Monster King - Thank you!
The Archivist of Nyx - The entire Midoriya family is at this point at least a saint if not a deity, ngl. And yes, I'm happy for Mineta. He got character development, he become a better person, he is on the best way to realize his dreams. Sob. Let the grape be happy for once, stop kicking him around even if he deserves it ;_;
AdrianVnz - Absolutely understandable tbh xD Also, as for Izuku harem thing - yesn't. You're free to headcanon it developing into a full harem (because honestly, it carries some 'signs' of it going in that direction) but you're also free to headcanon that it stayed IzuOcha and other girls moved over post-story. I'm trying to appeal to harem and not harem fans at the same time tbh.
TheGreatBubbaJ - Yes xD
Detrametal - :D Honestly the Feral Might from this fic is a whole can of mood at this point.
Naruto30 - Everyone is a chaos gremlin unless proven otherwise.
Smiley-Nami - No problem ;)
(***)
Contrary to popular expectations, waging a war was a slow endeavor. Especially when it was this type of asymmetric warfare. The Paranormal Liberation Front was lying down, its sub-organizations doing their standard stuff.
If heroes could easily unearth those sub-organizations, they would be long gone from the world. Sir Nighteye might have been a man of true intellectual brilliance (he and Nedzu DID manage to corner All for One, after all!), but he wasn't omniscient.
His enemies were well entrenched, and equaled him in experience when playing that game was involved. Despite that, he was slowly getting through layers upon layers of misdirection, something that Izuku genuinely enjoyed witnessing.
And helping in it. It was, simply speaking, a delight. He might have been pretty much an assistant in this, but that was normal. Sir Nighteye beat him in experience by far, and Izuku was the one learning things from him.
The only thing that Midoriya regretted was the fact that Uraraka was interning in a different hero agency. Oh, Ryukyu was an awesome hero, and this was going to be greatly beneficial to his girlfriend, so there was absolutely NO chance for him to say anything.
Especially as she was clearly very happy about interning with Tsuyu. Even Himiko tagged along - someone pointed out that even if she wants to be an underground hero, getting some inside knowledge on how 'normal' agencies and limelight heroes operate might be beneficial to her in the long run.
It was just that… Uraraka knew how uncertain he was about himself. How much he lacked confidence in himself. She made it a self-imposed mission of hers to always compliment and praise him when he did something well.
And those weren't cheap compliments, but ones that were… heartfelt. She truly meant it. When it was about some 5D heroic mastermind stuff she always waited for him to explain everything to her and only complimented him when she truly understood what exactly was she praising.
Midoriya loved every second of that. Because her opinion truly mattered to him. Because hearing her say THOSE words to him made his days better.
To be honest, he started to suspect some sort of conspiracy in play. Because Yaomomo, Tsu and Himichan were taking every occasion to compliment him as well. Even Mieko showed up in front of him two days ago, pulled him into an empty classroom and thanked him deeply for not only jailing Eclipse but also making Endeavor speak for her in public after Kamino, when the world discovered that Eclipse was her mother.
It was Endeavor that told the world that without Mieko Eto, Eclipse would still be free. Mieko Eto still got some angry stares, especially from the people that lost their relatives to her mother, but that one announcement took the edge from that hatred. Made it into dislike. She could live with dislike.
The fact that she barely had the time to speak all of that before Yaomomo, Himichan, Tsu and Ochako stormed into the room and dragged her out, was pretty weird.
The biggest positive of having Uraraka next to him the whole time was that she was greatly supportive of the next big thing on Izuku's 'To-Do List'.
Operation: Destroy HPSC.
Sir Nighteye was kind enough to review the whole plan for him and help him fix some flaws before giving him a thumbs-up gesture and telling him that if it works, he's ready to part with his limited edition All Might anniversary poster!
It was going to happen much earlier than people expected.
(***)
"So how was it, Shoooota?!" Present Mic shouts. They are in the teacher's room. It's a free day, but they are practically living at UA nowadays. This changed the teacher's room into a socialization area.
