The Archivist of Nyx - Phew, I guess.
(***)
Momo Yaoyorozu might have agreed to work alongside him, but Mei Hatsume was something else entirely. To begin with, she wasn't a villain. By technicality, yes. The police and the heroes were yet to realize what they were dealing with, after all.
Hatsume Industries was a legally operating lifestyle support company. It produced a variety of tools and objects dedicated for the people whose quirks altered their biology, making them to a various degree unfit for 'normal' things. Fire-proof clothes for those whose quirks made them produce fire off their body permanently, car seats refitted to fit those with different anatomy, etc.
It was the sort of business that was always in demand, but lacked large factories and was heavily decentralized. The reason for that was simple. Most of the things they produced had to be, to a degree, heavily customized. Yes, certain things could be mass-produced (for example fire-proof T-shirts), but a lot of things had to be produced practically by hand.
As a result, most of the businesses in the field of lifestyle support were two-staged ones. First stage was a handful of designers that were responsible for figuring out what to produce for customers requiring a special approach. Once they agree on something, they send out the order to the second stage.
In the second stage, you actually got some factories, but typically small. Automation of the pre-quirk era was to a large degree a thing of the past. Most of those factories were composed in 90% of engineering workshops where people produced goods by hand.
Yes, they had modern tools. Yes, the 10% were assembly lines. Yes, they ordered most of their components from more regular factories. All of that was true. But in the end, most of the lifestyle support business wasn't THAT different from craftsmanship guilds of medieval Europe.
Hatsume Industries owned twenty-seven shops (most of them in Kyoto) and four factories. Mei Hatsume was its CEO, although she was also its head engineer. By all intents and purposes, the whole deal reminded Midoriya of Tony Stark. Except younger, disillusioned with the world and, apparently, on drugs.
That or Lex Luthor. Just not bald. And on drugs, apparently.
The biggest problem with the lifestyle support companies was crime. They produced things by hand, resulting in very little standardization - which also included paperwork. Not to mention the amount of raw resources regularly 'wasted' due to the irregular nature of the whole business.
It was very easy to hide the fact that you produced a handful of goods from materials signed as 'wasted' in the paperwork. And the difference between producing fire-proof clothes and a fire-proof villain uniform was rather scarce, especially if the former had to be produced by hand due to the person in question having 'non-standard' biology.
Both were fire-proof clothes. Both had to be produced by hand. And the support company could always say that they thought that their client was into survival, martial arts or hunting to explain the peculiarities of the design.
A villain?! Oh, the horror! We knew nothing about that! How could we?! We were tricked so horribly!
The villains also paid significantly better, especially for the better quality goods.
Hatsume Industries was one of the chief suppliers of the Kyoto black market. Counterfeit's criminal empire was at least partially built upon being its sole intermediary. She was also smart about it enough to make sure that the heroes remained blissfully unaware of just how dirty the other face of the Hatsume Industries was.
Midoriya suspected that it was only a matter of time now, though. Spyglass, the chief strategist of the New Vigilante Alliance, most likely figured it out already. She had the advantage of suspecting Counterfeit to be Momo Yaoyorozu, which formed a link to Mei Hatsume.
Mindscape, her equivalent on the side of the heroes, was too busy trying to squash the NVA to realize what was happening in Kyoto. But, as stated, it was only a matter of time. Saiko Intelli was her own type of brilliant - if Hatsume Industries supplied NVA, it would probably be out of business by now.
In the meantime, Midoriya asked Yaoyorozu to set up the meeting with Mei Hatsume. Organizing it didn't take much time.
"It's been a while, Mei." Midoriya asks once he enters her personal workshop. They are on the second-to-last floor of the high-rise building acting as the headquarters of Hatsume Industries.
It's not a large workshop. She has one in the nearby factory complex belonging to Hatsume Industries. This one's for her personal tinkering. Less for something she gets to sell, and more for something she does as a hobby.
Mei didn't change much. Plain black tank top with workshop coveralls, currently tied casually around her waist, with goggles on her head. Her pink dreadlocks are still there, although much messier than he remembered. She also probably doesn't sleep enough, guessing from her eyebags.
She was tinkering with something on a workshop table. When she heard him, she raised her head. After a few seconds, her eyes lit up with recognition.
