Accidentally in Marriage
Toshinori was reasonably young in his career when he’d first learned about the magical communities. He’d been in America and, because of Gran Torino’s training, he’d risen quickly to the top tens.
He hadn’t known at the time that all the top tens of each country were bestowed with that knowledge, he’d thought it was a top ten world-wide sort of thing. This was mostly because he’d bypassed the regular top tens altogether.
The purpose of this was simple: Sometimes the Wixen (a gender neutral word for wizards and witches) went too far and got too much power and the heroes had to help, or they got too involved with non-magical crimes and needed someone in the know from the non-magical side to help out. All Might was always considered too powerful to be sent on small time missions and was mostly ignored. The one time something happened that might have needed him was over twenty years ago in England, but everyone had been too stubborn to call in the heroes and, by the time their stance on that was beginning to change, someone else took care of it so he was never called.
Because of this, Toshinori had never actually crossed paths with the magicals before. Or at least not that he’d known at the time.
Sure, he knew the basics: they were all quirkless, wore eccentric old-fashioned clothes for the most part, most were unable to use electronic devices and any device they used had to receive a special treatment to endure places with high amounts of magic, and they almost always carried a wooden wand that could be used for almost anything, from simple house chores and entertainment, to as actual highly destructive weapons.
Some of the video examples he’d been shown of what wands were capable of made him rightfully wary of them.
But, as stated, he’d never been called to such a situation before and had never crossed paths with any of them. And that was the reason why it took him way too long to realize that the man calling out to a Hallie Potter was one of them. That lecture might have happened a very long time ago, and never been brought up again, but it wasn’t an excuse (he could almost hear Gran Torino criticizing him for having done such a simple mistake).
He'd hated the whole situation. Not only was he used as a hostage with no way to defend himself unless he revealed his identity, but he also had young Midoriya used against him. Then there was the woman, forced to comply with that sadistic creep to keep them both alive. And then what happened with the welled glass and the blood.
Izuku hadn’t understood the whole thing, Toshinori could tell. He doubted anyone had ever told him what the word Matrimony meant, for example. All he’d really understood was that she was going to be forced to do something that could end up with a lot of people dead. But Toshinori knew.
He knew and was worried about what Hallie had done to escape the control of the glass. He had a lot of reasons to worry. Which was why he’d quietly requested Tsukauchi to let him listen to her statement. He was surprised, however, when she insisted that he and young Midoriya did so as well when he wasn’t in the room.
Clearly, she wanted no secrets between them.
So, after helping young Midoriya with the last of his forms, they watched from the other side of the one-way mirror as she reviewed them while idly chatting with Tsukauchi.
It was mostly inane chatter, to build a rapport with her. Technically, with his quirk, Tsukauchi wouldn’t need it, since it was something used as a way to compare what a witness was saying without pressure and less likely to lie, to what they sounded like when giving their statement. Tsukauchi didn’t need that, but he still liked to make his witnesses at ease and talking to them.
This time it was started with a comment the attacker had done, giving way to her day-to-day life.
“So, when Pyrites-san commented on someone he called your mutt, was he talking about a dog-quirked person or an actual dog?” He’d asked in an almost casual manner.
Hallie was so distracted with paperwork that she wouldn’t have noticed anything afoul with it, even if there had been something (which there wasn’t because Tsukauchi was good at his job and was doing so with the best of intentions).
“Nah, we don’t ever stay in one place long enough to get pets. It would be unfair of us. He was actually talking about my kid.” She commented as she read more of the form.
“Oh, you have a kid? Do we need to get them from somewhere? I wouldn’t mind letting one of my guys know and giving them a ride.” Tsukauchi volunteered.
“Thank you, but you don’t need to. I called him my kid, but he’s actually twenty right now. He’s perfectly capable of taking care of himself. I still worry all the same.” She said with a smile, that she directed at him before going back to the paperwork.
They chatted some more about the ‘kid’, who apparently was adopted, as she’d mentioned at some point, and was currently undergoing a final exam that had been hastily rescheduled at the last minute. It was the very last final he needed to finish his ‘healer’s degree’ which meant he was a medic mage of sorts, and she was very proud of him. The casual conversation ended when Hallie finally finished reviewing the papers and signed the last one, making the form take immediate effect, and handing them back to Tsukauchi for them to be officially filed later.
That done, she indicated she was ready to start the interview.
