Oh, I really loved the most recent MHA episode this week. Did you already watch it? Gentle and La Brava are actually my favorite villain duo in the entire story so far and I'm really glad the Anime during the last weeks reminded me of them. I had almost forgotten about just how much I like them.
Also it seems like we get at least some of the pro-hero arc this season. I'm so excited though also a bit worried. I feel like you can't really tell the pro-hero arc in just two episodes... So, I'm positive, but I also really don't want them to rush things. It is after all one of my favorite arcs that really inspired this story.
Anyway, I hope you will enjoy this chapter.
Brazen
"So, what is this about?" Brazen started the moment he entered the room, banging the door shut. He looked furious. Endeavor had never seen him so angry before. He was pacing in front of the desk now, glaring at Endeavor every few seconds, before his brows would furrow in disappointment and he would turn away again to pace or stare at the wall.
"I understand you're angry," Endeavor sighed, sitting at his desk.
"Do you, huh?" the younger hero blurted, hissing with spite. "I wonder…? Do you know how it feels to have your own colleagues and friends question you about…," he hesitated with a dark scowl on his face. Abruptly, he stopped with his pacing, crossed his arms and stared Endeavor down from his position on the other side of the desk. "About what? You think I would betray you to the villains?" He banged his fists against the wall. "How could you think that?"
Oh, he was really angry. His quirk even slipped a little, as his knuckles damaged the wall and ripped the wallpaper a little. Endeavor looked at the shape of his fist indented into the wall. Brazen was normally more laid back, he was the happy-go-lucky type who didn't need much to feel happy or excited. But he also mostly remained calm in any given situation, preserving his energy.
His quirk allowed him to store energy in his body and release it at will, giving him the ability to reach superhuman strength, speed or endurance. The less he moved around all day, the more energy he could preserve. That was the reason he often tried to do as little as possible during the day, so he could pull the maximum potential out of his quirk when it was needed. It was rare for him to waste energy on emotional outbreaks. Brazen's emotional control often impressed Endeavor, who himself had to train very hard as a boy to keep his own quirk from slipping and hurting others or burning down buildings in times of emotional turmoil.
"What did I do to make you suspect me?" Brazen asked, gritting his teeth as he walked up to Endeavor's desk putting his hands on it. The dark wood cracked with the weight the sidekick put on it, and for a moment Endeavor feared Brazen would now start destroying the furniture.
It seemed he underestimated the other hero's self-control.
"Nothing," Endeavor answered finally, eyeing the hands on his desk then looking up at the face framed by black and red hair, that Brazen had gelled up into menacing spikes. "You didn't do anything. It's not like we really suspected you," he glanced away from the sidekick avoiding his burning gaze. "But we had to make sure. We checked all the employees of this agency. There was nothing you did to make you a suspect, but there was also nothing to exclude you from that list."
Brazen let the words sink in for a moment. Finally, he took his hands from the desk and folded them over his chest. His brows furrowed in an expression between anger and consideration.
"Who's we?" he asked after a while.
"Inari and I," Endeavor answered, glancing at the door hoping Inari wouldn't listen in and reject the role Endeavor gave him in all of this. "We went through the entire list of employees, current and former and you… Well," he shrugged.
"I didn't have an alibi, or what?"
Endeavor gave another half-shrug. It was sort of like that. He knew the employees they had singled out for interrogation would be angry and disappointed. There was really nothing he could do to alleviate that anger. He guessed it had only been a matter of time for one of them to storm into his office and demand an explanation.
"I should just quit," Brazen muttered, dragging his fingers through his spiky hair. He looked suddenly very tired. The interrogation must have lasted the better part of the day, Endeavor realized. If the guys from the Interrogation Department wanted to be thorough in checking Brazen's background, they'd have to drag every bit of information out of the young man to make sure he wasn't spying for the League. Brazen hadn't even changed into his hero-outfit. He stood there in front of Endeavor, wearing blue denim dungarees and a bright orange shirt with black boots reaching up to his calves and a blue neckerchief.
