Winds of Destiny: Rising
Chapter Fourteen: Counterespionage
Skeptic stared down at the frozen image of the beautiful, dark haired and pink eyed woman depicted on the screen of his laptop. Torimodo Misaki. The little duckling he'd taken under his wing while he'd been working with the technology research program at Kyudai had grown into quite the swan. Not only that, but she'd found her way into an executive position with the Hero Public Safety Commission at the tender age of twenty-two. He would have been impressed if she wasn't working for the enemy.
He hadn't expected anything significant to come out of the initial contact Hawks had made with her at the Safety Commission headquarters. Mostly because the conversation they'd engaged in had been filled with a bunch of flirty drivel while he'd been fruitlessly attempting to ask her out on a date. He'd actually managed to successfully invite her to dinner the second time, and the wealth of information he'd elicited from her then had been a veritable gold mine. Whether it was because he was the Number Two Hero or because she was attracted to him, she'd trusted him enough to spill some rather pertinent details about the warehouse raids.
"That was quite the informative evening you had," Re-Destro commented to Hawks, who was standing at the center of the rounded conference table.
He reached up to rub the back of his head. "Yeah, I wasn't really expecting that lead to pan out so well. I got lucky!"
"Quite," Re-Destro replied, glancing down at the screen in front of him with a thoughtful expression. "This Torimodo Misaki: the Safety Commission's new Commissioner of Analytics; why did you choose to pursue her for such intel?"
Hawks raised his shoulders in an exaggerated shrug. "If I'm gonna cozy up to someone in the upper ranks at the Commission, might as well pick someone who's easy on the eyes, ya know?"
"She is quite eye catching," Dabi commented in his usual bored tone, leaning his cheek on his palm as he stared down at the laptop on the table in front of him with an expression that could almost be construed as interest.
"What? She your type?" Hawks quipped, dropping his hands into his pockets, and rocking back on his heels.
Dabi's eyes flashed up at Hawks sharply as his blue flames flared from the hand he had resting on the table next to the laptop.
Hawks immediately raised his hands in front of him and took a half step back, cringing as he called out, "Sorry, sorry! I'm kidding! It's a joke!"
"Just don't forget why you're cozying up to her, Hawks," Dabi warned him, keeping his narrowed eyes pinned on the Wing Hero.
Hawks straightened his posture and dropped his arms, reaching around to clasp his hands behind his back. "I've got a plan in the works already to sniff out the snitch. I should know here in a day or two if they'll fall into the trap I set."
"For your sake, I hope they do," Dabi replied dryly before turning his bored gaze back down to the laptop.
Skeptic certainly would not consider himself to be a fan of any hero, let alone one so flippant as Hawks. However, the level of animosity he received from certain members of the League of Villains was a bit excessive. They were the ones who had invited him into their ranks, and yet they clearly didn't trust him any further than they could toss him. He found it more than a little insulting that they didn't trust his constant surveillance of the top hero. So far, none of Hawks's words or actions had given any indication that he was working against them or providing information about and their plans to the Safety Commission. If anything, he'd been overly helpful, even going so far as to engage in menial labor with the supply workers.
The man hardly slept more than a few hours a night and spent quite a bit of time flying all over the country, tracking down other heroes and students to spread the good word about the Liberation philosophy to. He hadn't been back to his own agency more than a handful of times since the meeting when they'd announced the new regime. All of his so called "hero work" lately had been assisting other heroes with their jobs when he was in the area to speak to them about the book. The only times he'd seemed to take a break at all was when he'd been attempting to woo Torimodo Misaki.
Re-Destro sat forward and clasped his hands on the table in front of him as he pinned Hawks with a serious stare. "Regarding the woman. I'm interested to see if it would be possible to recruit her. I caught her comments at the press conference. She could end up being a suitable replacement for our late Curious."
Hawks grimaced and glanced off to the side as he reached up to rub the back of his head. "Ah… I don't know about that."
