Jpx0999 - The 'half versus half' is kind of a good description of canon MHA ngl.
fencer29 - Let's just say that Dabi is going to regret that stupid move a lot.
Arqade2015 - All I have for you is a solid 'stay tuned for answers' :P
(***)
"I believe…" Kurono says to Overhaul, clearly aware that this is a very bad moment to interrupt him. The muffled screams of the Dictator coming from the background should be enough of a sign. "... that I found a priority recruit for the Shie Hasseikai. And you have to meet her. Right now."
Chisaki looks up at him, his hands and tools covered with fresh blood. He was hard at work for the past few hours, so close to the breakthrough that everything else came second. His intense meta-ability training started to bear fruits.
"I truly hope that this is as important as you made it sound." Overhaul says. "Because I'm very interested in finding out what made you interrupt this, despite me telling you explicitly not to. And I'd prefer to not be disappointed by your answer."
Oh, he won't be. That much Hari Kurono is certain of.
(***)
The party, in the end, is composed of Overhaul, Kurono, Carnage, Inquisitor and four praetorians. To be used as meat shields in case something went extremely wrong (which is unlikely, but Overhaul is paranoid nowadays).
Plus Kurogiri. For transportation. And, potentially, evacuation. Of course, if his experience with Cloud was any indication (at least the one before she ran away from home), warp quirks interfered with each other.
So, if the Metahuman Network had a warper, they could potentially prevent them from evacuating through Kurogiri. The deeper the Shie Hasseikai entered the meta-abilities business, the more complicated the things became.
The meeting place was in an abandoned district in Hosu. Of course, with how messed-up the city was, the definition of 'abandoned' was rather loose. There was still life on the street and the electricity was there. For three to four hours per day. But the neighborhood was clearly collapsing, the former inhabitants long ago relocating into their distant family, major cities or some refugee camps.
It was above an abandoned shop. To Overhaul's slight surprise, he wasn't the only person to bring special forces looking bodyguards to it. There were three of them present in the building, accompanying a woman approaching her forties, wearing a robe. With some rather interesting (for someone interested in such bestial things) cut-offs. Relatively beautiful, as much as human tastes went.
Overhaul was almost certain that none actual religious organizations endorsed this outfit. Then again, it's not like he cares.
"Excuse us for the rather… scarce accommodations." The woman says. She is sitting on a couch on one side of the coffee table, with her three bodyguards behind her. Their uniforms conceal their faces, but it's clear that they are eyeing the newcomers cautiously. "I don't exactly have enough money to renovate my current living place enough to make it… inviting."
Overhaul takes the other couch, sitting on its center. Kurono and Inquisitor sit beside him. Carnage, Kurogiri and the praetorians take the position mirroring the woman's bodyguards.
"For as long as you thought about covering the windows..." Overhaul replies. "... I see no problem with the accommodations." Aizawa has some snipers now, including the metahuman one. Overhaul isn't risking his life without a very good reason. He wouldn't agree to the meeting if Kurogiri didn't offer to warp them directly to the ground floor of the building. "So, I came to believe that you're interested in getting recruited by the Shie Hasseikai. And that you possess meta-ability."
"Not the way I heard people refer to it." The woman replies. "But if by meta-ability you mean a clearly supernatural ability, then the answer is yes. My power makes those that I perceive as being close to me stronger. Greater strength, stamina and endurance, amplification of their… meta-abilities, even limited regeneration of wounds."
Useful. Especially in the larger-scale engagements. And especially if you had your personal special ops unit that you could boost to superhuman level of strength and speed. Even if they would still be far beneath the level of 'proper' metahumans.
"Sounds powerful." Overhaul replies. "Almost too powerful. What's the catch?" There clearly had to be one.
"It's addictive." The woman replies. "It's not a problem if I use it rarely, but if it starts happening more often, it changes you. Makes you subservient to me, and gives you a potentially deadly withdrawal syndrome if you don't have it used on you regularly. I'm afraid…" She points out to the men behind her. "... that my little boytoys can no longer live without me. In more ways than one."
