Sasaki nodded, "Thanks to the information we received from you all, the investigation has moved forward substantially. We will now have a conference to share what information we have acquired regarding what the small organization, the Eight Precepts of Death, is planning."

At least this wasn't going to be a complete waste of time.

"I'm completely in the dark about this..." Kirishima muttered, "Precepts? What's that?"

"They might be thinking of doing something bad, so this is a time for us to discuss it together. You two are also very much involved." Toyomitsu replied.

"Well then, let us begin." Awata started, before looking at her tablet, "Those from the NIghteye Agency have been conducting an independent investigation into the designated villain group kown as the Eight Precepts of Death for about two weeks."

"What prompted this?"

"An accident involving a gang of thieves called the Reservoir Dogs." Awata replied.

"I heard about that."

She continued, "The police wrote it off as an accident, but there were a number of points that didn't make sense, so we began tailing them."

Moashi started speaking, "I, Centipeder, conducted a follow-up investigation. In my investigation, I found that, in the past year, the members of the Eight Precepts of Death have increased contact with those outside of their organization and other groups involved with shady business, moving with the aim of expanding their organization and increasing their funds. And soon after beginning the investigation, he was in contact with a member of the League of Villains, Bubaigawara, villain name: Twice, a few days after the Provisional Hero License Exam. They were wary of being tailed, and I was unable to follow them, but with the help of the police, I was able to confirm that an altercation had occurred between the two organizations."

"Since the League was involved, they also reached out to Tsukauchi and I." Torino spoke up.

"Where is Tsukauchi?" Kesagiriman asked, and Torino replied, "There were other eyewitness reports to look into, so he went to check them out. I didn't think it would end up like this."

"Please continue." Sasaki said, and Awata spoke up again, "So after all this happened, we put out a request for help on the HN -"

"You can skip that part." Moashi sweatdropped, "I believe that they do know about that."

"Right!" Awata replied.

"HN?" Uraraka asked, and before anyone could reply, Midoriya had already flipped his notebook open to a new page and wrote a few words on it, before showing it to Uraraka across the table, "Hero Network. It's an online service that only pros can access."

"Smart boy." Tatsuma chuckled, as Hado added, "You can see reports of what all the heroes in the country are working on, and request help from heroes with helpful quirks!"

"Even if they're from UA, why are there kids here?" Rock Lock asked, "We'll never get anywhere with them here. The sun will set before we even get to the actual -"

Rock Lock completely froze up, as a menacing aura burst out from right beside him. He turned only to find two glowing green eyes staring right back at him, looking right into his soul.

"Go on, insult them, Takagi Ken." Midoriya signed under the table, and the hero froze up even more, if that was even possible, "Maybe I'll make your life miserable. Go on."

Midoriya held his gaze with Rock Lock for a few more tense seconds, before finally looking away, growling threateningly. Rock Lock let out a sigh in relief, muttering, "Scary..."

He was already on edge for long enough, and was not going to tolerate anyone insulting his friend.

Sasaki wanted to laugh at how easily Midoriya intimidated a pro hero, but it was probably not a good time to do so. Luckily, Toyomitsu stood up, putting all the attention on him, and gestured to Kirishima and Amajiki, "Don't say that! These two have super important information!"

"Us?" Kirishima asked, completely confused, as Amajiki shrunk down, "I can't take this..."

"Anyways, I think I'm meeting a lot of you for the first time, so I'm Fat Gum. Nice to meet you!" Toyomitsu introduced himself, and Asui and Uraraka smiled, already liking the hero that Kirishima was interning under, "He's so round and cute!"

Toyomitsu heard their comment, and gave them some candy.

"We suspect that one of the Eight Precepts's main sources of income is unauthorized drugs, so I requested help from some heroes who are well-versed in those matters." Sasaki continued, and Toyomitsu replied, "I crushed tons of guys like that back in the day. And then, at Red Riot's debut fight the other day, a type I'd never seen before was shot into Tamaki; a drug that destroys quirks."

