A/N: And here's the next update! The other chapters have also been edited for errors. Mostly.
Disclaimer: Yup. Totally own BnHA. Totally.
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Six – we don't need more trouble
Hitoshi watches the man in the chair quietly. Beside him, Tsubasa stands with a notebook in hand. He keeps flipping the pages with no real purpose, the crisp noises hurting Hitoshi's ears.
"When's the deadline?" Hitoshi asks, hands clasped tightly behind his back.
Tsubasa sighs. "Six minutes."
There's a sympathetic feel in the way he says it, but Hitoshi knows better. He isn't like Izuku, whose relationship with the old doctor is a landmine of lies and complicated history. Hitoshi knows exactly what kind of a person Tsubasa is, and if Tsubasa truly cared, he would appeal to Akagiri for an extension.
Always so willing to let him take the blame; every doctor he's worked with in Interrogations has been the same.
"I'll go and get a coffee," Tsubasa says, handing the notebook to him. Hitoshi takes it with a silent scowl. "Stay, Proxy. Watch the prisoner."
Tsubasa leaves and he watches the doctor's back with bitter disgust. One would think that he would at least have the grace to watch the hell that's bound to rain down in six minutes, but Tsubasa doesn't even do that. He flees like a coward.
Hitoshi looks down at the notebook in his hands. Labeled NOTES - PROXY in his own careless handwriting, it holds dozens of pages of information gained from interrogations. Some were transcribed down himself; others by the doctors he's worked with.
He's not the only one in the Order of the Triumvirate with a Quirk suited for interrogation; not even the only one among the Project 022 kids. It just so happens that his is rather efficient – a tool that can force prisoners to reveal information willingly – in a way – instead of a messy torture Quirk. Mind Quirks are rare and nine times out of ten, Hitoshi will be called to handle a case over anyone else.
There's usually at least one doctor on standby while he does his work. 'Doctor' might even be the wrong term here – the ones he's worked with are usually supervisors at the most, meant to make sure he produces results as quickly and smoothly as possible. Sometimes a prisoner will attempt suicide and the doctor will try to keep them alive – but they always die, with satisfied gleams in their eyes. Nobody tries a suicide technique that isn't guaranteed to work.
Those suicides were the only occasions when Hitoshi failed to squeeze out the information that the Order wanted. In his own opinion, as it was those doctors' jobs to keep his subjects alive, it was never his fault. But of course, he was the one they punished. Of course.
This subject, though, is different. Hitoshi's never been faced with somebody with an Erasure Quirk before. Nor has he ever met someone with such a stubborn mind.
He glances at the clock hung on the wall. It's designed with the cheerful visage of Winnie the Pooh printed on its cheap plastic face. The cartoon bear is a brighter yellow than Denki's hair and grins just as cluelessly, as if mocking him.
The clock's minute hand moves. Five minutes left.
Hitoshi returns to staring at the man in the chair. They are separated by one-way glass that divides the room in half. He can see the prisoner; the prisoner can't see him.
On his side, there are tables filled with computers and papers and notebooks of information that look exactly like the one he holds, save for the different names scrawled in different handwriting on the covers. There are eleven other notebooks in total – eleven others who use their Quirks to acquire information for the Order. He knows Boxer from Team Aka and Ame from Team Kuro. Boxer, named for that box-like shape his mouth forms when he smiles, and Ame, short for Ame-no-Uzume, the Shinto goddess of joy.
In the prisoner's side of the room, there's not much apart from the chair and the captive himself. The chair could be mistaken for a dental engine, with straps pinning the prisoner down tightly, his legs straight and his arms tied to the armrests. The lights shine a soft yellow, as if comforting the man inside.
For physical interrogation, Hitoshi knows, those soft lights will be turned up to a setting that is near blinding. All the more discomfort for those inside, trapped helplessly in that chair.
At least in this, Hitoshi is glad that he handles most cases. His subjects rarely know pain other than that of a light headache.
…Or, in Eraserhead's situation, a pounding, aching migraine.
He's been kept awake for nearly three days. Sixteen times, Hitoshi has activated the electrocution system built into the chair. Not long enough to kill, but enough to induce moderate pain and muddle the mind. He's never had to use it this much before – it makes him feel sickened. But, faced with a deadline that's shorter than usual and the most bullheaded prisoner he's ever had to question, Hitoshi is not afraid to admit that he's been getting more and more desperate with each minute that passes.
The long-haired man's face is tight, sweat beading down his forehead.
"It's your own fault for being so stubborn," Hitoshi says aloud, leaning forward into the mic attached to the wall adjacent to the one-way glass. "It would be easier for both you and I if you just cooperated."
