Author's Note: I do not own BNHA or any other elements from other fandoms, just my character Keiyu and the village of Tsurukosa.

Chapter 20: Flames Light Up

Everyone in the meeting stared as Mumichi stumbled in, his face pale and his bangs covering his eyes.

"What are you doing, Mumichi?! Get back to your seat," Takasaka looked as if he was going to throttle the guy.

"I-i have to go, my daughter," he made as if to leave the room when Takasaka grabbed his arm.

"Are you serious right now? We're about to close a deal with one of the hero companies for manga rights and your going ot that useless daughter of yours?" a loud silence enveloped the room as everyone watched the two. One of the other editors spotted something out the window and turned pale as Mumichi spoke.

"What did you call her?" his voice was quiet but something about it was unsettling.

"Oi, didn't you say he was Quirkless," the editor from before hissed at his colleague as the chief editor sneered.

"Your skills outweigh your Quirkless self, although you decided to move to such an island, but in this time and age, kids who are Quirkless don't have any future." the air of danger was rising in the room as the colleague replied.

"Yeah, why," the editor tugged his sleeve and pointed at the balcony, blue lines going down his face.

"Wasn't the bar out there intact before?" following his eyesight, the man paled as he saw the broken bar.

"Isn't that reinforced steel?" only someone with All Might's strength could hope to put a dent into it.

A choking sound and the shouts of the rest brought their attention to the center of the room where Mumichi was holding Takasaka by the throat, lifting him into the air.

Those in front watched with terror as the normally mild-mannered man glared with glowing violet eyes at the man in his grasp.

"What my daughter is worth you'll never be able to measure up to," Takasaka tried to speak but could only gurgle as the man tightened his grip.

"Oi Mumichi! Come on," "He takes it back, killing him isn't worth it," they all panicked, not wanting to get close but they couldn't just watch the guy die either, no matter how much he deserves it.

But instead, Mumichi's arm flexed and there was a large crash as the chief editor was sent through five walls.

"A-aren't those walls reinforced as well," the two from before shook as they watched the man lower his arm before he turned to them, causing them to flinch back.

"Consider this my resignation," he walked out the door and they waited several minutes before running to check on the chief editor.

"I-it's a good thing his helmet quirk protected him from his head smashing open," although nothing can be said for the rest of his body.

His entire body felt hot, his head ringing as the voice of his daughter cried for help over and over.

"I need to get help," people scrambled out of his path as he walked down the sidewalk, the death-like aura coming off of him a deterrent to even the policeman who had come to check the disturbance.

Heroes won't be able to help, he needed his group back.

First he needed to find their phone numbers.

Izuku felt the tears run down his face as he hiccuped, Hitoshi sighing as he handed him a handkerchief.

"Stop crying, it won't solve anything," he gave a glare to the Hero Agency behind them before taking the greenette's hand and dragging him down the sidewalk.

"Heroes are supposed to help, why aren't they listening?" this had been the fifth agency they'd been to that had thrown them out when they tried to get help.

"It's been almost three weeks and we haven't been able to find anyone who could help. Not to mention we haven't been able to figure out which island she's on, there's like thirty islands that have a Quirkless policy," they arrived at Izuku's apartment, the boy still sniffling as Hitoshi grabbed the key from him and unlocked the door.

"Izuku!" Inko-san appeared, looking worried, the expression tightening as she saw him next to her son. She didn't outright dislike him, but upon finding out he was in the same chat and that Izuku brought him over more than Katsuki, well, for some reason she didn't like that fact.

"Mom we're going in the room," but the woman blocked their path.

"What is this about you skipping school the past few weeks? I had to hear from Mitsuki that you've been ignoring her son and brushing off his invitations to come to his house," Hitoshi inwardly scoffed at that, while he would like for Izuku to actually ignore the guy, the only reason he kept refusing was because they were still searching for a way to help their friend.

"The teachers are worried," Izuku's hand around his tightened before the boy lifted up his head and frowned at his mom.

"No they're not, DL was right, you don't care," Inko-san stepped back as if she was slapped and Izuku took Hitoshi to his room, slamming the door behind him and locking it.

"You okay?" this was the first time he had spoken against his mom.

"Let's try a different satellite," Izuku took out his laptop and Hitoshi scratched the back of his head, staring at the door as if it would suddenly burst open, but nothing happened.

"Since I can't hack like you can, I'll just look through the library books," the moment DL had said someone was coming, the chat went silent and Izuku immediately tried figuring out a way to track the computer when a sudden virus wiped all the data from the computer. Now he was using a computer he had found in the back of his mom's closet (she had at least five, he was too afraid to ask her why she had that many.)

Hitoshi scrolled through their chat once again, searching for any clue that could point to which island it was.

If only the chat had one of those search buttons that let you type in a keyword of a certain conversation, unfortunately it does not.

