A surgical, focused whir of a precision drill disappeared as fast as it came. A few seconds of silence later, the same sound cut through it like a shock.
A certain blonde hummed to herself as she laid the drill aside. Picking up the device she was working on, she silently observed it while gently turning it around.
It was a gauntlet, red in color. It had a bunch of wires attached to it, all of it connected to a power supply to the side. The blonde slowly stuck her hand into gauntlet. It came alive instantly. The segments snappsd into alignment, while the lights flickered along the seams as it sealed around her wrist with a mechanical hiss.
She then glanced around her lab, her eyes landed on a tin can on another table she had placed not long ago. She flexed her fingers, the gauntlet responded. With a soft whir, a hidden compartment split along its seams. The metal plates retracted in precise increments, exposing the dark mouth of a barrel concealed within.
Just then, a shot tore through the silence, tearing a hole through the tin can as it fell onto the ground rattling. She sighed after a while, taking her hand out of the gauntlet.
"Not bad for a prototype... " She muttered as she cleaned her hands with a rag. The sound of her phone ringing made her jump a little. She glanced at the clock, with the hands signalling that it was half past 10.
'Who would be calling at a time like this?' She wondered, shaking her head. Not thinking too much about it, she picked up her phone and glanced at the name of the caller.
Her eyes narrowed immediately.
"Why are you calling, huh?" She muttered, now thinking carefully whether to pick up or not. Thinking there was no harm in it, she tapped the screen, answering the call as she placed the phone near her ear.
"Hello Melissa..." The voice was deeper than she remembered, but that wasn't her main concern. She needed to confirm something, something that had been bugging her for a while now.
"Sukuna... Is it true... That you've... "
"Yes..." He replied immediately. She sighed, sinking down into the chair, brushing her hair to the side.
"Alright, so I wasn't hallucinating when I saw that clip of you stopping that robbery. That's good to know..." She mumbled almost in a sarcastic manner. But she knew there wasn't time for jokes, he needed something from her.
"So." She continued carefully. "You've got a lot of nerve calling me. Are you going to explain why orrr..." She heard him sigh a little through the phone. He sounded tired to her.
"Because you won't waste time asking me to go back to UA first." Melissa didn't answer, knowing that he wasn't wrong.
"Well that depends on what you're about to say next."
"I need your help, Melissa. I need information, and I think you can help me find it." Melissa almost laughed at how straight to the point he was being, but it didn't come out.
"You call after going off the grid and think that's your opening line?"
"I don't have time for a better one, Melissa." His tone was pressured, like he was already running out of options. Melissa leaned back slightly in her chair.
"Then explain everything to me, Sukuna. And please make it make sense."
And so he does. He told her about his parents' disappearances, the lack of evidence, and how it was made to look like nothing had happened.
"There's a cult involved, connected to All For One and the League of Villains." Melissa's eyes narrowed. All For One and the League were definitely familiar names. Who didn't know them at this point?
"Why would they—"
"All For One had eyed both my parents' Quirks when they were still pro heroes, then All Might happened. But when he came back, he had ordered that same cult to kidnap them. And now I have no idea where they are."
"How do you know that it was them?A gut feeling? A lead? Or do you actually have something concrete?"
"Before I found out, a partner of mine had infiltrated the cult beforehand. I guess you can call him... my brother of sorts... He had tried to warn me, but well here I am..." Sukuna replied to her. Melissa sighed for the umpteenth time.
"You understand what you've become, right?" She asked carefully, in a worried tone. There was a slight pause on his end.
"Yes." He said in a low tone that Melissa almost couldn't hear him. She could tell that he didn't want to try to justify it, having long accepted it.
"It's probably been a month since you left UA. Right now, you're not operating under any protection systems, oversight, or backup. "
"You don't need to remind me." He replied in annoyance, interrupting her before she could go on and on. Melissa only smirked.
"Well what exactly are you asking me to do?"
"I need pattern analysis. Cross-referencing. Tech tracing. Just anything that i can't do out in the field." After he said that, Melissa was strangely quiet.
"Sukuna...you're assuming I want anything to do with this..."
"Remember what happened when me and my classmate were at I-island, Melissa?" She froze at his words.
"I don't think I need to explain what would've happened if none of us did anything."
"You're asking me to violate multiple legal frameworks because you felt I owed you one?" Melissa scoffed, her voice noticeably colder than before.
"I'm asking you to help me find my parents."
"That is not what you just said!" She raised her voice. This wasn't the Sukuna she knew when they first met.
'Or maybe this is the real him after all... Or he's really that desperate to pull that on me.' She quietly mused, standing up.
"I think you have gratitude and justification mixed up."
"I haven't." His voice remained steady, uncomfortably so.