"Tamaki, are you okay!?" Togata worriedly asked, and Amajiki replied, transforming his hand into a hoof, "Yeah, I recovered after I slept. Look at this cow hoof."

"So you had beef bowl for breakfast?" Togata asked.

"I feel better knowing that you can recover from it. So it's not gone for good?" Rock Lock sighed, still being wary of the green haired boy that was seated right next to him.

"Well, then, that's great!" Togata grinned, wrapping his arm around Midoriya, "We have a secret weapon right here!"

"Eh.. that's true...Midoriya's quirkless, that drug's useless against someone with no quirk!" Kirishima exclaimed.

Torino and Aizawa tensed up slightly, and turned to each other. They were the only ones, besides from Midoriya, who were aware that he had a quirk, and while Midoriya probably didn't give a shit whether he lost it or not, the only reason Midoriya survived the attack against UA, and the Kamino Incident, was because of his quirk. But then again... the quirk was probably the reason why it was so hard for Midoriya to recover. They really couldn't weigh the pros against the cons.

"No. We will hear from Eraser Head on the matter." Sasaki said, snapping Aizawa out of his thoughts, "It seems to be a little different from my Erasure, since I don't attack the Quirk itself directly. The quirk is an extra part with a special function added to a basic human body. Those "extra parts" are lumped together as quirk genes. I can only stop those genes temporarily, but I cannot directly inflict damage on them."

"Right after Tamaki was shot, we had the hospital take a look at him, and his quirk genes were damaged. Thankfully, they healed on their own, and he's back to normal now." Toyomitsu finished.

"What about the analysis on what was shot into him?" Sasaki asked, and Toyomitsu replied, "There was nothing wrong with the rest of his body. It was only his quirk that received any damage. The guy who shot him isn't saying anything either. The gun's in pieces, but thanks to Kirishima's brave actions that led to one bouncing off his body, we were able to get one still filled with the drug."

Kirishima was wondering why Toyomitsu was looking at him, before he realized what the hero was talking about, "Me? That surprised me! It came out of the blue!" This is so hard to follow... I don't get it...

"Good job, Kirishima!" Uraraka complimented, as Hado smiled, "Hardening, right? I know about that! It was the perfect match-up!"

"And after analyzing the contents, we discovered something that made me sick. Human blood and cells were inside." Toyomitsu snapped.

"What?" Uraraka was sick to her stomach, as Asui mumbled, "It's like we're talking about a different world."

But Midoriya wasn't listening anymore; he could hear his heart pounding. Given Eri's age, theoretically, she would be the youngest person to be part of the Eight Precepts, and perhaps one of the latest people to be introduced to them. Given that these quirk destroying bullets are also rather new, and the Eight Precepts participate in the selling of illegal drugs-

Human blood.

That practically cemented it. As far as he knew, Trigger, which was a drug that strengthens a person's Quirk, was a normal drug, just chemicals. But the quirk destroying bullets had human blood inside.

Eri's blood.

They were using Eri as a freaking experiment, using her blood to make these bullets. Chisaki was draining her of her blood, hurting her, maybe torturing her, to make bullets. And given what Chisaki's quirk, Overhaul, can do... he could practically tear her apart and put her back together again, all just so that he could use her to make bullets.

And he told her to go back to him. To the person that hurt her. What kind of hero did something like that!?

A useless, pathetic one, Deku.

"In other words, that effect came from a person. Someone's quirk?" Tatsuma confirmed, "A quirk that destroys quirks..."

"Hmm... I'm not sure I'm really following this." One of the other heroes muttered, confused, "How is this related to the Eight Precepts?"

"The man that Kirishima captured used an illegal drug on himself, and the distribution for things like that is complex. It's gotten smaller these days, but various people and organizations sell them wholesale until they finally reach the end-user. There's no proof that the Eight Precepts handled these goods, but they did interact with one of the intermediaries."

"That's it?"

"The other day, when Ryukyu's team broke up a fight between two villain groups, controlling one of the groups was the intermediary dealer organization." Sasaki stated, and Tatsuma took over, "One of the two that turned giant had been given an inferior drug that didn't last very long."

