30 Bitter Victory.
Pinning down the doppelgänger against a wall after getting out of sight, Felix blocked her with an arm-lock as she kept smiling, giving him the distinct feeling that she was letting it happen instead of struggling.
For someone obviously a bit absurd in the head, he'd have imagined she'd do her best to avoid being hit or taken down, but she seemed okay being manhandled.
Truth be told, he wanted to call the real Rumi for her to make a grand entrance and threaten this gal, making her speak, but doing so alone would undoubtedly prove to be more effective since he had to keep his head under the water for a while.
Whether she was a yesman sent by the HPSC after the fortunate Hawks catastrophe or a free spirit seeking attention, achieving his bidding alone was the right move to ensure his confidentiality and his future security.
"I won't break your arms if you answer, alright?"
"How very considerate of you, Mr…" She chuckled between a pained grunt and a hearty moan. "Look'a' that. Isn't your blood cute? I find it so lovely, red like a pounding heart. Cute.~"
"Wha—"
He only felt the stinging sensation on his torso when he heard her words.
His cut-off shirt revealed his skin and was lightly smeared red across the same spot. The gash just below one of his ribs seemed quite deep, probably a couple of centimeters, an inch or so.
If anyone else had been hit by this vicious blow, which he neither saw coming nor noticed until now, all the more so because she had no weapon in her hands, that someone would have panicked and probably been destabilized enough to create an opening for her to strike again.
—My instinct's yelling at me to break both of her arms…
"Wawawa! Ouchie! Stop, I'll answer! Aaarh—! I'll stop messing around, pwease, please, stop it!!"
"Why you…"
—Yet she certainly could have gone for the throat.
This thought made him stop dead in his tracks, stopping him from reversing the way her arms bent.
Not going for the throat meant that either killing him wasn't what she desired, or she knew he had good enough reflexes to avoid a blow at head or neck level when the appearance she used was really short in height. Rumi was around 5'2, 159 centimeter or so, relatively short when standing beside him.
Using a hormone cocktail, the pain became inexistent, and the wound had already been cured by his white blood cell so that it would close up in no more than an hour… but still, she'd managed to get his full attention to strike quickly and inconspicuously enough that he didn't even notice.
That kind of technical prowess is pretty scary.
"Cute...? If you find it cute," He mumbled, pressing her body against the wall. "Why not try severing the carotid artery or the deep femoral one…?"
"Big bloodshed, no matter how cute, is just too much!"
"Too much?"
"Yes! I shouldn't be the one to do the heavy tatter! For me to become Mr. Fewix, it wouldn't be savvy to gush all your blood out at once! It would dry, and I wouldn't be able to drink it! Mhm!"
"So… you're telling me you're only here to drain the blood out of me like a leech?"
"Ewww… Leechs are totally uncute, nononono—!"
Interrupting the exchange, a girly yelp escaped from her lips, revealing her bashfulness, even more so now that small patches of her false appearance and body drooped over herself like mudflows.
—That's... her quirk's wearing off.
Within ten seconds, both of them didn't utter a single word. All the mud covering her had dropped to the ground and started evaporating, and the two razor-sharp knives she hid in one of her pockets fell to the ground, exposing the person masquerading as Rumi Usagiyama.
Fair-skinned with slit-like irises similar to a cat's, her wide mouth gave her a devious aura. It had a certain charm, mainly thanks to her ash-blonde hair styled into two messy buns.
Sadly for her, her power seemed only good for taking the appearance of someone and their clothes, not keeping them on herself once her transformation ended, so she was fully naked in the middle of an underground parking lot with an "unknown" man pushing her against a wall.
"Well, what do you have to say?"
She didn't dare look at him in the eyes, her lips trembling in a nonplussed smile, as she blushed so furiously, Felix thought she was feverish. Reflexively, due to his training with Recovery Girl, he reached up to her forehead to take her temp, prompting her to startle and flush even more.
He hardly suspected that embarrassment alone could cause someone's body heat to rise dramatically, but here she was.
