A/N: Thank you to all of you for the support last chapter on Class Rep Izuku- seems to have gone down reasonably well! Thank you also to those of you kind enough to give me a gentle reminder that my memory of canon was ever so slightly incorrect, and that the Combat Training was not on the same day as the Quirk Apprehension Test. Oops. That's my bad.
Anyway, non-Izuku chapter this time around, the first of two in a row- this is primarily to stagger something which I've been teasing for quite some time, in the hope that I can maximise what I want to get out of characters without the length becoming ridiculous. You have been warned, it all gets a bit chaotic now.
Shout-outs are my thing at the start of each chapter, and I'm going to keep that up for the foreseeable future, although I'm now limiting myself to one per chapter. Thi week, it goes to someone who I met from the Ignite to the Call Discord server where Incident Zero has its own channel (join the Discord with the code, 52ZPKEg , if you dare). That's LifeOfMystery, aka Eevee, who has written a brilliant Dad For One story in "you can't help the things your heart longs for". I would love to write DFO at some point because it's one of my favourite headcanons (albeit not one appearing here), but "you can't help" is an excellent one for any of you who want to get your fix. Go check it out!
Anyway, time for some familiar faces, and the start of something I've been longing to write for a long time. Enjoy!
(***)
"Good morning Japan, it's Makoto Kobayashi here with the morning news."
The flat-screen television had been mounted on the wall of the meeting room as if to allow anyone who gathered in there to catch up with the world around them, in case some sudden incident changed their plans for the day ahead. Deep down he knew that there was some intelligence in having it up there; sometimes the media could get to a scoop faster than the Hero Network could alert the nearest Pros to the ongoing carnage. In reality though it annoyed him for one significant reason- his bastard of a mentor always dragged him in at the crack of dawn to catch that news, and as much as he wanted to be the best around, the morning news headlines served as a reminder that the old man's regime was brutal.
"It's been a difficult and chaotic few years since sweeping reforms to the Heroics system of this country were brought in, to great outcry and furious condemnation from many. At the time, this station took a vow to not be silenced in the face of whatever came after Incident Zero, and from that day we have reported every moment of madness, no matter how much pressure we have come under or backlash we have faced. If it has prompted outrage, then we have only ever asked that people look inwards as to why they feel outrage, and what they can do in response."
He snorted, taking a sip of the coffee that he had been provided on his way up by the man on the reception desk. At least this station had stuck to its guns and had reported exactly as it saw the whole time, no matter what shit had hit the fan. It was the last of the mainstream who dared to question, dared to dream, dared to step out of line if the line tried to divert them from the truth. It struck the perfect fine line of asking questions to hold to account, while not acting as a call to arms for any particular agenda. In the wake of everything going on, they were at least the only ones he had any respect for.
"One symbol of the rapid changes in our society has been the spreading popularity of one man's ideology, that the current system is full of too many Heroes unworthy of the name. In some ways, the Hero Killer Stain has developed a prophet-like status among many disillusioned with the new normal after Incident Zero, while drawing equal amounts of condemnation from those in authority and beyond for his violent methods. This station certainly does not condone the flagrant attacks on Heroes which have occurred at his hand, and the violence of copycats who seek infamy on a perverse off-shoot of Stain's own tenets."
He leaned back in his chair and shut his eyes, as the report carried on. Uwabami had been attacked a year ago, in such a way that Stain had permanently ended the modelling career of the Hero and made her retire from the public career; she had been fortunate to survive. Mount Lady, the asshole from Musutafu Station, had fallen recently, and the police had been in a frenzy at the suggestion that Stain didn't seem to be working alone. Both of them had prompted outcry at the time from the Commission and others in power, but… as wrong as it sounded, he could kind of see the point. Both of them valued personal gain and seeking the spotlight ahead of actually doing their jobs as Heroes and taking the bad guys out; both of them were a pale comparison on the sort of Hero All Might had been. It was another reason to climb the ranks; so that people had better things to look up to than people like them.
"Two days ago, however, a murder took place which shook our nation to its very core. The murder of a schoolboy in a dark alleyway on his way home from school, just hours after that same boy saved two of his classmates from a villain attack, shocked us all. No child of ours should be unsafe to walk the streets, or fear for their lives, and yet the parents of Denki Kaminari will face a future without a son who was hoping to apply to UA or Shiketsu. They have been robbed of their happiness, of a charismatic son who could light up a room even without his Electrification Quirk."
"Poor bastard," he muttered to himself, as the screen flashed up a couple of pictures of a blonde boy smiling and laughing with friends, a black lightning bolt mark in his hair. He didn't know the guy- he had never been to Saitama Prefecture in his life- and the guy had such a dumb grin on his face in the pictures, but he had nothing but respect. The guy had stepped in when nobody else was going to, and helped protect people, and for what? To find himself murdered hours later, when he could have been something better.
Denki Kaminari could have been him, and the thought made him grimace for a second.
