5 Save the Cheerleader, Save the World (2)
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Narrative clarifications:
P-o-V= Narration written from a character's point of view.
-o-o-o-o= Narration written from a general point of view and/or the narrator's point of view.
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Note 1: Please read this chapter calmly. When I wrote this chapter, I was too inspired, so I exceeded in the number of words. By the way, in order to avoid a heavy reading, I divided this chapter in two, so the continuation of this chapter will be published in about 7 days.
Note 2: This chapter also focuses mainly on the development of the relationship between my versions of Toga and Izuku. I apologize in advance to those people who don't like to read so many conversations/texts about memories/descriptions of feelings, etc.... It's just that I wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote and when I realized it, I had already made an excessively long chapter focused on the dialogue and interaction between these two characters :/
Anyway, I hope you can enjoy what I've left below. In chapter 7 there will be a bit more action. And don't forget to leave me a Review. Your opinions, ideas, and support, help me to create a good story. Best regards
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Act I: Origins
Mission 01: Save the Cheerleader, Save the World (2)
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Note 3: By the way, do you like the current cover better, or the one I had posted when I first published this fanfiction story on this platform?
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-o-o-o-o
Life is unfair. Not everyone is born equal.
These were two facts Himiko-Toga knew well.
Day after day, after taking a bath, She was reminded of it every time she smiled in front of the mirror placed on the main wall of her personal bathroom; her sharp 'unsightly' teeth and the 'disturbing' figure of a mutant hidden beneath her human flesh, were marks of inequality that the universe would never let her forget.
She still remembers the first time she knew she was very different from others; shortly after her fourth birthday, a little girl developed wild instincts, instincts that soon led her to 'break' a bird. Immediately after, she was fascinated when she observed the red liquid coming out of the animal's corpse; she thought that the red liquid coming out of the animal was quite beautiful because her instincts told her that when she drank of that substance, she would feel better about herself. She felt that by drinking that substance, she would be stronger and happier; and besides, the aroma she perceived from the red liquid seemed delicious.
Therefore, it didn't take her long to taste a drop of the small animal's blood. An extremely pleasant sensation spread from her taste buds to the rest of her nerves and at the same time, as her body took on a new appearance, the feeling of hunger that had been awakening inside her for weeks had finally disappeared.
Soon after, she tried to share her fixation with her parents, as well as show them the transformation ability she had recently discovered she possessed. She did this while showing them the tiny, bloodied and broken bird. On a conscious level, she thought it was quite normal to hand over the corpse of a weak creature to her superiors.
She thought they would congratulate her for bringing more food to the house, for bringing more food to her 'pack'. She thought they would give her a thumbs up and let her eat and drink some of the prey she had gotten for everyone.
But instead of receiving affection or congratulations for bringing the 'food' into the house, all she got from them was screams of horror. After that, with rather questionable physical disciplinary measures, she was forced to understand that drinking the blood of a living being or murdering a living being with your bare hands and then eating it on the spot were things only a monster would do.
And like every human little girl, she always wanted to be loved and accepted by her parents, so after suffering the consequences of her twentieth 'kind punishment', for her physical and mental well-being and the desire to want to be accepted by her parents, Himiko forced herself to become what her parents always wanted her to be: a perfect woman.
She repressed her passion and avoided wearing that strange appearance that drew looks of disgust from her parents. She was forced to fit into society, she was forced to be a girl like all the others, she was forced to meet the standards of normality of this society to avoid being called a Monster by her parents and others.
She ignored with her willpower the wild thoughts that flooded her head, so she stopped being that wild child who got mud on her clothes all the time after playing in the garden of her house or in the forest near her home; she stopped being that extremely extroverted child who played in the nature and little by little she became a more quiet and studious child: she became a model student, the perfect noble daughter, a princess of the high society.
Of course, in time, her parents forgot the true nature of her being. And no one else got to know her in depth.
Everyone didn't know that Himiko was a monster that could consider a human being as food. Everyone didn't know that she could easily kill someone; they didn't know the real Himiko-Toga sleeping under that mask of lies that she had placed over the core of her being.
Until minutes before that moment that her (now) former school would never forget, she had kept that monster filled with a passion for blood and abnormal desires sleeping inside her. However, the seal that was placed on the monster had finally been broken, so there was no turning back. The mask that contained it, could no longer trap it again; the mask could no longer prevent it from satiating the terrible feeling of hunger that for 14 years had been making them suffer, both her and her 'dark companion'.
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P-o-V
"..."
In a certain room, absolute silence reigned for at least 10 breaths while a green-haired man wore a contemplative expression, as if he was searching for the most appropriate words to express at that moment
After that time, the man spoke as he nodded his head. His words sounded sincere and he seemed quite thoughtful, his expression lacking surprise, bewilderment or disturbance despite having heard a rather out of the ordinary story:
"...Thank you for finally telling me a bit of your past, despite the...strange...state I've been keeping you in. Hmmmm, for the sake of conversation, so as not to return to those moments with awkward silences or discussions that get us nowhere, let's forget for a moment that I have you...'Arrested', so to speak, shall we?".
Toga noticed how the young green-haired man sighed as he scratched the back of his neck with great sorrow. He obviously still felt guilty for locking up a young woman in a place that could only be considered a third world prison.
However, despite the strangeness of the situation and despite his feelings of guilt, Shepard had given Himiko his full attention as she openly told him the most relevant parts of her childhood story. A story that (for some reason that Toga still couldn't fully understand) over the course of multiple days, the green-haired young man had kindly asked her to tell him.
Shepard was sitting on a simple and worn chair that he had placed very close to the old sofa where Himiko was resting in a comfortable position at the moment, with her back leaning against the sofa while her legs remained resting on one of the corners of the medium-sized wooden table that separated them both, where in turn, two crystal glasses filled with a red liquid each (one more red than the other) plus a glass of Carmenere wine next to a saucer full of snacks, lay in its center. Next to those elements, there was also what appeared to be a kind of metallic grid box of an approximate size of 70 x 70 cm; this metallic box, similar to a case, was a bit strange, as it had electronic buttons and power outlets in certain areas of its structure and at the same time, its surface was painted with a black background, which was full of drawings of the figures of stars and galaxies that were formed in the firmament at nightfall. It was the (painted) landscape that every astronaut would observe when leaving the earth.
It should also be noted that by this time, Shepard was no longer dressed in hospital patient clothes, but was wearing casual clothes. On the other hand, all the gauze and bandages that had covered his body in certain areas had been removed three days ago, since his wounds had healed as they normally would in a normal human being, although he still had a scab or two here and there.
Shepard spoke again when his chin was placed between the index finger and thumb of one of his hands while an expression full of understanding was drawn on his face.
"... With the information you have provided me, I can finally understand why a student who seemed to be perfect, committed her first murder 28 days ago"
That's right, 28 days ago, Himiko had attacked and murdered one of the students of her former academy and on the 17th day after she escaped from the authorities she had met the man in front of her, who for the last 11 days, had kept her locked up in the psychiatric room of an abandoned hospital located in one of the 10 poorest and most dangerous neighborhoods in Japan, Kamagasaki.
