Chapter 13

Tanya was on her way to the nearest soft drink machine to quench her thirst when a vibration in her pocket suddenly put her on high alert. The reason for this was that it had not been her normal phone, but instead her unofficial one inside a hidden fold of her uniform. Was this the instruction she had been told to expect 'coming soon'?

She grabbed her stomach in mock discomfort before rushing towards the bathroom, locking the door behind her and pulling out her work phone. A new message in her inbox simply read:

[East side. 30 minutes.]

Her heart beat accelerated. Something was going to go down in half an hour and she would be right in the middle of it. What had these crazy bastards planned that required an operation during the UA sports festival? Millions of people were watching this event live! If a scandal of some kind happened then it would be impossible to hide and her career would be over!

Finding a new profession honestly would not bother her too much, but leaving Himiko behind felt just... wrong to her. Without her being present to protect the girl, Tanya was certain that the HPSC would run her into the ground, squeeze every last drop of energy out of her and then discard her immediately.

Even if the higher-ups understood that exploiting valuable assets was going to bite them in the ass sooner than later, they would definitely use her as leverage to keep Tanya quiet about their dirty business. She was going to become a hostage as long as her senpai drew breath, threatened with her life at the slightest hint of their secrets being exposed.

Himiko was a bright, hardworking young woman who deserved better than that. Letting such a precious human resource be wasted was unacceptable. Who knew when Tanya would discover a subordinate half as loyal and capable as her ever again?

Pushing images of a teary-eyed, bruise-covered Himiko from her mind, she calmed her aching heart to think the situation appropriately through. In all likelihood though, she was just overreacting. Surely nothing bad would happen. Nedzu's intellect would deter the higher-ups from pulling anything crazy that could be traced back to them.

"There is no need to panic. It's probably a PR-stunt to excite the masses! Fireworks maybe... or some mildly infamous criminal hiding in the audience for me to capture."

The only question was: What excuse could she use to appear at the specific time in the allocated location?

Checking the time revealed that she had around ten minutes until the start of the next round. Tanya needed an idea. Quickly.

~[#҈#]~

"You want me on your team for the cavalry battle, Deku?"

"Of course Ochako! Your quirk is integral to the strategy I came up with!" he practically beamed.

She liked that determined expression of his when he broke out of the shell that typically surrounded him when talking with others. Actually, she liked it a lot. Izuku's eyes practically sparkled like emeralds under starlight and his smile was...

Ok, stop! Where were those thoughts coming from all of a sudden? How strange…

Naturally after showing off his confident, charismatic side he reverted back to his old, insecure self.

"O-only if you w-want though... I-I don't want to pressure you-"

Before he could undo more of his progress she intervened.

"Don't be silly! I'd love to!"

Aww... The way his cheeks lit up was adorable! Wait, why was she thinking that? Her own face reddened in embarrassment.

Behind him, the pink-haired girl with the annoyingly large bosom grinned manically and pumped her fist.

"Together we will show everyone the true power of my babies! This is going to be awesome!"

She sweat dropped at that statement. Did she really have to talk about her gadgets like that?

"A-alright. Yes! Here is what we are going to do..."

~[#҈#]~

Shouta nibbled on the cap of his pen as he mulled over the results of the first event. Originally he planned to visit the sports festival in person, but that nasty knock to the back of his head had prompted the overly cautious doctors to keep him in bed for a day longer. It was infuriating, but the rat had made it pretty clear that he didn't want to see him on school grounds again until he could present his recovery certificate.

At least the news coverage of the festival was so comprehensive that he could see his students from basically any angle by just flipping through the TV channels. Begrudgingly, he even admitted that he was actually able to observe their performance better from his hospital bed than if he sat next to Hizashi and his ear-splitting screaming.

In his lap lay a notepad filled with barely legible scribbles about what his children did right or wrong. Eraserhead had only known them for a few days before the incident happened, but he could already tell that some of them had improved much in the last two weeks. For example, the number one problem child Midoriya seemed to no longer break his bones with his quirk, although his punches and kicks looked far weaker than what he had demonstrated before.

The next round of the festival would show him how well they had learned to work together which was almost equally as important. They would need to rely on each other as much as themselves in the future.

So he sat there and blankly stared at the screen in front of him, waiting for the advertisement break to be over.

"... Don't forget to reserve tickets for 'Heroes of the Heart' this weekend! The critically acclaimed opera about Uwabami's love life that you don't want to miss under any circumstances! A once in a lifetime experience, so romantic it will make your heart melt!"

