Rumi reached down, between her legs, and buried her hands in Izuku's hair. She was on fire. This was everything she wanted, and she wanted more. She dragged him up and flipped him with a roll of her hips. "No more teasing."
He raked his fingers down her body, dug his thumbs into the ridges of her hips.
Desperate, clumsy, hungry, she crushed her lips against his. Rumi pulled back with a hiss. "Ow, fuck, Izuku!" Her fingers came away bloody when she touched her tongue.
Izuku gazed up at her, rapturously, with lidded eyes and a lovesick smile. He giggled. "Sorry Mirko, I just couldn't help myself." His tongue wriggled wetly against his pearly fangs.
Rumi jerked upright, sucking in a ragged breath. The sheets were soaked. She lurched out of bed, stumbling to the shower. Ice shredded her skin when she threw the valve open. There was never hot water at this shithole motel. "Mother… fucker!" She pounded her palm against the tile. Grit her teeth. Tried not to lose her shit.
It had been one week. She dreamed awful dreams about Lt. Ishikawa. This was the first time she dreamed of Izuku. Rumi swallowed her rage, cramming it deep, deep into a bottle, which she flung into an ocean in the back of her mind. It would definitely come back to bite her, and Hawks would be very alarmed, but she didn't have time to compartmentalize properly. She would murder Himiko Toga if she didn't stopper her fury right now.
She left the motel in a hurry. In the past week she'd narrowed her search grid, closing in on Kurogiri. There were few buildings which met the criteria that she'd set: Close to the airport, visible basement entry, abandoned building. She'd been staking out the most promising one for the past three days. No sign of Kurogiri yet.
Kamino was thrumming with nervous energy. People scurried about, keeping their heads down, never lingering for long. It was what she'd felt at Manda station, only turned up to eleven. After nearly two weeks in the ward, Rumi figured out where it was coming from. The yakuza. Specifically, rising tensions between the police and the Inagawa-kai family, the third largest group in the country.
The Inagawa-kai were headquartered in Yokohama with a strong presence in the surrounding area. They were law and order out here, not the police. When tsunamis battered the coasts or earthquakes shattered cities, they supplied disaster relief, often before heroes or police could arrive on scene. They invested staggering amounts of wealth into legitimate businesses and corporations, both in Tokyo and in Yokohama. They took part in the local community, supplying food to soup kitchens and toys to children's hospitals. All legitimate operations, one-hundred-percent legal and transparent.
They also ran all the drug, arms, and human trafficking operations, the gambling dens, protection rackets, and insurance scams. Those operating outside the family's influence were swiftly – violently – shut down. It was a symbiotic relationship, where the parasite sucking the city dry also pumped life into it. Did the yakuza take over because the police pulled out, or did the police pull out because the yakuza took over? Chicken or Egg? It didn't really matter.
They weren't good people.
Approaching from the south, Rumi hopped up to her little hidey hole in the base of a rooftop water tower. Getting comfortable on her belly, she pulled out a monocular and peered through a rusted-out hole in the tank wall. The building in question was about two blocks down the road. She had a perfect line of sight on the only visible entrance from here. Rumi dialed in the focus and then she waited. And waited.
At this point she had half a mind to just go kick down the door and see what happened. She hated waiting, but she was going to do things by the book. Why the fuck am I staring at the side of a building? Kurogiri can teleport... She rubbed at her face tiredly, pressing the heels of her palms against her eyes. She was hungry, she had to pee, she wanted to fight something, she wanted to go home and break Izuku's pelvis, yet here she was, peeking out of a goddamn water tower like a fucking gremlin. Fucking silver-tongued bird-brained idiot… Why did I ever listen to you?
Her mind wandered, and so did her monocular. The police cracked down on yakuza activity in Kamino after the death of Lt. Ishikawa. They were using anti-gang laws to drag people off the streets for questioning. It was pretty heavy-handed. Students from a local university started a peaceful protest, citing civil rights abuses. Then rumors started going around about eye-for-an-eye retaliation after a yakuza was found with a slit throat. More people started protesting. More cops showed up. More protesters. More police. The yakuza started supplying food, water, and portable toilets to the protestors. The cops responded with a mandatory curfew and riot troopers. Bystanders were holding their breath, waiting for the powder keg to go off.
The sudden appearance of a person in her narrow field of view startled her. She nearly dropped the monocular. Zooming out, she got a better look. Seated on the edge of the roof sat a lanky male. "Well alright, who are you, dude?" Dressed in black, he melded into the night sky. The only pop of color she saw came from a pair of battered red converse, but those were doing a pretty good job of blending into the brickwork.
