"What do you think?" Oni asked the empty night air.
"I think he'd like it. It's peaceful." Rei responded.
He hummed in agreement, looking out over the view. The moon was bright up in the sky, illuminating it.
Oni was a few miles east of Japan, flying out over the ocean. He was far enough to do what he needed to do, but close enough that he could still easily make out the glow of Musutafu in the distance. Up here, a few hundred feet above the water, it was serene, beautiful. The only sound was that of the wind in his ears, the constant gusts almost enough for him to simply extend his wings and hang in place, barely needing to flap them. The ocean beneath him, reflecting the light of the moon, stretched out into darkness, and he was far enough away from the light pollution of the city to make out stars in the sky above.
Rei was right. It was peaceful.
The fact that he'd used 'Tempest' to ensure a completely clear sky was neither here nor there. The night was perfect. Perfect for what he'd come all this way to do.
Perfect for Shadow.
The weight of Shadow's ashes felt like lead in his hands, molten lead, still hot from the heat of his flames. It had felt like that since he'd swept it all up barely twenty-four hours ago.
Oni knew absolutely nothing about what beliefs or traditions Shadow had subscribed to, what burial customs his family had followed in the past. It wasn't as if he could find out, either, even if Shadow had any living family. So, in lieu of a proper burial, the next best thing that Oni could offer him was a sea burial, spreading his ashes to be swept up by the ocean.
Holding his arms out in front of him, Oni activated 'Hotbar,' picking out the correct pocket. At his command, ash billowed from his palms, catching immediately on the wind. He flapped his wings as the ash poured out, moving back slightly to avoid the cloud. His hands fell back to his sides as the last of it appeared, and he watched it all drift and flow with the wind before disappearing into the darkness.
"You know…" Rei started after a few moments. "Most of the time, this is the part where people will say a few words in remembrance."
Oni bowed his head, thinking. The corners of his mouth quirked up after a moment, and he shook his head. No.
He had no words left. No more words, no more tears, no more pleasant thoughts. He had nothing left to offer Shadow but a peaceful place to rest and a promise that his death would not go unpunished.
His faint smile faded away as he watched the last traces of ash vanish into the night.
"Goodbye, my friend." Oni whispered.
Tucking his wings close, he dropped like a rock through the air. He twisted as he fell, turning to face the rapidly approaching water. He watched as the surface of the ocean drew closer with every second, quickly eating away at the several hundred feet he'd climbed on his way here. At the last possible second, Oni unfurled his wings. They caught him, immediately halting his descent and sending him gliding forwards as his hands skimmed the water, before he pulled back up into the air once more, maneuvering towards land as he did.
Spotting Musutafu, Oni angled himself further north, towards Tokyo, or rather, the small cluster of city that was Kamino, sitting along its outskirts. It didn't take him long to reach land, and once he had, and once he'd oriented himself with the streets below, he angled towards his destination.
A few short minutes of flying later and he was touching down in front of an unassuming little house tucked between a few decrepit buildings, nestled in a run-down corner of Kamino. It was only a single story, and from the outside it looked as though it had been abandoned. The paint was faded, shingles were missing, and there was a mass of vines dominating a whole side of the house.
Stepping up to the front door, the stairs creaking with each step, he tapped a hand against it, creating his own opening. He blinked in mild surprise as he stepped through. The interior of the house was vastly different from the exterior. Everything was clean and well-kept, aside from a faint layer of dust covering everything. The paint on the walls looked almost freshly done, the furniture looked brand new, and when he flipped a switch on the wall, the lights came on, despite the fact that, to the best of his knowledge, this area was supposed to be disconnected from the power grid. Taking a peek through the rest of the house revealed much of the same. Were it not for the dust, the lack of any pictures or other personal items, and the fact that he knew better, he would assume that someone lived here.
Moving through the house, he found the door leading down to the basement. Stepping down the stairs, Oni found himself surprised once more. The space beneath the house was at least twice as large as the rest of the house, if not larger. Most of the space was open and empty, but there was evidence everywhere that this part of the house was much more used than the rest. A whole quarter of the room was taken up by gym equipment, all of it well used, while another quarter was a mess of papers and filing cabinets. The walls of that area were covered in maps, papers, and red string. It looked like one massive conspiracy board. In an adjacent corner there was a huge, well-worn desk with another mess of papers and a laptop laid out on top of it. In the final corner of the room was a small bed, along with a table covered with an arsenal of small weapons. All manner of knives, batons, and even a few staves that looked as thought they probably collapsed down to a smaller size. Draped over the side of the table was a pitch-black hooded jacket. One that was instantly recognizable.
This was Shadow's home.
Oni knew from him and Rei digging around—something made easy once Oni had discovered the man's real name—that Shadow didn't have any family, didn't have a life outside of his vigilante work. The man was completely dedicated to protecting his city. The two of them had also discovered the reason why. The reason why he didn't have any family and why he'd been so dedicated.
It was because he'd had a family at one point.
It was a classic story—sad, but classic all the same—of tragedy driving someone to do what they felt was necessary, of Shadow having an ordinary life, with a wife and a child on the way, before it was all taken from him during a villain attack. Oni and Rei hadn't been able to find many specific details on what exactly happened after that, but a little more than a year after the incident, Shadow made his first appearance. He'd taken the pain of a lost family and used it to fuel his drive to protect his city.
If Oni was correct, and he was fairly certain that he was, this house was the one that Shadow had lived in before the incident. He'd maintained the little slice of his old life, likely the only thing that remained to connect him to that life.
Oni spared a glance over at the mess of papers in the corner, the culmination of a few weeks of work. Of fighting The Triad and investigating them. He recognized most of it, as it matched up to the mental conspiracy board he'd been developing, but there were a few things he noticed that didn't match up. It was most likely a result of Shadow going off on his own.
Turning away, he walked over to the desk, taking a look at the mess spread across it. A few newer documents; shipping information for victims, locations of sources and destinations. A lot of it matched up to what was posted up on the wall in the other corner, but there was something different about this bunch. Oni tilted his head, moving around to stand directly behind the desk. The papers were covered in notes and scribbles, individual locations circled, with words scribbled next to them to reference yet another location, which only repeated the process.
Wait… There as a pattern to the notes. Shadow had been working out a pattern in the movement of victims, one that was set entirely out from the norm.
