Makima wakes up slowly, positively exhausted, a too-stiff mattress beneath her that's not like the one at home at all. The air smells different too, and her powerful nose - it's always been a bit better than even her eyes - picks up a sterility to it. More important, though, is the familiar scent of her family.
She pushes herself up, bones creaking, and looks around. It's bright out, but judging from her lying in this hospital bed, it's been a while. A day has probably passed. Her head pounds like gunfire but she ignores it, following her nose and noticing the three Shinsou all sitting at her bedside in cheap plastic chairs, not a single one of them awake. Nori snores into Masato's shoulder, and both of their arms drape around Hitoshi, who's leaned over the foot of her bed with his head in his arms. All three look haggard, their clothes not even changed.
The events of the previous day come back to hear, down to the drinking blood. In that very moment, the revelation hit her that-
"Makima!"
She glances up, breaking out of her reverie. It's no surprise that Hitoshi, ever the light sleeper, has already noticed her own wakefulness, and he furiously shakes his mother and father before clambering beside her and grabbing her shoulders.
"You're alive! You're up! Fuck, I thought- even the with healing I was still so scared, but you're fine!'
"I-I am," she confirms. "What.. what happened, exactly?"
Before he can give him a good answer Nori and Masato are at her side, fretting and giving her desperate assurances, and she just hugs back, squeezing desperately to the two of them and avoiding the world and her mind for a moment more. It's this kind of love she craves so much of. It's the simple kind, almost primal, that she recalls being jealous of to the point of madness, even if she doesn't know where those feelings came from.
"I was so scared I was going to lose you…" Masato whispers. "Because of some horrible mistake. We've only had you for a year."
"You were such a hero out there," Nori adds. "We're proud, you know that? But please don't worry us like that again."
She nods and pulls back, dismissing the familiar intruding thoughts, and looks pointedly at Hitoshi.
"R-Right. Um… the ambulance arrived soon after. We insisted on being there with you, so we followed along. They did some… some medical stuff. Don't know what they did, but they had questions, and the results were apparently 'interesting'."
Her heart sinks like a chest. They suspect what she now knows.
"Makima?" Masato delicately broaches the question like it's a bomb to defuse. "Do you… know why they're asking questions? I mean, your quirks always been a little odd, and multivariate, but…"
"Blood healing? And you keep remembering new aspects of it?" Nori cradled her head in her hands. "Is there anything you can't do?"
"What does blood healing have to do with 'Control'?" Hitoshi's question pierces right through her, and she opens her mouth to respond but-
A man as generic as men can get, clad in a black suit, walks in holding up a badge. "Good evening. You are the Shinsous, correct? Officer Tendon, Hero Public Safety Commission."
'Public Safety' Those words strike a strange chord in Makima. Why? It's yet another memory lost in her mind.
"The… the HPSC? Is there a reason you're here?" Nori stammers.
The man nods. "We just want to ask little Makima here a question or two regarding this… incident she found herself in yesterday, that's all. May I? It's for the good of public safety."
"I… by all means, I suppose," Masato shrugs. "What questions?"
Tendon sidles up to the bed and sits on its edge, looking at Makima and ignoring the rest of them. "So, kid. Got any explanation for this?"
"What?" Makima asks. Internally, she's panicking, probing for more information.
The man gives her a faux-nonchalant shrug. "Paramedics report that the call your brother files mentioned a sort of horrific injury you then didn't have when they actually picked you up, your adoptive parent'd blood around your mouth."
"I-"
"And officially, your quirk is registered as 'Brain Chain', which allows you to fire a chain into someone's mind to control them."
"I-"
He holds up a finger. "You summoned approximately a hundred and fifty. Do you understand what that means? It means you failed to update our records and acted without any proper jurisdiction whatsoever, using your quirk recklessly to-"
"She was saving lives!" Hitoshi protests.
"She was breaking the law," he counters. "There are severe consequences for that, up to and including jail time. This whole thing has been a massive fiasco. Do you want me to list charges you could have brought against you, Makima?"
Caught in a bind, she shakes her head and looks at the Shinsous, pleading with her eyes for support, but none of them know what to say here
"Unlicensed use of a quirk in public. Vigilantism. Non-consensual mental manipulation." He counts down each with a finger. "Just to name a few. You're in very, very hot water."
Makima grabs her braid. "I didn't do anything wrong!"
