IT'S UNEXPECTED EARLY UPDATE TIME. Thursday Evening instead of Friday Morning. I want tomorrow free from 'work'. Also I hate myself because another major character from canon is going to make an appearance in this chapter and I completely forgot to give you guys and gals the guesswork time about it. My bad.
Guest - Izuku is clearly not very comfortable with the horny, all I can say xD Even his Terror Energy in that chapter was motivated by his preciousness.
Trixuny - :P
Raw666 - I'm not saying anything, because it would spoil probably the biggest plottwist reveal in the history of my fics.
Egg - Thank you for the cookie! :D
Hayesjensen - And I'm slowly writing another fic at the side, where Thunderbolt's even more f_d than in average. Heh.
(***)
The mystery of Haru Toyoda's death has only added more questions. Answers were… suspiciously scarce nowadays.
Izuku returned home. Mei was waiting for that - they had a lot to catch up on. Tsuyu decided that the Saturday and Sunday nights are something that she'll be spending in Uraraka Ochaco's bed.
She needed to have a friend next to her to feel less lonely at night. The fact that Uraraka needed someone to not be so lonely herself (or so Tsuyu claimed) only made it more logical. Uraraka seemed to not have any issues with that.
Then again, Uraraka seemed to find very few issues with anything.
Saturday eventually came and went. Pinky's hero uniform was close to being ready (having access to Maijima's laboratory and some competent workers sped things up).
Mei was at this point done with the designs for the hero uniforms of Earworm and Eclipse, neither of them requiring anything particularly unique. In all honesty, the communication and identity concealing (plus limited ability to repel bullets and knives) were the whole point of them.
Tornado and Amplitude were having their outfits designed by Mei right now. Their uniforms were going to be a bit more… gimmicky. The two not-yet-named members (namely, Momo and Tokoyami) were still waiting for their turn.
Tsuyu was an enigma. Mei had some ideas about a uniform for her, but to actually test it… well, Kappa would have to agree to wear some clothes. Even underwater. That was still a problematic subject.
Then Sunday came.
(***)
Aizawa Shouta has some distinctly mixed feelings about Yokumiru Mera. Oh, he was decent enough as a head of the police department at Aldera city, AND he looked like he was suffering from terminal insomnia (in a way, Aizawa's mood kindred).
The real problem was that Yokumiru Mera was a suit. As an administrator and organizer, he was excellent. There was no absolutely no doubt about it. If Mera offered Aizawa to inspect the work in his precinct and suggest some improvements, Aizawa would have been almost enthusiastic at the prospect.
It's just that his skills in regular police work were so-so. Not bad, but so-so. There was also the ages-old antipathy between the police officers in the field and the suits to consider. Which was quite sad, as Mera wasn't a bad guy. Slightly irritating occasionally, but manageable.
Unfortunately, Mera also lacked imagination. And enjoyed things going by the book, or at least in a way that was predictable. He didn't fare well with surprises. That was the chief reason Aizawa wasn't overjoyed to have to be the one to bring the news to him.
This Sunday, there was a bit of an informal meeting scheduled between Aizawa and Mera. A dinner in a restaurant in one of the safest districts of Takoba (within an earshot from the prefectural police headquarters).
An occasion to gossip about the office situations, compare some information about the ongoing investigations… and, perhaps, talk about superpowers now being a thing. Oh, joy.
Aizawa is there first. He is, well, almost the host. To his surprise, Mera doesn't arrive alone. Instead, he is accompanied by Hawks.
Well, that's the one thing that Aizawa didn't expect.
"Sup!" Chief Inspector Keigo Takami of the Musutafu SAT unit says while quickly borrowing a chair from the neighboring table and moving it over to where Aizawa sat. "Mind if I join you, old man?"
"Will my objection affect your presence here?" Aizawa replies. Hawks gives him a wry smile. Mera sighs painfully (he doesn't seem happy about Hawks's presence here, either) and sits by the table.
Most of the meetings are rather standard. Gossip is exchanged between Aizawa and Mera. They talk about some of their investigations. Hawks is mostly silent (uncharacteristically so). He probably joined in for free food.
At some point, however, Mera unleashes a bomb. One that has succeeded in completely blindsiding Aizawa.
"Beast is somewhere in Aldera." Mera says. He says so rather casually. Despite it being a vocal earthquake.
