Guest - Yeah. Things are going to get... nasty during the raid.

Jpx0999 - Time will tell :P

(***)

Aizawa's meeting with Governor Yagi was… well, problematic. Yagi Toshinori wasn't exactly trying to make it so, but it was very hard for Aizawa to sufficiently explain what happened without using the word 'metahuman', 'meta ability' or 'quirk'.

Yagi knew about them, but his knowledge was the same as that of Prime Minister Shimura. And considering how close those two were, Yagi finding out the truth meant the government finding out the truth. Unless they had some powerful counter-arguments. That they didn't have.

Somehow, it worked. It was apparently another chemical attack, just… much more different. Yagi had a surprising amount of trust in Aizawa, enough to not ask what chemical makes half of the building vanish. Then again, the Commissioner didn't give him any reason to doubt his abilities. Thus far, they were (more or less) winning.

Very much more or less.

Aizawa looked forward to having another good night of sleep (yeah, right) in his secret hideout, right after videocalling Emi through the most secure connection Hatsume Industries managed to provide. Except, Tsukauchi phoned him at 3am.

He would normally be very… problematic due to that. But it quickly turned out that Tsukauchi had a very good reason for the call.

Aizawa's life ever since he found out about meta-abilities is a bad dream slowly turning into a full-blown nightmare. And the process just hit another milestone.

(***)

"Say this again." Principal Sasaki says, clearly as shocked as Defiant. Although less speechless about it. Then again, he had more experience in dealing with the unexpected.

"Someone's gathering up a large number of metahumans in a secret location somewhere within the Nabu Mountains." Aizawa summarizes his long lecture, clearly looking like he needed a nap. Or coffee. Or preferably both. "We talk about anywhere between one and two hundred metahumans kidnapped from the rest of the country. And Overhaul just learned of them as well."

That was… well, a lot to digest.

Defiant's first thoughts were those of panic that his fear of someone kidnapping metahumans for human experimentations had come to fruition way ahead of schedule. Sure, they couldn't be sure that that's what was happening in the Gunga Mountain compound, but… the signs were all there.

It also explained why the local mental health ward didn't want to let Tokoyami go. Blackwing seemed to have narrowly dodged the issue. Probably due to having supportive and well-off parents that weren't interested in sending him anywhere else without his agreement.

He then immediately proceeds to think over the implications of Overhaul potentially grabbing so many metahumans. It's bad, yes. Horrible, even. Oh, Izuku doesn't think that he could potentially recruit them all, if anything their past experiences suggest that more metahumans stay on the side of the law (not necessarily as heroes, but often as law-abiding citizens hiding who they were from the world).

Overhaul would get a lot of recruits… but he would also most likely massacre those that didn't show any criminal inclination. Massacre, or 'convince' to work with him, if their quirks were useful. Like he did with Eri.

Not good. Very much not good.

Principal Sasaki's mind went in a different direction. His first reaction was confusion at the discovery that Midoriya was actually on the right trail. Because Defiant did share his budding suspicions about some sort of bigger conspiracy being responsible for the exact degree of ignorance about meta-abilities among the public and government alike.

It was unlikely to be true. Midoriya, thankfully, knew about that himself (belief in conspiracy theories would be a major character flaw for someone crucial to the continued existence of Japan). He still ran Mirai Sasaki through his logic, just in case. A fact that Mirai took as a sign of trust, and valued it highly.

Like in the case of most conspiracy theories, it was internally - but not externally - consistent. Yes, it made sense if you thought about it. No, it didn't make sense when you try to put it in context of the real world and its underlying mechanisms.

Money, for example. When you tried to establish an omniscient conspiracy, you needed a massive amount of money. Even in times of chaos, there was a limit to the ability to hide large amounts of money permanently (and hiding such conspiracies required such operations to be permanent - you made a mistake, everything tumbled down).

You need to bribe/recruit police officers, bankers, perhaps corporate CEOs and board members to make the cash flow (and do it in secret). At some point you were going to inevitably discover that being able to finance a single member of your conspiracy required at least two members of the conspiracy working to support him. This, in turn, meant at least four members of the conspiracy to support them. Etc.