"There have been a rush of gang-related crimes recently, and most can be connected to the Eight Precepts if you tried hard enough." Sasaki concluded, but one of the heroes interjected, "It sounds like you're trying very hard to make the Eight Precepts guilty. Don't you have something that implicates them more obviously?"

"The young head, Chisaki's quirk is Overhaul. His power lets him disassemble and restore things. A quirk that lets him break things and then fix them, and a bullet that can break down quirks. Chisaki has a daughter, according to Midoriya, who had the most contact with her, her name is Eri. There are no records or details about her birth, but when Mirio and Midoriya encountered her, around a week ago, she had a large number of bandages wrapped around her arms and legs." Sasaki continued.

Midoriya froze up, his mind working together to piece everything together as his heart clenched, a pit forming in his stomach. He was aware that Overhaul could disassemble matter, but he had no idea that it was also capable of reassembling it as well. It was very possible that Chisaki was using his quirk, turning Eri into a splatter of blood, and then reassembling her back to life. He was practically killing her, and putting her back together, before killing her again.

The very thought made him sick to his stomach, and Midoriya was very glad he hadn't eaten much the past week, despite the pestering of his peers.

"Don't tell me something so horrific..." Tatsuma growled, and Torino sighed, "It's a society of superhumans. If you can dream it, you can do it."

"Uh... what?" Kirishima wasn't too sure what was going on, but he was sure that he didn't like it, "What's going on?"

Uraraka and Asui were also equally confused, as Rock Lock grumbled, before pointing to Midoriya, "Are you sure we need these other kids? I mean, at least he seems to know what's going on, but the others? I'm just going to say this once; we're wondering if this Chisaki bastard is turning his daughter's body into bullets and selling them."

"No way..." Uraraka muttered, and turned to Midoriya, who just looked absolutely calm and sick at the same time, with a bright flame of rage burning in his eyes. He must have come to that conclusion on his own just moments prior, and everything just snapped in place.

This was why Midoriya had been off the entire week. There was someone out there getting hurt, and he had been helpless to stop it. He knew about Eri, he knew she was getting abused, and he wanted to help her.

But he couldn't.

"We don't know if he's actually selling the bullets. At their current stage, their efficacy is still too uncertain. However, if they're at the test stage, and he's using them as samples to gather more to his cause... There is no hard evidence, but he's been gathering people and funds across the nation. If the completed drug would be able to completely destroy someone's quirk, I'm sure they'll have many ideas for crimes using this."

"Just imagining it makes my blood boil!" Toyomitsu snapped, "Let's go find him right now!"

"Wouldn't this have been resolved already if those two had just taken the child." Rock Lock grumbled, but Midoriya didn't put up a fight. He couldn't defend himself when he was the one in the wrong.

He knew there had been a time when Chisaki came into power, becoming the new leader of the Yakuza, but had mainly dismissed it since he didn't know too much about the yakuza in general, and didn't think they were too much of a problem as compared to criminals who wreaked havoc every day. He didn't want to deal with a dangerous quirk like Overhaul with his lack of experience, and just opted to ignore it.

He could have stopped this, before it even began. He could have saved Eri from all this pain years ago, but he didn't.

If he had just decided to bust into the hideout on his own, maybe he could have gotten Eri out of there and spare her a few more days of pain, but no, he wanted to make a plan and wait for a good time to sneak in.

You useless, worthless Deku. This is your fault.

"I take full responsibility for what happened. Please do not blame them." Sasaki was quick to defend Togata and Midoriya, "Even though they didn't know the full story, they acted to save the girl. I'm sure that Midoriya was willing to risk taking her then, but they thought ahead and acted to try again when the odds were better. Neither of them are suited to take down a man with a dangerous quirk like Chisaki's, let alone defending a girl from him. The ones most frustrated here right now are those two."

"We will definitely take Eri back next time and protect her!" Togata stood up, growling.

"That's right. That is our goal."

"It's fine for the kids to show off, but if it's what we think, that girl's the crux that the young head would want to hide, right?" Rock Lock spoke up, "She got out because of some kind of trouble. On top of that, some kid heroes saw her. You think he'll just keep her at home? I wouldn't, if I were him. Even if we push our way in, it won't matter if she's not in there. Have you already identified where she is?"