The man's fists clench tighter. If Hitoshi wasn't mostly sure that it would be impossible, he would think the man's veins would explode from sheer frustration. Eraserhead is pissed beyond belief, no doubt about it. Good. Hitoshi feels the same.
"I have a deadline to keep," Hitoshi says into the mic. "If you answer just one of my questions, I'll have shown signs of progress and we won't be forced to move you into stage two of interrogations. You can guess what that is, right? It's going to be infinitely more painful than what I've done to you."
Eraserhead lies still. The only signs of life from him are his flickering eyes and flexing fists. Even his chest barely moves. His breaths are long and soft.
"Don't you have a family?" Hitoshi asks. "Maybe a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend – I'm not one to judge." Again, no response. "Do you own a dog? You look like a dog person."
That's a lie. Eraserhead looks very much like a cat person. The sparse profile they have of him even states that he hates dogs with a passion.
He sees Eraserhead's eyebrow twitch.
"If you give me what I want to know, I can make you forget this entire ordeal and you can go back to your life. I'm not lying." Lie. "You'll give us your information sooner or later, anyway, like everyone else."
Lie, again. There have been exactly six of those suicide cases. Hitoshi thinks about them often. Although Eraserhead is a pro hero – arrogant men and women who don't usually entertain the thought of self-immolation – he primarily works underground and looks the type of paranoid to have hidden a pill in a hollow tooth or subtle poison under his nails – things that could have been missed by Security.
"I'll ask you again," Hitoshi says calmly, even as his heart thumps faster with each second that passes. Time is running out. But Proxy is cool. Proxy is always cool. Proxy does not panic.
"What is your hero name?" he probes.
Pause. Continue. "What is your real name?"
Pause. Continue. "How old are you?"
Pause. Continue. "What hero agency do you work for?"
Pause. Continue. An endless stream of useless-sounding questions.
Most people, especially pro heroes, would have snapped and answered one by now, regardless of all the warnings they've definitely been given about all the different types of interrogation-useful Quirks that exist. They are warned about Mind-type Quirks, particularly. Quirks like Hitoshi's.
In a situation like Eraserhead's, the best he can do is stay still and silent and not respond. Mind Quirks, like most Quirks, have conditions that must be met before they go into effect. So, if isn't something unavoidable like touch or sight, then what a prisoner under interrogation should do is, well, simply nothing.
It's not a foolproof technique, but a basic one that anyone with any training at all would know. The thing is, everyone cracks and responds sooner or later. Especially if they get riled up. If Hitoshi had more time to goad and probe, he's sure Eraserhead will snap back.
"What's your hero name?" Hitoshi asks again, wishing that the man will just give in and shout Eraserhead! like he no doubt aches to do.
All he needs is one verbal reply. One, and Eraserhead is his.
For a moment, he thinks that the man will answer. But the door clicks open before anything can happen, and Hitoshi squeezes his eyes shuts so tight he sees white.
"Fuck you, asshole," he breathes into the mic. "It's too late, now. You've just fucked us both over."
He lets the mic go, not bothering to put it back in its place. It falls, bobbing up and down with the length of cord that connects it to the wall.
He thinks he sees the barest hints of a smug crook of Eraserhead's lips. Any hint of concern or conflict that had been present because of Hitoshi's obviously young voice had long since disappeared. There is no more sympathy for whatever poor, brainwashed kid the pro hero had likely concocted in his brain and linked to the voice that's been hounding for a reply nonstop for days. Honestly, Hitoshi can't blame him.
He turns away from the one-way glass. None of his subjects have ever been present for this part before. His past failures occurred when the subjects killed themselves – they were nothing more than corpses lying in that horrible chair, unresponsive no matter how loudly Hitoshi screamed. He wonders if Eraserhead will be able to hear him – if the mic will be able to pick up the noises.
Probably. The Order only uses the best technology.
It is Kumo today. Hitoshi is surprised, though he doesn't show it; Kumo doesn't usually appear for things like this. A member of the Triumvirate, the three leaders of the organisation, has better things to do than overseeing interrogations.
He enters the room with soundless footsteps. Izuku is one of the best of the Twenty-Twos when it comes to quiet walking, but Kumo is better. He's no doubt trained for longer, after all.
"Doctor Tsubasa told me you have nothing," Kumo says quietly. His voice is as hoarse as always. "Is this true?"
"Yes, sir." There is no use for excuses. It is well known among the Twenty-Twos that Kumo prefers conversation to be as concise as possible. To stammer out an explanation would only infuriate him.
