Jugram looked over at his friend, who was sitting heavily on the ground and looking depressed. It was sometimes hard to remember that the boy wasn't reincarnated like him. He was merely a child—one with incredible strength and mental fortitude for his age.
Walking over, Jugram gave his friend a pat on the shoulder before moving toward the police car, where Akane was still heaped in a brutal mess. However, he ignored her for the moment and commanded a fistful of blood to rise from the pavement and gather onto his finger, forming a hardened icicle-like formation of blood extending from his fingertip with a sharp tip.
He gently reached forward toward the man who was still embedded in the car's door. Carefully, he slid the finger icicle blade forward into the man's chest, just deep enough to connect him to the man's veins.
Jugram closed his eyes as the man's entire circulatory system became available to his manipulation. It was a surprisingly intoxicating feeling to have complete command over another living being's blood while it still pumped around their body. It would only take the slightest nudge to harden all the blood in the man's heart, or he could crush it outright. He could also form all the man's blood into blades within his body to tear him apart from the inside.
Of course, he didn't act on any of these dark impulses. Instead, he just stopped the flow for a single second. That caused the man's eyes to rip open and his entire body to shudder as his mouth opened, and he instinctually began to gasp and pant for air. The man tried to move from where he was embedded in the car, but he couldn't.
"I am going to ask you some questions, and you are going to answer me quickly and truthfully," Jugram said once he was sure the man was conscious and fully aware.
"Wha-" the man started but seized up and began to spasm when Jugram commanded the blood to stop flowing to all his major organs.
"I didn't ask you a question," Jugram said, placing a finger over the man's mouth in a shushing gesture, "I ask. You answer. Do you understand?"
"Y...yes." The man said through grit teeth.
"What were you and Officer Pig going to do with us?" Jugram asked, waiting to know if they were victims of chance or actual targets.
The man took a moment to answer, so Jugram gave his circulatory system another jolt to motivate the man to respond a bit faster. After all, he needed to extract everything he wanted to know before anyone approached and saw what he was doing. It was already bad enough that he had been forced to kill here. Undoubtedly they had just been forced to nuke their plans for getting sent to an average orphanage.
"We're," he began, then glanced to the corpse of Officer Pig, "We were just hired muscle."
"Hired to do what?" Jugram asked impatiently.
"Gather orphans or other young people that no one will miss. They told us to get a wide range of quirks, too. That's all I know. We had a meeting place to drop you two off, b-" Before the man could finish, Jugram caused him to go into cardiac failure.
His mouth opened wide, and his eyes bulged, but Jugram just watched coldly as the man died. He had no pity for kidnappers and human traffickers. Plus, that was all he needed to know. It was clear that these two were just grunts and wouldn't know anything substantial anyway.
Jugram briefly considered trying to coerce him into giving up his quirk, but this situation was far from ideal. It was already incredibly risky killing the man just outside of a populated hospital where somebody could pop up and witness him at any moment. He didn't have the time to torture the man to gain his quirk. Overall, the risk simply wasn't worth the possible reward.
A variety of quirks? Could AFO be involved somehow? Jugram wondered. He figured that this general task was to bolster the villain's amount of quirks or perhaps enable more human experimentation for the development of the Nomu. Still, it didn't really matter either way. This just solidified something that he had known all along.
"To live in the world that I want to, no matter the nature of my dream, is to live in a world without All For One," Jugram muttered as he stepped away from the man's corpse.
"Is he dead?" Yuto asked quietly, clearly not having seen the exchange.
"You didn't kill him," Jugram assured the boy, "I killed him. I killed both of them."
Yuto finally glanced over, not looking convinced. His eyes had grown hollow once more and Jugram knew that everything the boy had done since their leaving the village had all been an attempt at normalcy. Helping him, acting in front of the officers, everything had been a mask. Now, that mask was cracking under this new set of pressures, so Jugram walked up and sat next to Yuto...sat next to his friend.
"From the examination of his body, they will find that he had a heart attack. They will most likely blame your attack as the cause, but it was me." Jugram said.