"Now, in a shocking turn of events, we have received reports from the Police and Pro Heroes assigned to investigate the murder, which could create a possible link to the Hero Killer. Colleagues from our sister station at Shoowaysha Live News have shared their interview with the Lion Hero Shishido, assigned to the case, who had this to say."
His eyes twitched at the mention of Shoowaysha, but only for a moment, as the imposing figure of Shishido appeared on screen. Shishido had been floating around the Top Ten on the Hero Billboard Charts even before All Might had been taken, and it wasn't hard to see how he had made the Number Nine rank; even without that recognisable black mask of sharp teeth, Shishido's glare was ferocious. "At this time, no murder weapon has been identified, but we are able to say that Denki Kaminari was stabbed repeatedly with some form of bladed weapon. We do not have conclusive proof as to who may be behind this, but we are encouraging any party with information to come forward." He didn't hear the question that was asked, but there was a growl all the same from the clearly pissed-off Lion Hero. "I told you already. Yes, the Hero Killer is a person of interest in this enquiry, as are a number of known dangerous criminals with similar methods. I cannot say more than that. Now get out of my way-"
The camera cut back to the news presenter in the studio, presumably before Shishido could murder a reporter live on air. "Reporting to you that the Hero Killer has gone after a Pro Hero would not be a surprise to any viewer, but if the rumours circling the murder investigation are found to be true, then a supposed righteous warrior for a better society has proven himself a fraud. There can be no justification for an unprovoked attack on a school child with dreams of making our future a better place, and whoever is responsible must feel the full force of the law-"
Katsuki Bakugo had had enough, and reached over to the remote which Endeavor had left lying on the glass meeting room table, muting the news report as they began to talk about other possible suspects. "There's no fucking way it was him."
Burnin had her feet up on the table, sat across from him in the room, and raised an eyebrow at him. "You're pretty sure for someone who hasn't seen any of the actual evidence."
"Nah. No chance. There's enough idiots out there who take a version of his ideas to justify their own fuck-ups, but him?" Katsuki shook his head. "Nobody happy enough to call himself the Hero Killer is going to undermine his own cause by killing some dumbass schoolkid without any good reason. And you heard what the kid was up to, right?"
"Yeah. Apparently two of his classmates were gonna get mugged if he hadn't stepped in and stopped the villain." Burnin looked over to the muted television, and the pictures of the grinning idiot whose life had been taken far too soon. "Could have been you, if the Boss hadn't been around that day."
Katsuki paused, because she had said aloud exactly what he had been thinking a moment ago. Not many things shook him, and even if they did he tried his best not to show it, but he failed to suppress the cold shiver that went down his spine. At least she didn't see it. "... Could have been me. The wrong people got to him, huh?"
"And now those poor parents lost their only child." Burnin looked back at him, and Katsuki couldn't help but see the flash of sorrow in her eyes, flickering in the light caused by her flaming hair. "He might have done alright too. He seemed like a good kid."
"Not just a good kid. Stain would look at someone like that and see them as a good Hero in the making, because he couldn't just stand by and let things happen." Katsuki made a fist. "There's no way Stain is behind that. He would kill shitty Pros to make a gap for someone like him to fill, and be a better Hero than them."
"Let's face it, neither of us have been involved with that case, and if the Commission are crawling all over it then the Boss isn't gonna get to wade in on it either. That said…" Burnin lifted her feet off the table, and nodded to him. "Alright, say you're onto something, Ground Zero. What's your hunch if it ain't Stain?"
"Hell if I know. The fact the reporter there is from Shoowaysha got me thinking about that Kizuki bastard who came after me. If she's from the MLA, and they're all over this scoop too, then part of me thinks they might be trying to scapegoat someone as a cover up."
"But you don't think that, do ya?"
"Nah. I think Shoowaysha just saw a scoop, and got there ahead of everyone else. I don't think they're driving it. I'm paranoid about them, but if I'm being honest…" He shook his head. "Their whole thing is free Quirk usage, right? They're the sort of people who would encourage vigilantes because it fits their whole ideas, not kill a kid for trying to be one. Unless it's some sort of false flag to try to push the Commission to crack down more, but then that defeats the point if they've got people inside the Commission…" Katsuki looked down at his coffee, and then back across the table. "... It's way too early for a conspiracy theory like that."
Burnin smirked, and stretched her arms out with an exaggerated yawn. "I'd say you get used to the early mornings with Endeavor, but we're all just running on caffeine and nervous energy at this point."
"Wow, thanks for the fucking pep talk. Really put me at ease." Katsuki rolled his eyes as she laughed. "Seriously though, I dunno what happened with that kid. I could spend all day thinking about conspiracies, like whether the MLA got involved, whether the Commission did it so they had a reason to crack down more on the villains, but honestly? I don't think the Police and Shishido have a clue who did it, or we'd all know by now."
