It was three in the goddamn morning and all Aizawa Shota had to show for himself was zero point five hours of sleep, a building migraine and the shittest hand in existence. He stared at the cards in his possession, the colours starting to mix and match before he blinked to order them back between the lines. He raised his head to lock eyes with the boastfully grinning Yakuza head across the table.
"Oyabun wins," announced the goon standing behind the boss.
In Shota's humble opinion, you've reached peak levels of Yakuza when you had someone speak for you. He could have been that someone. Speaking, not being spoken for, mind you. That would require a bit more— assimilation. But he could be standing in that woman's place. Sporting an unnecessarily traditional kimono and pretending he was somebody just because he had a dragon tattooed on his ass. But no, he was sitting across them, playing cards, surrounded by every flavour of asshole imaginable. Honestly, infiltrating the mafia was baby's first underground job. Anyone could infiltrate the mafia. They were practically begging for you to join them at this point. Just look at their 'leader', trailed by two 'bodyguards' barely over twenty. Neither of them looked like they could differentiate one end of a katana from the other.
Expensive hilts and cheap blades, that's the modern mafia for ya.
"No, Best Jeanist beats Climate," Shota deadpanned even though he hadn't a single idea what he was talking about. But this game was for children so he kind of expected it to be easy to pick up. Apparently, either children became significantly smarter over the years or he became considerably dumber. One of those had a much higher probability than the other, sadly.
"Obviously not, since Climate has the higher ranking and bigger firepower." The other Yakuza goon who spoke sported only one eye in the middle of his face. As of now.
The boss nodded graciously. He was fairly old, not old in 'normal people' sense and not even that old by 'villain' standards but in 'Yakuza boss' terms, he was pretty impressive. He managed to hold his position under the entirety of Shota's mission.
A god fucking awful year that all led to this.
Welp, there goes my only card that's actually worth shit. He re-examined his hand, hoping to find at least one worthwhile piece. He didn't even know who these heroes were, let alone their 'ranking'. The ones he worked with didn't have cards made of them and they liked it that way. All the less likely your face is being used to wipe some villain's ass.
"Who the fuck's Best Jeanist?"
That was courtesy of the man sitting next to Shota, munching on a thighbone with his severely oversized canines. Chum and saliva were dripping everywhere but he wasn't too bothered by it. The bone stood no chance. Shota wasn't particularly worried about the sabre-tooth like fangs. He was more worried about what they could do.
Where did sabretooth get the thighbone you ask? Well, from the fucking meat processing plant they were playing Heroes the Assembly in at fucking four in the morning. And honestly? That wasn't even the worst part. The worst part was, it was so tit freezing cold, Shota felt his balls retreat inside his body cavity an hour ago.
Oh and also the villains. Those were a close second.
Also to Shota's right, sat the rest of the delightful trio of bank robbers. Made up of the bone chewing guy officially known as Diego, a literal mammoth of a woman so large, she loomed over all of them even while sitting (bigger than Shota's entire shithole of an apartment, that big) and a ratty little sucker who got rather excited from the mention of the pro fashion icon.
"Jeanist? Jeanist? What does Jeanist do? Make jeans? He make jeans? Does he, does he, does he-" the third, uhm, person(?) repeated their question feverishly. Their giant, bulging blue eyes threatened to pop out of their orbits, surrounded by patchy, greyish fur. Whether it was actually grey or just grungy beyond the point of no return was left up to the imagination. Their cross-eyed bulbs looked in the complete opposite direction and their eyelids wetted them with disgustingly loud blinksevery minute or so.
Comical? Sure. Robbed nineteen high-security banks without a trace? Yyyupp.
"His quirk isn't fucking making jeans ya retard!" the Ice Age character reject graciously informed Mr. Thyroid problem. "He gets outta them I think…"
"Is he a porn star?"
"No! He's a hero, the fuck ya goin' on about…"
"Dirty mutts…"
That was the congresswoman to Shota's left, gracing them with her presence at the very end of the oval table. Someone who almost got the House of Representatives topass a law that would have made it mandatory for mutant type children to sand down their talons, teeth and claws. 'For safety reasons'. Thankfully, a lot of people had something to say about that but Mrs. Imamura was still here, and still a congresswoman so clearly, they didn't say enough.
"Chummy, who let the racist in?" Diego muttered dryly.
Shota seldom agreed with criminals but he can make an exception just this once. God, his fucking eyes ached just by looking at the woman. And Imamura wasn't ugly by any means. Not on the outside. Standard upper middle class with a diamond spoon up her ass. But Lord, who wears white opera gloves to a villain convention? In a meat processing factory, Shota cannot press this enough, there were literally crates of diced beef next to them. Hell, since no chair was structurally sound enough to take the weight of her double derby truck of a body, Mammoth resorted to sitting on some sort of ungodly machination probably used to make cute animals into even cuter burger patties.
"CANCER QUIRK CANCER QUIRK CANCER QUIRK—" the weasel(?) swayed back and forth, burping the words one by one in rhythm with their springy motions. Mammoth reached out and grabbed onto their head to steady them and coincidentally cover their entire face, the screeching mouth too, thank fuck. Shota will give her one (1) brownie point for taking some mercy on his headache. The villain's neck stretched a bit when the momentum of their torso brought it forward but it soon snapped back and they boinged on in relatively muffled peace.
"Shut the fuck up Rubber, and play yer hand," Diego grunted and resumed his bone. The crack of it breaking clean in two echoed across the whole godforsaken freezer. Shota refused to call anything below ten celsius a 'room'. That was 'outside' temperature range. So this place gets to be called a freezer and he gets to freeze his balls off. Not really a fair trade if you ask him. Sadly, no one did.
"Their name's not Rubber and they're doing excellent," Mammoth patted the sucker on the head. Their cranium squished a bit after each but they didn't seem to have anything important stored in there. They muttered 'cancer quirk' peacefully a few more times.
"I know but that's what their father should have used-"
"And I am the uncivilised one?" Imamura wrinkled her tipped up nose. "Of course, I cannot expect you people to behave yourselves."
"What are ya implyin' bitch?" Diego barked back.
Shota glanced longingly at the door. This was going off the rails real fucking fast and Giran was nowhere to be seen. He chose to stare at his pitiful hand instead. Maybe if he squints hard enough, he'll hallucinate a blue, red and yellow, striped shiny on there. Wouldn't that be a well-deserved mother fucking break from the universe…
"I do not have to 'imply' anything, you are literally chewing on a bone, you dog!" The congresswoman obsessively pulled her already way too long gloves higher. As if the muttscould infect her by proximity alone.
Shota was glad for the shades since this way no one could see his left eye twitch. There were a few other people in the 'Wearing shades inside like an asshole' club so he didn't particularly stand out. Two other villains to be precise. Not bad out of eleven.
Could be twelve if fucking Giran would just bother showing up.
"Actually, Baldy there is right."
That 'compliment', Shota really didn't like coming from that man. A man also sitting across the table, next to the yakuza with short, blond hair and mismatched eyes, one green, the other blue. In response to Shota's incredulous stare, he released a soft smile. Too soft. Like the underbelly of a predator. He also sported the fugliest brown dress shirt imaginable but with dual gun holsters proudly displayed on each side. Plus a knife strapped to his khaki slacks, the grip of another gun peeking out from his pants etc. You get the picture.
"Best Jeanist moved up on the charts, quite a lot actually. He's now Top Hundred~" The guy smirked, cold, like sharpened steel.
Out of all the criminals here, he was the one Shota loathedthe most. And feared. And that was counting the mafia boss and the racist congresswoman and every other 'A' class villain in this room. Not that he'd ever admit that out loud. And he was being real modest with that 'A' in the case of the blond and Imamura. The former played with the cards in his hand, fingers fast and deft, used to handling all sorts of dangerous things and handling them fast.
"While Climate is well... dead. Last time I checked." His smile told of a very thorough checking. A personal one.
How is it possible for a room that's already minus four-thousand degrees to get even colder? They all sat in highly uncomfortable silence while Imamura tossed a heteromorph hero card into the pile with every intention of losing the round. Shota would pay for that sizeable looking hero on the picture to sit on her. Just a tiny plop and a few broken bones. A possible lawsuit. Would be worth it.
