Am I procrastinating on finishing my next chapter for Coby's Choice (coming this Saturday) because I'm having trouble with fight scenes? Yes. Does that stop me here? No.
Hello, everyone! Welcome to the next chapter of A Hero's Creed! This almost feels like a transition chapter, and I'll admit it kind of is as we start moving into the Internship Arc (because I can't call it the Hero Killer Arc in this timeline). You all are as up-to-date on this story as I am, so your reviews can seriously affect the story moving forward, so give it a shot if you have an idea. That said, I've already built a huge web of background and behind-the-scenes action to unfold when the time comes and you're already seeing hints of that starting to play out here. I am itching to get to some of those reveals, so maybe that's why I have so much drive right now. Now, on to reviews:
Gamelover41592: Thank you!
Ir0nquake: Well, he's just leaning into the whole "ninja" aesthetic, but so is Scorpion, so I can see the resemblance. It wouldn't be too hard for Mei to electrify his rope-darts; she does modify Canon Izuku's outfit without his say-so, after all.
izukusonjackson: I have Sages planned, but they are still a long way off and, honestly, I'm waiting to see how Mirage changes what we know about the Sages as a whole before I implement any of them into the story.
Jamieoeyes: You said it yourself: Juno is more focused on control, and that's something that Momo doesn't fully agree with. She joined the Templars to protect her brother, not to control the populous, so she identifies more with Minerva (whom the Assassins have a more positive view of) than Juno. Plus, as a mythical goddess, Minerva lines up more what what Momo is going for than Juno.
Also, I know where the Animus (Animusi? Animuses?) in the world are, and the Osaka Brotherhood does not have access to one, so no Animus training for Izuku in the near future. As for your theories, I have no comment other than I know about this Izuku's ancestry, and he's not related to any of the "Greats" from the games. Well, yet. We'll see what Codename Red has in store when it comes out.
LEGOBRICK13: You get back here! ...Frickin' Safari Zone rules. Yeah, I've tried to make sure everything lines up with the alterations I've made and have carefully weighed what changes and what does not, and the offers were one such thing. I never understood why Izuku only got one (1) offer in Canon, and that was only after All Might made a call. I mean, Izuku gave Shoto a serious fight and no one wanted him? I call BULL! Bakugo got so many offers after having to be chained to a post but no one wanted the guy who gave a finalist a serious run for his money and won the first round? B. S. So I fixed it.
Monkey D. Conan: Who says only Izuku and Momo will have all the pain? Yeah, I'm trying to build up all of this, like a balloon getting overfilled or a stack of dominoes slowly getting bigger. And no, I'll tell you Monoma was not on either of the calls. No one suspects either individual, and I love it.
Wizardwolf 1020: That's because it is copying DNA, and I did mention that when he copied Izuku's Eagle Vision. He cannot copy animal aspects first: because things like fish and rhinos are not human and second: because he hasn't tried. Monoma has a sort of mental block there because he has convinced himself his Quirk is limited to the copying of Quirks, so he hasn't tried to experiment with it. Maybe he could copy animal aspects after a Quirk Awakening, but he doesn't know what he can do yet because he hasn't questioned it and tried. He focuses on Quirks, so he gets Quirks. A change would take a reality check he is readily avoiding with his ego. After all, if there's a part of him he doesn't know about, then he doesn't know everything, and that would make him inferior.
As for Keeper, his presence and need to make contact is a major part of the limitation of his Quirk and the more complex his mental meddling is, the longer it takes. In addition, as we see with the Iida brothers, any alterations he makes to someone's memory is readily obvious to anyone who knows the truth, so his Quirk isn't some great equalizer. And if he isn't careful with his alterations, the more he takes, the more damage it can cause. Yeah, he can erase major memories, but doing so without destroying someone's mind could take upwards of days and still leave gaps noticeable to the individual. I played with the idea of some mass memory wipe, but that would be far too much. Yeah, Canon ShigAFO not getting a power because "reasons" is a hand wave, but I'm not going to let a character have crazy power and not use it. Yes, Keeper's power is very useful, but he is limited by his own ability to sneak around, the noticeability of his Quirk's effects, and he doesn't have the skill to take out a trained Hero in a straight fight. Not one like Ingenium, anyway. I hope that explanation helps.
Finally, I'm still debating about where Izuku will intern, though I admit having a cinnamon roll like Izuku turn into a scary Assassin will take a while from this point. He doesn't have the aura for it since he hasn't taken a life yet. Perhaps he will intern with Gang Orca, perhaps not, but I do plan to have this story move into internships for their second year. He'll definitely be ready for "scaring the shit out of people" lessons by then.
Now that that's done, on to the chapter!
Chapter 21:
Past and Future
"Aizawa, we have a problem!"
Izuku and Tsuyu froze in their battle against Aizawa, the Master Assassin facing the both of them with only his hidden blades. Slowly, the male teacher turned to see Kayama step through the doorway proper in her black-and-white robes. As Aizawa recognized her presence, he retracted his blades, prompting the students to put away their own weapons.
