Firem78910 - Aye!

PassiveNox - To quote a tag on AO3 under this fic: "Kirishima is the Chosen One of the god of manliness and you can't change my mind'. Also another tag right after that: 'do you even beat up villains and treates ladies like a gentleman should bro'. Enuff said.

(***)

Two weeks passed since his meeting with Mei Hatsume. Izuku Midoriya spent those two weeks being a superhero-slash-vigilante.

He was playing it safe. More than that, the situation like the one when he walked into a firefight between police and some (supposedly former, he found out) yakuza guys didn't repeat itself. He tripped some more people, on two separate occasions doing this while they were being pursued by someone from the police.

He could only hope that the police weren't getting suspicious about it. Then again, tripping people was the most low-visibility manoeuvre in his arsenal. It's not like he could yeet things to people without making it clear that there is someone out there doing those deeds.

He might not have an occasion to become a true - public - superhero. His power hit the dreaded plateau. No more doubling his carrying power within a week, he only got a few more kilograms over the last few days.

Mei calculated things for him and decided that the triple telekinetic barrier should be able to stop a small arms fire. For as long as they weren't fired from up close. But he couldn't hold that for long and he couldn't make it omnidirectional. And the criminals were running around with assault rifles (mostly leftovers from the wartime) nowadays.

If he can't make himself bulletproof, he can forget about becoming a real-world superman. His career would be extremely short.

That's when Mei decided to video chat with him. Bringing news.

(***)

"Alright, Defiaaaant-kun." Mei announces from the screen of his new laptop (he is still figuring out how to tell his mother that he has it, for now, he keeps it hidden when not in use and when she is around). "I have good news and bad news. What should I start with?"

"Uhm…" Izuku thinks it's pretty awkward to be having a video chat while wearing his disguise, but he still didn't get around to telling Hatsume who he actually is. "Hatsume-san, are you… are you naked?"

He could only see the top of her shoulders and her head (plus some workshop background behind her). But the top of her shoulders was almost certainly NOT clothed. And that was a terrible thing when facing a kid who recently began to be very conscious about girls.

Mei looked down beyond the screen's edge.

"Uhm, I guess so?" She doesn't seem particularly fazed by that. "Oh! I was changing from pajamas to my normal clothes this morning, and I think I forgot about the second part of that process. So I only took the clothes off without replacing them."

"Hatsume-san." Izuku says with his eyes now closed. "It's 8pm." He is thoroughly exasperated and perhaps a bit red under his disguise.

Let's be real. He is extremely red under his disguise.

"It's Mei for you, Mr. Superhero." She promptly replies. "Also… ugh, give me a moment. I'll wear something if it's that much of a problem."

Mei. On a first-name basis. With a girl. That he (almost) saw naked just now. Ohhh, Izuku is going to die so much.

She returned a few minutes later, wearing her standard pair of workshop overalls. Plus some goggles, though those are resting on the top of her head. Her (special) eyes are on the display.

Does she have anything more than that in her wardrobe?

"So, Defiant-kun." She grins at him through the screen. "Good news or bad news."

It's always a good idea to have some good news to distract you after you just heard something pretty bad. Or so he thinks.

"Give me the bad news, M...Mei." He says it. Victory! A small one, but still. Mei doesn't seem to notice that.

"Well, I MIGHT have found someone like us." She announces. That sounds like good news, so unless she messed up, there was going to be a 'but' moment. "And in your city, imagine my surprise. The problem is… the yakuza might be holding them against their will."

Yeah. 'But' moment at its earnest.

"Yakuza?" Izuku asks. He has some grasp over the situation in the city of Takoba. And the entire prefecture, but to a smaller degree. Not the police-level of knowledge, but he knew a few things. "Which clan?"

"Apparently the Shie Hasseikai."

That's bad news. Those guys meant business. The firefight Izuku ran into was between the police and one of their hideouts. Apparently, a split group - since the Shie Hasseikai didn't peddle drugs - but many people thought that was bullshit and a PR stunt. That they peddled them, just officially through 'split' groups that they mysteriously did nothing against.

