Chapter 14: Vigilante, Part 2

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Chisaki crossed his arms. "Well, Shigaraki? We're waiting. What is the 'proposition' you seem so excited about?" Make this fast so I can get out of this filthy hellhole.

"I'm getting to that," Shigaraki grumbled. "But first, tell me: what's that girl doing here?"

All eyes turned to Eri, who was trying, unsuccessfully, to hide behind Tengai's jacket.

"Oh," sighed Chisaki. "That's my daughter, Eri. She tends to get into trouble when she's left alone, so I'm taking her with me to work. Pay her no mind; she's harmless." The yakuza turned away. The truth was, when left alone, Eri would always try to escape. Since the girl's DNA was so important to their operations, Overhaul wanted to keep her as close as possible, even if it meant taking her to a meeting between two gangs.

"Very well, then." Shigaraki drooped his shoulders. The girl's presence was suspicious and strange, but he was outnumbered twelve-to-two. He wasn't in any position to complain. "Whatever. Now, for the proposition. I guess I could explain what the gift is, but a practical demonstration would be far better, wouldn't you agree? Kurogiri, show them."

The warp gate villain activated his quirk and disappeared in a cloud of mist. He reappeared thirty feet in the air, coming dangerously close to Izuku's hiding spot, and he softly glided down.

"As you can see, Kurogiri's quirk, Warpgate, allows him to produce a black mist that can teleport him and others to nearby places. As you can imagine, he's had this quirk ever since he was four years old, and the power is encoded in his DNA." He paused, allowing his words to settle in. "But that's not all he can do…"

To demonstrate his master's words, Kurogiri activated Invisible Blade, cutting through the coffee table that Shigaraki stood behind. A few of the onlooking Yakuza gasped.

Shigaraki smiled and continued: "...Kurogiri inherited Warpgate from his biological parents, yes, but the League of Villains has found another way to pass on quirks. And this time, there are no physical or psychological side effects from the process, like there are with the infamous Nomus. Kurogiri inherited his second quirk, Invisible Blade, through science! His new power was specifically selected to work in tandem with his teleportation, and with it, he has become a silent and deadly assassin, capable of killing some of the strongest pro heroes.

Chisaki remained silent, and the rest of the yakuza followed suit. Shigaraki took this opportunity to deliver the ultimatum:

"As I said before, this gift is a reward for all of our allies." He looked around. "If any of you join us, the League will grant you a second quirk."

Izuku, who was listening through the cracked-open skylight, drew back. Kurogiri and Shigaraki have mentioned having multiple quirks. But now, the League is suggesting that they have the power to grant anybody a quirk! Does this have anything to do with the mysterious substance from my accident, eleven years ago?

Hawks, who was still disguised in his mask, reacted similarly. This is bad. The League has more power than we thought. I wonder: how will Overhaul react?

The yakuza leader was standing deathly still. Even his own men were wondering what he'd do next.

"You… want to give others more quirks?" he asked, his breath shaky.

"Yes, I do!" answered Shigaraki, mistaking the man's mortified tone as one of wonder.

"That… will only soil things even more!" He slammed his index finger down onto one of the coffee table halves, and it exploded into fragments. Shigaraki took a step back from the wide-eyed monster before him. "Don't you understand? This… illness in the world… it comes from our quirks! And you would have people submit to you by giving them more..." He straightened up and took a breath, all while brushing the wood fragments off his sleeve. "I see now. You're a disease that needs to be cleansed." He turned back to his yakuza and stepped back towards Eri. "Boys: kill them!"

Shigaraki slowly backpedalled. "Kurogiri. This was a bad idea."

"Agreed," answered the villain. "Hindsight is 20/20. We had no idea that Overhaul would react in this way… Let's retreat."

"Let's," agreed Shigaraki. He shoved his fist into the floor. It slid in easily, as if the floor was liquid. "But first, give me the chance to try out my new quirk!"

"Master…" Kurogiri warned.

"Shut up. You had the chance to try yours out on Thirteen. Now, it's my turn!" He channeled his quirk through the ground. "Limb Sprout!"