"And why not?" Re-Destro pointedly asked.
"Just from our conversation last night, I could tell that she's a true believer in the hero ideal. She's pretty sharp too. I'm not sure it's such a good idea to put any thoughts in her head about the Liberation philosophy at this point, with her being one of the Commission's top brass and all," Hawks carefully explained.
Re-Destro cast a dejected glance down at his laptop screen. "I see. What a shame. In any case, she may yet be of use to us as an information source concerning the Safety Commission's agenda. I'd like you to ask her out again, sooner rather than later, preferably."
"Yeah, sure," Hawks replied with a small shrug.
"That will be all, Hawks. Good work." Re-Destro nodded to him as he sat back in his chair.
The Wing Hero saluted them before turning to make his way out of the room.
Skeptic trained his eyes, hidden behind his long, straight bangs, down at the screen of his laptop once more. Perhaps during their next rendezvous he'd be able to gain some insight into how the woman's skills had advanced over the last twelve years. He'd grudgingly taught her a bit of coding in exchange for relying on her inexplicable skill with coaxing the Ramune grape out of the soda machine at the net café he often frequented. He'd opted to work there much of the time instead of in the lab at the university, mostly due to the chatty nature of the other programmers. Essentially, she would bring him whatever he asked for, so he didn't have to stop his work or deal with any people. That was before he'd perfected his transceivers to remotely control his puppets over long distances.
She'd been a decent enough student. He'd only had to tell her something once for her to pick it up, which was the only reason he'd agreed to keep working with her. They'd retained their mutually beneficial relationship for a mere couple of months, until he'd been recruited by Feel Good and had left the research program at the university. There'd been no reason for him to keep in touch with her after that; she was only some snot-nosed brat he'd been using for the sake of convenience at the time. But if she'd been able to build upon the abilities she'd displayed at the age of ten, she may just end up providing a decent challenge for him when it came time for the revolution.
Misaki rapped her knuckles on the open door leading into the President's office as she called out to the woman sitting behind the desk inside, "Got a second?"
The President looked up and motioned to her to enter. "Come in."
She entered the office and carefully closed the door behind her before walking up and taking a seat in front of the desk. Breathing in deeply, she hesitantly said, "I need to talk to you about Hawks's last message."
She'd found the little analog recorder he'd slipped into her coat pocket when she'd gotten back to her apartment after dinner two nights ago. It had contained several hours of recorded conversations between Hawks and the members of the Liberation Front, a number of whom appeared to be fairly high up in the ranks, according to the way they'd been addressed. She'd been able to pick out a few bits and pieces of relevant information he'd managed to elicit during small talk with the supply workers – the delivery schedules of a few locations and the aliases of the Liberation members in charge of them. She'd written up her findings and submitted her report directly to the President the next morning before immediately going to work on trying to identify the real names and associates of the people whose aliases had been used in the recording via ROAM.
That was actually the main reason she was standing in the President's office at the moment.
The woman finished what she was typing and leaned back in her chair before shifting her gaze to Misaki. "Was there something you wanted to add?"
She swallowed hard before replying, "The person I learned my coding skills from… His name was Chikazoku Tomoyasu. He's one of the board members for Feel Good Inc., and apparently he's going by Skeptic of the Paranormal Liberation Front these days."
The President's eyes widened. "Are you certain?"
She nodded. "I recognized his voice from the recording."
She hadn't wanted to bring it up until she was certain. She hated to accuse him of something like being involved with the Liberation Front unless she was absolutely sure. When she'd gone back through her logs from the posts that had been erased during the Deika attack, she'd recognized a pattern in the coding that reminded her of him. She'd been so flustered at the time with trying to figure out a way to retain any information she could from the posts before they were erased, that she hadn't even thought to look at how they were being erased. She could have kicked herself for not looking into it sooner. That combined with his familiar, scathing tone on the recording had confirmed her suspicion.
"When was the last time you spoke to him?" The President asked with concern in her voice.
