Chapter Text
She awoke in a cold sweat, sitting up from a laid position, clutching and feeling her own body for the various wounds that had come from fighting Makima in that alleyway.
But as she searched for those wounds, they were no longer there. As if it hadn’t existed in the first place.
Reze’s eyes looked around the utterly blank space she found herself in. It was a limbo of some sort, or perhaps a personal hell reserved specifically for the type of person she was.
There were no landscapes, no sky, no nothing.
It was just that: nothing.
She spent the next few hours walking aimlessly through this limbo. Her thoughts drifted heavily on the recent events that had led to her death. Her fight with Denji, the exhilaration she genuinely felt spending time with him; going all out in the city; and finally….
The alleyway.
Reze shivered at the thought of Makima being the last thing to hold her closely as she yearned to run away. To finally be free from all that has caged her.
Her eyes casted upwards at the unending sky of nothing with a deep and heavy sigh.
“Who am I kidding…. Denji was doomed from the start.” She mumbled to herself, running her fingers through her hair.
Makima already had her claws sunken deep into Denji’s heart long before Reze came along, and there was no yanking free the chains of the Control Devil. It was hopeless, impossible, and inane.
She sat down, pulling her thighs up to her chest and hiding her face into them.
Reze stayed like that for a while, a million thoughts going through her head of shoulda, coulda, wouldas of the many aspects of her life.
She should’ve chased after a different life.
She could’ve run off with Denji to a place where no government or Devil could find them.
She would’ve taken his hand and ran to the ends of the earth with him.
But the world she lived in was cruel. It demanded everything and anything of its inhabitants, and would barely give something back with a leash and whip to those who asked for something resembling love and affection.
That’s just how it worked. Reze learned that from a young age when it came to working for the Soviet Union.
A rough and gravelly tone of Russian that was forever drilled into her head repeated the mantra she’d learned:
Emotions are a weapon.
My words are a weapon.
My body is a weapon.
Anything she could do was meant entirely to subdue, eliminate, or utterly annihilate the Soviet Union’s enemies.
And yet love…
Love seemed so strange a concept. She’d met hundreds of souls during her many hunts and missions who’d professed to her about wanting to start a family, have sex with her, or be hers in marriage and joy.
Yet all of that were merely empty words to a woman like her. She knew they were hollow. That honeyed words, a flash of flesh, and fake promises were the tools of the trade.
And yet with Denji….
Something in her chest ached at the memory of his face. His words. His mannerisms.
Something real. Something alive.
The silent hum of something approaching steadily fast snapped her out of her thoughts. She craned her head up from her knees and saw an iridescent ball hovering just a few inches above the floor of nothingness.
It looked like a stray golden christmas ornament that had fallen off its tree and lost its hook. Though, instead of a pure gold hue, it flashed an innumerable amount of colors. From oily purple to a hazy green.
It vibrated more and more as it got closer, flashing like a beacon.
“Huh–” She tried to speak but the ball itself was faster, suddenly slamming itself into her vision before everything went black….
Reze’s body fell through an endless pitch black void for a solid fifteen minutes. Though it felt longer with the horrid amount of squelching of flesh around her, screeches of things humans and non-human, and a steady yet loud heartbeat.
She accepted that this was likely where she’d be tortured for eons in Hell itself, but then it stopped. The sounds of agony cut off. The ambience of flesh rending itself in sync gone completely.
Reze’s back felt the smooth and crisp breeze of air as she fell through a fleshy sphincter, spitting her out and onto the harsh asphalt of a moist alleyway.
The fall had knocked the wind out of her as she sputtered, hacking up spittle and struggling to stand.
Her first thought was to reach for a weapon as though she was sent back to the exact moment Makima appeared, though no rats came. No spear or weapon of absurd sharpness forcing itself into her chest.
Instead as she stood up, she found two homeless men nursing a bottle of sake wrapped in brown paper. Their eyes were as wide as saucers as they pointed at her and spoke in hushed whispers her ears could easily pick up.
“O-oi… Did she just come outta that thingamajing, Subaru…? T-that’s not the booze playing tricks on me?” The man with a raspy voice and a bucket hat hissed to his fellow man, handing the sake to his friend.
