Next is the last chapter. Enjoy~
It was day four of Luffy's coma, completely still on the bed, when he stirred. He opened his eyes to see he was in a hospital room with all sorts of wires hooked up to him. He felt absolutely exhausted. He looked to the side and saw a nurse call button, but also a note card. He reached for it, his mind hazy.
He put the card up for him to read and took it out of the envelope, a plain gray one. He slowly read the letter but his brain was slow and he didn't process it. You have been the perfect spy. Your job is done, we will not speak again. You have upheld your end of the deal.
It took him a good ten minutes to finally know what the letter meant. He recognized the signature. It was from the HPSC. It was to let him go. And he wasn't going to be the reason Hawks agency ended. All that filled his head was relief. His eyes watered. He put the card down, his hands shaking.
He didn't need to pretend anymore. He could confess. Finally. He didn't need to lie anymore. He could be expelled and hated like he should be. He no longer needed to pretend to be who he was. All of the spying, lying, faking. It was over. He was free.
Luffy didn't care if his future was uncertain and cloudy, he was just happy he never had to speak to that woman again. Then he smiled. She didn't uphold her end of the deal. He had the right to make a long, honest expose video/confession. After all, she promised this would last two years. She's breaking the contract early. Her life would be PR hell.
He wasn't expecting the first person he saw to be Aizawa. He walked past and saw Luffy awake and hurried in. "Luffy, good, you're awake," he said in relief. Luffy had tears in his eyes. He didn't need to spy on Aizawa anymore. "I'll get the nurse."
"'M free now, sn'se," Luffy slurred. Aizawa turned around to see Luffy crying and smiling. "I'm free." Then he fell asleep again, Aizawa walking over and finding the note, his face going white and sad. But he pressed the nurse button.
When Luffy woke up again, it was to Hawks' teary face. He didn't shout Luffy's name, just held his hands tightly in both of his. Luffy smiled brightly, thought there was an air of sleepiness. "Haws… I don' hafta preten 'ymore. I c'n be me again. I c'n be sad," he sighed.
Hawks looked confused and then upset, like he'd realized just now that Luffy hadn't been honest this whole time. But he didn't say that. He just smiled. "That's right. You're Luffy. I told you you're Luffy. And you're free now, you don't need to do anything you don't want anymore."
Luffy said he would tell everybody everything. Hawks replied, "You have every right to do that. She broke the contract. While you were asleep I was way ahead. I got a lawyer for us, and we have the right to expose her."
He was still smiling. He didn't fall asleep again, a nurse came and he got water for his painfully dry mouth. "Aizawa was here. He know?" Luffy asked, mouth feeling much better now after drinking a lot of the cool water. Hawks said they didn't know any of the story, but had a jist of it. "Good, good."
Hawks looked sad, and Luffy, befuddled as he was, still knew what was wrong. "'S okay. Other schools," he said simply. Hawks looked over his shoulder to see Aizawa was there again, face flat, but not angry like Luffy expected.
"Hi," Luffy said with a smile.
"Hey. So, you were the spy?" Hawks was going to scold him since Luffy was barely awake and couldn't think straight. But Luffy nodded, and said he'd tell everything once he was better. He said everyone could hate him now, which startled the teacher. Luffy was smiling when saying he was fine with everyone hating him. Clearly there was more going on, anybody could see it. But Luffy had to heal first.
It took Luffy four days before his brain was ready to think straight. By then, he had hundreds of messages from his friends. He replied to none of them and had the nurses turn them away from visiting. He couldn't lie to them anymore, but couldn't tell them in person. Luffy knew what he was going to do to confess. He had a lot of evidence to show.
He knew he'd lose the trust of everybody by coming clean, but he had to. There was no other option for him. No other option at all. He left the hospital Aizawa knew he was being discharged, and they both went home. Hawks was so happy Luffy was okay, and Luffy was honest with him.
Aizawa erased his quirk and made him fall, but he hadn't known Luffy was there. When he got home, he took a nap on the bed and then got to work. He was going to be expelled, so there was no point in going back before making his video. Besides, he wasn't welcome until he had any explanation, and that's what he was doing.
He spent two days on it, sixteen hours editing it and recording his voice. He organized everything perfectly, and was proud of himself. When he finished it, he sent it to everybody he could think of. Everyone at school, every agency, every email his mind could reach out to. To online websites. Anywhere he could so the president couldn't hide it from the public.
The video started out with a hook.
"What's my first stupid mission?" Luffy's voice grumbled, out of sight.
"You have all summer to yourself. Your first mission is to be a spy at UA," the president said nicely, with a smirk on. That was the hook.
