Chapter 182: Usami's friends.
"Hi, Uriyu." A young woman approached a much older Uriyu (than the previous chapter) smiling and waving with a bounce to her steps, she was average in about as many aspects as one could imagine, a plain brunette, plain hairstyle, plain clothes even for college standards, and her appearance, her curves, her attitude, everything screamed average.
"Anne," Uriyu looked up from his studies and smiled at her, closing his book as she leaned over the table and kissed him. "You don't have any classes today, what're you doing here-"
"Yo, dude what's up?" A young man approached next, and behind him another male came walking in and waving.
"Yang, and even Steven too? I haven't seen either of you in days, what's going on, did I forget my birthday or something?" Uriyu asked, picking at his hair confused and checking the date on his phone as his two friends and girlfriend sat around him.
"Uriyu..." Anne rested her hand on his arm and looked across the table at the other two. "We have something to tell you-"
"You're Atlas spies sent to keep an eye on me." Uriyu responded after looking at how serious the three of them were. "I'm not an idiot."
"Wh- you knew?" Anne gawked, shocked.
"Come on, you didn't think I'd notice three private organisation stiffs when I saw them when I've been under your thumbs since I was ten? I knew who the three of you were as soon as I met you four years ago, not to mention you've been paying people off to stay away from me, Anne." He sighed and opened his book again.
"What do you want, as long as you have my sister's cooperation my safety is guaranteed, right, you've always done what you wanted and even crossed the fucking line with her already, so what's with the hesitation this time?"
"If you knew then... what about all those love confessions and-"
"I said all that just to get in your pants, obviously." Uriyu closed his book and looked up at her again with a clearly hateful glare.
"You won't let any of the much more attractive girls who are interested in me twenty feet near me so I might as well fuck you whenever I want as an alternative, and you were submissive enough to always do as I demanded, so I used you every chance I got." He gestured to her.
"But seriously, what's this about?"
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"Uriyu you-"
"She's thinking with her feelings right now." Uriyu looked at Steven. "What does Atlas want from me, more blood tests again, bone marrow, my kidney?"
"The facility was attacked, we lost contact about five minutes ago, the last transmission was an order to get you into hiding." Steven answered concisely. "There's a safehouse just outside of the city we can-"
"Was it Order?" Uriyu went serious again. "They found out about my sister but they're terrified of her, they'd never attack anywhere within miles of her-"
"Unidentified individuals attacked our sub-lake Atlas facility, as of right now not even satellites are able to find any traces, we're assuming everyone was killed, we don't know if it was Order or not." Yang explained while they all stood.
"What about Usami?"
"No reports on your sister, whoever attacked sunk it in less than ten minutes... Let's leave while we talk."
"Maybe it was her then."
"She knows what happens to you if she defies Atlas." Anne answered harshly from behind them. "Why would she do it now after ten years?"
"She gave up." Uriyu answered with a bead of sweat rolling down his cheek, same as them. "She stopped trying to contact me when I turned eighteen, right after you forced her to have a kid, and she hasn't responded to me the few times I tried talking to her, so it's clear you broke her; she gave up." He sat in the middle and scratched his neck above his implant.
***
"I'm such an asshole." Uriyu pressed his forehead into his palm after several minutes of silent driving had elapsed and they were entering the bridge that led out of city H.
"Clearly." Anne scoffed from the front seat.
"I knew what you were doing to her, ever since I saw that lab room when she just woke up, but I didn't care and I just let it be, even when I was allowed to leave and go to school outside, I just let you do it to her, I took advantage of her love and let her suffer..."
"There's nothing you could have done." Anne answered again. "She chose to-"
"I could have killed myself and freed her." He answered. "If it really is her that's gone rogue I won't let you use me as leverage, I won't let you use me as a bargaing... chip?" He slumped forward and looked to his side where he found Yang pressing a tube with the mechanics of an EpiPen against his leg.
"You're in no position to make any kind of demand or decision, just stay silent like you always do and let us take care of the rest- what the hell!" Yang punched the driver's seat when the car suddenly stopped in the middle of the bridge.
"Oh shit man, who the hell is this idiot standing in the middle of the road?" Anne slammed her hand against the dashboard, seeing a woman standing opposite of her with her hands against her hips and her head leaned staring through the windscreen at them, she was wearing an aqua blouse with black shorts, thigh-high socks, and sneakers, and she did not look pleased.
