AN: Got positive reviews about chapter 23, so here's 24!

Chapter 24:

"Great to hear that you managed to capture the villains! To be frank, I expected at least one casualty. But you two managed to surpass my expectations!"

"One small detail" I interjected "The case still isn't closed. Just before we arrived, they were speaking about a villain named 'Parasite' and how he should have been there too."

"I see you've taken my advice of constant vigilance to heart. I'm happy to see that, so I'll assist a bit more with the capture of this last one, since no honorable heroes leave a case half-solved.

But you've already worked enough for today, so back to the dorms with you "Corrosive pointed at me " and back to your house with you." he then pointed at Kimiko.

When I got back to the dorms, I finally had time for a little self reflection.

I didn't plan on becoming a hero. Didn't plan on going and fighting villains. Didn't plan on doing any self-sacrifice. But I did. Not just out of necessity, it wasn't necessary to save Kimiko from that bullet, especially since it could have had disastrous consequences on me. It wasn't necessary, but I did it and I would do it again if needed. Since, truth be told, I liked being in a duo, I liked going to Corrosive's headquarters every day, even Fumiko's comments weren't annoying anymore but a part of the place.

So, maybe, if this is what being a hero is like, then I'll do it. Not just in school, defeating the manga villains because I need to (it's my responsibility after getting the original protagonist out of the picture), but even after it, being a hero and working together with a friend every day, fighting villains, but still going back to Corrosive's base at the end of the day.

(There was a voice in the back of my head, telling me I wouldn't. Knowing what kind of bullet it was, I would fail, I would put myself first like every other time I did.)

I realize that recently I have neglected mentioning UA. My attention was occupied by the hero work studies, so I just rushed through classes waiting for the day to end. Today however, Aizawa actually had something to say in the homeroom class, which could be summed up as "There'll be a school festival", which caused cheering to break out since we didn't have a normal school event for a long time now. He told us that each class has to participate with something, but he would let us decide between ourselves, then he promptly fell asleep in the corner of the room in his characteristic yellow-orange sleeping bag.

Iida went to the front of the class, with Momo as the vice standing next to him.

"As the class president I'll continue from now on. Please raise your hand if you have an idea." Everyone began raising their hands, shouting to choose them. Iida was a bit overwhelmed, so he chose at random.

"Kaminari!"

"Let's do a maid cafe!" What kind of idea is that? We had four girls. Four! That's not enough for anything like that! Don't even let me get started on the degeneracy of the idea itself.

"Rejected, next." Mineta wanted to say something, but he rejected on principle. Good riddance, he always has the most unrealistic suggestions. Really, if he wanted sex that much he could just get a fake ID, and go to a brothel; He didn't need to try and live out his fantasies in the school.

"A mochi shop!" came from Ochaco, and that opened the flood-gates where everyone voiced their ideas.

"Arm wrestling tournament!" said the self-proclaimed manliest student of the class.

"A crepe shop!" said Sato, and that was the best idea I heard up until that point. Simple, sweet, all in all, great idea.

"A dance!" came from Mina. She didn't specify if it would be a solo show or a team effort, but I didn't like it either way. Dancing was boring, in my humble opinion.

"Let's sing 'Frog Song' in a circle!" came from Tsuyu.

"A petting zoo!" came from animal enthusiast Koda.

"Hand-made soba." Shoto sounded the least enthusiastic out of everyone.

"A feast of the students of darkness." That's it, Fumikage needs to take back on the edge, it's like his entire personality was based around it.

"An Asian cafe!" said Sero, who had this fascination with Asian culture.

"A dance performance." the repeat of the earlier suggestion came surprisingly from Ojiro.

"A takoyaki shop!" came from Shoji.

After it silenced and it became a bit quieter, I added my own suggestion as well:

"Counter Strike: Weaponized Quirks tournament"

All of the suggestions were written on the board, even Kaminari's though that was one of the first to be rejected there. Two more suggestions were also written on the board, one from Momo ("Study Session") and one from Iida ("A knightly duel").

"Now we eliminate all the ones that are inappropiate, impossible or confusing." A couple were rejected on the board, but we were still left with a sizeable amount, so once again everyone started advocating for their own idea.

At this point Aizawa had enough of this shit, and left, telling us to agree on it by tomorrow morning or he'll just do a public lecture.

Classes came and went, after school ended once again I went to Corrosive's base.

"Welcome my dear students.