Then Luffy appeared, sitting in the living room with his mural of his wings behind him. "Hi, I'm Luffy. You might recognize me from the reaction gifs or memes, or from being an awkward kid who managed to make my way up to #6 in approval rating. I have a lot to share, so stick with me until the end, please. I sent this video to everybody I could reach in case they try to silence me.
"For context of the story, I was taken in by Hawks when I was 8. This was me," a photo of him covered in bandages and looking at the camera in fury, cheeks hollow and face set in a look of hatred. "This was one year later." A photo of him holding a school backpack with his wings out in front of Hawks, who also had his wings out. He was beaming too while Luffy was clearly very happy. "Hawks is a very important person to me, so that's why I did everything I did."
A photo of him buried in sand and smiling at the beach was put up. He put the date of that, early summer break. "This was over four months ago, and the last time I was really happy. I went to the beach with my friends. It had been a hard year, with attacks and torture and health problems, but my problams seemed to be gone. I was thinking that I might get a normal life at high school. Maybe I was just really unlucky and all of the bad things were behind me.
"I had hope. But that's where the Hero Public Safety Commission comes in. I had gone on an undercover mission with Hawks to America. I used a quirk that nobody knew about. It's one that lets my eyes act like a video camera, and my ears like a microphone. Perfect for being undercover." It showed a video of when Luffy was walking around the warehouse, seeing bodies of kids that he blurred out. "It was messy and hard, but we managed to pull it off.
"I was convinced we'd done what we were told and now we could go on with our lives. But apparently I did my job too well." He showed the first encounter with the president and how she spoke of Luffy in possessive terms. "They'd been watching me since Hawks took me in but neither of us noticed.
"Anyways, she said we'd be free and we'd be left alone if we did the mission. She lied. They started following me around after that when I went around during summer break. Finally, they cornered me at the doctors' office. That's when things went south really fast.
"I'm not working for you. Period. I'm going to go back to school, hang out with my friends, intern and do patrols with Hawks and become his sidekick."
"You can't do many of those things if the Hawks Agency doesn't exist anymore. We could easily take down his agency, spin a story. People would forget all about him."
"So, either I work for you 'part-time' or you ruin Hawks' hard work and my dream?" he asked coldly. She nodded. "And if I say no right now? Then what will you do?"
"Then Hawks will have a stain on his name and lose his agency in the blink of any eye." He demanded to know how long this part-time would last. "Until you graduate high school and can be Hawks' sidekick as long as you want. Even if you don't still work with us, you and he work together well and would be an asset to the hero society. You've already proved it to us multiple times. We would rather not have to stop that."
"And what will I have to do for your agency?"
"Odd jobs. Spying sometimes on dangerous people we cannot reach ourselves without it looking bad. Nothing too dangerous. You would only work for us Fridays after school and Saturdays." She held up the contract.
"This is the contract I was given." He put up the contract, long enough to see how long but not too long. "I had her put something inside that if she broke her word then I could make this video. So, I signed the contract, thinking I would be doing undercover jobs like from some movie. Two years. It wasn't that long. I could still do school and work on Fridays and Saturdays.
"I could still have a normal high school life. I could still be happy with my friends. I was wrong, she was already planning on ruining everything. So I signed the contract."
"It's good to work with you, Luffy," the president said. Luffy shook her hand.
"What's the stupid first mission?"
"You have all summer to yourself. Your first mission is to be a spy at UA," she said. "You will be using your camera quirk."
"I didn't know when I signed the contract that she would make me betray everyone and also break the law. But I'll get into that later. I was stuck. I knew I signed the contract and couldn't get out of it easily. So I gave up and went with it. I couldn't hurt Hawks. I just couldn't."
"Who do I have to spy on?" his voice asked in a flat voice.
"The teachers. You do not have to film the students, as that is a criminal act. Even for us, filming underage students without their consent is illegal. You will film the teachers and learn as much about UA as you can. But you can't get caught. Understand? If you tell anybody, the contract will be terminated."
"What if they figure it out without me saying a thing. I'm a kid, I'm not a trained spy," Luffy replied. She smiled wickedly.
"That is what Fridays and Saturdays are for. We will make you into a good spy. Of course, not with the same harsh tactics we mistakenly used on Hawks," she added. "If you are found out, the situation may be salvageable, but you don't want that to happen."
"Is this what you had planned all along?"
"Yes," she said truthfully.
