"Case two. Ashido Mina." Another page in the folder. Another series of gasps. Yeah, that's… certainly an odd look. "Hero name Pinky. Her quirk allows her to secrete and control acid while being almost entirely immune to it herself. She can alter its viscosity and solubility at will. She can also serve as a symbol of how having meta-abilities might be a curse more than a blessing."

Nemuri is still trying to figure out how on Earth did Shuzenji survive the 'immune to acid' part without getting a heart attack when she suddenly realizes that she'll probably not like the part of the talk that's about to happen.

Shit.

"Someone caught the wind of her existence." Sasaki says. "As a result, her family was murdered, and she was kidnapped by a local crime syndicate and forced to use her meta-ability to dispose of material evidence… and corpses. Starting from her family." Nemuri almost chokes at that. What sort of monster… "After half a year, she escaped. Even Defiant agrees that she requires psychological counselling, and he has actually asked for it in her stead."

(it was both his and Kirishima's idea. Mina's boyfriend isn't an idiot. He knows that there is only so much that you can do with emotional support. Therapists exist for a reason. Having access to a therapist that actually knows about meta-abilities is a major positive side of dealing with the UA)

"And the counselling she'll get." Inui comments scarcely. The principal acknowledges that with a nod. Those two are certainly the least expressive of the people in the room.

Her grades weren't good. Quite the opposite. But it's not the only thing that the UA looks for in their potential students. Mina Ashido's file has an entire paragraph of text mentioning her as responsible for ending several cases of bullying (typically by correcting the behaviour of whoever was responsible for it, something that she put a lot of energy and time into) and for talking down a student that snapped and threatened to detonate a bomb in her classroom.

Her character file actually states that she was considered as a candidate for UA's scholarship. UA sometimes reached out to people that they thought had talents for something that wasn't about grades themselves, typically with particular careers in mind. Here, talking down that student was what brought the UA's attention to Ashido.

Mina was considered an excellent candidate for a social worker, entertainment (actress or a dancer) or if she decided to counteract generally understood bullying on a slightly larger scale, politics or social activism. The discrepancy between her low grades and slightly above average IQ led to suspicions of an undiagnosed learning disability.

Then she disappeared and was eventually announced dead. Only to come back to life after going through hell.

And she was still interested in helping others enough to offer her help to the local police. That was… admirable.

"The remaining two cases are, to a degree, connected." Sasaki announces once they all finish digesting the second case. "Considering the troubles with containing captured villains, the local police have opened a… rehabilitation program, of sorts. Assistant Commissioner Aizawa has no power to offer them a pardon, naturally. However, it was decided that letting them amass arguments for a pardon by having them work alongside police in the meantime is a good idea, especially with how short-staffed the police is."

"Let me guess…" This time, it was the military-looking guy who spoke. Seriously, who was he? And why did the 'facial expressions are bad' group just gained another member? "...this part of the talk is even more of a secret, yes?"

"Correct." Principal Sasaki replies. "As I can see some questioning stares from other people gathered, I'll quickly introduce him to you. The man who just spoke is Sekijiro Kan. He is a PE teacher, a martial arts instructor and, although that was only for the duration of the war, a GSDF ranger. Since the reason for the presence of a teacher with his skillset is rather self-explanatory, we'll continue on with the last two students."

Well. It's probably nice to have a soldier (even if a former one) among them. Not like she is afraid of those kids (although the descriptions of some of their powers are rather intimidating). From her experience, being nice towards people significantly decreases the risk of them doing bad things to you. Just… just.

Ugh.

"Case One, Hitoshi Shinsou." Principal Sasaki resets the counter again. This time it's a kid (well, young adult) who really looks like he should sleep more. "Hero name Hijack. His quirk, Hypnosis, is the first known case of a quirk capable of controlling minds, even if to a rather limited degree."

Oh. Well, that's rather worrying.

"What are the local police using him for?" Kan speaks again. That's actually a rather good question. That probably explains his worried frown.

"I've been told that the ability to instantly hypnotize people makes you a very successful negotiator for hostage situations." Principal replies. Once again, he does so scarcely. He is about as expressive as a wood log if Nemuri is, to be honest.

"Makes sense." Kan admits. He speaks for most of the people present in the room. The rest have faces so hard to read that Nemuri does not know what they think about it.

There is a long and rather detailed description of the exact mechanism of Hijack's quirk in the text. It's rather reassuring. The only hole she can think of is him being capable of making you not remember what you did during the trance.