Unsticking his arm from her neck to give her some space, he ogled her up and down and heaved a sigh as he grazed his rib's scar before draping the blazer he'd been wearing over the girl's shoulders.
"This is all too much! Even so, I wanna become Mr… I… Why—?"
"You're cute and sexy enough by my standards. I'm a simple man."
"C-Cute and sex…y…? Lies, lies, Mr. Lies-"
"Perhaps showing you how my cock reacted when I ogled you would prove I'm not lying?"
Upon hearing his words, she widened her eyes and wavered, struggling to stand as her face flushed to an even brighter red.
His actions and closeness already affected her, but these had given her the coup de grâce. Helpless against her body's rising temperature, she tumbled forward onto Felix, who caught her as she blacked out.
"Huh…? That was just a joke. Well… This escalated quickly." He muttered, deep in thought, taking her knives with him before princess-carrying her. "I guess the hormones also did their job pretty well, but she won't be out for too long."
If Rumi or Kaoruko learned that he'd brought home a nutcase who'd stabbed him, they'd probably be livid and brand him a moron, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.
This thought made him smile, knowing what he would do next time he saw them, particularly now that he finished concocting his plan of interdependence. It depended on mutual trust and bond and gave them the feeling that they had way more control over the situation than they had.
Gladly, he was the one holding the reins.
On the other hand, Felix also knew not to let relationships wither away as winter wore on. He knew how to keep the warmth of summer in his embrace. Even without his quirk, he was pretty confident about that.
—It's the main thing I'm good at. A man has to take his pride where he can.
Looking back at the girl, he pressed her nose trying to wake her up as she reopened her eyes in a haze.
"Still here? What's your name? Your first name, I mean."
"Himiko…"
"Well, Himiko, I'm bringing you home."
Questioning her and tampering with her super-hormones to figure out how her quirk operated was his goal, but he was intrigued. Who was she? What was her quirk? Was she working for someone?
She could be so useful and maybe even more.
—I might want to keep this girl close.
Plus, flirting with her seemed a piece of cake, but going gun-blazing with her was counterproductive since she could faint again.
Entering his flat, Mei was still there, sleeping on the sofa with the TV on, in a compromising position, snoring like he never heard someone snore before.
—This girl is something else...
Her parents called her during the last few days, but somehow, she explained to them on the phone that she had finally found someone to make babies with, and her parents, probably too used to her usual behavior and vernacular, simply viewed it as their daughters finally making a friend, plus, a friend who's also a creator.
Her education sounded lax, and Felix certainly didn't mind. It's one less thorn in his side.
Looking to the side, the broken windows were replaced by plexiglass ones, and Mei, himself, and Rumi tidied up everything before cleaning up.
He received a few complaints from the neighbors, but Manabi Aiba, his downstairs neighbor, hadn't returned since, so that was already a step forward. That said, she was just the sort of girl he enjoyed messing around with. When pissed off, that's the kind of girl who sounds like a chihuahua.
Going into the unused bedroom, he laid Toga on the bed and removed his blazer from her shoulder, leaving her naked again. Taking her temperature by hand, he fetched a cold, damp cloth and fresh water.
As he sat on the bed, he wiped her sweaty forehead with a dry towel before placing the damp cloth on it as some of her hair fell back on it. Shifting a bit in her feverish haze, she mouthed a few words steeped in grief and fear, causing her to quiver up and down as she wrinkled her brow, forcing a teardrop to roll from her eye.
Apart from her desire to eviscerate him, he couldn't deny that she was a cutie. Not that he relished watching a girl weep, mind you, but there was a certain sparkle about her.
—Alright... Let's see.
[▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲]
[STR ▪ 29]
[DEX ▪ 315] — [AGI ▪ 330]
[END ▪ 90] — [RES ▪ 60]
[▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲]
Considerably smoother than usual, it didn't take much effort to extract hormones from the pores of her skin for analysis. After so much trial and error, he was finally okay with his new system and was even better at it than before going to jail.
