Chapter 35

"We'll get out of here eventually. I'm sure of it!" Said the voice of a young boy. "Sooner or later, these guys are gonna get their butts kicked by a hero!"

"What if they don't come...?" Said a meeker voice.

"They'll come and save us! We just gotta hold on, ok?!" Said the boy assuredly. "And when that time comes, we'll get to see the blue ceiling and the stars and all cool other cool stuff and eat real food and-"

"Food again? Didn't you just ate a while ago?" Said a third voice with mild exasperation.

"Well I think that that sludge!-"

"Nutrient paste"

"-Does not count as food!'

Somewhat hesitantly, a hand was raised in-between the two to interrupt. "I, um, stole something from the canteen." Said the meek voice.

"Sweet! Let's share!" The boy then broke the chocolate bar into four pieces. "Here, one for all of us!"

The boy gave each person their share but as he reached the fourth child, he saw him flinch at the kind gesture.

"Y-you know me?"

"Huh? Why wouldn't I? We live here together."

"No one usually notices me." He said, downcast. "Everyone doesn't even look at me... How?"

"What do you mean 'how'?" He asked before shrugging. "You're weird. Whatever, just take this and come join us." The boy grabbed the child's hand and dragged him to the other two.

~~~~~~~~~

"Hnghh..." A small figure groaned as he opened his eyes. "Another dream..."

He groggily sat down while rubbing his eyes. Stifling another groan, he made his way out to his cubicle and headed straight for the bathroom.

He has been living off of internet cafés and convenient store food for a while now using the money he had stolen. He wasn't the brightest tool in the shed that he had forgotten that he didn't need such a thing. If he needed something, then all he had to do was take it. He thinks that no one would remember him anyway so it wouldn't matter if he was seen.

The city has been a wonderful experience at first but the constant exposure and indulgence had made it bland for him.

Yet even so, this new life of his is much better than than the previous one. No more needles or experiments, no more white walls and lab coats, no more painful testings.

Letting the water flow down his body, he gently knocked his forehead against the wall as he thought of his life so far.

He didn't know any better. He did as he thought would be the best course of action. Stealing was something his friends would do to make survival a little better. In fact, he had been surprised at how easy it was to simply take something since the security out here was so lax.

Or maybe it was just him...

It wasn't always this easy to go unnoticed after all. People just don't look through him anymore, it was as if they don't even register his existence.

His mind hasn't thought about that yet as a subconscious effort to stay sane. By unknowingly forcing his mind to focus on a different goal, he is avoiding an existential crisis.

Humans are social creatures. Even complete and total shut-ins would engage in parasocial behaviour.

But he was different, the most of his interactions are limited to when he had stolen from those girls, and he had barely done something like that in weeks. Unbeknown to him, his current mental state has already deteriorated and is only kept together by sheer drive and focus towards a single objective.

To free his friends and have them healed.

After drying himself off, the boy looked into the mirror. He doesn't look much different but upon closer inspection, he gently presses a finger on his arm.

It sunk. it sunk deeper. And it sunk even deeper.

He can see his finger starting to poke through the other side. He doesn't know what they did, he doesn't know what they injected into his body, all the boy knows is that his body has gone softer from the experiments conducted on him and he shuddered at the thought of his friends still stuck in there and are still suffering.

His 'Quirk' as they called it, is stronger now. Strong enough to escape unnoticed. He originally wanted to bring his friends with him but it didn't work. His ability is limited to him and him only. There was only one drawback.

He couldn't control it.

Some days he'd go without obstruction, and some days it would be the usual amount of blending in.

During one is the weaker days, his friend talked to him before he was forgotten again. He told him to escape whenever he can and come back with help. And so he did.

Getting help was a lot harder than he expected. His greatest asset became a liability in a near instant. The people from the outside world are more susceptible to his ability than the ones with honed senses.

At first, he tried begging at the police, then at the people who looked like they had a bit more power, then to those who he suspects as heroes outside of costume.

He was desperate enough to try screaming at random people's faces on the streets, he didn't even hesitate to grovel at their feet. Even letters and signs showed no effect most of the time but he did have more luck when it came to shorter cryptic messages.

It wasn't until he found a single glimmer of hope in the form of a red-headed adolescent. The boy watched as he was remembered far longer than anyone else, even longer than his friends.

He clung to that hope as hard as he could. Dropping as many hints as he can, little by little, the day he was waiting came ever so closer until-

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"We have visuals." I said over at the Comms. Me and my heads currently having one of the entrances locked on our sights.