Tsukauchi pulled out a note book and a recorder, explained why the recorder was there and, with her assent, he turned it on, immediately indicating the date, his own name and the occurrence he’d been called for.
At last, he talked to her about his quirk.
“Before we start, I’m legally required to inform you of my quirk. Because it can’t be turned off, you’ll need to know what it entails before we start this. My quirk in broad terms allows me to know if you’re telling the truth.”
“I imagine that is quite useful when interrogating people, though it won’t be so with me.” She stated calmly.
“Oh? Why?”
Hallie showed him the back of one of her hands.
“The witness has just showed me a sentence carved in the back of her hand. It’s written ‘I must not tell lies’ in English.” He said for the recorder before focusing back on her. “Would you please elaborate?”
“Of course. These were carved because of the use of something called a Blood Quill. When I was fifteen, we had a teacher for one of our classes. At the time a dangerous man had used my blood to get himself a new body and I tried to warn the government. The minister at the time wanted to believe he was still, as believed until then, dead and sent her to make me shut up and to change the school to the liking of the ministry. She was the one who created those quills and se used them in detention, especially with me. They work by having me write the sentence she wants and, immediately after, cuts would show up on the back of my hand. It took a lot of detentions for it to permanently scar me. What she didn’t know was that her quills have a side effect.” Hallie shifted, leaning forward, though she didn’t lower her voice when she spoke next. “Because they use blood and words alongside dark magic, it makes the victim open to a sort of contract. If I hadn’t scarred, it would have been fine, but I did. The moment I became scarred, the sentence became sort of a rule I unwillingly have to abide by.”
“Does that mean you are uncapable of lying?” Tsukauchi clarified, though he looked a bit shaken by what she’d just said.
“Oh, not at all. Perhaps if the sentence was ‘I shall not lie’ or ‘I will always tell the truth’ I would have. But it used the word ‘must’. It doesn’t stop me from lying. It just stops other people from believing me when I do. I can still deceive people at times, I just need to have rational or logical reasons and facts supporting the lie and they also can’t know about this curse, but it’s incredibly difficult and I simply don’t bother with it unless it’s a life-or-death situation. So, as you see, your quirk just became a bit redundant.” She giggled as if she hadn’t just dropped the news of what was literally torture inflicted on a teenager the same age as young Midoriya as of this day, mandated by the government over something completely moronic and ultimately useless.
“I see… Well, it’ll just be extra confirmation, I suppose.” The detective awkwardly commented, trying to go back into his interrogator mindset. “What were you doing before Pyrites-san grabbed Yagi-san?”
“Yagi-san?” Young Midoriya muttered at his side, still unaware of his civilian name, so He showed him his ID so that he could continue to listen to her reply.
“Is Yagi-san the tall, blond and emaciated man? And I was actually already being followed by him before he grabbed him. I’d noticed him five city blocks before and was trying to lead him to an area with a on the clock hero before the situation could escalate. I just didn’t have a way to know everyone was focusing on the bank being robbed at the time. I would have taken care of it myself at the start if not for the fact that I’ve arrived here recently and am in the middle of being deliberated upon before being allowed to act.” She replied.
“Deliberated?”
“I’m a foreign Pro-hero. I have a license, but have yet to be allowed to use it like any other local hero because I’ve only arrived two and a half weeks ago.” She elucidated, taking out her license for him to read.
“The witness has just shown me a hero license issued in England. It details her full name, her birth date, the date it was issued and the renewal date. It also contains her Hero name and title, the Death Defying Hero: Hedwig and a quirk name, Karma, but the quirk description is missing.” Tsukaushi informed the recorder again.
Wait, this was the hero Hedwig, whose name had been bombarding the forums dedicated to his hero persona for the past seven years? If so, it was a bit funny that they had ended up in this situation, even if he was sure both of them would rather have avoided it.
At his side, Young Midoriya had also recognized the name and looked pretty enthusiastic about meeting another hero.
“I specifically requested that the description be kept out due to safety reasons. The quirk name already gives away what it has to do with, somewhat, and I don’t think it wise to reveal exactly what it does.” Hallie clarified.
Young Midoriya began muttering as he tried to figure out her quirk from the few clues online and if it had been in use during the fight at all. Toshinori tuned it out. He could always ask later what the boy’s thoughts on the quirk were. He couldn’t watch the interrogation live like this again, after all.
