I do not own My Hero Academia or any of its characters.
Joint Brief
Lee yawned, stretching and walking outside with Momo, Toru, and Mina. Classes had been rough after spending literally all night kissing Toru. However, it had been manageable. and after classes were over, he had agreed to help Mina with her homework, only for her to decide to make out for an hour instead, then had had a nap with Toru. Even though it was a nap, waking up to having Toru in his arms had been much better than he'd hoped. And she'd been so happy when he'd woken her with a kiss. She had literally glowed. Her entire body had glowed faintly with white light for several seconds before the light had faded. After a few more minutes of just laying together and enjoying each other's company, Lee had left to start dinner. Then after dinner, Mina had asked him to spend the night in her room, promising to behave herself. He had tried to refuse, so she guilt tripped him. So he had agreed. And then had most definitely not behaved herself. She hadn't pushed too much, and certainly not as much as at the mall, but she had refused to sleep in favor of having a make out session until late into the night. Now, Lee was tired from only sleeping a few hours.
"You're going to be the death of me, Mina," Lee sighed. "Honestly."
"Oh don't act like you weren't enjoying yourself," Mina said. "You love making out with me."
"It's exhausting," Lee said.
"Oh, hey guys," Eijiro said.
"Kirishima?" Momo asked, looking at the other three also present. "Midoriya, Uraraka, and Asui too?"
"Are you four all heading to your Work Study too?" Midoriya asked.
"Yeah," Lee nodded. "I'm guessing the same's true for you four? And you were all told to not wear your costumes?"
"Yeah," Midoriya said. "Want to go to the station together?"
"Sure!" Mina cheered. "It's like a field trip!"
"You have your license, right Mina?" Lee asked.
"Of course I do!" Mina said, then quickly felt her pockets before sighing. "Yup! I've got it!"
Lee shook his head, smiling, and they all headed to the school's gate, finding two more students heading to the station, though these two were in costume. They all got a few cabs, heading to the station together before the two in costume branched off, but everyone from U.A. headed toward the same train.
"Wait, we're heading the same way?" Midoriya asked Eijiro. "I thought you were working in Kansai."
"Usually, yeah, but I guess we're meeting someplace different today," Eijiro said.
"What a coincidence," Su said. "Us too."
"I have a feeling something big's happening today," Lee said. "Rumi called me to let me know there was a change in plans, even though she definitely wasn't happy about it, and told me where we were meeting her. As mad as she was though, I have a feeling she was forced to team up with someone. She hates doing that."
Midoriya nodded as they all got on the same train, sitting together. "Maybe...someone found information on the League of Villains."
"It's possible," Lee said. "Did anything new happen with any of your Work Studies? Anything important?"
"We interrupted a fight between two villains with gigantification Quirks," Uraraka said. "Nothing special, but we were praised by our pro."
"There was something with ours," Eijiro said. "One of the criminals shot Amajiki with some kind of dart that stopped his Quirk from working."
"What!?" everyone gasped.
Lee and Midoriya glanced at each other, Lee instantly knowing they were both thinking of the same person, who All Might had beaten at the cost of burning out his Quirk.
"That's a very serious problem," Momo said. "If a villain were able to stop a hero's Quirk from working, he'd be unstoppable. Was it permanent?"
"No," Eijiro said. "It apparently wore off while he was sleeping that night."
"Still too long, but at least it wasn't permanent."
"Who knows if it'll stay that way or if they'll make it more effective," Toru said.
"I...really don't want to get shot with that while in my costume," Toru said.
"Just stay with me," Lee said.
Toru nodded, slipping her hand into his and leaning on his shoulder. After a few more minutes, they all got off the station, all walking through the city together for several minutes, all remaining silent but all realizing they were probably all going to the same place. Finally, they rounded a corner and spotted their destination up ahead, U.A.'s Big Three standing together outside of it.
"Heyo," Mirio said, raising a hand as Hado smiled happily.
"So we were all called in for something," Lee said. "League?"
