Am I Too Evil? [MHA Isekai]

"Ms. Suga, I'm on your right." The male's upbeat voice drew the attention of the black-haired woman from the blackened space in her vision. Her right eye was present between nasty, healing scars—but it'd never worked since six years ago.

"Sorry, I couldn't see you. Remember, you have to come in front of me. I won't tolerate your jokes again, Mr. Konno." The glass-eyed female scolds the small-statured boy. He'd pulled this same joke several times this school year alone. "The children I tended to in daycare were more considerate than you, a middle schooler."

Dramatically, the brown-haired student's fingers grip the breast pocket over his heart, recoiling in feigned pain. "Guh! Your words are too cold, Ms. Suga! How do you expect to get married with a coating of ice around you?"

"The same way you expect to graduate if you keep playing the class clown, Mr. Konno." Many laughs reach throughout the rest of the occupied classroom, students leaning in their seats to watch Harumi Konno's routine comedy attempt. 

One student yells, "Give it a break, Haru! You're out of your league, she's a comedic mastermind if you didn't know!" He was a tall, lanky boy with the horns of a jackalope poking from his forehead.

"Our school's starting up early, and you're already falling to the back of the line. You're an idiot!" In the laughing crowd, one serpent-headed female chides her classmate with whom she'd spent several school years.

The classroom's chatter eventually quieted when their teacher addressed the entire class and their rowdiness. No faces shied away from embarrassment when their tentative teacher acknowledged their immature habits. 

From then on, the rest of the class was silent.

Ane Suga was in her thirties now, no longer the young woman she'd been during her time working at a daycare in Higure, a city near Musutafu. Her time spent there was wonderful, getting to know the children and their families. There was no child that she liked more than another.

It took her three years to muster the willpower to work around children, compromising to put her expertise to use with teenagers.

The villain's attack on the daycare left her utterly traumatized. It left her without an eye. Most importantly, it left children without their lives and families without their children.

Since then, she's lived with haunting memories and half the world gone from her vision.

Ocular prosthesis—she had a glass eye in the place of her right.

In this world of fantastical wonders, where members of society had the power to reshape the world, fixing her lost eye was impossible. No matter how much they grew and changed, humans would always be fragile. Evolution was not kind to them; it was an unforgiving guardian that ensured their survival for millions of years—not without fees.

Phantom pains surge through the right side of her face. Winching in illusive pain, she slumps and covers her fake eye.

Students look in concern, some standing from their seats in a hurry at the familiar sight of their teacher's painful expression. She stops them with the raise of her hand, overcoming the familiar sensation.

After class ended, the serpent-headed student approached her with an unreadable face. "Ms. Suga, I know it might sound crude, but I wanted to ask you something about the incident." The other students had emptied into the halls in a hurry, desperate to go home and chat or play video games—anything but their homework.

She doesn't say anything. The sway of her hand tells the girl that she may ask what is on her mind.

"You didn't get saved by the hero visiting the daycare, did you? The stories say Ringtune died honorably, but they had to do a closed-casket funeral for him... I think that's a load of bull that they're spewing to hide the truth of what happened." The serpent-headed girl was always curious and skeptical about things. "You lost an eye and a bunch of kids died, and the media's refusing to talk about what really went down. A bunch of people died in the building just across from the place!"'

She was adamant about knowing 'the truth' and making it known because one of her relatives passed away that day. They'd been working on the building across from the daycare, and one of her cousins was amongst the children who'd been killed by the villain.

'Knowing the truth won't do her any good,' the woman thought. Telling the student what transpired would leave a lingering state of helplessness. If she knew that a child stepped up in the place of the hero to kill the villain, she'd be more than frustrated at the inadequacy of their nation's protectors. 

If she found out that her relative might've been killed by one of the child's attacks, she'd have a swelling frustration that she could not bring herself to unleash upon a toddler. Rimi Yonamine would be roughly 7 years old today.

"The things that happened that day are unpleasant to recall, Ms. Orochine. The sentiment is thoughtful, but many things can't be changed. What you've heard is what happened on that day. Ringtune fought and died fighting the villain while trying his hardest to save as many kids as possible."