"You know, it's ironic." Burnin looked at him with a challenging look in her eyes. "You don't want to get paranoid and spend your life coming up with things the MLA might be responsible for. I told you that saving ordinary people had to be our priority, and we couldn't let them get to us. And yet, here we are, waiting for the Boss to turn up so you and I can convince him that he needs to let us go after the smallest lead possible that might be linked to the Army."
"We're both too stubborn to let it go, that's why." Katsuki grinned at her. "And you didn't have to come with me if you didn't want to. I might not listen, but you're not following your own advice either."
"Someone's gotta save your sorry ass if things go wrong, haven't they?" she replied, not disgusing her snark in the slightest. "And anyway, you might be onto something. If this works, we can get intel, and go kick some MLA ass. How could I possibly turn that down?"
"Heh. It almost sounds like you were saying I had a good idea there, Bed Head."
"Don't let it inflate your ego any more than usual, Bomberman. It's a surprise to me as much as anyone that you're not just a pretty face."
"... That feels so wrong coming from you." Katsuki made a face, and hated the victorious cackle that it prompted from the older woman. "Gross."
"One of these days I've gotta wingman you, remember?" Burnin's grin grew wide and mocking. "Didn't you tell me that vigilante you let escape was a girl? Maybe she might want to say thank you to the dashing young hero who let her get away-"
"Shut it or I swear I'll blow you out the fucking window-"
"You couldn't even get close enough to try, shortass-"
"Do I employ sidekicks and apprentices, or middle school children?" For a towering man, Enji Todoroki could move surprisingly quietly, and Katsuki very nearly let his shock show on his face as Endeavor strode through the door into the meeting room. Normally when in his Hero costume, it was easy to sense Endeavor's arrival from the blast of hot air that emanated around his flaming beard, but his mentor had deactivated Hellflame this morning for whatever reason, walking around with a pissed-off look on his face and closing the meeting room door behind him. "I'm pleased you both get along so well, but talk about those… sorts of things when we're not on duty."
Katsuki couldn't help but smirk at how uncomfortable Endeavor was when even mentioning that type of conversation; clearly the lack of close relationships with his own kids had meant he had not had practice in those sorts of conversations before. "Blame Kamiji. Woman has no filter."
Endeavor looked distinctly unimpressed at Katsuki's attempt to divert blame, as he reached for the television remote and switched it off, unwilling to be distracted. "Sometimes, you are both the best partnership in my Agency, and the most annoying to deal with."
"And you wouldn't have us any other way, right Boss?" Burnin asked with a snigger, as Endeavor slid into his chair at the head of the meeting table.
"Don't flatter yourselves." Endeavor huffed, and Katsuki could have sworn he saw smoke coming out of the man's nostrils for a moment. "I'm glad you're both here. I'm going to need both of you to help with the Uraraka Construction issue."
Katsuki shared a look with Burnin across the table. Great. Of all the things they had to try to get Endeavor to back down on, it had to be the one issue which had got him into a bad mood for several days, the one issue he appeared to have taken personally.
The scale of Endeavor's operations as the Number One Hero weren't, in all honesty, a surprise to Katsuki when he accepted the deal to become his Apprentice. After all, in his heyday All Might's network was vast, spreading out from Might Tower across the whole of Japan; there were whole police departments in each region dedicated as liaisons to the Symbol of Peace, whole law firms designed to help those he rescued and offer their services free of charge in prosecuting the criminals All Might apprehended. He didn't even need more than one sidekick to sustain that network (although Sir Nighteye was someone whose sheer intellect intimidated even Katsuki at times), a network which drove society forward.
Endeavor had inherited what remained of this when the mantle became his, all the connections and companies vying for his attention, and bolstered it in the wake of changes to the law in ways that suited him best. All Might had a knack for minimising collateral damage (at least before Incident Zero), but Endeavor did not; it had not been a surprise to learn that Endeavor had contracted with several companies for building repairs to mitigate the damage he could otherwise do. It was smart to have people dedicated to just clearing up his mess, and Endeavor had found a small company who could somehow work ten times quicker than the competition and thrown all of his work at them. Uraraka Construction had become an essential cog in the machine that sustained Endeavor's Number One status.
That had made the recent events with Uraraka Construction all the more hard for Endeavor to take. Without any prior warning, an unknown group had abducted a guard, snuck themselves into the company offices, and raided pretty much every single file stored on the company's servers. Very few of the guards had been able to identify anything about the individuals in question except one, who had been identified from his masks as the renowned thief Mr Compress. Quite who Mr Compress had smuggled into the company with him remained unclear, but whoever it was had broken past the company's physical and online security like a knife through butter, and had left Endeavor fuming when it was reported to him hours later.