I did a bit of investigating yesterday, and this Parasite seems like an extremely slippery villain. I only managed to find his presence in these crimes now that I've been expressly looking for him.

His appearance is completely changing, sometimes he's a man, sometimes she's a woman, sometime he's old, sometimes he's young, and let's not even talk about the individual features of all of his bodies. However since he is a male most of the time, I'll refer to him like that, plus he was a male when he was first sighted too.

He could have a shapeshifter quirk, but there's something concerning: There are never two people spotted with the same body at the same time. With most shapeshifter quirks, the original person goes on with their lives, while the criminal uses their body as a model for their own, so normally you could catch both of them on public camera recordings at the same time. However in the case of Parasite, one day the victim is just a normal person, the next day he turns up at a villain gang named claiming he's Parasite. Or, well, at least that's what I've managed to gather from the surveillance logs of the local criminals. The bodies that I think were used by him were later often found dead, only for Parasite to reemerge with a new one weeks later.

This means that it's probably not a simple transformation, but perhaps more like taking control over someone, hence the name, Parasite.

The most concerning thing however, is that sometimes there are multiple people claiming to be Parasite at the same time, and they're accepted. This either means Parasite is a villain gang in itself, with each member using the name, or it's a person with a quirk that enables him to control multiple people at the same time, and not just with simple instructions either, complex movements were observed to have been done by them.

It seems we are on the lead for a villain who somehow managed to slip under the radar up until now, and it's our job to neutralize him, since there have been at least fifteen different Parasites spotted up until now, and based on the evidence we can conclude that all of the bodies who were used are now dead.

Parasite was last spotted in Numazu city, so you should start the investigation there."

"The two of us? Didn't you say you were going to help?"

"And I did! It's still your first operation, so I'm not going to barge in and take it from you now."

Sigh. "Let's do it, Kimiko."

"Let's."

We changed into our hero clothes, it was official hero business after all. But, since our hero outfits didn't stand out that much, as long as nobody looked at us very closely, they could be disregarded as simple casual wear.

Once again, we arrived at the same conundrum as the last time.

"Get in the crow."

"Are you sure you can't make it bigger?" She sighed.

"Okay, I'll try to do it, but only once."

"That's all I ask." From the shadows came a crow, noticeably larger than any of the others. Not by much, but still, it's height was increased by five centimeters at least.

"That's the largest I can create without its genetics being all over the place."

"It's better than the first one."

"At least that's true. We should go then."

"Onwards!" I said, before collapsing into a puddle.

Aizawa was proud of his students. Really, he was. They fought against villains, some of them started hero work studies even though they were only first years, they were extraordinary. It was great how Kirishima, Uraraka and, Asui were working at some of the highest-ranked heroes.

The only one with who he wasn't happy with was Kamiyama. Back during the USJ incident, he tried to discourage him from the more violent methods that he used. During the Sports Festival, he performed excellently in the first two stages, getting through the second one without fighting at all. The problems came in the third stage, where he lost control of his quirk against Todoroki and he had to stop him. After that, he cut through Iida and Fumikage mercilessly, but the apology he delivered the next day made him think that it was a one-time occurrence.

After that, came the internships. Kamiyama gathered the fourth largest amount of offers, but instead of taking one from the top-level heroes, he went to a small agency he himself never heard about. He had a lot on his mind, so he delayed checking out the hero his student went to.

Fortunately, he didn't need to, since a couple days later news swept among the heroes, Stain was dead, killed by a hero named Corrosive, who people either didn't know about or didn't want to speak about. And that Corrosive was the one his student went to. He was still willing to give the benefit of the doubt, maybe it was an unavoidable action, maybe Stain was seconds away from killing Kamiyama or Iida and he had to be stopped immediately.

When he came back, Aizawa didn't speak with him about the events, but tried to finish his own investigation on it first. Unfortunately, it was going extremely slowly, since the only two heroes who knew what happened exactly were Endeavor and Corrosive himself.

During the final exams, when Kamiyama cut into him, he began to have some serious doubts about that Corrosive figure, and what he was teaching. Before he could investigate however, the Summer Training Camp Incident happened, and even now he tried not to think about that subject, it completely shattered his life for a couple days when it happened. Needless to say, he forgot about his investigation.

Then hero work studies started, and Kamiyama once again went back to Corrosive. It was surprising to learn that for some reason he was classified as one of the acceptable heroes in the UA system.

