Minor content warning: reference to a family suicide.

Chapter 91

.::Unspoken Answers::.

During the past few days with Shouji, Eijirou had learned a lot of things about the other teen. There was the obvious detail about how he was one of those "scary looking but secretly super nice" giants, but there were also smaller thing. He considered himself a minimalist, to the point Eijirou had to argue on getting an actual hotel room instead of a capsule hotel. He seemed to like squids and octopuses a lot, and particularly enjoyed food that used those as ingredients.

Also, he really liked doing graffiti.

Watching Shouji spray paint the wall was wild and fascinating. If moving all six limbs in different directions was difficult, he didn't show it. He handled the cans like an extension of his body, extra arms blurring as they weaved through the air wielding a total of six spray cans. His motions lacked any hesitation, fluid and confident as he quickly dyed the red brick various colors.

Within a minute he finished his latest masterpiece and stepped back, standing beside Eijirou as they surveyed his work. "Huh," the redhead said faintly, for lack of anything else to say.

"It's bad," Shouji said bluntly.

"Kinda, yeah. Sorry dude."

Shouji liked graffiti art, but he also sucked at it. His latest work was no exception. The bright orange "1-A_No_Dream" looked fine and perfectly legible, though it clashed against the spring green background. That seemed to be grass, probably, since he'd sprayed bright blue above it with a yellow circle meant to be the sun. Said sun projected thick red, yellow and orange beams that might have been meant to resemble Japan's flag. Instead, they kind of bled together.

The centerpiece was a large blue rectangle with a giant black grid, and a white... okay, was that a W? That's what that letter was called, right? It was written with super bold lines, and had a line crossed through it. "What's with the W?"

"It's supposed to be the UA logo. It's the school building."

"Oh." Yeah, that didn't really resemble the UA logo. The lines of the "U" were slightly slanted, and the A had super-thick lines. "I think you forgot the bottom of the U." Shouji nodded, and stepped forward to quickly spray the line.

"...I don't think it helped much."

"Yeah, me neither." After a few more seconds of studying it they turned and left, both seeming to decide to just not talk about it anymore. What got to Eijirou was that they couldn't even blame it on it being hard to accurately control six limbs at once. Shouji tried doing it with just one hand too, in case that was the problem, but there wasn't much improvement. Turned out he just wasn't good at drawing.

"I should probably stick to just writing messages," Shouji remarked idly.

"Yeah, that's probably for the best," Eijirou agreed sheepishly. "The blocky letters you make are pretty cool though!" When Shouji didn't try to make full drawings, he could make some pretty cool-looking messages. Though, they still looked more sloppy than most graffiti block lettering he'd seen. He couldn't get the color gradient effect some art had, so he'd alternate colors instead. Some of his color choices... didn't really work.

"I think we've left enough for now," Shouji murmured. "We got a lot of photos, right?"

"Oh, yeah, totally!" Eijirou pulled out his burner phone to scroll through the camera gallery. "Like, I think I got twenty we can upload." He and Shouji had spent a good chunk of the previous day split apart to leave the messages in as many places as possible. They hadn't bothered taking photos of all of them (especially the ones where Shouji tried to be more "experimental"), but they'd gotten quite a few.

"Then let's go to the garden and take a break."

"Sounds good to me." Even after starting the graffiti campaign they'd spent a lot of time in the memorial garden since it seemed like the most likely place for Porter to visit. They made their way to the garden in companionable silence, stopping at a convenience store on the way to grab some pre-made bento lunches.

The memorial garden had a picnic area not far from the entrance, with stone tables and benches. While likely fairly popular in summer, it was usually deserted since the winter chill made the stone almost oppressively cold. Today proved no different, the pair having their pick of the tables and plenty of privacy as they ate. It also gave them a good view of everyone who might be inside the garden, making it perfect to watch for Porter. Shouji took the seat facing the entrance while Eijirou sat across from him.

As they ate Eijirou check the FacePage messenger on his phone. "No hits yet," he reported. "Jirou and Kaminari had to stop doing graffiti today to focus on studying." Shouji hummed, and Eijirou glanced up just in time to see one of his arms sprouting a mouth to eat his lunch. Even after two full days together, he had yet to see the other boy remove the mask once.

How did eating like that even work? Didn't mouths need to connect to your stomach? Did his arms have some way to connect to his stomach? Or... their own stomachs?