The other man, who was dressed in a dirty yellow patch coat, had a scraggly beard that was littered with bread crumbs. He scratched at his face, scoffing and waving away the idea. “Must be one of them gals that do the quirks, Haku. Hero stuff.”
“Ahhhh, that’s what it is then. Guess that makes sense.” Subaru said, nodding along, his concerns now lessened as he took another swig.
Reze ignored them, staggering on through the alleyway, her nose catching whiff of so many individual scents: from the rancid smell of the nearby dumpster, to the aroma of fresh coffee nearby, and the exhaust of countless cars driving by.
When she broke out from the alleyway and basked in the sunlight that bathed her face in droves, Reze spread her arms out like a bird, twirling in a circle with a hearty laugh.
It felt so oddly comforting to her as she stilled, letting the rays of sunlight bathe her in its warmth.
Why did this world not have the stink of Hell in it? Where was the sulfur stench of the lesser ones that littered the streets? Where was the occasional Public Safety patrol waltzing through with glares and knives…?
A cacophonous boom swept over her, interrupting her brief moment of joy, and the buildings nearby shook in unison. Car alarms blared over and over and some of the people inside one of the many storefronts or buildings stormed out with phones or curious faces.
There were screams of adoration and cheer from her left, and Reze couldn’t help but be intrigued.
Walking with purpose, she followed the crowds.
She pushed through the packed sardines of the crowds, slithering through them like an eel to rocks, and as she reached the front, her eyes caught something outlandish.
“It’s a villain! Oh my god, I gotta record this right here and now! It’s gonna be on Pingstagram!” A woman basically screeched right next to Reze, slightly irritating her.
“No way, it’s Kamui woods! Ohhhh my goshhhh!!!!” A blonde-haired woman cried out with hands outstretched in hopes of reaching out to the object of her adulation.
Reze was more or less already in the assumption it’d have to be some sort of altercation, but she wasn’t expecting a man wearing a tight spandex suit fighting a brutish looking fiend, and her lips couldn’t help but frown.
So fiends still existed in this world after all. It was the only explanation for these peoples’ odd and inhuman abilities. One growing to substantial proportions; another wielding wood itself; and another gigantic brute with skin as hard as rock.
Which meant that Devils may–
“Excuse me, ma’am!” A man’s gruff voice pushed her aside, and she looked upwards to see a literal fire-hydrant replacing this guy’s face and head. He formed a barricade of water and stood proud and tall. “Stay clear, everybody!”
She half expected these people to run away in fear and search for the nearest weapon to defend themselves, but instead….
They cheered and had more stars in their eyes, as if they were at a concert seeing their favorite singer or performer rather than an abomination.
A fire-hydrant fiend…? A Devil…?
Almost on instinct, her fingers went to her choker, finger already hooking into the loop with a slight tug.
But more cheer erupted when a gigantic woman of monstrous proportions stomped through, making the very streets quake and causing Reze to lose her balance alongside the crowd.
She wore a very revealing body suit as she drop-kicked the brutish fiend.
What’s with this place….? Why are they so amazed? She thought to herself. Why aren’t they screaming for their lives? That’s a giant fiend. Or a Devil….
It didn’t help that more people, men and women, closed in like hungry wolves, with cameras and lecherous expressions and took countless amounts of pictures as she posed willingly for them.
“What’s going on?” She asked nobody in particular.
An old man heard her, turning on his heel with a proud grin. “It’s a villain being swept up by the hands of justice, young lady!” He laughed heartily, turning back to admire the scene of both this wood-wielding fiend and giantess tag-teaming to pin, ensnare, and push the brutish man-thing into submission.
Reze’s emerald green eyes took in all of her surroundings.
Where exactly am I?
Six months later….
Reze measured up two sugar cubes into the black coffee, tilted the steel pitcher of cream until the color was exactly the shade the old man in booth three liked, and slid the cup across the counter without looking up.
Her name was Chitose, and she was talking again, her voice warm like honey and hoarse from laughing at her own silly jokes.
She was talking about her son again, and Reze knew that that boy was Chitose’s entire world. “... And then Haruto came home with this big ole blush on his face, trying to say he’d been freezing and that the cold did it, but a mother knows best!” She leaned in conspiratorially, as if this was some medieval secret to be kept between lords and nobles. “I think he’s got a girlfriend~!
