A/N: Over five months since the epilogue, and this is pure indulgence on my part (because happy birthday to me). Or it was, until this all got much darker than even I anticipated it would.

As such, TRIGGER WARNING.

SIDE STORY

– Ghost –

She was fifteen when she first came to the Voodoo Agency. Paper Cut was indifferent.

Try though he had, he didn't see the family resemblance – Rin was small and gangly, like a clumsy-footed doe. Fragile. Odd. Doctor Voodoo was odd too, but in the ways which made him suited to the work of the underground: a morbid charisma, a taste for the shadowy and the strange. If Rin was his daughter, genetics had done a good job of hiding it.

Had Paper Cut's orders not been to believe what he was told, he would have been skeptical. Perhaps a little disappointed too. After all, he'd spent years chasing this girl, and now that they had her in their grasp she was just… a girl.

"What's your hero name?" he asked her on the first day of her internship.

"My hero name?"

"You must have one, surely."

"Oh, no, I do. I think. It's just not very good." She was flush-faced as dawn, flashing an awkward smile. "But since I'm an intern, can't you just call me Hiruma? Or Rin?"

Paper Cut shook his head. Stupid girl.

The week of her internship, she didn't once ask about Doctor Voodoo; Doctor Voodoo didn't once come to see her. Instead, at all hours of the day, Rin followed Paper Cut with wide eyes and shut lips. He was supposed to have been prepared for it. She was his primary mission – he'd followed her, he'd studied her. Her face through the ages was engraved upon his mind like a hieroglyph. But now, she was different up close. She'd changed since she was a little girl.

Darting glances. Restless fingers. Quick feet and unsteady hands.

To have taken her out to do any real work would have gotten her killed. It would have been a pretty picture: ruby blood on such pale skin. But a shame too.

On the second day of her internship, Paper Cut made her coffee for breakfast – black and ghastly, way too strong for a girl her size (she'd inherited a liking for caffeine from Voodoo, at least) – and sat her down in one of the offices the Voodoo Agency rented. Paper Cut himself had no need for an office, and what they did keep was purely for administration purposes. Official administration, that is.

"Tell me, Rin," he said, seating himself across from her. "What sort of combat training have you been given at UA?"

She thought for a moment, kicking her legs up and down on her chair. "Like, specific techniques?"

"Anything at all."

"Well, Aizawa-sensei has taught us a few defensive moves. But mostly, the teachers just make us fight." She sipped her coffee, and made no face at its pungency. "I think we're supposed to figure out our fighting styles on our own."

Paper Cut gave a harsh laugh. "Some education you're getting."

"Who taught you to fight?"

"Excuse me?"

Ghoulish eyes stared at him, dewy and curious. "Did you go to a school where they taught you how to fight?"

"I didn't go to school at all." He leaned back into his chair, considering her as she, interestingly, considered him. "Doctor Voodoo mentored me when I was younger. My fighting styles were actively developed."

Rin smiled small. "Cool." Sipped her coffee again.

"Now, the reason I ask – you have no idea how to approach an opponent."

"I don't."

"And you're scared of your quirk."

The smile vanished.

"It doesn't take much to figure it out, my darling. We watched you at the Sports Festival," Paper Cut said, and allowed himself a smirk. "Anyway. I'm sure you're not familiar with my way of fighting. Your Aizawa-sensei isn't very fond of me for it." She gave no response. "But I think you have something to benefit from it. Neither you nor I are impressive in terms of physical strength – just look at you, you're little more than a bird."

Rin shrugged, and touched her fingers to her mouth. Nervous habit. "Sorry."

Paper Cut leaned forward to pull her fingers away – such tiny little fingers, and cold, and shaking. "Come. You're finished your coffee." She wasn't. Nonetheless, Paper Cut held her hand and led her out the room. "I'm going to teach you something that they'd never teach you at UA."

Her first week was over. Paper Cut wasn't so sure he was still indifferent, and Doctor Voodoo was pleased.

The sky was a rich obsidian. At their usual meeting spot, shrouded by the darkness, Doctor Voodoo had set up a game of chess and was preoccupied with his black bishop's next move (he played entirely on his own, finding no competition in Paper Cut nor in anyone else in the Agency or even in the wider hero world). Coat strewn over the back of his chair, humming quietly to himself, Voodoo seemed to pay no attention to Paper Cut as he stood there. Waiting.

Finally, he moved the bishop.

"She's a lovely girl, isn't she, Kizashi?" Voodoo said, looking up at last.

Paper Cut felt a tightness unknot itself down his spine, aware that he'd done well, of Voodoo's honey-smooth gaze falling over him in approval. "Yes, sir."