There was a limit to how many tax offices you could blow up because their members began to notice irregularities in the cash flow and you had to stop them from talking.

Recruitment and maintenance of loyalty of your members was another thing. You had to keep everyone satisfied and ready to work on your goal with enough loyalty and drive to keep lying to everyone around them (even those closest to them, like their family members) for years. Their entire life, maybe.

Principal Sasaki was a teacher. He knew how hard it was to keep a class composed of twenty young adults occupied with a common goal. Attempting to do that to thousands of people (some of which were bound to operate with very limited contact with their superiors) was simply impossible. Eventually an ideological split would occur. Someone would steal the money and run. A person en route to an important meeting would be run over by a car, the police precinct discovering the most curious papers on them. Etc.

Mirai still remembers how the CIA had a large spy network of theirs in China outed during the war because one of their couriers unconsciously said 'bless you' when someone in the room sneezed. Chinese American, seemingly trained perfectly to fit in, with perfect backstory, years of training to be basically indistinguishable while operating in China - and the Chinese realized that something was fishy because of something this simple.

It was the sort of thing that all of the worldwide conspiracies of fiction would have tripped over if someone tried to seriously establish them in real life. And that's without mentioning the fact they were barely past WORLD WAR THREE.

Chaos, destruction, people at the high positions being regularly replaced because they messed something up - that alone was enough to kill any pre-established conspiracy.

Mirai Sasaki could go on for hours pointing out more and more reasons why he refused to believe in any conspiracy bigger than a handful of officials that conspired together to steal money from their departments or use their knowledge to mess people up.

If you excluded spy networks, but those were extremely costly to maintain and unlike the ones of fiction, it was more common to recruit a disgruntled secretary than a prime minister into those. Besides, you had the entire country earn money to finance those, and you only had to keep the last one or two nodes of monetary transfer hidden.

Defiant had a bit more of an open mind, it turned out. His mind was a bit less burdened with real life experience than that of Principal Sasaki's. And to Principal's deep (if well-concealed) shock, he was to a large degree correct.

The Knights of Amakusa were one thing. Principal wasn't mentioning it aloud, but Governor Yagi was almost certainly aware of the militia's existence.

Mirai wasn't going to speculate what boon the governor received for supporting this, but there certainly was something he got out of the deal. Besides, if his hunch was correct, it didn't conclude the list of supporters the Knights had, making their existence into something explainable.

The big red question mark was the work of certain Kyudai Garaki, however. Because what they just learned about his operations really stretched the limits of Mirai Sasaki's imagination. Even in times of chaos such as the ones they lived in, kidnapping more than a hundred people (most of them teenagers) was… hard to achieve.

They had to have friends, relatives, internet acquaintances, people that would start asking questions. Oh, it's quite certain that Garaki went mostly for the people who were relatively light on that (such as the case that brought Garaki's existence into the Knights' attention). So it COULD be more or less explained.

But how did he locate it? That's what Sasaki couldn't understand. He with his network of informants struggled to find many metahumans, at least until local police precincts began to be enlightened about the current situation. Today the police nationwide had probably a five digit number of people looking into the issue. Correctly realizing that it was a life or death situation.

They found, what? Three hundred metahumans thus far? Three hundred fifty? Finding almost a half of that number, despite not having any governmental support… and it's not that Garaki found only so many of those. He found a hundred or two of those that he managed to obtain. There had to be more than he was tracking in hopes of getting them (like he did with Fumikage Tokoyami, most likely).

Who was supporting Kyudai Garaki? Who was paying his bills? Who helped him establish a country-sized observation network to rival the police? Who helped him blackmail or pay off family members, mental wards staff and who knows who else? And all of that so quietly that Mirai Sasaki or the local police didn't know a thing? Where was the money flowing from?

Government, in Sasaki's opinion, wasn't even nearly as competent and well-financed to pull something like that in the current situation. And he would know. Or at least he would have noticed some signs.

Besides, Yagi Toshinori was one of Nana Shimura's closest co-workers. If there was a large, long-term governmental black ops project run in his prefecture, Yagi Toshinori would know. And he certainly wouldn't let Knights of Amakusa settle nearby.

And if by some unbelievable stretch of logic he agreed to that, the Knights would receive an order not to interfere with whatever was happening around Gunga mountain. Which they clearly didn't receive.