However, the Shie Hassaikai raid happened, and this gave him an opportunity to actually meet Corrosive. The first time Aizawa saw him was when he entered the Nighteye agency building for the meeting about the Shie Hassaikai. He had two students with him, one of them was Kamiyama and the other must have been from another hero school. At first glance, he didn't look like a violent hero, plus as Aizawa later learned that he saved a little girl from a villain. Overall, he didn't look like a hero who was killing villains, and Aizawa was willing to write off the Stain incident as the exception that strengthened the rule.

That is until the raid on the Shie Hassaikai, where Aizawa worked together with Corrosive. Until the last point, he didn't fight much, and he thought that it must have been because of his quirk, since on the Hero Network his profile featured that he had a large, area-of-effect offensive quirk, no specifics.

When they reached Overhaul, both Aizawa and Corrosive's other student were hit by the Chronostasis quirk, when the floor collapsed under him he lost sight of the action. Thankfully, Sir Nighteye came and helped both him and Corrosive's other pupil, they reemerged just after Corrosive defeated Overhaul. The only problem was that Overhaul was dead.

It wasn't a problem per se, it was never explicitly stated that heroes aren't allowed to kill, but an unsaid rule in the hero community was to limit the number of dead villains as much as possible. Most heroes didn't murder at all, and most of the time it was only ever accepted when they did it in extremely stressful situations, when there was a serious threat to their lives.

Overhaul's death was especially graphic too. The entire area around him was melting, his clothes being nothing more than blobs of color, his skull looking like refrozen ice cream.

After the other heroes arrived, everyone with injuries was sent to the hospital, Corrosive wanted to stay but because of his burns Nighteye didn't let him. When it was just the two of them, he asked the question that was on his mind.

"Nighteye, do you . . . know Corrosive?" Before answering, Nighteye corrected his glasses over his face.

"You have noticed his peculiarities, then."

"I guess you could say that."

"I did know about them, yes, and I did not plan to involve him. However, as you heard during the meeting, he was the one who rescued Eri, thus gaining crucial information about Shie Hassaikai."

"How do you know about him? I couldn't gather much."

"He is unknown unless you you have the right connections, but as the sidekick of All Might I met a lot of pro heroes. One occurrence early in my career was the time All Might arrived at a crime scene which was already handled by a duo of heroes, one of them being Endeavor and the other one was none other than Corrosive. He chatted with them a bit, and that's how I discovered him. He worked with Endeavor for a while, the two of them were a duo before they separated around seventeen years ago, because they couldn't agree on the methods they should use. As you know, Endeavor went on to become the No. 2 hero, while Corrosive remained unknown, the Safety Commission not liking to inform the public about murdered villains. However back when they were a duo they were equals, and I believe it is still the case." It was a scary thought, Kamiyama working at a hero who was equal to Endeavor, who was specifically unknown because he was so murderous. He tried to stop those tendencies in his student early, before they could develop, but it looked like Kamiyama slipped through and found a hero who nurtured that aspect of him.

In the Corrosive base, all was well. Fumiko was teaching Eri how to read, while Corrosive was in his own little bat-cave, in front of his setup which had six monitors all hooked onto one PC.

The top left displayed the location of Doppo and Kimiko, he gave both of them a location tracking chip to put onto their hero costumes, so he would be able to find them in case anything happened. The bottom left one displayed the camera feeds around the building, along with the public cameras of the surrounding area. The top middle one had the official Hero Network open, while the bottom middle one had his own private network open. The top left one had an overview of the stock market and share prices open, while the bottom left one was the 'random' tab, where he had the most secure browser open, with all the privacy he could buy with money and favors.

He was keeping a lookout for any villains snooping around the remains of Shie Hassaikai, trying to find the secret ingredient they used in the bullets. It wasn't that hard to figure out that it was blood, after that it was even easier: Find one of the low-level thugs who tried to block the heroes in the yard, get a low-level hero's name out of them, go to that hero and beat the information out of him, since the more professional villains knew that in a hero operation everyone was part of the meetings, even the lowest ones. It was really easy, so he expected some villains to start searching around for the location of his base, but he was one step ahead of them: Usually, his base's location would be private, unknown, but for this, he set up a new location, a small 'agency' more in line with traditional hero buildings. The plan was that villains would find his name, which would point to his agency which had that public building. They would go there, and when they were there he would lock up the shop and use the sleeping gas he acquired. Quite the plan indeed.

Suddenly, two people entered his 'agency building', he saw it through the camera feed which was open on the bottom left monitor.

