MORE CHAPTERS WITH ARTS & ILLUSTRATIONS ON PATREON
patreon.com/VictimWrite
It was already dark by the time they reached Monica's temporary apartment.
The aspirin had dulled the pain without killing it. A heavy pressure remained behind TNO's left eye—a patient reminder that one white tablet could not solve everything he had yet to understand.
He had no intention of thinking about it tonight.
The police car escorting him pulled up at the curb. The state-appointed representative climbed out after TNO, checked the address one last time, and closed her folder with a weary sigh.
Her workday ended here. She could not remain beside her ward twenty-four hours a day, no matter how eagerly the police might have liked to place that responsibility on her. She had asked to be relieved for the night, but before leaving, she insisted on one condition.
— Nomura-kun, do not go anywhere else. Do not involve yourself in any incidents and, please, try not to find any new trouble before morning.
— I promise not to go looking for adventure.
— For some reason, adventure seems perfectly capable of finding you on its own.
— Then it will hardly be my fault.
She studied him for several seconds, as if deciding whether that answer could legally qualify as an agreement. In the end, exhaustion defeated suspicion.
— I'll call in the morning.
The representative said a brief goodbye, returned to the police car, and left. TNO's driver remained parked nearby, under orders to keep an eye on the entrance at the very least.
TNO stood alone before the apartment building.
The promise had been easy to make.
For now, he had no intention of breaking it.
Monica had been given an apartment in an ordinary Tokyo building for the duration of her assignment from Osaka. Worn steps. A narrow elevator with a mirror that made his violet-black arm look especially conspicuous. The smell of old paint, someone else's dinner, and laundry detergent.
Her floor was quiet.
Light shone beneath Monica's door.
TNO pressed the bell.
No one opened it.
He waited, then rang again.
Something shifted faintly beyond the door. Not a footstep. More like someone changing position and immediately going still, hoping the visitor would decide to leave.
— Kaniyashiki-san, — TNO said. — I know you're home.
Silence.
His Byzantine eyes would have allowed him to see her silhouette and the energy of her Quirk through the walls. He could have checked where she was, how she moved, and how quickly her heart was beating. He could have learned everything without permission. Here, among hundreds of glowing Quirks—several in every apartment—hers stood out with particular brilliance. Sharp, commanding, swift. Like water moving fast enough to cut. Monica was alone in the apartment. TNO frowned despite himself. "She's alone among all these people too."
Monica had protected his secret on the pier. For one evening, at least, he could choose not to repay that trust with surveillance.
TNO let out a tired breath.
With it, the mask of severity he had worn since the hospital loosened almost imperceptibly. There were no police officers here. No managers, port owners, or people before whom he needed to appear confident. Only an empty corridor, a closed door, and the loneliness that settled upon him with all its weight the moment there was no longer an audience.
He lowered himself to the floor beside the door and leaned back against the wall. His expensive black shirt immediately collected dust from the baseboard.
Kazuo would undoubtedly have called it conduct unbecoming of an heir.
The thought improved his mood a little.
— You don't have to open the door, — TNO said. — I didn't come for a signature, and I'm not going to force you to talk.
A floorboard creaked on the other side.
She was listening.
For now, that was enough.
***
All he had to do now was open up. How long had it been since he had allowed himself to do something like that? Probably not since Kuinn or Denki Kaminari. Though could he still call Denki his friend? Perhaps Denki had remained Taiko's friend. To TNO, he was almost a stranger.
His thoughts returned to Kaito—to his resolve and the way he had helped exhaust the Nomu. Perhaps it had not been entirely fair for TNO to claim Tiger for himself. Each of them had contributed to killing the creature. But TNO had struck the final blow. Surely he had earned at least that much of a reward.
And yet, more than the victory itself, he had been struck by the sincerity with which Kaito had thrown himself into the fight. Fool. He should have run.
— The doctors say they'll discharge him in a week. He's already walking with support and arguing with his physical therapist. Yesterday, he tried to prove he was ready to return to work because he managed to reach the window by himself.
