"Go to hell and atone for your evil mother!" Donki shouts, his voice trembling with a mix of rage and desperation.
Arata's gaze snaps to the barrel of Donki's raised pistol, her eyes widening with a mix of terror and disbelief. Her feet stagger backwards, instinctively trying to escape the line of fire.
"If anyone moves, I'll shoot this girl, right here, right now!" Donki's threat slices through the air, rooting everyone in the room to their spots.
"Donki-san, what are you doing?" his colleagues whisper urgently, their faces a mix of shock and frustration. "We have no orders to shoot! We're only here to oversee the girl's transfer to Shirayuki!"
"Silence!" Donki roars, his fury erupting. "I outrank you all! You'll never understand the agony I've endured!"
The room is thick with tension, every breath hanging heavy with the threat of violence. Arata's heart pounds in her chest as she desperately tries to make sense of the chaos surrounding her and ignore the pistol aimed unwaveringly at her.
"Blame this on your mother." Donki hisses through gritted teeth, his voice a raw edge of bitterness, as he steps toward her.
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At eighteen, Donki cherished three things above all: Sunday mornings in the warm embrace of his parents, playing catch with his father in the sunny field behind their humble hut, and his mother's soothing voice reading his favorite tattered storybook.
His friends teased him about still sleeping with his parents. "You still sleep with your parents?" they'd laugh. Donki didn't mind; those fleeting moments of togetherness meant everything to him, because they were rarely home due to their work at the industrial gas plant.
One stormy Sunday morning shattered his world. His parents were absent from their usual spot. Instead, a black-clad official stood at his doorstep.
"Where are my parents?" Donki asked, his voice trembling.
The official gently guided him to the couch and asked him to turn on the television. With shaking hands, Donki complied.
The screen flickered to life, revealing breaking news of a massacre at an industrial gas plant. Scenes of chaos and destruction filled the screen, and his parents' names were among the list of the deceased.
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It was seven years ago Donki received a ceramic urn. It was meant to hold his parents' ashes, but nobody could ever be certain. The mangled remains of the victims had been so scattered that identifying them became nearly impossible.
Still, what other choice did he have other than holding it close?
"My parents… they never did anything wrong," Donki's voice cracks as he speaks, his eyes brimming with unshed tears. "They were just ordinary plant workers, scraping by from paycheck to paycheck. They were good people. But Hanakiri took them from me. Hanakiri took everything from us!"
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"Mark my words, I'm going to take her down," Donki declared, slamming his beer can on the table, capturing the attention of the other support group members. "Hanakiri has ruined our lives by taking our precious family members. I'll join the police force and bring justice for us!
"Mom and Dad, watch me. I'm going to turn everything right. Under my watch, good people will lead good lives and villains will get proper punishments. I won't let something like this happen again."
Handclaps and cheers erupted from his left and right. "Go Donki! Deliver us justice!" they cheered, their voices filled with a desperate hope that someone could bring closure to their collective suffering.
As he looked around at the tear-streaked faces and haunted eyes, Donki realized that this fight was not just his own. It was for every person in the room, every family torn apart by Hanakiri.
The path ahead was fraught with sorrow and danger, but he knew he had to walk it. For his parents, for himself, and for every broken heart seeking solace in the promise of retribution.
Tears welled in his eyes, but Donki blinked them back, forcing himself to stay strong. "I'll make her pay," he whispered, more to himself than to anyone else. His hand clutched the beer can until it twisted with a sharp crack. If only it was Hanakiri's neck. "By all means."
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"I was naive. I thought I could capture Hanakiri if I became a police officer. But reality is often different from expectation." Donki stops a few meters away from Arata, hot tears streaming down his cheeks, tracing the lines of long-buried hatred on his face. "Even after I became a cop and swore to avenge them, after years and years, the closest we've come to Hanakiri's trail is this damned girl!"
As Donki's words linger in the air, Arata feels a sharp sting. She wishes she could say it's the venom in his voice that wounds her, but she knows all too well what it is like to be hated for it to be a surprise. What truly puts her at a loss is the realization of the suffering her mother inflicted. It leaves her dizzy and broken.
How could you do this, Okaa-san? Why?
The truth crushes her under the weight of her mother's choices, the real-life consequences that echo through the years. This news is a slap to the face, a stark reminder that the man standing before her is a victim of her mother's carnage—a cruelty that might leave its imprint on her, too, for they share the same blood.
Whoever said newborns are free of sins is mistaken. If that were true, would she be facing this now? Or is this the fate of unwanted children—mistakes—like her?
Her past and her bloodline are shackles that weigh her down, creeping along her every step like shadow. Can she ever be truly free from them? What will it take for her to wash away her mother's bloody hands off her life?
And her mother is still out there somewhere.
"Officer, I'm— I'm sorry for your parents..." Arata looks down, her voice barely a whisper. The weight of Donki's pain is almost too much to bear, and her apology feels too little in the face of such immense loss.
"What the hell are you apologizing for, Ara?" Shoto growls out, irked at her response. "Hanakiri is Hanakiri. You are you. Even if your mother is a villain, you are not. You are in no way responsible for what she did."