Misaki shook her head. "I haven't had any contact with him in over twelve years. He might not even remember me. But, just in case he does, especially now that I'm going to be more directly involved... I just thought you ought to know."
"Thank you for telling me." The President nodded to her before sitting forward and turning her attention back to the report she'd been writing.
"There's something else," Misaki said in a rush.
The President sighed and glanced back over at her. "What is it?"
"It's about the method Hawks used to pass that message to me," she cringed slightly as she replied.
"Method?" The President asked, her brow drawing down in a frown.
Misaki grimaced and sucked in a breath through her teeth. "You told me to be careful about our personal involvement going forward..."
"Don't tell me..." The President trailed off grimly.
"He asked me out again," Misaki said, dropping her eyes to the ground.
The President let out another heavy sigh, reaching up to cover her eyes with her hand as she groaned, "What the hell is he thinking?"
"I know you want to limit my potential exposure to the League. But I honestly don't think he would have taken this tact unless he thought it was the best course of action. It's not personal," Misaki told her in an earnest tone.
The President lowered her hand from her face and shot her and incredulous look. "How can you say that, considering your history?"
Misaki stared back into the President's pointed gaze and insisted, "It's because of our history that I can tell. It's just... It's different."
She didn't really know how to explain it. There wasn't anything that she could point outright as an indicator of how it was different, it was just a feeling. He'd seemed almost reluctant to approach her in the beginning, probably because he hadn't wanted to involve her in his assignment. But even during dinner, he'd seemed somewhat distant; and when they'd parted ways, maybe even a little sad.
The President sighed. "You're not a trained intelligence officer, Misaki. This is dangerous. Too dangerous. I can't sanction this."
Misaki swallowed heavily, squeezing her eyes closed as she dropped her head and clenched her hands in her lap. She took a moment to consider the potential consequences of bringing up the bombshell of information she'd discovered, but seeing no other alternative, she quickly composed herself and steeled her resolve. She was long past cowering in the shadow of the President's approval. She had a voice now, and she would make it heard.
Taking a deep breath, Misaki lifted her resolute gaze back up to the President and said, "I know about the program Hawks was involved in here."
"How did you—?" The President's affronted voice immediately responded.
"I found the files," Misaki replied succinctly.
"Those files were classified and heavily redacted," the President bit out, glaring at her with open ire.
Misaki slid her gaze to the side and admitted, "I didn't say that it was easy…"
She hadn't really known what she'd stumbled upon in the archives when she'd been digging for information about All For One. The President had told her to use any means necessary to track down the League; and since almost none of the information in the files was visible, she wasn't able to make a determination of whether or not it would be relevant to her search. Worst case, she figured she could just digitally redact the files once she'd read them and put them back where she found them if they didn't pertain to her. It had taken her a while to reimage the files, which had all been pretty much completely marked over. When she'd finally scrubbed enough of the ink away to make out the lettering behind it, she'd been shocked to discover that what she'd found were the files about the program Hawks had mentioned being recruited into when he was a child.
They'd mostly referred to him as "the subject". It had been pretty obvious to her that it was him though because of the mentions to his quirk training on his ability to telepathically control his feathers. She'd barely been able to make out his name on one of the reports that had detailed his enrollment into the training program; a program that they'd used to cover up how he'd been discovered and recruited at all. She had already suspected that he'd grown up in a broken home, but nothing had prepared her to read his mother's testimony detailing the neglect and abuse he'd endured for most of his young life. She'd been so heartbroken for him after reading that report, that she'd sat at her desk for what felt like hours with tears streaming uncontrollably down her face.
He'd been seven years old when Endeavor had apprehended his father after stealing a car and attempting to flee the scene of a robbery. Following his arrest, Keigo's mother had taken him and fled their home, fearing that she would be arrested as well for harboring and abetting a wanted criminal. She'd had neither the means nor the capability to survive on her own though and had relied heavily on her son to provide for them. Keigo had done the best he could for a seven-year-old, taking care of himself and his mother while living on the streets. It wasn't long until the Hero Public Safety Commission had gotten involved.
