a/n: heyyy uneventful chapter but still read? pls? also a rougher chapter, so please point out mistakes 🙇‍♂️

tw: gore, mentions of child abuse, degrading language, blood.

bold: writing

'single quotation': thoughts

"underlined quotation": telepathy

slanted/italics: memories.

underlined: underlined sentences are basically commands and thoughts of those who's thoughts are still completely controlled by the mask.

single quotation dialogue is basically belongs to a person who isn't a mask or has gained a bit of freedom from the command and can retain their own thoughts..

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~" 𝘴𝘺𝘮𝘱𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘺 "~

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previously

"what the hell was that..." He mumbled under his breath, now taking note of the small folded  paper in his hand and the knowing giggle of Kuon as she peeked around the corner.

'Sorry for almost decapitating you. See you around.'

'What the hell was that?!' He placed a hand over his mask and tried to wrap his head around the bitter vanishing of butterflies in his stomach.

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Butcher mask struck the woman hard with his cleaver. It was easier than before, now that he reflected, to kill another being as long as they wore the same mask as he did. It didn't scare him anymore like it did when he first accessed the chip, so he brushed it off quickly. When he turned around, he watched the human he had just recused scurry away like he was the plague. His confident stance tottered, something that wasn't noticeable on the (h/c) hair colored man's permanently defensive stance, another change he noticed in himself the more he spent in this twisted reality.
Butcher mask sighed sadly at the disappearance of the human.

'Scared him off. Seems I overdid it.' He examined his bloodied clothes. He tried to wipe his cleavers on his apron, but it didn't make much of a difference, smearing the blood even more. He clicked his tongue, then inhaled sharply when he heard a familiar voice snicker.

'You think? The doc's not gonna be happy about the sweater.' He looked down at the red, used-to-be white sweater he had borrowed from the Doctor that morning, accidentally smudging the crimson deeper into the fabric when he tried to swipe it off.

'Hmm? Where have you been? you've been awfully quiet.' Butcher mask bickered as he dragged the corpse away into a corner after looting its pockets. 'Not much banter these past few hours. I was starting to think you forgot about little ol me.'

'I didn't want to barge in on you and your boyfriend.
And you're one to talk. Seems like you forgot a little detail back at the doctor's.'

'I...I haven't.' He totally did. Well, it wasn't that he had forgotten, he just didn't have the time to think about the kid lately, with dealing with the sniper and Kuon...

'You are aware I can hear your internal monologues too, right?'

'Bud out, google home.'

'your jokes are lame,' bit back the voice before retreating to the recesses of his head. Butcher mask paused for a moment to make sure no interruptions would occur.

He ran a gloved hand through his matted hair. 'Shit.' Thinking about it now, what was he supposed to do? Taking the boy out during daylight was risky, that was the reason why he had left him with the doctor in the first place. He couldn't keep watch of him and save humans. He couldn't just abandonhim there forever, either. His heart broke just from the thought.

As much as he hated to admit it, in the short, like what, two days (?) they've spent together, he had grown fond of Haruki.

(a/n: the boy's name is Haruki; we haven't actually acknowledged him by his name until now because im a shit writer teehee)

It wasn't rocket science to figure out that Haruki staying with Butcher mask would only lead them both to more danger, especially when his job was to find it, but there was no place safer than being with him at the same time.

'We could always dump him with the Doc and call it a day, right? He'd be safer with humans anyway, and the Doc's got that masked chick.'

'That'd make me feel like deadbeat dad. He deserves better than that. We owe him, after all.'

His heart panged with guilt when he thought about the boy's mother. He had promised to help find her.
'I didn't arrive there in time to save his mother, so the least I can do is watch over him myself. I can only trust myself to pay my debt.' He puffed out his built chest in confidence and looked up with new found determination.

He decided he had stood there long enough, and after laying the body down and covering it, he went off again to the next buzz. Well, that was the plan, until he heard glass shatter and a strong, migraine-inducing buzz.

'The girls.' He thought quickly as he shot up immediately and chased after the swarming sound.

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'Around this corner.'

Butcher mask flattened himself against the wall, pressing his ear to the door as he listened to the scuffle happening inside.

"...Another truly wonderful face! You really do have some good stuff!"

'Who's in there, cv?'

'A normal human and a psychotic mask, by the sound of it.'

The dramatic monologue continued, followed by a series of sickening, wet thuds. Labored gasps became audible through the door.

"...the bad one. The bad one." It was Mayuko.

It sounded like she was having a nervous breakdown, and the freak who approached her seemed to be enjoying every second of it. His perverted chuckles made Butcher mask's blood boil.

He peeked in through the glass slit in the door. 'He's too close to her for me to barge in. What should I do?'

Suddenly, there was a gunshot and everyone's attention went to the blurry blob at the window. Butcher mask gratefully took the opportunity and slipped into the room, readying his cleavers in hand.

He took the scene in. Mayuko stood a little less than a foot away from the mask who had a new hole in his chest. He followed their eyes to the girl who hung from the window. And there was Yuri, upside down but still with a good eye for aiming her gun.