"Mr. Ten Million!" So many years, and she still remembers that. Because of course she does. Her mind always worked in mysterious ways. "Fancy seeing you here."
She either grew up as a person (and an engineer) or changed more than Izuku expected. Because she actually pauses working on whatever thing she was tinkering with and turns to face him.
Also, nothing exploded thus far. That was a relatively unexpected development when Mei Hatsume was involved.
"Momo said that you have a business proposal." Hatsume says, eyeing him with a mixture of manic glin and scientific curiosity on her face. "Something about a large-scale political terrorism, was it?"
Oh, right. Midoriya probably should have expected this talk to be… odd. One of the rare cases when he can expect any of his predictions to actually come to fruition. He's going to have to wing it then.
"I assume that this room has been made sufficiently secure." Midoriya replies calmly. "And it has been proven to not be wiretapped by anyone."
She ends up chuckling while leaning back to the edge of the workshop table.
"Ten Million, I'm not a villainous mastermind like you… but I'm also not an idiot." She replies. "I set up the security on this floor myself. Scanners, jammers, everything I could think of. You can't even hope to drill up from the lower level to put a wiretapping here because the floor is reinforced. And, coincidentally, so are the walls and the ceiling. It's the safest place I can think of to have a serious business talk."
"That's, actually, surprisingly…" He tries to say, but she interrupts him.
"...lucid?" She asks. She doesn't feel hurt by it, so Midoriya nods. "Look, I always wanted to become the CEO of an engineering company. When we met, I was focused on becoming an engineer, but this was always only the first step of my plan. By the time the second year started I was already attending lots of Management Course classes. So I can set up an advertising campaign, plan my own public appearances to influence the Hatsume Industries' stock value and pay my taxes. On my own."
Right. He saw her pictures in a newspaper. She looked rather cool in a business suit, he had to admit. The dark shades were a cool addon too, especially as knowing her they were some form of a support item influencing her quirk.
"... you still enjoy tinkering with things the most." Midoriya says. She nods with enthusiasm.
"Oh, absolutely!" She decides to add. "It's most of what I do nowadays, to be honest. Running the company has become tiresome. I have people I trust for that, though I do keep them under surveillance just in case. I heard you've been pretty busy these past few years as well, hmm?"
She tilts her head a bit. It reminds him of Tsuyu, except her hair is pink and her eyes are… manic. A bit too emotionally enthusiastic for his taste.
"How much did she tell you about it?" Midoriya decides to ask. He doesn't want to accidentally say too much.
"Only that you joined the Paranormal Liberation Front." She replies. Somehow, there is not an ounce of hostility on her face when she says that. "And that you were pretty important in it. Oh, and that you're planning to start another war."
…
It's either 'Dammit, Yaoyorozu' or 'good job, Yaoyorozu' depending on the circumstances. Thus far Mei clearly doesn't give a feeling of being against it. Which is… well, Midoriya finds it odd.
"No problems with that?" He asks, his eyebrow raising. She laughs.
"A problem with that? Why would I have any?!" Mei says, raising her hands. She nails the look of exasperation quite well. "Oh, me from back then would totally be against it, but I just stopped giving a fucking shit about heroes. The whole system is bullshit. Honestly, if the current me lived back then, I'd probably be in Deika when it was destroyed."
That… she really changed a lot, didn't she? It's making him uncomfortable. More than anything else he witnessed nowadays. He has no idea how to react to that. He has no idea what to think about that.
"You've changed a lot." He says. She seems increasingly impatient with him not getting to the point.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever." She shakes her hand. It somehow reminds him of Iida's awkward hand gestures. "Get to the point."
"I'm looking for someone who is great with engineering and computers… but isn't above making their hands dirty." He replies. She is eyeing him with curiosity again, her entire impatience flying out of the window in a heartbeat. "Even, horrifyingly dirty. I mean something much more than just the usual villain supply, at least eventually."
"Oh?" Mei tilts her head a bit. On her face, a focus that's somehow very much unlike her. "Elaborate, please."
"War crimes, Mei." He deadpans. She chuckles loudly.
"Oh, that's a good one!" She seems to have been amused by the way he put it. "So, the hero trainee that I knew once… that I wanted to outfit with my babies to make them shine even brighter in an absence of a quirk… wants me to help him commit war crimes. In what I suspect to be an all-out war on Japan and its hero society. Is that right?"