Reze merely hummed, the same sound she’d always make whenever Chitose rambled on and on about her son.
Chitsose was an older, mature woman in her late thirties or forties, she never could tell. She had shoulder-length brown hair that was always messy or frizzy by closing time with laugh lines around her cheeks and wrinkles beginning to settle in around the corners of her eyes.
She wore an apron over a salmon-colored blouse and faded blue denim pants and wore the same scuffed white sneakers every single day because her son had saved up three months worth of the money he’d made from a part-time job to buy them for her birthday.
When asked why she never changed them, she always told Reze that her son had gotten her those shoes, and she wears them with pride.
Chitose was quite proud of her son, telling Reze that he was top of his class back in middle-school, and that he was on his way to becoming just like some All-Might guy. All Reze could do was nod, say a few affirmations and ‘wow, that’s nice’ to the woman.
She had hired Reze on the spot two months ago when she ran into her in need of a place to stay warm on a cold, rainy night. There was no interview. No need for a resume. No ID, no questions.
All Chitose had told her on that faithful day was that Reze looked like someone who was lost and needed help.
It was the first time Reze had ever taken an offer like that with a genuine small since she’d gotten to this strange world.
Chitose rose higher in Reze’s books of incredible people because she never pried about her life. She even taught Reze how to steam milk without scalding it, how to tell when coffee beans were going bad, and how to smile kindly to all customers alike.
She paid her in cash every two weeks and told her that she was more than welcome to stay at her house until she could rent an apartment.
On some nights at the Zen Cafe, when the last customer left and the open sign flickered off to closed, Chitose would rally her to an empty booth with a cup of leftover coffee or tea, and talk about her son’s dream of going to U.A.
Again, Reze would relax into her booth and listen, feeling something strange and unnatural beat within her ribs.
Reze wouldn’t really ever say thank you out loud. She just showed up early, cleaned the machines until they gleamed, and made sure that her manager, Chitose, wouldn’t ever have to take the trash out alone after dark.
It was truly a safe haven where she didn’t have to pretend to be someone she wasn’t. At the Zen Cafe, Reze was just Reze. No… She wasn’t fully that.
She used a fake name since getting here. Never sharing it with anyone, not even Chitose.
The afternoon light filtered through windows of the cafe, catching those dust motes that floated in the air of the Zen Cafe.
It was peaceful. Relaxed. Very much needed.
“Could you go and get some more straws in the back, Jane?” Chitose asked, snapping her out of her thoughts. Her voice was in a cheery mood as she continued to wipe down the counter with a clean rag. “We’re running out up here, and you know how it gets when the rush hour begins for students around here. Best to be prepared, I say.”
Reze nodded with a hum, setting aside the coffee mug so Chitose could hand it to the old man waiting in the booth. He gave a quiet hum of approval as he sipped at it, going back to reading the newspaper.
Turning away from the front of the counter, Reze pushed open the still squeaky and stiff, double-hinged doors leading to the storage room. The back of the shop was a dim labyrinth of shelves stacked high with various supplies.
From bags of coffee beans, boxes of tea sachets, extra syrup bottles in many flavors, and industrial sized cans of whipped cream for those haughty teenage girls that liked it with their caramel swirled ice coffees.
She began her search in quick fashion, pushing aside boxes, eyes darting left and right to read the labels. They needed those wide, colorful straws that paired greatly with their latest and ridiculously popular option: boba tea.
Reze chuckled at how a great majority of the orders from most of the kids and teens that come by were specifically for their boba tea options. From the tapioca pearls to the jellies, the Zen Cafe had it all, really.
As she knelt down to scan the bottom row of the shelves, peering past a worn box of paper napkins, her ears picked up the familiar chime of the front door’s doorbell ringing. A genuine, tiny smile, spread over her lips.
It had to have been Chitose’s son. He was a quiet and studious boy, who really loved anything and everything about Pro Heroes. He must’ve been getting off from his nearby middle school because anytime he opened the door, it was always a gentle, unhurried chime.
He was among one of the few people in this city she’d found herself in that didn’t get on her nerves or pry about who she was. He was a real, genuine, and kind soul. Always polite and respectful to Reze, and she had to give props to Chitose for raising him so well.
