Useful Notes:
Tomoe Ishiyumi – Beros's Japanese name. Real name will be revealed soon.
Dragunov – Nagant's alternate universe hero name.
Scissors/Revenant – A person who looks like a young AFO. Real identity not revealed yet.
Exergis – An online first-person shooter game Tomura and Spinner like to play.
Backforce: A strange phenomena allowing Quirked people to resist powerful hits (A.K.A. Anime durability)
Day 33
Tomura listened to the girl's story, trying to take in everything she says amidst of holding back from blurting out praises out of sheer amazement every time Ishiyumi brings down another building in an attempt to slow down Team A from making contact with Team B.
The resulting scenes after every 'bombardment' are absolute masterpieces in terms of deconstruction. From the smoke billowing out of the ruined structures, the tumbling of debris, to the loud cracking noises of concrete, all combined to produce what sounded like music to Tomura's ears.
The girl treats her impressive feats as a simple thing her Quirk can do, but Tomura doesn't. Being surrounded by individuals on the weaker side, like the entirety of the PLF, and then seeing one with almost the same power output as the heroes is certainly amazing.
Ishiyumi is obviously a villain from the real world, but where is she? What is she? What happened to her? What crimes did she do? Tomura thought to himself. Is she a hired gun or just some random villain from another country that happened to find herself in Japan?
But even then, why is she here if he never met her once? Did she die too like Kizuki alongside the MLA? Is she part of the MLA too? Is she a villain only AFO knows? Is she a part of a relatively significant event in the real world?
"So really, what are you?"
Tomura snapped out of his thinking process upon hearing Spinner ask, promptly being answered by the girl saying she's actually 23 years old and in no part of UA at all.
"What…?" Tomura asked, scratching the back of his head in confusion. He already can't understand Ishiyumi's mere existence and now she's not even part of UA? But aren't the Big Three: Mirio, Tamaki, and Nejire real UA students? How come this girl's not? Tomura scratched his head with more intensity, his free hand involuntarily scratching the bottom of his neck, scars still present from his incessant scratching last night.
"What UA said to you guys back when you first started were all just made-up lies. We're not real pros, we don't even have real licenses, and we have not set foot in UA until the day we started 'teaching'."
"What…?"
"If you search us up in the 'net, you won't find anything much about us until this whole SpecPro fiasco," Ishiyumi spoke, her voice trailing off as she waved a hand as if trying to grasp for the correct word. "We're uh… underground heroes."
"Like Eraserhead?" Tomura suddenly blurted out.
"The heck?! You know him too?"
"The tall edgy scarf dude with the overpowered Quirk-erasing eye beams?" Spinner interjected, earning a shocked look from the girl.
"Wait-wait-wait let me think for a bit, hold on…"
The three continued their walk, with some students from Team A passing by but overall ignoring them in favor of continuing towards their goal at the other side of the arena.
Ishiyumi, after a minute of silence, continued her story about the Big Three being underground heroes, putting a strange emphasis on the word 'underground heroes' as what Tomura noticed. He was about to think what could it mean when he heard Spinner ask if Ishiyumi started heroics at an early age, which the girl responded with a nod.
"Are you a government agent?" Tomura suddenly blurted out. "I've heard about 'heroes' in the real world starting very early because they're picked up by the government. I dunno what it really meant but I can understand if they're really taking kids off of homes because they have useful Quirks. It's just like what some villains do when picking new squadmates… we can't really let some abilities go to waste."
Ishiyumi stared at him for a good few moments with a confused expression, in which Tomura didn't mind once. Aside from being phenomenally overpowered in his mind, he also found the girl to have phenomenally beautiful green eyes – which he himself found weird since he normally hates almost anything associated with the color green.
"Ishiyumi, I think you have very beautiful eyes-"
Spinner suddenly laughed loudly at his friend's sudden remark. "Must you seriously flirt with every powerful girl you see?"
"Well technically I've only seen three so far and I definitely didn't flirt with Ki-"
"Enough about pretty eyes, I need more info on that freaky alternate universe stuff…" Ishiyumi cleared her throat as she pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. "Sounds pretty cool," she added, gesturing for the two to follow her as she walked ahead.
