' one last time '

━━━━━

It's still raining.

Big, fat raindrops are still plummeting to their doom and leaving a different scent on the earth. Casting grey upon the town, but Kaede didn't see grey, she saw red.

"Is this the girl?" she asked, turned to Tomoe for confirmation, but it was Dabi who answered.

"She's obviously the girl in the picture, dipshit," Dabi told her and she saw how Tomoe almost fainted at the sight of her shrugging the insult off. Perks of being in Akihisa Yuko's body: managing to be calm once a week.

"Toga's got her blood right?" Tomoe asked, looking like one of those delinquent like kids as he leaned against the wall, blended in with the shadows, but Kaede knew enough to note that he was using the wall for support because he was too weak to stand on his own.

"Yes," Dabi answered and an itch mark popped at Kaede's forehead at the realization that he was actually being respectful towards Tomoe and still treating her like crap. "We just have to inject the drugs to keep her unconscious."

Five healthy fingers started playing with pearl buttons plastered on wooden walls and the owner turned to two boys with an inquisitive gaze. "What are you waiting for?" she asked, playing with the pearl using her pointer and tallest fingers. "Go inject her with the drug. Who has it?
Dabi?"

Aforementioned personage looked at her with that same indifferent expression sending her to a pit of petulance. "I thought you had the drugs."

A chuckle tore itself from her throat and when they were still looking at her as if she was holding the needed object, her two eyebrows furrowed and created one valley in the middle of her forehead. "Wait, you really think I have it?"

"You don't?" that was Tomoe. "I thought Kurogiri gave it to you before we warped. I've developed astigmatism, but it's not that bad."

One hand groped her pocket and she fished the object in question displaying it like a tarpaulin using two fingers from each hand. "It's the picture of the target and the map for the location. No one seriously has it? Even a syringe?"

"I thought the crazy lady would use it," Dabi admitted. "She has all those vials and blades."

It was Tomoe who answered him since Kaede can't be bothered for she had moved on counting the pearls and instead begun counting the number of ugly pens the Shinketsu student had. They were the kinds of pens who had animals pasted at the edge with the overall body casting different pastel colors. There were spotted for leopards, striped for tigers and zebras and even scaly for a snake. It was a monstrosity to behold.

"We have nothing that can't help that," Tomoe had said calmly and Kaede knew that if he wasn't here, terrible things would have happened and from the two people sent to fulfill the mission, only one would return. Maybe the other one would be found at the bottom of a chasm, bitten by insects with their diaphanous wings and sweet venom. "Someone should go back and ask for the needed materials."

Kaede was quick to answer, only taking two seconds after the end of his statement. "Dabi will go."

"The hell I will-!"

Arms looped over an ample chest, red eyes hiding a threatening aura. "We don't have time to argue. Take one for the team, dipshit."

"You selfish shit," he said and Tomoe would have fainted again because Kaede, Kaede who cut off tongues and hearts at the single mistake an enemy would have made in her presence, Kaede who killed people at the most violent way possible because she wanted to, Kaede who thought herself better than the gods. That Kaede who was beautiful and terrible merely smiled at the insult as if it was a trifling thing that didn't even affect her.

"Well that's only proper, isn't it?" she asked, perched on that bedside table, left leg crossed over the other, with a smug look on her face. "You can't honestly expect me to be a paradigm of amity and candor. Self-sacrificing and altruistic. We are villains after all."

That only moved to increase his exasperation at her and he's prepared to lunge, but Tomoe puts a shoulder in between of them. "If you were a hero, Stain would have cleansed you first."

"Good thing I'm not a hero then, yeah?"

"I'm going-"

A sigh escaped pale once pink lips and red irises darted back and forth between the stupid, selfish villains. Ultimately, it darted to the male and the female was triumphant. "Dabi, go get the syringe and the drugs from the base. Let's not waste any more time."

"Tch," Dabi said, but the blue flames in his hands had dissipated. "I'll do it."

"It's my win then!" Kaede cheered on his way outside and one of the hideous pens were tossed towards her eyeballs, but she managed to duck with a smile. The creaking of the door signaling his departure sounded blissful to her ears and when the sound of his footsteps eventually faded, she clutched the colorful assortment of pens in the table and she tossed every single one towards the close doorway.

Teeth gritted in rage, she kicked off her loose shoes and they each were thrown near the doorway. All actions earning an amused smile from Tomoe who had moved to the plush social media themed bed. "I honestly thought you kept your calm this time," he said, chuckled an airy chuckle. "Appearances can be deceiving indeed. Why didn't you just kill him? Even if the gap in power was staggering, you'd find a way. That's what you used to do."