"She responds well to you."

"She's an eager learner. UA isn't doing her justice."

Voodoo hummed, and the night reverberated powerfully. "Eraser Head will be a problem."

"Why do you say so, sir?"

It was an unnecessary question. Paper Cut already knew the answer, and felt the cold sting of irritation rise in his throat. Still, Voodoo liked being asked questions, and Paper Cut wanted to be obliging.

Chuckling, low and measured, Voodoo moved his white knight. "You know how he is." He knocked a rook off the board. "But I'm sure you can see a way around it. Eraser Head will only present a problem to us so long as Rin clings to him. She latches onto people, you see. Very much like her mother, that way." A pawn was captured. Then a knight. "You've got to set out enough hooks to give Rin someone new to cling to. You've always been so good with the little girls, Kizashi. This should be easy for you."

"And the boy?"

Sharply, Voodoo frowned. "He's a last resort. But don't you worry about him, for now. I want you to focus on Rin."

"Where should I start, sir?"

The white queen was captured. It was check-mate. "She lives alone. No friends," Voodoo said, and shrugged his coat back onto his shoulders. Smiling, warm and golden through the darkness, he winked at Paper Cut. "It must be very lonely for her, don't you think?"

It started with letters.

Paper Cut would write to her, leaving the envelopes in an old postbox she checked every day after school. He'd watch her, find himself fascinated by her bright flurries of excitement when she found his letters. He'd watch her from neighbouring rooftops as she tip-toed to the upstairs room in which she stayed, and he'd wait for a few hours before checking the postbox – always to find a new envelope addressed to him, always a little more endeared by the fact that Rin had no idea how mail worked.

He'd disappear back to Tokyo for the week, reading over her letters in search of new details to share with Doctor Voodoo.

Rin was doing well. Rin was working on the techniques he had shown her. She had questions about his fighting style. She had questions about his quirk. She had questions she hadn't asked during her internship.

She spoke a lot about Aizawa-sensei, who apparently didn't have anything to say about her new fighting style. Maybe I need to work on it more first.

And Paper Cut, always replying within the week, would write longer and longer sections of prose. Sometimes under the eye of Doctor Voodoo. Sometimes not. Asking her increasingly personal questions – what was her favourite colour (she thinks purple, but she likes blue and grey too), what did she do for fun (read), why she wanted to be a hero (she doesn't know). Increasingly curious about her answers, and wanting to know ever more because, as it turned out, his little sister used to like blue and grey, and his little sister used to read.

It went on for a year, an obligation which became a ritual, and Paper Cut began to tell Rin how eager he was for her next letter. "Good," Doctor Voodoo would say. "She likes you. Keep writing."

So he would write.

And he would remind her constantly never to tell her teachers.

Rin was sixteen, turning seventeen, when she came for her second internship.

Doctor Voodoo wanted her for himself this time around, and kept her busy for hours at a time with strategy, psychology, law, and childcare. Others around the Agency got to meet her. Paper Cut saw very little of her – only on the last day of her internship did she come tumbling into his shift, breathless and blown about like a little white flower. He'd been smoking outside the rented offices, about to start his patrol, and then there she'd been.

"My, my, what's got you looking so harried?" he smiled down at her, exhaling upon a bitter puff of smoke.

She smiled back, prettier and more self-assured than the smile of a year ago. "Doctor Voodoo told me to join your patrol. But he only told me a few minutes ago – sorry if you were waiting."

"Your hair is a mess."

She looked puzzled.

"Come here."

Paper Cut handed her his cigarette to hold, and spun her by the shoulders. Stray strands flayed outwards in all directions. He pulled the elastic band from her hair and gathered it all in a tight ponytail at the top of her head. Soft. Smelling of citrusy shampoo. Her nape was an ivory column, her spine a delicate bump at its base. Silky white fell between Paper Cut's fingers. He used to tie his sister's hair in a ponytail just like this.

"It's sore," Rin said quietly.

"It's either this, or you cut it all off." Tugging sharply on the ponytail so that Rin's neck snapped backwards, Paper Cut held her there and smirked. "Pretty as it may be."

Then he let her go, and took back his cigarette. They began a slow walk down the street, the sun making its dip below the horizon and casting patterns of orange light and shadow between the surrounding buildings. For a while, Paper Cut ignored the way Rin's eyes balanced themselves on him. She was quiet at his side, and close, the sweet smell of her hair still sharp in Paper Cut's nose. He dropped his cigarette to the pavement and snubbed it beneath his feet. She watched.

"How do cigarettes taste?" Rin asked, too dream-like for it to be an actual question.

Paper Cut raised an eyebrow. "Like smoke."

