章節 224: Chapter 221 - The Lesser Evil
For a brief second after hearing Nezu's order, I hesitated.
The Commission had taken Touya in, had trained him, and had threatened to send me to prison if I didn't comply by telling them everything about my Quirk.
But it was thanks to them that I met Hawks, despite the circumstances around it.
And frankly, I couldn't blame them for doing their job: In a world where people were supposed to be born with one—or two—abilities, albeit a bit crazy, seeing a kid who could do 'anything' without batting an eye was cardiac arrest-inducing.
Yet I knew they'd hurt Keigo, imprisoned to a lifetime of servitude.
If only for him, I couldn't forgive them.
But Nezu…
Nezu had always helped me, despite all of the crazy stunts I pulled. I knew he did it for himself – he wanted me to feel grateful, to be on 'his side – but he was also honest about it.
He didn't lie like the Commission, didn't try to lure him in with false gentleness or by using my emotions against me.
To me, Nezu was the lesser evil.
I'd rather have him get his hands on whatever All for One's mad scientist had cooked than the Commission.
… or I can burn down everything and not let anyone get their hands on it.
Katsuki and I breezed through the base.
Nomus in fetal position were floating in glass tanks filled with bluish liquid.
We broke the tanks and hit the Nomus head-on at full power, killing them instantly.
Some tanks were filled with… younger Nomus, humanoid creatures that looked like children and infants.
I dealt with these to spare Katsuki.
After that, we had a few minutes to breeze through all of the drawers and desks ourselves before the military came.
Despite Shirai and Pantu working together, they were still not in the same department : both wanted to get their hands on the research.
Pantu had a head start with us but once Shirai's soldiers got here, we'd have to move to another base.
"You see anything important ?", asked Katsuki
He hadn't met my gaze since we'd finished with the Nomus.
I knew that, like me, he wondered if they were conscious when we killed them, if they were sentient enough for us to consider what we were doing as murder.
But contrary to him, I knew it was a necessary evil.
He hadn't seen what they'd done to the people at the shrine ; if he had, he'd feel as satisfied as I did when they stopped breathing.
"Nothing", I answered
I opened drawers two by two, shuffling through documents recording the state of every Nomu – or Nomu to be – in their tank.
There were diagrams and formulas written all over the place ; I (plier) shuffled a few documents inside of my pockets and Katsuki did the same.
"Time out", I said, looking up at the soldiers that entered the room
We moved away from the drawers.
It wasn't part of the mission issued by Shirai.
In twenty minutes top we were out of the base and going to the next one.
We spent our day going from base to base, killing Nomus and searching around for relevant information.
Most of the things we found were related to protocols concerning the Nomus, how to keep them in stasis, and what to do if they woke up ; yet there was no information about how to engineer Nomus.
As the day passed, Katsuki started to grow snappy.
He was less talkative and was sulking in a corner, answering only by grunts.
I knew that everything that was happening was very confusing for him : we weren't doing what Heroes were supposed to do, and what about the thing in the tanks ?
"I don't know", he said, shrugging, around 7pm, when we had a ten minutes break to eat a bit before going back to the job. "Shouldn't we help them ? Maybe medics or someone with the right Quirk can get them back to… to whoever they were"
The bases – or labs - despite not being fully inhabited by Nomus, were very large and were sometimes a few stories high
We'd gone as fast as we could for the first one and then decided to slow down : Katsuki was still getting used to his new Quirk and, thus, was getting tired quicker than he should.
Being slower was also a way for us to have more time to search through the labs.
The amount of useful information on the true origin of Nomus was close to nothing.
It was around midnight when we got to the last hideout on our schedule.
I, myself, was getting increasingly tired and irritated.
Sweat was pouring down my neck and my hands were shaking. Sometimes I blinked and the world seemed to spin under my feet.
I'll have to go to Léo's once we finish…
Katsuki kicked in the door of the last base.
It hit the back wall of a room with a booming sound that echoed through the hallways.
Yet there was one big difference : people.
Arms were lined up on a table.
Seated around it, two girls and one guy were chatting animatedly : their confused eyes followed the flying metal door.
One man was busy over the stove, stirring something that looked like instant noodles.
Another was slicing up onions.
The kitchen side with the two cooks was on our right, and the weapons were on our left.
The door – which had flown right between both sides, miraculously hitting no one – was now falling from the wall.
Katsuki took a step in and then froze.
I expected him to.
They didn't have time to blink that I was already on the seated people : one of them tried to take a gun but I hit her wrist and it snapped.
