AllforDekuverse

Minoru Mineta scratched the shadow of a beard that had finally begun to grow on his face. Took him to reach his mid-twenties, but finally there was little chance someone would just mistake him for a child. Unless they thought a child was growing a beard.

"Yo, Grapeler, you here too?" A familiar voice shouted from behind, and he had barely a second to register what was coming before he got a slap on the back.

"Cellophane." The short man replied with a smile towards Sero Hanta, his old classmate and good friend, looking at him carefully. Bags under his eyes, so he wasn't sleeping well, and he was also showing the first signs of balding, probably because of some stress. But he was still Sero, so he chose to not bring it up. "Yeah, it doesn't seem smart to not meet up with Todoroki. If someone knows what to do, it would probably be him, wouldn't he?"

The two looked up at the abandoned warehouse with a worried look. What went unsaid was that if Todoroki had been captured or killed, a message from his phone, even with the right codes, could have actually been from the Hero Suppressors. "Should we go in?"

Mineta thought for a moment, before deciding that even if he wasn't the coward he once had been, he definitely wasn't an idiot either. He opened a pouch on his side and took out a small object he quickly attached to one of his sticky balls. "Just to be sure."

"You know, back in high school I never thought I'd see you build a sticky bomb." Sero chuckled "You go low, I go high?"

Mineta laughed quietly "Not many other ways to do it."

They nodded and on the same mark rushed in through the open door, entering in the belly of the beast. Various crates were surrounding a large table, and sitting there was Todoroki. The chair next to him was unoccupied, but Mineta did spot the two gloves that appeared to just be resting on the table.

"Hey guys." Sero said, breathing in and relaxing, his arms moving to not aim the tape at the two. "Good to see you both."

"Same here." A voice replied from the empty seat, Hagakure waving with both her gloved hands.

Todoroki watched them quietly. "Same here, if you really are who you say you are."

"Come on…"

"You know the rules. Toga and Twice are still out there. Throw them at me."

Mineta thought a moment, while disassembling the makeshift bomb, without removing his eyes from the man with heterochromatic eyes "I was in tandem with Sero in our first midterm practical. We won against Midnight."

"Not fair, I wanted to use that part…" Sero muttered "I was put to sleep though, so ultimately I failed."

"Good to see you." Todoroki replied with a nod, relaxing a bit "Come on, sit down, we just wait for the other two and we can talk."

Sero went to do that, but Mineta stopped him with a thud on his leg, quietly continuing to look at Todoroki. He knew it was probably an exaggeration, but he wasn't about to slip up now. "Not before they do the same thing."

Todoroki smiled calmly. "Always knew there was a brain behind the balls. Fine then. My scar was created by my mother pouring steaming water on my face."

Mineta winced. Todoroki had told the whole class eventually, bits and pieces. Frankly, he was always surprised he was included in those revelations, considering he wasn't in the best term with a lot of them. Especially the girls. God was he stupid in high school…

"And I'm wearing a costume made from my hair. I've not walked around naked for years, but no one realizes." Hagakure quickly added. "I stopped at the end of my second year of high school, when we collected enough hair."

Mineta sighed in relief. They were certainly not Toga, and there was no reason to suspect a Twice clone would tell them those things. He finally sat down, letting Sero do the same. "I wish we didn't have to do this all the time."

"It helps. Would have saved many of us."

'He is still thinking about Burnin'.' Mineta realized. Endeavor's former chief sidekick had been killed years ago, by a Twice clone disguised as Shoto. Of course, he hadn't taken it well. The Burning Cold Rampage, the media had dubbed it, but really it had made no difference. Twice had never been found and all the clone eventually were replenished. It had only bought a day or so of freedom for that part of town. "How have you been?" He asked.

"Well…" Todoroki started, but Hagakure interrupted with her usual excitable personality. Mineta watched her take off a glove and show off a ring.

"He proposed to me!" She shouted loudly. He wondered if she was blushing. Todoroki certainly was, even if he was trying to keep his cool.