As far as Oni could decipher with a glance, Shadow had noticed certain individuals being picked out from normal shipments, replaced by others to maintain the same number being moved, then pinballed around the city, sometimes even moving to another, before ending up at a seemingly random destination. It didn't seem to happen often, barely enough to even be noticeable, but while the in-between destinations always seemed to be randomized, both in location and the number of stops, they all had the same end.
It seemed relatively obvious, looking at the end result, but this wasn't something that would've been easy to pick out, and certainly wasn't something that Oni had noticed in his own investigation. Shadow must've poured through the tracking details for each and every victim that had been recorded to even notice the pattern, let alone actually sort it out. And that wasn't even taking into account the fact that not every location that they'd hit had maintained their records the same way. Naturally, some had been better about it, and some had been worse. The smart ones barely held any records at all, or kept them tightly organized, only keeping what was recent and relevant, while the stupid ones kept everything.
Mixed in with the mess was an open notebook. Scribbled across the page, was what looked to be a list of Shadow's theories as to what the location was. He'd listed everything from a laboratory to experiment on the quirks to a facility to try to create more powerful quirks through breeding. It seemed like the theory he'd favored the most was an auction house of sorts, a place to sell off the most valuable quirks.
Oni's eyebrows scrunched as he trailed down the list, his own theories sprouting up as his train of thought traveled down the path Shadow had started. They all seemed probable, and were all equally sinister in nature, befitting the nature of The Triad, but none of them really fit. There was something missing, or maybe he was missing somethi-.
His eyes widened. No, it wasn't any of them. None of his or Shadow's guesses were right.
Those ideas all made sense if one was thinking of The Triad as simply a malicious criminal group working for its own benefit, as Shadow most likely had been and as Oni had been until he realized his mistake, but they weren't just that. Oni knew something Shadow hadn't, the missing piece.
The Triad was tied to All For One.
Of course! It made sense. All For One was supposedly a criminal mastermind, with ties all across Japan's underground. With his quirk being what it was, a quirk trafficking operation would be a literal all-you-can-eat buffet. Powerful, or otherwise interesting quirks taken from across the country. All For One could take his pick and have them delivered straight to him.
"Look at you go…" Oni said with a smirk. "You weren't just on the path to finding a high-priority location, you found a link to the head of it all."
Oni leaned forwards, committing all of the information in front of him to memory.
"I wonder if you know, All For One, that despite all of your supposed power, all of your influence, a simple little vigilante was well on the path to unraveling it all."
Oni frowned. Of course, there was a decent chance that this discovery was the change in circumstances that led to Shadow's fate. He wouldn't be surprised if Shadow had found the location and immediately acted on it. That certainly seemed more likely than some random criminal getting the better of Shadow, and Shadow was absolutely the kind of person that would act immediately if he thought that the location was anything close to what he'd theorized. The man certainly took a much more careful approach to his vigilante work than Oni did, but if he thought that people were at risk, then all bets were off.
"You're not supposed to charge right into the enemy base, dumbass." He said, sighing. "That was supposed to be my job. You should've called me. I would've been there in a heartbeat to watch your back."
His frown deepened. Surely it was simply a case of Shadow being impatient and wanting to rush in to save people, right? It couldn't be that Shadow hadn't trusted Oni to watch his back, could it? The last time the two of them had seen each other was when Oni had been dosed with Trigger, the night he took 'Conqueror.' Shadow hadn't contacted him or Rei at all after that. Maybe that incident had scared the man off?
"I can practically hear you thinking." Rei spoke up, cutting off his train of thought. "Stop that. Whatever negative thing you're thinking about, it's not true."
Oni let out a breath. She was right. For all he knew, Shadow hadn't even gone after the location at all. Maybe something else had happened, and maybe it happened right after the Trigger incident. It wouldn't do to jump to conclusions when he knew nothing.
His eyes swept across the desk. Even if Shadow had gone after the location and hadn't called him in, at the very least, he'd provided Oni with the means to avenge him. He would use the information here to push his fight against The Triad further, faster. Though… he would have to investigate further before he actually made a move on the location. Even if this wasn't likely to be the actual base of All For One—which he suspected was the case. If All For One was having quirks transported directly to him, instead of to a proxy location, especially when he had a teleporter on hand, then he wasn't nearly as threatening as he'd been made out to be—it was still somewhere that was likely closely associated with him. Oni wanted to be careful with this.
As he thought, Oni's eyes drifted to the other items that littered the desk. The papers and the laptop took up most of the space, but there were a few more personal objects as well. A full face mask, pitch-black of course, that would leave only one's eyes uncovered, sat on a corner. Most likely an early accessory to Shadow's costume. Next to it was a small, framed picture. It showed Shadow, obviously younger and missing the scar that ran down his face, and a woman with black hair and soft eyes. He didn't have to guess at her identity, he recognized her from where he and Rei had dug into Shadow's past. The woman was his wife.
The last item on the desk, on the opposite corner, was another framed photo. It showed-
Oni blinked. It showed him. It was a picture of Oni, with Shadow just behind him.
He recognized the photo. It was taken during one of their earlier excursions. Oni had pickpocketed Shadow's phone from him, mostly to cause mischief, but also so Rei could worm her way into it which, coincidentally, was how he even found this house to begin with. Before he'd returned the phone, he took the picture, capturing the exact moment that Shadow noticed Oni had his phone.
And Shadow had, for some unknown reason, gone through the effort of having that picture printed out and framed it.
Oni reached out, grabbing the frame. He brought it closer, studying the picture within.
He'd been doubtful that Shadow had considered him a friend, what with how much Oni annoyed the man, but he'd apparently liked Oni enough to do something like this. It wasn't as if there was much reason to do so otherwise.
"Huh." He whispered, voice wet. "Imagine that."
Maybe Shadow not calling for help really was something other than mistrust of Oni.
He was snapped out of his thoughts by a signal from 'Proximity.' There were two people approaching the entrance to the house. The picture frame was dropped back onto the desk immediately as his expression hardened. In an instant, he had pulled on 'Ghost' and was back up the stairs to the basement. He waited by the door, listening. He could just barely make out a conversation as the two mystery people approached.
"-have yet to explain why I'm being dragged along to do this." A voice said.
"Because I fucked up!" Another responded. "I was supposed to do this like, three weeks ago, but I forgot, and now the boss is on my ass about it."
"So I'm here because you're a shithead that doesn't know how to properly follow orders?"
They were coming up the stairs now. Oni could hear them creaking as the two strangers approached the door.
