It was one of the more normal nights for Airi. She sat atop a building in her gear, hair blowing in the subtle winds as she hadn't put it in her signature side tie yet. It was dark, long, and luscious. Her outfit was a lot like Yuuma's hero costume, it was very practical. Steel tipped shoes and light, lethal weapons in almost every crevasse, completely black to blend in with the night and made with military grade elementally proofed materials. It was very, very effective gear.

And she made it look damn good like it was the latest fashion trend. The people that believe that Midnight, Mt. Lady, or Uwabami are the top beauties in the community then they obviously hadn't seen Airi.

But this was not the time to be admiring her beauty.

They were currently at the scene of a crime.

Heading down from where she was, she was met with the police at the scene. Heading their investigation was a man in a brown trench coat and hat, gloved hands and a hard expression on his face. "Naomasa. What did you find?" She said, her tone authoritative and firm. He got right to the point, the scene being too... too gruesome to chat idly.

"Time of death was at minimum 24 hours ago. Four victims, seems they put up quite the struggle. It seems that they were killed elsewhere and placed here by the looks of things. The cause of death... is complicated."

"How so? One has pieces all over the place, another seems to been poisoned by something by the ill look of his skin, and the two others seem to have fought something and lost brutally."

"Yes." Naomasa said, his face pale from trying to repress his urge to vomit at the scene. He could only guess what the actually crime scene looked like if all of them had been killed in the same place... "But, the coroner deduced that based on the amount of blood left in the bodies after death, even though all of their wounds could cause their death, it wasn't the cause. They died before their wounds could take hold. By by the looks on their faces which has been locked via rigor mortis, it was a painful way to go."

He sighed. The bodies were being collected for further investigation. There was only so much that the coroner's quirk could discern, a deeper investigation was needed for more details. Where they might have been when they died, how long since the first wound was inflicted on them, what was used, residue, anything they could find.

"Did the coroner find a strange residue on their wounds? Something that is clear, but doesn't match with any type of liquid known? It's especially cold, and under ultraviolet light it appears along with blood but as a red color."

Airi could see Naomasa square eyes widen as he quickly took out his smaller ultraviolet flashlight and shined it on the scene. The coroner did say that there was a strange substance in their wounds, but had no clue what it was and wanted to run test on it. They hadn't though to use the ultraviolet lights because... the blood was too obvious.

Naomasa quickly ran in, shining his light. At first, he didn't find anything, but then, he shined it on the wall furthest from the scene. There was no blood there, so they sanctioned off the scene excluding that point. On that wall...

It was Red.

"I-I found something." Naomasa didn't know how to take in this new information. Even he'd heard of the case before. It was renown as the biggest, most tragic case any of the police departments had been involved in. So much so that the case was saved in their museum of case files, The Vault. It held all of the cases that held a death count of over 100, and this particular case... claimed thousands of lives.

"A hand print?" Airi already had a hunch, one she didn't want to be right.

"Yeah. A child's handprint." Naomasa confirmed. All of the police who heard them went silent.

Hearing this, Airi's face became hard, it was too similar to be a fake. Too similar to be someone new, and too similar for her not to recognize it. Those files were used as training cases for the new recruits at the military academy. And it was also closely tied with her family. There was no officer that didn't know it. It was infamous as one of the worst tragedies in history, before the rise of All For One.

"Their cause of death wasn't normal. They had their essence ripped out of them and eaten. Their wounds... it was just the killer toying with them." She gritted out, finally having the pieces knitting together. "If we didn't have a quirk on hand that could discern cause of death, we'd have been spending weeks trying to figure that out and he'd of killed more during that time."

"So... they were..." Naomasa's face paled at least two shades as the realization sunk in.

"Yeah, they were reaped. The Reaper's come back."

"But how?! It's been at least two centuries since his time! He should be long dead by now!"

"That could also be said about another, but he's alive too." She responded.

Naomasa was at a loss. He knew she was right but it was still a hard pill to swallow. People still didn't believe in ghost, but they were more well known now that quirks were a thing. If the impossible had now become possible, whose to say that something believed to be impossible or fake couldn't become a reality too?

