"So you're finally here, Ryomen Sukuna." Sukuna glanced up at Shigaraki standing before him. The man laughed, seeing the teen finally at his mercy.
"How pitiful! And to think I once saw you as a threat." He taunted, though Sukuna showed no reaction as he kept staring blankly at the villain. The pink hair teen's hands and feet were in cuffs, as his torso was tied to the chair with rope made from special metal alloy.
He recognized these handcuffs, having learned about them in class. These are special Quirk-limiting handcuffs, designed specifically to neutralize a person's Quirk.
Despite having his Quirk blocked out, Sukuna still had more than enough physical strength to break the cuffs and ropes, but he wasn't risking it, considering there was a man capable to erasing someone to dust, and another man capable of burning him into crisps right in front of him.
The plan was still in play, he'd buy time for All Might and the rest to come raid this place. He just needed to act weak from the cuffs, and listen to what they have to offer.
"Hey! Can you not talk or something?" Shigaraki suddenly asked, annoyed that Sukuna wasn't replying. Sukuna sighed a little.
"Get to the point, Shigaraki. Why did you capture me?" Sukuna replied, with an unimpressed glare. He never understood how the people found this man intimidating. All he saw was a man child given too many toys to play with.
Shigaraki grinned under his hand that covered his face. "Simple, kid. I'm a very nice man, despite what you've seen from me. You're here because I simply want you to take control of your destiny."
Sukuna deadpanned at him. "And in return I have to be your lackey, right? Yeah I know how this goes." He snorted, before looking up at him with his trademark serious expression.
"If this your way of telling me to join you, then forget it."
"Watch it, kid." Dabi grinned, holding his palm up to Sukuna's face. "You're in no position to make threats like that, as far as I'm concerned." Sukuna only stared, unimpressed with the black haired man.
"Hey now, Dabi. Let's treat our future member nicely. He won't be arguing for long. Because no one's coming to save you, kid." Shigaraki stated, pointing at him, as a heavy atmosphere took over the room.
"They'll try their best for a couple of days. Then when they don't have any leads, they'll drop everything and just give up. That's what they usually do in most cases after all. Soon, you'll be forgotten, you'll just be a passing thought to everyone, a little topic mentioned and dismissed. Why risk yourself for a world that doesn't care about you?"
'Oh, so that's their plan huh? I've played these games before.' Sukuna thought back to his internship with Hawks.
'Using philosophical coercion and trying to flip my beliefs against me. How cliche of you. Very well then, Shigaraki, I'll play.' He mused before answering.
"You're right. I should just leave it to rot, logically it's easier that way."
"Huh?" Shigaraki blinked. Well that was easy.
"Yeah, I should just let it burn and walk away, like you think I should. But that's exactly why I step in anyway." Shigaraki's eyes narrowed as Sukuna continued. He thought he had him there.
"It's not because of some childish noble reason. I do think because I choose to, not for rules, not for praise, and definitely not for anyone else. I refuse to just be a small dot in this world, and I certainly won't be your lackey."
"I've already decided what I will and won't do, and no one, especially not you and your lackeys, can change it."
"This is a waste of time." Shigaraki growled out, walking towards Sukuna. Sukuna, not liking the look in the man's eyes, prepared to break the cuffs.
"I should just kill you right now—"
"Stop, Master Tomura." Kurogiri stepped in, a hand placed on Shigaraki's arm.
"You mustn't kill him. Though he is no use for you, he needs him alive." Kurogiri whispered. Shigaraki looked back at Sukuna, before he snorted, scratching his neck in annoyance.
"Keep it up, brat. You won't be so stubborn for long." Shigaraki walked out of the room, with the rest of the League following him. Toga was the last to walk out. She turned around, waving at him with a grin on her face, before she was dragged out by Dabi who slammed the door shut after.
Sukuna stared at them, before he sighed and looked down at the ground.
"Man, I just wanna smell Mina's hair."
...
"I won't give in... I have to fight... Fight...." Sukuna whispered to himself. He had fell asleep, and was woken up by a nightmare. This time, he watched the 'other' version of himself trick a blonde girl into thinking he wasn't evil before biting off her arm mercilessly. He didn't even know how he had done it. His head just became very big.
The impulses were worsening, the urge to become the monster was slowly seeping into his very soul. But he wouldn't give in. He will prove everyone wrong, especially the nightmare version of himself that he isn't a monster, that he is a hero till the end.
"I'm not you.... and I will never be you..." He muttered to himself, still breathless from the sudden awakening.
"Umm... Are you okay?" He widened his eyes, looking up to see Toga walking in the isolation room slowly, holding a plate of food and a small cup of water.
It had been a few days since Sukuna was kidnapped. He was stuck in a small isolation chamber. They tried everything, isolation, threats, appeals to self-interest, emotional manipulation, even baiting him with people he cares about such as his parents, and Mina.