Kumo holds out a hand for Hitoshi's notebook. His cold fingers brush Hitoshi's as the book is passed over. Hitoshi shivers.
Kumo flips through the notebook. The last entry is dated to seven weeks ago, his last interrogation op. It was a woman that time, with clouds for hair. They turned dark and foggy as the stress of being taken prisoner settled in, and after he got what the Order wanted, Security snapped her neck and the clouds slowly dissipated. Watching it happen made Hitoshi feel funny inside, like when he thinks about his mom.
After that entry, the notes end. A short title – ERASERHEAD – and a date, but nothing underneath. Only little marks where Tsubasa's pen had dug into the paper in frustration.
Eraserhead had stayed stubbornly silent.
Kumo looks down at the pitifully blank page, then at Hitoshi again. His eyes are as dark as the Cloud Woman's hair was right before she finally died.
"Failure is not good," Kumo rasps.
"Yes, sir," Hitoshi agrees.
Kumo is quiet for a while. When Kumo is quiet, he stares blankly ahead like he is thinking, and he stops moving. Like a statue. Hitoshi gazes at the man, feeling strangely calm. He always feels this way before the punishment. This way, when it starts, he feels almost nothing.
"Akagiri tells me I should be more kind," Kumo says in a musing tone.
Hitoshi's calm mood shakes and nearly shatters.
"Sir?"
"Go," says Kumo. "I will take over this operation."
Even in his tattered old hoodie and shorts, he exudes a sense of danger. Perhaps he could pass as a college student on the streets of Tokyo, but his black eyes are dead.
Those eyes are the most identifiable feature about him, as lifeless as rotten fish and a thousand times more foreboding. Otherwise, from his dark hair to his acne-scarred face, he looks nothing more than just another broke twenty-something year old.
Kumo holds the notebook out to him. "Be grateful," he sneers.
Kumo looks at where Eraserhead lies on the other side of the one-way window. Grey breath puffs out from his cracked lips, as if contemplating the best way to go about torturing information out of a man with an Erasure Quirk.
Well. Physical measures can be just as painful. Beatings, electrocution, waterboarding… sensory deprivation or overstimulation. There is also the obvious method of blindfolding the man, or carving out his eyes – he's sure the labs would be delighted with the new testing material.
But however Kumo decides to deal with this case, whether he pulls in a torture specialist or goes on with stage two himself, it's got nothing to do with Hitoshi anymore.
"Thank you, sir."
Unable to believe his luck, Hitoshi takes back the offered notebook, practically throws it on the table with the rest, and fast-walks out of the room.
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"Just like that?" Mei says skeptically when he finishes telling them about it.
"Just like that," Hitoshi repeats, still in wonder. "No punishment at all. Zero."
All three of his teammates look doubtful at the truth of that statement, but Hitoshi isn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He'll lay low for some time, be as obedient as possible, restrain himself from doing dumb things like turning security guards into gophers, and hopefully things will turn out fine. If Kumo decided no punishment for the day, then why the heck not? It's not like Hitoshi's going to ask him why.
"I don't think the lack of punishment is the strangest thing," Izuku says quietly. "He might just be following what Akagiri suggested, like he told you. More importantly: why is he taking over the operation at all?"
Izuku has reason to be curious. Kumo has never dealt with interrogations before (as far as they know, anyway) though Hitoshi doesn't doubt he has the skill set for it. For stage two, definitely. Pain is easy to inflict. Though making sure the information they get is accurate – that's harder.
"I don't know," Hitoshi says honestly. "There's no need to think that deeply. I'm just glad he's not pissed at me."
"What questions did they want you to ask?" asks Izuku, leaning forward.
Hitoshi looks at him irritably. "Just drop it, Izuku." It comes out sharper than intended. But then again, most of what he says does.
"Hey, hey," Denki interjects. "No need to get riled up."
Izuku nods and leans away a little, surrendering easily. Mei and Denki glance uncertainly between the two of them.
They butt heads the most in their little team. Maybe just because of differences in their personalities, partly because they're both more than a little bossy, and almost certainly because Hitoshi gets annoyed easily. Very easily.
In team simulations, Izuku is undoubtedly the leader. They've never been sent out all together on an op before, not like some of the other teams, but there is nobody Hitoshi will trust more to make the right calls than Izuku. Than Kingpin. Honestly, Hitoshi trusts Izuku more than he trusts himself.
But, little stupid arguments and things like this, they build up. Hitoshi's not sure how to stop being so quick to irritate, but he's thankful Izuku's more mature and patient than the rest of the Twenty-Twos put together. Izuku is often the first to back off if a conflict arises. Things definitely would have blown up between them otherwise.