Is it true, Shoto-san? The handcuffs around her wrists cling against each other as she pensively glances at those steel rings. Am I really allowed to draw that boundary?
Shoto turns his piercing glare toward the donkey-mutant officer, ire bursting from his tone. "Why are you blaming Ara? You know it isn't her fault!"
"Easy for you to say, Endeavor's son!" Donki's voice cracks with bitter resentment, his eyes blazing with fury. "If your father hadn't messed up three years ago, the police would have locked Hanakiri in Tartarus!"
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Donki had been very desperate, but it wasn't until four years later, that all hope was lost.
He was a part of the police force sent to back Endeavor up on his pursuit to catch Hanakiri. Snow boots felt very strange on his usually-uncovered hoofs, but Donki rapidly plowed through the white slosh and kept relaying information to his unit via an earpiece.
"Send me their location! I'm losing their trail!" Donki shouted through the earpiece, his warm breaths were visible in the cold air, steam hazing his goggles. "Damn it! That damned murderer is trying to lose Endeavor in these snowy hills!"
Tension was running high in the air, and he did everything to keep up. Snowstorm was blurring his vision, making the hero and the villain kilometers ahead of him look like blurs, which then disappeared. An explosion sound swept over him afterwards, thundering past his body.
After a tense minute, the earpiece crackled. "Donki-san, new orders. All units and pro heroes must pull back."
"What? We're so close!"
"Hanakiri escaped, Donki-san. She set off an avalanche with a grenade after Endeavor burned one of her arms. By the time we recovered, she had already disappeared and her traces had been covered by the snow."
"But—"
"Pull back, Donki-san. There's no trail left. We'll resume the search once the storm clears."
"Hanakiri is a fucking murderer!" Donki ground his teeth together, jaw tightening in anger. "If we lose her now, there will be other victims. We don't even know for sure what her human form looks like. Once she deactivates her quirk, she can slip away and blend among the civilians!"
"Donki-san, you're not the only one who wanted to keep in pursuit, but there's no other option. Hanakiri is likely trapped by the storm too. We'll find her once it clears."
The donkey-mutant police stopped on his track, digging his nails to his palm. Pieces of ice were hanging on the tips of his dark brown mane, proof of how cold it really was.
However, Donki only could feel hot, nauseating disappointment in his stomach. Was this really the right choice? Was this going to be their— his failure in arresting his parents' killer again?
"Fine." Donki snarled and turned back despite his desire to keep tailing the villain.
At that time, they thought that it was just another failure at catching Hanakiri. They assembled other units, prepared other tools, and requested the help from other pro heroes—all in order to capture her. Yet, after a few days of scaling the area, they never found any trace of her.
Even after the attempt had been disbanded and the task force had been allocated for other matters, Donki was still keeping tabs on any updates of Hanakiri. Yet, there were no reports of her anymore, as if the villain had vanished along with the snowstorm, burying Donki's hope for revenge.
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"And what a joke this is," Donki bellows at Shoto, his voice cracking with rage. "Your father couldn't capture Hanakiri, and now you're all chummy with her daughter? You think this is some kind of soap opera? I've warned you, Endeavor's son. This girl is dangerous!"
"Remember, this damned girl tricked you once." Donki takes a menacing step toward Arata, the pistol's muzzle unwavering although his eyes are still on Shoto. "The next time you let your guard down, it could be your head rolling on the ground. I'd love to see how Endeavor will react when that happens."
"That's none—"
Shoto's mouth opens to retort, but his words are swallowed by the other officers' attempt to reason, "Donki-san, they're just kids! They didn't do anything wrong, and they were only eleven the last time we found Hanakiri. We need to handle this calmly and do our jobs properly."
"Try saying that after your parents are killed, hee-haw! I might listen to you then," Donki spits at his colleagues, the contempt in his eyes making them recoil in horror. He grips his pistol so tightly his knuckles turn white. "With this, I can lure Hanakiri out using her own daughter's corpse. She's the perfect bait."
"It's no use, Officer," Arata mumbles. "My mo— Hanakiri won't come... She wouldn't have left me with the Shirayuki if she cared at all about me."
Donki's eyes narrow, a cold, unyielding determination in his gaze. "I'll take that chance. And if that doesn't work, I can simply track down every woman in Japan who looks similar to you. You're her daughter, there ought to be some resemblance."
He is done taking the high road. It has brought nothing but countless failures and zero fairness. It has led him nowhere, and he is done with it. He's ready to get his hands dirty, no matter the cost.
Donki's steely glare is enough to tell Shoto that he's on the brink of pulling the trigger. Shoto's eyes dart to Arata, who stands frozen in terror, her green eyes locked on the gun's muzzle, following its every move, yet she isn't getting ready to dodge at all.
"Ara, snap out of it!" Shoto's voice cuts through the tension like a knife, his eyes flicking to the point-blank distance that separates her from Donki. "Don't you want to live?"
Arata jolts out of her trance, snapping her head to him. "Shoto-san...?"
"Quick!" Shoto thrusts a hand toward her, his urgency clear. Arata grabs it without a second thought, and he swiftly yanks her behind him.
"For justice!" Donki's voice erupts with fury as he aims the gun.
"Donki-san, don't shoot!" The plea from his fellow officers is barely audible over the tension.