Chapter Text
Natsuki is halfway through her second bag of chips when she hears voices mumbling quietly from below. The rooftop of the warehouse was barely hanging on, the place obviously abandoned. Thanks to the run-down foundation, the wide holes and openings of the roof she sat upon meant she could see and hear everything if she just peered over.
Wiping the crumbs off her hands, Natsuki decides to slide her mask back on over her nose, and hood back over her head. Meeting at empty buildings at three in the morning meant these people were probably shady business. As if I’m one to talk.
“…it all,” she hears a man say.
“Y-yes of course… Can I take a look now?” Another man’s voice, meek and hesitant.
She manages to crouch down, getting a sufficient view of everything – and everyone – inside. She sees two men, one of whom seemed to be counting a large stack of bills in his hands. Across the room stood a woman, leaning against a huge wooden crate. Her body looked relaxed, but Natsuki could tell by the sharpness of her eyes that the woman was still alert to the whole transaction.
“Alright, that looks to be the rest of it,” says the larger man as he finishes counting the money.
Whether it was drugs or weapons, Natsuki couldn’t really care less. She begins to stand and gather her things to leave. If anything, she’s annoyed that her late-night snack time was interrupted.
“And you’re sure that nobody followed you?”
“Of course not,” the nervous man replied.
“Is that so?” And shit, Natsuki didn’t like the feeling she was getting from this.
Before she could make a run for it, something shoots up at her. She quickly dodges and it barely misses her face by a few centimeters. Bullets? Natsuki continues to dodge the incoming assault before having to leap down, landing in front of the dealers and gripping at the weapons strapped to her belt. Bits of the roof fall around her in pieces – along with the bags of food she’d had with her, now ripped and crumbled to smithereens.
Natsuki frowns, anger slowly simmering in her gut. “D’you know how hard it was for me to get that shit?” she grits out. Usually, her nightly food runs went smoothly enough. Get in the store, take as much as she could carry, then get the fuck out. Tonight, however, she had the misfortune of getting seen by a cop who was nearby, having to make a hasty getaway. I even broke a sweat! And now I can’t even fucking eat any of it!
“No, wait! It- I swear, I don’t know who sh-” before the buyer could finish, the woman lunges. Chains come out of her hands – so that’s her quirk – and wrap around the panicked man, effectively immobilizing him as his body falls to the ground.
“Bad move, hero,” the woman stands straight, turning to Natsuki. “Now both you and your little friend are dead.”
“Hero, my ass,” Natsuki scoffs to herself. “Now you’re just pissing me off.” She races forward, pulling out her weapons.
The woman moves to whip her chains at Natsuki. The metal meets her knives with a sharp clang, wrapping itself around the blades. Natsuki takes advantage of the momentum and pulls, forcing the woman to stumble with the force of it.
“Ack-”
Natsuki quickly deals a swift kick into the woman’s abdomen, feeling satisfied with the grunt she hears. She lifts the woman up and throws her body as hard as she can. The body smashes through the large crate with a loud crash, out of sight.
“Yuriko!” the burly man yells for his partner.
Natsuki steps in front of the now-broken crate, looking down at the woman’s unconscious form surrounded by chunks of wood. “How boring, honestly. Really thought you guys would be a little bit better at figh…”
She freezes in her tracks. It feels like the air is being pulled out of her, the blood in her body standing still. Her own heartbeat is muffled to the background as she feels herself run cold because it’s not drugs or weapons that she finds inside.
Three pairs of eyes stare back into hers, filled with fear and shock. Three children, huddled together in the back of the crate, trembling before her like trapped animals. It was what the sight resembled, with the chains that bound their necks, wrists, and ankles. They looked to vary in age, but none of them could be older than even ten.
Natsuki thinks she feels herself starting to tremble as well. Not with fear, but hot, searing anger. There’s so much rage that suddenly rushes through her, all she can do is stand and gape. She doesn’t notice the man running towards her. Natsuki’s suddenly tackled from the side, but barely feels it as she hits the ground. Barely feels as he stabs her with – something – through the shoulder. Through her stomach.
“Got you, little bitch,” the man says, hovering above her.
She looks more closely, and she finally sees it - bone. It’s sticking out the skin of his arms, still connected somehow as it punctures through her.