She clearly finds that delightful. Another sex freak. Hopefully more restrained than Dictator. Overhaul really finds no enjoyment in tortures. It's just a job. Then again, having a female test subject to train his quirk might have its own benefits. Women and men have all those pesky biologically differences.
Unless she behaves. What she just described sounded like a major downside, yes. But if used scarcely… But he still has to confirm something. It's not a power that's easily displayed. But he has an alternative.
"One of my companions has a meta-ability that allows him to ask you a question… that will be answered with full truth." Overhaul asks. "Can he use it on you? I won't take your word for anything without confirmation, you know."
"Sure." The woman replies.
"Have you lied to us at any point of this talk…" Inquisitor speaks. "... or consciously hide some crucial detail that might have influenced our presence here, or your recruitment chances?"
"I didn't." The reply comes. "There are some things that might influence both those things, but I've simply not yet spoken of them. And I plan to speak about them during this meeting." This, well, sounds like enough of a confirmation.
"Very well." Overhaul says. "That confirms your… goodwill." There was always an option of someone forcefeeding her with bullshit by using mind-altering meta-ability. Heroes were unlikely to resort to something this… villainous, but if Abegawa Tenchu Kai had their own villain unit, who said that there weren't more groups like that out there? "So… what's your name? And do you have any villain nickname to go by?"
A small test of his own. Is she serious enough to actually tell him her name? She most likely doesn't know that they already managed to establish it. Hari Kurono was quite good at investigations.
He found many holes in her backstory. Overhaul would love to have them filled.
"Riko." She replies. "Yoshihiro Riko. As for the villain name… I believe that I'm going by Purity."
Overhaul sees very little purity in the woman in front of him. It also seems that the villain/hero trend is spreading nationwide. How joyous. The times are truly changing, and being at the forefront of this paradigm shift is a very good thing in his opinion.
The information checks out. Yoshihiro is honest as far as they can tell thus far. This is very good.
"So, Purity, why are you interested in joining the Shie Hasseikai?" Overhaul moves forward with the questioning.
"I need protection… and, perhaps, a chance for revenge further down the line." She replies. "However, the reason for that is a longer story."
"Entertain me then." Chisaki says. He certainly isn't going in blind. Purity has some interesting backstory. You don't appear out of nowhere after being gone from the radar for years while escorted by some serious looking men without something interesting happening to you.
"Very well." She clearly expected that to happen. "Criminal cartels and the police units aren't the only groups to start amassing… What's your name for people like us?"
"Metahumans." Overhaul replies. She nods. Someone seems strangely happy to throw out the previously known terminology out of the window.
"Well, some choice political and religious groups have realized where the future lies too." She then says. "Especially those who appear interested in contesting the current state of affairs. Five or six metahumans with correct powers can cause much more damage than five or six muggles with guns."
Overhaul expected that to happen sooner or later. He himself isn't sure if that counts as sooner or later.
His power awoke less than two years ago. He didn't start to seriously consider the potential of the meta-abilities of other people (sans Eri) until almost three months ago. Oh, how much has changed in the meantime.
"When I imagined a scenario like that, I expected more bloodshed." Chisaki points that oddity out. "Why is the government still existing?"
A question asked by many people throughout Japan, no doubt.
"That's the question for general Bates." Purity replies. "For as long as there are US Army forces stationed in Japan, everyone seems to assume that starting a campaign of slaughter will end up with the US Army deploying their own anti-metahuman deathsquads, a giant space murder laser or their own version of the Justice League. So all the groups in question are focusing on recruitment and training, while waiting for the inevitable collapse of the Japanese Government. As then…"
"...Cathleen Bates and her soldiers will be recalled." Overhaul takes over. "Meaning that the chances of the United States intervening in the mess will be much smaller. And deploying your metahuman terrorists right now means a high chance of getting a mallet."
The United States have won the Third World War. With Russia all but collapsing and China being busy with its civil war, there was no one left to challenge it. America was the sole remaining superpower, with its image strengthened by the victory that no one seemed to expect.
Of course, it was a colossus on feet of clay. But it knew how to pretend that it wasn't a ruined mess, at least for now. How many nascent metahuman terrorists were willing to attribute the miraculous victory of the NATO on its members having who-knows-how-many powerful metahumans in ther midst, really to squash the villains if they stepped out of the line?