"Shut up! I don't wanna get killed over this stupid shit. Just help me out so we can be done. You'll make this go quicker."
Oni heard a sigh. "I don't wanna get killed either. Better you than me, cause at least I know how to do something when I'm told to do it."
One of them was grabbing at the door handle, despite the fact that it was locked.
"C'mon. This'll be easy. Just get us in, we sort through everything to see if anything's worth taking, then we burn the place down. Won't even take us an hour."
Oni's fists clenched, his vision taking on a red tint as he registered those words, the other person's response being drowned out by the thundering of his heartbeat in his ears. The Triad. Of course they would come here. It wasn't enough that they'd ruined the lives of so many people, or brought about the end of an innocent man's life, a man that sought only to help as much as he could. Now they had to strip away the last trace of that man's existence.
Not if Oni had anything to say about it. And he did. He had so very much to say about it.
He heard the lock click, and took a step forward. Not waiting for them to open the door, he swung it open, dropping his hold on 'Ghost' as he did. He took in the appearances of the two men who had been speaking, their faces displaying shock at his sudden appearance, before his hands darted out to latch onto their heads. A quick pulse with 'Conqueror' followed an instant later, dropping them.
Eyeing their prone forms lying on the front porch, Oni bent down to pick up what looked to be a can of gasoline. Taking a step, he flung the can at the nearest building, with enough force for it to burst on contact. Turning back to the two men, Oni clenched his fists again, trying and failing to stop them from shaking. Reaching down, he took them both by the neck, lifting them up and carrying them into the house and down into the basement. He tossed the two men to the floor, and was already bringing a foot down towards one of their knees before he stopped himself.
No. He needed to contain himself. It wouldn't do for him to let his temper get the best of him. He needn't rush this, not before he even had a chance to figure out what this was, what he even planned to do.
It was fortunate that Shadow had kept some rope here. It was much more convenient to tie the criminals up rather than simply break their legs to keep them from running, no matter how much he wanted to.
Oh, he would like nothing more than to reach out and pulverize their bones to dust in his hands, to simply crush the skulls of the two unconscious men. With the strength that boiled beneath his skin, it would be like carving his fingers through jello. His fingers twitched with the urge. He wanted recompense for his friend's life, wanted to make someone pay.
He swallowed back the rage that threatened to boil over, taking a deep breath and willing himself to calm down, if only a little. He would make them pay in time, all of them, The Triad, All For One, the League of Villains. All of them would get what they deserved eventually, but there was a time and a place for that. For now, he would use the insects lying at his feet. He would instill fear in them and wring all the information he could out of them, and then he would proceed from there.
For now, he just needed to tie them up and wait for them to wake back up.
With the trembling in his limbs stilled for the moment, he got to work.
Oni noticed immediately when one of the men began to stir. He was watching silently, hidden with 'Ghost,' as the man slowly woke up. By the time he was opening his eyes to take in his surroundings, before he'd even noticed that his arms and legs were bound, the second man had begun to wake up as well.
It had taken less than an hour for them to recover, and Oni had used that time to come up with a plan of action. He would use these two men to get information, and that started with ensuring that they were properly afraid of him. That started with him waiting for the right moment to reveal himself.
He very easily could've, and had certainly wanted to snap them out of their sleep by breaking a bone or two, and just wring the information out of them by abusing their quirks with his own, but that wouldn't be as effective. It also wouldn't be nearly as satisfying. Causing pain was easy, laughably so. He could cause tremendous amounts of pain without even getting terribly creative. But he wanted to do more than simply hurt them, he wanted to punishthem.
And so, he waited for the two men to come to their senses. Once they had, enough so that they were beginning to struggle against the ropes that bound them, Oni dropped his hold on 'Ghost,' reappearing directly in front of them. They went still immediately, looking up at him. He crouched down so that his eyes were level with theirs.
"Hello there." He said, voice soft. "Do you know who I am?"
They both nodded. He could see fear in their eyes already. He was speaking softly, but the air around him trembled with his words. His expression was gentle, but fire blazed behind his eyes.
"Good. Because I know who you are."
Oni pointed at one of the two men. "Yoshiaki Kobe, lockpicking quirk." His finger moved to the other. "And Razan Wakuni, oil slick quirk."
He took note of the increase in fear as he spoke their names and quirks.
"The two of you work as low-level members of The Triad, barely more than common thugs. You were tasked with coming here tonight to destroy anything and everything pertaining to The Triad here, now that Shadow is out of the way. Am I correct so far?"
The two men nodded again.
Oni smirked slightly, looking down at his hands. He was silent for several long seconds, before speaking once more.
"You know, anger is such a funny emotion." He started. "It can be triggered by the tiniest, most random, trivial things. Anything from the death of a friend, or loved one, to something as insignificant as something being said to you in an off-putting tone. The sources for anger are nearly infinite, and that's before you even take into account the variations that come from no two people seeing things the same way."
"Now, the triggers for anger aside, the effect that it has on someone is much more interesting. In most cases, it triggers parts of the body's fight-or-flight response, in this case fight. Adrenaline is released, and heart rate and blood pressure increase, bringing along an increase in strength, though the actual increase varies between situations. And most notably, when the anger is intense enough, it begins to reduce higher brain function and cognitive ability. Now, specifically this is just a further extension of fight-or-flight, it's removing psychological limitations to allow you to remove a perceived threat, but in the context of humanity mostly moving beyond the original need for that, it just means lessened self-control, self-preservation, and decision making. Actions that previously would've been unthinkable are suddenly increasingly acceptable in the face of anger."
"Take me, for example." Oni said, gesturing at himself. "You might not know it, weak, fragile insects that you are, but when someone has increased strength to the degree that I do, just about any action one takes can be immensely dangerous to others. If someone like you were to grip someone else's hand a bit too tight, nothing happens. Maybe if the person is a bit stronger themself, then the other might be uncomfortable for a moment. But if someone like me accidentally grips too tight, suddenly all the bones in that person's hand are shattered irreparably. It's like that with just about everything that I do. I'm not paying attention and accidentally swing my arm out and hit someone? That person is lucky if I don't break a few bones, or worse, hit a soft fleshy part of their body and gore them. I don't pay attention and step on someone's foot with even a little bit of force? That person can't walk for a few months because every bone in their foot is broken."
"And it's even worse when I fight." He continued, sweeping his hands out lightly to his sides, noticing the two men following the movement, not even bothering to conceal the way that they flinched away. "With every single movement, I need to constantly control the exact amount of force I'm putting into it. I can't punch too hard or grab too roughly, otherwise bones shatter like glass and skin tears like paper."
