Beta'd and edited by Kylekatarn77 and Poliamida
60. Come Home to Roost
Things come apart so easily when they have been held together with lies.― Dorothy Allison
The sun had just risen, pale and bright in the winter sky, but Chitose Kizuki had been in her office at Shoowaysha Publishing since it had set long hours before, working frantically to process the incredible news story that had arrived only the night before.
"Pillars of Peace: Shaken! That's the headline I want, you understand? And put it with the picture of the Demon weeping on the back of that ambulance!" Kizuki ordered. Her chief editor bowed, and hurried out of the room. She rubbed her hands gleefully. They'd gotten the inside scoop on this one, and had already published several articles about just what exactly had gone down at the yakuza base only hours before.
"This just might be the one!" Kizuki hummed to herself excitedly. She picked up her phone and dialed a number she had memorized long ago.
"This is Yosubashi," a weary voice said on the other line. She must have woken him. How could he be sleeping at a time like this?!
"Hey hey, it's me!" Kizukui said cheerily. "Just wanted to check up and see if you had any statements about the developing situation, as CEO of Detnerat."
"Developing situation?" Yosubashi asked, the weariness in his voice rapidly fading. "What's happened?"
"Have you not seen? Check my page! Oooh, it's a juicy one! Tell you what, I'll give you 30 minutes, then call you back for a statement. I think you're gonna love it!"
She hung up and got to work, weaving her narrative tapestry. The real story of the Pillars of Peace. The one you weren't supposed to know. Too bad Hanabata was busy right now, she could have used his sources for this, but she'd make do with what she had at her fingertips.
She started all the way back at the UA Sports Festival, where an unlikely boy had risen to the top, propelled to fame and glory by intellect and friendship, with a dash of romance. It was a great story, and one that had passion, revenge, rivalry, old grudges, and an underdog victor. The first time, Yosubashi had called her in and chewed her up one side and down the other for turning Izuku Midoriya into a fairy tale hero. She'd made excuses about how she was building him up to tear him down later, but really, she'd just wanted to tell the best story she could.
"Well now you'll get what you want," Kizukui hummed to herself as she moved on. After all, Izuku Midoriya's meteoric rise hadn't been free of blemish. Next came the Battle of Kamino, where the Quirkless Wonder had stood alongside Mirio Togata and Class 1A to defeat The League of Villains and all for one. At first blush, it seemed merely another tale of triumphant heroism.
Unless you had the files from the Ministry of Justice that Kizukui had, which showed that Class 1A hadn't been there as interns: they'd blatantly violated the law, going in as vigilanties. True, a few weeks ago, if that news had broken, people would have dismissed it. After Feel Good and now the Shie Hassaikai, people were feeling much less generous towards Izuku Midoriya and his classmates.
Next came the even juicier bit: the fact that they'd used radios to cheat during the Licensing Exam. That little detail had been hidden from the public by the government, as well as the fact that when they'd been caught cheating, 1A had rushed in and threatened government officials. True, they'd done it because they thought that Midoriya's lover and her sister were being threatened with violence, but who needed details like that? It just didn't paint the picture that Kizukui wanted now.
Of course, the Licensing Exam had other excellent details, like how violent Class 1A had been, and just how many of the other testees had been brutally beaten into submission. Then there was the blatant nepotism in having Endeavor, the father of Shoto Todoroki, be the hero to face the students. True, he'd not held back, but it was easy to point out that even though they'd lost, 1A had all suspiciously managed to pass. It was rare indeed for most of a class to pass the exam, and having an entire class pass on their first try was virtually unheard of. Another piece of evidence that the government was manipulating events.
Then, the pièce de résistance: the Battle of Feel Good Inc. Hundreds dead, including the execution of Tomoyasu Chikazoku at the hands of Ochako Uraraka. Kizukui knew she should feel at least a little bad that a man she'd known so well and worked so closely with had died, but honestly she'd just been excited because of how wonderful his story had turned out.