48 hours after the third conversation with Shepard (in which she told him that she never expected to be so unlucky that the twelfth homeless man she had chosen to eat that night was actually an even more dangerous serial killer than she was) and shortly after he offered her the fifth glass full of blood, when she stopped whimpering for him to release her and/or when her shameless/false cries for help had exhausted him, Shepard released the iron chains and leather belts that imprisoned her to that psychiatric bed, so that on the second day after being captured, Toga could finally move freely inside the dilapidated room where she was currently located.
Shepard considered releasing her from her chains, most likely because he had considered that if he didn't do so, he would not be able to have an eloquent conversation with her. Or perhaps he considered that she was already calm and lucid enough to be able to have a decent social interaction with him. Or he considered that she had become sufficiently familiar with his person that it was no longer necessary to have her in such a condition. Or perhaps he felt that she was already tolerating his presence well enough...
...Whatever the case was, Himiko still wasn't quite sure why Shepard was taking care of her with so much effort and patience and even less understood why a hero with such great abilities was keeping her captive in a secret place instead of taking her to the nearest police headquarters or putting her directly in jail; he already knew her criminal background quite well, even before she told him (with some reluctance) what she had done, so she didn't understand why he was keeping her in this strange place.
Nor did she understand why he continued to care for her with such dedication even though he well knew that her murders had been orchestrated in a bloodthirsty manner. Much less did she understand the reason why he continued to treat her so kindly even after she treated him so badly the first few days after she was released: Naturally, a person like her, who loves freedom, completely disagreed with being locked up in a sealed room with no possibility of escape, so obviously even though that handsome young man gave her blood, her favorite food, so easily and in such exorbitant quantities, she had still tried to escape on more than one occasion, performing all kinds of violent, naughty or rude acts.
But in spite of all this, after the young green-haired adult had disabled with military-grade skill every escape attempt, blow or prank she had made or tried to make on him in the previous days, every time he went out of that armored entrance/exit door (from which he removed the industrial steel chains and the strategically bent iron pipe from its internal lock to put those elements in the lock on the other side when leaving the place) he always returned to the room the next day with that grotesquely sexy scar (from Himiko's perspective, of course) extending partially towards those fleshy lips that drew a radiant and at the same time, sensually rude smile...
"..." Despite feeling uncomfortable about the fact that she told one of the most important parts of her life to the one who is essentially her kidnapper, at this moment Toga couldn't stop her face from blushing almost completely when she thought about that smile and the scars adorning Shepard's body. In one of his several escape attempts, with the claws of her mutant form, she had inadvertently torn a long-sleeved shirt of the green-haired man to shreds, thereby exposing a body full of muscles that looked like they had been sculpted by 'Michelangelo' himself.
But it should be noted that this only partially impressed her, since an athletic figure is a characteristic of a man that she only finds relatively attractive: all her life she has seen heroes on television with beefy figures, so this physical characteristic isn't something she finds very remarkable in the opposite sex. However, what really impressed her about Shepard's body, and left a strong mark on her mind and heart, were all those variously shaped scars adorning the sturdy arms and muscular torso of someone whose partially disfigured face appears to be only 18 to 20 years old: Seeing that, she thought she was in the presence of a wild and primitive young warrior and/or a Nordic warrior born for war: She imagined on several occasions this green-haired young man as a wild man dressed in the clothes of an ancient warrior, engaging for honor or fun in bloody combats, where he mixed in his body full of wounds, the blood of his enemies with the dirt and mud of the battle field.
The 'dirtiness' of his skin shown through scars and disfigurements, his bravery and confidence expressed through a body that looked like that of a wild man, his familiarity with blood and the lack of modesty in observing her drinking it and lastly, his authoritative bearing with a hint of infamy
"..." Himiko shook her head from side to side at least 3 times as she tried to get those ideas out of her head when she noticed again the warmth of her body in her human form rising from her neck to her cheeks. Her mind that was wandering on the most important events of the last few days (while waiting for the green-haired man to finish expressing his thoughts), had once again betrayed her by directing her thoughts to some of the attributes that her kidnapper possesses and that ironically she found extremely attractive.
For some years now, she had already realized that she didn't think like a normal woman and for some months now she had finally realized that in many ways she was crazy, but she definitely never expected that within her delusions, there would also be room for Stockholm syndrome; Or at least its initial symptoms. She didn't know much about that psychiatric illness, but according to what she had read (or seen on TV/internet) about it, when a kidnap victim develops positive feelings for his/her captor, it's a sure sign that the person's head is starting to lose a screw. She didn't consider herself dumb, in fact she considered herself quite smart and cultured enough thanks to the education she had received that she knew well enough the basics of the various branches of science taught in middle and high school, such as basic psychology education classes.
With that in mind, she also thought she knew herself well enough to be sure that she was not in love with Shepard. But positive thoughts directed towards this man had begun to invade her head a few days ago and so far she hadn't managed to purge them from her head. Thoughts like the ones she was having right now (while Shepard was still holding his chin, apparently still meditating on the information he had heard), ideas that kept bothering her!:
"(...He's treated me so well despite everything I've done to him, and he's also offering me that 'love' without delay~. Aaaaah! I'm finding it so hard to stop thinking about him~ This dirty broccoli with a wildly sensuous body...)", She shook her head again, trying to shake off the embarrassing thoughts from her psyche. As the days passed, she no longer knew if she was being attracted to her captor because of some sort of Stockholm Syndrome in the initial stage or if she was just 'extremely' grateful to him because he had saved, fed and cared for her despite how violent she had been with him in the early days of their social interactions ,"(...No! Stop thinking about him! Control your hormones, Toga!...)", She sighed and shook her head again.
This time, to distract herself, she withdrew her visual focus from Shepard's face and her gaze focused on the crystal glass filled with 'love' and the cupcakes and cookies on the porcelain tray to the side. As she did that, her thoughts analyzed some of the other qualities of the green-haired man that had her quite confused:
"(How is it that a vigilant can be so crazy as to steal transfusion packets from a private hospital with the intention of feeding whit this to the vampiric murderess he has locked up in a godforsaken asylum?~ And how is it that he can think that these kinds of snacks are suitable for me to ingest along with blood?~ And stranger still, for three days now, he has been accompanying me on my lunch break, drinking that glass of red wine...But what kind of twisted Tea Party has he built for me? Niahahaha!~)"
At the end of this thought, although one of her eyebrows rose with confusion, paradoxically her lips drew an amused smile when this situation reminded her of one of her favorite scenes included in one of her favorite literary works. Lewis Carrol's original novel and all the other film and literary versions that other authors/companies created afterwards, were one of the stories that fascinated her the most: she identified with the twisted world shown in that novel and in the rest of its versions because after all, she was also a child who little by little developed an altered perception of reality as she grew up. Not to mention that the elements of the dark, twisted, dirty, impetuous and wacky world described in the various 'Alice in Wonderland' stories that exist, had a great affinity with her own fixations.
Finished with that line of thoughts that amused her somewhat, Himiko's eyes again focused on the pensive Shepard, and then a series of confused feelings again invaded her psyche and her heart for the umpteenth time in the day:
"(I don't get it, how can someone be kind, rude and so crazy at the same time?~...Aaaah! Stop thinking about how awesome he is and concentrate!...)", Toga made a tenderly annoyed pout as she puffed out her cheeks as she got angry at herself for the fact that she couldn't stop thinking positively about her kidnapper ,"(...You have to find a way to escape! When you escape, you just have to hide from all the heroes and cops so you can be free~...)", But the pout would soon turn into an expression full of confused feelings when her next line of thought unexpectedly contradicted her with a subit idea that formed almost by reflex:".(..Escape?...But if I escape, I probably won't ever...see or live...with Shep~...No! I told you to stop thinking about him!)"