Oni reached down to the floor at his feet, picking up a weight that he'd picked from Shadow's homemade gym. A solid steel weight that apparently weighed fifty pounds, despite the fact that it felt no heavier than a coin in his hand. He held up the weight between his thumb and index finger, almost daintily.
"For example, observe."
Bringing up his other hand, he extended his index finger, pressing it against the face of the weight. With next to no effort, he pushed his finger straight through the steel and out the other side. Pulling his finger back out, he grabbed the side of the weight and tore it in two, tossing the two pieces to his sides.
"If that's what I can do to steel, imagine what would happen to people if I'm not careful. You two have no idea how much effort I put into not killing every single criminal I fight. It's all I can do to make sure they end up in a hospital bed rather than a body bag. Because despite how harsh I am, I have very rarely ever wanted to kill a criminal that I've fought. It is an extremely rare occurrence that I find someone's crimes severe enough to warrant their death. In fact, I can count the number of times that's happened on one single hand."
"But then, when I'm angry… When I'm angry it only gets worse. Like I said, in the right situation, anger reduces one's self-control and self-preservation. So If I happen to fight angry, not only does it become harder to control my strength, I also struggle with my morals, with my determination to not kill when I fight. It becomes so tempting to push a bit harder, a bit further, and simply put them out of my misery."
Oni looked down at his hands again, falling silent for a moment.
"The reason why I'm telling you all of this… is so you appreciate the weight behind my words," he looked back up, staring directly into their eyes, "when I say that I am extraordinarily angry, and would like nothing more than to end you two right here and now."
Oni ceased any and all effort he'd put into concealing his anger, his rage. 'Siren' and 'Conqueror' reacted, causing the air to tremble around him and his words to reverberate. He could feel his bloodlust seeping into the air, making it feel thick and sending static across his skin. The air around him smelled of ozone.
He reached out, taking the two men by the neck and lifting them up over his head.
"The Triad has taken something precious from me, and you two came here to erase the last trace of his existence. That is not a safe place for you to stand. Right now, it is taking every fiber of my being to not tear you two in half. So if you value your continued existence, if you have any desire to remain in one piece and not be splattered across the floor, you will tell me everything you possibly can, starting with where I can find your boss."
The two men struggled in his grip as he lowered them a bit, bringing them closer until all three of them were face-to-face. Their fear was palpable. Their faces were deathly pale and clammy, and tears were gathering in their eyes.
Oni paid those details no mind though, dropping the two men to the floor, looking down at them as scales appeared down his arms
"Speak quickly. You'll find that my patience today might as well be nonexistent, and if you delay too long, I'll start removing body parts."
The world around Oni was silent as he walked towards his target. Or, rather, he simply could not hear past the dull roaring in his ears. The air around him felt charged with power, pins and needles dancing along his skin as the cool air brushed against it. The ground broke beneath him as he walked, hairline cracks spiderwebbing with every step he took.
He barely paused as he reached the entrance to the building, his hands darting out to sink into the steel door as soon as he was close enough. The metal crumbled as Oni dug his fingers into it. It tore away from the wall with no resistance whatsoever and was tossed behind him as he made his way into the building. His footsteps echoed as he entered, along with the faint sound of concrete cracking.
Pausing for a moment, he reached for every enhancer that sat within him, pulling them to the surface. Fire surged to life across his body in response, muscle fibers condensing, even as new muscle mass grew beneath his skin. And as the heat and the power surged through his limbs, he once again noticed a faint smell of ozone in the air. He paid it no mind though. Whatever it was, it was inconsequential. If he remembered, he would think about it later. Moving past it, he pulled on 'Quick Thinker,' slowing the world around him.
Taking a deep breath, he used 'Proximity' to take stock of the building, taking note of every sign of life it detected. As he memorized where they all were, his lips pulled back, baring his teeth in a silent snarl. The red-hot rage that had been building up inside of him ever since the two insects—now lying unconscious but mostly uninjured in front of the nearest police precinct—had showed up at Shadow's house was beginning to reach a tipping point.
As it boiled away inside of him, matching up to the fire of his quirks in sheer intensity, he took a step.
And vanished.
The floor beneath him exploded as he moved, the integrity of the concrete not able to withstand the force of him pushing off. With every step he took, broken pieces and dust filled the air behind him.
As he neared the closest life sign, Oni barely slowed, simply pushing against the man's chest as soon as he was within reach. The gentle—compared to the rest of his movements—action sent the man flying back with enough force to crack the wall behind him. By the time he even impacted though, Oni had already moved on and delivered the same attack to the room's three other occupants. As he traveled through the building, every criminal that Oni came across met a similar fate. He pushed them into a wall, or threw them into one another, or simply lifted them with a tiny action that imparted enough force to throw them into the ceiling.
There were eighteen people in the building, spread across two floors and a basement. Nineteen, counting the boss. Oni dispatched all eighteen before anyone had a chance to respond, and in the blink of an eye he tore straight through the door that led to the boss. The man didn't have time to react to Oni's arrival before an arm was torn off and he was being slammed into a wall.
In total, less than six whole seconds had passed since Oni began moving.
"Hello there." Oni said, dropping 'Quick Thinker' for a moment. "My name's Oni, and you're going to answer my questions if you don't want to lose anymore limbs."
His hand was already clamped over the man's mouth, muffling his screaming. His other hand went to the ragged, bloody stump, claws sinking into the exposed flesh.
"Now then. Let's begin, shall we?"
Oni repeated the process, using the information provided by the one armed—now also one legged—man to target a location that was a little bit higher up on the food chain. And once there, he pried information out of the person that ran the place, using them to move forward.
He repeated the process again, and again.
And again.
The Triad had taken Shadow from him. He wanted to send a clear message to all of them, to All For One and to the organization at a whole. That their actions would not go unpunished. That Oni had been playing nice before, but no longer.
He would end them all for killing his friend.
Oni paused outside the seventh location of the night. His vision was soaked in red, and his hands were shaking so fiercely that he could no longer force them to still. His anger had only worsened as the night progressed, filling him with a restless, malevolent energy that threatened to consume him. It only grew worse with every criminal he incapacitated, every boss questioned and tossed to the side. It was all he could do to not kill every single one that fell into his reach.