There were two of them, men in their twenties up to their thirties, in dark clothes with hoodies that had unusually large hoods. Sometimes he was thankful to other heroes for having so little foresight, since it made the villains arrogant and reckless. These two were obviously villains, since no one should have had any reason to enter his agency.

As he sat up and went to ask Fumiko for a teleport, he wondered what their plan was. Just go in, capture the hero then beat the info out of him like they did with the local one? Probably yes. At most they probably created some basic cover story that relied on the hero's arrogance to work, like coming for autographs or something. That happened with some of the more popular heroes who had open agencies, notably Hawks, but it was extremely rare for anyone not in the Top 10.

He entered Eri's room, in which Fumiko was sitting with Eri at a table, pointing at letters in a book and telling her what they meant. While the main color of the base was green, which most of the time was connected to nature, it was a bit boring, as sometimes voiced by Fumiko.

When Eri came she took the opportunity, and decided that she wanted something different for Eri's room, but still in harmony with the rest of the base. In the end she went with the nature theme, but instead of green forests, she painted cherry blossom trees on the walls of the room. It was a large room, five meters long, four meters wide. There was a bed large enough that even Corrosive would have been able to fit it, with a nightstand and a wardrobe next to it. This was put along one of the lower walls, the longer one having a window that let sunlight in, but from the outside looked like just another part of the damaged and totally unremarkable building that he kept up the facade for. At the other end of the room there was a table, next to a bookcase. At the table set Fumiko and Eri, working on Eri's daily dose of education.

Of course, he couldn't forget about the other inhabitant in the room, contently sleeping on their own little bed next to Eri's. The cat really liked Eri, and Eri really liked the cat, so they put her little cat-bed into her room. They even put a couple of those fake branches on the walls, so the little cat can have a place to let out all her energy. It wasn't in a playful mood now though, it was sleeping on Eri's bed.

"Sorry for my interruption, but I need a quick teleport to the trap."

"Ok." Fumiko replied "I'll be back in a second." The second sentence was directed at Eri. She just nodded, still preferring not to use words unless needed.

Fumiko got up, and put her arm on his shoulder, her preferred point of contact whenever she had to teleport someone with her. Before he could properly register his new environment, she already went back to the base.

He was in the back-room of the trap, there was a camera and a button there, to release gas.

"I'll come in a minute!" he shouted out to the villains, to put them in a false sense of calmness. They weren't waiting for a trap now, so he started the gas. It wasn't anything overt, when the door locked it was quiet, and the gas itself didn't have any color either. The villains only noticed too late that they were trapped in a cloud of sleeping gas, and by that time they didn't have the strength to break the window and leave.

After around two minutes, Corrosive judged it safe to enter, so he went in and picked up the two villains, before putting on a closed sign and going back into the backroom. There he pushed the 'Fumiko call' button, and a second later she was already there, taking him back to the base. Instead of Eri's room however, Fumiko teleported him into the main room. It was understandable, they didn't want to involve Eri so soon in this part of their work.

"You know where to find me." said Corrosive before he left the room, descending into the basement. There, he went into a room that he never used with his students. It had multiple smaller rooms in itself, all of them accessible through a hallway and being visible through a one-way mirror. The first and second one had clean white walls, a bed and a table with two chairs in each of them. There were a couple that had barely any light, and also had chairs with straps on them. Those were the ones most rarely used.

He wasn't going to start with torture, that was the last measure. But this was his mini interrogation department, and interrogation included possible torture. Still, that was definitely illegal, so he liked to avoid it. He put the captured villains into the better rooms, the ones with white walls. He wasn't the best interrogator in the world, but the police didn't have time to investigate every villain they received, so he had to do his own questioning. If they turned out to be villains who hadn't killed, he would even leave them alive and deliver them to the police after he got all the information he needed.

Okay, so first step of interrogation, be sure that your subject is actually involved in criminal activity. He was extremely sure that those were villains, based on their clothing and their choice to go into his agency which they would have had no reason to do. Its placement also contributed, being in an obscure location that you wouldn't have found it by just wandering around, so they have had to search for it. He was sure that these were villains sent by a group who wanted Eri for themselves, and due to the lack of information on him they believed him to be a small fry. Sometimes he was astounded by the stupidity of the villains, but then he remembered that the No. 2 hero's secret identity was so easily discoverable that even a five year old could figure it out.