But you know what wasn't worth it? Shaving his head each day so his floating hair doesn't betray his quirk. Hizashi cried when he brought out the buzz cutter. Shota was pretty sure it was a traumatic trigger to him at this point. They'll have to work this shit out in couples therapy afterwards. He's never touching a razor again in his life. He officially became allergic to hairdressers. His scalp begged for a 3 in 1 Head and Shoulders shampoo and that wasn't even talking about the rest of his skin because apparently, 'real villains' only bathe once per full moon. In sewer water or some shit if the collective stench of the room was anything to go by. (Maybe the half-rotten meat also had to do with it but whatever, it was in Shota's favour if you take into account that most mutant types usually had decent smelling. And there were at least four across the table.)
Giran didn't show. Which was fine. This is fine. Shota knew he won't but he still couldn't help to hope. His stupid ass hero heart is to blame. But Sasaki saw he won't turn up, at least not as long as he's here. After— It doesn't really matter what happens after, does it?
Shota released a true to life exasperated sigh. And this? This is how he was spending quite possibly his last hour on planet earth. Playing a fucking children's game with the most dangerous and deranged people in this nation. Fucking disrespectful, that. His ancestors were rolling in their graves. If only he knew any of them.
Well, it wasn't a children's game, not for them. It was a way to gather information. An opportunity to enlist new members (of the Yakuza). A chance to stake out the competition (for the bank robbers). For the blond-haired dude, it was a job offer. Whatever the fuck the racist congresswoman wanted, it was that for her. Shota didn't concern himself with exactly what did Sasaki manage to convince them to come. They were here and that was that.
Because for Shota, this was it.
Possibly the height of his career. The biggest, fattest catch he ever had the chance to reel in.
This was a setup.
Now he has to make sure they all know that too.
The guy in a severely oversized blue bomber jacket next to the Yakuza tossed in a losing card too. He was Tokyo's biggest X dealer. They have made 'acquaintances' already in other 'gatherings' but Shota didn't remember him having this criminal of a fashion sense. The roaring plastic gem tiger on the front is what did it. The prison garb will be an improvement. Shota did note the new necklace around his neck. The pendant was aggressively crimson but too far away to really see what the slender shape was supposed to be.
"Oh, that one's dead too," the blond chimed in, pointing at the tossed card. "Areola was the name I think?"
The bright pink-skinned woman on the other end of the oval gave a short snort.
"Is her death entertaining to you?" Imamura obviously wasn't going to just let a 'fucking mutt' disrespect a perfectly acceptable, emitter type air bender heroine. AlmostTop Hundred, mind you. Was. Was almost Top Hundred, Shota.
"Someone skipped their English classes," she replied with an ever so slight hint of an accent. Shota's eyelids were threatening to get glued shut at this point. Sasaki shouldn't have agreed to revising the plan one more god damn time. He was the one pretending to be a responsible adult out of the lot, was he not? Like it fucking mattered, like any of this fucking mattered.
Shota took in a small breath and concentrated on the next target. Other than the skin colour, it was hard to tell if the very funny ha ha nipples woman was even a mutant type with the cap, matted hair and Indoor Shades™ covering most of her features. But she wasn't fucking fooling Shota. Not just because he had such a good bullshit radar but because watch out for the woman.
Okay Sasaki but which fucking woman do I watch out for? The one twice the size of a barn, the katana-wielding yakuza member, the racist with the cancer quirk or the expert counterfeiter? Neither seemed like a safe bet against the others.
The problem with the last pink 'problem' was that Scribe not just knew how to forge about ninety percent of the wide selection of official documents Japanese bureaucracy had to offer but recently figured out how to believably forfeit hero licences. And that, that won't fly. It wasn't a biggie for limelight heroes whose face was on TV every Sunday morning but for the underground type, it stirred up quite some shit. As baffling as that might sound, people didn't immediately take Shota at face value when he dragged his ragged, coffee-stained, cat-hair covered, sleep-deprived ass towards a distress signal. Shocker, that.
"What's that supposed t' mean?" Diego was as bright as the morning sun as always. Shota tried to remember what the conversation was even about. Something about English lessons and breasts?
"'Areola' means tits, Diego," Mammoth rumbled, exasperated. She covered Rubber's ears to prevent them screeching 'TITS' for the next half an hour. Two (2) brownie points. Shota might give her the premium treatment if she keeps it up. A nice, cosy, not so leaky jail cell.
"Nipples, technically," the forger corrected flatly. Great, he gets a free English lesson with his crime, what a fucking bargain.
"Sorry lads, I gotta take this round," the blond was at it again, leaning forward and winking at Shota while he gracefully let a card fall on top of the pile.
A Present Mic card.
"No way that beats Climate!" Cyclops retaliated immediately.
"He is Top Hundred. And alive." The man . . Smile personable, tone warm as sunshine. It made Shota sweat bullets. Or maybe that was the caffeine withdrawal. "For now."
Shota slightly crinkled the useless cards of irrelevant heroes in his hands. Fuck him, fuck Giran, fuck this, he's wrapping it up. There's no way he's tolerating even a second more of this. He'll beat the shit and the info out of that asshole personally.
"This is just a pointless waste of time." No, he's not going to agree with the racist but god damn did Imamura take the words out of his mouth. "Where is Giran?" she perked up and the movement was carefully followed by everyone. She curbed the motion, drummed her fingers once on the wood and gestured towards blondie. "Take the round and let us get on with it."
"No way he's taking that." True, having people speak for you was a power move but not so much when they ignored your existence in the process. One-eye stepped forward and disregarded the head's warning hand to jab a finger at the cards. "Not Jeanist, nor this 'Present Mic' is better than Climate. He was Top Hundred for fuck's sake and not even the bottom third!"
"Well he did bottom pretty hard," Diego snickered and Mammoth smacked him on the back of the head. Lightly. It only rattled his entire body. Weasel continued his mantra, now screeching 'HARD BOTTOM' for a change. Peachy.
"Disgusting." Imamura drummed her fingers again and Shota's anxiety spiked with each tap. He swore he could see her digits undulate underneath the pretentious gloving. It made his eyes sting in anticipation of how much fucking erasure he'll have to do to avoid this room becoming a cancer ward. "Take the card, assassin."
Shota doesn't have to tell anyone that for you to be called simply 'assassin', you had to do a pretty hefty amount of work. Unofficially, blondie went by Mort but that wasn't much better either. What he went by officially was even worse.
"Oh you're just mad 'cuz he was a 'dirty mutt'," Cyclops tittered. His face rippled, two more eyes appearing besides the first. They did a little circle-dance around his nose, skin and flesh squishing and melting like liquid latex to accommodate the rolling orbits.
Imamura blocked out the sight with a hand. "I do not have anything against heteromorph types that can just behave," she hissed, fixedly looking anywhere but at the live special effects display.
"Like a good dog, huh?" Scribe decided to join in again. Shota thought the Supreme cap she wore was way more of an eye sore than the now 'tricloptic' yakuza bovver boy.
"Dog? Dog? Where? Dog, where? Dog, Dog, Dog-"
"Oh great, now ya started Rubber again, fuckin' fantastic." Diego sighed, preparing to chew on the second thigh bone. Shota imagined shoving that bone waaay up his ass. Non lethally of course. He might even give him some single-use lube he stole from a love hotel.
He pushed all of that down into the basement and slammed the reinforced hatch closed. Then dragged a shelf over it, then packed that shelf chuck full of the fucks he still had to give. Not much but it's honest work. Then he forced his mouth to speak.
"Well, technically Present Mic isn't Top Hundred, not according to last year's evaluation. And this year's isn't out yet…" It was hard, immensely hard to keep his tone level and just the right amount of cheeky to be infuriating.
"Well-" Mort parroted. "-I kinda have to be well informed. It's an occupational requirement. Pricing and all that."
The man unmindfully played with a throwing knife. It didn't do wonders for Shota's fraying nerves. More fucks on that shelf, quickly. He opened his mouth but several other criminals also had something to say about that.
"What is your price exactly?" The Yakuza sounded awfully interested.