"That's… not good at all." Izuku admits. "What do you know?"

"Well, I've made a sweet little bot that searches through the internet for words like 'freak', 'weirdo' and so on being used in greater numbers." Mei replies. "Plus an AI to sift through the result and dropkick 99% of them out of the window. There is apparently a girl within Shie Hasseikai that has been referred to as 'freak' and some derivatives of that repeatedly by some clan members. Someone seemed to be surprised why the boss was even keeping her around, but that message was swiftly erased. Still, someone's terrible at information security."

"Yeah, they really shouldn't be talking about stuff like that on the internet." Izuku sighs. "Why do you think she is being held against her will?"

"Well…" She scratches her chin for a few seconds while looking around from the screen. It's her thinking pose. Izuku knows her that much. "You know that I'm supposed to help you do the investigation bits, right? So yeah, I've been looking into that for like a week now. It's mostly online stuff, but I might have hacked into some CCTV cameras, maybe even illegally deployed a recon drone…"

"Mei…" Izuku is about to protest, but she doesn't give him the time he needs.

"... and I'm almost certain that the girl is kept imprisoned or at least abused." Mei continues. "She is extremely skittish, accompanied by gang members on the rare occasions where she is allowed to leave the Shie Hasseikai headquarters AND clearly terrified of them. On one occasion there was a police patrol passing by them, and one of the yakuza grabbed the girl by the arm and kept her pinned in place. So it's possible that he was afraid that she would leap at the patrol and ask for help."

"Alright, that DOES sound pretty incriminating." Izuku admits. "But I really don't think that the Shie Hasseikai is in my league. Kai Chisaki has a… reputation."

"Well, I don't think that the local police will start that war, seeing as how they are casually ignoring Chisaki's existence." Mei promptly replies. "Also, the girl in question looks like she is six or seven years old."

Mei was clearly banking on his heroic drive. Unfortunately, she was right to do that.

"Okay." He admits. "That does sound concerning. Even if she isn't like us, someone should help her." But how? Oh, he has an idea. "Listen, do you think she can read?"

"She seems to." She replies, looking at him curiously. "Or, at least, I'm guessing. She was staring intensely at some written advertisements while away from the Shie Hasseikai's main compound. Why do you ask?"

"Well, I'm not going to randomly kidnap her without figuring out if she wants out." Izuku replies. "And this might help confirm that."

"Uh-mhm." She shrugs. "Well, the point is, you should probably try to NOT do whatever you are planning to do if Chisaki is around. I suspect he is your first supervillain."

"You're kidding." Izuku stares at her for a few seconds. "Really? I mean, I heard the spooky tales about him being some sort of horrific murderous fiend, but… he is still walking around because no one ever found any evidence of his supposed crimes. "

"Yeah, same." Mei replies. She must have done some digging on her own. "Check this out."

Suddenly, there was a video recording. CCTV camera, no doubt. Late evening, the street is mostly empty. A group of people were walking down the pavement to the right - for as much as Izuku could tell, they looked tough. He recognized Chisaki walking in the middle.

Suddenly, some thugs made them visible. They looked drunk, probably some small-time troublemakers from the backstreet (Takoba had a lot of those in the worse districts). They appeared to have been making their way towards the Chisaki's group.

There was no scuffle. Some of the yakuza(?) guys persuaded the thugs to screw off. Thugs didn't want to fight people armed with guns. Especially if they found out who was among them. Then the recording ended.

"Mei, I'm not sure what you were trying to…" He says, and she sighs at him.

"Once again, but look at Chisaki's hands." She replays the video. This time, Izuku knows where to look.

"Is he… taking gloves off?" The quality was rather bad, but the motions seemed to show that. Chisaki did that when the drunks popped up. Then, when they went away, it looked like he was putting the gloves back on. "Oh. Ohhhh, I get what you meant, Mei."

"You do?" She seemed vaguely surprised by that.