She'd only caught sight of him by his messy greyish hair, and the white gloved hand that covered his face. It wasn't attached to either of his wrists, so she hoped it was only a prop. "O…kay, is that a red flag? It's got to be one, right? Right." She snapped about a dozen pictures of the guy using the monoculars camera mode.
Rumi watched Handy for about an hour. He didn't move once. "Come on man, are you going to tell me something or not? Also, why is everyone in Kamino creepy as fuck?" She grumbled. She was going to take a quick bathroom break – she absolutely refused to use a catheter – when she saw her first major breakthrough.
A flicker of purple mist appeared behind Handy. Slowly, it widened into a portal, through which Rumi saw the well-lit interior of a bar. There in the center, those yellow eyes were unmistakable. Kurogiri!
Hawks was pushing the sound barrier when he landed behind the mobile command post, an eighteen-wheeler with the seal of the National Police Commission branded on the side. An array of dishes and antennae bristled atop its roof. He reflexively pinged the area, sending out a concentrated pulse of ultrasonic noise with his wings. In his head, the layout of the area materialized. He counted a dozen uniformed officers, three suits, and seven heroes. One of which was No. 9. He flashed his ID to a grouchy looking cop without bothering to stop. "Yo, Ryukyu!" He reached the pro with a short hop and a flap.
Ryukyu stood just inside the open door at the back of the trailer, along with the local chief of police and what looked to be some bureaucrats. She seemed surprised. "Hawks? What are you doing here?"
The swarm of lesser heroes and sidekicks orbiting her clearly didn't recognize him. The Hero Commission had pulled strings to keep him far away from the top of the hero charts, so he was relatively unknown outside of his own territory. Hell, he was probably more well known in Musutafu since he'd practically lived there for the last two years.
"Uh, Yeah, so I'm looking for someone who can update me on why half of Kamino is on fire." What in the FUCK are you doing? The police response to the organized protests had been unusually harsh. Naturally, the pot boiled over, and tensions erupted. He checked his phone; Rumi had missed her last contact window. His gut clenched. He had a bad feeling about this.
Some no-name sidekick with a nautical theme stepped onto the ramp between him and Ryukyu. He was big and bulky. "Hey, watch your mouth punk, it's not like this is our fault!"
Hawks walked through the idiot, effortlessly shouldering him aside. "Ryukyu?" Part of him was amused when she completely ignored sailor boys offended spluttering. So, he's definitely not one of hers.
She sighed and waved him over. "I assume you're familiar with the basics of the situation?"
"Yeah, protests, riots, yakuza being yakuza, but how did things come to a head?" I have people in there, so who dropped the goddamn ball, Ryukyu? Hawks folded his wings in tightly, the inside of the command trailer was cramped. It made him twitchy. Enclosed spaces always did.
"Oh, oh, I can help with that!" A tall woman with long cornflower hair spoke up, bouncing on her feet. "So! About three hours ago, here, in block seventeen," she pointed to the location on a map "Riot control units moved to disperse protestors grouped in this intersection. At around five-fifteen am, someone threw a brick through the windshield of a parked cruiser. At this point the protesters began to riot and the police line pushed them back to… here!" She finished with a dazzling smile.
Hawks saw something warm flicker across Ryukyu's face. Was it pride? Ahh, Blue must be Nejire Hado, Ryukyu's only intern. She must be something special then, Ryukyu was one of those pros who very rarely took interns. Hawks vaguely recalled reading something about a traumatic experience early in her career. A death? He didn't remember the specifics.
"Okay, cool, but that doesn't tell me why we didn't attempt to de-escalate the situation. What the hell are all of you doing besides standing around?" He said it smoothly, but saw the irritation sweep through the crowd. Nejire frowned briefly but was back to bubbly again in an instant.
Ryukyu, normally soft-spoken, had steel in her eyes. "Thank you Nejire, carry on. Hawks. A word." She grabbed him by the arm and marched him right out the trailer. Her body shifted, and Ryukyu the Dragon took flight, with Hawks imprisoned in her talons.
He was only mildly annoyed that the dragon hero carried him off like an unlucky dairy cow.
Ryukyu's flight was short. She landed high on an adjacent building. From the vantage point they could see countless fingers of dark smoke reaching into the morning sky. "Hawks, I know you're new at this, but you must watch what you say in situations like this. You'll make more enemies than friends by speaking so frankly, so please, be careful." Yellow eyes sharpened once more. Back to business. "Two police officers were murdered in Kamino about two weeks ago. Are you familiar?"