“Understood. And for your information, Yagi-san is indeed that blond man that was made hostage.” Tsukauchi informed. “What were you doing before you noticed Pyrites-san following you?”
“I was actually thinking of doing some shopping. We’ve moved in very recently and are still in the process of making our house homey. We’ve been living on take-out food because of that, but today I wanted to get some fresh produce and cook something. I didn’t get to do any buying, though.” Hallie stated.
“Do you have any idea why he was following you?”
“Yes. It was due to both my quirk status and my being single. He wants to force me into marriage to get a hold of the quirk.”
“Quirk marriage?” He asked alarmed.
“Not in the way you define it. He wasn’t trying to combine quirks in an offspring. Most of our community is quirkless with very few exceptions, as you know, and he’s not an exception to the rule. And this quirk isn’t biologically inheritable in the first place.” Hallie explained.
“So, he merely wanted to control when you used it and on whom?”
“Among other things, but yes, that is likely one of the main objectives. The fact that I’m also the Lady heiress of two old and wealthy families with a lot of political sway also helped, I’m sure.”
“I see. I assume he knows about what your quirk does?”
“Everyone in the magical community does. They knew more about it that I did and that’s all I’m willing to say about it at the moment.” She said defensively.
Toshinori raised an eyebrow. That was odd. The whole thing about her quirk was weird from the start. And there was something odd about the way she referred to her quirk as well, but he couldn’t quite place it.
At his side, Izuku’s facial expression embodied the blue screen of death perfectly. Well, the term ‘magic’ had just been tossed about carelessly. Toshinori couldn’t blame him for blanking out about it.
“Understandable.” Tsukauchi agreed. “Going back to what happened. You had been looking for heroes but weren’t finding any and, because your license still isn’t valid here, you needed someone else to take Pyrites-san out. What happened next?”
“I was trying to lead him. I made sure to always be just in sight of him so that he could follow me, but still far enough away that he couldn’t catch me or spell me, all without letting show that I had seen him. But I must have gotten careless. He must have lost sight of me somehow. At least, that’s what I think made him snap and attack other people to get at me. He sounded like he’d lost track of me. Maybe there were just too many people there. I was trying to double back to see if I could de-escalate the situation somehow when he captured Yagi-san and his kid. That was also when I realized he’d spelled some innocent guy with the Imperius.”
“When did you realize the other individual was spelled?” Tsukauchi asked.
“The moment I saw him I knew. He was dressed as a no-maj and Jet is too much of a blood purist to associate with one. He was a victim of opportunity. The blankness in his eyes only further confirmed my suspicions. During the Blood Wars I had more than enough opportunities to learn to recognize the signs and I’ve always been more observant than most, so it wasn’t difficult for me to see it.”
“What was your thought processes when you decided to step forward and reveal your presence.”
“Well, first I tried to think of any way I could de-escalate the situation, but there really weren’t any. I had no back up and no way to tell where the heroes were to take advantage of his distraction to run off and get them and no way to be sure his hostages would remain uninjured until then. All I could do without knowing exactly what his plans for me were was try and distract him and hope that, of the multiple people standing there watching, one of them had the sense to call someone or to live stream it so that I could eventually get some back up. Besides, if anything, I could count on Yagi-san to help if I gave him an opening.” Hallie stated.
“How so?”
“Well… Like I said, I’m observant. Yagi-san didn’t act like a helpless civilian. He was concerned, sure, but he kept a level head. I saw him scanning his surrounding looking for something to help. I’m quite sure if his kid hadn’t been caught too and hadn’t been placed so far away from him, he would have tried to escape with him before I even had to intervene. He definitely acted like someone who had training. Not military in kind, though. His stance was too lax for that. Any sort of military trained people has a certain rigidness to their stance that they keep even while relaxed and distracted. He felt more like a brawler type. Retired, likely.”
Well, that was surprising. She really was observant.
“Retired?” Tsukauchi said, wanting to extract more details of her conclusions.
“When Jet moved him to take out the glass, he reacted differently in one of the sides. It was a very minute reaction, but I could tell it hurt. That and, when we were on the way here, he coughed some blood and the kid barely reacted. I mean, he was still concerned and offering his handkerchief, but he wasn’t surprised, which leads me to believe it’s some sort of chronic condition, hence retirement.”
“Going back to topic…” Tsukauchi said, looking a bit unnerved by her semi-accurate observations. “What happened next?”