Tomura slouched forward as he followed. Must Spinner really make fun of him like that? All he ever did is say a positive comment to Ishiyumi as some kind of 'Mental Manipulation' trick to make her help him later on, as well as because he really thinks the girl really has beautiful eyes. It's just honesty concealed with a hidden villainous agenda, which is very different from flirting.
Flirting is what regular people do, not villains. Tomura is sure what he did is definitely not flirting, or else he'll be a massive embarrassment to All for One, on top of his already-massive failures from the real world.
"So is it true what people say? About the government snatching kids with useful Quirks off the street?" Spinner asked, re-starting the conversation from the sudden stop earlier. "I heard some rumors back then."
This time Tomura chose to stay silent, one half wondering about the things that were meant to represent something, and the other half wondering about what Spinner joked about him getting attracted to powerful women.
Attraction to the opposite gender is certainly new to him despite already being twenty years old in the real world. He could be surrounded by beautiful women and he would never even take a second glance at them, yet everything seemed to be starting to change the more he stays here in this alternate universe.
He suddenly remembered how he literally oogled everyone back in the Sports Festival like a massive creep, and even then he was just marveling about the physical shape of the girls and women around him, which is not the case as of this moment. Just last night he mentally described Tatsumaki as being angelic in appearance, something he found even more strange just thinking about it now.
Tomura wondered how could it be that he's suddenly finding girls attractive. If it weren't for him being mildly self-aware at the short moment Ishiyumi was staring at him in shock, his jaw would have dropped at how stunning the girl looked.
He felt something odd well up inside him. At first he's just jokingly asking out Dragunov because he thought she would be a great addition to his villainous team back in the real world. And then at the tournament, he suddenly found curvy bodies attractive. And then he found himself visually attracted to Dragunov's face (Which ended right after discovering she was very mean to his best friend)…
Now? A few seconds of staring at Ishiyumi's eyes is enough for him to go speechless.
Something's not right. He's not supposed to feel this way. He's a villain. He's a monster. He's evil personified. He's Tomura Shigaraki, the Demon King's eventual successor. He should NOT be getting attracted to girls, he should be building hate: hate to power the All for One Quirk. This strange feeling first manifested itself back at the Sport Festival, and it's only gotten worse from there.
'What's going on…?' He thought to himself, one hand involuntarily going up and scratching the back of his head as he walked beside the two. Why is he having such thoughts?
He took a quick glance at Ishiyumi again. She still looked pretty, and his gaze didn't even need to go down anymore to confirm it.
No. It can't be. It must be some random Quirk from a random person just affecting him – That's it! The problem is not him at all! Because there's absolutely no way he would find Ishiyumi visually attractive in a hundred years! He's in a school known for training top-tier heroes and there are tons of possible Quirks out there, and one of them must be affecting him!
That means he's not in trouble at all! After a few hours or so, he'll finally stop thinking about Ishiyumi's beautiful eyes! He's still a villain! Nothing's wrong with him! He still deserves the All for One Quirk!
"Hey," Tomura suddenly interjected the conversation between the two. "Beros you're in, right?"
"Uh… yeah…?"
"Good to know. So wanna hear the full story of the other side? About Chikazoku? About AFO? About Midoriya? About everything?" Tomura said before clearing his throat. "Now you better get some snacks, 'cuz this is going to take a while. After this, we're going to interrogate Toga further to get more information."
…
The 'interrogation' never went into fruition. Right after the school activity, Himiko Toga went missing.
…
…
*****************[Day 38]*********************
Tomura stood in front of Toga's empty room. 5 days after since the girl's mysterious sudden disappearance.
Despite SpecPro being a 'big' thing (although still highly-controversial), he found it strange that such an event would not make it in the big news. In fact, it didn't even make it into the 'small' news, as UA decided it was best just to cover the whole thing while they search for the missing girl in secret as to not generate more negativity from the public… or so what Beros told them earlier.
His attention immediately went to the phenomenally powerful green-haired archer, who he still thought was facially attractive. It's been five days and he still thinks of her the same. Shaking his head, he quickly dismissed it as the person with the 'Attraction' Quirk could be just nearby again.