Following the spectacular rescue of several people from a potentially deadly mountain highway collision, agents from the Commission had tracked Keigo and his mother down to the train station where they were sheltering at the time. They'd offered to provide financial support and new identities for both of them in exchange for Keigo's enrollment into their hero training program. His mother had immediately agreed to the deal and signed over all parental rights. With his father in prison for robbery and homicide, Keigo had effectively become an orphan, whom the Safety Commission had taken in under the directive to develop into a future asset. They'd erased any trace of his existence from all manner of public record and put him through incredibly extensive training for the next ten and a half years, all to make him into the perfect hero.
A seven-year-old child. The organization she'd thought existed to look out for the wellbeing of both heroes and civilians alike, had taken advantage of their situation to manipulate Keigo and his mother into signing over his childhood for the sake of their 'greater good'. Regardless of what their situation happened to be, his mother's mental faculties were not such that she could be trusted to make an informed decision about her child's wellbeing, and Keigo himself was much too young to make that determination for himself. They both may have thought they were saving him, but as he'd mentioned to her the first and only time he'd ever really spoken to her about his past: at what cost?
She turned her steely gaze back to the woman across from her and curtly remarked, "I understand that you may not agree with the way he's decided to handle this assignment, and I appreciate your concern for my involvement, but the gravity of the situation is much bigger than the two of us. I may not have any experience with counterespionage, but Hawks does. It's what you trained him for, after all. Trust that he knows what he's doing."
"It's not Hawks I'm worried about. If you stare into that abyss, Misaki... It stares back. You have no idea what that world is like," the President replied darkly.
Misaki evenly met the woman's icy gaze. "You're right. I'm not a hero, or an intelligence officer. I have no experience and no training. But if putting myself in a compromising position will help ensure the success of this operation, that's a risk I'm prepared to take. For the sake of the greater good."
She remembered the President mentioning to her once that people in a position of power often used manipulation as a tactic to get what they wanted. Misaki herself had been on the receiving end of such manipulation at the hands of the woman sitting in front of her. She really did care very deeply about the success of the operation, but to say that she was willing to put her life on the line for the sake of their "greater good" was a bit of a stretch. She had more personal motivations for offering to take on that role. The least of which was making sure that the Commission didn't abuse the sacrifice Hawks was making to complete the assignment they'd given him. Their care for his wellbeing extended about as far as his usefulness to them did, and he wasn't much better. He would give his all to ensure the success of the mission, regardless of what it meant for him in the long run.
Well, if neither one of them were going to make his safety a priority, then it was up to her to do it. No matter what their relationship status happened to be at the moment, she still cared about him enough to want to protect him from that which would seek to harm him. That was the least that anyone should expect from the people who loved them. The quicker they were able to get a handle on the movements and plans of the Liberation Front, the sooner all of this would be over, and they could get back to some semblance of normal in their lives. Not that she was expecting to just pick up right where they left off four months ago, but the prospect of being able to have a decent conversation about everything that had happened between them, not to mention getting to the root issues of their previous relationship, was something Misaki was greatly looking forward to. Now if she could just convince the President not to pull the plug on her involvement…
"Alright," the President conceded after a long, tense moment. "Under one condition."
Misaki furiously stamped down her relief and calmly asked, "What is it?"
The President fixed her with a pointed stare and said, "I'll be giving you a crash course training on our counterintelligence methods. Starting today."
"Misaki!" Eri's excited voice called out when she stepped through the main gate leading into the grounds of UA High School.
"Hi Eri!" She exclaimed in reply as the little girl ran up to her and she picked her up to give her a big hug. "You didn't have to come all the way out here to get me."
"Was that bad?" Eri asked as she pulled back, a look of anxious uncertainty crossing her expressive face.