"Yes." He nods. "If he expected a fight and wanted to leave no fingerprints, he would put the gloves on for the fight, rather than the other way around. So you suspect he has some… touch-based, combat-oriented superpower. He took the gloves off to use it if there was a fight."

This time, she blinks at him a few times rapidly. Is she really THAT surprised by him catching up with her?

"Yes, precisely!" She finally erupts. "Damn, I love working with smart people. And this brings us to the good news." She grins at him. "I finished your little support item. Everything is up to specs. Where can you pick it up?"

(***)

The real problem with the investigation was that he had to be sneaky about it. Switching to different hoodies wasn't exactly his definition of sneaky, although Mei's remote help from her Kyoto's little workshop was a lifesaver.

The girl had an odd hair colour (was that some sort of superpower tell? But Chisaki had normal colour) and something resembling a horn. That was an even greater sign of something amiss.

She seemed to wear a mask, one adding a second (fake) horn. Smart. It made her look like a cosplayer. But once or twice it fell off, right in time to be picked up by a camera.

Izuku didn't like the way her yakuza bodyguards were acting around her when that happened. It counted as manhandling, really. They pulled her back to her feet and shoved the mask back into its place. At one time, she was clearly crying, but they ignored it completely.

Despite all of that, he still wasn't ready to just randomly kidnap her. That could go extremely hairy if she (and some victims were like that, at least on TV) didn't want to be saved. He wasn't risking a war with the Shie Hasseikai just to get caught because a girl had Stockholm's Syndrome.

He wrote a letter. Well, it was just a few words. A question of if she wants to be saved, and how she could let him know. He also told her to destroy the letter after reading it. Then he sneakily levitated the letter into her pocket.

She tripped right after leaving the compound a week later. Exactly where he told her to do if she really wanted to be saved. In front of a CCTV camera that Mei had access to.

The second letter told her to wait for a few days. Izuku had to make some arrangements.

(***)

"Alright, Mei." Izuku braced himself for yet another talk about business with the crazy inventor. "I have a question for yooooo… you forgot your clothes again."

"Oops?" She appeared to be at least remotely ashamed this time. This is more surprising than the fact that she video phoned him without her clothes on. Again.

(***)

The day before the planned time of the operation, Izuku finds himself at the doorstep of the home that he didn't expect to visit ever again.

It's in a much more wealthy neighbourhood than the one Izuku is living in currently. Or, to be exact, it declined significantly less. Despite it being only a few streets away. Life is sometimes so unfair.

He also used hair dye on himself for the first time. Oh, joy. His hair was temporarily back to its natural black colour. If it still counted as natural.

He pushed the doorbell button in. And waited for half a minute before the door in front of him opened.

"Who is…" Mitsuki Bakugou says in her typical, slightly angry tone, before freezing in place. "Izuku?"

She didn't expect to see him or his mother ever again. Not after what her son did. She especially didn't expect to have Izuku willingly come to her home.

"Can I come in?" Izuku replies. He is already changing into a proper vigilante. He feels too exposed on the street without wearing his disguise.

He still didn't figure out how to explain it all to his mother without making her freak out. In the meantime, some white lies will do it. Eventually, he'll figure something out. He's certain of that.

(***)

"Izuku, I…" Mitsuki tries to say when they sit together in the living room. It's evening, so her husband is there as well. Just… silent and observant. He is like that.

"I don't want to talk about that." Izuku cuts her off. He is probably the only person - save for his mom - that can do that and get away with his life and body intact. "Katsuki made his own decisions. I blame him for that. I don't blame anyone else."

There is a telling lack of Bakugou Katsuki in the family pictures he can see from his seat. He still remembers Auntie Mitsuki telling him to the face that she would fight for him to hell and back if he as much as admitted that he did something wrong. But he didn't. So he was no longer her son.

He doesn't want to go back to that. The scars go too deep. They all have those.

"Then… why did you come?" It's Masaru, oddly enough.

