Guest - Yeah, precisely. It's a lot of weight. And they are performing admirably, even if it's clear that things would get much worse if not for the UA being there. The moment of the Marukane Ward fire and Midoriya fleeing from the battle really comes to mind when speaking of that.

Jpx0999 - Maybe not a powerpoint presentation... but pretty close.

(***)

Kurono knows that Kai Chisaki can be angry in two ways. The first one is cold, ruthless and immediately murderous. He reserves that for those he actually can murder. But when the victims of his rage have to live, he switches to the second mode of anger.

The one where he is smiling. Shouting a bit. Doing a wide repertoire of gestures. And has a very venomous tongue, which does include a lot of expletives. The real problem is that if he is pushed a bit too far while in this mode, he still gets murderous. But creatively murderous.

"Part one." Overhaul announces. He is still smiling, but at this point it's actively freaking everyone out. "The very arrival to the battlefield. The first one to fuck everything up to an almost impressive degree is Dabi."

"What?!" The Arch-Arsonist looks insulted and ready to defend his honor. Kurono is almost certain that he doesn't realize how much fucked up he currently is. Then again, he lacks years of experience in managing Overhaul's moods that Hari Kurono recently wields like a weapon. "I've done nothing wrong!"

"Dabi." Overhaul asks. His smile is openly bloodcurdling now. Even Dabi has a sudden realization that he should probably shut up. "Do you actually have a working fucking brain or did it melt down and left your head through your ears after suffering too many consecutive heatstrokes?"

Dabi shrinks in his seat.

"Because at this point I'm starting to think that you and Firestorm shared a single brain cell, and without her transferring it to you every morning with a wake-up blowjob, you're legally and practically an absolute moron." Overhaul says, his eyes locked onto the quickly shrinking Dabi.

Kurono is having very nasty traumatic flashbacks to the last time Overhaul was in this mood. And what he was witnessing right now felt much worse. By an order of magnitude. He is fairly certain that he has never seen Kai Chisaki this angry.

"I believe that I told you explicitly to fire your opening Prominence Burn THROUGH Kurogiri's warpgate." Overhaul continues. "So why, please enlighten me, you took advantage of me not looking at you for like five seconds to walk through it and then fire it out?"

"I… I mean…" Dabi is trying to puzzle out an answer. He clearly fails.

"I explained to you why you were supposed to do that." Overhaul is still staring him down. "So I could immediately heal you and repair your clothes. Thus allowing you to walk through the warpgate right behind my praetorians, while looking indistinguishable from them. Which would prevent the enemies from eliminating you before you had an occasion to use your quirk again. Guess what happened less than five seconds after your Prominence Burn ended?"

Silence. Everyone is too afraid to speak. Especially Dabi.

"That's right!" Overhaul says loudly. "Your peanut-sized brain got a date with a 12,7mm bullet fired by either a police sniper or Deadshot. Thus denying us your valuable fire support for the duration of the entire battle. Exactly what I fucking told you would happen." The parts of Dabi that still can, are almost white as a sheet now. "You are a grown fucking adult, stop acting like I need to hire you a full-time nanny to stop from you dying in absolutely stupid ways. And guess what? That's only your FIRST fuck-up."

Oh god, they were more. Kurono actually joins the shrinking club now, merely by association. Mostly due to remembering the fate of the last person who fucked things up for Kai enough to made him enter this state.

It was fucking traumatizing. Even after so many years.

Overhaul pulls out one of the papers in front of him. It's a picture.

"Do you see that, Dabi?" Overhaul asks. "Green eyes. Auburn hair. Fair skin. In case you didn't know, that's a young woman. Do you recognize her? We talked about this person during our pre-battle briefing. Do you know her name, Dabi?"

"It…. Itsuka K…Kendou?" Dabi asks with a shaky voice.

"That's right!" Overhaul gives him an almost angelic smile. It looks so terrifyingly wrong on his face. "Now, this picture." He puts the first one back on the table. Then takes another one. "Silver hair. Massive eyelashes. Also, a young man. Do you recognize him, Dabi?"

"Th… That's… Tetsutetsu T…Tetsut…tetsu." Dabi manages to speak.