"He's right. How about it, Nighteye?" Tatsuma asked.

"That's the real issue. Since we don't know how far their plans have gotten, we have one chance to strike when it counts. To that end, we have found groups with connections to the Eight Precepts, or land owned by them, and made as thorough a list as possible. I would like you all to investigate each place, and narrow the list down to possible locations."

"So that's why you asked minor heroes like us. These heroes were chosen as they know those areas. For someone who was All Might's former sidekick, you sure are careful."

"While we're taking our time, that little girl, Eri, is probably crying!" Toyomitsu growled, but Sasaki calmly replied, "We cannot become All Might. That's why we must put together our analysis and predictions and try to make the possibility of saving her as close to 100% as we can."

"We can't rush. If we make a big fuss about this and don't get her back, this could result in something bigger." Torino butt in.

"You're thinking too much! If you keep saying stuff like that, you won't be able to do anything!" Toyomitsu snapped, and Aizawa raised his hand, "Um...can I ask a question? I don't know how your quirk works exactly, Nighteye, but if you can predict the future, then why don't you just use Foresight to see our futures? If we continue like this, it seems a bit illogical."

"I... can't do that." Sasaki admitted, "Foresight requires a twenty-four hour interval between activations. In other words, I can only use it on one person for one hour each day. In addition, it's played in my mind like a flashback. Please think of it as the ability to watch a film of someone else's life for one hour after activation. However, the film is from the perspective of that person. All I can see is that person's actions, and a little of their surroundings."

"Well... that should be enough to let you find out a lot, though. What do you mean by saying you can't do that?" Aizawa responded, and Sasaki pushed his glasses up, "What if in that person's near future, death... just a merciless death was waiting? My quirk should be used only after we have already drawn out the highest possibility of success, when it can be used to ensure our victory. It shouldn't be used haphazardly when there are so many uncertainties."

"But death is information too! We could put together a plan to avoid it!" Rock Lock countered, as Sasaki tried to argue, "It isn't the same as fortune-telling. I have no conclusive evidence that it can be avoided."

"Nighteye, I don't get it. Use it on me! I'll show you that I can avoid it!" Rock Lock growled.

"No." Sasaki snapped, filling the room with silence.

Midoriya hissed, and just stuck his hand in his pocket, pulling out a thumb drive. This wasn't getting anywhere, with all the arguing, so he might as well do something to speed up the process. He stood up, gaining everyone's attention, but he didn't care that everyone was staring at him, and walked over to Awata. He passed her the thumb drive, and she plugged it into her tablet, displaying a multitude of files on the screen which ranged from blueprints to building schematics. There were also two word documents regarding the quirks of the members of the Yakuza, which were Chisaki's and Chronostasis.

"They're most likely keeping her in their stronghold, which is the residence of the head of the Eight Precepts. All the locations on the map have very poor security, and they're not large enough to hide a child, as well as the machinery to take Eri's blood."

Midoriya noticed that almost everyone was gaping at the screen, including Sasaki, and signed, "What?"

"Midoriya... how on earth did you get so much information?" Sasaki asked, blinking at the screen. Even with all the research they had done, they didn't have nearly as much information as Midoriya had on that thumbdrive.

"Internet." Midoriya blankly signed back, "Most of the hideouts and buildings are rather old and abandoned, as building new ones would just grab everyone's attention. Most of the blueprints of buildings we currently have are public records, including the ones for their hideout."

Aizawa tried his best not to sigh. Problem child was back at it again.

"Ah... was this what you were locking yourself in your room for and working on all week, kero?" Asui asked, and Midoriya nodded.

"Okay... go on..." Toyomitsu said, still stunned, trying to process the information on the screen.

"I also dug up a few videos of fights from the Eight Precepts of Death from the internet; they're a few years old, and there's not much data on them, but I tried to do as much as an analysis on them as possible."

