Chisaki looked around the room to which the vortex had taken her. She was sure that it was the same room that she had been in just yesterday, but the machinery no longer filled the space and the panels of screens, which covered one of the walls, were all turned off. In the center of the room, a pair of large arm chairs and a coffee table had been set up.
"Good afternoon Chisaki." Sensei said warmly from one of the cushioned arm chairs. "Have a seat and we can get to talking."
"H-hello sensei." She began slowly as she took the seat across from him. She had been waiting to speak to him all day, but now that she was here in front of him, she didn't know what to say. "I-I see that you are not hooked up to your machine today." She said nervously, her eyes trained on her hands.
Sensei smiled kindly. "Yes, and I apologize for my tardiness. It takes hours of preparation and work for me to spend even an hour away from it. I just wanted to have a nice talk with you, away from all of the cables and equipment." He was watching her now, with a keen, but earnest, interest. "Well, that's enough about me. How are you?" He asked gently.
Chisaki didn't respond, still unsure of what to say to him or where to start.
Seeing Chisaki's mute reaction, Sensei instead supplemented some information, in an attempt to coax a reaction out of her. "Kurogiri told me that your voice was shaking when you spoke with him earlier. Can you tell me the reason for that?"
Chisaki's face turned red and she looked up suddenly. "O-oh, I didn't even realize I was… doing that." Chisaki began with a feeble little chuckle. That's a pretty good place to start, she thought. She paused for a moment, before springing into action with a sheepish smile.
"Well, you see, I found something out this morning…" She said quickly, before a realization hit her and her smile dropped, the color draining from her cheeks.
What am I doing? I'm just going to tell a Villain about All Might's crippling weakness?
No! That's just insane!
There's no way that I can tell a villain about this, even if that villain is Sensei.
But if not Sensei then who? Should I just keep this to myself and keep suffering? Keep letting this tear me apart?
Its only been, what, a few hours? And I already feel like I'm going to burst. Just imagine days. Weeks? Months? Years?
To never be able to tell anyone that the idol of our generation is a liar and a fraud…that's absolutely unimaginable.
Would it be so bad to tell just Sensei then? Maybe I can make him promise not to spread this information.
But if this gets out, there will be mass riots and chaos. Isn't that exactly what a villain would want?
Does Sensei want that?
"Chisaki?" A voice asked in concern.
She snapped her head up, startled, to see Sensei leaning towards her, his scarred face twisted in concern.
"Are you doing alright?" He asked softly. "You've gone as pale as a ghost. If this thing is really weighing on you that much, then you should talk about it all the more."
Chisaki swallowed nervously and looked away. "Th-that's just the thing… I don't…don't think that I can talk about it because it's such a big deal." She stuttered, unsure.
"What do you mean?" He asked with a raise of his hairless brow.
She bit her lip and scanned Sensei's face, uncertain.
"If I tell you, I need you to promise to keep this a secret from…well… everyone."
Sensei sat back in his chair and watched her for a moment, his head cocked to the side as he thought.
"Very well, I can agree to that." He said with a steady nod.
Chisaki gave a sigh of relief and relaxed.
"Now tell me," He said kindly, "what is troubling you?"
She took a moment to arrange her thoughts.
"I…Well…Where do I start with this?" She began nervously, unsure of how she should approach this topic. "Its about All Mi-" Her voice caught in her throat at his name.
"About All Mi-" She decided to try again, confused.
"All M-" It wasn't getting any better and now her eyes were burning with tears.
Come on stupid voice. Why can't I say his name? Its just a name. It's not a big deal. Just say it!
"All Mi-" This time she was cut off by a vicious sob that had erupted from her chest. "Oh God! What the hell is wrong with me?" Chisaki exclaimed as she buried her face, now dripping with fresh tears, into her shaky hands.
"Forget about his name." Sensei said calmly, his tone concerned but gentle. "Just tell me what you found out about All Might."
