Jowen2713 - Oh, I know. I know. I've wrote the 'more evil than in canon' tag while knowing the events until chapter 20 and the general outline of story for at least twice that time. Give him the time to start rolling properly :P
Guest - ;) looking forward to that as well.
(***)
Eri was hugging him like she was a koala and he was her favourite tree. She was absolutely not letting him go. It was cute, if you ignored her quiet sobbing.
Mei - oddly quiet and on-point - instructed him how to avoid the CCTV cameras on the way to Bakugous. Trying to explain to them what happened was going to be a pain.
Could he even keep hiding all that? Probably. For how long? Hopefully, as long as possible.
"Eri, are you alright?" He asked one street away from Bakugou's house.
"Y...yes." She replied after two seconds. "Th… thank you so much, I..."
He put her down. This was a quiet street, and he really had to have a talk with her.
"Eri." He kneeled in front of her and wiped her tears. She gave him a pained smile. "Listen. I got you away from Chisaki. We can't go to the police. There is a nice family living here that promised to take care of you and keep you hidden from him for a while. I promise that I'll do my best to find your mom, alright?"
She nods fervently. Izuku isn't particularly hopeful on that field. Chisaki/Overhaul doesn't feel like someone to leave loose ends. And if she failed to protect her once, she'll probably fail to protect her again. But Eri clearly needs those words.
"They don't know about the superpowers." He continues. "If they ask, Chisaki stole you from your mommy and tried to… touch you. He also beat you up when you fought back. Alright?" She nods. She does not know what 'touch you' means, but Bakugous will. Besides, he probably touched her, if only to use his power on her. "Your horn is just birth defect that doesn't require any medical attention. Also, it wasn't me who saved you, but one of Chisaki's men. All that I did was to take you from him and bring you here, alright? Can you stick to that?"
"I will!" She leans forward and hugs him. He hugs her back. "You're… you're like a superhero, right? From the cartoons? You have to keep your name secret from the world, yes?"
Oh. She is smart. And Izuku feels warm on the inside. He is an actual hero to someone now. More than that - a superhero.
"Yes, Eri." He pats her head. "I'm a superhero. But before that… could you tell me why he was holding you there? And what was he doing to you?"
Five minutes later, Izuku realizes he is deep in shit. And that Overhaul is now his personal nemesis.
(***)
He knocks on Bakugou's door, holding Eri in his arms. She is hugging him as well, and she seems to tuck as deep into him as she can.
Izuku has also taken off his mask. And everything else that suggested that he took part in the operation. Thankfully, when he exploded Chisaki, the man was far enough for the blood to not land on either of them.
Mitsuki is giving them both worried looks when she is letting them in.
"Where…" He is about to ask, but she interrupts.
"Katsuki's old room." She replies quickly. He knows where that is. He carries Eri up the stairs.
The room is devoid of anything that could remind onlookers of Bakugou Katsuki. It's rather… impersonal. They probably used it as a guest room.
He lets her out, pats her head again (and gets another grateful hug) and tells her he has to talk with the house owners and that he'll come to visit her in a day or two. She promises him she'll behave and once again tearfully thanked him for getting her out of that horrible place.
Mitsuki is oddly silent. It's Masaru that takes the lead. Completely unexpected.
"Izuku." He asks when Izuku goes down the stairs. "We need to talk for a second." He expected that much.
"Let me guess…" Izuku decides to finish this quickly and go home to rest. "You want to know something more about her?"
He made them think he didn't know details about her during their first talk. Naturally, they expected some answers.
Masaru nods. Mitsuki observes them from behind him.
"Her name's Eri." Izuku replies. "She doesn't enjoy being touched without her permission. She likes sweet food. As of today, she is also on the run from Kai Chisaki, leader of the Shie Hasseikai yakuza clan and de facto head of the organized crime in this prefecture." He can see their eyes widen. "He didn't respect the 'no-touching' rule."
Something flashes on their faces. Something distinctly unnice. Something that reminds Izuku of Katsuki. But in a good way. If there is such a way for such a reminiscence.
"I'll try to find her parents. Or a way to get her out of the prefecture without Chisaki noticing." He tells them. "In the meantime, keep her hidden. No one can know she is here. Especially with how… distinct her looks are. She is used to not going out often, either way."
