The sound of steps echo in my ears. Nezu's fur rustles against my cheek as he shifts on my shoulder, and I can hear the subtle change in his breathing. I can hear everything the people around me have. I can even hear the circulating blood in the prisoners' bodies.
We are at Tartarus' lowest level.
A few days had gone past. In fact, today was going to be my last day in the internship, but instead I was here doing this, I hated it in a sense. The request had come, without forethought, Stain would only talk to Arthur or All Might. No police. No guards in the room. When Nezu had told me, I'd expected to feel something.
I didn't want to, but I did it anyway. I came here.
Few lights dangle over us, illuminating the corridor in pools of sickly yellow that would help no one with normal eyesight. The smell is salty, probably from the water the facility is submerged in.
My eyes land on a woman with purple hair. She's just staring at the ground, sitting in the corner of her cell with her knees drawn up. Eyes dead. A living corpse. Waiting for nothing. I am disgusted by all this.
Yes, these people were villains. But they didn't deserve this.
I believed anyone could change. It was a belief I'd clung to since I was young, since my mother had told me that kindness could reach anyone if you just tried hard enough. But how could these people change?
These people who were locked up and treated worse than rabid animals. How could they change, when no effort was made to change them? When the system that put them here had already decided they were beyond redemption?
Did they even deserve the chance at redemption?
The legal system didn't think so. But did that mean it was right? I'd seen enough of the world to know that what was legal and what was just rarely overlapped as much as people wanted to believe.
I feel Nezu's tail swish and touch my other cheek. I stop dead in my tracks.
My eyes find the glass that looks into a room, no, a cell, though calling it a room makes it easier to stomach. Inside, a man now shaved bald was strapped in a straight jacket. The restraints look excessive, especially since his quirk didn't enhance his physical abilities. His arms are bound.
His legs are the only thing that are free, that and his mouth. And yet when he turns slowly to the glass, to me, there's nothing defeated in his posture.
He smiles. Widening from ear to ear. It almost looks like the edges of his lips are beginning to tear, stretching further than any normal smile should go. I've seen that expression before. In the alley in Hosu. In the split second before I'd knocked him unconscious.
"Hello there," he says.
His voice carries to the corridor through speakers that hang on the reinforced glass. But I don't hear that tinny reproduction. Instead, I hear his real voice in the cell, enhanced senses aren't always all that it's cracked up to be. There's an almost reverent quality to it. Like he's been waiting for this.
Stain.
His eyes move to Nezu. They linger for a moment. Then they look around as if trying to find anyone else who could have followed me down the corridor, but no the guard were still waiting at the elevator.
"Where's All Might?"
The question hangs in the salty air. Nezu's paw finds some purchase on my shoulder as he looks closer into the cell.
"I am here," I reply, before Nezu can. "You've got information for me."
Stain's eyes snap back to mine. That smile doesn't waver. If anything, it grows. "No. You already have the information. All the names and dates are out there for all to see. What you want, what you really need, is a story."
"A story can be true or false," I answer back. I guess I'm in vigilante mode, because I'm too calm about all of this.
"I leave such judgements to you, Arthur."
I want to sigh, but I remain quiet, however Nezu does it for me, a small exhale that carries my frustration. He even whispers something in my ear.
"This is going to be a hassle."
Stain continues, undeterred by our silence. It's almost like he's rehearsed this. Maybe he has. He's had nothing but time to do so.
"Our story begins as these stories often do, with a system that has grown stale and content. A system that hides from the public and holds control over the most important parts with no regards for moral process. A system that feeds from the fear and unrest its absence could arise."
His tongue slightly too long, travels along his lips, smacking them for moisture. So he doesn't stumble or falter.
"However, the true goal of this system is power. Complete and total hegemonic domination, to cut out all who are seen as different or can think differently. But if your ultimate goal is power, how best to achieve that goal?" He tilts his head, as if genuinely curious whether I'll answer. I don't. "It's at this point in our story that along comes a sniper."
The word lands like a stone dropped into still water.
"She is a woman seemingly without a conscience. Dragged along by the Hero Public Safety Commission, an organization for which the ends always justify the means. The sniper is sent to do worse and worse missions. At first, perhaps, she believes in what she's doing. Perhaps she tells herself it's necessary. That the people she's eliminating are genuine threats."
He begins to walk forward towards the glass, he doesn't stop. Like nothing in this prison can truly contain what he is.
"A quirk related to blood. They are killed." His voice drops. "A quirk that's too dangerous. They are killed. More and more heroes become ordered killers. Not against villains, against quirks. Against potential. Against anything that threatens the Commission's control."
I want to look away. I don't.
"But wouldn't we notice it? After all, how easy could it be to hide all that?" He's at the glass now, close enough that I can see my own reflection overlapping with his face. "That's where the true genius of the plan comes into play. The flooding. Flooding the city with heroes to make the public feel safe. Heroes for fame. Heroes for propaganda. Heroes who could do reprehensible acts but are all covered up. Heroes like Endeavor."