His heart was thundering away in his chest, and his breathing had long since gone ragged. He wanted more. More criminals to break, more Triad locations to tear to the ground. He wanted more criminals to punish.
He wanted more. He wanted-.
"Izuku." Tamako's voice sounded out, cutting through Oni's thoughts.
"Izuku, that's enough. You've done enough. You don't need to keep going."
Oni blinked hard, the red in his vision fading away with the action.
"You're not thinking straight. You're only doing this because you're angry. You can't even keep your hands still."
He looked down at his hands. They were still trembling. Clenching his fists, claws clicking against scales, he tried to force them to go still, but it didn't work. They wouldn't listen to him.
"Please, you've done enough. Let's just go home."
Oni sighed. "Maybe you're right." He murmured. "I've already done a lot. And it's not like I can disassemble the entire organization in a single night."
The anger and the restless energy was still there. It still burned through his body along with the strength from his enhancers, but Tamako had pulled him from the haze and the bloodlust, had put him back in control of himself.
Turning away from his hands, Oni looked up at the building he'd been about to enter. Taking a few steps towards it, he laid his shaking hand against the wall. Putting a little bit of weight behind it, cracks appeared around his hand, before suddenly exploding across the entire wall, collapsing it. Even the trembling of his muscles, as enhanced as they were, exerted a terrible amount of force.
"I really should call it a night." He said. "I'm in no shape to fight if I can't even control my own body. Not if I don't want to kill anyone I touch."
Shouting sounded out from inside the building. Most likely some of the criminal inhabitants noticing that he had practically disintegrated a wall. Extending the same arm, he focused on 'Conqueror,' pouring into it all of the rage that had building up through the night. He could feel pressure building up within him as he focused, feeling almost like the beginnings of a headache.
One last thing to settle, then he'd call it a night.
As the first criminal entered the room that the now fallen wall had bordered, Oni released the pressure that had been building up with 'Conqueror.' A shockwave, big enough to encompass the entire building, rocketed out away from him, tearing through the air. It threw the criminal back, rendering them unconscious before they even hit the one following behind them. He watched with 'Proximity' as, in less than a second, the shockwave dropped every criminal in the building.
Letting out another sigh, Oni sagged a bit. Some of the anger was beginning to bleed out of him, leaving a cold sensation in his fingers. Turning away from the building, he set off in the opposite direction, dropping a few enhancers as he did, further adding to the cold feeling. Once he'd put a bit of distance between him and the building, he launched himself up into the air. He'd regained enough control over himself and his enhanced strength had diminished to the point that he didn't damage the ground at all when he did.
By the time he'd returned to Shadow's home, he was significantly calmer. The anger had all but completely faded away, and he was almost back to how he was before The Triad had showed up earlier in the night.
Traveling down to the basement, he let out another sigh as he fell back onto the concrete floor, ignoring the slight twinge of discomfort that came from his wings at the action.
He was done fighting for the night, but there were still things he needed to address. Specifically, those things were his quirks. It was still only the day after his fight with the Noumu, he'd still yet to sort through the quirks he'd taken.
Scrubbing at his eyes, he felt through the bundle in his chest, feeling for the newest additions.
Twenty-six. There were twenty-six new quirks. That was the largest number he'd ever taken in such a short period. Aside from the slight excitement—dampened a bit due to Shadow—he felt at the prospect of so many new gems to analyze and polish, he was also glad to know that there didn't seem to be any adverse effects to taking so much at once.
Lifting his hands up above him, pulling his claws back as he did, he set to work identifying the new quirks. Eleven of them were easy. Six new strength enhancers and five new speed enhancers. They felt almost exactly the same as all the others he'd taken over the years. As far as he could tell without actually putting it to the test, these new ones didn't feel quite as potent as those that the USJ Noumu had, but they still felt stronger than what he might stumble upon with a normal criminal.
Aside from them, there were also two new healing quirks. One felt just as strong as the one from the USJ, while the other felt slightly less powerful. Either way, the more healing quirks he had, the better. He had no idea if multiple of the same type would compound on each other and result in faster healing, or maybe just more healing at one time? If nothing else, he now had multiple for redundancy, or maybe he could consider giving one to Rei or Ochako.
His brow furrowed. Something to think about.
Thirteen quirks down, Thirteen to go.
There were a few others that he either knew what they were, or they felt similar enough that he could match them up to physical characteristics that he saw in the Noumus. The winged one had—unsurprisingly—a wing quirk that felt almost identical to his own, along with bird-like talons in place of feet that gave of a feeling that was similar to his digitigrade leg quirk. The tailed Noumu had a multi-armed quirk that he'd already tested out, as well as the scorpion tail, which he was tempted to test out. Were it not for the fact that he was comfortable on the ground and already had a tail, he would have. Then, of course, there was Stain's quirk, 'Blood Curdle' and Shadow's.
Nineteen down. Seven to go. Time to start experimenting with what was left.
Pulling on the first of the bunch, activating it, Oni felt the bones in his face begin to break and shift. In his forehead, he could feel fragments of bone grating against one another as they made way for something. Along with them, the skin in that area was twitching. He resisted the urge to scratch at it as it itched, not unlike how he felt when his healing quirks stitched his skin back together. A few moments later, he felt something new in his forehead, and opened his eyes.
His second pair of eyes.
Oni's field of view was considerably larger with the new organs, extended up and to the sides. He rolled them around experimentally, testing their range, and found that he could move them independently of his original pair.
"That's fairly useful." He said, looking in two different directions at once.
"What is?" Rei asked.
"A second pair of eyes."
"Wait… Why do you have two pairs of eyes?"
"The fight last night. A gift from one of the Noumu."
"Ah, sorting through the new quirks, I guess?"
"Mhm. So far, so good. I'll let you know if I stumble upon anything interesting."
Leaving the eyes in place for now—he was still enjoying the novelty of looking in multiple directions simultaneously—he moved on to the next quirk.
When he pulled it into place, there wasn't any noticeable change. It wasn't entirely surprising; the quirk felt similar to his two stockpile quirks, so he hadn't been expecting anything exciting, but it did feel a bit different. It didn't feel like a normal energy stockpiler. He wasn't entirely sure what it was meant to collect and store, but he felt that it wasn't going to be the same as his others. He'd been hoping to get at least a slight hint of what it was when he activated it, but no such luck. He'd have to either experiment at some point to figure it out, or just leave it active until he happened to stumble upon whatever it was.
Whichever he ended up doing, for the moment he would leave it active while he continued to sort through his new quirks.
