𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐂 ᵐʰᵃ

FIVE

SOMETHING POOLS AT HER FEET, WARM AND TACKY AGAINST HER BARE SKIN. Cold air brushes against her shoulders. It tastes stale, carrying the heavy smell of metal. Copper. Concrete. Her face itches from her cheek to her jaw, down her neck. Something dried and congealed plasters her bangs over her right eye.

It's dark. Dark and cold and familiar.

She tries to turn her head, tries to see what she's standing in, tries to lift her arms and wipe away the unknown muck. Yet something stops her, makes everything inside of her freeze. There is a presence here. It spreads through the darkness to every crack and corner, stifling and heavy and hair-raising. She chokes on it. On the fear. On the pure, unadulterated evil.

"You've finally come home," comes a deep voice. A tall figure steps forward, swathed in shadows that don't quite hide the hard glint in His eyes. "Tomura was so sure you would return."

Her hands begin to shake.

(This is wrong, this is wrong, this is all so wrong-)

The man steps closer, hands folded behind the back of His neatly pressed suit. "Unfortunately, you were too late. Poor Tomura wanted to see you one last time ..." He stares at her, eyes narrowed as red energy crackles around Him.

(He shouldn't look like this. That face was destroyed years ago, even after all the agonizing hours where she was forced to try and put Him back together and it didn't work and this is wrong.)

The malevolent force makes it so hard to breathe, to blink. "Sensei," she wheezes, feeling it claw at her throat. "I didn't- I'm s- sorry- "

He smiles. A sharp, cruel smile. It looks like the bared fangs of a predator about to pounce.

"It's too late for apologies, little reaper. Look at what you've done."

She follows the direction of His gaze, turning slowly.

Her knees slide on the bloody concrete as she falls. Tomura's blank eyes stare over her shoulder, as if still looking to Him for guidance. Shaking, she reaches for his outstretched hand, limp against the ground. It's cold and tinged blue and sticky with blood. And for once, her skin doesn't crumble away as she clasps his stiff fingers in hers.

"You killed him," He says, voice even and matter-of-fact. A hand comes to rest on her shoulder. "This is the consequence of defying me. Do you understand?"

And she looks up at the man, trembling with restrained sobs as tears leave trails through the blood - Tomura's blood - on her cheek.

And He grins down at her, palm hovering just over her face. "Do you understand, little reaper?"  Searing energy lights up the dark room with no windows-

For the first time in years, she wakes up screaming.

―――

The detective scratches a new frustration onto his notepad. There are bags under his eyes that weren't there before, a testament to long nights and insufficient caffeine. If not for her own exhaustion, she might have found it incredibly amusing. After all, she is the cause of his energy deprivation.

A week of questions and muffled static and burning white lights has yet to bear any evidence of her existence. She's done her best to uphold her end of the deal, picking apart her deteriorating memory for any detail about Tomura and his plan and operation. After three days of carting between her room in the facility - not quite a proper room, but it isn't the too-white cell and it doesn't have cameras and the tiny connected bathroom allows her finally wash her hair with hot water - and the interrogation room, they came to the conclusion that very little of Tomura's actual plans had been divulged to her.