He was wondering if it would be too rude to ask when Shouji's head snapped up. "Someone's coming over," he murmured. That had Eijirou twisting his head in surprise, and sure enough saw that orange-haired girl who looked to be around their age—the one Shouji remembered from his dream of UA. She'd been a regular sight at the garden, present every time they visited and still there by the time they'd leave.

"Hey," she greeted as she approached, smiling wide as she slid into the seat. "Mind if I sit with you guys?"

The boys exchanged glances. "Um, sure, I guess?" Eijirou replied hesitantly. "But, why...?"

"Thanks so much!" she replied, eyes darting briefly to the side.

"Is that man bothering you?" Shouji asked lowly, and Eijirou frowned in confusion but the girl looked relieved as she nodded.

"Yeah. That guy's been staring at me for the past hour. It's starting to get to me and not many people are here today, so I figured I should talk to some other people. You guys look my age, so you seemed like the safest bet." They nodded in understanding. Eijirou almost turned to look, but he resisted the urge at the last second. If there was a guy watching her, he probably shouldn't give away they knew about him.

"You think he's up to something?" he asked worriedly.

"Not sure, but my gut says yes," the girl replied bluntly. "My teacher always says trust your instincts. Most of the time if it says something is dangerous, it's right."

"Huh. Sounds smart, but kinda weird thing for a teacher to say."

"I do martial arts," she replied with a shrug. "Karate, judo, some aikido... I've been practicing for a while now. But the biggest lesson they all teach is that if you can avoid a fight, do it."

"If only some people would learn that," Shouji murmured wryly, and the girl snorted.

"Yeah, I know what you mean." She pulled out a plastic-wrapped onigiri from her coat pocket and started unwrapping it. "I'm Kendo Itsuka, by the way."

Oh crap, were they supposed to introduce themselves? Eijirou felt a moment of panic, but Shouji just nodded, ever cool. "I'm Shoshi, and he's Kiriyama."

The fake names were so similar to their own that Eijirou almost did a double-take, but he nodded along. "Yeah, what he said. Nice to meet you, Kendo-san."

"Nice to meet you too." She finally managed to peel off the plastic, and before taking a bite of the rice ball she commented, "I notice you guys have been visiting a lot. This is the third day in a row you've come here."

"Uh, yeah, I guess it is," Eijirou said. "We're in town for some stuff and decided to stop by. We didn't plan to come every day. It's just, quiet and peaceful, y'know?"

"I noticed you're here every day too," Shouji remarked. Kendo hummed and nodded, unable to answer verbally right away since she had a mouthful of onigiri.

After swallowing she said, "Honestly, I don't usually visit that often. But one of the victims was a boy from my dojo. His mom moved to Musutafu so she could visit the garden every day. She had a bad fall recently though and can't visit, so she asked me to come by in her place."

"And you spend all day here?" Eijirou asked in surprise.

"Not like I have anything better to do," she muttered, smile turning a bit more wry. "I don't go to school anymore, and I quit my part-time job, so..." She shrugged as she added, "Like you guys said, the atmosphere at the park is nice. And usually there's some pretty nice people to talk to. Usually." She said the last word with a grimace, no doubt thinking of the guy.

"He's still there and looking at you," Shouji informed her, and her shoulders slumped with a groan.

"Dammit, I was worried about that. Ugh, I really hope he doesn't follow me home later..." Eijirou frowned and decided to risk a glance back over his shoulder. There was only other person in the garden now, a man checking his phone. He had a reptilian mutation, complete with a lizard snout and scaly green skin, and a mane of messy dusty pinkish-purple hair. Definitely a guy who stood out in a crowd.

His eyes briefly flitted their way and Eijirou flinched as their gazes met, prompting him to sharply swivel his head to face the others. "Uh, our eyes just met," he whispered, voice slightly high-pitched. "Is that bad?"

"Only if he comes over," Shouji murmured. Great.

"It doesn't look like anyone else is here anymore. Or at least, I didn't see anyone when I looked back." Maybe there were more people, and Eijirou just hadn't seen them?

Shouji immediately dashed his hopes though. "No, everyone's gone. There was an old man who left about a minute after Kendo sat down." Darn. Shouji had a better view of the entire garden from his seat, so if he couldn't see someone, they probably were alone. He then further dashed Eijirou's hopes by adding, "If he were going to attack, now would be the time."

The mere idea had Eijirou freezing, blood going cold. Attack them here? In the memorial garden?