Scribe who was staring daggers at the politician reassessed her priorities, now staring daggers at Mort. Oof, and those daggers were sharp. Not as sharp as the physical weapon blondie refused to just leave the fuck alone but still. Shota slightly moved her up on the 'woman to watch out for' list. She was still third out of four but hey, she beat the Yakuza (not that not literally everyone got the Yakuza beat at this point).
Mort opened his mouth and Shota suppressed the urge to perk up. This counted as an admission right? If only I could get it on fucking tape- His hands twitched for the tiny round button sewn insidehis wrist. With these people, you couldn't chance to bring an actual recording device into the 'meeting'. The Triclops definitely had a sensory quirk and there were at least three people here who lived from sniffing out and disabling such contraptions. And robbing banks, that too.
"Where is Giran?" Imamura sounded stressed. Politicians. They could always smell a coup. Shota wondered if it was an acquired skill or if they were born with it.
The urge became a painful itch. Not yet Shota, Sasaki said to wait, do not blow this because you're a little trigger happy.
"True, where is he?" He fed into the fire. Not quite ready to ignite yet but the components were there, the wood was bone dry and they were all gingerly pouring gasoline on it.
"Three-eyed creep won the lot and I'm goin'," Diego was the first to stand up. Shortest temper. His teammates didn't move, not yet.
"Careful who you're talking to," Cyclops narrowed his (three) eyes and Shota could see his hand twitch towards his cheap ass blade. The boss looked a bit lost, honestly.
"Or what? You're gonna kill yourself to save yer honour? Gimme a break man."
That was ill-advised in Shota's opinion. Which was validated when a blade was suddenly pressed against the snake of Diego's oesophagus. All the way from across the room, the Yakuza woman now had her hand submerged to the elbow in a localised portal. The exit opened right next to Sabretooth's head. Katana in hand and all. Well, Shota might have been continuously dissing the Yakuza up to this point but they did do him the favour of escalating the conflict to the next level effortlessly. Mafias took notoriously bad to the questioning of their -questionable- authority.
"You're not going anywhere," she stated and gave weight to her words by slightly pressing the edge against the coarse orange furred skin.
Mort stopped whirling the blade around. Scribe stopped following the blade. No one moved. Everyone stared. Rubber guy screeched 'kNiFe TiMe' but wasn't paid any mind by either of them. Shota could see the warm, billowing puffs of cool mist exit between the (soon might be) extinct feline's oversized chompers. The slight tang of freshly spilt blood would have surely filled the room if it didn't already smell like a slaughterhouse. Which it was. Or will be. Diego released a low, grating growl telegraphing a very real warning. Shota felt it reverberate in his own throat. The tap tap tap tap tap of Imamura's five fingers abused the rest of the silence.
"Let us be civilised now."
Leave it to the politician to 'skilfully' mitigate the tension.
"The fucking Yakuza bitch has a knife to me throat and now let's be civilised?!" Diego seemed to deem his offence big enough to risk speaking with steel against his neck. "You're just— the worst, ya know that?"
"I still win this round," Mort chimed in. The X dealer next to him just nervously sighed.
"You don't win shit." Triclops pushed his tongue out. On the end of it, there was another eye. The quirkist didn't appreciate the body modification.
"Stop that before—"
"Before what? You call Make a Wish on me?"
Someone greatly misinformed this goon of his standing. Someone also forgot to tell his boss how to discipline his underlings. Triclops' face shifted and twisted and distorted before going into a configuration that Shota amusedly realised was the perfect rendition of that one Gravity Falls scene. The woman scooted back a bit, hand hooking under the end of her gloves but she didn't do anything rash. Thankfully, the quick red flash of Shota's pupils was also masked by the shades. Two pairs of eyes still snapped towards him. The assassin's and the forger's, sitting next to one another like best buddies. Both were fast enough to come off as a figment of his imagination but Shota's string-cheese nerves caught the looks. He debated moving the woman further up but then just settled for remarking that she might have better reflexes than expected of a paper pusher.
"Uuh! Uh! I want- uhm, let's see… can ya get me Areola to visit me hospital bed?" The blade still wasn't gone but Diego sloppily smacked his lips at the politician nonetheless.
"Still deaaad~," Mort tittered "I can get you anyone from the Top Hundred if you'd like though. Top Ten too if you pay the price."
It was impossible not to wonder what that price was.
"I'll get you a Top Ten all right." Shota realised a moment too late he muttered that out loud. Well fuck.
"That a threat?" The assassin smiled at him and Shota shuddered. That was the bad kind of shudder. The Hannibal Lecter kind. But his teeth were so fucking white and straight; god damn, Mort sure as hell flossed every morning.
A promise, Shota didn't say.
"An observation," Shota did say. "If you keep wanting to kill them, one is eventually gonna show." And Smash your bitch ass, he again, didn't add even though he really wanted to.
"Oh, I'm counting on that."
. .Looking? Shota was starting to believe something wasn't going in a direction it was supposed to. But Sasaki said it'll play out the way they want it to so that couldn't be it.
" 'ello? I still have a knife to me throat!" Diego indeed still had a knife to his throat. "Call yer bitch back Yakuza man or I'll bite this shite in two."
There was a silence but to Shota's slight disappointment, the 'Yakuza man' actually called his woman back. Well, he'd have a hard time erasing a katana so it was probably for the best. They all settled but none of them relaxed. There was real tension in the air now. No chair legs creaked from the weight put onto them, no feet shuffled, no cards were being played. The only thing this situation would have needed to be a perfect showdown is the titular harmonica solo in old westerns and a nice close up of each pair of eyes straining to be on ten other people at once. The only one who managed was Rubber and he wasn't even trying.
"There's no way you could bag a Top Ten," Mammoth grunted and Shota would have been inclined to agree if-
"Mr. Incredible," Mort tittered, picking a piece of imaginary dirt out from under his nail. "The whole family actually but none was Top Hundred so I guess you wouldn't know."
"That was you?!" Diego spluttered.
"That was mee~"
"Those were children," Scribe's voice distorted in a strange way, almost like a hiss. Shota tried to catch her expression but it was perfectly blank.
"Let's not get hung up on the details, shall we?"
Shota very much wanted to get hung up on those details but so did the forger apparently. Triclops however had his mind elsewhere.
"How much for A-"
"Shion."
Oh, now the boss starts to discipline his underlings. Well, Shota wasn't surprised. It's amazing how much power a half-said letter held. Looking at the table now, Shota could see at least half the occupants casting a quick glance at the ceiling as a sort of automatic criminal reflex. It was almost the villain rendition of throwing a cross. Because you never know, do you?
"Thankfully he's on the other side of the globe on a diplomatic meeting," Imamura said what they were all thinking. Even though all of them knew that, the relief was still palpable. None of them would be here otherwise. "I am asking for the last time." Another set of taps earned her Shota's undivided attention. "Where is Giran?"
"Why are we even here?" Diego was as sharp as a rusty spoon but even he started to get suspicious.
"Just to suffer?" Mort offered cheekily.
God damn Shota wanted to punt that blade bending blond piece of work across the room so bad.
"We came looking for recruits as promised," the Triclops officially named Shion stated. It earned him nothing but a round of confusion from everyone except Shota.
"We didn't promise no recruits." It didn't matter who said that. No one promised any recruits. Those recruits were strictly imaginary.
"I thought someone wanted to place an order," Mort smirked. He didn't seem especially worried but he didn't start flaunting his knife again. Imamura's fingers were hooked under her gloves and not even in an inconspicuous way. Shota tried to blink as often as he dared while he still could.
"Who has the info about the National Bank of Japan?" Mammoth shifted too, the creaking of that poor metal thingy grating Shota's eardrums.
"I'm guessing no one's planning to buy any X either?" the dealer asked uncertainly.
Strings were getting pulled taut across the table. Imamura and Diego were locked in a silent staring contest again. Mort propped his head up with an arm and fixated on Shota while Scribe fixated on him. Diego was the one to stand up yet again. No blades were drawn. This was well past warnings. If a weapon gets unsheathed, it gets used.
"We are leaving." Mammoth agreed with his partner in crime. She moved her multiple ton body with the sound of a smaller earthquake, picking the unnaturally still Rubber up by the head. Their neck stretched again but they didn't oppose. Stopped muttering too.