Eraserhead himself would prefer to catch-up on the paperwork. Alas, Mic is there. And Midnight. Worst of all, Compress and Stain are there as well. The former just finished talking with Mic about Hizashi's newest radio broadcast. Stain was… well, slurping a bloody smoothie in the background.
Clad in WAY too much All Might merchandise.
Despite developing a healthy degree of professional respect towards All Might ever since meeting him personally (his opinion on Yagi Toshinori was similar to the one that Sir Nighteye had, though), Eraserhead has to fight himself to not punch Stain in the face. Just because.
"How was what?" Eraserhead replies, not diverting his eyes from the paper stack in front of him.
"Your date, of course!" Midnight jumps right in, baring her fangs at him. Because of course she does that.
"There was no date." Eraserhead cuts the misunderstanding short. Or, so he thinks.
"Oh, reaaaally?" Midnight leans over. "So what were you doing with Emi in your personal nap room? For almost three hours?"
"... taking a nap together." Eraserhead finally bothers to actually look at one of them. "Side by side, each in their own sleeping bag, and with two cats cuddling with us. That's all. That's literally the whole thing."
Silence in the room. For a few long seconds. Eventually, oddly enough, it's Compress that speaks.
"... relationship goals." He says, his voice almost solemn, before sighing loudly.
Eraserhead, Midnight and Present Mic stare at him in genuine surprise. Mr. Compress looks actually surprised by them being surprised. Stain groans painfully in the background, before switching on the TV.
It's some hero related talk show. Eraserhead vaguely remembers it being one of the most popular ones in the country. It was, coincidentally, the one through which Mr. Compress sold the idea that Endeavor was a bottom with a crush on All Might to the country.
"I must say that it's rather unexpected to see you here." Daikaku Miyagi, the rather popular newscaster and the host of that particular talk show says. His one-horned visage is rather unique (even among the quirked society). This probably contributed to his popularity - in show business being easily recognizable is useful. "You don't typically attend talk shows, Hawks."
"True, true." Hawks is sitting on the couch next to the desk behind where Miyagi is sitting. He looks… honestly, Eraserhead's 'something is wrong' radar is tingling. Because Hawks looks sad more than anything. And it's uncharacteristic of him. "It's a bit of a special situation."
"Oh, Hawks' on TV?" Mic immediately decides to ditch Eraserhead's questioning in favor of that. "I thought he was more of a social media guy."
"I can imagine that." The host nods. "We only found out that you were going to drop by yesterday, when the hero that we were supposed to host today said that he couldn't show up."
… okay, that's kind of sus, Eraserhead decides. It's probably a set-up. Some sort of publicity stunt? The Top Heroes do that all the time. He is on the verge of telling Stain to switch the TV off or change the channel, but…
"Yes, I have a confession to make." Hawks replies.
"Oh, did he find himself a girlfriend or a boyfriend?" Midnight comments. Eraserhead arrived at a similar destination. The amount of people for some reason thirsty for Hawks out there was… painful. Like a male version of Miruko, really. "Damn, so many people are going to be pissy."
"Confession?" The host asks, when the silence seems to be growing too long. Hawks takes a deep breath. He looks like a man that just steeled himself to do something, but Eraserhead has no idea what could be that hard to d…
"I confess…" Hawks finally speaks. "... that during past five years I murdered twenty-two people." Eraserhead can feel himself going slackjawed. Mic lets out a choking sound. Did they just misheard something or… "The list includes seven heroes and five journalists, with politicians, lawyers and social activists making up for the rest. Every murder was ordered by the leadership of the Hero Public Safety Commission. On four occasions I was directly ordered to do that by the current president of the HPSC. On five occasions her deputy, Yokumiru Mera, relayed the orders while explicitly stating that they came from her."
"... what?" The host manages to utter after several seconds of total silence. Hawks sighs. He looks like saying those words took a load off his back.