Mirio nodded, leading them into the building and through a set of double doors into a room where more than a dozen heroes, and a handful of sidekicks, were gathered, evein Aizawa and Gran Torino were present, taking to a blue-skinned, blue-haired girl with a tight black top that stopped halfway down her breasts, then a loose, even smaller white vest over it, and a pair of pants, loose around the waist, with white in the front and wrapping between her legs to the back then yellow on the sides, blue legs, and whiteknee-high metal boots. He recognized a few of the heroes. A round blimp of a man with a yellow sweatshirt, a black mask around his eyes, and a wide smile named Fat Gum, under whom Eijiro and Amajiki were doing their Work Study, Ryukyu, a blonde with a mask on the right side of her face shaped like the claws of a dragon, held on by a green strap, a dark red dress, detached white sleeves, black boots, and black bat-like wings extending from the sides of her head, under whom Uraraka, Su, and Hado were doing their Work Study, Rumi, and then a bunch of pros Lee couldn't identify. He frowned. So many.
"Hey, what's the scoop?" Hado called out to Ryukyu, sprinting over to her and wrapping her arms around her, Ryukyu turning to her and resting her hands on Hado's shoulders. "Talk to me Ryukyu! I mean I know you said there's a meeting, but what's it about!?"
"Patience Nejire," Ryukyu said as Hado sank slightly.
"You too, Mister Aizawa?" Uraraka asked, walking over to their teacher with Su.
Lee and the other three girls walked over to Rumi, who sighed. "We're being asked to team up with everyone, right?"
"Yes," Rumi said. "Apparently, though, Sir Nighteye didn't ask because he wants me, necessarily. He asked, because he wants you. He said Aizawa and Nezu your school principal, advised him to make sure you were there because of one of the League members' Quirk."
"Instant," Lee said. "Yeah. He's able to move as fast as I can, possibly by manipulating time. Which, by default, means he's too fast for anyone else, except maybe Gran Torino, to deal with. And Mister Aizawa, but only if he can finish the fight before he has to blink."
Rumi nodded. "He's one of the three that killed Mae, right?"
"Yeah," Lee said. "The other two are Stitch and Inkling. Stitch controls the stitches throughout his body like tentacles, and if he manages to stab you with them, he has the ability to unravel you into stitches, painfully, adding to his power. That's how Mae died. Inkling has the ability to control and change her tattoos, making them shields for a solid defense that's ridiculously hard to get through, or taking things out of her tattoos, like knives, or copies of people, so long as the criteria for copying a person's been met. Then whatever she pulls out of her tattoos becomes an explosive, possibly whenever she wants it to, possibly when it comes into contact with another person, not sure which."
"I see," Rumi nodded. "They sound like a pain."
"They've also been recruiting more to target Lee with," Momo said. "We don't know why they're targeting him specifically, but they are, and they're willing to do literally anything to win."
Rumi nodded. "We'll have to be careful."
"Thanks to the information provided by all of you, our investigation has progressed substantially," Nighteye said, everyone turning to him. "We've invited you here for a joint conference to share the intel we've acquired regarding the Yakuza group the Shie Hassaikai and what we believe they might be planning."
"Hold on, I feel like I'm missing something important," Eijiro said to Fat Gum. "Shie ha-what now?"
"Some bad guys are planning to do some bad things and they called us in so we can talk about it," Fat Gum said. "Trust me, you two are very much involved."
They were all led from the waiting area to the actual meeting room, where several tables were arranged into a massive oval with seats for everyone. Once everyone was seated, the meeting began.
"Alright, let's begin at the beginning," the blue-skinned girl, who Rumi identified as Bubble Girl, Sir Nighteye's sidekick, said, stepping forward and holding up a tablet. "For the past couple of weeks now, those of us at Nighteye Agency have been conducting an investigation into Shie Hassaikai, a small but organized group of criminals."
"What prompted this?" someone with a very, very low voice asked.
"An accident involving a gang of thieves calls the Reservoir Dogs," Bubble Girl said.
"Yeah, I heard about that," someone else said.
"The police thought the whole thing was an accident," Bubble Girl explained. "But there were a number of details that didn't add up, so we began tailing them."
"In my capacity as a Nighteye Agency sidekick, I began following leads to see what I could uncover," Sir Nighteye's other sidekick said, his voice very, very high, like he'd inhaled helium.
This was Centipeder. Contrary to his voice, or his fancy suit, his appearance and Quirk were very menacing. In place of a head, there was a giant centipede, probably twenty feet long, curled up and resting on the collar of his suit, his head in the front. His Quirk, Centipede, gave him the ability to turn his limbs into centipedes. And Lee was pretty sure his head was stuck that way.