Not many kids acted like him. They always were too ‘cool’ for love from their mothers, or too busy on those fancy phones that kept them perpetually staring at it.
With a newer sense of urgency to finish her task before Haruto would come back to pester her about what he learned about this ‘All-Might’ guy or ‘Endeavor’, she resumed her search for these darn boba tea straws.
Finally, tucked away so discreetly toward the very back of the bottom row, she found the large, white plastic box labeled ‘boba straws’ with a red sharpie written over it.
The box wasn’t overtly too heavy as she hauled it up to her chest, bracing it against the front of her black apron.
Suddenly, the peaceful quiet was erased. A sharp, high-pitched shriek, Chitose’s, tore through the air. It was immediately followed by the shattering of glass.
The sounds were quick and jarring. Nobody would harass or rob a cafe store!
It forced Reze to drop everything without a second thought. The heavy box fell from her hands onto the floor, scattering thick plastic straws over the grimy concrete.
Adrenaline roared through her veins, she slammed her shoulder into the double doors, bursting into the main shop floor–
“FUCK YOU!” A guttural, raw snarl from a man’s voice was the last thing she registered. Before her mind could fully process the sight that was happening right in front of her, a heavy, dull thwack erupted over her head.
A solid, unforgiving force, metallic and blunt, collided with her face. Pain exploded over her entire skull, a blinding white flash that muted the sound of the world. A ringing noise going through her ears….
Her vision was fragmented into pieces as darkness began to claim the edges of her eyes. She already felt her body tipping forward, collapsing onto the tiled floor.
In the final, flickering seconds she had before the ground met her body and unconsciousness fully claimed her, her eyes, blurred, caught the tiniest glimpse of indistinct figures. She couldn’t tell if there were more than two, but they swarmed around Chitose, jumping over the counter.
But then, with a jarring impact of her head hitting the floor, everything went black….
She awoke dreary and sluggish, the pain in her head throbbing in intervals. Her eyes opened up to the sight of Chitose sitting across from her, bound from head to toe in thick ropes of something elastic, no…. Of Someone.
He wore a weirdly skin-tight spandex suit, his body slithering between Chitose’s breasts and up around her neck and serving as a gag. It was a quirk-user. A villain.
Beside Chitose, a hulking behemoth of a man, with pudgy skin and fingers as thick as sausages, was helping himself to whatever was behind the counter of the Zen Cafe, and even reaching into the display case of desserts and sandwiches.
Her eyes drifted left to the windows closed shut and night beginning to start as it was dark save for the dim lights that shone over them.
Reze peered down to her own body, thick and heavy chains encased her body as well, and beside her was a man with a goatee, pushing the cold barrel of a pistol to the side of her temple.
Her eyes tried to scan for wherever Haruto was, but he wasn’t in the room. It was alleviating yet also worrying….
These were villains then…? Not the usual thugs that tried to pull the scams or ‘protection’ fee most would do–
Her eyes gazed over to another man skulking out from the shadow, counting the yen bills in hand that he’d taken from their register.
“Just lousy pocket-change, huh? Figured you’d at least be raking in the big bucks.” His voice was familiar….
The one who knocked her out cold.
His face came into view once the light shone on him, and she immediately recognized the man.
Nagato.
She felt his hand wrap around her throat, choking her with a firm grip. He leaned in close, his breath heavy with whiskey and the stench of tobacco. “Where the fuck is the Chinese gold, Jane?”
She played dumb and shrugged her bound shoulders, trying to be confused while keeping her eyes on Chitose.
“Cheeky bitch, huh? You think I don’t know it was you?” Nagato’s grip tightened. “I have videos of you raiding my shipment! Of fucking gold that doesn’t belong to you! What was the plan, huh? Tryna buy a new life in the Americas? To some bog-water shithole you think I won’t find?!”
That pirating mission of hers was so long ago. Way before she met Chitose. Back then, her one objective was to secure enough money to buy an out of Japan, a place far away from the reaches of the Soviet Union.
It was the constant fear of Soviet agents finding her, stalking her, that had driven her move since she got here. But… They never came. They didn’t exist, or rather, they had no interest in her.
When that realization happened, that her old fears of having a master in this place, she’d abandoned ship, quite literally, and zipped right back to Japan to seek a quiet life.