TNO looked down at his new hand.
— It was four steps to the window. He nearly fell on the fifth.
He smirked, but the smile quickly faded.
— I make fun of him because thanking him is harder. Kaito could have left with everyone else. His contract ended when Okutami Senior died, and no one ordered him to fight something under the effects of Trigger. He could have saved himself. No one would have blamed him. Not even me.
TNO slowly ran his thumb over the dark skin of his new hand.
— But he didn't run. He came back and tried to help me fight that thing even though he understood how it might end. Nomu—that was what its creator called the creature. No one had ever stood beside me in a fight before. No one had ever covered my back.
The admission sounded unfamiliar. Almost awkward.
— Now I owe him. Paying for his treatment and rehabilitation is the least I can do. I'll find him a proper position when he gets out. Though a bodyguard who needs protection from his own stubbornness does not sound particularly convincing.
TNO closed his eyes for a moment.
— Do you know what was strangest? I liked the feeling. Having an ally. Someone I could offer a shoulder to and whose hands I might someday trust with my back. I'm used to relying only on myself. In my world, trust usually meant you simply had not noticed the knife in someone else's hand yet.
He heard no answer.
For now, he did not need one.
Tonight, TNO had come neither to negotiate nor intimidate, nor to discover what profit he could extract. He intended to speak until he ran out of things that had remained inside him for far too long. The headache gradually receded. He had noticed long ago that sometimes the best cure for tension was simply to say things aloud.
— I learned about the order today. Sixty days of suspension. A demotion. They reduced eight years of your service to two sheets of paper and called it a procedural violation.
The anger returned easily. It had not cooled during the drive; it had merely become cleaner.
— The people who signed that order were not inside the warehouse. They did not feel the heat. They did not hear that creature tearing through steel and human bodies. They looked at a diagram and found the person who had enough authority to be held responsible and too little influence to refuse the role.
— Far more people would have died if you had followed procedure to the letter.
TNO tipped his head back against the wall.
— You allowed us to carry out a plan that saved lives. You pulled me out of the water. You gave me Snip Clip. You stayed when you could have retreated. Even if the police consider your contribution insignificant, I do not.
The words came with difficulty, but he refused to hide behind mockery.
— You saved my life. I should have thanked you properly back on the pier—not by offering you credit for my victory so I could smooth over the inconvenient edges of my own story.
Pain stabbed through his temple again. TNO winced and continued without touching his head.
— Tsukauchi and Fat Gum kept them from firing you. Apparently, they care about you. Which means I owe them now as well. You can tell me that is not mine to decide. But I led that creature to the port. Everything began because of my past. The least I can do is acknowledge the debts I leave behind.
He understood how foolish that might sound from the other side of the door.
— But that is how I feel.
The last words surprised even him.
TNO exhaled and allowed the silence to remain for several seconds.
— On the pier, I promised to tell you the truth. Everything I can put into words. So listen until I'm finished, and then decide whether you want to call Tsukauchi.
TNO fell silent for a moment.
For the first time, he was about to tell someone more than any other person knew about him. Even Taiko had never heard the whole truth. Then again, how long had TNO been able to call him his brother at all? Hardly any time. He had only begun to acknowledge that bond recently, after he stopped seeing Taiko solely as the thief of his former life.
Monica knew him even less. But fighting shoulder to shoulder could bind people faster than dozens of cautious conversations.
And still, it was before her that he had decided to reveal himself without his usual omissions.
The idea was dangerous. Unfamiliar. Almost unnatural for a being accustomed to burying every weakness deep within his domain.
But TNO had no intention of retreating. If AFO used this against him one day, so be it. He was tired of living in anticipation of the God of Quirks' shadow finding him, punishing him, and taking everything he now possessed.
He raised his violet-black hand toward the dim corridor light.
— Copy is only a partial truth. I really can copy Quirks temporarily. Erasure disappeared after several hours. Nezu's High Spec dissolved as well. The doctors tested that part and recorded it correctly.
