Chapter 7
"How would I know if I ever stumble across one?"
"They're pretty hard to distinguish one from another. What you need to check is what they are carrying. Usually they would have some sort of syringe with them."
She stops in her tracks to look back when she hears a sound while still keeping her phone to her ear. She strains her eyes to see better through the dark, trying to sense any danger.
"Syringe?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"I think I might've encountered a Villain who was about to inject a syringe in him but I managed to knock him out. Unfortunately Eradicate snatched him away before I could get a closer look."
When a cat suddenly jumps down from the trash bin she relaxes, seeing as it is nothing, for now. She turns back around and continues to walk down the street.
"He seems to be in this operation much more than we expect," Ingenium comments on the other side of the line.
"More reason to take him down," she says with full resolve.
"Right, I'll be going now. Take care, Miruko."
"Same for you, Ingenium." She puts her phone away. She had contacted the Turbo Hero for more info about this Trigger drug ring/organization or something, mainly to get a step closer to Eradicate.
She really wants to take him down. He is now her personal target, her top spot to complete.
Now that she is uninterrupted, she finally gives one hundred percent focus to her surroundings. She needs to retrace her steps because she might've missed something important back there.
Who knows, maybe she might accidentally stumble into a meeting of some sort.
So she retraces her steps, walking back down the path she had taken.
When she steps into a narrow alleyway, large enough to fit her figure, she immediately stops.
Seven pairs of wide eyes are staring at her.
She stares back.
Well, it looks like she had accidentally stumbled into a meeting of some sort.
"HEROES!"
"Miruko?!"
"Shit, HEROES!"
Well what are the fucking odds? She was entertaining the idea of stumbling into a meeting yet here she is stumbling into a meeting.
"Everyone, scatter!"
"Fuck!"
She blasts off her feet a split second after the Villains begin to scatter. Unfortunately for them, they're right in the middle of the alleyway. They can only go two ways, discounting none of them could climb these walls, and the branch-off at the end of the alleyway is quite far away that it might take them some time to fully scatter. Fortunately for her, all of them decide to run deeper into the alleyway.
She launches off straight towards them, managing to push one down to the ground and uses the Villain's back to hop to another. As soon as he falls onto the ground, she quickly picks him up and throws back to the previous Villain, who is about to recover. Due to her powerful throw, the two Villains stumble back and slam into the wall. When they slide down and lie unmoved, she guesses they have passed out.
She doesn't waste time and already beelines for the next one, dashing to the burly Villain. He seems to predict this because he turns around just before she reaches him, manages to grab her by the neck and slams her to the ground. She chokes back on a grunt at the impact but she quickly retaliates by kicking his legs out from beneath him, releasing her in the process. She quickly slams her heel on his neck, hard enough to knock him out.
She quickly gets up on her feet and dashes to the escaping Villains, who are a little too far away for her liking. If she puts all her energy to her legs, she could reach them in time before they split off. So she crouches down, hands on the ground below her. Her legs tense up.
Then, she launches.
But something suddenly wraps around her ankles, instantly stopping her dead in her tracks.
She falls onto the ground, grunting in pain at the sudden whiplash. She pushes herself up by the elbows to look back at what is stopping her.
Gray strand.
Eradicate.
He's here, meaning she didn't just stumble into a random meeting. She had accidentally come across a Trigger drug meeting.
She fiddles with the gray fabric, trying to get them off because there are Villains still escaping. It suddenly tugs, startling her and causing her to fall onto her back. She pushes herself up to her elbow again. She looks up, down the alleyway she had come from and sees none other than Eradicate.
The fabric is circling him like usual but something else is also floating. His hair is rising up to the sky, standing on ends. It's as if he's submerged in water. It gives her a clear view of his face in the dark alleyway, a clear view of his massive rectangular golden eyes.
She realizes he's wearing a mask, covering his mouth and nose, black just like his outfit.
Then, out of sudden, the fabric around her ankles suddenly retracts back to Eradicate. Then, he steps back into the shadow part of the dark alleyway, completely disappearing into it. She quickly gets to her feet and instantly runs into where he had disappeared to.
She is met with empty air.
She turns around and dashes to where the rest of the Villains had run off to.
She comes across a fork of the road.
They had escaped.
She quickly returns to where she had knocked out the three Villains. Seeing them where she had left them causes her to release a sigh of relief. Although, now that she's really thinking about it, it's suspicious that Eradicate had left them alone. Nonetheless, while most of the Villains had escaped, at least she got a few apprehended.
Eradicate is a whole different matter.
She carries the two Villains while dragging the third one across the ground to the exit of the alleyway before calling the police. Just as the van arrives, the three Villains gain consciousness.
"You got a lot of questions to answer," she says to them as officers pour out from the van and quickly advance to the Villains. They aren't cuffed so they won't risk the Villains escaping. When the officers herd the Villains to the van, she notices that they're moving their jaws around, as if they got something in their mouths. It's probably a loose tooth, thanks to her.