"Well, how does smoke taste then?"

"You can try for yourself, if you'd like."

He pulled another cigarette from his coat, held it out to Rin. She made a sweet noise between a gasp and a laugh, and blinked at him as though the whole suggestion were absurd. He couldn't have been serious. He realised what it would look like, offering a cigarette to a sixteen year old girl. But hell, he'd first tasted cigarettes when he was twelve, and lots of girls his age had smoked back then.

The amusement in his smirk was almost painful. "Go ahead, my darling."

Slowly, she took the cigarette from him, and after twisting it between trembling fingers to figure out the right hold, she touched it to her lips and allowed Paper Cut the honour of lighting.

Their letters continued. But soon it wasn't enough. Rin would lose interest, Doctor Voodoo said. Being a pen-pal wasn't enough when Eraser Head was near her all the time, teaching her, growing closer to her every single day. She may have liked Paper Cut, Doctor Voodoo reminded him constantly, but she liked her Aizawa-sensei all the more. Simply writing letters wouldn't give Paper Cut any leverage over Rin.

"You've established yourself nicely as a sort of teacher. In your own capacity," Doctor Voodoo said one evening over coffee. He stirred in three sugars, drank neatly from his cup. "It's time now that you push the boundaries a little further."

Paper Cut tried to keep Doctor Voodoo's eye. But the swirling greens were so weighted, so knowing and wise, it was crushing. He frowned. "I'm afraid I don't quite understand what you mean."

"I think you do."

"She's a child."

"No, she's not."

"We could use the boy now. Yukio. Rin is involved enough with the Agency. I'm certain she'll stay."

"The boy is a risk, Kizashi. I don't want to use him if I don't have to." Voodoo leaned across the table, cocooning his palm over Paper Cut's knuckles. Cold. Unshaking. Never shaking. The touch sent a warm thrill down into the depths of Paper Cut's chest. "I know you hesitate because of Kitoku." The warmth spread, hooked itself. "But that's exactly why I've chosen you. I see the way you look at her. The hold you have over her. Nobody else will be able to do this. And you want to do this. For me. Don't you, Kizashi?"

Paper Cut felt himself tremble. "But she's so young."

"No. Kitoku was young. You were young. That didn't stop your father, and your uncle, did it?"

"No."

"And it's different with Rin, isn't it?"

Paper Cut thought. "I suppose so."

"She wants you."

"She does."

Song-smooth hum. "Good." Doctor Voodoo's hand left Paper Cut's.

And Paper Cut left the next day for Musutafu, where he himself waited at Rin's postbox instead of leaving her a letter. It was twilight when she finally returned from school, and through the light's amber glow she smiled sheepishly at Paper Cut. Unsure of herself, but not of him, and invited him upstairs into the privacy of her small, suburban rent-a-room.

The furniture was humble and took up little space, yet still the place was cramped. Warm, and smelling of her: perfume, fruity shampoo, something metallic beneath it all. Traces of absent-mindedness were strewn about. Open school books were piled upon the coffee table, pictures were skew on the walls. There were pillows on the floor, and unwashed coffee mugs in peculiar places, and more books, and houseplants like little friends, squeezed in together on the windowsills and on any available surfaces.

"Sorry about the mess," Rin said, not seeming particularly sorry at all, sweet and small amongst her clutter.

Paper Cut smirked. "I don't believe you were expecting visitors."

She played with a strand of her over her shoulder. "And I don't have anything besides coffee or water to offer you."

"What about food?"

"Spinach. And rice cakes."

"You should be eating a lot more than that, with a quirk like yours."

"Aizawa-sensei has written a shopping list for me. But," she blushed, laughing as she spoke, "I usually forget to buy food."

"I can't say I'm particularly surprised, somehow."

With the sense of wading through a foreign landscape, Paper Cut came close to her. She was not a short girl, but her forehead scarcely reached his collarbone – by him, she was almost shadowed, and it sent a burn through Paper Cut's veins. He touched her cheek. Their colour vanished; the purple crescents beneath her eyes stood out stark against her skin.

"Do– did you need to see me about something?" It came out as a weak, darling choke. Curious. Coy.

"Not particularly." Fingers finding their way around her chin, Paper Cut propped her face upwards. "It's just that I've been thinking about you."

He felt her swallow.

"You certainly already know that though."

"I–" Her nose crinkled, and she tried to flinch away, flushed and lovely. "I didn't know that."

"Look at me."

She did so.

Paper Cut lowered himself, eye-level with Rin, imagining the erratic thrum of her pulse. Her lips shook, but he didn't know exactly if she was scared – the greens of her eyes were clear, sharp as icy water, and she met his gaze fully. Bravely. He didn't have her yet.