"You have! You think because you helped in one crisis, that entitles you to pull someone into another one you created yourself!" She argued.
"My father believed in supporting heroes within systems, not outside of them—"
"Well he didn't exactly did that with All Might now did he?" He calmly rebuffed her statement. The woman, caught in her own words, was too stunned to speak.
Though something came to mind just then.
"There's something you're not accounting for... I could inform UA and Class 1-A."
"Melissa don't you dare—" His voice sharpened.
"Yes I would. Because frankly, I don't think you're fully considering what would happen when people like Mina find out." There was pure silence from Sukuna's side.
"...Just leave her out of this... please... " With how his voice softened , almost into a pleading manner with just the mention of the pink girl's name, Melissa almost pitied him. Almost.
"I don't think that's your decision anymore. Your actions affect everyone connected to you, whether you acknowledge it or not." There was a brief heavy silence that followed after. Melissa sighed, placing a palm on her forehead.
"Damnit... I can't ignore the fact that you're doing things alone." She muttered. "I can argue legality, ethics, the risk of it all as long as I want, but at the end of the day, I'm just letting a friend walk into something blind..."
"Ugh... Why are you making things difficult for me?!" She groaned, slamming her fist on the table.
"It's not easy for me either asking you of this. It's not like I want to, but you're the only option I have at this point." The pressure was real for her. She paced around her personal lab, thinking carefully about her next choice of words.
If she walked away, he would continue alone, his blind spots would remain, and if he was right about the scale of what was happening, whatever would happen next was something she could have helped prevent.
But if she did help him, she would cross lines she's not supposed to risking everything tied to her name, her education, her father's legacy just to become part of something unregulated.
She sighed loudly once again, her frustration with the situation itself not fading. When she spoke up again, her voice was steady.
"I need to be clear about something first. What you're doing is unacceptable, it doesn't make you right for leaving the way you did, or for trying to involve me after the fact." Sukuna was silent, so Melissa took it as a sign for her to continue.
"But I also understand the reality you're describing. Right now you're asking for capability and I can't ignore that distinction, so here's my decision... " She stopped pacing staring at the prototype gauntlet she was working on.
"If I help you, it will be under conditions I define. There will be no improvising around them, you don't get to push past them because you 'don't have time.' And no treating this like it's a solo operation with occasional assistance."
She immediately continued. "Also, this is not me saying I'm joining you I'm only providing analysis support to prevent you from walking blind into something larger than you understand."
"And if I think you're crossing a line you can't come back from… I will be backing off." She added silently, before letting it sink in.
"Right now... I'll need every piece of info you and that brother of yours have. Every detail and inconsistency, and also the parts you think don't matter." Melissa demanded, weirded out by how silent he was being.
"So this is what it looks like when you're 'not involved', huh?" Sukuna said in amusement.
"Oh don't start..." Melissa grumbled, already regretting it before she heard him snort a little.
"Well I'm just saying, most people don't define 'not involved' by actively organizing search parameters and setting operational constraints."
"Erm actually Sukuna, It's called oversight." She corrected him in a 'matter of fact' tone, but there was no real bite in it, well not anymore.
"Right right gotcha.. " He muttered, not believing her at all. "A totally neutral, strictly analytical oversight from someone who just happens to be helping a vigilante track a criminal network." He continued dryly.
"Hey that's not what I said!" It was comical how they could start off so serious but quickly transitioned into light banter.
"I know, I'm just translating for you."
"You're reading too much into it." She grumbled, slumping down onto her chair once again.
"I'm reading exactly what it is. You're helping me." Melissa didn't respond to him, not liking how accurate it sounded when stated that simply. She settled on a small huff.
"Fine then, if you insist on labels, then use 'temporary research collaboration'. "
"What is there to even research about? Just say you're my accomplice."
"I'm not your—"
"Whatever, at least I'm not alone in this anymore..." Both sides became silent after Sukuna's admission.
"Just... Just don't get too comfortable with this."
"Yeah yeah..." She heard her friend sigh over the phone.
"Thank you, Melissa." Hearing that, she finally cracked a smile at his words, nodding a little.
"We'll find them Sukuna, I promise you. Now get some sleep. We have a lot to work on tomorrow."
"I... Yeah... Goodnight I guess..." The call ended abruptly. Melissa silently placed the phone down, before she groaned loudly. Her hands covered her faces as she dragged them down, eyes looking up at the ceiling.
"Oh my God..."
What has she landed herself into this time?
...
(Weeks before Sukuna had called Melissa, a few days after his public stunt.)
At UA's Villain Rehabilitation Center. A certain blonde haired girl was leaning against the wall, reading a certain manga given to her by the staff.