"I found that in the past year, the members of Shie Hassaikai have increased contact with those outside of their organization, including other groups whose business dealings are less than reputable," Centipeder continued. "Their aim seemed to be expanding their organization, and enriching its coffers. Shortly after our investigation began, they made contact with a member of the League of Villains."
A screen behind them suddenly displayed an image of a man in a black jacket and pants with a fluffy purple collar and dark brown hair walking toward a man in a black leather jacket and pants, but wearing a mask with black along the bottom, then white everywhere over the nose. Twice.
"Jin Bubaigawara," Centipeder said. "Villain name, Twice. They were wary of being tailed, so I was unable to follow them," the screen chanced to an image of a building in an industial sector, judging by the pipes behind and around the building, and a massive hole in the building, taking up almost the entire wall, "but with the help of the police, I confirmed that an altercation had occurred between the two groups."
"That'd be about when they decided to reach out to Tsukauchi and me," Gran Torino said. "Figured we'd be able to assist given the League's involvement."
"Where is Tsukauchi?" a pro hero with what looked like a full cowl of black fur with a rectangular, glass eyehole, asked.
"Follow ups with some other eye-witnesses, ya know, cop stuff," Gran Torino said, then looked to Midoriya. "Sorry kid. I didn't see something like this coming. I've got a bad feeling that things are about to get ugly."
"I don't care if they do, I wanna help," Midoriya said.
"Hold up, you know him?" Mirio asked.
"Oh, Gran Torino?" Midoriya asked. "I did my internship with him. You..."
Lee stopped listening as his phone buzzed. He pulled it out, keeping it under the table as he opened the text, only to instantly freeze. It was a roster. Names, pictures, descriptions, Quirk information. And at the very end, it was sighed, "From a short-time acquaintance."
"What is it?" Momo asked, looking.
He scrolled to the top, Momo gasping softly as he did, then shut the phone off and slipped it into his pocket. He'd go over the list later, with someone smarter than him, and try to figure out why Instant was giving him fair warning. He looked to Nighteye, who was watching him in silence. He mouthed the word "after" to him, and Nighteye nodded.
"Go on, Bubble Girl," Nighteye said.
Bubble Girl gasped. "So, after all that went down, we posted a notice on the HN requesting assistance-"
"I think you can skip that part," Centipeder said.
"Sorry!" Bubble Girl said.
"What's the HN?" Uraraka asked.
"Stands for Hero Network," Hado said. "It's an online service that can only be accessed by pros. You can see what all the heroes in the country are up to, and you can ask for help from people whose Quirks might come in handy!"
"Does anybody wanna tell me why a buncha high school kids were invited to this conference?" a black hero with messy hair and a green costume with several thick, silver rings hanging from the front of a red necklace asked from his seat beside Midoriya. "I don't care if they are from U.A. If we have to keep stopping to explain this stuff, we'll never get to the actual plan."
"Don't say that!" Fat Gum snapped, standing up and holding out his hand to gesture to Amajiki and Eijiro. "These two have important information to pass along!"
Amajiki's head fell as he shrunk down into his seat.
"Uh, we do?" Eijiro asked.
"I wanna go home," Amajiki muttered.
"It's about the drug," Lee guessed.
"Oh yeah," Eijiro said. "Good point."
"Wait, you already know about the drug?" Fat Gum asked.
"When I figured out we were all going to the same place, I assumed something big happened, so while we were riding the train, I asked the others if anything important happened during one of their Work Studies," Lee said. "Kirishima told me about the drug."
"What drug?" the one who'd been complaining about high schoolers being present finally demanded.
"It's a drug that disables Quirks," Lee said.
The general reaction was one of shock and some of disbelief. A couple claimed it wasn't possible.
"It's possible," Amajiki said. "I was the one shot by a bullet containing the drug, and suddenly I couldn't use my Quirk anymore. It wore off while I slept, though." He raised his right hand, which was a cow hoof. "See? I've got this cow hoof and everything."
"Well I guess we know what you had for breakfast," Mirio joked.
"We believe Shie Hassaikai's main source of income is illegal drugs," Nighteye said. "That's why we brought in heroes who specialize in taking down drug smugglers."
"Allow me to introduce myself," Fat Gum said. "I'm Fat Gum."
"He's so cute and squishy!" Uraraka and Su both squealed.