But why aren't they spitting it out?
"We ain't answering shit if we're dead," one of the Villains answers. Then, all three of them clench their jaws.
"Cyanide pill!" one of the officers shouts as foams appear from the Villains' mouths.
Fuck.
That would explain why Eradicate didn't take them away. They're going to take themselves out to silence themselves, to not reveal anything about the organization. She had thought tonight's a victory but it's not. She had lost, no progress was made. It-
"FUCK!"
"WHAT THE FUCK!"
"GET IT OUT OF MY MOUTH!"
She jumps at the Villains' sudden scream, thrashing around with their mouths wide open. They vigorously shake their heads, sending foams all over the place and onto the officers nearby. She's lucky none landed on her.
"It's a dud!" one of them exclaims.
"Why does it taste like salty licorice?!"
"Who in their right mind would enjoy salty licorice?!"
Well, she's going to sleep easy when she gets home later because luck seems to be on her side today.
.
When she heads out for breakfast, it's already ten o'clock. She had put on a decent outfit, enough to hide her ears because she doesn't want to stand out too much. Walking down the street passing down familiar stores she had seen only at nights, she suddenly meets an unexpected face.
"Yo, Aizawa dude!" she shouts, waving a hand as she approaches the man. Aizawa, who is standing right in front of a café, she thinks, turns to look at her.
"Fancy seeing you in the morning," he says in his own way of greeting.
"I should be saying that to you!" she replies back, stopping right in front of him. "You're still in that shitty outfit? What is it? Your pajamas?"
"…"
"…"
"…"
"…Please tell me they are not your fucking paja-"
"You seem to be quite chirpy for someone who has stayed up all night," he interrupts her. She narrows her eyes at him for the change of subject but she ultimately lets it go.
"I got a good night's arrest."
"I already feel my morning is about to become worse."
"Come on, man! Can't handle a little pun by yours truly?" she grins at him. He merely groans. "Last night was quite a bountiful success and it put me to sleep like a baby."
"It makes it seem like you hadn't had quite a good sleep since it all started."
"Says the walking dead man."
"My circumstances are my own," Aizawa answers a little too cryptically for her brain, but she thinks he's merely saying "But I digress". "Would you like to join me?" he asks, nodding his head towards the café he is standing in front of. She peers inside through the windows and notices that there are not a whole lot of customers inside, and the place looks okay too.
"You sure, dude?" she asks, hesitant.
"I'm offering," he reassures.
"People are going to look." Just because there are not a lot of customers does not mean words are not going to pass around. She may be in light disguise right now but anyone would know who she is if they pay attention. As a high ranking Limelight Hero, she is very aware of this fact.
"I don't care."
"Oh?" She raises an eyebrow at him. He gives her his usual blank stare.
"I dressed like this in broad daylight."
"…Fair point."
.
"You know, I'm curious," she says when their drinks arrive at their table. The barista was giving her an awed look when they were placing their orders, while not even bat an eyelash at the homeless looking man right next to her.
"Hm?" Aizawa hums while, true to her words, ignoring the little attention they're getting. He is sinking into his seat and his eyes are closed. If he is not replying to her with his usual drawl and bored voice she would've believed he's asleep right there and then.
"You never mention what your job is," she continues, taking a small sip of her carrot juice before putting the cup back on the table. "If you hadn't mentioned paperwork a while ago I was so sure you'd be homeless."
"I'm a high school teacher."
"You're a high school teacher?!" she yells, slamming her hands onto the table and causing their drinks to shake at the force and a few heads turn.
"Mhm," Aizawa confirms, unbothered that his coffee had spilled a little bit. She can't help but stare at him mutely.
"How did they manage to get a hardass like you to be a teacher?" she asks in a stunned voice because who could blame her? The few times they interacted she quickly got the impression that he is a tough man (though he is unexpectedly kind at oddest times).
"It is because I am a hardass that I got to be a teacher."
She blinks.
"You're shitting me."
"I'm not." She could see the humor in his blank black eyes. He knows that it sounds bullshit but she has the feeling that he's not bullshitting either.
"What kind of school you're teaching that left you this dead?" she asks.
"What school does not leave the teacher dead?" he asks back before picking up his mug and puts it to his lips.
"Fair point but you're like… dead dead."
She pointedly stares at the huge eyebags under his eyes, and that is one of the many things that screams what she is implying.
"I'm still breathing, Miruko."
"Stop sassing me, old man."
"I'm not that older than you, Miruko."
"Sass man."
"You're unbearable," he replies back before taking another sip of his coffee.
It's still weird to think that they had gone from stepping on each other's toes to having a nice little breakfast in one calm morning.
"Do you invite total strangers out often?" she asks in a teasing tone.
"I don't even invite my friends out often," Aizawa answers around his mug. She raises her eyebrow at him.
"Then who do you ask out then?"
"Only someone I want," he answers while staring mysteriously at her.
She can't help but stare back.
She wonders what he is thinking.
What he is thinking of her.