"That serial killer?" Aizawa actually blinks at Mera a few times in shock.
The word 'serial killer' fails to fully describe what sort of horrible monster the Beast was. He was almost a mass murderer at this point. He carved his way through the country, killing no less than sixty people. Including two regular massacres with close to two-digit numbers of casualties each.
And that's the confirmed murders. There might have been more. Many were probably unreported, attributed to wild beasts (the name didn't come from nowhere) or else.
"Yeah." Mera says. "We had few sightings. Including one on CCTV. One of his victims must have given him a serious fight, enough for him to lose an eye to something sharp. He probably fled here to heal in peace." Considering the fact that Beast was certainly a powerful metahuman, the person who took his eye was probably one as well.
Mera's theory made sense. Especially with Aldera being a rather calm city. It sounded like a perfect place to lie low for a while. Except, Beast's face (and name, Goto Imasuji) was well known at this point.
It's just that no one knew how the hell he was doing the things he did.
"Hawks and his team are on standby in Aldera for the past few days." Mera says, almost absentmindedly. "They're going to apprehend Imasuji when only we'll locate his hidey hole. We don't know when he moves again or commits another mass murder, so we're on a tight schedule here."
There was only one problem with that. Okay, two. Both of them meant almost guaranteed massacre of the Musutafu's SAT and who knows how many police officers and random passersby.
One, as already established, Imasuji was a metahuman. Probably as powerful as Dabi. And almost certainly (considering how many armed thugs and police officers he killed) he was bulletproof. At least against the standard ammunition.
Which meant anything beneath the level of dedicated anti-tank weaponry. Something that Hawks was clearly unaware of.
Two, there was a mole in the prefectural headquarters. Mole working for Overhaul. Chisaki was certainly looking for the Beast himself, or was waiting for him to massacre the SAT for him.
The worst-case scenario was him locating Imasuji first, and warning him about the incoming attack. Which would be the final nail to the coffin.
Well. Shit. Time to go in raw. Because if Beast massacres the local SAT… well, this is going to be a massive blow to the ability of the local police to actually fight back against the Shie Hasseikai.
"Gonna be fun." Hawks says, with his signature wry smile. The smile clearly doesn't reach his eyes.
"You're going to get massacred." Aizawa announces. "And Imasuji will run away, unhindered. Or lightly wounded."
That took them off-guard. They both know him enough to know that he isn't one to joke. And that he appears to be very serious right now.
"What do you mean?" Mera says, eyeing Aizawa strangely. "He is just one man. Dangerous, and extremely so, but only one man. And we have the entire local SAT team and…"
"You know how he did all of that." Hawks proves to be much more vigilant than most people suspect him of. His eyes are now focused on Aizawa like he was a hawk circling around his prey, ready to dive in.
"I do." Aizawa admits. "I recently got an excellent source of information. Almost government-level." Actually, more than that, but he was cautious about sharing too much. "It's just that finding a way of sharing this intel without getting laughed at is a bit… problematic."
"Look, old man." Hawks leans back in his seat. "Do you know what I do each time when I receive an info that we're about to be deployed?"
Aizawa shakes his head. This is one unexpected interjection. He wasn't sure where Hawks was going with it. Mera looks similarly surprised by the development.
"I pray." Hawks says. "I literally visit every shrine, church and any other place of worship in my vicinity. Shinto, Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish, it doesn't matter. Do you know why?" He pauses his speech, but not for long enough to give Aizawa time to offer him an answer. "It's because we all know that Chisaki has a mole high enough to know where and when we're getting deployed. So we're all going to die the moment he decrees it. All he needs is to evacuate his lackeys from whatever business we're sending after and plant bombs there."
True. Although wiping out the prefectural SAT unit would be… well, a major escalation. Almost as bad as trying to wipe out local precincts. The government is collapsing, but it still has enough strength left to respond in force to an escalation of this scale.
It could still rain hellfire on those who stuck their heads up a bit too early. That's what kept most of Japan remotely functional. No one wanted to be the first one.
"So, trust me here, Aizawa." Hawks says, while looking at him with an almost uncharacteristic sadness. "You could have told me that Imasuji is possessed by a demon and my reaction would be dipping bullets in holy water, not making fun of you. I'm this fucking desperate."