"Toga's story doesn't make sense. It's making me more and more confused the more I think about it," Spinner, who was standing quietly beside him all this time, suddenly spoke. "The way she told us her story it's like she's some hypersonic assassin 'floating' everyone, when it's obvious Kizuki can just blast her off in a single hit as we have seen her during the Sports Festival."
Tomura nodded. "Even with AFO's dumb-down spell, Kizuki's explosives should never be underestimated."
"Man you should have seen the nuke!" Spinner said, hands moving as if he's trying to re-enact the explosion he saw back then. "Just imagine that thing firing on our faces back in Deika! We'll be out in outer space in record time! That was an over-exaggeration by the way."
"I know…. There has to be more to Toga's story. Her killing Kizuki by splattering her on the road and Chikazoku mentioning 'Tomato Paste' is not mere coincidence…" Tomura's voice trailed off, a gloved hand going up to stroke the bottom of his chin. "Now there's Toga, the IT Guy, and Dabi who's not part of us anymore… "
"You think Toga's got something to do with it?"
"Yep, and she's avoiding us because we're getting closer to the truth."
"But that can't be right, we barely even started yet-" Spinner suddenly stopped, brows furrowing. "But on the other hand, if you're right then that means we're definitely moving closer to the-" the humanoid lizard suddenly stopped again as Tomura turned the knob of the door in front of them and it actually opened.
"Oookay…" Tomura muttered to himself as he slowly stepped in, red eyes scanning around for any traps Toga could have left. "Room's not even locked!"
Spinner pushed the door further, revealing the relatively normal-looking room. "She must've been in a hurry."
"Do you think she got kidnapped? Twice seemed to be falling for it," Tomura muttered.
Spinner shook his head. "Toga being kidnapped is the cover-up. She just went missing, have you been listening to Beros earlier? Or are you just staring at her again?"
"I was uh… thinking about the Kizuki murder mystery."
"Riiiiiiight… Thinking real hard on the mystery…"
Tomura rolled his eyes at his friend's comment and proceeded into the room, immediately noticing the missing knife-holder on the girl's nightstand. "UA said they already searched for some clues here eh? Looks like they missed something," he said stepping back and gesturing towards the empty nightstand. "Seems to me like Toga deliberately left and took all her knives with her-"
"Wait wait wait wait… IT Guy… Toga… and Dabi… I think I'm getting something here…"
"Yep, those three are missing. Does Dabi, by any chance, have anything to do with those two?" Tomura asked, now back to walking around trying to find anything sharp in the room on the notion that if everything's gone, then their target really left on her own accord. "I can maybe deal with Toga, and Chikazoku-whatever, but Dabi? F*** no I'm not dealing with that deranged toaster!"
"Yeah f*** that guy, I ain't gonna last two seconds against him. So got any more clues?"
"Nope… All I got is that all the knives are gone, and that the room's suspiciously unlocked... unless the UA investigation staff just forgot to lock it back."
Spinner quickly looked outside to check if anyone's walking through the halls that might find them, and found no one. "Let's get outta here before someone sees us."
The two quickly exited the room and closed the door behind them, before proceeding back to their respective rooms. Passing by a nearby wall clock, the two found that it's fifteen minutes before 10 in the evening.
"Hey Spin, do you think it's fine if we talk to Kizuki now?" Tomura wondered, clasping his hands together. Ever since the Eviscerator incident some days ago, some students owning both a dorm and an apartment outside of UA like Kizuki are urged to stay within the school walls as much as possible, which means potentially more time for the two of them to talk to her after school.
But despite the convenience, Beros adviced against the investigation, claiming it's too early to just drop in that Kizuki died in the alternate universe just days after a 'near death' experience.
"I dunno if we should follow Ishiyumi's advice… it's not like Kizuki would even believe that there's an alternate universe in the first place…"
"Yeah… she might think I'm just a good storyteller," Tomura said, nodding. "No matter how evil and awesome I made AFO in my stories she just shrugs it off."
"Hmmm wait- Why not let's just go with the best route? So Beros said we shouldn't be talking to Kizuki about her supposed death this week, right? And there's also the very high chance that she won't believe us anyway. So why not we just wait around three days and then talk to her without saying anything to Beros, how's that?"
