Season 0 - Chapter 9 - Seeds Of Doubt

There is some new formatting I'm trying out. I'm also gonna try not to use PoV to see if I can make it coherent without it.

I also need to state that I don't condone or agree with anything I write. Don't feel like I needs to make this obvious, but I'm doing so regardless. My opinions are my own, and you guys can't have them, unless you ask, then it depends.

I felt really uncomfortable writing this chapter.

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I'd always considered herself right, someone with a good morale code, doing justice in the world. It was how I was raised, working for the HPSC. They taught me that I was just doing the jobs others couldn't, my code, my job, and my actions were in the right.

It was until after I was forced to kill that I questioned that for the first time, but I remained resolute. How many people could so easily claim they were wrong, I was simply doing a job others couldn't, I was helping, stopping others from doing crimes... the same crimes I was committing.

On one of my jobs, to take out a fellow hero, I managed to kill him rather easily. He'd assaulted, tortured, and done various smugglings. So they wanted him gone. He was a mutation type, so it would've been hard to keep him locked up. But, unknown to me and the HPSC, he had a kid, and seeing her crying over his dead body is what tipped that glass.

Its what truly started to make me question every action I took, every life I took, and the entire foundation of the HPSC. The bloodied hands and nightmares are what made it worse, it made it hard for me to look at kids. It's why I have had a hard time looking Hawks, but Neo, I can look at him, did I see him as a kid, or just a tool like myself. I couldn't say, but when he asked me that, when he questioned my belief, internally, my view of him changed, how? I couldn't say.

"I- what are you saying? Do you think they're in the right to kill innocents, Neo?!" My voice came out harsher than what I wanted, I noticed him jolt at the sudden volume changed.

"I just think that they can't be completely evil, can they? They stopped hundreds of deaths, stopped thousands of victims and potential victims, and they made you. Someone who seems to have better morals than most heroes."

"No, my morals are shit. If they were any good, I wouldn't have taken all those lives. Sure, MAYBE some, but all of them? No, someone like me can't be considered some proper hero." I collapsed into my seat, my hands digging into my face.

"What can be called a proper hero then? Is it someone who saves everyone? But what about all those who die because they refuse to stop their strongest villain? Is it a hero who kills? But then people won't look at them as a hero? So what makes a hero a proper one, what makes you not a proper one?"

Fuck, why did he have to keep asking? "I.... i don't know... but it's not me. Defining a hero isn't a simple job, and its not something someone like me can answer, this conversation is over." Again he flinches, myself standing up and exiting the room.

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Stepping out of the room, her back falls against the wall. Her hands, almost carving and imprinting her face. Unbeknownst to her, a second visitor of the night was coming to meet Neo.

"I said get close, but so close you're leaving his room at night? Never took you for the type, Nagant." Kaina's heads snaps up, the Director standing to her right, her face blank, as always.

"H-huh? Director," for a shehu stood stunned, having been pulled out of her mental stupor. Only realizing her words after the fact.

"What are you implying?"

"Judging by your flustered face? The sweat and exhausted look on your face, as well as the accelerated heartbeat reading I got from the boys Vitals? A lot."

Kaina took a second to look at her body, taking in her own disheveled look. And an accelerated heartbeat? Unknown to both, it was because Neo drifted off to sleep for a moment. It was hard to sleep, but it was also hard to stay awake.

"Our relationship isn't even close to one like that. He's a child," her voice almost choked on the word 'child', not going unseen by the director.

Shrugging to herself, the director walks past her. "Your relationship is off little consequence to me unless it becomes a problem." The door to his room beeps, her figure disappearing inside.

What the hell was she insinuating? That she was a pedophile to a chi- to a minor. She was simply worried about the him, that's all.

He was so youn- her head throbbed her eyes recalling his calm gaze when talking so casually about death. It reminded her off an ad- No, what the fuck was wrong with her.

'They can't be evil- They made you,' for a moment her heart twisted. It was disgust, bur she couldnt tell towards what or who. But her emotional mess and destroyed mental state from the questioning overloaded her.

Something many people failed to realize was that to not love someone is impossible, even if it was zero point zero repeating, millions of times over and over, eventually hitting a one, you will always have a nice feeling towards another. It was the natural conditioning of a human.

To Kaina, who was alone, still recovering from her recent mental break, and her current mental crack, her mind forcefully started twisting. Being near Neo, as someone with good senses, and naturally having a more 'motherly vibe' her care for him was naturally one of just an older woman with a child.

But her entire mental process was questioning. Everything she believed in was being brought to the stand. Including her relationship with Neo, her distasteful thoughts about such a relationship were being mistaken for the idea of him being a child, for the idea she didn't feel that way for him.

Seeds of doubt were planted into her garden. She wasn't in love with a child, her subconscious knew that, but the doubt alone was enough to cause these seeds to wait. Whether they would sprout or wither away would stay unseen.

All it took was a small amount of doubt. If she awoke tomorrow and realized those thoughts were false or ignored them until they sprouted, would need to wait and be seen.

