Luke took off his bloodied gloves and let them land on the floor with a wrinkly thud.
Nyx, who had been sleeping with her beak open behind him, woke up and jolted into an upright position.
"How did it go?" she asked after a while, yawning. "Was it…"
Luke looked over his shoulder.
That was more than enough of an answer for Nyx to know what must have happened.
"Don't tell me you are truly feeling down for a piece of shit like that fucking bastard!" She cawed, flying to his shoulder. "I wanted to fly to that island and peck his ass myself when Shield shared the data on him."
"It's…" Luke shook his head. "… It's not that."
He looked down at his hands, recalling the way he had pulled the trigger, making Kalyo's head explode to smithereens. He could recall it so precisely that he even remembered the slight twitch at the corners of the man's eyes because of the shock of losing his Quirk suddenly.
And, yet…
"It's not that?" Nyx narrowed her eyes. "Then, what is it?"
Luke took a deep breath and lifted his head, looking at his figure reflected in the mirror.
"I…" he admitted, seeing not even a slight emotional twitch on his face, "… don't feel anything."
Of all the things that he'd thought he would feel after… killing someone one day, the lack of any feeling was the last thing Luke had imagined that would bother him.
In the heat of the battle, the truth of killing the man had not settled in.
However, now, as he sat in the quiet of the bedroom, it should have at least bothered him slightly.
Is that… related to Gehrman Sparrow, Miss Justice? Luke thought aloud, keeping Nyx in the loop.
[It is, and it is not,] the System guided. [Deep down, the two of you are the same person. But you are also not Gehrman Sparrow. You are Luke. No one else. The Faceless' Acting Method is a very tricky one, Luke. One moment of recklessness can cost you a fortune. It will be so subtle that you will not even realize it until it's too late. The chances of losing control are greatest for a Faceless. And, even worse, the Acting itself can have a long-lasting effect on your overall personality, working against you in the future when you expect it least.]
Luke's mouth flattened into a thin line, Nyx falling into a rare, thoughtful contemplation on his shoulder.
[The good thing is that not all Faceless have an awesome friend like me with them,] Miss Justice said cheerfully. [Let's figure it out one step at a time. The only advice I have for you at this moment is not to rush the Acting itself. For a Beyonder, you are already much, much faster than anyone I have seen when it comes to the Acting Method. In only one year, you have digested nine Potions… of three different Pathways with strict Acting requirements! If you slow down a bit, especially if the Potion demands it, no one will think low of you. Got it?]
Luke took a deep breath and nodded.
He rubbed his face and put the feeling of numbness behind him.
Nyx hopped off his shoulder and landed near the black glove, which had hardened like a badly carved block of wood.
"Is that supposed to be my replacement?" Nyx asked.
Luke's mouth twitched. "Point Glove," he introduced. "I bestowed a modified Teleportation Quirk upon an Ebony… What?"
Nyx was smirking at Luke. "… ebony… hehe…"
"Nyx!" Luke gasped, exhausted. "Not now… Anyway, while bestowing the Quirk, I added coordinates of a set location. Upon activation, the Point Glove will instantly teleport me to that location, becoming useless. That's how I managed to keep it under Super Complexity; otherwise…"
Nyx scratched the ebony wood with her claw, and a smirk appeared on her face once again.
In this regard, Luke was so innocent that he didn't even understand what was so perverted about it, making the raven let out a caw in defeat.
"So…" Nyx flew back to Luke's shoulder. "… you will need to add a location every time you create a Point Glove?"
Luke nodded.
"That's a headache," Nyx said.
"… Maybe…" Luke admitted. "Still, for a use-and-throw item, it's not that bad."
Nyx sniggered. "Pfft… Use and Throw… Haha…"
Luke's lips twisted. "Nyx… what's happening to you?"
[Oh, I know!] Miss Justice chimed innocently. [I heard some animals go mental during mating season…]
Nyx's red eyes glowed bloody.
With a lunge, she darted at Luke's head, clawing at his skull. "Come out!" she cawed, cursing filthy words. "I will show you who's in mating season… bi%%$."
After a while, Luke held Nyx's wings and pressed her down into the bed, covered in scratch marks, Miss Justice giggling inside his head.
"Are you done?!" Luke asked. "You know, you are just proving Miss Justice right…"
Nyx opened her beak and, word by word, said, "Say it… one more time… I dare you… I double dare you…"
Luke licked his lips, his Danger Intuition rising.
Slowly, he let go of Nyx and backed away. "We cool?"
Nyx sat up on the bed and pruned her feathers. "I guess you are ready now…"
[Oh… my… god…] Miss Justice gasped in Luke's mind. [She… fooled me?! Sigh… She would have digested Hunter Pathway's Potions in the blink of an eye…]
Luke's eyes narrowed. He knew something was up. The way Nyx kept making perverted jokes felt so deliberate… But it was Nyx. You never knew when she was just being herself or acting it out.
"What's going on?" Luke asked.
"Well, I didn't want to share before you lost your virginity to this Kalyo," Nyx said, sounding serious, making Luke's heart skip a beat. [It could have made you lose your tempo, or whatever… Anyway, remember what you told me about Blind Trust?]
The moment Luke heard the Quirk's name, he recalled it, too.
Blind Trust was the Quirk he had used upon Toru Hagakure after she had seen him as Dr. Blessed, without the mask, during the USJ incident. Luke had decided not to use Memory Manipulation on her after finding that such an act went against his morals and could have hounded him in the future, which would not be good for him as a Beyonder, as per Miss Justice.
There had been a caveat about it, though.
With time, after a year or so, there remained a chance for Blind Trust to run out, with Toru realizing the truth on her own.
Luke had been keeping an eye on her for this.
It seemed… it had happened way earlier than that.
"Yeah…" Nyx hummed. "She remembers… everything!"