"No, thank you. I'd rather keep it functional." he sneered, half disgusted, half amused.

Which idiot would want to watch a garish display like that? Truly, career heroes were all tasteless morons of some sort. Shouta would bet one of his remaining organic teeth that his substitute teacher, Argent, was a fame-hungry, greedy pretender much like the rest. All Might had turned out to be exactly the naive, empty-headed muscleman the media depicted him to be and Eraserhead knew from personal experience how unpleasant Endeavour was.

Well, she couldn't be too bad. His students had obviously learned something in her lessons and what little footage he had seen of the number eleven on hero-net portrayed a fairly impressive capture speed paired with near unmatched efficiency. Her attire, while stylish, was also clearly designed with utility in mind instead of accentuating feminine sexuality in any way like Mt. Lady's or Mirko's did.

Not that there was anything wrong with showing off your body, his childhood friend Nemuri would say, but to expose yourself purely for clout and attention was decidedly unheroic in his opinion. A lack of protection was essentially inviting a villain to stab you. Dead heroes were of no use to anybody.

"Aaaaaand we're back, dear listeners! Our poor Argent has suddenly suffered a migraine, so for the time being I will be your sole host."

"Can't imagine why sitting next to you might cause her physical pain..." Shouta snickered, a rare smile ghosting over his lips before he tugged his capture scarf further up.

"The forty two students who got into the second round must now prevail in a team exercise of epic proportions! The cavalry battle is..."

Present Mic continued to explain the rules for the viewers who were just tuning in before that game properly began. As expected, most teams went immediately for Midoriya's headband due to its absurd point value. The green-haired child however was making the rational decision of not engaging in an unwinnable fight. Instead he fled to the air to avoid the dozens of contestants trying to dogpile him.

Shouta nodded approvingly at his perfect team composition. Uraraka was able to extend his airtime after leaping tremendously while the support course student provided equipment to hover indefinitely. Tokoyami could defend them effortlessly in all directions with the help of his shadow quirk. Overall, it was a very solid strategy that would be hard to overcome by the other teams.

Bakugou used the vagueness of the rules in his favour and attempted to propel himself upwards with his explosions to reach them, but a quick strike from Tokoyami's bird-shaped shadow sent him tumbling down again. If his teammates had not been there to save him from that foolhardy manoeuvre then he would have touched the ground and lost the round. Such hot-headed recklessness would end up killing him sooner or later.

Meanwhile, the remaining teams were duking it out among themselves for the lesser headbands with lower point values. Multiple strategies were employed to-

What was that?

Purple Mist?

Oh no! No, no, no, no! It could not be! The nightmare of the USJ was repeating all over again!

A black monstrosity with large, leathery wings dropped out of the swirling portal and halted the playing students in their tracks. Then it screeched and Shouta leapt out of his bed.

The rat could fire him, but he would not sit by and watch while his students were being attacked a second time!

~[#҈#]~

"I'll tear this rotten society down... starting now!"

Himiko had to hide a scoff by clearing her throat. This manchild was as simpleminded as he was melodramatic. To claim that he could 'tear society down' when he was going to go up against her beloved? How pathetic. The moment Tanya got sight of this scum he would get eviscerated.

Ironically the only thing preserving him from total annihilation was the exact society he raged so uselessly against. Many live cameras and onlookers would regrettably be ensuring his survival today.

Oh, how Himiko longed to slip a knife between his ribs and string him up like the puppet he was. What made him think he was worthy of even laying eyes on her cute senpai? The insolence!

Despite her loathing of Shigaraki she had to keep up the charade and pretend to be excited about the upcoming mission. As always, fantasizing about her love helped improve her mood.

"Yay! What fun would it be if we could bathe in the blood of these pigs together..." she laughed dreamily.

"Whatever, come on. We have a boss to kill."

Totally unbeknownst to him Himiko grinned; because he was one of the pigs she had been talking about. And she would make it extra painful when his time came. Everybody who directly or indirectly planned to cause her love harm, needed to suffer.

The purple mist guy opened a portal which took her to a service entry that had been unlocked by the codes she learned from Midnight. Of course that would not be nearly enough to trick the security system whose true scope only the principal knew, but that would be soon taken care of.