“Surprised?” he smiles maliciously, “I can produce and manipulate my bones, however I please.” She hears him speak, but it feels far away, like she’s not really there. She still manages to think distantly, so those weren’t bullets, but bones.
“Tragic,” a feral grin slowly makes its way onto Natsuki’s face, not that he could see it over her mask. “For you, that is.”
Natsuki grabs onto the bones with both hands and finally lets her quirk unleash, feeling it run through her fingertips. The man is taken aback at first, until he starts to scream. He can only watch as his bones start to decay and crumble in front of their eyes. Even as he tries to pull away, she only holds on stronger, letting it spread to the rest of his hands and arms. She lets death penetrate his flesh, lets him feel every individual cell dying at her fingertips. And she enjoys every second of it. She only releases after he finally falls unconscious in front of her, most likely from the pain.
How boring.
She pulls out the decayed bone from her wounds, and it crumbles like sand in her hands. Natsuki’s blood starts to soak her clothes and hands, but the familiar adrenaline coursing through her veins is all she can feel. She turns, stalking towards the man still trapped in chains. His face fills with terror as he looks up at her. Good, she thinks.
“Y’know…” Natsuki says, voice unnervingly calm for how livid she feels. “There’s just something about getting rid of bastards like you… almost poetic.”
He starts begging, pleading, for some reason. Natsuki doesn’t want to hear any of it. Rather, she crouches down at his feet and slowly snakes her hand around the skin of his ankle.
“What do you think,” she says steadily, “it’ll feel like to have every one of your cells die slowly from the bottom up.” She already knows, of course, that even instant death would be a much better option. But where’s the fun in that?
The man starts sobbing as the agony kicks in, writhing in his confines. She even feels a smile start to make its way onto her face, twisted with the way his pain humors her. But the rotting stops just above his knee, and Natsuki is forced back into her senses. She jumps back to dodge the cloth coming towards her from above, just barely avoiding capture.
Eraserhead.
***
When Shouta goes on his usual night patrols, he expects the usual noise complaints or drunkards. Not the screams that he hears echo nearby. In response, he rushes toward the direction of the sound, spotting an abandoned warehouse. He unleashes his capture weapon and swings from building to building, using one hand to pull out his phone and dial.
“Hey, this is Eraserhead,” he calls, “send me back-up to the warehouse on block five. I’m hearing screams, sounds male.”
“Right away sir,” the operator replies. “Do you have a visual of the situation?”
“Hold on, I’m approaching the building right now,” Shouta lands on the roof with a grunt. He hears movement below, but the screaming abruptly stopped on his way there. Now that he’s standing just above, he faintly hears a voice speaking inside. He can’t quite catch the words, but they sound angry. All of a sudden, it starts again – the screaming. The sudden volume forces his heart to momentarily skip a beat, and the sheer rawness of it puts his nerves on edge. He quickly crouches down, peering inside and seeing – god damn it.
“I have visual on four people, two males and two females. Three seem heavily injured, send medical."
This is not Shouta’s first time butting heads with this thief, he recognizes. He’d bumped into her once before, in the dead of night, in the middle of raiding a grocery store. She’s had previous reports on her – a young woman, black clothes, gold eyes, an elusive burglar. One that’s managed to escape every cop that she’s run into so far – including himself. To put it simply, she was proving to be a big pain in their asses.
Her crimes were mostly consistent, straight to the point by taking what she wanted. Since it was usually things like food and other necessities, she was never a top priority. It wasn’t – whatever this was. There was blood everywhere, a lot of it seeming to come from her own body. He could see a man collapsed on the ground, with his arms ruined and bloody. She was grabbing the other man by the ankle, where the screams were coming from. She wasn’t doing anything, just touching him with a hand. But it was evident that whatever she was doing was causing the man extreme pain. His skin was starting to discolor, traveling up his leg.
“I’m moving in,” he says over the phone before securing his goggles over his eyes and jumping down.
***
“Hey!” he yells out to her, “stay right there!”
“Suck my dick, old man,” she spits back, the taste of copper spreading in her mouth. Fuck. She didn’t realize how much blood was actually spilling out of her wounds until she looks to see the red puddles on the ground. In the distance, she could hear the sirens blaring faintly and slowly getting louder. She needed to get out before his backup arrived.
Eraser continues flinging his scarf at her, to which she continued avoiding as best as she could with two gaping holes in her body.