Chisaki took a shuddering breath from behind her hands, and removed them from her face with a sniffle. "Y-yes." She said shakily as she swiped at her eyes. "I…" She took a deep breath to steady herself a bit, and launched in with the conclusion. "Heisn't all powerful…H-he was severely wounded in a fight, seven years ago, and now hes been reduced to a weak and feeble state." Now the words were beginning to tumble out in a rush, like water rushing through a hole in a dam, widening the hole into a crack, and growing until the dam collapsed under the pressure. Tears were squeezing out of the corners of her eyes but the words had taken on a life of their own and she couldn't stop them now. "The…him that we see on TV is just the scraping together of what's left of his power, but it's all a deception. We won't be safe when a real emergency appears, because he won't be able to defend us. Our safety is just an illusion. And, even worse, I don't think that All Might will recover in this lifetime. So we'r never going to be as safe as we think we are. And, of course, I'm telling all of this to a villain. That sounds like some kind of moral sin. I'm just handing a villain the secret to defeating, if not killing, the number one hero, the protector of peace! That's insane isn't it? I don't even know why I'm doing this. I-"
"Chisaki." Sensei said calmly, cutting through her hysterical raving, "Its okay," He said with a gentle, sad, smile. "I already know."
She stared at him for a moment, frozen in surprise, and all she could get out was a hollow.
"Oh."
Then tears sprung to her eyes.
"Oh, thank God!" She exclaimed in relief, and she gave a shameful, choked, sob. "I don't know what I would have done with myself if…if what I had said had somehow led to him getting killed. But I couldn't just NOT say anything to anyone! I couldn't handle a secret like that."
Sensei smiled reassuringly to her. "Well I'm glad that you told me." A troubled look flashed across his face. "But for you, a pretty standard civilian, to find this out so easily… Toshinori must really be getting sloppy…" He said pensively.
"Do you know All M-…" She paused for a moment, looking frustrated but determined, and took a deep breath. "…All Might?"
"Well, I don't know him on a personal level," Sensei said in this calm and thoughtful way, as if he were picking his words carefully; Chisaki found this small mannerism surprisingly comforting. "But, he and I have been…opposing each other for the past seven or eight years, and you come to know someone pretty well after clashing with them for so long. So, I would say that I know him pretty well."
"Seven or eight years, huh?..." Chisaki said softly, a vague memory creating an itch in a corner of her mind, distracting her from the emotional crash from just a few moments before. "Yesterday, you said that you were injured seven years ago. All Might said that he was injured at the same time. Curious…"
Sensei's brows rose in momentary surprise, before settling, and his pale lips lifted at the corners, a knowing little smile sprouting on them. "And?" He asked, his tone was almost taunting or coy. "Would you like to draw any conclusions?"
Chisaki watched his reactions with confusion. "Conclusions?" She asked, perplexed, before her green eyes went wide with realization and she almost jumped up in surprise. "You knew about All Might's injury and weakness because you caused it! You and All Might fought seven years ago!"
A pleased smile spread across Sensei's lips. "Yes. Perfect." He glanced behind Chisaki for a moment, before returning his gaze to her.
"Why isn't your fight recorded anywhere? That must have been a massive battle, you and All Might fighting toe to toe." She said, bright eyed and excited just imagining it.
Sensei gave a humorous little laugh from deep in his chest. "A great fight in deed… You know, that little deductive ability of yours is quite impressive. Something like that can't be learned, nor taken lightly. It's a very valuable trait in this dangerous world of ours." A figure appeared from behind Chisaki and Sensei turned to face them. "Oh why hello there Kurogiri. Would that happen to be tea?"
"Yes, an earl grey." The bartender said as he approached.
Sensei and Chisaki watched as the bartender set down a tray with the customary homely tea set; complete with a pair of tacky mugs, an old tea kettle, and two containers of what Chisaki assumed to be milk and sugar.
"Well, Thank you Kurogiri." Sensei said graciously.
"You are very welcome sir." Kurogiri said courteously. "I did not intend to intrude."
Chisaki watched him as he retreated, curious and a little bit worried, unsure of how long he had been near; she suddenly felt like he could have witnessed something private, something raw and unfiltered.
"How would you like your tea?" Sensei asked kindly, he was leaning over the tea set, pouring the steamy, dark, tea into the mugs.
"Um a full scoop of sugar and a dash of milk." She said absentmindedly as she turned around.