"You absolutely did and you need to face the consequences," he sighs, before turning back to face the Shinsou family. "I'm sure she's been a rough child to bring up, huh? I'd like to talk to you all about a solution we have in mind, both to secure your… stepdaughter a lucrative future career in heroics and to resolve any legal troubles that might fall upon your heads as a result of her actions."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Nori mutters. "Her actions… what are you implying?"
"Ma'am, I would never imply anything," he crosses his arms, walking over to her. "I just want you to think it though. It's an option, and it would make things easier around the house for you. Can I talk to you two in private?"
Masato slowly nods, and he and his wife exit their chairs, giving their children worried looks before following Tendo outside the hospital room, where she puts us hands behind his back and begins to explain.
"The Hero Public Safety Commission, as part of the Young Heroes Grant Scheme, is scouting fresh talent to be the next generation of top heroes. Makima, frankly, just popped onto our radar, and while are hands are tied with legal matters, we could protect her if she was a part of our organisation. Imagine it, her controlling her powers and using them to be a force of good across Japan!"
Nori raises an eyebrow. "And the program entails?"
"We'd take Makima off your hands - compensated, of course - and train her in a-"
"Woah, woah, woah, hold up!" Masato grimaces, now looking properly angry, his wife right beside him appearing equally pissed. "You want us to SELL HER to you!?"
"Mr. Shinsou," Tendo simpers. "You don't need to put up a facade. I've read the adoption papers, and the orphanage records. She was a horrible kid, and you can't change a person's nature. But we can teach her to channel that power for the greater good! You wouldn't have to do anything, and Hitoshi would be set for life. Your real kid's future would be secured!"
"Makima's also our real kid," Nori grits out. "We don't want any part in this."
"Wait, wait, think for a second. You've had her for… what, a year?" Tendo tries to reason. "She's already nearly died in that time. Can you really keep her safe? And yourselves? It's a dangerous quirk, after all. And the stress will just make your life worse. What do you really have to lose here, and compare that to what you have to gain!"
"Fuck. Off ." Masato hisses, voice low and dangerous. "Take your fucking money with you. She's ours . You're not taking her. Over my dead fucking body."
Tendo blinks, clearly not expecting the rebuking, before he turns to Nori. "Now, I know this may seem like a big decision, and your husband is getting a little emotional about it, but-"
"You're lucky you're a government employee or you'd be on the ground right now," she flatly states. "Get away from our daughter, and keep the rest of your damn organization away as well. Final answer."
"Is that it? Is that so?" he challenges. "Be obstinate then. You're passing up a valuable opportunity, you know that? Others would kill to be in your position right now. But if you insist, I'll take my leave," he bites out, turning on his heel with a ticked-off demeanour like an ant had stung him in the pants, but before he descends back down the hospital stairs he turns back over his shoulder and gives them one final warning. "If we don't have a deal, the HPSC might just find itself very interested in what little Makima's been up to. Keep an eye on your mailbox, because you could be receiving a court order soon."
His footsteps echoed down the sterile hospital halls, and Masato pinched his brow, cursing under his breath. "What did she do to deserve this?"
They return to the bedside. Makima and Hitoshi pointedly look at the walls, and Nori sighs. "How much did you hear?"
"All of it," Makima blurts out. "There was a bird on the windowsill."
"Then you know we'd never give you up like that," she sighed, bringing the red-haired girl close again and hugging her tightly. "No matter what's going on with your quirk."
"That's just it," Makima mumbled, fidgeting with the covers. "It's…" she sucks in a tight breath, warring with herself as the Shinsous patiently watch her, the day's newest revelation on the tip of her tongue. She decides to take the long route.
"Ever since I… for as long as I remember, I felt… different. Wrong. Like I could never understand everyone else. I have these… impulses. And there's things you can't see. My nose is stronger than my eyes. I can see you clearly, but I smell you first. It's the first thing I notice when I enter a room." Her knuckles tighten over the covers. "Then, my powers… they don't act like any quirk I knew. I can do so many different things. Hypnotize people. Control them. Wipe their memories, change their thoughts, teleport, I'm stronger, I heal from drinking blood… but most of all everything always felt… off."
"Off how?" Hitoshi questions. "You seem normal to me."
"I'm not." Makima states, eyes locking onto his. "Not… human."