"Anne, wait, doesn't something about her look... familiar?" Yang asked, staring intently as the woman began walking toward the car.
"I don't care if she's my sister, we don't have time for delays like this!" Anne snapped, raising her torso out of the car and flipping Dina off. "Get out of the fucking road you psycho-"
"Anne get back in the car..." The driver reached for her and pulled at her blouse, but only half of a torso fell back in while her severed arm fell and spurted blood across the cockpit on everyone.
"Before this becomes a headache..." Dina grabbed the door of the back seats, sunk her fingers through the metal and tore it off with a casual yank and tossed it over the bridge, wiping the blood from her cheek as her eyes burned with pink mana.
"I'll just say you all had this coming the moment you decided that abusing one of ours was something you'd get away with." She grabbed Yang and threw him off the bridge to a 300 foot drop and reached for Uriyu, pausing when the driver pulled out his gun and fired it point-blank against the side of her head.
"You're... Just like her..." The driver stared at Dina who had caught the bullet with her teeth.
"Usami said everyone dies, right?" Arla asked from the opposite side staring at the driver.
"Yea, except this one." Dina ignored the driver and pulled a half conscious Uriyu out and hefted him over her shoulder with casual effort once more
"Please excuse me then." Arla reached into the car and grabbed the driver by his arm pulling him along with the door on the opposite side and tossing him out just as Yang had been tossed.
"W-wait!" Steven grabbed on to the driver's seat when Arla reached in and took his arm. "Wait!"
"Hm?" Arla paused and stared at him curiously. "A last wish?"
"Please, I have information, I can be useful... I'll do anything, please!" He held on tightly to the seat.
"We already have all the information of your heinous organisation." Arla smiled at him askance of mercy. "You hurt my friend, you and your people did terrible things to her, and used her brother against her, you don't deserve mercy." She yanked him so hard his arm snapped when he failed to release the seat.
"Do not worry, Steven." She called him by name after having the system deliver all the information and every employee profile for all of Atlas. "None of you live past today, rest assured."
"Who are you people?" Steven cried rolling on the ground after she let him go.
"Have you not been listening?" Dina looked down at him while Sara, Sol and Usami with her daughter came and loomed, and then Ikaris grabbed the car by the front and tossed it over the bridge as well. "We're her friends." She turned her back while Usami walked forward and raised her foot over his head staring down at him hatefully and then stomping through his skull.
***
"Sir..." A woman dressed in all black called to a man that was seated in a car with a tab pad in his hand watching the footage of Sol and the others standing over Steven as he had activated his hidden camera when Dina showed up and turned Anne into half a person. "Sir?" She repeated resting her hand on his knee. "We need to get you to safety-"
"There is no point in going anywhere." He looked up from his device at her.
"That woman has the ability to leap from one continent to the next, she has on multiple occasions run across the ocean and back, radiation of the highest degree doesn't even cause her to catch a cold, she is in every way we can think of; indestructible, we have seen the footage, these others are just like her, except they are more ruthless, more forward and far more careless, even if we kill the boy it will only serve to piss them off..."
"So are we supposed to just do nothing, just sit back and die?"
"She hasn't even lifted a finger, just look at what they did, and how fast they did it, the boy was on the other side of the world, even if we've never seen her do anything urgently, they're moving at speeds we can't predict or counter, we've already alerted the president of their presence, I don't think there's anything else we can...
Do." The man stopped talking when a flash of gold flickered next to him in the back seat of his private vehicle and Sol appeared.
"From one city to another, I can't believe my enemy this time are humans." Sol sighed while Ikaris appeared next to him in a flash of gold like he did. "What were you thinking?"
"Wait, at least let my daughter go." The man gestured to the woman in the front seat. "She doesn't have anything to do with-"
"Bull~shit." Sol answered without even looking at him. "You're the chairman, she's been involved since she was nineteen, she's even made a few calls in your absence." Sol tapped his temple. "I know every single thing you've done, Mr chairman, you're guilty, you're all guilty."
"Then what do you want, how do I make you go away?" The old man asked.
"You don't, you bastard, what you did to her is unforgivable, by sunrise tomorrow, there will be no Atlas, there will be no organisation, just fire and debris." Ikaris answered. "You defiled a hero meant to protect you, there is no redemption, there is no second chance..."
"There is nothing but destruction."