—She's got the stats of the perfect spy.
It struck him as odd, but it didn't prove anything. How can someone achieve such dexterity and agility by themselves? It wasn't her quirk, and she was pretty young. She transforms and steals other people's appearance, so her quirk has nothing to do with that too.
Analyzing her meta-hormones, Felix didn't feel much different at all, and just like after trying Mr. Utsushimi and Camie's quirks, he didn't manage to trigger hers.
Looking at her, he tried to understand her line of thinking. Her behavior and manner seemed quite immature, and from the look of her hair, she wasn't a girl who had a lot of time to take care of herself, as opposed to other girls her age, like Camie.
Sighing, he kept drinking his water, desperately trying to take his mind off the various hardships he'd had to overcome on top of random mishaps like this one happening occasionally.
If he led an ordinary life, he wouldn't complain, except his life was the antithesis of "ordinary."
—The Underground Maskerade, huh… Was she the one girl who kept looking at me while we were fleeing with the squad?
He'd kept his appearance a "secret" and even changed his voice using a heavy dose of testosterone, but there she was.
It probably wasn't related, but come to think of it, the girl was already safely outside the main chamber as the gas filled the room back then, which meant she'd somehow managed to escape without anyone's help when they had to brute-force through the concrete door.
All things considered, leaving her alone here was kind of dangerous, but it should be alright, given the super-melatonin he sent into her body. After all, during childhood, his mom told him that when he wouldn't shut up as a baby at night, she would give him some of these super-hormones to make him sleep.
She said it was potent business enough to put a rhinoceros to sleep.
He'd never really known whether to believe it, but after Recovery Girl had studied these super-hormones under the microscope and had them tested in high concentrations, given enough time to act on the body since melatonin is not a neurotransmitter, his super-melatonin could probably put at least a horse to deep sleep for ten minutes or so.
According to his own methods, the best place for it to work effectively was at the back of the head, so it was tricky to use in a fight and more suitable for caring for patients.
In a fucked up way, the doppelganger girl, Himiko, was his first patient since he was in Canada. But here, he was actually quite close to being a medic.
"If I ever become one... my old man and the others would be hella pissed, haha. It would be fun to make 'em feel like shit…"
His own wisecrack, couched in wry humor, took him by surprise.
Bitterness and spite. Something he thought had run dry within him for a long time now.
Believing he'd made peace with it all, he sometimes recalled those moments of injustice and humiliation, feeling like shit in the crapper and actually thinking it was all his fault. But in the end, only resentment survived in his heart.
"Stupid me..." He sighed, looking at the ground after closing the door to let Himiko alone for a few minutes. Though perplexed by something, he turned his head to the left toward the living room. "This… Wh—!"
The vivid sound of a sharp edge slicing through the air made his left eardrum ring as he ducked to the side, avoiding the thing coming his way by pure reflex.
Hardly seeing anything, given that he'd not turned on any lights so as not to wake Mei, he relied solely on his sense of hearing, touch, the limited things he could see, and his sense of smell, slightly improved thanks to Mirko's quirk.
Something was there.
His sense of smell caught it. Faint, but present.
In a matter of seconds, something akin to knives headed his way faster than he could react, pinning him to the wall by his clothes as others came closer to his face.
—The hell…!?
Tearing his clothes, he had to come up with something... and fast.
The only light source in the corridor came from behind him, the window, so his attacker had the advantage of the backlight. On the other hand, Felix only had the light coming from the TV, far away.
Most likely, his opponent was in his line of sight, just hidden in the shadow.
Whether he could outspeed those sharp blade-like things was a wager. He couldn't see them except as elusive shadows, but he was willing to be stabbed if it meant he could get the better of his attacker.
〖Temporary Buff〗●〖Used〗
〖Rabbit〗●〖Meta-Hormones Burst〗
Using his experimental system for the first time in a while, he coupled his own hormonal concoction with Rumi's super-hormones to create a snappy, hard-hitting combo.