That’s where Chitose had found her, sheltering herself under the awning of her closed shop on a rainy day, covered in salt water.
But now, staring into Nagato’s murderous eyes and expression, she knew now. That one desperate action of hers, had long-term consequences.
He clicked his tongue at her silence, glaring at her. “Maybe this might clear your stupid fucking mind.” He snarled, nodding his head toward the behemoth standing by the counter.
The large man stopped his snack raid. He reached behind him casually, unhooking something from his belt. It was a cloth-wrapped bundle.
The behemoth chewed at a sandwich as he unfurled it.
Then the severed head flew out of it and rolled onto the tiled floor in front of Chitose and Reze….
Chitose let out a sound Reze hadn’t ever heard or never wanted to hear from her. It was less a scream and more a primal, ragged shriek that instantly turned into agonized sobs and wailing. Her body convulsed uselessly within the elastic binds.
It was Haruto…
The young boy’s eyes were gouged out, leaving two empty bloody sockets staring into the dim light above. His tongue was gone as his jaw hung slack open.
The elastic villain wrapped around Chitose simply laughed alongside the pudgy behemoth.
“Wanna try again, you fucking bitch?” Nagato hissed, pulling Reze’s head back by her hair, forcing her to look at the remains of Haruto.
He pointed a finger at Chitose next. “If not, I can kill that slut over there and try again. We’ll start one limb at a god damn fucking time until you say something about gold!” He let go of her face, grabbing the bat he’d used to hit her in the head, twirling it around with ease.
Nagato continued, pacing back and forth with a dark chuckle, running a hand through his black hair. “We can wait as long as it takes until you tell me where the fuck that gold is. That gold belongs to the Tortoise of Musutafu, and I am damn well making sure it gets to his old, wrinkly ass!”
Her eyes gazed up at Chitose’s expressions of anguish and despair, wriggling again in the elastic villain’s binds.
In barely even a second, she rose, ripping free from her chained binds and the gasps of everyone.
The first to rush her was the man who’d kept a gun to her head, slamming the barrel of it to the back of her spine, unloading several shots that dug deep into her flesh.
He didn’t last a second to back away as she whirled around on her heel, thrusting two fingers into the gun-wielder’s eyes, pushing the slick orbs back into his skull and curled her fingers inwards, getting a good grip inside the empty space she’d made inside.
Her hand shot to his shoulder, and with a slight grunt of effort, she started twisting his head and tearing it off like it was a stubborn piece of mandarin orange clinging to its shell.
She ignored Nagato’s own pistol slamming bullet after bullet into her back as she kept on.
A loud gargling cry left the man’s lips before they silenced out upon his head beginning to loosen and tear apart from his body.
Blood….. Oh so sweet generous blood, bathed her in its warmth, revitalizing a part of her she’d kept hidden for so long. It was almost like reverting into relapse in how it healed her scars, the throbbing headache in her head, and all the fatigue inside her body.
The goon’s headless body flopped forward, stopping his blobby companion from continuing his charge and staring in disbelief.
Reze didn’t stop there, she darted forward at a speed that surprised all of them. The blob of mass didn’t get a word in when Reze clambered over his body like a quick monkey over an obtuse tree trunk.
Her hand poised flat like a blade, as she slammed it upwards into the behemoth’s flabby neck, piercing through the lard and excess skin until her finger tips felt the bone of his trachea.
She grabbed at it, forcing the blob to freeze up, and she twisted, wrenching the bone free alongside whatever flesh she could pull away.
Reze’s face was bathed in more blood as it healed the wounds Nagatos’ bullets inflicted on her, the small of her back restitching itself and pouring more energy into her body.
“Geughghhgah!!!!” The gluttony manifest gargled on his own blood, stumbling backwards, clutching at his neck in attempt to staunch the flow of blood. He fell backwards onto the display case of desserts and sandwiches.
Two down. Two to go.
Adrenaline roared through Reze’s veins. It was that vivid, unmistakable muscle memory of her deadly skills reigniting anew in her system. It was terrifying and exhilarating to feel it again.
To feel blood on her lips. To feel it gushing down her chest, igniting that primal devil urge to bask in it. To bathe in it. To live in it.