Even without turning his head, Eijirou could picture the plaques bearing the names Tomono Yukihiro and Masuda Kei. His thoughts immediately flew to their families. To sweet Mrs. Tomono down the street, who hadn't touched an oven since her grandson died despite a lifelong love of baking. To police swarming the corner shop and taping it off after the Masuda parents couldn't take the grief of their only child's death.

Two families forever torn by loss, one devastated enough to follow their child.

"No," he said without thinking. "If he does anything here, it could wreck the garden! We can't let that happen!" This garden was special. Letting a fight happen here would desecrate the memory of all those whose names were inscribed here.

Fortunately Shouji nodded in agreement. "We don't need to fight him," he reasoned thoughtfully. "If we all just leave now, he'll either follow and attack us outside, or he'll be alone. I don't think he'd randomly attack the memorials."

That was a good point, and Eijirou nodded. "Yeah, I guess. But what if he just waits for someone else to come here and attacks them instead?"

"Hmm, true. And we can't call the police when he hasn't done anything..."

"Maybe we could wait nearby, just in case? We don't have anything else planned for today, so we can just hang out until he leaves or we hear him attack someone! Then we can swoop in and stop him!"

"...Doesn't the second one still involve him attacking someone inside the garden?"

Eijirou deflated at Shouji's question. "Crap, you're right."

"Also, there are no places for us to hide nearby without sticking out like a sore thumb," Shouji added, another point against their favor.

"Okay, so maybe we can lure him out instead. Like, you're pretty intimidating—no offence dude! But maybe you can, I don't know, chase him out?"

Shouji didn't respond right away, and Eijirou really hoped he wasn't actually offended. But then he slowly nodded. "I probably could, especially if I remove my mask. But he has a mutant Quirk like me, so he might not be as intimidated as others. And I don't know whether he has just the mutant Quirk, or if it's a passive trait."

"So... if he gets too intimidated, he might be able to shoot a laser or something?"

"Not my first guess, but something like that."

"Crap, so either way there could be damage, huh..."

As the two debated plans and ideas Kendo watched the discussion with a blank face. Then, in a perfect monotone, she declared, "I was totally wrong about you two."

"Huh?" They both turned confused looks towards her, but rather than explain herself she pulled out her phone and texted someone while getting up.

"Forget it. Nice to know you guys are actually pretty cool. See you around, I guess." She flashed them a smile before walking off to... join the lizard guy...? Eijirou could only stare in confusion as they talked before heading off to another part of the garden, perfectly casual and friendly.

"...What just happened?" he asked quietly.

"...I'm not sure."

Another Saturday, another chaotic meeting at the cluttered storage room—

"Dammit Kas, it's an office, not a storage room."

"I have yet to see any evidence of that," Kas replied evenly, arms folded loftily over his chest. In response he saw a flash of Saki gesturing to the computer. "A computer is not evidence. Storage rooms can have computers." She pointed to her photos on the desk. "You're not even in any of those photos—"

He paused as his attention zeroed in on an image of a blond girl about thirteen years old with ringed teal eyes and a bright smile, hugging a boy with purple hair and reddish-pink eyes. An image, because he could not imagine a photograph existing of two children who died long ago. "Is that a forensic image of Melody and Simon?"

"No," Saki replied sharply.

"Then is it a drawing? When did you get so good?"

Saki threw one of her many pieces of random junk at him—except she didn't, because he never actually spoke when he first noticed the framed picture.

In the present he blinked slowly. "Ah, so you got the photo from Porter," he said with a nod of understanding. Saki, who had not actually done anything since he said "I have yet to see any evidence," just glared at him.

"Did you just have another one-sided conversation with your Quirk?" she ground out irritably.

"Yes," Kas replied, and this time didn't bother dodging the beanbag thrown his way despite detecting it in advance with his Quirk. Mainly because he knew if he did, she'd go for something heavy next. He knew not because of his Quirk's precognitive abilities, but pure experience.

Judging by the sour look she sent him, Saki was fully aware of this, but she didn't bother pointing it out. "Just stop before I hurt you," she sighed.

"Got it, he agreed easily. "Anyways, what's up with all the teenage vigilantes? There's a white board out in the common room just full of pictures on them." He'd actually paused to study it while en route to Saki's office. Not every day you see a standing whiteboard on wheels with dozens of photos taken from security cameras taped to it and a trio of teens crowded around it.

"Yeah, the teenage recruiters kinda hijacked it," Saki commented casually. "They're trying to track some down to recruit."