"Got it." He responded, as he scooped in the sugar he kept talking. "You know what? I like doing these little things. Even though I can't live like I used and I can't leave my house, it's nice to be able to have discussions like this and just play host for a few hours. Its strange to think that I was someone who was feared at one point in my life. I liked to think that if life were a videogame I would have been the last boss. But here I am now, sitting and serving tea to an astute young woman."
Chisaki gave a light little laugh. "Well thank you for the compliment Sensei, it feels like such high praise coming from you." She gave an airy sigh. "Its kind of strange for me to think about too. If you had told me a week ago, that I was going to be having tea with Sensei, the man who has inspired me for the past six years, and that he was the villain who crippled All Might, I would have called you crazy and called the police." She said with a laugh.
Sensei smiled too and gave the teas a stir with a spoon, before pouring a dash of milk into each.
"Chisaki, this is for you." He said as he offered a mug to her.
She found herself smiling wide as she accepted it.
"Thank you." She said, noticing that there was a little drawing of an apple on the side of the mug, the kind of red apple that you would see on a teacher's desk. It made her wonder if Sensei had ever been a real 'sensei', like a proper teacher. She tried to imagine him standing at the front of a classroom, trying to explain polynomials to teenagers, and found a laugh bubbling up from her chest.
The two enjoyed the comfortable silence for a moment.
Chisaki held her mug snuggly between her hands.
"It's strange." She began thoughtfully. "Now I just feel so… light, so much lighter than I did before… It's so bizarre because I've lost my idol and I don't know what I'm going to do with myself after this, but… I'm not really worried about it." She said as a bright smile spread across her face.
"What do you mean?" Sensei asked with a tilt of his head, cradling his own mug as if to absorb its warmth.
"Well, my whole life, heroes have been my crutch. I've only been able to drag myself through the daily torment, through the bullying from my only 'friend' and the lying to my mom, because I was sure that one day I would become a hero. Because there was always that promise that no matter what happened in my life, the heroes would always fix things in the end.
"All Might was the sign that I could achieve my dream, that being a good person would make me a hero, just like him. But, now, most of that is worthless… debatable at best. And, I guess that… on some level that's okay. Reality is hard and cold, its not a light fluffy dream where you can be expected to be shielded from pain." She said it with a small, almost airy, laugh.
Sensei raised his brow in amusement. "Well that was rather dark…" He shifted in his chair, crossing his legs; this posture reminded Chisaki of a businessman she had seen on a tv show a while ago. "So, what do you think that you'll do with yourself from here on out, without your blind faith in heroes?"
Chisaki took a long sip from her mug of tea as she pondered the question, her eyes fixed blankly on the coffee table and her smile frozen at half-mast. "I guess that I'll probably go to an average high school, then an average college, and later get an average office job, in some small company somewhere. I'll probably just end up living my life quietly, all the while with a secret fear of the world's collapse; knowing that the system and the heroes are fundamentally flawed."
Sensei raised an eyebrow. "That sounds rather painful, suffering in silence for the rest of your life, are you sure that that's what you want?" He asked almost coyly.
"Want?" She asked without looking at him, a sad smile playing across her lips. "No, but it's probably what I'll get. I'm quirkless, so what else can I do with myself?"
She swirled the contents of her mug and watched the milk float through the steamy, pungent, tea. She stopped for a moment and cocked her head.
"What I want is to change things. I… I want to be someone, not just Chisaki Midoriya the quirkless fool." She gave a deep sigh. "I used to think that this person that I wanted to become was a hero, someone like All Might. But I don't think that I want to anymore. Heroism, the fighting for people, has always been appealing, but I'm no hero… I don't think that I can be."
"So why not become your own kind of 'hero'?" Sensei posed.
Chisaki's looked up slowly, dumbfounded. "What do you mean?"
"Well, you could join me." He said, his eyes doing the watching without eyes thing; Chisaki thought that it should have been unnerving. "More specifically, join my league and work with us to 'change things', as you put it. This world is broken and twisted, the Hero system is flawed and falling apart, and I think that both you and I know that sitting on our asses and enduring isn't going to solve the problem."