"Anybody want some candy?" Fat Gum offered.
"At least we know the drug's not permanent," the hero beside Midoriya said. "So this stuff doesn't zap a Quirk for good."
"No," Nighteye said. "But Eraser Head has some further insight."
"It doesn't seem to function exactly like my Erasure does since I'm not actually attacking the Quirk directly," Aizawa said. "What we refer to as a Quirk is an extraordinary addition to an ordinary human body, those additions are collectively referred to as Quirk genes. I can shield those genes and temporarily block their expression, but I don't actually damage them."
"But after Tamaki here was shot, we brought him to the hospital and they found that his Quirk genes had sustained damage," Fat Gum said. "Fortunately they seem to have healed on their own and he's back to normal now."
"What do we know about the substance he was shot with?" Nighteye asked.
"Whatever it was didn't harm the rest of his body," Fat Gum said. "Nothing but his Quirk was impaired in any way. The guy who shot him clammed up, he won't say a word, and the round that his Tamaki was totally spent. However, Kirishima bravely defended Tamaki from a bullet, which then bounced off his own body, and should now provide us with a reliable sample."
"Whoa, I did that?" Eijiro asked. "Really? That's crazy!"
"Wow!" Uraraka smiled. "Awesome job Kirishima!"
"That's so cool!" Su added.
"Oh yeah!" Hado said. "His Quirk, it's Hardening, right?"
"And when we analyzed the substance from the bullet, we discovered something that made me sick to my stomach," Fat Gum continued. "It contained human blood and cells!"
Everyone stared at him.
"Sounds like something out of a scary movie," Su said.
"It's most likely from someone with a quirk allowing them to destroy Quirks, or at least disrupt them," Lee spoke up. "If I had to guess, I'd say the blood isn't taken willingly, and the drug it's being turned into for the bullets isn't perfected. What Amajiki was shot with was likely a test sample."
"It's possible," Fat Gum said.
"I'm not connecting the dots here," a hero with brown hair and bone-themed armor with a monster skull helmet spoke up. "How is all of this relating to Hassaikai."
"They have the person with the Quirk in question," Lee guessed. "Probably as a hostage." His eyes met Midoriya's.
"We have evidence," Nighteye said. "You have a sharp mind, but you're running off of guesses and speculations. As a pro, you must obtain facts."
Lee nodded.
"The man who shot Tamaki used an illegal drug to boost his Quirk during his fight with Kirishima," Fat Gum said. "The distribution channels for stuff like that are complex. Although things have shrunk since the old days, drugs still pass through various people and organizations before they finally reach the end user. There's no concrete evidence that Hassaikai handled the drug, but we know for a fact that they interacted with one of the middlemen responsible for moving it."
"That's all?" the hero asked.
"The other day, Ryukyu's team broke up a fight between two villain groups," Nighteye said. "One of those groups was controlled by the intermediary organization that Fat Gum just mentioned."
"One of the two giants had been giving an inferior drug that didn't last long," Ryukyu said.
"There have been a rash of gang-related crimes recently," one of the heroes said. "And most can be connected to the Hassaikai if you try hard enough."
"Which is what it seems like you're doing," the hero in the bone costume said. "Trying to make them guilty. Don't you have anything that implicates them more clearly?"
Just then, the screen behind Nighteye changed from the destroyed building to an image of the man shown talking to Twice close up and from the side, revealing a beak-shaped plague mask with gold metal on the end, the rest of the beak red, and the straps black leather.
"Their young head," Nighteye said. "Chisaki. Quirk, Overhaul. With this power, he can disassemble things, and then reassemble them. A Quirk that allows him to completely break down matter, and a bullet that can break down Quirks."
Midoriya and Mirio both went rigid, eyes widening, then stared at the table.
"Chisaki has a daughter named Eri," Nighteye said. "There are no records or details about her birth, but when Mirio and Midoriya encountered her, they noticed there were bandages wrapped around her arms and legs."
"Could he really do something so horrific?" Ryukyu asked.
"Unfortunately, yes," Gran Torino said. "In the world of super humans, if you can dream it, you can do it."
"Hold on, what are they talking about?" Eijiro asked.
"Once again, why do we have children in this meeting?" the black hero asked again. "I'll say this one time. We're wondering if this Chisaki bastard is turning his daughter's body into bullets, and selling them on the black market."