Things weren't adding up. Mirai Sasaki wasn't used to things not adding up. Worst of all, after quickly running through all the potential scenarios, he began to realize that some large conspiracy within at least the Japanese government (one most likely including the late Commissioner General) wasn't off the table as far as explanations went.

It was… insulting to his experience and intelligence. But it was the truth. It made Mirai Sasaki incredibly confused. While also motivating him to spend a few days reevaluating all the information that his network of friends in high places could offer him.

Perhaps Defiant's intuition was more spot-on than Sasaki expected.

In the meantime, it was time to return to the world of the living.

"Do you trust this… defector?" Principal Sasaki asks. He might be a teacher by calling, but… well, he knows a lot of things. The Japanese counterintelligence likes to know a lot of things. He had certain elements in his work history that he preferred hidden. "Especially with the Inquisitor being around?"

They didn't expect anyone to defect to the police. Especially not someone high enough in the Shie Hasseikai ranks to actually know something useful. What happened was a surprise. And a large one.

"The defector claims that they didn't exactly consider defecting before they overheard the conversation about the new situation." Aizawa replies. "They seem to have some mixed feelings concerning Overhaul's villain initiative being not compatible with the yakuza lifestyle. When they realized that Chisaki was going to expand his villain unit in size several times, they defected at the spot."

It makes sense. All three people present in the room seem to have approached the same opinion. Still, Principal Sasaki needs to ask.

"Hijack?" Having someone to interrogate people for them was nice, even if it was a very limited and time consuming thing. That also forced them to only do it in certain circumstances. The 'victims' were going to be aware that the police were doing some fishy mind controlling thing afterwards, for example.

Besides, the courts were going to probably butcher them afterward. If there was going to be an afterward with still operating courts, that is.

Izuku also figured out a fun boon to Hijack's quirk. If he used classic hypnosis to put people in a trance beforehand, it massively impaired the ability to resist his quirk hypnosis. Similarly if he managed to get an answer out of someone being asleep or half-conscious (sleep-talking, being drugged), it tended to work similarly.

He could get an honest confession out of people. They got themselves a slightly harder to use Inquisitor.

They were in the process of looking through the prefectural police headquarters to find Overhaul's spy. Hijack said that it shouldn't take more than a two-three days. There was a clear progres on every field, except it could all go crashing down if they let Overhaul grab Gunga Mountain treasure trove.

"He confirmed that the defector is telling the truth." Aizawa says.

"And are we ready to trust that?" Principal replies. When Defiant's head turns towards him, he quickly clarifies. "I do not suspect Hijack of foul play. He has proven that he is earnest in his desire to turn over a new leaf, and to suspect him of a successful deception is to cast doubt over the competence of my own employees. However this new functionality of his quirk is a relatively recent development. Are we sure that there is no weakness in it? Are we sure that there is no way to fool quirks like that?"

"Aren't you getting paranoid?" Aizawa decides to point it out. "As far as we are aware, Overhaul doesn't even know that Hijack exists. You can't prepare for something you don't know about."

How is Mirai supposed to answer that? 'Our joint problem child shared his conspiracy theories with me and I failed to sufficiently dispel their internal logic so I might have grown a tiny bit paranoid as a result'?

He would prefer to maintain his teaching license and the network of informants that constitutes his information broker empire, thank you very much. Telling a police officer that the person in charge of 'his' superheroes started to consider the existence of some sort of massive governmental conspiracy sounds like a good way of damaging both.

"Well, the only way of going around that would be to use some sort of memory-altering quirk to make the defector genuinely think that this was the truth." Midoriya decides to be helpful and only ends up worsening Sasaki's sudden paranoia attack. What if there is a villain out there that can manipulate people's memories? How hard would it be to catch such a person? "Which, for the record, would be a very good way of creating a convincing false defector, regardless of whether you know about Hijack or not. But we haven't heard anything about him having someone with such a meta-ability."

"Which doesn't mean much, as we also didn't know about literally any other villain and supervillain that he pulled out of his ass until they messed up our day." Aizawa seems to have reconsidered some things. "Great, now I'm getting paranoid as well. Trying to confirm as much of the intel as we can before Overhaul attacks the compound but without alerting Garaki is going to be problematic."

