"So. I lost my research facility, lost my top researcher, lost the child, lost half a dozen Hounds, lost an entire platoon, and to top it all off, Hound Zero also died." Said Zeus, his eyes boring holes into his aide whose eyes were downcast.

He took several deep breaths, then reached into a drawer of his desk and pulled out his stress ball. He sat there for a full minute, just squeezing it, trying to relax.

It wasn't working.

With a growl, lighting burst from his hand and incinerated the ball. He tossed the ashes aside and got up from his desk. He went to the door and started down the hallway. After about ten minutes of navigating the corridors and elevators of the base, talking to one of his lieutenants, he finally got to the research wing. He made his way through the area to the Hound Development Department and without checking to see if it was safe to enter, opened the door.

He had a moment to take in the fact that there was some kind of spider-based Hound bearing down on him before lighting arced out from his body and promptly blew it apart into smoking chunks of flesh. Ignoring the carnage, startled researchers, and Hound handlers, he made his way to the end of the room where a skinny woman missing an arm was sitting in a chair holding a pen with a clipboard in her lap. As he approached, he forestalled anything she might have to say by holding up a hand.

"Congratulations Jackie, your now head researcher. Dr. Maeko is dead, and Research Facility Eta is lost as are most of its resources. Your first three assignments are to reorganize what resources and personnel were salvaged before the facility was lost, figure out a way to continue the production of Hounds without Hound Zero, and figure out a way to continue Chisaki's research without the child." He told her with an empty smile.

Then he turned on his heel and promptly left the room.

When he got back to his office, he sat down and pressed the intercom to summon his aide. While he waited, he leaned back into his chair and started thinking about what his next move should be. He would not let the loss of his research facility go unpunished. Another minute or two later, his aide appeared.

"Yes sir?" he asked.

"Get me a line to Fenrir, tell him I know what the job I need doing is," he said.

"Yes sir." the aide said before ducking back into the hallway.

Zeus sighed and pulled out another stress ball from his drawer of stress balls. As he thought and brooded his thoughts went to Shigaraki and he scowled. Shigaraki had left him a mess of an organization to try and put together into an actual functional force. The psychopath had been completely insane, and despite what he said, he had been nothing more than an anarchist with the strength to actually pursue his goals. The irony was that while he was completely deranged and unhinged, that somehow translated to a level of charisma that turned his "criminal" organization into what was essentially a cult by the end of the war. He'd roped in the remnants of the Meta Liberation Army after their own short-lived revolt, and had gone on a warpath absorbing other criminal groups and villains. His only smart decision had been to hire Zeus's private mercenary army. Between himself and Re-Destro, they had been the ones to turn a mad rabble of villains, criminals, and "revolutionaries" into an actual fighting army and make it possible for Shigaraki to wage his war across Japan. The aftermath of their defeat might not have been so terrible if it weren't for the fact that most of the surviving forces were a bunch of crazies that had thought Shigaraki to be some kind of supernatural being. "Demon Lord" he had come to be called by his fanatical followers. Which had made any attempt to get them in line after his death borderline impossible. He had been forced to rely on his own mercenary forces, and what few sensible people remained.

Now, after so much preparation and planning, his plans were starting to fray at the ends because Chisaki and Dr. Garaki hadn't been able to properly train and control that Aria woman before locking her up. Now he was left without his supply of blood for making new Hounds, and with the child also being taken by the heroes, it was likely that he was going to have to throw out his initial plan and resort to Plan B. Unless Jackie could produce a miracle and somehow get production rolling without Eri, then he was in a tight spot.

He sighed again and just continued to squeeze the stress ball. Maybe he'd hit the hot springs, if there was one thing, he had come to love this country for it was their hot springs.


"It's Chisaki's handiwork without a doubt, but this is the worst I think I might have ever seen in a Non-Nomu, apart from Aria." Dr. Okimi said.

"I see... So, you think she is the one who enabled the creation of the Quirk Suppressor and Destroyer Drugs then?" he asked looking over the files.

"Yes, her quirk could theoretically be used to do such a thing, but how Chisaki ever managed that is a question we will never know the answer to," she replied taking a long draft of the tea Nezu had kindly prepared for her.