"What do you mean?" Masato quickly asks, standing up. "If this is about you thinking you're a monster because of your-"
"It's not," she raises a hand, quieting him. "It's like my dreams, or memories, or… I don't know so much, but what I do know is I'm not human. I don't know what I am, but I know I'm not human as deep as my skin and my bones. It's why there's no documentation of me. I think one day I just… appeared in an alleyway. Something completely new."
Nori slumps back into her chair, world shattered. "You're an alien? Aliens are real?"
"Not an alien. It doesn't feel right. Monster doesn't feel right either. Nothing feels right."
"Spirit?" Masato tries. "Tulpa?"
"No," she blandly shakes her head.
"Demon?" Hitoshi attempts. Makima screws up her lips.
"That's… warmer."
"Mogwai. Ogre. Devil. Loch Ness-"
"Devil." Makima sits up with a start. "That's what I am. I'm a devil." When she hears the words coming out of her mouth her mind kicks back into gear, new thoughts unlocking, a new awareness of her body and what she can do. "I'm the control devil. The horseman of conquest. That's what I am. I… I remember hell."
Nori pales. "You remember hell?"
"It's beautiful…" Makima murmurs. "There's other devils, too. We get sent down when we die, and when we die in hell we reincarnate on earth. It's like a neverending field of flowers, with an infinite sky of doors. The air smells like ash and petrichor, and the sun never sets."
"Other devils? There's other devils out there?"
"No…" Makima mumbles, fiddling with her braid. Her eyes hesitantly raise to her family's. "Just… me. I don't know how I got here, but I just appeared. That's not normal. Something went wrong and brought me here, because this doesn't feel the same as the rest of my memories." She fidgets again, meeting Hitoshi now. "My dreams are memories."
"Jesus, this is a lot," he gasps. "Do you… remember everything?"
"I remember things. I don't remember me," she admits. "Everything about who I was or the people I knew is blurry. All I have is feelings. They're… not good ones. I don't want to remember, not if it costs me… me."
"Well… we did say we're here for you no matter what," Masato hums. "It's a lot to take in, but it doesn't really change how we see you. Which, as I say that, it sounds insane, but you're still Makima. We just finally have an explanation for how overpowered you are."
"Yeah, it's a relief," Hitoshi agrees. "Wait, I just realized that if you don't have a quirk and all of your powers are devil magic, does that mean… all devils are as strong as you?"
Makima pauses, before a shaky smug smile graces her features again, and she preens at the excuse to gloat. "No, I'm one of the strongest ones."
"Dammit," he mutters under his breath. "So you're still overpowered."
Standing amidst flames, surrounded by company, the silver-haired woman brandishes her sword. Her enemy lies burning, flames so hot they melt the tarmac. Makima feels it on her skin.
'What is this?'
Rippling muscle, one eye covered with a patch, the other just as dead yet still glimmering with ancient pride, with that subtle human essence somebody who has a heart simply cannot lose.
'Who is she?'
And the woman looks back at Makima. Her companions stand by her side. Makima's… colleagues stand by hers. Three face three. It's not an even fight in the slightest, because the strongest - and Makima just now understands the woman before her is the strongest - faces two men who are far beneath her even in their best-case scenario.
She lifts her sword. What's going on? Like a chain's looped around her Makima's transported between her two colleagues. And the silver-haired woman sees her.
And she drops her sword, hands raised in the air, thoroughly cowed. Her dead eyes and stoic expression betray nothing, but a person with as little left within them as Makima can sniff out even the faintest trace of heart and tear it out root and stem.
Is Makima a threat to her?
Yes.
This, she understands intrinsically, like a great many other things she's come to understand. "We surrender," announces the woman. Her voice is deep, throaty, and pleasant. Her sword clatters on the ground.
'What's going on?'
Makima doesn't understand, and the woman helpfully elaborates. "You can cut off all my limbs if you think I'll run. Just don't kill my women."
Don't…? What? Rage swells in Makima's chest, something she can't name, the dull blade that cuts through her more painfully than anything else can. Jealousy, frustration, resignation, all are dulled to a point. "I'll do anything to save their lives. I'll even lick your shoes."
And this proud warrior woman resigns herself to defilement to save the girls behind her. They mean more to her than anything. Cosmo and Tsugihagi, Makima realizes. Quanxi between them, in front of them, shielding them from danger.