Aizawa was pretty certain that some of that information came from the boy's own investigations back when he was a vigilante. He never left the school, except with Togata, for his internships, and at night, the teachers all took turns on security to ensure that none of the students snuck out. Plus, Midoriya's lights were on almost all night long, and it was very unlikely that the boy had snuck out on his own. Also, there wasn't that much data, not as much as the boy usually had in regards to his classmates and other heroes, so it was likely that the boy was just limited to videos and reports on the internet, as well as public records.

"Centipeder, why didn't we search the public records and the internet?" Awata turned to the other pro, and Moashi shrugged, "They're Yakuza. If they're trying to lay low, why would they have anything on the public records or on the internet?"

"Given how long ago the compound was built, it would be suspicious if the blueprints weren't on public records. And given that they needed to build everything into the building, all the details are in the schematics. Plus, the videos are posted by people who were lucky enough to chance upon the fights and weren't involved. They're pretty old, and have gone mostly ignored by most people, who care more about flashy heroes. Took me quite a bit of digging to even find this much; there just isn't that much data on the yakuza."

"That's a lot, though?" Rock Lock sweatdropped, before pointing at the screen, "But residence of the head of the Eight Precepts? That looks like an office."

Midoriya took the tablet from Awata, bringing up the schematics of the entire compound, before giving it back to her, "It's disguised as several separate business office buildings, but is actually a huge interconnected compound. They appear to be different buildings, but once you know that they're all connected together, it's easy to see how the schematics fit together."

Midoriya zoomed into the blueprints first floor for the residence, giving the tablet back to Awata once again and signing, "If you look at it closely, there's hidden passageway that leads to some stairs, most likely a basement of some sort, that's located behind the only section of the hallway that intrudes into the wall. If you overlay it with the building schematics, the switch to that passageway is located on that wall, somewhere near the end of the main hallway, on the right wall. The switch is most likely hidden under some ornaments, maybe with another password as well, so people don't hit it by accident. With all that security in place, I believe that it's most likely that they're keeping Eri here."

"You're a kid. You have a provisional license, that's it." One of the minor pro heroes spoke up, "Why should we trust any information that you provide?"

Aizawa narrowed his eyes, and was about to reply when Sasaki narrowed his eyes, defending the boy, "Midoriya has exceptional skills when it comes to information gathering and analysis. He did this all on his own, without anyone's prompting, and without proper resources."

Tatsuma sighed, speaking up, "At least, we have a solid lead to follow. Let's do this. There's a girl in trouble. That's the most important thing. While I choose to trust Midoriya's analysis, I suggest that we still check out those locations, just as a precaution. We might find something that would help."

"Confirm the girl's whereabouts, and take her into our protection with the most accurate information we can get as quickly as possible. I'm counting on all of your help." Sasaki finished.


In the lobby, all the seven UA students were sitting at a table, as some of the pros discussed how to best proceed so that they could save the girl as soon as possible. Togata sighed, "If only we had just taken her with force back then..."

Midoriya just clenched his fists, as Kirishima hissed, "This is so frustrating..."

"Izuku... it's not your fault." Uraraka reached out, patting Midoriya's clenched fist from across the table. She knew Midoriya well, not as much as Shinsou, but well enough to know that the first thing Midoriya did was to blame himself, and as his friend, Uraraka wasn't going to tolerate that.

"Mirio, please lift your head." Amajiki tried to coax Togata to lighten up, as Hado smiled, "Hey, I know about this! Togata, even if you regret something and get depressed, nothing will change. Did you know that?"

Togata wiped his nose, "Yeah."

The elevator door opened, and Aizawa walked out. He spotted the students, and sighed at their downcast demeanor, "Is this a wake or something?"

"Kero! Aizawa-sensei!" Asui spoke up, as Aizawa replied, "Call me Eraser Head outside of school. Honestly, I was going to recommend that your work studies be suspended from today onwards."

"What!? Why!? After all this time?!" Kirishima asked, clearly upset.

Aizawa eyed the students, "You heard them say that the League could be involved, right? That changes things, especially after Kamino. But you know, Midoriya, you wanted to go save Eri on you own, didn't you?"

