A/N: I cannot quite tell you how much I've been looking forward to this chapter. You'll see why. But chapter 52 is here!
My real life has been incredibly chaotic recently, so I'm grateful to everyone for their patience as I blunder between real world deadlines and nearly missing the chance to post my fic. Just as a prior warning, I may end up shifting my upload schedule to once every three weeks in due course- I've got a lot of trials coming up for clients and some major legal exams, and something may have to give. Just wanted to do the PSA here, before I say anything else.
We hit 2,000 favourites on this story on Fanfiction. Seeing those sorts of numbers attached to one of my stories is baffling to me, and the fact it continues to grow is genuinely touching; I am very grateful to each and every one of you who spreads the word or comes into my inbox with something nice to say with a review or PM. When times are hard, as they frequently have been recently, you lot really know what to say to make a difference.
My shout-out this week (because I am trying to do one per chapter at the moment) goes to the inestimable, the incomparable, the unbelievable JajaLala. She's an absolute queen of character development and has got me involved in a Big Bang unlike no other, for which I can't wait to share the end product in time with you all. Go check out her work on AO3, although if you're not yet an adult there's uh… some stuff you probably shouldn't read. Oops. If you do read it and don't understand… don't ask your parents what it means.
Jaja and I share a love of one character in particular… and it's time for a debut.
(***)
"I just still can't believe that someone taught you to drive. You're the same age as me, right?"
Hitoshi, fingers drumming on the steering wheel, diverted his attention from staring up the road to look at his passenger in the seat beside him. "It's… not that weird, surely? Just because you can't pass your test until eighteen, it doesn't mean that you can't learn a little. Have you… never asked Stain? Or Spinner?"
The woman beside him in the passenger seat of the lorry they had acquired didn't look the same age as him. Then again, that was entirely down to Himiko Toga's Quirk; Hitoshi had never seen anything like Transform in his life, and the fact that the petite blonde girl his age had been able to transform into a black-haired mid-thirties woman with a hook nose and several kilos' more weight with just a small amount of blood was staggering. It was still hard not to show his surprise now at how consistent the illusion was. "Shuichi? Have you seen his driving? Mister Stainy can't drive, so he's got an excuse, but I still wanna qualify as a Hero. If Shuichi teaches me how to drive… I'll end up with more collateral than Endeavor."
Hitoshi snorted. He shouldn't have, because it was a joke how much Endeavor got away with and he was glad that his sons had released their expose online to try to take him down. But the girl's sense of humour was more like his own than he'd realised; it helped him feel a lot more settled into the group, even though he wasn't part of that strange semi-family dynamic that existed between her, Stain and Spinner. "Imagine that. Pro Hero Sanguine, qualifying as a Hero with a minus ranking because of all the people she ran over on the way to the Licencing Exam."
It was Himiko's turn to laugh, and it was strange hearing that in a voice that he knew wasn't her own. Transform was one of the most impressive things he had ever seen. "Okay, first of all, I told you you don't have to call me Sanguine when we aren't on mission! You're a friend now, so Himiko is fine-"
"You know that's not why I said it!" Hitoshi shook his head, staring back out onto the road. Friend? She got attached fast. She was nice and all, if a little bit shameless and a lot on the wild side, but he'd barely been with Stain's group for a week at most. It felt strange to call her by her first name and call her a friend, even if she insisted. "But go on, second?"
"Second is I'm definitely not calling myself Sanguine when I qualify. It's hard enough sneaking around to do this stuff in the dead of night, and getting up for class at UA in the morning! Imagine if they hear me pick the same name as some anonymous vigilante who just so happens to work with the Hero Killer?"
"Worry what happens if you get caught, not what happens when they make you pick your name before qualifying." That was another thing Hitoshi struggled to get his head around, when it came to his new friend. She didn't hold back one bit about talking about what was effectively her second life with him; perhaps because he was also young, and also had been in Hero education, she had grilled him about what the Commission taught their trainees at length. But in turn, he'd learned a lot about UA, more than he ever would have. And as for her friends…
There was something about her boyfriend, the one called Midoriya, which he wasn't allowed to know. That was fine, really, because he understood his place in their group since joining recently and helping Stain to declare war on the Hero Commission. But it had been let slip that Midoriya had been the target of the villains who attacked the USJ, and Hitoshi found himself wondering what was really going on. What would be so special about another fifteen-year-old that would make an ancient villain launch an unprecedented attack on the most high-profile Hero school in the world? That was a mystery he would definitely want to stick around for.
Still, he couldn't complain. He appreciated the fact that he even got to meet Himiko, because the Hero Killer revealing that he had an apprentice studying at UA was a bombshell of a revelation to trust anybody with. She'd been nothing but welcoming and accommodating of him, and they'd all joined together to make sure that they took the fight to the Hero Commission and did something about what his mother and the others were doing to society. It was a slightly more dysfunctional dynamic, but it beat being around Giran and only Giran for most of his days, as he had been before. He didn't miss the smell of cigarette smoke.
"We're not getting caught." Himiko's shameless assertion was a recipe for disaster, and Hitoshi found himself internally cursing. "The plan's simple enough to work without a hitch. And if Giran's intel is right-"
"It's always a big 'if' with Giran, trust me. He's the only guy I know who could convince Stain to buy his own sword off of him." Hitoshi flicked another look up around the corner. No sign of the vehicles. "Trust me."
"Yeah, yeah. I'm sure it'll be fine." Himiko removed a knife from a bandolier she was wearing in her current outfit- she had done this for at least four blades so far, and he was starting to think she had a fetish- and turned it over in front of her eyes, as if inspecting the edge for sharpness. "I just can't believe they come out here in the middle of the night and use this as a route. How do they think this is safe?"
"They don't expect to be ambushed." That much was obvious even to Hitoshi, in his relative inexperience. "They think they're safe like this."
They were wrong.
In an age of superpowered villains, there was a need for a specialised hell into which the most extreme and dangerous villains could be thrown, far away from where they could ever endanger the outside world. That was Tartarus' entire reason for being, built several kilometres away from the rest of civilisation on an island only accessible by one bridge. An assault on the high-security complex was impossible- it was hard enough to manage one on the Bronze Gate, the last barrier between the free world and those behind bars, but at the end of the bridge lay a labyrinth of reinforced walls and high-tech security measures. The point was clear to anyone; breaking into Tartarus was akin to committing suicide.