"What is it, Kayama?"
"Ah, good, our students are here already. That saves me a trip."
"Get on with it," the man urged.
"Right," the woman sighed, offering the man a stack of papers. "I'm afraid that Yaoyorozu has been made aware of her family's loyalties and joined them."
"Is this your proof?" Aizawa questioned skimming the papers. "Suspicions about her choice of Hero name? I do not see a problem with it. Minerva was a Roman goddess of war and wisdom, so it is fitting for a Hero, if a little unconventional for Japan."
"Yeah, maybe," Kayama agreed. "but something didn't feel right about it. See, you might not be a history teacher by any stretch, but I teach Art History, remember? Minerva was the Roman version, but they downsized her from her previous incarnation as the Greek Athena, a name that would have been more apt as well as recognizable. Yaoyorozu should know that with her grades, so I had my Midnight Boys do some digging into the old files. Turns out there were two Isu who did a considerable amount of messing with Assassins in the past to urge things in specific directions: Juno and Minerva."
Aizawa paused.
"You think she has been made aware of the Precursors," he realized.
"I can't think of any reason why she would pick the name Minerva over Athena otherwise."
"I'm confused," Izuku commented, trying to follow the conversation. "Who are the Precursors?"
"So Keeper and Nekoi haven't told you?" Aizawa muttered. "Typical, but I guess with your level of training, that information wouldn't be that important. Initiate Midoriya, you're going to want to take a seat. I'm afraid your world is about to be rocked."
"Tsu, what's Master Aizawa talking about?"
"You're going to want that seat, Izuku," the frog-girl urged, retrieving a chair from the edge of the room with her tongue. She waited until Izuku was seated before deciding to drop the information in the boy herself. "Masters Aizawa and Kayama are talking about a race called the Isu, through they are also known as Those Who Came Before, The First Civilization, the Progenitors, and the Precursors. They are the ones who created humans in the first place and are the reason people like you have Eagle Vision. It's a sign that you have Isu ancestry somewhere in your family tree, probably a Sage at some point. Do either of your parents have heterochromia?"
"Uh, no?" Izuku blinked. "I don't think so."
"You aren't sure?"
"Mom doesn't and my dad didn't," Izuku insisted. "Mom hasn't said anything if he did. Why?"
"Hmm…" Tsuyu hummed before shaking her head. "Well, if not them, then somewhere down your line. Anyway, the Isu were important because they left behind relics of incredible power."
"Relics no one can use anymore," Kayama put in. "In all of our records, these Artifacts are called the Pieces of Eden.
"Eden?" Izuku blinked. "Like the Garden of Eden from Abrahamic belief?"
"Very good," Kayama praised. "Yes, that Eden. Before the Dawn of Quirks, we and the Templars were locked in a race to see who could get the most and secret them away, us to hide them and the Templars to use them, but people who could use them on either side were rare. Assassin or Templar, they were gifted in many ways. Incredible speed, strength, stamina, durability, healing. Physically, they were on another level from the rest of humanity, one way or another. After the Dawn of Quirks, though, the Pieces of Eden slowly stopped working for anyone and the search for Precursor relics and sites sort of… fizzled out. Why look for tools if they can't be used?"
"Periodically," Aizawa picked up, "because of Isu meddling, one known as a Sage would appear. In an attempt to avoid the catastrophe that killed off most of the Precursors, Juno and her husband performed a reckless experiment that cost him his life. Torn up about it, she spliced his DNA with that of several humans so that when certain genetics lined up, a sort of reincarnation of her husband would be born and try to find her with otherworldly knowledge. Other Isu followed in her example when the catastrophe became inevitable, so hundreds or thousands of Sages have appeared throughout history. One usual trait, at least for Juno's lover, were heterochromatic eyes. Like the relics, Sages were rare already, and none have appeared since the Dawn of Quirks as far as we know."
"What about Todoroki?" Izuku tried. "He has—"
"Not a Sage," Aizawa interrupted. "I've already vetted him. It's more like a Ven diagram; most Sages have the eyes, but not all with the eyes are Sages. Plenty of overlap, though."
Izuku's mind reeled as everything he thought he knew about history was upended, again, and he took another step into the knowledge of the Assassins.
"This…" He blinked. "This is crazy. A whole other civilization lived before us. They made us."
"And we've gone past them," Kayama chuckled. "The things that the greatest Assassins like Ezio Auditore did, their feats of daring that we admire and the battles they fought, even normal people nowadays can do it with Quirks. How much the world has changed in six generations…"
"And it's been seven since we last had any concrete proof of Isu meddling," Aizawa agreed.
"Meddling?" Izuku asked. "I thought you said they were all dead?"
