Shahryar - Regretfully, Miruko misses a few important knowledge about the world they are all living in.
(***)
Unlike in the case of the Hero Killer, Midoriya doesn't trust Miruko enough to let her stay free for the duration of the meeting. He would probably die. He's fairly certain that she's in the 'blame PLF for everything that went wrong in this country' team.
The stare she is giving him from the other side of the room is rather clear about it.
"I'd ask if you're comfortable…" Midoriya says. "... but I get the feeling that you'd scream at me."
"Yeah, I wonder why." Miruko glares at him. She's basically chained to a wheelchair that was driven here from the part of Overlook temporarily occupied by the former pro-heroes rescued from Tartarus.
"In my defense, Miruko…" Izuku replies. "If you didn't attempt to kill several guards, you wouldn't be bound like that. And the only reason why we're still having this talk…" He adds. "... is because you didn't kill them. My underlings are important to me, Ms. Rabbit Hero."
Especially as he only has so few of those.
"Yeah, yeah, get to the fucking po…" Her eyes dart to Rini, who enters the room after Midoriya and leans back on the wall next to the entrance. "Oh, look who showed up. The copycat."
"I'm…" Lady Murder replies. "... no copycat."
"Yeah, right." Miruko rolls her eyes around. "You just figured out that since you're a rabbit mutant, you can as well steal my entire aesthetic, add some blades for additional edginess and go fuck the country up with those ISP bastards. Piss off. If I wasn't chained down, I'd bite your throat out."
Didn't Stain threaten Midoriya with something similar if he somehow changed his outlook on the lich? Wow, those two were really similar. Probably explains why Rini somehow became so similar to them, and not just in body.
"I'd like to see you try." Rini replies coldly.
Why is it going that way right off the bat? With Stain, she at least tried. Then again, the Hero Killer was much cooler about the whole situation. Miruko is openly hostile. And, well, a hero.
"Unchain me, and you will." Miruko replies. "I took enough of the sick fucks of the ISP off the streets to not care about one more. Especially one that's so much a rip-off of mine. What, did Beast decide that if he can't rape me, he'll instead vent it all out on some random rabbit woman? Way to fucking go."
"Beast isn't my father." Rini replies. "And I couldn't give less shit about him, to be honest. He's been dead for too long for me to care."
Midoriya glances at Rini. It's… interesting to see her remain so calm for so long. Lady Murder truly can do that - and even be more or less subtle - it turns out. She changed a lot when Midoriya wasn't around.
"Yeah, yeah, sure." Miruko, clearly, doesn't give a shit either. "The fuck is this whole meeting about? I'm not joining the PLF, so if it's about that, go fuck yourselves. If you're planning to go Beast on me, I strongly suggest killing me afterwards because I'll find and fucking butcher you sooner or later."
"Ewww." Midoriya shivers a bit. "Please, don't even joke about that. I have a girlfriend, and she's satisfying all my needs appropriately. This is more of a family reunion thing, and I'm just spectating."
"Family reunion?" Miruko glances at Rini, before laughing loudly. "Oh, that's such a fucking joke! I heard you're already stolen my surname without my permission, how much more of a stalker can you get?"
"I didn't steal anything." Rini shoots back. "Check the recordings from the fucking Tartarus attack. I'm only written down as Rini. The government plastered your surname next to my name for some stupid fucking reason without my permission either. Feel free to call the Prime Minister to take it off."
"Yeah, you certainly didn't." Miruko rolls her eyes around. "So what the fuck is that whole 'family reunion' bullshit?"
"Oh, you know…" Midoriya replies. "... turns out that Doctor Garaki, whom I truly hope is currently being torture in the deepest pits of hell, had a small mad science program on the side. You apparently froze some of your ovums in case you suffered some injuries in the field later on and he decided that they can be used more creatively. Meet Number Sixteen, also known as Rini or the Lady Murder. Your biological daughter and, apparently, an improved model."
Silence. Honestly, even Miruko is clearly unable to reply automatically to a revelation of this magnitude. Midoriya is grateful that this is never going to happen to him.
"What…" She eventually opens her mouth. "... the fuck."
"Some accelerated growth was involved." Midoriya helpfully adds. "She's technically merely ten years old. Truly, the worst age to be in. I have some parenting experience, so treat me like an expert on this."
Rini flips him the bird, before her eyes return onto Miruko. The Rabbit Hero (well, no longer a hero but it's the thought that counts) does likewise.
