"Oh crap!" An officer said aloud.
He had just watched the livestream too like many others. And he instantly rushed to the camera room of the most guarded prison of Japan, Tartarus.
Tatsuya Shinpachi had watched the kid he knows as Soryu figure out how the players were all transported to the games. If it were as simple as recalling objects to a game, objects like clothing, clothing that could come from even basic suppliers.
They were screwed.
"Oh shit!" Shinpachi cursed aloud and pressed a bright red button on his side to alert the appropriate parties.
All prisoners in Tartarus barring new people waiting to be extradited have disappeared.
It was now a nationwide alert.
___
I was in a clothing shop. One that looked eerily similar to the same chain owned by Best Jeanist that I had bought my last pair of clothes from. The glossy floors, perfectly folded shirts, even the scent of lavender.
I also had my phone, but it had no service, I could make no calls nor go on the internet. The screen glowed taunting me with it's uselessness.
And I wasn't alone. I didn't expect to be either. If the game was recalling objects than I expected people to spawn in the same places I did, although I did expect more.
A sick and gut smearing sound was heard. Sharp and wet, like someone battering meat before cooking it. My head snapped toward the sound to see a familiar well named figure.
Ryuga Kai. Otherwise known as the villain Abyss. Anyone who payed even a bit of attention to the news a year ago would have seen him on it, he was a hulking figure who was also dubbed the water demon. He was sick, brutal and even a supposed cannibal.
He was beat by Endeavour and eventually taken to Tartarus, he was still in his prison suit, which told me something even more disturbing that I didn't want to think about.
He stood over a crumpled body, his boot grinding down onto the chest off... a boy. A child of a similar age to Eri most likely. I couldn't even tell the boys natural hair colour, everything was covered in blood and even parts if his torn up intestines. Blood pooled beneath him.
My stomach twisted.
Ryuga tilted his shark-like head, his pale blue hair falling into his eyes as he stared at the body beneath him. His lips curled into a strange, almost serene like smile.
"To be free," he murmured, his voice smooth and deliberate. "To emerge from the depths of confinement into a whole new world of boundless chaos... What a gift."
The words slithered into my ears, unnervingly calm, as if the life he had just snuffed out was nothing more than an afterthought.
A sharp gasp broke my focus. I turned, spotting someone near the back of the store—a girl. She was younger, maybe my age, with orange hair tied into a high ponytail. Her hands trembled as she pressed herself against the racks of clothes, her face pale as a sheet.
Ryuga's eyes followed mine, landing on her. The smile on his face widened.
"Ah..." he said, his voice taking on a mockingly gentle tone. "Such fear... It clings to you like a second skin. Beautiful, really. You must be wondering why you of all people had to be thrust into this madness, little one. But fear not—this is merely life revealing it's truest form."
The girl didn't move, she didn't speak. She just stood there, shaking and struggling to breathe. The weight of this man's presence alone was enough to keep her pinned in place.
"Abyss." I said, my voice cutting through the steady knot that seemed to be tightening the space around us.
His head turned towards me, his expression brightening, the rows of his sharp, shark-like teeth catching the light.
"Ah recognition," he said, stepping over the body with casual ease, blood dripping from his boot. "It's almost flattering. But you don't have the same fire in you, the rage that was enough to put me away. No righteous fury. Just another piece of flotsam."
He chuckled as I stood there without replying, his laughs were like the stutter of waves before a storm. "Perhaps you just don't fully grasp the gravity of the situation you are in."
This guy was like a nightmare personified, not just another villain. Stories about him couldn't even be used as bedtime warnings; maybe wake-up calls.
The girl whimpered, I could hear her. She seemed fit enough to run out of here if I give her the chance, she was unarmed and completely out of her depth. Her orange hair shook as she trembled in place, her eyes were still wide as she stared at the shark man that had just crushed someone like a soda can.
Abyss took a step closer. I didn't give him the chance to do anymore. With a flick of my wrist, a paper ribbon uncoiled from my sleeve, weaving around the girl and yanking her backward like a grappling hook. She let out a surprised yelp as I guided her behind a nearby display counter.
"No need for that. Everyone's a part of the game." His voice dripped with amusement. His outline then became a blur as though he were dissolving. In an instant, the air filled with the sound of rushing water.
A wave burst forth from where I stood, dark and churning, like an endless flood surging towards me.
"Run!" I shouted to the girl. She didn't hesitate as she scurried towards a back exit. I dove to the side, sliding across the tiled floor as the torrent crashed into the wall behind me, ripping it apart in a spray of water and debris.
Abyss reformed in front of me, stepping out of the swirling water like a monster emerging from the deep sea. "Water is eternal," he said, "It flows, adapts, consumes. And you—" he pointed a clawed finger at me—"will drown in it."