"Well, some of them managed to create or upload some kind of consciousness into Isu tech. Don't ask me how, but Minerva —through memories of his ancestors— led an Assassin named Desmond Miles to the point where he could prevent a solar flair from destroying the world, though it cost him his life. After that, records say Juno was released from her digital prison and wreaked havoc on both Assassin and Templar networks across the world. Then the Dawn of Quirks happened, many of Abstergo's branches were destroyed in the overhaul, and Juno was deleted. The chaos forced the Templars to run damage control, allowing the Brotherhood a chance to crawl back from destruction, and here we are."
"Wow…" Izuku was glad the others had insisted on his sitting down; he was certain he would have fallen over from the information overload otherwise. "I… I don't know what to do with this information."
"With the state of the world today, probably nothing forever."
"The important part is that Yaoyorozu knows all of this now, too," Kayama pointed out. "That's the only explanation for her Hero name, anyway, so you need to be careful around her. The Sports Festival proved she can be clever, underhanded, and ruthless when she needs to be, and I have no doubt the Templars will only push those traits further."
"Thank you for bringing this to our attention, Kayama," Aizawa said. "Make sure Mentor gets this information, too."
"I'll deliver the report myself before my boys and I go on a patrol," the female Assassin replied with a wink. "Gotta make sure the public still fantasizes over this pretty face, right? I'll leave you all to your training."
"Very well. Now…" Aizawa activated his hidden blades, turning to lunge directly for Izuku's face. The verdet's eyes widened, his hands pulling out his wakizashi and tanto from their sheaths but too slowly to parry the blade. Aizawa's weapon froze half and inch from his neck. "Not fast enough, Initiate. Again!"
Master Assassin Akaguro stood perched on a high rooftop between two cement wolves, the man surveying the area below with narrowed eyes behind his ragged mask and under his worn hood. Night was falling, the setting sun dipping behind the city skyline as it cast its long shadows over the alleys. Akaguro had taken the life of another Templar Hero —a man calling himself Golden Hour— two days ago and the information he had obtained led the so-called Hero Killer here in Hosu on the trail of another Templar. Specifically, a group that had been putting out inquiries about him and the Assassins in general in connection to Kido's death. Their sources were trying to spread the rumor that he was a member of a wider group and, while that was accurate, it was not information the Assassins wanted getting out with his status as a Villain.
He preferred the term Vigilante, but that too was illegal.
His expression deepened into a frown, something just not feeling right as the last rays of the sun ducked behind the skyline. He spun, flinging a pair of throwing knives coated with a neurotoxin behind him, trusting that if it was a fellow Assassin, then they would be smart enough to expect that and avoid it.
His target did avoid the attack, but not because they were an Assassin. The knives disappeared into a small, purple portal, exiting a similar one to stab into the rooftop several steps to his right. He recognized Kurogiri, the man fitting the description Recruit —correction, Initiate— Midoriya gave to Himi. Akaguro did not let this recognition show, however, his frown deepening.
"Who the Hell are you?" he demanded.
"You are the Hero Killer, correct?" the wispy man questioned, brushing some imaginary dust from his suit. "Pleased to make your acquaintance. My companions call me Kurogiri, and they have a business proposition for you."
"And who the Hell might your companions be?"
"We have tentatively named ourselves the League of Villains." Kurogiri reached into a pocket, pulling out and checking an old pocket watch. "I understand you are a busy man, Hero Killer—"
"Call me Stain," Akagiro interrupted. "The ones I kill are Heroes in name only."
"My apologies, Mr. Stain," the heteromorphic Villain corrected, closing the watch. "I am sure you are busy, but if you were to give us a moment of your time, we may be able to assist each other. We might even find some common ground and mutual goals."
"I doubt it," the man growled. Kurogiri, however, refused to take "no" as an answer, a wave of his hand creating a portal beneath the Assassin. Before Akaguro could do more than pull his hood down, gravity pulled him into the portal to transport him away.
The lair of the League of Villains was a bar, something at which Akaguro frowned as he landed. They had no patrons, however, the only man sitting at the bar matching Initiate Midoriya's description of Shigaraki down to the hand on his face. Akaguro drew a serrated knife as Kurogiri stepped out of another portal behind the bar counter, nonchalantly pulling a bottle of top-shelf scotch from it place to pour two glasses over spheres of ice before taking out a pipette and adding two drops of water. He gave both a swirl; one he placed before Shigaraki and the other he offered to Akaguro.
["Ancients' Favorite?"] he offered, the name of the brand in English.
"I don't drink," their guest grunted. "It dulls the senses and makes one sluggish."
"I suppose that is a fair opinion," Kurogiri shrugged, taking the drink as his own. Shigaraki frowned at his drink before picking up the glass, being careful to not use all five fingers. He knocked the liquid back, grimacing as the alcohol burned its way down his throat. Akaguro studied him, noting that on the wall behind him was a television that was turned on but said "audio only" and a destroyed poster of All Might.