Finished with that thought, her eyebrows rose in distress, perhaps out of some sort of fear of separation, but paradoxically one of her 'vampiric' fangs bit her lower lip hard as she was also filled with frustration, for she had realized that apparently there was now a part of her that didn't quite like the idea of leaving this place for in doing so she would no longer be able to relate to the green-haired man, so her heart and head found themselves suffering from a strange internal struggle.
"(It's not fair!~...)", She bit harder on her lower lip, tasting the next instant a drop of her own blood. Luckily she inadvertently broke the inner mucous membrane of her lower lip, so Shepard didn't notice the act. At this moment, with her emotional state so bewildered, she didn't want him to question her about why she seemed to be so upset and/or distressed ,"(...It's not fair that I was kidnapped by someone so cool~...There shouldn't be able to exist a hero with such a strange behavior; He's very kind but also very infamous and crazy. He saves innocent people and even takes care of criminals like me, but at the same time he also commits criminal acts~...And those are characteristics that are supposed to be incompatible in a hero! And the worst thing about it, is that he seems to find it normal to do all those things~...It doesn't make sense. Shepard-Chan doesn't make any sense at all! He seems like a person who is alien to all the ethical rules and values of today's heroic society~, He almost seems like a person who was raised in another world or who lived isolated from the world almost all his life~ Hehehe)".
At the end of those thoughts, Toga made a quick summary of the events that in the past few days led her to have a heart and mind with such perplexing feelings and thoughts;
Despite all the physical affronts and murder attempts that she unleashed on Shepard, after he calmed her down by disabling her with a force and rudeness that only hurt her very little, the green-haired man always pretended that none of that had happened and then continued to feed her with the 'love' that he deposited in those crystal glasses, only to later try to have conversations with her on random topics.
On the second day Shepard brought her changes of clothes, snacks and refreshments of all kinds and shortly thereafter, he tried to get her to tell him a little of her past, but she obviously didn't release information and instead, tried to beat him unconscious and/or murder him on more than one occasion. In turn, she had refused the drinks and non-blood snacks he brought her, both on this day and the next 3 days after, in which she would also try to render him unconscious in many different ways, although her murder attempts would only occur on about two more occasions on the third and fourth day after meeting him.
On the third day, Shepard brought portions of Katsudon for two people, commenting that this food for him was like blood for her, so he invited her to vary her diet, tasting his favorite food together with him, but obviously Himiko refused to follow his 'orders'. Incidentally, in these days she would also completely learn that her Quirk, besides granting her a mutant form with relatively useful physical abilities, also allowed her to adopt the form of a prey that was female, for a limited time, as long as she consumed female's blood; but she couldn't adopt the form of a male. Of that, she hadn't realized until now, since all her murder victims had been male, so in addition to being able to change her appearance to her preset human form, she had never learned that she could transform into another female. It should be noted that these limitations and characteristics of her meta-ability were analyzed by Shepard who conjectured that the reason she couldn't adopt the form of the blood she consumed from other globular packets (which didn't have the information of whether the blood came from a man or a woman), was probably because her quirk was limited to adopting the forms of blood coming from women.
On the fourth day, with great dedication, Shepard cleaned the psychiatric room, removing dust, cobwebs, mold, mildew and scale from the seats/walls/floor/pipework/padded walls with mops, brooms, sandpaper and brushes dampened with soap and water that he brought from home. He then repaired the bathroom in the room, reconnecting a number of old tubes to the shower and sink. Once that was done, dirty water began to come out of the sink and shower, which gradually cleared up after a few minutes; Shepard would later explain that he used part of his savings to buy a high-density polyethylene water tank with a capacity of 2000 liters, which he installed on one of the upper floors of the hospital, right next to the pipes that connected to the bathroom of the psychiatric room, tubes whose route he was able to elucidate thanks to the scanning with his omni-tool of the walls of the hospital complex. At the end of the cleaning and repairs, he made it clear to Himiko that he did all this for her, because although he had her there to prevent her from murdering another person, he didn't want her to continue living in such a disastrous place because he considered that despite the acts she had committed, she was not worthy of living in such a horrible place.
On the fifth day, Shepard brought his personal electronic tablet (with internet access blocked through malware (created in house, by to speak) for obvious reasons) whose size was comparable to that of a basic laptop. On that device, he had downloaded movies, TV series, books, novels, games, music and all sorts of recreational items he thought Toga might be interested in. After giving the tablet to the blonde-haired young woman, he told her that he had modified its power system to run on hydrogen batteries, which would allow the device to stay on for at least two weeks without receiving any electrical charge even when used at full capacity, so she could distract herself as she wished while he was not in the room. Shortly after the gift was delivered, he invited her to play an application on the device that mimicked a board game that he thought Toga might be interested in to pass the time, but Himiko was not in the mood that day, so she refused to participate in any kind of game. Later she tried to escape for the ninth time; she adopted her mutant form thinking that with the slight increase in strength that this form gives her, she would have a chance to overcome the strength of the green-haired man, but unfortunately the only damage she could do was to break with her claws the long shirt of the young man, which would reveal those other bodily disfigurements of that athletic body, which left her so impressed to this day.
On the sixth day, after the green-haired man played on the tablet a song that Himiko seemed to like, Shepard told her a little about himself, commenting that he was not really a professional hero, but a high school boy who secretly spent his nights as a vigilant, but aspired to be a professional hero someday; at that moment, Toga finally dared to talk a little more compared to previous days. She was a bit interested in the background of her kidnapper since his strange morality won her curiosity, so she asked him if he wasn't afraid that the police or a hero would discover his identity and ruin his rise to 'professionalism' since even though a small part of the authorities and heroes don't arrest vigilants because of how 'convenient' they are to them, most of the vigilants who are caught and/or their identities are discovered, in Japan are arrested and later released after a two-year jail sentence, forbidden to take national exams for promotion to professional heroes upon their release if they would like to redeem themselves and/or forbidden to enter universities that train heroes, as an extra penalty for having seriously violated the laws of the country. Upon hearing her questioning, Shepard would give Himiko an answer that would surprise her, as she never expected to hear such words from someone who wanted to be a professional hero; he told her that he would not follow the stupid laws of incompetent politicians if that were to be the case, so licensed or not, he would save people who needed his help, so if the Japanese authorities were to discover his identity as a Vigilant before he could graduate from some heroic university, he would manage one way or another to be a hero, either by being a slippery vigilant of the Japanese police for his whole life or perhaps he would go to another country like the USA where there are less strict laws about vigilants.
