' late night escapades '

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Wrapped in a cloak made of midnight and gossamer, two villains in training lurk past empty corridors and into jail cells where the dammed wail and pleaded for mercy. They were called Noumo, the creatures who wailed and pleaded. Unfortunate creatures injected with numerous quirks to make them stronger and better. The next generation of soldiers that were unbeatable and invincible in all senses.

"You know we shouldn't be here," the girl, eyes the color of bloody roses and hair the same flower but withered and dying, black, whispered and although there was a hint of wariness in her words, she too, felt entranced and marveled at how those creatures inside chambers of glass were invincible.

The boy across her, chose to ignore her pleas - he always did. They had unrestrained enmity for each other but for the time being, they were partners in crime, both overwhelmed and powered by curiosity.

"Tomoe!" the youth hissed as they creature continued to wail and pound on the glass. "Sensei will be furious if he sees us here."

Calling All For One her teacher felt odd at first but after days, twenty one to be exact, she had etched familiarity to calling him her mentor. It was the truth anyway. He taught her. Basic information. How to construct paragraphs, speak in different languages (she could speak curses and die in German and English now!), some legends and myths, philosophies and beliefs, perfected her tricks with the dagger, helped her push her quirk past boundaries and act like a normal girl- blend in. Of curse with the help of Chigusa Kohaku but the youth would never acknowledge such a weak and disposable creature as her mentor.

Now All For One. He was unrivaled. Powerful. He was God in her eyes.

He was a great mentor too, but the youth was lacking in some ways and she wasn't a genius in all the other things that were not killing so it took more hours and days and eventually months. One thing about All For One that was astounding was his patience. He had it in spades and the youth know that he had been waiting all the while, waiting, scheming and plotting and she envied how he could be that.

The youth was a rash thing that needed instant, her patience easy to trickle to its last drop, but even as All For One tried to teach her patience, she failed at it.

"Tomoe!" she hissed again and when she heard the upcoming footsteps, she threw him a death glare. Why did she even bother trusting this moron? He was the person she hated the most in this compound for heaven's sake!

"Yeah..." he responded, backing down, still as silent as a shadow as he pulled the hood of the cloak down to hide his face. "You go to the exit first then I'll follow."

If she had a choice, she would have gone with Tomura for this late night escapade but the blue haired man was by all means aware of the happenings behind the closed walls- he was her sensei's favorite for God's sake. The next leader.

Morphing her face back to its standard placid, she ducked under some wooden crates and headed to the steel covered windows. Using the tip of her favorite dagger, she twisted the screws that held the steel coverings and when the steel cover landed in front of her, she didn't hesitate to dove past the opening.

Rolling on a grassy patch, she landed on a white concrete and immediately looked at the hole she had made- awaiting Tomoe's arrival.

It didn't take long for white hair and red eyes to make an appearance as he dove through the same exit and barred the door from outside. It wasn't clean. Not in the slightest, but at least now, they could go back to their daily trainings and forget all this happened.

Amusement dripped from those crimson eyes again, probably the only characteristic that was alike with his brother, Tenko- Tomura and he slid across the grassy patch and landed in front of her sitting form.

"You're a nutcase," she said and brushed the dust particles off her shorts, five fingers, two hands and one body.

"I am?" he questioned and then began walking away from the facility, the youth trailing after him, two paces behind.

The youth nodded at him, two red eyes, void of emotion. He had his moments, minutes of mulling in perpetual silence and then there were times when he laughed and smiled and looked amused. To cut it short, there were times when he was a cold blooded asshole and there was a time when he could actually appear like a[n] [equally obnoxious] human being.

But coming from her, a girl that thrived in this world for eleven years, five months, two weeks, three days, seven hours, forty six minutes, twenty three seconds and counting, a girl that stole and cheated and killed, a girl who put her ambition first, a girl who liked watching dews of water slide down leaves, the observation was hypocritical.

She knew that the people around her found her annoying, but she thought that they were beneath her so she didn't care.

Peasants couldn't compare to a queen, she chanted, five six seven times in her mind.

"Want to climb the observation tower?" Tomoe turned to her, gaze cool like the river water that sloshed and flowed among stones.

"No," she replied and went ahead of him, one step, but then he was taller and long legs provided enough to level their walking distance, the space between them.

He didn't say anything, but the youth, after failing to have him leave her, muttered a curse under her breath and asked him, "Why are you still here?"

"Because I'm not in other places," he replied dryly.

The youth didn't bother replying. He was just so odd and so confusing that she had given up trying to figure out what he was and what he felt.

"Say," the youth began, pushing the hesitation away. "This is the third time this week that you asked me to go around with you, what is your deal?"

He averted his gaze from her, saying nothing at all, but the youth was not a commoner why pushed back curiosity because others didn't want to. She was arrogant, prideful and selfish and she didn't ask or make way for others, she demanded.

"Yeah, right," she says with venom. "The first time I came here, you were nothing but downright hostile. Then I start to accommodate myself with this place- everything and twelve days later, two hundred eighty eight hours, you start to approach me and-" She kicked a pebble in a bout of irritation, the object crashing into one of the windows.

"What?" he asked softly, gaze still averted on her her and pinned on the sapphire skies above with no traces of clouds.

"You're like this new person who's like, hey, I was an asshole to you at the first couple of days, but seventeen thousand and two hundred eighty minutes have passed so let me tour you around and yeah, while we're at it, let's play nice, become the best of pals and braid each other's hair!"

"That's a colorful imagination," he said and turned to face her with crimson irises that have soften on edges. "And I hate braids, so don't even. If you're angry, no, furious because someone's actually being nice around you and's making you feel like a human being, sure, push them fucking away."

"That's gold," she spat and she looks like Medusa with eyes so full of furious for the one that cursed her so she turns everyone to stone. "Coming from the person who was treating me like trash not until one million thirty six thousand and eight hundred seconds ago!"

He shook his head, wearing that smile, one smile, two meanings- disbelief and derisiveness. "This is a waste of time," he said. "And I actually pitied you because your parents abandoned you."

Ice grabbed her throat and snowflakes were falling off her open mouth in clumps.

- why did he know?

"You know what?" he said, looking at her with scorn. Just like one million thirty six thousand and eight hundred seconds ago. "I actually commend them for making such a genius choice. You're better left alone, abandoned because you're nothing but delusional and deranged."

Then he turned his back on her, still as her face which was a thousand shades of shock and anger and pain.

"You want to be alone?" he asked, and the youth can practically smell the scent of finality. "Fine. Be alone for the rest of your miserable life. You want to be a queen?"

Words were weapons and he mastered at using them. A prodigious master of the infliction of pain among others using only poisonous words and syllables coalescing into words.

"Keep on dreaming, because when you wake up, you'll realize that no one's by your side."

And he took one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen seventeen eighteen nineteen twenty twenty one twenty two twenty three footsteps. Faraway. Unreachable like the sun that flared above, scorching her and battling the winter wastelands that raged inside her broken soul.

She wasn't a villain. The youth was just... miserable.

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