"The rest of the genetic material is from the Hero Killer Stain, by the way." Midoriya decides to unload the final part of the shocking revelation. It's best done once and for all. "They had their family reunion already. Hit it off right from the start."
"We did fucking not." Rini groans. "That guy's a fucking disappointment." In Midoriya's opinion, she's going to change her mind when she ends up facing him. Stain was… dangerous. Even after so much time in prison there was something threatening in the way he moved.
"What a …" Miruko finally speaks. Slowly. Meaningfully. With a stare that's rising in intensity with every word. " … load of fucking bullcrap."
"Want a vial of her blood to do the DNA test once you're allowed to leave?" Midoriya asks. "I don't think she'd mind."
"Fuck you." Miruko glares at him. "I don't know what the fuck you're playing at, but I'm not buying it. Go die in a ditch, especially you, ISP whore."
Yeah. ISP was… a sore spot for Miruko. Midoriya didn't expect the meeting to get anywhere precisely because of that. She was a mutant, a mutant that spent years fighting the bad press that the ISP gave her kind - a bad press that ended up landing her and a lot of her friends and acquaintances in Tartarus.
"Must be very easy for you to say that." Rini replies. Midoriya is actually slightly freaked out by how unnervingly calm she sounds. "The comfy cell in Tartarus, regular meals, why even bother thinking about what's going on outside, huh?"
"The fuck…" Miruko glares at her. "... was that supposed to mean?"
"I wasn't a hero, mom." Rini replies, with all the venom she could muster at the last word. "I was a queen of a fucking ghetto. We didn't have those back then when you were still free to roam around, so let me ask you a few simple questions to make you realize what we were dealing with in your absence."
"I don't want to…"
"Were you ever forced to feed a thousand people with food intended for five hundred?" Rini says coldly. "Oh, and let's try that: were you ever forced to organize burials for women that killed themselves because they children didn't make it because the government didn't bother to give you any medical supplies whatsoever while some stupid fucking disease was raging around? Oh, and speaking off, how many children's graves did you help dig out? And let's not even start on how many of these children had fathers among the perimeter guard, heroes or soldiers alike."
"Am I supposed to believe that?" Miruko glares back at her. Yeah. The Midoriya from a few years ago would find it hard to believe as well. The world - or, at least, Japan - really took a dive nowadays.
"Believe or not, I don't give a fuck." Rini shoots back. "Midoriya offered me a chance to meet my parents in exchange for joining him, but guess what, bitch? Everyone followed me into this war willingly. Not because they're all bloodthirsty warmongers, but because they win in every outcome. If we win, we might get to live in a better world. If we lose, we'll at least die with some fucking dignity. So you know what? I'm done with you. Stay on your high horse for the rest of your life or go find out what sort of shithole Japan turned into because people like you fucking failed us, and then come and fucking apologize to me and every member of the new ISP. And while at it, go ask Gang Orca and the rest of the NVA shits why they were always so ready to come recruit some of us for their war for the better Japan, but never had any fucking food for us to spare."
Rini storms out of the room. Midoriya shakes his head and leaves right after her, leaving a still furious Miruko back in the room. He has nothing to say to the Rabbit Hero.
"Was that the truth?" Midoriya glances at the Hero Killer. He is standing with his back on the wall right next to the door. He didn't run after Rini, he's probably conscious enough to realize that trying to baby her would only make things worse.
"Unfortunately, yes." Izuku replies. "There is a reason why Japan has somehow managed to become the modern equivalent of the pre-quirk North Korea. And why all the sanctions happened."
It was painful when luxury goods were involved. On the other hand, each time Midoriya had to smuggle Gold Tips Imperial into the country he was reminded of the fact that foreign countries generally shared his opinion on Japan, except they weren't exactly ready to invade Japan to fix the state of affairs.
"An outlier or not?" Stain asks. And that's a very good question.
"They're trying to sort the mutants according to how dangerous and aggressive they are." Midoriya replies. "Rini's ghetto was one of the worst ones, at least at the beginning, but… now the matter of the destination of your exile is mostly up to how large of a bribe you can produce."
"Is that an official policy?" Stain replies, his face expressionless. "The whole exile and slow death as a result."