"How are they having trouble finding the lizard guy in Musutafu?" That one had been particularly amusing to Kas. Two people, one of whom had a lizard head complete with scaly green skin and just wore a hood and cloth mask over his eyes, and yet they were struggling to identify him.

"Don't ask me," she said with a shrug. "I think the vigilante recruitment is pretty low priority though, all things considered."

"Fair enough. Though related: what's with all the duos?" The lizard guy was pegged as working together with another vigilante who was apparently a martial arts master of some kind. As far as he could tell, most of them were duos rather than solo acts. Some were even parts of trios.

"Hell if I know. It's not my business." Saki didn't seem too interested in the topic, which was further emphasized when she asked, "Do you want to go over all the cases or not?" Kas nodded, slipping out of his casual slouch to stand a bit straighter.

"Right. On Tuesday, Present Mic did a surprise autograph signing in which you acted as security. Midoriya Izuku happened to visit, and you touched his poster and got several visions of Eraserhead."

"Including two that definitely shouldn't exist," Saki added lightly, and he nodded.

"Yep. And Mic then proceeded to spend the remainder of the day stressing out over it, including over two hours watching any footage he could find of Midoriya. Which reminds me, any news on that orange-haired girl?"

"Joke finally managed to track down her down, and the lead's a dud. She's been stuck in a hospital after a car accident back in August."

Kas hummed at that. "So not her?" he asked, just to double-check.

"Not unless she suddenly woke up from a coma and regained the ability to walk," Saki replied nonchalantly, and he flinched but flashed a sharp grin.

"Ouch," he said lightly. "Sounds like a bit worse than a regular accident."

"Yeah. Kid wakes up now and then, but not for long. So not her."

"Except for maybe this miraculous sudden trip to Kamino to attend Present Mic's meet and greet."

Saki nodded. "Never underestimate the willpower of a fangirl," she declared sagely, and Kas nodded in almost somber agreement.

"Ah, yes, the fangirls," he mused. "The one power not even All Might can best. May he rest in peace rather than pieces," he added, briefly dipping into English.

"Because the fangirls would tear his body apart for souvenirs?" Saki asked.

"Of course. They're quite a force to be reckoned with."

She nodded, and they briefly fell silent. Then, "Seems like we're still on the one-way track to hell."

"Absolutely," Kas snorted. It was so good no one was around to hear their humor. The interns outside would be horrified if they heard the jokes they were making, and he doubted Sir Nighteye would approve of their humor either. "Anyways, back to the case, so after the signing, I finally talk Mic into stopping his security footage binge-marathon by mentioning that Anjou Ran happened to be part of the group with Midoriya."

"Right, the girl who knew Ashido and Kirishima," Saki murmured, glancing back at the corkboard on the wall. She'd pinned a photo of Anjou and connected it to the duo, with another string connecting to a post-it note with her brother's name. A third string connected to another card saying "Mic Autograph Signing" along with strings from Midoriya and Mic himself. The Anjou string had a post-it note written in Russian next to it, and Kas snorted as he read it:

'Seen w/ Midoriya. Absolutely NOT a coincidence.'

Saki certainly hadn't been slacking on making connections. Kas didn't comment on it as he said, "So Mic gets curious about her and I send him my case notes. We split ways, and that ends my last contact with him."

"On Wednesday, everything seems to be normal," Saki continued, picking up where he'd left off. "He grabs lunch with Kayama, and goes to the radio station early to record two more episodes for his show since they're doing that daily thing this month. He arranges to have one play the next day, does his regular Wednesday show, and goes home."

"And then goes MIA on Thursday," Kas finished casually. "Not that anyone noticed until yesterday. Guess that backlog of recordings worked against him this time." Saki nodded, grabbing a printed map from the mess of papers on her desk.

"Yesterday, his phone's signal was tracked to Kyoto. Further analysis of its location history places him going to Odawara for about two hours, then traveling to Shizuoka by bus. It stuck there for about half an hour before resuming travel to Nagoya, with a few brief pauses along the way. At Nagoya it paused for two hours before resuming travel to a small city in Shiga Prefecture, Higashiomi, where it stopped for the night. It resumed travel early the next morning, and stopped briefly in Kusatsu, but reached Kyoto by lunchtime."

Kas listened with his eyebrows steadily rising as she recounted the phone's journey. "Well, that's one heck of a road trip," he commented. "I haven't even heard of Higashiomi or Kusatsu. Guessing this isn't just a case of someone tossing the phone on a bus or train."