“Pleasure to see you again,” as if “but we’ll have to do this another time.” Natsuki bolts toward one of the exits, ignoring the burning stings from her wounds. She hears Eraser’s voice continuing to try and stop her, but it eventually gets drowned out by the police cars now right around the building.
She continues running as fast as she can, but she could feel herself getting slower as she kept going. Her breathing was ragged, wet with the taste of iron in her throat. He was silent, but Natsuki could still hear Eraserhead’s footsteps following behind her. And getting closer.
She makes a sharp turn into an empty alleyway, quickly letting her wings release from her body. Feather, bone, and muscle burst out from her back, a small crack rippling through the noise of her heavy breathing. Her pitch-black wings spread wide around her, and Natsuki takes flight, shooting up as high as she can towards the sky. Looking down, she sees the flashing lights and police rushing in to the warehouse.
Suckers.
***
Shouta inspects the alleyway, displeased. He had followed the woman there, yet she was nowhere to be found. The only indication she was ever here was the trail of blood that made its way to where he stood, which stopped halfway through the alley. He thinks about going out farther to search for her. She couldn’t have gotten that far. Instead, he takes out his phone to dial again.
“I need you to check in with nearby hospitals and emergency rooms. Tell them to look out for a woman dressed in all black, critical injuries to the stomach and left shoulder.”
“Yes sir,” the operator replies quickly. Shouta thanks them and hangs up. He quickly makes his way back to the warehouse and is greeted with the sight of many more police cars than he expected to see.
“Tsukauchi,” Shouta approaches the familiar figure. The detective turns around, nodding to the hero.
“Eraser,” Tsukauchi nods his head toward the direction of the warehouse and begins walking, Shouta following in tow. “Did Tamakawa catch you up to speed?”
“Did something new develop?” Shouta asks. “The ambulances I expected, but there’s a lot more police here than I called for.”
Tsukauchi sighs, sounding about as tired as Shouta feels. “You’re not gonna like this.”
“When do I ever?” The teacher looks at the light just beginning to peek out of the horizon, dreading his long workday that would start in just a few hours. Shouta inspects the injured and unconscious people being tended to on the ground. The entire scene was a mess, debris and blood scattered all over. Members of the police force were surrounding what looked to be a large, broken crate.
“Detective Tsukauchi! Eraser!” A voice calls out.
“Tamakawa is with them right now,” Tsukauchi explains. The two men make their way towards the crate, and the detective begins to direct orders. “Everybody please step back! Clear up some space, now!”
“With who?” Shouta asks. He gets closer to the crate and greets the cat-headed officer. More importantly, his eyes land on the children that sit huddled together in front of them, staring up with wide and frightened eyes. He grits his teeth as the reality of the situation dawns on him.
“We counted three suspects in our custody,” Tsukauchi turns to Shouta. “Where’s the fourth one?”
“She got away,” the hero releases a tired sigh. “But I’m having nearby hospitals keep a watch out for her description. With her injuries, she’ll be dead if she doesn’t get treatment soon.”
“Noted,” the detective nods, beginning to dial on his phone.
Shouta doesn’t take his eyes off the kids. All the various scrapes, bruises, and open wounds. The chains that stay bound around their neck and limbs. The image is going to burn itself into his mind for weeks. He pinches the bridge of his nose, headache already starting to form.
Looks like sleep can wait another night.
***
The wind whipping her face is harsh, her golden eyes watering from the chill. And yet, Natsuki has never felt freer as she does when she’s flying. Her dark wings blend into the night sky as she watches from above, the city lights glimmering below.
She slowly starts to glide down as she approaches the empty factory and quietly lands on her feet. She attempts to land on her feet, but sways unsteadily as her vision blurs around the edges. Natsuki manages to hobble through the large hole in the wall, at least. She tries to make her way towards her sleeping bag in the corner of the desolate building, but her body decided this was enough. Her world tilts as she collapses in the middle of the concrete ground, laying in a growing pool of her blood. Breathing was progressively getting more difficult as the seconds ticked by.
It was too late to try and bandage the wounds. She’d have to let it run its course and deal with it later. Her wings which splayed against the floor, withdrew and flattened before vanishing into the caverns of her back. She lets herself give in to the exhaustion, curling up and closing her eyes.
This’ll be a bitch to clean up tomorrow, she thinks before the darkness finally takes over.