'Eh.' Mineta thought with an amused grin, probably the same he could see on Sero's face, 'Guess even Shoto gets flustered.'

Todoroki coughed. "Yes I… I decided it was time."

"Congratulations man!" Sero exclaimed, his grin turning in an approving smile and his thumb going up, "And you too Hagakure!"

"Congratulations from me as well." Mineta added. "Who else knows?"

"Tailman of course." Shoto responded.

"And everything Tailman knows, Rule knows too." Hagakure added, before her tone changed, "And Momo… knew."

Everyone went silent. Creati's death was just a week old, so everyone was still mourning. One of the best of the class, one of the kindest, most dedicated Heroes, killed by simply being stabbed. No great heroic last stand, no great fight for her life. A messed-up girl disguised as a male teenager simply feigned wanting to kill herself and when Momo walked up the building to stop her stabbed her. It was so… unfair. And Hero Suppressor Toga wasn't charged with anything. The public had grumbled a bit, but once the government had clarified that she was a Hero Suppressor just doing her job they had very quickly let it go. No one wanted to challenge the authority of the Hero Suppressors.

"Sorry, I shouldn't have…" Hagakure coughed awkwardly. "Anyway, that's the reason we are here actually."

"It is?"

"We have a plan. We want to capture Toga." Todoroki explained.

Mineta looked at Sero, then they turned to Todoroki "And exactly how are we going to do that? You know that whenever she isn't with All for Deku, Toga transforms herself to ambush Heroes. There is a reason why she is considered one of the toughest to take out. She only turns back into herself when she is in safe places."

"That's what we are banking on." A voice said from behind. They turned to see Ojiro and Yui walk in, and started to welcome them, but Todoroki instantly jumped up. "Relax Shoto. It's me. I vomited on you at our graduation party. Three times."

"You are always so gross…" Yui Kodai said shaking her head. Her red and white hero costume was the most colorful of the six, which was a testament to her ideal of not giving it up even after the Heroes had gone underground. Most had moved to toned down tones to not stand out, but Rule had remained loyal to her original design. "Sup Hagakure. You still have the shoes I gifted you last year?"

"Hello Yui. And yes, they are very cute, thank you."

The black-haired woman winked, and they both sat down. "Well, we are all here." Ojiro said with a smile. A nervous smile, Mineta judged. "Sup Cellophane. Grapeler." He nodded Mineta's way, and he waved back like Sero.

He was about to start talking, but the other beat him to it. "So, you guys actually have a plan to take down Toga? How? Bar All for One and maybe Twice, she is the one with the most variety of Quirks at her disposal." Sero asked, curious.

"Because they didn't just kill Creati. They took her blood." Todoroki replied, wincing as he said so, and Mineta couldn't help but do the same. He had seen what happened to Toga's victims when she needed all of their blood.

'Fucking All for Deku. Of course he chose to give Toga some stupid Blood Absorption Quirk.'

"As disgusting as it is, it gives us an opportunity." Ojiro continued, stopping his thoughts "They stole the blood to use it. They wanted Creati's Quirk but knew that she would never expose herself to All for Deku and Toga together. That's why they killed her the day he was hosting some political event up in Tokyo, allegedly with the blood bitch as his plus one. They wanted her to lower her guard and not consider a random teenager a risk for her safety."

Mineta tapped his chin "Maybe they just wanted to take her out and Toga thought it would be a waste to not at least acquire what she could? There is nothing to say they were actively planning to get her blood."

"I thought so too, but luckily I have been monitoring someone else for a while." He showed them various picture of three man. A tall individual with bulging muscles and long hair, a puppet with a white mask and in the lead the unmistakable figure of Overhaul.

"Uh, going after the Hassaikai? Isn't that Kirishima and Amajiki's turf?"

"Normally yes, but they were the ones that tipped me off about some strange movements from Chisaki. The Hassaikai is in contact with Feel Good Inc., my current investigation target."