“I stepped forward before Jet made good on his promise and he immediately focused on me. Everyone else aside from the hostages became sort of a background to him. They simply didn’t matter to him for the mere fact that they don’t have magic. In his mind, his only concern was me, the hostages to keep me contained, and the chance that the aurors could be called. I doubt he even thought about the chance a hero could come, though none came anyway. I stated his name out loud so that it could be picked up by the cameras in hopes it would be helpful later on, if he escaped, and let it be known he had some hidden dirt he got away with just in case I couldn’t make it out intact.”
Toshinori remembered that. He still didn’t know what House Elves were but, apparently, they didn’t have a right to testify and that man had gotten away with something.
“Would you mind explaining what you have on him and why you haven’t come forward with it?” Tsukauchi zeroed in on it as well and hopefully they would get some answers about it.
“It’s a long story dating back to the British Blood Wars around two decades back. It’s not too relevant to what happened today but if you want me to tell you I will.” She explained uncertainly.
“I think it would add to the psychological profile of the perp if nothing else.” Tsukauchi stated.
It would really depend on the veracity of the information and if there were ways to prove it or not. But if there was an unreported crime that they could nail on the attacker, Tsukauchi was bound to go for it. Neither of them liked people getting away with serious crimes.
Upon seeing young Midoriya’s confused expression at the term British Blood Wars, Toshinori was once again reminded that he still didn’t have full knowledge over the magical world, let alone Voldemort. Heck, even Toshinori didn’t know much beyond the leader’s name and the name of the group he led, and the British had been considering calling him to help at the end of it. So, he told him what few things he knew before Hallie started talking again.
“Ok. Well, what you need to know dates back to when I was seventeen. I couldn’t attend my last year of school because the war had picked up, the headmaster, the only one leading the resistance to Voldemort until then, was dead and the government, as well as the school, were taken over by Death Eaters. As his number one enemy, I obviously wasn’t about to go to school so that he could capture me, which is where this happened. I wasn’t a witness so, at best, all I can claim is hearsay, which won’t help in this case because his family is influential enough to get him away without having to take the stand. I had, at the time, a family-owned house elf named Kreacher and he worked at Hogwarts for a time while I was on the run as a way to keep busy and still be useful and he was the one who had seen it and told me about it before he died. This just to give you a context of the situation.” Hallie said in a serious tone. Once Tsukauchi nodded, she continued. “Kreacher witnessed him using the imperius curse to force other students, more specifically the younger ones from ages 11 to 13, into doing sexual acts with each other, at times in the most violent sadistic and brutal manner possible just to get his voyeuristic tendencies’ rocks off, before erasing all of their memory about what happened, leaving them confused over why their bodies were hurting in places they shouldn’t be hurting, eventually leading to several teenage pregnancies where neither the parent of the baby knew how that happened and half that amount of rushed arranged marriages just to save face. I also know for a fact that he sometimes joined in, later on, when it was already established that someone was doing fucked up stuff and not participating themselves just because he could and to throw off a potential trail leading to him. A friend, at my request, tried to get him to the stand but he was still the heir of the Pyrites at the time and they didn’t want to lose face and managed to use their connections to dismiss it outright because the witness wasn’t human. They were one of the families that was pushier over me being forced into a marriage, more specifically to their son, just to keep me quiet about what he did until I finally left Britain and only then did they take the heirship away from him and gave it to his sister, since they could no longer use me to save face and the communities outside of Britain are less inclined to do them favors. I’m surprised that Jet didn’t know I was the reason he was being investigated since his father certainly did, or he wouldn’t have been so adamant about me marrying him. I guess they must have felt that they couldn’t trust him anymore, but that is just conjecture.”
“Do you have any evidence aside from Kreacher’s testimony? Since he’s already dead we can’t have him testify anymore.” Tsukauchi asked, though he didn’t look very hopeful about it.
“I have saved up a few vials with Kreacher’s memories about it, but there aren’t many Pensieves in existence and even less people capable of verifying that the memories weren’t tempered with.” She stated.
“I’ll try to talk about it with someone from the communities here in Japan to see what can be done about it. Perhaps if he had stayed back in England, they wouldn’t have done anything about it, but because he committed crimes here as well, they will likely try to nail him with as many things as possible. They are laxer here with the people allowed to know about the magical world than in England, but far more rigid in ensuring justice is done. From what I heard, in your birth country they outright erase the memories of anyone unlucky enough to have stumbled across it, am I right?”