"No one is leaving." Shion wasn't smiling anymore. No one except Mort was but his face just seemed to be stuck that way.
"Someone set us up." Imamura had the audacity to declare that while pretending to inspect her nails. Through gloves.
"All the more reason to leave," Diego insisted but didn't move. The air was thick to breathe and even thicker to move in. Shota didn't feel that cold now. The central heating must be kicking in. Or the looming threat of an ugly demise, whichever.
"Why are you so eager to leave?"
"Why are ya so eager to stop me?"
"You can't possibly believe it's us?!"
"Well it ain't us either!"
"Like I trust a bunch of dirty mutts!"
Diego jabbed a clawed finger at the congresswoman. "Oh, it would be real convenient for ya if the biggest mutant villain group would just magically 'disappear'! It'd make such a great campaign slogan. Down with the 'dirty mutts' or smtin'."
He pulled his lips back and the politician pushed her gloves down just a smidgeon. Multiple inch long canines caught the fluorescent lights. They seemed to glow on their own.Satin slid on skin and Shota didn't blink.
"Do not be so simple, mutt." Her expression was level but her charcoal eyes swallowed the light coming off those fangs, hungry for more.Her fingers hooked under the silky fabric. Shota felt his capture weapon coil and twist restlessly underneath his clothes. Not yet, not yet Shota, not yet— "I would not want to be compromised by being seen with your kind." That last sentence was addressed to all of them. The audacity.
"Oh?" Scribe leaned forward, the motion as smooth as the satin of the opera gloves. Shota shuffled to get a better view of her leaning on the table. Her hair obscured her face but whatever her expression was, it made the racist at least a shade lighter. And she was already so white they'd let him through the US border without so much as a second thought. "Afraid it would— bite you in the ass?" There was something in the way she said that, a demeanour very unlike a paranoid paper pusher. Shota didn't see what she did next but he caught a flash of bone-white between the tresses. Weird, considering her quirk was 'moving ink'.
"And who are you to threaten me?" The 'dirty mutt' remained unsaid just this once.
"Precisely!" Shion turned towards the forger too. "Everybody knows this bitch and those three just robbed the Kyoto city bank so I doubt the police are too keen on working with them. Who do you have to vouch for you?"
"I hate to agree with organised crime but it is a tad suspicious uh- I never caught your name sweetheart." Mort finally released Shota from his sights and tilted his head in an equally as teasing manner. The playful tone hid interest. Real interest. Hmm, apparently Shota wasn't the only one having suspicions. Interesting indeed.
"Don't talk like yer above suspicion!" Diego quickly redirected his barking. Orange eyes flashed between him, Scribe (who remained silent) and Shota.
He snorted with very real offence, "Uhm, do I look-"
"Like a hero?" Mort's mismatched gaze was upon him once again, coupled with a smile that was just a tad too sharp. Like the glint of a rifle in the distance. Blindingly obvious but by the time you notice, it's already too late. "I would know, wouldn't I? I'm kinda in the business of killing them."
"If you are who you say you are."
"Want a demonstration?"
He playfully reached for one of the holsters on his chest. Scribe's hand shot out, claws extending from her pinkish fingers. But by the time she reached him, Mort was gone. A flash of poisonous green and a small plume of coloured smoke is all that remained of him. That was the straw to break the camel's back for everyone.
Imamura yanked her gloves off with speed belying her status. Diego took that as an invitation to open his maw and lunge at her, teeth heating up and glowing like orange plasma. The entire body of the Yakuza booked it for the nearest door. Mammoth had something to say about that, tossing the first thing she could at them. Which happened to be Rubber, maniacally screaming 'KNIFE TIME' and 'CANCER QUIRK' while their practically boneless body flopped and twisted to entangle Shion and the boss completely. The other Yakuza goon unsheathed her blade but Shota didn't have time to see what she did with it since he had bigger fish to fry. Namely, to activate his quirk just at the moment Imamura swiftly avoided the plasma fangs and laid a palm on Diego's shoulder. Shota saved that sucker from a malignant melanoma and then he badly bent his wrist to press-
"There you are, Eraser."
There was no training good enough to avoid the edge of that maliciously green blade. Shota near snapped his neck to cast his quirk behind him in a desperate attempt to do something. It disappeared in a juniper flash. He then had enough time to duck the second one coming for his kidney in an underhanded fashion. He jumped back and Mort's smile stretched and stretched and stretched-
"Oh, you really are the real deal~."
Shota prepared to duck. The villain was fast, way too fast. And there was that green light again. Definitely a quirk but not even Sasaki's connections or Shota's miserable months undercover could figure out what it do. But there was already another attack to evade, another knife to watch out for. No time for speculation. Shota felt his back press against the table while that asshole just grinned and grinned. The hairs rose on his whole body.
Metal found his skin right under his chin. It only nicked him but Shota still felt the whisper of death from the attempt. He parried and tried to entangle the assassin's hand in his capture cloth. Somehow it missed and he had to dodge yet another go at his life. The skin around his neck started to feel weird. It burned like crazy, slowly but surely spreading.
Poison. Fan-fucking-tastic.
He didn't have time to cry about that, however. Poison like that (even if it gets into his bloodstream) will kill him much slower than a cut throat will. And the villain handed out plenty of those.
Suddenly, Mammoth's flour sack sized fist slammed down onto the table, splintering it into atoms. She made the ground shake from the unbelievable raw power, startling Imamura who was about to lay another hand on Diego. She also saved Shota from Mort's next attack, even if it cost him his backing.
The assassin; however, recovered immediately. He spun around to embed a dagger or two in his liver. While evading it, Shota saw a flash of pink from the corner of his eye. He shot his capture cloth out at Scribe who was coming straight at him.
Watch out for the woman.
She evadedthe capture cloth with a steady side step. Shota activated his erasure again because no way that speed was natural. The woman stumbled mid-step, rolled into it, changed trajectory and arrived where Mort stood half a second ago. The only notable difference was that for a hot second, she changed colour. The flash of eye bleedingly vibrant gold was almost blinding.
That wasn't in any way related to 'ink'.
Shota wrote it off on the poison spreading in his veins. He backed away to force himself and take a breather he had absolutely no time or need for, to assess the situation.
The rubber guy is on the triclops with the katana woman trying and failing to stab them. The point of her blade repeatedly submerges into the semi-furry villain's springy flesh while she passionately screams 'YiELD tO ThE pOWeR Of tHe BlAdE!'. The druglord is gunning for the exit and the congresswoman is trying her hardest to reach the sabretooth. Mort fucking disappeared again and the forger is alarmingly ready to lunge at Shota.
In short; everything is going to shit, just as planned
Before Shota could come to his senses, his tired, possibly poisoned, beaten and bruised brain screeched NOW bitch! and he was on top of the metal thingy. He flashed his quirk at its full capacity, capture cloth whirling and twisting around his body like a grey, dirt and sweat-soaked mythical dragon.
For a second, he commanded the room.
"I'm pro hero Eraserhead and you're all under arrest!"
And he cracked his wrist to push down on the button which had one single function. To activate the thick, metal casings hidden inside the walls of this very room. (How even, Shota didn't know. He didn't dare question Sasaki's meticulousness or David's innovation.) As the heavy carbon-infused-metal-coated-Kevlar slammed down and effectively air-sealed the room, it also sent a small, inconspicuous signal onto a pager 'on the other side of the globe' as Imamura so eloquently put it. She did have her info right, at least.
The mayhem stopped for a silent second. They all stared at him. Triumphant on top of this fuck knows what it does machine with half an hour of sleep and a year of pure fuckery behind him, Aizawa Shota stood, breathing hard. Up here, Shota allowed himself a moment of glorious, glorious gotcha bitches. All the sleepless nights, all the missed baths, the lonely ratholes in shady Tokyo districts, all the shitty sake and even shittier instant ramen and fucking never-ending card games—
It was all for this.
And Aizawa Shota was so, so done with it.
They were all going to fucking prison for the shit they inadvertently put him through. Shota will visit each and every one of them to rub his paycheque into their faces. Maybe even send a postcard from the priciest, most pretentious bar he's going to spend it all in. 'Sincerely fuck you all, Eraserhead 3'
"I told ya we shoulda fuckin' scrammed," Diego stated.