"Precisely!" Purity agrees with him rather vigorously. "Government is way too ineffectual to actually crack down on those groups, even if it actually knew about the scale of the problem, so why draw attention to yourself?"
This will most likely change rapidly if the government starts actually fixing something. If there will be a chance of the government NOT collapsing in the foreseeable future, everyone will immediately start trying to stop that from happening. With who knows how many metahumans.
And that's without mentioning how many guns were there out in the country, making it easy to organize armed militias.
Well, what a shitstorm the future was going to be. Overhaul was looking forward to it.
"I assume that you were a part of one of such attempts." Overhaul decides to shorten the long story a bit.
"Indeed, I was." She replies. "Nothing particularly anti-governmental, mind you. You see, we had a bit of a spike in conversions to Christianity during the last few years, because of bolstered United States presence, the harsh times of the war and the fact that the American and European religious organizations are very happy to throw some additional money for the recovery effort if you're a brother in faith. Some folks in Japan figured out that letting all of this go to waste because of the civil war looming on the horizon is a pretty bad idea, so they started preparing accordingly."
That… came out of the blue. Overhaul expected secret initiatives of some opposition parties, maybe communists or nationalists, but… Christians? Really?
"Seriously?" He actually made his surprise visible. "A Christian militia? In Japan?"
"Less a militia, more a self-defense force." Purity replies. "If you just finished building a nice-looking church in some town, having a handful of decently trained parishioners to guard it from being firebombed or pillaged sounds like a good idea. Just as having people who know how to evacuate people if the area is about to become a battlefield. You can't exactly overthrow a government if you represent less than five percent of the society, so it's not like they are planning to try it. But then things got interesting."
"Let me guess." Overhaul decides to interrupt the tale. "They discovered the existence of meta-abilities. And their ambitions grew."
"They called them blessings." She corrects him. "And less 'ambition grew' and more 'the array of means of achieving their primary goal grew'. Most priests in Japan, regardless of denomination, are aware of the meta-abilities existence. Mostly the general fact that they exist and what to do in certain situations. So, someone confesses that they or their child is doing weird stuff, someone else mentions similar things during a meeting of the parishioners and suddenly…" She snaps a finger.
Oh, what a brilliant, brilliant scheme. Overhaul wishes that he had an information network this wide.
"They don't kidnap anyone, for the record." She continues. "Those that refuse to join are warned to try to stay under the radar to not attract attention, and left at that. Perhaps monitored a bit, to make sure that they aren't trying to use their blessings for anything nefarious. But the more zealous… and those whose blessings changed the way they looked, making them unable to fit in the normal society… tend to agree."
Overhaul mentally excuses Hari Kurono from interrupting his great work. This WAS important. Much more than he expected when he arrived at the meeting. Much, much more. Because he is almost certain of something… something that he decides to confirm immediately.
"Is it too much of a stretch to assume…" Overhaul says, while narrowing his eyes. "... that all of that is happening somewhere in Musutafu?" She wanted revenge for something. And she came for him. He had no presence outside of Musutafu and, to a degree, Shizuoka.
"No, it's not." She confirms his suspicions. "The main compound is located in Nabu Mountains. Near the town of Masegaki. The recruits are training alongside the regular militia members at the base. The younger metahumans are mostly living at the boarding house in Masegaki, where they attend the local schools." She shrugs when Overhaul gives her a questioning stare. "The youngest is seven years old. If your child looks too inhuman to not fit anywhere else, or you are worried that someone will soon kidnap them or worse for their blessings, why not let them hang out with others of their kind in some quiet town in the middle of nowhere? Said schools, the town's mayor and the local police were either solidly bribed or persuaded to help on moral grounds, and parents can, naturally, visit them at any time, for as long as they keep low-profile while doing so."
Potential target. If some of them have useful powers, like Eri did, this could be a … game-changer.
"Bad idea." Purity clearly reads it from his face. "General Bates doesn't know about the militia training and employing metahumans, but she knows about its existence and supports it under the table. Some surplus Chinese equipment from the wartime spoils, some Green Berets as training instructors… you attack either the compound or the boarding house at the wrong time, you kill one of the undercover US soldiers, and you're going to have Cathleen Bates go after you."