The Hero Commission knew that its residents would be targets. Whenever a villain was transported to become just another serial number on the list of prisoners, no expense was spared for the convoy to get them into Tartarus. Roads were closed, reinforced vehicles were deployed with military-grade escorts, and Pro Heroes remained on standby to cover off every angle, hitching a ride with the convoy and soaring high above in the case of those who could fly. It was a show of force, designed both to prevent anyone from interrupting and freeing their comrade at the last minute, and to impose upon those bystanders who watched it roll on by that the Hero Commission were in control. Nothing would stop them from ensuring that those who needed to be cast into the pit made it there, and the key would be thrown away.
There was one small problem with that, however. Tartarus had been built at the height of All Might's career, a modern triumph. That meant that in those days, enough villains were kept in check by the danger posed to them from the Heroes; hardcore members of the Symbol of Peace's rogue's gallery became residents, along with some of Japan's other most notorious criminals, but ever since Incident Zero things had been snowballing. More and more prominent threats were emerging and when captured, requiring similar detention. That meant one important thing…
Space needed to be freed up.
It wasn't common knowledge that any newcomer to Tartarus would be a participant in a great administrative juggling exercise, with space as a premium. It would have been a disaster for the Commission if the rumours of overcrowded prisons were substantiated, so they kept their efforts to manage that as low-key and quiet as possible. Some prisoners were too dangerous to risk ever moving; people like the Bladetooth Cannibal, the infamous Dictator, and the Water Hose Murderer would never leave. But when there were other dark corners of Japan to hide people in… others would be moved.
And that was the beauty of Stain's plan. It wasn't hard, in the end, to find intelligence about where their new recruit was- Giran had his ways, and that information was simple to find. But more telling was that their recruit was on the list of people to be transferred out of Tartarus, to Styx or one of the newer island prisons known as the Nine Circles. A convoy, under darkness, with limited resources attached to it in order not to divert attention, travelling through the outskirts of cities rather than through built-up urban areas…
Slowly, a plan had formed.
There would be three vehicles. One lead escort police car, containing a partnership of cops and a strong fighter in the back seats as a reserve; the Commission might have spared one of its lesser-known Pro Heroes as a passenger, or one of the infamous members of its riot squads known, contradictorily, for taking no prisoners. Then the main prison transport, all reinforced steel and fine Detnerat modifications to an armoured chassis, with one passenger in the front and a guard in the rear to supervise the prisoners. Then one final escorting cop car, the quickest vehicle of the three in case they needed to pursue; a driver and maybe only one passenger to worry about, but no more. A low-profile contingent, taking back roads and sharing their route with as few people as possible…
How Giran had worked out their route was beyond him. Hitoshi was still sceptical to a degree that this was anything more than a blind guess on Giran's part, and that this would be anything more than a waste of time. But supposedly their route would take them through an industrial estate, the warehouses empty and no workers around at this time; it was a well-lit route, as well as it would have been in the city, but there were still dark corners to hide in.
That's where they lurked. He and Himiko sat in the cab of a small lorry, the sort of vehicle that might help carry furniture on move-in day, draped in the shadows thrown by the side of the warehouse. On the other side of the same warehouse, he knew that Spinner did the same, waiting patiently for the signal from them or from Stain. And as for the Hero Killer…
There was a crackle of the small radio in Himiko's lap, following by a rattle of breath. Clearly their leader was excited. "They're here… the broker was right, after all."
Hitoshi hadn't even seen them coming, but Stain had a much better vantage point from the roof of the warehouse to see the convoy before him. He couldn't help but roll his eyes. Giran's knack for a good tip was almost suspicious. "Ready?"
"You're the one driving, not me." Himiko didn't give him time to retort before clicking the button. "Copy. We're ready."
"On your mark, boss." Hitoshi almost missed Spinner's call in over the noise of the engine starting. This was not an easy vehicle to drive, but fortunately he only had to do it a short distance, and fortunately the headlights no longer started up with the engine or they'd have ruined the plan immediately… Himiko's knife had proved quite a low-tech solution. "Let's hit 'em hard."
"On my mark. Spinner, hold strong until I can join the fight. Sanguine, keep the escorts busy. Snitch?" There was a momentary pause. "You know what to do. I'm counting on you to get through."
"Yeah, yeah." Hitoshi didn't turn on the radio, nodding to Himiko. "See you on the other side, I hope."
"Got it. Try not to get your head blown off on the first mission, 'kay? By the guards or… you know-"
"Yeah, thanks." As she clicked the button, he spoke up, seeing the headlights of the lead vehicle fast approaching. "Ready."
"Ready…" They had been waiting for an hour, but it was almost like the few seconds where the small convoy rolled closer were longer than all of the rest of it. Hitoshi brought one hand up to adjust the mask he had been given by Giran, brushing aside the thread of the red scarf gifted to him by Stain as he did so, before his hands came down for the gearstick and settled on the steering wheel ready to go…
God, he wished that they'd found an automatic. What if he stalled now?
The lead police car came past. "Mark!"
A wave of adrenaline washed through him as he stamped his foot down. To his great relief, the engine of the lorry roared, and to even greater relief he hadn't left the handbrake on, the old workhorse bouncing forward like it had been stung by a bee. His timing could not have been better, careening forward just as the van carrying the prisoners went past, and as he reached down to wrench at the handbrake and bring the lorry to a crashing stop, one look right told him that Spinner had timed it just as perfectly, planting his own lorry firmly between the prison van and the lead escort vehicle.
The speed at which they had pulled out was too much for the rear vehicle to handle. Hitoshi had braced himself slightly, but his face still nearly smacked against the window on his door when the police car smashed itself into the side of the lorry. There was a torturous noise of metal crunching, presumably the bonnet of that police car being annihilated by the impact, but their vehicle stayed firm. How Himiko looked like she hadn't even felt the collision was beyond him, but as his heart began pumping he turned back to look towards the warehouse they had driven out from…
Time slowed to a crawl as his eyes were diverted upwards, to the last member of their group. Stain was superhuman on another level, and right there and then it didn't matter how strong the glass of the van window had been when Detnerat signed it off after testing. Spinner would have called it the strength of his convictions, but whatever it was, the vengeance and fury that propelled him downwards turned him into a juggernaut. That notched and worn katana could cut through anything with the force of the man behind it, and it was stabbed straight down ahead of him, unerringly accurate and aimed for the passenger of the prison van…
There was a crash of glass, as Stain's righteous fury propelled his blade through the windscreen like there was no resistance at all, taking the passenger completely out of the fight in an instant. "Now! Move!"
