Crossing Fates : Book 4 - Free (BakuDeku)

6 - Beguilement

Katsuki strode with Keiki through the halls, his sharp gaze taking in the damage to the building along with the nervous reactions of the Elves that they passed.

The scent of fear and stress littered the air along with the stink of ash and blood, and the fires in wall sconces flickered in a macabre echo to the forest fire.

Once he might have enjoyed seeing his old enemies when they were so devastated.

Now he thought of Izuku's distress when he had looked at the pile of bodies.

He frowned, and an Elf who was coming toward them from the other direction shrank back against the wall until they had passed.

Keiki led him down a flight of stairs. There was a minute change in air pressure and scent, along with the lack of windows.

He was unsurprised.

Underground was the best place to have holding cells. As pretty as this place had once been, it was still the seat of the Elven domain and they had to house prisoners somewhere.

They reached a spelled and bolted door where a pair of armed Elves stood guard.

The guards regarded Keiki and Katsuki with stony faces but unbolted and opened the door right away.

The sound of screaming boiled out as soon as the door was cracked, along with the quieter undertone of people engaged in intense conversation.

Just as Katsuki had expected, beyond the door was a block of cells.

This cell block was probably where people were held until judgment had been passed. There would be another, more permanent place where the Elves would hold criminals sentenced to prison terms, but this was a solid temporary holding area.

At the moment the cells were packed with bedraggled, bloody people, all in some state of half dress.

Sekijiro stood with a cluster of armed guards and a few other Elves. Their focus was turned inward to an area that they circled. That area was also the source of the screaming.

A few of the guards turned to face them as they entered the block, but their attention was fractured and they looked distressed.

One of the guards tapped Sekijiro politely on the shoulder, and the High Lord turned to face them as they approached.

Katsuki studied the occupants of the cells sharply as he and Keiki walked past.

They stood passively, staring into space, their faces blank and hands idle at their sides. When he came closer to the High Lord, a couple of the guards moved between him and Sekijiro, while the rest of the circle moved back, not, he could tell, to allow him access to the screaming male that sat bound in a chair, but to move further away from him.

He bared his teeth at Sekijiro. Some foolish, naive creature might have called it a smile.

Sekijiro didn't even try to return a false response. Instead he said abruptly, "Those who were captured are all like you see in the cells, and our healers cannot bring them back to themselves. This is the third person they've tried."

Katsuki asked, "What happened to the other two?"

"The healers had to stop when their heartbeats became irregular."

He nodded. "Move," he said.

A couple stepped back timidly, but one stood stiffly defiant.

Katsuki regarded the Elf through lowered eyelids as the healer hissed, "My lord, we've barely begun to try. If you could only give us more time to experiment..."

"We don't have time," Sekijiro said bitterly. "Do as Bakugo says. Move back and let him examine Reade."

Fortunately, looks couldn't kill, and Katsuki did not have a single finer feeling for the Elf to hurt.

When the way had been cleared, he stepped forward and Keiki followed.

They had tied the male to a simple upright chair, his arms strapped to the wooden arms. Urine and vomit stained the Elf's clothes, although his screaming had faded when the healers had stopped doing whatever it was they had been trying to do to him. He stared dully into space, his face as slack and blank as all the others in the cells.

Katsuki noted that the bonds were carefully positioned to restrict but not injure. Their goal then, was to recover the Elf, not to dig for information.

But his goal was not necessarily the same as the Elves'.

Careful to avoid the body liquids that smeared the stone floor, Katsuki squatted in front of the Elf to examine him more closely.

He took his time, and gradually the resentful muttering around him fell to silence. He ignored them, concentrating on the shards of Power in and around the male's aura.

The dragon took note of the male's own Power first. Once he had identified it, he moved on to studying the rest.

The Elf's aura held a lingering taint of the Machine that was interwoven with another, third identity.

Much as he was interested in locating the Machine itself, he was less interested in the aftereffects of its use. Instead, he filtered that out carefully until he could concentrate all his attention on that last thread of Power.

The dragon savored the taste of it like it was the blood of his prey.

And in a way it was.

That's who you are, he said silently. Tomura Shigaraki, adept at persuasion and beguilement, and fire. It appears that we might have a few things in common, you and I. And no matter how you might change your looks, or where you go and what you do, I will know you again now.

Anywhere.

He could kill the Elf in the chair with the twist of his mind, and he could kill the others in the holding block too, quicker than they could do anything in retaliation but inflict incidental damage.

He would not be who and what he was if he didn't at least consider the fact that he had unprecedented access, not only to Sekijiro but also to several key remaining Elves in this domain.

And the unforgiving part of him that knew how to nurture a grudge wanted to. Oh, it really, deeply wanted to.

Instead, he said, "I can try to remove the lingering beguilement from him and the others, but you must understand I can only try, not promise. Both Tomura's Power and the Machine he used are threaded into their core identities. Tomura had to go deep to establish the kind of control that would make them turn weapons on their own family and friends."

"What would happen if you can't remove it?" Sekijiro asked.

"Oh, I can remove it," Katsuki said. He straightened lightly from his crouch and turned to the High Lord. "The question is whether or not it will break their minds if I did."

"My lord!" the healer exclaimed. "I beg of you, do not allow this. Give us more time to try!"

Katsuki regarded the healer indifferently. Then he said to Sekijiro, "Personally, I do not care which you choose. But if you give your healers time to study this, they will only come to the same conclusion I just have. The beguilement cannot be completely removed without some risk to the victims."

He met Sekijiro's sharp gaze. "You will lose more people here. That is a fact, unless you want to leave them as they are, in which case you will have lost them all, for the only thing you have contained here are their bodies."

The Elves began to talk over each other and argue. Katsuki turned away.

As he did so, the male bound in the chair whispered, "He knew you would come, Beast."