On the seventh day, after seeing him enter that armored door, Himiko finally realized that she had developed positive feelings towards her green-haired kidnapper, as she developed a genuine concern (which she hid as best she could) for his health when she observed the singed hair and the first-degree burns spread randomly over several areas of the skin on his arms plus a second-degree burn on the palm of his right hand. Out of both curiosity and genuine distress, she couldn't help but ask him what had happened to him, but only got the following half-hearted response from Shepard, a response whose words took on a sarcastic tone in the last few sentences: — "I had to settle some business with an old acquaintance capable of releasing explosions from his hands. The previous Sunday, I had arranged a meeting with him, but I stood him up because I had more important business to attend to with you. I think you can tell he was pretty upset that I stood him up; apparently he has the traits of a jealous girlfriend, he doesn't like to be stood up at all, let alone stood up by cause for a woman. Maybe he's secretly in love with me, or who knows... but in any case, I had to put up with his toxic girlfriend outbursts"— After hearing his sarcastic phrases and then seeing his ironic smile, Toga couldn't help but laugh amusedly at that moment; in fact in that lapse, for the first time since she was an innocent girl, her laughter was real and frankly sincere. Later, when Shepard left on that day at nightfall, she finally realized the above, which she found too ironic as she was able to laugh from the bottom of her heart while deprived of her freedom in a room created to contain people who lost their minds and/or who may endanger others because of their madness. *1
On the eighth day, in the morning, before Shepard came to visit her in the afternoon as in the previous days, Himiko began to meditate deeply about why the green-haired man was keeping her locked up in a secret place instead of taking her to prison. So far, she didn't know for sure the reasons behind his actions; the day before he had only told her that he kept her there to prevent her bloodlust from harming innocent people and shortly after he also vaguely told her that he kept her in this place for her own safety, but he didn't explain what he meant by that when she asked him; instead, he simply ignored her question and changed the topic of conversation, asking a little about her past...And maybe those were the reasons why today, she was more meditative than usual: Why did Shepard want to know those things about her? Did he want to understand her on a deeper level? And if so, what good would that do him? Did he really care about her even though she was a bloodthirsty killer or was she just imagining things? Did he wish to become some sort of friend of hers or was she delusional? Maybe he was a fan of vampires or monsters and wanted to have a friend with those strange qualities even though she was a villain? Or did he have ulterior motives for keeping her locked up; maybe he considered her some kind of experiment? He had a quirk that gave him strange powers and a supercomputer capable of analyzing other people's biology, so maybe he was actually a mad scientist who was dedicated to dissecting men or women with mutant quirks to study them in depth? Or maybe he was a cannibal addicted to eating people with mutant quirks? Or maybe he was actually a sexual predator posing as a hero and when she finally gave him her full trust, Shepard would perform all sorts of obscene things on her (something that paradoxically for a moment made her blush too much at the thought of a role-play where he was dressed in a sadomasochistic outfit while she was in a state of 'Bondage'; tied with ropes in an embarrassing sexual position, on top of a bed, unable to escape or defend herself, with her crotch secreting the various fluids Shepard had just intr. ..). revealing to her at that moment that he suffers from uncontrollable erotic compulsions and that he is actually addicted to kidnapping young women under the guise of satisfying his dark sexual desires...
...Oooooooook, her imagination and her strange way of thinking, had led her questions to quite improbable conjectures in those last thoughts, especially that last idea, which no doubt was the fault of her crazy and perhaps a 'little' liberal personality that she possessed.
On the other hand, Throughout her life, she had to learn to lie to herself and others so that her 'dark companion' would go unnoticed, and thanks to that she acquired a limited ability to detect lies, so even though she was sure that he was hiding his real name for obvious reasons and that he had lied (probably) to her about the ultimate fate of the assassin who had hurt her the other day (because according to him, he had knocked him unconscious and then called the police), she sensed that most of the other things he had told her were true in that he wanted to get to know her better; that he didn't find her mutant appearance at all ugly or frightening; that he found her quirk amazing; that he had stolen globular packets from a private hospital to feed her and prevent her from suffering that terrible hunger again because he knew that horrible feeling too well; that he was taking care of her with dedication and sincerity, with no dark motives in between; and that he was keeping her locked up to protect others from her bloodlust but also to protect her. And the latter was what bothered her the most, because if this was true, what exactly was he protecting her from? What danger would she be in if she left this room? Could she be in mortal danger again if she took one step out of this abandoned hospital? Was there another extremely dangerous serial killer chasing her? With these last questions hovering on the surface of her psyche, on this day Himiko received Shepard with even more sympathy than on the previous day, as she realized that he really cared about her, even though she was a subnormal and unfit freak.
On the ninth day, Himiko finally opened up enough with the 'commander' to have long-lasting casual conversations with him. She also watched with him some action movies while eating popcorn and drinking 'love' and red wine respectively. Later, the enjoyable day would end after they watched the first season of an old series from the pre-quirk age as they sat together side by side on that old Sofa. The TV series that Shepard played was 'Dexter', a TV series that he apparently liked a lot...And for god sake! From the very first episode, Himiko also ended up loving the main character and that tv series as a whole! The amount of blood, the dismemberments, the corpses, the rawness of the reality presented in that show, and most importantly, the performance of the (now deceased) actor 'Michael C. Hall' seemed incredibly sublime to her. She had never imagined that someone who was essentially an irredeemable psychopath (with a 'dark companion' like the one she has) could choose the path of justice and find himself completely satisfied with it: using his 'hunting' abilities to catch evildoers, granting them in the end, the grotesquely glorious fate they deserved while satisfying his perverse desires and bloodlust. A perfect hero...Toga thought there could not be a more perfect hero than this Dexter! She even imagined for a moment being her assistant, accompanying him in his bloody adventures to support him in extracting the beautiful 'love' hidden inside the villains...
...Although curiously for Dexter, blood was not 'love', it was just something that seemed to him something very beautiful and that he should observe, touch or possess, as if he were some kind of perverse fanatic addicted to accumulating works of art. Was she wrong to consider blood as an expression of love? In the past, she had already doubted that fact on more than one occasion: after all, in her time as a child, pre-teen and teenager, she always adored the beauty of blood just like Dexter, but unlike him, in addition to finding it a beautiful element worthy of being appreciated as a work of art, it also seemed to her a food or drink that she sensed would bring great pleasure to her senses when she consumed it. However, now that she can think properly thanks to the fact that her hunger has almost completely disappeared because of the 'love' deposited in that crystal glass that Shepard gives her without delay day by day, on this day she remembered that until 8 months ago, she had never considered blood as an expression of love.
Despite having a strong thirst for blood and savage instincts worthy of a predator, until 8 months ago, she considered blood as a potential food that was beautiful and in turn, she considered her potential victims as mere prey to feed on. Now that she can think clearly, in the past she didn't have such a twisted fixation on the concept of blood; when that terrible hunger took over more and more of her senses, for some reason she gradually began to consider blood as equivalent to love. Perhaps her judgment and her perception of reality were partially clouded by the intense hunger that she began to suffer in the last year?; These ideas flowed through Himiko's mind that day. Also for a moment, it crossed her mind to ask Shepard if it would be possible that a hero like Dexter can exist in the real world, but Himiko soon put those ideas aside when Shepard started playing the first episode of the second season of the serial killer of serial killers. A huge smile spread across the blonde-haired girl's face for the rest of that day for a time that was not brief as the tv series continued to fascinate her and distract the rest of her senses.