"Got it!" There was an awful crash as Stain lashed out with a spiked boot, but Himiko didn't care. They were positioned perfectly, Spinner leaping out of the right of his cab to take on the passengers in the lead vehicle, and Himiko smashed the door open on her side to charge off towards the wrecked final car. "See you on the other side, Snitch!"
Hitoshi didn't wait to reply to her. He was already slamming his door out of the way and clambering down, stumbling slightly on the ground as he did so. "Stain!"
There was an agonised scream from the front of the prison van, identical to every expendable soldier in every movie ever made; the surrealness of it nearly made Hitoshi laugh, if not for the fact that a real person was the source of that. He tried not to dwell on that, as the head of the Hero Killer popped up over the top of the van. "No alarms. You're clear to engage."
"No interruptions?"
Stain jumped down from the hood of the van where he had been perched, and a bloody knife clattered down beside the tyres, as if proving his point. "Two down."
"One to go…" Hitoshi nodded, shooting him a quick glance and praying to any god out there that Stain didn't see any nerves in his eyes to doubt him. "I've got this."
"I know. We're counting on you, Snitch." Stain nodded, and Hitoshi knew that there was complete trust for what came next. He hadn't been with them long, but Stain knew how much all of it depended on him now… and it was time to prove it. "I must go."
"Yeah, Spinner needs you," Hitoshi called, but Stain already knew. With a wrenching sound and the tinkling of smashed glass, his fabled katana was pulled from the van and hefted, charging forwards towards the front vehicle where Spinner had engaged their enemy. Whoever it was had caused Spinner some trouble- Hitoshi heard a squawk from the reptilian boy- but they had a plan to stick to. Stain would help him with whoever he was fighting, and in turn…
There was one guard left for Hitoshi to deal with. And it could only be him to do it.
"Are you going to surrender?" Hitoshi felt himself fiddling with the mask Giran had left him as he spoke, turning all of the complicated filter mechanisms off. He couldn't risk any interference at this stage. This was the most crucial part of the plan, after all, because the Tartarus prison vans had been built with the expectation that Quirked individuals would come after them and try to liberate former accomplices, or assassinate captive rivals. Superpowers being rife meant that what he was stood in front of was effectively a fortress on wheels, a hulking lump of reinforced metal treated in god-knew how many different ways of countering particular Quirks.
Their drivers might have been vulnerable at the front, a necessity of vehicle design, but the Commission's vans had one trick up the sleeve in the event that something like this happened. It was effectively a dead man's switch, operated by the one guard in the rear of the vehicle; even if the driver and the guard up-front were taken out, the door could be locked from the inside in a way that could only be released by a key held by the solo guard in the rear. It wasn't a permanent solution, and perhaps firepower and time would have meant that the strongest villains could perhaps have found a chink in the vehicle's armour. But that was a big 'if' to rely on. Most of the time, villains would fall short, or retreat if it wasn't certain that they could hammer their way through before the police or other Pro Heroes arrived.
But there were other ways to succeed, ways only Hitoshi could manage properly. And that was the beauty of the plan Stain had discussed, the simplicity of all of it. It was a remarkable plan, one which meant that it could only be him who stood in front of the rear doors and put it into motion. And it was because only Hitoshi could manage it that he fidgeted so nervously, until he was certain that the mask would not interfere or distort his voice. He wanted absolutely nothing to get in the way and jeopardise why they came here. After all…
Why waste time trying to break down the enemy's walls, when you could make the enemy invite you in themselves? "Give up now, and we'll let you go back to the Commission without a scratch."
There was an anguished scream somewhere in the distance, most likely from somebody who hadn't seen Stain coming to back up Spinner, and there was a yell from Himiko's direction along with the clang of metal. Hitoshi didn't care about any of that. The world may as well have been silent for him, waiting for agonising seconds in front of those doors and waiting for the moment of truth that would- "You think I'm dumb? Like I'd believe tha-"
Bingo. Hitoshi felt the telling tug of Brainwashing taking hold, like a fish taking the bait and being lost forever, and smirked just a little. He was allowed to, in the circumstances. All their security, all the work the Commission had gone to in order to defend against villains' Quirks, and it was his own villain's Quirk that had carved through it so easily. As much as anything else, his mother would be furious if she found out, and that gave him joy. "Stay still."
After an awkward second of silence, testing the waters to see if there was any issue with the connection he had made, he nodded. Good. Brainwashing had never failed him in all of the years he had been taught to test it, whether by Sway or by the teachers in the Commission's own academy, but that didn't stop the creeping sense of paranoia he felt when the stakes were real and he deployed it for the good of a mission. That would, knowing his luck to date, be the exact sort of time when it would go wrong. "Take out your key for the dead man's switch. Unlock the rear door mechanism."
That was the moment of truth. The mechanism wasn't a complicated one to deploy from the driver's cab, but how it was unlocked afterwards was a leap of faith. Given that Hitoshi had never seen the inside of a Tartarus prison van before, the solution was an exercise in trust; Giran had more than enough connections to find somebody who would know how it worked, whether that was because they had built the van or been a passenger in one. And right now, Hitoshi was hoping and praying that Giran's intel was correct. Brainwashing had its limits, and if it required something as complicated as the guard entering a unique pin code on a device, that could have stopped them in their tracks…
Chunk.
Hitoshi let out a low breath, satisfied, but didn't take a step forward. Giran had been right, after all. A key held only by the guard, to prevent others from getting easily through the door. But if Giran had been right about the key, that meant that he was probably right about the lock… and that meant that he wouldn't be able to open it from the outside by grabbing the door. One final failsafe, one secret trick to catch out those who thought they were home clear and doom their allies by resealing the door. "... Push the rear doors open."