More familiar than you know, unfortunately. "Yeah, I know the basics. A lieutenant and her partner. Knife wounds. Someone used one of their radios and named Himiko Toga as the murderer." It would be pointless to explain his intimate knowledge of politically driven behavior. It was just another one of those things people weren't supposed to know about him. He ignored her advice, even though she meant well.
There was a waist high wall around the perimeter of the roof. Ryukyu leaned forward, resting her forearms on it, looking out over the city. She looked tense. Tired. But her hero costume was in pristine order, which surprised Hawks. You didn't get to the Top Ten by resting on your laurels. Something was interfering majorly with this whole affair. Mismanagement at every turn.
"Given Himiko Toga's M.O. and her history, the investigation doesn't believe she'd have any reason to be in this area. She's never been sighted west of Shinjuku. They're convinced that the yakuza were responsible for the deaths." She rubbed at the bridge of her nose.
Hawks twitched. "The investigation believes? They're convinced? That's not how any of this works, and you know it." This… was not good. Investigations were supposed to remain wholly impartial from beginning to end. He checked his phone again. Nothing.
Ryukyu didn't respond.
Hawks huffed. "You said yakuza… The Hassaikai?" Give. Me. Something. Please.
"Hmm? No, the Inagawa-kai. The Hassaikai are too small-time to challenge the police directly."
Oh, thank god. Hawks had collected some nasty information about the Hassaikai over the years. Small though they were, they could punch high above their weight class. They just hadn't yet found a reason to, for which Hawks was grateful. It wouldn't be pretty when it came time to smack them down. "Level with me, Ryuko. What's going on here?" Why aren't you out there? Hawks would have thought Ryukyu would be neck deep in the firefighting efforts by now. And that was another which drew his ire. "What's being done about the fire situation?" Where the hell are the firefighters?
She snarled. "Firefighters were ordered to hang back until the rioters disperse."
Hawks' jaw dropped.
Ryukyu seemed to share his sentiment. She continued, each word vibrating with frustration. "Lt. Ishikawa was popular in her precinct. She was a good woman. A good officer. People expected her to be fast tracked to a cabinet position in the next ten years or so…" She bent one knee, cocking her hip to the side.
Hawks' eyes traced up the mile of thigh revealed by the slit in her qipao. He joined her at the wall. His feathers itched. He needed to be out there, he needed to help. Why the hell does everything keep coming back to Lt. Ishikawa? Unless… oh… oh, no way…
"Some of the higher ups in Internal Affairs are… upset by her loss. They ordered the HPSC to leave this to the local authorities. My team and I are only here in an advisory capacity."
Oh no. Hell no, you've GOT to be fucking kidding me. "Please tell me this isn't going where I think it's going. People are going to die out there, they need help, not pepper spray and beanbag shells."
"I agree with you Hawks. Truly, I do. Unfortunately for them," she gestured out at the turmoil, "Director Ishikawa mourns his daughter."
GODDAMNIT, I knew it! Hawks needed to find Rumi, ASAP. He unfurled his wings and crouched, ready to tear across the sky.
Ryukyu grabbed his forearm. She stared him down.
He met her gaze unflinchingly, despite screaming instincts begging him to flee. He even smiled. He tried to make it a real one but found that impossible. Regardless, he soldiered on. "You know, a friend of mine helped me realize I was being fucking stupid once." He spoke softly, gently pulling his arm away. "She told me, 'Stop acting like a fucking coward and ask yourself: 'What would All Might do?'" Hawks took to the sky, hovering just out of her reach. "You're number nine, Ryuko. Act like it."
Ryukyu looked genuinely hurt by that. He felt bad – he really did. Ryukyu was a sweet woman, and damn good hero – but political posturing had no place in hero work. He raced off, leaving her with her thoughts.
Hawks aimed for the nearest burning building. He sacrificed a tertiary feather, punching it through a window. He curled his body and tucked his wings, darting into the building just as the backdraft died down. Once inside, he shed half his flight feathers and raced straight down the hallway, blasting his way out through another window. He pulled six people and two cats out of the building with him. "Hey kiddo!" He snatched up a terrified child. "Have no fear, Hawks is here!"
Dropping the civilians off safely in the street, Hawks moved onto the next building. Then, in the next three minutes, Hawks cleared five more. Halfway to his next target, his phone pinged. "Eh?" A message from Rumi. A picture. He squinted, even though his eyesight was perfect. "Oh shit, kid. And you say I have the worst timing." A grainy photo of Kurogiri stared up at him.