On the tenth day, after watching another variety of movies and after finishing watching the third season of Dexter, Himiko tried to drink some of Shepard's blood directly from his neck, by pouncing on him in her mutant form, while the man was unsuspecting. ..Although after straddling Shepard's sprawled (Who was face up on the floor) body, instead of using her sharp tongue or her sharp, large fangs to pierce his neck, she only mockingly said the following: — "Apparently the commander can indeed be assaulted when he lets his guard down. It's a relief to know that you're not perfect, Hahaha!~"— : After laughing when she observed the slightly frowning brow of the green-haired man, she stood up once her sarcastic comment was enunciated.
This act she performed more as a rude prank (given the theme of the series they were watching) or as an 'extreme complaint' of a prisoner towards her jailer than as a real murder attempt because although he still kept her locked up in this place, after all, by this time, he had already done a lot for her; The fact that he saved her from that assassin whom he had killed for the good of the community (or at least that's what she surmised when she noticed the lie in the green-haired man's voice that day), the fact that he fed her with 'love' (or maybe she should just call it blood? )... And the fact that he cares for her with so much dedication, had already provoked that on a conscious level, she doesn't consider him at all a victim and/or prey to satiate her hunger despite the fact that satirically, he's still a tough kidnapper.
Shortly after, Shepard would play his own joke telling her that as a punishment he would leave her without blood for three days, which also managed to scare the blondehead a little. Then, after some childish complaints from Toga, the kidnapper would end his joke and try to start another casual conversation with the woman, a conversation that little by little he led until he reached the topic of her past. Toga seemed at first to agree to tell him the story of her childhood, but as punishment for the previous prank he had played on her, she kept quiet and focused her attention on the videos on her tablet, telling him that now he would have to wait a while to hear that story.
And finally on the eleventh day, after another pleasant afternoon, the blonde-haired young woman had finally opened up almost completely with the green-haired person who had her in an extreme state of bewilderment...
"(How am I going to get out of here without killing him?!...)", Toga sighed as she realized again, that her escape plans were screwed up in so many ways ,"(...This isn't fair! No matter how hard I try, I can't even think about killing him anymore...)", She then placed her first and second finger of her left hand on one of her temples, acquiring an expression filled with frustration ,"(...Well, it's not like I could have killed him in the first place~... )", She scratched the back of her neck anxiously and continued ,"(...Even though I took him by surprise yesterday, something tells me that I definitely wouldn't have been able to hurt him one bit; he probably would have applied another one of those weird martial arts keys on me. How is it that he has so much combat experience at such a young age? He was trained since he was a child to be a fighting machine?~Some kind of super soldier created by a secret government experiment?~, Shepard-chan is just too strong!~...)", She sighed again as she scratched the back of her neck with increased speed ,"(...At this rate, I'm going to end up living locked up in this psychiatric room for the rest of my days like the Arkham prisoners in those old Batman comics~. Hmmmmmmm, wasn't Harley-Quinn in that prison too?; and didn't she and that demented clown end up becoming?...)", She paused her thoughts for a moment when she realized that the situation she found herself in, was a bit like the stories where certain characters had ended up becoming boyfriend and girlfriend inside a psychiatric hospital/prison, although in her case the roles seemed reversed, as she was undoubtedly the patient who lost multiple screws in her head and Shepard could well play a doctor with questionable ethics ,"(...Oh come on! don't think about that again!...Whatever happens, you're not going to fall in love with him...That would make you even crazier! And becoming a Harley-Quinn level crazy would already be too much!~. Hmmmm, Or maybe I'm already close to that level of crazyness?...~...Maybe that's the case... After all I...Stupid ideas leave me alone once and for all!~)"
Fortunately for her, her sarcastic and confused ideations would be abruptly cut off at this point, for after a thorough analysis Shepard had finally spoken again. He would inquire about the elements that had struck him most about the story he had recently heard:
"Hmmmm. There are several things that are still not clear to me about the story you have just told me: Did you always consider at all times that before others you wore this 'Mask of Lies'? Was there nothing about this 'mask' that was real? Was the only thing that mattered to you when relating to others, was to have a chance to get the 'love' that lived in their veins? Did I say it right, you called the blood 'love'? And lastly; what exactly was it that ended up breaking this 'mask' that you built?"
Faced with such a number of highly personal questions, Toga felt very uncomfortable. And added to the confusing state in which her mind and heart were already in, she also became more confused after listening to Shepard's verbiage. By this time, she already knew that there were times when this man overanalyzed/thought things out loud and/or couldn't prevent his great curiosity from being expelled in such long and rapidly spoken sentences; he had told her in the past few days that his passion for analyzing information and his great curiosity for mysteries were attributes of his person that were enhanced by a mental illness he suffered from; a kind of functional asperger's syndrome, which was very mild compared to other types of Aspergers. However, even though she was now aware that he also had another screw loose in his head, even if it hadn't been his intention to inquire about so many personal issues at the same time, when Himiko spoke again this time she decided that for today she had had enough questions:
"You know?, I've tolerated it so far, but...I think I've had enough of this. What are you supposed to get knowing all that stuff about me?...", The blonde-haired woman's eyebrows sank as her appearance partially changed, transforming on the spot, the woman's neck and head into a much more humanized and much less ugly mutant form, compared to the form Shepard had observed when he first met her. Himiko then pointed at herself with a moderately enraged attitude, her eyelids squinting into that pair of crimson eyes with eliptical pupils that resembled the eyes of an amphibian or snake ,"...Isn't it enough to know that I'm a monster?!...", Her lower lip was bitten by one of her upper fangs, releasing a little blood in the process.
The anger soon mixed with the feelings full of doubt, anguish, and frustration that had been building up in her person throughout these days, so despite the appreciation she already felt for Shepard, it was unavoidable for her to express herself in a high tone with a voice full of complex feelings:
"...And more importantly; What are you supposed to do by knowing the story of a bloodthirsty madwoman? If you don't like what you hear, will you continue to feed me as if I were some sort of pet?~ will you continue to study me as if I were a creature you plan to experiment on?~ or will you act like the hero you're supposed to be and take me to prison?~... "
She knew very well that she wasn't a pet or lab experiment for him, but something strange between the borderline of a prisoner/patient and acquaintance that he cared a lot about, but the doubts about her future and the true intentions the green-haired man had for her were eating away at her, so some of her more paranoid ideas were involuntarily expressed in a sarcastically rude tone that soon turned into an annoying voice with a high pitched:
". ..But whatever the case. Actually, I'm sick of you keeping me here without even explaining what kind of goals you have with me! Be honest about it for once! Even villains taken to an official prison, from the very first day they are locked up, are clearly pointed out the reasons why they are deprived of their freedom; so I think it's about time to know once and for all the reason why you have me locked up here! Don't you think so?!"
"..." The person who called himself a commander at times, sighed deeply on at least two occasions after hearing Himiko's emotional complaints. After a time that was neither short nor long, he opened his mouth again in which he nodded his head at the same time his eyebrows were raised in an expression that revealed a hint of guilt.
"Geez, I did the non-stop talking and asking a lot of things again, didn't I? Sorry, it's habit, sometimes I don't control it very well. You know...", He sighed again with a bit of regret this time, and then continued ,"...Look, you're absolutely right. I've just been putting you off revealing some truths and I guess I should have told you about these matters a few days ago but I never found the right time to talk to you about it..."