The elastic man was next to go as he unwrapped himself from Chitose’s body despite Nagato screaming at him not to, and he surged forward, twisting and winding around Reze’s body in an attempt to constrict and suffocate her.
She dug her fingers into whatever elastic portion she could and spread it apart. There was a limit to how much this man could stretch, and she was going to test that out by yanking him with her superior strength.
He cried out, trying to unwrap himself, but it was too late. His stretchy skin began to crack under his stupid spandex, and with another wring of her hands, she felt blood began to seep out from the fabric.
She twisted and twisted, holding him up like a water-filled towel, and wrung him dry as he gargled, blood seeping through and pouring over the top of her head, wetting her hair with a crimson bath.
Her fingers instinctively latched onto the pin on her choker. An impulse, honed by years of ruthless conditioning from the Soviet Union, begged her to yank it out. To burst into a beautifully powerful explosion here and now.
It was there. Right there. Just as slight tiny tug, enough to begin that painful transformation.
Boom.
She’d utter that one word and then this whole place would be bedazzled in fire and shrapnel. It was a potent lure, but as her mind flew the possibilities and utterly obliterating this final rat where he stood, a cold and mind-clearing logic slammed the brakes on her impulse.
She couldn’t blow up the cafe.
Chitose’s cafe…
The name was an anchor that stemmed the tide of Reze’s growing bloodlust. She’d spent too long here. She took months building up a semblance of normalcy with Chitose.
The one human being so far that had given her a chance for a second start.
And now…
Reze’s gaze, now fully aware and sharp, snapped over to the peripherals of her vision. There, cowering and trembling like a wet puppy, clutching the decapiated head of Haruto, was Chitose….
The manager’s face was a mask of pure, unfiltered horror and shock. Her eyes were wide, mouth agape, and her body scrambling backwards to hide behind something. To hide from her.
It was Chitose’s reaction that hit Reze with a sharp, unexpected impact. An ache deep inside her chest blossomed out through her whole body. It felt like something physical, a blade, had cut deep.
Disappointment?
Was Reze disappointed in herself for the chaos she already allowed to happen, or perhaps it was the manager’s disappointment and fear that she didn’t want.
Guilt?
What a strange, foreign concept to her. She knew it full well and used it to her advantage for so many targets back then.
But to be on the receiving end of it? To feel this nasty, twisting feeling curdling up her insides?
Was it guilt for shattering the peace of Chitose’s sanctuary and indirectly costing her the life of the treasure of her own son? Or was it guilt for completely uprooting Chitose’s expectations of Reze?
She didn’t know.
All she knew was that this complex, twisting, and gut wrenching feeling was a weakness. And that ruthless training drilled into her by Russian superiors of old, had told her that weaknesses were meant to be culled and ripped out before it took root.
But there was no need to, so why would she? There was no government telling her she had to remain an assassin. No gruff old Russian agent to tell her to fake her emotions to get close to anyone.
She didn’t know.
All she knew was that the rising build up of her old destructive self was being held by a single idea.
What would Chitose think of this?
Reze’s hand lowered from the choker, the impulse to detonate had suppressed itself, and the adrenaline in her veins continued to scream, but it was now under a very shaky lock and key.
But… Out of the corner of her eyes, movement registered in her vision, and it snapped her attention back to the cafe.
And with it came another emotion that blossomed out into her body like a foreign entity: anger.
Nagato’s lithe and trembling body was the source of it. He was the last one alive in this cafe that posed a threat to Reze’s peace and Chitose’s safety.
He abandoned all sense of just running away, and had opted instead to use a desperate tactic to stay alive.
He took Chitose out from her hiding spot, kicking away Haruto’s decapitated head out of her hands, and yanked her up from the floor to use as a human shield.
A pistol pressed itself into the temple of Chitose’s skull….
He was a danger to himself and to Chitose.
One wrong moe and a bullet may find its new home in her head.
“Stop right there, you crazy psycho slut!” He stopped her. “Any closer and this bitch dies!” He shrieked out, his voice cracked with fear.
Chitose’s whimpers and silent mewls were all that was heard amongst the leaking blood and the mumbled curses of Nagato.
Reze’s heart hoped to have seen a flicker of hope and need to be rescued from Chitose’s face, but instead all she saw was a terrified woman looking at another monster in her cafe….