So as time went by, the concept that maybe ghost are real grew. Many of the myths and legends that people believed in were looked at in a new light. 'Maybe it was a person with a quirk before they were discovered?' Those that searched deep within history had a theory that the glowing baby was not the first being to gain a quirk.

Quirks may have existed way before that.

Airi's thoughts were racing, connecting several dots together that she prayed to whatever god was up there were just baseless. But her sinking gut was telling her otherwise. "Naomasa, get this place cleared. The moment the autopsy report is in, inform me immediately. We will be having a meeting as soon as the results are back. The battle plan is changing." She said.

Naomasa could only nod, all of their officer's faces turning hard and paling a shade.

Who wouldn't be scared? They just found out their were dealing with an actual serial killing demon.

Airi was in her own thoughts. Her son, Ritsu. There wasn't much that could scare him. But two days ago, he'd told her that 'A monster was watching them.' Going from her hunch, she had Naomasa investigate her area, and this is what they found. Airi's face paled.

She figured out what scared her son.

'The Reaper... he was watching my kids.'

It was after this realization that she got them away from the house to live with their grandmother. Her house was older, one of the first houses in the Kageyama name to be built in Musutafu. Aside from the obvious security measures that made it akin to a fortress, there were other measures that her house did not have.

Measures against spirits.

Nothing alive or dead could infiltrate the place. It was that safe haven that she was going to send her kids to. Yuuma and Ritsu would be safe there.

She didn't explain why they were suddenly going to live with their grandmother, only saying that it was because work had gotten busy. After she'd made all of those preparations and gotten the kids away from the house and to the safety of her mother, who she was sure knew what was happening because of her experience, they got the reports back from the coroner.

She made her way to the base, there was no way for her frown to deepen further than it already was.

-back at base-

The heroes were informed about the updated details of the case and were having their own meetings and plans about it with the police. Airi was with her team, the spearhead of the special combat forces. They were personally trained by Airi for many years after the death of her husband, an elite and small team with a set of skills they specialized in.

Airi's specialty was close quarters combat for obvious reasons. She could use a plethora of weapons but close range ones were her preference. She was skilled in stealth as well as rescue due to the many uses of her quirk. Because of her skillset, she trained the lackey troops in the SCF.

Of those troops, there were a select few that became a part of her personal team. They took orders directly from her and were her limbs. Each of them had their own troops they governed, but they all followed Airi's orders to the letter. They had an unfathomable amount of trust and loyalty to her. She'd saved them in some way, shape, or form on more than one occasion.

To them, there was only one Airi Kageyama. No one on earth could replace her place in their hearts.

"Everyone is here. Good. We got work to do." Airi stated. There was no time for warm greetings this time. The air was tense as the small group of people stood at attention, waiting for their commands with silent determination.

"Villains and low ranking criminals have been steadily gathering in the area. The reason is unknown as of this moment. Along with this, people have been going missing at an increasingly alarming rate. Some have still not been found, and the bodies that have been found were mutilated almost beyond recognition and," She paused, taking a breath, "And every last quirk cell in their body was forcibly removed from them."

The group gasped. One of them speaking up and voicing their growing anger. "It's Him?"

She nodded, confirming their fear and rage. She continued with her debrief. "The bodies also had residue on them, and based on the results it is confirmed to be the work of a threat that was thought to have been long since dead. If we connect all of the evidence together, we can assume that The Reaper is in league with All For One, and they are responsible for the missing persons/homicides."

"The Reaper?!"

"Isn't he that demon from centuries ago?! How is he alive?!"

"Was he alive to begin with? How do we fight a demon?!"

"I need to get more holy water."

"I got salt on me at all times."

"How the hell am I suppose to punch a ghost?"

"Everyone quiet!" Airi commanded. Every last person shut up like their life depended on how silent they could be. Some of them didn't even breathe.

"What's our plan of attack?" Another officer asked after a moment, mustering up his courage. The others looked at him with awe, fear, and respect for being about to speak to the commander after such an order was given. They breathed out a sigh of relief when she began speaking again to begin the meeting.