"To be clear, we aren't certain that he's actually selling the bullets," Nighteye said. "At this point, their efficacy appears to be questionable. Lee was spot on when he said that it's possible the drug is still unfinished, and their in their testing phase. It's possible they're giving them out as samples to rally more people to their cause. We have no hard evidence, but we do know he's gathering allies and funds from across the nation. If the completed drug allows him to annihilate someone's Quirk entirely, think of the devastation he could cause."
"Just talking about it's enough to make my blood boil!" Fat Gum growled, curling a hand into a fist in front of himself. "Let's go get this monster!"
The hero beside Midoriya huffed. "Would have saved us a lot of trouble if these two amateurs had just gotten the girl away from 'em."
"I take full responsibility," Nighteye said. "The blame should not fall on them. Even without knowing the whole story they acted to save the child, each in their own way. Midoriya was willing to bear the risk of taking her then, while Mirio chose to wait for another opportunity when success would be more likely. I assure you, no one in this room is more frustrated than they are."
Both suddenly stood.
"We'll get Eri away from him next time!" Midoriya vowed.
"And we'll protect her!" both declared.
"Indeed," Nighteye said. "That's precisely what we've come here to discuss."
The hero beside Midoriya scoffed. "You kids want to talk big, that's fine. But if what Nighteye's saying is for real, that little girl is at the center of Hassaikai's entire drug operation. She may have managed to get away from Overhaul for a few minutes, but she got herself seen by a couple of heroes. You think he's still going to keep her at home after that? Hell, I know I sure wouldn't. And if we go bustin' into their headquarters and she's not there, their gonna know that we're onto them. We gotta be sure of where he's hidin' her."
"He has a point," Ryukyu said. "Do you have a plan for that Nighteye?"
"That's our conundrum," Nighteye said. "Since we don't currently know how far they've taken their plans, the success of our initial strike is crucial." Behind him, the screen displayed a map of Japan with almost a dozen images of Hassaikai's seal appearing along it. "To that end, we've made a thorough list of groups with connections to Hassaikai, as well as property owned by the organization. This is our starting point. I would like you all to investigate each coordinate on this map. It is the most logical way to narrow down our targets."
"So that's why you asked minor heroes like us to join you," a hero with thick sideburns and gold armor mused.
"What do you mean?" the one in bone armor asked.
"Go on, look," the one in gold said. "The heroes in this room all operate at one of those locales. We know the areas better than most."
"Didn't expect someone who worked with All Might for so long to be such a careful planner," Fat Gum said. "Let's just go bring 'em down! While we're taking our sweet time, that abused girl's out there crying somewhere!"
"We can't do this like All Might would," Nighteye said. "That's why we must be meticulous about our strategies and predictions from the outset. So we have the highest chance of saving her."
"He's right," Gran Torino said. "We shouldn't rush. If we show our hand and then we don't end up rescuing her, we'd just be throwing gas on the fire. Like how Stain's capture was a beacon to let criminals seek out and join the League. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they handed out Quirk-Destroying Weapons to those hoodlums in order to increase their recruitment."
"You're thinking too dang much!" Fat Gun snapped. "If we keep sitting here yapping about it, we're never gonna get anything done!"
"Excuse me," Aizawa said, raising a hand. "I've got a question."
Nighteye nodded.
"I don't know the specifics of your Quirk, Nighteye, feel free to correct, but from what I've heard of it, your Quirk, Foresight, allows you to see into the future," Aizawa said. "So why not use it on us? That's logical, right?"
"I'm sorry," Nighteye said. "But I cannot. My Foresight has some limitations. I need a full twenty four hours between activations. That means, I get one person, and then I'm spent for the rest of the day. Additionally, the future is played in my mind like a flashback. Think of it like viewing a film strip. For one hour, I have the option to watch a person's life as a movie. The issue is, everything I see is on a tight perspective on the person in question. This severely limits my capacity to interpret context."
"That should still provide more than enough information to be useful, don't you think?" Aizawa asked. "And it doesn't explain why you can't do it."
Nighteye raised a hand to his faces, rubbing his eyes under his glasses. "What if I saw imminent death in your near future? Worse, what if it were a cruel merciless demise? My Quirk should only be employed after we've confirmed the highest likelihood of success. Then it can help ensure our victory. It shouldn't be relied upon when there are still too many uncertainties."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up," the black hero said. "Death is still information. If we know what's coming, we can figure out how to survive."