And so he released her, straightening himself to look about the room once again. "I'd be thrilled if you would give me a tour."

"But," she cocked her head at him, an unreadable softness about her eyes, "there isn't anything else to see."

His hand found its way into the small of her back, and he led her towards the only other door to be seen – propped open by a pile of books, dark with closed curtains. Paper Cut felt Rin go stiff. "Oh, I'm sure there's still plenty more for you to show me. Don't be shy."

For weeks afterwards, he would think about Rin. About the closeness of her bedroom, and the unmade bed, and the stuffiness of closed windows. How she'd stood perfectly still as he'd measured the length of the room with his steps, and seated himself at the edge of her bed.

His fingers, flattening and exploring the cool wrinkles upon the sheets, had found her pajamas. An Eraser Head t-shirt. Frilly, pretty shorts. He'd held them up for her and had smiled, exhilarated by the stiff rise of her shoulders (the hollows of her collarbones deep and full beneath the collar of her school shirt) and the awkward angling of her knees (sharp and jutting through her stockings). She'd watched him, knowing full-well what he expected and not, it seemed, being entirely unwilling to oblige.

"Very cute," he'd said. "Why don't you put them on for me?"

She took the shorts from him. She began to tug at her skirt.

"Start with your blazer. Do it slowly."

She did it slowly. Agonizingly so, all the way to her underwear and bra.

For weeks afterwards, Paper Cut thought about the supple length of her limbs, their pallor in the tight dimness of her bedroom. Soft as a teenager, but with all the stretch of muscle as a young woman. Her hair, disastrous about her head, down into the valley between her shoulder blades. He hadn't touched her, but god, he'd wanted to. How many nights now had he imagined his fingers leaving track marks over her hipbones, her navel, her fine small breasts? And how still she'd stood for him. Saying nothing. Breathing steady and easy, so that her stomach rose and fell in a gorgeous, slow wave.

And all those scars. Up and down her arms. Scattered about her thighs. He wanted to add to them. He wanted to scrape his teeth and nails down the polished parts of her skin and leave her writhing.

For weeks afterwards, he didn't contact her. Waiting. Waiting as Doctor Voodoo had told him to do so – because even though he spent every night with his fists clenched and sweat carving valleys down his forehead, Paper Cut knew that Doctor Voodoo knew best.

And indeed, soon enough, a call arrived at their rented offices. It was Rin. Asking for Paper Cut.

"Hello, sweetheart."

"Can you come visit me again?"

She was almost eighteen when she came back to the Voodoo Agency as a work-study student instead of an intern.

That month, Doctor Voodoo arranged an apartment for her in Musutafu. It was close to the train station. Far from the school. She was given a contract, and a secret allowance (secret, because agencies weren't supposed to pay their work-study students). And even though she tried to send the money back the first few times it was given to her, Doctor Voodoo never accepted it when she said 'no'.

"Think of it as a donation, Rin, my sweetest. Or even a down-payment for when you come to work with us after your graduation. No, no, don't argue. Think of your grandparents. Your grandfather is very sick, you told me. You can't expect them to pay for your food and board forever, can you?" He would put his gentle hand on her shoulder, lean in to whisper, "Nobody needs to know."

Nobody needed to know.

She was almost eighteen. She let Paper Cut look at her as though she were much older, let him touch her as though her body was already fully grown. And when he finally fucked her, one hand clutching her hair while the other held her bent over a desk, she took it like she knew what she was doing. Just like Kitoku always used to – silent, tear-streaked cheeks, watching Paper Cut as he stood helpless and removed like a ghost on the other side of the room.

Only now, he wasn't so removed.

He sent origami flowers to the apartment in Musutafu. And when she went to Miyazaki over the school holidays, he sent them to her grandparents' address.

When Doctor Voodoo told him to call her or write to her, he would. When Doctor Voodoo told him to ignore her completely, he would. And like clockwork, exactly according to Doctor Voodoo's predictions, she'd come crawling to Tokyo in search of him like a love-struck little girl, doing what was asked of her, making Paper Cut fall madly.

She said nothing when he started taking photos of her, of the bruises that began to flower over her skin and the jutting of her bones and his hands all over the most compromising places.

She cried, but didn't stop him, when he started to press the butt of his cigarettes into her ribcage.

Most of all, she held him whenever he accidentally called her by his sister's name, and she kissed him when he would start to cry in shame.

She graduated. But she didn't move away from Musutafu.

"Come live here with me," Paper Cut said one night, lying naked with her in his bed. "You can't stay there. It would be terribly impractical."