"The reason for the gathering of the villains and the partnership between AFO and The Reaper is unknown. Based on past experiences and the records we have on both, AFO seems to be amassing quirks for himself. As for The Reaper, his reasonings are even more vague. How he is even alive now is also a mystery, but I have a hunch that it has something to do with that bastard. As you know, the one to take him down before was none other than Shigeo and Ritsu Kageyama, my forefather and uncle respectively. But do you know the details to this accomplishment?" She asked them. One of them raised their hand, and she nodded towards them for them to speak.

She needed to know how much of the truth they knew.

"Ritsu Kageyama was the first commander of the SCF and the forefather of the force. Along with a team of people who at the time were known as 'espers' or 'psychics', they subdued villains who at the time were seen as 'monsters' or 'spirits'."

Airi nodded at the officer, "Correct. Continue."

"His brother, Shigeo Kageyama was one of the first to to have the official title of 'hero' and worked together with his brother's team and the police to put away criminals. They joined forces to put away one of the most active villains of the time, a serial killer that went by the code name 'The Reaper'. His body count was in the thousands and was done in the open, the event being known as one of the most tragic happening in history."

"Yes, it was, but that is only a part of it." That was the extent they knew about the case. It was so old and worn that most other content was lost. The only one who knew the truth, the entire story, was Airi. The records of the event were carefully stored in her family's tomes which had started as a way for Uncle Ritsu to keep track of his brother's power, but evolved into the records of the Kageyama family past.

"Death is thought to be the end," Airi began, "But not always. Ghost and spirits are very real entities, though they rarely interfere with the living world. Back then the concept of a world after death was..."

"Insane?"

"Yes." She let a bitter laugh escape her. "But after The Reaper appeared, it became less so."

Every was sitting in their chairs, gathered around the table as Airi sat in the commander's chair. It was much larger than the others, signifying her authority in the room. Everyone present was silent, both eager and anxious to hear the details of one of the most famous stories in their line of work.

"Time for a history lesson." There was a pause, everyone becoming silent as Airi pulled out files she'd brought from her home. Records of the event written by her uncle himself, a legend in the field. She began to read, and the officers soaked in every word.

Historic Tome: The Reaper. Author: Ristu Kageyama.

The record was written in first person, It was transferred to print by later generations, the original being the handwritten version she had at home. None of its contents were changed however, and it was like he was speaking to them himself, like he was in the room. It was like reading his diary.

Record 1

He is an evil spirit unlike anything I've every seen. Shigeo said he was even worse than Mogami, much, much worse. I don't know where he originated from, and even Dimple doesn't understand how a being so powerful and vile could of remained hidden until now. Apparently the beast 'eats' the other spirits in the area and kills any living thing he crosses, 'eating' their souls too. Dimple was fortunate enough to escape his clutches and describe his powers and appearance.

He looks like darkness impersonating a man's form. No distinct features as if he's forgotten what he looked like before. The darkness hangs off of him like a cloak, and with the way he rips souls from the bodies of the living, it has been decided that 'The Reaper' was a fitting name for it. Dimple reported that when 'The Reaper' absorbed the souls, he grew bigger, as if he was aging up. His power seems to be depicted by assumed age of the size of his soul. My guess is that once he reaches full maturity, we will be unable to stop him. We have to eliminate him before that happens.

Record 14

We've discovered his tell, a mark or a sign that he leaves in his wake. A hand print. It isn't odd to find things like hand prints left by spirits. Most of the more docile ones that haunt places leave marks such as these when they try to interact with the living world. But, his mark is distinct. A red, dripping stain as if his bathed his hand in blood and slapped it on the furthest wall where he leaves. I can not believe that I didn't see it before...

He hadn't "just" appeared.

There were other crimes investigated by the normal units of the police force. They each reported that there was a hand print of the same kind on the farthest wall. They reported it to be a child's hand print at first, but the police still being skeptical only added it off handedly to the report. But the hand print slowly went from being a child's to that of a teen.

He had been gathering power for longer than we've encountered him. But why? For what? The monster is leading us in circles! It seems to enjoy death and killing, pain and strife. There is no rhyme or reason in his attacks. My team isn't enough for this, we need help.

The body count is only growing with each passing day. The people around me are scared. My parents are scared. ...Even I am scared. My brother and his mentor, along with a few more allies have gathered much to my relief.