Or maybe he realized that there was no going back.
"I guess…" Keigo Takami says. On his face resignation and sadness. "... that I should start from the beginning."
(***)
"T-that sounds like a good idea." Daikaku Miyagi says, his voice betraying him slightly.
He is an experienced journalist, talk show host and news anchor. He saw and heard a million things during his career, each more surprising than the next one. The Number Two Hero entering his studio to confess to being a political murderer working for the HPSC…
… unless this is some elaborate joke, he just hit it. The state of maximum surprise and shock. From now on, every shocking event will be replied to with 'yeah, but compared to that one time, it's nothing'.
"My father was a murderer in hiding." Keigo says. His voice sounds tired. Burned out. "My mother was a woman that helped him hide from the authorities. He lived in constant fear that I would rat him out, so I wasn't allowed to leave our house. The first time I did that I was… seven years old I think? He was also… violent. Unlike my mother, he didn't need me for anything so I tended to be the focus of that. I wasn't leaving the house either way, so little Keigo being constantly covered in bruises wasn't exactly a problem."
Miyagi opens his mouth to say something, but realizes that he has nothing substantial to say. Sure, Hawks' 'backstory' wasn't well known, then again the same could be said about at least some other Top Heroes. All Might, for example. To think it was something like that…
"I kept seeing the world through the TV." Keigo continues. His voice is almost monotonous, and that… that actually hurts. The perpetually smiling Hero reduced to this, it was… "I thought that the heroes I saw there were all fictional. They kept saving people on the screen, but no one ever came to save me. That's… until one did come."
"W-which one?" Daikaku manages to say. Yes, this is pretty much Hawks' confession, but damn if he isn't the host here. He has duties to uphold.
"Endeavor." Keigo replies. "He arrested my father. Saved me from the abuse. My mother was afraid of getting arrested for harboring a fugitive so she grabbed me and ran away… but for the first time in my life I knew for sure that heroes existed."
(***)
"I don't care about that!" The HPSC president yells at him through the phone. She reacted extremely fast, he had to admit that much. She must have been watching the talk show - and she probably had his number on a speed dial. "This is slander of the highest magnitude! He is either mind controlled by someone or has defected to the Paranormal Liberation Front. Stop the transmission right now or you and your entire TV station are going to be considered accomplices in a terror plot!"
Tabata Kenshin, the director of the TV station that Hawks was in, takes a deep breath. He can see the transmission from the studio on the small TV that he had on his desk. He is in his personal office space, merely two levels away from the studio in question.
He might be the king here. But he was just given a direct order from an emperor. The woman that he is certain can realize those threats.
Is what Hawks just said true? Tabata has no idea. It came out of the blue, he has no evidence to base an opinion on. Is that woman capable of something like that? Is one of the most powerful people in the country capable of ordering an assassination of twenty-two people?
He heard enough veiled threats from her and HPSC people to not be able to say 'no' without doubting his own answer. He also struggles to say 'yes', he finds it hard to believe that someone (even she) could go that far. But…
It's Hawks. The Number Two Hero. Who could mind control someone like that? Who or what could make him defect to the Paranormal Liberation Front? And if he isn't lying…
His eyes drift to the family picture on his desk. His son, Takahiro, is smiling happily towards the camera, despite being bound to a wheelchair practically since birth.
("Taka!" Much younger Kenshin shouts while rushing towards his son. He is sitting on his wheelchair, looking unharmed. They are in the lobby of the hospital near their home. "Are you alright?! I heard there was an accident and…"
"It's alright!" Takahiro smiles right before his father locks him in a hug. "Everyone's alright!. It was All Might, dad! All Might saved us all!"
"All Might?" Kenshin pulls back a bit. That explains why his son was so happy. If it was actually his idol that saved him… And Takahiro is twelve years old, that's the part of your life where you tend to treat your idols super seriously.