Shepard's eyes took on seriousness as they focused on the red eyes of the fanged woman whose face was almost identical to that of a few minutes ago, except for her skin which now had a slightly pale chitinous appearance and her hair which now appeared to be a conglomeration of blonde dreadlocks that fell down her back.
"...You see. The first victim of your wild instincts, that student who gave you 'love' for the first time, as you well know, his name was Saito-Yamamoto. But what you don't know is that your first prey was the first and only son of the Hiroshima district councilman, a person well positioned in Japanese politics. And this gentleman with great influence and a lot of money at his disposal, obviously wants to 'ask' for you to be given the death penalty once you are arrested by the authorities. So..."
The scarred man, took a breath and then continued:
"...What do you think will happen if some hero or policeman manages to catch you and then takes you to prison? Justice will prevail and you will be properly prosecuted? Will there be a thorough investigation into why you did what you did? Will there be an accurate inquiry into your past and how the repression of your meta-skills affected your body and mind? Will they lock you up and then give you a rehabilitation therapy as it is supposed to be done with criminals who aren't yet completely insane?; will they give you the quirk control therapy and psychological therapy that you deserved so much since you were a child? NO, of course NOT. In this country, the reasons and backgrounds of the villains who commit such bloodthirsty crimes are overlooked, even if any of these villains have a chance of redemption. And more importantly, when a politician in a high position messes with the judicial system, in my experience, corruption in the justice system always ends up happening"
"..." Silence reigned for a few seconds as Himiko ended up understanding the green-haired man's explanation. Little by little, her annoyance descended several levels as she finally understood the words Shepard told her days ago — "Believe it or not, I'm not only protecting innocent people from your bloodlust, but I'm also protecting you"— If she got caught by the police, by some professional hero or a vigilant allied with the authorities, she would be more than screwed! Now that she thought about it, it was a good idea to choose the Kamagasaki and Fubuki districts to carry out her crimes since hero activity in those places was minuscule, being one of the various third world regions of 24th century Japan. However, even if the possibility of encountering a hero in those regions was minuscule, there was still the possibility of encountering them or vigilants, just like Shepard. Therefore, if she left this room and some hero came to realize her identity and caught her, it would be the end of her. Of course, she could hide from the authorities by adopting the form of another woman, but her shape-shifting lasted a very short time; even when she consumed all 500 ml of blood from the globular packet belonging to a woman, her new appearances didn't last more than 5 minutes, so she could be identified if her transformations ran out of time at inopportune moments.
"..." The blonde-haired girl breathed heavily at times, having been filled with anguish at the revelation that her life would end if she decided to seek the physical and mental freedom she had always desired. A few seconds later, she gradually calmed down, after remembered that Shepard was always sincere when he said he was protecting her, which made her feel happy to think that if there was someone in the world who truly cared about her, even if she was a bloodthirsty psychopath.
Thanks to that, Himiko soon felt that the 'statistics' regarding the positive feelings she had for shepard had gained an unexpected 'rank increase'. And shortly after a decent level of happiness invaded her soul, she wondered why Shepard was doing this for her; what did he see in her to care at that level about a monster full of abnormal desires? Had he just talked about psychological therapy and Quirk control therapy?; did he think it could help her? Is that why he was asking about her past? Is that why he had tried so hard to relate to her? And if that was the case and he wanted to support her in that way; she really wanted a help like that?; a monster couldn't be reformed, right?...
When the green-haired man noticed that she had calmed down a bit, he spoke again with intelligence and eloquence as usual, suddenly interrupting Himiko's conjectures:
"...Now, to answer your other questions Toga-San; I have never been studying you as if you were a lab experiment or anything like that and much less do I think of you as my pet. Only a hopeless psycopath would think of treating a person that way, and I'm no such thing..."
Himiko scratched the back of her head and looked away for a brief moment as she was filled with a bit of pity for having had such extremely paranoid thoughts. On the other hand, despite having heard such rude and insulting questions a minute ago, the green-haired man didn't seem to take it seriously and instead, his tone of voice decreased its seriousness and turned into a kind tone full of sincerity, which at first Toga interpreted as an incorrect definition of what she was:
"...Hmmmm, However, I will admit that the first time I met you, I did think you were a serial killer with a serious and irremediable psychotic disorder"
"Uh? Do You say...'I did think?'. I think you phrased that sentence wrong Shepard-Chan, so let me correct you~; You're right, That's exactly what I'm brocoli-chan~. A psychopath, a madwoman, a bloodthirsty monster~...", Toga found it strange the way that sentence had been constructed, so she tried to correct the young green-haired man, thinking that it was impossible that he didn't see her as a psychopath or a monster. Now that she was calmer, she spoke as she usually did; with the sarcasm and frivolity that had characterized her sentences for some several years ago, she had already preconceived herself as a monster, so when she was calm it didn't affect her too much to call herself that way and/or to be called that way by someone else...
...However...for some reason...at this moment, she felt a bit bad calling herself that way in front of Shepard, which filled her with a feeling of discomfort (that she hid) before she finished her sentence:
"... If this monster didn't kill you in the beginning, it's because you're kind of too strong of a fighting machine, you know...~", At the end of her sentence, she shrugged and tried to ignore that feeling of strange discomfort growing inside her, refusing herself to consider that Shepard's opinion of herself, seemed very important to her.
She refused to believe that she needed the acceptance of a person close to her to feel truly happy or complete.
"Geez Toga-San...", The commander's next sentence was interrupted by a sigh that this time carried a hint of disappointment for the following reason ,"... If that's what you think I think of you after all this time we've spent together, then your instincts are less sharp than I thought...", Shepard then smiled as he knows how, the scar on the left side of his face extending towards his lip in the process of drawing that expression, forming again that facial gesture that Himiko considered incredibly beautiful and impressive, as impressive to her senses as the next words that would come out of the commander's mouth ,"...No Toga-San. You are very wrong. The words I said a moment ago were completely correct. I came to believe that you were a heartless psychopath, but after getting to know you a little better, I no longer think that. Now instead I'm completely sure that you aren't a monster"
...
Hearing the last part of that sentence, Toga blinked...
...
...And blinked...
...
...And blinked...
...
...And blinked...
...
... And blinked, in disbelief.
"..." At the same time she was speechless for at least a minute while her brain processed very slowly what she had just heard, as if her mind had become a computer with a version of windows whose capacity to analyze and process information was suffering from some kind of 404 error or a blockage caused by opening multiple applications and windows at the same time. When her mind, little by little, integrated the meaning of those words, she silently began to look for evidence and/or some trace of lies in the voice or expression of the commander. But she only found a tone of voice, an expression and a look full of absolute certainty. Once she understood the above, a great bewilderment mixed with another series of complicated feelings (in which confusion, anger, disbelief and happiness preponderate) were unleashed inside her with such force that the next moment she couldn't avoid that her voice stuttered a little at the same time that her vocal volume was raised to a great extent carrying at the same time a tone of disbelief:
"W-What d-did you j-just s-say?!"
"That you're not a monster or a psychopath, Toga-san."
