Bab 227: Chapter 224 - Snap
He was smoking blood-died cigarettes.
Shafts of dying sunlight lit up his wings.
For a brief second, it looked as if they were full of feathers again.
"It was the best decision we could make in this situation", Shirai said solemnly.
His words hit me as suddenly as a tsunami.
"Tartarus", I repeated.
My heart throbbed painfully in my chest, pumping out blood so hot I felt I would catch fire.
It couldn't- last time I'd seen him he'd been sleeping… A day. I'd left him alone for a day.
"What if it's someone Quirk ?", I asked urgently. "What if someone is trying to..."
I shut up, but I knew where I was going with this.
"What if someone is trying to frame him for murder ?"
And god wasn't it the most ironic I'd ever said.
Despite the circumstances, Shirai's voice grew heartwarming.
"That is not possible. He was recorded 24/7. There were soldiers standing day and night in front of his doors. No one could've come in to, to frame him or whatever"
I stood up and abruptly sat down again, my legs suddenly weak as if the strings holding me up had been cut.
"I-"
He was smoking casually as he'd always done, his blood-freckled face getting this honey hue he always got under the sun.
If I'd been here, I could've prevented it.
It was my fault.
I'd… I'd failed him.
My eyes burned: I tore my gaze from the screen and looked up, trying to push the tears back in.
Fuck, hold yourself together.
I'd failed Keigo, I'd failed Katsuki, I'd failed my father.
I kept on failing everyone.
Shirai pressed a button and the screen turned black.
I felt his gaze on me but my mind was already miles away.
Black crept at the edge of my vision, and I felt dizzy, light-headed.
My stomach twisted in a knot.
"Don't think that because you're a minor you can barge in whenever you want", he said harshly. "You will face charges for trespassing unauthorized on military grounds"
His voice softened.
"I'm sorry we didn't tell you beforehand, son. No one knew that anyone… that you cared about him"
He put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed gently.
I jolted awake as if lightning had shot up from his palm and lit me up.
I stood up and stumbled, pushing the chair back with my legs, nails clawing at my throat to tear my shirt away.
My mouth was as dry and raspy as sandpaper.
"I-"
I felt as if I would erupt in flames, I felt as if I would burst and the fire would either consume me or I'd let it consume everyone around me.
Shirai took a step forward, hands raised, placating.
"I know you're in a state of shock", he said. "And I know-"
I shunshined as fast and as many times as I could before my head was too cloudy too much for me to distinguish left from right and ground from sky.
The smell of rotten food hit my nose in full force.
I bent up over gutted trash bags and dry heaved, sweat rolling down my back, hands shaking uncontrollably.
My skin was getting hotter and clammier and I could not breathe-
"Hey kiddo, you okay ?"
Footsteps
I held my hand towards them to keep the person at bay.
Fire burst on my skin like a tidal wave.
"Wow"
They moved away.
"We should call the Heroes-"
I threw up a mixture of yellowish bile and white puke.
It stained my lips and saliva glued my lips and chin.
I wiped it away with the back of my hand, my head against the wall.
The rational part of my brain – the only part that could think properly – knew I was having a full-blown panic attack in Tokyo's streets.
Yet even this part was soon overtaken by the panic.
"He's just right here behind the fish shop"
"Hey, are you alright ?"
"I have to..."
My chest was rising and falling quickly, the acidic taste after throwing up burning my nose and throat.
I hadn't said it aloud yet but the words already rang true to my ears, truer than any of this Keigo-is-a-murderer bullshit, and I suddenly knew that I had to do it.
"I have to find Keigo"
I shunshined.
*
Everyone knew where Tartarus was.
It was the only Japanese island that no one could get closer to five kilometers.
The sky was gray, the sea rolled furiously, and rain as sharp as needles falling from thunderous clouds.
It looked as if everything was preparing for an incoming storm.
I ran on the water as fast as lightning, my feet skimming on the surface, the sole of my shoes barely brushing it before I jumped above waves that would've engulfed a ship.
Tartarus, dark and severe, was looming ominously on the horizon.
I had to stop when I saw it, lone boy standing in the middle of nothing, salty foam whipping my skin and forcing me to half close my eyes.
From afar, Tartarus looked like a huge mouth from which sprang sharp, rocky teeth.