"Very well." Masaru answers. "I still think that you should find someone trustworthy in the police to help you, but… we'll do our best for the time being."
Blackmailing them with guilt isn't very heroic. But it works.
(***)
He comes home deadly tired. His legs are still shaking a bit. He is telling himself that the henchman that Chisaki used as a living shield survived because otherwise Izuku just killed someone.
Chisaki certainly healed him after Izuku fled the scene, right?
He doesn't want to become a murderer. Especially not so early in his career. Eventually, yeah. He isn't a Batman with his staunch 'no-kill' rule. He knows that eventually, an accident will happen. Someone will force him to choose between some lives of innocents - and theirs. Or he'll encounter someone too dangerous to be left alive. But so quickly?
Izuku Midoriya isn't ready. He is still a teenager at heart (on the verge of becoming a young adult) who has barely begun to notice the girls exist and is still living in fictional worlds. He isn't ready to be a murderer.
Then again, Chisaki could have dodged instead. Using one of his men as a living shield was merely one option. That he picked it said a lot about him.
Mom is waiting for him. From one problem to another.
"Izuku." She says, looking at him over the table. "We need to talk."
Not again.
"Can we do that tomorrow, mom?" It's late evening already. And it was a busy day for him. "I'm exhausted." He also has to have a serious talk with Mei. About what happened. He didn't like how quiet she turned at the end.
"No." She replies promptly and Izuku realizes he is in trouble. Only now does he notice that his laptop - the one thing that he tried to keep secret from her - is lying on the table in front of her.
Oh no.
At least his vigilante gear wasn't there. If she found that… the bad end of his career would be guaranteed. He needs to find a safehouse, a hideout to keep his gear and so on away from prying eyes. But how to keep it safe?
"Oh, you found it." He scratches his chin. "Wait, did you search through my room while I was away?" At least she didn't access it. His password is 26 letters long, and only half of it is actually words. Good luck guessing it.
"Yes." She replies without a second of hesitation. "You're constantly away from home. You aren't telling me anything. You have a laptop that you certainly didn't have money to buy. Izuku, baby, did you…" Her expressions soften. She is trying to put up a stern face, but it's obvious that she is worried more than angry.
"Mom, I didn't join a gang!" He replies quickly and recoils in shock from the unspoken accusation. It hurts a small bit that it's on the table.
Technically, his words are true. Unless you count him and Mei working together to beat nasty people up a gang.
"The laptop is a gift from someone I met on the internet." He continues his answer. "They got a better one and when they heard that I have financial problems, they sent me their old one. I hid it, because…" The best part? He doesn't have to pretend he is ashamed. "I… figured that you would tell me to give it back."
Bakugous offered to help them financially many times. Guilt-driven, but… they were way better off than Midoriyas'. Mom refused, even before she severed contact officially. She was rather adamant about not lowering themselves that far. Everything they owned, they earned.
She says nothing for a few long seconds.
"And your… absences?" Yeah, thankfully, he also had an explanation for that.
"Well, do you remember the Takoba Municipal Beach Park?" He quickly replies and she nods. "I've been… I've been cleaning it up. Not much. My health doesn't allow it, just a few small things here and there. Community service, I guess. I didn't want anyone to know. You would be worried about me working too hard… "And she would probably accompany him, thus stopping him from testing the limits of his telekinesis. "... and others would… well, I'm not doing this to be famous or anything."
The best part of that? He is technically telling the truth. He did clear a small section of the landfill. He does plan to continue doing this in his spare time. Eventually, he will lose his preferred training place, but he will still do something good that way. He likes that.
Inko's face softens even further. Izuku isn't surprised when she stands up, closes the distance, and then hugs him with tearful eyes.
"Izuku!" She tells loudly. "You should have told me about that! I wouldn't force you to throw away a gift from your friend!" She is probably too happy about him having a friend to consider that. If she knew the friend was a girl… ouch. "And I'm very proud of you for trying to clean that landfill, just… please don't overwork yourself, alright?"
She is worried about him. He understands. Thankfully, he has a superpower now. He could easily clean the whole place in a few months. It's just… not exactly a priority.