Chisaki bit her lip, her mind in turmoil over this proposal.
That's a big offer. Its life changing, it would mean joining a group of villains after all.
But, join Sensei?
That doesn't sound too bad. Actually, that sounds great.
Sensei acknowledges me as more than just a crippled, quirkless, little girl. Besides I feel perfectly at home here and everyone here seems much more welcoming than anyone in the 'normal' world.
Except for maybe Shigaraki, but I think that we just got off on the wrong foot.
Kurogiri, on the other hand, is kind and polite, and Giran doesn't seem too bad.
All of these people are certainly leagues better than someone like Kachaan. They may be 'villains' but they are better people than the person most praised to become a 'hero of our generation'. That's about as ironic as irony can get.
Besides, I agree with sensei here, we need to change things. So that people like Kachaan don't get praised as heroes while people like me get stepped on.
So that security isn't an illusion from a bunch of media centric, glorified, celebrities.
This society iswrong, and Sensei and his friends might be the way to change it.
So, this raises the question. Just what would joining Sensei's group entail?
First of all, would joining mean becoming a Villain?
Would I have to hurt people?
Well, you can't expect to change the world without getting your hands dirty.
But what about murder? Would I have to become a murderer?
Chisaki pursed her lips and voiced her thoughts slowly.
"As much as I like the idea of changing things, I don't…" She gave a sigh, unsure of how to articulate these thoughts. "I agree that the world shouldn't be allowed to stay this way. It is definitely twisted and wrong…But, joining you would mean becoming a villain wouldn't it? I'm not sure what that would mean for me. Becoming a criminal at 14, that just sounds a little crazy to me…Mostly, I was just wondering what I would be doing if I were to join you. Would I have too…kill people?"
Sensei let out a low chuckle. "Well, you wouldn't have to kill anyone, at least not for a very long time. After all, not all villains are murderers." He cocked his head thoughtfully. "As far as your activities would go, you would have a choice in what you tag along for. And you wouldn't get involved in anything too dangerous for a while, after all, we would need to train you before then."
Chisaki smiled sheepishly, but continued with more questions. "What about my day to day life? Would I be able to keep my civilian life as it is? If I agree to this, I'm going to need to keep this a secret from my mother. She would probably have a heart attack if she knew that I was even talking to a villain." She said with a small laugh.
"Naturally, we would hide your identity." Sensei said with a nod before sipping at his mug of tea. "A normal life is something that should be greatly treasured. After all, as soon as someone is recognized as a villain, their life become very limited." Sensei said sadly, before looking up and raising his lips into a smile. "We can discuss these things at great length at a later date, if you would like that." He suggested.
"Yes, I would like that." She said with a smile, having reached a conclusion.
No matter what the future holds, it will be movement in some direction. Whether its progress or not is secondary, anything is better than the life I have now.
"Then its decided." Sensei said with a wide smile as he held his hand out, offering a hand shake to seal the deal.
Chisaki's heart fluttered nervously as she reached out to grip his hand.
He shook her hand with surprising strength for a man who had spent the last few years living with the aid cables and machinery.
Sensei gave her a last big smile, and it send a shiver of excitement down her spine.
"Chisaki Midoriya, welcome to the League of Villains."
This world was going to change and she, Chisaki Midoriya, was about to take her first major step towards creating that change.
Author's Message Time!
*yay*
(yeah, that was absolutely sarcastic)
Hello everyone, happy Friday.
I hope that you enjoyed this chapter. I personally think that this one turned out pretty well, it took a lot of rewriting but its not too terrible. Speaking of terrible, I have some announcements. First, I did indeed change the summary for this story, in case any of you noticed the change and were confused. This new summary is just more concise and all encompassing, so I think that it just works better. Second, I am looking for a beta reader, so if anyone is interested in proof reading my future chapters, PM me or leave a comment. Lastly, this one is also a favor from you readers, I have been thinking of condensing and polishing the first few chapters, if anyone has any comments or advice pertaining to this idea, again, please PM me or comment.
Well, thank you for your time and I hope that you have a good two weeks, I will see you again soon.
OptionA