"Correct!" The smile is again a really bright one. This time Chisaki doesn't put the picture down. Instead he grabs the first one again. With one photo in each hand, he raises his arms, just so that they are right beside his own face. "They are really fucking different, won't you say?"

"Y…yes?" Dabi replies shakily

"Yes, indeed!" Overhaul smiles. Then he slams both pictures into the table. The sound is absolutely deafening. Dabi almost falls off the chair in shock. "So why, you absolute godsdamned idiot, did you fire the Prominence Burn at Tetsutetsu when I told you to attack Itsuka Kendou?!"

The only reason why Dabi's direct neighbourhood isn't deserted by now is because everyone is too terrified of standing up from their seat and somehow catching Overhaul's attention.

"We had three priority targets, Dabi." Overhaul says. "Itsuka Kendou, Shihai Kuroiro and Asa Naoki. All three were standing right next to each other when Kurogiri opened the warpgate. You could have killed them all instantly, decapitating both sides before the fight actually started for real. So why, you fucking moron, did you attack Bulwark?"

Silence in the room. Kurono suspects that Dabi attacked Tetsutetsu because his quirk reminded him of Kirishima. Who took his beloved Firestorm away from him. There was really no logical thinking behind this.

"And guess what, Dabi." Overhaul continues. "You fucked up by doing your own thing instead of following my orders… and then you fucked up your own thing. Do you know why? Because, as already stated, you've walked OUT of the FUCKING warpgate… and then yelled the name of your attack. It's a fucking miracle that the sniper didn't kill you before you had the time to power up the Prominence Burn. And did you notice what was happening while you were mentally jerking yourself off in front of the heroes?"

Overhaul isn't sure if Dabi can even answer it. It looks like existential horror has strangled the words out of him.

"Let me enlighten you then." Overhaul says, while leaning forward over the table a bit. "Asa Naoki had the time to realize what was happening. And he was still locked onto almost everyone on the battlefield. Even the ATK members, as they were busy being arrested when we arrived. Now, do you know what Rabbit shouted before your attack came?" Silence. "He shouted 'fireproof', Dabi. You wanted to kill Tetsutetsu, but his steel transformation together with Rabbit's buff made him no-sell you attack. You have a power to level down a small city at your disposal… but you used it in such an incredibly idiotic way that you failed to kill a hero that you fired it at practically point blank. Do you realize how utterly disappointed I'm in you right now?"

Kurono is willing to hazard the guess that yes. He is. But Dabi is too terrified to open his mouth. Kurono isn't sure if he didn't piss himself at this point. He probably did. Hari Kurono would certainly do that if he was at his place.

"More than that." Overhaul continues. "You gave Bulwark the time required to push Poltergeist out of the Prominence Burn's way, far enough for the Rabbit's quirk to save her from instant death. Also, Edge moved fast enough to avoid the attack entirely. So you only killed Weld, Stylist and Mantis, because your attack was so stupidly strong that it overcame Naoki's meta-ability. So you scored half the kills you could have if you weren't an idiot of an almost legendary level. Oh, and you also made Bulwark's body blazing hot. Carnage, it must have really hurt to even touch him afterwards, didn't it?"

"Yes." Carnage admits. "It hurt like hell. Even punching him burned my fists to the bone." He actually sounds rather cautious. Even Goto Imasuji doesn't want to pull Overhaul's attention to himself.

"So not only you failed to kill Bulwark." Overhaul says. "You also made him much stronger. Not to mention burning off his clothes, but I guess that's a minor plus since whatever equipment he had on himself was destroyed as well." Overhaul sighs. "Be happy that you were killed almost immediately afterwards. Since if you fucked something more I'd have you take Dictator's place for a few days to realize what pain truly is."

Dabi is down for the count. Kurono wonders who is going to be the next target of Overhaul's attention.

"Second person to fuck-up was Kurogiri." Overhaul looks at the warper. The black mist actually shivers a bit. "I realize that you are looking for your missing offspring. I know, because that's the price for your soul. I realize that seeing her on the battlefield made you charge towards her. But if you ever do something this fucking stupid again, I'm going to find a way of imprisoning you and then you'll fucking envy Dictator's current living arrangements."

