Chapter 05.
Spinner awoke at the sounds of machines of all kinds and looked around. It was one of the hospital rooms of the Deika hospital. It was pretty nice to own a city as their group did ever since they had taken control of the Meta Liberation Army. Plus, as one of the two Brown Regiment Lieutenants, he had access to better treatment than the unimportant underlings. That was a blessing because he desperately needed good healthcare after that gunshot. He bit the inside of his cheek. Without that little heroine-in-training, he would be dead, and he was now indebted to her. She was worthy of her title. Only a true hero would protect a villain.
Spinner wrinkled his nose. The sterile stench was annoying, and the overabundance of white made him sick. He would largely prefer to rest somewhere else, but he did not have a choice, being unable to move. When that cult bitch had blown herself up, mechanical parts seemingly coming from her body – what kind of quirk was this anyway? – had hit him pretty bad on the head. A regular explosion would not have been able to put him out of commission like this one had. But he had been shot right before and was already in a poor state. It infuriated him; how could they all failed and be weakened like that? The heroes, he understood; they were just scum. But Shigaraki and Dabi? They were not some low-tier shitheads.
Re Destro was the first to visit him.
"The Grand Commander and Dabi are missing."
"I know."
"What happened?" the other seethed.
He was clearly annoyed by Spinner's attitude, but the scaled man internally smirked. Tough luck. Still, he filled him in on the Ashuva cult thingamajig and their goal to create a god using Shigaraki and the hero apprentice. However, he had no fucking idea of what they wanted to do with Dabi. A trial run, perhaps? Re Destro fell silent, probably internalising all of his anger and stress to store them as fuel for his quirk.
"Do you know how they found you?"
"No."
"The most likely option is the presence of a traitor either within the heroes' ranks or ours."
"We can rule the heroine out. The cult seems to hate mutation quirks. The Yūei kid is out too; they took her to, and she looked pretty shocked by everything. She's a bad liar, I can tell. Dabi too, since they took him. I can't picture him in a cult either. He's too much of a loner."
'As long as Shigaraki isn't involved, but I don't think he knows it himself.'
"Hm. I can rule you out too, then."
"How about you?", Spinner replied. "You're the one who gave us a place to go. Mighty convenient they found us there."
He did not think Re Destro was the traitor – if there was one at all; it was likely but not certain yet – seeing as fanatical about Shigaraki he was, but he did not like the man and was in a horrible mood.
"I don't like your accusations, young man."
"And I don't like your face, so suck it."
"Mutual distrust won't get us anywhere", Re Destro sighed after a few seconds. "We both want the same thing, Spinner. Getting our Grand Commander back and annihilate this cult. As of now, they destroyed one nōmu laboratory, and three of our support gears and weapons factories. I dislike you, but I have to admit you're smarter than you let on. Let's work together and get rid of this new enemy. As the Grand Commander would say, the cult is some kind of mini-boss we must deal with before we can take on the real final boss, don't you agree?"
"Works for me."
Spinner grabbed the extended hand and shook it, Re Destro eyes going right through him as if he could read his soul. But Spinner did not care. He was one of the Lieutenants of the Paranormal Liberation Front, he was not scared of some half-bald man. And he would get both Shigaraki and Dabi back. He would gladly burn the whole fucking world if he had to. He did not know why the cultists had not killed him when had lost consciousness again after the explosion, but it had been their mistakes.
000
They decided to use an old name for the team in charge of finding Tomura-kun, the Vanguard Action Squad. It would be composed of herself, Spinner, Jin-kun, the heroine Mirko, the detective, and Mister Compress. There were also Re Destro's men, like Skeptic and Geten, but the heroes did not need to know. The heroine had been against the name, but Himiko did not care. Heroes did not understand anything, they were selfish and would not allow people to live the way they wanted to. She hated them, she hated having to work with them, and Tomura-kun had been kidnapped because he had agreed to this damn deal. She wanted nothing but to slit the heroine's and the detective's throats. It would be so easy!
The detective was weak, and the heroine was badly wounded, even if she did heal fast. But she had to restrain herself. They had agreed to work with these people, and she would obey Tomura-kun's orders. She loved him, after all, although a little less that she loved her sweet Ochako-chan. She loved him because he was all messed up, just like she loved men; that reminded her of herself. But Ochako-chan was so strong, cute, and brave! She wanted to see her bathed in blood and shoot that beautiful beaming smile of hers with all the haemoglobin covering her body. How beautiful she would be! She sighed dreamily, eyes rolling to the roof. She could not wait to see her like that. It would have to happen one day!