Then again, it's not like he can do anything weird under the ever-watchful gaze of the cameras. And the victims will know that there is a hole in their memories, thus making it immediately obvious who was responsible.

(in Nemuri's opinion, his criminal past isn't that much of a problem, she heard enough about the situation in Hosu to realize that sometimes the world pushes you to do certain things, even if you don't want to - although whether he really didn't want to remains to be seen)

His past is mostly a mystery. They know where he was born (the documents survived), but the war swept through Hosu really hard. Even the Principal's men failed to find anything more about him. What they knew is that he resurfaced as a small-time robber in Hosu before joining the Metahuman Network.

"Case two, Himiko Toga." This time, it's a girl. With fangs. Nasty looking, if Nemuri is, to be honest. "Hero name Carmilla. Another rather interesting case, although this time it's because she can serve as evidence for the existence of quirks that can be considered villainous, or at least having serious villainous connotations."

"I don't like the words you are using, Mirai." Inui comments from his seat. Nemuri more or less agrees, and this approach seems to dominate among the gathered teachers.

"Do not misunderstand." The principal replies calmly. "If I cared about aesthetics or potential villainous usages of a meta-ability, I'd say those words when we spoke about Hijack or Pinky. I referred to Carmilla's quirk as villainous because it forces her to regularly drink human blood. And even that wouldn't be 'villainous' on its own, if not the fact that being blood-deprived makes her go into a frenzy when she smells or sees blood. This resulted in seven hospitalizations and two fatalities."

Oh. Well, if her quirk makes her kill people without her own conscious decision to do so, Nemuri has to admit that referring to it as 'villainous' makes sense.

"The local police agreed to include her in the rehabilitation program since none of the said fatalities were something she did willingly." Sasaki continues. "Naturally, she'll be tried for those deaths once the meta-abilities are revealed. As of now, I suspect that if she continues helping the police, then the result of the trial will be her being found not criminally responsible due to a case of insanity. Considering that, starting therapy early might be wise."

Nemuri can agree with that. Judging from Inui's face, so can he. But he is probably also asking himself what sort of personality her unwilling murders resulted in. That sounds like something seriously traumatic.

"What's her quirk?" Shuzenji asks. She probably suspected another mutation case, and that alone makes her interested.

"She is believed to be a carrier of two quirks." Sasaki replies. "One is a complex mutation granting her certain properties of a mythological vampire. Namely, weakness to sunlight, the need to drink blood, the ability to smell it at a distance, and finally improved strength and reflexes. The other quirk allows her to shapeshift into anyone whose blood she drank, for the duration depending on the blood intake. Finding a way to discern her from the original, in case she went rogue, can be considered a secondary objective."

"Blood tests? Fingerprints?" Shuzenji asks. Sasaki shakes his head.

"She can replicate that perfectly." He replies. "More than that, she can also replicate clothes, down to the level of textiles. If that wasn't enough, she instinctively knows how to act as whoever she is impersonating. In short, even if you establish a catchphrase to recognize the original, she'll use those on instinct for as long as she drank your blood after said catchphrase was agreed upon."

Well. Damn.

"In other words, she could sneak into the prime minister's house, bonk her in the head, and then keep her locked in the basement to harvest her blood." Kan comments. "And then she could pretend to be her for… well, years even. With none the wiser." He clicks his tongue. "I guess I know why the police prefer her on our side."

"Precisely." Sasaki corrects his glasses. "Establishing whether her compulsions were really impossible to resist and whether she truly wants to get rehabilitated are other secondary objectives connected to her."

The principal leaves nothing to chance. Then again, the police probably asked him for it. This is a completely new field of study. Waiting with the trial for years for someone to get a degree in quirk-oriented psychology (so that there is someone who can be considered an expert to be called to share their expertise during a trial) would be a pain in the ass.

"In the end, however…" Sasaki continues speaking. "The main objective of the Special Course is to assess the changes that the existence of meta-abilities will bring to the educational system."

"Changes?" Nemuri finds herself asking.

"A few months ago…" Principal Sasaki said calmly. "A school in Shizuoka made a mistake of ignoring a particularly disgusting and intense case of bullying. Mostly because the main perpetrator had a rather influential family. Everything continued as normal for weeks and months. There was no prior warning. No police officer or parent could discover the victim preparing their revenge. No attempts to obtain explosives or a gun that could tick someone off were made. One day, said victim entered their school as normal… and killed twenty-seven students with a single use of their meta-ability allowing them to produce and control poison gas."