The eight expendables advanced on the two villains. Kurogiri disappeared and reappeared behind them, but Tenagi stepped forward and created a forcefield around himself. Invisible Blade glanced off the barrier, and Kurogiri was forced to teleport again to avoid a brutal punch from Rappa. The other five approached Shigaraki's crouching form, but they failed to notice the tiny little hands that were beginning to sprout from the ground beneath them.

Hawks lingered behind. We know what the League wants, and now they're distracted. Go, Izuku! He heard the soft sound of glass shattering above and knew the boy was on top of things.

Izuku leapt from the roof, following the maelstrom of broken glass that he had just Rejected towards Mimic and Chronostasis. Chisaki's two deputies raised their arms to protect their faces, and Izuku made to land, slowing his fall by Attracting his body to the roof. Eri was only five meters away, next to Overhaul, and Izuku only had a second to move before the dangerous criminals would notice him. His identity was hidden by his stealth suit's hood, but that wouldn't stop the gangsters from attacking on sight.

With a blast from Reject, he sent himself flying towards Eri. Chisaki instinctually moved his arm to block him, but Izuku was faster: the yakuza boss' hand only barely brushed against the Stealth Suit's fabric. He swept up Eri by the waist and launched himself towards the other side of the building.

While Izuku was rescuing Eri, the other yakuza were realizing, to their horror, that their feet were starting to dissolve. In the dim lighting, they could see objects that looked like— were they hands— covering the ground? The open hands, each about the size of a dandelion, were rendering everything they touched to dust. As their boots crumbled, the yakuza tried to scramble away, but there was no escape; the hands were everywhere! The floor under their feet had quickly turned into a death trap, and the yakuza could do nothing but hop around and howl in pain as their bare feet started to crumble away.

Shigaraki grinned. The usually-brooding villain's voice had turned childish with glee. "Do you like my new quirk, Limb Sprout?" he gestured to his hand, which was still submerged. "It lets me branch out through the ground and grow copies of my limbs; those hands you are all replicas of my own. And this all works perfectly with my original quirk, which allows me to dissolve objects See?" He was shouting at the yakuza members who, after the bottoms of their feet had crumbled, had started to fall to the ground. This move was a mistake, since now, more of their bodies' surface areas were exposed to the hands. They would be dead soon. "This is the power that comes with having multiple quirks! You're missing out, honestly."

The array of hands was spreading across the ground, towards Chisaki and his lieutenants. Hawks cursed and poked his wings out through his jacket, taking off into the air. When the hand sprouts reached Chisaki, time seemed to stop. The man turned away from Izuku and Eri for a moment. He twitched, and he reached down.

"Don't touch me," he growled, placing his finger on the nearest hand. The hand replica immediately exploded, and Shigaraki yelled out in pain. The villain pulled his arm out of the ground, and the sprouts disappeared, as if they were never there.

"Hmm. It looks like I can hurt you through your replicas!"

Shigaraki moaned and tried to activate his quirk, but Kurogiri reappeared in front of him.

"Enough. He knows your new quirk's weakness, and they're too dangerous to fight by ourselves. We need to leave."

"Gah!" Shigaraki brought his hands up to his neck and started to scratch. "Fine." He stared daggers at Chisaki. "But this isn't over, Overhaul. You'll come to regret-" he was cut off by Kurogiri's black mist, which whisked him away.

"Regret?" Chisaki asked the air. He looked at his fallen yakuzas, who were clutching deep wounds all over their bodies. The skin crumbled right off. Shigaraki really got them. "He will be the one to regret this day."

He whipped around to face Eri, but she was gone. That mysterious figure with the black bodysuit took her while he was distracted by Shigaraki. Chisaki ran through the door to look around, but it was too late. The shadowy figure had disappeared into the night, and it had taken Eri with it.

"Shit!" He pounded his fist into the ground, and fissures appeared. His daughter— the one person who was more important to his plans than anything— had been captured by an unknown enemy. "Shit!" He pounded his fist into the pavement again.