TNO curled his fingers.
— But some Quirks I can keep forever.
— Tiger is one of them. The Nomu lost its tiger traits on the pier because I took them. I did not copy them. I claimed them. Even if it had survived, Tiger would never have returned to it.
He disliked the word stole. It reminded him of AFO—the thief who reached for what belonged to others and appropriated everything he could touch without resistance.
TNO preferred different words.
Took.
Claimed.
Tiger had come to him in battle, along with the right to decide the fate of the defeated. It had not been a secret theft. It had been conquest.
— I like this Quirk. I like the hearing, the balance, the strength, the way it changes my body. I like it enough that I am no longer sure I will ever want to give it up. I simply switched it off in front of the doctors. They think Erasure displaced the previous copy. If I release Tiger again, the ears and tail will grow back.
He did not even hide his pleasure.
Not from her.
— I had Mite before the port. It repairs the body by processing someone else's blood. My own blood is useless to it. When I lay at the edge of the pier, the Nomu's blood was running beside me and dripping into the water. I did not remember it immediately. The pain had nearly driven me unconscious.
Monica's tear-streaked face appeared before his eyes again.
— I could barely hear what you were saying. My thoughts moved like molasses. At first, I even thought I had upset you somehow because you were crying. Then I saw the blood on your cheek. My blood. Only then did I remember Mite.
He lowered his hand.
— I absorbed the Nomu's blood. It flowed back toward the wounds, and Mite began putting me together again. The arm grew back. My fingers, temple, and the rest of the damage healed with it. The dark skin remained because Nomura's body already contained enhanced blood and accepted the Nomu's material almost as if it were its own.
— You saw the blood reverse its course. And yet you reported nothing to the police. I don't know whether you doubted your own eyes or decided to ask me first. But you never had the chance. They took me away, sent you into interviews, and then people in clean offices decided that you were the one to blame.
TNO clenched his jaw.
— You protected my secret without knowing whether I deserved it. For a detective, silence probably cost almost as much as a lie.
— There is also BodySwap. An exchange of bodies. It works only on humans and usually requires physical contact. I used to be Taiko. Then I exchanged bodies with Nomura.
Even spoken plainly, the truth did not become any simpler.
TNO told her about the domain.
About the two bodies.
About how he had left his former body to his younger brother and entered the material world as Nomura. About the memories of the body's former owner, which had not vanished with him but mixed with TNO's own. About Taiko, Nomura, and the fact that he could no longer draw a clean boundary between them.
He told her about Kuinn.
About the few people he could call, if not friends, then at least comrades and classmates.
About UA, where his former friends had remained beside Taiko because they recognized his old face and body. None of them had noticed that the person who shared their past was now watching them through Nomura's eyes.
He did not turn the confession into an excuse or call himself a victim. Some choices had been his own. Some consequences he had foreseen. Others he had missed because of his own arrogance.
— I was afraid of that Nomu, — TNO admitted. — I was not merely assessing the risks. I was afraid to approach it. I had spent so long without feeling the fear of death inside the domain that I had forgotten what adrenaline did to a body. I understood how the fight worked, but understanding does not turn a person to stone. I watched it move and knew that one hesitation would be enough for its claws to enter my heart.
It was the first time he had said that aloud to anyone.
— I went anyway because it was weakened. Because after all the wounds, Snip Clip, and exhaustion, it had begun to move more slowly. I decided there was a chance. I did not know whether I would survive. I simply took the risk.
TNO's voice grew quieter.
— When you found me on the pier, I was not smiling because I had everything under control. I was scared. I was in pain. I barely understood what was happening. Then I saw you crying over me, and for some reason I decided I had no right to die in your arms.
This time, the silence did not press against him.
It gave him room to continue.
— Okutami Senior also died because of the chain of events that began with me. He saw potential in Nomura and gave him a name and a future, but I never became the son he wanted. Now I have inherited his money, the port, his people, and his obligations. I do not know how to manage any of it. I pretend that I do, because the moment I show weakness, adults begin deciding which part of my life they can take for themselves.
