitched as she peered at the sleeping form of the brunette. Too tired from the last day of running from something, Takuma noted. Maybe those two weren't safe out there, but shacking up with the C.R.C wasn't much better than a death sentence. If the Black Dragon or Carmine found this place, no one would leave alive. Satori walked toward the sleeping duo and pulled the blanket that covered the girl, revealing a sizable chest the woman definitely enjoyed the sight of. Her hand twitched again. A sign? A touch-based Quirk, probably.
He had his answer when she went to grab the girl's face. With one, two, three, four, then finally five fingers making contact with her cheek. The girl inhaled sharply as, even in her exhausted state of mind, her body burned with the embers of lust and desire. Her Quirk was strong, Takuma could barely feel Mei mind when she slepped right next to him, and here he could catch whisper of thought from the sleeping girl. She groaned something, yet to Takuma's surprise, did not wake up. He felt the Quirk act, pushing for a need the girl did not consent to. A torpor. Satori's Quirk came with a way to keep her victim under control, it seemed.
'We can't have that now, can we?' Takuma sighed as he sent a spike of disgust straight into the woman's thoughts, with such force that her entire body recoiled, forcing her to take a step back, away from the girl and her brother.
Still reeling from the shock, she turned away. The lack of alcohol was messing with her, and she left to look in the kitchen again. She was planning to do something to them both. But later. And Takuma would have to figure out how deep into the C.R.C they were. As much as he was looking forward to snapping the woman in half, if the two weren't deep into the game, then they were safe from him at least. Until he learned more about them, he wouldn't be able to whisper the location to any other gang.
The woman herself wasn't high in the echelon; she was sent here with... fifty or so people. No, not anymore. There were fewer of them now, a little bit less than half if he followed what her memory was telling him. Satori winced under the headache his probing caused her and slammed her fist into the counter in anger. He kept going; she deserved nothing, and he would grant her nothing. She was an old member, nearly a decade of killing what she despised. She was looking forward to cleaning the building she had taken refuge in after last week's debacle. He looked, pushed into her mind as her nose started bleeding. Last week she had been part of an assault on The Carmine. She had learned where one of their members lived with the help of her Quirk. Takuma shuddered at the whisper of memory jumping at him, pleasure and pain warring with the fear of the poor man who had ended in her grasp. Not that it had helped her much, as her entire cohort had fallen into an ambush and been nearly cut down to a man.
Five-point contact and a sex-based Quirk. She was dangerous. It was a testament to how much of a mess this woman was that she wasn't higher in her organization. Powers like that were known as 'Death Touch' Quirks for a reason. Not unlike Tomura with his decay, this woman was a threat of the highest order.
'Why can't things be easy for a change?' he groused internally as he checked his surroundings before diving back into the woman again. 'I need a drink.'
He went deeper into her head, pulsing different emotions to pull and pry her memory apart. Satori was nearly catatonic under his assault, shivering and shaking wildly on the ground. Slowly but surely, Takuma ripped from her head the location of every other member of the C.R.C she knew of. She was suffering greatly, and he took his time to enjoy her suffering. There was nothing worth saving in this woman, and he liked seeing someone who deserved it suffer for a change. Then finally, he searched for the killer. Any hint or idea. This woman knew nothing. Finally, after half an hour of torture, he let go of her and allowed her to fall into a blissful sleep. He would get her in time, when it was time to act. Now he still had other members of the C.R.C to visit and molest to his heart's content. Joy.
Of course, he wouldn't be able to go through their heads like a bull in a china shop; he couldn't afford to create a pattern just yet. If he was seen outside one of their safehouses right before one of them started bawling and screaming... do that enough times and even a bunch of morons with two brain cells to rub together could figure they were under attack. Takuma stood up with a slow-forming headache. He had five more places to hit, and he had to save himself for the last one since it was where the leader of the local chapter of the C.R.C resided. It was also the furthest from his position.
The two kids hadn't woken up from their nap, and he made a mental note to come back and probe their minds too. That way, he would know what to do with them. In the meantime, he started walking to the next location.