"It wouldn't be surprising if Zeus had access to previous research conducted by Chisaki and Garaki. If he had managed to obtain her then it is possible he may have been able to replicate the drugs," he said, putting down the report.

"Now then, what of the girl herself?" he continued.

Dr. Okimi took another draft of the tea before speaking, "Well, I managed to get her organs back into functional states after most of them started to shut down, but she's going to need a few transplants at the very least. Chisaki's quirk was powerful, but cellular degradation began to build up due to the repeated uses of his quirk on her. Like a copy of a copy, eventually, it just gives out. Fortunately, he seemed to have taken great care in ensuring her lungs, heart, and brain were as pristine as possible. I repaired the heart and lungs back to their original iterations, but the brain I didn't touch. It's too delicate for my quirk, and I didn't want to risk doing more harm than good. So, what kind of mental state she's going to be in when she wakes up is anyone guess. I think it's imperative though, that when she does awaken, that no one but trained professionals, and Aizawa be allowed to see her." she said massaging her temples.

"I see, I will contact him and ensure he is at your disposal. Is there anyone or anything else you might need?" he asked, already composing a message to send to Aizawa.

"If you could get in contact with Dr. Minoru and make him aware of the situation that would be appreciated. We will more than likely need his assistance in dealing with her recovery," she said after some thought.

"I will do my best, oh and before you leave, what of our Vigilante friend?" he asked.

She scowled at the mention of The Hunter, "He'll be fine, he covered his tracks on his way out and I managed to explain everything to the police just fine, but if he shows up a fourth time, they'll be expecting me to hold him there until either they or a hero arrive to cart him off. I like you Nezu, and I appreciate the trust you've put in me, but I won't disobey a direct order from the police or H.A. If The Hunter shows up at my hospital again, I will keep him there." She said meeting Nezu's eyes as she finished.

"I understand Miss Okimi, and I wouldn't ask it of you anyways. I appreciate your help in this matter thus far." Said Nezu meeting her gaze.

With a sigh, Dr. Okimi got up and stretched then made her way to the door. "All right, well, I'm done for the day. I'm heading home to rest, but if you HAVE to reach me call my emergency phone, that'll wake me up," she said as she left the office.

Nezu looked down at the papers and started to reorganize them back into their original folder. He had all the information he would need for a debriefing now, the QSU had finished their sweep of the base and sent as much info as they could find to him, Okimi had compiled her report on Eri, and his students had submitted their own reports. All he needed to do now was set up the debriefing itself and from there, chart their next move. Now decided on his next immediate move, he picked up the phone and started making calls.


They were all assembled in the primary H.A. meeting room that Ochako had come to know so well. Except instead of some H.A. pen pushers and Hawks, all the chairs were taken up by a variety of people. Hawks and the H.A. executives were there, as were her friends, several of her old teachers, Detective Tsukauchi, and Ahmya the QSU Corporal who had been leading the QSU taskforce that had accompanied them on their raid, along with two other older members of the QSU. Ochako still found it weird that the Japanese government had decided to use the old Japanese Imperial Army ranks for the QSU, like Gochō for Ahmya.

Everyone present had already had all information going to be discussed sent to them ahead of time. The briefing would focus mainly on the vital information and discussions around those topics.

The whole class had gotten a message from Nezu telling them that the main debriefing would be happening in a few days' time. Though Ochako hadn't been expecting so many people to be present. Though it wasn't that surprising if she thought about it, Zeus was the biggest threat they'd seen a long time so it only made sense that as many of the concerned parties be present as possible. As soon as the last of the people trickled in, the light dimmed and lit back up several times to catch people's attention. When everyone had ceased their chatter, Nezu stood up at the end of the table

"Now that everyone is present, we will begin. We will start with a full recount of the events of the raid on Zeus's research facility. Miss Yaoyorozu, Miss Ahmya, if you would?" said Nezu gesturing to Momo and Ahmya.