"I almost envy you," the white-haired Villain muttered, touching his last finger to the empty glass. It fell apart, becoming naught but dust in his hand, the sphere of ice following it into oblivion a second later. "Sensei says those in power only drink the finest and this is his favorite. I don't really like scotch whiskey, but Sensei says simple liquor is only fit for laymen who can't handle the better stuff."
Akaguro felt his eyebrowless ridges rise at the comment, the Assassin not relinquishing hold of his knife. "You are the ones that attacked UA," he said.
"We are," Shigaraki confirmed, turning to look at Stain. "We didn't win all the side objectives, but I think we managed to pass the level. And we would have hundred percent-ed our run if it wasn't for All Might."
"A majority of your forces were captured."
"So we lost some trach mobs," the younger man waved off. "They were always expendable."
"You all attacked the most-protected school in the country, got your asses kicked, and fled with your tails between your legs. I'd call that less than a win."
That seemed to touch a nerve, Shigaraki's eyes narrowing. "Hero Killer—"
"Don't call me that," Akaguro grunted, his own nerves touched. "On the job, my name is Stain. And like I told your errand boy, the ones I kill are Heroes in name only. They don't live up to the standard."
"Your personal standard," Shigaraki responded. "You're just as much a Villain as the rest of us, tearing down the framework of society."
"What do you want?"
"Join us," Shigaraki said, spreading his arms wide. A smile pulled at his chapped lips. "You'll be one of the foremost members of the League of Villains, and together we can tear down this world's crappy façade. We can upend the leaderboards, rip down the so-called heroic try-hards, and create our own utopia! No Hero, not even All Might, will be able to stand in our way! We'll take over the server and run the MMO with our own rules! So, what will it be, Hero Killer Stain?"
Everything froze, Akaguro blinking slowly. Shigaraki seemed to realize he was not immediately receiving the response he had expected. He opened his eyes to see the masked vigilante turning away from him.
"This was a waste of my time."
"What?" the Villain demanded, his smile dropping into a snarl. "I am giving you the chance of a lifetime, Hero Killer. With our resources, you could change everything about how we terrorize the masses! You could—"
"You know nothing about me," Akaguro growled. "You don't know why I fight. You don't know my standards. You don't even know there are Heroes I support."
"You what?" Shigaraki spat, taking a step toward the killer.
"I fight for a higher purpose, Tomura Shigaraki," Akaguro said, drawing himself to his full height which was just taller than the white-haired man. The Assassin himself took a step toward the leader of this League of Assassins, his sheer pressure weighing down on Shigaraki. "Unlike you, I fight to better the world, not to tear it down and reshape it into my personal playground. What I do, I do not do for fun. I do not enjoy taking lives and I do not make it a hobby to babysit little man-children without any sense. Man-children like you."
"You fucker!" Shigaraki cursed, reached forward with a hand toward Akaguro's face. The Master Assassin flowed under the attack, the knife in his hand coming upward to stab through Shigaraki's arm. The man let out a cry of pain as Akaguro leveraged the punctured arm to flip Shigaraki forward. His back hit the floor hard, Akaguro holding one wrist while he stomped on the other, leaving Shigaraki powerless. "Son of a bitch!"
"You claim you can change the world?" Akaguro said, easily keeping Shigaraki in place despite the man's attempts to free himself. "You are nothing, a cog in a machine you do not understand. In the devil's game of light and dark, you are a pawn with no way to the other side of the chessboard. Less than that, you are a checkers piece in the Game of Life: out of place and worthless. Whatever Sensei you have is a fool to pick up such a sad—"
"Do not insult my master!" Shigaraki yelled, redoubling his struggles to no avail in account of Akaguro's greater strength. "You don't know what he's capable of!"
"I don't really care." Akaguro reached with his free hand to draw one of his swords, spinning it around so its chipped blade hung over Shigaraki's neck. "Any man that can create a spoiled thing like you is foolish and clearly cares not for his people. He has twisted you into something tainted, a stain on our society. I will put you out of your misery and rid him of some of his."
"Kurogiri, get him out of here!"
Purple smoke swirled into being between the blade and Shigaraki's neck, sending the sword to somewhere unknown. The smoke continued to grow, enveloping the Assassin completely save his hand and foot before it started to dissipate. He released his hold and pulled back quickly, but only his hand made it through before the portal closed, Akaguro releasing a hiss as his flesh was severed at his left ankle. Without one foot to support his weight, the Master Assassin collapsed onto the same rooftop where Kurogiri had first found him.
Reacting quickly, Akaguro cut away part of his robes and snapped the blade of one of his many knives, creating a rudimentary triage to stop the bleeding. A puddle of red grew over the roof as the broken veins and arteries emptied what they had. But, having stemmed the bleeding as much as he could, Akaguro knew he could go nowhere without help and that his would would become infected if nothing was done. He reached into his robes, pulling out a communicator that he slipped into his ear before pressing the button.
It rung twice.
"Master Akaguro!" Himi's voice cheered, background noise from her side including the screaming of men. "Give me a moment, I'm just wiping out some drug peddlers! Trying to find the origins of that weird symbol Midoriya found, you know. What's up?"
