Chapter 09 Meetings and New Beginnings
Kuro checked his watch as he entered the hospital. 4 pm, on the dot. He looked around for a little while before seeing Fuyumi waving him over. Kuro and Fuyumi would have gone together, but Kuro opted that it was better for Eri to stay at home with Toga and Izuku. After all, Eri was still shy with strangers.
"Are you ready?" Fuyumi asked the man. As Kuro nodded, she lead him through the busy hallways of the hospital before finding room 214. She opened the door and gestured for Kuro to enter first. "Hi, mom. I wanted to introduce you to someone."
"Oh?" Rei turned her head to examine the two visitors. Ever since Enji's court case and the announcement of Touya's survival, Rei has been doing a lot better mentally. "And who might you be?"
"My name is Kuro Gisei, Todoroki-san," Kuro bowed slightly at the greeting. "It's an honor to meet you."
"Please, call me Rei," Rei smiled at the man. "After all, you are the one who saved my family."
"I was just doing my job as a hero," Kuro returned the woman's warm smile. "Also I couldn't help but step in after I caught wind that someone was abusing my daughter's precious teacher."
Fuyumi blushed slightly at the praise. "Yes, Eri-chan is a delight to have in my class."
"Do tell," Rei's warm smile never faltered. Kuro and Fuyumi took the two chairs in the room meant for visitors and sat down. After all, when someone asked Kuro about her daughter, they were in for a day worth of tales and stories.
It was late at night when Fuyumi and Kuro walked out of the hospital, talking and laughing. Kuro then checked his wristwatch and paled. "Crap, I'm going to be late for my meeting!"
"Meeting?" Fuyumi asked, curious as the what Kuro did in his spare time other than dote on his daughter.
"Oh, I'm running a…" Kuro paused to think for a moment, having to choose his words carefully. "Support group. I'm running a support group for those who feel like society has wrong them in some way, because of their quirks or otherwise."
"That's really sweet of you," Fuyumi smiled at the man.
Kuro blushed ever so slightly at the praise and nodded. "Anyways, I'll see you tomorrow, Fuyumi-san," he said before speeding off to meet his next target.
Twice was perched on a building, eyeing a bank he was ready to cause havoc in. As Twice was about to jump down, he heard a whoosh and a crackle behind him. He turned around to see the recently appointed number four hero, Black Lightning. Aw man, he was definitely screwed this time.
"Yo, Twice," the hero waved his hand in a casual greeting before crossing his arms. "I wanted to have a chat with you. Are you willing to put aside a few minutes to talk?"
"No, I'll fucking kill you!" Twice yelled. Instead of reacting, Kuro raised his eyebrow, his arms remaining crossed. "Actually, nevermind. I'm not feeling murdery right now."
"That's good," Kuro said, smiling slightly. "Anyways, I wanted to invite you to this little group I have going on. Care to hear about it?"
"Yeah, I've heard of your group," Twice said. The two paused for a second. "It's called prison."
"No, no," Kuro chuckled a little bit. "It's less beat the crap out of you and hope you don't drop the soap and more we help you with whatever's going on and we work to wipe your name off the record of villains."
"What would you know about my problems? Fuck this. I'm leaving," Twice said, jumping down the building. After a couple seconds of waiting, Twice jumped back up. "Actually, I changed my mind. You caught my attention, Mr. Hero Man. What do you want me to do?"
"First of all, I'm going to move you into a better part of town," Kuro said. "I'll pay for your expenses for eight months, longer if I have to. And no, alcohol and cigarettes don't count as living expenses. I already have three ex-villains living in the same apartment complex. All of them have their own stuff to work out, but I thought that it would be better if you all can help each other sort things out. You all have something in common. Society has wronged you in some way and you all feel the need to be accepted. That's why I'm doing this. You don't have to turn to villainy to be accepted by someone. So, Twice. Are you interested?"
After a small argument Twice had with himself, he crossed his arms and nodded. "Sure, why not?"
Kuro smirked. Perhaps the thing he told Fuyumi wasn't complete bullshit after all.
After thinking about it for a while, Kuro concluded that it couldn't hurt to have one of these meetings, so he invited Spinner, Dabi, Toga, and Twice to his apartment. Most of the ex-villains felt more comfortable wearing their old villain costumes because that represented who they are and how they felt.
All the ex-villains sat in a circle with Kuro. Eri was on Kuro's lap, smiling with her eyes closed as Kuro brushed her hair.
"Why's the brat here?" Spinner asked the man. "I thought this was for people with problems."
"Well Eri-chan here was being experimented on by Overhaul before I adopted her," Kuro said. Eri shuddered at the name and Kuro patted her head reassuringly. "We all have stuff to work on and stuff we need to let out. Here we're not going to judge anyone for what they've done or what they've gone through. No matter what is said, no one will be judged, shunned, or arrested. That will be the point of the meeting. So, who wants to start?"