Momo and Ahmya proceeded to inform everyone about the events of the raid, sharing their combined information and viewpoints and answering any questions people might have had about it. They'd both seen each other's reports and had gotten together to hash out details before they came here in preparation. Personally, Ochako didn't like the QSU, they were far too impersonal and their armor and mannerisms often made her and others feel uncomfortable. She knew how useful and necessary they were, but she also knew that they could be rather ruthless in their dealings. Unlike Heroes, they had the full backing of the government and were allowed to kill at any time during a mission (though it was discouraged). She also knew that ever since the truth of the H.A.'s many shadier aspects came to light, the QSU had been tasked with keeping an eye on the H.A.

So intent was she on her thoughts about the QSU that she almost missed the fact that Momo and Ahmya had finished their portion of the debriefing. Giving her head a little shake, she focused her attention back on Nezu who had stood up again.

"Thank you, Miss Yaoyorozu, Miss Ahmya. With the events of the raid concluded, I believe it is time we move on to information discovered after the raid within the files and computers of the base. Gochō Ahmya?" he said looking at Ahmya again.

"Thank you, Mr. Nezu. For starters, we have discovered the facility was labeled as Research Facility Eta. Our investigations into the purpose of the facility have revealed a great deal of information, but anything that might help us locate or determine Zeus's current plans were wiped before we could secure it. To start, the facility seems to have been built long before the War on Villany started, the running theory is that it was originally one of All For One's facilities developed for creating Nomu's and performing other hideous experiments. When the war started, it seems to have undergone major renovations and fortifying in preparation for any potential incursions. However, with the emergence of the Six Angels, personnel at the facility were scaled back and more units were diverted to help stave us off. When we raided and destroyed the primary Nomu facility located beneath Jaku Hospital, Kai Chisaki and Kyudai Garaki appeared to have moved operations to Facility Eta. They continued their research there for an extended period of time, before finally being forced to evacuate when a battle took place nearby. When it became clear we would emerge as the victors in that confrontation, packed up and evacuated. They wouldn't have been able to remain in the facility without a supply chain and would have been found out when supplies ran out. However, in their haste, they were unable to move the more sensitive subjects with them." Said Ahmya, who then pulled out three separate dossiers and opened them up.

"These subjects included Aria Lin, Eri, and Ayumu Mukai. Aria Lin, as you are all aware was a prototype of a new kind of Nomu, Zeus has since taken this research and used it to create his Hounds of Zeus, a human-animal hybrid Nomu that can be trained and controlled. From what we have been able to piece together, Aria Lin's quirk: Blood Melding, had the ability to transform any blood into her own. The League had initially hoped to be able to reverse engineer the quirk to make the implantation of multiple quirks safer and easier for the body to manage. She had been implanted with a few different quirks, but her own quirk rendered the foreign quirk factors inert. When it became clear that her blood could not be used in such a way, she was put on ICE in case she might be needed in the future. When Zeus took over the base, he had his own researchers approach the League's old research from a new angle. We aren't sure how, but through some kind of radiation treatment, he succeeded in mutating her quirk factor into something different. This resulted in the previously inert quirk factors implanted into her by the League to become active and be assimilated into her own quirk in a cohesive manner. Zeus lacked the ability to give quirks to people, however, so he rigged her up to a machine to pump her body full of various animal DNA. Eventually, the procedure resulted in her acquiring animalistic properties as well. The downside was that this had compromised her mental faculties, and became prone to explosive bursts of extreme violence which magnified her powers. After they were done, they somehow managed to reverse engineer her quirk and were able to use her blood to create the human-animal hybrids known as the Hounds of Zeus. Many of the details regarding the method of creating the Hounds was not present at the base, leading us to believe they were either destroyed, taken to Zeus's headquarters, or the experiments were conducted elsewhere entirely.

Moving on from Aria Line, we have Ayumu Mukai. A child from a missing person case going back several years, he was evidently kidnapped in order to try and weaponize his quirk which was the ability to manifest dreams into reality. According to their records, he appears to have dreamt himself being trapped in a perpetual nightmare, and as a result, his nightmares manifested infinitely. This forced them to cut off the bottom three floors of the base where the boy remained trapped for another couple of years, unable to die of natural causes. Until his death due to a cave-in either occurring naturally or induced by The Hunter, the nightmares remained as did a barrier preventing access to the lower floors. Most information regarding him that we were able to recover was created after the event, leading us to believe more detailed information could be found on the lower levels.