There was a muffled noise inside the van, and then to Hitoshi's great relief, the doors swung. If his friend Jiro were present, she would have described them as 'heavy metal', but she would have described the guard who strode out as even more so. Hulking, with muscles that seemed to have been carved from stone and enough piercings that he jingled as he stepped forward… it was a wonder that the sound of those didn't shake him from the reverie of Brainwashing. "..."
"Good work…" Hitoshi almost breathed that sentence out, as he took a look behind the brute. The sight made him swallow nervously; one van with two benches running along the side, and two individuals in prison jumpsuits with heads bowed and black fabric bags over their heads. A close look revealed the gleam of Quirk-suppressant cuffs on their wrists and on their legs, no chances spared with how they were treated. He… hadn't expected there to be two. That wasn't on their agenda. Strange. "Put down the key to the Quirk-suppressing cuffs on the floor behind you and step out of the van."
He had almost forgotten about the cuffs. That would have been just about right, after all their meticulous planning and preparation, if he forgot to leave them a way to release their new recruit. Ripping them apart with a knife would have been Stain's idea, but not something that would have turned out well, and so the little clink of the keys on the metal floor as the man-mountain stepped out of the van was reassuring indeed. "Right… now keep walking. Get out from here, crawl under that truck and get to the centre of the city before you stop."
Hitoshi didn't turn back to watch the titan disappear, getting out of his way with eyes glazed over. That wasn't what he was here for. The man and the woman with their heads bowed were their targets, and propelled by a sense of morbid curiosity he stepped forward into the van, one hand reaching down to pick up the key. "That… could have gone a lot worse."
As he reached forward with his spare hand and pulled the hood off, he wasn't surprised in the slightest to see that the prisoners had been gagged. Frankly, given some of the villains who had risen to infamy during the years since Incident Zero, he was surprised that the Commission didn't go further and have Quirk-suppressant muzzles on some people. What did shock him was the method; Tartarus was a pit of evil from everything he'd heard, but it made him sick to see that they'd resort to something so crude as duct-taping their prisoners' mouths shut. This was how the Hero Commission treated prisoners? "Why… do I recognise you?"
"Mrmph!" The man protested loudly underneath his gag as Hitoshi removed it, and it took him a second to work out what he was seeing. A shock of messy black hair, so long it was amazing it had stayed under the hood, was shaken off his face; Hitoshi could see his wild eyes. "Ah! How the hell did you do that? You're… you're just a kid, how-"
"Wait… I do know you. Mister Brave, right?" Hitoshi blinked, realising that this man was a former Pro Hero. The fact that he was in the back of a Tartarus prison transport was unusual, even if Hitoshi didn't care for him all that much. "I… didn't know that you'd got arrested."
"Huh? Wait… then you're not here for me?" Mister Brave seemed to have some of the wind taken out of his sails by that realisation. "I thought… oh god, I thought people were coming for me-"
"Not exactly." Hitoshi turned around, eyes focusing on the other prisoner. "... Not you, anyway."
"... Huh." Mister Brave didn't frantically protest at that revelation, like Hitoshi had expected. It was almost as if the fear and adrenaline was snuffed out, replaced by the crushing feeling that he was just an afterthought. A fly on the wall to the glories of others… although he was probably used to that. Hitoshi didn't remember much of his hero career. "... I guess it beats being the target."
Hitoshi shook his head, tuning out the man's dejected comments behind him and focusing on the other prisoner. On the woman in the jumpsuit, perfectly still and yet sat so straight that he just knew she had to be listening in. The second prisoner, the object of Stain's admiration… and a figure of pure myth. A name whispered among the Commission brats for fear that their teachers would punish them, a poorly-kept secret of how far a Hero could fall. And, since he had seen the truth of the Hero Commission and ran away in fear, a cautionary tale of just how far they would go to maintain the status quo, and what they would do to those who rejected that vision…
Hitoshi knew that he was about to meet a legend.
As the bag came off of her head, the prisoner shook her head slightly, pink streaks of hair amidst the dark blue that she shook out of her eyes. It was a strange feeling for Hitoshi to look upon her face, not one ounce of fear or bewilderment present; it wasn't as if she had been expecting their arrival, and yet she seemed unflappable. But there was more to it, more in those purple eyes roaming over his face… a hollowness, as if the fires of belief had been doused long ago and now were only smouldering embers. "... Mm mrrm."
"Sorry, hold on." Hitoshi blinked, realising that he had been staring at her before she spoke, and realising that she couldn't speak through the gag. He had been doing a good job at holding in his nerves before he came to her, and yet now as he gently reached to pull the tape off of her mouth, he realised that his fingers were unsteady. It was all he could do to not curse aloud, because the last thing he should do was embarrass himself in front of the woman Stain wanted to recruit. "T-There. That should help you-"
"Your Quirk…" Hitoshi stiffened at her words, at the voice that was dry and dispassionate. After all she had been trained to do, it was no wonder she was so clinical, unfazed by the fact that her prisoner transport had been attacked and she was being sought out. She wasn't panicky or hopefully optimistic about him being there for her, and even though she had immediately set her sights onto him… there was no anger in there either. "Vocally-activated hypnotic control."
It wasn't a question; she had worked it out simply enough. Hitoshi nodded, seeing no reason to argue with her, and crouched down with the key in his hand. "Yeah… that's my Quirk."
"And with that hair of yours… you're a Shinso." Again, she didn't ask it, or seek his validation. She was just sharp enough to see right through him. "... Hers?"
"Sway's my mother." That sentence caught in Hitoshi's throat, and if he had blinked, he would have missed the almost-imperceptible raising of an eyebrow. It was so obvious that lying didn't serve any purpose, not when he wanted her to trust him. "I… take it you know her?"
"A little too well." The prisoner held up her cuffed hands, as if to give Hitoshi easier access to the keyhole on the Quirk-suppressant cuffs. "Let's just say that we don't get along."
"Yeah… join the club," Hitoshi said, bitterly, wasting no time in sliding the key into place. This was a risk, given what she was capable of, but it had to be done in order to show her that he could be trusted. Stain had told him this before they started the mission, how crucial it was to show her that they were allies… that was all well and good, but Stain wasn't the one turning the key and risking his life by doing so.
