Slight delay for this one too, sorry, but with this we are back on track.

(XX)

"What do you want?" Devilfish asked. He didn't look only at their faces, Izuku noticed, instead slowly parsing their bodies. He examined them carefully up and down, then frowned. "You don't seem to have any Heteromorphic Quirks." He said matter-of-factly.

"We don't." Nejire honestly replied, sitting down. "My friend here is Quirkless. I have… a very complex Quirk."

In an instant, Izuku noticed the words sink in and Devilfish's eyes going wide. His tentacles seemed to stiffen all at once, even as the other mooks accompanying him just laughed.

"What, a Quirkless kid and a brat that's still in high school want to get in trouble?" One of them said, a tall guy with grey skin and a large maw like that of a lamprey. He didn't seem to have any eyes, Izuku noticed.

"Silence, Greedy." Devilfish said, and the guards seemed to stiffen all at once, like they didn't expect Devilfish to silence them. Maybe they didn't. Izuku was realizing pretty fast that the Aliens were often terrified of getting on the wrong side of the HASC. Dholak had pushed for money, but he had never specified an amount, as if he was scared at the idea of demanding too much. Devilfish was suddenly studying them a lot more seriously. Izuku remembered the man was a second-generation Alien, someone that had been born and raised on Earth, and yet he still seemed to be afraid of the HASC, in some way. He had to wonder what the full-fledged Agents were capable of, if a three on one advantage wasn't enough to make Devilfish feel safe.

"We are here for answers, mister Devilfish." Hado said, eyeing carefully the guards. Izuku tried to do the same. Confusion, bewilderment at her boldness, but no trace of recognition: they weren't aware of the HASC, just members of the Ushimitsudoki Alliance.

"Alright, kids, this has gone far enough." A large guy with whale traits, the tallest of the present members, said, "If you leave now, we can all pretend this isn't happening."

Izuku glanced at Nejire. She was trying to look strong, he realized. He coughed in his fist. Well, if she was playing the bad cop, Izuku supposed he'd have to play the good cop. "Look, we just want to talk a moment. If nothing is wrong, you don't have anything to worry about, and we can all go back to our drinks." He did his best to hold back from stuttering, or to sound like he had drunk even a single drop of the beer he had ordered and abandoned at the counter, and made sure to look in Devilfish's eyes. 'You don't want to cause trouble.' He tried to convey.

"Greedy, go grab us some drinks. You four, make sure no one listens in." Devilfish said. Izuku breathed internally in relief as the other men walked a bit further away – enough they wouldn't be able to hear what they were saying over the music playing in the bar's speakers, but not so far they couldn't intervene immediately if things went wrong. The drinks landed on the table, two beers for them and one for Devilfish, then he gestured at Greedy to move away and join the others. "So. The HASC wants to ruin my drinking night out?" He asked, pointing at them, while the both hans grabbed a beer and pulled it close to his face. Izuku noticed his arm moved like there were no bones inside, then he remembered Octovians were supposed to only have tentacles.

"We are here to ask something simple." Nejire replied, apparently unbothered even as Devilfish revealed the circular mouth that had been hidden so far and the sharp beak within, "The weapons. Who is using them?"

"Ah, that. It's probably Kaizou."

Izuku gritted his teeth at the thought they were wrong again, but Nejire's eyes focused on him. She was being… very intense about this, Izuku noticed. In fact, that was pretty much true every time. Whenever they faced a culprit, or a criminal in general, Nejire seemed to switch in a far sterner role than her usual, cheery self.

"We spoke with another informer." He said, "And he mentioned you."

"The informer is wrong." Devilfish replied.

"Can you prove that?"

"What proof does the informer have?" Devilfish asked with a shrug.

"Incentives." Nejire replied. Izuku nodded. Dholak had to know they would never pay the rest of the money if he proved completely unreliable and had just sent them on a wild goose chase. It wasn't in the agreement, but it was because it was just something that went unsaid. "He has a vested interest in giving us the culprit."

