Disgusting, creaking, oil-covered, rusted metal was all this ship was made of. This broken, run-down hull of an excuse for a spaceship. Run by the precious Hero Commission, or so their crew was named. They knew nothing about successful leadership. The sorry state of their home was entirely their fault, and Overhaul intended to correct that.
He kept to the center of the hall, carefully avoiding drips and piles of rust. Where the Hero Commission had failed, he would succeed. The Shie Hassaikai would rise to glory on a clean ship, one with a regular chores schedule that would ensure the ship exceeded the cleanliness standards of even the great ISSA, the Worldwide Cleaning Industry Association. After taking possession of this craft, that cleanliness would be the first point on his detailed, spreadsheet-tracked journey to galaxy-wide Yakuza control.
Now, if only one of those pesky crewmates would make an appearance so he could continue bringing his gang to power. Down in electrical, they were far enough away from the main body of the ship to avoid drawing attention; there were no cameras in the area, so even if one of those lazy crewmates that spent all their time in Security rather than doing more useful tasks (such as cleaning, as he had mentioned several times at the last all-crew meeting), they wouldn't be able to spot his treachery. A few dozen more murders, and the Shie Hassaikai would be the dominant alliance on the ship before those idiots even had a chance to realize what was going on. With the ship under their control, there would be no limit to what they could do.
At the end of the hall, his eyes widened at a flash of color. He ducked back, carefully tugging a surgical gown, hairnet, shoe covers, face shield, and an additional set of surgical gloves over the pair he already wore. No infectious transmissions for him.
PPE in place, he rounded the corner, knife drawn, to see a body lying on the ground. One of his Eight Bullets must have already beaten him to it.
Except… that roadkill-tan fur coat looked oddly like Deidoro's.
Fucking drunk again and sleeping it off, then. He scowled under his mask, stalking over to the figure. "Wake up!" he hissed, kicking Deidoro in the ribs.
His torso slid across the floor with the force of the kick, leaving a bloody streak on the yellowing linoleum. He froze, then whipped his head back to where his legs still lay, the body split in half right where it had been carved neatly through the spine.
...what the fUCK .
They were the ones who were supposed to be doing the killing… one of his own would never, ever think of doing this; they would never dream of disobeying him. So… someone else was trying to take control of this ship.
There was an impostor among them.
The emergency meeting alarm blared above him the second he called the body in on the All Might-branded walkie-talkie built into each of their uniforms, cursing Deidoro's incompetence to go and get himself killed all the while. Overhaul just had to do Every. Little. Thing. Didn't he.
At the least the discovery of Deidoro's body would throw some suspicion off of them, he mused while disposing of his garb in the chute. After the first five murders, things had gotten a little hot under the collar. Although part of that had been due to Endeavor's meaty, sweaty fist choking him out and demanding to know his whereabouts on the evening of May 5th at 8:15 PM.
The sounds of footfalls echoed behind him, and Overhaul took a moment to look at the body at his feet. Deidoro's mask had fallen off; the small, curved beak that identified him as one of their own. Disgusting, the blank-eyed stare on his face. Overhaul toed the mask back into place with his foot, just as the others arrived on the scene.
They all assembled in the cafeteria, Rappa fraternizing with the enemy as he plowed through a veritable mountain of food with the yellow-clad crewmate.
"We need to develop a list of all possible suspects, and thoroughly and methodically vet each one," Iida said, slicing the air with his hand. "We will determine the suspect through the process of elimination and using all available data. First, we must collect that data." He swirled on Overhaul, hand chopping through the air again. "Provide us all details surrounding the murder you reported earlier."
Overhaul began to recap, bored. How he had been going down to electrical, how he rounded the corner… Eyeing the suspicious faces around the table, he tried to infuse a little emotion in his speech, choking up a little as he got to the part about Deidoro. Now was the time to let these people think he cared about Deidoro's death beyond frustration at losing an asset at a critical—
"There's been another murder."