"What? And miss the best part?"
Where the fuck did Mort appear from this time? Shota didn't care. He couldn't fucking teleport through almost two metres of the toughest material known to man. The thing Tartaros was made of. He corrected his footing, definitely feeling a bit wobblier than appropriate. Nothing he didn't have to get used to when engaging in at least two bar fights per week.
"This is unheard of," Imamura was seething. "How dare you-"
"Oh shut the fuck up!"
Diego lunged at the congresswoman once again, completely ignoring the obvious target Shota became. Villains… But the sabretooth did force him to keep erasing Imamura's quirk. That left him wide open for all the other hungry villains just aching to get a piece of this prime hero meat. The Yakuza woman stopped trying to shishkebab the mentally challenged bank robber and opened a portal which no doubt packed a katana-wielding arm coming straight for his throat. But before Shota could do something about that, Mort sprinted forward and tossed a blade at him. He automatically started to shirk it but the villain wasn't aiming at him for once.
The blade spun in the air before caroming off the machine underneath him. The hilt pressed a big red button on the side of the contraption Shota used as an impromptu podium to indulge his singular dramatic vein. It whirred to life with an aggressive brrr. He made the mistake of looking down.
Yep, that is a meat grinder all right. And he did have the misfortune of possessing a multiple dozen metre long scarf that was just perfect for getting caught between those thick teeth of metal waiting to make chum out of any unsuspecting underground hero who should have really looked where they stepped.
Shota sighed. He imagined tomorrow's headline.
'Aizawa Shota (handle Eraserhead) professional hero and certified dumbass killed by Grinder'. Wouldn't be the first time that happened to a poor unsuspecting gay.
And alas, his unsteady dodge resulted in his scarf coming within churning distance. He felt the pull of the material as he stumbled further towards his unheroic demise while the promised katana-wielding arm materialised next to him. But Shota had even bigger problems to deal with.
See, while getting choked by his capture cloth wasn't too high on Shota's extensive and shameful list of kinks, getting diced by a murderous looking villain was definitely lower. Because as soon as she saw his blunder, Scribe decided to add insult to injury. She shouted something rendered inaudible by the overly-loud buzzing of the impromptu death machine and beelined straight for a rapidly cursing Shota. How that insulting cap stayed on at those speeds was the real mystery.
Shota; however, was not just rapidly reciting every curse known to man but also searching for his curved caltrop to try and cut the swiftly disappearing material with. Where the fuck is it?! Why did you put the knives in the inside pocket Shota, you deserve this death honestly. God damnit my hands are so fucking sweaty- is it just me or is the room swaying a bit…
Scribe shoved Mort aside to try and mince this hero meatfirst. If Shota wasn't in Full Panic Mode™, he would have noted how her hand seemed to go through him. Mort rollicked away with that annoying ass satisfied grin stapled to his face. Against every logical bone in his body, instead of erasing his or the katana-wielding woman's quirk or doing literally anything of use, Shota flashed his eyes at Scribe because watch out for the woman, watch out for the woman-
Again, there were like four of them. Two in the process of actively trying to kill him and the rest will join in soon. If he survives the grinder that is. The odds of that weren't looking in his favour.
She didn't falter from the erasure this time but the pink did flicker out into yellow again. Like when someone swipes their hand on a sequin pillow. The claws sank back inside her fingers in tandem. The speed and the threatening aura stayed though. Shota officially had to come to the realisation that this woman did not, in any capacity, possess a quirk related to ink. And that brought with it the logical (if saddening) conclusion that this woman wasn't the woman Sasaki worked so hard to coax out of her hiding place. The situation was made even worse by the fact that this one was rather capable in terms of making his life miserable.
She shouted something awfully pissed sounding and leapt to grab the detached hand aimlessly waving a katana in the direction of Shota's compromised neck. She wrenched the weapon away and Shota's eyes went wide. Not just as a last-ditch effort to try and erase whatever skillset this asshole possessed to be this fucking fast but also because there was a woman with a lethal weapon aiming straight for his gizzard. Fuck, how he hated Sasaki to be right.
He miraculously found the caltrop in time and didn't hesitate to try and jab it inside her somewhere. The woman hooked the tip of the katana under the rapidly tightening coils of fabric and yanked it up, trying to cut through it. Of course, the reinforced carbon-cotton blend will not succumb to something as measly as a cheap ass mass-produced status symbol so all she achieved was giving Shota an opening to gingerly poke her in the side.
Expensive hilts and cheap blades, I tell you.
The woman seemed just as surprised as he was at the successful attempt. Shota twisted the caltrop because he will literallychoke on his last words if it means he can stick it to these people one last time.
"Should have thought that through, bitch."
The woman's mouth opened in reply and all Shota could think was that's a LOT of teeth before she pulled on the cloth further, lifting it above his head. She kicked him in the guts just in tandem with a subdued bang that was the staple sound of a Gun Joining the Battle. Shota flew back and met with the wall in a rather unpleasant way. The room blurred together for a moment, only a flash of gold turning back to pink occupying his vision. His head spun, his ears buzzed and his neck was going numb which was never a good sign regarding poison. At least he didn't get a Final Destination death as a last tasteful 'fuck you' from the universe.
Accurately guessing how many of your ribs broke from a single impact was an acquired skill. Shota was proud to say he got it right nine times out of ten. Right now it was either five or six. At least none of them punctured anything, evident by how he could still breathe, no matter how wheezingly.
He missed a few seconds (minutes? hours?) of the action but the current state of events was as followed. The machine was done for. Pieces of what was once his capture cloth stuck out from the smoking metal. 'Scribe' was standing in front, staring daggers at the assassin who was smiling back with one of his twin guns set on her. She briefly squeezed her shoulder, face twisting up. Shota was pretty sure that bullet was originally meant for him. The Yakuza woman was cradling her right which she managed to get a bit womanhandled when the weapon stealing occurred. The rest of the gang stopped trying to do Shota's work for him. A gun usually demanded some attention. True, they were a rare sight these days. Hard to acquire and more and more limited in usage but it was a gun nonetheless. It had a silencer on it but that flash was unmistakable.
Oh and also, Shota was still alive. That was an unexpected development. Damn, wrong woman, I guess.
Well, 'alive' might be a bit overshooting it considering he started to feel like someone was kneading his brain into a croissant but beggars can't be choosers. He knew what he was getting into.
"I don't like my mark being stolen," Mort grinned wider even though that shouldn't be possible since that's all he fucking did during this train-wreck.
Great, so apparently Shota wasn't the only one scheming during this little game of cards. But how the fuck did he know who I was and more importantly, why stay if he knew this was a setup? Shota said none of those things out loud. The thing his petty mouth wheezed in the end was:
"I'm your mark? Flattered honestly. I'm nowhere near Top Hundred. Are you doing a charity case or is business this bad?"
Mort didn't take his eyes or the gun off 'Scribe' (who was mostly unbothered by the caltrop in her side or the gun wound on her shoulder) but he did say, "Consider it a future investment, Eraser."
"There ain't no future for us if we ain't haul ass outta here right now!" Diego growled between sizzling teeth. He was locked in a stalemate with Imamura. Neither was willing to risk losing a body part if the other's quirk comes too close.
"Let us stop antagonising each other and work together to avoid a rather— unfavourable outcome." The woman was a politician down to the bone. She sensed the opportunity and grappled it with her greedy, cancer-ridden fingers without hesitation.
"I hate to agree with the racist but she's right," Mammoth rumbled. "There's only one hero and ten of us."
"There could be more of 'em any minute now, he sure as fuck alerted the other pigs oinkin' by," Diego grumbled.
"No AHABs in our multiple kilometre vicinity. I'm sure we all checked the schedules." The Yakuza boss spoke up unexpectedly. They were veterans in this game, Shota admitted. That is why he was the hero one here as of now.
"And I would have known if someone was hiding inside the meats!" Shion managed to produce a mouth on the few inches of skin uncovered by Rubber, hitting a rather self-confident tone. "No hero to save you 'Headeraser' or what's your fucking name."