She sprinted up the stairway leading to the seats outside and arrived at the maintenance hatch just in time for the lights to go out. The guy with the electro quirk who the League had found on the streets was doing a fine job at overloading the power lines and internal circuitry of the stadium as well as anything connected to it. Too bad that he was most likely not going to make it with a lethal overdose of Trigger ravaging his bloodstream. How would he taste, she wondered. Like ten condensed energy drinks mixed with raw thunder perhaps?

Himiko kicked the door open with strength that belied her tiny frame and stepped out into the open. The sudden illumination of sunlight blinded her for just long enough to be almost hit by a taser from the security drone waiting for her. Like she had predicted, Shigaraki's preparations had been insufficient to completely distract Nedzu.

One flick of her wrist sent a retaliatory blade into its optic, shutting the machine down in a spectacular light show of sparks. What a flimsy construct. One would think that UA had the budget for better security robots.

Her adjusting eyes scanned the crowd of slowly panicking civilians and instantly found the source of their fright. A 'Nomu' had been dropped by Mist-Man in the middle of the stadium where it was busy attacking the students and kicking up as much dirt as possible to deny the heroes an overview of the situation.

Nomus were her number one research priority after she had infiltrated the League and she could understand why the voracious pigs at the HPSC were interested in them. Gentle prodding and much feigned admiration for the 'impressiveness' of their organization revealed that they were apparently humans infused with multiple quirks. The elusive leader of the League, often called 'Master' or 'Sensei' by its members, was the one responsible for this.

Of course the assholes in charge of the operation told her no more than necessary, but she had an anonymous tablet, courtesy of Senpai, and an internet connection. Piecing the clues together through forum posts and dubious online news articles was not the best way to conduct research, but Himiko felt rather confident that 'Sensei' was in some form linked to the urban legend of 'All for One', the man who could give and take quirks.

Most people would dismiss that story as a mere myth, she however knew better than anyone what kinds of atrocities the government was already hiding. And honestly, a transfer quirk wasn't even really weird. She had blackmailed a guy who could turn into a horde of rainbow-coloured spiders once. Not much could top that.

Shaking the distracting thoughts off she began to incite proper hysteria in the crowds by roaring a dramatic war cry and driving another blade into a nearby civilian. His fat would absorb most of the damage and she was careful to not hit any extremely vital organs. He would be fine if he got medical aid within the next twenty minutes.

Of course the chubby guy was not very appreciative of her skilled work and began screeching like a swine on slaughter day. Japan's population was truly growing soft if a little shanking was upsetting a grown man so much. With a voice like this he would never get a girlfriend! At least the red added a nice contrast to his white shirt, similar to the national flag, only cuter.

Jumping on a middle-aged woman's shoulders she raised her bloody knife in the air and screamed: "Hahaha TREMBLE IN FEAR, FOR THE LEAGUE OF VILLAINS IS HERE! Oh, that rhymed? Nice."

A tumult broke out as everybody scrambled to put as much distance between her artfully dancing blades and themselves. Himiko cut tendons and aimed for limbs, but stayed largely far away from larger blood vessels which would result in lethal injuries. A favourite area of hers to hit was the scalp since those wounds would bleed tremendously and look far more dangerous than they actually were. People running around with bloody faces, calling for help got the mob riled up pretty effectively until the whole side of the stadium was in disarray.

All in all it was good fun.

Some overeager sidekick crashed in front of her and raised his fist, shouting: "Your reign of terror ends here, villain! You shall not harm-"

Only to be cut off by a tranquilizer dart to the neck.

"You talk too much. Why would you expose your throat like that anyway? Disappointing."

He was apparently only a distraction though, as the dagger she was raising to cut him up some more was shot out of her hand by a bullet. No police officer had such good aim which meant that it had to be Snipe the Sharpshooting Hero! Himiko threw herself to the floor not a moment too early as a second bullet barely missed her shoulder.

Shit! That bastard was supposed to be stationed outside, not in here! As fast as she was able to move, Himiko was under no delusions that she could consistently dodge his bullets. If she went out there she would get shot. Getting wounded was not what she was afraid of, but instead the ensuing time in the hospital and police custody until the HPSC broke her out. Unnecessarily wasting a week away from her love was going to suck.

Maybe she could transform again and trick the heroes…

Another shot punched clean through the seat she had just been used for hiding, forcing her to crawl behind a new cover. Hole after hole was blown wherever she went with surgical precision. Did the guy have clairvoyance or what?

No, screw the pigs in their fancy suits! She cared not if their stupid power play worked out or not. This farce was annoying enough without the risk of being perforated with lead.