It was decided that the adults would not say anything about what happened that day. The children were likely too young to properly retell what they saw that day, some possibly even suppressing the memories as a coping mechanism.

Out of respect for Ringtune, his actions that day were exaggerated. They told the tale of how he used his quirk to fend off two attacks at once, defeating one from a long-range before being caught off-guard by the fatter opponent.

"Please..." The student's voice is pained, but she does not press further.

She turns away from the woman and slithers out of the classroom, her serpentine tail slamming it shut when her frame grows out of range.

Sympathetically, the teacher sighs. Lying to the girl didn't please her, but it was for the best. It's what she's done for a little over a decade.

She's lived with much survivor's guilt, regretful for the kids she failed to save. Realistically, there was nothing she could've done better on that day. Her defensive bubble wouldn't have been able to withstand a direct hit from the villain. If it weren't for the infant who awakened her quirk in a moment of distress, they'd have all died.

The scars would never be worse than death. 'I hope that child is doing alright.'

---

Irisa Takishima was grateful every day since the events from several months ago. 

She'd taken her child on a trip to the zoo, expecting it to be a memorable moment to talk about in the future. It was. It undoubtedly was.

Sitting at her rounded kitchen table, the moonlight illuminated her into a beautiful silhouette in the darkness of her home. During nights like these, she liked to sit down and envision moments of the past. 

Most wouldn't like to confront their mistakes or traumatic experiences, but Irisa was a bit different. To her, refusing to face the past would prevent her from striding into the future. It was unhealthy to allow one's negative emotions to swell, so she confronted the past with dignity.

Tonight, she thought back on the time her son was saved at the zoo. The time when she'd nearly lost her greatest creation, the thing she loves the most in this world. He'd been struck in the head and trapped under debris during the chaotic stampede of abominations. Irisa was not leaving her son to die. Her hands gripped his arm and she pulled enough force to knock his shoulder out of the socket and even her own. She did everything from trying to lift the rubble to digging her son out, but nothing ever worked.

When she was prepared to die alongside her son, accepting that she'd done everything that she could with the limited time she had, something happened. A child appeared and saved them. Her hair was black as night and had distinct streaks of red that could've easily been confused for fresh blood.

The child stomped on the arm of the creature that'd have killed her and her son. She'd freed her son from the rubble before the mother even knew what happened, and placed the boy in her arms. The child went out to keep fighting more beasts while Irisa carried her son away. That was the last she'd seen of her. She'd never gotten the chance to know her name.

Nameless heroes stroll the streets every day. They commit deeds of kindness and generosity. The child was one of them in the woman's eyes.

"I hope that girl is doing alright, I'd like to meet her and thank her properly." Thanking her wouldn't be enough. She'd like to give her compensation equal to the life of her son, but there was no way she'd realistically accomplish that.

Chuckling to herself, Irisa slides her chair back and rises to her seat. "Maybe I'll have Hirou play with her. They weren't too far apart in age."

She walks down the hallway of her one-story home until she finds the door in the middle of the hall. Gently, she twists the door handle and pushes the door open. Behind it, she finds her son's small form resting in bed. His head no longer needed to be wrapped up, the bandages discarded. 

He looked healthy. He looked alive. This would not have been the case if not for her mysterious savior. "Thank you, girl. Whoever you are."

---

"You're here again? It'd be sensible of me to just strangle you." The voice of Karma drowns the cries of vengeful souls. She is seated in a familiar chair in a familiar space, and her attention is on the child in front of her. Rimi Yonamine.

"I'm going home," Rimi says, disregarding Karma's usual condescending words.

"Yeah, you're going home. Why should I care? Do you want to kill your mom next? Maybe that boy will be there so you can kill him too."

Rimi shakes her head, never looking directly at Karma. She'd seen the entity many times, but never before had she been more anxious than now. It was like Karma's presence had grown, becoming large enough to cast a shadow in this shadowless space. "I felt like I needed to say that."