"Wait, you're…" Mister Brave, behind him, sounded like he was struggling to find the words as the other prisoner was released. "I didn't know… you were alive. They told everyone you'd died, out on a mission-"
"They say a lot of things. All in the name of maintaining their illusion." The words were full of contempt, but her anger didn't burn through in her voice as she responded. "They've always been that way."
"They still are." Hitoshi steadied his hand, and looked up at her as he began to turn the key. "They've gone too far."
"When don't they?"
Ker-chunk.
There was a loud noise as the cuffs released themselves, rather than the little click Hitoshi had expected; they must have been reinforced, he reasoned, in order to take no chances. As the woman lifted her hands and stretched her arms, like it was the first time she had done it in ages, Hitoshi shook his head. "I… don't mean you any harm."
"Hm?" The woman cocked her head, as if she hadn't heard him right the first time. "Is that so?"
"Look, I know we've just met, and you have little reason to trust me just like that…" Hitoshi trailed off, as she reached up with her arm and her elbow began to change. What emerged through the fabric of the prison jumpsuit with a tearing sound was hard to describe, made of what appeared to be flesh and blood and sinew, but was clearly long and round… a barrel. "Hey, hold on-"
What happened next was a blur. There was a yell behind him, and as Hitoshi spun in alarm he saw the hulking guard from before running at some pace towards the vehicle. His Brainwashing must have relapsed when he began speaking to the prisoner, or must have been disrupted by some other influence, because rather than flee to the centre of the city he was charging forwards, one beefy hand clutching a wickedly-sparking electric baton. He had clearly been building up some speed, getting close enough to make Hitoshi panic, and as Mister Brave yelped behind him he clutched desperately for the short knife which Spinner had lent him in case of emergency-
Bang.
The noise was muffled behind him, but in such close proximity it caught him completely by surprise. As he watched the brute charge, he couldn't miss the red hole that appeared right between the eyes, the way it sent the man's neck flinging back and threw him to the floor. The baton, still crackling, was flung away as the man's body rolled to a stop on the floor, a pool of blood beginning to form. And the smell of smoke wafting past Hitoshi could only mean one thing…
"Been a while since I made a suppressor, too." The former Pro Hero known as Lady Nagant tipped her arm back as far as it could go and blew gently; the gunsmoke which curled around the tip of the rifle emerging from her elbow dissipated as she did so. "Guess I'm not as out of practice as I thought."
Hitoshi was numb for a second. He had expected people might die… he wasn't stupid. He'd joined a group which included the self-proclaimed Hero Killer, of course that was an imminent possibility. But he still hadn't seen one die before, not so close to him, and so it took him a second to tear his gaze away from the body on the floor and back to the prisoner he had been sent to release. "You… you went for him. Not me."
"In case you forgot something about me, I'm not that fond of anyone associated with the Commission." The barrel began to collapse itself and retreat back into Lady Nagant's elbow, as she spoke. "But in any case, actions speak louder than words. You're Sway's kid, and yet you're working to break me out of a Commission transport. You're completely prepared to let me out of the cuffs and put your life in my hands… it's naive."
"Naive?" Hitoshi glowered at her, deliberately trying to ignore the smell of blood. "What do you-"
"It's a good thing, in the circumstances. Trust me. You know the stories about me, right?" He nodded. "Thought so. I've got enough blood on my hands that most people wouldn't take the risk. They wouldn't trust me and they'd keep the cuffs on until we were somewhere else and they weren't in harm's way."
Lady Nagant turned her head to the side, an audible crunch as she stretched herself as best as she could; it was enough to send goosebumps down Hitoshi's spine. "You did. Which means you're not some experienced lackey sent by the higher-ups to deal with me, and you're not a bad person who wants me for the wrong reason. You're just desperate and in need of the help, and didn't think about any of the risks when planning this out… or have I read that all wrong?"
Hitoshi's annoyance at the way she described him simmered down as she spoke, setting it all out so bluntly and so accurately. She sounded almost jaded in how she described it, but she'd been worn down enough by the world to feel that way. This was the woman who had defied orders and put a bullet in the head of the former President, after all. An executioner who rebelled, a woman who had been pushed and pushed to eliminate the corrupt and undesirable until her screaming morals made her stand up to the Commission… she had suffered enough because of them. The trainees weren't supposed to know about her, but the secret was spread, and now that he had been pushed to leave as well, Hitoshi could well imagine how far they had gone with her.
He nodded, biting down any sarcastic remark. There was no point arguing with her when she was so spot-on. "Yeah.. that's right."
"Thought so. I was the same with you, when you arrived."
"How…" Hitoshi stopped himself from asking a stupid question. She wouldn't have appreciated him wasting time by asking it, when he could take a second to work out exactly what she meant himself. "My Quirk. You heard me using it on… him."
"You're not used to seeing bodies, are you? You can tell you're not like your mother." Hitoshi flinched at how callous she was about the death of the guard, but as far as she was concerned he was just another faceless cog in the oppressive machine that had ruined her life. He could, at least, understand why she was like this. "But yeah, you gave me a pretty good demonstration of how your Quirk worked. One response is enough to bring someone under? And you can use that to get them to completely surrender, and open the door for me on the way out? That's one hell of a gift."
"Sure didn't feel that way growing up," Hitoshi muttered, busying himself with the handcuffs around her ankles.
"How do you think I felt at middle school? Growing a gun out of my arm? They all saw me as a villain, too." That really did stun Hitoshi. He'd said nothing about his past in that sense, and she couldn't have known that the other trainees would call it a 'villain's Quirk', would act so scared of him even if he meant them no ill will… it must have run deep enough with her that she saw a kindred spirit in him. "Point is, I heard you…"
He realised that she was waiting for his name. He almost held back and told her his codename on the grounds that Mister Brave was still there, staring in shock at the dead man, but there was no point; she had already used his real surname. And it was about trust, wasn't it? "... Hitoshi."
She nodded, and clearly he had given her the right answer. "Good. You can call me Kaina, if it's easier. But that's the thing. I heard you using your Quirk and worked out who you were, how it ticks. Despite that, despite the fact you could have brought me under at any point and done anything with me after that… I took the risk to talk back to you. And not once did you even look like you were thinking about it. Even when I grew Rifle out in front of you, and could have put a hole in your head before you even had a chance to ask me something."