Endeavor's anger at being slighted had manifested into a single-minded determination to focus all of his energies on finding out what had happened and tracking down the thief, much to Katsuki's exasperation. He just didn't get it. If the documents were going to be used as a ransom, then Compress and his crew hadn't made contact to make demands, and they hadn't released anything to the media. Katsuki could only assume that was what Endeavor was seeking to avoid, but even then he didn't fully understand. A lot of Japan didn't like Endeavor anyway, and shared stories about how much destruction he caused in the line of duty; the documents on the Uraraka Construction servers would only confirm to be true which people suspected to be true already. Endeavor could ride out damage like that, easily.
The only explanation which Katsuki could come up with was that the old bastard had taken it personally. Endeavor's pride at becoming Number One and his determination to make a success of the position he had inherited were a huge driving force, and now some upstart thief had wandered into the heart of his operations and grabbed a load of files which could set back that hard work. If that story had leaked from elsewhere, Endeavor would have just angrily rebutted reporters for a week until the furore died down; it had to be solely because it was something close to Endeavor that had been targeted which was making the Flame Hero want to make somebody pay.
Endeavor had carried on while he was thinking to himself. "... so I'll need both of you to attend the offices today and speak to the Urarakas. The guards have all been spoken to by the Police before, but they haven't spoken to the people running the company, for reasons I cannot understand. Tread carefully, because the work they do for me is valuable, and reassure them that this won't affect our relationship, but I need to know from them if there is anything we have missed which might assist us in catching this thief."
"Huh… right."
Endeavor sensed Burnin's hesitation in response to his instructions, and leaned forward in his chair, as if studying her. "Kamiji. You have something on your mind? Whatever mission you're working on, I would ask you to make sure it can wait until-"
"What if we told you that we had found a lead to the Meta Liberation Army?"
Katsuki's harsh interruption stopped Endeavor in his tracks, and the Flame Hero's beard finally ignited; it didn't take a genius to work out that what Katsuki had said had gotten under his skin. "... Bakugo. I understand you want to take them on, but now is not the time-"
"We think Slidin' Go is one of their members." Katsuki wasn't about to be deterred that easily. Not in the face of what he had seen in the confrontation in Musutafu. "We ran into him with the hostage situation at that bar. I thought he was just another extra sent by the Commission to take credit for what we did, but he used their words. He wouldn't say Quirk, not once."
"He's not the only one who spotted it," Burnin spoke up, nodding at him reassuringly. "I caught it too, although not before Ground Zero. He constantly made reference to people's powers the whole way along."
That sentence gave Endeavor pause for thought, if only just for a second; the brief clouding of uncertainty in his eyes didn't go unnoticed. "Kamiji. I put you with Bakugo as my best sidekick. I thought we discussed that you would talk with him about not getting caught up with the MLA."
Burnin very briefly preened at the praise. "I know you did. But the kid's got one hell of a brain and he's nearly as stubborn as me. He's got us a potential lead, and we wanted to follow it up, because if the MLA have turned a Hero inside the Commission-"
"Then that is a sensitive matter. One where we would have to tread very carefully. One which should not be left to my Apprentice to spearhead as his first major operation since joining my Agency." Katsuki tried to bite back in response to this, but Endeavor steamrolled on. "I will look at this matter further and decide how best to proceed. Right now, you both have bigger priorities-"
"What, cleaning up the mess at Uraraka Construction and finding your dirty laundry takes priority over the MLA?" Katsuki barked a laugh. "Gimme a break. How is that a priority?"
Endeavor's beard flared up with an even stronger fire, and the heat coming off of his glare was intense. "Careful, boy. Mind your tongue."
"Oh, like that's supposed to scare me off, old man?" Explosion crackled in his palms as a reflex, as he leaned forward to meet the glare. He wasn't going to back down on this. "You were the one who told me about the MLA and brought me up with what they're doing. You told me how big a threat they could be. And now when I come to you saying we've got a lead that we can act on, to try and stop them if they're getting insiders into the fucking Commission, you don't want us to look into it. And because of what? Because some extra thief with a flashy Quirk stole a few secrets basically everybody knows about anyway? Because your ego can't take that someone else stole a petty victory from you?"
"Boss," Burnin pleaded, cutting in before he could get any angrier at what Endeavor was saying, "what's done is done at Uraraka Construction. You've got Kido, Onima and a bunch of the others already looking at it. But everything you told us about the MLA, we can't keep letting stuff slip when it comes to us. We have to start doing something to try and stop 'em, or we're just letting 'em walk all over us!"
"You too, Kamiji?" Endeavor's eyes kept flitting between the pair of them. "Seriously? If what you two are saying is true, and you do find that he has Army connections, then what? We would be declaring war on both the Commission and the Army if we brought him in-"
"And if he is their inside man, and we leave him to do whatever he wants, then when we come back to this later he might have others he's recruited to their cause." Katsuki stood up now, fists balled, and glared at Endeavor. "We don't have as many allies as we want, we're outnumbered anyway. Tough shit. Let's work with what we've got, follow a lead when it comes up, and maybe we can stop things getting worse before they get out of control."