Wouldn't it be nice, to stand in front of the people you care about and utterly prostrate yourself for even a chance to save them? What kind of life must Quanxi have lived, Makima wonders. And she feels no compassion, no comnraderie, no sympathy.
In this last moment, it is only rage and jealousy and misery that fuel the control devil.
'Why do you get to have them?'
Idly, she notices her colleagues are blindfolded beside her. Makima's lips move.
"AAH!"
Makima awakens with a start. Hitoshi's at her side instantly.
The city street and light of the flame melts away to the familiar sight of her bedroom. The window's wide open to let the birds in, and the old TV they replaced sits opposite her bed, a shelf crammed with vintage DVDs beneath it as well as a streaming box. Having been discharged from the hospital, the Shinsous keep an eye on her for the next few days to make sure nothing's amiss with her health. All three of them are worriers. Knowing it helps her sleep more than the oppressive silence, Hitoshi must've put on an old favourite of hers as white noise.
"Makima? What's…" His brain slowly catches up with his mouth. "...Oh. another nightmare, huh? Was it, a… y'know, a… devil memory or something? Still feels surreal," he murmurs.
"It was… something," Makima sighs, clutching her red braid. "I don't remember all of it. A few names. A few faces. Some really bad feelings. It… wasn't good."
"What were you feeling?"
"Absolutely nothing. And at the same time… burning jealousy worse than anything I've ever felt." Makima pushes herself up. "What time is it?"
"Twelveish. We let you sleep in," he replies. "Hey, um… what's it like being a control devil?"
Makima scoffs. "The Control Devil," she corrects. "And it's… lonely, I guess. Seeing people and knowing you aren't the same thing as them, it's… scary."
"Weren't you friends with other devils back in… your own world? Hell?"
"No," she answers instantly, finding the words for that one coming much more easily.
"What are devils like in general?" he probes.
The questionnaire brings a wry smile to her face. Recounting information and dredging it from her subconscious is more fun than the catastrophizing she'd engaged in more recently. "Eclectic. Eccentric.Irreverent. Immature. Obtuse. Eager. Dense. Idiotic. Clever. Evil. Monstrous. Hollow. Unmotivated. Shallow. Cryptic. Ancient. I wouldn't know where to begin or end," she clicks her tongue. "That's not a very good description, is it?"
"It's a perfect description," Hitoshi grins.
"No it isn't, it's entirely contradictory."
"Describe humans, " he counters. She opens her mouth to try, but falters, and his knowing grin grows wider.
"Guess devils aren't so special after all," he chuckles.
"W-What are N-Nori and Masato up to? She deflects. Hitoshi scratches his neck in thought.
"Mom and Dad are downstairs something, not sure."
"Hm." His sister hums thoughtfully, lifting her head the way she does when she borrows a bird's eye. "Strange. They're going through the mail?"
"Yeah, they're… come to think of it, why didn't they come check when they heard the commotion in here?" he muses.
"They look stressed," she mumbles. "I'm going to see what's going on."
The two children leave the room. Nori and Masato sit on the dining table, papers strewn around them and more than a few empty glasses of coffee accompanying them. Their foreheads are scrunched with stress, and when they notice the kids they make a half-baked effort of covering the table. "K-Kids? We're just… don't worry about us. Why don't you two go to the park?" Nori awkwardly chuckles. "We're just doing… taxes. Yes, auditing our taxes."
"You're clearly hiding something," Hitoshi deadpans, walking over and swiping a letter from the table before his dad can intercept. "Court summons courtesy… blah blah… public safety… mm-hmm… possibly face a fine of -!"
He turns back to his father. "Ten million yen?"
"The absolute highest they can charge an individual," he laments. "For 'public quirk use', 'causing mass disturbance', 'gross misuse of quirk against individuals', and 'nonconsensual mental manipulation' on a hundred and fifty people. Their counter-offer is to take her under their official wardship for a probationary period of ten years so they can 'train her to be a less disruptive member of society and implement her powerful quirk for the public good'.
"But she already used it for the public good! They're treating her like some- some villain , or something!"
"Quirks like ours aren't very popular," Nori sadly states, shaking her head. "But to think they'd resort to this… such a headache. I can't believe they'd stoop so low."