But will it be enough?

Record 68

After relentless hunting and sleepless nights, staking out every possible target and gathering every spirit in the area with the help of Dimple, we managed to finally encounter The Reaper. His presence was something I've never felt before. It was as if his very existence was anger itself. Anger at the world, anger at the living and the dead, anger and insanity. Mogami was evil, probably the worst I'd ever encountered during out fight with the organization 'Claw'.

But this... This was the devil.

Normal esper powers didn't work on him, he was too high level of a demon for them to even phase him. We... we lost a lot of people today before Shigeo saved us. His abilities were on another level than any of ours were, and he managed to 'wound' the beast. It fled afterwards, going into hiding.

We finally figured out his weakness, but the loss was too great to celebrate it. Teruki, Sho, even Dimple... we lost too much today. The only thing that came out of this was that we managed to hurt him. But that beast was smiling as if he'd discovered something amazing.

Something 'Fun'.

Airi remembered the old stains that were on the original paper. Her uncle had cried his heart out writing this record. No one will ever know though, and she would not speak on it. She could only give her silence to honor the dearly departed before continuing to read. The rest of the records were simply the different things they did to mitigate the carnage he was leaving behind. The Reaper seemed to fall off of the map once again and the frustration in Uncle Ritsu's writing was clear.

But finally, they figured out the why.

Record 145

...This may be my last record.

He was hunting espers. Only espers. We were too concentrated on protecting the regular people to notice his change. In that battle with us, he learned to distinguish those with and without powers. Apparently we are much more 'fulfilling meals' than normal people.

Instead of us chasing him, he is now chasing us.

I refuse to sit back and let it happen. I will not lose another friend. I will not lose any more people close to me. Those who were skeptics before have become believers, and the normal people have begun to show signs of having abilities of their own. They've gathered, along with my brother, and our remaining friends.

A War has begun between us and the demon.

And even if I do not make it back alive, it is a war I plan to win.

There were more words written on the page, Ritsu's last goodbye to his family, to his brother, to his friends, to his parents. Airi did not read this, as none of these words were meant for her or her team to hear. It was her way of respect. She moved on, taking out a newspaper as well as another tome which was written by Ritsu's niece, Shigeo's daughter after the events transpired.

Ritsu was true to his word, every last one, and that tome was the very last one he was ever able to write.

He managed to severely wound the demon known as The Reaper. But this resulted in the beast entering a crazed and desperate state. He used a massive wave of power to suck out all of the souls that were immediately around him. It was a desperate move to allow him a last escape. His anger at the one who hurt him clouding his every judgement. The Reaper was a being full of malice and pride in his ability.

He did not realize his mistake.

Airi finished her reading, all of them having a rough idea of what they could possibly be dealing with and how they should prepare. They talked about their plan going forward, and the group was split into two. One would go west to investigate closer to Shiketsu High School, while the remaining, along with Airi, would continue their investigations closer to Yuuei. Certain officers would be stationed in special places, and Airi already had a plan for where she would be.

With that, the meeting ended and everyone prepared for their missions. Airi got home, returning to their vault were the rest of the tomes, newspapers, and other records from that time onward were kept. Only the things about her family and events happening at the time were kept.

She pulled out a specific tome, one that was written by Shigeo's daughter after the events had passed. Something that no one but them knew about the incident.

That rage that Grim remembered, It wasn't his own. Buildings were upheaved, lives were lost, and the city was left crumpling away as a beast was unleashed upon the world. It single mindedly hunted Grim to the ends of the earth, without rest, without mercy. Nothing could stop it, and only death awaited the infamous killer demon.

That monster... was Shigeo Kageyama. Or at least had his form. It was something that should not be touched, something that should have, and would have remained dormant forever...

If not for the death of Ritsu Kageyama that tragic day.

[A/N] HELLO! I am HERE! What did you think of this? I know I'm very late, but it's taking me a while to write out these chapters because of all of the info I WANT to put in them.

Again, just as a reminder. When I've written up the chapters for the USJ arc, I will post them one after the other because of how long y'all have to wait for them... Again, I apologize for not having them written beforehand...

Until the next chapter!