His mask of severity finally failed him completely.
— Today, six port owners looked at me as though I knew what I was doing. Kazuo is waiting for orders. The police see an heir. UA sees a student with a suspicious Quirk. Taiko received my former face, Kuinn, and my friends. And I still do not know what I am to myself.
TNO looked down at his hands—one human, one dark.
— My friends belong to Taiko now. They remember the face and the name. To them, the person who shared their past is inside my former body. They can look at Nomura and see only a stranger demanding a place in their lives.
He faltered.
He hated the feeling.
But tonight he had promised not to hide anything.
— I envy him, — TNO said. — I'm angry. Sometimes I hate both halves that made me. Taiko wanted too desperately to be loved. Nomura grew too accustomed to thinking he was nothing. They both remain inside me as memories, and I cannot simply throw them away no matter how many times I repeat my own name.
He exhaled slowly.
— To everyone who knew me before, I am no one in their lives.
On the other side of the door, the button of a recorder clicked almost inaudibly.
The sound drowned behind the wall, never reaching the corridor.
The red dot vanished from the screen. Monica did not immediately remove her finger from the button.
The recording remained in the device's memory—someone else's truth, taken without permission. Substantial enough to end up on Tsukauchi's desk one day. Fragile enough to vanish with a single press.
Monica darkened the screen and saw her own reflection in the black glass.
TNO had not come to her as a suspect. He had not bargained or defended himself. For the first time, he had revealed things even his brother did not know. And all the while, she had not been listening alone. A running recorder had lain between them.
"Traitor."
The word came on its own. No one spoke it aloud, which only made it sound more honest. Professional caution no longer seemed like a sufficient excuse. Monica felt disgusted with herself.
***
The lock clicked inside the apartment.
The door opened the width of a hand. Monica's face appeared in the gap.
Her red hair hung loose, tangled over one shoulder. Her sweatshirt sat more loosely than her usual clothes. Her eyes were swollen, the skin around them red. She had clearly begun trying to stop crying long before he arrived—and had just as clearly failed.
She found him on the floor. Alone, exhausted, still sitting outside her door after telling her more than he had probably intended to tell anyone in this life.
And she threw the door open.
TNO only had time to rise. Monica stepped into the corridor, nearly collided with him, and wrapped both arms around him, pressing her face to his chest.
He froze.
Not because he wanted to push her away. Quite the opposite: he could feel the warmth of her body through their clothes, and only an idiot would have voluntarily refused that. Nomura's body simply had not expected her to hear everything and respond without fear or a demand that he leave.
Monica's shoulders trembled. She said nothing. She merely held on to him as if she had forced herself to stand straight all day and had only now been granted permission to stop.
TNO slowly raised his arms. One settled around her back; the other carefully touched her disheveled red hair.
After several long breaths, the tension began to leave her. Along with the warmth of his shirt, Monica caught the last trace of his cologne—dry wood and something cool, almost citrus. She breathed out against his chest, loosened her arms a little, and finally stepped back.
— You're wearing cologne, — she said before she could consider how close she had needed to be to notice.
TNO raised an eyebrow slightly and glanced at his collar.
— You can still smell it? I didn't think you would. I put it on this morning, and it lasted all day. It had almost faded by evening.
— Not entirely, — Monica replied softly.
Her gaze darted away almost at once.
— I'm sorry. I shouldn't have thrown myself at you like that.
— Forget it. I liked it.
One corner of his mouth lifted. There was mockery in his words, but even more truth.
Monica stared at him in confusion. Color returned to her cheeks.
— You came here to help me, and somehow you're the one comforting me again.
— Kaniyashiki-san, — TNO said quietly. — You can always ask me for help. You don't need to wait until things become this bad.
Monica frowned.
— After everything you just told me, "Kaniyashiki-san" almost sounds like mockery.
— I'm only addressing you respectfully.
— I'm twenty-six, not sixty. Call me Monica. And stop speaking to me so formally, or I really will start feeling like an old woman whenever you're around.