"Oye, crazy, we're working right now!" Spinner suddenly snapped at her.
"Sorry", she sing-sang, refusing to let anyone see how worry she was for Tomura-kun and Dabi.
"Just focus. We need to track these assholes down."
"They all escaped, and they'll be more careful from now on", the detective said. "It's going to be even harder. Especially that they have both of their targets and won't have any reason to commit the same type of attacks that they used to."
Himiko bit her lip, and soon she could taste blood. Would Tomura-kun and Dabi be safe? They had told her what the cult wanted and that its members would probably not hurt Tomura-kun, but she could not help but worry. What would they do to him? Why had they taken Dabi too? Was he the traitor? No. Dabi would never betray them. He loved Tomura-kun too.
"I think I have an idea", the heroine intervened. "Creati said two of them were following her on Instagram. We didn't have the time to dig further because all went to shit, but they might still be following her. Legally speaking, it would take time for us to hack into their accounts and discover their identity. You, however…", she trailed off.
"Consider it done", Compress replied. "We should be getting something by nightfall."
"I hope so. These guys want to use my student as an incubator or turn her into a nōmu, and I won't regret using lethal force if she misses one hair", the heroine declared coldly.
Himiko smiled. Maybe she did not hate that particular heroine.
000
BrotherHiru was easily found. He was either not trying very hard to hide his identity or pathetically terrible at it. As far as Mirko was concerned, it did not matter. She checked one last time the address given by Dabi to make sure she and Tsukaushi were at the right place and went inside the building. She had not put on her hero costume to be as incognito as possible. Rabbit-type mutations like hers were pretty rare but thankfully, this town was not somewhere she worked. The inhabitants would have seen her on television or the internet, but that was it.
Mirko followed Tsukaushi inside, carefully listening for any suspect noise. They easily found the flat belonging to Kaoko Uriga. His quirk was a hardening one from what they had gathered; the type of adversary Mirko ate for breakfast and she smirked at the idea of kicking this man as hard as she could. They had taken Momo, and she would make them pay. The thought of her precious student being kidnapped, while she had laid on the ground unconscious, made her body shake with fury. It did not matter that she still had torn up muscles and purple bruises all over her body, she wanted Momo back.
At first, she had been very much against the idea of taking an intern, but the girl's credentials and quirk had made her change her mind. A Creation quirk like had to be trained by the best, not some weaklings who could not even stand on their own. She would shape her into a real heroine who would not need anyone to climb through those damn rank and save the day. And now? They had taken that oh-so-sweet, polite, and smart girl from her. She would turn their cult in a pile of debris all alone if she had to in order to save her student.
Tsukaushi knocked three times on the door, and Mirko heard someone approach. She signaled it to the detective as she took a fighting stance, ready to jump and kicked Kaoko Uriga in the stomach if he showed any sign of resistance. Like hell they would escape her a second time! The door opened, revealing the man the Paranormal Liberation Front had identified. He looked painfully normal, but Mirko was not about to let that fool her. He was one of the reasons her student was missing, one of those who would use her for their sick experiments. She already despised this man with every fibre of her being.
"Kaoko Uriga? I'm detective Tsukaushi, I have some questions to ask you."
"What do you want?"
"It's about Momo Yaoyorozu, a teenager you've been following on Instagram."
The man stared at Tsukaushi for a few seconds, shock evident on his face. Was he seriously thinking he would not get caught? What a fool. Mirko's muscles tensed, her body aching to kick this man. Shock soon fade and turned to anger, and his body hardened. That was enough of a warning sign for the heroine, and she leaped into action, slamming the man to the ground with a foot. She felt the hardening break under the strength of her leg and smirked. He did not have a lot of control over his quirk.
"Mirko!", the detective called out.
"He was going to attack", she cut him out, not willing to deal with his bullshit right now. "Alright, let's have a little chat, Ashuva boy."
"How dare you pronounce the name of our grand church with your filthy mutant mouth?"
Mirko rose an eyebrow and increased the pressure on the man's chest. He gasped, unprepared for the sudden pain.
"Number, position of the kidnapped and identities of the important members."
"I don't talk to filth!"
Mirko was going to increase the pressure again – breaking the ribs slowly often loosened people's tongue – but Tsukaushi put a hand on her arm. She glanced at the detective. He better had a good reason to interrupt her; she was not in the mood.
