Chapter Text
Nemuri follows Secret with trepidation.
Phase Two relies heavily on Nemuri. The plan is to get into the tunnels, and allow Nemuri to fill the tunnels with her quirk. They’ll allow a three minute window from the start of Phase Two before making an entrance, in order to be sure most of the thugs underground have been knocked unconscious. After the three minute window, it’s a basic building search.
They will clear every single room, and make sure each thug or ‘scientist’ is restrained, hand and feet, with zip ties, and gagged so they can’t call for help or raise the alarm if they happen to wake up early. Ideally, Phase Two is where they get to the little girl, Eri, where she will hopefully be unconscious from Nemuri’s quirk and still in her room. In an ideal situation, Nemuri won’t face any combat, and the four of them will only have to deal with a handful of people. If they find Eri in Phase Two, it’s Nemuri’s job to get her out of there and take her straight to the base, no exceptions.
If not, then onto Phase Three.
It’s weird, working with the Snakes in this capacity. Not only because she now knows the faces behind the masks-one of them personally, another vicariously through Inko, her new best friend- but also because they’re, well, the Snakes . In the span of six months, these three have managed to turn the entire world on its head. Almost eighty countries have started their own revolutions, some with more conflict than others. The Commission is facing a lot of public backlash from the - still unmasked- Sequence’s posts on every social media platform there is. Not to mention the ripples in the hero community alone.
Heroes are being held to a higher standard across the board.
More heroes than she would have imagined have resigned or had their licenses taken away due to past transgressions that were never explored. The Commission has, reluctantly, started holding heroes accountable for every instance of law breaking in their careers. Even Nemuri is facing legal repercussions due to an incident that happened five years ago where she lost her temper and punched another hero for making lewd comments to her. Not bad enough that she’ll lose her license, but still.
She wonders if they even realize the impact they're making.
Shouta has never really cared about his ‘impact’, shying away from any form of attention like it’s the plague. He doesn’t even like being congratulated by trusted colleagues. Hell, even Hizashi has a hard time making Shouta accept praise for his accomplishments. She gets the feeling the only ones fully aware of what’s happening outside of their little group are Secret and Sequence, because Silence gives off the same ‘don’t care’ attitude Shouta does.
Again, working with and watching them work is weird.
Not only is watching Shouta act so childish incredibly strange, but the ease in which they all flip from childish and playful to serious business is concerning, to say the least. If what they say about this terrible war that hasn’t happened yet is true, then she can only imagine what it must have done to them to make them take time to be so playful in between working with a single minded focus like that. All she knows is that the look in their eyes as they talked about it was enough for her to believe them. They have that haunted and empty look in their eyes she’s only ever seen in seasoned pros who got to retire out of the field. Which is few and far between enough as it is.
Nemuri and the boys work in absolute silence, clearing every room as they go.
It takes an unnerving amount of time for them to work through the building, and since she hasn’t used her quirk yet, they have to physically knock whoever is up and about unconscious. They haven’t even made it to the tunnels yet, and the time ticks by agonizingly slowly. Secret- she’s a bit too wound up right now to call them by name, even in the quiet of her own mind- has a second timer set up in their masks, ticking away the allotted time of ten minutes. That’s all the time Secret is allowing for them to clear the above ground floor before heading back towards the tunnel entrance.
It makes time simultaneously crawl and speed by like a bullet.
All in all, she hasn’t lifted a finger to help just yet. Not for lack of trying, but every time she steps forward to try and do something to assist in the quick and quiet takedowns, Shouta either levels a glare at her, or bodily shoves her back. It’s frustrating and confusing at the same time. Why ask her for her help if they won’t let her help?
If she thinks about it, she can come up with a few reasons.
Much like the reasoning for the vigilante costume and new vigilante name, they could be trying to keep her involvement as under wraps as possible. Another reason being Shouta’s excessive protectiveness over her, evidenced in the way he angles his body so he’s edged just slightly ahead of her, despite them walking side by side. She knows Secret said she was the first to go and that most of it was because she’s stubborn- which she is, but he didn’t have to be so mean about it- but is it just her? Or is Shouta going to be possessively protective over anyone who isn’t Secret or Silence and most likely Sequence too?