The two of them passed a cigarette back and forth. She didn't like smoking, and Paper Cut didn't understand why she continued to do it when she only ever curled her nose at the taste – exactly as she did now, dainty and girlish, letting the cigarette linger on her lips for a moment longer than was necessary. She passed it back to Paper Cut with a tender touch of her fingers to his.

"I know," she said, and twisted onto her side. "But I like it there."

"So you don't like it here?"

"Tokyo's just really busy."

"This area isn't."

She smiled at him, putting her hand beneath the bedsheets. "It's still busier than Musutafu."

"The busyness isn't the reason you won't leave though."

Her fingers curled around him, began to move slowly up and down. "I don't know what you mean."

"Eraser Head's making you stay, isn't he?"

"I haven't seen him since my graduation."

"That was only two weeks ago." He gripped Rin's wrist, ripped it back above the covers. He sat up and she followed, her torso baring itself to him – white breasts, pink nipples, ruby burn marks searing their way up her side between plasters and burn-cream. With his free hand, Paper Cut held the cigarette precariously over an unmarked patch of skin. "Are you lying to me, Rin?"

She tried to flinch away, a new urgency taking over her eyes' sleepy greens. "No. No, I'm not lying."

"I think you are."

"I'm not Kizashi. Please. I promise."

She wasn't lying. About seeing Eraser Head, at least. Still. Paper Cut pressed the cigarette into a dent between her ribs, and watched with jealous pleasure as her face went white with the cry she wouldn't let out. As much as she tried to rip herself away, he held her there just long enough. The mark left behind was perfect and circular, a sweet red signature – discarding the cigarette into the ashtray on his bedside, Paper Cut leaned over to trail his lips over the raw, hot skin.

It was just over a week later, and Paper Cut took her to the meeting spot. She didn't resist, but still he shoved her. Pulled her. Wanted to kick her and hurt her until she was squealing apologies which would meet deaf ears. But that would achieve nothing, because apparently it wasn't enough to hurt her.

Paper Cut stood behind, Rin's back lining itself stiff and frightened against his front. Doctor Voodoo sat before them both. His chess table was set up, but lay untouched. His cane was across his lap.

"Tell me, sweetheart. Have I not been good to you?"

"You have been, sir," Rin squeaked.

Her fingers trembled at her sides, and feebly, they searched for Paper Cut's. His fury was scorching. But he wanted to hold her hand. He would have, had Doctor Voodoo's gaze not paralysed him just as much as it had paralysed Rin – hot with disapproval. Switching between them as a disappointed father would look between his son and daughter.

"And Kizashi?" Doctor Voodoo questioned further. "Has he not been treating you as well as you might like?"

"Kizashi is wonderful," Rin said. "I just–"

"Darling, I didn't ask you to speak."

"I'm sorry."

"You went to see Eraser Head last night. I think I haven't been strict enough with you, Rin. I told you I didn't want you seeing him when you finished school."

She nodded slowly, carefully.

"Now you may speak."

"Nothing happened, Doctor Voodoo." Her hand continued its search for Paper Cut's. "I just never got to say thank you to Aizawa-sensei for everything he's done for me. He – I didn't –"

Doctor Voodoo looked to Paper Cut. "I don't believe she's expressed her gratitude to us quite so clearly. Don't you agree, Kizashi?"

"Yes, sir."

Voodoo stood. "You're so very important to me, Rin." He shook his head, sighed with a genuine dismay. "I know you don't realise it. It's not time yet, but I can't imagine losing you to Eraser Head – to anyone. I had hoped we'd done enough to convince you to stay. For you to commit yourself to me."

Rin said nothing, only twisted her head to look pleadingly at Paper Cut. As though he'd be able to help her now – not that those eyes didn't make him feel sickeningly weak, not that the pale quiver of her lips wasn't kissable and apologetic. She wasn't sorry. Voodoo knew it. Paper Cut knew it. She was just scared.

Only, not scared enough.

"Would you like greater incentive, Rin?"

She spoke more to Paper Cut than she did to Doctor Voodoo. "I don't understand."

Unable to get the better of himself, Paper Cut ran his thumb over Rin's cheek. It was cold. Wet.

Doctor Voodoo looked past them. "Yukio-chan," he called. "You can come out now, my boy. Rin-chan's so excited to see you."

Until that point, Paper Cut had only caught vague glimpses of Yukio. He remembered the boy from the warehouse raid ten years ago, but hadn't had anything more to do with him – and though Paper Cut had an idea of what to expect (Doctor Voodoo had given him the papers, the psychiatric tests, the reports), he was still surprised by the little figure that came bounding out of the shadows. The… thing… that came somersaulting towards Rin with terrifying, sickly vigour.