Oh shit. She heard about it. They all heard about it. Not about it being caused by a meta-ability user, but… the massacre was famous. Especially among the teachers. After all, whoever did it could one day visit their school.

"By now, that supervillain is responsible for at least thirty-seven deaths and is still at large.' Sasaki continues. "Police suspect that he might have killed two or three times as many people. This results from a single metahuman snapping under abuse. We cannot predict meta-ability manifestations. We cannot be sure that it won't happen elsewhere tomorrow. We cannot be sure that the next case won't have an even more dangerous power. We cannot be sure that the next case won't kill thousands instead of dozens."

He was right. Sure, the powers discovered thus far weren't capable of it, but… who said that there are no such powers out there? Who said that they won't happen in the future? They had, like, 10+ examples. Not enough of a sample to represent the entirety of metahumans.

"Every failure of our education system, every SINGLE failure, can be absolutely disastrous, to the degree previously unheard of." Sasaki continues. Somehow, no one in the room feels like interrupting him. "Any overlooked case of bullying, any bout of insanity, any child with an abusive family or simply bad character can awaken a meta-ability allowing it to commit a massacre with no prior preparations. Even if a metahuman is outed, negative reactions to their existence from their non-metahuman peers might drive them into villainy as well. Making them snap disastrously."

Principal Sasaki pauses for a second, corrects his glasses, and continues.

"The Special Course is supposed to find a way of figuring out how to introduce metahumans to our education system… and vice versa." He says. "If we fail… well, there might be no saving the society as we know it."

Sure. No pressure. No pressure at all.

(***)

"Overhaul is wiping out the independents." Aizawa summarized the reports he just received in a single, harrowing sentence.

Tsukauchi nods scarcely. He doesn't seem happy about it either. Dozens of people have already died… and it might not be the end. The fact that they are mostly criminals means a little. Especially as their families often die with them.

Overhaul leaves no loose ends. If you kill the family members of your enemies alongside them, the chances of someone trying to take revenge drops significantly.

Chisaki is really taking the whole supervillain bit to heart. And, unfortunately, seems to be rather genre-savvy about it.

His purge of all gangs and other criminal groups that didn't bend their knees before him was methodical. Thorough. And done without the big man himself showing up anywhere near the frontlines.

Mustard was spotted several times. He at least doubled his number of kills, although most of those could be considered a joint work of the supervillain and Chisaki's elites.

Why wait for the gas to kill everyone when you can enter the building and put a bullet in every head inside, while said head owners were too busy trying to breathe? After all, if given enough time, their reinforcements might have arrived. Or police might have responded (unlikely since most of the massacred groups had their strongholds in the area no longer patrolled by the police, but possible).

Overhaul was intelligent, methodical and genre-savvy. The absolutely worst enemy to have.

"If Mustard and his elites are elsewhere, this leaves Chisaki vulnerable." Torino points it out. He arrived through Eclipse's warpgate to take part in that meeting. They don't trust the internet enough to connect Tartarus to it. Shie Hasseikai has its own cyber-security slash hacking brigade. And it's a good one. "We should gather men and storm…"

"What men?" Aizawa interrupts him. "Even with Mustard wiping out his rivals in Aldera and Hosu, he still has enough firepower left to change the assault on his headquarters into a drawn-up siege. Musutafu' SAT won't join us without Senior Commissioner Koji's approval, and I'm certain that Overhaul has someone in the prefectural police headquarters."

They still remember the attack on some supposed 'split' group of the Shie Hasseikai. The one where Defiant intervened for the first time. The thugs were warned an hour before the SAT deployment. They only failed to evacuate ahead of the police raid because that group was just this goddamn lousy.

"And if you think that the Riot Police Unit that I can deploy on my own can measure up to Overhaul's elites… then think again." Aizawa continues. "They can sweep through his thugs, but he has at least thirty former special forces soldiers on his payroll. I'm supposed to send my men against that, and who knows how many villains? With zero knowledge of the internal layout about the internal layout of his fortress? Even if we deploy alongside the Metahuman Network members, this is still going to be a massacre."

He is almost certain that Overhaul actually trains his villains in fighting alongside his praetorians. Especially with how well Mustard' purges are going. Aizawa can't say the same about the superheroes available to him and his Riot Police Unit.

Oversight. He should fix that as soon as possible. But for now, they have nothing on that field.