"Did she ever give the name of the dam?" he asked suddenly, Izuku looked up from his screen, his fingers still moving as code after code appeared, it gave the violette a headache and it still sort of awed and scared him how fast the other boy devoured all those books on coding the past year..

"I don't think so, one of the rules on chat was that we weren't allowed to mention where we live and if she had told us the name it would have given it right away. We know it's named after a bird, but that only narrowed it down to fifteen islands which doesn't help all that much," Izuku bit his lip as Hitoshi resumed scrolling through the chat.

"Do, do you think she's okay? Are we right to be worried about how she is?" Hitoshi tossed one of his All Might plushes at him.

"If we can somehow get into contact with her to confirm, then yes, we continue doing it, she'd do the same for us," he didn't want to share his worries about what could be happening, there were some urban legends about these islands about what happened to kids who have Quirks.

Inwardly he scolded himself, DL is fine, there's no way she's dead.

The phone dangled from the cord, the ones who found her not even putting it back before closing the phone booth, light from the moon reveal splatters of blood on the glass.

Sounds of dragging were heard as two men walked along the sidewalk.

"You hit her too hard, now we have to clean up big mess," he gestured at the scene behind him, not at all bothered by what his colleague was doing with the one they caught.

A small gasping sound emitted from the subject as it struggled to breathe, Clovis scratched his chin.

"Should we take subject to nurse's office for treatment?" this was met with a scoff.

"No point," they stopped in front of a basement door, Clovis reaching down to open it as Creek lifted the subject that he had been dragging on the ground, it's short green hair matted with blood as dazed blue eyes stared at them.

"Just throw it in, we must tell the headmistress that the subject died and the future experiment will have to be cancelled." Creek shrugged and let go, both of them watching as the small figure disappeared till there was a heavy thud.

"Dead now," the door slammed shut.

"He just slammed the door on you?" Katsuki heard his mother's voice in the kitchen and rolled his eyes before he paused, wait, was she talking to Auntie Inko?

The old hag was stirring something in a pot and had the phone pressed against her ear with her shoulder.

"No, Katsuki hasn't told me anything about what Izuku's been up to, in fact they haven't hung out together at all," why would he want to hang out with Deku? Just the thought of the Quirkless loser's behavior the past year had him angry. He started reading advanced books that had the teachers staring and his grades had risen, something that infuriated him since he was supposed to be the number one in their school! Then he stopped trying to follow after him and left straight after school, not that Katsuki wanted to be followed by that Deku anymore. A purple haired boy popped up at the school and would give this judging look that made his hackles raise as he threw an arm around Deku's shoulders, calling him Overlord and dragging him off into a fancy car with a woman that looked like his mother driving it.

Then he started skipping school the past few weeks and the old hag wanted to invite him over for dinner but the moment he went over to him, the stupid fanboy had just called out a quick refusal before running for the door.

Dammit, why the hell was Deku giving even hsi mother trouble?

"Your not a bad mom Inko," that fucker was dead, blaming Auntie Inko for his worthless existence, Katsuki huffed and turned to go back to his room.

"Wait, hold on, someone is calling me, wait they're calling you too?" his mom let out a swearword as she stopped stirring and accepted the phone call. "Who is this? Inko why are you still on, fuck did I accidentally merge calls?" she set the phone down and a male voice sounded throughout the room.

"Mitsuki, Inko, long time," his mom frowned.

"Who the fuck are you?" there was a tired chuckle from the other end.

"Haven't changed a bit, I-i need your guy's help," Auntie's voice sounded.

"I'm sorry, I think you have us confused with someone else," this time there was a sigh.

"I'm sorry, I know we agreed on remaining unknown for this, but my daughter is in danger and I can't rely on the heroes for this, Jackalope, Empress, Dasvidanya," there was a thud and the seven-year-old ran back into the kitchen, finding his mom passed out cold on the floor.

"Shit, hey old hag what the hell," he heard Deku's voice from the phone calling out to his mom and growled, "What the hell Deku, what's going on," a hand came down on his head and he stiffened as his mom grabbed the phone and turned it off speaker.

"Go to your room Katsuki," he stared at his mom who was giving off a weird air and stuffed his hand into his pockets.

"Whatever," he stomped to his room, feeling her stare into his back and resolved to track Deku down to demand an explanation.

The nerd can't avoid him forever after all.

When Izuku saw his mom on unconscious and Kacchan demanding to know what was going on, he froze, then Hitoshi nudged him into action and he ran to his mom as she groaned and sat up.

"Are you two okay?" an unfamiliar voice caught his attention and he furrowed his brow as Mom picked up the phone.

"Dammit Mashiro!" snapped Auntie Mitsuki, "What is going on, what the hell," his mom interrupted the other woman.

'You said something about your daughter?" Izuku took a step back, eyeing his mom whose entire demeanor had changed.