"Hmmm that could work… I mean it's not really that of a real serious mystery anyways-"
"I dunno man but I think this mystery is a LOT bigger than you think."
"Huh?"
Spinner raised a hand, making Tomura stop as well. "I think Chikazoku and Dabi are on the same team. I remember something when we're escaping at Machia's back…"
"What is it?"
"You know what, let's just do some Exergis, maybe I could recall the whole event at a later time," Spinner said, gesturing to yet another wall clock. "I'd rather tell the whole story than fragments."
…
…
*****************[Day 40]***********************
Tomura walked through the empty hallways of their dorm room, the relative silence being occasionally broken with the sounds of Twice sobbing in his room. During the first few days of Toga's disappearance, he thought it was funny hearing the guy cry over and over and over again, but over time he stopped caring about it.
In his mind he knew he'd probably do the exact same thing if ever AFO or Spinner disappeared.
But also in his mind, as long as he's not talking to Twice about it, he's still a villain. As long as he only cares about a very small group of people, he's still a villain. Twice would eventually get over it, he's sure of it. That is unless Toga has a much bigger role in Chikazoku's grand plan, then it's a different thing.
He eventually reached the corner that leads to the exit of their dorm building. Taking one last look at a nearby wall clock and seeing the time that it's almost 11 in the evening, he opened the door. Surprisingly, there are still quite a number of people walking about, students, grown-ups, and even a few fully-costumed heroes.
"Lockdown's pretty tough, don'cha think?"
Tomura turned to the right where he heard the voice. It was Ishiyumi, wearing yellow-themed casual clothes, leaning her back on a nearby lamp post, both hands shoved inside the pockets of her jeans. "You sure this is whole shebang's not part of 'the real world'?" the older girl asked.
The former villain shook his head. Back in the real world, he only deployed three Nomus, all of which were easily dealt with by the combined forces of the heroes and law enforcement. And then after that, people never talked about it again, and he made sure to tell Ishiyumi that very clearly during his re-telling of the past events to highlight the difference. "How many died, really? Is it true that they're in the hundreds?" he asked.
A weak gust of wind blew upon them, making the girl shiver a bit before taking something from her left, hidden from Tomura's view. It was a simple cup of coffee. "Deaths are all heroes. Not a single civilian was harmed that night. But of course we had to hide that and say there are more civilian casualties or else… you know what it is."
Tomura nodded in agreement. Heroes being the defenders of society are so ingrained to the general population that in the event that heroes failed a little in doing their tasks, all hell would break loose. Everything heroes accomplish should always be hyped, and all their failures should be masked at all costs. "Revenant?"
Tomoe took a sip of her drink. "I talked to him just an hour ago, said something about being busy."
"Did you tell him to-"
"Scissors told me he's the first person Kizuki added to her phone. Based on what he told me of their nightly chat, little miss blue seemed fine overall. I dunno how she managed to get the near-death situation out of her head but I'm glad she did it."
Tomura nodded again as he walked closer to her, the cold night air penetrating his skin. "Quite a lot o' people outside eh? What's going on?"
Tomoe chuckled to the boy's question. "You and your lizard buddy's gaming all night long, of course you won't notice this. But actually me and some heroes have been keeping watch until late into the night for some days now. Can't let those Eviscerators in at all costs."
"How did the Eviscerator swarm end anyway?"
"They backed out on their own shortly after Kamikaze annihilated a whole bunch of them in a single hit. Revenant told me you're there, yeah?"
"Oh! Yeah I was there. It was awesome, actually."
"You know…" Tomoe put down her cup of coffee on a nearby wall. "With all this 'knowledge of the outside world', can you guess who's the current Hassaikai boss? You said it was Chisaki in the other world, yes?"
"Yep! So if Overhaul's the guy who's in charge in the other world, then the current boss is LeMillion?"
"LeMillion's dead-"
"Oh right I forgot. Nighteye?"
Tomoe shook her head. "Nope, although it's kinda amazing you keep knowing names that regular people aren't supposed to know. Go on, keep guessing. You can do it, sport!"