He also injected them with Fumiko's newest experimental sedative. It was used since it had a quirk weakening effect, since he used Eri's DNA in it. No, not her blood. He would never do that to her, he would sooner kill himself than become a monster like that, to remind her of her trauma so soon. However her hair also contained her DNA, and Fumiko combed it every day, a couple strands always coming off. Mix it with Fumiko's knowledge of poisons and chemicals and they soon had the experimental quirk weakening drug. It wasn't as useful as the Hassaikai's version, it could only be applied to a sleeping subject and it took at least two hours to take effect, while also being useless unless another sedative was applied along with it. Fortunately, he had the time and both drugs, so the two prisoners became much less powerful.

After two hours, he decided that it was time to start interrogation.

"So how should we find Parasite?" I started the conversation.

"I honestly have no idea." This was surprising, since most of the time even if I didn't Kimiko usually had an idea for most things. "How do you even search for a villain like that? Anyone could be Parasite for all we know, since he can apparently take over anyone." She continued.

"Well, not anyone. In the folder Corrosive gave us it was written that the ones the police discovered were all civilians. A lot of them also had mental health issues."

"Still, that leaves at least 30% of the population." We just walked aimlessly for ten minutes, then Kimiko started speaking:
"We know that Parasite works together with a bunch of different villain groups, so if we managed to find one we have a good chance to meet him there."

"Where should we search for villains then?"

"Like you said yesterday, villains love warehouses. I sent out a couple of crows to check the surrounding area, so we can catch any villains who might try to meet up in a warehouse."

"That's all well and good, but what are we going to do while we wait? Wandering around is fine and all, but it's pretty boring."

"Dunno." after a bit of thinking, I got an idea.

"There is a playground around here somewhere."

"A playground." the deadpan in her voice was audible even if I hadn't seen her face.

"Yeah, swings are actually pretty fun, you know. Plus they don't require much attention, so you can focus on the crows." and that's why we spent most of the afternoon of our hero work studies in a playground at the swings.

"You know, I've been thinking." started Kimiko.

"About what?"

"I can turn into multiple crows right?"

"Uhum."

"And I can turn the multiple crows back into myself, right?"

"Aham."

"So what if I could turn other crows into me? Like an illusionary clone? Because, I'm pretty sure the crows are not actually turning into me, but, like I'm being released from a pocket dimension or something like that."

"You should try it."

"I know, I'm thinking about how to do it. I can turn into any number of crows, but I'm pretty sure I would need at least twenty if I wanted them to have an equal cumulate mass to mine."

"So you need not just the illusion of your skin, but also to fill the space inside?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Void is great at filling up spaces, I could turn into a humanoid shape and you could use the crows to disguise me as you, since I assume your normal clone would be but an illusion."

"You're on to something."

Sadly, nothing came out of our surveillance, so around 7 PM we decided that for today we should finish, and get a better plan out of Corrosive on the topic of the tracking of Parasite.

Before we were able to leave however, we saw a person on the street next to the playground, barely being able to walk and coughing, red staining her palms. Her hair was black but there were some gray strands in it. Like the heroes we were, we immediately went to help her.

"Miss, are you alright? Should we escort you to the hospital?" Kimiko asked her, since there was a possibility that she was just suffering a side effect of her quirk, and it would recede in a couple minutes. She made some waving motions, trying to make us go away. She was frantically looking around, her eyes darting between the people on the street. The person they stopped on was a middle aged man in a business suit who was frantically running on the sidewalk, not noticing the struggling woman. To be fair, most others didn't stop either, since they saw that two heroes already had the situation in hand.

After the woman's eyes landed on the man, she stopped moving, her body becoming slack, like a puppet which had its strings cut. The man already left, not stopping in his running.

I heard a gasp from Kimiko, and only then did I register that her eyes didn't have pupils. They were completely white, and they were definitely not like that before. She also had no pulse, and neither of us knew how to restart it.

It was hella awkward waiting for the ambulance to come, by the time it arrived her body was cold and we just kind of stood around it. We had to give a detailed account of what happened, and we did, neither of us mentioning how we spent the entire afternoon at the swings.

It was nearly 8 PM when we finished, so we called Fumiko instead of flying back to the base.

"Hey, Fumiko, could you come for us? We got a bit held up."

"Where are you?"

"Just next to Numazu Park No. 8."

"Got it."

Five minutes later Fumiko arrived, and teleported us to the base. Though, surprisingly, Corrosive didn't greet us, the only other human there being none other than Eri.

"Hi Eri." We greeted her, after which I asked the question burning in my mind.

"Where's Corrosive?"