"I… yeah. I'm not like her."
"Clearly. But I am curious about one thing." There was a click as the second set of cuffs released, and Kaina practically bounced up when her legs became free. "That's better. Talk about oppressive. If I could grow Rifle out of my knees as well as my elbows, I would have done it a long time ago, but they still did it."
"Heh…" Hitoshi couldn't help but snort at the mental image that she had given him. "What did you want to know?"
"Who you're with. Obviously." Hitoshi wasn't short by any stretch, but Kaina was as tall as him, if not a little more so, and she raised an eyebrow at him as she stepped forwards towards the doors and the step down. The sounds of fighting appeared mostly to have died down, although none of the others had made their way over by now. "Attacking a transport like this isn't easy. It's definitely not a one-man job. And someone's helped you pull those lorries out to block the van from the escorts. Unless you're about to tell me you drove both of these."
"Yeah, I'm not alone." Hitoshi tried not to look at the body of the guard as he stepped around it, looking back into the van. "They're… just making sure I had the time to get you out."
"We've still got a little time." As he turned, he caught Kaina waving the arm which had manifested her Rifle back at the van, without turning around herself. "There's a backup alarm which triggers without driver or guard input whenever the doors are unlocked for any long period, but… that should be easy to deal with. And lucky for us, I made a suppressor to deal with this guy so… we should sort of be clear for a bit. Not many people around, out here."
"Sort of doesn't fill me with confidence." Hitoshi paused, looking at her standing still with her eyes closed, appearing to take deep breaths in and out. "Are you… okay?"
"Oh, yeah. Just… fresh air is underrated. You don't realise just how bad Tartarus is until you spend time in there yourself." Kaina looked down at the body behind her, unfazed by the blood. "I'll… look through his pockets. He's probably got the switch for the alarm somewhere, so I'll see if I can find it. You probably don't know what you're looking for…"
Hitoshi looked over, picking up on the meaningful look she shot his way. She knew; she could see that he wasn't used to dealing with dead people like that. But rather than judge him for that, or force him into it, she was deliberately overlooking it and offering him another thread of reason to cling to. He would gladly take her up on that. "... Yeah. Thanks."
"Don't mention it." Kaina stepped past him, and nudged him with the same elbow that her Rifle Quirk had emerged from, lowering her voice. "Sometimes we deserve the right to choose."
"You're not wrong..." Talking of choices, his choices of companion appeared to be done. Movement from the truck behind them had caught his eye, but it was only Spinner and Stain climbing under the wheels of the larger vehicle to make their way over. "You took longer than I expected. Hard fight?"
"They weren't expecting us, which made them desperate." Spinner appeared to have a black eye, but his grin wasn't dented by the injury at all; the blades of his enormous sword were clean of blood, but he was wiping some from the smaller machete he carried as he walked. "Those without conviction usually are."
"Try as they might have, they simply weren't ready for us." Stain didn't look like he'd been touched. "Their ideals could not compare to ours, in the end."
"I… what was that noise just now?" Himiko appeared too from behind him, nearly scaring the shit out of Hitoshi for how silently she had appeared from behind him. Her disguise remained intact, and despite appearing to be massaging some life into her knuckles on one hand, the guards in the front vehicle clearly hadn't given her much trouble. "You're not hurt, are ya?"
"I'm glad you came to check on me." Hitoshi couldn't help but snark at her when he heard that. "I could have been dead, you know-"
"Hey, I had my hands full!" Himiko's smile, worn on the face of another, was unrepentant. "And you turned out alright, anyway!"
"Yeah… because of our new friend." Hitoshi waved a hand at her, head down as she apparently searched the fallen Tartarus guard's pocket while paying them no attention. "I… nearly cost us this when Brainwashing failed. Sorry, I-"
"You haven't used it in the field before. And if it worked, then there's nothing to apologise for." Spinner interjecting on his behalf was a surprise. His introduction to Stain and his de facto apprentice hadn't exactly been smooth sailing, and he hadn't been sure that Spinner had warmed to him in that time. Hearing his support was unexpected, but welcome all the same. "Right, boss?"
"That's correct. What matters isn't that you are tested, it's that your convictions prevail." Stain's eyes widened, as he looked at Kaina's back. "And prevail you have, if this meeting is possible."
"I can't believe it…" Himiko looked awestruck. "I didn't think she was real when you first told me. All of that with the previous President… all those years ago-"
"She's the whole reason the Commission got a new President," Spinner said, "years before All Might."
"All their corruption…" Hitoshi gesticulated to her arm, the one that had transformed just a second ago. "No wonder she started blasting."
"And because of that, she opened my eyes to the truth." Stain spoke in a way that Hitoshi had never heard before, reverence practically vibrating in his voice. "Sacrificing her mantle to try to right the scales of justice… I was only starting as a vigilante when I heard about her. Imprisoned for doing what nobody else would, standing up to corruption no matter the personal cost… she showed me that so many Heroes should be doing more for the good of all. I had my philosophy, but she fortified my conviction, showed me how necessary it was to act. Only by my blade could a more just society be achieved. Only by purging all those unworthy to bear the title of Hero, could I hope for something better."
"You called it the Revival of Heroics, if I remember correctly. Back when you were Stendhal, and not the Hero Killer Stain." Of course Kaina had been listening. Hitoshi shouldn't have been shocked to hear her speak up, a device in her hand as she stood and brushed down the trouser legs of her jumpsuit with the other hand. She… recognised Stain's voice, somehow. "Heroism, embodied by self-sacrifice and without the pursuit of personal gain. I thought you had rose-tinted glasses about what society could be, when I first heard your philosophy. It sounded so… impossible."
"And I thought you were a lapdog, when I first heard of what Lady Nagant did in the name of the Commission." Whatever Hitoshi had been expecting, it wasn't what sounded like a trade of insults. Not after Stain had praised her so highly, effectively stating that she had inspired him. "Blood needed to be shed for justice, because for some villains there was no redemption. But your masters made you spill it not for justice, but for their own ends. Killing in the name… I thought you were one of the worst of all, at first."
Kaina turned to face him, and the crooked look she shot Stain was… strange. Almost like a smile. "I'm sorry I disappointed you, back then."