Togata nearly choked, as Aizawa continued, "I admit, I don't understand you that well, Midoriya. But I do know that you're the kind of person who would give up your own life if it meant that you could save someone else. You already knew, or at least, suspected the Yakuza quite some time ago, even before you entered UA. If we didn't have this meeting today, you were planning to go to that hideout, all on your own, and to try and save her, weren't you? Because out of everyone, you're the most frustrated, even more than Togata, because you think that you could have stopped this from even happening in the first place."

Midoriya growled; was he really that obvious?

"You were frustrated all week, and while your schoolwork is still good, you were definitely not paying attention in class. Just so you know, I'm going to watch you." Aizawa stated, "This may break whatever little amount of trust you have in me, but I'd really prefer that you not end up in the hospital for the third time in less than half a year. I'll say this to give you some peace of mind. The hand you missed grabbing onto did not necessarily mean despair for Eri."

Aizawa continued, "If you and Togata tried to take her back then, Chisaki would have killed you both, right in front of her. Neither of you were suited, or prepared to fight him. Despite how much Chisaki hurt her, Eri chose to trust you. She went back to him, believing that you'll come back for her. For now, you need to take care of yourself, and to trust the other heroes to do their part, so that you'll be ready when we give the signal. Given what you've been through, I know it's going to be hard, but you have to, if we're going to do this properly and save Eri. We can't fail again, got it, Problem Child?"

Aizawa stood up, "Face forwards."

"I will follow you for the rest of my life, Eraser Head!" Kirishima shot to his feet, as Aizawa sighed, "That's too long..."

"I'm sorry!"

"Kirishima, you're too loud." Uraraka whispered.

"Mirio..." Amajiki smiled at his friend, as Togata stood up, "Midoriya, next time, we'll definitely save her."

Midoriya didn't respond, and Kirishima patted him on the back.

Aizawa continued, "That said, apart from the Big Three, who are at least as strong as the pros, the rest of you probably won't have big parts to play. Asui, Uraraka, Kirishima, you three aren't here of your own volition. What would you like to do?"

"Eraser Head... after hearing that, I can't say I'm not going to help!" Uraraka stood up, as Asui spoke up, "If you aren't going to say we can't do it, then I would like to help, kero."

"Since the heroes had you participate in the meeting, I think they already recognised your abilities." Amajiki said, "In fact, I saw firsthand how a first year could shine much brighter than me."

"You start going off on that whenever you get the chance." Hado berated, as Kirishima bashed his fists together, "If I can help that girl with my power even a little, then I'll do it, Eraser Head!"

Aizawa nodded, "It's fine as long as you remember, our goal this time is only to rescue the girl, Eri. We won't step in further than that. It is the opinion of the police and Nighteye that the League of Villains and the Eight Precepts of Death aren't in partnership, so the chances are low that the League will be involved in this time's raid. But in case they're wrong and the League ends up involved, then you guys are out."


Midoriya walked into his room, and the second he closed the door, it felt like his room suddenly became colder. A chill ran down his spine and he wrapped his arms around himself, sinking to the ground, his legs giving way beneath him.

"The hand you missed grabbing onto did not necessarily mean despair for Eri."

Reiko and Ryuto popped out of his bag, and tried to comfort him, but Midoriya could only remember that one statement that Aizawa had said, repeating over and over in his head.

"Despair? Despair?!" Midoriya whispered to himself, "I told her to go back to him. He's tearing her apart, he's practically killing her, and I just told her to go back to him."

He knew what Chisaki's quirk was capable of. He knew the pain of death, he knew that he should have died many times in the past, either from villains or from suicide, but he couldn't imagine how much pain Eri was in. Chisaki was actually killing her, over and over, and all he could do was sit here and wait for the signal for them to raid the hideout.

The only thing he could do was to wait, and he hated that.

You're just a failure, Deku. You can't even deny it now.

He was angry, at Chisaki, for hurting Eri. He was angry at the heroes, for taking so damned long to do anything.

He was angry at himself, for letting her go, for telling her to go back to the man who made her life a living hell.