"Yet," Mort winked at Shota and the hair rose on his sweat-soaked back. There was something going on, something he .condone. But not like he could do anything about it other than try to be alive long enough to stop it. That was proving to be a challenge in itself.
"We could use him as leverage." Of course, the politician would suggest that. "Or maybe persuade him some, to come to an agreement…" She took a half step forward and raised a finger. Shota tried to scoot further back but his body didn't second that.
Everyone tensed but only two people moved. One was not-Scribe (with the caltrop still in her side by the way). Before she could declare Shota to herself, there was a muffled bang and Imamura screamed, clutching her hand. Her finger was shot straight off. The pinkie, Shota noted with equal parts amusement and aversion. This really was the guy.
The 'guy' in question blew on his weapon and declared, "Sorry tits, I'm not much of a team player. And as I said, no one lays a hand on my mark." He spun the old-school looking revolver around his finger with ease.
The nonexistent trigger discipline wasn't the most frightening thing about him by far.
"You ff— you are being unreasonable-"
"I'm sorry but do I get a say in this?"
Shota sneakily readied himself to spring up at any given second but for now, was content with verbal engagement. He wasn't sure what his noodle limbs will do if he does have to get movin' eventually but that was future Shota's problem. Present Shota was currently getting yelled at by five different enraged villains.
"Shut the fuck up hero-"
"Obviously not-"
"If you cooperate-"
"Okay, okay, got it." Shota slumped back further, not quite feeling the cold metal behind his back anymore. "Then— could someone tell me what time it is?"
Multiple brows were furrowed. No one humoured him. Shame, he had such a good reply to that.
"Oh, oh, I know!" Mort even put his hand up as if he would call on him.
Shota didn't fight the fed up groan that bubbled up inside his chest. Anyone but you-
The assassin graciously ignored his monumental sound of disapproval and very animatedly plunged a hand inside his pockets. As if it was their cue, everyone scrambled for their weapons and/or behind cover. Mammoth grabbed a truck full of meat Imamura was preparing to hide behind to chuck it at Mort. The Yakuza woman switched to her off hand with a spare wakizashi. Both Diego and not-Scribe kicked it into high gear to get to him before he finds what he's looking for but in the end, neither of them did.
Mort stilled. Grinned. He yanked his hand out and tossed a very shiny, extremely rare, blue, red and yellow striped Heroes the Assembly card in the air.
"It's time to— du-du-du-du-duel!"
And someone broke through the ceiling.
Somewhere in a congress room in Brussels heroes argue about morality
Heroes could be incredibly annoying.
That, most people would probably agree on without much reservation if it didn't come from Japan's Number One himself.
But still, Toshinori couldn't help but think so while sitting at a pretentiously oversized table, garbed head to toe in reinforced latex, smiling a smile so commercial, it could sell your grandma a pyramid scheme by itself.
Underneath the table, he prevented his leg from spasming up and down with a firm grip on his thigh. People were watching every inch of him and All Might didn't have ticks. All Might wasn't bored out of his mind by make pretend meetings like this. All Might wouldn't rather be anywhere else. Preferably in the middle of a raid in Tokyo where his best friend was getting ploughed by villains while he and his dear colleagues did their little annual dance. Only without the music or the fun or the decent company.
But maybe that was purely his anxiety. Toshinori knew Shota was more than capable. Sasaki read him and said everything was going to be fine so he shouldn't be this gassy but he was. That's just who he was as a person. Yagi Toshinori, not All Might though.
All Might sat straight, smiled even straighter and listened to the Hungarians demand more funding with an understanding nod like he did every previous year. He watched the Italian heroine pouring herself some boxed vine under the table and then share it with Portugal and Spain as the Hungarian got carried away with their spiel like . All Might obviously disapproved of drinking on the job. Yagi Toshinori envied it. Or was it the other way around? He couldn't always tell anymore.
There were more than three hundred heroes in the room. A hundred-ninety-three people deemed the 'best' in their respective nation and one sidekick per pro, standing behind their boss' chair. They could be seated too, there was room to spare in this gargantuan auditorium. But heroes were a vainglorious breed so the sidekicks remained standing. You could easily identify them, even if they would have been allowed to sit on the same level as the best of the best. It was in the eyes. They still had some of that Young Hero Wonder™ in them. Most helpers were here for the first, and a lot for the last time. Toshinori could count on one hand the sidekicks he recognised from the previous year. That didn't improve his doom mood one bit.
The Hungarian hero -Attila, was it?- harangued on about their dire battle against immigrants. Or was it the LGBTQ+ community? Perhaps the church? No, they like the church I think, that's the Romanians.
Toshinori tried to remember if they accepted the Vatican into the United Board of Heroes last year but he had to admit, he wasn't the best at paying regard to 'minute' details like that. Not that it mattered. If he needed to do some work in the Vatican again, he'll manage to legitimise it somehow. Things as such were what Sasaki was good at. The man knew every single hero present in this meeting, even the sidekicks. He went over which ones to pay extra attention to with Toshinori at least three times before he departed. Previously, he just tried to scribble their names onto his forearm with little symbols for each and hope for the best. Now he had a dossierstuffed in a tasteful leather suitcase. He felt old walking around with it. It also clashed comically with his hero suit but in gatherings like this, presentation was integral. So no striped business suit this time, sadly.
The Greek Number One heroine -Pantheon? Or was it Artemis? No, that was the previous one…- offered him some grapes and feta cheese on a cute little platter with a coiling strand of luscious golden hair. He politely refused. What Yagi Toshinori wanted was a diabetes-inducing serving of Belgian waffles complete with every tooth-rotting topping available. All Might was on a healthy and balanced diet to show an example to 'the kids'. Neither wanted feta cheese; however, their stomach being about the size of a walnut right now.
So he shot her an apologetic smile to which she flipped her eye-catching tresses, reciprocating the gesture plenty. Toshinori wasn't sure about her name but he did know that one steely strong strand of that sentient hair was enough for anyone to confess their deepest, darkest secrets. Like that blond girl in that Disney movie, is how Toshinori managed to remember it. In fact, he tried to pair a Disney movie to each of them with varying levels of success.
Each year the seating was decided at random. This time he was seated between Greece and Morocco. The other didn't pay him much mind and this woman was nice, bordering on playful, so he was fairly content with the arrangement.
He could be sitting next to the Russians. Or even worse, the Americans. He kept careful track of said least favourable sitting buddies without much need for Sasaki's warning. He caught the Russian 'military representative' (not hero, none of that capitalist bullshit thank you very much) eyeing him with one, weasely eye. The other had succumbed to three jagged scars running across his face. They matched his personality. Ugly. He got the weasel from Zootopia.
Toshinori gave him a wink. The Russian exhaled loud enough so it telegraphed well even over the feverish mantra of the Hungarian. Toshinori didn't mind the open disapproval. He won't be going back to Russia anytime soon anyway. Last time he kinda started a coup, almost toppling the current government. It did lead to them finally giving up on their religious hoarding of atom weapons and sending the KGB (not to be confused with that KGB; this was a new and improved 'Federal Security Service' which everyone still called the KGB because same, same, but different, but same—) to abduct people with promising quirks across the globe. Well, they shouldn't have abducted one that only promised them a royal pain in the ass. And minus one eye, a secret state prison and about two dozen state officials. But even that international scandal wasn't enough to uproot the current State Head. No, those were an 'until death or the proletariat do us apart' kind of deal.
The Hungarian finally finished his rant and it was time to speak for the nice countries. The ones who were kind enough to group their proposals and recommendations together within the EU. Which meant only one hero had to speak, sparing them at least 2 hours' worth of hearing the same thing over and over again. The current Europea Toshinori found decent enough. He didn't have time to get acquainted with them that well. He planned on doing it when he wasn't itching to jump out of his skin from being scrutinised by hundreds of other very nice people who he was sure did their best in their respective fields. He just wished some of them weren't so— eccentric.
Again, that, coming from All Might himself was nothing sort of hypocrisy but he knew most of them were thinking the very same. As a hero, you had a certain image to uphold. A mask to chisel, a part to play. It was for the benefit of others, not your own. Not all of them were so altruistic, however. That was the truth, even if a sad one. Being the most powerful didn't automatically mean being the best hero. Or person. Thankfully, there were certain other criteria to uphold before getting declared the nation's number one and that prevented the truly unpleasant from rising to the Top. With one noteworthy exception.