Tomura instantly got hit with a feeling of intense nervousness, inadvertently making him put up his hands – a reflex he developed as a villain. He himself couldn't understand it, Tomoe just smiled at him, how can he be suddenly on the defensive? "Uh… Machia?" he suddenly blurted out without thinking.
"Oh c'mon don't be silly."
'Machia? MACHIA? Why the f*** did I say Machia?!' He yelled internally in his mind. How can he suddenly answer something so stupid? "Uh-Fourth Kind-Gang Orca-Uwabami-Ryukyu- Oh wait I got it!"
He felt even more stupid realizing the random names he just blurted out. But in the end, everything clicked on its own. "The little kid with pale blue hair? With the horn that rewinds people? Is that it? I kinda forgot her name but she was all over the news at one point."
"That's where it's at." Tomoe nodded, taking another sip of her drink. "So I heard Takeyama didn't cancel the intership offer, you still in with her? By the way UA has the ability to take you back from her if ever Eviscerators attack again, same goes with the other kids who still want to proceed with their internships so maybe keep that in mind."
"Yeah I'm still in. Is Kizuki still in too?" Tomura asked, walking towards the other side of Ishiyumi and sitting on the metal bench just beside her, mind still going about that one smile that instantly made him nervous.
Tomoe nodded in agreement. "She said something about the internship happening in the middle of the ocean anyway. Based on reports about the Eviscerator incident, those things can't swim at all. Well what do I know? Is it real? Is it not? Hero culture these days are all about cover-ups and censorships-"
"Wait… cover-ups…?" Tomura's voice trailed off, placing his elbows on his knees, suddenly deep in thought in a completely different topic. "Wait, so about the USJ crater… Spin said Kizuki nuked the place yet there's no crater, is that a cover-up?"
Tomoe was in the middle of sipping her coffee when she suddenly stopped as she heard the question. It took her a good while before she answered with a small nod.
"How come Dragunov and Revenant didn't know about it? Surely the heroes would get the scoop on that first, right?"
The girl paused for another while, green eyes just staring at the distance ahead. "For someone quite aware how the government 'picks' up powerful kids, you sure don't know anything about… deliberate cover-ups." Tomoe paused again, placing her right hand back to the pocket of her jeans. "Remember everything carefully. I was there, right?"
"Yep, you took Kizuki back here."
"I can only base everything from the crater it made, but the thing is that crater's no joke. I don't know how Kizuki packed that much firepower, but that's the same reason why we should cover it up, even to other heroes-"
"But aren't you powerful too? You turn anything you shoot into guided missiles!"
Tomoe softly chuckled to herself, still not looking to the boy, and brought up a free hand to her chin, her index finger touching her lips. "My story is not important here. The thing is that-"
"You said something about starting early, right? That and having a powerful Quirk means that- are you just some kid picked up by the government too? Do things like those exist in Portugal too-?"
"Nope, we are not talking about the place where I grew up, okay? I talk about it when I want to talk about it. And I do not want to talk about it. Do I make myself clear, Tomura Shigaraki?" Tomoe said sternly, slowly turning her head to glare at him, her face now contorted into a scowl. "I already said it before and I do not want to say it again."
"Okay…"
"Good."
"… So what's up with Kizuki and the cover-up?"
Tomoe slowly nodded, turning her attention back into the night sky. "With Kizuki's case, her Quirk is far too powerful. When you reach certain power levels, two things might happen to you. A: The top bigshot villains will try to hire you. B: The top bigshot villains would want to take you out because they know other bigshot villains might hire you later. Also in case you're wondering, us heroes can't blatantly protect her or else the top bigshot villains would begin suspecting something. Chisaki is already under heavy protection, adding another one would just complicate things."
Tomura raised an eyebrow. Kizuki's USJ attack had to be covered-up because she might get the attention of villains. Is there even a similar case in the real world? But then again, heroes in the real world are way more powerful than what they are now, and they don't really need to worry about bigshot villains in the first place.
He shook his head lightly, changing his thoughts. The more time passes the more stupider Toga's story gets. Ishiyumi just confirmed Kizuki's power level is out of the ordinary, and that means that literally no amount dumb-down spell can make her lose against a silly knife nut and then go splatter onto the road after being dropped from a high place.