Mera seems to have some rather complicated opinion on that, but decides not to vocalize it. He'll totally freak out when Aizawa says the magic words.
"He isn't possessed." Aizawa says. Although honestly, him being possessed by demon would explain his murderous spree well. "And he isn't an alien, either. Although I'm afraid that it's best to imagine him as a comic book supervillain. With an honest to god superpower. Basically, you are going against a psychopathic Superman." Everyone knows who Superman is, really.
"Are you drunk?" Mera naturally goes deep into disbelief. Hawks, in the meantime, squint while looking at Aizawa.
"Care to elaborate?" He sticks to his earlier words. Although it's rather clear that he didn't expect to have to do that.
"Apparently, superpowers are now a thing." Aizawa replies. "Just extremely rare. 'Once per few hundred thousand people out there' rare. And with our government in its current state, everyone up there is ignoring the issues. Imasuji clearly has one. Probably some physical strength amplification, at least to the point where he can ignore gunfire and crush people to pulp with a punch."
"And you know that because…" Hawks seems to be at least considering the idea that Aizawa isn't insane. Mera, clearly, seems to be actually shocked by his lack of instant rebuttal.
"... because the officers present on-site during that gas attack came to me afterward with a rather fascinating tale that could be summed up with 'we just saw several superheroes and supervillains battling it out, and we really have no idea how to describe that in a report'." Aizawa replies, while omitting most details. "And since one of them was my long-time acquaintance, I've decided not to send them to psychologists. At least before investigating."
"I assume that the results of said investigation weren't pointing towards said acquaintances being insane." Hawks says. "Or we wouldn't be having that talk."
"Wait, you're actually buying that crap?" Mera looks downright exasperated at that discovery.
"Look, I'm laid back, friendly, top level boyfriend material and all that." Hawks replies in a very non-professional manner. "The list of things that I'm not includes an idiot. First of all, Aizawa is way too sane to suddenly go crazy to this degree. Second of all… this might have explained a certain thing that has been bugging me for a while."
Oh?
"Let me guess." Aizawa looks at Hawks questioningly. "You run into something that you really can't explain during your SAT work. And someone having a genuine superpower might serve as an explanation."
"Aye." Hawks nods. "Some thug got a jump on me during the action against the Shie Hasseikai. Look, I get it. Drugs can make you do things that normally aren't possible. But that guy has fucking eaten my gun. Ate it. In a few bites. And he looked like he thought it was tasty. This is where I draw the line. Does that sound like an example of whatever you are describing as superpowers?"
"I'm past the point where I believe that there is something that's too outlandish to be a meta-ability." Aizawa replies honestly. "So the answer is yes. What happened to that guy?" The last thing he wants is Overhaul freeing him from some prison.
"He tried to lunge at my throat. With the same fangs that I saw chew through steel." Hawks said scarcely." And I had a sidearm."
Well, that's one potential villain crossed out of the picture. Great. Not like the villain in question sounded particularly dangerous. Then again, they still almost killed a SAT officer.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Mera is still clearly unconvinced. Aizawa isn't surprised. He more or less expected that. It's Hawks' presence and relative open-mindedness that was surprising.
"Level with me here, chief." Hawks says to him. "What's the point of us straight up telling him to stop being insane?" Mera looks at him weirdly. "I don't really buy it myself. But let's go through the options together. Option one, Aizawa mentally collapsed under the stress."
Aizawa is completely ignored. He isn't surprised. Hawks is weird at the most normal of days. This one certainly isn't normal.
"This doesn't explain why he seems to have a victorious streak as of recent." Hawks proves to be able to connect dots surprisingly well. "Also, we don't lose absolutely anything, as I'm certainly not going to make any changes into our operations unless Aizawa provides me with an irrefutable proof of his claims."
Perfectly logical, in Aizawa's opinion. Mera seems much more restrained.
"But if it's true, then we potentially avoid getting massacred." Hawks points out. "And if we disregard his words, we not only agree that insanity clearly makes you a more successful leader of the regional police force, but we also consent to getting violently murdered if he actually wasn't insane. And just so we're clear, I'd prefer to avoid getting violently murdered. Still following me?"
"Fine." Mera relents. The risk of him suddenly storming out of the restaurant lessens significantly.