That had been when the public had recoiled and started to turn on 1A. Oh, certainly, there were some who were bold in their claims that the defeat of the MLA had been a victory for the heroes, but most saw the pictures of the slaughter and the battered and bloodied heroes, and their stomachs turned. That was what Yosubashi, and by extension Kizukui, wanted. To have the Pillars of Peace become reviled, and to destroy Izuku Midoriya and his allies forever.
Her phone rang after 25 minutes. When she picked it up, she already knew what he was going to say. "Now is the time, Curious. Strike while they are weak, vulnerable. I want those children's reputation destroyed forever. For too long the government has been the puppets of the unevolved. At last, they have shown their weakness. Destroy them and their false heroes forever."
"Already on it," Kizukui said, pressing send on her keyboard. "Take a look, Commander."
It was always tricky, working with true believers. Kizukui didn't really believe in the idea that having a quirk made her superior somehow. It wasn't even all that useful, she could just explode things. Perhaps if her abilities had let her gather information somehow, she'd be more excited, but that was irrelevant. No, that wasn't why she'd become one of the top lieutenants in the Meta Liberation Army at all. She'd done it because she was Curious.
When she'd stumbled across the son of Destro, one of Japan's most notorious warlords from the Time of Change, she'd been thrilled to have a new story to publish. But then she'd interviewed Rikiya Yotsubashi, and seen in him something she hadn't before: history in the making, a story unfolding before her eyes. And she had wanted so, so badly to tell that story to the world. To be the one that uncovered the secrets and hidden details before they even happened. And so, despite the fact that she didn't believe in his cause, Kizukui had become one of Re-Destro's most trusted and powerful lieutenants. All to satisfy her own Curious nature.
"This is perfect! You've done it again, Curious. With this, at last the government's weakness will be exposed for all to see! Get it published."
"You got it, Commander. We'll have it out with the evening news," Kizukui promised.
With fresh stories still coming in from the Shie Hassaikai raid, Kizukui had plenty of bricks to add to the framework she'd already built for her narrative, filling in gaps, expending on those little details that would make her work pop. It was all so brilliant: Izuku Midoriya had tried to make an alliance with the yakuza, only to be kidnapped. His friends had recklessly rushed in to save him, barely bothering with the justification of a warrant, taking those foolish children into battle once more. They'd done splendidly: there were a dozen dead yazuka, something Yotsubashi would find just as satisfying as the destruction of 1A.
There was a knock at her door, and Kizukui looked up to see one of her senior editors standing there. "Boss, there's a guy here, says he wants to talk to you. He has information on 1A. Says it's juicy."
"So interview him! I'm busy," Kizukui ordered.
"Boss, you really want to talk to this guy. I think he has some serious dirt. Better than Feel Good, even."
That got Kizukui's attention. She grabbed her pen and notepad and raced down to the private conference room. There, she found a battered and bruised balding man in a cheap suit slumped in a chair.
"Hello, Mr. Wairo! Or should I say, Officer Wairo?" Kizukui said as she hurried into the room.
He looked up at her, startled. "How do you-?"
"We've got our ways," she chuckled. Actually, they had a file on him due to his connections to the MLA's sworn enemy Shie Hassaikai. It was so beautifully poetic, that their two greatest enemies had torn each other to bloody ribbons. And now, they came to her, to give her more weapons to destroy them with.
"Fine, I guess that's why I came to you," Wairo muttered. "Look, what I'm going to tell you, you have to wait a few days to spread this around. Otherwise, that crazy bitch Hatsume will kill me."
"Oh?" Already, Kizukui could tell this was going to be better than her wildest dreams.
And when Wairo started to talk, she had to stop herself from salivating at the bombshells he dropped. He'd been kidnapped by 1A, and tortured for information. She could still see the bruises on his face, hear the fear in his voice. It was delicious. They'd given her even more rope to hang themselves with.
"Thank you, Mr. Wairo," Kizukui said, reaching over and adjusting his tie for him, then smoothing his rumbled suit. He flinched back at first, but her hands were cleaver and tender, kneading his shoulders a bit before she stepped back. "You've been most helpful to me."