TNO hesitated for a moment. It was not about the name. She was offering to remove the distance behind which both of them had hidden until now.
— All right... Monica.
She looked at him expectantly.
It took him a moment to understand.
— You can always ask me for help, — TNO repeated, differently this time. — You don't need to wait until things become this bad.
— Much better.
For several seconds, she simply looked at him. Then she stepped back into the apartment and cleared the doorway.
— Come in, TNO.
This time he entered without hesitation.
The apartment looked as though its owner existed there only in the hours between shifts.
Clean. Almost empty. A few photographs, a stack of official documents, a jacket forgotten over the back of a chair. Her badge and a sealed envelope containing the order lay on the table.
Monica turned the badge face down.
A calico cat appeared in the hallway.
It stopped when it saw the stranger and stretched its neck warily. A black patch surrounded one eye, while its ginger tail moved slowly from side to side.
— I didn't know who to leave her with in Osaka, — Monica explained. — The assignment was supposed to be short, so I brought her with me. I thought I'd be back quickly, but after the market, the gas station, you, and the port, it became obvious this would take a while.
— As early as the gas station?
— More or less.
— I really have caused you a great deal of trouble...
Monica gave him a brief look.
— None of this is your fault. You didn't ask that villain to hunt you. If you hadn't thought ahead and drawn him toward the port, he would have reached a residential district sooner or later. I'm afraid to imagine how many people might have died then.
She fell silent for a moment, but the line between her eyebrows remained.
— Something else bothers me. He was far too obsessed with you. He chased you across half the city, ignored easier targets, and kept following no matter how many wounds he took. That is too deliberate to be ordinary hatred.
TNO nodded slowly.
— I've thought about that too.
The cat looked at TNO, then at her owner, as though silently demanding an explanation for the strange man's presence.
— Yuzu, — Monica introduced her. — Don't touch her right away. She doesn't like strangers.
— Animals like me.
Monica looked doubtfully from him to the wary Yuzu.
— That is a remarkably confident claim.
— A statistical observation.
Monica almost smiled, but turned toward the kitchen counter in time to hide it.
— Tea?
— Yes, I think so. It's been a difficult day.
She put the kettle on. For several seconds, the water made more noise than either person.
Monica braced both palms against the edge of the counter.
— Everything you told me... It would be difficult to invent all that on the spot.
— I told you almost everything. You can choose not to believe me. You can give my words to the police. The decision is yours.
Monica nearly glanced toward the corridor.
The choice she had tried to preserve for herself in secret had just been handed to her voluntarily. No conditions, no threats, no request that she protect him. The recording suddenly no longer seemed like necessary insurance. It was only a file containing the confession of a person who had already allowed her to decide what to do with his truth.
"Why did I even do that?"
A stupid habit left over from her work as a detective: record every word first, decide whether the person deserved trust afterward. Now the reflex looked neither professional nor prudent. Only cowardly.
Monica felt like an even greater fool.
She turned to him.
— Then I want to verify at least what can be verified right now.
— Tiger.
— You said you can bring it back whenever you want. Show me.
TNO hesitated.
— All right. Just don't be frightened.
— After everything we've been through together, I don't think anything can frighten me anymore.
TNO activated a permanent slot within Oneself.
Tiger returned to his body.
A wave of pressure traveled down his spine. His muscles thickened, his balance shifted, and a striped tail began to grow from his tailbone. Nomura's ears stretched upward from their original positions, gradually taking on an animal shape; no second pair appeared. His hearing sharpened first, filling the apartment with the hum of the refrigerator, the murmur of water, and the distinct beats of two human hearts.
Beneath the chair, another tiny heart began hammering in terror.
Yuzu arched her back, puffed up to nearly twice her size, and vanished under the chair in a single leap.
TNO watched her go.
— I believe I've ruined my first impression.
— You grew a tail in front of her. If I were a cat, I would have been frightened too.
For the first time that evening, something alive entered Monica's voice.