"Lady…" Stain's demonic face cracked into a grin of his own, discoloured teeth showing. "Right now, you are one of the few who does not."
"Self-sacrifice in the name of the greater good?" Kaina laughed, hollowly. "Let me tell you, it has graver consequences than you think."
"I'll bear my burden proudly, when the time comes for me to be judged." Stain's head bowed. "As should you. I… thank you. My convictions became all the more ironclad when I heard of what you had suffered. I would not be half the man I am now without you."
"I'm… not the only one who finds this uncomfortable, right?" Spinner hissed, creeping over towards Himiko. "It's like they're flirting, or something."
"You call this flirting? Sheesh, no wonder I didn't ask you for much advice with my boyfriend-"
"Your disciples seem to be having fun." Kaina shot them a look, and Hitoshi had to resist the urge to laugh out loud. "I was surprised when I heard you weren't working alone."
"My disciples still need to learn when to behave." Hitoshi could have sworn there was some colour on Stain's face before he cleared his throat. That really was a terrifying thought- did the Hero Killer, of all people, genuinely have some kind of strange murder-crush on this woman? What a weird world. "You… have heard of my efforts within Tartarus, I presume?"
"Half the inmates want to kill you because of what you've done to their friends. Half want to shake your hand for killing the Heroes that put them behind bars. I've heard you've been busy." Kaina shrugged, before pressing the button on the device in her hand and offering it to Hitoshi. "There. Secondary alarm is disabled. I wouldn't recommend we stay here too long, but that should buy us some time."
"Thanks…" Hitoshi pocketed the device, adjusting the bright red scarf around his neck once he had done so. "Although I think by now you've worked out why we're here."
"You said earlier they've gone too far. I never expected I'd see Sway's kid working with the Hero Killer towards a common goal, but that's enough to show me how bad it's got. You're going to war, Akaguro?"
"Someone needs to." Hitoshi had no idea how Lady Nagant, of all people, knew the Hero Killer's real name, but Stain responded to her with a snarl. "They… every line they crossed with you pales in comparison to what they have done since Incident Zero. Without All Might…"
"It's like a war out there," Himiko continued, her borrowed face frowning darkly. "Everything you've seen with Endeavor is just the tip of how everyone views Pro Heroes."
"It would be easy if they were the only corrupt ones," Spinner said, fingers dancing over his sword hilt. "We could deal with the ones taking money from crooks or turning a blind eye on our own… but we need all the help we can get, against the Commission."
"They have Hawks." Hitoshi spoke up, since it was him who had found it out and brought it to Stain's attention. As Kaina's gaze turned onto him, he knew he would get through just as well as any of the others. "They've… Sway has him. Whatever they asked you to do… they're compelling him to do, through her. I don't know if they have others too, or if they'll try to extend her compulsion to others, but either way they're using him as a replacement for you. Killing in the name…"
"... I made a vow." Several seconds of complex emotion Hitoshi couldn't possibly understand passed over Kaina's face. She looked haunted, disgusted, vengeful and devastated all in the shortest space of time, and after all she'd been through… Hitoshi wasn't surprised when she straightened up. "Never again. If the Commission hasn't learned from the past… then it needs to be torn down. I agree."
"I'm sorry to ask you to help-" Stain began.
"No, you aren't sorry. You know I couldn't possibly say no to you, after what I did to try to break the cycle. And you're right… I can't say no." Kaina stepped forward, offering the hand of the arm that had transformed earlier. "Hawks-"
"Must be saved." Hitoshi couldn't let that one slide. Stain had jumped to that conclusion before, but he wasn't prepared to see Hawks pay the price for acts that were not his doing. He didn't deserve to suffer for the crimes of others. "He… never got a say. He's like you, in a way. He… deserves the chance you never got."
Kaina blinked, twice. "... Yeah. I guess he does."
"All the rest, you're welcome to." Hitoshi stepped back, aware that the eyes of the others were on him. "Sorry, I-"
"No, Snitch, the reminder is a fair one. Those without agency deserve the chance to prove themselves to be true." Stain reached out, and clasped Lady Nagant's hand. "As for all of the others? Sway, the President, and all those who don't deserve to call themselves Heroes… all of them must fall."
"Agreed." Kaina looked him dead in the eyes, harrowed purple meeting vengeful red. "For the fall of this flawed society?"
Stain's grin was terrifying. "And for the birth of a better one."
"You… you're all crazy!"
All of them froze at the sound of that voice. Hitoshi had almost forgotten that they weren't entirely alone, and that there had been more than one prisoner in the back of the transport… although given that he hadn't released the man, he shouldn't have been surprised that he was still around. "Nice of you to join in the conversation."
"Well, well. An old acquaintance re-emerges." Stain, thankfully, did not berate Hitoshi for his oversight, instead deciding to step forward and take in the captive Pro Hero in the back of the van. "Spinner, Sanguine… you remember Mister Brave, don't you?"
"I remember him, yeah." Himiko put her hands on her hips as she leaned around the side to take him in. "He's the one we met at the Shie Hassaikai raid, right?"
"I remember he wasn't as good with a sword as he thought he was." Spinner leered, apparently enjoying the chance to get a dig in. "You're lucky Nighteye told us to spare you before!"
"Nighteye?" Now Hitoshi was a little confused. "Since when did you work with Pro Heroes?"
"We don't… normally." Stain nodded reverently to Kaina, stood off behind them all. "Present company excluded-"
"I've not been a Hero for a long time, but… thanks." Kaina shot Himiko a look. "I'm guessing it's a long story?"
"Not too long… this guy's just another corrupt Hero who lost his way after Incident Zero." Himiko's face wrinkled, as she slapped the side of the metal door, the noise making Mister Brave jump in his seat. "He was taking money from the Yakuza to enforce for them, and he thinks now he has a right to insult us-"
"Are you even listening?" Mister Brave's ability to react was somewhat hampered by the fact that he remained in the Quirk-suppressant cuffs. "This is about you all planning to commit suicide by Hero Commission!"