But after a second, he remembered: not all hope was lost. With his pitch-black costume and unique way of moving, the shadowy figure didn't seem like any hero he'd seen before. If the man wasn't a hero, then Eri wasn't in the hands of the authorities. Could it have been a vigilante? Or a rival villain who was trying to use Eri's quirk to achieve his own ends? Also, when Chisaki tore open the bodysuit's sleeve, he caught a glimpse of bright green skin. Not normal at all. Chisaki would have to do some digging, later.

The gang leader lifted his head. He heard a siren in the distance. Dammit. Did Kurogiri call the police when I wasn't looking? Anyhow, we'll have to leave behind those who cannot walk. He counted six injured, in total. Katsukame, Nemoto, Setsuno, Hojo, Tabe, and Sakaki. When Shigaraki's attack hit, Rappa and Tengai were off to the side, fighting Kurogiri, out of Shigaraki's range. Mimic and Chronostasis were by his side, and Hawks had flown into the air. That's five left, including me, and not including Hawks. He glanced around. Where did that bird go?

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After escaping the warehouse, Izuku had grappled to the roof of the nearest building, so as to avoid being seen from the streets. It wasn't easy in the pitch blackness, with a five year-old girl in his arms, but from there, he navigated his way across the city's rooftops to the rendezvous point: an open window that led to a brightly-lit nursery room. Once he landed, Izuku gently placed Eri on the carpet and removed his hood to catch his breath.

"Are… are the bad men going to come back?"

Izuku turned to face the girl, activating Empathy. Even after Eri had been rescued from her captors, she was still paralysed with fear. Izuku shivered. What did they do to her?

Izuku realized that Eri was still looking for an answer to her question. He sat down next to her, and stared over the city. "No, they're gone now. Nobody's going to hurt you again."

Eri looked away, and Izuku could tell she was still unsure. From the look of things, Eri had been with the yakuza for a big part of her life. A rescue like this would have seemed surreal to her, or maybe even like a dream. Anxious to make her feel comfortable, Izuku beckoned Eri closer, cupping his hand.

"See this?" he opened his hands a crack, and a green light shot out. Izuku pointed his improvised laser pointer at the wall and twirled it around. Eri watched on in amazement as the light beam traveled from the wall, to the carpet, and onto her own arm. She tried to grab it, and she yelped in surprise when the light rematerialised on the back of her hand.

Izuku chuckled. "It's light! You can't grab it, see?"

Eri leaned in towards his hand.

"With my Glow-in-the-Dark quirk, I can create lasers with the shadows from my cupped hands. Pretty cool, right?" To emphasise this, he shined the light on Eri's forehead. She cupped her hands to her face and giggled. But even through her laughter, her face remained sullen. Why won't she smile? I guess we'll have to work on it…

"I… saw… before…" Eri pointed at Izuku's arm, and he looked down to see a rip in his clothes.

"Oh, I must have ripped my costume during the escape. Too bad; it's rare material, and I'll need to talk to the support company about getting it fixed…" his voice trailed off when he realized he was upsetting Eri.

"You… tore it because of me?" Tears welled up in Eri's eyes. "I'm... sorry."

Izuku waved his arms in front of his face. "No, no. It's no big deal at all-" But the girl scooted closer and touched the tear in the fabric. She closed her eyes and felt her quirk activate, opening them to see, much to Izuku's astonishment as well her own, that the costume had seemingly been fixed. The hole was gone.

"Wow," Izuku gasped. "You repaired my costume! Is that your quirk? What does it do?"

Eri pulled back. "I… don't know."

"Well whatever it is, it's amazing."

Just then, Izuku, to his horror, caught a glimpse of puncture marks on the girl's arm. He took in a sharp breath, but before he could ask her about them, he heard a cluttering sound.

"Hey, I made it." Hawks pulled himself through the open window. "I see you got Eri. That's great." He leaned back and ran a hand through his hair. "I saw fit to remove the yakuza mask before coming over. Didn't want to scare the girl…"

Eri was still looking at the hero with terror in her eyes.

Hawks crouched down to get on Eri's height level. "Eri, I know I spent a lot of time with your daddy and the other yakuza, but I'm actually one of the good guys. My name is Hawks, and I'm the second-highest ranking hero in the world!"

"H-hawks?" Asked Eri, eying the man's red wings.

He grinned. "That's right. If you're a fan, I bet we can find some merchandise for you."