TNO crouched, but Yuzu retreated farther beneath the chair. He did not reach for her. Instead, he surveyed the kitchen, noticed the bowls against the wall, and found an open package of cat food on a shelf.
— May I?
— A little.
He poured several pieces into his palm and lowered himself toward the floor again. He hunched to reduce his silhouette, turned sideways to the cat, and placed his hand in front of him without blocking her route of escape.
Yuzu remained motionless for a long time. Then her nose emerged from the darkness. The cat crept closer, sniffed his fingers, retreated, and approached again.
TNO did not move.
She ate one piece.
Then another.
Within a minute, Yuzu was rubbing her cheek against his violet-black palm as though the earlier betrayal had never happened.
Monica watched them with her arms folded. One corner of her mouth rose almost imperceptibly.
— What? — TNO asked.
— Nothing.
— You're smiling.
— You imagined it.
— Tiger has excellent hearing. Perhaps my eyesight has improved as well.
— Do not abuse the trust of the only creature in this apartment who still doesn't know what you are.
TNO rose with the cat in his arms. Yuzu allowed him to carry her to the sofa, settled in his lap, and began purring so loudly within seconds that his enhanced hearing turned the sound into something close to a running engine.
Monica placed a cup before him.
— Traitor, — she told the cat.
Yuzu did not even open her eyes.
For a while, they drank their tea in silence. TNO held his cup with one hand and slowly stroked the cat between the ears with the other. His own tail lay along the sofa, its tip occasionally betraying his mood with a small movement.
Monica noticed.
Of course she noticed.
— So Tiger really did remain with you.
— I told you.
— And the doctors think it disappeared.
— They saw what I wanted them to see.
— Do you understand how bad that sounds to a police officer?
— A former detective, or a temporarily suspended one?
Monica set her cup down sharply.
TNO realized at once that he had said too much.
— I'm sorry. That was cruel.
— Stupid.
— That wasn't what I meant.
— I know. — She rubbed the bridge of her nose. — Just don't remind me yet.
— I won't.
The silence was not comfortable, but neither did it destroy the conversation.
Monica was the first to return to it.
— How many Quirks have you... — She faltered. — Taken?
He listed the abilities he currently possessed: Mite, BodySwap, Tiger. Monica tried several times to wait until the end of his explanation, but the questions escaped first.
— Wait. When you take a Quirk, does its former owner lose it forever?
— Yes. It will never return to them on its own.
Silence followed those words.
Monica studied his violet-black hand. The wariness in her expression gradually changed. She was no longer measuring only his words; she was comparing them against something she had studied long before this meeting.
— There was once a villain capable of permanently taking other people's Quirks, — she said.
TNO remained silent.
— The police academy has an entire course on identifying Quirks through their external and internal manifestations. Ordinary people know little more than legends, but the old archives preserve more. Different names, different masks—but the description of the ability remained the same. The victim lost their Quirk, and he claimed it for himself.
Monica's gaze lingered on his eyes.
— The archives remember him as the Demon King. No one knew his real name, only a multitude of identities, titles, and masks that investigators later attempted to connect. Then he almost ceased showing himself, and the trail fell apart completely.
Monica frowned, recalling the wording of old case files.
— People still lost their Quirks without explanation from time to time, but those cases were considered unrelated. Stress, brain damage, the consequences of severe trauma, or a rare spontaneous failure of the ability. Most people decided the old villain had disappeared long ago and everything else was coincidence.
She leaned forward slightly.
— I'm not claiming he is still active. But the way you describe your power matches those old records far too closely.
"Shit. Too fast."
In reality, TNO merely sighed heavily.
— Yes, you're moving in the right direction. Ah... How should I put this?
He rubbed his temple, searching for a formulation that would not require another hour of explanation.
— Well, broadly speaking, I'm something like that villain's son.
— What?!
Even Yuzu opened one eye.
— That is why I said "something like." My former body was created from his genetic material and his Quirk. "Clone" is more accurate, but "son" was shorter.