Karma is momentarily stunned by Rimi's words. It seems like she doesn't know what to say for a few seconds, but eventually speaks. "Kill yourself," There is nothing more for her to say. She doesn't know what Rimi is looking to gain from speaking to her. She doesn't care what Rimi is looking to gain from speaking to her: her purpose is to ensure Rimi's life is hell.

"I don't think I can do that anymore," She shakes her head. "Before, you said that to me. I couldn't do it." 

Rimi was used to Karma's words by now, but they still carried an indescribable dominance.

She'd been sleeping in the car when she'd fallen asleep and woke up in this space. Fate was an unfair maiden. "If I'd killed myself, my family would've been sad. I'd have hurt them, something I can't bear to think of."

"If you're dead, you won't have to worry about thinking about them all," Karma interjects.

This time, Rimi lifts her eyes to face the silhouette. "I already died once. Every day I wake up, my chest aches. I remember the people I killed and I hear them every time I come here. No matter how hard I try, I cannot make amends or atone. I live every second knowing how I hurt those strangers, all for no reason other than someone asked me to." Karma's suggestion was not taken well. It wasn't expected to be.

"I died and I came back to life. If I die, I might come back again and this time I'll have the weight of my actions in this world weighing down on me until I just can't stand existing. Already, I walked that rope once."

Karma replies with equal ferocity, "I'd have just ended it all when those baby teeth came in. The sooner you bit your tongue the easier, you selfish bitch." The crimson entity's frame hollows out Rimi's appearance, towering over her with an intense pressure that creates silence from the endless horde of wronged spirits.

"That day you killed those two villains at the daycare, you killed innocent people again. Your first year in this world was spent taking, and taking, and taking!" 

Their world trembles as Karma's voice booms like a thunderous railgun, robust enough to leave a tear in a man's ears and then drill a tunnel through his brain. Rimi is unflinching, unbothered by the baseless intimidation of Karma. Although she feared her, she would not tremble at something as innocuous as a violent voice. "..."

Karma matches the child's silence. "..." 

"You don't think I'll hurt you," The silence is once more broken when Karma moves away from the child. "After everything you've been through, you feel like I'm just a wordsmith; a playground bully." There's no concealing the annoyance and hatred in Karma's voice as she speaks to Rimi. They'd not spent much time apart since their last meeting, but the girl's resolve was already too powerful to be shaken.

She sits on her seat, the silence letting Rimi ponder whether she hears a ringing in the distance. There was nothing there—sound could not enter the space beyond the tormenting spirits lingering to scrape Rimi apart. 

"Okay. I'll accept you how you are now. Your resolve is strong, you're set on saving people and making a difference. Whatever." Crossing her arms and flipping her leg over the other, Karma's faceless figure holds an obvious disgust.

Rimi doesn't want to know whether she could truly harm her or not. Karma was only here for the entertainment or watching her suffer.

"Will you listen to what I have to say?" Rimi asks.

The world around them cracks and Karma scowls. "We're not friends." The backdrop of the world crumbles and Rimi begins waking up.

---

Opening her eyes to reality, beyond her dream world, the child feels the gentle vibrations of the motoring vehicle. The car was moving fast, leaving the scenery blurred for her vision. Freshly awakened, identifying anything through the light that agitated her eyes was a fantasy.

She rubs her eyes, briefly glimpsing to the front of the vehicle where the man driving her home was. He'd been speechless the entire way, not attempting to speak or look at the girl. Whoever he was, he took his job seriously, perhaps more than Pinnley. 'It makes sense why he made him the driver then. Rich people live funny lives.' She could not imagine sleeping under the same roof as this robot-like man.

It's a moment where she fails to see the irony of her way of thinking.

Once she's fully awake, Rimi can make out her surroundings. They're very familiar to her. Everything is familiar because she grew up in this city: Higure. She recognized several stores she'd gone to with her mother, father, sister, or all at once. Some familiar homes that she'd visited with her mother caught her attention, decorations changed in the months she'd been gone.

Memorials lined the roads of some neighborhoods. They were not new, however. Rimi recognized them as the memorials of children who'd been killed during the villain attack at the daycare. Years later, those children were not forgotten. They'd lived short lives but were remembered longer than they were alive. They'd become immortalized in the human mind, or so she liked to think.