"Nighteye's visions are one hundred percent accurate up until this point," Lee spoke up. "He's never been wrong. And somethings simply can't be changed."
"Once again, Lee is correct," Nighteye said.
"That's the only excuse you have?" the black hero asked. "Oh Hell no! Use it on me now! I'll show you I can beat death!"
"I can't!" Nighteye snapped, voice rough and thick with emotion.
"Yeah alright," the hero said.
After several seconds of silence, Ryukyu sighed. "We should get started. There's a child in trouble. That's what's important here."
Nighteye stood suddenly. "We must confirm the girl's location and take her into our protection as quickly as possible using the most accurate data. I'm counting on your help. All of you."
Everyone began to stand as Lee's phone vibrated again. He checked it and his eyes widened.
"Gran Torino, Mister Aizawa, I need to talk to the two of you, along with Sir Nighteye, Mirko, and all of the U.A. students and the pros they're doing a Work Study with," Lee said, everyone looking to him as he stood, walking over to Bubble Girl. "May I see that for a moment?"
She handed it to him and he pulled out his phone, unlocking it and holding it beside the tablet as everyone he hadn't mentioned left, Nighteye also keeping his sidekicks.
"Legacy," Lee said.
"Connecting to the tablet via the phone's wireless signal," Legacy said. "Done."
The phone's screen appeared on the tablet, and also on the screen on the wall behind Lee. Lee put his phone to sleep and slipped it into his pocket as the others all stare at the roster Instant had texted him.
"What is that?" Rumi asked finally, just as Lee made eye contact with Aizawa and nodded.
"It's a roster," Lee said. "Allow me to properly introduce myself for anyone who doesn't know me. My name is Lee Tanaka. I'm a first-year at U.A., as I'm sure you've all gathered from my uniform, and my Quirk is called Mach. It allows me to move at speeds of, currently, up to four hundred fifty miles per hour. However, my Quirk did not include enhanced durability or cognitive skills. To make up for it, I wear an exosuit made of a special shock-absorbent and I have a neural implant that allows me to process information faster. Several months ago, a week before our internships began, the same day as the Sports Festival, my sister was kidnapped by a villain. During my internship, the pro hero I was interning with was my cousin, Mae."
Rumi's eyes widened in surprise.
"When Mae heard about my sister being kidnapped, she promised to find her, and took me with her so that when we did, I could use my Quirk to get my sister to safety, and possibly either bring Mae with me, or bring help back," Lee said. "However, when we found my sister, the three villains who kidnapped her, among other things, were waiting to trap me. My sister was meant to draw me away from the city where other pro heroes wouldn't be able to react in time."
"Why were they after you?" Hado asked. "Did they want your exosuit?"
Lee looked to Aizawa, Gran Torino, and Nighteye, all three of whom nodded. "They wanted my Quirk."
Everyone in the room who didn't already know looked around in confusion, besides Midoriya, who instantly put two and two together.
"I'm assuming all of you have at least heard the name All For One?" Lee asked, everyone nodded. "All For One was the name of the villain All Might fought before retiring. It was also the name of his Quirk. His Quirk allowed him to steal other Quirks indefinitely. He could keep them for as long as he wanted, and could give them to whoever he wanted, even if they already had other Quirks. He himself wanted to take my Quirk from me, likely to use against All Might. He may not have known of my Quirk's weaknesses, but even if he did, he could have easily found Quirks to make up the difference. In order to acquire my Quirk, he sent three villains from the League of Villains to trap me. These three." He had Legacy pull up the files on Instant, Stitch, and Inkling on the screen, side by side. "First, Inkling. She possesses a Quirk that allows her to manipulate her tattoos. She can form shields, which are actually hard and can block the impact of a punch from a metal fist at three hundred miles an hour with no injuries, though she still goes flying as you would expect. She can also use her tattoos to copy people, though the requirements for that are that she be...intimately familiar with that person, with or without consent. She can form weapons from her tattoos as well, and anything she removes from her tattoos has the ability to explode when it comes in contact with someone other than her. Next, Stitch. His Quirk allows him to manipulate the stitches in his body freely as extremely versatile weapons. They can shatter stone, probably rip through metal, they can withstand more force than I'm able to generate punching at full speed, and if he pierces your body with them, he can disassemble you into more threads, as he did to Mae."