"I don't have a Good Feeling about this." One of them commented from the side. Mineta looked their way in time to spot Yui elbowing her husband in the side and him coughing awkwardly.

"Shut up Ojiro." Todoroki barked, and both Sero and Hagakure could not help but start chuckling. "Now, All for Deku has always kept a large distance between his legitimate and illegitimate business. If the Shie Hassaikai is meeting with Feel Good, they are planning something big."

"Wait, this is about the bullets, isn't it?" Mineta asked, even more interested "It's the only reason I can think of."

"Sharp as usual, Grapeler." Todoroki nodded, "Yes, we believe that's because of what Kirishima told us. Eri is dead."

Sero and Mineta froze. They knew the truth about the bullets, about the horrible child abuse behind their creation. About Eri, the innocent child forced to be broken every day, over and over. "How did that happen? Overhaul should have been able to cure her and keep her quiet."

"We believe she killed herself." Ojiro explained grimly, drawing a shocked look from both the Heroes. "Judging by what Kirishima found in the abandoned facility, she set herself on fire with water, a lamp's wires and some other comburent, maybe her mattress. By the time her guards noticed – judging by the large blood stains on the walls outside the room, there were at least three – her room was an inferno. Her charred corpse was beyond Overhaul's ability to restore her."

"Shit…" Mineta muttered. Eri had been a thorn in their side because of the bullets, but this wasn't how they wanted it to go. They wanted to save the girl. Fat Gum and Rock Lock had died for it, and Sir Nighteye before them. Mirio was going to be devastated. "That means they have lost the Bullets, right? Overhaul could only produce them using Eri, and the synthetic version Doctor Ujiko mass produced was completely destroyed in the raid that killed him. They couldn't make more even if they wanted to, thanks to the doctor's policy to not share his research."

"They still have an unknown number of batches. Amajiki's calculations suggested that in the last year Overhaul had amplified the production reaching the two hundred bullets per day." He grimaced "I guess he thought Eri was so thoroughly broken he didn't need to worry about her pain."

"Still, eventually they are going to run out and…" Mineta stopped mid-sentence, the realization clicking. "Fuck. That's why they wanted Creation so much."

Ojiro nodded "All to get more bullets. They don't have whatever machine the Doctor used to synthetize them, but with Overhaul's expertise and maybe a surviving sample they can probably recreate the formula and use Momo's Quirk to mass produce them. With that amount of blood, Toga can keep going for years."

"I'm surprised All for Deku didn't go after her personally if that's the case. Years or not, eventually she will be out of blood."

"Probably didn't want to hunt her down personally. The Bullets have always been Hassaikai business, not his. Committing Toga is probably as far as he is willing to go." He winced "After all, as much as it pains me to say this, the Bullets are one of the few ways to deal with him. If they went off the market, he'd probably be happier."

That was true. The Hassaikai bullets did work on All for Deku, although he could simply chop off a hit body part and let it regrow. It was probably why Midoriya had committed a massive amount of resources into bending the yakuza family to his will. Why even now he was keeping them happy rather than running Chisaki out of business. That, and because the bullets remained a valuable asset. "So you want to take down Toga and hopefully remove their last chance at producing more bullets, is that right?"

"Not exactly." Todoroki grumbled. Mineta stopped for a second, taken aback, then stared at him as the sudden realization rushed into his mind.

"You wouldn't…"

"I would."

"Uh, I'm kinda lost." Sero commented, looking at them. "Mind talking in full sentences?"

"He wants to capture Toga and force her to create Bullets for us with Creati's Quirk." Mineta explained, noticing Sero's shocked expression "That's why he called both of us. If he wants her alive, we are the best at the job. My Pop Off and your Tape can hold her down better than most other powers." He looked around "He has Tailman and himself for combat, Rule for stealing the blood vials, and Invisible Girl to infiltrate Feel Good and let us in. With us, he has everything he needs. That also explains why he didn't involve Red Riot, Real Steel and Suneater. He knows they would not agree. He is hoping for us to do that, but is fine even if only one does. He just needs one capture Quirk less dangerous than his own."