"Auntie Mitsuki promised me something back then." He refers to her as he did in the past. He really wants to bury the hatchet. "You said that you're willing to do anything to make up for what your son did. I… came to collect on that promise."

He is nervous. Incredibly so. He is playing a dangerous game here. But while Izuku Midoriya would freak out, Defiant wouldn't. So he plays along with his superhero (more like supervigilante) self.

They exchange slightly worried glances.

"Izuku, you aren't doing anything… illegal, right?" Mitsuki asks, and Izuku can understand where that comes from.

What is he supposed to answer? Yes, I do. I'm a vigilante with superpowers, who is about to kidnap someone from under the nose of the most dangerous man in Musutafu. That also might or might not possess a superpower.

Mitsuki still has Inko's number. He would be under house arrest until his death of old age. He might be an adult (technically), but he can't fight his mom. Not without being able to live independently. His medical issues and lack of income ensured that it wasn't an option.

"It… depends on the definition." Izuku settles on giving them some half-truths. "There is a girl that's being abused and was probably kidnapped, but nobody is doing a thing. And I can't go to the police, because her kidnapper is… powerful. Influential. They won't help, or it will just make things worse. Someone I know…" His own alternate persona, to be clear. "... thinks that he can help her escape. But we need a place for her to hide. We don't know for how long, but…"

"Izuku…" Mitsuki says. "I…" On her face, a mixture of worry and refusal.

"She is six years old, Auntie." Izuku replies in a hurry. "Six years old and wants to be saved. Needs to be saved. Please."

The Bakugous exchange glances. He is asking for a lot. He knows about it. But they owe him a lot, and… considering what Katsuki did, they have a soft spot for abuse victims.

"Izuku." Mitsuki finally speaks. "I already fucked up with my parenting once. I don't want to do that again."

"I kinda hoped that you learned what NOT to do, Auntie." He replies. Harsh, but…

(***)

Somehow, they agree. He has to lie to them so he won't be in danger. And they tell him to his face that if he misunderstood the situation, they won't be sticking their heads for him. He agrees to that. If something like that happens, this talk never happened.

He has everything prepared for the Save One-Horned (explaining that part to Bakugous' is going to be just great) Girl From Yakuza Operation.

All that's left is to do the fieldwork.

(***)

Four thuggish men escorted the girl out of the compound. He does not know why she is let out like that occasionally. Chisaki's conscience is acting out occasionally? At least once it was to buy her some new clothes. Weird.

He probably wants to keep her alive. Some daylight is healthy.

They don't know that there is a small drone over their heads. Izuku follows them out of eyesight, Mei telling him where to go through the internet. He has a pair of wireless earphones that she can talk through from her lab.

Finally, they are on the street that appears mostly empty. But with some side alleys to lunge into, once the deed is done. He runs forward, bringing them into the effective range of his powers.

He tugs the girl's arm twice. She knows what that means, so she looks around and sees the figure in a hoodie. She immediately runs toward him, the thugs shouting at her to stop or else.

They stop quickly. Defiant's first support item is a pair of small, circular disks that act as tasers when they touch someone. They activate automatically on contact, and 'arm' themselves when they leave the one-meter range away from the belt that they are normally attached to. Izuku sends one per thug.

They didn't notice that each of them had a single one of those floating above their heads when the girl bolted off.

Everything according to plan.

"Are you alright?" He says to the girl when she lunges at him and hugs him. She is… slightly hysteric. She is crying. He isn't surprised.

"I want… I want to go back to my mommy!" He can hear her answer. Her head turns upward, and he finally sees her face up close. Including the horn. "Please, help me!"

Having a place to bring her back to would be helpful. IF Chisaki can't find her there. Otherwise…

"Shit, behind you!" He hears in his headphones. He turns his head to see Kai Chisaki (wearing his signature fur collar, black dress shirt and matching pants) and some of his henchmen leaving a car.

So much about the plan.

The girl freezes with an expression of horror on her face. Izuku doesn't waste time. He immediately grabs her and bolts into one of the side alleys. With a yakuza on his tail.