"I won't, mom." He smiles at her. There is guilt in his heart. He is lying to her, even if mostly by omission. He hates that. "I promise you that much."
(***)
He videophones Mei when mom stops being all around him.
She is wearing her clothes now. And seems slightly shaken.
"What happened, Mei?" He asks immediately. In response, she stares at him as if he said something stupid.
"What happened? WHAT HAPPENED?!" At least he is wearing headphones. If mom heard a girl's voice coming from his room… and she is pretty loud right now. "I saw your fight from the drone. It was… shit, I don't even know what to think about this!" She drives her fingers deep into her hair. Her dreadlocks are slowly getting disassembled before the cameras.
"Mei…" He tries to interrupt her, but he fails. She doesn't even notice him.
"You almost died!" She yells at him. "I mean, I kind of expected that you'd risk your life, being a superhero and stuff, but… seeing you almost die from the drone and not being able to do anything… how are you so calm?!"
"I'm not." He replies, looking away from the screen. "I'm tired, mentally exhausted, terrified that I might have accidentally killed someone, terrified that I lost control of my powers for a second and this might happen again, my legs are still shaking a bit from the stress AND I might have peed myself slightly when I slammed Chisaki into the wall and he… kinda… gored on me." She blinks at him a few times. "Also, I might have blackmailed someone with guilt to take care of the girl for the time being AND lied to my mom by omission to explain what I'm doing in my spare time. I'm…" He sighs. "I just didn't have time to think about it earlier. That girl… Eri… needed help."
There is silence for at least ten seconds. Mei seems to be digesting his words. Izuku is trying not to look at the screen.
"I should have expected that your first bout with a supervillain wouldn't end nicely." She says finally, slightly deflating in her seat. "We were a bit too… optimistic about this whole thing, or at least I was. Guess my mom's right when she says that the world is more complicated than I think."
She wanted to make cool tools. She just confronted the reality of what said tools would be used for. She had some mixed feelings about reality.
"Not only you." Izuku replies with a painful sigh. "Chisaki, no, Overhaul, he was… he would have killed me if not for that power boost out of nowhere. He has a small army at his beck and call. He used someone as a human shield without a second of hesitation. I had my eighteenth birthday two months ago, and… well… I think I'm going to need more allies. And avoid him until I'm certain that I can fight him. At least the girl is safe for now."
"The girl." Mei latches onto that subject with unexpected ferocity. "What about her?"
"She is with a family I know." Izuku promptly replies. "You were right. She is an ability holder. And probably a cornerstone of Chisaki's world domination plans. She can chronologically rewind people she touches. When she activates it, she turns your clock back for hours per second, without altering your memories. Chisaki planned to force-train her until the ability would get stronger and then he would turn Shie Hasseikai into a criminal superpower by selling her out to wealthy people wanting to live forever."
"Oh my god." Mei stares at him. "The abilities can affect TIME? Holy shit. I thought yours was overpowered, but that… it throws my every theoretical model of the influence superpowers will have on the world after their reveal to the dustbin. How the hell does that even work?!"
"I have absolutely no clue." Izuku replies honestly. "But Overhaul will keep looking for her. He told me to my face that he will find her and then he'll kill me, my family, my friends and even my pets, not like I have any, in front of her." Mei stares at him in silent horror. "And his ability is probably more powerful and broken than hers."
"What is it?" Mei asks. "You saw it up close, and I'm starting to think that you have a knack for power analysis." He probably did. He has no idea. The sample wasn't large enough. He knew, what? Four powers by now? But his dissection of his own power impressed Mei.
"I believe he can instantly disassemble and reassemble whatever object he is touching. The latter while altering it according to his whims." Izuku replies. "He disassembled the dumpster into small bits of metal. He disassembled and instantly reassembled the floor to create those spikes. He reassembled himself to heal his injuries after I smashed him into the wall, and considering what he said about Eri, I think he can heal others as well. And I'm almost certain that he is using this ability to destroy or manipulate whatever material evidence his crimes are leaving."
"Fuck." That was the sharpest curse that ever came from Mei's mouth in Izuku's presence. "So he is practically a god to whatever he touches."