"By the way," started Izuku. "You never said how you 'joined' the yakuza in the first place. How did they trust you?"

Haks straightened up. "That doesn't matter now. All that matters is that we now know that the League of Villains has a method of granting extra quirks. It's time for my focus to shift from the street gangs to the League itself. Besides, the yakuza are crippled. Eri, the person whom their operations have revolved around, has been saved, and six out of eleven of them have been captured."

"W-who?" asked Eri.

"I dunno exactly, but I think the big guy, Katsumake, was one of them. And the creepy guy, Tabe." Izuku noticed Eri tensed up at the name, but Hawks continued: "They were all harmed by Shigaraki's quirk, if only for a few seconds, so they're in the nearest hospital, now." He sighed, and then headed towards the window. "Anyways, I have to get going. I still have a job to do. I'll be back in a few hours or so so I can 'find' Eri, and then you can head back to your dorm."

"Bye," squeaked Eri.

"See ya!" And at that, Hawks was gone. Since technically, Hawks' mission was to gain information, and not to rescue Eri, it would have been suspicious for Hawks to deliver Eri directly to the authorities. Instead, Hawks would say that Eri ran away from the meeting, and that he 'found' her hours later. So now, all Izuku would have to do was wait until Hawks came back.

He turned to Eri. "You reacted when Hawks mentioned those people who were in the hospital. Did you know them?"

She started to shake. "Y-yes."

"What?" Izuku asked, his voice raising. "What did they do to you?"

"Um…" She looked down. "Once, I… I tried to escape. I almost made it to a hero agency, but Katsumake… was there first. He grabbed me and… he whispered: I'll crush you the next time you escape!" She looked up into Izuku's eyes. "And Tabe, he ate all my dolls and said he'd eat me next!"

Izuku looked down into Eri's teary eyes and recognized them. They were the eyes of a child who had been stepped on by grown-ups. Years ago, Izuku had worn those same eyes after the Psychokiller attack. And he never wanted to see those eyes again.

Looking into them, something broke within his heart. He wanted some way to lessen the girl's fear, and at the same time hold her captors accountable.

"Don't worry, Eri." He had an idea. "You'll see soon: those guys are beneath you."

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Soramitsu Tabe woke up chained to a hospital bed. He was famished; after that fight against Shigaraki, he could eat anything, even the bed he was lying on. But when he opened his mouth so he could use his quirk, he found his jaw clamped shut. Shit. The authorities must have restrained us when they took us away.

He craned his neck to look around the hospital ward, and he recognized the unmasked faces of his comrades, all restrained to their hospital beds. This is everyone who was in range of Shigaraki's quirk. Will anyone come for us? No. We'll be left to fend for ourselves. Hehe. We're the expendables, after all. We're lower than dirt.

They weren't alone in the room. There were other patients, too, though they weren't bound up like the gangster was. No doubt, they had bad injuries like his. Tabe felt the soles of his feet throb in pain. Having his skin dissolve was not a pleasant feeling.

He closed his eyes to ward off the pain, opening his eyes to find himself face to face with— a ghost!

"Hello," said the ghost. In the dimly-lit room, Tabe could make out a flowing, white blob in front of him. It was a ghost, obviously, here to haunt Tabe for his crimes. "You're Tabe, right?" The yakuza shrunk away in terror.

The ghost stepped forward. "You've been a bad man, Tabe. You've committed crimes in the name of the yakuza, and worst of all, you sat by and contributed to the torment of Eri, the little girl."

"I-I'm sorry!" Tabe squirmed, and, just for a second, he thought he heard Eri's voice. "Sure, I might have toyed around with her for a bit, but I didn't mean it. I swear!"

"Hush, Eri," the ghost, who was in fact Izuku, whispered. Before coming to the hospital, he and Eri had donned a white bedsheet to conceal their identities. Eri, at first, was adamantly against visiting her former captors, but Izuku insisted that he'd protect her if anything went wrong. As for why they were there… "She is five years old! You hurt her, and thus, you deserve punishment."