Rumi found herself in a tight spot. After seeing Kurogiri and a glimpse of the bar, little memories hit her like a sack of bricks. She started recognizing landmarks around the area. Remembered watching the scenery through the window of Giran's car, with cloying menthol smoke stinging her nose. She was about to move, in an attempt to make contact, when she checked her surroundings. Reality caught up quickly, as it usually did.
When she crawled out of the water tower, the distant screams smacked her in the face. Idiot, how the fuck did you miss this? Kamino was rioting. She took stock quickly. A throng of people clogged an intersection three blocks north. The mass of people resolved into police and rioters when she swept over them with her monocular. It looked bad. The police had broken out dogs, riot shields, hoses, and guns. The rioters were improvising weapons. Bricks and tear gas canisters crisscrossed the air. People were starting to use quirks in self-defense and in retaliation, on both sides.
She shrugged. It wasn't her problem. She wasn't here for this. She was here for Kurogiri and Kurogiri alone. She turned towards the bar, but she couldn't move her goddamn leg forward.
Rumi groaned, tugging on her ears. On one hand, Kurogiri. You know where he is and might not get this chance again. On the other, be a goddamn hero, like you claim to be, you stupid fucking asshole! She screamed every foul word she knew and shot a picture of Kurogiri to Hawks along with a rough address.
She rocketed off the roof, away from the bar. Concrete shattered underneath her on impact. The next leap left a crater behind. She cleared the three blocks in two jumps. Flying at breakneck speeds, Rumi looked over the battle lines, picking a target. There, a water truck! It sat behind the police lines, a fat and juicy target, feeding the hoses that were turned on the rioters. Her trajectory had her careen into a building, kicking up a whirlwind of masonry shards. She repositioned in the split second before gravity claimed her, kicked hard, and obliterated the back of the truck. The reservoir ruptured on impact. An impossibly loud boom preceded the deluge. In short order, the whole intersection was soaked. The firehoses went limp.
Rumi staggered out of the wreckage, both ears bleeding. She couldn't hear a thing other than the adrenaline singing in her skull. A wild grin split her face. Everything she had was screaming to fight, to win. She tore into the staggered cops with ferocious howl.
Hawks touched down, uninvited, in the Chanel 5 news helicopter, slipping through the narrow gap between the side door and the camera gimbal. The poor cameraman was so startled he nearly jumped ship. "Woah, woah, easy! I'm a hero!" He had to shout over the rotors, but when he flashed his ID the crew sagged in relief. He patched into the on-board intercom with his own headset.
"Hey, I'm Pro-Hero Hawks, sorry for the scare everyone, but I need to commandeer your camera for a minute. Are you transmitting live?"
The correspondent nodded.
"Outstanding!" Hawks slapped the camera man on the shoulder. "Hey buddy, I'm gonna need you to zoom that bad boy out, like all the way out, got it?" He reached over and unplugged the correspondent's microphone so he could plug in his own wireless receiver. "Sound check: one, two, one, two. We good? Awesome!" Hawks stepped out of the chopper and hovered just in front of the lens.
Hawks was so cool. He was kind of rude, but he also seemed stressed, so that was okay. She'd like to meet him outside of work, he seemed like he could be fun! And she had, like, a bajillion questions about his wings. Those were super cool. Nejire bounced where she stood, hands clasped behind her back, overflowing with energy. She wanted to go, go, go! There were things to do, people to save, and probably cats to pet. Would there be cats? She loved cats. They were so Cute, with a capital C. She should find some cats and send pictures to Mr. Aizawa. Her grouchy homeroom teacher seemed much more animated after she got his personal cell number from Mr. Yamada. Hmm, why did Mr. Yamada give her Mr. Aizawa's phone number out of the blue? He seemed to think it was funny, but she didn't get the joke.
But back to Hawks, she was pretty sure that Ryukyu liked him, in the like-like sort of way. It was super-duper cute, just like the potential dragon-bird babies she was imagining. Speaking of The World's #1 Mentor – Nejire had gifted her an official coffee mug that said so – Ryukyu was gaping at the news feed playing on one of the screens in the mobile command post. Hawks was on TV, Awesome! The surly people in suits started arguing. It got pretty heated, and one of them dragged Ryukyu into it. She looked unhappy.
Nejire scrunched up her face in a mean way – which she really didn't like doing – and took a step forward.
Ryukyu's left hand twitched in a very specific way.
Ah, so she has everything handled, that's great!Nejire happily went back to daydreaming.
"Who in the blazes is this Hawks anyway? I don't care what he says, Director Ishikawa was explicitly clear, this is exclusively a police matter. Do I make myself clear, Ryukyu?"