I hit her in the neck with the palm of my hand.
She fainted, hitting the corner of the table while she fell.
She'd have one hell of a headache when she woke up.
I was already on the third one when I heard a blood-curdling scream.
The hair on the back of my neck shot up.
I hit the last one without looking, my eyes snapping to Katsuki.
I instinctively took a step forward and then froze.
He was still on the threshold of the room, eyes wide open, blood covering his fists.
A headless body was sprawled on the stove, blood pouring on it. Red bubbles rose and popped.
Lolling on the wall next to the ripped-off metal door were two legs in a pant.
The top of the body had fully obliterated, a shower of blood and crushed flesh painting the wall behind him.
Katsuki blinked.
Flabbergasted, he looked down at his hands.
He met my gaze and the confusion I read in his cut deep.
"I- I just" He looked at the bodies, shocked. "I just wanted to push him away and-"
I walked up to him and pressed his shoulder.
His eyes snapped to mine : his shin was shaking, the horror of what he'd just done settling onto him.
"I didn't want to hurt them. I-"
His knees buckled and I forced him to sit down.
"It wasn't on purpose. I didn't- I didn't-"
The smell of cooking flesh rose.
The neck of the headless guy was burning. I rose and turned off the stove.
Katsuki was looking at his bloodied hands as if they were not his.
He'd seemed so in tune with All Might's Quirk that I hadn't even considered that he'd lose control of it so easily.
"It's okay", I said. "No one's blaming you. That wasn't your fault"
His eyes went over my shoulders and to the table where the other three were peacefully unconscious.
Panic rose in his eyes.
I used our radio to call for reinforcements.
They took him away and I grimly finished scouring the place.
I encountered a few more people that I incapacitated quickly, taking the time to bind them like roasting pigs with whatever I found around me.
That's half-heartedly that I searched through desks and drawers.
In the last room, I found, carelessly left on an oak desk - as if forgotten by chance - a set of documents different from the previous ones.
This one was describing how an unnamed patient had to be prepared for receiving other Quirks.
My eyes roamed over the pages that I flipped quickly.
There was an in details explanation about the way one had to go to transfer Quirks to someone else through surgery and genetic alteration. There were charts and data recorded over a few months.
Despite my mundane knowledge of medicine, I could barely understand what was written there.
The procedures presented here looked straight out of a movie rather than true, scientific experimentations.
This was what Pantu had wanted us to get our hands on.
This was what Nezu didn't want her to get.
No matter my deal with Nezu, I wouldn't have ever given the Commission this kind of information.
The potential of Nomus as a military weapon was unparalleled. Giving them any information about it would've been the best way to see a Japanese army full of Nomus in twenty years.
The question was : could I give it to Nezu?
I should burn this file. No one should ever get their hands on it.
This information was far too dangerous for anyone to obtain.
Yet if I gave anything but this to Nezu, I knew he wouldn't consider our deal as fulfilled : and wouldn't I like one favor from the smartest creature to have ever grazed this earth ?
It could be the difference between life and death one day.
It could be the opportunity of a lifetime.
The radio sizzled.
"Soldiers are in, your job is done"
What was most important: the world's interests or mine?
I hesitated.
I heard the soldiers coming in closer.
I tore off a few pages – the exact way one had to go to fuse individuals and their Quirks – and burned them to a crisp.
*
Nezu looked eager though he tried not to show it.
"Do you have them ?", he asked
I handed him said documents – random pages that seemed like they could be of any importance and the last ones I'd found, ushered in the middle.
There was a lingering smell of smoke.
"Why did you want it ?", I asked, though I knew what he would say
My mind was going back to Katsuki who'd been sent home before I could see him, and my father whom I hadn't seen since this morning.
Had he eaten? Was he alright?
I had not been able to check on Keigo tonight: it would be the first time I hadn't gone in more than a month.
I felt guilty, yet I was utterly exhausted and I knew I wouldn't be able to focus properly on him or his wings tonight.
Not as if he'll notice.
"Because I do not want the Commission to get their hands on it", he replied calmly, flipping the pages quickly
"Then it means I can burn it"
"Their scientific value is worth more than I-Island itself. That would be a crime"
His shiny eyes shot up to mine.
"This is part of our agreement. There's no deal if you don't give it to me"
"I want it to be clear that between you and the Commission, I'd rather have you get it"
I didn't want the Commission to get their hands on it.
Nezu was the lesser evil.
He smiled.
"You're making the right decision"
Right in front of me Nezu opened a safe hidden in a wall and put the file inside.