"Yes, she called terrified about someone wanting to take her eyes, she mentioned 'taint' and 'ritual'," a curse from the other end and the look on his mom's face did not bode well.

"When was the last time you spoke to her?"

"Physically? When I had to leave on Christmas to get to work, I've been receiving emails from her but now that I think about it, it didn't sound at all like her. She asked if Quirks were bad, I knew I should've told her about them," Hitoshi and Izuku shared a look, this couldn't be a coincidence, right?

"Does, does this girl have the handle DakoxLeon in a chatroom?" he asked and there was a sharp intake of breath.

"Yes, who is this?" the desperation in that tone had him swallowing.

"I'm Green Might, now Mighty Overlord, VioletCat is with me, we've been trying to find her since she stopped chatting three weeks ago. She said her grandmother found out she's got a Quirk and that it was bad," his mother placed a hand on his head and his eyes widened as she bent down to look him straight in the eyes.

"Tell us everything the both of you know, okay?" the words flowed out of him without restraint, Hitoshi adding in his own two cents, the explanation took thirty minutes.

When they were done there was an exhale as DL, or Keiyu's Dad thought it over.

"Right, we need to find some way to track her down, Mitsuki, we'll need transport, Inko, I need you to get footage of whatever cameras you can find on Tsurukosa to figure out where she's been taken," there was a pause, "I'll send you a picture to do a check in Germany, I have some things to do before we meet up, Kraken out," Midoriya Inko hung up the phone and looked back at him.

"Sweetie, please stay inside for a while, I'll have one of the neighbors check on you, Hitoshi," he jumped at being addressed, "If your mother is who I think it is, please get a hold of her, tell her that Komodo needs to come back," both boys stiffened, wasn't that the name of the illusionist in the Catalyst series?

His mom disappeared out the door and Hitoshi turned to Izuku urgently.

"Her dad referred to himself as Kraken, and if my mom is Komodo," but Izuku wasn't listening, he was just staring at the door his mom just went through, "Izuku?" he blinked and let out a breath.

"S-she looked me in the eyes," he mumbled, "She, she's never looked at me directly in the eyes before," Hitoshi looked at him for a moment, before flicking his ear.

"I know the adults are now looking into this, but don't you think we should be doing something as well?" Izuku pouted at Hitoshi, rubbing his ear.

"Like what, if they are the group from the books, they won't need our help right?" the other boy stared at him with deadpan eyes.

"Where's her mother," the question had Izuku blinking.

"Oh," yeah, that was important.

Hopefully everything goes well, because he has a sinking feeling that time is running out.

Blue eyes stared down the body before him, his hand clenching at the blank eyes staring back at him.

She, she was a bit annoying, but he didn't wish her dead.

"Shit," no doubt that awful woman would send someone for the girl's body, but he would not let it be desecrated like the others had been.

He would just tell her that he didn't know the girl's body had to be intact. Unclenching his hand, blue fire swirled around it as he prepared to cremate her.

Staring into those eyes, he felt his resolve falter, and he fell to the floor, burying his face into his hands.

Memories of the past few weeks went through his mind, of her constantly talking and trying to get him to talk to her. Then she started calling him different names, starting with the color of his eyes to his hair and he had told her he hated how he looked because it reminded him of his dad.

Flashback

"Heh, does he have a girly build too," he sputtered and glared at her.

"No, I got this weak body from my mother," she stared at him.

"So you don't look like your dad," he glared at her.

"Of course I do! My mom couldn't even look at me, and I'm cursed with a Quirk similar to his so she outright avoids me when she can. This stupid fire red hair," he glared at it, flame flicking out of his fingers, "I want to burn it to ash," her eyes focused on his flames.

"They're pretty," she stated, he scoffed at that, these flames were not 'pretty'.

"It's called Cremation," her head tilted.

"Did you have a Chuunibiyo episode when you named it," he facepalmed.

"No, the Quirk Doctor named it when I was four," he knew what she meant and wondered whether or not to feel amused.

"Wow, they were really unimaginative," he shrugged.

"It is how it is," she hummed.

"What color are your sperm donor's flames," he choked.

"How do you know that word?" "Just answer the question," "They're orange, like real flames," "So you're nothing like him," "Weren't you listening?! I have his flame red hair, blue eyes, and flames as a Quirk, but I was too weak to handle his training, and he turned his attention on my brother," "Rather than weak, isn't it because your flames work differently, and I think your hair is more of a cherry red, and your flames are pretty," the argument went on for several hours after that.

End Flashback

She was the first person to call his flames pretty, and it made him feel like they were more than something to burn corpses to ashes.

And now she's dead because he couldn't even protect her; he failed his siblings; he failed his mother, and now he's failed this girl.

A hand grabbed his ankle, and he jerked, lifting his head up and staring into violet eyes that used to be blue, violet flames that swirled around in eyes that had been vacant just moments ago.