"Himi, I need your help," he admitted, much as he didn't want to. One hand clenched into a fist, fighting the itchiness settling in his wound. "That portal user the kid mentioned caught me midway and took one of my feet. I'll tell you about it later. How fast can you get to Hosu?"
Himi was quiet for a moment, the gurgling of a dying man filling the silence on her side and the honking of cars filling his. Something on her side went wump, presumably a body.
"Stay alive and I'll be there in 20," she said. "I'll slip through the den and leave this last guy for the others to pull info from. You said Hosu, yeah?"
"That's right. A rooftop. District 4, block 37. The building with the decorative wolves."
"I'm coming, Master." Himi hung up, Akaguro stuffing his communicator back into his robes. With the promise of help on the way, he crawled to the corner of the roof, resting himself against the raised siding as the adrenaline drained from his system and the pain started to set in.
"Shit," he muttered, trying to get as comfortable as he could. In a rare showing of emotion, he slammed a fist into the concrete beside him. "The Hell was that? Tear down the world's façade? Upend the leaderboards? Those aren't the talking points of Templars. They want to keep the status quo while replacing the leaders. They hate revolution when they have power, so why did Initiate Midoriya say he was wearing a Mark of Cain when he attacked UA?" Akaguro sighed, gritting his teeth. "Hurry up, Himi. This doesn't make any sense, and I don't like that."
"That bastard!" Shigaraki roared as Kurogiri's mist cleared, the man stumbling to his feet. This threw the foot left behind from its spot on his wrist and disintegrated the knife still in his arm, letting blood from the wound flow. "What sort of NPC bullshit was that? Fighting to better the world? That's just bad character design for a Villain!"
"Tomura Shiragraki—" Kurogiri began.
"Damn him!" the man continued to rage, kicking the foot like a soccer ball. It hit the bar with a thud and a splash of blood. "He wants to reject my offer? I'll destroy him! I'll dust him like all the rest!"
"Tomura Shigaraki—"
He scooped up the severed foot, relishing the moment when all five of his fingers made contact with it. It fell apart in his hand. "I sure hope he didn't want that back."
"Tomura Shigaraki—"
"We should bring him back while he's powerless! I'm sure I could dust him easily now. I'm just itching to get my fingers on the rest of him."
"Tomura Shi—"
"What, Kurogiri? Can't you see I'm angry?"
"Tomura," a voice said from the television, instantly clearing Shigaraki's anger. "Do not think this a fruitless endeavor. Yes, the Hero Killer chose to oppose us, but I believe we learned far more than you realize."
"Please Sensei, explain it to me," Shigaraki begged. "Give me the tutorial I need to dust that NPC!"
"The words he said and the conviction behind them," the voice began. "I do not think they are the kind that would leave a man like the Hero Killer alone for long. Perhaps he began his crusade alone, but at this point, I have reason to suspect he already has a network. They would not let a man like that escape their clutches."
"But who, Sensei?"
"Think, Tomura. Who among our enemies travels in the dark with no qualms with bloodshed?"
Shigaraki's eyes widened. "That guild," he muttered. "The Assassins' Brotherhood."
"Kurogiri," the voice muttered. "Did the Hero Killer have that group's emblem on his person?"
"Not that I saw, Master," the wispy man answered. "Nor did he use the wrist blades you have told us about, but I do not think that disproves your theory. What information do you have that we have not been told?"
"The vast majority of the Hero Killer's victims were members of the… other guild," the voice explained, using Shigaraki's terminology. "I had hoped this hearsay from my contacts was inaccurate, but his actions here make me believe it is truthful. We will need to remove him."
"Let's expose him!" Shigaraki suggested. "If we can get our hands on video of him working with so-called Heroes, we can bring that guild into the light and turn the server against them!"
"No, we cannot do that," the voice said. "The Assassins and Templars have made peace treaties a surprising number of times throughout history, and each one reiterated that they would keep their war from the eyes of the public should the treaty end. Both believe to do so would split the populous in half, destroying every country in which they operate as well as both groups. You might want that, but the chances of you surviving such calamity as you are now are minimal at best."
"Then what would you suggest, Sensei?"
"Give it time, Tomura. I will contact some of the pawns with plans in motion. If they get an unaffiliated Hero to expose the Assassins to the public for us, then we can watch society tear itself apart from the sidelines. Kurogiri, write the location where you sent the Hero Killer on a letter; I will give you the location to send it. That should be enough to put some bloodhounds on his trail."
"But what about expanding the League?" Shigaraki questioned. "We failed with our trash mobs before, so we'll need some serious S-rank pulls if we want to win, and that one just slipped out of our grasp. Where will we find more?"
"Again, leave that to me, Tomura. I think I know of a few powerful individuals looking for a, how do you say, party."