Everyone's heads shot up as one, attention on Shin Nemoto as he marched down the hall, interrupting the meeting. He paused at the entrance to the cafeteria, pulling his hat off and holding it between his hands, head bowed. "There's another body, and it's… gruesome. Mimic was half-sucked into a wall, as if he had been eaten."
The rule-obsessed pretty boy shot up. "It's not possible for something like that to happen," Iida said. "Tell us the truth."
"I am telling you the truth."
The entire room began murmuring, unsettled in the face of Nemoto's blunt honesty. Another body? So soon? There were more in more, accelerating in number and pace.
Aizawa stared unblinking into the hyperspace passing the window, lost in thought as he contemplated out loud. "What could the significance be? What logical benefit could these continued killings derive, when a minimum of 80 people are required to operate the ship…"
Shrill sirens made them all jump, the blaring alarms signaling the ever-increasing systems failures.
Gritting his teeth, Aizawa's head shot back to the crowd in the cafeteria. Speaking of which, their meeting has taken too long. The ship was falling apart at the seams, required constant repair, and now they had to cut their investigation short.
"Your team!" he barked at a head of messy white hair. "Get to the reactors. Midoriya, yours to O2. The others to—"
"Aw man, we always get the worst jobs!" Twice complained. "This stuff is radioactive, you know!"
"It's controlled, you idiot," Dabi cursed at him, panting as they ran.
"Hey, wait up!" A feathered figure zoomed up behind them, Hawks slowing to a jog once he reached Dabi's side.
Just as they reached the reactor room, Spinner butted in, "I agree with Twice. Haven't you seen Godzilla? How do you think he ended up like that? Radiation ." He paused for dramatic effect. "That's why they always send the same people there every time. We're expendable."
Twice shivered, jumping a little as the machinery clanked, all of them working to control the overheated circuits. "Yeah! But what scares me even more is all these murders!" He cowered in on himself. "They're gonna get me!"
"Awww, Twicey! You don't have to worry, I'm here to protect you!" Toga said, squeezing him into a tight hug that made him squeak a little at the suffocation.
He hugged her back, resting his head on top of hers. "Aren't you just a little bit nervous?" he asked.
Toga pulled back, beaming up at him. "Nope!"
A wrench soared past them, Twice narrowly ducking and the metal striking Spinner in the head instead. "Shut up and get to work," Shigaraki snapped over Spinner's cursing. "We already have to fix this broken thing every day, so get to work and fix it so we can be done." His red eyes didn't leave Hawks as the rest of the group turned back to their work.
Hawks picked the wrench up from the ground and tried to figure out where to start working, considering that all the previous repairs had been very shoddy, and any one could be the source of the problem. He turned to Twice and nudged him, leaning close. "Man… THAT was an over react ion. Huh? Huh?" he said, turning to Spinner and Toga, who just rolled their eyes.
Twice burst out laughing, seizing Hawks around the middle and pulling him into a tight hug. "We're gonna be best friends, I can just tell!" he said, eyes bright and shining.
Overhaul snarled, pacing the glistening white tiles of his quarters, unable to contain the rage that vented out of him. "—and we would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for those meddling crewmates! Interfering with my plans to capture the ship to return the Yakuza to our deserved glory–"
"Overhaul, I mean no disrespect," Hekiji Tengai said calmly, cutting through the cloud of rage which surrounded his leader. "However, I wish to discuss your plans. How does murdering innocents to overtake this ship correlate with our ultimate goal of returning the Yakuza to power?"
Red clouded Overhaul's vision, the red of a sanitation inspection violation notice. "I should have known an apathetic monk like you would have never understood my vision of the Yakuza's glory!" he snapped, spraying spittle within his mask. Go—get out! Go join those peace-loving crewmates you love so much!"
