[𝕐 + 𝕐]

[attr="class","body"]“You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

She still remembers the first time she saw it. They’d presented it to her like a gift, like they were doing her a favor, not humiliating her on purpose. Like they weren’t issuing what amounted to a big, red threat.

“A muzzle? Have you lost your fucking mind? Is this a joke to you?”

“I assure you, Miss Suzui-“

“Yaoyao.”

“-Miss Yaoyao, that this is no joke.”

“What is it, then? I told you when I first came here that if you kicked off any dehumanizing bullshit I was gonna sue you into the dirt and smash the door behind me on my way out. How the hell am I meant to take this?”

“As a gift, and as a symbol of our dedication to your service and protection, among other things. If you’d allow me to show you how it works…

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[𝕐 + 𝕐]

[attr="class","body"]He’d been so infuriatingly calm about it, that stupid, smug, self-assured ginger prick of a doctor. Standing there with a pretty little oni mask in a case, showing off the tech inside. A muzzle - and a bit gag, like the shit they use on horses - both fitted to react to a sensor that’d detect when her teeth went sharp and click into action to stop her from ripping someone’s throat out with her fangs. If that weren’t enough, a set of steel wristbands, too, with a system to monitor her blood pressure (read: her temper) whenever things got bad.

’Risk management,’ they’d called it. As evidence, they’d brought up the ‘incidents’ in her past: the hospital, back in ‘XX, when she’d lost it after Lili woke from a year-long coma to losing everything she’d ever known; and the school trip turned overnight hell in a hand-basket, when she’d gone completely off the rails and ripped apart a legion of quirk-made demon dogs for nearly killing — at the time — the only friend she’d ever had. They’d said her temper clearly wasn’t something to be left to its own devices.

They’d said that next time, she might actually hurt someone she cared about if she wasn’t careful.

She hates everything about it.

But most of all, she hates it because they might be right.

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[𝕐 + 𝕐]

[attr="class","body"]So here she is. Being careful. Even though she’s so full of rage it takes effort not to tremble. Even though everything in her is screaming in protest, recoiling at just the thought of going through with this. Even though she’s so close to losing it that she can taste the shadows in her throat, threatening to climb up and engulf everything she is completely — in spite of all of it, she’s still lucid enough to know one thing: if she loses it, with these stakes, there’s no going back.

If something happens on this raid and she snaps, she might kill someone. Someone who doesn’t deserve it. And she can’t take that chance, because god forbid she get stopped. God forbid she get sedated, or arrested, or even put down because she’s so far gone and so angry she physically can’t keep herself from tearing through everything in her path, because there’s only one way that goes, and it’s a fast track to never seeing Kei again — forget being able to save him.

She can’t afford those stakes. Not when he’s out there, and he might be hurt, and he needs her.

More than once, she’s said she’d do anything if he needed her to.

Time to prove it.

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[𝕐 + 𝕐]

[attr="class","body"]The clinic doors open with a cold swish. It’s midday in the middle of the week, so unsurprisingly, the place is just about empty. Except for the receptionist, who glances up boredly when he hears the bell go off and leans over to press a button and drawl “Suzui’s here” into a receiver like he’s got anything and everything better to do than—

She’d remind herself to breathe, but it feels like her lungs went missing along with her boyfriend, so it’d be a moot fucking point, wouldn’t it.

Hallway, hallway, doors, doctor’s office. And there he is, the coolest and most annoying cucumber in the medical profession she’s ever had the displeasure of working with. Errol Ainsley, head of the Ainsley Clinic, and a creep with way more interest in her and her whole missing memories-sentient quirk-body swapping deal than she’d be comfortable with even if she had the patient of a saint. Unfortunately, she can’t deny that the bastard gets results.

“That stupid mask you made. Give me the damn thing. I’m gonna need it.”

God, she hates his smile.

“Of course. Right this way, Miss Suzui.”

---

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