Universal Power System

Mako decided to play along for now so that Natasha would let her guard down and believe that he was gullible enough to believe her lie.

"You did all that just to get revenge? It was you who started it! You kidnapped my friends and set up the duel between me and Mikhail, so how was it my fault when you were the ones looking for a fight?" Mako asked.

"We didn't have a choice, you idiot! HE said that he would allow us to go to military school and live our own lives if we defeated you and sent you back to Emerald City," Natasha replied spitefully.

"Who is this HE?" Mako asked as he wanted to confirm some things.

"You know quite well who I am talking about! El Diablo, he gave us your and your friend's picture, the day we were set to leave for the recruitment test and gave us the deal of a lifetime," Natasha shouted.

Mako now understood and had the complete picture in his head. He didn't know how but somehow El Diablo was able to find out his identity, most likely after he had raided and destroyed his slave warehouses.

However, it must have been too late for him to act after he had learned that information as Mako had already left for the recruitment test, making it impossible for him to reach Mako unless he sent some of his weakest yet promising members like Mikhail after him in return for freedom.

This was the same thing that Mikhail had said to him during their duel, so Mako believed this to be true, but he still was skeptical about Natasha's current motives.

From the encounters that Mako had with her, she had always made the impression of a person who was manipulative and only cared about themselves so it made it quite hard for Mako to believe that she was doing this purely out of love for Mikhail because he was eliminated from the test and sent back to El Diablo.

Since she had already lied about how she had lured him into her trap, Mako believed that there was still a hidden agenda that she wasn't revealing, and with time running out, Mako only had one choice left if he wanted to get some real information.

Using what little amount of power, the mutant gene still had, Mako approached Natasha again and placed his hand on her arm wound again.

Natasha immediately tried to pull her arm back, not wanting Mako to start another round of torturing her.

"Calm down, I'm not going to hurt you again. I left some poison in your body so that you would recover more slowly, I am just going to remove it," Mako said with a hint of emotion in his voice.

Natasha looked at Mako with a skeptical look but even though she was feeling much better, she could definitely feel her body was still a bit heavy and it was taking forever for the healing pill she had consumed to start working again.

She couldn't go to the clinic or anywhere else to get the rest of the poison out of her body as there were bound to be questions thrown at her that she couldn't afford to answer as she

wanted this whole thing to be kept under the wraps.

Having no other choice, she reluctantly extended her arm toward Mako and this time he gently grabbed her arm as he began removing the last of the poison.

It was true that Mako had left some poison in her system so that he would still have leverage over her in case she decided to lash out again and he was remaining true to his word as very quickly green liquid began oozing out from her wound, showing that the poison was leaving her body.

Natasha began to feel even lighter as the last of the poison exited her body; however, as Mako was pulling the poison he began to speak with a bit of conviction in his voice.

"I won't forgive you for what you did to me and my friends, but we don't have to destroy each other. If you stay out of my way, I will stay out of yours and we can both move on with our lives. I'm sorry for what happened to Mikhail; you have to understand, that I was fighting for my life just like he was for his," Mako said to Natasha.

Feeling the change in Mako's tone and actions, Natasha began to smile internally as she believed that Mako had bought her lie, and for the time being she agreed with Mako's proposition, thinking that this would make him let down his guard again and she would be able to strike again after she had figured out how Mako was able to counter her ability.

With that Mako removed the last of the poison from Natasha's body before standing up and beginning to move out of the room.

However, as he slowly started walking away from Natasha, he gave her a heads-up," Oh and just a heads up, people often faint after getting such a strong poison removed from their body,"

Natasha turned toward Mako unsure of what he meant by that, but in the next instance, her vision became blurry and she immediately fell to the ground. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

Mako who had pretended to walk out of the training room quickly ran back toward the center.

"The shop really came in clutch this time," Mako said as he checked Natasha's pulse before feeding her another healing pill and leaving her unconscious on the floor.

*****************

Mako was true to his word and was indeed pulling the last of the poison out of Natasha's system; however, he wasn't completely honest at that time because Mako was also looking for any way to sedate Natasha for at least a couple of hours.

He was at first thinking of just knocking her out but then he would have no control over how long would she be unconscious and she wouldn't trust him at all after knowing that he purposefully knocked her out cold.

As he was thinking of an alternative, he decided to check the shop and as if luck was on his side, within the shop, he found high-tier sedative pills for sale.

[Daily Shop]

[...] (..)

[...] (..) ×

[...] (..)

[...] (..)

[High-tier Sedative Pills] (5 Bronze Coins)

Mako bought four pills and injected two of them directly into Natasha's blood via the system which guaranteed that she would be unconscious for at least 6 hours.

He then began speaking to her as if he was laying out some terms for peace between them and after he made Natasha believe that he had bought her lie and that he didn't want any bad blood between them, he completely fooled her into letting her own guard down and then he acted as if he was leaving and warning her that she might faint but in truth it was those sedative pills doing their job.

Now that Natasha was completely fooled and thought that she had fainted by herself, Mako had a window of exactly 6 hours and he was going to utilize it to get some actual answers.

The time for his mutant gene had expired and Mako's eyes quickly stopped glowing and returned to their normal color. With that, Mako felt a wave of weakness go through his entire body but it wasn't as bad as he had thought and he simply had to sit down for a bit to catch his

breath.

During this time, Mako pulled out his student card and began sending an encrypted message to his friends.

Even though they had just today created the cipher, Mako believed it wouldn't take too long for his friends to decipher the message.

*******************

{Half an hour later}

A bucket of water was splashed on Haruto's face which finally woke him up. He breathed heavily as he quickly scanned his surroundings and realized that he was somewhere different

from the training room.

Haruto blinked rapidly, trying to clear the water from his eyes as he struggled to sit up. The room around him was dimly lit, but still somewhat familiar.

His heart still pounding in his chest, with adrenaline coursing through his veins as he remembered what had happened before he passed out.

He was given the ultimatum to choose to either save Natasha or walk away and fearing for what Natasha might do to him if he was to walk out on her, he had chosen to attack; however, before he could even land a single blow everything had turned dark.

As his vision cleared, Haruto noticed how cold the room was; he could see his breath in front

of him as he exhaled, but this cold wasn't from an air conditioning unit but rather from an Ice ability user who was staring at Haruto with anger filled eyes behind the cloak of darkness inside the room and it wasn't only her.

Just as Haruto muttered to himself," Where am I?" with his voice barely audible, several figures stepped forward from the darkness and into the light and they were all faces Haruto

recognized.

Haruto gulped down as he made eye contact with Erin whose facial expression was fuming with anger, but Mako stopped her placing a hand on her shoulder and calming her down.

He then approached Haruto and said," It's okay, you're safe Haruto. Now... tell us everything."