“Yes. It’s a problem when the wixen doing the erasing doesn’t have enough experience in it and messes up the person’s memories in an almost permanent manner. I was quite surprised that so many countries allow for there to be forms filled in and filed allowing for some no-majs to know about it without having to deal with that. It’s very strict here still, but it gives so much more leeway than in England.” Hallie commented.
“After you revealed to him that you knew about what he’d done, what happened?”
She continued to detail how she had to put down her wand, to which she complied very much willingly. Any hesitation merely a tool to delay Jet and buy them some time for the other heroes to come. Apparently, although she was very competent with dueling with a wand, and still made sure to practice all the spells in her private gym, she mainly fought without its use due to the laws surrounding the Statute of Secrecy, only using it as the very last option if needed. So, while she seemed to have become disadvantaged in the eyes of the magic criminal, she was actually just getting started and waiting for her chance to strike.
Finally, they reached the part of the testimony that concerned Toshinori.
The welled glass filled halfway with blood which she had just claimed to have immediately recognized, despite how she’d acted like she didn’t.
“Could you explain to me how and why you recognized what it was as well as confirm what it is?” Tsukauchi asked.
“It’s a Matrimonial Bond Glass, which basically means that it’s a glass that enforces a marriage through a bond. As I mentioned before, the community back home was trying to force me to marry. Quirked magicals are extremely rare, though their popularity and high status decreased with the rise of Voldemort, due to the necessity of ‘impure’ blood for them to activate. But then I had to be revealed to have this massively powerful quirk just as I defeat the big baddy that made them unpopular in the first place. And because of my status as the person who defeated Voldemort, along with my two heirships, and the fact that I’m female, everyone was suddenly very interested in acquiring me into their family and, hopefully, get a hold of my monetary and political assets. At first, they were content to coast by on their imposed restrictive laws that kept me from having my dream job, or practically any job, really, and corner me into having to look into potential marriages. But as I kept resisting no matter what they did, they started becoming more impatient with me, they started playing dirty.” She stated, looking miffed by what she was reminiscing about. “I lost count over how many times I’ve had my groceries dosed with love potions and how many magical shops I stopped buying at before I found one run by a squib that couldn’t give less of a crap about rich people politics or money and only cared that I made sure she was safe from the consequences of the Blood War and that I did not want to be married to some schmuck as some sort of trophy. So, logically, I looked into all the ways I could be forced into a marriage I wanted nothing to do with. Can I have your permission to take something out of this pouch. It’s relevant.”
Tsukauchi agreed and, from a pouch she had around her neck, that Toshinori hadn’t noticed until then, she pulled out something that, with a touch of her wand grew to reveal a stack of files as tall as one of the police’s case file boxes from when things weren’t saved digitally.
“These are all the ways I could be forced into a marriage. I keep this from most probable to least. The reason I recognized the glass is due to file 47.” She extracted the file in question and handed it to Tsukauchi. “This one would have been first due to how dangerous to me it is, since it enforces complete control, but it has fallen severely out of favor for two whole centuries.”
Tsukauchi read it swiftly but attentively while Hallie sat quietly and seemingly patiently, only the fidgeting of her hands giving her away. Finally, Tsukauchi turned back to the recorder that was still going.
“The witness has provided me with a file detailing what the glass used on scene is, how it works, the common uses of it, and a list of potential ways to circumvent it.” He detailed before turning back to Hallie. “Would you mind if I copied this file to add to the case?”
“No, by all means, go ahead.”
“I’ll do so as soon as we’re done here.” He stated. “You mentioned that this was low in priority due to falling out of use but it doesn’t say why here.”