Pulling on the next one had his tongue twitching and shifting in his mouth. It felt similar to the tongue quirk he already had. As he stuck the now-elongated organ out of his mouth, he remembered how the white Noumu had changed its tongue into something resembling a net. Focusing on that mental image, he watched as his tongue, now extending a few feet above him, split apart. It was fascinating to watch, there was no discomfort whatsoever as it split, and he could control both ends of it with prehensile precision. Even as it continued, with both of the new tips each splitting apart again, not only could he exert the same level of fine control over every new tip as they appeared, but he felt no strain on the base of his tongue as it grew, becoming heavier.
As he watched his tongue grow and morph in the air, he thought about whether or not he'd be able to make use of this with his snake tail. That quirk gave him a tongue with the same function as a snake's tongue, allowing him to smell with it. If he used this quirk along with it, he would likely be able to collect a significantly larger amount of scents simultaneously.
After a few more moments of watching the spectacle, he pulled his tongue back, watching as the all the separate tips joined back together as if they had never split apart to begin with.
The next one had a similar feel to his horn quirk, giving him the impression of something that would add a new body part or other similar physical feature. Pulling on it, Oni felt a warmth travel down his spine, from the base of his neck down to his tailbone, followed by a twitching in the skin along the area.
He sat up, getting the feeling that he knew what was about to happen. He quickly pulled the quirk back, before moving to unbutton his vest, and then his shirt. In a few moments, he was shirtless, and his wings had been pulled back. With that done, he pulled on the quirk again, once more feeling the heat down his back. After a moment, the skin along his spine seemed to stiffen, even as it continued to twitch. As the twitching continued to increase in intensity, a new heat made itself known at certain points all down his spine, evenly spaced out as far as he could tell. Then, all at once, it all stopped, fading away quicker than it had appeared.
Reaching up, he explored around the back of his neck. He paused when his finger hit something that felt like the scales that came with his claws. Just a bit further down, his hand was stopped by a bony protrusion. About an inch long and maybe as big around as his index finger.
'Ah, right. The Noumu that was digging around underground had spikes along its back.' He thought, feeling further down his back and finding more protrusions.
With the scales, and how thick his skin seemed to be underneath them, along with the spikes, maybe this was a quirk that was meant to protect the user's spine? Along his spine, he couldn't feel where he was touching with how thick the scales were, and when he nudged a spike, he didn't feel any hint of tugging, as he would expect to with such an addition.
Twisting around, he found that, despite how much the quirk added, his movement was barely hindered at all. Whatever it actually was—he wouldn't be able to know for sure until he got home and could look in the mirror—it wasn't nearly as unyielding as he thought it would be.
Leaving the quirk in place, he moved on. This one almost reminded him of 'Ghost.' When he pulled on it though, he didn't feel anything out of the ordinary. Looking down at his hands revealed that he hadn't disappeared from view.
Actually, wait. Below his arm, where it casted a shadow across his leg, something was off. His, normally, black pants were more gray where the shadow hit them. Almost as if the color had faded out. Running his other hand through the shadow experimentally revealed the same effect. Where the shadow touched his skin, it looked as though the color was being leeched out.
He tilted his head as he observed that, brow furrowed as he tried to match up what he was seeing to the different quirks he'd seen displayed by the Noumu. As far as he remembered, none of them had displayed anything like this. Unless-.
Oni's eyes widened as realization hit him. One of them had displayed this, he just hadn't recognized it as a separate quirk. Shadow had shown this.
Where he'd thought Shadow had been disappearing because of his quirk, moving through the shadows, maybe he'd actually just been blending into them? Maybe the quirk let the user blend into shadows? It would make sense. Right now, the lights in the basement were on, so any shadows cast wouldn't be very dark, but last night the shadows had been nearly pitch-black. If the quirk was what he thought, then it would fit that Shadow was blending in so well that he might as well have been invisible.
At the thought of Shadow, Oni's mood took a dip away from the excitement he was feeling going through his new quirks. Because of Shadow's fate, and because of the fact that Shadow would've absolutely loved this quirk under better circumstances. It meshed unbelievably well with his original one.
Sighing, he pulled the quirk back into his chest, deciding to move on to the next in an attempt to not dwell on Shadow.
The only discernible change brought by the next quirk was the tips of his fingers hardening, changing into something resembling claws. Unlike his claw quirks though, where his fingers retained their shape, and the claws themselves mutated from his fingernails, this time, it was his fingers themselves that became the claws. This one wasn't too hard to determine, as he'd seen its effects up close. The Noumu that had come from underground. This was most likely the quirk that let it do so. If he wanted to, Oni was fairly certain that he could dig straight into the ground and move through it as easy as if it were swimming.
Pulling the quirk back, and making a note to test it out at some point, he finally came to the final one of the group. Going off of what he'd seen, he had a decent idea of what this one would be. It gave off a similar feeling as 'Proximity.'
Knowing what it was didn't stop him from gasping in shock as the world around him exploded as soon as he activated it though.
Well, technically, nothing around him exploded, or was even affected in any way. The only thing that changed was how he perceived the world around him.
He could see everything.
Sitting where he was, in the basement of a house, he could see everything from the house above him, to the building next door, and even the building four down from that one.
More than that though, was that he wasn't just seeing blurry shapes or vague impressions of objects. No, he could see everything. All color had drained away from the world to leave nothing but black, gray, and light blue, but he could make out the detail on the etched sink faucet in the bathroom in the house above him, and he could make out the same level of detail in the discarded syringes in the bedroom on the second floor of the house three down from Shadow's.
"Holy shit!" He exclaimed, his focus darting all around his now greatly expanded range of sight.
"What is it?" Rei asked. "Something fun?"
"Magnetoreception." He answered, distractedly. "Or maybe electrolocation? Some combination of the two? Whichever it is, it's currently allowing me to see everything within a range of about one-hundred-fifty meters with precise detail."
"Holy shit." She agreed. "So, you can see through walls now?"
"It's not just seeing through walls. Not only can I see past them, but I can also see both sides of the wall in the same amount of detail. Everything within range, I'm able to get a three-hundred-sixty-degree view of, as if it were right in front of my eyes."
There were a few things that he couldn't see. Spots where all he saw was a pitch-black shape. He suspected that it most likely lead that was causing that. If he was correct in what this quirk was—though he still wasn't sure—then it would make sense. Beyond that, past the approximate one-hundred-fifty meters, everything became blurry very quickly. Even close to the edges certain things started to become indistinct.
