"To begin with, I… don't think that this is the right place nor, potentially, the right assortment of people to witness my… explanations." Aizawa decides that he can as well start from that. "It's going to include a lot of confidential information, and…"
"Am I supposed to understand that you do not trust the people that work for me, Commissioner Aizawa?" Yagi asks. Sounding maybe a tad bit hostile about it. "Is that what you meant by it?"
"No, I'd simply prefer to not be mentioned in the future history books as the guy that started a civil war that resulted in the dissolution of Japan as a sovereign unitary state by saying too much too early." Aizawa replies. Because honestly… yeah.
That's an option.
That's a fucking option right now and it's arguably one of the less worrying or terrifying results of the Gunga Mountain Raid.
Gods, Aizawa wants to go to sleep right now and wake up, like, two centuries in the future? Sounds like a good enough buffer to avoid the direct aftermath of the whole Dawn of Quirks bullshit.
Hopefully, he would get himself some nice and simple job, one that doesn't include risking his life and having to deal with supervillains. Like, say, a teacher at a Hero Course? His quirk could get rowdy children to behave at a glance, truly a blessed asset.
Yagi stares at Aizawa in absolute silence for about ten seconds. Eventually, however, the governor groans.
"You know what, fine." He announces. "But if you're being overly dramatic, it's NOT going to improve your situation at all. Everyone aside from Death Arms and chief prosecutor Hamada, you're free to go. Anything else you need to present your explanations for this clusterfuck, commissioner Aizawa?"
The rest of the people present in the room leave, being clearly unhappy about that fact. Oh, well.
"A computer with a large screen." He replies. "I have some video recordings to show."
"Presentation room it is." Yagi says while standing up from his chair.
(***)
The presentation room was almost empty. Three witnesses where there could be fifty. One more presentation about the meta-abilities existence - because he had to give the people in front of him context before starting to narrate the events.
It was… boring, in a way. He had done that multiple times. But it was also something else because this was going to be the last time he was ever giving those talks to people. From now on, it was probably going to be something that you freely read about on the internet or listen to experts talking about on TV.
Finally, the government was going to find out.
"Before we start, I'm going to ask a very important question." Aizawa asks while plugging the pen drive into the computer. "Mostly to governor Yagi."
"Yes?" The man in question asks.
"I was made to believe that the government was vaguely aware of the fact that for at least a few years there were cases of people out there developing… special abilities, so to say." Aizawa asks, eyeing Yagi for reaction.
"It is aware of that fact, yes." Yagi admits although it's clear that it soured his mood. "I'm looking forward to discovering how this could influence a police operation to this degree
"Excuse me?" The chief prosecutor decides to cut in. Someone clearly wasn't in on the secret. "What do you mean by that?"
Lieutenant General appears to be… honestly, he probably knows, but isn't expressive enough to make it known for sure.
"Superpowers, Yuki." All Might replies. "Very weak, but not yet explained. Imagine someone who can with 100% certainty predict the results of a dice throw for as long as he sees the dice being thrown. The government realized it during the war, investigated the issue briefly, then focused on other things."
"Focused on ot…" The chief prosecutor makes a gagging sound. "Why wasn't I informed?! Someone with a power like that could veritably cheat at gambling dens, the knowledge about powers like that, even if insignificant could influence verdicts in court cases, you can't just…"
"No longer insignificant." Aizawa cuts in.
"Excuse me?" The chief prosecutor repeats her earlier words.
"The superpowers… although we refer to them as quirks or meta-abilities… are no longer insignificant." Aizawa states dryly. "The government assumed that the situation didn't require any further attention and missed out on the fact that for the last few months the newly manifested meta-abilities are no longer insignificant."
"... what?" Yagi stares at him.
"The reason why the raid on the Gunga Mountain compound went pear-shaped…" Aizawa sighs, his job at the computer done. "... because the situation escalated into a four-sided clash that included no less than fifty supervillains belonging to three different villainous organizations. Like literal, Marvel or DC-style supervillains, some even brought some goddamn villain outfits."
He isn't mentioning the magical girl. Or the zombies. Or the fucking dragon. Especially not at the beginning of the talk. He needs to walk Yagi through it with baby steps, and announcing all of that from the start is just going to make him send Aizawa to a mental hospital before listening to him fully.
"What's… wait." Yagi takes a deep breath. "You know that if I didn't know for certain that the abilities exist and they aren't currently explainable I'd throw you out through the window and have you kicked out of the Force?"