I was uneasy : there was something uncanny about the island that I couldn't quite pinpoint.
I picked my pace, the trail of my footsteps soon scattered by the giant waves.
The ferocious wind hit me from all sides, hurling like high-pitched whistles.
Yet I still heard when their first alarm rang.
I accelerated, jumping over waves before shunshining as many times as physically possible.
I appeared right in front of a wave so high it should've slapped me to oblivion: I moved my hands and the wave parted in the middle to let me through, untouched, the top of the wave collapsing on itself loudly.
That's when I felt them coming from under.
I jumped on the side right before a submarine missile hit my ankle.
Rather than going up like I'd expected, it blew up as soon as it broke through the surface.
The blast spread like a shockwave.
I crossed my arms right in front of my face while, simultaneously, a wave rose between the blast and me.
Fire lit up the lowest clouds, red seeped in the sea like blood, salty mist rose from the suddenly hot water.
The water wall broke.
I was pushed away by the sheer power of the explosion, the sea under my feet rippling.
I had to grip the water and physically ground myself to it to avoid losing my footing and getting blasted away.
My eyes snapped down and, right between my feet, I saw five new missiles rushing to me at full speed.
I jumped as high as I could in a backflip.
While upside down I waved my hands and the sea answered: a godly water hand shot from the turbulent waters.
I sharply closed my fist and the gigantic hand snapped on the missiles right before they exploded.
Yellow and red explosions rippled through the translucent fist: water fell from it in buckets.
I clasped my hand and the water fist turned ice.
It broke in a blast of icy needles.
Cold wind sputtered in all directions, making my clothes and hair flap like a flag.
A shower of ice fell into the sea while I was free-falling from my jump.
I felt them – so many missiles I couldn't count – coming right for me.
I fell headfirst to encounter them.
We both close fast to the surface of the water.
I saw their shimmery reflections getting sharper as they soared higher.
Foam hit my lips, seeping through my mask.
I moved my arms wind apart like one would when energetically opening curtains.
Under my feet, the sea parted.
Two walls of water as tall as skyscrapers shot up from either side of me. White foam covered the top of the waves. The surrounding water was flowing up on one side of the wave and getting back down on the other, like a giant treadmill.
The submarine that had been shooting me tilted backward, momentarily losing stability, as the water it had been floating on abruptly retreated.
It fell to the bottom of the wet, algae-covered sea floor with a loud noise.
The metal cracked like a beast clenching his teeth.
Wind was blowing up my hair backward.
There was a crescent window that twisted around the nose part of the submarine.
I landed loudly on it, kneeling, my fist hitting striking like a hammer.
A web of cracks ran from the impact to the edges.
Behind the shattered glass, I saw distorted faces – astonishment and horror.
I raised my fist again and hit.
The cracks – deeper - spread wider.
Inside, no one dared to move.
I hit a third time then stood up.
It wasn't about payback – I wouldn't murder innocent people, especially innocent people who were merely doing their jobs.
It was about sending a warning.
My gaze locked with whom I believed to be the highest-ranking officer, frozen, standing in the middle of a row of computers.
I raised my arms.
The shattered window reflected me, hair a mess, standing atop a submarine and surrounded by two titanic waves that could destroy a city.
I abruptly lowered my arms and instantly jumped, using the submarine as a trampoline.
The two waves collapsed on themselves in a swirl of terrifying waves.
The water hit the sea floor and the submarine was rocked around like a boat in the wildest of storms.
The tips of the waves wet my clothes and licked the tip of my shoes.
I closed my fist and a pillar of water shot up from the sea and to my feet, catapulting me far quicker than previously.
I broke through the regular sea level right as the water closed on the hole and took back on its rightful place like a mouth snapping close.
I could see the submarine rolling around, pushed by the waves and the violent currents, yet no water had gotten in.
I soared higher and higher until I was nearly as high as the clouds, my eyes locking on Tartarus.
*
A/N : Fear I wasn't clear enough here : tell me if you were lost and didn't understand (or hardly) what was happening.
I'll find myself some beta readers for the next FF.
If you like the story, want to support it/read ahead of schedule up to 27 chapters, then check the story's P@treon, Nar_cisseENG
And see you in the next update everyone !
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