"He caught wind of a gang snooping around the remains of Shie Hassaikai, searching for the source of the drug. He went to, uh, 'check them out'."

"Can we go too?"

"Why?"

"We never saw Corrosive working alone!"

"Fine. Come on then." she took Kimiko's shoulder with her right hand, while she touched mine with her left "Eri, I'll be back in a couple minutes. If you find the dessert before that you can eat as much as you want." a light shone in her eyes, and she jumped from her seat and began running, all that in the half-a-second it took Fumiko to teleport us.

We arrived at an abandoned kindergarten, which I have to say is a pretty good secret base for villains. Most heroes wouldn't expect villains to use a building with an aesthetic that is so different from their own. The lights were off, but Fumiko was sure that it was the building that Corrosive went to.

The main entrance was locked, and not knowing the situation inside I decided that it wasn't worth destroying it with force, since it would be loud enough to be heard everywhere inside. So we went around, and on the other side of the building we found a window, the glass having melted out of the frame. It was large enough that Corrosive would have been able to go through (and he probably did) so we got in comfortably. Inside, we went around stealthily, not wanting to see if there were still some undefeated villains. Who knows what kind of quirk they had.

Still, we haven't found any villains, not awake ones at least. There were some bodies in the hallways, their faces twisted from the pain that killed them. Well, not all of them were dead. Some, merely unconscious and scarred for life.

Still, surprise was evident in their features, showing that Corrosive managed to get through undetected. For a second I was surprised that he was so good at stealth (most heroes who had strong quirks never bothered with it) but then I realized that it was Corrosive I was talking about. He was everything other heroes weren't, and that's why he was special.

The whole place was awfully dark however, as noted by Kimiko.

"There is less light here than at night in the forest."

"I think I might have a solution for that." I replied, after which they looked at me, just in time to see me breaking my face. Behind the broken skin there was void, which tried to form the shape of my face once again. It wasn't very detailed, no nose, or mouth, or facial features, but the two glowing white eyes were there, giving some illumination to us.

After a couple seconds, we noticed that we began hearing muffled sounds of fighting. This was the indication we were waiting for, it meant Corrosive wasn't captured but was currently fighting with a villain, and assistance was always invaluable. We rushed to help him, and we arrived in the gym room, a large room with a tall ceiling. That wasn't important however, what was important was Corrosive who was fighting with a villain who had some sort of Shadow quirk. Since shadow based quirks were always stronger when there was no light, we knew that we had to do something about that. I tried just looking at it, but my eyes only projected a glow, barely enough for anything, it didn't affect the villain at all.

Fumiko was a quick thinker however, and before I even had time to realize that she left she teleported back, now armed with a flare, she lit it and with her outstanding aim she threw it at the villain, the sudden light weakening the shadow quirk immensely, causing it to recede to the back of the villain. His front unprotected, it only took one strong punch from Corrosive to defeat the villain.

"Thanks for the help, my dear students!" he greeted us with his usual enthusiasm.

"At least you don't have burns this time." was Fumiko's reply, while me and Kimiko, like the polite students we were, just said:

"You're welcome."

"I suppose you're interested why I came here, yes?"

"We sure are."

"Okay, I'm out, call me when you're done with gathering the bodies, I already listened to similar stories at least a hundred times." rushed out Fumiko before she left, we weren't even able to say goodbye.

"Well then, let's start my story.

It all started today afternoon, when I noticed that two poorly disguised villains entered the trap I set up. The trap was a public agency building, as you both know I don't have one. My base is secret, but just last week I set up this one as a front, and the villains walked right into it.

Then came the harder part, interrogation."

- Flashback -

"Wha?" Disoriented, the captured villain could barely see, the white light blinding him in the small room. His senses dulled, he could only let out a barely coherent sound.

"Hey, you're finally awake." said someone, and he managed to focus a bit and see a tall and muscular man sitting in front of him, clothed in green.

"Yea." he muttered, still trying to reorient himself. Then it dawned on him, he had been captured. He panicked, adrenaline flooding his body, instantly trying to call on his quirk, but it was sluggish, and before he could properly form it he felt a strong sting on his skin.

"Please don't try to use your quirk." He crawled backwards , trying to get as far away from the hero as possible. He feared what would happen, his friend drilled into him that he should never divulge information about the gang, even though he was in it for less than two weeks. He was watching the hero with a questioning glare yet the only thing showing through his eyes was the fear he was feeling.