After that, the two sat in silence side by side until the police finally arrived, and they were immediately pushed back into the hospital with Akane. Jugram wasn't surprised to find that, this time, they were moved to a secluded room away from everyone else with a thick metal door specifically made to stop people with enhanced strength from breaking through.
Now, two security guards stood outside of their room 24/7, and these weren't the kind to sit there and read a book. They remained vigilant throughout their entire shifts. They were also the only ones with access to open and close the thick door, so it felt more like they were in prison than a hospital room.
It made sense, however. Two young children had just taken part in killing two villains just after having their entire village slaughtered. They seemed not to be taking any chances with the two of them anymore. Jugram honestly had no idea where things would progress from there, but he saw a few likely routes things could take. He considered some of these options as the days passed.
The first was that they could get the Hawks and Lady Nagant treatment of being turned into heroes/hitmen for the government. This route seemed the most likely, but it wasn't ideal because it was also the worst-case scenario. It would mean constant government oversight with no real way to escape unless they went off the grid and became villains out of necessity.
The second was that they get shipped to the middle of nowhere, and the government forgets about them. Again, this is not the most ideal option, but it is a good deal better than the first since it allows them to maintain at least some freedom.
As Jugram considered a third option for what may shortly befall them, the magnetic lock to the heavy door disengaged with a loud beep, and two well-dressed men in suits walked into the room. He leaned closer to Yuto as the two men pulled a set of chairs closer to the bed but refrained from saying something offensive about the two likely government goons and leaned back, waving off Yuto's questioning look.
"Hello, Mr. Hohenheim and Mr. Inoue. We are from the government, " the first man said.
"Let us come right out and ask if the two of you would like to become heroes?" the second said.
They aren't even subtle about it, Jugram thought derisively.
Both he and Yuto remained quiet, the other boy most likely following his lead, but they had clearly hooked his attention. Yuto now sat up a bit straighter, and his eyes focused on the two men. The men smiled subtly at this, again, not doing a great job of hiding anything.
"The government has decided to give you two the opportunity to be involved in an advanced hero training program," Number 1 said, as Jugram dubbed him.
"However, we just need to ask a few questions first," Number 2 said, glancing over to Jugram. "Especially you, Mr. Hohenheim. Your quirk, Exchange, seems to be different from your ability to manipulate blood."
The two government agents watched him like a hawk, but Number 1 seemed to be more intent while Number 2 seemed to be looking at him. A lie detector quirk? Jugram wondered as he responded readily.
"I exchanged for my Grandfather's quirk before he died. He felt that it would serve me better than my original quirk." Jugram said.
"You...traded quirks?" Number 1 asked.
"I have Blood Manipulation now. Could you change it in the registry for me?" Jugram asked politely, making sure to speak the truth.
"So you don't have access to your quirk Exchange?" Number 2 pushed.
"I have my Grandfather's quirk now," Jugram said.
Number 2 looked to Number 1, who nodded tentatively. So it was a lie detector quirk, Jugram thought, wiping imaginary sweat from his brow. Luckily, he was a kid, so they had no reason to think he was misleading them and so they didn't push harder for more concrete answers.
"So, about the hero training program-" Number 2 started, but there was another loud beep, interrupting him.
Everyone turned to see a third man in a suit entering the room, a briefcase in hand. The new man examined the two boys and then turned to his peers.
"I'm taking these boys," he announced, pulling a paper from the briefcase.
"What?" Number 1 burst out.
"We are under specific order from-" Number 2 began but stopped upon reading the paper.
"The survival story of these two boys has gone national, and it seems like someone up high with a lot of money or influence is trying to make a statement by adopting the two." The third man said with a snort.
What a douche. We're right here. Jugram thought but pretended as if he hadn't heard. Meanwhile, his mind raced. Who is adopting us?
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Any guesses of who it is? (I am totally not asking to get some more ideas 😁)
. . .
Also, this story will not have a Harem. I am the leader of the Anti-Harem Federation after all. If there is romance, there will only be one love interest that I have already chosen.