Monica stared at him for several more seconds, clearly reassessing everything she had heard through the door. Then a familiar professional fervor ignited in her eyes.
— If you're his son, then you've had contact with him. You can help us find him.
She straightened, becoming more absorbed in the idea by the second.
— He can be put in prison, TNO. We don't even know how many lives he has ruined. If we reopen the old cases, compare the Quirk disappearances, and bring Tsukauchi in—
Monica was already reaching for her phone.
— Wait, Monica! You don't understand how dangerous he is!
TNO rose too abruptly and caught her by the wrist. His voice came out harsher than he intended, and violet-black fingers closed over her skin.
Monica went still.
Fear flashed in her eyes.
TNO released her at once and stepped back as though he had been burned.
— I'm sorry, — he said more quietly. — I didn't mean to frighten you.
He turned toward the window. Nighttime Tokyo reflected in the glass as hundreds of lights, but TNO looked through them.
— I have suffered more because of that piece of shit than you can imagine. You cannot simply surround him, read out the charges, and drive him to a cell. He is the kind of villain who never surrenders. Corner him, and he will fight to the death while trying to drag down everyone within reach.
He turned sharply toward her.
— He has hundreds of Quirks, if not thousands. What are you going to do about that? Send heroes against him one at a time? He will slaughter every person who stands before him!
The last words came out louder than TNO intended. He forced his voice back down.
— The only thing restraining him now is our Symbol of Peace. And even that will not last much longer.
His fingers slowly closed.
— You cannot imagine how many powerful heroes have perished by his hand. People beside whom both of us still look like children. Even they failed to stop him. What chance would we have?
— But if we do nothing...
— If I knew where he was, I probably would have gone there once and fought him to the death. Back then, I had nothing to lose.
Monica started to object, but TNO turned to her and continued.
— That is what I would have said once. Now I cannot allow myself to rush into battle that recklessly.
He looked directly into her eyes.
His purple irises seemed to glow faintly from within. There was no adolescent stubbornness in his gaze, no desire to impress. Only the frightening certainty of a being who had taken his own identity apart too many times and assembled it anew after every dissection. Behind that certainty lay a depth Monica did not yet know how to measure.
She endured his gaze for only a few seconds.
Then she approached and embraced him again.
This time, slowly. Without the earlier desperation. One palm settled between his shoulder blades; the other rose to the back of his head and passed gently through his hair.
TNO did not move. Monica continued stroking his head—calmly, with astonishing tenderness, as if answering everything he had failed to say aloud.
They remained that way for some time.
When they returned to the sofa, Monica adjusted her hair and picked up her now-cold tea. The conversation had drifted too close to things neither of them was ready to name.
She did what she had learned to do on the job: she hid from her own feelings inside concrete questions.
— Let's return to your Quirk.
Her gaze settled on TNO's violet-black hand.
— Don't be afraid. I don't take Quirks without reason, unlike him. You have nothing to fear beside me.
She raised her eyes to his.
— I'm not afraid. It seems I already trust you.
The answer was more unexpected than any question. TNO said nothing, and this time Monica did not hurry him.
She ran a finger along the rim of her cup, firmly returning the conversation from emotion to mechanics she could understand.
— That isn't what I'm asking. Can you take a Quirk by accident?
— Not in the material world. An ordinary touch will do nothing. Here, taking one always requires intent.
— Where could it happen, then?
— The domain works differently. There, I touch not the person's body but the shell of their Quirk itself. If I push too deeply, I can damage it, separate a fragment, or even take the whole thing before I manage to stop.
Monica glanced at the hand resting beside him.
— So while we sit here, nothing can happen by accident?
— Nothing.
— I never had time to test the limits of interaction inside the domain. I had barely begun investigating before the entire disaster at the port swallowed everything else.
Monica slowly set her cup aside.
— I won't even ask what you consider a safe experiment. What about BodySwap? Is touching a person enough to exchange bodies?
— Usually.
— Why "usually"?
— If the body dies, the mechanism may work differently. I haven't tested it yet.
