CHAPTER 2 - HERE COMES THE BLIND COMMISSIONER
Warm, yellow glows ambered the room, a small, humble, yet homely bar and pub. The door opened with a click and a creak. She thanked Giran for the welcome and walked in as if she owned the place, her head held high with her blue braids swinging in the air behind her. Kurogiri, the man of violet clouds and mist, silently nodded at her as he occupied himself with cleaning the countertop. In front of a large selection of ornate bottles of liquor -likely the expensive kinds- stood the bar counter. High, padded bar stools ringed it, two of them occupied.
"Hello, boys~!" She spoke in a teasingly sing-song tone, to which the grey-haired boy verbally groaned and sank his head lower. Taking into account the two new faces in the room who sat at a booth; she thought that perhaps 'boys' wasn't the best statement, judging from what looked to be a blonde schoolgirl staring back at her. "What'd I miss?" She asked, nonchalantly sitting down on a barstool next to Shigaraki, resting her arm on the counter as she used the edge as a backrest.
"Many things, Destroya, many things..." he tiredly replied as Kurogiri went over to take his empty cup to either clean it or fill it back up again.
"Wow, way to keep it vague, weirdo~!" She teased, which made the man with burn scars under his eyes and all over his body raise an eyebrow. Dabi hadn't been with the League that long, but he hadn't seen anyone so willing to call him names, especially in what appeared to be an affectionate way. "What about you, Kurogiri?" She turned her head back towards the bartender. "Any straight answers?"
"Well, Shigaraki certainly is right." He took an empty glass and put it on the counter, in front of her. We've made a few new strides; new Nomus have been made; we've launched an attack on the USJ–"
"US-what, now?" Kimiko interjected. She had turned on her barstool to face him, now intrigued.
"The USJ…" Shigaraki chimed in, his head in his hand and lightly shaking in disappointment.
"...Am I supposed to know what the fuck that is?" Kimiko asked with a raised eyebrow and a smirk. She had swivelled to face Shigaraki now, leaning back with her elbow propping her face up on the counter. "Those are just letters with no meaning to me."
"The Unforeseen Simulation Joint," Kurogiri spoke, as he went back to his business and carefully poured Kimiko a glass of bourbon. "It's a training facility for the U.A. hero course."
"I see…" Kimiko didn't bother to take a sip of her drink, not that she disliked drinking, of course. It barely even registered in her mind. "...why? I get that you'd wanna kill some future heroes, and I may not agree with killing kids, but I thought you were all about going after All Might."
"It was All Might that we were going after…" Shigaraki begrudgingly explained, turning his angered gaze towards her, his eyes glaring at her as if she were stupid from behind the white, shaggy curtain of his hair. "He's a teacher at U.A. now, and we think his successor is one of his students. We knew he was going to be teaching there, so we'd attack him with one of our best Nomus yet…" he turned his face away. "But it all failed!" She just now noticed his glass had become a small pile of ash and dirt on the countertop as his already pale fist had clenched tight with even whiter knuckles.
"...Yeesh, sorry…" She spoke with a wide-eyed scowl. A moment of silence fell upon the room, the pause only occasionally yet monotonously broken by the quiet ticking of a nearby clock that Kimiko hadn't known existed on the wall until now. "Sssooooo..." she began, awkwardly lengthening her word. "What did this Nomu get to make it so special?"
"Well now…" Kurogiri took to dusting off a shelf behind him. It seemed he always had a little job to do. "It had super regeneration and a powerful shock absorption quirk. This was all on top of immense physical strength, even without those two quirks. We had to have it be as strong and battle-ready as All Might, and we'd hoped, stronger."
"It's got what, now?!" She didn't need reaffirmation, it was a shocking revelation that she missed out on the opportunity to steal two exceptionally powerful quirks. She stared back at Kurogiri, her fist practically stuck to the counter as she realized she had audibly thumped the surface when she spoke. "You are kidding me…"
"I'm afraid not." Kurogiri sighed. "Although the Nomu was exceptionally strong, the mission was a failure. The Nomu was then easily imprisoned given that it would lay dormant when not given a command by Shigaraki."
"Ugh! That makes it even worse!" She folded her arms on the counter and slouched, sulking. "Had I known where it was being held inside Tartarus, I would have paid it a little visit as I was escaping!"
"I know you're upset." In a comforting move, he put a gloved hand on her shoulder. "But it is times like these where we shake off the thoughts of what could have been, and start focusing on the here and now, becoming better in the process."
The black-haired boy with the burn scars all over his face seemed to chuckle at this, finally chiming in from where he and his schoolgirl associate sat. "Hah! We're villains! Why would we try to focus on being better? It just sounds to me like you're just salty that you missed out on the action, girl!"
Her eyes turned to the other two who sat around the table. It was about time someone mentioned them. She straightened herself up, taking a deep breath to clear her mind of anger, she didn't want to rise up to any taunting today. "Who're these guys then? Newcomers?" Her question seemed to strike a chord, and the dark-haired man who stood several inches above her height made his fist glow a piercing azure as it lit up with blue flames.