"Of course not! I'm so happy to see you I could burst," Misaki quickly told her before leaning in to rub their noses together, causing Eri to giggle.
"Aizawa-sensei is away from the school today, so Eri-chan and I get to greet you instead!" One of Eri's third year aids, Togata Mirio, announced as he walked up to them and struck a pose.
"Away from the school?" Misaki asked, glancing over at him questioningly.
Eraser hadn't mentioned anything to her about being away when she'd called to confirm their meeting time with him yesterday.
"That thing, you know," Mirio said under his breath through clenched teeth, holding a hand up next to his mouth as he leaned toward her conspiratorially.
Her eyes widened and she gasped. "Oh! Right, that…"
The "thing" Mirio must have been referring to was Eraser Head and Present Mic's weekly visit to Tartarus to interrogate Kurogiri. They hadn't been able to get anything else out of the shadowy Nomu, but that wasn't keeping them from trying. She couldn't blame him for not mentioning anything to her about it, she was sure it was a pretty touchy subject for him. Besides, it wasn't like he really needed to be there while she was visiting with Eri anyway. They had just begun attempting to train her. As she was still displaying some anxiety in concerns to using her quirk, they mostly just played games or read story books while Misaki was there, nothing dangerous.
"Hm?" Eri cocked her head to the side and hummed.
Misaki turned her attention back to Eri and asked, "Hey, guess what?"
Eri blinked. "What?"
"I found something for you," Misaki told her with a sly grin on her face.
Eri's eyes widened slightly and she excitedly asked, "What is it?"
"Hm… I don't know if I should tell you…" She trailed off, turning her head and gazing at Eri from the corners of her narrowed eyes.
"Tell me!" Eri enthusiastically urged.
Misaki set the girl back on the ground and crouched down in front of her. "I'll tell you what, if you can beat me in a race back to the dorm, it's all yours."
"What if you win?" She innocently asked in response.
Mirio suddenly picked her up and deposited her on his shoulders as he said, "Don't worry about that, Eri-chan! If you use me as your horse, there's no way you won't win! Let's POWER!"
They disappeared in a cloud of smoke a second later as Mirio suddenly raced off toward the dorm. Misaki stood and coughed into the back of her hand while waving the other one to clear the haze his sudden departure had left behind. Shaking her head and smiling to herself, she took off for the dorm as well at a much more leisurely pace. She arrived about a minute later to find Mirio and Eri waiting for her on the front porch with triumphant grins on their faces.
She shook her head again and sighed. "I'm not sure I'd call that a fair win, but I guess you did beat me back here, so…" Reaching into the pocket of her coat, she pulled out a plastic wrapped bright red sphere attached to a white stick and held it out to Eri as she proclaimed, "Tada!"
Eri's face lit up when she recognized the object and she threw her hands in the air as she excitedly exclaimed, "A candy apple!"
Mirio mirrored her action and exclaimed in the same tone, "Wow!"
"Have you had one before?" Misaki asked as she handed the confection over to the grinning child.
Eri nodded enthusiastically as she took it. "Mhm! Deku made one for me at the school festival."
"Well, that was nice of him," Misaki replied as she removed the wrapper from the apple before telling her, "Why don't you go sit down so you can eat that?"
"Thank you!" Eri exclaimed before running inside and climbing up onto one of the chairs at the dining table to consume her treat.
"She always looks so happy when you're here," Mirio commented as they walked inside after her.
"I'm sure she's just as happy spending time with you, Mirio-kun," Misaki replied graciously, shutting the door behind her and hanging her coat on the rack just inside the door.
"Yep! We have tons of fun!" The jovial third year said with a wide grin.
"Yeah, I can see that!" She chuckled in response.
"Did you get the letter Eri-chan wrote to you? We weren't sure where to send it, so the principal said he'd take care of it," he asked, reaching a hand up to rub the back of his head with a slightly sheepish expression on her face.