"Nothing conclusive then."

"No, but enough to make us consider investigating all of the properties that have to do with you. If you don't prove now that you have nothing to do with this, we might even resort to investigating all the Ushimitsudoki Alliance. I wonder how the other leaders will take it? Especially Curator."

Badly, Izuku imagined. He could see Nejire's plan now. She wanted to push him against the wall, and then force him to confess or to rat out the real culprit. It was a bit more dangerous than what Izuku would have gone for, but that would be the ideal result, the one that didn't require them to fight at all.

For a moment, he even considered it might work.

Devilfish sighed, "Well, in that case I suppose I will have no choice but- Get them!" He shouted, and then an explosion of black ink came out of his mouth and rained on their faces. Izuku heard the man stand up, the glasses falling on the floor and the chair slamming right after it, and did the only thing he could think of: he leapt over the table, still half-blind, and tried to grapple the man. He managed to grab a leg, and immediately realized what he had really grabbed was a piece of metal. 'Right, their humanoid body is just a prosthetic!'

"Hold him tight!" Nejire shouted, and Izuku heard a crash, the cheering of part of the crowd, and a sound like a laser beam. The teen groaned and started to climb up the man's body to hold him from the chest when he felt several tentacles start to grab him instead.

"Wanna go, you bastard?! Let go or I'll show you what I can do." The Octovian shouted, and Izuku felt one of the tentacles start to close around his neck, air cutting off. 'Slasher! Slasher, Slasher, Slasher!" He screamed in the active part of his brain, while the more passive part distantly noted that maybe this was what Nejire meant two weeks prior with that rant on tentacles. Or maybe he was just already getting air deprived.

He flexed his arm and felt the Replica Orgue finally respond. His eyes, cleaned off enough to see properly by the friction against the shirt of his opponent, caught sight of the Slasher form of the Orgue. Where the Piercer Form was a trident, the Slasher Form was a blade of light. It could have been called a sword, but instead of having a proper handle and guard, the blade came out of a contraption connected to the right arm that also worked as an arm guard-shield hybrid. The light blade also had three tips, like the Piercer, instead of one.

Izuku shortened the blade, then cut above his head, feeling the grip on his neck immediately relax. "Ah, fuck! Do you know how long it takes for a tentacle to regrow?!" The Octovian shouted, before Izuku swung the Slasher again, cutting off the remaining one.

"About ten minutes, I read your file." He stood back up and looked around, ignoring the 'smartass' he got in response. Nejire had already taken down two people and was fighting the other three, using her energy waves to knock them all out. He really wanted to help, but a worried look from her and a shake of her head told him right now the priority was taking down Devilfish.

The man had lost two tentacles, but they were the shorter ones, not the large arms. Izuku took the fighting stance Nejire had taught him. The Slasher's range was about six meters, with the blade fully extended, but of course that was cumbersome and best used for static targets. A weapon that long was too big to even be called a sword, anyway. No, the best length for the Slasher was about a meter, longer than a normal sword to make up for the fact the blade technically started at the wrist.

He looked at the Octovian, and the Octovian looked past him. Thankfully, Izuku was on the way to the exit, meaning that, unless he tried to, there was no way out for Devilfish that didn't go through Izuku.

Except for when the freaking Alien jumped up, stuck to the ceiling and started to slide on it, the legs and lower body hanging from him like the world's most disgusting chandelier. Izuku immediately jumped up, grabbing on the legs.

That proved to be a mistake when he felt the part of the body he was hanging onto starting to slide off.

-x-

"So, Octovians are really octopus like, right?"

"Yep." Nejire nodded, "Their real body is the arms, 'head' and other tentacles. Everything else is a suit they put on to look more humanoid."

"Whatever we do we should avoid unmasking that little fact, right?"

"Right."

-x-

Izuku sighed, as he felt the android body coming loose even more, and then jumped, grabbing onto a tentacle. That caught Devilfish's attention as he instantly tried to slam him down on the ground. Izuku did his best to hold, given the tentacle was rather slippery.

