She holds her breath.

She's very good at that. Holding her breath, she counts as high as she can, all of her fingers and then down. She's been doing it for years. Closing her eyes and hiding in the closet behind the mountain of toys the man tries to bribe her with. It won't help, not at all, because they always find her. It's like hide-and-seek. The game that she used to play with Mama, when it was sunny, and bright, and Mama's hair would fall short over her eyes, much curlier than hers. They would laugh and she would always lose the game back then— in the before. It's easier to remember it like that.

If she loses now it hurts a lot more than if she lost with Mama, when she lost with Mama, in the before, they would get ice cream from the store and it would always dribble down her face, and Mama would always tell her you got a little something there, before Mama wiped it off her face. Sticky, she always felt sticky, until they got home and she washed her hands and face and took a warm bath with Mama in the onsen, laughing and playing with her rubber duck. It bobbed in the water and she would always go like a crocodile, only her nose and eyes over the water when she was in that tub, then she attacked— grinning all the while. Things change.

When she loses hide and seek now, like she always does eventually, there is no ice cream across the street in the little store, there is no laughing while Mama twists her around, curly, short hair bobbing up and down. There's no laughter. She's sticky, still, when they put her on the table and open her up. The man cuts her open on the table and then puts her back together. Like a puzzle, over and over and over. She feels like a ghost, sometimes. People don't come back, normally.

She's seen them.

They splat on the wall in ugly red blotches, like splattered pomegranate seeds. The man doesn't let fruit in here, he doesn't cut up apples for her, or let her go outside like her Mama let. If she goes, the people that find her in this wrong game of hide-and-seek turn into squashed strawberries. All blotched like a bad brushstroke on a canvas. The kind that Mama used to let her paint on, in the before. It's easier to think of it like that. To put these things into little words so she can understand them better.

There is the After, and she is very different, she is afraid and hiding and shutting her eyes and closing her hands over her ears, as if they can't hear her. She hopes they can't, she hopes they can. She doesn't know if she hates the table or people turning into fruit-mulch on the ground, red seeping into her feet like she got glass in them.

There is the Before. She smiled a lot then, there were no tables and Mama smiled and laughed and Papa brought her strawberry mochi ice cream when he got home. There was a time when she was happy, when she was Eri.

_

Shimura Keito knows how to watch people.

If there's one thing that house taught him it was to be wary. He can feel the way things creak just as well as he can feel each feather come in. The way they bleed against his skin, he washes himself religiously, the boss, Overhaul, seems to approve of this habit. His eyes don't squint in disgust everytime he gets Eri when he looks at Keito. When he does.

Keito makes a plan.

When it all comes together he grins, wide and sharp, mladshiy brat would say with too many teeth. He wonders how fucked up he looks like this, all cut up and bleeding. Eri is of course a key component, he dreams up a scheme that'd make his old bossman proud and gets to it. The first step is simple. Be nice.

It's easy, to ask people if they need a littl extra done, they look at him, at how small an scrawny he is and they think poor little bird, they look at his scars, the two mangled scissor marks drawn rough on the side of his face and think, he's weak. Keito has a plan, though.

He does it slowly (watching his accent, the way the syllables come out. He tries to remember what his old boss sounded like, when he was thirteen and fourteen and lastly, sixteen), subtly, most important of all, softly; he says: "The boss always gives you so much work, I just want to help out. It is like he doesn't care about your health. It is stupid. You will get sick."

He helps and helps and helps until they like him, until they ask if they can help him back, he says, "It's fine," and smiles wobbly, like a child. "I'm used to it."

(It's not like he's lying or anything.)

He's quick about it, he makes them like him, makes them want to help him, asks them for little things, says he's hungry because they don't feed him here, if it's no trouble could you bring him some food if it's no trouble could you—

They do, but they look gutted, because these are real people, now all he has to do is stage something, and that. That'll require some further planning. Something more than an act, more than a few scratches from doing other people's work. He already has some of the top dogs on his side, the fighter, Rappa, who he said he'd fight when he felt strong enough to stand proper, the thief likes him, thinks they're similar, Keito thinks the guy might have a crush on him all things considered, which would go very well. The guy is a little older than Keito and goes cherry red any time Keito so much as greets him, his friends snicker behind him, but this is good. Keito can use this.

The man with a shield quirk seems fond of him, almost, like he's looking at someone else entirely.

He needs to use this.

Keito is nineteen years old exactly, he's planned this, he has people here that like him and hate Overhaul, he has people here on the fence, scared of Overhaul. He can use that. Nobody but the top dogs are really loyal to him so—

He starts a riot.

It's not that simple, of course. It takes time, of course.