Monday came too quickly for Izuku's conflicted mind as he sat in class. The day was bright and sunny, but that did nothing to improve his mood as he still tried to come to grips with the idea of the kind and caring Momo Yaoyorozu being an official Templar. He'd known since they day he met her that her family had such ties, but he'd held on to hope that she would not fall into such a group, a hope that was apparently in vain.
Izuku didn't know what the Templars had told Momo to get her to join, and at this point, he wasn't sure he wanted to know lest he fall into the same trap.
Looking for a way to distract himself from the thoughts —and unable to focus on the lesson at hand— Izuku turned his mind to the sheath of papers in his bag. Each one held the name of a Pro Hero who had taken an interest in him during the Sports Festival. Of the 290 offers he'd received, he'd thrown out a fifth of them on the suspicion or confirmation they were Templars, a number that did a lot to waver his confidence in the idea of Heroes as a whole if that many could be part of such a faction. But, he supposed, it said as much that another fourth of his offers were Assassins from various Cells around the country. He figured having so many offers from his own faction wasn't such a surprise, but it showed just how much cover-up happened with their millennia-long shadow war if so many Assassins could be active yet most of the deaths they caused went unreported to the wider public.
He had received offers from Assassins who had helped train him in the past, including Miruko and Edgeshot, but he had received other offers Master Aizawa confirmed were Assassins or otherwise connected to the cause including Mr. Brave, Takeshita, and even Silkie among others. (Tsuyu had already called dibs on his offer, having mentioned that Silkie had been brought into the fold after thwarting nearly a dozen Templar smuggling operations a decade ago before running into her father on a mission during the last one. He was not a true Assassin but did work alongside the Brotherhood and had Sidekicks who were members.) As it was, Izuku had decided he was going to accept an offer from one of the Assassins on his list, even though most were Underground Heroes even a Hero nerd like him barely recognized the names of.
"That's the bell releasing you to lunch," Aizawa sighed as the bell rang, the tired teacher closing his own book. "Before you all leave, I want to pass on a piece of wisdom to you. I know you all are excited to get to your coming internships, but those will not start until Saturday, giving those of you who have not yet decided where you will go a little more time to choose. If you have yet to make a choice, or even if you think you have, make sure you are considering what your weaknesses are and what skills you want to improve. If your Quirk is touch-based, then you may want to focus on hand-to-hand combat. If your Quirk is long-range, you may want to work with a Hero who knows a thing or two about damage control. If you have reliable offense, you may want to intern with a defensive Hero to help minimize your weakness. Do not simply pick an offer because they are the highest ranked of them. Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes, Sensei!" most of the class chorused as they packed up their bags.
"Izuku?" a voice said, the verdet's spine snapping to attention as Pony walked past him, leaving only one person to his back. "Might I trouble you for your lunchtime?"
"W-W-What do you n-need, M-Momo?" Izuku stuttered, turning slowly to see Japan's newest Templar. She cocked her head at him, an all-but-physical question mark appearing over her head. She bent over a little to get more on Izuku's level and he felt thankful she was not in her Hero costume.
Not that he was thinking about it!
"Is something the matter, Izuku?" she asked, the multicolored light of Creation appearing in her palm as she formed a non-contact temperature reader. She held it up to Izuku's forehead and pressed the button, earning a beep. "Well, your temperature is a little high but you do not have a fever, so that is good. Are you feeling ok?"
"I-It's nothing," Izuku tried to wave off. "You want to h-have lunch t-t-together?"
"Well, yes," the girl replied, ushering the verdet out the door and toward the cafeteria, leaving the temperature reader on Aizawa's desk as a donation to the school. "It almost seems like you have been avoiding me this last week. I could understand that leading up to the Sports Festival, but that tournament ended more than a week ago and you have continued to limit your interactions with me."
"N-No, I haven't been av-voiding you. It's… ah…" Izuku mentally scrambled for a believable lie, something that could wave away Momo's worries, but that was difficult when, truthfully, he had been avoiding her. Now, interacting with her was the last thing he wanted to do. "I-I've been getting to know the students of 1-B! I hadn't met them before and getting to know them and their Quirks has been so interesting!"
"Yes, I noticed that, but I have been doing the same. You have not sat alongside me, however, even though our goals have apparently been the same."
"Ah, w-well…" An idea came to mind, and before he could completely consider what its impact on anything would be, he latched onto it. "I-I-It's the dreams I've been having."
"Dreams?" Momo queried. She slowed to a stop, forcing Izuku to do the same. "I do not see how the imagination of the unconscious mind would cause you to refuse to interact with me."
Izuku's face colored, turning a bright red at the embarrassment. His mind flashed back to his talk with her at La Croix de la Sagesse when he made a fool of himself to not risk compromising the Brotherhood. Well, he was already going to be embarrassed this time too, so he might as well make it lasting. That should keep Momo off his back for a while.