"How did Pinnley know my address?" 

The driver's shoulders tense. He doesn't stop looking at the road, but Rimi's certain the man heard her.

"So you have an idea. Alright. I only wanted to make sure, keep driving, and don't get us in an accident."

The question was so abrupt that even the utterly composed butler driving the vehicle shuddered. Among the staff of Izumi Kiyabu's Estate, Rimi Yonamine's name was reputed as being unrealistically dangerous. Normally it'd be odd for someone to fear a 7-year-old girl, such sweet and innocent souls. These words did not describe the child with the streaks in her hair. She was unfiltered and dangerous, a step shy of violent.

The butler wasn't willing to test the child's patience. Making an enemy of someone who Sir Pinnley saw as both an ally and threat was inadvisable.

Rimi speaks again, "You should comb your hair. You kind of look like a werewolf." The man wanted to question the meaning of her words, but they arrived at their last turn. With careful dexterity, he makes the final turn and the vehicle slows to a halt.

Rimi doesn't need the man to say anything. He'd not said a word throughout the entire drive and she didn't expect him to. There's no need to care now.

In front of Rimi is the exterior of the place she'd been in since her childhood. Memories flood through her mind as she examines the structure.

Marble and Pearl, her mother and father, she and her sister—she could see all of them in her vision as if they were in front of her. She could feel their touch as though they were touching her. She could hear their voices as though they were speaking to her.

When Rimi opens the door and steps out of the car, the butler gives a nod. He doesn't drive off, presumably to ensure that everything goes well. 

It'd been so long since Rimi last took the stone walkway to her front door that not even the path was used to her steps. Some of the stones shifted when her feet hit them, minuscule cracks between every impatient step. 

The door was locked, but not for long. Rimi didn't care for something as inconsequential as a locked door. She'd blow an entire wall down if it meant getting into the structure before her. 

And the door didn't hold in the slightest. Rimi's proficiency with her ability grew to the extent that she could unlock the lock on her own. No, it was something she'd done before. She'd grown up here, and she knew every hidden entrance or exit she and her sister found.

Her sister was the first one she saw. Sitting on the couch in the living room, in front of the door, Madoka Yonamine's eyes were confused at first. Then, they went wide at the recognition of the crimson streaks in Rimi's hair. Rimi almost didn't recognize her sister. The last time she'd seen her, she wasn't an adult. Her older sister was a lot older now, a beautiful woman.

"Oh? Madoka, are you heading out?!" Rimi's knees become weak when she hears the familiar, sweet, soothing voice come from the opposite end of their home. Only seconds after did the expanded belly of Kimiko Yonamine emerge from the master bedroom. Koji Yonamine's hand was on her back, carefully leading her through the house. Her pregnant belly was significantly larger than before.

Koji spotted the child first. He was speechless, halted in place. If he were holding a vase, he'd have probably dropped it. It was a good thing his wife could still stand.

Rimi wanted to cry. When her mother was the last one to notice her, she wanted nothing more than to run forward, embrace her mother, and break down. Many times, she'd imagined what she'd do when she saw her mother again. Their reunion was important to her. Not because she wanted to leave a lasting impression, but because she wanted to see her mother and family.

Kimiko stumbles forward. Rimi lowered her head and was unable to see what sort of expression the woman wore. So many thoughts went through both of their minds at once. Koji knew he needed to stop his wife from moving so quickly, but the tears welling in his eyes were a sign that he couldn't will himself to intervene.

Arms locked themselves around Rimi's figure. Effortlessly, the child is picked up from the ground. She tenses at first, becoming used to this treatment in her training setting. There was something much different to this than the training that led to her becoming more relaxed.

Kimiko's arms locked around her daughter. Rimi felt the wetness of tears landing on her shoulder through her clothing's materials.

She's sure her mother feels the same.

Tears stream down the child's face, and she smiles. Rather than frowning or making an ugly face, the child can only smile. 

"I'm home." Her voice was weak and she was vulnerable. That was okay. She'd taken another step in her journey, and could not be stopped.