Each stop gave him new information. The first three were safehouses holding five to seven members of the gang in small apartments. He witnessed some in-fighting. One led to the death of a member, while the other only left them crippled. The members were downright barbaric between themselves, something that Takuma enjoyed since it meant less work to do, but also it showed how far this chapter had fallen. There was no order; the strong ruled and the weak suffered, even in their own ranks. When he hit the fourth location, he stumbled into a little torture session of one of the youngest members of the group. Takuma didn't particularly enjoy the second-hand feeling of terror and pain as the man in his mid-twenties was used for the delight of his comrades. Experiencing what the thug was going through was too much for him to bear, and he bailed a heartbeat later after reaching the range of the safehouse, feeling like no shower would ever allow him to feel clean again. He was just glad it happened to someone who deserved ten times worse.
A few minutes later, he arrived in front of a hotel. Luxurious and well-kept in contrast to the surrounding area, he had no problem finding the leader of the local chapter of the C.R.C enjoying a fine evening on the top floor of the establishment. Takuma also felt the minds of about a dozen people with her, which brought the number of people working for her to sixty-three. Satori had probably been fed wrong information in case of capture. She would have nothing of value to give. Even the other safehouses weren't much of a prize when all of them were crewed by low-level thugs ready to kill. The only real information of note she had was the place where Masayi Magong directed her operations.
Right after finding a well-hidden spot, Takuma dived into his second mind of the day.
A well-lit office. Clear sky could be seen through the window, and he could hear music that sounded like opera being played through the speakers. The woman, tall and distinguished, was drinking tea as she poured over documents. Her outside composure of control and authority hid how much she was in the shit herself. Masayi had been sent here by order of the Ordained Chapter of the Creature Rejection Clan, the leader of leaders. She was sent by the bosses of bosses of her organization, and she had no idea why.
"Hestia, bring me the report, please," Magong asked with stiff politeness as her aide brought the file she was expecting. "Thank you, dear," she added with a false smile as she grabbed the stacked sheet in a binder.
Through her eyes and with an ear to her thoughts, he followed along as she read the very important report he was glad he could follow.
The Carmine were turning out to be a harder target than she expected. Few losses in their ranks, while the blood-drinkers were responsible for the loss of a fifth of their number. The Black Dragon was starting to push and extend their protection racket to the mutant community outside of their border. They were looking for a fight, and the C.R.C looked to be the best they could get. To them, the racist organization was an easy target to make a grab for more power and reputation since nobody liked them. It was a win-win-win situation for the Hydra, who hadn't missed this little tidbit.
This didn't make any sense to Takuma. He could see why the C.R.C would come here, an attempt to curtail the Black Dragon's influence in this part, but even then, if this was the goal, it was done so poorly it was like pissing facing the wind. Every single member was doomed if they stayed here unless Masayi had a trump card. For some reason, the woman in her late thirties hadn't given up. Her desire to see the mutant population hurt warred with her sense of self-preservation. She thought herself safe still. He would have to change that. She was the juiciest target he could make a grab for if he wanted to hurt the Creature Rejection Clan, and he would be damned if he missed this opportunity.
It was strange. The C.R.C were a bunch of bullies that loved an unfair fight; they were barbaric and violent, yes. But they weren't stupid. The organization wouldn't have lasted as long as it did if it was. He was missing a clear goal. All he had to work with was Magong's confusion and lack of knowledge. He would have to dig deeper tomorrow.
Takuma was reaching his limit and pulled back. He would gain nothing by pushing himself today. The information he had collected was already more than enough to have the C.R.C dealt with. He could do it himself, but why bother when the local gang would be more than happy to do the job for him? And if The Black Dragon were as sturdy as their reputation and deeds painted them to be, then he didn't mind feeding them the information needed to take the credit.
But still, he had to make contact first and then forward them the information. He couldn't give it to them today since he needed to write everything down first, and he had two runaways to deal with first. He would act tomorrow on both counts. But it didn't mean he couldn't lay down the groundwork. So as he walked back to the train station, before reaching the first safehouse he had found, Takuma laid eyes on a distracted member of the Black Dragon. Away from the crowd and lost in his phone, he was the perfect target. Walking up to him, he fished for his name and Quirk quickly as Takuma pulled up the hood of his jacket. Then he put the tip of one finger against the nape of the man's neck.