"Listen, before you do anything rash: You failed, and your boss will kill you even if you manage to get out. Even if he doesn't, it's only a matter of time before you once again receive an impossible assignment." Despair hit him like a kick in the balls, tears threatening to start flowing from his eyes. He only wanted some quick cash, he didn't want to get roped into the gang, drugs, and, it pained him even to say the word, villainy.

Seeing his distress, the hero was quick to come to the rescue:

"Hey, hey, don't be so down. You're safe now, and if you cooperate we can even make sure to lower your sentence." A hope ignited within him, perhaps he would be able to survive. Perhaps the hero would save him! Like All Might on the television, he was once again a child watching the news of his latest rescue. This hero could be his own rescuer!

"So, will you answer the questions?"

"Yes! Yes! I'll help, I'll do anything!"

"Great. Before we start, are you hungry? Or perhaps you would like some tea instead?" the adrenaline that he got from his wake-up was all used up, so he really began to feel the effects of the drugs that were in him. His thinking slowed a bit, the world becoming more blurry.

"Uh, yeah, tea would be nice, . . . maybe some food." his words came out sluggish, unfocused.

"Great, thankfully I already prepared some." said the hero, as he took a bag from the table, and gave it to the captured villain. He opened it, and there was some bottled tea, and a sandwich with ham. He took a gulp of the liquid, then a bite from the sandwich. It tasted very good, and his empty stomach reminded him that in the morning he didn't have breakfast, way too anxious about the task that would ensure his place inside the gang.

"First off, let's start with your name." His name. He probably wasn't supposed to tell it to the heroes, but he shouldn't have answered even the first question of the hero anyways, so he decided to just go with it.

"Hisakawa Eijirou."

"And you were part of the designated villain group 27f702? Don't worry, this is just a formality." He couldn't even picture the number the hero meant, it confused him in his dazed state.

"Well, yeah. But only for like, two weeks."

"So you only recently joined."

"Oh yeah, needed some money, friend said it's quick 'n easy."

"What did you do in the two weeks you were part of the group?"

"Nothin' special, just deliveries 'n stuff. Today was 'possed to be the first big one, Boss told me after this I'm a real member."

"Let's hear about those deliveries. Do you have a quirk that helps with them, or it was just to ease you in?"

"Nah, my quirk ain't good for things like that, Boss just wanted me to learn the basics."

"You met a lot of other gangs?"

"Just a couple, Boss wouldn't trust me with anything important."

"What's this Boss like?"

"He's freaky! He's all dark and gloomy!"

"Where do you meet the boss?"

"It was a kindergarten, if you can believe it! It's in Masumoto, think it's called Akiyama."

"A kindergarten?!" asked the hero, and he burst out laughing, breaking the tension. "Well then, thank you for your cooperation!" before he could react, the hero once again jammed a syringe into his arm, sedatives taking hold and inviting him to the land of dreams once again.

- End Flashback -

"The first guy held his tongue, didn't say a thing, but the second one was a rookie, he talked easily. The first one even tried to use his quirk, though thanks to a new weakening drug I easily took him down. Knowing his quirk, I researched him in the Hero Network, and found a couple robberies that ended in deaths, from someone in the same area with a matching quirk. Needless to say, he didn't leave, but I hold true to my word though, and I'll give the second one over to the police after we went go back."

"What about the boss? Why's he still alive?"

"For two reasons: One, he probably knows a lot about the other partners of the Shie Hassaikai who might be after Eri; and two I'm pretty sure he has information about that Parasite villain you didn't find anything about."

"Hey! Why do you think we didn't?!"

"You would have already told me otherwise. Back to the events however, I came here, used the acid on a window to get in, sneakily gone through the building taking out minions quickly and quietly. The boss however heard me, and that's why we were fighting when you appeared."

"Eri, I'll be back in a couple minutes. If you find the dessert before that you can eat as much as you want." as Fumiko said those words, determination ignited within Eri with the intensity of Cremation. Usually, Fumiko would bake cookies, or a small cake and then give it to her in increments in the next couple days. Yesterday she finished the last part of the last dessert, so she knew that today Fumiko would have a new one ready, still complete, and now she knew that she had a chance to get it all. All for One, all for her.

She went beyond Plus Ultra, and jumped down from her seat to search for the sweets. Still, she knew that she didn't have a lot of time, so she had to be smart about it. First off, eliminate as many places as possible: Not in the cupboards, since those only held the same things. Not in Fumiko's room, since she didn't like to leave Eri alone, and would have the dessert at a short distance from the table, probably still in the kitchen. The last dessert was dango, while the one before it was mochi, so now Fumiko probably switched to something else in style, probably cookies. That was the most likely one, so Eri decided that she was going to search for that.

