Moonlight | Aizawa & Yamada

chapter xxviii.

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"Wanna feel your body close."
 -Isabel LaRosa, eyes don't lie
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The three of them never mentioned what happened in the restaurant.

Athena could feel the tension when she was alone with them; lingering hands on her waist and her lower back. Never unwelcome, but never enough. She couldn't help but lean into them, thinking about what Kayama had told her all those weeks ago.

"You deserve to be happy."

Athena was tempted to tell them the truth. That she had grown to love both Shota and Hizashi's company. That she had grown to love them both. But their relationship together kept Athena away.

She shoved the thoughts farther back into her mind. The raid was one week away. It would be covert; a small team, given the fact that they had no clue how much of the police division was inside the pockets of Aku.

Athena would bring them in through her quirk, deposit them at the upper floor and they would comb their way down. Nezu and a small team of trusted cops would provide backup and work their way through the lower floor after Athena and the others distracted the members of the Ring.

Athena would be the bait to keep Aku busy.

The truth was that Athena had never seen Aku's quirk at its fullest power. She had felt it; lingering in her mind and sapping her of his strength. It was emotion-based; the more negative emotions around him, the stronger he was.

Athena never feared him. She was never depressed about her situation.

She was always angry. Full of it. Enough to the point where Aku got practically high on energy around her. He lived off of it. Her rage at what had happened to Shiharu.

Athena took a deep breath.

Shiharu was a memory she had buried far down. She didn't think about her time in the ring, but now- now it was flooding back, overwhelming her. She had forgotten the hopelessness of it all. Kids who were trapped in the rank arena and concrete walls. The stench of urine. The stench of blood and death.

Shiharu, who had stood across from her in that god-forsaken metal cage, was the only friend she had ever made in the ring. The kid she had considered her own brother, shaking in anger and rage that felt so displaced in his gaze.

She had prayed, for months, that he would never face her in the ring. But there he had been, gaze feral and burning. He had fought so brutally she didn't have a choice. He was going to kill her and she was too close to being free.

So she killed him.

The only life after her bet with Aku that she had willingly taken inside the ring. Two hundred wins in, and Shiharu was the only one to die by her hands. She had been killed before, but when she was young and scrappy and had no other choice, or when Aku had authorized her for hit missions. She had the strength. The smarts and the skill to not take lives.

And Shiharu had still died.

She had no idea why he had gone mad, why he had gone from her little brother to a fanatic who loathed her, just like the other kids of the ring.

She supposed it was a way for Aku to break her will. A last attempt at keeping her in the ring with her eighteenth birthday on the horizon. It didn't work.

And now, she was going back.

Shota met her on the roof of a warehouse on 20th Street. She glanced at the crowd behind him.

Hizashi glanced at Athena and she nodded back hesitantly. If she could help take down this ring, she'd finally be free of Aku and his grasp.

She wouldn't have to hide.

Despite the crippling anxiety of all the ways this could go wrong, the heart-pounding feeling of hope ripped through Athena's lungs.

She handed a pair of goggles to Kayama, Shota, and Hizashi each, along with an oxygen capsule. It would be enough to get them through the front door and lead them to the uppermost floor. They placed the small capsule between their teeth and pressed the seal down on the goggles before grabbing ahold of Athena.

With a deep breath, Athena tugged them to the lower layer.

This part was easy enough. She could tell the others were struggling to focus and not marvel at the lower level. Even though Shota had already been with her in the dimension, he had been blindfolded and disoriented from the motorcycle crash. Athena took a second to mourn her beloved bike before pulling the group back to reality.

Kayama tugged the goggles down to rest on her collarbone and spat out the oxygen capsule.

"That was interesting." She hummed, raising a brow at Athena.

Hizashi nodded. "Show me more later." He winked at her and the others turned and disappeared down the hallway.

Athena teleported back to a point she had dropped on one of the lower floors.

Stepping out of the closet she had rolled it into, Athena was greeted by the roar of a large crowd of cheering men and women.

She moved towards the ring edge, the balcony overlooking the floor of the fight.

Two teens were scrapping at each other. Their forms were sloppy, but their quicks were viscous. The shorter one, a scraggly girl, looked to have a minor strength quick, maybe a reinforcer with the way the ground chipped every time she slammed a fist into the ground.

The taller one, a thin boy seemed to have a manifestation type, small blue rings shimmering into existence around his legs. They both had a close combat-type quirk, which wasn't how they normally played out.

They'd match a long distance to a close distance, to make them more interesting.

Athena tried not to stare at the thick black collars adorning the teenagers' necks.

"Welcome home."

Athena turned to see Aku, flanked by three bodyguards. Before, Athena had the upper hand of knowledge. She knew the entire ring inside out; the quirks, the hours of each guard, names and families, and anything she could scrap together to keep herself on top.

Now, she was a sheep in a wolf's den.

"Aku." She greeted. His eyes crinkled with a smile that did nothing to hide the clear distaste for her lack of respect. He signaled with his head and Athena followed after him, moving to stand by his side as she did so long ago.

"What brought you back?" He hummed, eyeing her as they moved through the crowd of cheering betters.

"I don't know." She answered, keeping her gaze straight ahead. Aku knew her like the back of his hand, probably better than she did herself at one point.

But she had grown, and she was far stronger than he remembered.

"Maybe I missed the fight." She spoke softly.

Aku nodded with a faint smile, his teeth like vicious fangs. "Can't take the ring out of the girl, can you?"

Athena didn't answer. She knew better than to speak her true mind. She eyed the ring as they walked. It was lined with sharp wiring that glittered with a strange green glow, so different from the haggard, bent barbed wires from her times in the ring.

This was what had happened when she left.

The layout was different too; still inherently the same building underground, but things had moved around like they were meant to confuse Athena in case she returned. New faces, but that wasn't unexpected after hiding for eight years.

The buzz of her earpiece reminded her that Nezu was on standby.

That she wasn't alone this time.