(***)

Chisaki corners him three minutes later.

"I gotta say…" Kai Chisaki, the current clan head of the Shie Hasseikai and the unspoken boogeyman of the prefecture, says while eyeing Izuku curiously. "... I suspected that something was amiss. Eri was acting too… hopeful recently. So I tagged along with her. But I expected one of her guards to develop a conscience all of a sudden, and not… who the hell are you, even?"

The alleyway he ran into turned out to be a dead end. There is a large wall, a metal dumpster - and a terrified child - behind him. Chisaki and two of his men are blocking the only way out.

Chisaki took off his gloves. Mei is freaking out. Izuku is freaking out as well, but in a quieter way.

"Defiant." Izuku replies loudly. Chisaki stares at him oddly. "Do you know what it means to be piggybacking someone, Eri?" He now knows her name. And he is going to use that. He said that quietly and turned his head just enough to see her scarce nod. "Climb up on me. I promise you that everything will be alright."

"So we are speaking in English now?" Chisaki chuckles, calmly observing Eri's attempt to climb the hooded figure in front of him. Then he freezes for a second. "Wait, you think you are a superhero or something? Well, let me enlighten you a bit, then." He squats down and touches the pavement underneath him.

Something in the ground shifts. Izuku expected that when he saw Chisaki move, so he immediately lifts off. The cement spikes erupting from the floor that would have massacred his legs to miss their mark entirely.

"What the…" Chisaki's eyes widen. Izuku doesn't give him time to respond. Instead, he propels the empty dumpster at him with his powers.

Without a second of hesitation, Chisaki grabs one of his henchmen and uses him as a living shield. The man screams as he bears the brunt of the impact. A split second later, the dumpster ceased to exist. Small parts of it - little more than finger-sized bits of metal - are scattered on the pavement.

The henchman drops to the ground. He is still moving but is bleeding heavily, and his arms are broken. Probably some ribs, if not more.

Izuku is terrified. Did he almost… did he possibly…

"Looks like one more freak out there, Defiant." Chisaki chuckles darkly. His eyes are locked onto Izuku, and he immediately understands that he won't win that fight. His body screams at him to run. "I guess I'll just reassemble her once I'm done with you."

He extended his hand to touch the wall of the building next to them. Izuku, for a second, panics and tries to pull Chisaki away from the wall.

And loses control.

It happened in a blink of an eye. For a split second, the world around him looked different. It was empty but full. His power grew stronger. Way stronger.

Instead of holding Chisaki in place, he slammed him into the wall on the opposite side of the alleyway. With enough strength to shatter bones. His limbs bend at impossible angles, his left arm (it hit the wall first) was practically missing.

His body… ruptured, for the lack of a better word. There was a large blood smear on the wall, with bits of…

Izuku almost vomited into his mask. The girl behind him screamed. The remaining henchman yelled something in horror.

Two seconds later Chisaki reappeared at the alleyway, wearing bloody tatters of his clothes. His body… did he repair himself? How? What was his power?!

"Shit." Chisaki curses… and then glares at Izuku with pure murder written on his face. "Of all the people out there, I had to run into someone this powerful. A genuine wanna-be superhero." He chuckles menacingly. "Well, then I guess this makes me a supervillain, huh? I should pick a proper villain name, I guess. How about Overhaul? That's how I refer to my power, either way."

"Boss…" His henchman has a gun in his hand. Izuku has his barriers up, but…

"No." Chisaki (Overhaul?) interrupts him. "That stunt took a lot from me. I'm not sure if I can heal her back without… defects. We can't risk damaging her. The hero won today." Chisaki gives Izuku a cold, murderous stare. "You better hide well, Defiant. Because I'm going to find you. And then she'll get to see me slowly and painfully murder you, your family, your friends, your pets, and anyone who ever smiled at you."

Izuku has never moved so fast in his life.

(***)

To quote more AO3 tags: "Overhaul is more evil than in canon" "yes that's possible". He is only getting started. Although his motivations and goals will be a bit different this time around.