By sending the pre-prepared emergency codeword via a text message she informed Purple-Mist-Man that she wanted an extraction asap before the situation could further deteriorate. Hopefully he was going to read it immediately.

Himiko looked around for something to protect herself against Snipe. There! Behind two collapsed seats cowered a little boy who was bawling his eyes out. Such a cute hostage provided the perfect meat shield. Sneaking up behind him she seized the boy and pressed his tiny frame against her chest. A threatening glare in the direction of wherever the bullets were coming from together with a knife to the kid's carotid artery sent the appropriate message.

As it turned out, walking backwards over uneven terrain with a child on one arm was not easy. Especially considering that she was unable to look where she was going, lest the Sharpshooting Hero chose to blow some of her fleshy parts to pieces.

"Stop. Release the hostage. Put your hands up in the air. You are under arrest." droned a clearly synthetical voice in a monotone fashion.

Wonderful… Now a security bot showed up as well! Those were supposed to be fried by the system overload!

The most rational response would have been to comply with the machine's wishes and let herself be arrested. Later, all the officers who saw her true face after her current disguise inevitably wore off would be subtly mindwiped, demoted or sent on suicide missions. Himiko was proud of the fact that they had caught her only once so far and that had been on purpose.

Consequently, her pride as a fighter was wounded. Defeat at the hands of a damned robot was not an option!

"Why would I? He is so warm and cuddly!"

"The temperature of the civilian is irrelevant. Release the hostage."

"Aww… Why are you so cold, robo-chan? Don't you wanna dance? Like Cha-Cha-Cha or… tap dance!"

In tandem with her speech, Himiko stomped her feet on the concrete, triggering the concealed smoke bomb in her heel. Inky blackness rushed forth and concealed the area. She dropped her meat shield and jumped sideways to avoid any eventual shots at her position. In an incredible feat of acrobatics she managed to leap blindly from seat to seat, crossing the distance to the irksome machine in the span of a few heartbeats.

Its glowing, red cameras shone faintly in the dark fog, guiding her way and making it an easy prey for the superhumanly agile girl.

"Gotcha." she chirped as she drove one blade into the unprotected joint on its nape before she yanked hard to sever the cables inside.

When the smoke cleared, Himiko was nowhere to be found.

~[#҈#]~

"Here, sweetie. Take one every hour and it should help."

"Thank you, Recovery Girl." murmured Tanya, playing her bit as the patient with migraine.

Even with modern medicine it was impossible to prove if a person suffered from headaches or not, so that had been her ailment of choice to get out of the commentary booth. It was not very creative, but at least she got some free painkillers out of it. Now she just needed to make her way over to the east side of the stadium and wait.

How about a conveniently timed walk around the facility? Some fresh air would do her good. Furthermore, Nedzu might actually be impressed by her diligence in securing the perimeter. Yes, that was perfect.

Satisfied with her ingenuity Tanya leisurely strolled around, soaking in the peaceful sunshine as long as it was still possible. However, as the minutes ticked by she grew intrigued by the sudden, incessant cheering from the crowd inside and decided to take a look.

Supported by a barrier she levitated herself above the stadium to gain a bird's eye view of the game. Midoriya, and his team were seemingly hovering in the air too which was amusing if not pretty precarious. Flying was a pleasure like no other, but also required practice which none of these kids should possess yet.

But why were they waving so frantically at her?

Tanya elegantly slid towards them and in doing so changed the angle of her viewpoint on the arena. A dust cloud obscured the field and towers of flame appeared to randomly erupt from it. Additionally, some unidentifiable, winged silhouette moved around at rapid speeds.

"-llain -ack! Nomu!" Midoriya yelled in her direction before recklessly jumping into action.

Nomu? Wasn't that the bioweapon used by the League of Villains?

Absent-mindedly she wrapped the foolish greenette in a barrier and safely deposited him on the rooftop.

Himiko would have told her if the League was planning an assault…

Oh.

Abruptly everything snapped into place like the pieces of a puzzle. Himiko's absence, the secrecy of the HPSC… Those madmen had manipulated a villain organization into attacking UA! Once again power-hungry morons were tangling her up in their petty conflicts!

"Curses!"

Growling irritably she dove towards the chaos, simultaneously creating half a dozen 'Silver Wedges' to rend that beast apart. It was a weapon, not a human and deserved neither kindness nor mercy. Tanya channelled all her rage into her quirk, pushing her speed to the utmost limit her body could endure. Was even a single, peaceful job really too much to ask for?

She couldn't even blame Being X like she used to!