"Uuuuuh?!". She kept looking for lies in the boy's words and expression but could never find them, or at least she believed that had found no evidence of a lie. And for that, She couldn't understand him; She couldn't understand him at all. And since she couldn't understand the way he thought, Toga let out the uncertainty inside her in the form of somewhat frivolous complaints, which however, carried deep feelings of anger and anguish, feelings that grew inside her as she didn't understand how someone was so sure that the concept she had about herself, was completely wrong when there were endless proofs that she considered elements of certainty that she always considered confirmed her nature:
"What the...What the...What the hell is wrong with you Shepard-Chan?!~ How can you...How can you be so sure of that?!"
"You see...", The man who called himself a commander, put on a bitter expression for an instant as his eyelids tightened and his eyes looked up at the ceiling for a brief moment, as if he was reliving an unpleasant memory. That done, he focused his gaze again on himiko, expressing the following in a serious tone that gradually turned into a sincere and kind voice ,"...Because in the past, I have met real monsters and real psychopaths. I've seen madness incarnate run through the streets and demons come out of hell itself...And you are still far, far from being any of those things, Toga-san. What's more, I'd wager that you're a more normal person than you think you are. No doubt Jack, Zaeed or Grunt, would have loved to meet you ~"
"..." Again for a brief moment, the green-haired man's sentences left her speechless. And even on this occasion her mouth hung open for an instant, for she was surprised to find no lies, in those sentences worthy of H.P. Lovercraft, another of her favorite authors; What so terrifying or insane thing had he seen or experienced that in his standards, he would consider someone like her a normal person? And who the heck was Jack, Zaeed or Grunt and why would they have loved to meet her?; She wondered the above for a moment with confused curiosity, before that anger filled with complex emotions, grew within her again. She still didn't fully understand why she felt that way, so she considered it would be best to give a warning to this person whose brain obviously didn't function normally, just like hers.
"It is obvious that you have not truly understood my nature brocoli-chan~ You have not truly understood the darkness that dwells within me. You are wrong, very wrong Shepard-Chan~ And even though I have no longer attacked you these past few days, you should still be careful of this madwoman~ Because at any moment my hunger could lead me to devour every part of...!"
She considered that she should protect this madman who had cared for her so much, from herself. Perhaps she didn't want to disappoint him, or perhaps she refused to believe that he was right, or perhaps she had simply become too used to being regarded as an insane and abnormal person. In the end, she didn't care if any of those ideas crossing her mind were correct or not, the only thing that mattered to her at that moment were two things; Shepard realizing he was wrong and to beware of her wild instincts. In the process, she obviously hid that she cared about his well being, she didn't want it to appear that she was concerned or interested in what happened to her kidnapper.
"Geez, calm down a little Toga-San!. What I said was just an opinion that was born to me after I compared you to the villains I've met in the past, you don't have to get so irritated over just a mere opinion"
"Well I'm not like those villains you've met Brocoli-chan, I'm very different from the rest of...!"
"Calm dowm, calm dowm! I understand. You are different from other villains or assassins, I know that. In fact, every human being is different and unique in their own way~. Maybe I didn't express myself in the right way, I'm sorry...", Shepard interrupted her for the second time, most likely because he noticed the annoyance she expressed through that high tone of voice along with in that mutant body and face with wrinkled forehead, slightly inflated cheeks and crossed arms.
He opened his mouth again, after apologizing with a relaxed attitude in between, shrugging his shoulders for a brief moment ",...If you don't want to believe me that's fine~, You don't have to take my words as fact if you don't want to. And if you think it's better to forget what I just said, go ahead...", He scratched the back of his head with one hand and let out a small chuckle before continuing, as if he was trying to eliminate the tense and uncomfortable atmosphere that had formed, "...You know what? We'd better forget about these kinds of issues for today. What do you say we cool down the 'hot' atmosphere in the room a few degrees with a board game that I think you'll find quite amusing?"
"Hmmmmp! Brocoli-chan, you know very well that board games bore me as much as Junior-Junior-Junior Tiger Woods golf matches ~ Or Korean novels where there are skinny imitations of {All-Might} falling in love with the college leading lady in turn~ And besides...All the lousy news you've given me today is starting to give me a headache, so I'll go to sleep early this time. You'd better get goin..."
With so many strange emotions running around inside her, Himiko's next act was to try to kick Shepard out of her cell so that way she could put her feelings and thoughts in order by meditating deeply throughout the night. But before she finished running the scarred man off in a frivolous manner, she was interrupted by the man's next statement, which she found too interesting not to finish listening to. Too interesting for a certain specific reason...
"And if I told you that the winner of this board game, has the right to electrocute the loser, did you still wouldn't be interested in playing it?; if I lose, you could make me suffer quite a bit, you know?"
"Did you just say...Electrocute?. I don't understand; How a board game can electrocute the loser...Oh hell, what's that thing supposed to be!~"
Obviously Toga's attention was partially attracted when she heard that there was a chance of hurting the kidnapper that has caused her so many strange and annoying feelings throughout these 11 days. And a few seconds later, her attention was completely absorbed by Shepard, when he took out of his backpack a pair of plastic helmets with some metal forming its structure. These helmets had electronic-looking wires sprouting from multiple areas of their structure, which gave them an appearance very similar to the helmets used to perform electroencephalograms and/or polysomnophraphies in a hospital, but with a key difference: at the other end of the wires, where there were supposed to be adhesive electrodes to apply to the patient's body, were connectors/plugs similar to those used to connect a cell phone/TV or other such device to a wall outlet; plugs that in turn were connected to the multiple outlets on the metal box that had been sitting on top of the wooden table that had been separating Himiko and Shepard during the conversations they had been having.
At that moment, Toga remembered that the green-haired man had been carrying that box with him since he had walked through that door. And after he placed it on the wooden table, he refused to tell her what was inside the box, answering her questions with "It's a surprise". Toga didn't take too much importance to the matter because she thought that perhaps it was an electronic device such as a stereo or other electronic device, given the buttons and sockets that she could see on the device. Although she found it relatively strange that the box had drawings of stars and galaxies, since a painting of that type was not something very common to see in an electronic device.
*Electronic Sounds*-Less than a minute later, after Shepard connected each of the helmets wires to the sockets on the metal box, he pressed a certain button on the box and then the box opened by itself after a series of electronic beeps were emitted from the device. The metal box ended up opening in a style reminiscent of a futuristic device, for as it was opening it seemed to be self-arranging the toy pieces and small structures inside.
"¿?...", Toy-like pieces and structures that caused Himiko to tilt her head in confusion ,"...What the heck is that supposed to be?", She inquired when curiosity had finally eclipsed her unpleasant feelings.
"I call it {Kepesh-Yakshi}; My version of a perfect chess game~!: In case you're wondering, I repaired and modified some biomedical helmets I found in the trash and placed on a device similar to a solar cell, a chessboard created with gallium arsenide fibers to which I introduced in its three layers various electrodes, chips and power slots, which in turn connect with magnets and graphene fibers to electronic chess pieces modified with lithium plates capable of receiving or transmitting electrical signals ... ", He scratched one of his cheeks with some embarrassment, when he realized that his words had confused Toga even more ,"...Ah, sorry by that again. You see, I'm also something of an engineer, although I only know the basics of robotics, computer science and electromechanical repairs; I would never be able to create a drone, an AI or repair an system of an interestel...Ah, forget it...", he sighed and shook his head, probably trying to stop the brainstorming that was going through his head ,"...In short, it plays just like a regular chess game, but the pieces have a different design obviously..."