In a way, the possessiveness makes her heart warm, despite it getting on her nerves.
She’s never been disillusioned when it comes to Shouta. She knows it was Hizashi and Oboro that Shouta latched onto, not her. She’s always known that her place in Shouta’s heart, and Tensei’s too, is significantly smaller than Zashi, Boro and Nezu’s. Her and Shouta just never seemed to click in the way he clicked with those three. She knows he loves her, and she knows he would die or kill for her, but Nemuri has always assumed that if it came down to Zashi or her, Shouta would pick Zashi.
And that is enough for her, as long Shouta never turns his back on her.
So having Shouta be so aware, so protective, and over her no less, it makes her feel like maybe her place in his heart was never as small as she thought it was all these years. Maybe it’s because Shouta- this Shouta, time traveler Shouta- lost practically everyone he ever loved. Maybe it’s always been like this and she just never realized it. Maybe this is something even Shouta doesn’t fully recognize, but she does . And as much as being sidelined like this annoys her to hell and back, she hopes he never loses this new side to him. She hopes that he never truly lets his possessiveness over her fade.
Nemuri kind of likes this, is that weird?
She might need to book a therapy session to help organize her thoughts on the matter.
“Alright, next up are the tunnels. Salem, are you ready?” Secret says through the comm link, and she suspects the mask is silenced on the outside.
“I’m ready, let’s do this,” Nemuri responds, kind of itching for the chance to get some action. She didn’t exactly choose heroics for fame, though it can be a nice bonus. Sometimes. When men decide to not be absolute pigs. No, she chose it because she’s addicted to the adrenaline rush of a fight. Nemuri has always been a bit of a thrill seeker like that.
They approach what looks like another section of wall next to more sections of wall, and she watches as Shouta reaches forward to open the secret hatch. Cool. She tries to lift the stiff, thick material of her coat jacket, but Secret interrupts her. “No need, just release your quirk. The fabric on the arms is more porous than the rest.”
When she releases her quirk, she’s only a little surprised that Secret is telling the truth, the gas slipping through the fabric easily, rather than getting trapped and coming out of the sleeves slowly instead. Maybe a new suit won’t be too bad. It’ll certainly help her not have to avoid her support techie like the plague at least twice a week. In hindsight, always tearing up her suit to release her quirk is kind of dumb when there’s fabrics out there that can be porous enough for her quirk to slip through easily.
Idly, as her quirk slowly fills the tunnels, she wonders what fabric the kid used and what it rates on the porosity scale.
It takes a good two minutes for the tunnels to fill up enough that it starts rising back up the stairs and slowly slipping past her into the above ground level. “Moving forward. I’ll take the rear this time,” Secret speaks through her mask-comms. They move through the tunnels at an almost relaxed pace, checking every door as they pass. Only a few of them have locks, but they don’t hold anything that looks to be of value so they keep moving.
It’s when they’re about half way through the tunnels when they find the little girl’s room.
Nemuri stares in horror as she and Silence enter the room, Shouta and Secret staying in the hall to watch for an ambush. There’s no windows, which makes sense with them being underground and everything. There’s only one source of light, and it’s set into the ceiling to prevent being broken and used for an escape, and the light switch is outside the room instead of inside. There’s a small table, with papers covered in crayon scattered across the top, a few pieces falling to the floor. A small box of crayons has been opened and clearly used a lot, the crayons half their original size.
Nemuri picks up one of the drawings and feels bile rising in her throat.
She is not a psychologist by any means. She doesn’t have any of the training or schooling to be able to psychoanalyze what the drawings mean, but she knows it’s not good. Most children like to draw things like dragons and animals and houses and stick figures. This poor little girl, whoever she is, doesn’t draw anything of the sort. As she picks up more and more of the drawings, they’re all the same. The vague shape of a stick figure person with white for hair, and black and red crayon is used to make sharp lines like an explosion out of the body.
“I think you should see this.” Nemuri hands the papers off to Silence, who takes them carefully. She can’t see the kid’s- adult? Time traveler’s?- expression behind the mask and goggles, but she does notice the way his shoulders drop and the tension in his grip. Silence folds the drawings up into a square, unzips a pocket on his jacket underneath his arm, and slips the papers into the pocket.