Finally, the child Eri appears to have been Chisaki's personal project and the origin of the quirk suppressor and destroying drug. She has the quirk Rewind, the ability to reverse the time of any organic target to any point in the past, even to non-existence. Apart from what her quirk does, we have been unable to find out anything else about its function. How she wound up in the hands of Chisaki is unknown, but it is clear he had been using his Overhaul quirk to develop the quirk suppressor and destroying drugs, though we are still unclear on how this was accomplished. Details about her are hard to find, and most had been long ago destroyed when she had been put on ICE following the evacuation of the base. Several documents pointed to Chisaki's rising paranoia as the cause for this." I finished Ahmya, closing the dossiers, putting them back into the main folder, and then pulling out a final few documents.

"Zeus appears to have found the facility and restarted it in secret, then created a teleporter to connect to his main base. Records do not show how this was accomplished, or even how so many of the personnel stationed in the base had cybernetic implants and highly advanced technological weapons of all sorts. The technology we have been able to recover has told us nothing about how they function or how they might be created. Until further information is found, we are operating under the assumption that Zeus either has the most advanced mind in human history on his side, or a quirk was involved in the creation of all the technology. We currently are leaning towards the latter. It is clear however that we are unable to reverse engineer any of the technology, making it impossible for us to use the teleporter to our own advantage." Concluded Ahmya.

There was some back forth about questions and clarifications, but nothing of note. When the talks had subsided some, Dr. Okimi spoke up suddenly, forestalling Nezu.

"I have some more information regarding the child Eri, she regained consciousness yesterday morning," she said to the group at large, before telling them of the events.


"Gods I'm tired..." yawned Okimi as she drank her tea in the hospital faculty lounge.

"It's hardly surprising, first the kid who required hours of surgery alongside constant use of your Light Conversion quirk use shows up, then a fire broke out in the city and you had to heal several more people with potentially fatal burns, then Heroes and those creepy QSU people get rolled in all needing a variety of healings, surgery, and medications. You've kept yourself awake for almost three straight days, with only middling amounts of sleep. You need to rest, go home, sleep, let us handle this." urged her friend and colleague, Dr. Mei.

"I know... I know... but I just have that feeling in my gut that it's not over yet. I just can't sleep well when I have that feeling," she mumbled, taking another sip of her tea.

Mei just shook her head and let out a sigh, "Well at the very least stay here and relax, even if you can't sleep you can at least try to de-stress yourself." she said giving Okimi a pointed look.

Okimi just grimaced but nodded. "All right, I'll try at least," she replied.

She was about to take another sip of tea when her radio buzzed to life. "Dr. Okimi your presence is needed, the child in room 216 is awake." came a nurse's voice.

The feeling in her gut seemed to twist and put her tea down. "Well, looks like that de-stressing will have to wait." and left the lounge.

A few minutes later, she was outside the door with the nurse that had called her.

"All right, what's going on? why isn't anyone inside with her?" she asked frowning.

"The child starts panicking and screaming whenever we enter, we don't want to aggravate things any more than they already are so we opted to wait for you." said the nurse.

Dr. Okimi's frown deepened and she paced for a minute before something struck her. She removed her coat, undid her hair, removed her shoes, and untucked her shirt. It was a good thing she preferred dress pants to a skirt, so much easier to get things done in pants. The nurse simply gaped at her in surprise, it was the most casual they had ever seen her inside the hospital. Then she went to the door and slowly opened it up.

The curtains were open and light spilled into the room from the morning sun, and on the bed looking out at it was the child. Okimi slipped into the room as it appeared the child hadn't yet heard or noticed her yet and just observed the scene. The child seemed fascinated by the scene outside, so Okimi lightly knocked on the door to announce her presence. The child jumped and spun round to face her, eyes wide and terror on her face. They just stared at each other awhile, and Okimi could see the tense muscles ease slightly and the terror receded slightly. It was still there, the wide eyes and shaking hands were clear indicators, but it seemed her guess was right. The child had a fear of people who looked distinctly like nurses or doctors, so she had done away with everything that made her look like one.