"W-W-W-Well…" he started, playing with his fingers as he looked away from her. Not only would the body language help his lie, but it was also truthful for his current emotions, even if they didn't quite have the root Momo would identify. "Th-They… They involved me… a-and y-you… a-and we were… o-our clothes w-would…" Izuku trailed off, unable to bring himself to add any more details to this lie lest he risk actually having such dreams despite his loyalties. He was still a teenager, after all.
Not that he'd had any such dreams before!
It seemed he'd said enough as Momo's face also colored, her eyes widening at the implications. Her hands rose to cover her cheeks, but that did little as she started to squirm.
"I-I will converse with y-you at a later time, Iz… Midoriya." She beat a hasty retreat, disappearing into the relative chaos of the cafeteria.
Izuku's shoulders relaxed as she vanished, the boy falling against the wall as he let out a hard breath he didn't know he'd been holding. "I can't believe that worked."
"I can't believe that's what you went with, ribbit."
"Ts-Tsu!" Izuku jumped, spinning around to see the smirking frog-girl with her head tilted. "How long have you been there?"
"I heard the whole thing, Izuku. It was effective, ribbit, I'll give you that, but I think you should have listened to Mina's criticism at the Sports Festival a little better."
"What do you mean?"
"I believe she said something like 'just because it's the first plan you think of, that doesn't mean it's the best plan,' ribbit."
"I panicked," Izuku muttered, lowering his voice to a whisper. "Ma— Aizawa-sensei said that Momo saw my bracers after I was injured at the USJ, so I had to remove them from my Hero suit. Now that she's most likely a Templar, I'm scared she'll make the connection. I'm hoping that if I stay away from her, I won't say anything that will connect any dots she hasn't connected already."
"I thought you said you'd already talked to her about your bracer, ribbit?" Tsuyu questioned, her voice equally low.
"I told her I essentially stole the hookblade idea from my teachers and I'm lucky she didn't see my classic blade, but Momo's just too smart. I don't think it would take much for her to realize I was trained by Assassins —knowing or unknowingly— if I say the wrong thing depending on how much the Templars have told her."
"She was going to ask you for help picking out her internship," Tsuyu said with a small grin. "I overheard her talking about it with Mina and Toru, ribbit. All you've done is make things awkward for the both of you."
"Dammit," the boy sighed, rubbing his face with a hand. "You couldn't have given me some sort of hint?"
"What, and miss the show?" the frog-girl chuckled. "I'll go talk to her and run damage control, ribbit. Good luck with your dreams, Casanova." She walked off, similarly disappearing into the throng of students. Somewhere in the mass, he heard the distinct sounds of Mina and Toru squee-ing and knew his stunt would backfire soon enough.
He slammed his head into the wall. "…Why can't my life be normal?" Izuku moaned.
Dr. Garaki was an old man despite his appearance as a man just past his 60's. He was short and rather portly, but that had never bothered him and his fingers were swift and dexterous, so his apparent unhealthiness had never reared any sort of head, ugly or otherwise. The only hair on his head, besides his thick eyebrows, was the bushy white mustache that hid his mouth and his eyes were hidden behind a pair of thick goggles, their lenses hiding a maniac gleam.
On the table before him was a yellowish-grey body, its skin decomposed in some places and frozen in others, the inhuman face contorted with pain. Its body was incredibly muscular, but that had not helped the poor Nomu survive the combination of Quirks his master had bestowed upon it. Garaki couldn't help the touch of disgust he felt toward the failed creation. Honestly, the nerve of the subject to die despite being given such an honor. He would need to scan through the orphanages and detention centers he had access to to look for stronger subjects.
"Now then," he muttered to himself, twirling a special scalpel in his hand. "Let's begin the dissection to learn what went wrong here."
The medical knife cut through the corpse like hot butter, a puff carbon dioxide rising into the air as the non-frozen parts of the Nomu started to deflate. Garaki's eyebrows quirked.
"This is probably the result of Super Regeneration and Radiation Decay mixing into a biofeedback loop because it was not the latter's original body." He reached over, checking a clipboard he had hanging on the table. "Yes, though it appears this one started with Deadly Fumes… Could that also play a part with the buildup of CO2? It's certainly a possibility… Perhaps the use of activation-based Quirks is too difficult for mindless Nomu? We should try a batch of only Mutation-Style and focused Emitter Quirks rather than use radiation-area Emitters and see what the success rate is under those circumstances."
"I've gotta say, I wasn't sure if my 'mad doc' count would go up by one today, but I think you meet the criteria."
Garaki spun, throwing the scalpel at the origin of the voice. They bent backward almost unnaturally, the medical blade soaring past their face by an inch before pinging against the opposite wall.
"Ehehe," the interloper chuckled, straightening. He was tall and thin with an ovular face, pink blush dusting his cheeks and turquoise eyeshadow rimming his eyes under his slick, black hair. A spot of lipstick didn't quite fit the rest of his lips. The rest of his clothing looked like something out of a court jester's superstore, puffy pants that didn't reach midthigh and a tight shirt splashed with discombobulating colors. Most oddly, his hands were cuffed together behind his back and his ankles were chained together. "No no, Doc! We don't have time for knifeplay, much as I wish we did."