"Help!" He shouted.

"You are doing great! Hold on to him!" Hado shouted back, knocking out another opponent. She seemed to aim at Devilfish for a moment, then she grimaced and turned around to attack the remaining opponents instead.

That was when Izuku felt the tentacle extend. They were almost at the door, so he did the only thing he could. He extended the Slasher to a length of four meters and then slammed upward the flat of the weapon. Devilfish yelped and was forced to dive aside. Jumping from the ceiling to a wall while still dragging Midoriya behind, despite the added weight. "A thousand yen to whoever closes the door!" He shouted to the cheering crowd.

"Two thousand to keep it open!" Devilfish shouted back, taking a tight turn at a corner of the room, right on time for Izuku to hit the wall.

"Three thousand!" Izuku shouted, noting a guy was currently busy opening and closing the door.

"Five!"

"Ten!" Izuku shouted as the crowd cheered and the door was firmly shut. A moment later, unfortunately, he was right on the way for the bar. Luckily, the shadow barman had made sure to take down the liquors, so he didn't slam into the full collection. Instead, he slammed into the mirror behind. The impact and the glass cuts made his hold buckle, and before he could do anything, the tentacle slipped from his hold.

"Ah-ah!" The Octovian cheered, before a bright light shone from his left, "Uh-oh."

The large mass of the lamprey-maw guy called Greedy slammed right into the Octovian, sending both of them sailing toward the back wall.

Hado panted, her hand still aimed toward the two men, stepping forward. Izuku groaned as he also stood back up. "Uh… Good job?" He tried, as they tried to surround the defeated opponent. His metallic body had slammed in the wall so hard it had opened a hole in the wall.

A hole big enough to let an octopus sneak through. Hado immediately put her head in, looking up to see the hole led to a small gap between the building and the next one over. Perfect to climb.

"He ran!" She shouted, rushing out of the bar to try and follow him by flight. Izuku made to follow her, before a pair of hands landed on his shoulders.

"Ohi, my ten thousand yen for keeping the door locked." Said a guy with a skull mask that he recognized as the Villain Tesla.

"And this is an estimate for the damage you two caused to my bar." The shadow man added.

Izuku sighed.

Five minutes later, Izuku was finally walking outside. In the end, he had paid Tesla out of pocket and left to the barman the number the HASC used for that kind of situation, before walking out of the bar to find a very, very disappointed Nejire.

"He ran, didn't he?" He asked, while carrying the metallic body of the Alien. When people had asked, Izuku had played the 'his prosthetic is worth money' card to take it away, even if it could hardly be called a prosthetic when it was literally a whole human body only missing arms, head and internal organ.

"Yep."

"What do we do now?"

"Now…" She tilted her head, "We go through with plan B. I was hoping that he would prove amenable to just solve this by talking, which is why we went for the direct approach, but if he refuses to, we will have to deal with this another way."

"Which is?"

"Well, he won't go home, and will probably try to lay low, so we need another lead. Luckily, we have the perfect one: we find out who made that." She pointed at the 'prosthetic' apparatus, "Remember, he can't go around without one, so either he has a spare, which is unlikely because those things are expensive, or he needs to buy a new one. And no matter what, that means he needs a mechanic, so…"

"We find the mechanic…"

"We find our perp." She nodded.

Izuku smiled for a moment, before he coughed awkwardly.

"… So, how do we carry this around without looking suspicious?"

-x-

As it turned out, they did quite easily. The body was very realistic, but it still looked like a mannequin now that the arms and head were gone. Looking inside, anyone could see where the Octovian's body would have attached, a pair of connecting spots that would allow the tentacles to control the legs and a whole lot of sensors that, apparently, served so the wearer could know if his body had been hit, cut or otherwise damaged, but without the context, it just looked like some weirdly techy mannequin.