Hopping forward, Felix launched himself in a single sweep. Rushing from one room to another in a heartbeat.
His left foot shattered the wall on which he landed. A small shockwave shook the building.
Going this fast, and so, still suspended in the air, he turned while floating.
Locking eyes with the person targetting him, he couldn't hold up his smile, something between irritation and mockery. Disdain.
Long, large wings, a black hero suit, and a gas mask. He came prepared.
"You are…!"
Surprised by his target's movement speed, the silent hero took a step back and swung feathers in Felix's direction, which, in relation, reacted by charging at him like a bull, as Mirko showed him how to do.
A swift bunny hop: "Make yerself a damn, tootin' fuckin' missile," yep, isn't that right.
Knowing how futile it would be to try dodging a barrage of these sharp feathers, doing that was the only way of swiftly closing the distance in an enclosed space, so he took them head-on since his pain was mostly dulled, and his bleeding slowed down thanks to his〖Temporary Buff〗.
The feather also couldn't reach their maximum velocity because they were all fired from close-ups, so he didn't have to worry too much about them severing his organs, especially since his skin was quite sturdy.
However, these things were sharper than they seemed, sinking a centimeter or two into his flesh but avoiding the most fatal blow as he covered his chest and head with his arms.
—Goddamn them… Fucking bastards… This is the HPSC again, isn't it!?
High-kicking off as hard as he could after landing on the floor, the #3 evaded the blow without breaking a sweat and plucked a large sword-like feather from his plumage before dashing toward him.
Clearly aiming for Felix's throat, the ex-con barely blocked it in time with one of the knives he took from Himiko.
The momentum from the blow threw him backward against the kitchen workbench as smaller feathers rushed toward him.
In a desperate attempt to stop them, he seized one of the stoves and used it as a shield. Using the small cover he created, Felix brandished the second knife he had with him and tried stabbing Hawks in the head for him to evade again, the blade stopping its course because of the hero's mask.
This asshole was informed. Fast. Intelligent. Careful.
His body was completely covered. He was cautious not to get too close, too. Felix couldn't use his hormones on him. This track was a dead-end.
—This is the worst…
Knowing he couldn't wait a second or he'd be pinned down again, Felix jumped again toward another spot, propelling himself toward Mei's workbench, aiming for something else entirely.
For now, he couldn't solve this situation only through his quirk and strength. He needed his wits and his allies' insights.
Racing forward, he sidestepped a flock of feathers, exploiting the fact that the hero couldn't move as he pleased as he struggled to get closer to his goal.
However, the feathers already stuck in his flesh pulled him aside, tearing his flesh and causing him to miss his target.
Seeing that his opponent was trying to retrieve the hammer from the table, the hero cleared all the contents of the workbench with a flick of his wing before unleashing a salvo of feathers that crashed down on Felix as he curled up in a ball to protect his vitals.
Hawks swung the same large feather as before, ready to deliver the killing blow from above.
A bang.
What seemed to be a gunshot echoed through the apartment as a net with four weights threw the hero back against the wall. Hurrying up, Felix got to his feet and headed for the hammer while the hero was still shaken.
He triggered the hammer's propulsion mechanism and hurled himself towards Hawks, who plucked the largest feather from his plumage, throwing it at Felix's throat.
Managing to dodge again, he avoided his spinal cord being ruptured, but the feather blade still pierced the right side of his throat, opening his carotid.
—Fuck it!
Rushing forward, Felix slammed both arms toward Hawks to put as much punch into the blow as possible, unleashing a devastating strike of forceful intensity.
Trying to take cover, the hero put both wings around himself, but at the moment of impact, the hammer went through, simply unstoppable as the flames at its back lit up the room.
The sound of his feathers snapping like bones was joined a fraction of a second later by the impact of the hammer against Hawks' abdomen and his body smashing against the wall like a cannonball striking a fortress.