"Well, my old man did an illegal quirk marriage," Dabi started. "He was trying to get the perfect combination of quirks so his child can 'surpass All Might' or whatever. I'm sure you've heard of the case with Endeavor. Anyways, when my siblings and I didn't have the quirk he wanted, the old bastard treated us like shit. He'd hit us, yell at us, and berate us if anything we did was less than perfect. Same with our mom. After living the first half of my life like that, I had enough. I ran away and became a villain. I couldn't live in a world where scumbags like my piece of shit father could be known as one of the top heroes."
After a small pause, Toga spoke up. "My quirk makes me crave blood," she said, in a tone that might have been a bit too cheerful for the topic. "My mother hated me for my quirk. She called me a freak, she screamed at me, hit me, and did really mean things to me. One day, she cornered me in the kitchen, so I grabbed a kitchen knife and killed her. I ran away after that and attacked people so I can satiate the craving for blood."
A couple of the people in the group can tell that near the end, the cheerfulness in her voice was forced. Dabi put his hand on Toga's shoulder and pulled her into an embrace.
"I lived in a part of town that was really bigoted against mutant quirks," Spinner growled, the contempt for his place of birth painfully obvious. "I'd be teased and bullied for my appearance. Once, when there was a fire in my school, a hero who was saving the children looked at me and told me to save myself before leaving. I somehow survived, which is when I saw Stain's message. I remembered that hero and I decided to follow Stain's ideals, cutting down the fake heroes."
"I had to deal with-" Twice started after another moment of silence, but stopped. "I don't really want to talk about it."
"Of course," Kuro put a hand on the man's shoulder, causing him to flinch a little. At the obvious sign of discomfort, Kuro pulled his hand away. "No one here will make you share. This is an open environment to talk and to confide in each other."
"So, are you going to tell us what's fucked up with you?" Spinner asked.
Kuro looked down at Eri and patted her head. She heard enough profanity from Kuro's shouting matches at the table whenever he stubbed his toe to not be worried about having people cuss around her. "Yeah. I used to live in another country. A place where no one outside of the country knew what was going on," Kuro started. It wasn't technically a lie. AFO set up signal jammers so Japan couldn't call for reinforcements from the rest of the world. "We were locked in war with an evil villain. One at the cusp of achieving the power to take over the world. The only reason he didn't do it already is because my side was holding him back. I was in this war since I was a teenager. I lost so many people in that war. I was the last one to survive. At that time, I decided to start a new life in Japan. Make new friends, start a new family. It was then I swore never to let anyone down again. I swore that if I could save someone's life, or if I could save someone from the darkness, then I would. To be honest, I never saw any of you as villains. I just saw you as people wanting to live your lives and society fucking with your dreams and goals."
There was a tense silence before Eri started sniffling. "Papa's story is so sad…" she hugged her adopted father and Kuro smiled, hugging her back and patting her head.
"Is there anything anyone else wants to add before we end this meeting?" Everyone shook their head no except for Toga, who asked if she could have some of Kuro's blood. The obvious answer was no, but Kuro promised to get her a blood bag later that day. "If that's all then you can go home. I'll hold another meeting like this next week at the same time. It's your decision if you still want to come. I won't make you. Thank you for taking the time out of your day to talk about these things. I know how hard it is to open up to people, but we're here for you. My goal is to make a tight-knit group where all of you can confide in each other and none of you will feel alone again."
With that, the ex-villains filed out of the room. Kuro looked at his wristwatch. He had overnight patrols soon, and it was getting late. He looked at his daughter, who was sound asleep in his arms. He gently lifted her up and tucked her into bed, kissing her forehead before leaving for work.
Sir Nighteye was curled up into a ball on his bed, in utter disbelief of what he saw. He kept on telling himself that it was a lie, a trick of the light, but no matter how much he told himself so, he knew it was the truth. He had been at this for a couple hours, but he decided that it was time. It was time to call All Might and tell him of the vision he just had. The vision of Black Lightning looking down at the corpse of the number one hero.
Kuro was standing on a building, overlooking the city to see if there was any more villains to go after. A loud crash interrupted his thoughts, causing Kuro to turn around. "Déjà vu," Kuro muttered to himself as he saw All Might standing there, with his arms crossed.
"Black Lightning, we need to talk," All Might's voice was serious, and for the first time Kuro had seen in this time around, All Might wasn't smiling. Kuro sighed, already knowing what was going to transpire in the next few minutes.
"Look, I already know what Sir Nighteye saw," Kuro said. He expected the look of pure shock coming from his old mentor.
"How did you-" All Might started, but Kuro held a hand up, signifying that he wasn't done.
"Look, I can't tell you everything right now. There are a few things that need to happen before I can reveal my secrets," Kuro said, much to the agitation of All Might. "I know that you want answers, but this is important info. Info that can put even you in danger."
"What kind of person would be powerful enough as to be a danger to me for knowing such info?" All Might asked, dreading the worst.
"I think we both know who," Kuro said, grimacing at the thought of that monster of a man. "Anyways, here's my email. I'll answer any questions I can, but I can't tell you everything. There will be a time and place for that, and you will know when."
Kuro handed All Might a slip of paper and vanished in a crackle of black electricity. All Might looked at the sheet of paper and gasped quietly as he read the contents.
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