"Yes, it is." He replies. His eyes are on her, looking for any signs of trouble brewing. If she was going to do anything it was probably going to be right now.
"Alright!" She claps her hands in front of her. His heartbeat stops for a brief moment before resuming when no attack follows. "What's the first job, boss? Or should I call you chief? Master? Daddy?" Midoriya almost chokes on air. "I'm open for suggestions here."
That's going to be a complicated work relationship. And he still isn't sure if she's up to task. The part where she supposedly spent most of her time off-work in an… altered state of consciousness, so to speak, was worrying.
"Boss is alright." Midoriya replies, his eyes narrow. "You're seriously going to… just agree to that?" Even after Yaoyorozu stated openly and with full confidence that Hatsume would join them, it was still rather…
"Mr. Ten Million." She says slowly. "Do you remember what the HPSC did to the Power Loader?" Unfortunately, he does. After Aizawa's coup plan fell through, he… "Let me summarize what I think about it."
She takes a deep breath, extends her arms as if she was trying to hug the space in front of her. And then, with a manic smile blooming on her face, she speaks.
"Fuck the government. Fuck the heroes. Fuck the HPSC." Mei says, the mania on her face growing in intensity with every word. "Hatsume Industries supplied every single major attempt to overthrow the government during the last few years. Even the NVA, but we're extremely cautious about that. You want to blow up a government's office? We'll provide the explosives. You're trying to poison a hero? We'll provide the poison. You're planning a missile strike against a police precinct? Yep, you guessed it right - we'll provide the missiles! Buy five, get one for free! Limited time deal, contact our nearest agent before it expires!"
She winks at him while shooting him with a finger guns.
"So if you, the man that used to be my muse and inspiration, decided to overthrow the government… why would I oppose that?!" She looks genuinely surprised by the fact that he thought otherwise. "You got Momo onboard, and that alone tells me that you mean business. Do you have the tiniest idea how long I waited for someone to have a serious shot at defeating the heroes?! Let's burn this country to the fucking ground together, Mr. Ten Million!"
Well, he has to admit that a part of him… enjoys her unbridled enthusiasm for destruction and mass murder. It's going to be extremely useful in what he is planning for the future.
"I think…" Midoriya says slowly after a few seconds of silence. She was still looking at him with an expression of sheer murderous mania and almost childish enthusiasm on her face. "... that you're really good at selling things to people."
She laughs. Yeah, that was a compliment. Genuine one, even. She truly improved. In a better world, she would be a wonderful CEO of a support engineering company. Here… Well, she's going to make this world burn.
"I think I'm interested in buying what you sell." Midoriya announces. Hatsume chuckles. "Welcome to the new Paranormal Liberation Front… actually, do you have any villain name, or…"
"Sign me up as Clockmaker." She replies, smiling wryly. "A bit of an inside-joke between me and Yaomomo, too long to describe. What do you want me to do with the company?"
She is ready to listen to him on something SO important? Wow. Yaoyorozu was right. He was wrong. Surprising, but understandable.
"Well, what options are on the table?" He asks back. This is a lot of people, most of which have little to no villainous tendencies. Hatsume is probably the only person aside from Yaoyorozu who knows about all those intricate inner details of the company's operations.
"There is, honestly, no point in letting it continue operating." Mei replies, while scratching her chin thoughtfully. "Without Counterfeit and her people to deal with security problems, so to say, heroes will discover our dark side sooner or later. Mindscape is already on our trail. She knows we're dirty, she just doesn't know how much."
"Wait, didn't you recently get a large commision from the government? Something about several high ranked heroes gear upgrades?" Midoriya replies, clearly surprised. Intelli had enough influence to sink something like that, so it's a small shock to him that the government decided to choose Hatsume Industries for something so important.
"We've indulged in some… enhanced persuasion techniques." Mei replies. "Bribery and blackmail, mostly. But I also might have had Momo kill someone who was being a bother." She feels vaguely proud of that.
Well. He isn't one to judge.
"So, my suggestion would be to ditch the company as a whole." Hatsume continues. "Preferably timing it to happen alongside whatever big public event you're planning. I can find you at least a few dozen support engineers and computer programmers that will gladly help us destroy this country. We might even evacuate the tools and machinery from a factory or two if you know a good place to move them to, enough to continue providing you with technical sup…"
He interrupts her with a raised hand.