"..." Endeavor held Katsuki's gaze for what seemed like years, embers of Hellflame flickering in his field of vision, before he dropped it first. "You both have no intention of dropping this, do you?"
"You put the two most stubborn assholes in the Agency together, and you expect either of us are gonna quit?" Burnin shot Katsuki a look, and he could see how brittle her smile was, how nervous of upsetting her mentor and employer she was under the surface. "The time is right, Boss. I get how pissed off you are with the Uraraka thing, but… we've got to take this chance while we still can. If he's their only guy on the inside, we can get the Commission on side, and then we have allies to break the MLA. We can turn the whole thing around on them now!"
"You really wanna live up to All Might?" Katsuki thumped his chest. "Then start acting like him. You're fucking Endeavor, the Hellflame, the Number One Hero. All Might never backed down from taking on supervillains when he was Number One. Why the hell are you?"
There was a long and pregnant pause as Endeavor fixed his glare on Katsuki, the temperature in the office room rising because of Hellflame; Katsuki could feel the sweat glands in his hands starting to ache from the tension, and Burnin's hair couldn't stop flickering as a sure sign that under the surface she was nervous about how their boss would react. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Endeavor breathed out, and when he next spoke his voice was the rumble of a volcano on the cusp of eruption. "... So that's how you're both going to talk to me? Fine. Then you'd better listen to what I have to say next."
As Endeavor stood up abruptly, shoulders squared and jaw set, he turned to the door of the meeting room and opened it again. Burnin's composure broke much before Katsuki's own. "Wait, Boss, what are you-"
"Kamiji! Bakugo! For once in your lives, listen to my orders and do as you're told!" Endeavor's shout was bellowing, echoing down the corridor, and from the way in which the horse-headed sidekick Aouma jumped up, it was clear that the rest of that floor of the office could hear the Number One dressing them down. "I want you on that train to Mie Prefecture in the next half hour, or you'll be on a desk for the next month! Is that understood?"
"Yessir," Burnin groaned, somehow managing to stand up out of her chair and slump dejectedly at the same time. "Worth a try, Katsuki."
"You're seriously gonna-" Katsuki began to ask, beginning to walk over to the door, before he was stopped by a flaming fist being held up in front of him, stopping him in his tracks. "Wait.."
Endeavor's face didn't change from the furious glare. "You are not to mess this up. This is our first lead for where that thief Compress was hiding, and you will make sure no stone is unturned so that we can find him. That is an order!"
As Endeavor waited a second, glared at Aouma, and then shut the door behind him, Katsuki took a seat, much to Burnin's confusion. "Wait. You have a lead for where the thief was based? How come you didn't tell us before-"
"Because he's not sending us to Mie Prefecture," Katsuki interrupted, surprised that the sidekick wasn't caught up like he was. "They're not our orders."
"Oh, they are." Endeavor paused for a second, waiting for Aouma to turn around at his desk again and stop staring through the glass, and then snorted. "Officially, anyway."
"... Ohh." Realisation finally caught up with Burnin, and Katsuki was amazed that for a sidekick of several years, she hadn't caught onto what game Endeavor had been playing, making sure that others heard where they were supposedly being sent. "Thank you, Boss-"
"I'm not pleased that you two didn't leave this to me," Endeavor interrupted, holding up one meaty finger to silence them both. "I'm not pleased that you seem to have made your own minds up, nor am I pleased that I have to now throw my Apprentice into undercover work. But… I can't argue against what you're saying."
"Slightly higher priority than a few missing files, huh?" Katsuki asked, deliberately not looking at Endeavor to avoid being caught under any glare.
"I have… taken the Uraraka matter personally. It remains my priority, because no matter what people already believe, it would do a significant amount of damage to people's faith in their Number One Hero if they were released and confirmed suspicions. But that is no excuse to leave the MLA alone, not after all the work we put into them." The flames on Endeavor's fist died down, finally. "You know what your orders are officially. Get on that train to Mie Prefecture. What you do after that, unofficially… should be whatever you need to do to confirm whether your suspicions are correct. And whatever actions you need to take if they are correct."
"Been a while since I did undercover, but…" Burnin's face flickered with determination and gratitude in equal measure. "Thank you, Boss. I'll keep the kid safe, and I won't let you down."
"You don't need to babysit me, Bed Head," Katsuki groused. "I can handle myself."
"I hope so. For both of your sakes." Endeavor looked over at both of them, his face unreadable. "I did not sanction this, and if you two are caught, I cannot help you with what is to come. But if you are right, and you succeed, and we stop the MLA's access to the Commission, then… I will promote both you the second you step foot back in the Agency."
"Promote me? What, to my Provisional Hero Licence?" Bakugo smirked, palms crackling with anticipation. "Bring it on. What does she get-"
"Full Hero status…" Burnin's awestruck tone made him pause, as something flickered on her face. "You'd… really promote me from sidekick?"