Toshinori dutifully ignored Homelander's paint stripping glare from the other side of the room. He did however catch the eye of his 'sidekick'. In quotation marks, because the only reason he brought Five and not his official successor was because a warper always won in terms of usefulness. And flaunting the most powerful warper in the world was sure as heck a statement. And Americans loved statements. Toshinori didn't fault them for it. He learned a thing or two about the importance of such frivolities from them. Things he found a great use for in his daily work.
Mostly not to let them get under his skin that easily.
Britannia was definitely drunk. Probably from the Italian vine that was sneakily making rounds between knees. Toshinori felt Dave shuffle closer to sneak a sip when it arrived to Morocco. He slapped his hand reaching for the box but let him pass it over to Pantheon who flashed him a welcoming smile. Dave winked back and Toshinori lightly but firmly stepped on his foot. No flirting with the coworkers when your marriage is hanging on a thread.
"Oh not the fucking Eurovision again-" he heard his friend mumble and pretended he didn't completely agree. Both as All Might and Yagi Toshinori, the idea of a 'hero performance' at the yearly event (he took great pleasure in watching with Shota and Hizashi) gave him the hives. So it did to the majority of heroes, thank buddha. They were done unanimously rejecting the proposition fairly quickly and moved on to more important matters. Like the alarming phenomenon of quirk migration from less developed countries. Mostly for a decent salary and the chance to live over thirty. Doing heroics was dangerous in the 'safest' of places and downright suicide in the less— 'well established' regions. That left the countries most in need of strong heroic supervision the most vulnerable while America, Europe and lately Japan was teeming with incredibly powerful quirks.
"That is why I would propose an international hero unit!" Toshinori heard himself speak up.
All Might's voice boomed across the table while Yagi Toshinori quietly accepted that thepapers upon papers of bullcrap the Commission tried to drown him in (and Sasaki's added notes on top) were out the window as usual. He never intended to say any of them in the first place. And if Yagi Toshinori and All Might was one thing, it wasn't a liar.
"An international hero strike force, so to speak," he added.
This was his yearly dance. His 'oh god not this again' moment in the eyes of the other heroes. And as always, he immediately got the obligatory snide reply from America's sweetheart.
"Once again, you're proposing to pull our greatest assets out of commission on the off chance some international crisis goes down that we cannot handle individually. Your faith in the hero system is offensively little, All Might." Homelander's teeth nearly blinded him from all across the room.
"But if on the off chance you would be the one needing aid, I think you'd be glad it exists, Homelander." Toshinori smiled back, locked in a sort of 'who can out-smile the other without looking insane' contest with the only hero he actively .like. And both All Might and Yagi Toshinori took a lot to 'simply not like' someone. In this case, it was a combination of multiple unsavoury qualities and a few unfortunate team-up missions going back as far as ten years in the past.
By 'unsavoury' he meant the 'disappearing to chase Malaysian prostitutes while the fate of half the world hangs in the balance' kind. Then reappearing to obnoxiously declare All Might's help was appreciated but not needed after Toshinori nearly died to stop an atomic rocket from reaching the stratosphere. Dave said he never saw him look so pissed off during a press interview. What Toshinori didn't tell him was that he did crack two of Homelander's fingers while shaking his hand. At least he got some injuries to show for himself that way.
And that was only one example. Toshinori truly disliked him for much— smaller scale ones. Mostly for his complete disrespect of everyone who was 'below' him. His off-hand comments about women, sidekicks, fans, reporters… You name it, he had an unwanted opinion on it. Just like he did on this.
"Not everyone likes to unnecessarily meddle in other people's business, my Japanese friend."
At least he got the country right this time, Toshinori thought not at all spitefully. "I'm ready to admit I'll gladly accept some 'meddling' if it saved even one more person," he replied.
"You think so small, All Might. We're talking about worldwide issues and the relocation of millions' worth of assets, not about stopping a freight train—"
"You didn't seem to be complaining when All Might did the dirty work for you back in LA. Or Washington. Or Hawaii or—"
"What my sidekick wants to say, is that it's okay to accept help," Toshinori cut in, sending a sharp glare at his awfully right friend.
Dave never was one for 'think before you speak'. Even less for the unnamed social hierarchy between sidekick and hero and all that elitist stuff Toshinori equally loathed.
Homelander's right eyelid twitched. "But it's less 'okay' to think yourself qualified to just swoop in and interfere in the affairs of another nation just because you spent a few years—"
Ping.
Toshinori barely restrained himself from shouting 'thank my stars' when his pager vibrated in the inseam pocket of his suit. Whatever Homelander was going on about (probably something about being a 'good patriot' or how he's 'not racist but-') got lost in the adrenaline rush that little sound sent raging throughout his body.
"You're right, my friend!" He jolted up from his chair, startling quite a few occupants in the auditorium.
"I'm… right?" Homelander forgot his persona for a moment in favour of his complete bafflement.
They almost made a show of it, never to agree on anything. Toshinori remembered the snit fit he threw on twitter when his Silver Age costume debuted. The man legitimately tried to sue him over a shade of blue. Toshinori responded by tailoring an entire suit in that exact shade just for the trial. No one will know he did it out of sheer pettiness. Okay, maybe everyone knew. But Homelander stepped down from the trial, the colour somehow got the nickname 'mighty royal' and the suit was one of his favourites to date.
"In certain situations, my people come first!" he nodded eagerly. "And right now there's someone who needs me so I must excuse myself for the remainder of this meeting!"
Toshinori rushed the words, feeling the go go go inside every cell of his body. He was seemingly talking to Homelander but his eyes were on Five behind him. The warper nodded ever so slightly.
America's No. 1 quickly regained his entitled coolness. "What could be more important than the discussions we're having, my dear colleague?" You just came at me about international cooperation and now you're bailing? His stretching smile said. Not a good look All Might, not a good look at all.
Anything is more important than this pissing contest, Yagi Toshinori wanted to reply. A freight train must be running rampant somewhere, All Might wanted to quip.
"Helping people," he boomed instead. Dave palmed his face. Pantheon snorted. Duke Weaselton twitched slightly. Homelander's head became at least a shade darker. Toshinori distantly wondered if Megamind was a Disney property or not. The man sure reminded him of someone in it.
"Are you implying-"
"Let us use this opportunity to take a breather before we get into crime statistics." Europea cut in, slapping at least sixteen palms together. All Might could have kissed them right now. Wouldn't that be some international cooperation? Britannia, and everyone else who got a serving of that must-be-nice Italian vino, vehemently agreed.
"I'll leave it to my trusted sidekickDavid Shield to represent me during the rest of this conference!" Toshinori slammed a hand down on Dave's shoulder and turned towards Homelander one last time, noting the absence of Five behind him. Everyone else pretended to get going. They were all having an eye (or multiple) on the two of them one way or another. This was just as much of a real-life soap opera as it was a waste of their precious time. Only the stakes were a tad higher than 'who gets the girl in the end'.
It was concerning how much it was like looking into a mirror when he was in the room with Homelander. They were both blue and red and blond and strong and obnoxious and pretty confident in their truth. Yet no one ever mistook their 'dear colleague's and 'my friend's as anything but thinly veiled insults.
Toshinori hoped that as similar as they were on the outside, they were just as different on the inside.
Apparent by how he didn't spare another thought to how unflattering this whole escapade might look on his hero persona and beelined for a deserted hallway. He already lost six and a half minutes. While Sasaki reassured him again and again that it's going to be fine All Might, you'll get there on time, I saw you arrive, he couldn't help his coiling gut.
Shota was there with the worst of the worst, voluntarily trapped and fighting tooth and nail for a better future while he was occupied with a measuring contest with Homelander for no reason other than vanity's sake.
Toshinori turned a corner, finally leaving behind the last of his overly friendly colleagues all extremely interested in his business, to almost run over a small girl, springing up from her chair when she saw him storm past.