Todoroki gritted his teeth "You have always been smart Mineta. A little shit back in high school, but you grew out of it and now that brain of yours works at full speed." Todoroki slammed his hands on the table "Fine, I will not lie. Yes, that's the plan. Are you happy now?"

"But why?!" Sero shouted "It's cruel. It's dangerous. It's basically falling to the same level of the Hassaikai for God's sake!" He turned to Ojiro "You are fine with this?"

Ojiro looked away "Look Sero…"

Todoroki interrupted him, chiming in. "All for Deku is dangerous. He keeps killing our friends, or making them Quirkless. I don't want that to happen to anyone else, but we can't hope to steal the Bullets. They are kept under lock and key and only handed out to high ranking Hero Suppressors, in small quantities. We have been trying for years, but we only managed to rack up five. Five! What's wrong with taking a better option?"

Cellophane slammed his hands on the table, angry. "But this is a stupid plan anyway! How do you even force Toga to make Bullets when we have her?!"

"I contacted Shinso. He said he was pretty disgusted, but he is willing to use Brainwashing on her provided we get her alive. I'm not an idiot. I wouldn't let her use Creati's power at will. That's a good way to get gunned down."

Sero stood up "Come on Grapeler, let's go. We can just call it a day. I don't know what happened to you all to agree to this, but you better snap out of it soon. Right now you are no better than fucking Overhaul."

Mineta did not move. He could feel Sero looking at him, but he was thinking. He wasn't about to argue with him. Todoroki's plan was cruel, but the problem was that it made sense. A twisted, terrible, sense. With a large stash of Bullets, they could hope to take down All for Deku. If they just managed to take him by surprise, they could end his reign of terror, or at least give it a dangerous blow. Which meant that even if they left, Todoroki was going to go along with it.

"Sit down Cellophane." Todoroki reprimanded "I don't like the plan either, but it's all we can do. Why do you think Mashirao considered it?"

"Because he is your best friend! Because he has been at your side since high school!" Sero shouted "I'm fairly sure if you told him your plan involved throwing a ring into a volcano and you told him that would somehow help, he'd trust you!"

"Hey now…"

"Wait Cellophane." Mineta stood up on the chair. Only way for him to look somewhat taller. "I don't like it. But can I make a suggestion?"

"What?" Todoroki asked, curious.

"We should wait. We need to be sure they can create the Bullets before going through with it. And if we do, we also need to be capable of working together. I haven't fought along some of you since Endoru."

"Mineta are you for real?!" Sero looked at him straight in the eyes, and Mineta noticed rage and fear in them. "You… You seriously want to do it. You want to turn into a discount Hassaikai."

"Sero, can we talk?" He said, and jumped up before running outside. Todoroki and Ojiro didn't follow them. Once they were outside, Mineta sighed in relief, before looking up at his outraged friend. "This is insane Sero. Their plan is inhumane."

"Oh thank god, I thought whatever was going on really did catch you as well. You agree this is wrong, right?"

"Yes, of course."

"Then just say no! Without us they can't capture Toga without hurting her. They will give up and just kill her, which apparently is now the more humane choice, as absurd as that sounds!" He brough his hands to his face and started to cry "God, what is happening to our friends?! What is happening to us Heroes?! Are we really falling so low? This is disgusting!"

"I agree"

Sero stared at him "What? You agree? I thought you'd say I'm not looking at it from a calmer perspective, or something like that."

"Oh no, I agree with you. There is something wrong with them. Hagakure, Yui, Shoto, Mashirao… All of them are acting like this because they feel backed to a wall. They feel like we are losing, and because of that they are lashing out like a trapped animal."

"You think it was Creati's death?"

Mineta sighed, staring at the ground rather than looking up. "You want the truth? I don't know. Shoto and Tailman were never close friends of mine, and I don't talk a lot with my female friends from UA. I'm a bit embarrassed of the person I was."