"You've been leading the Sidekickers long enough to stand on your own two feet." Endeavor nodded to her, a simple gesture. "Bring me something to hit the MLA with, and I'll make you a partner Hero in this Agency. As you've always wanted."
"... Yes, sir." Burnin turned to Katsuki, and all of her emotion was so easy to read, the look of yearning that could only come from years of patiently waiting and working towards that very goal. "Katsuki? Don't you dare fuck this up for me now."
"You and me, against one shithead Commission Pro who doesn't know we're after him?" Katsuki smirked at her, and enjoyed the way his unofficial partner's eyes lit up. "He's not got a chance in hell."
"I hope not." Endeavor's face twitched ever so slightly, and it took Katsuki a moment to recognise that the corners of his mouth had broken their poker face ever so slightly to allow a brief smirk. "Now get moving. You have a train to catch, don't you?"
"Choo choo, boss." Burnin gestured to Katsuki as she leaped on the spot, clearly excited. "Ground Zero, your undercover operations training begins today! Try to keep up!"
"On it." Katsuki rose, saying nothing further as he walked towards the door and behind the back of Endeavor. Their meeting hadn't gone at all how he expected, considering that he hoped Endeavor wouldn't have needed such convincing in the face of the threat they were facing. They had been presented with a chance, slim as it might have been, to find out something crucial and strike at the Meta Liberation Army, and Katsuki Bakugo knew that when it came to villains like them, he'd take whatever he could get.
They would make good use of the rest of the day, now. They had surveillance to plan.
"Bakugo?"
Katsuki turned at the call of his mentor, staring at him from the chair in the meeting room with his arms folded. "Huh?"
Endeavor blinked, and nodded his head so slightly that Katsuki almost missed it. "... I hope you're right."
… Yeah. Katsuki hoped he was too.
(***)
By day, the area around the train station in Musutafu was bustling. Even when the city wasn't caught up in the peak of rush hour, when crowds would pour off of the platforms and down into the city to start the day of work, this part of the city never felt like it slowed down. It was an impressive sight, not least in a part of the city which didn't have any significant police presence or any notable Hero Agencies in the neighbourhood; a sad fact of life after Incident Zero was that in most cities, it was all too normal to see the area around the police stations being busier than anywhere else. In Musutafu, by day, the shops swung their doors open and the cafes welcomed people of all tastes, and nobody thought anything of it. It was, to all intents and purposes, a very normal (if very busy) neighbourhood.
By night, most of these people in the immediate vicinity of the station stayed indoors, and didn't ask too many questions. It was easier that way. Best not to complain about the anti-social bass track which could felt on the ground floor of every building, emanating from the nightclub on the corner. Best not to question why the delivery drivers from one restaurant were removing their helmets and putting on masks before entering. Best not to wander into the alleyways full stop. They didn't control the entire district, but they encouraged enough fear in people that most were happy to mind their own business and not cause trouble for fear of the repercussions.
The Yakuza were getting a lot more comfortable, in a world without All Might, and the Shie Hassaikai were no exception to this.
In the close vicinity of the train station, opposite some shoddy-looking cafes and a vacant office block which had formerly housed a now-defunct game developer, the warehouse lay. It had opened only a couple of years before, and people didn't pay it much attention during the day, a mundane and faceless warehouse where the workers unloaded fruit and vegetables and looked bored as they did so. In the nighttime, that was where the more interesting deliveries arrived and left; the sealed crates in trucks with changing number plates, the deliveries that prompted armed guards in masks to stand on the gates and prompted everyone else to leave the warehouse undisturbed. The warehouse didn't have neighbours- the Hassaikai had made sure of that once they arrived- but even if it had, they wouldn't have dared open their mouths at what was going on.
"You wouldn't think this is the place they store so much of their Trigger, and ship it out from," Himiko commented to herself, staring at the warehouse from across the road through an expensive pair of binoculars borrowed from Spinner. Lying low on the floor on the second floor in the empty office block across the road, she had managed to get a decent view of what was going on, improved no end by the binoculars. "It looks so… unassuming."
"Unassuming is one thing," Stain said, sat behind her as he ran a rag over the long blade he carried as if polishing it for battle. In a way, he was. "Heavily guarded is another. Spinner?"
"They've… not got as many as I thought they'd have." Spinner shifted, using a desk for cover as he peered over at the warehouse with a pair of goggles he had acquired with money from a previous Yakuza bust. Himiko had to laugh, under her breath- the glass in the windows was frosted, so nobody in the warehouse would be able to see them, but Shuichi was still concerned about cover. "Two mid-tier officer types on the gate, and about six grunts loading. No sign of any of the Eight Bullets on site, or the boss. They won't leave until whoever is assigned to this shipment arrives."
"That should be…" Stain paused, brow furrowing above his hideous nose in thought. "Hejiki Tengai, if all our surveillance is correct."