Butcher mask gaped at her.

The mask seemed just surprised as he was. "From behind me? How the hell did you..."

Yuri only smirked, firing again until the mask's howls of pain stopped and he collapsed to the floor.

She tossed the gun into the building and directed her concerned gaze at the blonde. "Mayu, are you alright? Take that gun and go up the stairs." She turned her warm gaze towards Butcher mask, who was still in awe.

"Oh! You're here too!"

Mayuko looked over her shoulder at the man who stood there. She sent him a glare before completely switching up and smiling fondly at Yuri. "Uh, ok, Yuri, I will. Thank you." She looked at her hanging position. "Are you going to be alright, though?"

"Don't worry, I'll be fine!" Yuri swung back up to the roof and disappeared. Her bubbly and overconfident conversation continued, but Butcher mask lost his attention on their words when he saw the mask on the floor start to twitch.

"I won't lose to a world like this!" Yuri continued cheerfully.

Butcher mask held his cleavers up, walking slowly to the man that was sluggishly worming his way over to the distracted blonde.

"Why you lousy little temptress!" He bellowed. Butcher mask approached him cautiously. Mayuko, however, sent him a stern look to back down. Reluctantly, he lowered his weapons.

"Did no one ever tell you murder is unacceptable?! If you want survive in this world, you'd better forget about any kind of happiness!" At some point, he has removed his mask, putting the sinister look on his rough face on full display .

It was a look Butcher mask knew all too well; a bubbly feeling of hatred and fear suddenly coursing through his being.

"Can't you do anything right?" A woman hissed, legs crossed on her lofty chair in the study.
"Honestly, to think that someone had to help you get away from a group of children!"

A younger (y/n) looked down at his feet. His shoe was now long forgotten after he was chased through the woods by a group of high schoolers.

Butcher mask noticed how cut up his hands and arms were, most likely bloodied up by the harsh shrubs and thorns he had to run through.

"And a boy like that." Anger flared in him at the tone she had taken to his friend, the only person who had ever really stood up for him besides his sister, but it was quickly extinguished. She stood up, thin, tall and venomous like a spider and took a drag from her thick cigar.

The woman sighed long and depressively, taking another puff from her cigar before turning to look at him with sharp (e/c) eyes.

She spoke slowly, her voice the void of emotion, but nevertheless (y/n) flinched at her next words, the words he had been dreading ever since he burst through the front door.

"The axe, (y/n). Now."

He had to plant his feet well on the ground in order not to fall over. The feeling spilled onto him in waves like buzzing pain, but they didn't make any sense.

The man was still talking. "But if you wanna be happy, let's do it together, and jump from-"

Mayuko slashed his throat before he could finish. It was...disturbing. But Butcher mask didn't have the strength to complain or look away. He held face between his gloved hands and tried to pull his mind out of the horrific images that accompanied the memory.

"HE'S ONLY A BOY! HOW DO YOU EXPECT HIM TO STAND AGAINST A HORDE OF HIGH SCHOOLERS?!" A gruff voice screamed.

"Well I'm doing more than you have to help him. He needs to learn how to be a man!"

"Susana, you gave him an axe and told him to skin the cat."

"Forget happiness in order to survive." Mayuko's tone was dark and almost deafening in the empty room, a tone that made the apron wearing man quiver.

It didn't help take his mind off of the woman's tone and glare.

The blonde chuckled darkly. "I'm not so sure. In fact, I'd say that I'm actually quite happy at the moment." She contained to brutally slash at the man. And finally he was down, next to the pile of heads Butcher mask miraculously didn't notice until then.

She stayed there for a moment, wiping the sweat from her brow with a scowl on her pale face. And finally Mayuko remembered that Butcher mask was there, because she sent him dark glare before trotting over to the man's now discarded mask. Cautiously, the apron wearing man slunk over to her and watched her pick up the white mask.

"Come on." She said cooly, holding the door open for him, a gesture Butcher mask smiled at faintly.
Even after killing a man, she had the courtesy to hold a door open.

They exited the room in silence, one thinking about the defective mask and the other about the blurry man who had defended him before vanishing so many years ago.

Yuri came rushing over a minute later, looking as peppy as could be and blissfully unaware of the images pounding in Butcher mask's head.

"Mayu, we can make some new allies!" She pointed excitedly at something around the corner.

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hello readers. very short chapter. im tryna get the hang of writing again, so they'll be smaller than usual
please dont kill me

A CHAPTER THANK GOD REJOICE!!

also this is just a thing imma put out

i hate to use these terms ya know, but i don't know how else to word it.
based on what a lotta yall have requested on the poll for butcher mask's height, i was thinking that especially now that we're finally gonna be diving into 🎉relationship development🎉 between sniper mask and butcher mask, id clear a thing up.

so, like our mc is gonna be the bottom or switch in the relationship (idfk what to write man 😐💥)
sex roles dont change who someone is, so butcher mask will continue being the awkward and freakishly tall man he is

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in short:
congratulations its a bottom (most of the time?) 🎊👩‍🍼