"Good lord that's powerful. So, not only are you on par with, if not stronger than, All Might, but you can also see basically everything around you with practically no limits?"
"Pretty much, yeah." He answered, still distracted.
"I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Your quirks are bullshit sometimes."
"Y'know, I don't disagree."
A smile appeared on Oni's face as he continued to explore every bit of his new range of sight.
He lost track of how long he sat there, but at some point, every bit of his focus—much greater than most people could even dream of because of the one intelligence quirk that layered his mind—was dedicated to the new quirk. He was taking in everything, scanning through multiple houses at once.
It was official, he was definitely keeping this quirk as one that he had active at all times. Being able to see anything in precise detail with next to no limits was too good to pass up.
He shook his head, returning his focus to the basement once more. He pulled the quirk back a moment later. He would keep it active eventually, but for the moment he didn't want to be distracted as he checked on one final thing.
Despite already knowing what it was, Oni wanted to check on Shadow's quirk. Wanted to know what it felt like.
Pulling on it, Oni immediately became hyperaware of his own shadow. He could feel it, as though it were an extension of his body. He knew exactly where it sat beneath him without even having to look.
Focusing on it, he pictured it moving, just as when he saw Shadow doing it. The man could make every shadow in a room twist and writhe without so much as a gesture. In response to his efforts, Oni saw the edges of his shadow twitch and grow a bit, shifting like a glitching screen. He tilted his head at it. It wasn't much, but this was his first time dealing with this sort of specialty quirk, he would simply have to practice with it. He glanced up at the bright lights illuminating the basement. Maybe it would be easier if his shadow was more defined?
Pushing that thought aside, there was something was bothered him a little bit regarding the quirk. He could feel his shadow, and he had a vague idea of how to control it, but he had no idea whatsoever how to move between shadows like he'd seen Shadow do. The teleportation aspect of the quirk was something that would no doubt be immensely useful, and was extremely fascinating besides. He would have to experiment with the quirk to see if he could figure out how to trigger it. Hopefully it wouldn't take too long.
Oni made a note to look into that a bit closer sometime later. For now though, it was about time to head home. He'd spent longer than he'd realized going after The Triad, and by now it wouldn't be much longer until the sun was coming up. Rising to his feet, he raised his hands up over his head, stretching out. Rolling his shoulders, he noticed the slightly stiff feeling of the scales along his back. It still didn't do much to hinder his movement, but it was definitely noticeable when he moved.
Reaching down to retrieve his shirt and vest, both articles vanished from sight with a thought. Taking one last look at the basement, he made his way towards the stairs. Just before he started making his way back up, he reached out to flip the switch to turn off the lights in the room, only to immediately stumble to his knees in shock.
It was almost overwhelming. He could feel it all, every inch of shadow in the entire house.
It wasn't quite the same as the sensory quirk he'd tried out just a few minutes before, he couldn't use it to see, not even in a vague sense like with 'Proximity,' nor could he make out much in the way of details. He couldn't even specifically distinguish the house above him, he could just feel that there was darkness there.
There was one point though, where this quirk outclassed the sensory one to an extreme degree, and that was in range. He could feel the darkness for miles.
He knew right away that he wouldn't be able to control it so far away, he probably could barely control anything outside of the house, but he could feel it.
That feeling was limited to simply knowing that there was darkness. Aside from feeling as though he was connected to the shadows for miles and feeling a vague sense of movement somewhere off to his right—likely someone moving around that just happened to be close enough for him to catch—there was no sensory input at all.
He realized, as his mind caught up to the sensation of suddenly being connected to so much, that this was probably why the basement had been so brightly lit. Before he'd turned the lights off, Oni could only feel his own shadow. Shadow had likely done this so that he wasn't constantly being assaulted by his quirk. Though, if such a method worked, then that most likely meant that the quirk could only feel connected shadows. Oni's shadow was now touching the shadows created by the unlit house, which in turn was touching the shadow cast by the Earth itself.
Shit. That meant that the seemingly limitless expanse of shadow that Oni now felt connected to actually encompassed half of the planet.
Now he realized how Shadow had noticed him that night, chasing the criminal with a speed quirk across the city. If Oni could, within minutes of activating the quirk and moments of connecting to the sea of shadows, feel the vaguest of movement maybe a few hundred meters away, then someone like Shadow, who'd had the quirk his whole life, could probably distinguish movements across the entire city, if not further.
Wait. Now that he thought about it, and was able to experience more than being connected to just his own shadow, Oni was starting to get an inkling of how the teleportation aspect worked.
Before, with his shadow being as small and light as it had been, he hadn't been able to do more than make it move the smallest bit. But it would make sense if, like the quirk that made him blend in with his shadow, the darker it was, the stronger the effects. Feeling the shadows around him, now pitch-black, he got the feeling that he could control it with as much freedom as he did his own limbs.
More than that though, feeling the darkness against his hands, Oni got the impression that he could almost… join?... with the shadows. Or maybe sink into them? Swim through them?
He'd never experienced such a thing before, so he had no accurate way to describe it. But intuition told him that this was the teleportation he'd been wondering about.
Whatever the case, and whatever the feeling actually was, he felt like giving it a test.
Changing his eyesight to night vision with a blink, he looked over to the corner of the basement, the one filled with gym equipment, just a few short feet away. Specifically, he focused on the corner itself. There was a few feet of clear space there.
Oni had never gotten the chance to use a teleportation quirk before, and the only time he'd experienced one was at the hands of Kurogiri, so he didn't know, specifically, what it was like to control one. But every instance of such a quirk that he'd ever studied—they were rare, but out of billions of people across the planet throughout the years, a few had cropped up—referenced needing to identify the target destination, whether that be visibly, mentally, or through something a bit more specific, like coordinates. In this case, Oni was directly identifying his target visibly and, by extension, mentally.
With that done, he acted on the feeling he'd gotten, and let himself sink into the shadows. It felt almost like sinking into slightly cold water as it swallowed him up. Like he was being submerged.
The instant that the shadows covered his head, and he'd completely sunk into it, he felt himself moving, and barely even a second later, he rose from the shadows in the corner he'd been focusing on.
Raising his hands up to look at them, he didn't find anything out of place.
"So, visual confirmation works." He murmured. "But what about solely mental?"