Kurogiri says nothing. He doesn't say a lot of words in general. But Kurono seems to have enough of a grasp on him to realize that he is absolutely terrified.

There are many people out there that can kill you in many creative ways. But Overhaul is a rare case of a person that can test all those creative ways on a single person. This adds completely new level of terror to his character.

"We talked about Kuroiro's quirk." Overhaul says. "I explicitly told you that there is a chance that he can possess you. I explicitly told you to keep your fucking distance from him, just in case everything went south and we needed a retreat route. What I didn't explicitly tell you to do, was dying a stupid fucking death. Worst of all, if you were still operational, you might have managed to recover Whiteline's corpse. After Rabbit, that I'd like to remind you all would be fucking dead at this point if Dabi didn't have a brain aneurysm, tactically outmaneuvered us, letting Kendou punch him through a brick wall and Cloud warp him Defiant knows where."

Silence. One that Overhaul eventually breaks.

"And if I didn't realize that you were going to die in a few seconds and didn't leap through your warpgate in time, risking my own life for the record, there would be no resurrections that night." He adds. "Meaning that I'd be left with Carnage, freshly brought-back Dabi, Inquisitor and maybe one or two praetorians that would manage to sneak out of Shizuoka. Everyone else would be dead. So you're not getting paid for this operation, nor are you receiving the reimbursement for dying while working for me." Kurogiri seems to shrink a bit in his seat. It's surprising that it's visible in his case. "And be happy that Whiteline had no relatives, or I'd have you pay them monthly as a compensation for what you did. You brought this onto yourself, you shitnugget."

Kurogiri decides not to fight Overhaul over that. He either realized that he fucked up or is still busy being shocked with the fact that his daughter yelled at Kuroiro to kill him. And over Kuroiro turning out to be her boyfriend. Which he announced while tearing Kurogiri into shreds with his own warpgates.

That's one hell of a way to meet your future son-in-law.

"Fuck-up number three." Overhaul moves over to another subject. "Duststorm." The man in question shrinks, in a way almost identical to what Dabi went through. "I believe that I gave you a list of enemies that your quirk would work well against. The list included Kendou, and Tetsutetsu. The two people that you had an absolute advantage over. So why, please tell me, did you attack Toxin?"

"I'm… I'm s… sorry?" Duststorm says, clearly terrified. "I g…got too excited about the b…battle, and s…she was in ffff…front of me. It won't happen again, I p…promise."

Overhaul looks like he considered killing Duststorm on the spot, probably with some witty one-liner. Something alongside 'Yes, you're right. It won't happen again'. But eventually he controls himself. Probably because right before that happened, Duststorm did manage to sneak up on Cartographer and kill her, thus damaging Rabbit's ability to command that clusterfuck of a battle significantly.

Credit where credit was due and all that. Rabbit would have probably fuck them all up much more if not for that.

"At least one of you can actually acknowledge verbally that they fucked up." Overhaul says. "Good. I can respect that. And just so we're clear, do not test my patience. If you break that promise, I'm going to break you. Slowly and painfully." Duststorm shrinks even further. "Alright, fuck-up number four. Carnage."

"What?" Carnage looks genuinely surprised by that. Even if he's still rather cautious. "What did I do wrong?"

"You are the Shie Hasseikai's human tank." Overhaul replies. "In case you didn't notice, tanks aren't supposed to race forward, leaving their escort behind. Especially in urban settings. Now, do me a favour. Look around. Do you see my praetorians? The thirty military looking people that are sitting here with us, and are the only people in this room other than me and Kurono that actually didn't fuck anything up last night?" Kurono secretly breathes a sigh of relief. He can see some of the praetorians doing the same. "The people that are absolutely crucial to the continued existence of the Shie Hasseikai, for the record. Do you see them, Carnage?"

"Err… yes?" Carnage half-says half-asks.