"Stay still. Quirk: Slither. Name: Shibuyo Nakama," he stated slowly and deliberately as the man froze. "I know who you are and who you work for."
The man swallowed thickly as he obeyed the command. "Then you know the Hydra will not stand my death."
No one left behind. Avenge every corpse. The 'esprit de corp' of the Black Dragon was quite something.
"I do not wish for your life, or that of your comrades. I want you to send a message to your boss," Takuma told him, his speech taking on a more formal cadence in case he encountered the man under different circumstances.
"I'm happy to help," the man quickly said with an anxious giggle.
"Tomorrow, one of his men will receive the location and approximate number of every safehouse the C.R.C possesses in the surrounding area. Use it to clear this place. And also," he informed the man, who was sweating bullets with only a small nudge of his Quirk, "don't forget to tell him The Black Dragon owe The Chemist. And he will collect, sooner or later."
A push of fear and Takuma walked away, blending into the crowd with no one the wiser. He followed the bouncing emotions of Shibuyo as he waited for the next sentence, then noticed the pressure against his neck was gone and turned wildly, slashing with a concealed blade into thin air. He was quick to hide his weapon before anyone noticed his loss of composure. Only then did he launch himself into a run, sprinting in the direction of where The Hydra resided. Takuma walked away, satisfied.
The Chemist was an old alias Takuma used in the past, especially against the C.R.C. What was the point of a vigilante/villain name if he couldn't put the fear of All Might into the people he hated? So he had taken a name, one that the C.R.C only heard when he was thinning their ranks. Hopefully, this would help him work something out with the Black Dragon. He had a reputation, and if he could use it for a good cause, he wouldn't hesitate.
His last stop for the day was the first safehouse he had encountered a few hours ago. He hoped to feel the minds of the duo to see what they were made of. Unluckily for him, they were both still out. After messing with Satori's mind one last time just for fun, he started walking in the direction of the train station. With this, she would be out until tomorrow, and the likelihood that she did anything to the two was close enough to zero that he would sleep soundly tonight.
Tomorrow he would deal a painful blow to this chapter of the C.R.C and then he would call in his favor with the Hydra to gather help for the serial killer. Two birds, one stone.
Now he only had to go back home. After two stops on the way to discourage anyone from following him, he felt the minds of those around him each time, searching for anything that triggered his senses. Nothing. So he went home. He was welcomed with the sight of Mei happily dancing in the kitchen, in the midst of one of her cleaning storms.
He entered the house without a word; the music was far too loud for him to be heard over it. Takuma sighed as he dropped his jacket on a nearby chair. After an entire day of wearing it, he was starting to feel its weight and was glad to finally be free of it. He breathed easier as he watched his girlfriend bounce around the kitchen like an out-of-control bunny. It was... something, maybe a bit annoying.
"As we are, we aRe, we Are!" Mei sang along to her music as she cleaned the countertop and twirled on her feet. The expression on her face went from in-the-moment to agonizing embarrassment in a second, before settling on what he called 'fuck it, we ball' as Mei bounced toward him and jumped into his arms. "Tak!"
Mei nuzzled him before landing a flurry of kisses on his cheek as he let her down. "Hello, Mei."
His girlfriend tilted her head to the side in confusion as she looked at him weirdly.
'Do I have something on my face?'
"I'll make dinner in a minute. I have a few things to write down," he told her as he walked by her and grabbed a few sheets of paper from the cupboard.
It was one thing to learn all the things he did about the C.R.C; it was another to make sure he didn't forget anything. So he wrote everything down. The locations were a priority. He had taken a few notes on a post-it he had brought with him for the most important parts, and he had to put the rest to paper before going to bed. He was quick to write down the name and Quirk of each individual he had encountered. After Satori, the latter had been harder to learn, but he still had caught a few more during his search that would undoubtedly help The Black Dragon in their fight. The only location he didn't write down was the one that held the two unknowns. He would hit it himself and deal with Satori; he didn't want to risk two innocent lives. With what he was planning, collateral damage could be expected at some point. Nothing was ever certain with the gang, but in this case, Takuma wanted to make sure he could have his fun maiming the duo if they were with Satori.
"Takuma?" Mei asked, and he realized she had been calling him. She was right next to him, yet he barely heard her.