"I would prefer if you don't," Endeavor replied honestly, "but I'd understand it…"
It was the truth of the matter. Endeavor knew he wouldn't stay at an Agency that just randomly suspected him of collaborating with the enemy, just because there was no more convenient suspect at hand. Even more so as Brazen hadn't worked for Endeavor for that long. For the likes of Inari, he knew, leaving the company was a difficult decision. Brazen, on the other hand, was a promising young hero. Sooner or later he'd start his own agency anyway. But for their agency, it would be a heavy loss. Getting somebody to help out in PR or the legal department was hard enough, but at least those guys wouldn't have to stand and represent the company to the broader public. They could remain in the background and nobody would connect them to Endeavor unless they went and screamed their new employer's name from the rooftops. For a sidekick, that was different. They would immediately be connected to Endeavor's name and brand as soon as they made their entrance, and at the moment Endeavor couldn't think of anybody who would want that.
Never mind that good sidekicks such as Brazen wouldn't have any trouble finding an agency to take them in. And bad sidekicks… Endeavor didn't need them. Each year, over 200 young heroes graduated from the many hero schools all over Japan. Only 5 % of those had the potential to actually become somebody great and admired within the next few years. Another 20% - 30% were decent enough that they could make names for themselves, grow into proper heroes that had the potential to become useful sidekicks, or even become independent and start their own agency. More than half of each year's graduates, however, would never be anything better than a common sidekick in some unknown agency, either keeping some remote place in Japan safe that never saw any action, to begin with, or going into a bigger city where they would be thoroughly overshadowed by a whole bunch of bigger, better and more well-known agencies.
For a moment, Brazen seemed to truly consider to just leave now. He glanced back at the door, brows knitted in uncertainty. Endeavor could see the furious curse that had already made its way halfway over Brazen's lips. But then he visibly swallowed it down.
"Then I'll just go. You'll have my notice of termination by Monday…," he sounded so uncertain, that Endeavor could smell an opportunity.
"Or I'd offer you a raise?" He offered it with a somewhat casual smile but truly hoping Brazen would accept. He had more important stuff to deal with now and would rather keep the sidekicks he currently had.
Never mind that they were actually working well as a team.
"A raise?" Brazen seemed taken aback. "I don't know if that can resolve this trust issue we have."
"I don't distrust you," Endeavor said, knowing that the problem was more Brazen's distrust of him, after what had happened. He still wanted to clear this up. Even before the interrogation had confirmed Brazen's innocence, Endeavor had not trusted him any less than his other sidekicks.
They weren't friends. He had no friends, he felt. But they were colleagues… and as such he trusted him with his life.
Sadly, that didn't make it any easier to live with the knowledge he now had. Because somebody had betrayed him, and he still didn't know who. It wasn't from his end, but… Hawks. Somebody in Fukuoka, maybe someone from Hawks' agency or even Hawks himself had sold their location to the League of Villains. The city of Fukuoka had been destroyed, and thankfully they prevented any casualties, but had they taken one wrong step, made one mistake… thousands could have died easily. He had almost died himself. They had saved his life in the hospital.
And somebody was at fault. Somebody from their own side. Somebody Endeavor and Hawks had trusted with their location and safety.
"You… don't distrust me?" Brazen repeated his words, his voice tilting in a furious drawl. "You sure have some way to show how much you trust me." He shook his head. "No… What if I decided I don't trust you anymore?"
Endeavor didn't say anything. He just waited for Brazen to make his final decision. After all, he knew his skill with words was mediocre at best. If Brazen truly wanted to leave, there was nothing Endeavor could say to stop him. And even if he wasn't certain… with Endeavor's track record, he'd rather send the other man running than succeed in convincing him to stay at the agency.
The young man seemed frustrated with his silence. "Nothing to say? You know, with what everybody is saying now, I shouldn't be surprised." Endeavor growled in anger at the mention of the public outrage against his person. "You know what they say about you? That you beat your children, burned your own son's face, abused your wife! That she's been stuck in the hospital for years because of you! How bad do you have to beat somebody to have an otherwise healthy person stuck in psychiatry for almost a decade?"