Everyone stared, the students in the room looking sick.
"Lastly from the original three, the single most dangerous," Lee said. "Instant. Originally, I believed his Quirk was similar to mine, as he was able to keep pace with me when we fought, and even out pace me. However, since the fight, he's been...shall we say toying with me. At one point, he was able to get onto U.A. grounds, reach our dorm, put a letter through the mail slot, and then leave again, all without setting off the sensors. To do that, he'd have to exceed the speed of light."
"How do we fight someone that fast!?" Eijiro asked.
"I don't think he is that fast," Lee said. "There's another, slightly more conceivable way he could do it. After speaking with Principal Nezu after Instant delivered the letter, I believe Instant's true Quirk, and also the reason for his name, is that he can freely manipulate time, slowing it down, or pausing it altogether. I don't know the limitations of it, or if there even are any, but it would account for his abilities."
"That's..." Aizawa trailed off.
Aizawa, Gran Torino, Nighteye, and Rumi all stared at Lee in shock and fear.
"That is probably the absolute worst-case scenario," Gran Torino said.
"Why?" Eijiro asked, all of the students looking confused.
"There's a reason Tartarus is the most secure facility on the planet," Lee said. "If you move, four turrets in the room track your movement with enough precision and speed to shoot me running at full speed. Each prisoner's brainwaves are monitored, and the moment they try to activate a Quirk, the guns fire. However, if Instant can freeze time, he could easily escape, and free every villain there. A gun can't shoot you if time is standing still. Your brainwaves and movement can't be monitored if time is standing still. Instant would be more than capable of liberating every villain in Tartarus if he were placed there, or if he decides he wants to."
Everyone stared at the table in silence.
"Anyway, back to the more immediate point of me hijacking the brief," Lee said. "Instant has been targeting me since we met for reasons other than to give my Quirk to All For One. I don't know why, but he claimed to be recruiting a team to help him kill me. Then, at the beginning of this meeting, he sent me this roster. At the end, he sent the words, 'We're in.' I don't know if he necessarily meant that the League and the Hassaikai have joined forces, but if they have, you all need to know what you might face."
Everyone remained silent, watching the screen. Legacy pulled up all of the other files. Seven of them.
"Just so everyone knows, this is my first time reading through these too," Lee said, looking at the tablet. "First is...Splatter."
Splatter had messy black hair, a black trench coat over a black shirt and pants, black combat boots, a red scarf, and a massive sword with a blade as long as he was tall and shoulder width, a tanto point, black for most of the blade and red along the edge, and a sharpened finger guard hanging in front of the forearm-length grip with to spikes on the front of the guard.
"He's a fan of Stain's, carries a large sword and has the ability to stream fire along it. According to this, his skills with the sword allow him to..." Lee stared at the screen, "fight on level with Stitch using only his sword."
"Is that bad?" Su asked.
"Stitch controls thousands of individual threads all at once with perfect control," Momo said. "I've faced him and lost. For someone to fight on level with that using only a single, apparently large, sword would make them beyond exceedingly dangerous."
"Next up is a male villain called Parasomnia," Lee continued. "Quirk, Real Nightmare."
The villain looked like an insomniac. Dark circles under his bloodshot eyes, thin, wiry, white hair that hung around his head, a sunken, exhausted face, a black sweatshirt, and black sweatpants, and white Vans.
"His Quirk allows him to force his victims to hallucinate the things they fear most. For more direct offensive purposes, he can create solid replicas of the things he fears the most."
The next villain was a girl, one who looked maybe eight with a blue sundress with a white apron in the front, white stockings, and shiny black dress shoes shoulder-length blonde hair, and a black hairband. She looked like she was cosplaying as Alice from the old animated Alice In Wonderland.
"Next up, Twitch," Lee said. "A young girl with multiple personality and mental disorders, sadistic hobbies, an obsession with blood and torture, and a Quirk called Nerve. It allows her to freely control her victims' bodies through their nervous system. She's able to induce crippling amounts of pain or equally debilitating amounts of pleasure at will, and can induce muscle spasms strong enough to break bones."