“That is another history lesson. I’ll have to explain how these came about as well.” She said with a bored expression. “It all dates back to the rise of Christianity and the amount of muggleborns raised in that environment joining the English conclaves. At the time there still wasn’t any reason for the Statute of secrecy to come about and people got along relatively well. The magicals followed more of a pagan-like religion up until then, but several of the men in power liked that way Christianity was structured around patriarchy and started leaning more to the idea of the male heir with only a few exceptions and took to only that part of the religion rathar than the whole thing to get inspired by. That, of course, meant that girls began to be traded away in arranged marriages. And, of course, the girls didn’t like that because there were still plenty of pagan beliefs circling around when it came to gender. So, they began resisting, running away and even eloping with less desirable matches. The boys soon followed after because the concept of being forced to marry someone they didn’t like didn’t sit right with them either. And that didn’t sit right with the people who’d gotten used to the idea of having power over their kids. One man ended up creating the glass as a way to enforce those arranged matches. As you’ve just read, the glass works by establishing a hierarchy in the marriage. It doesn’t matter the gender of either participant, only who bleeds first. They immediately gain power over the person who bleeds next. The second donner to the glass doesn’t even need to feel any particular way about it. Willing or not, the glass will still work by tying the pair together in a marriage with unbalanced dynamics the moment the second donner drinks the blood, which they can’t resist doing for long (and it also tastes awful, by the way). The first donner then can dictate the terms of the marriage, forcing the second one to abide by them. From what I’ve read on the subject, it’s kind of like having to see your body walk around and doing things without your permission and feeling everything inflicted on it, good or bad, while you are trapped, unable to do anything about it.”
Well, that certainly is horrifying, but Toshinori already suspected it from that monologue Jet had spouted when he’d thought he’d won. He just hadn’t known the full extent of it.
“Most women ended up dying early because of the things they would endure under the effects of the ritual. By the time men started being brought into this sort of marriage as the subservient, many ruling spouses started to include a clause that kept them from committing suicide, unlike before, when they were quick to include one that kept the submissive spouses from killing them. It all changed with Aranea Weaver, nee Proudmore. She was married off with the glass as well, and had a set of rules that kept her from killing her husband or herself among many other restrictions. But she wasn’t forbidden from purchasing a house elf for her exclusive use. Supposedly, the house elf only kept her healthy enough to still be alive when her husband passed away with a tragic disease, but rumors say that she’d instructed the Elf to slowly poison her husband until he died. Records are very vague about it and there is a lot of speculation but the fact stays the same: She lived and he died. Not long after that, the ruler spouses of several marriages, especifically the more abusive ones, began dying. It started off casually enough and with big enough intervals between each death that no one suspected murder. It’s only later that they noticed all the death scenes featured a male praying mantis with his head cut off near the body. All the suspects, even the submissive spouses, all had very public alibis. It was suspected that a group was behind the murders and they were named the Mantises. Eventually they also connected the murders to the use of the Matrimonial Bond Glass and they stopped being used and were destroyed by the Mantises members whenever found, though, apparently, they missed one, since the Pyrites had it.”
“So, you immediately knew what the glass was. Was the pretending not to know another way to buy time?” Tsukauchi asked, though Toshinori knew he was raring to go straight to the question that concerned both of them the most.
“In part, yes. It was also because I didn’t want him to know I knew what the glass was. He could try to out maneuver me if he knew I was aware of what it was. I let him believe I was just some stubborn woman that didn’t know jack about anything, let alone ancient artifacts. I even managed to wheedle a magical promise out of him that keeps him from ever being able to kill anyone with his magic. It won’t help much if he decided not to use magic to do the killings nor keeps him from only torturing people using magic, but the fact that I did as he asked and bled into the glass binds his magic to his promise.” She replied.
“Was the event you both mentioned about your previous blood use related to the Blood wars, the one you mentioned before in this interview, or was it something else?”
“It was what re-started the Blood War the second time, yes. Voldemort used my blood to give himself a body with immunity to my magical protections. And, of course, the moment he had a body, he went back to ruling the Death Eaters and killing whomever stood in their way.”
“Pyrites-san then decided to release his hostage to you as a show of good faith and a way to get the glass to you from what I’ve been told. Is that correct?”
“Yes, he released Yagi-san, but he was still pointing his wand at the kid, so I’m not sure how much of that ‘good faith’ is valid. Yagi-san tried to spill the blood when he was walking towards me. It was a good effort, but ultimately hopeless. There are spells to keep it from spilling or the glass from breaking. There’s really only one way to remove the blood from there. A spell that was created much later than the glass was and, therefore, it had no defense against it unlike many other spells.”
“I see. Did you use that spell? And how, if you didn’t have a wand?”
“I did. When Yagi-san tripped, I took the chance to catch him to keep the glass hidden from Jet. I made sure to learn all the spells I might need to use in an emergency without the use of a wand or voice specifically for cases like this one. I had nothing but time, since they kept me from being able to get a job. Despite this glass being on spot 47 when it comes to my files, I still made sure to learn the spell just in case. It also helps that it was one of the first spells I learned when I asked my old school nurse for first aid training. It’s called Sterilitium and eliminates all traces of biological matter. It’s used to sanitize synthetic cloth and other objects so as to not infect the patient. It’s also perfect to eliminate blood from an un-spillable glass.” She said with a smug little smirk. “Bet he never thought little old me would ever be capable of non-verbal and wandless casting when I was so bad at it when I was sixteen.”