"Who are you?" Garaki demanded, slowly backing up toward the rest of his tools. "How did you get in here?"
"That's not important, Doc," the man grinned, showing off his sparkling teeth as he hopped toward the scientist. "My name is Bentham, and I'm afraid your master is outliving his usefulness as an interest and collection agency to mine, so I've been sent to start cleaning up the mess. It's sort of my specialty."
Garaki reached his tools, his hand first grabbing a bonesaw that he chucked at the man. Bentham dodged it with the same fluidity he had with the scalpel.
"I'm actually surprised, you know?" Bentham said, his words unobstructed even as Garaki tried to ward him away. "I was just looking for samples for a person of interest for my master's daughter, and where does the search lead me but to here, a secret lab with secret experiments of the illegal variety. It's like one of the old comics Father would read to us when Mother wasn't looking. Ah, but Father's getting up there in years. That's why we'll be coming for your master soon enough."
Bentham jumped over a defibrillator Garaki threw his way, the bound man landing on the good doctor's chest. Stars exploded on Garaki's vision as the back of his head hit the table and then the floor on its way down, the symptoms of concussions flashing through his mind without his say so. Bentham shifted, holding the doctor's arms with his knees as he bent down to be face-to-face with the man.
"You will not touch my master," the doctor growled, trying to break free. It was futile, however, Bentham possessing a lot more muscle mass than his wiry frame let on. "He will become the ruler of the world!"
"Awe, that's cute!" Bentham chuckled. "Well, cute in a sad puppy on the side of the road in a box in the rain sort of way. I don't know which is sadder, that you think your great grab bag of Quirks can take on Japan, much less the whole world, or that you thought he'd be able to do it after betraying the Templars."
Garaki froze, his eyes slowly coming up to stare at the man. "Assassin?" he whispered.
"Oh, nothing so droll as that," Bentham replied. "Though I do act in that capacity, I don't work for them. It makes explaining my job to my victims so very difficult sometimes. Ah, but you don't need to know any of that. Soon enough, your master's many gifts will be handed to mine on a silver platter, and you'll be there to see it! Well, in a way. I'll be there to see it."
"What are you—?"
Bentham swung his head downward, slamming their foreheads together with a resounding boooong. He rebounded so his face was turned upward, both his mouth and the mouth of Dr. Garaki opening wide as they could. Orbs rose from within, Bentham's being a kaleidoscope of color while Garaki's was a dirty brown interlaced with green. The pair of lights spun around each other before swinging low, stuffing themselves into the mouth they had not come from. When they did, Bentham slumped over, falling onto his side.
"That is always an experience," Dr. Garaki sighed, pushing Bentham's body off him. He stood, testing his movements. "Let's see, I can keep him and my body in Garaki's freezer with his unused Nomu body parts. That'll keep me fresh for a while and lower my metabolism, though I do hope Master Aaron moves quickly. I'm already not a fan of this part I've been asked to play. He's so boring. At least the joints don't ache."
Garaki —or more accurately, Bentham in Garaki's body— cracked his neck and sighed. "Life Force? I thought you were Quirkless, Doc. You're so old, too. Over a hundred? Color me surprised, but I guess that's just one more treat to offer my master when this play reaches its conclusion. I should lock me up and get started on this theater." He put a hands over his heart and gave a small bow as if in prayer. "I will do my part for them. After all, I must always honor the Father and Mother."
End of Chapter 21
And there you have it! I'm sorry I haven't revealed who will intern with who, but I'm afraid I myself do not know yet, either, so I might be buying time. If you want me to figure it out faster, maybe give me some suggestions? So, Izuku now knows about the Isu, but what use will that information be, right? That will never come up. And Stain has his confrontation with the League of Villains, but it doesn't quite end the same way as it did in Canon. I wonder how losing a foot might affect his future? Izuku interacts with Momo for the first time after her induction into the Templar Order and he totally bungles it up. At least the Brotherhood isn't compromised and you all got a good laugh, right? Finally, one of those phone calls from a few chapters ago shows its effects, but who are this Father and Mother people are honoring? (Well, I know, but I love hearing you all theorize over it.) Finally, I'll offer you all a short bio for Bentham, the latest OC (inspired by Mr. 2 Bon Clay from One Piece) because it just felt right and he might love that character:
Name: Bentham ?
Age: ?
Sex: Male (Original)
Loyalty: ?
Job: Spy and assassin for ?
Quirk: Body Swap (allows the user to switch bodies with another. Emitter Quirks like Body Swap are carried with the swap, but any mutations or passive Quirks [such as Garaki's Life Force] stay with the original. Once swapped, both parties have access to the memories, mental and physical, of the other but not necessarily the raw skill.)
That's all for today, so:
Read and Review!
-SwordOfTheGods