Dragging her half limp body, pressing into the nearby wall, she heads towards her room. She was tired. Everything had been questioned, and she just wanted to forget about it all for a minutem

(That was both a pain and uncomfortable to write, as is if she's gonna be a love interest possibly I'm not just gonna ignore the whole 'she's like 20 years older' thing. She's an adult, and also still a human, I'm not gonna ignore that because I've considered her a possible romance partner, and she's with him growing up so.

Like I said, her feeling towards him were care, they were simple questioned, it was only doubt, she has no current lustful or thoughts in thay regard towards him, simply seeds

I hated this, I'm just really uncomfortable and not used to this type of writing/topic)

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"Have you made any advancements?" A set of footsteps takes my attention from the computer.

"Not really, I managed to get a good few samples from 'Stendhall', 'copied' his quirk. It's called 'blood paralyziz' if you were curious." I didn't actually remember his quirks name, just that it's annoying.

"I wasn't. It's affects are what's important." The director stops beside my desk, only a couple feet from me.

"You might ve having a visitor here in a couple of days. Be ready."

"May I ask who?" She stares at me for a moment. Had I messed up in asking?

"Your donor. You should sleep, and if you're having trouble mentally, ask. I can't have you mentally perturbed. Take these couple days to figure yourself out again, I'll give you three days at most." She turns around, leaving me once again alone in the room.

I almost got killed and you want to throw me out into field again? Can't even mentally collect myself, sure I was doing 'fine', but it doesn't mean-.

I grab my hand, a pencil I had been using to take notes clattering against the desk. God damnit, stop shaking.

I couldn't tell how I felt mentally. That area wasn't one I was good at. But physically? My body wouldn't let me forget the thought of almost dying, and the dreams didn't make it easier. If anything, it made the feeling heighten, the hot feeling, my blood pumping, and heavy erratic breaths.

...I'm going to sleep.

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It's been four days since Neo was confronted by the two older women. He was currently sitting with Goda in his lap. They recently got another batch of reports regarding some of the blood and Trigger samples.

Sadly, at least for them, nothing new came up for blood samples, no see able mutations from using the quirk, nothing. But the Trigger sample, well since they had proper batches now, they could find out the composition easier by expending more resources.

The HPSC already had several documents on how to make certain versions of Trigger or quirk enhancment drugs in general. It was natural, they'd captured and raided many places with exact plans, as well as it was something they even questioned was possible when they first started their company here.

The two sat, sifting through the papers before a knock is heard. A click is heard as Goda moves his hand. His back, now moved from his seat, covers the door frame.

A couple of unfamiliar voices peep through, a few sets of feet besides his mentors. One of the sets of feet was oddly low to the ground.

"Neo, I'd like you to meet a couple 'friends' of mine," Stepping to the side, three individuals make themselves known.

A woman with short blonde hair and brown eyes. She was probably in her early thirties. Her close laying loosely on her body.

A man, presumably her husband from the ring on their fingers, stood beside her. Medium length dark brown hair, and a set of emerald eyes peepe through his glasses, a scraggly beard present. Reminded him of an uglier David Shield, minus the scientist charm and weaker jaw.

Lastly, at the male, no, father's feet, was a small girl. Short, almost lightly dirty blonde hair. Her hair was in two messy buns. She wore a small winter coat with a red scarf, odd for this weather, but she wore it.

Her eyes were slitted like cats, a couple of almost feline teeth poking through her mouth. Lastly a set of golden eyes. Anyone who saw her might think she had a feline quirk, but Neo new otherwise.

Himiko Toga, around ten year old, she is technically younger and older than him. She was a core antagonist, apart of the League of Villains. She also had a quirk that let her transform into others through drinking blood.

He had expected it was her, but wasn't completely sure. The main thing that stopped him from thinking it was her was the quirk copying, but the Trigger did amplify and alter quirks. Could she then learn to copy quirks?

"M-my my, he's quite young to be working at place like this, isn't he?" Mrs. Toga is the first to say something.

"Well, he may look young. He is quite the intelligent one. He's simply a protégé ige taken under my wing. Putting together his young mind, potential, and his child like creativeness and he's managed to come up with several useful ideas to help us in our current endeavors here."

Goda'a words and charisma seemed to ease to the two, the young girl still staring at her fellow kid.

"Ah! Right. Neo, these are Mr and Mrs. Toga, this young girl is Himiko Toga. The-"

"The one with Blood Transmuatuon."

Despite being interrupted, Goda continues to smile, he was used to his fast responses. But keeping up his smile, and his emotions seem to be hard.

'Why's he struggling to smile? Are these three more important than I thought?' Goda smiled often, but he never strained himself. He was kind to those when he needed to be, and uncaring to those that he didn't like, he was simple in that regard.

'Is he forcefully doing it because we need the blood? Doesn't explain why he doesn't like them. I'll ask him later.'

"So, shall we get this little meeting on they way?"

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For any of those who have become interested in Duality System, it has been changed from to Duality System | Dual Leveling for the time being.

Question of the Chapter: Favorite Indie game, I would've said Hollow Knight if I'd beaten it but for now it's probably Undertale.

Currently Working On: Living Singularity Chapter 10, The World Traveler Chapter 4 (I'm still working on some story boarding for this, and I'm really invested in Curses right now), or Curses Guide to Living Chapter 4.

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