"No train or buses run through all of them," Saki confirmed with a nod. "Current running theory is that he got ambushed after arriving at Shizuoka, then someone placed either him, the phone, or both in a car to travel. Problem is we don't know if Mic had the phone on him, or if it was found right away. Also worth noting the phone company's records show it received a call a bit after it left Shizuoka."

"So if he had managed to hide it, that probably would've given it away," Kas mused. "At which point the culprits could've transferred it to another car to help build a false trail. Or even keep it around a bit longer before ditching it, to further throw us off the trail. A bit of reverse psychology to throw us off the trail and make it even more uncertain where or when it got discovered. Definitely makes it trickier than just tossing it out a window or whatever."

"Exactly. Local police have been tapped in all the cities the phone stopped for a significant amount of time to investigate. The only thing we can all agree on is that he almost certainly didn't end up in Kyoto, though we didn't realize that until an hour after search efforts started there. Which marks the end of what we know, and brings us to the present."

There was a brief silence after that, taking a moment to process everything. Then, "So he's probably in Odawara, right?"

"Probably, seeing as you sent him there," Saki snorted, to which Kas innocently held up his hands.

"Now hold on, that's a bold accusation."

"Please. You knew he'd jump on any lead that could lead to Midoriya and Eraserhead, and Odawara is the best one we have."

"Except we've already eliminated that as a base for the Alliance," Kas countered reasonably. "After all, there wouldn't be a reason for Midoriya to visit Kamino if Anjou could just meet him in Odawara. Clearly he went to Kamino so she could catalog him with her Quirk. Besides, Odawara's under guard by yakuza anyway. No criminals have gone there in ages."

"Did you ever mention that to Mic?" Saki asked dryly. "Or give him the extended case notes that explained Anjou Ran's Quirk, and the fact she has direct connections to at least one runaway from her middle school?"

Kas's silence and pleasant smile was answer enough.

"It's amazing what Januarius can find," he mused instead. "I know he has a lot of contacts thanks to his whole 'world-renowned forensic chemist' gig, even if he is retired now, but he never struck me as the investigative type. I guess you should never underestimate a French man stuck in a foreign country with way too much free time on his hands."

"I still have serious questions about how he found out yakuza are protecting Odawara when no one else knows that."

"Never said all his contacts were police. At this point, I consider it a victory he no longer goes to underground fight rings or asks people for whatever drugs and poisons they have so he can try them out."

Saki paused at that. "...His Quirk really sucks, doesn't it."

"Yes, yes it does," Kas confirmed pleasantly. "On the bright side, I can now identify symptoms for multiple types of common poisons and household items. On that note, drinking bleach is a horrible idea and no one ever should do it. Surviving it sucks."

"I never planned to, but good to know, I guess." This is why Kas loved talking to Saki. Anyone else would give him the weirdest look at that comment or voice concern, but she just accepted it without missing a beat. "Still curious about the very detailed school records from Anjou's old school though, because I don't think police would give him those. And if it's from his other contacts..."

"Nah, the brat probably hacked the school to get them," Kas dismissed. "Have to say, very nice to have my very own anime-level child hacker on reserve. Even if he hacks stuff I want him to stay out of."

"Too bad we can't dump him on UA," Saki muttered under her breath. "Back to the point, do you know anything about that yakuza thing? Because there weren't many notes in that file, and I can't tell if we should be concerned or not."

"Don't know much," Kas said with a shrug. "Just that there's basically a rumor deep in the underworld to stay the heck away from Odawara, or the Shie Hassaikai will get you. I looked into them a bit, and they're actually a really clean yakuza group. They're like the classic yakuza. No drugs, no robbing normal people, help out with relief in disasters... And it's almost like they're enforcing law and order from the underworld. Though not sure why they're doing that for Odawara."

Saki snorted and rolled her eyes. "Or they're making Quirk-erasing bullets like they do in other worlds," she snarked, slipping into the brisk and harsh sounds of Russian. She shuddered as she muttered, "I swear, just handling one of those things in that dream gave me flashbacks for a week..."

"Already double-checked that," Kas said, matching the lingual shift. "Absolutely no rumors of those damn things in this world, and nothing to suggest it's going to be a thing." And then because he was a little shit, he shifted to English to add, "Looks like this world got uniquely fucked up enough to dodge that bullet."

