Flea

Chapter Fifty Two

That girl would be the death of him. He wished he was exaggerating, but Kokoro had long accepted Maeve would either get him through second-hand embarrassment or a stroke. Even in their current situation, having a villain in the equation was the least of his worries.

As he finally broke through the treeline of Maeve's mind forest, exhausted, covered in scratches, and thigh-deep in tar-like fluid, the psychiatrist had to wonder why his skin was exuding copious amounts of steam. On his previous visits, the surgeon's wild mental construction had been reasonably dormant. Then again, Maeve's defences had toughened since her coma to the point he'd needed to attack prowling tendrils with an imaginary weed wacker to get past.

Nobody else was going to make it. That had less to do with his colleague's comparative skill and more to do with the fact he'd helped design the monstrosity. In spite of Maeve developing increasingly complex stratifications, the fundamental bones were the same, so he was able to fumble his way further into the depths of her subconscious. The closer he got to the centre, the more restless the organism became. Luckily, nothing ambushed him that he couldn't handle. Kokoro avoided contemplating what that would do to his own mind.

Of course, her head had to put the cell dead centre in a reservoir. Artificial lights lit it up from the inside out, giving the structure an eerily mythical quality which contrasted with the exposed insulation and metal strutting. It left their interrogation room rather naked. Reflections of harsh machinery in tranquil fluid merely threw them into stronger contrast with the rest of the place. Maeve's poetic sense was as impish as usual. What better place to store a devastating weapon than with the lady of the lake? It was an indication of her almost reverent fear of Dabi that her unconscious held him in the same regard as the masculine symbol of Excalibur.

Perhaps he was thinking too much. Most likely, she'd made the very pragmatic realisation that nestling something flammable in the middle of a forest was asking for disaster.

A silhouette loomed in the one-way mirror, blocking the only source of illumination in Maeve's entire construct. Because of the lighting, they'd have a perfect view of him half wading, half flailing towards the disembodied room and he could only discern an outline in return. Maeve hadn't been exaggerating when it came to the terrorist's profile. His height was thrown into even sharper relief when a smaller shape materialised beside the first, appearing almost like a child in comparison. Their plan hadn't worked then. The concept of his patient fighting Dabi off with nothing but teeth and fists was simultaneously laughable and tear-inducing.

When the villain spotted him, Kokoro picked up his pace, needing to practically swim to keep his head above the foul fluid. Even so, he kept his eyes locked on the two figures ahead. From their body language he could work out Dabi was talking to Maeve. When she gave no indication of a response, the villain protectively pulled her behind himself, completely blocking the girl from view. Twin fireballs erupted in both palms, throwing his features into crystal clarity. A collective uptake of breath wracked the clearing; ripples in the lake became near frenzied and trees whispered angrily overhead.

Interesting.

Shinso had never been particularly fond of the zoo. Animal thought processes didn't come close to the complexity of human consciousness, however, that didn't mean they were any less overpowering. In fact, the simplicity of their psyches often meant they were painfully raw, stripped of humanity's emotional buffering. Pets were manageable, creatures in the wild acceptable, but zoo animals pushed his already stretched limits. He had no issue with the concept, more often than not they were perfectly healthy both physically and mentally, however, the bizarre mix of primal intensity and excited crowds never failed to leave him nauseous.

That lead to his retreat every visit as a child to the panther enclosure on the outskirts of Ueno zoological gardens. Because it required a decent trek and was nowhere near the main big cats such as Sumatran tigers, they tended to get overlooked in favour of flashier animals who did more than just laze around indifferently, occasionally deigning onlookers a supercilious amber once over. Shinso would spend his time collecting discarded trash dropped as some strange power play by people desperate to reestablish comfortable hierarchy. Even below a 16-foot wall, calmly sprawled under milky winter sunlight, the cats could make people insecure with a single look. They took about as much notice of him as the scattered rubbish.