Am I Too Evil? [MHA Isekai]

"I've been wondering, Rimi..." Walking through the mansion's halls with Rimi in tow, Izumi's curious mind receives the courage to ask a lingering thought. "You killed the person who attacked the zoo, didn't you?" 

Caught off guard by the question, Rimi nearly stops in her tracks. 

Recalling the slaughtering of Yuuichi, which replayed clearly in her mind, brought her no joy. It was the day she believed she created an irreparable scar on her friendship with Yuudai. 

"Mhm," she nods, preferring to get through the conversation as quickly as possible. When it comes to Izumi, it's impossible to avoid chatter. "Why're you asking?"  Her arid tone tells Izumi that she's walking across a thin line. Apprehensive, she continues.

"...How do you feel about it? I know it's not... normal... killing." 

Internally, the child wanted to roll her eyes, but this would be too desensitized, even for her. Taking a life was far from an eye-rolling matter. She wanted to roll her eyes because out of all of the people who'd have asked her how she felt about killing a person, it'd be the 8-year-old child who she'd recently comforted.

"Bad. I feel bad about it." 

"Didn't he do really bad stuff? I know bad people go to jail, but my mom used to say that a lot of bad people deserved to... well... die." 

"Maybe, but I still feel bad. Everyone has a family or someone waiting for them. I'm not a cop or a judge, so I shouldn't be taking people's lives."

"..."

"By the way, is this something we should be talking about? Our parents would get mad at us for talking about death and stuff."

Izumi peaks away briefly, avoiding the continuous eye contact she'd been making with Rimi. "I don't think my parents would care."

Such a conversation was far too mature for children to have unsupervised. They should've been speaking about superheroes and comics, maybe dolls and celebrities. Instead, the world around them had these two children talking about taking another person's life and the cruelty of their reality. 

"Yeah? My dad would probably scold my ears off. My mom might be more concerned than anything." Smiling softly, she remembers her time at her house. The time she'd spent with Marble, Pearl, Madoka, and her parents—time that'll never be how it once was.

"Your dad sounds nice."

"What makes you say that?" This is an unprecedented observation, in Rimi's eyes. "N-Not to say that he isn't nice, but..."

"Hm? You don't like your dad?" Sensing her friend's reservation, Izumi quickly jumps to conclusions. 

Rimi isn't blind enough to let this assumption linger any longer. "I love my dad! I just... I don't know, it's weird. He's there for me a lot, but I can't help but prefer my mom."

Stifling a laugh, "You're a mama's girl!" Izumi teases. Her words struck precise nerves throughout Rimi's body, making the red-streaked child blush in embarrassment, a reaction Izumi didn't think she could get from the seemingly desensitized girl so easily.

"I'm not a mama's girl! I just like my mom more, that's all!" Bravely admitting which parent you like more is not unfound in children! Haunting the dreams of every parent is the scene of their child picking their partner over them! Somewhere in the world, Koji Yonamine is sneezing! 

"That's a mama's girl!" Izumi replies, scarcely evading the swinging hand approaching her. Her stifled laugh now turns into live laughter, her legs moving in a blur to escape the sprinting Rimi behind her in a scene they'd replicated much in their training.

Their running leads them to a dark hallway, familiar to Izumi, but foreign to Rimi, who skids to a halt a few feet away from Izumi. "Where is this?"

Unlike the rest of the brilliant, sunlit mansion, this section lacked windows and any clear lighting besides candles placed about here and there. 

"Sorry, I brought us too deep into the house. I've never been past here, the workers don't let me through." Frowning, she turns around to lead her friend elsewhere. 

The hand that reaches out and catches Izumi by her arm is the same one that brings her beside Rimi, preventing her from walking off. "As far as I'm concerned, this is your house, since your parents don't come around much. Your butlers and maids can't just stop you from exploring it."  The young Yonamine was almost offended by the thought of employees of her own business stopping her from examining her storage. She applies this same principle to the scenario before her.

"The candles were lit recently, we might as well explore since no one will be back for a while," Rimi's observations were sharp. Small details weren't hard for her to notice, refined during her years of killing. It came with its pros, stalking down would-be victims and watching for traps or hidden cameras; she'd learned to analyze.

