Capítulo 3: Origins: Blood
I was exactly sure when I returned "Home", for a while it felt like my body was on autopilot. Just going through the motions. My face, thoroughly trained to never betray my actual feelings even behind a mask, was just as blank as when I left. If a slight bit less…I don't know, I can't describe it. It just felt like I lost something very important to me.
What made my already incoherent thoughts even more chaotic was the fact that I had received genuine praise for the first time in my life. A gloved hand to the head softly stroking my hair.
I was both thrilled and disgusted. I finally had everything I wanted but I knew it wasn't right. What I had done wasn't right. What they had been training me for wasn't right! Any action that would cause a man to just…stop…like that…so afraid, so resigned. The pleading and regret in his eyes. The hatred and fear directed towards me.
I felt like I was going to be sick, but I held it in. That's what I had been trained to do after all.
This place was filled with monsters and they had turned me into one as well.
Still, I needed to get away. I couldn't stay with these people. Seeing them excitedly talking about the mission and planning more…planning to make "Me" do more…
"~~~~~. ~~~~,Eri~~~~~" As the man I'd come to recognize as the most important not father, "Overhaul" spoke, I heard him mention a name through the fog of my mind. And that's when I remembered this place wasn't just filled with monsters. There was someone else here whom I hadn't understood until now.
Eri. My innocent little sister.
Of course I noticed the state of her being. The constant fear she would display when I was hiding my presence. The bandages, similar to my own, but caused by a different source. The jealousy, hope, expectations, pity, disgust. I had noticed these things, but until now, I could never understand them.
Why would she feel these things when nothing was out of the normal? Why would she hate fulfilling her purpose? Why would she hate me for mine?
Had she known all along? Why did she understand while I didn't? Was I already a monster from the start? What made us who looked so similar, so different from each other. I wish I could ask her. I wish I could understand her better.
"Cain." His calm voice once again broke me from my thoughts and I noticed he and the others were looking in my direction. I could tell by his body language he was suspicious of something. He looked into my eyes as if trying to discern something.
"~~~~~~~~~~~, ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~?" He seemed to be asking me if there would be any problems with the next mission. I of course couldn't tell him I wouldn't be there for the next one so I unhesitantly shook my head to assure him otherwise.
That appeared to do the trick but he seemed to have forgotten just how well I was trained. I could tell, for some reason, his trust in me was slowly dissipating. Like I had just failed the final question I was never even asked. A bit frustrating but it was fine by me.
So long as he didn't act against me immediately I was more than confident enough to get myself and my little sister out of here. I had just gained experience escorting someone through a building in secret after all.
I willfully chose to ignore the fact that they had caught onto us by the time we got to the ending though.
-_-_-
Waiting for Eri to return to our room was agonizing to say the least, but it gave me ample time to come up with some sort of plan to escape our predicament. While I was much better at thinking on the fly, they hadn't neglected to teach me how to plan ahead either. More importantly, it gave me time to wash up and maybe try to rid myself of the red stains on my hands.
Making my way to the shower I try not to think about how Eri must be experiencing some kind of torture in a few minutes. I had never truly thought about her injuries until now, but maybe if I had I would have seen the signs earlier. Still, If I think about it too much, I might risk everything to save her right now. I just need to bide my time, then I can strike.
Once I'm in the bathroom I undress and take a look at myself in the mirror. Slightly unkempt long silver hair, sharp turquoise green-blue eyes and a single shortening horn on my head. I look down at the scar riddled body and I can't help but to start to hate it. What once was a symbol of pride has now turned into marks of proof. Proof that I'm no better than they are.
That said, I refuse to rewrite it for the sake of Eri. Maybe keeping them will help me understand her a little better. At the very least it's not fair that someone innocent like her has to bear so many marks while I get off easy after what I've done.
Looking at my horn again, I start to wonder how many years I have left. To prepare for our escape I've been slowly rewriting myself to get in the best condition I possibly can and take care of as many possibilities as I can. All the while keeping my body relatively the same. I've made myself resistant to poisons and diseases, to heat and cold, and gave myself night vision amongst other things. I'm not sure if it will be enough but I should still have enough life force to make a few more changes on the fly.