He did not hide the combination from me.
I wondered if he was going to put it elsewhere once I'd leave.
"I'll keep them safe just right here", he smiled, satisfied
"Wouldn't it be safer to destroy them ?", I insisted
Nezu shook his head.
"Despite the… monstrosities that Dr Garaki and All for One created, their research could revolutionize science. It could change the way we understand Quirks"
I hummed.
"Have you ever wondered why Quirks suddenly appeared ?"
I shook my head.
I'd never considered the question.
Couldn't it be due to some mangaka's crazy imagination? It seemed a weird concept to me that I was living in an alternative world created by the mind of a random person.
If he decided that a meteorite would hit our world on a certain day at a certain time and that we would all die, would we not be able to avoid it?
"There's this theory ", Nezu explained. "That says that you can get to the Origin of Quirks if you combine the One for All and the All for One. Some even go as far as to say that your Quirk is the key to it"
I was startled.
"My Quirk ?"
"Yes, yours. No one has any idea how it is working. You can do things that do not abide by any understanding of Quirks we thought we had. Frankly, if your father hadn't been Endeavor you would've ended up as a lab rat long ago"
"Nice pun", I said dryly
"Thank you. I do try my best to be entertaining"
Nezu sat behind his desk, fingers crossed on his lap.
"So what do you think is going to happen ?"? I asked. "I mean now that All for One has left"
"I think he understood he's been outsmarted and he won't come back for a while"
"What does 'a while' mean ?"
"Half a century, at the very least"
I shut up, stunned.
"Did I truly hurt him that badly ?"
Wasn't All for One supposed to be some immortal cockroach on par only with Orochimaru and the likes?
"Don't be surprised", Nezu said. " I think we could all agree that the blows dealt to him have been as never before. First, you killed most of the members of his terrorist organization, the one he should have used to take our attention away from his plans"
I… indeed had killed or sent to prison the majority of its members.
"Then you took out Gigantomachia which was, frankly, quite a feat. The last time Gigantomachia was ever seen was during the third Quirk War and even then we believed he had died from his wounds"
I didn't know Gigantomachia was such an important player.
"And then you exposed his labyrinth system that spanned under Tokyo. The Commission conducted a thorough investigation of the city and has destroyed them all. His sending his last Nomus in a desperate attempt to ward you away from him – or kill you – has weakened him greatly. Lastly, you killed Kurogiri – one of his most trusted and useful cards - and, from your words, you injured him so badly that his regeneration didn't even kick in"
Nezu smiled.
"In six months you've done what All Might and I haven't been able to do in two decades"
I stayed quiet for a while, trying to take everything in.
Had I truly…?
My mind was blank.
"I know it's a lot to take in", Nezu said. "Please, sit down"
I did sit.
Nezu started typing things on his computer while I processed everything that he'd told me.
I'd won.
I was fucking sixteen and I had won.
I couldn't believe it.
"Are you sure ?", I insisted. "Maybe he's just bidding his time. Maybe..."
"I am certain", said Nezu. "All for One is far from foolish. Coming back while he knows that you are now in possession of the One for All would be suicide. If we consider the growth you're experiencing, you'll reach your peak in your thirties. The fact that you can go toe to toe with him at merely sixteen years old is proof enough that he won't risk coming back until you're dead"
I did not manage to get over my shock.
I had managed to ward away All for One without killing him.
But wasn't it too easy? Shouldn't I have to hold his dead body between my hands to know it was true?
"I think you should get some sleep", said Nezu. "And if you even think about what you would want from me, I am but a mere call away"
Outside it was a cold, moonless night.
The streets were empty except for a few partygoers.
It must have been close to three in the morning.
I looked around, unsure of what to do.
It seemed the whole world had titled on its axis between the moment I'd walked into Nezu's office and left.
I looked at the few cars driving by without truly seeing them.
I'd done it.
I'd wiped out canon as I had said I would.
"I did it", I muttered out loud, as if speaking would make it more true. "I did it"
For the first time in my life, I had no idea what the future beheld.
I was utterly and truly clueless.
It was both exhilarating and the epitome of frightening.
I looked at the sky and wondered.
'Now what ?'
*
A/N : I'll take my week off after Wednesday chapter to finish plan Part 3, as P@treons members will get the end of Part 2 this week and they'll have one bonus chapter ahead of you all.
Check the story's P@treon, Nar_cisseENG, if you think it could interest you and concerning the incoming chapter for public release... ha.
I had so much fun writing that shit. I know you're gonna enjoy it (or not).
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榜單 
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