"Is it all right if I come in? Or would you prefer to keep looking outside?" she asked softly.

The child's eyes flicked to the side, as if trying to see behind her but returned to staring at her. She stood there patiently for a minute before the child nodded hesitantly. So Okimi closed the door behind her and slowly made her way to the window where she pulled up a chair. Best to talk to her framed by the window, since she seemed to like it. She sat cross-legged in the chair; her bare feet visible.

"My name is Okimi Kishi, what is your name?" she asked with a slight smile.

The child just continued to stare at her, the terror had faded into a cautious fear now, and she could see curiosity in the child's face. She sat there for what might have been several minutes before the child eventually moved her mouth, but if she said anything it was far too quiet to hear.

Okimi gave a quiet snorting laugh and smiled a bit wider, "I am afraid I can't hear you; you will have to speak up just a bit more."

The child didn't speak another minute before she whispered just barely audibly, "Eri..."

"It's nice to meet you Eri. Do you know how you got here?" she asked.

This time Eri seemed to be a bit more receptive responding in under a minute, "No..."

"Do you know where you were before you came here?" she asked.

A pause, longer this time, "It was dark..."

"Ok, do you remember the person who brought you here?" she asked taking mental notes.

"Red... Like me..." she said pointing to her eyes.

"So, she has some recollection of The Hunter carrying her here... interesting." she thought.

"Ok, how are feeling right now? Does anything hurt?" she asked.

Eri looked down at herself, as is puzzled, "No...?"

"Ok, does feel everything feel right? Does anything feel strange?" she asked, paying closer attention to Eri's body language.

Eri was sitting up in bed but was leaning against the headboard, when she moved it was sluggishly, indicating that it was difficult. It must have taken an enormous amount of effort to sit up.

"Slow..." she whispered.

"Extreme lethargy, as expected. She needs food and then an exercise plan to get her muscles back into proper working order." she thought, making another mental note.

"All right Eri, would you like something to eat and drink?" she asked.

She seemed to think about that question for a second, and then as if noticing she was indeed hungry for the first time, gave a firm nod.

Okimi smiled again, and reached into her pocket, pulling out her phone she sent a message to Mei to get the ball rolling on that front. It would have to be soft foods, for now, Eri's body would likely reject anything more firm and solid until it readjusted itself.

"She'll probably end up needing a catheter... or something similar." she thought.

"How old are you Eri?" she asked.

She seemed to mull that question over for a long time until she said, "nine..."

She continued to ask Eri questions until the food came, at which point Okimi made sure to get it from the nurse herself so Eri didn't see. After Okimi managed to get Eri to eat the food, it was clear that the child was exhausted. She waited in the room for Eri to fall properly asleep before closing the curtains and turning the light off behind her.

"So? How'd it go?" asked Mei several hours later in the lounge.

"I learned a lot, but something is wrong with her, beyond just her body I mean. She was having extreme trouble recollecting information in the past, and it got worse if not impossible the farther back she had to go to recollect it. Her age is also all wrong, based on what I already know about her past she should be almost 13, but she is most definitely only nine or eight years old. I'll have to do some more digging, but I think it's safe to say she's suffering some memory problems at the very least." she said as she lethargically dug into her dinner.

"Well, that can wait until later, you're getting some sleep whether you like it or not. I'll make sure to have someone specializing in children with trauma work with her from now on. You did good by yourself but you seriously need some rest." Said Mei firmly.

"All right, all right, I get the message," she said rolling her eyes and smiling.


The room was silent as they digested the information Dr. Okimi had just relayed to them.

"Thank you, Miss Okimi, that was quite illuminating. Next, I believe..." continued Nezu.

The debriefing continued for a while after that, with various other parties relaying their information. Then the onslaught of questions began and Ochako just tuned them all out at that point. She hated big meetings like this, precisely because the executives loved to wring every last drop of information out of the people doing the actual work.

At least she would be going out with the girls tomorrow, something to look forward to at least.