"I know just the right place." He announces. She beams at him, like she once did when they were talking about heroic support items. "I actually came to talk to you about it. And moving the machinery shouldn't be a problem. I have a friendly warp quirk user to help with the logistics."
"Oh, that's awesome!" She says while smiling at him in a way that's just… innocent. Despite what she said earlier. It's… "What are the limitations? Can they…"
She stops speaking when he pulls out what she immediately identifies as an external hard drive. Something in her eyes suddenly goes hungry.
"And what's that…" She says slowly. "... Mr. Ten Million?" She always had an instinctual understanding of the value of objects. Midoriya respected it back then, and he respects it now.
"Overlook." He replies. That doesn't tell her anything. He would be shocked if it did. "The complete plans and the location of All for One's personal citadel. His paranoia ran very deep after Kamino, I must say." Midoriya sighs. "Only the highest leadership of the PLF knew about its existence. All for One made sure to supply the construction site through warp quirks AND he personally erased the memories of those that worked on it."
"Oh my, oh my." Mei grins at him, taking advantage of a brief pause in the lecture. "A safe base of operations. Now that's what I call an asset." He nods before continuing.
"It's hidden. It's large. It's… well, mostly empty right now." He says. "No one has visited it ever since the end of the first Paranormal Liberation War. I need someone to go there, and prepare it for war. Clean the floors, make sure that the electronic installation wasn't eaten by rats, restock its cellar…. Oh and also safely reignite the small atomic reactor that's supposed to power it." Mei wheezes loudly. "All for One was a bit of a… lunatic by the time this idea was born, honestly."
"That certainly sounds like something that a lunatic would make." Mei admits. "Why the heck did he spend so much resources on something this stupid?!" She seems to have issues conceptualizing the degree of paranoia that was eating the demon lord by the end of the reign. Oddly enough, it still wasn't enough to save him from death.
Oh, the irony.
"I think that he just wanted to have his own citadel of doom." Midoriya replies, sounding… tired about that, really. "I suspect that his injuries in Kamino included some degree of brain damage. Either way, we can use that. Move your machinery and technicians to the engineering section of the Overlook once it's ready to be inhabited. There is a list of other things I need to be there on the hard drive, so…"
"No worries about that!" Mei gives him a thumbs-up gesture. Once again, the maniacal smile starts to surface. "It doesn't matter what you need, we'll get it there. Especially with a warp quirk. And especially with the company reaching the end of its lifespan. Oh, I'm going to take so many loans that I won't have to pay back!" She laughs. "I'm going to fuck up at least a bank or two if I play it out correctly! I love it."
"Great." He puts the hard drive on the nearest table. Somehow, Mei doesn't leap towards it instantly. "I've also put in a few smaller demands. Mostly some alterations to the villain outfits of the League of Villains members…" Once again, her eyes lit up. "... I trust there'll be no issues with… extracurricular activities?"
Somehow, she catches up instantly.
"Nah, I'm cutting down on that." She replies while shaking her head. "We got a very large order a few weeks ago and we might have partied too much. I woke up in my bed, with three of my assistants AND my favorite wrench in… wait, do you still freak out about things like that?" She asks, looking genuinely worried for a moment.
"No, but it doesn't mean that I want to hear about them." He replies. Inside, he feels a lot of emotions that he really doesn't want to name. Not right now, that is. "I'm looking forward to working with you, Mei." And not much more than that.
Cloud finds him an hour after his return to the headquarters. Sitting on the stairs leading to his personal quarters on the second floor. Thinking about something, with just a hint of a worried frown on his face.
Cloud immediately does what she does best. She sits on the stairs next to him and speaks.
"So, boss… you want to talk?" The first reaction she gets is him chuckling loudly.
"Did I mention that you'd make for a very good therapist?" He then asks. "You keep doing that whenever someone looks down."
"Well, someone has to." Cloud replies. There is now a faint if slightly tired smirk on his face. "Besides, I vaguely remember you giving me a lot of pep talks at the beginning, sooo… paying back the favor? I think it's a good thing to do, no?"
"Yeah, yeah." He sighs. "I just… Meeting my classmates and friends from back then, it just really drove the nail home. The one that says 'everything's fucked up'. Everyone's practically themselves but in reverse."