Hekiji's face didn't shift, either unaffected by the outburst or just as apathetic as Overhaul claimed. He bowed his head, then walked out, the doors sliding shut behind him. Overhaul sighed. Finally, some peace and quiet to fume in peace to his underlings.
Seconds later, a scream and the whoosh of wings rattled the metal walls.
Rappa pried open the doors so fast they sparked and groaned, head shooting from side to side in search of the murderer to challenge them to a fight. To their surprise, Hawks still stood over Tengai's body, bloodstains splattered up and down his jacket and fist raised, poised to knock.
"You!" Rappa roared. "I'm going to beat you into a chicken nugget for what you did to Tengai, birdbrain!"
"No, no, it wasn't me, honest!" Hawks insisted, hands raised in defense. "I didn't see who killed him!"
"Call an emergency meeting, Chrono," Overhaul said, scowling down at Hawks over the top of his beaked mask. "We've found our traitor."
"—and that," Overhaul finished his tirade, "is why Hawks is the traitor, the impostor among us!"
"Hey, relax!" Hawks protested again. "I already told you this really nasty-looking knife was coming for me and I jumped out of the way just in time! There was someone else there, and the doorlogs prove it!"
"I agree with Hawks," Best Jeanist added, examining the printed log books before him. "Your argument is fraying like unhemmed denim!"
"You jumped out of the way of a knife?" Twice asked? Shoulders sagging. He turned to Toga, mouth turning dramatically down in a frown. "I thought you were just going to kill those lame plague doctor wannabes! That wasn't very cash money of you to try to kill my new friend," he pouted.
The entire crew froze at once, eyes wide and jaws dropped as they stared at the young girl everyone had at some point thought was a little batshit, but nobody thought she was actually murderous. "You did what?" Present Mic screeched over the intercom.
Toga jumped back from the cafeteria tables, whipping two knives from her utility belt. "That's right. Those yucky Yakuza tried to kill Deku-kun, and Ochako-chan, and Tsu-chan all at once. I couldn't let them stack kill my boyfriend and girlfriends."
The three flushed immediately and jumped in shock, Deku squeaking out, "Your what?"
In that moment, no amount of reporting, emergency meetings, or sabotage could have stopped Himiko Toga. She leaped toward the Shie Hassaikai's table, eyes trained on Overhaul and knives glinting. One half of the cafeteria devolved into fighting, body after body dropping to the floor as Toga drew closer to Overhaul.
"Soooo," Hawks began, standing in shock on the other side of the cafeteria with the rest of the Hero Commission crew. "Everybody agrees I'm not a traitor?"
"Oh, he's a traitor all right." Dabi stood suddenly, kicking over the bench he had been sitting on and raising his arms before his group of friends. "He's been working for the Commission for months. Hawks has been trying to get close to me for months now to steal our data logs because they show the corruption of the Hero Commission's rulers, intentionally keeping the ship broken and decrepit so we rely on their supplies and leaders, especially, and this will come as a surprise to all of you, my long-lost father, En—"
"Dabi, we've known that you're related to Enji pretty much since you joined the crew," Hawks complained. "Fuyumi invited you to family dinner just last week!"
Dabi jumped at him with a yell, the flamethrower in his hands exploding into blue flames. The rest of his gang jumped into action, Twice going to join Toga in her battle to murder the wannabe crime lords while the others attacked the other Pro crew members.
"Eraserhead…" Shigaraki stood in front of him.
Between the adult Pro crew of the Hero Commission , the League of Villains (not a name that convinced anyone they were as noble as they claimed), and the Shie Hassaikai all in-fighting and backstabbing, the students on the ship didn't quite know what to do. The revelation that several of them had almost been murdered, and that Toga was also unconditionally and irrevocably in love with them didn't help. They stood frozen in place, baffled as they watched the drama unfold before them.
"Hey." Kirishima nudged Kaminari with his elbow. He leaned in close to the blond's ear, then whispered, "Wasn't one of us supposed to be the traitor?"