Brazen was seething in anger.
It was nothing compared to how furious Endeavor was.
If the sidekick wanted to hit a nerve and hurt him, he was doing a fine job. Endeavor's fists balled on his desk, his flames surging in hot anger.
"Some even say you raped her!"
His fists crashed against the wood of his desk, as he jumped from his chair. Those filthy words! Oh, he had read them, those vile accusations! But he would not hear them. His desk immediately charred and burned; his computer monitor melted just being close to his burning shoulders, plastic shrinking together, the screen cracked and liquified. The technology died in the vicinity of his rage.
"LIES!" he bellowed! "Nothing but filthy lies!" And he would not hear them! He had done wrong, oh yes, he had, but not that. "I would never…" The words would not even leave his mouth.
Brazen stepped back suddenly afraid. Good! Nobody should utter such bullshit and not regret it. If he were close enough, Endeavor would have strangled the young man, but as he lifted his hands off the ashen remains of his desk, the other man was already at the other side of the room.
"Yeah, I didn't think you had!" Brazen growled. "I told everybody you wouldn't! I defended you!" Endeavor was so angry, he hardly even heard him. He stomped over the ash of his desk, leaving charcoal on the carpet as he trudged towards the other man.
"I told them to shut up! They asked for an interview. Me… As if I could tell them anything! As if I would! They offered money, you know, a lot of it, I didn't even have to say anything – just make up some believable lies, that's all they wanted!" Endeavor stopped before him, flames still surging in anger, but he finally heard his words. Brazen's voice had increased in volume. He looked afraid. But he kept talking, shrieking almost. "But I wouldn't betray you to the press! How can you think I would betray you to the villains!?"
He was hurt… Now that he stood right in front of him, Endeavor could see it. And it surprised him more than his anger before had been surprising. He had expected anger, disappointment, even hate… Hate was easy. But hurt…?
The fear and hurt made his chestnut brown eyes almost seem red.
"I defended you! I trusted you!"
Had every member of his agency been offered money for an interview? Had they all been asked to lie, to come up with some horror-story if they didn't know any shocking enough truth?
There was another thought that bugged Enji…
"Why?" He asked hissing. Still angry, still hurt, still shocked by that accusation, those disgustingly vile words.
"Huh?" Brazen shrieked. He stood with the back to the wall and Endeavor wasn't quite ready to back off. "Why?"
"Why did you defend me? Hm?" Endeavor glowered at him. Bullshit! "You hardly know me. You know nothing about my family."
The young hero swallowed tried to get away from Endeavor, but the bigger man didn't let him go just yet.
"We're working together," Brazen said finally, his voice unsure and wavering. "We're colleagues, of course, I know you."
Endeavor grunted snidely. Working together? Brazen had only joined the agency just over one year ago. Sure, they had worked together, but who was that loyal to their employer of just one year?
"For a year," Endeavor muttered after Brazen didn't clarify. "You don't know much about me, beyond the patrols we've had together. Why would you defend me, huh?"
Brazen stared like a deer in headlights. "You…" he muttered, "you…" Endeavor could clearly see the tears threatening to spill. "You saved me!"
He didn't know what he had expected. What bullshit reason Brazen had, whether he had even meant his words before or had just wanted to shock Endeavor. But this was not it. Saved him? Bullshit! He had saved half the city of Musutafu and just today they had proceeded to throw insults and garbage at him. He had fought the Noumu in Hosu half a year ago, and a week ago, some guy from Hosu had smeared red color on the main entrance of the Public Safety Commission demanding Endeavor's license be suspended.
"Bullshit!" He hissed.
Brazen's face fell in disappointment as if he had hoped Endeavor would remember. He was still young, Endeavor thought, somewhat irritated, but Brazen had been a hero for three years now. He had to know it was impossible remembering every single civilian he had saved. Never mind that Endeavor often saved bigger groups, not even interacting with them personally. He had officially been credited with saving the entire city of Fukuoka – him and Hawks both – yet he hadn't actually talked to any civilian during that fight.