"One way of saying it." Izuku replies. "But practically speaking, yeah. I should have an upper hand in certain circumstances, considering my affinity for ranged combat and evasion, but… I will not use Eri as a living shield. And otherwise, he'll just have his henchmen shoot me and call it a day."
Izuku, as stated multiple times, wasn't bulletproof. That was a problem.
"You were right." Mei says with a scarce nod. "You're going to need allies. I'll keep looking for potential ability users. In the meantime…" She pauses for a second or two, trying to think something through. "I think I want to join your superhero team properly."
"What?"
"Defiant-kun." She says slowly. "I know I told you I'm in for money and fame. And that's still true. But I just saw you save a little girl from something horrible by using one of my inventions. For as much as I'm horrified by having to see you have a run-in with death from a drone camera, you were absolutely awesome. So now I also want to help you save as many people as you can with my creations. I guess I have three reasons to be helping you now."
Izuku didn't expect that vote of confidence.
He was still shaken internally, but… he didn't just save someone. He actually moved someone's heart. That was… nice. Something that he didn't expect himself to achieve in his life. He always thought of himself as a side character.
"Do you have a hero name in mind?" He asks.
"Those powers are absolute bullshit from a scientific point of view." She replies. "Frankly , you could make a religion out of them. Someone out there is probably doing it right now. But I'm still a girl of science. So how about a small throwback to the times where both those things were fused together?" She gives him a faint smile. "I want to go by the hero name of Alchemist."
(***)
"Hari." Kai Chisaki says to his second-in-command. He is back at his headquarters, having just murdered the four fools that let the girl slip away.
He is sitting behind his desk, having finished whatever thought process he focused on during the last two hours.
"Yes, boss?" Kurono normally is a rather talkative man. But now? Now he sees Chisaki is absolutely livid. So he keeps the words to the minimum.
They lost the girl. They lost the cornerstone of their glorious future. The promise of becoming something better than a large and well-off but still regional yakuza gang. The chance of emerging into a dominant power of the Japanese crime world.
Of course, Chisaki is furious. And he is deadly when furious.
"I came to believe that there are more people with powers like mine and Eri's out there." Chisaki says, and Kurono looks at him questioningly. "Look for Eri, but… look for others like us as well. I'm apparently a supervillain now. I need some… quality henchmen."
Oh. That was going to be interesting.
(***)
Izuku woke up in the morning, feeling narrowly better.
If you excluded the nightmares. They were some, of course. Not as bad as he expected, but… they still freaked him out a bit. Mostly about Overhaul's short-term 'death', or about the dumpster hitting his henchman.
Izuku Midoriya woke up, raised from his bed, slapped his cheeks to give himself a wake-up jolt, then started doing things.
Mei sent him a text message that she had something for him. Well, that was fast.
He sat in front of his laptop right after breakfast. She sent him a recording of his brief battle against Chisaki. With a timestamp.
It was when he 'lost control'. He dreaded watching it (way to reinvigorate the trauma, Mei), but did that in the end. Mei probably had a reason to do it.
What he didn't expect was that when he lost control, his body was briefly enveloped with some greenish electric discharges. Thankfully, Eri seemed to not be influenced by that, despite hanging onto him.
Merely a few seconds later, she sent him a message.
Alchemist: You've watched the recording. Opinions?
Defiant: When do you sleep? O_o
Alchemist: Sleep is for the weak. I do not need sleep. I need answers.
Defiant: No clue. Power-equivalent of hysterical strength? Some higher level of my ability?
Defiant: I can't rely on it if I don't know how to activate it.
Alchemist: Fair.
Alchemist: I've started working on Baby #2.
Defiant: Baby?
Alchemist: Unlike my other inventions, those are born from love. I'm going to love and cherish every single one of them. Hence, babies.
Defiant: Oh, ok?
Alchemist: I need your exact measurements. I'm going to make a copy of your hoodie, but with some actual protection.
Defiant: How are you going to make a hoodie into armour? D:
Alchemist: carbon-fibre-reinforced polymers
Alchemist: That's how
Alchemist: Don't expect your new hoodie to bounce off assault rifle bullets, but I should make it somewhat knife-proof (though it will depend on many factors, such as attackers strength - there is probably someone out there with strength-enhancing ability, I can't factor that). Maybe fireproof, too.