"Do you have the tiniest idea how many of them were killed or incapacitated by the Shizuoka' Anti-Firearms Squads, the remaining ATK thugs or the heroes because of you?" Overhaul asks. Carnage clearly doesn't know the answer. "Thirteen. That's almost half of them, Goto. I had to order them to rush forward after you, which is the only reason why Edge didn't get to chop your dumb head off. But while they were applying suppressing fire to her, forcing Rabbit to keep her under Bulletproof status, they were fucking massacred. Due to Kurogiri and Dabi holding the idiot ball for the night, you and my praetorians were practically carrying our entire assault at this point. Do I have to spell to you what would happen if either you or them were taken out of the picture, Carnage? Especially with Kurogiri, our main mean of retreat and corpse recovery, out of commission? Or do you actually have the brainpower necessary to realize such simple things?"

"I… I think I do realize." Carnage admits. "I'll try to be more… mindful of my surroundings while in combat next time."

Kurono is actually shocked by that statement. Carnage saying those words? Either Overhaul was actually this goddamn scary to Goto Imasuji, or the famed Beast actually had a working brain. And encountering some actually fight-worthy enemies actually made him realize that applying some reason to his combat abilities makes him stronger. And thus capable of killing more people.

Probably a combination of both factors, all things considered.

The irony of the guy called 'the Beast' and compared to a rampaging animal by the public being almost a voice of reason on this wasn't lost on Hari Kurono.

"Congratulations." Overhaul replies dryly. "Fuck-up number five, Mustard." The gas user immediately makes a panicked face. "If you were a bit fucking faster, we might have killed Poltergeist. And who knows how many more heroes. Hell, there is a fair chance that Eri was in that hospital room. I'm extremely disappointed in you right now."

Mustard is either suicidally brave or bravely suicidal. He decides to talk back to Overhaul while Kai Chisaki is in THIS state.

"As much as I agree that I failed the mission…" He says, while Kurono wonders at the bravery. "...I'd like to… uhm… am I allowed to defend myself?" He actually freaks out briefly after seeing Overhaul's face darken. So his survival instinct is still there.

"Be my guest." Chisaki replies. "But it better be a good explanation, or you're going to make your situation worse." Kurono can see Mustard's gulp at those words. But the gas users decided to push forward.

"My quirk doesn't make me stronger or faster than normal people, and my stamina in general is rather average." Mustard replies. "Not to mention that my armor is really goddamn heavy. It's also not at all optimized for being easy to take-off. By the time I did that and ran up the stairs, the battle was already over."

Blaming equipment? Dangerous. It was Overhaul that provided him with it.

"Elevator?" Overhaul asks. Kurono realizes that Mustard's on the verge of getting a very nasty punishment.

"I thought about it." Mustard replies. He seems to have realized this as well. It was now an all or nothing situation for him. Oh, Overhaul wasn't going to kill him. But he could be very creative in temporary punishments. "However I was alone, and rather squishy, and whatever was fighting the praetorians upstairs was clearly massacring them. Using the elevator would warn the heroes of my arrival beforehand. Elevator is also rather small, so not much space for trying to dodge or anything else. There is no point in trying to blackmail someone if you are violently murdered before you can voice your threat."

In Kurono's opinion, this is a valid counterargument. He can see some of the praetorians nodding scarcely in agreement. Of course, the one whose opinion truly matters is Overhaul. And he is currently very hard to read, even by Hari Kurono.

"What would you do…" Kai asks. "... if the situation repeated itself?"

"I'd try to hitch a ride on Carnage." Mustard says. This time it's a total surprise for anyone involved. Especially Goto Imasuji himself. "Considering his ability to manipulate muscle fibers and the difference in size between us, he could easily entangle my limbs in his back muscles, making sure that I wouldn't fall off midflight. And after arriving, I'd have someone to defend me until I'd compose myself, voice my threat and then prepare the gas attack."

He finishes his answer. Overhaul is staring at him in silence for almost twenty seconds. Mustard is clearly increasingly terrified that he fucked everything up even more (at least for himself). But eventually, Kai Chisaki speaks.

"Your fuck-up has been downgraded into a simple failure." Overhaul says, and Mustard almost collapses in relief. "This was a perfectly logical maneuver that didn't come to my mind, and since I was the commander on this, having that idea was my job. Not yours."