"After that, I tried to enjoy my vacation. It was hard but I managed to distract myself with my friends. Then school started. It was simple at first. Film my teachers when they spoke, looking for anything useful. But it was scarier as time went on. Eventually, every morning, I would go to the roof and listen to the teacher's meetings and write it all down and then send it to her. Every day, I had to film all my interactions with the teachers, and send her the footage."
He showed videos of him watching Aizawa in class, talking with All Might, the librarian. He blurred out the faces of everybody. "It was constant. I managed to separate myself from it for a bit, but it didn't last long.
"The first Friday and Saturday were meditation exercises. I learned fast. It was meditation, then training my body how to hold my breath. Then there were lying exercises. He taught me all about how to tell if somebody was lying. And also how to lie perfectly. How to keep my body language and expressions perfectly calm. We had lying sessions where I would practice over and over again. So, I became a good liar. I'm not going to lie and say some of these things were helpful. Meditating calmed my mind, and learning how to tell someone was lying helped with hero work.
"I just wish I didn't need to do it to my friends and teachers. Everybody at UA really cared about me, and I just spat in their faces. It was a couple weeks into school that I really betrayed them. I was afraid of her telling me I had to go into the teachers' meeting room and listen inside. I was scared, knowing I'd get caught.
"I offered to try and get other information, thinking it would be something stupid. But I thought about getting information about the plot of land, wondering why it was where it was. Then things spiraled into lies. I manipulated the kind librarian into getting me a book that couldn't leave school.
"I looked at it and video taped it." He showed footage of reading the book, but the pages were blurred. "After that, she told me I did a good job. Principal Nezu only gave me one of the books. She wanted all of them."
"Luffy, good work this week."
"I did what I could. That's the only book I could get to."
"That's what today and tomorrow are for. You're going to learn how to break and enter. Using your specialized quirks, of course. Then it will be trespassing."
"No."
"You don't have a choice. You signed the contract, it does not give you options on what you want to learn. You will learn it and then you'll break into principal Nezu's office without getting caught.
"Then you can have a short break. That's a nice compromise," she said sickly.
He was told to put a ski mask on immediately and to take off his shoes. He showed a brief video of him learning to trespass before there was no more footage. "I was really scared. Of getting caught and going to jail. I didn't want to do it but I had no choice." He sniffled once but brought himself back under control.
There was then a video of him in the bathroom crying, signing that he was sorry before the door was knocked on and the video ended. "I was terrified beyond belief. And my plan would work, using different powers. I used my friend's invisibility quirk all the time. I'm so sorry, Invisible Girl. I didn't want to do it. I had promised myself that I would never use other quirks besides my wings and strength. And here I was using so many of them for evil deeds."
"Get some food and then fulfil the requirement. I expect an email with the footage tonight."
"I hate you."
She looked at him in almost amusement. "If you were Hawks, you would have gotten a smack. You're lucky you're a different case." Luffy told her to go fuck herself. "You can get angry if you want. It won't change anything."
He sighed. "Then Saturday night came. I went to school and entered through the wall with a clone and made no show that anyone had entered." He showed footage.
He was pressed against the window and then entered the dark office. He could be heard breathing quickly and reciting, "I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm okay," just barely under his breath. Quiet so only he could do it. It showed him opening the confidential books and filming them, the pages blurred again.
Then he left, his sobs just barely heard as he flew away and turned off the camera.
"No… nobody noticed. Nobody noticed what I'd done. I wanted them to, but I was so scared as well. I wanted to be stopped, but I was terrified of what would happen if I was caught. That night was when I broke. I had decided I didn't want friends because I didn't want to be fake and lie to them.
"But I also didn't want to hurt anybody's feelings. I didn't want to scare Hawks by being depressed. I didn't want to get caught. I spent the next two months living to please everybody else. I hated myself, so I buried myself. I pretended to be Luffy. Nobody noticed the change. The lies or fakery. The fake smiles. The fake laughs.
"Nobody noticed that I was dead inside. I'm not mad at anyone for that, I was too good at it. I just wish they'd figured out somebody was a spy and hid everything and didn't do their meetings at school. Unlike I had hoped, I didn't get used to being a spy. I just tried to not think about anything other than making other people happy.
"Finally, the president wasn't happy with me recording the meetings from afar. I was to see it in person. The first time I tried that, I fell and broke my neck. I was in a coma for four days," Luffy said, and showed a photo of all of the blood on his head and coming out of his mouth. He was also drooling a lot.
Luffy said, "I got a card saying things were over. I started crying, so happy I didn't need to do this anymore. She broke the contract. It was supposed to be two years. We didn't agree to that, she just dumped me. I'm glad she did, and it's given me the right to post this video."