There are things in between, like staging an assault from one of the big dogs, he takes a knife similar enough to the one that Chrono has and, in the small hours of morning (three months after he completes his plan, it's the season when selling is highest; this is the only time when it'll be believable;) he drags it across his face; his hands shake, so the cut is jagged. Like the hands were not used to getting dirty. He doesn't cry (he knows better by now), the cut is deep, not stitches deep, or maybe it is. He heals the wound up with a superheated finger and the sizzle of skin in these small morning hours is what keeps him awake. It's about as deep as the ones on the side of his face, deeper by a little. Like scissor marks.

He cleans up the blood from the sink and the floor and bites his lips and keeps his head down and acts all flinchy around everyone, especially the top dogs.

Until the breaking point.

(Seven months after he perfected his plan.)

(Keito is used to pain, Keito is used to it, he is. At least now, it's useful. He doesn't know what happened in that basement, but he's sure it's not anything good if the wound on his face doesn't really warrant any tears.)

Hishimoto Kyoka asks, "What happened?"

(Seven months after he perfected his plan, it is set in motion.)

So he lies, sweet and easy, voice wobbly, "Overhaul was angry, I think."

The way her face twists into something bitter and angry and disgusted. He won. "I hate him." she whispers.

So, they gather about half of everyone, he tells his lie, the full, made up story, that Overhaul got angry and made Chrono paralyze him to scar him, a memento, a warning. Don't fuck up again.

And so, Tuesday comes around. The riot does too. Yukimura Hiroko starts it. They plan their positions and—

(Twelve months after he perfects his plan. Twelve months and he can see the end, that sweet victory spilling from the veins.)

Shoot their shot. Literally. Akagawa pulls the gun on Overhaul himself from behind him; she shoots a complete bullseye through the back of his head, it's all chaos from there. Overhaul remakes himself sans a bullet hole and the bullet. There is fighting and screaming and wet splats.

They planned for this, of course, Makihiro Yuriko (Quirk, Emitter: Warped Perception, she can make things appear closer or farther away than they are, the drawback is extreme dizziness if overused) took Overhaul's hard hitter, Katsukame Rikiya; Morita Takumi (Quirk, Mutation, Emitter: Cool Down, he can emit a pheromone that relaxes people, like a low dose of morphine, it comes from his sweat, dehydration occurs fairly quick) took Kurono Hari; lastly, Shibuya Yoshina (Quirk: Belief, Emitter, he can alter one base belief of someone for a limited amount of time, the drawbacks are headaches that last hours and sometimes days) took Irinaka Joi. Overhaul is guarded by Setsuno Toya and Nemoto Shin.

Akagawa Hitoko (Quirk, Emitter: Pity Party, her quirk is in the background— it causes the perception of distress in the people they see) stands beside the door of the nearest exit.

Her quirk is going into overdrive.

Keito (Quirk, Emitter, Mutation: N/R, a raptor mutation with telekinetic feathers, the minor ability to set his feathers and hands on fire, drawback highly flammable with no fire resistance) takes this opportunity to use one of his fresh feathers to sneak up on Overhaul. He's standing in front of him, and he can see the disgust, betrayal, and rage bare on Overhaul's half-a-face. Some sick twisted form of a grin cuts through his face like a knife. He takes his feather and stabs as hard as he can through Overhaul's neck and paralyzes him. It's only short term, because if he lands with his hand on himself Keito's pretty sure that he can remake himself and undo it, he watches the way Setsuno Toya looks at him; he doesn't move.

He slits Nemoto Shin's neck before he can do anything, sends a feather through his eye and sets it on fire, destroying Nemoto Shin's brain completely. He watches Setsuno Toya again, a half a second of spare time; Setsuno doesn't move, he shakes. Like his whole body is a leaf in autumn, but he doesn't move to do anything, he just stares.

(Twelve months after his plan, to the day, his work comes to fruition; Keito is sick of being a thing for people to have. He isn't some canary they can put in a cage.)

He clumsily takes one of the katana's from the wall and starts sawing Overhaul's hand.

Well, it's less sawing, if he thinks about it.

Like dislocating a chicken leg from the joint, he thinks in a hysterical attempt to disassociate from the situation. He used to do this all the time for little brother. It's easier to think of it like this.

He presses on the bottom of the wrist, slitting through until he gets to the bone. Overhaul watches in horror, but the fact that he isn't doing anything is proof that it actually worked. Keito keeps going until the outer wrist, cutting as far as he can, until he hits the bone; this is the hard part. He holds the hand and the forearm and with all of his strength he snaps it, opening the wrist. With the bone open and the joint exposed Keito cust the hand off.

It's at this point that he hears Overhaul throw up. It's a wet, putrid thing that Keito is intimately familiar with, and the thought closes his mind, Overhaul is wearing his stupid mask, before he continues to the other wrist. Keito's hands ache, they're sticky and warm from the blood, they don't stand still. He makes them. He takes a deep breath through his nose and distinctly ignores the smell of blood and bile as he repeats the process. He picks up the second wrist.

He thinks to himself, like dislocating a chicken leg from the joint, again. Firmer, this time.