"Affirmative." Said Uiharu over my earpiece. "Anti-skill has yet to be notified, are you sure that it is necessary to go in?"

I lightly clenched the hardrive in my pockets as my lips thinned slightly. "They're using a closed system. Even if I did abuse my connections to get government forces moving, they'd still be making enough rukus to have them purge incriminating evidence."

"...Please take care of yourselves."

"It's a stealth mission, Uiharu. We will not be fighting if we do not need to." Said Kuroko with a faint smile.

"I know. It's just that I don't have a good feeling about this place..."

"We'll be careful. Just prepare to call Anti-skill once you have the data."

"Alright. Good luck."

The door was silently unlocked and was opened. Some of my heads went inside first to make sure it was safe before we made our way inside.

This location is where the hints point at.

Officially, it is an office building for a smaller business that acts as a middleman for different transactions and exchanges but that is the front. The shell company is used as a disguise for whatever is underneath it's floors and the worse part is that this place is located in a public area with decent foot traffic, making it harder for larger groups to go unnoticed.

Hence why it was back to me and Kuroko sneaking in, gathering the evidence, and leaving as we notify Anti-skill. It was supposed to be a simple in-and-out, really.

So why is it that this place somehow reeks of miasma?! The deeper we go inside, the stronger it gets and how did I not notice this sooner? The air is quite Humid too and it's a bit heavy to breathe in.

Well, granted that this is the thirteenth district, a place for primary school and kindergartens so I never really had a reason to go around these parts so I can't really be to blame...

Rather, Uiharu's intuition was really accurate when she made a random guess based on the clues I relegated to her so far and the situation can be taken two ways.

One, if we did somehow 'coincidentally' run into a 'monster' then it would cement my lie about them to Uiharu. And two, did the guys here decided to experiment on not only humans but also 'monsters'?

I flinched a bit when one of my heads were dispelled. Kuroko noticed and I signaled to her that I was fine. It was just that the memory that was sent over showed me tanks filled with liquid.

It was transparent with a kind of odd glint that's only found in thick liquids. Inside the liquid was bits and pieces of flesh with scientists in sterilised hazmat suits poking around the machinery and typing down on their tablets.

If it were any other day, I would have thought that they were making lab-grown meat for vegan dishes or something but...

With the notes and clues that led us to this place, I really doubt it.

As we made our way further inside, the air is getting more and more humid. The heads keep dispelling as they send me more images of similar scene happening.

Morbid, but I did not gag. Kuroko and Uiharu --Who listening in on the comms-- won't like it but I'll prioritise the mission first.

I led the both of us further within as I navigate the corridors, deciding that it would be in my best interest that they don't witness that scene, or the other similar scenes for that matter. They are smarter and more mature than some one a few years older than them, but I... I feel that it wouldn't be right to let middleschoolers, first years, deal with that.

Is that really selfish of me to think like this?

Am I coddling them? I mean, they did sign up for Judgment and all so I suppose it came with the job description and all but I wouldn't want them to get hurt or anything and psychological and emotional trauma counts as somethinglikethatbutneechanalwayssaidsomethingaboutgettinghurttogrowupandallbut-

"We're here" I said as we stopped in front of a heavy sliding door.

Kuroko wordlessly went up to it and placed a hand on it's surface. A few seconds of silence passed and she held up her other hand towards me.

I charged up my spiritual energy before grabbing it and we were inside. The people already here were surprised but before they got a chance to do gather their bearings, a flying headbutt flew over to them a high speed that promptly knocked them out.

Walking towards the computer, I looked at the screen that Kuroko was working on as soon as we entered. Seeing as a scowl was slowly etched on her face, I calmly backed away and walked closer to the physical servers and inserted the harddrive.

Uiharu was quiet and it wouldn't take a genius to know that she was either appalled at whatever she's reading, angry, or both.

As soon as Kuroko was done with whatever she was doing, the lights shut down and the systems crashed.

"Let's go." She said, holding out her hand once again. "They wouldn't be able to open any doors anymore, much less continue their travesties in our absence or escape."

Taking a hold of it, the darkness was immediately replaced with the light of day.

It was a sort of marked teleportation. One she figured out how to use based on her study of elementary wards. She would send out a tag and mark certain locations to teleport to without fear of being sent inside an object or material.

Granted, it has a short range right now but progress is progress.

The two of us stuck around nearby to make sure nobody actually escaped. We stayed until Anti-skill arrived and took care of the rest, it was at that point that we decided to leave.

After all, it was supposed to be an anonymous tip and us being in the kiddie district wouldn't make much sense. Well, that and I probably need to get to the hospital. These guys might be sent to me and Hevun-sensei.