Kurono actually blinks a few times at his boss. Overhaul just… admitted that something didn't come to his mind? He admitted that he made a mistake in a situation like this? In front of his men? That was… new. It seemed that Carnage - and the heroes - weren't the only people who got some character development during the course of this war.

That or he realized that terrifying the villains too much with an outburst is a long-term danger to himself, so he decided to temper the outburst with some rational retreat. Something to make them realize that he isn't going to murder them for a fuck-up if they have a rational explanation for it.

"I'm going to try to get you an armor that's easier to take off." Overhaul continues. "Also I expect you to start training your body more. Not just your quirk. I believe that some of the praetorians would gladly give you some tips on that."

Mustard nods furiously, clearly relieved to the degree that Hari Kurono isn't sure if he has ever seen on a human being.

Overhaul exhales loudly, while slumping down a bit. It seems that his little outrage is mostly over. Kurono joins the 'greatly relieved' team. Looks like they all might survive this day, after all! Who would have thought.

"Just so you all don't get the idea that I'm going to murder you or worse for a mistake or two…" Overhaul says. He sounds almost tired at this point. "... I'd like to clarify something. You are all valuable to the Shie Hasseikai's future. You have skills, meta-abilities or both. I have invested a lot into you to get you onboard. I'm not going to kill you, nor cripple you. At least unless you consciously betray me. Yes, Dabi, you're going to live. This is the first time you fucked-up, so I'm only docking your wages. It'll get much worse if you do it again. Do us all a favour and start using your fucking brain if you want me to realize your little revenge fantasy."

Dabi almost cries in relief. Or, well, he would cry if he was physically capable of that.

"But that operation was a major fuck-up." Overhaul continues. "And when I say 'major', I mean it. I was a disaster, and mostly because most of the villains that work for me probably need a written instruction to correctly wipe their asses after visiting the toilet. That's why I'm reacting that way. Because what you did threatens this entire organization. And all you had to do to avoid it was to follow my instructions."

He is silent for maybe a second or two. Then he starts speaking again.

"The plan was simple." Chisaki says. "Annihilate the Shizuoka' Riot Police Unit, Heroes' Alliance and the Abegawa Tenchu Kai leadership, allowing us to expand our income sources outside of Assistant Commissioner's Aizawa and Defiant's range. Turning the bureaucratic and administrative chaos of Japan against them. Not to mention Shie Hasseikai being able to recruit some local villains in order to continue our little cold war against the Metahuman Network and the local police from the position of advantage. None of these objectives have been achieved."

Overhaul raises a finger.

"Riot Police Unit was massacred, not annihilated." He says. "This means that the Shizuoka police still exist. I was forced to improvise the assault on the prefectural police headquarters and the mayor's office in order to paralyze it further and avoid them teaming-up with Aizawa to murder us all. This changed the army's interventions from possibility into certainty, a fact that I preferred to avoid. But it had to be done."

Overhaul raises another finger.

"Heroes' Alliance." He says. "We've got four of them. But the remaining five will almost certainly join Defiant's forces. We just handed him five more heroes, including Asa Naoki, on a silver plate. What's more, during the fight at the hospital we encountered four more heroes. Since Poltergeist's injuries were mortal wounds and they took her away for some reason, Eri was certainly involved. This means that those heroes worked for Defiant. This, in turn, means that he got nine more members in total recently. At least. We, in the meantime, lost Whiteline. He actually has numerical superiority right now. What's more, unless Cloud evacuated his strike force from the hospital, he might have a warper of his own."

Third finger joins the other two.

"Abegawa Tenchu Kai." Overhaul says. "We annihilated its leadership, but there are five of its villains that are unaccounted for. Including Shihai Kuroiro, the de facto adopted son of Rojiya 'Manhole' Yonenaga, the ATK leader. Do you know what that means?" There is silence in the room. "This means that even if Defiant threw him into Aizawa's prison for villains, I won't be able to trust any former ATK assets. Because even if they cooperate out of fear, they will instantly backstab me when Shihai Kuroiro shows up on the horizon. And even if he doesn't, they are going to hate me in the memory of both him and Manhole. As long as there is a chance that he'll come back, like a prince returning from exile to retake the kingdom that he lost to the usurpers, they'll never get over what happened last night. So most of our work was for naught."