"I think…" Midoriya replies. "... that Rini would feel better if it was. The government is just shoving mutants that showed 'aggressive inclinations' there, thanks to Beast teaching the majority of the population just how disgustingly evil they can be if allowed to. The rest is just the government ignoring the ghetto's problems while focusing on stuff like the NVA, the economic crisis due to the sanctions and so on. It's not like journalists really care to report what's happening there. It's not an intentional hatred that's killing all those people, just a goddamn neglect. And a hefty amount of governmental incompetence and corruption."
"Well." Stain announces while straightening himself. "I think that I'm happy that I joined your organization, Midoriya. I have so many people on my 'need to kill' list now and I don't think that I can do the job on a reasonable timescale on my own."
"I'll be happy to help." Midoriya smiles faintly.
Hopefully Rini will calm the fuck down instead of doing something stupid. In the meantime, Midoriya decided to check on Thunderbolt.
(***)
Turned out that he was in one of the Overlook's interrogation rooms. Being intimately acquainted with whatever the 'Musical Hell' was. And, to Midoriya's surprise, Momo was in the observation booth. Eyeing the torture scene in front of her with an almost dreamy look on her face.
Then again, considering her standard behavior, he should probably be happy that she had her hands on the desk in front of her. Rather than… elsewhere. Once again, Midoriya was reminded that none of his former classmates truly qualified as sane people anymore.
He approached her and took a chair next to her own. She didn't seem to mind.
In front of him was the Musical Hell. Thunderbolt in the middle of the room, tied to the chair and gagged. He had a handful of small metal boxes(?) attached to his body, spread throughout it pretty much equally and connected with some cables.
The biggest of those boxes covered his ears. Kyoka had her earphone jacks connected to them. She also seemed to be smiling (in a very Entropy way) while walking in circles around him. She had headphones on her, and seemed to be listening to some music. Judging from the rhythmic movements of her head and her almost dance-like walk, she had to be really into it.
Thunderbolt certainly wasn't. He couldn't do that with his gag in, but it was rather clear that he would have screamed if it was possible. He looked a few years older after only a few days. Wow. That was some good torture.
"Care to elaborate, Yaomomo?" Midoriya decides to ask. He is genuinely curious, because this is certainly something quirk-related. And he loves to learn new things about them.
"Did you ever hear the sound that the fingernails on a chalkboard produce?" She replies and… oh. "Kyo has been producing that sound, and ten thousand others that are irritating, too loud and otherwise painful and unpleasant. One big symphony of pain and obnoxiousness. Whenever you get used to something, she can read that from your heartbeat and switch to something else. Over and over again."
"That sounds… actually survivable." He decides to point it out. It was bad, yes, but… Let's be real, if he didn't know how to resist interrogations, he wouldn't be allowed anywhere near the old High Council of the Paranormal Liberation Front.
Anyone can be broken. Most probably will. But each day you hold it in is one more day that your compatriots have to make sure that you talking will not endanger the cause.
"Kyoka has been at it for almost fifty hours straight now." Momo replies and that does, in fact, change his opinion on that a bit. "She'll probably need to sleep soon, but it'll be a few hours of respite. And then, another fifty hours of that." She sighs. The dreamy look is back on her face. "Kyoka can do some rather incredible things with vibrations. Both pleasurable and… quite the opposite."
Ah, probably that's why the boxes are there. To propagate the vibrations according to her quirk. Sounds are, after all, vibrations.
"You know, after all that Todoroki thing, I kind of pictured you as heterosexual." Small-talk is on. Thunderbolt's still gagging on his own screams in the background. Kyoka's clearly having the time of her life. "And monogamous."
She snorts. Her eyes are still on Kyoka. Midoriya is starting to be vaguely weirded out by it, and he considers that to be a major achievement on Momo's side.
"Oh, please. Sex is sex, relationship is relationship. Don't mix those two." Midoriya very much mixes those two. But he is ready to agree to disagree on that particular issue. "In the latter, it was always just Todoroki for me. In the former, well, it was too long of a wait. Besides, you're one to talk." She rolls her eyes.
"Excuse me?" Midoriya decides to ask.
"I mean you and Chameleon." She replies. Ugh. Of course, that's what it was about. "I have a friend with very good hearing. And I vaguely heard something about you taking her aside to 'reward her' after the USJ, which included making her sit through the debrief with…"
"Momo." Midoriya says calmly. His eyes are on Kyoka now. Momo actually takes a quick glance at him. Probably worried about the sudden change of tone.
"Yes?" She asks.
"Can it." He says. Still perfectly calm.
"... permission to say just one, but actually constructive thing?" She realizes that she went a bit too far, and decides to take a step back. But not without doing what she probably was trying to say all along.
