Himura (MHA)

Nobu barely managed to crawl out of the bushes onto the dirt road. It was clear that only occasionally some kind of transport passed by. Nobu was delirious, seeing some nightmares about tigers, Ashen, AFO, hissing black snakes, from whose poison limbs rot. As soon as he found himself on the road, the instincts of self-preservation stopped holding him, and he lost consciousness lying right on the road. Through the weakness of his body, he heard the sound of an approaching car. The voice of people who spoke in an incomprehensible language. Unknown people took him somewhere. It was probably good that he lost consciousness. Otherwise, Nobu would have felt unbearable pain, but he still had to realize who he had ended up with.

After some time, Nobu opened his eyes. He was in some kind of tent, similar to a military one. The chains rattled. Nobu only now felt the weight on his hands, that he was chained. "Oops..." This was not how he had imagined his first encounter with humans. Nobu wanted to use Frost Breath on the shackles, but he realized that even then they couldn't be removed. They were too tight, and he was still weak. A lump formed in his throat at the sad fate that could await him. "What...what do these people want to do? But they saved me for a reason. Right?" Nobu's wounds had almost healed thanks to the still-hidden Mamba Aspect, but he had difficulty moving and wouldn't be able to have the same agility in combat.

Nobu heard approaching footsteps and pretended to be asleep. While one man in civilian clothes approached the table and wrote something in the notes. He thought about how to escape and remembered the new quirks he had received. Expansion and Adhesion. He couldn't act rashly. They were humans. They couldn't be killed like animals. At least, Nobu held onto that thought. He had already done it once, and he didn't want to do it. again. Nobu agreed that while there was no threat to his life, he had even been saved and there was no point in behaving wildly, even though he had spent quite a long time in the wild jungle.

Speaking of time, how long had he been there?

The chains rattled, drawing the medic's attention to the bandaged pale boy on the couch.

- Hm, it seems there is no temperature. - The man touched his forehead. - Are you okay, boy? (Burmese)

Nobu did not know this language and did not understand anything. He was still getting used to the enhanced perception, sometimes these sensations drove him crazy, but he managed to notice the cross on the medic's neck.

The medic ran his finger through the air to check the reaction.

- The reaction is normal (Burmese)

- I do not speak your language - (English) Nobu's English lessons with Nezu came in handy. Of course, nothing serious, but it can reach conversational level.

-Ahem. I'm sorry to tell you this, you probably don't know where you are, and I don't know where you are from. And it doesn't matter anymore. - He started speaking in English.

-What country am I in? Where am I?

-Myanmar. Not everyone here knows English, so I recommend learning Burmese. - The mature man had a downcast look, remembering what happens to those who are in chains.. - You will find out about everything soon. - Nobu remembered a simple country called Myanmar. He knew the geography well, and this country stood out only for its poverty, repression and military dictatorship, which had come relatively recently.

-Can you take this off me? - Nobu showed the shackles chained to a metal base.

-Impossible.- The medic's downcast look intensified, but for some reason the sullen grimace returned again. - Gather your strength, you'll need it. - The medic gave him some stew and left, and the sounds outside the camp indicated that the camp was not far from the jungle, and the street was quite lively. When the curtain opened slightly, Nobu saw many armed people. He had never seen so many firearms in his life, in Japan they are so rare that children are told legends and myths about them. How wars with these weapons were accompanied by thunder and lightning death. "So this is what the Burmese look like." Nobu saw foreigners for the first time.

Nobu imagined himself already returning home. However, he remembered that the village was destroyed by Ash and AFO. He hoped, despite all the bad things, that old Teruko and Ryuji survived, but how can he think about them in such conditions? "You can't think about them." Consciously, he already understood that these dreams would only make things worse. It was not constructive. He had to decide whether to stay here or leave everything in the hands of fate. This was definitely not a five-star hotel, the armed and angry gaze of the Burmese was proof of that. For now, nothing threatened him and there was a little time to understand how Adhesion and Expansion worked.