"You don't remember," Brazen muttered dejectedly. "It was fifteen years ago. You saved my sister and me from…"
"Who was the villain," Endeavor asked impatiently, interrupting the younger hero.
"Eh…," Brazen seemed blindsided by that question, but he caught himself quickly. He evaded Endeavor's gaze, suddenly looking embarrassed, even afraid. "My aunt. She, ehm…, she called herself Wo-Wolven."
Endeavor finally backed away. He did remember Wolven. In general, he remembered all the villains he had fought, even the weaker ones. It was just the civilians he had his problems with. Put him face to face with a group of ten people and he wouldn't be able to point out a person he had saved just the day before. It had often been a problem of his when the police asked him for some information after the fact, or when a case came back years down the line.
A blue-skinned man, looking still alive but already dead… He hadn't known.
A family of four, a boy and a girl, the girl with her father's tail and horns, and the panic on the mother's face, her nails bruising his hand…
He could remember them: the civilians in that fire.
Brazen could just make it up, he thought dejectedly. There were forums and websites where you could look everything up about every hero in all of Japan. Some fans knew more about his work than he himself, he was sure… But why would he make this up?
He backed away from the younger man.
"I see…," he muttered.
Wolven, a villain with a mutation quirk. He remembered her claws and fangs and the fur on her face, sharp teeth drenched in saliva. She had been accused of robbing a bank. Her shape had been unmistakable on the security camera's footage. He had been 32, the Number 2 Hero for 12 years and counting, and the police had asked him to help with the arrest. She had lived at her sister's house at the time, and promptly took her niece and nephew hostage, threatening them, beating the young girl as she started screaming.
He now thought he could remember the young boy, only six or seven years old, trying to fend her off with a kitchen knife.
It must have been taken out of Brazen's file, Endeavor thought, maybe to protect him after Wolven had been released from Tartarus some five years ago. And he had never spoken about the incident or one of them, Inari or Enji himself would have remembered when they went through all his employees' pasts and possible connections to villains.
Endeavor backed a bit further away. Oh, he did understand. That didn't make it any easier. Only now did he really see what remained of his desk and the black traces of ash on his carpet. His flames had mellowed down.
"I see…," he repeated tiredly, "sit." He really needed to go to bed, but this seemed more important because he felt he truly understood now. What he had saved Brazen and his sister from had ultimately been classified as a case of domestic violence. Wolven had not been the children's parent, but she had lived in the same house and had taken care of them while their parents were on long business trips. The incident when Endeavor had stepped in, had only been the peak of the depravity that had played out at that house.
Brazen seemed confused at his sudden offer to sit down, but when Endeavor sat heavily on a wing chair still undamaged by his sudden furious outbreak of fire and heat, Brazen sat on one of the couches. He looked wary, sitting only at the edge, ready to up and leave at any moment.
"I couldn't protect her," he muttered, "my own sister! But then you came and…," he looked at the carpet embarrassed, "I wanted to be a hero ever since. I hated being that weak."
"You were what… six?" Endeavor asked, waving the other hero's anger away with a motion of his hand. Because this misplaced guilt was truly ridiculous. He stopped suddenly, as he realized his thought pattern.
Someone should have told him when Enji himself had been that young…
"Still…," Brazen muttered. But he didn't argue the point. He was 21 now. Endeavor understood. Brazen now knew that nobody could have demanded of him to do anything. He knew it, even if he couldn't quite feel it yet.
"I'm sorry," Endeavor muttered. He sounded as exhausted as he felt. He hadn't really thought the revelation about his past would have this effect on people who had nothing to do with it. This went far beyond just him. Far beyond his family.
He was a hero. People had admired him.
He only realized that now.