Next up was a guy with messy white hair, a bandanna around his neck that had sharp teeth as a design on it, a pair of violet pants with a frayed spot on the right hip and a silver chain going from the belt loop above the frayed spot to his right hip pocket, fingerless black gloves, a violet Tee-shirt under a black jacket with the sleeves rolled to just below his elbows and a fluffy white collar. He had jagged scars running up and down his forearms as clear evidence of a violent life, beady black eyes, and a sadistic smile.
"Ion," Lee said. "Quirk, Purple Lightning." he scanned the description and smirked. "Kaminari would be jealous. He can generate and freely manipulate purple lightning, forming it into weapons or animals to fight with. Maximum output is about four million volts."
Third to last was an attractive girl with light orangish red hair hanging just past her shoulders, bright blue eyes, a beautiful face and smile, a slim, attractive figure, and the one of the kindest smiles Lee had ever seen. However, the description totally ruined the picture.
"Chloe Peterson," Lee said. "An American serial killer currently going by the villain name...Pornstar. Her Quirk is called...you've got to be shitting me. Hentai Tentacles. What the fuck is wrong with Americans?"
"Wait, why does it say she's the second most deadly not including the first three?" Mirio asked.
Lee scanned the Quirk description and paled, restraining a gag. "Her Quirk generates slimy, phallic tentacles from the small of her back, numbering anywhere from one to twenty five. Each tentacle can reach up to one hundred feet, has a retractable stinger, and can inject five quarts of venom in under three seconds. A half ounce of venom is enough to kill five adult elephants. The tentacles regenerate endlessly, and she has a habit of raping her victims with them before stinging them somewhere...inside their bodies."
"I think I'm going to be sick!" Toru groaned.
"Moving on to more acceptable Quirks," Lee said. "Next up we have Armory. Quirk, Flame Blade."
The picture was of a bald man wearing a white Tae Kwon Do uniform with a black belt holding a katana hilt with no blade.
"His Quirk allows him to generate flames in the form of any kind and shape blade he wants, of any size he wants, provided he has something to use as a hilt," Lee said. "Pretty straight forward, it seems like. It says he's not as good with weapons as the first guy."
"That's surprisingly tame given whose team this is," Momo frowned.
"There's probably something we're missing," Lee said. "Alright, last one. This one's marked as...on level with Instant."
"Shit," Aizawa breathed. "What's their Quirk?"
Lee scrolled down, pausing at the picture. The man in the picture was crouching on a roof in the picture with his arms resting on his knees around mid-forearm then extended forward. He had messy brown hair, irises that had red inside and yellow outside, then lines of red reaching outward into the yellow, a dark grey hooded jacket with a white shirt under it, green pants, and black sneakers.
"His villain name is Spider," Lee said. "His Quirk is called Webs. It gives him control of razor-sharp webbing, each strand as thick as a hair. He can generate it from his hands and can use it to capture his victims either by wrapping it around them, or sticking it to them. Then he can pull it tight and cut them into pieces instantly. He can also string them across a hallway or alleyway and let his victim walk into them, killing themselves with no effort required. It says he can control them almost like tentacles when their not attached so that he can wrap them around people from a distance, but to pull them tight he has to attach the other end to something."
"That sounds...unbeatable," Eijiro said. "What can they cut through?"
"Anything with a Mohs Hardness rating of eight or below," Lee said. "To put that in perspective, the only type of metal on this planet with a rating above eight is tungsten-carbide. My boots and exosuit are another one, but they're Quirk-generated, so it's a special case. They're both rated around nine point five."
"So basically, he'd cut through my body like butter," Eijiro said.
"Pretty much," Lee said. "I chose all of you specifically to show this to because Mirko is the pro I'm doing a Work Study with and needs to know who's targeting me, the U.A. students need to know who's targeting me because you all might get targeted in order to get to me, Ryukyu and Fat Gum needed to know what the students under them might be targeted by, and Aizawa, Gran Torino, and Nighteye...I'm hoping you three can think of something to help me stay alive."
"I think it's pretty clear Instant, needs to be dealt with," Nighteye said. "However, with that team of his, particularly Spider, that'll be a challenge. At best. For now, all of you remain extremely alert. If this group is truly targeting Lee, then the rest of the heroes will likely not need to worry about them. But they may attack any of you during these raids. Be very, very careful."
Everyone agreed and left in silence, Lee working as hard as he could to keep his fear from showing.
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