Her mentor's cheek twitched. Ooooh, she's maaaaad!Nejire snickered into her hand.
"Crystal. Sir." Ryukyu turned, issuing orders to her team through the button radio in her ear. As she spoke, she made eye contact with Nejire. Pretty yellow eyes flicked from Nejire to the door once, and exactly once, then she turned away.
Gotcha loud and clear, boss lady!Nejire, still bouncing on her feet, casually started bouncing towards the door to the trailer. She made it halfway down the ramp before someone noticed.
They shouted.
Nejire simply stuck her tongue out and popped up in the air, jetting off towards the people that needed her. She stuffed a wad of bubblegum in her mouth. I'm here to kick ass and chew bubblegum, and I'm already chewing bubblegum!
Enji Todoroki was furious. He incinerated the doors to his office with a low-grade Prominence Burn. "Why the hell wasn't I notified of this sooner?" He roared, holding up a heat resistant tablet. On screen, the newly dubbed 'Wing Hero' Hawks was going viral. The bullpen went still for a moment. A sea of sidekicks stared at him.
Burnin popped out of the crowd, clipboard in hand. "Sir! It appears that a unilateral gag order was placed on all media outlets in the greater Tokyo area. However! It would appear that this 'Hawks' character smashed that gag order into a billion little pieces." She smiled viciously. Sparks popped off her scorching hair. "From what we can gather, the Channel 5 news helicopter which transmitted Hawks' All-Call entered the airspace over Kamino Ward without authorization. Sir!"
Enji seethed. The temperature in the room rose ten degrees. Above, industrial air chillers kicked on, struggling to maintain the equilibrium in the cavernous room. "Kido! Onima! Pick a skeleton crew to remain here and maintain order. The rest of you, mobilize for rescue work, we depart for Kamino in five minutes. Burnin, with me!" The room exploded into organized chaos. Sidekicks scrambled over each other in preparation. Kamino was two hours away, but with a disaster of this scale, they would be needed regardless of when they arrived.
At Takoba Beach, under All Might's watchful gaze, Izuku Midoriya toiled. The legend himself sat atop an old fridge, shriveled, drowning in the quintuple XL shirt normally stretched by his bulk. Young Midoriya was truly incredible. Watching the boy giving his all, going beyond his own limits – Plus Ultra! – warmed his battered old heart. He let himself drift in nostalgia.
Nana's laughter, crisp and clear, brough heat to his face.
"Toshi! You'll never progress if you do it like that. Here, watch me!" Her smile was pure, honest, radiant.
Toshinori's heart clenched. Sorrow threatened to overtake him, but he refused it. His master taught him to smile always, and so smile he would, to the very end.
His phone pinged, bringing him back to the present. It was a message from Sir Nighteye of all people. Seeing the name in his notifications nearly gave him whiplash. They hadn't spoken in nearly six years, what could have spurred his old sidekick to reach out? Sir's message was nothing more than a link to a video. Compelled, Toshinori opened it.
A scruffy looking blond with red wings hovered in frame. Ominous black smoke filled the air behind him.
"Attention! This is Hawks the Hero, putting out an All-Call! To all heroes and first responders: Kamino Ward is burning. I repeat, Kamino Ward is burning. We need assistance. If you're seeing this, report to Kamino Ward A.S.A.P.! And All Might, If you're listening, there's about," he turned and looked over his shoulder, "a half million people that could really use a smile from you right now."
Hawks dove down and the camera tracked him, revealing a hellish blaze consuming the city. This looked grim.
"All Might."
Toshinori looked up from his phone. Blast, he should have taken this elsewhere. Young Midoriya's big green eyes looked up at him, pleading. The boy was clearly distressed.
"That... that sounds bad. Y-you should go. I'll be okay here, don't worry about me."
HA! He hears that an entire city is burning, and he tries to reassure me. This kid! He didn't have much time left, and Kamino was far from Musutafu, but that was no excuse. He was All Might, The World's Symbol of Peace and Justice! He opened the floodgates, letting One for All fill every fiber of his being. He swelled, growing a meter in height. The fabric of his clothing stretched taut. "Of course I'll go, Young Midoriya, duty calls! I'll be off and back in a flash. Just stick to my American Dream Plan, and don't worry about me!" He gave the boy a ten-thousand-Watt smile, before leaping towards the fray.
Decades ago, Nana cradled his face, dabbing gently at his split lip. "Oh, Toshi. Chin up. Smile! You're struggling now, but that's part of life. You'll go on to do great things, I swear it. Hold hope in your heart, because I will always believe in you!"
"I wish you could see me now… Nana."