Controlee

89. Visitation

Rule 116: Second chances are fine, but a third and fourth, when all it's doing is hurting you, it's time to let them go.

"My job is to do what's best for Otsuka Emiko. Considering everything I've heard, there is no choice. Otsuka will stay with Mr Aizawa and Mr Yamada, and I will be placing any decisions on visitation rights in the hands of Otsuka Emiko herself. Dismissed."

***

Otsuka quite liked trees. Trees were such beautiful things. Their colours were always so vibrant, their trunks so solid and sure. The only thing a tree had to fear was a storm.

Ok, maybe certain animals too, but only when the tree was young. Once a tree was grown, the only thing to fear was a storm.

And chainsaws. Probably normal saws too. And axes.

She liked when they were green. The greens were always such lovely shades. And now autumn was kicking in and the world was being bathed in an orange glow, the roads lined in the same colour.

The thing she liked most about trees was that trees didn't have to deal with the mess called human life. Well, ok, they had to deal with like, human life being idiotic and cutting them down, but they didn't have to deal with living human life.

Otsuka had to deal with living human life and, honestly, it was looking like she'd been the victim of some major false advertising. Ten out of ten, would not recommend.

"It's like Pavlov's dogs or something, wait, no, that's not even-" Otsuka shook her head. "All For One trained him out of thinking about anything he didn't want him thinking about with that device."

"It's the reverse of teaching a dog new tricks with a treat," Yamada suggested.

Having never seen that happen herself, Otsuka nodded, because it sounded close enough. "Even just trying to remember his childhood activates that device, and that thing is a lot more powerful than a device that size has any right to be."

"So, what you're saying," Aizawa said, likely about to put her long and winding explanation into a few succinct words because that was one of his many brilliant skills, "is Shigaraki Tomura, head of the League of Villains, is a brainwashed controlee?"

Otsuka nodded, swallowing back bile. This litany of could've been her, could've been her, could've been her had been running through her head like one of those electric banners spinning through the news headlines on the front of a building, except the headline wasn't changing, it was just those words, over and over.

Yamada took her hand, expression apologetic before he'd even started speaking which was never a good sign. "And you're sure you're not maybe projecting a bit? Jumping to conclusions?"

"What? No." Um, maybe. She hadn't really been able to get it out of her head since meeting with All For One, how easily she and Shigaraki could be in each other's places. It made her sick to think of how many places their stories matched— no, it didn't make her sick, and that should've scared her more, instead it just made her ache. So maybe a part of her kept thinking what if that had been me? If she'd had her head messed with, her memories kept from her, if she'd been raised as a killer with rage for miles rather than being taught that the needs of the many outweighed the needs of the few, she wanted to believe that someone would trust that she could be better.

Otsuka wasn't going to give up on Shigaraki. All For One had made him into the monster she'd always feared being. But maybe she could unmake him and leave the pieces in his hands so he could rebuild himself as he wanted to be, untampered by the manipulations of anyone else. Wasn't that what Aizawa and Yamada were trying to do for her?