"Yes!" His son smiles brightly. He is going to have nightmares about the accidents for many nights, but for now, he is happy. And even the nightmares will eventually back down. "He said that I was very brave! And…" He pauses for a second, clearly trying to find the right words.
"And?"
"I told him that I wasn't brave." Takahiro replies. "That I was terrified, that with my body like that I just felt like I couldn't do anything when… when it happened." He takes a deep breath. "He said that it didn't matter. Because I… the bus would have slid down further if we tried to get out, and… I saw a film when that happened, so I shouted to others to stop moving, to wait for the heroes and… if I didn't…"
Tears start streaming. Slowly, at first. But he knows that this is only going to escalate.
"A-All Might said that it didn't matter that I was scared." His son manages to push the words through. "Because w-when it mattered, I did the right thing. He said…" The dams are breaking. "... h-he said that I acted like a hero!")
Tabata Kenshin, the director of the TV station, arrives at the decision. He might have looked the other way and acquiesced to HPSC demands several times in the past (there was a reason for the speed dial thing), but… it was always 'for public safety'. If that's the type of public safety they meant…
Listening to them once again would be crossing the line. He might regret it later on… but at least he'll be able to look his son in the eyes.
"With all due respect, ma'am president…" He says into the phone." … over my dead fucking body."
Then he runs out of his office, leaving his phone behind. He has to make sure that the transmission isn't interrupted, no matter what. If someone from the crew did it right now, after his grand words… it would make them feel really cheap and anticlimactic, wouldn't it?
He misses the person that was standing right next to his office door, their back on the wall. He also misses the words that follow.
"The director made the right decision." The man says, undoing his camouflage. The recent discovery that his quirk can give him chameleonic properties was a surprise, but a welcome one. "Coming down now."
Thus far, everything goes as planned. Spinner genuinely hopes that this trend is going to continue.
(***)
"We spent some time living on the street." Hawks continues his confession. "I never asked where my mother was getting the money, and I'm not sure if I want to know. Then things changed again."
"How so?" Daikaku asks. He has managed to more or less calm himself at this point of the talk, and does his best to act like a host should. The repercussions of the words said in front of him… are going to be for someone else to sort out.
"There was… a car accident." Hawks replies. "A nasty one. I… I think I wanted to be a hero like the ones I saw on the TV. Like Endeavor. My body just moved on its own. My feathers got a lot of people to safety, except… that brought some unwanted attention to me. Someone noticed that I had a powerful quirk."
Oh. Oh shit. It can't be…
"The HPSC bought me from my mother." Hawks says. Daikaku Miyagi almost chokes on air. He expected the HPSC to take custody of the child in question, not…" Literally. Paid her to leave me to them, and to act from now one like she never had a child to begin with. I never found out how much I was worth to her. But probably not much."
"W-what happened next?" The host asks when the pause grows a bit too long. Hawks was clearly trying to gather up his thoughts, but he can't be sure how long the transmission will be allowed to continue and…
… nevermind. He can see Director Tabata behind the cameras, giving him a thumbs-up gesture. Most of the crew leaves, probably told to leave to avoid getting prosecuted by the HPSC. Some stay, probably having volunteered to do that.
Well. It is a historic moment. If the host wanted to, he'd leave as well. What keeps him behind is a combination of abject horror at the revelations Hawks was just unloading at him (if they were the truth, the world HAD to know) and professional excitement.
As stated, it was a historic moment. And he was there, right in the middle of it.
"I was brought to a facility… I'd like to say where it was but honestly I don't know that." Hawks says. "It's somewhere in the mountains, I think that the shape of them that I remember could be used to narrow it down, but that's for the police to do." He fixes his position in the seat - he has slumped a bit too much. "There were more kids like me there."
Oh. Oh SHIT.
"They called us Paragons." Hawks continues. "It was an entire program, running for who knows how long. Take kids with powerful quirks from orphanages or families down on their luck, train them hard, make sure that they feel grateful to you, push them into the heroic business. No brainwashing and no abuse, for the record. Whether that was out of good will or pragmaticism, I cannot say."