Maybe because he had never stopped to consider those who would take time out of their day to buy a shirt with his name or face on it, who would put a figurine of his likeness on their shelves, who put all this time into collecting every bit of information about his day. Maybe because he had always found that mildly annoying, irritating or even hampering him in his work. Maybe because he had never really bothered with them, hadn't gone to interviews or talk shows or signature hours as all the other heroes did. Maybe because even his own children would not touch Endeavor merchandise if their lives depended on it…
Of course, he had known that his actions threw a bad light on hero society, that people would be shocked and disappointed.
But had he ever considered that there might be people, who he had inspired who had even become heroes because of him and whose worlds were now shifting and turning?
"What are you sorry for?" Brazen cried out in anger and frustration. "You saved me!"
"Yes, I did," he admitted. "I saved you from your aunt then, and now you find out I may not be much better than her." He shrugged. "It must have been quite shocking."
If he acted nonchalant about it all… Then maybe that was because that's how he felt. This new revelation had been a shock. And he did feel guilty about it, but only a little bit, truly. There was so much guilt drowning him already, that this… it was just one more thing he had trampled under his foot.
He had hurt his wife. He had hurt his children. He had turned his eldest son into a villain…
The gun against his head and those terrible terrible scars…
Was it wrong of him, that he couldn't really be bothered to feel overly guilty on behalf of some strangers who idolized him compared to that? Of course, Brazen was no stranger… but it still didn't compare.
"You're not…," Brazen muttered, "You're nothing like her. How can you be? You saved me!"
"And maybe somebody should have saved my wife and children from me," he retorted.
"It's not-…" the same, Endeavor thought he might say, but then he stopped himself. "I don't-…" understand. Maybe that's what he wanted to say, but again, he stopped himself. "How could you!?"
Enji didn't really feel like answering. It felt too personal and really, what was there to say? There was no right response to that. He glanced at the window just so he didn't have to look at Brazen. After a while, he turned back, but he still didn't answer.
"My sister was four when it happened, you know?" Brazen started again. His face contorted into a grimace of half-processed horror. "She still remembers you. You saved her life, she admires you. More than I even. When she was six, she still had nightmares from that night, so Mom bought her one of those huge Endeavor plushies. She grew up, thinking you were the greatest, and you'd always protect her." Enji didn't know where this was going. "She'll turn 19 in April. I thought it was all over, but she has nightmares again."
Endeavor frowned. This wasn't his fault. Not everything was fucking his fault. He was about to say that to Brazen, but he stopped himself.
"I don't know what to do," Brazen muttered. "My friends keep asking why I'm still working here. They come to my home, insulting you, and she's right there. She says she can handle it, but I don't want her to be afraid anymore."
"Do you want to quit," Endeavor asked finally because he didn't know what he was supposed to do, he didn't know how to handle this. But maybe it was best for Brazen to just go his own way, not continue to work for a hero he had admired so long only to be so utterly disappointed.
"I want… I want to hate you!" he hissed. "If only half of what they say in the media… if what is written in that diary is true, I know… I know how they must have felt, and I want to hate you for it." He glared at Endeavor, but then he looked away again in frustration. "But I can't! How can I? You saved my life, my sister's life. If it weren't for you…" He screamed in frustration.
Enji returned his looks, even held eye-contact for a while because everything else seemed cowardly. "Kosuke," he used Brazen's real name, "did you ever stop to consider," Enji finally answered with a sigh, "how much money I made bringing Wolven down?"
"Huh?" Brazen asked in confusion.
"I mean, it's not normal that a high-ranking hero such as myself helps the police with what is supposed to be just an ordinary arrest. The bank Wolven robbed paid quite handsomely for my involvement. They wanted me there because Wolven had stolen some precious gems they had kept in their vaults for some of their richer clients, and they feared if there was an altercation they might get lost."
"What are you saying?" Brazen frowned.
"I'm saying, I was paid quite well for taking Wolven down. I might have saved your life, I might have saved your sister's life," he leaned back a little, "but that does not mean that you owe me your life or her life… or anything really. I have already been paid." He shrugged at Brazen's confused expression. "You are a hero yourself now. It's a job, you know that. Nothing more than that. If you want to hate me, go right ahead, you wouldn't be the only one."