Overhaul was apparently planning to storm it in a week. That was a tight schedule to maintain if they ever seen one.

"Can't we just ask the Knights about it, though?" Defiant asks and suddenly all the eyes in the room are on him.

"What?" Aizawa manages to vocalize his surprise first.

"I mean, they clearly know much more about the Gunga compound than we do." The superhero decides to point it out. "If we contact them, they should be able to confirm if the complex truly exists and if Garaki really is kidnapping metahumans."

"Kid." To say that Aizawa is skeptical is to make a massive understatement. Principal Sasaki, in the meantime, is… thoughtful. "That's an armed militia, not affiliated with our government in any way or shape. If the GSDF knew about their existence, it would launch an all-out attack without thinking about it twice."

"Well, yes." Defiant decides not to give up. "But considering their past activity, they are more of a self-defense group. Not much different than those that half of the towns around us have, just better armed and trained. And unless they are running brainwashing centers for the metahumans they picked up, I'd say that their activity on the meta-ability field has been pretty heroic thus far."

"Kid." Aizawa suddenly looks extremely done with his life. "I did agree with your logic when Kuroiro was involved. I decided that getting Knuckleduster and his pack of wild dogs is a good idea, because I sure as hell do not want to send anyone I like to Hosu. Don't you think that it's enough allies for the time being?"

"Uhm, no?" Izuku decides to stand his ground. "Considering what sort of mess Japan is heading into, don't you think that we need all the allies that we can get? Not to mention the fact that working with them, even in secret, at least lets us monitor their operations."

Aizawa opens his mouth for a harsh rebuttal, but the Principal decides to intervene. And change his earlier decision about not sharing some information. Because the situation clearly calls for it.

"I believe that Defiant has a point." He says. Aizawa's eyes locked onto him.

"Aren't you going a bit too far?" Commissioner asks. In his eyes, seriousness and some accusation. "Look, I do realize that you treat your special students like most people treat their children, but there should be a limit to acting fatherly around them."

Defiant was very happy for being masked, because hearing those words provoked some very odd look on his face. Aizawa was talking about the Special Course students in general, right? Right?

"My approach to my students isn't the point right now." Sasaki deflects the accusation. "What is the point is that I'm almost certain that attempting to attack the Knights will put you at odds with the governor Yagi. And you'll probably end up shooting some CIA agents or US Marines while at it."

Aizawa actually blinks at him a few times from behind his glasses.

"You think they know…" Principal Sasaki doesn't let him finish.

"It's not a very common knowledge, as she keeps most of her life private…" He says. "But considering the fact that General Bates is from Utah, it's not much of a stretch to suspect her of being religious. There are also many places in Japan where Knights could have their headquarters, but they did it in the prefecture governed by Yagi Toshinori, privately her close friend. An interesting coincidence that also strengthens American influence in our country, isn't it?"

Aizawa clearly recalculates something. Finally arrives at the conclusion.

"I guess that risking a war with the United States is a bad idea." He says and Principal Sasaki is deeply reassured by the discovery that Aizawa Shouta is actually a fellow man of logic and sanity. "And souring my working relationship with governor Yagi would be a mistake too. But…"

"I don't think that Defiant expects you to just openly offer them an alliance against Garaki." Sasaki decided to give Aizawa a hand. Something to make him digest the idea easier. "We would have to first confirm our suspicions about their backers, something preferably done in a face-to-face meeting with the governor. And then confirm to the best of our abilities that the Knights don't have any major skeletons in their closet. Still, I do agree with Defiant that this is the best way of confirming the intel we got within the allotted timeframe."

Aizawa surrenders. He hates that fact, but he ran out of counterarguments. It's not like they are sticking to guidelines and protocols, the police operations for the past few months are one large mess-up of improvisations. Only nominally legal (if legal at all, Tartarus certainly isn't something that he can defend in court).

Time for another meeting with Yagi. Oh, joy.

(***)

"So…" Governor Yagi is the same ruined (yet still standing) wreck of a man. His presence is still rather notable, and he is probably stronger than he looks. Still, he also feels rather… hollow. "... what is it about?"