“That took care of the blood there. What did you do next?”
“I… Well, I didn’t have many options left.” Hallie admitted looking a bit ashamed and guilty. “The heroes were supposed to have already arrived by then. And there was no one I could turn to. I couldn’t even ask for permission… I extracted and used Yagi-san’s blood to replace Jet’s and trick him into thinking I’d done nothing to the glass.”
At his side, Izuku released a pterodactyl screech when he realized what that meant and looked at him while pointing in Hallie’s direction, flabbergasted. Toshinori quickly tried to calm him down so that they could continue listening to the testimony, though it was clear the screech had been overheard when Hallie commented idly:
“Ah, it looks like someone has connected the dots.”
“I take it you mean that, by taking Yagi-san’s blood, you ended up bound to him instead?” Tsukauchi pretended to infer just to get the conversation moving along, though everyone in both rooms knew that was pretty much a done deal.
“Yes. Basically, he became my ruler husband. Unfair for him, I know. He didn’t ask to be married to me. He didn’t even get a choice on the matter. And even if he’s the one with control over this unwanted union, it doesn’t change the fact that I still did it regardless of his wants and needs. For all that I know, he could have a very wholesome marriage with someone and this would come to add unnecessary drama to the whole thing. A drama he is not even responsible for. I’ll take full responsibility for this and try to make it as painless as possible. I’m also ready to sign any additional forms to inform other involved parties.” She stated with a resolute expression. “As an unbiased party, I expect you to be able to mediate on any issues me and him can’t agree on, or at least to be able to indicate someone who can do that in your stead.”
“I can certainly try.” Tsukauchi admitted, a bit uncomfortable with the fact that he wasn’t completely unbiased in this situation like she’d assumed, all while knowing he couldn’t pass off this case to another person who knew the Statute of Secrecy that might fullfill that requirement due to the fact that he was the only one who knew the secret behind All Might.
Well, Toshinori would definitely try to make it easy on him. The woman seemed to be pretty reasonable so far. Hopefully she would remain that way when they talked.
“Going back to your statement: You replaced the blood which ultimately bound you to him. What were your plans after that?”
“There weren’t any, actually. Those plans were me solving the issue on the fly. I didn’t want to be bound to someone who enjoyed sexually torturing teens and was bound to do the same if not worse to me and Yagi-san happened to be the only one close enough for me to do the switch. I basically placed all my bets in the same slot and hoped for the best. Thankfully the most urgent ones paid off handsomely. Yagi-san not only understood the message I tried to get across, he acted on it promptly as soon as he understood what had to happen. And he didn’t even try to skew the balance in his advantage.” Her expression was almost amazed. “He could have very easily told me to protect him, binding me to do that for the rest of my life or something in the same lines. Instead, even not knowing the sort of person I am beyond the fact that he was taken hostage because of me, he decided to give me my freedom. You have no idea how rare that is. And he said it at just the right time that Jet didn’t even realize I wasn’t under his thrall like he’d assumed. Pretty smart, that man. Real quick on the uptake. Because of that, I could get near them enough to rescue them and take down Jet as well.”
And that was the last important bit on the testimony. Now it was just a matter of asking follow up questions and reviewing the notes to make sure everything was written down right and there weren’t any conflicting sentences indicating a less than truthful account.
Only a few extra details were asked, but nothing that was a major revelation. Hallie was still adamant about not talking about her quirk yet, though she admitted she would have to talk about it with himself and young Midoriya and, likely, Tsukauchi would have to be there to play the role of ‘unbiased’ third party mediating them. She was pretty insistent on having that conversation in some place where there weren’t cameras to film her talking or where someone could come in and hear what they shouldn’t.
Likely they would end up talking about it in the woman’s apartment since she was so paranoid and neither he nor young Midoriya were too keen on letting her into their own residences.
The issue didn’t even seem to be much about a secrecy thing since she admitted that everyone in her community knew about it. She was still adamant that very few people outside the community learned about her quirk.
Perhaps things would make more sense once they heard her out?