The green-haired man took a moment to point out and explain to Himiko what the different pieces consisted of, which from her perspective looked like toys placed on a somewhat unusual chessboard.
There were 16 pieces on each side of the board but unlike a classic chess game, the pieces placed in the places where the pawns were supposed to go, looked like some kind of drones; the pieces placed in the position of the bishops looked like some kind of futuristic ground tank; the pieces placed in the position of the rooks, looked like spaceships of a big size than the other pieces and with an appearance reminiscent of a acorazaded battleship; the pieces placed in the position of the knight resembled the pieces described above, but the ships were smaller and more stylized, as if they were some kind of ship used for infiltration; the piece that occupied the place of the queen looked like a kind of gigantic ship, whose figure resembled a battleship larger than the towers on one side of the board while on the other the queen looked more like a ship with a design inspired by a honeycomb. Finally, the kings also differed quite a bit from one side to the other; the figure of one of the kings was obviously inspired by the planet earth since that sphere had reliefs identical to the continents of that planet, while the other king seemed to be some kind of squid...Bedbug...Giant flea...Toga was not quite sure what the king that was sitting next to the bee-shaped ship represented, she just sensed that it definitely didn't seem to be a construct that a human being would come up with. In fact, the pieces on one side of the board appeared to be spaceships that were imagined by human beings while those on the other side, had a completely alien design.
It should be noted that the pieces occupied the classic cells, rows and columns of a chessboard, painted in a black and white tone, but there were figures of stars and (distant) galaxies forming part of the painting pattern, as if the battle between the pieces was taking place in outer space.
Once Shepard finished telling Toga about the chess pieces with proud expressions in between, he finished detailing the other feature that differentiates this chess game from an ordinary one:
"...{Kepesh-Yakshi} is made to admonish the player who loses pieces during the game. I designed it to make users feel the pain of losing their subordinates when they are eliminated on the battlefield or to make them feel like a real general who died heroically in a bloody war. It can be configured in two ways; In the automatic mode, the device placed on the skull will immediately apply an electric shock directly to the brain and spinal cord with a mild pinch-like power to the user who loses a non-king piece. And in the event that a user loses the game, the loser will receive an electric shock unpleasant enough to knock them out of the seat, causing painful muscle spasms for at least 5 seconds... Or a little more or a little less, depending on individual tolerance to electricity. Anyway...in manual mode, the user who manages to eliminate a piece of the opponent, can decide whether or not to punish the rival with an electric shock, by pressing one of the buttons on each side of the board, which are activated only in case a user loses a piece; Of course, if the winning user eliminates the opponent's king, the button will release a more powerful electric shock...Hmmmm, come to think of it, I haven't even asked you, do you have any idea how to play chess?..."
Then the man who sometimes talked too much, tried to explain to Toga how the game worked, but she cut him off, commenting that it was not necessary to explain to her how a game of chess worked, since in middle and high school, she reluctantly learned to play this board game, since her parents enrolled her in multiple school clubs in an attempt to make her the perfect school princess; They wanted her to be a outstanding student who mastered most of the intellectual activities that model students excel at, and unfortunately despite how much she was bored by chess or other intellectual board games/intellectual school activities, she ended up being too good at them. After all, despite having very, very different ideas and desires than the rest of her classmates, she wasn't dumb at all: In fact she would rate herself with an intelligence well above the average of all her old schoolmates, so she understood very well how to play chess.
"...Well if that's the case, then maybe you have a chance to electrocute me. I thought you were an amateur and didn't know anything about this game, but now I guess I'll have to take care of every single move of my soldiers~", While placing one of those cybernetic helmets full of wires on his head, the green-haired man enunciated while placing a wry smile
"I haven't agreed to play this yet, you know?", On the other hand, Himiko still felt a bit reluctant to participate in this activity. She said the above while still folding her arms...But...
"Are you really going to pass up the chance to electrocute the vigilant who put you in a prison? Or are you just a coward? I think you're a lot of things, but I never thought you'd be a coward~"
...After hearing Shepard's challenge stated in a sarcastic and mocking manner, Himiko's arms gradually opened up at the same time as her lips formed a smile in which a fang protruded from her upper lip to her lower lip. In the end, the possibility of being able to harm him with an electric shock seemed too tempting, despite the fact that there was also the possibility that she would receive them...
"Damn!"...Before long, the temptation overcame her reasoning, so she ended up putting on one of those futuristic helmets and then sat down on the side where the most surreal looking toys were; If she was going to play this distorted variant of a chess game, she would at least play with the pieces she felt most affinity for; The strange and twisted look of those ships obviously attracted her attention. Seeing that she had finally decided to socialize in this way with him, Shepard seemed rather pleased ,"...Take off that smug face brocoli-chan!~ In first year of high school I was crowned regional champion of this boring game, so prepare to be scorched~"
"Ooooh. I never imagined you were going to be a chess nerd~...", For some reason, the green-haired man smiled ironically since he saw her sitting on the side where the weird ships were and subsequently mocked her, in an act that Toga obviously interpreted as a blatant challenge ,"...But no matter how good your strategies are or how many alien ships or synthetic troops you send into the solar system, Commander Shepard will not allow the earth to be incinerated a second time"
"?" Himiko raised one of her chitinous eyebrows as she was a bit confused after hearing that statement filled with a somewhat enthusiastic tone. She never expected Shepard to be a big fan of alien/space science fiction. When she understood that she smiled wryly at the thought of how strange it was to see a muscular, scarred man displaying a fanaticism for space science fiction almost as intense as that of Star-Trek fans.
But her strangeness would be short-lived, for about seconds later, just as the green-haired man pulled a coin from his pocket (which he would most likely use as a method of deciding who would initiate with the first move), she didn't miss the opportunity to taunt Shepard, again:
"By the way, Before I beat you in an embarrassing way. Tell me; what kind of insane person can come up with such an absurdly crazy and cruel game like this?~ Are you absolutely sure you're not a scientist who completely lost his mind?~. Or a masochist who refuses to come out of the closet?~. Niahahahaha!~". Himiko laughed again from the bottom of her heart just like that other day when she observed how Shepard blushed for a moment after she made fun of his inventions and/or ideas.
She didn't know if he was embarrassed by the fact that he had created such a twisted game or by the fact that she had guessed some kind of hidden fixation, the only thing she knew at that moment was that the anger and confused feelings she acquired a few minutes before, had been replaced by an inner warmth and happiness she thought she would never experience; feelings that arose after realizing that Shepard was a little more crazy than she had already considered at the beginning; which in turn made her feel a little closer and/or identified with him. Oh and of course! She also licked her lips (as a blush appeared on her cheeks) when that sadomasochistic trait of hers began to think about the pleasure she would feel watching her sensual kidnapper suffer acute pain complemented by a humiliating loss.
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To be continued.....
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Chapter clarifications:
*1 According to the timeline of this story, Izuku was going to solve his problems with Bakugou in a certain abandoned place, on a Sunday. Obviously they fought. This fight is not very relevant to the first arcs of this story, but it will be told as a flashback later, when the time is right to tell it.