She was wearing a soft light colored two piece set that was off-white in color. Her hair was tied in her two signature messy buns, with numerous wild strands sticking out.
"Heyyy! I finished this already. Can you give me the next volume?" She shouted at the camera placed on the top corner of her room, waving the manga in a dramatic manner. She heard knocking on the door to her room and glanced at it.
She would've went and opened it, but the reinforced door was locked from the outside, only the staff could remotely open it.
They called it a 'secure medical room', but to her it was merely a jail cell in different wording.
"What is it?" She asked, hoping that it was a staff delivering a new volume of manga.
"Someone is here to visit you."
"Really?!" Her eyes lit up as she went near the door. The door opened outward, revealing a female staff, smiling a little at the girl. The girl glanced down at the staff's hands and grinned, showing off her sharp canines.
"Where are my restraints?" She asked, mentioning the padded, non-punitive restraints she always wore whenever they transferred her between the facility's respective rooms.
"Well, the director said you don't need them anymore given your amazing behavior." She explained, causing the blonde to smile wider.
"That's great! So who's visiting me?" She asked while being guided to the visitor's room.
"A teacher from UA, goes by the name of Shota Aizawa." The staff explained vaguely.
'Oh! I hope he's here to tell me I can go! I can finally see Izuku again!' She thought as she childishly skipped towards the room she being guided to. When she entered, her eyes laid on a man who looked like he hadn't slept for weeks.
The door closed behind her, as she sat down in front of him. The man was staring at her, a little too intensively for taste. From her experience here at the rehab center, she knew he was analyzing her with his gaze.
"Himiko Toga..." The man muttered.
"Yup! That's me." Toga smiled cheerfully. Well, he didn't seem hostile to her, so she should be fine for now.
"I heard you've been cooperative." He commented. Toga only blinked. "That's new, considering your history." He added. She tilted her head slightly.
"Well I'm trying something new." She said almost playfully, but her eyes don't match it. The man noticed, but he didn't comment about it. Instead, he reached into a certain compartment in his outfit and took out an envelope, sliding it towards her.
"A certain someone wanted me to deliver this to you." Aizawa explained.
"Is it him?" Toga whispered. The older man nodded.
"Yes, I found it in his room the other day. I didn't go through it, for the sake of privacy." At his explanation, Toga grabbed the letter, staring at it silently.
She had found out he left UA by coincidentally watching the live broadcast of the bank robbery, where he appeared out of nowhere and beat the villains up. She was shocked for sure, and till this day she didn't know what to comment about it.
"I'm only here to make sure you understand the situation you're in, Toga." He began, noticing that the teen girl hadn't opened the envelope yet. Her smile faintly flickered.
"What? You mean the 'bad girl in rehab' situation?"
"No." He sighed a little. "I mean the fact that someone with no institutional protection is influencing your decisions from outside this system" He stared straight at her, his lazy gaze now serious.
"If you're changing solely because of him, you need to be clear whether it's because you want to change, or because you want to follow him." Silence reigned over the room for a while. Toga stared at Aizawa, before looking down at the pink envelope again.
"Well... Sukuna said I could choose... " She murmured.
"Then choose for yourself. Don't outsource your identity to someone who isn't here to carry it." He simply stated, hitting her hard with his words. The moment he had heard Sukuna's name was tied to her cooperation from Nezu, he knew he had to do something about it, as he didn't trust this situation to resolve itself quietly.
Toga opened the envelope, taking out a piece of paper before she started reading.
'Toga,
When I met you, you asked questions like you were testing whether the world had answers worth staying in. Most people either fear that or try to correct it, but I didn't.
I think you already know more about yourself than people give you credit for, though that's the problem. It's not that you don't understand yourself. It's the fact that no one around you ever treated that understanding as something human.
They treated it like something to fix, to punish or to lock away. I have never thought that you were broken. But I also don't think you're harmless in the way you try to sound when you say things lightly.
They want you to be one thing so they can decide how to deal with you. You don't fit that, and neither do I. That's part of why I left UA. Not because I'm free, but because I'm not.
There are things I need to deal with that don't fit inside classrooms or systems that assume everything has already been explained properly.
You'll hear people talk about me like I chose something simple. They're wrong. It wasn't simple and it never was. I don't know what you'll decide to do with where you currently are.
But I do know this, if you stay exactly as you are right now, someone will always try to control you. And if you change, they'll still try, but the only difference is whether you choose what that change means for you.
Not for them.
For yourself.
I'm not asking you to become anything. I'm not asking you to leave anything behind. I'm not asking you to follow me either, as following people isn't a good way to understand them, though I think you already know that.
You always looked like you were listening more than you were talking. So listen carefully to this part for me.