"Our only saving grace is that if Overhaul starts wiping us out, governor Yagi will phone the prime minister and tell her to issue a state of emergency throughout the prefecture." Aizawa continues. "And then we'll have the GSDF roll through Overhaul, though probably with much more bloodshed than anyone in it expects."

GSDF already deployed in Hosu. But that's mostly because Hosu was just that much of a mess and the local mayor (plus governor Yagi) stopped caring about the legal details when keeping at least a part of the city in working order was at stake.

Officially, the local GSDF was having military exercises in Hosu, 'training the procedures concerning the military assistance in maintaining the public order in the face of a public crisis'. For something close to two years now. The fact that this was probably unconstitutional was generally ignored.

"He is probably waiting for the government's collapse." Tsukauchi comments while Torino is busy digesting the words. He was only recently reinstated and is still going through the stages of grief at the realization of just how weak the police currently was. "Then he'll move against us openly."

"So we need to weaken him somehow before that happens." Aizawa replies. "While doing whatever we can to persuade the higher-ups that we're having results, so they should wire some additional money our way since we might actually pacify the situation in our neighbourhood. So that I can actually start hiring people again."

He sighs painfully. They are already trying to work with half of the numbers that they had before the war. And that's only because Aizawa is doing some serious money juggling and introducing some rather serious austerity measures to avoid further lay-offs.

If he'll be forced to draw an operation plan with his son's crayons (borrowed from him because of the temporary shortage of office supplies within his precinct) again, he is going to shoot himself on the spot. Enough is enough.

"What's the situation in the Marukane Ward?" He decides to ask. That's the one place where they pushed against Shie Hasseikai for real. They don't have enough men and ammunition to wage two battles at once.

"We closed some drug dens, arrested most members of a local gang, had seven more skirmishes with the Shie Hasseikai forces…" Tsukauchi summarizes. Overhaul isn't making it easy for them. "Oh, and we closed a human trafficking ring. We now control around 40% of the district, with Shie Hasseikai controlling a similar part of it. The rest is the contested middle-ground."

Police being around meant that the people no longer had to pay extortion money to the gang. Of course, they then had to pay taxes to the government again.

On the other hand, the punishment for not doing that was significantly laxer and didn't include you and your entire family being murdered at dawn. Murdered or… well, human trafficking ring was there probably for a reason.

Aizawa sometimes wished that the Third World War was actually a nuclear one. Then they would all be dead by now and he wouldn't have to witness the slow collapse of society.

"Keep pushing." Aizawa replies.

Cleaning up the entire district might be their best bet for achieving something. Anything.

They are still running out of time.

(***)

"Kurono." Overhaul says, eyeing the newcomers with a rather emotionless version of curiosity. Of course, Kurono can read the emotion either way. They know each other long enough. "What happened? I didn't expect you today."

He doesn't say, but he also didn't expect Mustard to return ahead of schedule. The villain is standing behind a man in his late twenties, wearing a slightly ruined suit and a pair of glasses. Mustard has his submachine gun in his hands. He technically isn't pointing towards the man, but it's rather clear that it wouldn't take him much time to change that.

"I've returned a bit earlier." Kurono replies. It probably prolonged the independent existence of a few criminal businesses, but… well, they have nowhere to run to either way. "I've run into someone that you really, really need to get acquainted with."

Another holder of a superpower. Pardon - meta-ability, or a quirk. They only got an incomplete version of the police manual concerning the superpowers two days ago. Some names are going off the tongue rather smoothly. So Overhaul borrowed them.

The confirmation that the police knew about the meta-abilities was something that he was waiting for. For quite a while.

"Introduce us then." Overhaul says. They are all in the underground section of his personal fortress. In one of many nondescript and rather barren looking rooms that he and his thugs have barely started filling with necessary furniture.

Level -1 includes barracks, and a heavily fortified defensive line against the attacks from outside. He actually consulted his praetorians on how to change it into a death trap for the attacker and they had oh so many delicious ideas.

Once he finishes it, he'll move over to creating level -2. His personal laboratory. He has so many ideas on how to apply his meta-ability. But he needs a secure place for his work. Place where he can work without getting bothered.

Why did no one tell him that creating your own villainous lair is such an interesting pastime? He is actually having fun. And he gets to train his meta-ability on rearranging the bedrock to carve hallways and rooms in it. Win-win situation.