All they did was wrap the body while leaving the 'neck' exposed. People might have taken a double, but they would quickly realize it was a fake, and just assume Izuku and Hado were preparing for some sort of school festival.

The two made their way back to Ondereno quickly, and from there getting in the HQ was just a matter of using one of the entrances. Hado apparently knew a few Izuku hadn't been made aware of, and he decided to not question why she chose the one in the back of some sort of family restaurant, right next to a dumpster.

They both quickly moved down the stairs, and all but barged through the entrance to the headquarters.

During their travel there, Izuku took time to think about his first fight, or the… below average results of it. He had managed to use the Orgue, and it had done what he wanted without causing damage or hurting people he didn't mean to… But it had also proved he was still immature.

Part of him wondered if he needed more weapons. The current one was awesome, and it reminded him of a couple of famous Hero's Quirks. Like how Endeavor could make fire spears, to mention one. However, he was also concerned. If he had something different, maybe he could have captured Devilfish then and there, instead of having to fight him and ultimately letting him escape. Izuku looked at the Replica Orgue, and smiled.

He couldn't help it, he really liked the weapon. It truly felt like having a Quirk, and the kind he had always dreamed of. The weapon was flashy, looked both intimidating and strong, and it would have made for the Quirk of an excellent Hero.

Izuku shook his head. Yeah, he just needed to get better at it. Then something like today wouldn't happen again.

He looked at Hado as they entered their office and put down the mannequin. She didn't seem to have a problem helping him, so maybe all those stupid rumors were exaggerated. "Thank you for earlier, by the way." Izuku said.

"For what?"

"Well, you took on those goons all alone, and I didn't even manage to take out one opponent. I got dragged around and ended up even risking the reveal of his alien identity."

Hado shook her head, floating towards him. "Hey, don't think like that! I took on small fries, and as for almost revealing him, I doubt there was much we could do!"

"W-Well, I'm not saying I was useless, but at least you could admit I need more practice in combat."

"I don't think that's the problem." Hado replied, "You are already a decent fighter. Not 'good' or 'excellent', of course, you have been training for less than two months, but you can put up a decent resistance. What you need is more training and experience. Let me repeat that, it's been less than two months. You are a newbie, and there is nothing wrong with that."

"Still, I can't take a mission like this just by being decent…"

"I agree." Hado replied, and Izuku blinked, "What? There's a reason if this was a conditional assignment. We got this mission because All Might assigned it to us, but if it turns out it's too hard for our current level of expertise, we are allowed to transfer the file to someone else. The only reason we aren't is that for now, I think we can handle this."

"Oh. Right." Izuku had almost forgotten this was a conditional assignment in the first place. Conditional, he assumed, on their results. Which currently probably didn't sound stellar. Sure, the fact most of their audience was made up of criminals with a few Aliens included probably meant this wasn't a huge breach of security, all things considered – no one would believe a drunk criminal about the sentient octopus that had fought some rebellious teenagers, or if they did they would misinterpret it as the confused memory of a bar brawl. Even if someone was reliable, like the bartender, the best guess would always be a weird Quirk.

It was once again the great irony of the Age of Quirks: the abnormal was so normal that mixing in something absolutely insane was almost mundane. From Izuku and Hado's perspective, two agents of the HASC had interviewed a suspect that had turned violent and managed to escape, but for everyone else two arrogant teenagers had decided to pick a fight with a Villain and managed to almost win before the Villain ran off. Two different stories for the same event, and Izuku knew which was more likely to be believed.

Yet, Izuku couldn't help but wonder if when Hado said 'too hard for our current level of expertise', she really meant 'yours'. He shook his head, refocusing as they started examining the machine. They went through the various codes, and Hado ran them through the PC.

"Uh, well this is good." She said, once they were done, "It's the Hatsume Steelworks' code of production."

"That company that grew in size out of nowhere a few years ago?" Izuku asked.