Cookies were made in the oven, so she ran there and opened it. There were no cookies there, but the smell still lingered, and she used her sense of smell to try and follow it. Now that she noticed it, she felt it at another place in the kitchen, near the pantry. The pantry's doors were large and heavy, and she could barely open them, but it was worth it, since as she opened them she saw the cookies on the highest shelf.

Immediately running back to the table, she grabbed a chair and tried to move it closer to the pantry. It was taller than her, so it was no easy feat getting that chair to the pantry, but with determination that far outshined most heroes', she managed.

She stood on the chair, and tried to grab some of the cookies, but they were still too high up. However, she was pretty sure that if she jumped, she might just be able to grab some of them.

She immediately tested her theory, and she did manage to grab something, though not the cookies but the shelf they were on. Instead of just losing her grip however, the shelf broke off the wall, and she hit the ground, the cookies scattering on the floor. Well, no sense in wasting them, Eri began munching.

"Eri?" she heard Fumiko's voice after a couple of minutes, but Fumiko was a hero and she was currently occupied with something much more important.

"Oh, you found the cookies." said Fumiko as she noticed the pantry's open doors.

She sighed as she saw the state of it.

"You're lucky you're so cute." she said with no malice behind it. "At least sit at the table. " Eri looked at Fumiko suspiciously, not fooled by the ploy to rob her of her sweets "Don't worry I won't take your cookies." She nodded, still suspicious, but she decided to believe Fumiko and she went, taking all the cookies she could to the table.

/-/

"Another one of the fucking bodies gave out, and now some hero brats saw it too! Those melon idiots still didn't pay me, and now I can't get in contact with those imbeciles hiding in that shitty kindergarten!"

"Meow."

"At least you don't abandon me, cat."

AN: During writing, I always have the MHA wiki open in Firefox, and it's actually fascinating, the worldbuilding, sometimes I just go reading around in my boredom, trying to find something interesting. That's how I 'met' Vigilantes, a spin-off where the main character is a vigilante, it's set a couple years before the events of canon. It looked pretty interesting, so that's what inspired me to put Parasite in Naruhata, where the events take place. As you've seen, it isn't even connected, I just thought it would be a fun detail to include.

Edit: 2022. 02. 07: Well, that's where he was originally. But it kept bugging me, in the back of my head, how it just doesn't make sense geogrephically, so I changed it to Numazu. It's one of the biggest cities in Shizouka prefecture, Japan (or so I've beent old by Wikipedia). Since Musutafu is located in here, I think it's close enough to be feasible flied to.

Added the Aizawa section to showcase what the other heroes think about Corrosive, to give a contrasting perspective, since until now I mainly showed him from Doppo's view, who admires him like Izuku did with All Might.

I also probably managed to get myself into one of those lists fanfic writers keep talking about, since for this chapter I googled professionnal interrogation & torture techniques, from where I learned that torture wasn't an effective mode of interrogation, since 'the subjects tend to say anything just to make the pain stop', which is a funny phrase since it's something that's featured in a lot of Naruto fanfics, with the same wording. I'm pretty sure they checked the same sources as I did.

Currently debating on what to do with the school festival. I've got a couple ideas, but none of them are 'the one', so I'm a bit lost. I planned to reveal it at the end of this chapter, but I just ended up pushing it to the next one. I already made a post on reddit, but don't hesitate to write an idea in the reviews.

I didn't expect this chapter to be this long, right now it's the second longest chapter of the entire fic, even though not much happens plot wise.

While I was writing this chapter, u/happy-clover made a post on r/FanFiction where he/she said she would draw our OC-s. I quickly described Doppo, and she made a beautiful drawing that I can never hope to match with my drawing skills.

But, (and please don't think I'm ungrateful, just nitpicky) it wasn't exactly how I imagined it. Which is in no way the fault of the artist, but my own. So I tried to edit the picture, and as I said, my terrible-horrible artistic skills didn't help, and the edited version wasn't any better than the original. Except for the hair, which I was satisfied with, so I made another edit of the original where I only replaced the hair. So far that one is my favorite version.

You should be able to see all of this on my profile, the pictures themselves I mean.

Had a bit of a writer's block with this chapter, writing completely original content is hard as hell.