As Mei demonstrated, the second shockwave generated by the energy of the first strike came and plastered the hero literally into the wall, making the whole building shake as if an earthquake had just happened before exploding the wall that separated the living room from the storeroom sending the hero flying against another wall on the other side.
Blood gushed out of where the hammer smashed him. It seemed like his wing took most of the energy of the impact, but the hero was still in very bad shape. The left side of his torso showed broken ribs protruding from his skin.
Understanding the danger of his situation, as Felix rushed toward him with a knife, Hawks moved out of the way in the corridor, looking back at the window at the end of it.
"Damn it all... Alright... This is a draw-"
Halting his speech as he felt a presence behind him, two eyes glinting in the dark over his shoulder startled him into realizing that one of his own feathers lying on the floor had just cut the left side of his throat even though he was sure he'd avoided it.
Flying as fast as he could to escape, Hawks used his feathers to shatter the glass of the corridor, and despite his broken wings making it difficult to fly, he extricated himself in extremis as a knife plunged into his back as he tried to fly upwards.
The last feathers inside the apartment came rushing out, returning to their owner as the girl who helped him gazed at him with a predatory glare, still completely naked.
"Y'know, Mr. Fewix, I might be smitten by you way way too much. You shouldn't be covered in blood every so often; it makes it very, very hard for me to control myself."
"Thanks for the help... I guess you're not working with him then... But shouldn't you be sleeping?"
"Way too much noise to sleep, mhm."
Moving around here behind them in the living room, someone who's been sleeping till now moves around on the sofa as she falls over on the ground, yelping. Looking around from left to right, only her head was visible from where she was, making the inventor girl look like a meerkat.
"Uuuh... By the holy landfill... Mr. Tremblay, I told you not to use my hammer prototype to hammer nails into walls..." Her eyes landed on a naked Himiko; she put her goggles on and zoomed on her as she hid her body with her hand, blushing and rushing inside the room she was in a minute ago. "Is that Ms. Kaoruko?"
"Kaoruko is blue-skinned, you idiot."
"...is that so?"
Felix, still worried, turned back to the broken window he would now have to seal. The day he returned the apartment to HPSC, they'd have to rebuild the whole place, which looked like a battlefield.
As he hoped to have some time for himself to heal and think about whatever the fuck happened, his doorbell rang.
—Of course... After this whole fuckfest, now this... It's not enough of a dogshit victory...
Opening the door, he once again had to put his eyes toward the ground to see the small red-haired girl. At first, she looked genuinely annoyed, but after seeing his state and the whole on the left being literally blown to pieces, she entered his apartment and looked around.
"The other neighbor might think it's an earthquake! But I know it's you, you-"
"Manami."
"W-What happened...? Again?"
"I... got attacked, I guess."
"Why is..." She muttered, trying to understand what she had in front of her. "No... Whatever, the apartment isn't important. I'll take care of you. Go sit on the couch... next to Mei..."
"Yes, sir."
Returning from the bathroom with a first-aid kit, she looked down at the wall and raised an eyebrow. She touched one of the shattered feathers on the ground to see its sharpness.
"Don't tell me..."
"It's just like what it looks like." Felix sighed as Mei actually managed to go back to sleep, already snoring, her head tilted back. "Just as I said, I got attacked because someone doesn't want me to be here."
Disinfecting the wounds caused by the feathers, mainly to his neck and arms, Manami struggles to watch at the wound before heaving a sigh.
"Why?"
"I suppose he's blaming me for something I didn't have a hand in..." He explained, trying to find a way not to say too much but just enough. "More or less..."
"He... raped a girl... and now attacked someone out of nowhere... What could this asshole do next!?" Manami whispered with a hollow kind of gaze. "Do you want to report Hawks to the media?"
"Why are you asking me that?"
"I can use my... talents to help you and this poor girl get justice!" The little woman exclaimed with what seemed to be renewed fury, something he never saw in her before. "I... have a way for you to give this information to someone who can actually do something with it."
"...What do you mean?"
"A journalist. A phone number I got when using this talent of mine a while ago."