“She’s not in here, she’s probably with Overhaul then.” Silence walks out of the room, tapping Secret and Shouta on the shoulders as they stand in the doorway facing out. Nemuri catalogs the rest of the room quickly, memorizing what she can for her report to Nezu. Beside the bed on the floor is a small pile of blood-spotted bandages. In the far corner is a small stack of unopened princess, hero, and mermaid dolls Nemuri vaguely recalls as being really popular. There’s no closet, no clothes, and in the other corner, opposite the stack of toys, is a metal toilet that is small enough for a child.
This is not a room, it’s a prison cell, and she knows it.
Nemuri quietly grabs a few more of the drawings- all the same, but in different colors, always with white as the hair- and slips them into her own pocket to add to her report to Nezu. He’s going to want to see, and so will Zashi. Before she walks away from the drawing table, she notices a paper that’s different from the rest, and when she picks it up, she recognizes the broken, unrefined katakana of a short message.
“Make stop. Want sleep forevr. Make stop.”
Her heart breaks even more. The message has been crossed out and rewritten a few times, covering the page in large katakana. Even though she was hell bent on saving this child before, now she’s ready to go on a rampage. She slips this paper into her jacket as well and joins the boys who are waiting for her. She taps Shouta and Secret on the shoulder and they start moving down the hall again.
With her quirk, they make it a quick process as they search every room, Secret laying down a scattered dirt trail to follow back every time they hit a dead end. Most of the time, they only have to secure and gag people, but they do come across two or three scientists- at least she thinks they are since they’re wearing blood covered lab coats- in the process of going to bed for the night.
They even find Overhaul’s room before they find Eri.
It’s squeaky clean, and even while wearing her mask, she knows there’s not a speck of dust or dirt in the entire room. The bed is militarily perfect, the clothes are all in their own clear garment bags. The bathroom practically sparkles. This Overhaul guy is definitely a clean freak, probably even a germaphobe with OCD.
They keep moving.
It isn’t until they’re deep into the underground compound when they hear the first muffled scream. The sound makes Nemuri flinch, and she knows in her gut, they aren’t going to like what they find when they find Eri. They don’t rush for the direction of the screams, even if all four of them tense like they’re ready to bolt to the little girl in pain. She hates it, as she’s sure her boys do too, but going straight to Eri risks an ambush if someone gets to the alarm system. That poor child doesn’t deserve to be involved in a large-scale fight.
It takes maybe five more minutes of hearing screams peter out and start up again before they finish clearing the rooms.
Every second they have to hear that poor child in pain makes her even more tense and angry. She wants to break a bone for every scream they’ve heard since they got close enough, but that would, unfortunately, bring too much negative attention on the Snakes. She may not agree with Shouta abandoning them- time traveler or not- to be a world renowned vigilante, but she won’t be the catalyst for their downfall.
She hates to admit it, but they’re changing the world, and she wants to help them finish their mission so Shouta can come home.
The rooms start becoming few and far between as they close in on the labs, the screams being joined by the vague sound of talking. If she strains her ears enough, she can catch the sounds of machines whirring too. When they pass the final room before the end of the hall, where a single door rests, they hear what the voices are saying.
“Now Eri,” a male voice, deep and menacing, says over the sound of quiet sobbing. “Quit struggling. Your power is a curse, but it can help erase other people’s curses. Don’t you want that? Don’t you want to be helpful?”
Nemuri scowls. “How disgusting,” she mutters quietly, getting a few sounds of angry agreement as they stack up on the door. She crouches just beside the door on the hinges side, while Silence stands behind her. He’s close enough, that if it weren’t for the masks, she would probably feel his breath on her neck. Secret and Shouta crouch just beside the door handle, and Secret places his finger on the handle. He doesn’t open it just yet, even as Eri starts screaming again, before her screams cut out quickly. Barely a second later, she’s sobbing again.
“Salem, Silence, you two are taking the lead. Phase Three starts in three,” Secret counts off. “Two.” Nemuri tenses and prepares to move. “One.”
Secret’s fingers jam the handle down and Nemuri uses her weight to open the door.