— Don't.
— I'll try not to die for the sake of an experiment.
— Nomura.
— TNO.
She stopped.
— TNO, — Monica corrected herself. — I'm serious.
For the first time in the entire conversation, he heard neither distrust nor professional suspicion in her voice. Only fear that one day he might truly decide to test the limits of his ability with his own life as the price.
— Yes. You're right.
Monica did not continue immediately. Too much in his account remained unnamed.
— You called the creature at the port a Nomu several times. What does that mean?
— That was Kyuudai's name for his creations. A Nomu is not a separate species or an ordinary mutant under Trigger. It used to be human. Kyuudai altered its body, blood, and Quirk until almost nothing of the former personality remained.
— Kyuudai is the scientist who created your old body?
— One of them. I know where his laboratory is.
Professional focus returned to Monica at once.
— Then we need to tell Tsukauchi. If this man can create beings like that, the police and heroes have to stop him.
— No. An ordinary raid would only disturb a power whose scale they cannot imagine. At best, Kyuudai destroys the evidence and disappears. At worst, he releases everything stored in that laboratory.
— What are you planning to do?
— Deal with him myself.
Monica's eyes narrowed slowly.
— Try that answer again. This time, without your revolting habit of walking alone into places where you can be killed.
TNO held her gaze.
— When the time comes to deal with Kyuudai, I will ask for help.
— I'll remember that.
Monica looked at the cat, which had placed complete trust in a being about whom she had just learned things capable of rewriting several sections of criminal law at once.
— Did you choose the name TNO yourself?
— Yes.
She took a thoughtful sip of tea.
— That explains everything. A textbook case of chūnibyō, — she said with a quiet giggle.
TNO slowly turned his gaze toward her.
— It is not a hero alias.
— Of course it isn't. And you certainly weren't trying to sound mysterious.
— I am beginning to regret agreeing to drop the formalities.
— Too late. — Monica smiled openly for the first time. — Don't worry. I was no better at school. I obsessed over several heroes. Collected magazine clippings, watched every interview, and convinced myself I practically knew them.
The smile did not remain on her face for long.
— Then I joined the police and began meeting them away from the cameras. It turned out the hero on the cover, the hero in a report, and the person left behind a closed door sometimes barely resembled one another. Not all of them were bad. None of them were simply what I had imagined.
— Were you disappointed?
Monica looked into her cup.
— At the time, I called it growing up.
— I don't even know when I managed to grow up. Sometimes it feels as though I have always been an adult. So much has happened... I've forgotten what it feels like simply to sit and think. Not make a decision immediately. Not wait for the next problem. Just put everything in order.
Monica could find no reply that would not sound like empty comfort. She knew too little about his life, but what she had already heard was enough: the son of a legendary villain, grown in a laboratory, transplanted into another body, left without a face or a past he could call entirely his own.
So she said nothing. She only moved closer until their shoulders almost touched.
TNO noticed. He did not look at her, but some of the tension left him.
— And yet you came to me tonight, — Monica said softly.
— I promised.
— You don't strike me as someone especially bound by promises.
— Not all of them. Some.
— And mine somehow became one of those?
TNO ran his fingers along the cat's back. Yuzu shifted sleepily and settled more comfortably.
— You kept quiet about Mite. You did not tell the police what you had not understood yourself. You gave me the chance to explain first.
— I didn't lie.
— You omitted it.
— Those are different things.
— For a detective?
Monica pressed her lips together.
— I don't know whether I did the right thing.
— You can tell them tomorrow.
— I can.
— But you won't tell them tonight.
— Don't finish my thoughts for me.
— You're right.
— And don't agree so quickly. That only makes it more irritating.
TNO tilted his head slightly.
— Then I'll argue. — He folded his arms with exaggerated dignity and raised his chin.
— Now I recognize you.
The corner of her mouth twitched again.
This time, Monica did not hide the smile.
MORE CHAPTERS WITH ARTS & ILLUSTRATIONS ON PATREON
patreon.com/VictimWrite