Before now I had been told to avoid making such changes because they could be trained instead but, unfortunately, time is no longer a luxury I can afford.
I just hope that with the time I have left…maybe I can do something to make up for my sins. Getting Eri out of here sounds like a good start.
I'm sad I'll only get to be with her for a few more years but I'll at least make sure she can be happy before I go.
--------
Coming out of the shower and getting dressed, I wait in the room for Eri while I go over as much of the plan as I can. Well there isn't much in the first place but I need to keep my mind off Eri's current situation.
If I were alone it would be extremely easy to break out of this place unnoticed. I had trained here my whole life and knew this place like the back of my hand. The problems unfortunately came from my adorable little sister.
She apparently hasn't been taught the benefits of being "Silent' just yet so moving her around would be incredibly difficult if I went about things normally. Luckily as I just said, I now have experience in this department.
Going "Loud and Proud" wasn't efficient, but thanks to my training it was more than doable apparently. The random goons that usually called this place home were open books body wise. None of them had the training and skills my not father's had. At least not to the same degree. They could be as easily handled as the guys from the mission.
The only few that might cause some sort of delay were the five new guys' "Overhaul", recruited recently. I of course had sparred with them a few times and while I could easily defeat them individually, together they were a little annoying. Especially so now that I don't have access to most of the tools I like to make use of.
It's much too late to swing by the weapons or training rooms, not that I ever had unsupervised access anyway, and they are pretty far from the exit that offers us our best chance to escape.
So I'm going to be limited to close range engagements only, which doesn't give me very many options. Outside of the black one who can apparently force people to tell the truth, the rest have quirks that give them significant advantages in close range. Still, I decided to go over what I know about them to see if I had any better options.
The black one, as previously stated, can apparently force someone to tell the truth. The reason I say "apparently" is because his quirk doesn't actually work on me. If I had to guess, one of his limitations is that the target needs to actually be able to understand his words, so his quirk isn't the least bit threatening to me. He is pretty good with a gun but so long as I have my eyes on him it's next to impossible for him to actually hit me with one, so as far as priority goes, he's at the bottom.
The big one has the quirk, vitality stealing. So long as he is touching a person, he can absorb their stamina. He could be a problem unless I can take him out quickly. I'm not sure how fast he can steal stamina but if he can take even a little with every punch, I'd be at a disadvantage. Thankfully I've never been short on endurance so I should be able to manage even if he'd been holding back in our spars.
The sword guy has a thief quirk. He can instantly relocate an object from someone else's hands to his own. Though he's limited by size and needs to be able to see the object. It might be considered a blessing in disguise that I'm limited to only using my hands. Still, I might have a plan for him that makes use of his quirk, if I can figure something out in the next few hours.
One can produce sharp and durable crystals from his skin. Pretty straight forward. Hit him hard enough until he stops moving. Simple.
The last is the most annoying. He can make other people feel inebriated and dizzy. I'll need to take him out first if I can, though if he becomes a problem a quick rewrite will deal with his quirk. I would do it now, but I can get a better effect if I know what exactly it is I'm rewriting against.
It's kind of like the difference between someone explaining something is hot and you actually feeling the heat with your hand as you touch it.
If it were just dealing with any single one of them, I could handle them with only pure skill, but dealing with just about any combination of them will make things significantly harder. Not so much because of their quirks but because they had phenomenal teamwork for a group of misfits he picked up off the street.
Still…I may not only have pure skill to rely on in this fight. A few years ago I had gotten cut in the middle of a training session and started bleeding pretty bad. Well, not any worse than I usually did but it was still enough that training had to be called off that day until I healed up.
I was pretty upset over my mistake at the time as it was my first time taking a hit since I awakened my quirk, rewrite. I still hadn't understood the principles around it back then since I didn't have any training in that department just yet.