The name hangs. I think of Todoroki.
"Flooded with hypocrites."
As he talks, I can't stop myself from listening. Every word burrows into me.
"And you." Stain's voice softens, almost fond. "You are a thorn in that system. Or were, at least. Someone who no one could control. Someone who-" He reaches the edges of the glass, his face pressing against it, pupils dilating until the red of his iris nearly disappears. "-could make the entire system tumble down."
I hold my ground. I don't step back.
"But unlike the sniper who eventually turned on the system, you came into its fold. You joined U.A. You became a student. A hero-in-training." There's disappointment there. Genuine disappointment. "Heroes became the ultimate tool of this government, and through them, they could manipulate the stories in any way they pleased. The rest, as they say, is history."
Silence. I can taste the salty air now instead of just smelling it. Somewhere in another cell, someone coughs.
Nezu speaks up, before I can. "So what you're saying is that the entire Hero Public Safety Commission, and our hero system in and of itself, is corrupt?"
"Why yes, I am." Stain pulls back from the glass slightly, that smile returning. "A man in my position has no reason to lie."
My eyes stare into Stain's, and Stain's stare into mine. I search for deception. For madness. For anything that would let me dismiss what he's saying as the ravings of a killer of a madman trying to justify his crimes.
I find conviction instead.
"What happened to the sniper?"
"I don't know that."
The answer comes too quickly. Does he truly not know?
"Are there still ordered killers?"
His smile widens even more. The skin at the corners of his mouth stretches white with tension. He doesn't answer. He doesn't need to.
I have my answer.
I turn to Nezu. The question burns in my throat. Could he know? Could the principal of U.A., the being who had taken me in and guided me, who had sat with me through nightmares and talked philosophy over tea, who was the one closest to me, could he have known about any of this?
Stain walks back from the glass. He sits down, knees drawn to his chest, still staring at me with those blood-red eyes. Still smiling.
I decide to ask. My voice is low, barely above a whisper, pitched so only Nezu can hear.
"Nezu-"
"No, lad." His response is immediate. "I did not."
I am still staring at Stain. He's still staring at me. Through the glass, through the speakers.
I don't know why, but I can't believe Nezu for some reason. The doubt sits in my chest.
"Nezu-"
"Lad, seriously. I didn't." His paw presses against my cheek again, turning my face towards him. His eyes are earnest. Worried. "You need to believe me."
I want to. I want to believe him more than almost anything. But wanting doesn't make it true.
I walk over to the glass myself. My hand rises, almost landing on the reinforced surface, but I'm reminded of the protocols Tartarus has in place. No physical contact with the barriers. No exchange of materials. No chances taken.
I am also reminded of the sole reason I was here. Stain said he would only talk with Arthur or All Might. Without any police or guards. He'd wanted this conversation. Planned for it. Used his silence as leverage until he got exactly what he asked for.
"Can you prove any of this?" I ask.
Stain stops smiling. For the first time since I arrived. It's almos eerie and wrong in a way to see him not smiling at me.
"Why do you think I am still alive."
I nod at his words. Then I begin to walk down the corridor toward the elevator once more, where two guards are waiting to take us up. My footsteps echo. Nezu is silent on my shoulder.
My eyes land on the woman with purple hair once more. She still hasn't moved. Still staring at nothing. Still waiting for nothing. Still a living corpse
If, and only if, this is true. What can I do about it? What can I fix? I entertain, if only for a moment, what Stain had said. I was someone who could make the system tumble down because of my vigilantism. Because I'd operated outside their control. Because Excalibur didn't care about legal authority or proper channels.
No.
If, and only if, this was true, I needed to be smarter about it. Stain was still someone who had killed heroes. Regardless of reason. Regardless of what corruption those heroes or the HPSC may have been part of. Murder wasn't justice. It was just more violence.
"Nezu-" I begin, trying to confide in him, my worries.
"First thing I'm doing," he replies just before we make it to the elevator where two guards are waiting. I smile a bit. If there was one person I could trust on this it was Nezu.
We stay quiet until we make it outside of Tartarus. It's two guards, Gyges and Briareos, both multiarmed quirk users, stand like monoliths in front of the bronze gate, they don't even greet us as we make it out.
Waves lap against the concrete foundations, the sound filling my ears. Down there I couldn't hear it, the water surrounding the facility down there was calm, I could simply hear the metal straining against the pressure but that was it.
But I hear something else. A buzz.
I can't think about it too long as we get into a car and are driven back to Musutafu.
A/N: Was going to write another chapter or two about the internship but I decided against it. Hope you all enjoyed this. Arthur and Stain got his talk, and Stain is a really good talker.
That's pretty much it. Thx for reading. Send those stones (I really need em).
Hope to see you soon once more. Author out.