"See, we're all being perfectly logical here." Hawks says, before leaning back in his chair. "So, fully hypothetically, how do you take down a rogue Superman? Without a nuke or anything similar. Because I don't think that my rainy day savings are large enough to buy one on the black market."
"Well, typically I just phone a friendly local non-rogue Superman and send a police officer with him to make the arrest." Aizawa says. Mera looks vaguely outraged at this violation of police procedures.
"And… is it working?" Hawks asks. He is much more interested in results.
"Thus far?" Aizawa scratches his chin. "More or less, yes. We're still working out the procedures. Unfortunately, fuck-ups are painful as the Marukane Ward fire proved to us."
He has to at least roughly describe the potential danger level of the meta-abilities. However a mess it was, the Marukane Ward 'incident' was a good example.
"That was the work of a supervillain?" Hawks ask. Mera briefly looks like he was on the verge of a brain aneurysm. He is being mostly sidetracked by Hawks and Aizawa at this point, something that Aizawa isn't sure how well he is taking.
"Dabi, the self-proclaimed Arch-Arsonist of Musutafu." Aizawa replies. "Fired out some blue flame death ray. The superheroes dodged it, the city did not. It ignited a kilometer of rooftops and then melted through two apartment buildings before finally dissipating." Aizawa sighs painfully when he sees the shock on the faces in front of him. "The local fire department links him to no less than twenty cases of arson, with the joint number of victims probably equaling Beast. Just with much less public presence. And I'm almost certain that his boss is looking to recruit Imasuji as well."
"His boss?" Hawks said, only to realize the answer almost immediately. "Please tell me it's not Chisaki."
"He goes by his supervillain name of Overhaul nowadays, at least in Takoba." Aizawa replies dryly. "And is busy gathering others like him. What a time to be fucking alive."
"Well, if that's true, then I can only say 'fuck me'." Hawks replies after a few seconds of silence. Chisaki knows the SAT will be deployed against Beast. So if what Aizawa says is true, he and his men and women are walking into a trap. Because he'll most likely try to obtain Imasuji for himself.
"I can lend a friendly local superhero or two to you." Aizawa gives the lieutenant a hand. "To present you their powers as a proof that I'm not insane, to hold Beast at bay if he truly is a supervillain, and to intervene if Chisaki deploys his own supervillains to rescue Imasuji. But considering the fact that Overhaul doesn't know that we're having this talk, and that's our only informational advantage over him, I'd suggest not sending them to Aldera before you locate the Beast."
He'd prefer to lend four superheroes. Defiant and Gargoyle openly (their quirks appear to be an excellent combination against a physical power amplification that Imasuji clearly has), Tornado and Amplitude secretly. To intervene only if Dabi or Mustard show up.
He isn't one hundred percent sure that Overhaul's mole isn't within the SAT. This is unlikely, but… you never know. Having two additional superheroes that are a perfect counter to his two strongest pawns on standby was… wise.
"I think…" Hawks says after a second of thoughtful silence. "... that I'll take you up on that offer."
(***)
Aizawa's revelations about the local SAT and the Aldera police slowly cornering the infamous Beast came as a major shock to Izuku. They had a lot of villains in the Rogue's Gallery, most of them based on rather circumstantial evidence. Actually having to deploy against one of them was… a new thing.
It was way better than having to be at the receiving end of such a meeting. Such as it was with Dabi, who came at them out of nowhere. Resulting in a disaster and civilian casualties that could be avoided.
Then again, the worst-case scenario of what was coming was Aldera going down the Hosu route, and the prefectural SAT team getting wiped out was rather intimidating.
No pressure. Yeah, no pressure at all.
He began making plans. While training himself very hard. Other superheroes (especially the ones who were going to be a part of the next operation) followed in his footsteps.
The sidekicks continued to assist the police in a way that was perhaps less glamorous, but just as important as what the superheroes did.
Uraraka was doing her best as well. Although Izuku's belief that there was something very wrong with her has only grown stronger. Oh, she acted more or less normally, but occasionally… occasionally her smiles didn't reach her eyes. And that was very unnatural.
(***)
Principal Sasaki is a diligent man with many, many connections. And, however he dislikes saying that openly, he is highly intelligent (he dislikes boasting, and prefers unneeded humility to unnecessary pride). There are also his contacts to be considered.
Izuku Midoriya shared his worries about Uraraka Ochaco with the principal. And, with the girl in question being one of his students, he made that particular investigation his priority.