"I just want to see those bastards pay," Wairo growled, clenching his fists. "And those nano machines! Threaten me with death, will they? I'll make sure they pay."
"Oh, those are fake," Kuzukui said with a shake of her head. "That sort of technology doesn't exist. Even for an inventor like Mei Hatsume, I doubt she could come up with something like that at the drop of a pin, and she's never used them before. Shame, really, would have been an excellent juicy detail if she had. Well, we'll just have to improvise."
"Fake?" Wairo gasped, putting his hand to his chest. "So, I'm not going to just fall over dead?"
"Oh, you are. The story just wouldn't have the same punch if you didn't," Kizukui said. Then she snapped her fingers, and Wairo exploded into a fountain of gore. Sometimes, having Landmine as a quirk was useful.
She grinned, whipping blood from her face as she stood and exited the conference room. This was a detail she'd have to save for later. It wasn't time just yet. No, the story had to build a little more first. But she couldn't risk Wairo going to another reporter with her story. She had to control the narrative on this one.
Kuzukui had just finished washing the blood from herself and changing clothes when she got another visitor. "Boss, we got a guy here, says he was imprisoned by the Shie Hassaikai. I think maybe he's telling the truth."
"What?! Get him up here, now!" Kuzukui ordered, practically unable to contain her glee at the thought. An eye witness? Now this was interesting!
The man who they led into her office was rather ordinary looking, save perhaps for his Stain hoodie. That nearly made Kuzukui grimace. Such a wasted story. Oh sure, he was ideologically opposed to the MLA as well, but to have him unceremoniously beaten by All Might's heir then tossed in prison? She hadn't even been the one to get the scoop on that.
"Ooo, you smell good," the man giggled, tugging the blinds on Kuzukui's office closed. That made her frown; she far preferred them to be open so she could see just what was happening. "Someone bled on you. Why'd you try to wash it off? You'd smell better with a little blood on you."
Kuzukui stood, grabbing a paperweight and imbuing it with her quirk. "What are you doing here? We told you we'd contact you if-"
"Oh relax, Curious. I'm just here to talk, us two girls," Himiko Toga giggled as the flesh of her face melted to reveal the slasher smile hidden beneath it. She stepped out of the melting puddle of clothes and flesh, naked as the day she was born and totally unconcerned about it. "So, I know you like stories, right? Want to hear a juicy one?"
Toga held up a metal cylinder, which after a moment, Kuzukui recognized as a bullet.
"Talk quickly, Toga. Re-Destro already told the League of Villains we're not interested in an alliance," Kuzukui snapped.
"You sure? What if I told you we found out what Chisaki was making?" Toga asked, tilting her head to one side.
"Obviously, he was making those drugs, trying to destroy quirks. We've know this for-"
"Oh silly, that was just the first step! Oh no, he was making these." Toga set the bullet on Curious' desk, licking her lips. "A bullet that destroys the quirk of anyone it touches."
That made Kuzukui pause, and peer more closely at the bullet "What?"
"Oh, yes. Hundreds of them. We got most of them out. Wasn't too hard for me to sneak in and take them. We can even make more, thanks to Twice. One hit from these babies, and you're quirkless as Midoriya. That's what happened to Kai Chisaki. Hit with his own bullet. Pretty funny, huh?"
"That's wonderful! Such perfect irony! Oh, I must find a way to incorporate this," Kuzukui cackled, picking up the bullet, her earlier irritation and anger at seeing Toga forgotten.
"There's more," Toga said, sitting in a chair and pulling a knife out from somewhere. How she managed that naked, Kuzukui didn't want to know. "How would you like to find which hero's been a naughty boy, lately? Because we've been watching. And Tomura thinks he's found a way to destroy the legacy of All Might forever. Interested? It would make a great story, and there would just be so much blood for me to try. I really want to try Togata's blood! He's so handsome and strong! Just imagining being in his skin...ooo, it's enough to make a girl all hot and bothered! So what do you say?"
Destroy the legacy of All Might? That would be a story worth telling. "You've made me Curious. Tell me more."