Before she could act, dart forward to save her, Chitose acted faster. She bit at Nagato’s wrist, sinking her teeth into his flesh in a frantic attempt to free herself.
He let out a loud yelp of pain, his grip weakening and allowing her to escape.
“You fucking…! GRAHGH!!! YOU BITCH!” He roared out as Chitose tried to make a run for it. Yet he fired by mistake, a warning shot gone wrong. His eyes widened into saucers.
The deafening crack of the pistol echoed in the cafe. In that split second, Chitose’s head bursted open. A sudden cloud of crimson mist spread outward as the bullet found its mark in her skull.
The force of the gunshot spun her body, and she flopped forward, becoming nothing more than a puppet whose strings had been cut.
The sight of Chitose, the one woman who gave her a chance to start anew, her body lifeless, had been teh final straw. The breach of Reze’s momentary control over her bloodlust.
Her trembling finers were already back on the pin of her choker, her face losing its shocked expression and molding into an emotionless stare with a visible eye twitch.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
That word echoed in her thoughts and her heart hammered against her chest as she glared at Nagato’s frantic expression. He fell to his knees, pressing his forehead to the floor in a final plea for his life
“I-I didn’t! T-the gun–!” He stammered with a sweaty face and trembling hands.
“Boom.” She said the word aloud, tugging the pin free.
She watched in glee at the brief flash of Nagato’s flesh peeling away and turning into crisped charred meat. His eyes just instantaneously boiling in their sockets. The fire invaded his lungs. The inferno engulfing and tearing away his limbs.
The cafe exploded into bright colorful lights and a cacophonous melody that she’d come to know and remember time and time again whistled, crackled, and sizzled in the air.
The shockwave of her explosion utterly annihilated the building and everything and anything inside. It wiped the slate clean in a baptism of fire and ash.
All that remained around her as she remained in her Hybrid Devil form were the charred corpses, the cascading falling pillars of what had remained of the Zen Cafe’s foundations, and the stench of blood mixed with dust and gunpowder.
Reze’s form melted awy, the thick skull of her Devil form oozing off her face as she stared up at the billowing smoke that trailed up into the night sky, and the to the sound of distant blaring sirens.
She turned on her heel to leave the rubble, heading to the doorframe and pausing.
Reze casted one final glance over her bare shoulder to stare at the burnt up corpse of Chitose.
“I’m so sorry.” She mumbled under her breath, closing her eyes and marched onwards to find another place. A new spot to begin anew again. To try and find a place of normalcy.
“You think it’s what folks say it was?” A police officer with feline features asked. “Some terrible gas leak?” His furred hands were on his hips, bright eyes surveying the area with a grim expression.
“A gas leak doesn’t just level an entire building, much less the surrounding buildings,” He gestured to the chaotic scene around them. “Into piles of rubble, Sansa.”
Tsukauchi shot him a judging look as he said that, continuing to eye the rubble for anything worthwhile, but with so much debris and ash, not much could be made out until the Forensics teams could get the buildings cleared.
He stood up from his knees, dusting away the dirt and adjusted his hat, staring at the mess that had been made here.
“So you’re thinking it’s a quirk then?” Sansa pursed his lips, nodding his head at the plausible theory. “An unregistered quirk like that can’t go unnoticed.”
Tsukauchi shook his head, scribbling notes down from what the witnesses had said they’d heard or saw.
Bright flashing lights, a loud or ear-piercing boom, and a shrill, no… whistling like sound before an explosion leveled these buildings.
“Perhaps it was a bomb then.” Tsukauchi concluded, but even he didn’t sound convinced at what he was saying. “The locals did say there was some gangs lurking around still in this area. Maybe a gang war?”
Again, Sansa shot the very thin theory down. Anyone would. “No, apparently the only worthwhile gang around here were some Yakuza remnants slinking about trying to run protection gigs.”
Tsukauchi hummed in calculating thought; the theory of this being an explosion-based quirk was beginning to take hold in his mind.
He looked up from his notes. “Did the forensics team at least find anything yet?”
“Mmm, not yet. All we know is that there some charred corpses but they still got to go through screenings and identifications.”
Tsukauchi bit his lip, staring at the crumbling remains of what was once a ‘Zen cafe’.
“Just what did this…?