When he really puts his back into finding an answer to a question, he typically succeeds. Except, sometimes he wishes he didn't.
Inui - the only person who he decided to grace with the newest chunk of knowledge that he came upon - finishes reading the file. On his face, shock mixed with horror.
"Please, tell me that this is a set-up." He says. "That it's some sort of twisted joke. Or that I misunderstood something severely."
"I'm afraid…" Sasaki says slowly. The clock on the wall of his office is slowly ticking in the background. "... that considering your reaction, you've come to the same assumption as I did. So no. It's not a misunderstatement. Nor a joke. Nor a set-up."
"This is going to break the Network, Mirai." Inui replies after a few seconds of rushed thinking. "And probably Midoriya too."
"I'm aware." Sasaki replies dryly. "Which is why none of this is going to leave this room. In fact, seeing as how the accidents happen, I plan to put those documents through the shredder. And then burn the results and scatter the ashes. Just in case someone out there had a paper-rearranging quirk or something similar."
Ryo Inui is staring at him in shock. Principal Sasaki wasn't surprised. What he just said was rather… well, Mirai Sasaki always skimmed on the verge of breaking the law, at worst. What he said just now was going way beyond that.
"Mirai." Ryo finally says. "If these documents are true, Uraraka Ochaco is an S-Rank villain with a kill count similar to Dabi. You can't be serious about hiding it from Aizawa and Midoriya."
How to share this news with the latter without breaking him was… a challenge. Even to someone as qualified as a psychologist. Midoriya derived his entire sense of self-worth from his friends. Uraraka Ochaco was his friend. And if he loses faith in his friends after discovering this… what will he have left?
Principal pulled out another small stack of documents and pushed it in front of the school counselor. He says nothing. Merely stares.
Inui reads through it. He knows that asking questions right now is pointless. Sasaki wants him to read through them and develop his own opinion on them. Without being burdened with whatever suggestions that he might have gotten from hearing him out.
The documents are just as varied as the first stack. Several of them were stamped as secret by the GSDF, the fact that they were in Sasaki's office acting as one more reminder of just how powerful the man in front of Inui was.
There were also the assessments of Uraraka Ochaco. From both counselor Inui and doctor Shuzenji. With certain parts of them highlighted with a colorful marker.
At first, it all seems disconnected and unimportant. Pointless even. But Ryo Inui knows that Mirai Sasaki always has a point in whatever he does, even if it appears illogical. So he continues reading.
Slowly, the dots are connecting. One after one, they come together, each of them slowly lowering Inui's subjective body temperature.
The last document was probably the worst. Enough to change the freezing temperatures into a boiling rage.
"Jesus. Fucking Christ." Inui announces once he finishes reading it. "This is fucked up. More than probably anything else I came upon during my career. How is she even functioning?" Judging from the look on the Principal's face, he wasn't the only one asking himself that question.
She was functioning well enough to, with some well-crafted omissions, somehow make him not realize what he was dealing with. Then again, he didn't have access to all the additional information that the Principal gathered. And he was on the right trail, considering what he wrote in her psychological assessment.
It's just that the Principal's finding sped up the arrival at the destination. By a lot. While also providing him with a lot of context that he would be otherwise missing.
"I think…" Principal says slowly. "That a world war is a horrible time to be alive in. And that exiling Singularity to the Izu Islands will not only break Midoriya and half of the Network with him, but will also not bring anyone back. While letting her operate as a superhero might at least save some innocents further down the line."
There is a logic to those words. Logic unacceptable in better times, a fact born from the sad truth that you can never be sure when a person like that will snap. Again. But nowadays, tough decisions sometimes have to be made.
"I'll keep her under strict overwatch." Inui says. "And I'll try to fix her. Because she is functional only outwardly. All of what she does is an act, her own desperate attempts to act like she always did. But under all of that, she is an emotional and psychological wreck. Probably worse than Ashido and Tsuyu combined."
Dealing with external threats was one thing. How well the Network was going to deal with a threat on the inside?
(***)
File the 'WTF Uraraka did' question in the same category as 'WTF Bakugou did'. Because it's going to be a LONG while before you get your answers.
Also the next chapter introduces what's left of the Musutafu SAT unit. All nine members (including Hawks) are notable characters from canon. It's theories time :v