He walked over to one of the unconscious patients. "See this person? She's injured, like you, but she doesn't need to be bound and restrained. Because she's not a criminal." Izuku removed a hand from his bedsheet and placed it on the woman's. He activated Sacrifice and groaned in agony when her pain became his own. Eri gasped as Izuku's arms contorted, but he gritted his teeth and waved her off.

"Hmph. It feels like she shattered every bone in both of her arms." He turned toward Tabe. "Luckily for her, you are going to take that pain from her."

He brushed his fingers against the yakuza's face and activated Sacrifice again. This time, it wasn't to take on another's injuries, but to transfer his own. Izuku felt his broken arms heal, and Tabe's eyes widened in shock. The thug would have screamed out if his mouth weren't restrained. Instead, he let out a long, pained gasp.

"Thank you," Izuku said to Tabe. "For maybe the first time in your life, you've healed someone instead of harming them." He turned towards the other yakuza, who, upon hearing the commotion, were starting to wake up. He looked over his shoulder at the girl on his back. "C'mon, Eri. I can heal five more people by transferring their injuries to these thugs." He gestured towards Tabe, who was starting to whimper. "See? The bad guys aren't so scary after all."

"Y-yeah." Eri looked down at Tabe through a slit in the fabric, and then up at Izuku. A smile was starting to form on her face. "They aren't scary when they're stuck in their beds!"

Izuku grinned back. Eri was getting her much-deserved revenge on the people that wronged her, and she had even smiled!

The two of them wordlessly moved from person to person. Izuku would go to a civilian's hospital bed, transfer their injuries to himself, and then transfer them to a yakuza member. In the dim lighting, the only thing the gangsters could see through their own delirium was a ghostly figure that could injure them with the just the slightest touch. After he transferred the last drop of pain, he walked out the door without a second glance.

This is Tsuyu's hallway, Izuku realized. She's probably still sleeping in her room. Sorry, Tsuyu. I know I told you I'd avoid violence if I could. But those were bad people, and Eri needed to see them in a position of powerlessness.

"Remember," he reminded Eri. "Don't tell anyone about this. Not even Hawks." She nodded. She had taken a liking to Izuku, and she didn't want to see him get in trouble.

Izuku wiped his eyes. Taking all those injuries from the civilians really drained him, even if the pain had quickly been transferred away to someone more deserving of it. He also didn't often have the opportunity to use Sacrifice; he wasn't used to using it for extended periods of time. He could finally get some rest, once Hawks came back from whatever he was doing.

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"Dammit," spat Shigaraki, as he scratched his scarred neck. "That meeting was a bad idea." They were sitting in their abandoned bar base, too full of adrenaline to go to bed this early.

"It was," agreed Kurogiri. "But there was no way of knowing that Overhaul was so adverse to the idea of multiple quirks. I didn't expect him to attack like that."

"Yeah…" Shigaraki scratched his neck even harder. "If my new quirk quirk wasn't so useless, I would have killed them all."

Kurogiri shook his head. "Your quirk isn't useless. In fact, it works very well with your natural quirk. You just need to get used to controlling so many extensions of your body like that."

Shigaraki grunted. "I need to handle the pain… I'll talk to Master about it later. For now, we need more people."

They were interrupted by a knock at the front door.

Who could be here at this hour? Kurogiri wondered. It's too late to serve drinks. He floated to the door and opened it, preparing invisible blade. A man with messy brown hair and bright red wings stepped through.

"Hello," said Hawks, cheerfully. "The underworld broker sent me. Before you try to kill me, hear me out."

"You have five seconds," said Shigaraki. Kurogiri was still reeling in shock. As the Number Two hero, Hawks was the second biggest threat to their organisation. If he was here, it wasn't good.

Hawks raised his hands. "You'll like this, I promise. I've seen your work, and I'm impressed. Not everybody can attack Japan's biggest hero academy and get away with it. In short, I want to join you guys. Whaddaya say?"

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There's Chapter 14! A lot happened. Shigaraki second quirk was revealed, Hawks is 'joining' the League of Villains, and Eri smiled (for a not-so-wholesome reason).

I'll be getting back to canonical events in the next chapter. Get excited for the Sports Festival!

As always, leave a review if you want to tell me something. I'll respond, for sure!