"Yup. The HASC made them contracted producers for Alien-geared support items, while giving them government contracts to cover up the flow of money. Guess tomorrow we are going to Kyoto." She leaned back, "For now, we should get some sleep, alright?"

Izuku nodded, realizing they were probably not going to get a meeting with a company at… '3 AM?!' He stared at the time of night, bewildered. He wasn't an early sleeper by any means, but he also never went to sleep quite so late.

Just as he said that, the tiredness came crashing over him all at once. He wobbled up and said goodbye to Hado, who waved at him leaving. Not five minutes later, he was stumbling toward his room, falling on the bed the moment he opened the door.

-x-

"Morning Midoriya." A voice called as Izuku was leaving his room the next morning, exhausted after getting very little sleep for a while.

He turned around to see his neighbor. The tall, imposing figure of a first year at Ondereno, Tsutsutaka Agoyamato, towered over Izuku. His long chin made an almost goofy pair with his black hair shaped in a long pompadour, but no one would have dared to laugh at him. The teen's scowl was deep and Izuku had to admit it terrified him sometimes.

Except that then Agoyamato smiled, patting him on the shoulder with a friendly smile. "Oh man, is it true you are dating?"

"I-I what?"

"The girl? Nejire Hado? They saw you leave just yesterday, and before two weeks ago. The rumor mill is already in full spin around Ondereno."

Izuku gasped, turning bright red. "N-No no no, me and Hado? We are just friends!"

Agoyamato just smiled, winking. "Sure. I will make tell that to the others if they ask." And with that and another pat on the shoulder, he marched off.

Izuku sighed. Aside from Agoyamato, he had no idea who the 'others' were. Since Izuku's school time was limited to taking the exams, and he spent the rest of the time in his 'Special Course', in the month and a half since he had started frequenting the Ondereno Institute, he had talked to basically no one.

He supposed that was by design, but it left him with only the other Agents to talk to. And while he liked the time he spent with Hado, the other Agents he had met so far were already fully grown adults, so they didn't have much to relate about. Realistically, there had to be other Agents around his age, but he still hadn't met one.

'I could ask Hado, but… It sounds a bit… embarrassing.' He hated to admit the reason was just embarrassment, but admitting you were looking for friends seemed… odd. With a shake of his head, Izuku stopped the train of thought. He had time to make friends on his own. For now, they had to focus back on the case.

He closed his door behind and rushed down the stairs, leaving the dorms and reaching the exit. He quickly reached the entrance for the underground compound, and walked right in to find Hado already waiting. "You ready, Izuku?" She asked.

Izuku nodded, then noticed her tilting her head. "What is it?"

"You are a bit red. You ok?"

"Ah, I-I ran all the way here." Izuku replied, sighing in relief when Hado nodded, "So, what's the plan?"

"Well, we take the train, go to Kyoto, meet up with the Hatsume Steelwork's Alien division chief, and from there we decide where to go. Ideally, we can convince them to put a tracker in the next prosthetic, and we use that to follow Devilfish once he gets the delivery."

"What if he doesn't get the prosthetic from them?" Izuku countered, but Hado quickly dismissed the idea.

"There are maybe three companies in all of Japan that make Alien gear like those. It's also an Earth-based product, so it's unlikely he could get one on the black market."

"Yes, but what if he does? We should have a Plan B, right?"

Hado thought about it a moment, then nodded, "You might be right. Any ideas? I'll be honest, the guy is probably going to try to lay low as much as possible now that we are onto him. This was my best shot at figuring out where he could be."

Izuku frowned, then he started to think. What would the Heroes do in this situation? Wait, no, most Heroes would be handling the action part. But there were investigative Heroes. Mostly Underground, but also people like Rock Lock. What would they do... "You are right, he would lay low." He finally said, "But the others he works with wouldn't, right?"

Hado blinked. Then a smile spread over her face. "I guess we are making a call on the way to Kyoto, uh?"