"Quirk… Barrier. Really powerful shielding Quirk which is gonna be a right bitch to deal with." Spinner snorted, scaly fingers brushing over a blowgun which he had tied to the pack on his back. "We had to get the one who's Quirk can't be easily dealt with by ours, didn't we?"
"If the rest of the plan goes well, his Quirk shouldn't have a material bearing on stopping these criminals." Stain nodded, satisfied with the blade, and secured it. "Strange. They seem lax. Perhaps the fact it's the final shipment has made them soft to any concerns. That, or they just want to leave as quickly as possible."
"Lax?" Spinner asked. "There's still eight of them there, and one more to come-"
"But their captains are on the gates, not supervising the load," Himiko interrupted, focusing on the masked grunts loading a pallet into the back of the truck. It amazed her that they had managed to produce so much Trigger- they could flood the market with that easily, and yet (thankfully) the number of incidents of Trigger-induced violence was comparatively low. "They're out talking at the front and aren't watching their payload, or their goons. They're not on guard."
"Sanguine sees what I do. This could work to our advantage." Stain nodded, and turned to face the open stairwell behind them. "What about the captains? Do we know anything about their Quirks?"
Himiko smirked under her breath at the use of the codename, and brushed a strand of black hair out of her face. Their preparations for this assault had taken some time, and she had been looking forward to it for quite some time, but since her decision to join UA she and Stain had both realised that she couldn't just join without taking precautions. As such, one of her last blood bags had been drained in its entirety to give her a new appearance, some random live donor to a Kyoto hospital, and so the black fringe and slightly protruding chin of a stranger gave her sufficient comfort.
Even with that, Stain had insisted that they call her by another name so as not to expose her cover; she had no idea why he had suggested Sanguine, but it sounded cool and started with an S, so it worked for her.
"The captains…" When Himiko had first discovered the warehouse, she had been able to make the most of the abandoned offices and give her a hideout to watch and learn. Over several trips (under several different faces), she had learned enough about some of the regular members of the Shie Hassaikai, the officers below the Eight Bullets who ran things on the ground, watching and listening and even using one's blood to get a walking tour of the warehouse and map things out. Izuku sharing his insights from his Quirk notebooks and granting her access to some had inspired her to up her own game, so her analysis game had improved herself. "For sure."
She trained her sights on the first, a tall and dark-skinned young man with his head shaved at the sides and a long top. He appeared to be quite animated, angrily gesticulating with muscly arms as he talked and with his scowl framed by straggly facial hair. "The guy is Gokami Kurotoko. He's one of the older ones around here, and kinda idealistic- wants the Yakuza to come out of hiding and take control of more things. His Quirk is Shadow Boxer- literally, he can pull up his shadow behind him and use it as a human shield to fight with. It can only copy his movements, and it struggles with bright light."
"Kinda ironic for a guy who hates the Yakuza being in the shadows that his Quirk works best there," Spinner said, with a snort. "Does he not realise how easy they all have it at the moment? Barely anyone comes after them."
"Except for us. We will change that tonight." Stain nodded solemnly to himself. "Who is his companion?"
"Oh, her." Himiko moved slightly to take in Kurotoko's companion, a young and skinny girl clad all in black, with dyed black hair and pale skin. She was very short, even standing in tall platforms next to Kurotoko, and had a bored look on her face as he ranted next to her. "Nijisei Shinpika. She's good. She only joined them recently when she started at university, but she's apparently quite strong and quite popular. She's an outside contender for the vacant slot in the Eight Bullets, I think."
"So she's potentially serious business," Spinner mused. "She's probably the one calling the shots right now. Quirk?"
"Flashbang," Himiko replied, with a groan. "It has a recharge time I can't work out, but she can shoot light flashes from her palms. I didn't think it was a strong Quirk until I saw her get into a fight with one of her subordinates. Getting blinded by that isn't gonna be fun."
"So we neutralise her first." Spinner laughed suddenly, under his breath. "A Shadow Quirk affected by light, paired up with a light flashing Quirk? These guys really are on vacation already. Those power sets don't mesh well at all."
"It may not be so simple," Stain replied. "We face a dilemma in taking them on. Keep the Flashbang user awake for longer and it may help us with the Shadow Boxer, but affect our vision. Take her down fast, and we lose a natural ability to weaken Shadow Boxer. We have to be quick with both of them."
"We can manage quick," Spinner muttered, before something caught his eye and made him start. "Sanguine. We have incoming. Check out the car."
"Oh? Is it Tengai? We can move if he's here ahead of schedule." Stain didn't move from his position, continuing to keep watch behind them as the youngsters took point, but the interest was clear in his tone. "The best result of tonight is if we can claim one of the Shie Hassaikai lieutenants. As soon as Tengai arrives, we move."