Something about this place piqued Rimi's interest, her blood was pumping through her in exhilaration. "To uncharted lands!" She proudly declares, likely louder than she intended. Forcing Izumi into the passenger seat of her own endeavor, Rimi marches ahead into the darkness of the hallway—one far longer than it seemed.

The wooden floorboards of the hallway pound beneath them with every step. If they were planning on being discreet, their plan fell flat before it could begin. 'There must now be anyone nearby,' Rimi deduces. 'That's concerning.'

Continuing the echo, dancing to the rhythm of the children's feet, the noise from the floor becomes louder the deeper they continue down the lengthy hall. They continue until the footsteps become still.

Neither of the two had stopped walking until a while after Rimi realized the lack of footsteps, as the texture of the floor seemingly changed beneath their feet. When she looked down, the cleanly shaven floorboards stared back at her, unchanged. 'Whoever built this place is a creep,' she confidently declares, then turns to look at Izumi who'd drawn her attention.

"This... it wasn't this long before." Puzzled dots spawn over Rimi's head. Izumi continues, "This hallway wasn't this long when I last saw it."

It isn't until after Rimi fully understands Izumi's words that she turns to realize how deep they'd gone down the hallway. The candles that once filled the hall were nowhere to be seen, making the presence of light all the more jaw-dropping. There is no source of light in sight.

There are no candles. There are no rekindled flames. There are no flashlights. There are no lightbulbs. There are no windows.

'Where is this light coming from, then?' Both of the girls had similar thoughts at the same time. They found themselves in an impossible situation. There they stood, in the middle of the hallway, with no end or beginning to their walks in sight.

Unwilling to proceed without confirmation of her safety, Rimi announces their plan. "We'll both run in different directions at the same time," it only makes sense that she is the one facing the way they came. "Whenever you're ready."

Granting Izumi the right to decide when they begin running is a courtesy, allowing the girl to catch on to the plot if she hadn't already. Based on how quickly she said 'now', there wasn't the slightest need for this courtesy.

The wind picks up as both girls move in the opposite direction of each other. Rimi moves in the direction they'd been coming from, and Izumi continues deeper down the hallway at a pace only achievable by her or the vector-bending child behind her. 

At the speed that the two were moving, crossing a far-flung distance should've been possible in seconds. 

When they two stop, and hear the sound of panting behind the other, they pivot immediately. "You're joking," Izumi is bewildered, unsettled by the lack of distance that'd been made between her and Rimi. "It's like we didn't move at all..." 

'I'm positive that we made space between each other, Izumi's footsteps were far away. How did we end up back where we started?' Their location is clear by the footsteps staining the almost marble-textured, hardwood flooring from their initial sprints.

'Screw it, I'll just break a hole through the wall...' Wind builds up in front of Rimi's hand, but it is soon dispersed.

Placing her hand on the girl's shoulder, Izumi shakes her head. "Pinnley and Ms. Inaba will get upset." The maid who woke up Pinnley, Ms. Inaba, was the same maid responsible for waking up Rimi every morning for her training. Of all the maids in the manor, Rimi's come to hate her the most, in spite of her transparent indifference to Rimi's presence. The serpent-bottomed woman reminded the child of her mother in some aspects, she likely had children of her own.

Out of concern for her safety in the instance where Pinnley and the maid brave enough to drag her from her bed in the morning were both scolding her, Rimi took the safest route and asked Izumi if she had any ideas about how they could find their way back.

"Let's just keep walking. We could keep walking straight ahead together just fine before." Izumi's idea was not flawed to Rimi. It was a sensible way of thinking: if they could walk forward before, they could walk forward now.

With a resigning sigh, "Alright. I'll follow your lead then, Captain Izumi." Giving a jocose remark that makes Izumi laugh, the two proceed deeper down the endless hallway.

* * * *

"Alright," she says, staring down the continuous incline. "I'll admit it, you were spot on." After ambling across the halls, the girls find themselves staring down a staircase. Black vines ran down the sides of the staircase, throbbing in a manner that convinced Rimi that they were alive. "This is frickin' terrifying." The flowing movements of the vines resemble pumping veins, encouraging more hesitation from her.

"It smells like a corpse flower." Scrunching her nose, Izumi fruitlessly turns her head away from the stairs. "By the way, is now a good time to bring up your eyes?" Shifting the haunting atmosphere momentarily, Izumi mentions Rimi's golden eyes. Her pupils were dilated naturally, much like a feline's, a detail most didn't bother questioning.