Yukio was supposed to be her age. But he was thin, and tiny, and scrambling with no more coordination than a toddler.

"Rin-chan! Rin-chan! Rin-chan!"

Rin didn't look at Paper Cut anymore.

Really, it didn't seem she was looking at anything.

Yukio's arms found their way around her waist, his head nuzzling as though to bury itself in her stomach. She gawked down at him, her hold an uncertain dangle.

He was barefooted, and dressed in girls' clothing. Even through the deep blackness of the hour, Paper Cut could see the raggedy scars along the boy's limbs. Bite marks. Needle marks. Paper Cut had seen a lot of abuse, and a lot of its effects. But the hollowness about Yukio's face, the claw of his hands scratching themselves up and down Rin's back – it was enough to make even him nauseous.

"Yukio." Doctor Voodoo held out his arms, words dripping with affection. "Come to me."

And so did Yukio go, happily, leaving Rin grasping for air that wouldn't come.

And so Yukio screamed, Doctor Voodoo's cane flying callously into his temple with a harsh thump. Rin screamed too. The whites of her eyes went bloody black, and she lunged as Doctor Voodoo swung his cane into Yukio's narrow spine. Again, again, again. Shrill cries like a piglet beneath a slaughter knife. The smell of blood. Rin thrashed. She bit at Paper Cut's wrists as he clutched her, and didn't calm when he slapped her – hard – across the face.

A wound tore itself open across Yukio's head, and ferocious strikes of red flared across the thin flesh of his neck and shoulders and legs.

Doctor Voodoo grunted as the cane continued to come down, and down, and down.

Rin was on the floor, fighting like Paper Cut had never felt her fight before. Her hand met his forearm. A vein tore beneath his skin, and he felt the blood fizzle at Rin's touch. His cheek. Another vein. He let her go.

Yukio was unconscious. Everything went still except for the harsh, labored sound of Rin's wheezing breaths.

She stayed with Yukio at the Agency's medic that night, and for many nights after. Doctor Voodoo told Paper Cut not to see her – she needed comfort as she comforted Yukio, she needed someone strong as she willed all her strength to bear the brunt of the truth that faced her. She couldn't be allowed to have either of those things. Comfort, strength. They needed to be taken away from her. She was a child needing punishment.

"Forgive me, Kizashi," Doctor Voodoo said when Rin was gone. He wiped the blood off his cane as one would wipe spilled juice. "I know that must have been unpleasant for you."

"Not at all."

"You're such a good boy." He patted Paper Cut's cheek. Approval. "Now, when Rin comes back to you, be gentle with her. But firm. Make sure she knows this was her fault."

Paper Cut made sure she knew. He peppered it in between kisses – you could have stopped it; it would never have happened if only you'd behaved – and had wiped her tears away with assurances that it didn't need to happen again if she promised to be good. She promised. And she was good. Within days, she came to live with him (her stuff remained in Musutafu, but she didn't return there). She did what she was told. She worked hard. She took care of Yukio. She was good.

It was the early hours of the morning. She was awake, and bundled in a blanket near the window.

Paper Cut watched her from the bed. "Come back to me, my love."

"Why?"

"You know why."

"I hate you," she said it softly, beautifully.

It tore at Paper Cut's heart. He didn't want her to hate him. The bed creaked as he stood, and she flinched. The blanket made for a useless shield, but it was a shield nonetheless, and she held it about herself with a quivering, miserable strength as Paper Cut came towards her. As he sat down behind her. Brushing the knots away from her shoulders, kissing her nape.

"I don't want to do this anymore," she said, tears full in her voice. She curled more deeply into herself. "I don't want to do this anymore."

"You shouldn't be saying that."

"Please kill me."

"It'll get better, Rin. You've been doing so well. You've been so good."

"I don't know what that means."

She unwound and buried herself into Paper Cut's hold. He cocooned her as she cried. Stroked her hair, like he used to do for Kitoku, and kissed the top of her head. "There's red wine in the kitchen," he told her. "Come have some. Then we'll go for a walk. Would you like that?"

She didn't reply, only continued to cry.

"Do you want to know something?"

Through his shirt, there was the faintest feeling of a nod.

"I killed my father when I was fourteen," Paper Cut said. "My uncle too. To keep my little sister safe – Kitoku. You remind me of her."

Rin went quiet, just as he knew she would. Rin liked to listen, and she did it so well. Her gestures. Her expressions. All the most perfect combination of listening. Even now, when she didn't look at him, he knew she absorbed every word like they were the most precious things. Her hands were heavy on his chest, her breaths raggedly slowing.