At the time, all I wanted was to be able to just…"stop" the blood from flowing on my own so I could keep going. I willed for it with all my might and following a brief surge of power and a slight wave of exhaustion. I felt like I could.
In seconds I was able to clot the flow of my blood in a way that I could continue to fight not long after the current not father returned. Of course I couldn't tell him about it either with the whole, "Silence is key" thing, so it largely went unnoticed I think.
After that, I got better at predicting and fighting so I rarely had to rely on it anymore and it went forgotten until now. I'm not sure if it will work like I think it will, but Rewrite has always been a power that I never quite understood myself. The best way I can describe it now is immediate evolution. Willing your very being to change and evolve. Altering reality itself in exchange for time. My future, brought to the present.
Was it time it might have taken you to develop those skills naturally? I wasn't quite sure since I hadn't really tried to experiment much, for good reason. I wasn't even sure if it could affect another person or not and if it could, whose time would it take?
But I'm getting off topic. What I was getting at is due to the nature of my quirk, I'm never quite sure to what extent the changes actually affect me. Still, ever since that change, I had always been vaguely aware of the blood flow in my body. I could speed it up, slow it down to a crawl, and crystalize it at will when it came out of my body.
Deciding to test my theory, I made a small cut in the palm of my hand and watched the blood flow out. Then, just like I had the first time, I willed it to "Stop".
And just like that…it stopped flowing. Suspended in mid air while attached to my palm, as if gravity had stopped working on it. Then I ordered it to "Crystalize" and watched it slowly become harder and harder. Turning into a beautiful red crystal not that dissimilar to the crystal man "Overhaul" recently recruited.
It was beautiful while being utterly fascinating to look at. And with it, I just knew our escape would go without a hitch.
-_-_-
I spent the next few hours practicing with this new ability and coming up with plans while waiting for Eri's return. It was a bit unfortunate it caused the smell of blood to cling to me a bit more, especially after I just got out of the shower, but our escape was far more important than any discomfort I felt being covered in blood again. Still, I learned quite a bit in these few hours waiting for my cute little sister.
My new ability simply allowed me to manipulate my blood however I liked. I could prevent blood loss by clotting my wounds. I could make tools and weapons with it. Building the blood pressure in my arm I could even fire bullets made of blood from my fingertips.
Unfortunately, due to my lack of experience, they lacked any penetration force behind them for now, but I was sure that with time I could possibly remedy that. For now it was closer to what one might feel if they got hit by a ball of paint traveling at high speeds for whatever reason.
That actually sounds like it could be fun. Certainly less lethal than real bullets anyway. Ahem, back on track.
My most important discovery however, was being able to use rewrite on my blood to allow me to affect people and objects with it. Or at least I was pretty sure I could affect other people now. When I tried, I felt my quirk working and the blood gained a slight glow to it reminiscent of my quirk activating. What made me unsure however was that I didn't feel the drain of power once the bullet left me without affecting someone or something. I still wasn't sure if it required my lifeforce or if it would use the targets. It seemed more likely that it would use my own but I wasn't sure how much it would use if that was the case. Would it vary by person? Would age matter? Current physical ability? Something else I couldn't test entirely?
Unfortunately this was not something I was willing to test in our current predicament, as wasting lifeforce without a solid goal seemed foolish to me, so I had to shelve any further experiments on that subject and plan without access to what it might be capable of.
What I was able to confirm was that, so long as my blood was in something, I could manipulate it to some extent with my blood manipulation. The degree of manipulation depended on how much blood was saturated into the material. I could also use my blood as a medium to rewrite said objects to a certain extent. This did indeed make use of my life force but the amount was very miniscule. I was able to play around with it quite a bit before I was satisfied with what I could figure out. If I had to judge how much time I wasted with that I'd say maybe a few days at best.
In any case, once I figured this out, I knew I had a way to escape "Overhaul". I knew one of the downsides to this ability would be blood loss so I gathered some of my old unused bandages and soaked them in my blood. I then used rewrite on them to make them sharp, durable and flexible. Since I could still manipulate the bandages with just blood manipulation I was able to create my own weapon and shield with it. I didn't use anything else as I didn't want to waste any more blood or time than I already had.