Eri had written her a few letters before, but she always waited until she dropped by for a visit to give them to her. The letter the principal had asked if he could mail to her last week had told her just how much the little girl missed spending time with her. She'd used the stationary set she'd given her for Christmas to pen it, telling her about all of the nice things the UA students and staff were doing for her. But her regret at not being able to use her quirk yet had shown through in her writing.
Misaki smiled softly as she replied, "I did. I was amazed at how good her writing has gotten. Did you help her?"
Mirio grinned broadly and dropped his hands onto his hips as he announced, "We've been practicing together! She really likes to write. I think it's easier for her to get her feelings out that way. She writes letters to us all the time!"
"I'm jealous," she said in a slightly facetious tone, though she couldn't deny the kernel of truth behind the statement.
"No way! I'm the jealous one!" Mirio suddenly exclaimed before his expression suddenly softened. "You should see the way her face lights up when she hears that you're coming by for a visit."
"I wish I could stop by more…" She trailed off, guiltily glancing down at her feet.
"Don't worry! We're doing just fine! Right, Eri-chan?" Mirio called out to the little girl munching happily on her candied apple at the table.
"Mmhm!" Eri raised a hand and called back in reply with a grin on her face.
"Are you?" Misaki asked with a bit of concern in her tone.
Mirio looked down at her and asked, "Huh?"
She glanced up at him as she asked again, "Are you doing fine? You've taken a lot of time off from school to take care of Eri. Will you still be able to graduate?"
He lifted his shoulders in a shrug while staring across the room at Eri, a slightly hopeful glint in his blue eyes. "I've already got all of the credits I need. All I was working on before I lost my quirk was building up my work study hours. But it's not like I'm slacking off or anything!" He said as he suddenly crouched down into a few lunging stretches. "I'm keeping up with my basic training! So that I can be ready to jump back into action as soon as I get my quirk back!" He exclaimed as he shot up into a heroic pose.
Misaki watched him reverently. "You really believe in her, huh?"
Mirio turned toward her and raised his hand in a salute. "Yep! I'm Eri-chan's number one fan!"
"Good. She needs that," she commented appreciatively.
He cocked his head to the side in confusion, asking, "A number one fan?"
She let out a small chuckle before looking up into his eyes resolutely and replying, "Your faith. She needs something like that to keep her motivated. If she is eventually able to Rewind you to a point where you could recover your quirk, she might finally be able to cast off her guilt about her quirk being the reason you lost yours."
Mirio turned his gaze back to Eri, a hopeful grin tugging at the corners of his lips as he mentioned, "I guess you could say it's like my second chance to save her, huh?"
Misaki huffed out a scoff. "I'd say you did a pretty good job the first time."
She knew from experience that there was no one in the world who was harder on heroes than they were on themselves. He would never feel like he'd done enough to save her until she was safe and happy, and living a normal life again.
"Misaki! I'm done!" Eri suddenly called out from the dining table, waving the empty stick in the air and happily licking her bright red lips.
"Let's go wash your hands," she said with an affectionate grin, rolling up the sleeves of her dark blue sweater as she walked across the room toward her.
While she was rolling up the sleeves of Eri's soft pink dress, the little girl looked up at her and asked, "Afterwards, will you show me that trick with the string again?"
The last time she'd been by to visit, Misaki had shown Eri how to play the cat's cradle game.
"Me too! Me too!" Mirio called out eagerly behind her from the seating area with his arms thrown up in the air in a banzai.
Misaki smiled down at Eri warmly and enthusiastically replied, "Of course!"
~ Author's Note ~
I hope you enjoyed the little wholesome break for some cute Mommy Misaki time with Eri 😊 I just love their adorable relationship! Misaki's got some stones on her now, manipulating the President into letting her keep working with Hawks 😬 Hopefully her own good intentions haven't gotten her in over her head! You'll just have to wait and see! 😁 (Am I evil? Maybe a little bit...but it's totally worth the wait, I promise!)
Thank you so much for reading! ❤️
L0LSAT