"Acutely aware." Aizawa replies dryly. "I assure you that I found no enjoyment in that subject. If you're doubting me, you're free to contact Principal Sasaki of the UA to vouch for me and the revelations that I'm bringing."
"So he's in on this as well." Yagi sighs. "Let me guess, he found some kids who had something resembling a superpower and immediately grabbed them for his school."
"Yes." Aizawa replies. Yagi groans.
"That's absolutely in-character for that man." Governor announces. "I'm going to make a phone call."
It was a very brief phone call. Aizawa could sum it up to 'Sasaki, I'm with Aizawa right now, please tell me that you didn't pull a Charles Xavier on the world when no one was loo… I hate you and everything you stand for, goodbye."
Well, damn. There was a history between those two that Aizawa probably didn't want to learn.
"He vouches for you." Yagi then states, with a face of utter expressionlessness. Death Arms and the chief prosecutor glance at him worriedly. "Sounds like you aren't bullshitting us with this… phenomenon. I generally hate wasting time, especially in a crisis, so I'll get straight to the point. How bad is it?"
"We're screwed." Aizawa replies. Yagi sighs.
"I retract my earlier statement, please do waste some time." Governor then says.
"I'm going to use three names as an example." Aizawa replies. "Dabi, the self-proclaimed Arch-Arsonist of Musutafu, caused the Marukane Ward fire by using his fire quirk to generate a heat ray that ignited almost a kilometer of rooftops before melting through two buildings with people sleeping inside."
There are some gagging or choking sounds from the audience (Yagi also coughs out some blood), but Aizawa continues regardless.
"Case two, Dictator." Aizawa says. "User of a mind-control quirk powerful enough to change an entire village… the one in Nabu Mountains that got burned a moment ago, as a result of a clash between him and another supervillain… into his own personal kingdom inhabited by still fully conscious puppets that he could remotely operate 24/7."
Does Aizawa look like he is absolutely super done with this whole bullshit? Honestly, the probably best part of this meeting (if it goes through correctly) is that he'll be free to yeet at least some of the supposed responsibility to the people above him in the hierarchy.
"Case three, Carmilla." Aizawa continues. He'll say that she's on their side later. "She can perfectly impersonate anyone whose blood she drank, for a duration dependent on the intake. When I say perfectly, I mean it. No tests that we've made could tell her from the original, she even instinctively knows how to behave like them. She could simply sneak into the prime minister's house tomorrow, lock her in her basements and drain her of her blood regularly, taking the country over, and we would be none the wiser."
This time, there are no choking and gagging sounds. There are just shocked stares.
"So, as I say, we're all screwed." Aizawa announces. A small part of him finds guilty pleasure in this. "Good news is that I knew of it for a few months now, and I'm not the only one now. By now most of the Japanese police are more or less aware of the crisis, either because they were informed by it by those already in the know or because they had a run-in with the phenomenon on their own. The government was left out of the loop because seeing as it had enough problems as is, it was decided to establish and test at least some generalized countermeasures to the problem before enlightening it to avoid… rushed reactions."
He pulls out several copies of the meta ability primer pamphlets from his suitcase he was truly reassured to no longer have to carry around. It's the shortened version, no mentions of the hero system (yet), but includes the summary of terminology and their current knowledge on the quirks as a whole.
He took a few too many of those, expecting a bigger audience. He hands them to the three people in front of him, before explaining to them what they are. Then he waits while they give them a read.
"That's…" Yagi eventually says. "... much more detailed than anything the government managed to glean about those… quirks. By far."
What is Aizawa supposed to say to that? That the government was infiltrated by a conspiracy (that included former Commissioner General Toyoda) that was doing their utmost to keep said government in the dark?
Baby steps.
"We did our job." Aizawa shrugs. "Frankly speaking, as stated earlier, we have a framework of a system running, the only thing that's left is, hopefully, an official nation-wide introduction with governmental support. Judging from the fact that before the Gunga Mountain we were successfully dismantling the Shie Hassaikai, the yakuza clan that decided to embrace the new world and gathered almost all supervillains in this prefecture, I'd say that the system works."
Gunga Mountain was going to change a lot on that field. Goddamnit, Overhaul. You just had to do this, didn't you?
"Elaborate on the system." Yagi replies.
"First point I'd like to mention is the containment of metahuman criminals." Aizawa replies. Honestly, with the chief prosecutor here, it might be the biggest problem to face. "A lot of them possess powers that make them basically incapable of being incarcerated in normal prisons, as they would escape them in a matter of minutes. "
"Oh great, the Cardboard Prisons trope." Yagi groans. Between the Charles Xavier mention earlier, it seems like he is fairly genre savvy himself. "Shoot it."