The mystery continues…
Tomura was about to ask a question about government agents, but seeing the older girl's now-crossed arms and sour expression made him hesitate.
'Ishiyumi's probably a government agent anyways…' he thought to himself.
"So uh… I'm leaving now…" Tomura muttered weakly and awkwardly stood up from the metal bench he's sitting on, placing both of his hands onto his pant pockets.
"Better go get some shut-eye, we have a big day tomorrow," Ishiyumi said as the boy walked past her, keeping her gaze focused on the cloudless sky.
"Uh… by the way how did you smack me back at the Sports Festival without me feeling anything?"
"The wonders of Backforce, kid," Tomoe replied, glancing once at him before turning around, picking up her now-empty coffee cup and walking away. "See ya tomorrow."
…
…
*****************[Day 41]*************************
Tomura paced around in his room, walking back and forth while occasionally looking out the window. He continued for a few more rounds before finally stopping and turning to face Spinner sitting on a chair beside his personal computer. "Alright Spin… you sure you have all the details now?"
"I got most of it," Spinner said, shrugging. "I'm now sure that Chikazoku, Dabi, and Toga leaving are not just mere coincidences."
"Okay shoot."
"Okay, so picture this… us and the rest of the League leaving the mansion on Machia's back…"
Tomura paused for a bit, imagining how Chikazoku tried to hang on after abandoning his entire team. "Go on," he said, gesturing for Spinner to continue.
"Some time later, about halfway to Jakku City. Chikazoku suddenly set up his laptop alongside Dabi standing up, and that's when I noticed the satellite's now online and back to normal."
"Dabi? I hope he's not-"
Spinner shook his head. "I'm afraid but burnt toast's part of the enemy."
"How the heck are we going to last two seconds against Dabi-" Tomura's expression suddenly froze, his face contorting into a face full of malice. "Of course we're not gona last two seconds against Dabi! That's what our allies are for! Dragunov can pump him full of lead until he has more holes than swiss cheese!"
"As long as I'm not gonna be paired up with her again, I do suppose you're right."
"AFO told me to pick the right allies, and that's what we're doing right now. Of course we're no match against Dabi, that's why we have to get the best person for the job! Just like you calling in Nemoto some days ago!" Tomura said, standing tall and proud, already thinking about the praises to be showered to him by All for One once he gets back. "Okay, proceed."
"Okay, here we go." Spinner cleared his throat. "And then as we proceeded, Dabi starts speaking some random sh** I don't understand, with all the yelling going on around us. But I do remember one thing, and that is all the billboards with huge TV screens suddenly displayed Dabi's speech."
"Damn… after the satellites not working for two months, here they come with solid connection?"
"You won't believe the insane lack of lag!" Spinner raised both hands. "IT Guy's technology is no joke! I can hear Dabi's speech, and digital billboards playing said speech, at the EXACT same time. You would think there's at least a little bit of lag, but no!"
"What else did you see?"
"Okay I'm gonna let you connect the dots here, so here's what I know about the whole thing… The huge mansion raid started with Twice located in one of the upper rooms of the mansion, conveniently locked in. Hawks appeared in the exact same room without mistake. Dabi then conveniently walked into them and burnt Hawks, and said something until the hero stabbed Twice. All that is being recorded by Dabi's very convenient video recorder. The footage gotten from this is the one broadcasted by Chikazoku later on with some minor edits. And get this: Chikazoku used to go on and on and on about how good of a member Hawks is, and how Twice is irreplaceable."
"Wow... IT Guy's really planned out everything… I wouldn't be surprised if he really did plan Kizuki's murder."
"Not only that, I remember Chikazoku even blaming Twice seconds after the heroes rolled in. He was literally yelling into the mansion loudspeakers about everything being Twice's fault. The guy planned everything! I'm sure of it!"
"Is that it? What about Toga?"
"About Toga…" Spinner nodded before continuing. "Back in the PLF HQ, I could recall snippets of Chikazoku repeatedly 'borrowing' and 'returning' Toga's bloodsucker equipment, it's like he's installing upgrades in them or something…" Spinner's voice trailed off, one hand going up his chin. "Toga got a gear upgrade and the rest got nothing… something's not right."