Paper Cut continued, "I slit their throats. Doctor Voodoo showed me how. Kitoku hated me for it – funny that she should, I think, when she never hated our father. But now I haven't seen her in years." Rin was completely still. Paper Cut ran his palm down her back, relishing the fragile bumps of her spine. "She has a family now though. She's safe. You should know, Rin, my love, that sometimes we need to do terrible things to keep people safe. Yukio. All the kids."

She wasn't ready to know about the kids. She wouldn't have understood – not yet. But the truth was that, most of the time, the types of kids the Agency rescued were never really rescued, not on the inside, and they would either end up doing worse than was done to them, or they'd end up dead. So it was better. It was better that they were sold to villains like All For One, who would give them a purpose. Something more. But Rin wouldn't accept that.

"You want to keep them safe, don't you?"

Another frail nod.

Paper Cut smiled. "Would you like some wine now?"

"I want to go outside. For a walk."

"That's fine."

"And I want to go alone."

Paper Cut's better judgement screamed all sorts of profanities and objections. But Rin looked up at him, dewy eyed and utterly miserable, and for once, he couldn't tell her no.

Yukio came to stay with them. Just for a little while, while Doctor Voodoo was out of town.

To live with Rin was messy enough – she left clothing where she pleased, didn't pack away the books she was finished reading, didn't wash dishes after she'd cooked – and it only got worse with Yukio, who drooled onto the couch when he slept and spilled whatever he was given to drink. Paper Cut liked children, and he liked adults who were mentally damaged enough to be little more than children. But he didn't like Yukio out of a base, jealous irrationality.

Rin fawned over the boy. She cuddled him to sleep. Bathed him every night. Drew with him (even let him use the expensive charcoal pencils Paper Cut had bought for her).

She had been given two weeks off to spend with Yukio. Paper Cut didn't think to check up on what they did when he was out on shifts. And why should he have, when Yukio was too volatile to leave the apartment and Rin was too scared to leave Yukio? But only in hindsight did Paper Cut realise how stupid it was. Only when Yukio let slip one night while playing a game on Rin's phone that she often, often, went out on her own. She was getting groceries at the time. Paper Cut and Yukio were alone.

Despite the bitter flare of feeling in his chest, Paper Cut remained clear and calm. One had to be when one wanted answers from children. "Where does she go?"

"Just out."

"And she leaves you alone?"

"Not allowed to say." Yukio's eyes flashed at Paper Cut over the edge of the phone, wide and pink, like a rodent. "Rin-chan always comes back before it gets too dark though. So she doesn't get into trouble."

Paper Cut clutched his wine glass. "Rin-chan wouldn't get into trouble."

"She says you'd be very angry with her. She says to me, Kizashi will shout. Kizashi won't like it. So I'm not allowed to tell."

"And you believe her?"

With a profound clarity, Yukio lowered the phone. He touched his fingers to his temple. "Yes." Then he dropped them, and returned his attention to his game. "But also no. Rin-chan tells lots of lies. But I know she only tells them to keep me safe."

Click, click, click, his sharp fingernails scraped their way over the phone screen. Then the battery died, and Yukio flung the device aside onto the couch (its screen was already so cracked from the amount that Rin dropped it, and that was already the third phone Paper Cut had ordered). Pulling his knees to his chest, Yukio made a sound like gurgling blood. He threw his head back, offered Paper Cut a surprisingly menacing cat's smirk.

"Rin-chan doesn't think you love her."

"I know she doesn't."

"But you do, don't you? Doctor Voodoo says you want to keep her safe too. That you want to marry her and have babies."

"Sure."

Yukio's smirk widened. "Rin-chan would rather slit her wrists than marry you."

First, Paper Cut tried to drown Yukio in the bath. Genuinely and unashamedly. But the boy thrashed too much, made too much of a wet mess of the bathroom tiles, and Rin came home before Paper Cut could finish the job. So he settled instead for making Yukio sleep alone that night. No matter how much he screamed and banged on the bedroom door, no matter how many glasses and plates he threw onto the kitchen floor. No matter how much it hurt Rin – she deserved it too.

For the first time, Paper Cut noticed that documents were out of place. Things around the offices would disappear and magically reappear in odd corners at odd times. That Rin had started using her freedom a little too freely: going for too many walks alone, bitching when Paper Cut began to insist on going with her. Or, instead of bitching, she'd be gorgeously sweet. Flutter her eyelashes. Fuck him until he could barely breathe. She'd make requests while on her knees, or when Paper Cut dozed in the erotic confusion of the aftermath.

She'd gotten very good at making him say yes, he realised. Doctor Voodoo realised it too, and wasn't happy.