"... can be both, yes." The host decides to take a bit more active role for a moment. "Beating and bad treatment doesn't feel like a good way of earning long-term loyalty."
Hawks nods.
"They had other means of that." He then says. "I genuinely believed them, the whole time, that we're making Japan a better place. A safer place. After the first kill in their service, I… I had some doubts, but I felt like I went too far to take a step back. So in a way, I wanted to believe them." He sighs. "If I tried… well. You can probably guess what would happen."
"... they would mysteriously find the evidence connecting you to the murders in question?" The host asks.
"That's an option, yes." Hawks nods. "There was always the risk of the person in question saying too much during the trial, so the HPSC tended to go creative. 'Friendly' judges, processes behind closed doors due to 'national security' and so on. But it didn't happen often. I think I'm the third person to go rogue from the program, after Lady Nagant and Split."
The host would have choked on air again, but this time he was prepared. After 'after', he knew that something shocking was coming, but this…
"L-Lady Nagant?" He manages to utter. The case was famous, even if it was years old. Many, many years old. Split is much more modern, but she was a MUCH less known hero, soon after graduation, so…
"Yes, she was pretty much a proto-Paragon." Hawks replies. "They didn't bring her up from the start, instead they started grooming her into their assassin after she started attending a hero school. Told her that she was eliminating villains in hiding, too entrenched and politically problematic to oust normally." He sighs. "Smiling to the cameras and posing with children during the day, then killing people at night… it broke her, eventually. She realized that what she was doing was evil, so she tried to stop it. She couldn't go to press, the HPSC would have reacted fast enough to suppress the news. So instead she set out to kill as many people involved in the whole scheme as possible, hoping to take it down that way. But it didn't work. The people that replaced those she killed continued doing the exact same thing."
"That's…" He isn't given the time needed to express his horror. His younger brother was a great fan of Lady Nagant back in the day, seeing her become a murderer… it almost broke him. It almost broke his faith in heroes. She was his idol. If it was something like that…
"Split was a similar case." Hawks continues. "Brought up as a Paragon, managed to hide her doubts and moral spine from the caretakers, was told to do something distasteful after graduation and refused… so she was framed. The HPSC tried to send her to Tartarus under false charges, but the Vigilante Alliance got her out from the transport. The Alliance… has a lot of personal reasons to try to mess the HPSC up."
That was, honestly speaking, an understatement of a century.
(***)
Warp quirks were rare. Or, to be exact, powerful warp quirks were rare. There always had many crippling limitations. Sometimes it was range. Sometimes the weight. Sometimes the recharge time. Sometimes precision of movement. Sometimes activation time. Sometimes all of that at the same time.
Kurogiri was a rarity among rarities, his very existence making sense only because it was artificial. Mieko Eto was an order of magnitude weaker - her range equalled his, but the activation was extremely lengthy and the recharge time doubly so. Despite that, her quirk was powerful enough to warrant attention of the country's top school.
Even such quirk could save thousands of people in the future if used correctly.
To believe that HPSC - with its Paragon Program - had no warp quirk users under them was a folly. They had three. Two were completely out of range. The remaining one could only activate warp gates to locations that its holder visited earlier.
And not even ALL of them. He had to consciously 'save' a location.
HPSC has long ago set up a network of safehouses throughout the country, connected with what was pretty much a nation-wide warpgate network. Useful for moving things and people around unnoticed. Rarely used, it's not like HPSC could do nasty things 24/7 for years and remain undetected.
In exchange, the Spider's warpgates were fast. Almost instantaneous, and with very little recharge time. Rapid redeployment of assets across the country, when in a serious crisis. Like that one.
Although, to get to the news station from the nearest safehouse still takes quite a lot of time. And time was the one asset that the HPSC was lacking at that moment.
And then… there were betrayals.