Kaede flipped her back length raven hair off and gruffed a petulant sigh. "Stop the past tense, I still do that," she said and hopped off the table in search for scissors. She was too focused in the problems that were tearing her heart that she'd forgotten how inconveniencing the long hair was. "I just know how to identify my allies this time. Tomura would totally lose his trust and even if I did try to eviscerate that corpse of a human being, you'd stop me. It was the most logical course of action."

Pulling another wooden drawer, Kaede heard another chuckle escape Tomoe's lips. "Maybe you did learn something in that espionage. Sensei would be proud."

Pause. Hands paused in pulling the drawers revealing an array of objects and papers. A pause of a breath and crimson flowers planted on eyes were melting creating a sort of glassy filter. "He wouldn't," she whispered, remembering the way she craved and wished to be with those people. Left her utterly ruined in the process. "He would be disappointed in me." I'm disappointed in me too.

"That's not like you," Tomoe told her, and that was the thing. All these actions and thoughts, shattering revelations and hidden feelings- these were not Kaede. These things did not make up a broken seraph of a girl with a visage cut from ice. "Be a little proud."

How could she when only disgust was left?

Silence. Utter and complete silence and slowly, she pushed the drawer back to its place and let herself choke at the bitterness and hollowness of her soul.

"I apologize, Kai," Tomoe spoke after one minute and eight seconds. "When the mission begun, I grew impatient. That was one of the prime motivators of my thirst for power. I was so anxious. Anxious that Akihisa Yuko would overpower you and you'd be trapped in her soul forever. Anxious that you'd be disgusted with the life that you led after seeing all that goodness and brightness. Anxious that after seeing the stars you'd never want to be part of the darkness again. I'm sorry."

It only took a shake of her head to form a coherent answer, to make her recline against the beside chair and stop searching for scissors intended to slash all those strands of hair away.

"It was better," she said. "It was better that I was sent 'cause let's be honest here Tomoe," she said, turned the chair so she was facing his lying form on the bed. "If we had sent you, with all that goodness in you, the next time you're back, you'd ask me to turn my back on the others and join you in all that eternal wonderful world."

A small smile graced his lips and Kaede could never truly figure out how she had gotten used to such beauty. With that snow white hair like a halo on top of his head, those eyes like blood rubies and a porcelain visage as an object of desire and envy. Tomoe was beautiful and it felt surreal to be reminded that he made her a part of his closest confidantes.

"There's nothing wrong with that Kai," Tomoe said. "There's nothing wrong with choosing good."

"Wrong is subjective," Kaede said, resuming her task of counting the drawers and pens on the Shinketsu student's desk. Was it Caimie?

"This finally feels like a proper conversion," Tomoe said wistfully.

"Yeah, yeah it does," Kaede answered still counting the hideous pens present in the open drawers.

"You know we never really had that conversation I wanted to have," he said. "It's been a week now."

Pause. Again. And Kaede's hesitation prompted her into silence. "It doesn't matter anymore," she said and she hoped again that he wouldn't push it further.

"It was easy to figure out," he said, staring at the ceiling with red eyes again. "It happened to me. Bits and pieces of the person I hijacked clinging to me. I know you're feeling the same way."

She hated how calm he took it, how he didn't understand the complexity of the pain she was feeling.

So Kaede lashed at him, lashed. She bared her deepest wishes to him. Told him of the flowers that she crushed underneath her feet to wake from the nightmares, how her soul and heart was splintering bit by bit and the shards were striking her skin, of the blood flowers she grew from that path of thorns, many things she had to discard and destroy, of halcyon days spent in the presence of warm sunlight, of faux smiles that eventually turned real, and embraces that pulled her out the darkness. A pair of feet standing up and pulling him by the collar as they sat upon the expanse of the velvety bed and the target bound and gagged on the comfort room.

Kaede told him everything from passing fancies to stolen moments, from the first day of a mother who loved her and even the poverty. Of orchids and and she wanted him to be angry for her sake, but Tomoe's world didn't revolve around her and he was free to do what he wanted to do, say what he wanted to say, so imagine the surprise on her face when he said those two words.

"I understand."

Two words, eleven letters with four vowels and seven consonants.

Spoken in lips with crimson streaks of blood and the slight tremble. Hands pried off of a collar and held shoulders instead. Blood. Blood. There's blood on his lips as if a crimson flower has effloresced in his ribcages and the flower petals are escaping through his mouth.

"Tomoe-! Tomoe, I have to get you out of here!"