"I didn't ask you to fall in love with her," Voodoo said, leaning back in his chair. "You were supposed to be the one in control."

Paper Cut barely listened. His attention remained too focused on the newborn sized doll on Voodoo's chess table – white and pudgy, with a face sown like his own. It sat in wait, lovingly crafted, all its sensitive spots bare and ready for Voodoo's touch.

"I'm sorry. I won't let her get away with it. Yukio–"

"Does nothing for the situation, it seems." Voodoo shook his head. "Do you know what sort of evidence Rin has gotten from us? Enough. She's got enough. I should have known. She's too much like me."

The family resemblance evaded Paper Cut still.

"Well, now, I suppose there's only one thing left to do before we begin our exit plan." Taking the doll from the table, Voodoo gave Paper Cut a blank look. "I'm sorry, my boy. You know this hurts me more than it hurts you."

"No. No, please–"

Doctor Voodoo bent the doll backwards, and the knifing crush of having his spine broken set a white horror before Paper Cut's vision. No bones cracked, but the pain radiated onwards and outwards in an endless electric current through every vein, every nerve. Hours. Days. Timeless. Until he felt like he was choking upon his own blood and burning from the inside out.

Rin was gone.

That was the end of it.

The long version of the story was a haze in Paper Cut's mind. Doctor Voodoo had made Yukio take some of his memories away, it seemed, and now they continued to return in daydreams and night sweats. It had been months since he'd been put into Tartarus, months since he'd killed Yukio, but still new images flooded him with painful freshness. Rin. Kids whose names he'd never know. And Voodoo. And pain, lots of it. And still more of Rin, memories which Paper Cut thought too lovely to have really been real.

She'd told him that she loved him. Once. Twice. Several times before.

And he'd said it back.

They'd done things together that normal couples did. Sometimes. Go out for dinner. Shop for furniture. He'd held her whenever she'd had nightmares about dogs, and she'd chosen movies to watch knowing that he'd liked them more than she did. It hadn't all been manipulation. Not on his part, at least; not towards the end.

Now one thing stood out in his mind with terrible clarity.

How Eraser Head had looked at her, and how she'd looked at Eraser Head. She may have told Paper Cut that she loved him. She may have been his, for a time. But it was never completely, because the important part of her was always – always – someone else's. And now she was engaged. And now she sat across from him in the high-security cell he was never allowed to leave, looking at him with those green eyes which had never seemed so… alive.

"I brought you something," she said quietly, and put a plastic box on the table. "It's the pork dumplings you used to like. I've heard the food in here isn't very good."

"Why?"

"Oh, uh, I guess – well, it's probably because people don't want to spend their tax money on gourmet meals. You know. For prisoners."

"No. Why are you here?"

"Oh." She looked down at her hands. Those perfect, pale hands, and the diamond on her finger. "I wanted… I wanted…"

"You wanted what, Rin?"

"I wanted to ask for your forgiveness."

"Forgiveness."

"Everything became so much more than I ever wanted to be involved in, and I couldn't figure out how to stop it." Flush-faced as the dawn. Genuine and sad, just the same way as she used to listen to Paper Cut's late night cries. "I know that even though you were just doing your job, I still hurt you. What you did to me was… sick… but the things I did were no better, even if I was trying to be good."

Paper Cut wilted in his seat. He didn't know anything about forgiveness. "Congratulations on your engagement."

"Thank you."

"The guards tell me your wedding is in December."

"Yes," Rin smiled. Faint. Dream-like. "I never really wanted a wedding, as such."

In spite of himself, Paper Cut smiled back. "I remember." Then the smile twisted into something else, a grimace or frown, with feelings he couldn't explain. "Would you have said yes, if I had asked first?"

"Kizashi–"

"Please tell me."

Rin sighed. "Quite honestly, I think I would've been forced to say yes. I never felt like I had much of a choice in our relationship."

"But if you did?"

"I don't know." A pregnant pause. The colour in her cheeks glowed warmer, lovelier, and Paper Cut thought of the first time he'd touched that thin, fine skin. How cold it had been. How still she'd been. Rin pressed her finger to her lip in anxious thought, and then said, "I would have wanted to say yes. It wasn't always about the manipulation. Not on my part, anyway. I did mean it when I told you I loved you."

Paper Cut looked at the pork buns. "Maybe in another life then."

"No. I'm sorry, Kizashi. But I'd look for Shouta in every life."

"I'd look for you."

With nothing more to say, Rin stood. And she left. And Paper Cut never saw her again other than in dreams of another life.

A/N: I spent a solid ten hours writing this. Feedback would be wonderful from those of you who stuck around to read the entire thing. Okay. Byee now.