He is sitting on a chair. Everyone else is standing. 'Everyone else' includes Kurono, the Mystery Man, Mustard and Dabi. The last one celebrates having working lungs again by smoking a cigarette in the background.

"I believe that the best way of doing that…" Kurono replies. "... will be letting him use his meta-ability on you."

Oh? Now he is interested.

He trusts Kurono. He might see people around him as tools, but some of them have proven to him that throwing them out is idiocy. And some of those proved to him they are truly loyal to him. Overhaul respected that, even if he never fully understood why they were like that.

"Very well then." Chisaki says. "Do it."

Kurono gestures at the man, who promptly clears his throat.

"What is your name?" The man asks.

"Kai Chisaki." Overhaul replies. He takes a second to realize what it was about. And to realize that his trust in his assistant wasn't a mistake.

He didn't want to answer the question. Despite that, he did.

"Kurono." Chisaki actually blinks a few times, almost dazed by the revelation. If it truly is what he thinks it is… the possibilities are endless. "Is he…"

"This is Shin Nemoto." Kurono replies with a wry smile. "He was a member of one of the small gangs in Aldera we've put in line. The gang used him to obtain blackmail material from people. As for his meta-ability…" The smile grows even wrier. "... his every question is always answered truthfully."

Oh. Oh, this is exactly what Overhaul hoped for. The closest thing they had to one of his three priority targets for securing meta-abilities for the Shie Hasseikai. Perhaps more than what he wanted.

To have someone with an ability like that and use him for blackmail. What a disgustingly narrow vision. He could do so much better.

"The only side-effect…" Kurono continues. "... if you can even call it that way, is that he cannot lie. This has pushed people away from him in the past. And after hearing too many nasty secrets from people keeping their image pure and proper, he has developed a rather… cynical and nihilistic streak. I believe he decided to give us a chance after hearing Mustard's reply to some of his questions. Isn't it, Nemoto?"

The man turns his head towards him.

"You are all a bunch of murderous monsters." Nemoto replies. "But at least you are honest about that. And I despise lies more than anything else."

"You'll find that there is no place for lies among the Shie Hasseikai, Mr. Nemoto." Overhaul replies. "Rather than bending our knees to this world and hiding behind masks, we're looking to change the world so that we no longer have to hide who we really are."

Mustard enjoys killing people and doing whatever sick things he fancies to his former torturer. Dabi enjoys burning things and people. Once Overhaul achieves all his goals, they will no longer have to hide how messed up they are.

"I think…" Nemoto says. "... that I'll like it here."

Shie Hasseikai will soon be made traitor-proof. Everyone who has even considered the option of betraying him will die or - if their skills are too valuable - will be moved somewhere where their betrayal won't be as painful.

Oh, things are going just as Overhaul hoped.

(***)

Basically speaking, the arrival of quirks made every school in the world into a stereotypical american school. Which, in all honesty (if canon Toga's is any indication - and perhaps Mustard, though he decided to use his power outside of school), lasts until modernity. It's one out of many fields where the quirks had major societal impact that I decided to at least mention in this story.

Also Tsukauchi's quirk is a bit like Kurogiri's. It's way too op. I never understood why All Might didn't had him accompany him when visiting All for One in Tartarus (though he would have to be hidden behind something to make All for One not realize he was there). In all honesty, proper application of his quirk would... I mean c'mon! If you suspected there was a traitor on the UA, you could have use him to find said traitor in one evening! Sure, it would be technically illegal, but only if you tried to use him as evidence in the court instead of now knowing whom to investigate properly.

Kurogiri's movement wherever you want is similarly op from the plot point, and probably the reason why he was so randomly arrested.

Still, now Overhaul has someone with quirk similar to Tsukauchi... and has oh so many ideas on how to apply him. Including in the next chapter. Which just might be the first large scale superheroes vs supervillains battle in this story.

[oh and nobody is telling me that canon Ashido has grades comparable to the kid who fries his brain on a daily basis yet still passed through UA theoretical entrance exam without some external reasons, uh, nope]

Also, look. It's all very nice that we're going full on THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS VILLAINOUS QUIRK. But let's be real. There are certainly some quirks that for example cannot be used without killing or harming others, or perhaps (like, it's kind of implied, canon Toga) give mental compulsions towards something being decisively evil. It might be rare, and many people are misidentified as 'villainous quirks bearers' (plus even people with those quirks deserve therapy and help, not automatical admonition). But I do find that bit of the canon rather... questionable.