"We've begun to divide the identified villains into several categories." Aizawa replies. "Depending on the nature of their crimes and quirks. The 'standard' villains are divided between grades D to A. D and C are for non-violent, B and A for violent. D and B are for those that can be safely incarcerated by 'enlightened' prison wardens with minimal degree of troubles, C and A are for those that are either impractical or impossible to be contained."
"Sound anime-ish, but logical." Yagi admits. "How do you deal with them?"
"D and B-rank villains are by general rule incarcerated in Tartarus, our temporary villain detention facility at an undisclosed location." Aizawa drops the bomb.
He can see Yuki Hamada open her mouth to protest against said bomb. Honestly, even Yagi looks like he wanted to say something. Aizawa decided to not give them the time to do that.
"Yes, I'm aware that they are held there without due process." Aizawa says. "However with the government unaware of the scale of the problem, I couldn't exactly grab a woman, take her to a court, point at her son, and say 'your honor, that woman always wanted a daughter so she used her quirk to make her son appear outwardly girly with her quirk against his will while messing up his health and shortening his lifespan to forty years at best', without appearing delusional, now could I?"
Using Rabbit's mother as an example was, honestly, the only way in which that bitch could actually do someone some good, in Aizawa's opinion. What she did to him was just straight-up horrible, most likely the worst case of abuse he ever heard of.
"Tartarus was established as a provisional containment facility for villains, supposed to work only until the existence of the meta-abilities was going to be revealed to the public." Aizawa continues. "The inmates are treated correctly, no harsh interrogations, no beatings, no experiments, proper healthcare and accommodations matching the ones in normal prisons. All while letting us figure out proper containment procedures."
"I'm…" The chief prosecutor finally gets a word in. "... going to demand an inspection of it."
"Very well." Aizawa shrugs. "This can be arranged." She probably wants to make sure that they won't have to release all of those inmates over procedural mistreatments.
"What about C and A-Rank villains?" Yagi asks.
"C and A villains were originally scheduled to be dropped onto one of the uninhabited Izu islands." Aizawa admits. "While being regularly supplied with food and so on. Eventually, we didn't end up doing that, most of those dealt with differently, primarily by more 'personalized' containment procedures."
Honestly, aside from Firestorm they don't have many cases of those.
"And what about the 'non-standard' villains?" Yagi replies. Looks like he caught up with Aizawa's mention earlier about 'standard villains'.
"We refer to them as 'supervillains', and had them divided between S and SS-Ranks." Aizawa replies. "In simplest terms, an S-Rank is a person capable of annihilating a military unit or a police precinct singlehandedly, making them an approximately city-level threat. SS-Ranks in the meantime can be summarized as a prefectural-level threat, people capable of, either through their underlings or their own quirks, overturn a societal order within a prefecture."
Time to unleash another bomb. The one that Aizawa would prefer not to have to unleash, but…
"Unfortunately, the Gunga Mountain Raid forced us to alter the ranking." Aizawa adds. "By adding an SSS-Rank, which can be summed up as 'existential threat to the country'. We are currently aware of three such villains."
Which, honestly, was the best picture of just how much of a clusterfuck the raid was. The only way in which it could potentially get worse was if goddamn Kuroiro decided to drop by with his League, but thankfully, he didn't.
"That sounds absolutely delightful." Yagi replies dryly. "How do you deal with the supervillains?"
"S-Rank's treatment can be summed up by 'engage with lethal means if civilian lives are endangered'." Aizawa replies. "Which, in the case of people like the Dabi I mentioned, is by all means and intents, 'always'. Everything above operates on a strict 'kill-on-sight' policy."
Not like they had an awful lot of luck on that field.
"That's…" The chief prosecutor tries to protest, Death Arms instead staring at Aizawa quietly.
"... something that we'll assess properly once we have more information about the subject." Yagi cuts in. The woman gives him a shocked look. "What's next?"
"I hired the former members of the local SAT following their encounter with supervillains during Aldera's attempt to arrest Goto Imasuji." Aizawa replies. "The 'Special Operations Unit' is a false name, the true one being the Quirk Suppression Unit. Superintendent H… Takami was tasked with establishing ways to counter meta-human criminals with guns."
"How did it work?" Surprisingly enough, it's Death Arms that speaks. Yeah, it's kind of his field of operations.