"He won't talk to either of us. We're agents of the law, the worse in his eyes. Let's take him to our temporary allies, they might get something out of him. They have access to more quirk than us right now."
"A police station would be better, no matter how much I want this guy to suffer."
Tsukaushi sadly shook his head. "We all discussed the possibility of a traitor… if it's one of us, we can't risk losing our only lead. I don't necessarily trust the others, but we both know they're extremely loyal to Shigaraki."
"No. We're taking him to the police station", she insisted, glaring at Tsukaushi. "I have agreed to give them the leader, and I already hate it. No matter this man's faults, he's entitled to a defence. Plus, this case has to legally rest on something. He's coming to the police station, and that's final."
The detective reluctantly gave in beneath her powerful glare, and he cuffed the man, reciting him his rights. As they got out of the building, dragging the man to their car, Mirko silently observed Tsukaushi. Her instinct screamed at her that something was wrong with this man, and she had no intention to distrust her instinct. It had always been right. She really was in deep shit.
000
Tomura was awoken by a shriek of horror and instinctively jumped out of the bed he had apparently been unconscious in for whoever knew how long. His eyes quickly assessed the richly decorated room he was in, and he dashed towards the origin of the shriek. He found the heroine-in-training, Creati – what a shitty name –, clawing at her neck just like he often did, almost drawing blood, as hysterical cries spilled from her lips, her breath erratic. He did not know what her problem was and frankly, he did not care, but if they were stuck in this room together – which he assumed was the case – he could not have her freaked out of her mind. So, after a quick check on the wall that his quirk was inactive – he would settle that issue later –, he roughly grabbed the girl's wrists.
"Stop that!", he barked.
That was at that precise moment that he noticed the scars on her face. Long ones, as if someone had cut through her skin and drew some sorts of random patterns. He quickly glanced at the rest of her body. The scars went under the white dress they had put on her, coming from under the skirt and snaking around her legs. Her arms had fallen victims to whatever had happened to her as well, and overall, the linear scars seemed to cover her entire body.
"No, don't look!" she cried out, jerking her wrists free and falling to her knees, hiding her face in her hands.
"Too late, little girl. I don't two shits you got scars, but you didn't have them when we got knocked out. The hell do they come from?"
"I usually wear prosthetics", she sobbed. "I don't want people to see them, it hurts!"
"Why? Because you're not as pretty? Damn, you heroes really are superficial", he scoffed, already done with the conversation. He was in a terrible mood. "Pull yourself together, we don't have time for your shitty character backstory, we need to get out of here."
She glared at him through tear-filled eyes. Tomura rolled his eyes; her glare was pretty pathetic. At least Bakugō could pull a decent one. She definitely could not.
"My apologies if I'm not comfortable about being reminded of the day I was decayed!" she snapped at him.
Tomura frowned as anger started to fill his veins. He did not remember all of his victims, but if there one thing he was sure of, it was that no one could survive his quirk. He glared at the young girl, her implications making his blood boil, and he wanted nothing more than to show her what would have happened to her if she had really been decayed.
"I'm sorry", she suddenly sighed, looking down. "I shouldn't have said it like, it wasn't your fault", she breathed.
"The fuck are you talking about?", he barked, wondering if the cultists would stop him from strangling her.
She looked at him, her eyes full of an incommensurable sadness that made Tomura frown. What was her deal?
"Sixteen years ago, Decay woke up, and you accidentally touched me. If it wasn't for my own quirk, I would be dead. It took Creation eight years to pull me back together. I'm sure people blamed you or said you were responsible, but it was all my fault. If I had been a better sis –"
She cried out when he slammed her to the ground, his hands around her throat. Tomura had not consciously moved, but he did not regret it. He squeezed the girl's throat as his body grew tenser and his hateful pants more violent. He was going to kill her. How dare she? How dare she say such things? How dare she pass herself as Hana? Hana was dead! He had killed her! Turned her to a pile of gore and blood! He had carried his sister's hands on his wrists for years! And that girl thought she could pretend to be Hana? He would kill her, that would teach her some manners! He watched her gasp for her, and a sadistic smile twisted his face. 'Die you little hero bitch', he thought. Yet, instead of fighting against his grasp as anyone else would do, she weakly put a hand on his cheek, smiling through the tears running down her cheeks.
"I'm so happy you're alive, Tenko", she croaked out.