He deflated a bit before giving a small smile. "I know I've lost the trust of everyone who's seen this. I know my public image will tank. I know I'll be expelled and not welcomed in any school. I can fly to South Korea to get school if necessary. It's not too far. I can learn the language fast.
"So many things have been ruined, but I'm happy it's over. I just want to live normally. I want to have a normal high school life with friends and good grades and stupid things that I probably wouldn't remember in two years. I know that's not going to happen, but that's fine. I deserve it.
"I didn't make this video to gain pity, I wanted to tell my story and also hopefully make sure this never happens to anybody else. To everybody I've hurt and betrayed, I'm sorry from the bottom of my heart. I don't expect forgiveness, but my apology is sincere.
"Thank you for your time," he said with a bow, silent tears down his cheeks as he leaned forward and stopped the video. He composed himself and watched the video over and over. When Hawks came home, Luffy showed him the video that made him cry. Luffy frantically tried to make him get back under control, and he did.
He told Luffy the video was perfect, and Luffy hit send with his family with him. The only one who would know. He immediately texted Ace. He was free, and sent him the video to watch. Almost immediately, he was flooded with messages on all social media or hero sites. He'd sent the video to 40 million people and posted it on YouTube and other sites. As many as he could find. He also sent it to news channels.
Luffy looked at none of them and then took a nap.
By the time he woke up, his video was all over the news and internet. He had so many texts and calls from his friends, but couldn't bring himself to look at any of them. Not yet. His video was now the news, YouTube channels covering it, everywhere. He got no comment from the president yet, but five hours later and there was a trending hashtag on twitter: #JusticeForLuffy.
There were protests outside of the HPSC building with signs with his face or his saddest quotes. Luffy was quite shocked. But then again, he was a household name, and was only a teenager. Barely 16 years old, who had already been traumatized over and over. He read so many comments saying it wasn't fair that he went through all of this shit.
He finally had somebody to come to the agency who was let inside, as the doors were locked and nobody could get in. Everyone who worked there and saw Luffy on a regular basis for years were furious. They knew Luffy was kind and shouldn't have gone through this. There was no way he would have voluntarily.
Hawks unlocked the front door and found Luffy sleeping on the couch. Aizawa and principal Nezu were there. Hawks woke Luffy up and said there were people he needed to talk to. He looked up and then around to see both of them. His face went white and the bags under his eyes were clearer.
He had over six hundred texts from his friends. "Hello, Luffy-kun," Nezu said. Luffy pulled his legs up to his chest and mumbled a hello. They both sat on the couch, and for some reason, Aizawa bowed. Luffy was shocked.
"As your teacher, I am sorry I didn't notice the inner turmoil you were going through. And I'm so, so sorry for erasing your quirk and causing your injury." Luffy assured him that he didn't know it was Luffy and he didn't blame him. And besides, it got him to be released.
Nezu said they'd get straight to the point, which Luffy was glad of. Hawks was in the kitchen making tea and bringing the mugs to the three and then sat on the recliner, looking nervous. "For any other situation, you would be expelled on the spot. Many think you should be. But, the Hero Public Safety Commission had you trapped. You didn't agree to spy on UA when you signed the contract.
"Though what you did was wrong, it was not your fault, so we cannot bring ourselves to blame or be angered at you. We all wish we'd noticed earlier, for our sake and especially yours. You've gone through too many things in your short life. Especially the last year and a half."
Luffy didn't know where this was going. "It's okay if you expel me. I'll understand." Aizawa told him to wait until they were done speaking. He nodded. Even if he didn't go to UA anymore, he respected Aizawa as his former teacher.
"If you're willing to, you're still welcome at UA. How on earth could we turn you away after this?" Luffy was shocked, and Hawks had a worried smile on, not knowing what Luffy would say back.
"Everyone must hate me now, though. I can't go back to that."
Aizawa shook his head exasperatedly. "Do you really think your friends would hate you for acting with a gun pointed at your head? They've been angrily telling me to go talk to you for days. There was a walk out by the whole school until you were accepted back. They don't hate you, they hate those who made you do this.
"And they're glad you didn't film any of them." Luffy pointed out that he'd committed a crime. Nezu said they'd reached out to the police, and "since a government branch forced you to and you broke not a thing, left no trace of being there, they wouldn't charge you or put it on any record."
Luffy was shocked, expecting so much worse for him. "Would you like to return to school?" Luffy bit his bottom lip and nodded. "You can come back this week. And thank you, for not telling the public it was my quirk that made you fall." Luffy nodded.
After they left, Luffy cried into the couch pillow a bit.