Brazen stared at him, but then instead of getting angry, he sacked a little. Finally, he looked as if he didn't want to jump up again right away. "It's not that easy," he muttered.
"Hmm…" Endeavor hummed. He hadn't thought so. "Do you want to quit? As I mentioned, I'd prefer it if you stayed, but I really can't force you. I need a decision, though."
"Why do you think there is a traitor?" Brazen asked after a moment of silence.
"I will tell you if you stay." The corner of his mouth twitched in an almost-smile as he bribed Brazen like that.
I hope you did like this. I know it focuses very much on an OC but I find Endeavor's relationship to these OC coworkers quite interesting, and overall, it's exciting to write, because they all have a bit of a different opinion about him and a different perspective as well.
Now, this took a lot longer than expected, but let's talk about Brazen: We already learned a lot of his past in this chapter, but here is some added information.
Brazen's birth name is Suzuki Kosuke.
He's a 21 year old sidekick of the Endeavor Hero Agency. His quirk is called Quickening. It's a stockpiling quirk that allows him to conserve energy throughout the day or week - for example by eating, resting and sleeping - and then use whenever he needs it, allowing him to use bursts of energy to achieve superhuman feats like jumping very high, incredible speed, monstrous strength or abnormal stamina. It is very useful and flexible in how he can use it, but he always has to take care and pay attention on how much energy he really has left. Especially during long shifts or fights there will be a point when he is simply all out of energy, and while other heroes might still be able to pull something out of their quirk even after a point of total exhaustion, he - in a state of exhaustion - might as well be quirkless.
Brazen's is a young man with blach hair and red tips, that he - as part of his costume during work - styles into menacing spikes. His eyes have a light brown color that seems almost red in the right light and whenever he is in civilian clothes he wears the most excentric clothes in bright and flashy colors and weird combination of garments. his hero costume consists of bright red gloves, boots and belt and a midnight blue tight fitting one piece suit, over which he wears brightly coloured protective gears around his knees, shins, elbows, chest and back. He has red and blue paint on his face and around the eyes.
Brazen was born in the area around Musutafu. His parents both had well-paying jobs which demanded that they travelled a lot. With two young children (Brazen and his two years younger sister) they had to step back on their carriers a little which - while they loved their children - both were not particularly happy with. When his mother's younger sister lost her Job and apartment and moved in with the family - which was only supposed to be temporary - the parents saw this as an opportunity to focus more on their jobs and go on more business-trips again. The aunt had no idea how to deal with children, didn't want any children of her own and nothing to do with her niece and nephew - but as she lived in the house without paying rent, which she was repeatedly reminded, of even more so as she failed to get a new job - she couldn't wiggle herself out of the responsibility. After a while she started to let that frustration out on her young niece and nephew, becoming physically abusive and neglecting their everyday care. She also started stealing - first the funds her sister and bother in law left her to take care of the household and the children, then later from shops and even started robbing banks in the neighborhood going by the villain name Wolven.
Brazen was six years old, when he and his sister were saved of a particularly bad day of abuse by the then number two hero Endeavor. After that both children started idolizing Endeavor and Brazen wanted to become a hero to both protect his sister and to follow in Endeavor's footsteps. He was not a particularly promising student at first, as his quirk was very difficult to use to its full potential at first, which was the main reason he never got into UA or Shiketsu but would later graduate from a rather minor hero school. Still, in the later years of his education, when he started getting a hang on his quirk, he became a very promising young hero and even started working for Endeavor as an intern in his last months before graduation. After his graduation, he stayed at the Endeavor Hero Agency, but it always seemed clear that he had the talent to soon start his own Agency, although he never seemed to even think about that.
Brazen is often calm, collected and reserved, to the point that he seems almost bored lacking any sort of passion. However, that is mostly a front that he puts on to conserve as much energy as necessary. In reality, Brazen can suddenly be very energetic. He is a bit eccentric and sometimes acts in ridiculous or quite stupid ways.