"Man, you should move past it. You know we…" Sero started, but Mineta just raised a hand to stop him.

"On topic Sero, on topic. What I mean is, this plan is wrong, but if we leave, they are just going to ask other people. We don't even know if we are the first, they have asked to." He shook his head to control himself. Whatever Sero said was not going to change the past, and right now he wanted a focus on the present. "Sooner or later they will find someone."

"So what do you propose?"

"I say we accept." The Tape Hero immediately prepared to rebuke him, but Mineta shushed him and continued "I say we agree to help them, and do help them with the innocent stuff. We aren't going to act immediately, and before then there is more stuff to do. I'd say it will take at least a year before we jump in."

"And once we do?"

"We do the right thing, even if it means going behind their back."

"That's a good idea." The sudden extra voice startled them, but they turned to see Ojiro standing next to the door, a smile on his face.

Mineta looked at him, confused. "What are you…"

"I was checking on you two. To be honest, I thought you had just up and left. But I'm glad you agree with me."

"But… We don't." Sero commented.

"Yes, you do." Ojiro shook his head and moved closer, placing his back against the wall. "See, when I say I agree with Todoroki's plan, I mean that in theory I find it convincing. In practice it's pretty disgusting. I don't have the stomach – or to put it like Grapeler, I'm not backed into a corner enough – to do it."

"Then why did you agree to cooperate with him?"

Ojiro sighed, shaking his head "Because Sero is right, he is my best friend. And I know that otherwise that idiot will fall down a slippery slope there is no coming back from. This war against All for Deku has taken a lot from us, but I dare say he is one of those that lost the most. Since Natsu and Fuyumi got killed, he has been different. Hagakure is nice and all, but she is… too nice. She is unwillingly enabling him. Not sure if she is still lovestruck from UA or if she genuinely thinks whatever Shoto says is a good idea. I know at least she doesn't agree with this completely. She was the one that told me about it and expressed serious doubts." Ojiro looked at them "I don't know if it's pointless, but I'm his best friend. I'm supposed to be there for him and smack him if he does something stupid."

"Why didn't you do that then?"

"Because the plan is good. Well, most of it. It's a good idea to take down Toga, stop them from producing more Bullets and take the ones they have. It's definitely a good idea to remove their batch of Creati's blood. I'd just happily switch 'capture' to 'kill'. A small change in plan, overall."

"What about Rule?" Mineta asked "Won't she get angry at you for this?"

Ojiro smiled warmly. "Yui knows. Like I could hide anything from her. The real reason she is here is because she is close to Hagakure. Not as close as I am to Shoto, but still close enough she won't let her take this step."

"So, most of this team would be in it only to ruin the plan it's built on. Fantastic." Sero sighed "So why should we join in?"

"Because we can still do good. That's why I didn't just shot down the idea of inviting people, and why I suggested you two first. We will disagree with Shoto in the end, but we can still save people in the time between today and that operation." He sighed "And afterwards, we will talk him down. I've half the idea of kicking his butt, and now I have you two to hold him for me."

"Not a very heroic thing to say." Sero commented, but the return of the smile on his face was not lost on Mineta. He was such a simpleton at times.

"I was joking, dumbass. I doubt we can all hold him down if we try." Ojiro chuckled "Let's go. I actually have to figure out a good name for the team."

Mineta walked up to him and stared at the blonde man, straight in his eyes. "You know that if this is a trick I will know, right? I'm smart enough to do that much."

"I wouldn't trick you into working with us." Tailman scratched his chin "I didn't even think about that. I was hoping you would disagree but decide to stay in to calm us down, and I am glad to see you were."

Mineta sighed "Yeah, I can tell. You and Sero are about on the same level when it comes to coming up with tactics for deception. You are both too honest for your own good."

"Yeah… Ehi, what's that supposed to mean?!" The two looked at him, and he just chuckled.

"Come on." He started to walk, tiredly cracking his neck "I have a good name in mind for the team."

"Good, because I have nothing." Ojiro commented. And the three walked back inside.