"Mixed results." Aizawa replies. "Villains can be mostly disposed of normally, even the A-Rankers are in practical terms people with more unique guns. Unless they'll be particularly experienced in that field, counter-terrorist units will walk through them. The situation gets complicated with supervillains, in whose case even the SAT can only be used as a reaction force."
"Elaborate?" Yagi asks.
"For as long as the SAT knows the supervillain's quirk in detail, it can craft an operation plan that will result in them being eliminated, with little to no effort." Aizawa replies. "In fact, the QSU has already eliminated a few. However, if deployed against a supervillain whose abilities are unknown to them or whose quirk was incorrectly dissected… it might easily end in complete disaster. In fact, I was told that Aichi's SAT has most likely encountered one or several supervillains a few months ago in the Niigata Mountains, without knowing that quirks exist, and was subsequently annihilated."
"And I assume…" Death Arms cuts in again. "... that it takes much more time and effort to train a SAT unit than it takes for a supervillain to get to that level, am I right?"
"That is, unfortunately, correct." Aizawa admits. "QSU is in contact with remaining SAT units and are working together on tailoring equipment and tactics for dealing with this unexpected threat. The Coast Guard's SST is already also aware of the situation and is altering their training and operational protocols to take metahuman criminals into account. However for the time being our counter-terrorist units simply aren't enough to deal with the situation on their own."
"I see." Yagi is remarkably calm for a man who just heard the pillar of public safety being practically obliterated. "Judging from your successes in the war against crime and villainy in this prefecture, I assume that you have something else to share with us."
"Fighting fire with fire." Aizawa replies. When he receives three questioning stares, he sighs. "Meta-ability manifestations aren't limited to the nasty people."
"You mean…" Yagi tries to speak. Yeah, he probably figured it out the fastest.
"A few months ago, a young adult in Takoba manifested a meta-ability." Aizawa replies dryly. "A young adult that just happened to be a great fan of fictional superheroes with a surprising amount of charisma and organizational skills. Fast forward to the present and he's the leader of Metahuman Network, a nation-wide metahuman organization with twenty prefectural branches and close to seven hundred members, providing the local police units and emergency services with their meta-abilities in exchange for money, access to education and healthcare and so on. While being kind enough to not operate independently."
Aizawa is still ready to praise and worship whatever god inspired Defiant to make his organization actually follow police orders .The amount of clusterfucks and bad blood that this spared both sides was simply incredible.
"Oh." Yagi blinks at him. "That's…"
"The Network deployed nine superheroes, their equivalent of supervillains, and seventy sidekicks, the villain counterparts, for the Gunga Mountain Raid." Aizawa adds. "It's the honest opinion of all police officers participating in it that if not for their presence, the Musutafu police force would be wiped out entirely on that mountain."
Too bad that the kids paid their own share of the price.
"That's… a lot to swallow." Yagi finally manages to speak.
"To say the least." Chief prosecutor cuts in. "You know that the defense might just tear through the gathered evidence if they were untrained civilians roaming around and…"
"Then the laws should be changed to make their presence there legal." Aizawa retorts. His voice could make the paint on the wall dry up instantly. "Because, and that's a person who enjoys having things be plain, simple and conventional saying, we need them. Musutafu is the only prefecture in the country where the social order is genuinely improving because thanks to Defiant having his base of operations here and Principal Sasaki jumping on the bandwagon, the Musutafu branch of the Network is the biggest, best trained and best equipped nationwide. Trying to shortly summarize all their contributions at this point would take me hours, and if I even suggest walking out of the deal I'm going to be deposed by my subordinates and then promptly sprayed with freezing cold water by the local fire department."
At least Tsukauchi or Torino aren't here. If they heard him speaking those words, they would never let him live it down. Aizawa Shouta, the police officer, officially endorsing superheroes, and with words like that? Torino would be reminding him of that on a daily basis.
"That bad?" Yagi asks.
"Let me put it that way." Aizawa replies dryly. "We've been through that with the SAT, SST, Aldera police force, Takoba firefighters, and lots of local police precincts nationwide. First it's 'what do you mean superpowers exist' then it's 'that's crazy, I don't want to have anything to do with that' and finally, once they are shown the true extent and application of quirks, it's throwing money at the superheroes as if they were the sexiest strippers in the whole world."
Not exactly the simile he would admit to using in public, but… in his opinion, it portraits the phenomenon well enough.