The fact that Aizawa was having that meeting practically two hours after contacting him actually said a lot about the degree of trust that Yagi had in Commissioner Aizawa. The police officer wasn't sure how to feel about it after regularly complaining in front of his co-workers about the shitty financing the police had in Musutafu.

The financing improved significantly in recent times. It was still bad, but it wasn't grotesquely bad.

Once again, Aizawa is standing in front of that desk. Hoping to get what he needs out of the visit.

"I believe that we have a lead on the criminals responsible for the assassination of Assistant Commissioner Mera." Aizawa replies. Yagi's eyes narrow a bit. That was… quite a fast investigation. "We believe that this was an act of a political terrorism, the group responsible for it having a base in the Nabu Mountains. We need…"

Well, it's not exactly the truth. The Shie Hasseikai was the true responsible party. But they need to bend the truth a little to make it work. Except, Governor Yagi cuts in quickly.

"The organization in question is not responsible." He says, immediately confirming their suspicion. He DID know about the Knights. "Its presence there is something that the government is aware of and…"

"No, uhm…" Aizawa asks himself if it's possible to break this news subtly. Probably not. "... it's the other secret armed group in the Nabu Mountains. The one not supported by the CIA."

Yagi stares at him in silence. He looks like he really began to question his own sanity. Or, perhaps, Aizawa's.

"What?" He eventually manages to ask.

"I believe that you are referring to the Knights of Amakusa." Aizawa says and takes notes of Yagi's reactions. Yes, he certainly knew about that group. Commissioner is actually mildly irritated that he wasn't informed of the fact. Then again, he was promoted recently, so… "They have their base near Masegaki. The group that destroyed that precinct has a base on Gunga Mountain."

Yagi's stare somehow deepens. It's actually rather intimidating right now.

"There is another armed group in those mountains." He says, the disbelief audible in his tone. "Except, it remained hidden from us all that time. And it's hostile."

"Uhm, yes." Aizawa scratches the back of his neck. He'd prefer to not have this talk. "That's what our intel points to, anyway."

"Wouldn't the other group detect them earlier?" Yagi somehow is stunned enough to openly admit the connection. Then again, CIA is involved, so… "They are doing their best to maintain a low profile, but we DO have a line of communication established and…"

"Are you sure that, uhm…" Okay Aizawa, wing it. You can't exactly announce that the meta-abilities are involved, and it's clear that Knights hide the truth from their patrons to keep those hidden. So let's say it differently. "...that they didn't assume that the other group was there with your permission as well?"

Silence. Yagi is staring at him in complete and utter silence and it's growing increasingly awkward. He is pretty much Aizawa's one and only superior right now, and that makes things more troublesome than they'd have to.

"... I need a fucking drink." Governor Yagi eventually announces, while rubbing his eyes and looking around the room, as if some alcohol was to materialize there after his words. "Except, I can't drink because of my injuries. So I'm going to have to deal with it sober. What do you want of me?" He adds, his eyes finally back on Aizawa.

Aizawa would likely have said some version of 'I want you to stop letting the CIA and the US Army organize secret training camps for armed militias in my neighborhood', but alas, it's really not on the table. So he goes with what he feels should be achievable.

"I need a meeting with whoever's in charge of the Knights." He says and suddenly the mood in the room shifts slightly. Someone didn't like it. "As soon as possible. Preferably tomorrow, even."

"Why?" The answer is short. The face is clouded. Yes, he clearly didn't like it.

"Police has connected that unknown group with numerous cases of kidnapping and human trafficking." Aizawa says, hoping that Yagi won't ask him for details. Because they have none. "There might be dozens of people held prisoner in that base. We also believe that they are planning to abandon it within the next week. As a result, the raid is going to be rushed, and since we don't even know what sort of group we're operating against, we need every source of intel on it that we can get. And fast."

They might also need some additional help from the Governor's office, because honestly, this operation is going to be a big one. Probably the biggest. In fact, it will probably include the Quirk Suppression Unit, most heroes and… well, a lot of police officers.

The chances of something going catastrophically bad are… well, non-zero. And that's a problem.

"... I'll have to make a few calls." Yagi eventually announces. "You'll have your meeting tomorrow."