With the wrists removed he can safely start on the next part.

Cutting up the body for dumping.

Keito starts with the head, slicing through. Twisting the spine until it pops. Something like nausea swells in his stomach. He swallows it. If it comes up he'll have to put a real name to it, and Keito does not want to see and identify the thing squirming in his mouth.

When he's done with the head, he moves to the feet, to the thigh, the shoulders, the knees, forearm from bicep, limb from limb.

He looks up at Setsuno Toya who is standing there, shaking, he doesn't do anything. He could pull the katana from Keito's hand but he doesn't.

(Twelve months, almost to the day, one day before.)

Makihiro Yuriko comes in with a blood face, a gun in her left hand and a blood-stained rotating saw in her right. The surgical gloves on her hands are a shiny red. She doesn't say anything, just kicks a box of black garbage bags over.

Setsuno Toya does not move.

"We did it." Akagawa says. It cracks at the ends, so she says it again, firmer, "We did it."

"Yes." Keito says. Stops. Swallows down the thing in his throat. The fresh scar on his face burns from the blood on it.

"I'll." Makihiro says. Stumbles. "I'll check on the others. Aka-akagawa do you have. Uhm. Have a loaded gun?"

"I— yeah." Akagawa throws the gun to Maki. She stumbles, a little.

"Uhm. Okay. Okay." Makihiro turns away. Her breathing is steady.

"They are all dead." Keito says, careful to accent his words correctly. "They are, right?"

"I don't." Akagawa fumbles her words, they slur out a little. Like she's just learning them. "I don't know. Do you— check with me, Fallen? I'm scared."

"I will check with you, first, can you help me with the body." It sounds like a question. It isn't, not really. Akagawa understands and puts on gloves. The same surgical, plastic ones that he's wearing. That Makihiro is wearing. That everyone else is, too. They wore them so they wouldn't get fingerprints on the body. Body. If he's lucky, only three people are dead. If he isn't, it's more.

"I can," Setsuno Toya says something, speaks, his voice wavers and cracks and Keito comes to the realization that Setsuno Toya is only a year older than he is. "I can call my mother. She can help. She can. She—I. I can help."

(Twelve months minus one day. His plan worked. It worked.)

Overhaul— or whatever is left of him— is put in bags. Keito did the liberty of collecting wood and a burner beforehand. They're (him and everyone who survived) going to take the bodies to some secluded campsite by—by the suicide forest or something. They can bury the bodies there.

There are so many corpses in that forest nobody knows what to do with them.

Keito's never been there. It used to be a tourist spot back in the prequirk era; then a quirk war broke out and the government found out how many people were just offing their kids in that forest the second they had shown any signs of quirks. The law that prohibited going into the forest without an official tour guide happened nearly a century after the fact. When quirks became more mainstream.

It's only by pure luck and Overhaul's horrible planning that one of the underlings here has a mother that works for the government. It's only by pure luck that she will do anything for her son, and it's only pure fucking luck that she hated being in debt to Overhaul, that her son worked for him to pay off her debt, that she looks at him with an unfazed glance, far too used to uncovering dead bodies on the regular, and says, "You got the bastard, hah?" over the phone when Setsuno Toya calls.

Keito, for a brief second, thanks his parents for pretty genes. Even with the scars he looks hot, apparently.

When he washes the blood off his hands, his hair, his everything; there's this empty place of difference. His hair's gotten too long. Happy twentieth birthday, Shimura Keito, he tells himself.

_

Without Overhaul there, everything stays the same. Nobody has moved. Well, somebody must have cleaned the blood from the floors and disposed of the weapons (or in the very least cleaned them) while he, Setsuno, Akagawa, and Morita were out. Keito thinks it's nice of them; they could have all disbanded. Even the rest of the Precepts are here.

"Hello." he's tired, he knows, so his accent slips into his speech. He says the words rougher than he means them. "You all do good today. No more Overhaul, is dead." he continues. "Now what to do with Yakuza?"

They look at him, expectantly. Makihiro looks at him smoothly. "Well, you're the new boss, boss."

"I—" he looks at them. "no more ah, Eri-drug." he says. "I do not know what it is. What it does. But no more Eri-drug. She is child. Hurting children is not honorable."

They all nod, Keito thinks that there's guilt in their eyes.

"You can leave, if you want, I am. My Japanese is half-good. I am not good at reading. I killed the last leader. If you do not want me you can go, I do not have any plans. The truth is. I— I did this because Overhaul buy me, I did not want to be a thing. I do not want you to be a thing. If you are here by force and want to leave, debt is forgiven. You can leave."

Some of them do, he notices, but the precepts, Setsuno even, they stay.

Keito wonders what that means, but he's too tired to really think about it. Too tired really, to notice how he's stumbling to his old room, the one with two other people he bunked with. He just collapses.

He sleeps.

It's peaceful, for once.