"Examples?" She asks. When he looks at her questioningly, she decides to elaborate. "I didn't know them before. I wasn't even alive back then, you remember that?" Right. Born in a vat, accelerated growth etc. He keeps forgetting about that with how 'normal' she feels for most of the time.
"Well, let's list it up then." He says, his voice tainted with bitterness. "Tsuyu, the friendly girl that loved making children happy, had her men butcher a lot of them and almost stabbed me in the face. Todoroki, the quiet kid that wanted to become a hero, is now very loud and maniacal in his desire to murder as many of them as he can. Jirou was all about music, now she probably listens to human screams mostly. Tokoyami was all about darkness and edginess, now he is religious to an extreme. And no longer human, so I guess he managed to make his chuunibyou moments into reality. Momo didn't care about money and was adorably innocent and sheltered, now… now she would probably sell her family members if someone paid her well enough. It's…"
"...bad, yeah." Cloud admits. "Why did Hatsume make you break like that?" That was a very good question. Sunako quickly figured out the fact that it was the last straw.
He was growing increasingly uncomfortable with every old classmate he met. It was… honestly like seeing something else wearing their skin. Mei Hatsume somehow became the proverbial last straw that broke the camel's back.
"I think that she was the most innocent of us all back then." He replies before sighing painfully. "Almost completely oblivious to the world, focused on her engineering, hoping to make a fortune of helping the heroes. Seeing what she turned into was…
Cloud continues to listen in silence. So, Midoriya keeps talking.
"I mean, not like I'm much better than her." He admits. "Still, seeing her like that is… it's like seeing the adorable child that lived next door after years and discovering that someone molested them, they dropped out of school and are now selling drugs in the alley next to the local elementary school. It just… hurts."
Of all the people, he genuinely expected Hatsume to change the least. She was so… unique back then, so self-centered but in a good way, so… complete? He could barely imagine something changing in that, except…
"I know that I'm probably going to get murdered for saying that…" Cloud speaks after a few seconds of silence. "... but I think that it's All Might's fault."
What?
"Explain." He asks. He doesn't try to sound confrontative, but… it did come out of the blue and…
"Well, he was a really hard thing to emulate, no?" She replies. When it's clear that he failed to understand her, she continues speaking. "You all tried to be like him. In better times, it'd make you all into brilliant heroes. In the ones we ended up living in, you refused to bend like most did. So you broke."
"That…" He blinks a few times. "... that would actually explain a lot, I think. You're getting better and better at that, Sunako. Keep doing that. Your boyfriend could certainly use some moderating voice in his life. And probably some pep talk."
"Hey, not my boyfriend!" She replies. Somehow he feels as if she was pouting at him. "Not yet, at least. I'm nine years old, even if by technicality! I might be fully developed and with a few more years of memories thanks to some mental brainwashing slash training thing, but it'd still be hella weird to explain to anyone!"
"Right, so your not-yet-boyfriend could use that." Midoriya decides to relent. They were somehow alright even with not getting to see or talk to each other for almost a year. Underground operations were a bitch.
There is silence on the stairs. A bit awkward, but not much. Eventually Sunako decides to speak.
"So, how's the plan going?" A bit awkward way of trying to end a bit of awkward silence, in Izuku's opinion.
"Pretty well, I'd say." He admits. "Even better than I hoped for, since I didn't expect to get Apocrypha. Not to mention the Hatsume Industries instead of only Hatsume. We're going to have to face the biggest hurdle of the first stage of the plan tomorrow, though. So it might change."
"And what's that?" She asks.
"Explaining to Tsuyu what happened to Uraraka without getting violently murdered on the spot." Midoriya replies. It's going to be an adventure.
(***)
To paraphrase a meme, there were two wolves within Mei Hatsume. One was Tony Stark, one was Lex Luthor. Regretfully, in this universe Lex Luthor won. The world is going to suffer the consequences for the rest of the story.
Yes, not technically a part of the 1-A, but neither was Miyuki Tagawa. We get some side recruitments on it. Blame chronology - I needed Hatsume on board for the Overlook bit to work.
Feel free to speculate who Cloud's not-boyfriend is, and what exactly happened to Uraraka. Still a few days to make educated guesses :P