"Fair." Overhaul agrees. "That doesn't sound like it's worth it. So, you were a part of this initiative?" He decides to return back to the interrogation. He'll give this idea another go once the government collapses and the United States pull out.
"I was in charge of it." She surprises him. "Of course, I forgot to mention the side-effects of my blessing… and a few other things. Everything was going swimmingly until one of the metahuman members of the militia realized what was happening. I had thrice as many toys before that night." She sighs painfully. "My own sons led the rebellion against me, oh the irony. One of them is now the leader of the whole militia."
"So you want protection from them, and eventual revenge on your sons. And the others." Overhaul summarizes. Purity nods. "That can be arranged, for as long as you're ready to wait with the revenge until the US Army leaves Japan. And… how large are the numbers of that militia?"
"Official term is Knights of Amakusa." She decides to mention it. "After that Christian rebellion. We talk about about ten metahumans, and anywhere between thirty and fifty armed militia members. I don't know how many they recruited recently, and the militia members return to their homes once they are trained to the satisfying level."
"That's a lot." Overhaul decides to point it out. If only to slightly weaken her potential negotiation strength.
"Most of their metahumans are heteromorphs, or however you call them around here." She counters. "Being part-dog doesn't make you bulletproof. Only three are significantly more dangerous than an average militia member. My two sons and Ibara Shiozaki. I think you can deal with that much?"
"Of course I can." Overhaul doesn't enjoy being called out like that, but he needs to establish certain ground rules. He can do everything. Either right now, or eventually, once his forces grow enough. "Is that all?"
"No." Purity replies with a brief smirk. "There is something more. Something much, much more. Something that you'll love to find out."
Oh?
"Color me intrigued." Overhaul says, while eyeing the woman cautiously. "What is it?"
"Well, this calls for another long story. Shorter this time, though." She replies. Overhaul is alright with that. Her first long story was incredibly informative and useful. He has time to spare on another one. "You see, a certain girl out there was born with a heteromorphic blessing. Many, many years ago. She came from a very upright family, shinto priests, police officers, pretty much local nobility in all but name. They didn't exactly like the way she looked. Rather than abandon her, they've kept her hidden from the world and brought her up with almost no external contact."
"I assume that she didn't like that." Overhaul takes advantage of the brief pause to say something.
"Correct." Purity confirms his suspicion. "They let her use the internet, for as long as she kept her identity hidden and didn't tell anyone 'what' she was. Things didn't work. Although rather than hit the bad crowd and be talked by it into running away from home or committing mass murder, she struck friendship with some young local Christian. You can imagine what happened next."
"He found out about her imprisonment and her special nature." Overhaul said. "And so did the Knights." She gives him a scarce nod.
"She, not he." She says. "But the rest is correct. It was made even easier by her friend being a relative of an active member of Knights, although not a metahuman. When a few days later the princess imprisoned in the tower went dark, everyone figured out that her parents were secretly monitoring her internet access and decided to cut her out entirely for being too talkative."
"And the Knights didn't like it." Overhaul says.
"And the Knights didn't like it." Purity agrees. "They sent several investigators to confirm the girl's existence, her tale and the fact that she was held against her will. Once they succeeded in that, the Knights send a squad of the militia members together with one of my sons in order to… well, this straddles the line between kidnapping and liberating, really. Unfortunately, they arrived too late. For the girl already vanished. And that's where things get really, really interesting."
Overhaul likes 'really, really interesting'. Very much.
"Her parents sold her out to someone." Purity says, with a slight smile. "Someone surprisingly well-hidden, with very deep pockets and many interesting connections. However one of the investigators happened to be observing their home when the exchange happened, and the buyer was tailed. Imagine the Knights' surprise when they discovered that the girl was transported… to the Nabu Mountains."
"Oh, dear me." Overhaul says slowly, his eyes locked onto the Purity. "Someone else is gathering the metahumans from the entire country… right here. In Musutafu." Yoshihiro nods, her smile suddenly even more wry.