I flicked my wrists again, sending out a volley of razor-thin paper slivers. They shot forward with precision, but slid through a swirling barrier of water that coated his skin. It even looked like they just merged with his body like stones into the ocean.
He smirked, "Paper cuts? Cute."
I didn't respond, instead I leapt back and pulled the shredded remains of my attack toward me. The fragments reformed as a shield around my arm just in time to block a clawed swipe at my chest.
The impact sent me skidding back, my shoes squealing against the tile. His strength was unreal, the force of the blow rattling through my entire body.
"You're going to have to try harder than that." he said, his grin never faltering.
I formed a blade and reinforced the paper with more paper instead of replying. Fighting against water is obviously not very beneficial with a quirk like mine.
I rushed him, feinting left before slashing upward. He dodged the blade with fluid ease, his body twisting unnaturally as he countered with a backhanded swing. I ducked under it, driving the dagger toward his midsection.
The blade connected—or so I thought. His body rippled around it, the water swallowing the weapon without a trace.
He grinned down at me, his claws already swinging toward my exposed side. I had no time to block so I dropped my hand and threw up a reinforced paper wall between us.
The claws tore through the barrier like a hot knife through butter. I was able to roll out of the way.
"You're quick," he admitted, his tone was almost approving. "But it's pointless. Paper can't beat water."
I was at his blindside and as he was turning he got a face full of foam. I grabbed a fire extinguisher and sprayed it's content all over him before throwing the object at him. He sliced through it creating an even thicker layer that I could hear him choking on.
Abyss snarled, his silhouette barely visible through the haze. "Cheap tricks won't save you."
I didn't answer, I used the cover to reposition myself, weaving paper strands into a series of tripwires around the store.
When the smoke cleared, Abyss charged forward, his form surging across the ground like a tidal wave. But as soon as his body got caught on the tripwires, the reinforced strands sliced through his water form and momentarily disrupted his shape.
He growled, "Clever, but not clever enough."
He lunged again, faster this time, his claws slashing toward me in a relentless barrage. I ducked and weaved, using every ounce of speed and agility I could muster at the moment to avoid the blows.
Finally, he caught me off guard, a tendril of water snaking around my ankle and yanking me off my feet. I hit the ground hard, the impact jarring every bone in my body.
Abyss loomed over me, his grin a predators snarl. "Do you feel it?" he asked, his voice low. "The weight of inevitability? You fight, you struggle, but in the end, all things return to the depths."
I gritted my teeth, forcing myself to move despite the pain. "You talk too much," I said, my voice tight but steady.
With a surge of effort, I activated my quirk, sending a burst of paper shards outward in every direction. The effort forced him to step back, giving me enough time to scramble to my feet.
There was no way I could keep up with this. Out of the corner of my eye I seen something, it was the dagger I had tried stabbing him with earlier.
How was it still there?
From my perspective it just got absorbed by him. But then I looked around again, all the water he was spitting forward, all the water around the place. My guess is that he is able to place what he absorbs into the body of water he creates or just has stored in him. Like a displacement of damage.
Cool, but that information so late in the game isn't helping me.
I just fought stain earlier and now I was fighting someone that was probably even stronger, and he was my natural weakness.
"This fight is pointless!" I said after releasing a sigh.
I'm no Endeavour, I can't burn up all the fluids and run this fucker dry. Abyss grinned and his eyes gleamed in triumph. "Oh come on, don't bore me. Put in a best effort."
I shrugged and slowly backed away. The shreds of paper I had thrown out were forming into a singular object behind him.
A bomb.
"Yeah maybe next time, see you around Ryuga Kai." Wings formed on my back as I backed out of the main entrance,
I flew high into the sky only to then hear the building collapse in a massive boom.
My paper can create anything and the effects will happen. A paper sword will cut like a sword, wings will give me the ability to fly. A bomb... well even though it lacks the element and actual fire power, the force, the blast is still in effect.
So now even though Abyss is most probably still alive, I can be happy with the fact that I got a hit on him.
But that was the problem with people like him, they were already living a crappy life serving a life sentence. There is nothing for them to go back to. So this place, this fake world that lacks structure and balance is like a big giant playground to people like Ryuga Kai.
He and many others have no reason to want to leave, they may just thrive on the joy of messing with and taking lives.
Remembering his appearance made something twist in my gut, a feeling of mad discomfort.
He was in a prison uniform, and I know for sure he was in Tartarus. So the likelihood that all prisons were using similar suppliers shipped out by Daigo Kiyoshi... 'Oh fuck.'
This game would be like real life pandemonium.