"Is that so?" Stain's voice dripped with hostility; Hitoshi still wasn't used to just how malevolent the aura that washed off of the Hero Killer could get when challenged. "You think that you have the right to judge me? You took money to turn a blind eye-"
"I took money because my family were threatened if I did anything else! Because after I retired, other Heroes who stepped in left the smaller crime groups alone, and by the time they had grown too large to be challenged, the Commission was too busy fighting the private Pro Heroes for business!" Mister Brave shot them a wild look. "I didn't want to come back, and I wouldn't have done it if it wasn't for Overhaul telling me he knew where my little girl goes to school! See, there's fights you can't win. My fight with Overhaul is one… and your fight against the Commission is another."
"Can't win?" Spinner squawked. "That's no excuse to not fight at all!"
"You're kidding? Look at you all!" Mister Brave thrashed against the cuffs as he tried to gesticulate at them all. "Two kids looking up to their master, some Hero Commission trainee with parent problems, the Hero Killer, and the Commission's former weapon? That's your army? They have hundreds of Heroes! They have the Number Two, and a Hero supposedly strong enough to control him! Even if half of what they've done in the name of keeping the peace is corrupt and wrong, even if a quarter of their Heroes have done things which they deserve punishment for… what the hell do you think you can do against an enemy of that size?"
"Whatever we can. One by one, if we have to." Stain drew his sword. "Until all who need to be are purged-"
"You're nuts if you think you even stand a chance. Lady Nagant is your proof!" As Hitoshi turned, Kaina's eyes were completely shut, surprisingly. "She literally killed the President of the Commission. She did something you could never achieve, Hero Killer. And now, years later, it's supposedly just as corrupt as it was before! Everything she ever did to change the world… sounds like it was for nothing, don't you think?"
"... Maybe you're right." Kaina's head was hanging down, looking at the ground and not the other prisoner as she spoke, as the others cleared a path between him and her. "Maybe what I did… wasn't enough. Maybe I should have gone further."
"Well…" Mister Brave seemed to release some of the tension in his shoulders, as silence hung over the rest of the group. "At least one of you can see how little you achieve-"
"... I won't make that mistake again."
Bang.
Hitoshi didn't jump at all the second time, as her elbow snapped up and Rifle fired. A small and cynical part of him was honestly surprised that Mister Brave had lasted so long; Kaina and he had used his real name around Mister Brave, and he was surprised that Kaina hadn't put him down the second she had the chance. But the second that he remained, surrounded by the Hero Killer and his team who had apparently had history with him, Mister Brave's days were numbered. And that was before he began insulting them, or bringing up the past of Lady Nagant…it still wasn't easy to see his body slump forward with a crash and hit the floor of the van, but Hitoshi could see what was coming a mile off, and prepare for it.
Kaina turned to Stain, her gun still extended from her elbow, and shot him a look that told of so much darkness brewing beneath the surface. "... Don't tell me the odds. If things are so bad that Heroes are giving up like that, and won't fight to make things right… I'm in."
"My convictions do not waver in the face of such adversity. I am relieved that yours do not, either." Stain bowed his head. "I should have tried to free you sooner. Before, we did not have the numbers, nor did we understand just how deep-seated the corruption was within the Commission. But with things as desperate as they are…"
"We've gotta do everything we can." Himiko nodded her head fervently. "However hard it might be."
"Someone has to be a Hero, if people like him will not." Kaina's Rifle retreated back into her arm with a strange, slightly fleshy noise. "Who knows? Maybe I'll do something to make myself proud to call myself Lady Nagant again."
"I think you already have." Spinner's words were simple, and genuine, and worked; Hitoshi saw just briefly the way the corners of her mouth turned up. "We… should go-"
"Yeah, I think we can get away with one gunshot, but…" Hitoshi gestured around at the abandoned industrial buildings, uncertain. "Two is asking for trouble. And that alarm you deactivated is going to come back on again soon, surely?"
"Then let's go." Stain hefted his sword onto his back, and strode forwards, everyone falling into line behind him. "I asked Spinner to park a getaway vehicle in one of the warehouses for us. Although knowing Spinner's driving style, that might be literal, rather than in an actual parking spot-"
"Hey! I'm the only one who actually has a licence!"
"Then you should be even more embarrassed about how you drive, Shuichi!"
"Seriously? You too?!"
Hitoshi rolled his eyes, and shot Kaina a look, the tall woman tearing off the sleeves of her prison jumpsuit in order to free her arms as they walked. "I've not been with them all that long, but… they're like this all the time. Fair warning."
"That's fine." The faintest of smiles graced the sharpshooter's face. "... I think I can get used to that."
He hoped that she would. Because the challenge they faced was immense; he knew this even before he had been welcomed into Stain's group and told them what the Commission were getting up to. They were outnumbered, isolated and fighting impossible odds…
But standing between the Hero Killer and Lady Nagant, it wasn't hard to feel that maybe they wouldn't be outgunned after all.
(***)
A/N: LADY NAGANT MY BELOVED, WELCOME TO THE FIC.
It is a very rare thing indeed that, with an ongoing series, I find a new character who captures my attention in the same way that the established cast have already managed. Kaina Tsutsumi, somehow, managed it. I absolutely love her character and while I feel very hard-done by about the conclusion of her arc in the manga (sure, Hori, blow up ANOTHER interesting female character, that's unexpected) and while I regret that we haven't seen more of her since, she's left an impression. My Gunwife simply had to join this fic, and so here we are.
Stain's crew gives her the perfect outlet in this story. Raging against the machine is what she was made for, and the brutality of her methods under instruction is something I wanted to pick up on here. I think she has the cynicism to effectively question Stain's ideal of a true and just society, while he can judge her for what she did in the name of following orders; ultimately in this fic, he comes down more on the side of crushing admiration for breaking that trend and trying to stand up to the corrupt, but you could just as equally argue that he wouldn't in other fics. That's the beauty of her character, baby.
Anyway, another chapter coming up soon which doesn't focus on Izuku- shocker, I know. We've got more people to check in with, and an uneasy truce to consider… more on that later. For now, thank you so much for all of your considerate comments and your support of this fic; it really does mean a lot to me. Please favourite and follow if you have not done so, please share with your friends, and as always I'd love to hear your thoughts in reviews (just don't flame, y'know?).
And as ever, please come and join the Ignite to the Call Discord server, where Incident Zero has a channel and we can discuss the fic. The join code is pC35XjSF.
Until next time, all.