"Man… What the hell… It's like he's the true leader all along…" Tomura's voice trailed off as he began pacing back and forth in his room again, his mind randomly switching between topics. "Are you saying he still has his functional satellites and he's still not helping us back when we're in that cave? AFO had to use human spies while he had his satellites all along? Why didn't he set them up?! He EVEN DARED to go against All for One?!"
"Guy's got balls of steel, I give him that." Spinner shook his head. "Now that I see it… remember our Machia training before we went to Deika? Dabi's always going away right? I don't think he's really recruiting, he's probably already contacting the IT Guy… I wonder if he's also already making contact with Hawks as well…"
"We got ourselves a massive mystery to solve, how come you're just only piecing information now?"
Spinner shook his head. "To be fair, I'm not really the thinking type."
"Fair enough. The good part is that at least we're done with some of the details. But even then, there's still one piece of the puzzle we can't figure out…"
"What's that?"
"The reasoning behind Kizuki's assassination."
…
…
******************[Day 45]********************
Tomura walked through the mostly-empty halls of UA, fully remembering the words Spinner said to him about talking to Kizuki way earlier than what Beros intended. The date they set up for the talk is already 4 days ago, with nothing done on their part. He was fully expecting Spinner to remind him, but based on the looks of things, Spinner himself already forgot the exact date as well.
He turned his head to look at the wallclock hanging nearby, taking note of the short arm pointing at 5.
Raising up his right gloved hand, Tomura wiped his tired eyes. He hasn't got a good night's sleep ever since fully processing Spinner's story about Dabi, Toga, and Chikazoku. While the tall lanky man's possible plans of turning against them looked stupid and nonsensical at first glance, but it could also mean that Chikazoku had the means to defeat All for One. He doesn't know if that's even possible, but nonetheless he was terribly worried for his adoptive father.
The one fact that AFO already hasn't visited him in weeks brought him a great deal of worry.
Tomura involuntarily brought up a gloved hand and bit on it, the other free hand once again beginning to scratch his neck. He knew he still needs to talk to Kizuki, who thankfully seemed fine despite looking horribly traumatized by the Eviscerator incident a week ago, but that can wait.
Tomura kept walking forward, not minding where his legs would take him. Normally, at this time he would have been gaming again with Spinner, but he doesn't have the mood in the past few days.
His sight suddenly caught of Ishiyumi, still wearing school uniform, halfway up a tree and looking like she's trying to snap off a moderately-sized branch. Ever since Spinner's story, he's quite thankful for the sudden loss of strange feelings towards the girl, but he's not sure if it's because the rogue Quirk affecting him is now gone, or his mind is just filled with too much worry he hasn't got the space to feel anything else.
"Oh hey Shiggy-!" He heard the girl call out to him shortly before the branch she's trying to break snapped off, sending her falling down onto the grass. It got a chuckle out of Tomura, and he decided to change his direction and walk towards her.
"Got any developments on-"
"Just in time!" Ishiyumi said, her face in a pained expression as she tried to stand up again, still holding onto the stick. "I managed to get contact with Scissors just a while ago."
"What are you doing anyway?"
"I looked up a video how ancient people sharpen arrowheads and I'm gonna try it."
"You don't know how to sharpen arrowheads? Not to be mean but your Quirk is literally all about archery and you don't know how to sharpen arrowheads?"
Ishiyumi shook her head, holding up the stick. "Of course I know how to fabricate arrowheads, silly! I just wanna see how the early Quirkless people do it. See this rock?" the girl asked, bringing up a sharp rock to Tomura's view. "I'm going to sharpen this stick!"
"I don't think that rock is even as sharp as a dedicated carving knife."
"Whatever," the girl waved him off, one free hand reaching behind her and pulling out a phone, currently with a paused video on a tutorial on how to sharpen sticks with stones, before changing it with a few taps on the screen. "Lemme see if I can connect to Scissors again…"
"So I saw 'Scissors's' Quirk and uh… does he really bleed when using them? It looks kinda odd for a Quirk."