"Sorry, didn't hear you over the music. Do you need anything?"
Her sight-like eye focused on him, the same way it did when she had his entire attention. "There's no music playing."
He blinked. No music was playing in the room; she was right. "Oh, well, don't worry. If it's not urgent, can you wait a minute? I really need to write everything down."
Then, of course, there was the serial killer to deal with. He'd already realized going in alone would be suicidal. Just because Takuma knew how to fight didn't mean he had to. The killer's Quirk could be anything, and if three trained Heroes had lost to them, then he didn't fancy his chances. Dodging meant nothing if your opponent could shoot lightning. So that was where the Black Dragon came in. He would need to update himself on their reputation and find out if letting them take the credit for burning down a C.R.C chapter was a good move. They were a solid gang with well-trained troops, the leader stood by his word, and if he moved against the Creature Rejection Clan, Takuma expected blood, as it should be. Then, depending on when The Hydra was done cleaning the area, he could wield the full power of his alias and the favor he'd earned by providing information to have some manpower sent to look for the murderer. When dealing with this case, the number of parties was too high and the situation too critical to be dealt with easily. So he had broken down the problem. No C.R.C gang happy, no C.R.C civilian happy. No C.R.C Heroes available to go after the fucker wasting everybody's time.
The pressure of Mei hugging him from behind brought him back to the present. The weight was infuriatingly grounding, and he could feel himself losing his focus as he wrote down some more details.
"Mei, please," he pleaded with her, feeling himself slip. "I really need to write everything down in case I forget anything."
"Can you smell that?" she asked him, and he sent her a quizzical look before smelling his surroundings.
Nothing but grease, hot iron. Something Mei smelled of when she was working hard on her craft. It was a smell that suited her well. Nothing out-of-the-ordinary. "I don't smell anything weird."
The pressure on his chest heightened as he shook his head. Mei was being far too touchy for his taste right now; he needed to focus. "Put this on and tell me if you like the new and improved version of my baby!"
Takuma winced as she put the earbuds in his ears and played the usual out-of-whack melting pot he listened to. It was growing on his nerves fast.
"Mei, stop that," he demanded as his girlfriend did not let go, to his annoyance.
"Listen to it and I'll let you go, but not before you do," she countered with an edge of steel in her voice that threw him for a loop.
Still, he needed to finish his work, and if listening to her playlist made her back off, then it would have to do. He gave her a nod, and she answered with a satisfied squeeze as she started humming the song she was listening to when he came back.
'When did she become so irritating?' he wondered as he tried to focus back on his work. He had been looking forward to resting after the day he had, and now he had to deal with his girlfri-o-O-o the overly clingy, dimwitted little thing that he lived with. She was lucky she had saved his life. o-O-o
Car, horn. Wind hitting the leaves. It was a melting pot of sound that ripped him of his focus every time, and he hated it. His pen slowed down, then stilled as he tried to keep going. It was in vain as the pressure around his chest, the smells and noise he was experiencing were too much. He felt Mei's heartbeat, strong, and the humming she was doing was kind of nice. In a strange fashion, the color returned as he let himself relax and breathe anew. He rubbed his face against one of her arms as he leaned into her.
"Feeling better?" she asked, worried, as the sheer amount of detail he was missing hit him in the face.
"Yes? No. Maybe," he answered, confused, as he blinked out the daze from his eyes. "I must have... got overwhelmed by my Quirk at some point. Sorry, I'll try to keep that in check better."
'What the hell is wrong with me,' he growled internally as he replayed how he had acted with her since he came back. He tried to focus on what he was thinking just a second before... nothing.
He felt like punching himself in the face.
"I guess looking for a serial killer is harder than it seems if it has you coming back home acting like a robot," she told him as she didn't let go of the embrace. To be fair, he didn't want her to.
He was glad she couldn't hear what he had thought or felt just a second ago.
"It's not the case that's the problem... it's everything around it. I can't just look for a murderer, I have to shape the battlefield in a sense. The local gangs are at each other's throats, and the best way to deal with the issue is to have them not at each other's throats. If I can get them working together, it's going to be half the battle. Even the Heroes and the police could do a better job if they didn't have to deal with some turf war in the bad part of town," he explained before sighing and rubbing his face. "Sorry, you shouldn't have to listen to this."