The nice thing about Preflex was that he was able to easily dodge the pen Saki lobbed directly at his eye. It embedded in the door behind him, making him give a low whistle. "Damn. You could've actually taken my eye out, sis." And she had, when his Quirk first responded to the throw; his eye still had a phantom sting. That was the bad part about Preflex: he actually felt whatever pain he experienced in those glimpses.

"If you couldn't dodge that, you'd deserve to get hit," Saki said flatly.

"Wow. So much love and care for my well-being."

"Fuck you, Del."

"Wrong name, Rita."

"Anyways," she huffed, back to Japanese. "There's no motive for them to grab Mic, lucky for him. So I'm assuming he ran into Ashido, Kirishima, or Uraraka."

"Oh? So you think Uraraka's there, too? Instead of wandering or sticking to Midoriya, I mean," he added with a shrug. The girl did run away shortly after getting into contact with Ashido, so it was natural she'd go to one of them.

"Midoriya's with the Villain Alliance," Saki said bluntly. "Going there would limit her movements too much if they're planning something. Which they definitely are," she added, tone lighter now. "We've got two kids impulsive enough to run away after meeting another person they know. And another kid willing to meet a Pro Hero as an excuse to meet someone with a Quirk that can track him."

She casually switched to Russian for the last sentence, though Kas focused on her first point. "Two?" he checked. "You're not counting Kirishima?"

"The psychic traces in his apartment don't match up with someone in severe distress and confusion after ending up in another world. Seems like he's just a bystander." He nodded in understanding as she added, "So far there's at least three, and probably more. I know those kids go to UA in at least one other world. I've seen them in a dream where I was a teacher there."

"Wow, they actually let you around kids?" Kas asked in genuine surprise. "We're the worst role models though, we had to learn basic morals from the ground up. We just joked about a girl in a coma." That last part was still in Russian, but said as deadpan as possible. Seriously, they should not be trusted around kids. There was a reason Saki didn't even teach the interns here.

"I know, I'm just as stunned as you are," she drawled with an eye roll. "Hopefully it was just a guest lecture thing. Anyways, at this point I've got confirmation on Uraraka, Ashido, and Midoriya being from another world based on the psychic traces they've left. Oddly enough, I remember Kirishima from that class too, with red hair instead of black," she added thoughtfully. "But as I said, no memories in his apartment. So doesn't seem like we've got a whole class."

"Based on just these three so far, things would probably be much more chaotic any others were here," Kas snorted. "Any ideas yet on how they ended up here?"

"Not a clue. Only remotely solid guess I've got is a Porter with a regifted Quirk that has different mechanics. Based on Ashido's psychic traces, I don't think they necessarily know how they got here, either."

Kas started to respond, but then paused. "Hold on, I just realized something. Midoriya's a hero student for sure, right?"

"He's connected to Eraserhead somehow in their world. Eraser taught at UA, so that seems like the most obvious connection between them. And I don't think classes would usually vary too wildly."

"Then, he went from UA, to waking up in a nest of villains?" Kas asked with a grin, and cackled. "Holy shit, that's hilarious! He must've been so panicked when he first woke up! Think he knows Shigaraki in his world?"

"You know as well as I do that Shigaraki Tomura is directly connected to All For One," Saki deadpanned. "Besides, Uraraka recognized him anyway. Her phone was dripping with worry about the two of them together."

"Hmm, I see, I see..."

"These kids are reckless so far, but hopefully they're playing things smart," Saki sighed, finally back to Japanese. "Though that said, at this point my best theory is that they kidnapped Mic so he wouldn't get in the way of what they're planning."

"That's exactly what happened," Kas confirmed cheerfully.

He could see the moment Saki picked up on the extra degree of confidence in his voice. Alert brown eyes snapped towards him. "Explain," she ordered briskly.

"Visited Anjou yesterday morning," he replied with a grin. "Too bad I can't record conversations I have with my Quirk, because that was amazing."

The brief visit to Anjou Ran had been one of the most amusing "interrogations" he'd ever conducted. The girl had been exceptionally intelligent and skilled at avoiding direct answers, and also unwilling to give up anything that could be incriminating. In half the non-existent conversations, she steadfastly stood her ground even as he shouted accusations right at her face and threatened her.

"Honestly, really got to respect her," he mused in Russian, still smiling. "I had to break her arm to get her to fess up. Most people crack before I get to the hypothetical torture."

"At least you didn't have to pull nails, I guess," Saki muttered.