Ishiyumi slowly turned to face him, her face slowly turning into a look of confusion. "Bleeding? Like his arm-"
"His arm's all bloody. I saw he used his Quirk to put his arms back to normal and all the blood went back in. But some time later it just won't go back. Also Hatsume said something about Revenant-progenitors and called me Nullfier Gas Prime or something, and then there's also Chisaki-"
Ishiyumi raised a hand, instantly stopping him, face still stuck in a frown. "Bleeding huh? Hold on a sec – okay I'm connected."
"Ask him to-"
"Scissors. Shigaraki said your arms were bleeding during the Eviscerator incident, is that true?" The girl asked into her phone, immediately turning her back onto Tomura afterwards. "What? I thought- what do you mean it's not working right? Where's Tsutsumi? I want to speak with her, NOW."
"Is there something bad? I mean Revenant looked kinda dizzy when he brought us back here but I just assumed it's just part of how his Quirk worked-"
"Shigaraki, silence for a bit, okay?" Ishiyumi turned her attention back to the phone.
Tomura stood where he was, keeping silent while the older girl kept talking on her phone, her voice sounding like a mixture of frustration and confusion. With nothing to do as of yet, he walked some distance away and sat on an empty bench.
His mind drifted off to the planned conversation with Kizuki - that was supposed to have been done four days ago. So far they have substantial proof that Chikazoku is a backstabber, but a small piece of the puzzle still remain – who is Kizuki? And why did Chikazoku have her killed off? Why didn't the PLF react to her absence? How did she splatter in a world of Backforce?
"Shigaraki!" Tomoe called out as she ran towards him. She eventually positioned herself on the right side of the bench he's sitting on.
Tomura was about to say something when the older girl immediately handed him her phone, with a call from Revenant still ongoing.
"Oh hey Scissors!" Tomura said after placing the phone to his ear, "so uh we're gonna need your help with Kizuki and some investigations and stuff. It's about something that happened in the real world. What do you say to that?"
"Shigaraki, we're kinda busy right now…" Revenant answered back, sounds of ruffling faintly being heard. "But real world stuff, you say?"
"Uh yeah?" Tomura glanced a bit towards Ishiyumi and gestured to her that the call's not yet finished. "We figured since you're kinda close to Kizuki maybe you'd be interested."
"I thought Dai- I mean Beros's already in?"
"Well yeah but we could use some more people since uh… I think we're gonna be facing up against powerful enemies… and maybe some pyromaniacs, especially powerful pyromaniacs… and I don't like pyromaniacs."
"Tomura, I'm really busy right now but I'll inform Beros if ever I can drop by- Okay gotta go."
The phone suddenly beeped twice, indicating Revenant ended the call from his side. Tomura slowly lowered the phone and handed it over back to the older girl. "He said he'll inform you if ever he could drop by," he said.
"Have you been sleeping, Shiggy?" Tomoe narrowed her eyes and bent down to get a good view of the boy's troubled face. "Look, I may not know about your whole 'Midoriya-alternate-universe' thing-"
"Nah it's not about Midoriya. Just a few days ago Spin remembered some things that added more proof that Chikazoku orchestrated the downfall of the PLF, as well as collaborating with Dabi… And now both are conveniently out of school, and Toga too."
"Are you saying-"
"Beros, I don't know if you really believe me on the entire 'alternate reality' thing but… those three? Dabi, Toga, and Chikazoku are definitely up to no good. I don't care they're only sixteen, when one of them has the gall to go against a supervillain, and that's not to be taken lightly."
"Intriguing, I must say-" Tomoe nodded to herself, only halfheartedly taking in what Tomura said. She was about to speak again when the boy suddenly stood up and started walking away. "Hey where are you going?"
"I'm gonna find out how that narcissistic computer nerd connects to Kizuki's murder."
Author's Note:
It's kinda strange seeing every villain in the final battle… and then noticing that Toga is the only one with a significant equipment-upgrade. This is my only explanation for that:
Skeptic: Hey Toga!
Toga: Hey Skeptic!
Skeptic: Thanks for killing Curious! Here's your reward!
Toga: Hooray for no consequences!
Skeptic: Also I still have my satellites that I only activated after AFO left the cave! Har har har!