You are not something to be solved and you are not something to be excused. You are someone who will have to decide what to do with what you feel.
That's all I can say without lying to you.
-Sukuna
(Take care of Mina when you get out of rehab)'
"He didn't tell me what to do... " She whispered quietly, more to herself than to anyone. She let out something like a scoff.
"That's weird... Everyone always tells me what I am supposed to do." The teen felt unsettled for some reason, like something inside her had been named correctly for the first time, and she didn't know what to do with that.
"What the hell am I supposed to do with this now? " She asked to practically no one.
"Ugh, he's soooo annoying! " She complained, throwing the letter onto the desk, landing before the man who skimmed through it for a few seconds before he got the gist of it. He handed it back to her.
"Keep it. it's information, and people tend to twist memories when they only rely on their feelings." She sighed, snatching it away before lowering it to her lap, tucking it safely.
"Does he talk like that all the time?" She asked him. He shrugged.
"Not in writing, usually it's worse in person." He stated, some amusement in his tone. Toga, amused, hummed in response. Aizawa then shifted his weight slightly.
"I'm not here to judge your decision to cooperate, but I am here to make sure you understand what cooperation actually means."
"Are all UA teachers this boring?" She commented. Aizawa snorted a little.
"Watch it, brat." He shook his head. 'I swear if she's assigned to my class after rehab...'
"Back to what I was saying. You gotta remember that you're in rehab, that means you're expected to work on understanding your impulses, not just suppressing them like you always do before this." Toga lightly tapped her finger on her knee, listening attentively to the teacher with a small smile.
"If you don't, you just learn to behave until something breaks again. Trust me, I've seen that pattern tons of times." She blinked. That's what she has always been doing for her whole life.
"So what do people usually do?" She asked him. Aizawa hummed.
"Well your first step is to not force change, you'd most likely fail before you even reach a third of the way. I'd suggest you to first start understanding your triggers. For example, When does the urge spike? What situations make it worse? And what can interrupt the pattern before it escalates?"
Toga found herself paying attention to him, maybe UA teachers aren't that boring after all, well, at least this one before her.
"You need to map out your Quirk responses instead of denying it exists."
"So do I study myself or something?" Toga questioned. Aizawa nodded.
"Exactly. Also another thing, be honest when you notice things you don't like."
Toga gave a small smile. "Sounds hard."
"Of course." He smirked at her. "And no one can do it for you."
"So if I do this... Do I get out of here faster? " She asked, suddenly quiet. Aizawa was silent for a while before he spoke.
"If you do this, you eliminate the need to be here. That's the rehab center's end goal for you after all."
"Oh..." Toga hummed, looking down at her legs. She suddenly looked up again.
"When I get out of here... Can I um... become a student UA?" Aizawa blinked at her question. This wasn't what he expected.
"UA is a hero academy, not a rehab program. Why?" He asked.
"I know that... I just don't want to stay somewhere where I'm just… being managed." She muttered honestly, the dissatisfaction with being contained instead of progressing clear to Aizawa.
"Why UA?" He asked, trying to gauge her intentions. Toga was silent for a few moments before she answered.
"Because people there try to understand their Quirks and how they fight. They don't just lock them up, and I want that. And because... you know... It looks like fun studying there."
"Fun..." He snorted to himself. "They always say that before they get remedy classes. But those reasons aren't valid enough to get the admissions board's acceptance."
Toga shrugged at his words. "I didn't think it would be." Aizawa sighed, crossing his arms.
"Well if you're serious about changing your environment, there are legal steps. You'd need to pass a version of UA's entrance exam, that's if you're deemed mentally stable enough."
"If I fail?"
"Then it's more rehab for you. No exceptions."
"Okay... I accept..." She muttered.
"Kid, if this is a decision you're making because of someone else, you need to separate that before you apply." Aizawa continued. Toga shook her head.
"I'm not doing it because of him... Well not just because of him... I just..." She smiled sincerely.
"I just want to show kid me that monsters can be heroes after all..." Aizawa sighed to himself after a while of silence, before getting up and walking towards the door.
"Don't build your future on proving people wrong, build it on understanding yourself well enough that it doesn't matter what they think anymore." She stared as his hand reached the door knob. He then stopped, glancing back at her.
"Oh and, kid? Try not to become someone you're not. UA doesn't produce copy cats." He watched as Toga broke out a wide grin.
"Okay sensei!"
Aizawa stared at her, stumped at what she had just called him. He snorted a little, shaking his head as he opened the door with a small smile.
"It's too soon to call me that, brat... "
To be continued...
(Hey, hope you enjoyed this chapter to the new volume. And did y'all notice, Sukuna hasn't physically appeared once this chapter, only his voice was heard and his name was mentioned.)