"Yeah, I'd hate to go full Higurashi on a kid," Kas agreed with a sage nod. She looked momentarily perplexed, but then shook her head.

"Not even going to ask. Just what did she say?"

"Admitted that they did, in fact, kidnap Mic, and that he's not hurt." She also called him a large amount of profanities and insinuated that he was closer to a villain than a hero, but Kas was used to that. His voice took on a note of respect as he added, "She wouldn't say who 'we' consisted of though, other than that it wasn't the Alliance. I decided to stop the questions there since I got what I needed. Too bad it was all in a vision and didn't actually happen, so I couldn't get the confession on tape."

"You could," Saki countered idly. "You'd just have to record yourself torturing a sixteen-year-old girl."

"Yeah, hard pass," he snorted with an eye roll. "Honestly, I'd rather not actually do it anyway, especially to a kid." He became a bit more somber at that, his smile replaced by a small frown.

He viewed the brief glimpses his Quirk provided as something akin to a fantasy, distinctly separate from reality. Triggering those glimpses required specific intent though, whether on his part or another person's. For himself, that meant he needed to be willing to genuinely go through with whatever actions he intended to do in said glimpses. A simple enough process for asking questions.

Not quite as simple when you got to physical stuff like torture.

It had taken a lot of practice to get to the point with his Quirk where he could go through long stretches of conversation without it breaking. When you added in torture, he could usually only inflict harm one time before the glimpse would break. While he had little hesitation in using torture in the glimpses provided by his Quirk, he'd never particularly enjoyed actually doing it though.

(Well, not too much anyway. It was amazing what a child's mind would adapt to in order to survive.)

Either way, he preferred to keep torture to the glimpses rather than reality. Way less messy in the long run—both literally in terms of blood, and more figuratively in terms of all the legal red tape that would come with brutally assaulting someone.

"By the way," Saki said, drawing him out of his musings. "How did you know to ask her about Present Mic back then? We didn't get word until afternoon."

At that Kas's easy grin returned, mischief sparkling in his eyes. "Didn't you see who made that call yesterday?"

It had been Mic's lack of answer that had compelled Kas to visit Anjou on Friday morning. He'd already been ninety percent certain that Ashido and Kirishima were in Odawara. He'd just wanted to confirm with Anjou whether the man had been tangled in their web, or ran into the yakuza. Luckily for everyone involved, it was the former.

For her part Saki just nodded. "Alright, fine. Guess that brings us to the most important question of all: do we tell anyone yet?"

The question had Kas's smile dropping, expression quickly schooling into something more blank and serious. "No," he said bluntly. "Not yet. Sucks for the kids and everyone else tangled up in this, but this is the best lead we've gotten in years."

"Good, so we're on the same page," Saki said with a nod. "Just wanted to check. And also, don't really want to go into the multiverse thing with everyone just yet," she added under her breath in Russian yet again, and Kas nodded, relaxing a bit.

"Yeah, same," he agreed. "Fingers crossed this isn't a rogue regifted Porter and just something else entirely." He had no doubts the whole "interdimensional jumper" bit would come up at some point. The three kids they knew of were taking actions that completely derailed their lives in this world; they'd need to explain the background. Especially since all signs pointed to them plotting a monumental breakout of Midoriya and/or Eraserhead.

Ideally, this mess would end without having to mention Porter though. Explaining why they never used any of the intel or knowledge they got from the shared dreams would be a royal pain.

"By the way," Saki said, drawing him from his thoughts again. "When I read Tsukauchi's report on his interview with Ashido, he mentioned you seemed to use your Quirk to talk to her at the end. What did you ask?"

At that Kas broke into another grin. "I asked her if she'd ever heard of multiverse theory."

And her deathly, wide-eyed silence had been all the answer he needed.

Meanwhile just a door away from Saki's office, Mirio, Tamaki and Nejire buzzed around the rolling white board in the common room, pinning up more pictures and using markers to draw lines.

"Okay, so like, you guys think these guys might all be connected, right?" Nejire asked, pointing to two sets of photos with a capped marker. One set showed a pair wearing long coats with the hoods pulled over their heads and white kitsune masks, one with red accents and the other with green. The second set meanwhile showed a total of three people in matching outfits. Bullet-proof jackets over dark shirts and pants with combat boots, hoods also pulled over their heads with black fabric masks and goggles hiding their faces.