"Oh my- sorry little girl, I didn't see you there!" He flashed a quick smile at the redheaded child and prepared to -politely- step over her. But a small, familiar squeak of 'Mr. All Might?' stopped him momentarily. "I really am sorry young lady, I'm in quite a hurry you see—"
He looked back down at the tiny bundle of hopes and dreams. The cloudy blue of copper lashed eyes basically sparkled from wonder as the girl clutched his All Might figurine to her chest. She pulled her head between her shoulders from his over-enthusiastic apology. It started dying on his lips when Toshinori was forced to come face to face with a scene that was just a tad too familiar to ignore.
That could be me, he thought even though he knew he really shouldn't have. This kid will live on without an autograph from her -presumably- favourite hero for another day while Shota might not. But there was just one issue. The issue of his melting cotton candy heart. It made him crouch down and force the hurry out of his voice as best he could. Frick it, Sasaki said he'll get there on time and when he said 'helping people', he really meant it. He loved this sort of help the most. He can spare a poor, lonely looking child a few encouraging words or a pat on the back or whatever she needed. Shota can yell at him for it later when they're celebrating their victory.
"-But I always have time for someone in need," he cooed, pulling a hand up with an open palm and reforming his smile into something less overwhelming. "So what do you need, young lady?"
The girl just looked at him with saucepan eyes for a moment, turning kinda panicked. Nothing he wasn't used to but Toshinori really didn't have time for nuance right now.
"I-I wanna be like you," she squealed, at last, a bit louder than he anticipated, making him release a surprised laugh. It was only a bit hurried. "I-I don't want to be like him…"
"Who?" Toshinori asked with true curiosity.
"H-homelander. They- they said if I want the title I have to be like him but I— I wanna be like you."
He took another precious moment to examine the girl more closely before him. Note the official red and blue striped tracksuit with the US national flag embroidered on it. Remember that not many children just 'ran around' in conventions like this. Suppress his disapproval at bringing your child into the cutthroat world of the pros so early. Of course, Homelander wouldn't be bothered about something as trivial as the mental well being of a kid but still...
He might very well be talking to the next one.
He put all that away, closed his palm and pointed a finger at her chest. Right at the symbol she was so reluctant to wear for all the wrong reasons. Homelander might be a representative of their country but he didn't represent it. That, the girl might not fully understand just yet but he can phrase it in a way that hopefully makes sense to a child. He might not be able to offer much but empty words can sometimes be enough to plant a seed.
"Wanna hear a secret?" he whispered and the girl instinctively leaned closer, eyes gleaming with that childhood wonder Toshinori loved so much. "You can wear as many stars and stripes as you wish and still don't have to be like Homelander. Be like you. Make your own rules, kiddo."
The girl's eyes widened even further. Toshinori flashed her a soft and encouraging smile and straightened back up, awfully aware of the time he was wasting on frivolities like this. But the small, overly-serious nod and the starry-eyed stare he got as a response was justification enough. (Also, he wasn't above sticking it to Homelander any way he can, however petty that was.)
He zoomed past the next few corridors before arriving at a small garden used for unofficial smoke breaks by hero and sidekick alike. He practically crashed into Five who released a series of disgruntled curses while warping away, dusting his uniform off.
"What took you so fucking long?"
"Sorry, had to nurture some hopes and dreams-"
"Don't care, let's get on with it before Homelander finds me and chews me out for 'indulging that Asian asshole' again. Some of us have to live with him, you know."
Toshinori made his way over to the centre of the little garden. He bounced up and down, stretching his legs a few times. "You don't have to be in the Seven," he pointed out. "And you certainly don't have to do his bidding. You're supposed to be equals up there, no?"
"And who's gonna stop him from giving Gonorrhoea to half the EU's population while I'm on vacation?" Five snorted. Toshinori crouched down and called on the restless, buzzing pressure inside his chest. He was getting fired up. It's been a while since he had to test his limits. "I'm pretty sure he has his own strain at this point."
"What's it called? Virtue?" Toshinori felt scorching hot steam fill his body, almost bursting his muscles. Building and boiling until it became so vast, so all-encompassing, it was hard to bear.
"Internalised xenophobia and repressed mommy issues."
All Might did not laugh at that. Yagi Toshinori did. "Step back a bit kiddo."
"I'm not in 'kiddo' age anymore All Might, I'm almost twenty-five…"
Toshinori just laughed harder. The humming of the steam drowned out the rest of the sentence. And he felt like laughing anyway. The manic giggle kind of laughter that booms into a vocal cord straining howl as he feels the power fill his every cell. One for All wasn't a malicious force but it sure as hell was overwhelming when pushed to its full capacity. His muscles were twitching and coiling underneath his skin like a giant, hungry anaconda ready to strike. He did make sure Five was a safe distance away before Toshinori bent his knees fully and jumped.
The ground underneath his feet broke up. It liquified and undulated in outstretching ripples before the momentum shot him out into the sky like a steam-powered, primary colour painted rocket. Heading straight towards trouble.
The small pop of Five's quirk activating reached him even in this manic state. For the hundredth of a second, he was everywhere and nowhere at once. The air pressure and headwind disappeared in the perfect darkness of this strange temporary space warpers created. It draped its pitch-black veil over him before another pop materialised him on earth again. Drowning him in noise and light so overwhelming after the perfect vacuum of the warp space, he needed a moment to contextualise where he was and who he was.
He was All Might, the Number One hero of Japan and a few thousand metres in the air, right above the Himalayans. The lapis blue of the sky around him was only disturbed by the perfect white of the snow-covered cliffs underneath. Black and grey cut up the white where the mountain showed its blackened teeth to bite a chunk out of the soft blanket. The sunrise was far from starting. Toshinori wished he could see that fiery scarlet embellish the tallest of the mountaintops but he'll have to settle for this -just as incredible- bird eye view of the nighttime mountains. All with the starry blanket of the night sky above him, sprinkled with entire galaxies shining undisrupted by the light pollution he was so used to in Tokyo. Few people had the privilege to see so.
He released a breathlessly excited WHOOP even despite his burning lungs and freezing limbs. His suit had both heat and cold-proofing and he had a mask somewhere to filter out the icy air but none of that seemed necessary as of now. He was burning up with power and joy.
Oh, how I love flying.
He could never get enough of this intoxicating feeling of the air hissing in his ears, the cold tendrils of the icy upwind cutting into his skin, the weightless floating. Of the heart-bursting sensation of speed and power and freedom. Of the view underneath him, the farawayness of it all. For a moment, he was literally on top of the world, riding the frankly addicting high of being invincible. Stretching the limits of the body, speeding faster than his thoughts, his doubts and insecurities.Above everyone and everything in a sense that wasn't arrogant, just amazing.
This. This is when he felt like All Might.
He did a small somersault as he reached the peak of his ascent and felt the pull of gravity get ahold of him again. But for a second, Toshinori truly floated. For a private, solemnly wonderful moment, he imagined a hand holding his, showing him the world as it pulled him along the invisible platforms of air above the sleeping city of Tokyo. Then All Might opened his eyes and let the memory go alongside the gentle feeling. He started his unavoidable descent.
The skin on his cheeks flapped wildly. He felt the nerve-racking thrill of acceleration, the vicious churning in his gut as the threatening stone fangs of the mountain approached. His legs positioned themselves. His body prepared to swallow the incredible force of his landing. This is going to decimate the pavement -and his poor knees- for sure. I hope Sasaki was right with the coordinates… He swallowed back the nervous giggles and opened a comm to the Tibetan hero agency already on standby for him.
"Open a portal at these coordinates! I'm arriving in seven, six, five—"
"Hell All Might, give us a heads up, will ya?!" came the slightly panicked answer but Toshinori already saw the telltale reddish-golden sparks of their specialised warp-portal opening.
Before he could marvel at the ingenuity of it all, he was through the circle and above the industrial landscape of home sweet, smog smelling home. He honed in on the plain concrete roof of his final destination, reigned the power in a bit so he doesn't crumple the entire district to dust, and mentally prepared his one-liner. You gotta prepare the one-liner, that's a must.He decimated the reinforced roof, landing square in the middle of what can no longer in good conscience be called a table.
"Never Fear!" All Might boomed at full lung capacity. "For I Am Here!"