"It's okay," Tomoe whispered, cupping her cheek with his hands. "There's no more need to fight."

"Tomoe, shut up and let's-"

He shook his head and continued speaking. As if she wasn't screaming, as if he had given up.

"Kai, you can stop this now. This fight you started with yourself," he said. "You can do so much better."

"What-?"

"Kai, my heart has stopped beating," he said, gasping for breath, so unlike the Tomoe who was the epitome of elegance. "I'm only using a quirk to extend its dying heartbeats and- damn it!" A loud cough interrupted his words midway and his fingers clutching her shoulder squeezed.

"That's right!" she yelled, clutching his shoulders. "Hijack my body for the meantime then we'll find you a suitable-"

"I promised, Kai," he said. "I'll never use that quirk again. After I put your consciousness back in your body, I swore to never use that quirk again. I got greedy, because I wanted more power. More power so that I could be stronger. Impatient for results. Strong enough that I won't have to use this quirk ever again."

Tomoe looked at her and there was that look close to death, the slow curve of his lips, the fading glimmer in his eyes, breath ominous as if it was the last. That slow, lingering look in his eyes as though everything was going to end and he was looking at this earthly desires for the finale. That proud bearing as though he wasn't afraid of death, but in the end, they all succumbed to it. That wish to tie all the dreaded knots and she thinks that it's unfair. That seventeen years is too short a life. Two hundred and four months is extremely unfair and his life can be led for so much longer than an approximate of six thousand two hundred and five days.

"Tomoe..." she whispers and there are tears falling from her eyes. And all she can say is his name, because she cannot say goodbye, because the farewell meant that she is coming to terms with his departure and that seventeen years of a life is fair. It isn't. It isn't. It will never ever be fair. "Tomoe..."

"It's going to be over. Just a few seconds, and I'll be"- a cough escapes his mouth and he says the final unmistakable word- "dead, and I wish it were a little longer, but I've cheated life for far too long that's why I'll have to set things straight now."

"No," she says and tries to wipe the blood on his cheeks with her thumbs only for it to spread and create a sickly blush upon his pale skin.

"Ever since I was a child, I always wanted to be strong," he begun and she shakes her head.

"You can't do this," she said. "I'll listen to every single word you have to say, but it doesn't have to be now. It can be next week or next month. Or next year, after another revolution of the earth. Please. Please, Tomoe."

"That strength, I craved it. I was desperate. Really desperate so when sensei found me and told me I had power within me, I came with him," he said. "My parents were scientists for sensei. They were two of his trusted sides, but then All Might captured them and sent them to Tartarus. I wanted to be strong that day, I wanted to and there was this hero I almost killed with my quirk. I choked him with his bare hands, but sensei arrived and told me that I shouldn't waste my time with small fry."

Another plethora of blood escaped his lips and it marred her palms, but she never let go. "That evening, I experienced the first backlash of my quirk. The horror, memories that weren't mine all piling up above me and threatening to collapse," and she still held on. "And it did, it almost drove me insane. That's why I usually omit that story, choose to forget it. For years, I used my quirk to deceive and kill. I followed the orders, the desire of my quirk to wreak chaos. I am powerless, I realized. It is the quirk that's strong."

"I continued to use it, because it wanted to be used. I am a pastiche of different people and feelings, because my quirk made me. I hate it. I absolutely despise this quirk and even when my parents were captured by All Might, I didn't hate him as much as my quirk. Even when Tomura always managed to defeat me in sparring matches when we were little, when sensei preferred him over me, I came to terms with him and learned to trust him. I can never say the same for my quirk. Even when you came, with your mad rage for power and pain, and you were everything that I never wanted to be, I learned to love you like you were my sister. I will never love this quirk. Sensei made me a monster, but I never blamed him. Because in the end, it was me who killed those people. I can never say the same for my quirk."

She never knew about this. This was new and she wanted to turn back time. To those moments of hating him so much and wishing for him to disappear. She'd change all those and hug him close.

"I will completely reject my quirk until I die. That way, my life will be mine until the end. I'm done being a pawn to my power and others. This time, it's mine. That's why, I will come to terms with Death today." He pulled her close and pressed a kiss to her forehead. "Thank you for everything. And tell Tenko this"- Mizuki Kaede, Shimura Tomoe and Shimura Tenko. Saying that name makes her feel as if they're back to just the three of them, but the difference is so vast now-"Our life is ours to lead, Kai. Always remember."

And with those words, the final caress on her cheek that made delphiniums bloom between the cracks of her heart, he was gone.

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- s a t u r a t i o n