Alchemist: Plus, if a bullet goes through your multiple-barrier, it might lose enough momentum to be stopped by the hoodie.
Alchemist: Permissions to make a helmet that makes you look like you are wearing a facemask under a hood but it's actually a helmet? Aesthetics and so on.
Defiant: Sure, sure. Thank you. How's your hunt for ability users?
Alchemist: Nothing as concrete as Eri, but I'll send you some case files.
(***)
Mei's ability to compile data was rather terrifying. She would make a damn fine private investigator, in Izuku's opinion. If she was willing to leave her lab and interact with humans that weren't her favourite superhero.
In the end, she got him several potential leads. Every one was extremely faint, however.
For example, several people claimed to have seen some sort of monster living in the river going through Musutafu, typically somewhere near one of the mostly abandoned districts, an hour of walk away from Izuku's home.
He wasn't sure why it was abandoned. Too much infrastructure damage during the war, probably? Half of the buildings were ruined, the other half had neither water nor electricity. People mostly fled the area when Musutafu was retaken by the GSDF. The government had it on the restoration list, but no one knew how long it would take for the reconstruction to start.
No one was certain how the monster looked, but apparently, it stuck to the riverside. If not the river itself. Mostly at night. Izuku would gladly patrol that area - it sounded like a sensible place for an ability-user to be hiding from attention - but how was he supposed to sneak out of home at night?
Late evenings, maybe? Maybe if he said that he is staying at a friend's house? Not like he has any. Would she ask about a said friend? Probably. That would be awkward.
Then there was a case about a supposed vampire stalking Hosu streets at night. Not THAT far away from Musutafu. Another city in the same prefecture, in fact. He could go there, but… how is he supposed to find a single person IN AN ENTIRE CITY? Unlike the riverside monster, he didn't have the area in question narrowed down at all for that one.
Someone has also filmed a tree floating in the air in some woods in Musutafu Prefecture. Izuku would lose his way instantly if he went there. He really wasn't a woodland person. Then again, he COULD technically just fly over the trees, right? That was an option.
The separate category was the villain cases. Well, the vampire one was technically close to this one (no one was sure if someone was actually attacked, but there were serious suspicions that this was the case, Hosu was an absolute mess and you get away with everything as long as you kept away from the few remaining redoubts of the local police force).
A string of relatively small-time convenience store robberies (in Hosu), whose victims claimed to not remember what happened to them. Their minds just went blank, and then they woke up without their goods. Police suspected some sort of stun gas but found nothing. Mei had another idea - that some sort of superpower was used.
A long series of particularly violent murders, accompanied by whispers about some unstoppable monster perpetrating them. The victims were mostly mobsters, but also some apparent martial artists. The murders were happening in this prefecture and the neighbouring ones. Some dojo was apparently completely trashed, and everyone inside was murdered by being beaten into a bloody pulp.
An incident in a small town in Shizuoka, where someone apparently discharged a poison gas at school (killing twenty-seven people), but Mei found signs that the analysis of the gas in question was completely inconclusive and didn't seem to fit any known chemical compound That alone suggested something odd at play. Especially as no terror group admitted to being responsible for the attack (or, at least, none of those that claimed appeared to be actually responsible).
A family house turned to dust half a year ago. Explosion at the youth detention centre. Gossips of a monster stalking the woods in Niigata Mountains. Particularly bloody vigilante targeting criminals in Tokyo, single-handedly (if the gossips were true) massacring leadership of some yakuza clan. Serial arsonist setting houses on fire (no one was sure why, but apparently the flames were unexpectedly hot - hot enough to be blue - and that brought Mei's attention to the case), killing many people during the last two years.
How people out there were yet to figure out that something's odd about all of that was a secret. The war messed up the world, but clearly, some people up there were still trying to figure out answers to odd events here and there, right?
He had a lot of work. Worst of all, he did not know where to start. Oh, joy.
(***)
Feel free to speculate who is who from the last bit of the text. Also Eri Gets a Hug (and that's important!), and Overhaul starts his journey from nightmare to an even worse nightmare.