-x-

"We thought it was clear this was supposed to be a one-time thing." Douraku said over the phone, cleaning up the front of their restaurant. Getting a call early in the morning was something the Alien hated, but getting a call from the HASC? Now that was terrifying.

"We understand, mister Douraku, but it was your friend that put himself in a mess like this." The voice of the Faedian girl replied over the phone. Haso? Hamo? Something like that.

"You seriously just confronted Devilfish openly about the issue? What, did you expect he would just cave in and surrender?"

"Frankly, yes. Fighting the HASC is stupid."

Douraku generally agreed, but Devilfish wasn't a smart person, and anyone could have figured that out. From the fact he was the only member of the Ushimitsudoki Alliance that tried to openly hang out with Villains from other gangs when it wasn't a necessity, to the fact he was treated like a thug despite his role in the Alliance, most people would have guessed that the diplomatic approach wouldn't have worked. "He is second generation." They decided to say instead, "Aliens that grow up on Earth tend to lose respect for the HASC."

"… I guess it's true. I just assume most parents that decide to reveal the truth to their children would try to hammer home the fact we shouldn't be treated like the average cop." Hado sighed, "Either way, we want to know where he is."

"We don't know." Douraku replied. It was the truth of course. They weren't going to dig their own grave for Devilfish.

"Are you sure?"

Douraku rolled his eyes and looked at the other portions of his body. "Anyone here knows where he might be and cares to share with the class?" He asked. Even if they were all connected, it wasn't like he could read their mind. He was in charge of the movement and could share their sight, but each had an independent mind.

"Uh, I might." One of the others said, muffled by his shirt. He rolled his eyes and opened the shirt. His body was a cluster of tens of people from his species sticking together, but he knew which one spoke.

"Yes?" Hado asked.

"So, we went to a party of some members of the Ushimitsudoki some years ago, and we got drunk. I mean piss drunk. I mean we almost shattered then and there…"

"Dude they got the picture, move on!" Another part of his chest shouted.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm just setting the mood. So anyway, most of us fell unconscious, but I ended up going for a few more bottles with Devilfish. The kid is all about space and stuff, so when he found out I am an Alien that came from there instead of being born on Earth he got starry-eyed and we got to talk."

"And?!"

"And we got to talk, and well, I was almost out by the end, and so was he, and we moved on to talk about life here on Earth. He told me he has an apartment in Kyoto he uses to wait for the repairs of his body. So, if he still has it…"

"He might be there! Or go there. Where is it?!"

"Mh? Oh, right, uh…"

"… You don't remember."

"I do! Sorta. Look, he said he could go swim at night in the Katsura River just sliding out his window, so it's definitely on the river. And it's not far from Hatsume Steelwork. I might not know exactly where it is, but that's your job to find out!"

"Well, it's still assuming he is going to Hatsume Steelwork for the body... Well, that works. Alright, thank you!" And she hung up, leaving him there.

Douraku sighed. Well, this got rid of Devilfish for good. The HASC would find him, either using Hatsume Steelwork or catching him in his Kyoto apartment. They yawned, cracking their neck and closing up their shirt.

Another boring day ahead.

(XX)

What, you thought the polite method would work every time? Of course not.

Really, this was a pretty simple situation, all things considered, Izuku just isn't ready yet to fight so ends up bumbling a lot. It will go away as he trains and gets better at the whole 'Agent' thing. Still, I hope people keep an eye on the fight, there are a number of things I hope you will notice `;)

Hatsume Steelwork, gee I wonder who will be around here...

Also starting to show that the Ondereno Institute is more than just background. Izuku at least officially goes to that school too, so it's not just a one-off thing. It's MHA, after all, we can't just completely ignore the Academia part. For those that don't know, Tsutsutaka Agoyamato is a canon MHA Character, one of the two UA General Course students angry at 1-A during the Culture Festival that in the end apologizes.

I want to make sure it's clear that Hado isn't dumb. It's not that she is too dumb to consider Izuku's solution, it's just that she is very focused. She saw a solution, and then focused immediately on that.