"We need every superhero and sidekick we can get on our side if we want to maintain the social order after the Reveal Day… which, according to Principal Sasaki, might occur within the next ten days… and more." Aizawa continues. "It's bad enough that the police are actively endorsing the system for rehabilitating some villains through working as heroes. Any meta-ability is a completely unique thing, opening completely unique prospects and offering its own tactical and strategic advantages, meaning that some quirks are simply too valuable to be left to rot with their owners in Tartarus."
"You do know that you don't exactly have the power to absolve people of their crimes, yes?" Chief prosecutor replies with a question. She doesn't sound angry about it, so it seems that at this point she decided that Aizawa most likely does know, seeing as thus far he had correct answers to all her inquiries.
"Absolutely." Aizawa nods. "And they know about it. However, the participants of this program figured out that proving that they could be productive members of society if given a chance, not to mention having the local police force argue for pardon, might influence the results of their court cases. Just so we're clear about…" He adds after a second. "Carmilla, the perfect impersonator I mentioned earlier, is a part of this program."
Silence in the room. The people in front of him are clearly busy digesting the words he shared with them.
"This is a lot to swallow." Yagi eventually says. "And it's not even my decision to make, as that's for the Prime Minister. That I will, I assure you, visit right after this meeting." Aizawa expected nothing else. "Now, could we go back to the raid? What exactly happened there?"
"The raid was organized because we've discovered that someone was gathering metahumans from the entire country in that facility for reasons unknown." Aizawa replies. "We've discovered the reasons following our meeting with a… certain interested party from the Nabu Mountains, which showed us a 'monster' they caught in a forest, a monster that we've discovered to be one of the missing metahumans after being twisted into that form by someone. As a result, we've decided to launch an assault on what we correctly believed to be a lair of some mad scientists experimenting on quirks."
"And things went pear-shaped, because…" Yagi says before pausing and giving Aizawa a questioning look.
"We'll get to that in a moment." Aizawa replies. "We've deployed the 72nd battalion as a perimeter defense, before sending an assault unit composed of the Quirk Suppression Unit, the Musutafu Anti-Firearms Squad and a select group of superheroes and sidekicks to attack the main facility. Most of the raid was recorded, so…" He sighs. "I think it might be best to show it to you."
He clicks on the first of the files. A moment later, the view from a drone and from the camera in someone's suit (namely, Defiant's - his hero name is written at the top right corner) are simultaneously displayed on the wall above Aizawa.
(***)
One Day Ago
The second the assault group enters the courtyard before the compound main building, it comes under fire. Dozens of assault rifles, judging from the amount of firepower that's raining on them.
The QSU and AFS officers formed a line of ballistic shields in front of the group, expecting that. In the end, though, bullets simply don't reach them, all of them being intercepted by Defiant's telekinetic shields (he trained a lot and was ready to show that to the world).
"Don't fire back." Hawks (there are subtitles displayed on the file, he is written down as Superintendent Takami/QSU). "Conserve ammo. Defiant, I think that it's a good idea to start this battle with a proper power move. Get rid of their cover."
("How is he supposed to…" Death Arms starts asking, but doesn't have time to finish before he gasps in shock.)
Defiant extends his towards one edge of the building… and then swipes it to the side, lightning bursts covering him for a brief moment. The entire front wall of the building follows his movement, torn off in a rain of loose bricks and plaster, the defenders behind it exposed.
The attackers open fire. The defenders are mowed down in seconds, too shocked to respond to the attack and exposed to the attackers. Some manage to escape, but the rest are cut down, either dropping to the floor or falling off the edge and hitting the pavement below.
Monsters leap forward a second later. Seven hulking, blackskinned beasts with exposed brains, terrifying enough to elicit shocked gasps even from war veterans like Yagi.
They are cut down quickly. Defiant waves his hands around, hiltless blades following his motions. The monsters move fast, but not fast enough. Limbs are severed, monsters are decapitated or pierced through. All seven failed to reach the line of police officers that didn't stop their advance for even a moment.
"Hawks to Command." Superintendent Takami announces with a calm voice. "We've encountered heavy resistance, about thirty gunmen and seven additional monsters. No delays to speak off, entering the main building according to the operation plan."
(***)
This was most certainly the last 'metahuman introduction' scene in the fic, and it carries a lot of significance seeing as it's practically speaking THE Government that's being enlightened. Also, the following combat scenes might - like Defiant just did - showcase the degree of improvements they made. I mean, they kept training super hard, with Defiant and Kan (you know, Vlad King, here quirkless but a former ranger hired by Sasaki to train them in quirkless combat) around, so...