Hitoshi's shoulders are stiff. He's trying not to think about how differently this evening would have gone for him if Kumo had decided to be angry.
"Just drop it, okay?" Hitoshi tells them, a little softer this time. "We don't need more trouble."
"Especially not so soon after we failed that exercise," Izuku concedes. They all collectively frown at how badly that had gone – just goes to prove that even Izuku's tactics aren't infallible. And exactly how hard Izuku's job, as team strategist, is.
"There's no reason to go poking around just to satisfy my curiosity," Izuku says, more to himself than anyone else. "There's not even anything concrete at all about there being something strange at all about the situation. Just a feeling that there's more to this operation than usual. It has nothing to do with us anymore, and since Hitoshi has now been pulled out of the case… if he plays nice for a while, they'll forget about it and none of us will be affected."
Hitoshi can't help the almost-fond smile that crooks his lips. Izuku's doing that thing again, where he says out loud what he's thinking to help him reason things out. Outside of the tense, half-panicked atmosphere of the planning time they're given before team simulations, it's endearing.
It reminds Hitoshi of the mumbling thing Izuku used to do near-constantly before Taya scared it out of him. Taya had been very effective. Izuku doesn't even stutter outside of their dorm anymore.
"We don't need more trouble," Izuku concludes, repeating Hitoshi's words. He looks sheepishly at him. "Sorry. I won't push, promise."
No need to say sorry, idiot. You always do that.
"Whatever," Hitoshi says, turning to look away from them.
They're huddled together on Hitoshi's bed, simply because it's the tidiest. Izuku's, the bunk below his, is filled with homework from Tsubasa and tiny, easy-to-break pieces of machinery he's been working on, the materials nicked from the labs. Denki's is laden with junk – dirty clothes and food wrappers and probably a knife or two somewhere in there.
Mei's bed, though… It's despicable. Simply despicable. Hitoshi wouldn't sit on that mess on threat of decapitation. (More often than not, Mei is too lazy to clean up her bed before she goes to sleep, and climbs into one of the other bunks. The others can't be bothered to shove her out.) So, for lack of a better option, they laze around on Hitoshi's mattress.
"I want to learn the guitar," Mei says, sometime later.
It's enough of a change from their previous conversation topic that they all snort.
"Why so sudden?" Denki then asks.
"Do you even have the time?" Izuku points out.
And, yeah, between regular training, Quirk training, the labs, other ops, inventing, secretly inventing, browsing the internet, and whatever else Mei has in her schedule, she's probably the busiest out of the four of them.
"Maa, I'll make do," Mei shrugs. "I might even give a try at weaponising it… imagine what we could do with sound waves in combat. Like Present Mic." Her eyes gleam.
It's nice to see Mei with that defiant spark in her eyes. Out of the four of them, she's probably changed the most since the earliest days of their capture. Not so loud anymore, for one thing. Still confident, but more cautious and easily spooked.
"I'll get one the next time I finish an op," Mei declares. "Learn off YouTube or something."
"It can't be that hard," Izuku says. "Maybe I'll borrow it."
"Get your own," Mei huffs immediately. Izuku rolls his eyes.
They lie down one by one as lethargy takes over. At ten-thirty – curfew for the Twenty-Twos (unless they're doing an op or something) – the cameras start looping. But for the first time in a while, they're all actually asleep when it happens.
It's more than a little cramped, how they're lying. Denki's snores are as loud as ever, and Izuku's half-sprawled on top of him. Mei is curled up on the edge of the mattress, in danger of falling off. Hitoshi manages to drag her back to safety a little, just before he drifts off.
Hitoshi should have known it wouldn't last.
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The alarms start at nearly three in the morning. Hitoshi knows this because he's facing the opposite wall when his eyes snap open, and the first thing he sees, past Mei's wild pink hair, is that stupid Winnie the Pooh clock Denki got from an operation a few months ago.
Hitoshi had, regrettably, let slip about the dumb thing in Interrogation Room 3, and the rest had found it undeservingly hilarious. Denki somehow managed to acquire a decent copy – the bear on their room's clock is laughing instead of smiling, which isn't much better.
Izuku is the first to sit up, because he's the only morning person out of the four of them. Denki groans and Mei stirs. Hitoshi, still lying down, meets Izuku's eyes, both of them alarmed and shocked into awareness, sudden adrenaline running through them.
"Attack," Izuku manages, and then the world explodes.
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Done! Again, the previous chapters have been edited. Thanks for reading, and for those who reviewed.