The fingers and the hand go down. There are a few long seconds of silence.

"I really hope that the stupidity of some of the people in this room didn't change Shizuoka into the Shie Hasseikai's Pearl Harbor." He says dryly. "Because then you'll realize just how nasty I can be to those who failed me to this monumental degree."

(***)

Izuku's idea has been… conditionally accepted. Though some people, especially on the police side, felt borderline betrayed. He isn't surprised. He felt betrayed himself. Or, to be exact, Defiant the superhero felt betrayed.

He stays behind after the meeting. And catches Assistant Commissioner Aizawa, who clearly wasn't exactly in a hurry back home.

He probably wanted to talk about something private with Principal Sasaki. Or something akin to that. It's not exactly Defiant's business. It's not like they are going to talk about him, right? So whatever floats their boat.

"What is it, problem child? Aizawa asks dryly. He eventually saw the reason in Defiant's proposal, but it was rather clear that he wasn't happy about that. It probably made him drier than normally.

Izuku is still slightly angry over being referred to as a problem child. He is a problem young adult, dammit!

"I know it's a bit early for a birthday present…" Izuku says. Then again, who knows if they'll all live until November? "... but I have a present for you."

Hopefully, it won't explode or anything. Then again, death is extremely unlikely. And they can get Eri to patch everything else up.

"Alright?" Aizawa looks at him with a sudden bout of suspicion. "What sort of present?"

It's glasses. Izuku came with a small bag of them, actually. All numbered (but the number is attached by a low-strength glue, so it can be easily taken off if needed).

"Really?" Aizawa looks slightly irritated. "You know what causes my eye problems. I don't think that…"

"Trust me and try them." Izuku replies. "One by one."

He feels it working during the fifth attempt. Bingo. Hopefully it works on the secondary symptoms.

"What just happened?" He can see Aizawa blinking at him from behind the glasses. "I feel… kind of different? And I think that my eyes started to hurt slightly less? Problem child, what did you do?"

NOT PROBLEM CHILD AGAIN AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH

"Well, it's my idea but Alchemist's execution." He says, Aizawa stares at him questioningly. "Every pair of glasses in this bag are tailored to bounce back different frequencies of light normally invisible to us. This means…" He floats one of the un-used glasses over his hand. Right in front of Assistant Commissioner Aizawa.

"My quirk." Aizawa stares at him in shock. The recording devices are all deactivated, and honestly, Sasaki already knows. He actually confronted Aizawa a few days ago. Tsukauchi's remark about them knowing about an anti-quirk quirk and the user being both old and negative apparently sold him out. So they don't have to hide that, at least from Mirai Sasaki. "You turned it against itself."

"That's the basic idea, yes." Izuku replies. "This should allow you to select when to deactivate quirks in front of you, without blinding you. Plus…" He sighs. "We think that it might alleviate the negative effects on your eyesight caused by your meta-ability lacking an off-switch. By lowering the strain on them and letting them rest between activation periods. Quick test number two, please take off your glasses."

It would be really damn awkward if his meta-ability didn't return. They would have to employ Eri on this. Thankfully, when Aizawa takes the glasses off, the glasses levitating above Izuku's hand fall down.

Just as Izuku hoped. Phew.

"Well, it looks like everything works as we hoped." Izuku replies. Aizawa is busy being a bit too shocked to speak. Defiant notes down the number of the glasses that worked. He'll tell Mei once he gets home. "I'm glad."

Aizawa stares at him for a few more seconds, before finally speaking.

"Thank you." He says, the glasses still in his hands. "It's a surprise, but… a welcome one."

Izuku gives him a thumbs-up gesture. Under the mask, the smile is rather faint. He is really tired and exhausted and he needs Tsuyu to function. It's time to go home. And rest.

(***)

Aizawa gets a cool support item (it de facto is a support item, even if a featherweight one), Overhaul proves once again that he's way too genre savvy for it to be healthy for the protagonists. What is he going to do now that he's numerically outmatched? Who knows :P