"Nuh uh, my boyfriend is working and I want to help. Tell me what can I do for you?" she offered in a single breath as she started looking over his notes. "Ew, did they really do that?"
The disgust in her voice was unmistakable as she looked at his notes. "Yeah, the Creature Rejection Clan is mostly a bunch of fanatics with a 'holier than thou' attitude going on a crusade against anyone with a mutation. Torturing one of their own isn't common, but they have a long history of violence that makes it likely to happen, friend or foe," he informed her as she looked over his notes. "This is bad stuff. Are you sure you want to look at it?"
He turned his head to peek at her expression, which wasn't very enthusiastic about the idea. "You are going to fight those people?" she asked with a hint of fear. "Alone?"
"Not if I have my way. I am going to give this to a local gang tomorrow. Let them deal with those things disguised as people and use the data in exchange for help catching the serial killer," he told her, diving deeper into his plan.
Mei, who was behind him, read one of his post-its and then breathed in sharply. "They have kids?! The Satori girl has kids?!"
"No, not exactly," he said, placing a calming hand on her forearm. "I wrote kid, but the girl is in her early twenties and the boy late teens. I tend to call people kids when dealing with the underworld. But that doesn't mean they are kids, but they are as helpless as a bunch of kids. The woman didn't even know their names, just that they were both runaways and that she wanted to fuck one or both of them. They must be truly desperate to end up with the C.R.C."
"Are you going to help them?"
"I will. Tomorrow, I am going to bring some spare cash I have left, and depending on how aligned they are with the C.R.C, I'm either going to give it to them or maim them. The woman is dangerous, and I already worked on her. She won't do anything to them tonight, and I should be able to take her out tomorrow," he thought out loud.
"Takuma. You're going to kill her, aren't you?" Mei didn't so much ask as state.
He blinked. He blamed his crude words for making her think he was going to, but he was planning on doing worse. "No, I won't kill her," he told her, standing up and turning to face her fully. "I'm not going to lie, Mei. I know she has a sex-related Quirk. Five-point touch activation. Those types of Quirks are dangerous. So I don't intend to kill her, but I don't plan on just giving her a hug either," he told her, not daring to look his girlfriend in the eyes. "I'm going to cut a few fingers on each hand. She won't be able to toy around with people before bringing them back to her organization to have them killed. She doesn't deserve to be saved. An unmarked grave is too good for her kind. But I can make her suffer."
There was horror, fear, but most importantly sadness in her thoughts. "What did they do to you?"
Takuma looked her in the eyes again. They were breathtaking as always. "They took more friends from me than anyone or anything else out there," he said, his voice thick with emotion. "Thakaraa, Yemlin, and so many more. They killed them for their mutation. It's only fair I hurt them for what they did."
Mei laid a hand against his cheek. "It's not going to bring them back."
He chuckled wetly. "I know. But I can make sure there's a family out there that won't lose one of their own because of a bunch of racists. There's no bringing back the dead, but there's still a reason to fight for the living."
"I'm never going to like what happened to you, am I?" Mei asked him, not looking for an answer.
"It's just how things are."
Mei nodded with a sigh. "After this, you're not going back into that world. Not without a good reason."
Takuma chuckled again. The concern and fear for his safety were touching. Somehow, he thought he would feel better if she hated him for what he brought into her life. "That sounds just fine."
"And no cooking either!" she declared as she pulled him toward the couch. "Tonight, it's take-out, stupid shows, and cuddling. No ifs or buts," she added with a threatening finger pointed toward his face.
"You know, I never realized how cute you are when you take charge until now," he stated absentmindedly as a smile bloomed on her face in response.
"Keep calling me cute and I might take a bite out of that butt of yours," she answered jokingly. "Let's keep all that spy stuff for later. Cuddle. Now!" she demanded as he followed her demand and joined her on the couch as she grabbed her tablet.
At that moment, Takuma realized there were no words that could express how thankful he was for meeting her. So he hugged her hard. Harder than he usually did. Burying his face in her hair, he enjoyed being close to someone he loved, and who loved him back tenfold.
There is No War in Ba Sing Se
Nothing unusual with this chapter, you saw nothing !