Because so much time had passed without anyone mentioning it, Rimi didn't think much of it herself. "Huh? What's wrong with my eyes?"

"Nothin', sorry." 

Eyeing her from the corner of her eyes, Rimi does not press further because of the problem before the two. She makes a mental note to bring this up later.

The first several steps they take down the stairs are the hardest. Paranoia heightens their senses, alerting them of the constant movement of the vein-like vines rolling down the walls. There is no railing for the staircase, but there are corners every thirty steps or so.

Once the two stopped focusing on the gross movements of the wall, they could freely venture down the stairs. There was a lack of darkness, although there was no source for light to pass into the stairwell. Izumi flinched once in a while, claiming that she'd been hearing voices around them. 

'It's like we've stumbled on a haunted attraction.' Feeling her stomach tense, Rimi thought about the absurdity of the space they'd entered. She'd seen intestines and the sight of disfigured humans, yet the fear of the unknown had overwhelmed her more than anything else. 'A place like this shouldn't exist without—' Before she can finish her thought, the two are alerted by the sound of what sounds like a closing door beneath them.

Crouching, Rimi springs into a sprint before Izumi can say something. Carrying herself with her quirk, she makes all the sharp turns necessary to speed down the staircase. 'I'm not taking my time down this freaky horror scene,' so she didn't. 

Roughly twenty seconds passed before Rimi's feet planted at the bottom of the stairwell, signified by the beacons of light she saw connecting to a connecting tunnel. Compared to the dimness of the lights that'd been provided on the stairs, it felt like she'd returned to a man-made structure.

Finally, Izumi landed on the ground behind her, having used her quirk to catch up with her friend. "Don't just leave me without saying anything!" The girl shouts, the sweat on her face a sign of her anxiety, rather than fatigue. She'd have continued more if she hadn't seen the tunnel in front of her, which was in the shape of a square corridor, with a steel-plated door at the end of it.

"You've got an odd basement," stepping into the corridor in a carefree manner, Rimi's eyes scan the clean marble flooring, and the cement walls, and finally they land on the rectangular lights secured into the ceiling. "You should call a priest to cleanse the evil out of your home."

Izumi doesn't reply.

The door is thick, proven when Rimi's small hand taps it and barely a sound is released. "Got a key or something?" 

Again, Izumi remains quiet, only shaking her head in response.

"Right. Mood-lightening time is over." Izumi's silence proves the solemnity of their situation. They'd been lured here by someone or something, and this was easy for Rimi to accept thanks to the fantastical state of the modern world, where the average citizen is born with a unique ability or mutation. This couldn't be the case for Izumi, who was oblivious to this place under her nose for as long as she could remember being able to think.

"The door's thick, I don't think I can knock it down. Can your quirk do anything?" 

Izumi shakes her head, breaking her silence to answer. "I'd have to be able to move it in the first place. This won't budge." To further support this, she pushes her hands against the door with all her might. Of course, her child-sized body couldn't produce enough strength to move the door whatsoever. Nevertheless, Rimi tries to support her with her own pushing as well, believing herself to have the physical edge over Izumi.

Whatever edge Rimi thought she had didn't matter, as the door didn't budge an inch.

Saving their strength, they cease their futile attempts after a few seconds. "There's some kind of scanner on the right wall," Rimi points to it with her finger. An electrical device's screen was there, a red light barely visible behind the black lens at the top of it. 

"Maybe it's like those spy movies where it scans your eye!" Izumi is the first of the two in front of the scanner, crouching down to level her eye with the red light. 

"I doubt it's like the—"

The trembling and loud churning of wires and steel assault her ears when the red light from the scanner turns green.

Slowly, its powerful sound makes the children's bodies tremble, and the door opens. Behind it, Rimi and Izumi find a scene that is more than concerning. It's illegal. "What the fuck?" Swearing out loud, Rimi's face twists in disgust as she enters the room—the laboratory. 

Tubes of green liquids with men, women, and children are stored away on the far sides of the room. Operating tables are spread randomly, cleaned of the blood still tucked away on the floor beneath. Men and women alike wearing surgical masks and white lab coats turn to face the entrance where the children enter from. This place is by no means abandoned.