There was a calendar hanging in the tent, Nobu could easily see the numbers even from such a distance. - May, two thousand... What the hell... Does this mean I was in the jungle for a little over three years...? - Nobu slightly rose from the bed and saw himself in the table mirror. The overgrown and dirty boy was already quite tall, thin and with pumped up muscles, always on the move in the dangerous conditions of the jungle.

Time passed so quickly while he was surviving, he completely lost count and lost track of time. Winter and summer in Myanmar are almost the same, because it is an equatorial subtropical region. He began to think that he would start to lose his mind if he stayed longer in such conditions, but the fight with the occultists helped calm his mind a little.

Nobu looked closely at his wounds and realized that the medic had performed a miracle, pulling out the knife and stopping the bleeding in such conditions. "I should have thanked him." He did not know that the Mamba Aspect included an increased healing rate similar to reptiles. That is, partial, not strong, but regeneration.

For the first time in a long time alone, he was pleased to see people. Alone in the jungle, even the most resilient can be unbearable. Only now Nobu felt a strong hunger, when even such an absurd stew began to smell appetizing.

When two people entered the tent, Nobu tensed up, but didn't show it. One was the medic, and the other looked menacing. The black-haired man spoke in Burmese, forcing the medic to translate into English.

- From today on, you work for us. You also have to pay for the medicine, fuel, and food that we spent on you. You'll be back on shift in twelve hours. - said someone who seemed to be an important person in this camp.

Of course, he wanted to pay them back somehow, but he was a child! Nobu began to justify them.

- "In the end, it's fair. This is not a resort, and I'm not going to live here for free." - The boy flared up and decided to pay them back as a token of gratitude for saving his life.

- "It's strange that they keep me in chains. Probably to protect a naughty child who can run away and get lost in the jungle. "Yes." - Nobu thought naively.

When the man left, the medic looked at him a little surprised and finished the conversation for him.

- I'll take you to the common barracks, where you will now live with everyone else. Then you will decide for yourself. Just be obedient, it will be nothing for them to shoot you if you try to run away. - the medic became a little more serious and led the way. Nobu was forced to get up from the warm place on the couch, barely stretched his legs and slowly walked after him.

"Some kind of strange attitude towards me. Of course, the country is dangerous and people are wary, probably." Nobu continued to naively believe in the benevolence of people. Deep inside, he did not want to use force against them anymore, afraid to repeat the scenario of Ash, although he had already killed more than Ash himself, including those occultists, but still they themselves asked for it.

Coming out of the tent, the rays of the Sun hit his eyes.

- Don't give them a reason to kill you, just keep working and you'll be valuable to them. Your appearance is very noticeable, they don't like people like that in Myanmar, so be careful. - The medic finished speaking and his eyes adjusted to the light. The picture was terrifying.

A large camp where a bunch of people were moving. They were in the same chains, shackled into a single track. Armed Burmese guarded these... slaves. It was obvious from them that if you showed the slightest disobedience, they would do something terrible without a twinge of conscience.

Nobu was speechless. All the determination to thank him had evaporated. Several more large tents were set up over a large area, and in the distance there were a couple of wooden open barracks where many people were sleeping in a single mass.

- P-please stop! I'm tired. My leg hurts! (Burmese) - a man in chains was being beaten by one of the guards. Everyone else just watched, unable to do anything.

-Agh! - They hit him on the leg.

-Well, does it hurt anymore? That's right. Ugh. Get up. - The guard spat at him and the formation continued to wander senselessly towards the forest.

Slavery exists and will always exist, hand in hand with man. In the modern world, there are more people in labor slavery than were transported during the entire Columbus era of the slave trade. Nobu took it lightly, but as a given. Something that was quite real and could happen. However, he never ceases to be amazed at the fact that he manages to get into such tricky adventures. It seems that this is Himura's blood special gift.