("Boulder." Someone from the HPSC phones him. "We need you right now, we have a crisis and…"
"Is it true?" The Number Fifteen Hero asks back. He always worked quite closely with the HPSC. He saw nothing wrong with that, it WAS a legitimate governmental organization and… Could it… could it actually do things like that? He had never seen anything even remotely this fishy happening, but…
No. He genuinely doubts the HPSC right now. If he can't trust the organization, he isn't going to stick his head for it.
The official is about to reply something (for some reason, Boulder is 100% certain that it won't be a 'yes', no matter what the truth is), but the hero doesn't let him do that.
"Forget that I asked." He replies. "Good luck dealing with the problem. I'm taking sick leave for the day."
Somewhere else Invincible, the man that was Endeavor's equal despite having half his age and the strongest among Paragons, tells his caretakers that he isn't doing a single thing until the HPSC proves to him that those were all lies.
He volunteered for the Program, hoping to become a great hero with the HPSC help. He refuses to let his dreams be tarnished. If his fellow Paragons were used for assassinations of political enemies of the HPSC… no. Just no.)
But eventually, the response force began to get close. Unfortunately, that was all planned for.
(***)
"There are some… additional cameras in the lobby." Hawks says suddenly, after looking at his phone for a second. The host (and most of Japan) didn't miss the sound of the incoming message a moment earlier. "They should be connected to your network now. Your station has more than one channel, if I remember correctly. I think… that you should send the feed from them to one of the other channels."
"W…why?" Daikaku asks, surprised by the change of subject.
"Because the people that the HPSC sent to apprehend… or, more likely, kill me… are here." Hawks replies. There is something akin to a cold satisfaction on his face. "And otherwise you're going to miss a lot of interesting things."
(***)
There is a crowd of people entering the building. Heroes. Paragons. Some of the faces are familiar. There is Yoroi Muusha, the Number Four Hero and Scream, the Number Eleven Hero, both known for their ties to the HPSC.
Several highest ranked Paragons are there. Their facility was connected to the warpgate network. Thirty people in total.
"Everyone out of the building!" One of them shouts. He is at the front of the group, probably with some sort of defensive quirk. The Paragons are, after all, well trained. The chances of it being a trap are… notable. "There is a villain attack and…"
There are a handful of stragglers in the lobby. The Paragons realize that their suspicions were spot on when none of them look like they are planning to leave the area after the warning.
The man at the front has little time to react before something invisible hits him at the side of his knee. The leg bends wrongly and the man falls to the ground, screaming in pain.
"I'm afraid…" One of the nearest stragglers replies, pulling up his All Might hoodie. "... that I can't let you pass."
"Crawler." Scream recognizes him instantly. Koichi Haimawari sighs. So much time and FINALLY someone gets his name right. At a moment like this. "Surrender now, or…"
In a heartbeat, one of the men in front of him changes his outfit. The coat and balaclava are unmistakable.
Around Mr. Compress more and more figures exit his marbles. Knuckleduster. Split. Hero Killer Stain. Even the slender figure in a catsuit that some of the older viewers (the feed is already being sent out) recognize as Mischief. Twenty more vigilantes behind and around them, most of them former pro-heroes.
"I'm afraid…" Mr. Compress announces. "...that we're going to be the ones asking for your surrender."
As if they'd surrender. The fight erupts almost instantly.
(***)
"... surprise?" Atsuhiro Sako lets out, with a mischievous wink. Then he and Stain suddenly collapse into some sludge.
"Oh you've got to be kidding me." Midnight manages to recover her ability to speak first.
(***)
You know, for a mere off-handed mention about Lady Nagant and All Might prankcalling Mera accordingly to Midoriya's ideas, the man freaking out when they pretended to be Hawks' father and Vigilantes send to investigate, this has escalated quite nicely.
Yes, folks. End of an Era is going to be about the HPSC' crimes being (finally) exposed to public. Let's just say that the political and social earthquake is going to be... potent.