It would also be stupid to waste my life force on clothes that i'd outgrow in the future. Well if it helps get us out of here I wouldn't mind, but I still need to think about the future. I'm not sure how long it's going to take to settle down once we get out of here. I admittedly realize I know very little about life outside these walls. Heck, I don't even know how to properly communicate with people outside of "Yes" and "No". I'm going to need to leave that to Eri, but I doubt she knows much more than I do.
What I fear the most is that if the wrong person finds out what my or Eri's quirk can do we'll be thrown right back into the same situation. I of course knew nothing about Eri's quirk, or the role it played in things, but whatever it is was enough to completely forgo 8 years of preparation at the last minute and get me sent off to…"execute" another man.
Not to mention I myself am technically a criminal now. Without the proper backing, we could end up in an even worse situation than we already are. One where I won't be around to look after her.
I close my eyes and get lost in my thoughts.
There's so much to plan for. So much to take into account. We have no allies. No knowledge. No money. No shelter. Nothing. What will we do for food? Will we have to keep running if I can't escape them all? Will I have to execute them as well just in case? Will others come after us if we reveal too much? Will Eri be happy with the life I can offer her?
I feel suffocated, like the world itself is against us. I wish I could just give up but I couldn't bear to let either of us continue in our current situation. I sometimes wish I hadn't tried to read that man I had to "execute". It is as much of a curse as it is a blessing. I wish I wasn't so tired right now.
"We're here. Get inside and don't come out. Got it, brat!" My eyes snap open as the door is suddenly and violently opened and I see a small figure shoved harshly into the room as the door is shut again.
Before my thoughts can even catch up, I'm already in front of her wrapping my arms around her to prevent her from falling. Admittedly, this was as much for her benefit as it was my own. Looking down I saw a pair of cute ruby eyes looking up at me. I feel her go slightly stiff in my arms before relaxing almost instantly. As if acting on instinct. Such a sight calms my mind and warms my heart. That small action that she herself is likely unaware of is enough to help me remember why I have to do the things I'm going to do soon.
At times like these I really wish I knew how to communicate with her a little better. She must have come from something pretty horrible if just the touch of another is enough to make her tremble and lock up in fright.
"..."
'Woah! That was close. Good thing your awesome Onee-chan was here to save the day! Hehe, you can praise me if you want! Don't be shy!' Is what I couldn't but wanted to say. Call me a siscon all you want but I just can't help getting excited when I see my adorable little sister.
Still, I wasn't sure why, but somehow I was sure she understood what I wanted to say. Her reaction briefly indicated she heard some kind of joke and her eyes began to roll ever so slightly in exacerbation. This wasn't the first of such interaction between us but until now I had always assumed it was impossible for this cute but "loud" creature to actually understand me.
Perhaps…my rewrite has something to do with it? If it truly makes my will into a reality…maybe my desire to be understood by her is stronger than I imagined? Or maybe it's her own quirk? We are pretty similar, or at least we used to be before I became a monster.
Noticing the slight tears in her eyes, I remember the whole reason I was trying to get lost in my thoughts in the first place. My heart aches that she had to go through that torture yet again. Having just renewed my determination I did the only thing I could think of at this moment.
I took her to bed with me.
"..."
'Everything will be alright, Eri. I'm here now. I'll always be here for you.' I said gently in my mind while reaching up to pat her head while hugging her tightly. Seemingly unable to hold back anymore she bawled her eyes out in my arms.
'That's right. Everything I do now, I do for her. I'll make sure she can be happy. No matter the cost.' With a sharp glint, I reaffirm my resolve and increase the strength of my hug.
[A/N: We're slowly inching to the end of the origins. Now some of you might question why there are only five of the eight bullets. The answer to that is simply because he hasn't recruited the other three yet. We are currently about 7 years before canon btw.]
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