salted soil.

THIS GOD-AWFUL WORLD

i.

It's a little odd, FIRST thinks, watching ALL FOR ONE get pulled into the van. He can stop a smile from working it's way on his face. There are a group of heroes about five meters ahead of him, and NINTH and his friends are hidden behind the wall. It's a little odd.

One of the heroes―Best Jeans or something―walks up to him slowly, like he's feral. He guess he is, was, maybe he will be, too. He wonders, blankly, if they'll stuff him into that four-white-walls nightmare his brother had called s sanctuary. To keep him in and everyone else out. Shutsu doesn't really think about it, his head hurts, he might be bleeding.

RUN FIRST, RUN, YOU HAVE TO―

He can't move, he's too tired. His thumbs hurt, he lost a tooth, he thinks. One in the back. FIRST wonders if something is wrong with him, if his body is his. He can't quite feel it, his head is fuzzier than it was when he was nine一when he一

ALL FOR ONE haunts him, he thinks. It makes his throat hurt and his nose sting. His arm is throbbing, but that could be because of the hand holding his arm一it hurts, he thinks. It hurts; his arm may be broken, like NINTH, NINTH keeps using ONE FOR ALL too harshly, THIRD can't keep him safe forever and SECOND is a blurry thing with sharp eyes and sharper teeth. FIRST thinks, FIRST wonders why一the throbbing in his arms are gone, the hands are gone, too. Placed with this strips of metal, tied to a table. FIRST thinks something is wrong, nobody has ever chained him literally一except for his father, but his father is no person at all.

"Hello, my name is一"

"Tsucuachi Noamasa." He says, and he doesn't know where he's heard that name before, but he knows it well, like he's said it in a diffrent life. "Tsucuachi Noamasa."

"Yes. What's your name?"

"First." FIRST says. "My name is First."

"Truth." Noamasa―Tsucuachi? FIRST isn't quite sure, his head is pounding. Sweat pads under his palms, pours out―

―he wonders again, again―

―what was he wondering about?

"How do you know the villain at Kamino?"

"He's," FIRST―or is he someone else? He went by a different name, once, didn't he? "my brother. He's my brother."

"Truth." Tsucauchi Noamasa says, why does he keep saying it? "Do you know his name?"

"Yes." Not-FIRST says, he's stuck in the wrong body. Like second, maybe, he wonders―

"Shigaraki nii-chan, Hi-sa-shi. Ōnii-kun." Tsucuachi Noamasa says something, Not-FIRST wonders what it is he's talking to. "D'ya think I'll be allowed to punch nii-chan?"

"What?" Tsucuachi Noamasa says.

"Can I punch nii-chan?" Not-FIRST returns.

"No, your brother won't be available for you to punch." Tsucuachi Noamasa says, pinching up nose. "He's in Tarturus."

Not-FIRST thinks about it, Aizawa-san said that Tarturus was only for the criminals that high-end prisons can't hold, they'd break out too easy. Not-FIRST blinks. Then, he laughs. Loud. Loud and clear, sharp like a bullet.

"Oh kami," He says, a laugh in his voice; loud and shrill and taunting, a mockery of what he's almost sure it's supposed to sounds like. "you vaulted him."

Tsucuachi Noamasa pales and presses a button. Not-FIRST wonders what for. Though, he supposes it must be in the ordinary. Tsucauchi Noamasa seems to know it second handed.