"There is a complex of very old buildings up in the mountains, near the village of Gunga." Purity says. "It has apparently been used for several interesting things. Some say it started as a place for research on biological weaponry, before Unit 731 took the lead. Ever since then it has been abandoned and repurposed several times. People typically move in because it's a nice set of buildings, practically begging to be used for something, only for it to turn out to be too remote to be useful in the long-term. I think it was used as a mental hospital before the war happened, and was then abandoned again. Except, someone recently moved in."
"Someone who knows about meta-abilities." Overhaul interjects. He realizes that his grin seems to be matching the one on Purity's face. "Not only knows, but also gathers metahumans from elsewhere for some unknown reasons."
"Pre-ci-sely." She says, dragging the word. "The Knights have been scouting the area ever since, preparing their assault on the facility. The attack didn't occur when I was in charge of the group, because the amount of defensive measures and the secrecy were… worrying. We only got a few names of people involved, not to mention a general estimation of the number of metahumans transferred into the facility. Still, I'm almost certain that Maki will do it, sooner or later. And I'm fairly sure that you can find much better use for such a treasure vault waiting to be opened, isn't it?"
"Oh, most certainly." This is precisely what the Shie Hasseikai needs. A bolster to its numbers. The more horrible the treatment suffered by the captives, the more likely they are to look for revenge. The more likely they are to be done with the world as it is right now. The more likely they are to agree to working with Overhaul. "What are the names you know of?"
"Mostly unimportant fodder." She says back. "The only truly interesting thing seems to be the fact that one of the scouts witnessed someone returning to the facility from somewhere. Someone that we've managed to identify as professor Kyudai Garaki, a very famous biologist. We currently suspect him to be either the head of the facility, or the chief researcher."
Interesting. He'll have to do some digging on the man. They can't be sure how much he learned about the quirks. They don't even know what they are doing at Gunga' facility. Caution is advised.
"What a buffet of potential metahuman recruits." Overhaul says slowly, almost dreamily. Purity gives him an almost conspiratorial look. "What are the numbers we're talking about? Ten? Twenty?" It would more than double his current list of villains if he manages to recruit them.
He understands immediately that he'll like the answer. The smile on Purity's face leaves nothing up to doubt.
"Try…" She says, while leaning towards him with a wry smile. "...two hundred."
(***)
Overhaul, naturally, agrees to recruit Purity. Even if he already has all that intel, her quirk is still useful. And for as much as what he knows about her as a person disgust him, she appears to have a working brain.
Having a villain that he can actually deploy into the field and leave them for their own devices sounds like a useful thing. Of course, he'll still have to test if the brain that he suspects her of having is truly there.
They all return to the Shie Hasseikai's headquarters. He decides against rushing back to resume his experiments on Dictator. Instead he speaks to Kurono, his trusted right hand man.
"It was…" He says. "... a very good idea to interrupt my experiments for this."
"I wouldn't do that if I wasn't certain of that." Hari replies. Overhaul nods. There is a reason why Kurono is probably the only person that Kai Chisaki truly trusts. "So, what's the plan if I may ask?"
Overhaul spent the journey home quietly strategizing in his head. He can't risk losing anyone else, and with Rabbit now working for Defiant (unless Chisaki was lucky and the massacre demoralized him to the point of quitting), large-scale engagements were risky.
Kai Chisaki didn't want to get a repeat of Shizuoka Massacre, except with Rabbit having access to more combatants. That were also better trained, and with significantly better communication equipment.
Defiant was skillful enough of a tactician to be a menace to Overhaul. Now he had to deal with two Defiants. There was a reason why he was laying low in Musutafu for the moment, while focusing on Shizuoka.
Then again… perhaps he could take advantage of that?
"Our plan for this one is going to be a bit… unique." Overhaul replies. "But we'll need to confirm Purity's intel first. And learn as much as we can about the compound." It won't be easy to achieve, but the results should be … wonderful.
(***)
The long build-up for the Gunga Mountain Raid starts now. Let's just say that a 'clusterfuck' doesn't even begin to describe what's to come. Also say hello to Purity and her sons, including our boy Zealot.