If the quirk could use just mental identifying the destination, and he suspected it did, given how he'd seen Shadow use it, then it would be well suited for him. The quirks affecting his mind allowed him to almost perfectly recall everything that he had ever experienced, even something as simple as all the faces he passed while he was out doing his errands or the exact details of a room he even vaguely paid attention to.
This meant that he could picture, in fairly precise detail, the living room that Shadow's front door had led to.
Picturing that room in his head, Oni repeated the process of 'sinking' into the shadows. This time, even though the distance was a bit greater, the travel time didn't feel any different before he emerged onto the wooden floor.
So, mental identification did indeed work, then. That was very good to know.
Oni smiled. This was going to be so much fun.
Eventually, Oni finally managed to land himself in his apartment. It took him five tries to get there, the first two tries landing him in separate parts of Tokyo, with the second scaring the absolute shit out of a poor nighttime commuter as he somehow transported himself into a—mostly—empty train car. The third and fourth tries both landed him in the same – thankfully empty – apartment on the outskirts of Musutafu.
Once he figured out how the teleportation worked, it started to get easier to control where he ended up. So long as he had a pretty good idea of where his destination was in reference to his starting position as well as a good mental image of where he wanted to end up—made much easier by the fact that his memory was nearly perfect and he could picture just about every nook and cranny of the apartment—then he would be able to get there. If he was missing either one of those things, and he wasn't trying to get somewhere that he could directly see, then the quirk seemed to send him somewhere random. He hadn't quite figured out how it determined where he ended up, or if it was truly random, but he'd only just figured out how to use this aspect barely an hour ago.
And of course, there was the condition that he'd theorized earlier. Both his starting point and his destination needed to be linked by shadows. This meant that, at night, his range was ridiculous, but during the day he'd be severely limited. The quirk was almost perfect for a nighttime vigilante.
Putting the quirk to the test one more time just to make sure he had a handle on it, he sank into the shadows once more, emerging in Shadow's house, before reversing the process. When he saw that he was in his room, as he'd intended, he fell backwards, landing spreadeagle on his back, something made possible by the fact that the spike quirk had long since been pulled back.
He let out a quiet laugh. This would be immensely useful going forward. From now on, this would be how he started his nights as Oni, by using this quirk to quietly slip from the apartment to anywhere he wished.
Shadow had been caught. Oni had no idea if it had happened because the man had started a fight and lost, or if he'd been taken from his home, or if something else happened. Whatever the case, he'd decided that he needed to take extra steps to conceal his movements. Obviously The Triad and All For One were looking to stop anyone from interfering, as evidenced by Shadow's death and the—rather sub-par—attempt at Oni that had been made with the illusion quirk. Now more than ever, he needed to ensure that his connection to his apartment was kept secret.
Shadow had given him the tool he needed to make sure that happened.
Pushing that thought to the side, he instead considered how powerful the quirk was, taking him from Shadow's home to here in the blink of an eye. He let out another quiet laugh as he thought.
"So it turns out that Shadow's quirk is ridiculously useful."
"What do you mean?"
"You know how he could use it to teleport around?"
"…yeah?"
"Do me a favor and check my phone's GPS."
"…Wait, you're here?"
He heard movement through the earpiece, and felt Rei moving in sync with it with 'Proximity.' A moment later and she was through the door to his bedroom. Her eyes snapped to him as soon as she entered. She rushed over to him, not even questioning his additional set of eyes.
"You didn't just teleport here, did you?"
He smiled up at here from his spot on the floor. "There were a few misfires, but yes, I did indeed."
"So now, on top of everything else, now you can teleport basically wherever you want?"
"There are some conditions and limitations with it, but essentially, yes."
She sighed, smiling down at him. "Again. Your quirks. Are bullshit."
"Ha. Trust me, I know."
Oni held a hand up to her in a silent request. She reached out and took it, pulling him up to his feet.
He sighed. "I'll tell you all about it, and all the other new ones, over breakfast. But for now, go wrap up what you need to wrap up. I'm going to get cleaned up, then I'll get cooking."
She huffed. "Alright. I was just wrapping up an assignment anyway."
He emerged from the bathroom a few short minutes later, freshly cleaned and with a snake tail once more. Moving into his room, he flopped down onto the pile of blankets and pillows that made up his mostly unused bed. As he lay there, waiting until it was time to start working on breakfast, he let his mind wander.
He thought about Shadow, about how unfortunate it was that he wouldn't be able to fight alongside the man anymore, and about the anger that still lingered because of The Triad and the hand that they had in Shadow's death. He even thought back to the night he'd run into Shadow a few weeks ago, the meeting that had sparked their crusade against The Triad.
He'd been chasing a runaway criminal, enjoying the thrill of the hunt, when he stumbled upon those few Triad thugs. They'd been chasing the little girl, Iona, into an alley.
That thought pulled him away from Shadow entirely. Iona… He wondered what had happened to her. Hopefully she was okay.
Actually, he might be able to find out.
Activating 'Hotbar,' and pulling out his phone, he maneuvered to Tsukauchi's number, lifting it to his ear once he'd initiated the call. It was answered on the second ring.
"Oni." The man greeted. "You're not making a mess for me to clean up, are you?"
"Well, I was making a mess. But don't worry, that's the Kamino precinct's problem, not yours."
He heard a sigh. "Whatever, I'll take it. What do you want?"
"Do you remember the child I brought in a few weeks ago? A girl named Iona?"
"I think so, why?"
"You wouldn't happen to know her status, would you? Where she is and how she's been doing?"
"Why do you want to know?"
"Curiosity, mostly." He answered, shrugging even though the man couldn't see it.
At the man's silence, Oni rolled his eyes. "I found her cornered in an alley by quirk traffickers, Tsukauchi, and found her parents murdered when I tried to take her home. Sue me for being a little bit curious as to whether or not she's been holding up."
Another sigh. "As far as I'm aware, she's currently residing at the Central Musutafu Orphanage. I've no idea what her status is beyond that."
Oni hummed. "Alright. Thank you, Tsukauchi. That was all I needed."
"Sure thing, Oni. Now stay out of trouble please."
He smirked. "Now where would the fun in that be?"
He ended the call before the detective could respond.
His arm flopped down to the floor as he considered what Tsukauchi had said, Iona was in an orphanage. He'd figured that would be the case, at least in the beginning, but he had been hopeful that she would have family somewhere to take her in, or that she at least wouldn't have to be there for too long. It was unfortunate to hear that she was still there.
He stared up at the ceiling, thinking.
That wouldn't do at all.