"Granted." He replies. There is no harm in hearing her out.
"I genuinely think that it's pretty great that you found each other." She says. "I get a serious feeling that you didn't have much of a history with relationships, and… well, you look kind of nice together."
Once again, she reminds him that she's still playing that game. Midoriya sighs internally. She's good, but she still didn't realize her situation.
They are silent for close to a minute, both busy observing Thunderbolt's torture. It's the only interesting thing that's happening in their line of sight, to be honest. Midoriya finds no enjoyment in watching it.
"So, what's the record of resisting Musical Hell?" Midoriya decides to get back to what interests him. Namely, something related both to quirks and to his self-imposed mission of drowning those that kidnapped Eri in their own blood.
"Twenty-seven hours." Yaoyorozu replies immediately. "But most of those that we've subjected to it were minor villains. The one that held for twenty-seven hours was an A-Ranker that tried to intrude on my territory. Thunderbolt, honestly, is resisting it extraordinarily well."
"Former top ranked hero, a holder of many secrets… probably not surprising that he was extensively trained in resisting interrogation." Midoriya comments. It was one of the things that the hero schools didn't advertise to their prospective students. And was typically left for the third years. "And while I absolutely hate him as both a human being and a hero, you don't get that high without the willpower of steel."
"True, true." Momo agrees. "So, if he breaks, what am I supposed to ask him about exactly?"
Midoriya feels a sudden urge to pull his gun out of the holster and put a bullet in her head. Thankfully, he resists it. For now.
"For the past few years I was running an organization that was helping people on the government's shitlist." He replies. "Mostly children. A while ago the HPSC located one of our safehouses. Killed the caretaker, took fifteen children assigned to him at the time, and one more. One more that happened to be my adoptive daughter."
"That's… risky." Yaoyorozu says. "If they realize who she is, they can use her to influence you and…"
"Just get it done." He replies before standing up. She doesn't follow, instead she returns her gaze to Thunderbolt's torture scene. Just as he hoped for.
A few seconds later she feels his hands on her shoulders. He is now standing right behind her, and she didn't notice a thing. What was he…
"Yaomomo." He says, and something in her freezes.
"W… what is…" She tries to ask but he doesn't let her.
"I know all the tricks in that book, Yaomomo." He says quietly and calmly. His hands are still on her shoulders, pinning her down to the chair. "I wrote some down in it, actually."
"What do you mean?" She asks, without even trying to turn her head towards him. She realized that she fucked something up, but she isn't sure what exactly. So she forces herself to stay calm.
"You're trying to manipulate me." He states and for a millisecond he can feel her body tensing up. Oh, yes. He hit the nail with this one. "You're getting all friendly and cooperative, because you're trying to butter up to me. While obtaining leverage to influence my actions. Such as the knowledge about the exact scope of my relationship with Tsuyu. Or the knowledge of what exactly I wanted from Thunderbolt."
"I…"
"In fact, I believe that the second you heard that I was looking for my daughter, you started making plans for her." Midoriya continues, completely ignoring her meek attempt at interjection. "On how to pace the discoveries in your search for her in order to influence my emotional states and get what you want. Maybe even on recovering her yourself without telling me, so you could have the ultimate leverage against me."
"I wouldn't do that." She isn't turning towards him, nor trying to stand up. But she is still denying it. Foolishness. She wouldn't be an established villain of this degree of smarts and have no such thoughts.
Besides, he knows her track record as a villain. He knows that it wouldn't be the first time she does something like that to someone.
"Yes, you would, Yaomomo." He replies. The tone of his voice is almost friendly. Disturbingly so. "So before you have any stupid ideas, let me tell you in detail why they are stupid. To begin with, you forget whom I was brought up by. Does the name All for One ring a bell, Yaomomo?"
He doesn't let her reply. It was a rhetorical question, obviously.
"He didn't pick me up after Kamino, Momo." He says, and once again he can feel her tense up briefly. Someone didn't expect that to happen. "He was my parent all along. My time on UA was, to be honest, a teenage rebellion. I grew up with a person who made manipulating or harming people through their loved ones into a form of art. Did you really think that I wouldn't notice what you're trying to do?"
This time, she doesn't even try to answer. Good. She begins to realize how deeply she fucked up.
"So let me be honest with you." He then says. "If I find out that something happened to Eri and you were to blame, I'm not going to kill you. I'm not even going to harm you. You see, I'm going to be much more cruel. I'm going to harm Todoroki."