It wasn't hard for them to find out about his relationship with the pink girl, considering he was wearing a ring with her name on it. As expected, they started threatening to harm her to get him to crack.
They tried withholding food briefly to test his patience and provoke irritation. They only served bland meals, some times even leftovers, enough to sustain him. He had to pee into a bottle, sometimes he even had to hold it in for a few hours.
They even showed him the broadcast of UA's public apology about failing to protect the students from the villain attack at the training camp as well as their shortcomings, using that as a strategy too.
But Ryomen Sukuna wouldn't budge.
Every attempt at intimidation, every psychological trick, bounced off him. He understood the stakes, he understood the risks, and he understood them, their methods, their desires, their weaknesses. Their strategies were crude, predictable, and ultimately exploitable.
Even something like Shigaraki trying to entice him emotionally or Dabi pushing his anger, they only confirmed what he already knew. These people were predictable, and he was not going to give them leverage.
But Toga visiting him suddenly wasn't what he expected. To him, the girl was just a bloodthirsty vampire, but he never judged her for that. Perhaps it was a side effect of her Quirk, and perhaps she had a sad backstory behind that crazy grin.
"Hello? Earth to Sukuna." Sukuna blinked, noticing Toga was snapping her fingers in front of him repeatedly. He looked up at her.
"What do you want?" He asked in a disinterested fashion. Toga pouted, holding up the food a little bit more.
"It's meal time remember? Geez, how the hell do you have a girlfriend when you're so mean." She grumbled.
"How would I even know it's meal time, dumbass? My sense of time was distorted ever since I was trapped here." He grumbled to himself. Toga grinned.
"Good! That means you're going crazy!" She cheered, clapping her hands after she set the food on the table. Sukuna just deadpanned at her while she pulled a chair close to him.
"Say ahh~" She giggled, holding a spoonful of cold rice up to his mouth. Sukuna grunted as she gently fed him.
"I've always wanted to do that to a guy ya know? Haa... a shame I never got the chance." She sighed, shaking her head as she continued to feed him.
" And you're taken as well. I would've made you mine if you weren't. Say, can you give me that green haired boy's number after this?" Toga asked him with an excited grin.
"Huh? Green haired boy?" Sukuna blinked.
"Yeah! He's your classmate right? I kinda dig him if you can't tell. He's cute~ I wanna suck his blood~" She giggled, blushing as images of Izuku appeared in her head. Sukuna just stared at her as she started fantasizing, completely forgetting to feed him.
'For a villain, she sure does act very normal, besides the occasional request for blood, and.... whatever this is... She looks just about the same age as me, I wonder why she's a villain?' Sukuna didn't understand why he was sympathizing with the enemy. But his father's teachings had never gone out of his head, not even once.
'They're human too, son. If you intend to follow through with your goal, you must try to understand the other side too.' Jin's voice echoed in his mind. Sukuna mentally sighed, it was true that villains were made, and perhaps it was true that they never wanted this path in the first place but were forced to due to society's failures.
"Say..." He muttered, gathering Toga's attention.
"What is it? You finally wanna join us?" She asked excitedly, ready to break the news to Shigaraki.
"Uh... no thank you..."
"Aww man!" Toga groaned in annoyance.
"I just wanted to ask... How old are you?" There was an awkward silence that followed as Toga stared at him.
"How the hell does someone like you have a girlfriend? You know you can't ask women about their age right?"
"Whatever... I'll just go ahead and say that you're 15." He grumbled. Toga made an X shape with her hands.
"Wronggg! I'm 16!"
"Same thing." He rolled his eyes, causing her to pout.
"If I were still in school, I would've forced you to call me senpai and have you do my homework everyday!" She declared, grinning at him. Sukuna just stared.
"So you did went to school before... Did you enjoy it?"
"Huh...." Toga blinked. What kind of question was that? It was disarming, his question having caught her off guard. But there was no harm answering him right?
"I mean... I guess I kinda did? It was kinda boring to be honest, but there were some fun times. I got straight As, if you can believe it. It's more cuz I don't wanna listen to my parents yap about me failing." She ranted.
"I was more of a girl that stayed in the background if you know what I mean, but I still have a lot of friends, well, had friends until I lost control..." She muttered, now oddly quiet. Sukuna blinked, that was oddly vulnerable of her.
If he were to be honest, he knew about Toga's story long before he even met her. He knew of the incident of her drinking a boy's blood when she was in middle school, having a look of ecstasy on her face as she drank his blood with a straw after attacking him with a box cutter.
He akso knew of the public interview of her parents by the news, where they claimed they tried to help their daughter but said that she was always a lost cause, branding Toga as a 'demon' and publicly cutting all ties with her.
'She's.. just misunderstood...' He thought to himself. She's one of those people that forces one to ask 'do we condemn someone for what they are, or for how they cope with being that way?'