"This newcomer is gonna make you shut the hell up if you're gonna be referring to us like we're not even here!" He took a step forward but didn't make another move, cautious of her. He didn't know her quirk, but it had dawned on him, he overheard Shigaraki calling her by a name he had not heard in quite some time. He could remember stories and rumors of a villain who hid in the shadows; a villain who would kill and eat people, often heroes and government bigwigs, but sometimes more innocent people would fall victim to this person. Their name was 'DESTROYA'. He couldn't believe it if this person was truly the same as the rumors have told, he was expecting someone a lot more threatening, imposing, certainly not a girl who looked to be no older than him who annoyingly smirked back, lightly swivelling in her chair.
"Well…" She began, rolling her eyes. "It's not like I know your names, now is it?" She asked rhetorically. "Why don't you two introduce yourselves if we're going to be working together in the near future?"
"I am Dabi." He spoke directly as if he were a man of very few words. His fist loosened as his flames dissipated.
"Nice to meet you. Dabi." She replied as if testing how the name felt as it came out of her mouth. "Certainly a nice quirk you got there, never seen blue flames before." She had to admit, the sight of blazing fire was always quite a hypnotizing look to the quirk-eater, and the flames were blue, no less.
He gave a grunt and sat back down. He didn't bother looking over to the other girl across from him; he was too preoccupied with sulking. The girl took this as her cue to stand up, a smile creeping onto her face.
"Call me Toga~ Now I don't know about anyone else here, but I wanna learn more about your quirk~!" She brought her hands up, covering the lower half of her face as if she were flustered, but her blush looked as though it were a permanent fixture on her face.
"All in due time, Toga." She replied with a chuckle, "But I can see you mean business. You've got some good knives on you." She remarked, gesturing to Toga's combat gear, including her belt, ringed with occupied knife pouches and what looked to be syringes. Toga giggled innocently, uttered a hushed 'thank you', and sat down. She never lost the blissful smile on her face as she creepily stared at everyone in the room.
"Alright then," Kimiko piped up again after finally indulging in her drink. "What came after that? Anything else happen? 'Cause we stopped at the USJ thing."
Shigaraki straightened himself up. All that slouching on his barstool had to eventually be killer on his spine. "We made an attack on Hosu with some Nomus, and had a few close encounters with Stain." He was visibly disgruntled at the aspect of even mentioning the Hero Killer, a man who Kimiko rolled her eyes at. She saw the infamous 'Hero Killer' as nothing but a nuisance who got to kill the heroes first before she could eat their brains. "Aside from that? Nothing yet, but we have some new friends, Himiko Toga and Dabi included. You'll meet the other newbies before the next mission."
"And what mission is that?"
"My master will tell us a few days in advance." Shigaraki went back to slouching over the counter, resting his head in his hands. "I suspect he will soon."
She was about to speak, but Kurogiri stepped up to Kimiko, resting his gloved hand on the counter. "I hate to cut short this lovely banter." He began. "This has just reminded me that the boss wanted to see you. He orchestrated part of your escape from Tartarus and wanted to meet with you in private."
This took her by surprise. She couldn't remember the last time she spoke with his doctor, let alone All For One, himself. "Oh… Shit!" She took the glass and downed her drink in one swig. Kurogiri didn't blame her; even the likes of him would get intimidated by All For One on occasion. She hopped up off the barstool, her blue braids swinging as she jumped. "Let's get to it then! Portal me in!"
Kurogiri wasted no time; his swirling clouds of purple and black expanded. Tendrils of mist flew around her and formed the shape of a wall behind her, steadily growing. The violet specks swimming in a dark sea seemed to swirl and move at the slightest breeze.
"See you guys later!" She gave a two-fingered salute to all the bar patrons. She wasted no time in stepping through, not expecting the change in atmosphere that came when she emerged through to the other side.
It was cold and damp, like a cave with a permanent draft problem. It was dark, too, save for the light of computer monitors where a portly man in a doctor's coat sat. She couldn't see exactly what was going on on the many monitors because her eyes were still adjusting to the new environment, but she could tell there were many live security feeds, including a video feed of the bar that she was in only moments ago. The doctor's glasses looked more like goggles as they hugged his face and didn't show his eyes from any angle as he turned to look at her. His thick brush of a mustache hid the expression of his mouth, but she could tell that he appeared annoyed at her presence. "He's right over there." He nodded to a place behind her, where she promptly turned as the portal behind her closed and the mist disappeared with an otherworldly hiss, revealing the throne and the one who occupied it. An immense seat of stone and steel, with tubes running around and behind it like arteries, connected to the large figure who sat there. He was smiling under his scars as he adjusted the machine that looked as though it connected to his neck, some breathing device, perhaps?
"I see that you made your escape well, Kimiko." His deep voice seemed to permeate the air. He smiled, but she couldn't tell if the smile was sinister, genuine, or something else entirely. All For One was the only enigma that rocked her to her core.
Thank you for the reception that the first chapter got. Leave a review if you're inclined, but you don't have to.
I hope you have been enjoying the fic thus far. I have wanted to write a My Hero Academia fic for some time, I have many other ideas for this story as well as other stories I have in mind so here's hoping those come to fruition!
This story is starting off a little slow-paced, but I hope you'll bear with me on this. I will try to update and polish already existing parts of the story as well as upload new chapters. In future author's notes, I will be putting in a list of the quirks that Kimiko has, just so it is clear to readers and that I don't lose track or forget that a quirk exists.
Thank you for reading.