Tamaki glanced over and nodded. "Ah, yeah, Mail said bits of their styles are similar," he confirmed. He then paused as he read the name under one of them, face screwing up as he repeated, "Macey?"

"Yeah, yeah, because he's got a mace on his tail, see!" Nejire tapped the central one, who had a tail wrapped in black material with what indeed looked like a mace on the end. "He uses it to whack stuff and break it!"

"...I'm pretty sure that one's called Whiplash." He glanced at the other labels and his face soured further. "Seriously? Loop-on?"

"Hey, hey, that's the name the bad guys he beats say he uses! I think," she added more thoughtfully. "Dunno how it's actually spelled in English. But for the other guy, Macey sounds good too! Don't you think?"

"Nah, Whiplash sounds way cooler," Mirio piped up with a grin. "He can use that even after we bring them on board to do things legit! He's got the edge over Taser Brain over here." He pointed to quite possibly the clearest set of photos on the board, seeing as those vigilantes actually posted the photos themselves. "I think it started as a fan name, but he seems to be going with it. Punk Step's name is pretty rocking though!"

"Oh, right, the new ones," Tamaki muttered as he squinted at the pictures. "They just popped up recently, didn't they?"

"Yeah, but they're skyrocketing in popularity over in Hosu!" Mirio confirmed cheerfully. "Probably helps they have active social media accounts."

"That's weird," Tamaki said with a small frown. "Usually vigilantes try to keep a lower profile, don't they?"

"Yeah, but maybe these guys just want to be actual, official heroes and get scouted!" Mirio beamed at the thought, while Nejire tipped her head at the photos.

"1-A," she murmured, and perked up. "Oh! Didn't Camie-chan mention seeing some graffiti mentioning a 1-A?"

"Did she?" Tamaki asked, and Nejire bobbed her head.

"Yeah, yeah, she did! Just down the street! She said it had a link to a Tweeter account! She checked it out and it's all photos of graffiti messages with links to the account though, nothing about vigilantes," she added thoughtfully. "Huh. Maybe it's just a coincidence?"

"Maybe, but it's worth looking into," Mirio said, uncapping the marker to scribble 'graffiti 1-A Tweeter?' beneath their photos. "They're more active right now than those two other groups at least. Maybe we can go visit Ingenium's agency for a while to see if we can find them and recruit them?"

"Worth a shot," Tamaki agreed with a sigh, and glanced briefly at the other photos. "But now that you mention it, I think that trio's been really quiet lately. Reports of one or more of them used to show up every month, but haven't seen any reports since... September, maybe?"

The comment had the others' cheery smiles fading, the mood quickly growing more somber. "Hopefully they're just taking a break or decided to retire," Mirio said, but he couldn't quite inject his usual cheer into his voice.

The biggest risk to vigilantes was simply that if something happened to them, there would be almost no way to confirm it. They'd simply vanish from the public eye, their fates left unknown forever more as their memory faded from history. Ideally, they just decided to retire or quit. But when it came to younger vigilantes especially...

He glanced at the three photos again, silently hoping they'd hear another tale soon about the antics of Whiplash, Lupin, and Hijack.

Elsewhere in Nabu, Shinsou Hitoshi curled up on a bed hugging himself as he tried to keep his breathing under control. His mind kept flitting back to two familiar blond faces, his breath hitching each time memories flashed before him. Mashirao, Neito, please be safe, he silently pleaded. Please let me get out of here alive so I can see you guys again.

A long time ago, way back on Chapter 16, I asked for aliases for the runaways. One person on AO3, SlipScout, suggested "Whiplash" for Ojiro. And that name was so perfect, it inspired me to make him into a vigilante and give him a larger role in this story.

And on that note, finally confirming what many of you suspected: Shinsou is Ojiro's missing friend.

Otherwise: I FINALLY figured out how to add Spinner! Also, the conversation with Kas and Saki was fun to write. After how people responded to my question about getting around Kas's Quirk, well, I don't think everyone realized just how twisted they actually are. I feel like it deserves some content warnings, just... no idea what. Related: Higurashi refers to "Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni" ("When Cicadas Cry"), a horror visual novel and anime franchise with some rather brutal torture scenes (particularly a nail-pulling scene). Kas uses it as a verb because of course he does. He's the kind of guy who would name a fluffy white puppy "Nina".

Question for next time: What are some other dark anime references Kas could make that are mildly disturbing? (No eroguro or NSFL stuff please, I don't want younger readers looking up the references and having their innocences totally shattered.)