"The side effect of your Quirk took over, I presume. You have a natural craving for blood." He stated, causing her to look up at him.
"What?" She whispered. Sukuna shrugged.
"I mean, you don't just randomly stab someone and drink their blood, do you? Unless you really are like that."
"I... How'd you know?" She asked, her voice not in her usual excited tone.
"I can just tell. They say you're not you when you're hungry, and you fit that phrase really well. You've been 'normal' up until that very moment when you suddenly lashed out at that boy. My guess is that you've been suppressing your craving for a long time." Sukuna stated. Toga only looked down, having placed the plate of rice aside a long time ago.
"I'm sorry... Toga..."
Toga gasped, looking at Sukuna with wide eyes. She was hallucinating, yeah that's it! Why is he apologizing to her?!
"Wh-why are you..."
"I'm sorry for everything you've been made to feel ashamed of. I've lived it too, in my own way. I know what it's like to be feared, to be isolated, to fight something inside yourself you can't fully control." Toga's gaze was locked onto him, full of disbelief at his words. Why isn't he scared of her? He should be scared of her!
Instead he's treating her like someone normal, like everything about herself was normal!
"You... You know what that's like?" She managed to stutter out. Sukuna nodded, his eyes darkening a little.
"Yes. Every night I wake from nightmares of someone I don't want to be... someone worse than I can handle. I see the destruction, the fear and the chaos, and I wonder if I'm capable of stopping it or if I'm destined to let it happen." He shook his head as she listened.
"But I keep going. Because someone has to act. Someone has to decide, not let the world dictate it. And I will do exactly that." He declared. Toga's lips parted slightly. Her usual grin was gone, now replaced by something unsteady.
"That day... when I drank his blood. I felt... happy... I felt free. I can't stop it... and now because of that I—"
"It's alright. People fear what they don't understand. But I believe that you're not your impulses. You're not the chaos you cause. You're someone who hasn't been shown a way to channel it yet." Then he said something that shocked her to the core.
Sukuna's eyes softened just slightly as he spoke again. "You're no monster, you're human."
"I... I...." Toga didn't know what to say. The words hung in the air like a fragile truth, one that Toga had never allowed herself to hear.
For the first time in years, Toga didn't feel trapped. She felt like someone understood the part of her she had always feared, the part that wanted connection, wanted guidance, wanted to be seen, and wasn't afraid to acknowledge it.
Her tears pooled up.
Sukuna nodded as he leaned back. "Fragile, flawed and reckless, yes. But stil human. And that changes everything. Monsters don't get choices. Humans do."
"You're saying... that I'm not really a monster?" She whispered, almost afraid to believe it.
"Nope." Sukuna shrugged. "Not if you don't let yourself be." He added firmly.
"Your Quirk doesn't define you. Your impulses don't define you. Your choices do. And as I see it, you still have the power to decide who you are." A quiet pause followed.
"But I can't... I can't go back..." She whispered. Sukuna shook his head, meeting her gaze.
"You shouldn't. Not to what you were, not to the lies you've been living, not to the chaos you've accepted as yourself." Toga swallowed hard hearing his words, her fingers twisting nervously.
"Then... what am I supposed to do? I've hurt people. I can't undo it. I can't, I can't be normal..."
"That isn't the point. You're human. You make mistakes, you lose control then you fail. But that doesn't mean you're doomed. It means you have a choice, right now, to be something different." He said with conviction.
"I..." She looked down, her fists clenched. No one in her life has been this supporting of her, not even her parents. No one has ever looked past her Quirk, her impulses, her 'demon' label, and simply see her as a human being capable of choice.
Until now...
She almost laughed. How did it even come to this moment? One moment she was following Shigaraki's orders of feeding him and the next she was about to cry.
She didn't know what to do now. How was she supposed to figure this out? She's never been offered this before, permission to exist without performing villainy, without the hiding, without any pretending. This all feels new to her.
"I...." She looked up at him with a determined expression.
"I want your blood." Sukuna blinked at her.
"What?"
"I want your blood."
"Craving back again?" Toga nodded in response. Sukuna sighed.
"Just make it quick, and don't drink too much." He grumbled. Toga widened her eyes before a grin flashed across her face.
"Yay!" She immediately took out her signature knife and pricked him in the arm. Sukuna winced a little, before he saw his own blood dripping into a pink cup.
"Itadakimasu!" Toga, after filling a cup full of Sukuna's blood, chugged it all down in one go, giving a satisfied sigh after.
"Thanks for the talk and blood!" She gave him a thumbs up before taking out a pink bandage, placing it on the wound. She happily skipped out of the room, leaving Sukuna alone. He sighed, looking down again.
But then he realized something.
"Wait... I haven't finished my food..."
To be continued...
(probably a bad chapter for you guys, sorry.)