•Manipulation• [BNHA × Male!OC]

Chapter 176: STRANGER DANGER

Hi there, Ryo again...

WHERE THE HELL AM I?!

Is what I'd like to ask you, but you wouldn't know either, so lets backtrack a bit.

The last thing I remember was being put under by that Doctor bastard.

I'd fully expected to never see the light of day again.

Yet here I was.

I'd been wandering this place for the past hour.

It looked like what would be a busy intersection, except it was completely deserted. The sky above was pitch black and the streetlamps were sparse, one directly overhead of me.

Every time I walked too far in one direction or the other, I would blink and end up back here.

"Where... even am I?" I sigh, looking around the empty street.

I crouched to the floor, hugging my knees.

'Is this what they call purgatory...?'

"Don't be daft, we're in Hyogo."

The voice makes me bolt to my feet. 

Glancing around, I see a boy a few inches shorter than me. 

He looked lean, like he didn't eat much.

He had white hair and yellow eyes just like me.

In fact...

"Are you... me?!" I gasp.

The other me crosses his arms, looking up at me.

"Amateurs..." he sighed.

Before I could retort, he walks closer to me.

"You can call me Nora, consider me the physical manifestation of the past you," talk about an infodump. It seemed Nora wasn't one for wasting time.

"Since the extent of my memories reach up to when you took over, I'm effectively 15 years old."

"Oh," I hum as nonchalantly as one can when meeting their 15 year old self, "so where are we right now?"

He huffed.

"I was getting to that," he shook his head, "we're in my earliest memory, just shut up and watch."

My brow twitched.

I grab the boy and mess with his hair.

Somehow, knowing this was me, I knew exactly how to piss myself off.

"Y'know, for someone younger than me, you're being awful rude!" I chide, tugging at the white strands.

"HEY! STOP!" He whined as I held him tighter.

"I will, if you promise to be more polite!"

He whacked at my hands before relenting.

"Fine! Just put me down!" he squirmed.

"What's the magic words?" I grin down at his discontent face.

"PLEASE!" he said like he was spitting poison.

'Well, I guess that's something.'

I set the boy down and he goes straight into fixing his hair.

"Seriously...!" he seethed, tugging at tangled strands.

Feeling a little bad, I shuffle over and start trying to comb through his hair.

"Hey-!" he tries to resist but I pull him back.

"If you tug it's gonna hurt worse," I warn, pulling apart two locks of hair, "besides, I have plenty of experience with my own hair."

He gives me a look before turning to face forward once more.

"...you're a strange one," he grumbled.

Ignoring his words, I carry on.

"So, this is a memory? Of what?" I ask.

He points forward, as if repeating his order to 'shut up and watch' without saying anything.

Slowly, in the distance, I see a glowing light steadily approach.

Finally, a car.

It was a glossy black and silent, passing through the night like a specter.

But just as the car is about to pass through our intersection, something darts out of the bushes.

"Wait-!" I gasp but it's too late, the small creature collides with the car.

But instead of speeding over it, the car comes to an abrupt halt.

It hadn't crashed, it just... stopped.

'As if someone had taken all the kinetic energy-!'

The creature remains unharmed, standing by the hood of the car.

Looking closer, its dressed in rags and has a mop of white hair.

"That's us," Nora nodded at the child.

He had to be just out of kindergarten, maybe seven or eight years old. He looked shaken, of course any child would after almost getting hit by a car.

Then, the car's driver's seat door pops open, out stepping a frantic man clad in a suit.

"What on earth?! Hey kid! What did you do!?" he yelled at the child who could only look up at him with large yellow eyes brimming with tears.

"Now, now," a low voice rumbles as a man steps out of the back seat.

"There's no need to be so harsh to a kid," I recognized that voice, and that freshly pressed suit.

'All for One...!'

He walked up to the boy, crouching down to meet him eye to eye.

"Let me see, are you hu-" he stopped.

His eyes blow wide before he grabs the child by the face. The kid yelps as he's tugged forward.

I grit my teeth.

This was just a memory, there was nothing I could do.

"Well, well..." All for One sounded shocked.

He quickly released the kid and stood back up.

"Where are your parents, little one?" he asked in a sweet voice that made me want to cut my ears off.

The boy looked to the floor, picking at his nails.

"...they're... gone..." he finally whispered after a while.

It was obvious just from the look of him that he'd been on his own for a while, his white hair stained with dirt, torn clothes and bare feet.

"But the nearest city is miles away," the villain thought aloud, looking around, "did your parents drive out here and leave you?"

The boy flinched, then nodded slowly.

"...I'm cursed..." he mumbled, curling his hands around each other.

All for One's eyes flit back onto the small boy.

"I have a boy your age at home," he suddenly said, reaching a hand out.

"How would you like to play together?"

If I hadn't known any different, I would have thought this man kind.

But as he smiled down on the child, his eyes were devoid of affection.

The timid boy looks up at the man with wide eyes.

Then slowly, he places a small hand covered in scrapes into the villain's.

This was how I first met All for One.