"Uhhh…" Himiko's eyes widened as she stared at the car pulling up outside the gates, and the distinctive occupant getting out. "Wait… Spinner, isn't he-"
"That's Mister Brave!" Spinner said, realising what she had a second later as the black-haired man got out of the vehicle and greeted the two Yakuza captains. "The Hero! Didn't he retire after Incident Zero?"
"I thought so," Himiko murmured, as the man bowed to Shinpika, a tattered red cloak around his shoulders from the glory days of his mainstream career as a Hero. "Hair Raiser, right? Hair swords?"
"Sheesh. These guys make Gecko look like a normal Quirk." Spinner shook his head at the display. "He's bowing to them… he seemed like such a decent guy when he was a Hero, and he's now meeting with Yakuza like this?"
"He's probably in their pocket, by now," Stain jumped in, the disdain in his voice obvious at the fake that had just arrived. "I heard that groups like the Shie Hassaikai were looking at Heroes for hire to turn a blind eye. Someone like him would find it easy to take the work and the money in a world like this."
"Makes me sick," Spinner said, reaching up to re-tie his copycat bandana for the fifth time since they had arrived. "It's one thing to give up on being a Hero at the worst time for the country, but to pretend to come back and associate with people like this? He's the lowest of the low."
"One of you two should take him," Himiko said, double-checking that her knives were secured in the holsters on her thighs and in the lining of the tattered jacket she had borrowed. "If he's gonna rely on hair swords, one of you can beat him in a straight sword fight."
"I can do it." Spinner nodded across to her, reassuringly, before turning his attention back to the gate, and the animated discussion Kurotoko was trying to have with the former Pro Hero. "You and Stain take the shipment, after we deal with the captains. I'll handle the fake."
"A reasonable plan." Stain's voice seemed distant as he agreed, causing Himiko to pause for a second. "Tell me, Spinner."
"Boss?"
"We both agreed that tonight was a perfect opportunity to take advantage of, didn't we?"
"Uh, y-yeah. Why do you-"
There was an abrupt noise behind Himiko and Spinner, the sound of the floor creaking and a person shifting to stand upright, followed by the distinctive metallic sound of a sword shifting in its scabbard. "It seems we weren't the only ones who had that thought."
Himiko whirled at the same time as Spinner, the reptilian boy drawing his overly large sword as a reflex and her hands whipping to a knife, before her blood ran cold at the sight in front of her. She suddenly found herself very glad that she was wearing another's face, and that she had made sure to drink enough for the whole night, or things would have gone wrong very quickly. "Oh… no."
A blue-skinned woman with wide eyes and a shocked look on her face took a step back at the sight of the drawn weapons, going ever so slightly pale. "Th-The Hero Killer?! What is he doing here-"
"He must have come for the Yakuza, the same as us," an insectoid man in a very well-tailored suit replied, his mandibles appearing to click nervously as he talked. "That is… unfortunate timing."
"I must say, it is surprising. In all of my preparation for this excursion of ours... this was an unforeseen possibility." The leader of the group, tall and intimidating and oh so familiar to Himiko in that sharp suit, passed his companions without a shade of fear on his face. "Still, it appears there is no going back, if we want to succeed tonight. We must embrace this coincidence, and adapt."
"That's far enough." Stain hadn't fully drawn his sword, his hand resting on the hilt with an air of authority, and yet with such a resolute look on his face, that was all the threat he needed to make. It was the mark of the man that he could command such presence by doing barely anything. "What is your business here, Hero?
Sir Nighteye straightened up, adjusting his glasses, and made a little sound which from anyone else would have been a laugh, as Bubble Girl fidgeted nervously behind him and Centipeder's antennae twitched. "Funny, Hero Killer. I was about to ask you the same question…"
(***)
A/N: I HAVE BEEN BUILDING MYSELF UP TO THIS FOR MONTHS, YOU HAVE NO IDEA.
The Stain crew and the Nighteye crew reunion has officially started, months after I took my plan to this story I love and realised how much I loved the idea. I have wanted Stain to be a huge part of this world, raging in equal measure about the decline in hero society and the villains left unchecked. Having Nighteye with more agency and Stain on a warpath meant for me, this meeting was always destined to happen, and I cannot wait for what is to come!
As an aside, Sanguine as an adjective can mean "blood red", from the French "sang" for blood. I wanted something different to Carmine, which would be obvious for you manga readers and yet not the most original I could manage. And hey, it fits the S name theme!
No long authors note from me at the end this week, save to repeat my ever-insufficient thanks for the love and appreciation you show this story. We topped over 700 reviews because of last chapter, which is absolutely mind boggling in of itself- reading them and engaging with them is one of the most rewarding things as a writer and I cannot tell you grateful I am. Over 1200 of you have this favourited and we are even getting close to 1500 followers, and I say thank you to each and every one of you.
As ever, feel free to review if you enjoyed this (all I ever ask are no flames), and please consider a favourite/follow if you haven't already. I will see you all in a couple of weeks for Stain, Nighteye and the Yakuza continued!
Ya boy, out.