"You…" This finally provoked a reaction. But before it managed to get anywhere, Yaoyorozu suddenly froze to the core.
All for One didn't take direct part in the Training Camp Massacre. He simply wasn't needed there, not with the number of villains deployed by the League of Villains. Not with Entropy being there. But… he did do something.
During the last stage of the battle, some Nomus were dragging Uraraka and Hagakure into Kurogiri's warpgate. The students that were there, that could still fight - like Yaoyorozu - did nothing to stop that. Not because they didn't want to.
But because All for One was on the other side of the warpgate. And while none of them saw him, every single hero trainee within dozens of meters around the warpgate froze.
Yaoyorozu never treated the talks about 'killing intent' seriously. It was something straight out of fiction, a fairytale. Of antique martial arts anime. Until that night. Because the very presence of All for One made her body freeze, her mind empty itself of everything that wasn't a feeling of dread. She knew, she knew with every single fiber of her being that if she tried to stop those Noumus, hell, if she tried to move, she would die.
Now, she could easily kill Midoriya. She could just create some spike out of her back, skewer him instantly. But the very concept of trying to do that was beyond her. She couldn't even think of doing that.
All for One taught him well. He discovered the fact that he taught Midoriya too well on the day he died, begging for mercy that none of his 'children' were willing to give him. Speaking of…
"Let me give you a little bit more proof…" Midoriya says calmly. "... that you've tried to play in a league that you can't reach, Yaomomo."
He pulls out his phone from his pocket. Despite one of his hands vanishing from her shoulder, Yaoyorozu doesn't move at all. He quickly finds the right file, and… plays it.
"I GAVE YOU EVERYTHING!" All for One screams. "E-EVERYTHING, HOW DARE YOU…" Something crashes and his voice devolves into a series of pained gasps.
Midoriya can see Yaoyorozu's eyes growing wider.
"Good move, Tenchan." A female voice. Momo recognizes Entropy immediately. "Not so talkative anymore without your breathing mask, father." In the background, All for One is clearly still gasping for air. "Hey, Izu, are you still alive?"
"Barely, Hana." A strained reply comes. Judging from the volume, Izuku was standing in the distance. "And mostly thanks to Asa. By the way, Aiko, that Extinction Ray was well-timed, seeing his legs just vanish really made my day. Do you want any reward for that? I'm in a good mood."
"I…" A girlish voice comes. "... want his head."
Midoriya stops the recording and hides the phone back in his pocket. Then, his other hand returns to Yaomomo's shoulder. Before both his hands slowly move towards her throat.
"He ruled Japan from the shadows for two centuries, Yaomomo." He says. "A demon lord so evil that you wouldn't believe it. I learned a lot from him… and then, after years of hard work, I ended him. Your belief that you could play that game with me was downright ridiculous, and I hope that you truly realized it now, Counterfeit. But… there is also another thing, you see."
He actually leans on her head. Despite that, she is still frozen completely, like a deer in the spotlight.
"By the end of the war, Entropy wanted to see the world burn." Midoriya says calmly. "Back then, I couldn't understand it. But now, a few years later, after seeing what Japan has turned into, after seeing what happened to All Might's legacy… I think that I'm beginning to understand her, Yaomomo. Each time I feel tempted to follow in her footsteps, I ask myself 'why shouldn't I'. And you know what's the answer to that question? Eri. My adoptive daughter. The one you're supposed to help me recover." He straightens himself, before leaning over her ear. "So don't you fucking dare play games with her well-being, Yaomomo. I assure you that you won't like the results."
She didn't even notice him leaving. She had no idea how long she was simply sitting there, frozen like a rabbit in front of a car's headlights, not even noticing the weight on her shoulders disappearing.
It took her at least a few more minutes to calm her shaking legs. She also discovered that she was going to need a change of underwear.
That was an… enlightening conversation.
(***)
Hopefully this will teach Yaoyorozu a lesson or two about her place in the PLF leadership. Then again, it would be kind of boring if she behaved perfectly from here on, eh? Ehh? Yeah, it probably would.
Also, I hope that you enjoyed seeing the Musical Hell. I'm kind of proud of that idea.
Sometimes I feel like ETS is just me venting my deep-seated hatred for Japan over infecting the world with their weird-ass culture. So I'm doing my best to make them suffer a bit. Is it healthy? I mean, maybe? Oh, well.