Makima wilts. "I-I didn't want to cause you any trouble…" The three of them blink at her, realizing she hasn't spoken in her own defense yet. And despite several days of recovery, she looks… exhausted. Exhausted of emotional breakdowns, massive revelations, bad dreams of memories, conflict, danger, and learning she isn't strictly human. Her eyes are duller, braid more unkempt, shirt not tucked in neatly like usual.
Deep down, the feeling of putting other people in the line of danger to protect herself feels horribly familiar to Makima, even if she cannot name a specific time it's happened. It's the worst kind of deja vu for it to be happening now.
To these strangers, who so kindly took her in at her absolute worst, gave her a home she starved for a family she ached for, who rekindled her heart and made it lighter than it had ever been, who stuck with her through thick and thin even when the revelation came out she wasn't even a human being like them.
And it feels all the more apparent now, looking at the three of them, that they're not going to give her up. Perhaps if she was less aware, she'd plead to be taken instead, to sacrifice herself for their sake, to give herself up for her family.
But that ship has sailed. She's theirs, and they're hers, and the only difference it'll make is if she'll take up arms with them or sulk and give up while they do the fighting for her. Rather than controlling safely from behind, what if Makima leads from the front, instead?
"I want to help," she gulps. "I-I know this is my fault, but I want to stay with you. Y-You're my family! I… I'd rather die than leave! It's only been two years!"
She chokes back tears, and Masato moves to comfort her but she pushes him back yet. "L-Let me finish," she shudders. "I-I know I'm not a person, a-and I know that I'm not the best kid, but I know you'd never give me up! I… I can feel it deeper than anything, even deeper than what I am. Everything good I have, you gave me, a-and maybe it's selfish, but I want more! I… I… Just tell me what to do and I'll do it, if it means keeping us all together!" She sniffles, tears dying down, and manages a soft smile. "I didn't even get to call you Mom and Dad yet…"
"Oh, Makima…" Nori breathes, pulling her in to her and Masato's embrace. "You're already perfect. You just needed to learn to express yourself."
"You never had a chance until now, and they're trying to take it away. We'll never let that happen standing," Masato adds.
"And if you leave all your dumb movies behind it's gonna suck finding somewhere else to put them."
"HITOSHI!" both parents clamour. He chuckles ruefully.
Masato clicks his tongue. "That son of mine… and, Makima?" she looks up slowly. "Not to get technical, but not being human doesn't make you less of a person."
"I feel things less. And I feel things differently," she counters.
"You do not feel things less, you just show them differently," Nori responds.
"And everyone feels things differently," Masato adds. "I'd rather have an authentic Makima than something else any day, even if that something else is still really cool."
"Super cool," Nori adds. "We're the only parents on earth with a devil child."
"It's pretty metal," Hitoshi agrees.
Makima smiles, and snuggles in closer. "You're the coolest Mom and Dad and idiot brother ever. I wish I was just born to you guys. Born human."
"Not all humans are all it's cracked up to be," Hitoshi quips. "You're the only devil I know, so that's a hundred percent positive to… what, like five percent humans? You can't choose to not be a devil but you can still choose to be a pretty cool person. Seems way more important to me."
"Being cool isn't a choice," Masato jokes in return. "She was born cool."
"Cooler than me?"
"Yes."
"HEY!"
"Sorry, dear, but Makima's the one being comforted right now," Nori consoles him half-seriously. "You can be the cool one when you get a court order of your own, okay?"
"'Snoffair. Why does Makima get all the court orders?" Hitoshi grumbles, crossing his arms and doing an exaggerated pout. It's a good old bout of irreverent Shinsou family ribbing, and for a moment the mood is lifted. As Makima extracts herself from her dad's embrace, though, the ever-foreboding feeling of what's coming up hits them again, and the weight on their shoulders is only lightly lessened.
A load shared is still quite the fucking load if only four people bear it, after all.
Nori is the first to get a move on. "Well, we still have to respond to the court summons. We're due in a month. I'm going to start ringing up lawyers, but…" she, despite a flicker of optimism, sucks a breath in through her teeth. "Who's gonna want to go toe to toe with the HPSC for us?"
"You work on that, we've got another letter," Masato groans, picking it up and popping it open with his quirk-produced paper butter knife. "From the… hm ." He sits up straighter than he was doing before, giving it a skim-over as some light returns to his eyes, and he hands it over to Nori, who devours the information within greedily.
"What's the scoop? Who's it from?"
"Ryukyu Agency."