TOPCAT-59 - Thank you :D
Shahryar - Crawler is simply too based to feel a genuine connection to both the PLF and the NVA. He has his own way of overthrowing the society (*mandatory sigma grindset/chad meme moment*). And yes, some people got painfully vibechecked last chapter.
(***)
"Very well, then." Nakahara decides to take the lead. She isn't enjoying the situation in the slightest AND her estimations of the remaining lifespan of Moe Kamiji might have declined further. Which is bad when you don't really have a replacement for someone. "You claim that the Government has found the NVA headquarters. Do you have any…"
Midoriya snaps his fingers. Kouta Izumi hands him a stack of documents (with a large CONFIDENTIAL proudly emblazoned atop of them). Revenant pushes them over the table, towards Nakahara.
Deployment orders. Logistical plans. No organization can move thousands of people somewhere without leaving a paper trail, it seems.
And Midoriya's spy - whoever it was - got access to them.
Nakahara realized what Intelli was doing, and cursed herself. Because if the documents were to be believed, she fell for it completely.
Mindscape realized that the NVA mole was connected to the SS-Rank Heroes. Her solution? Prepare all the other forces, in maximum secrecy… and then redeploy the heroes three or four days before the operation.
By moving them to the advance base, without telling them first where they are going. Advance base where they would be under strict oversight the whole time. Naturally, without making it clear to them that they were being observed.
Smart move. It would probably work, worst of all.
"If these documents aren't very convincing fakes…" Nakahara announces dryly, putting the papers down. "... then we can expect to be visited in less than two weeks by the JGSDF 6th Infantry Division and the Rapid Deployment Division. Plus anywhere between five hundred and two thousand heroes, including Mindscape, Lemillion, Crusader, Molecular, Redirect, Old Flame, Behemoth, Nejire-Chan, and Emoji."
So, basically speaking, all remaining SS-Rank Heroes, minus Invincible, Wildstar, Flamebreath and Martyr.
Wildstar, Flamebreath and Martyr would be enough to hold their ground if Revenant attacked the government district in the absence of Invincible. The Prime Minister was taking appropriate steps to counter Revenant's all-knowing approach…
… only for him to clearly figure that out. Midoriya Izuku was, clearly, as good as she remembered him as. But much more experienced.
How high was his spy? To Spyglass, it was starting to get ridiculous. The spy would have to be…
… oh.
She might have realized something important, but she decided to keep it hidden for now. She would share her suspicions with Ryukyu and Gang Orca after the meeting. For now, she had other things to worry about.
"There is nothing about Invincible showing up…" Nakahara adds. "... but there is an extremely high chance that he is being covered up in order to unleash him out of nowhere, if the heroes' situation got complicated."
The NVA was being used as a bait, wasn't it? Truly a great way to make Nakahara more pissed off than usual. The government was taking advantage of the PLF mole to make the PLF intervene. Just to deploy Invincible at the last moment, and… ahh.
Cloud was going to be his priority. Just to keep the Front and the Alliance boxed together in the Marukane Ward.
The remaining three SS-Rankers plus a lot of S-Rankers deployed at the last moment (and without being told where they were going) were going to garrison the Government District in Tokyo. In order to catch the Paranormal Liberation Front off-guard if Revenant decided to take advantage of the mass deployment to Marukane in a different way.
Smart. Very smart. The government realized that the PLF was nigh unstoppable with Cloud around and their headquarters' location unknown, so it decided to do a rather risky gambit. And prepared it almost perfectly.
Almost.
Now it was going to come crashing down… unless there was another layer to the government's plan that they weren't aware of.
It was entirely possible.
"Well, that's… not good." Ryukyu says calmly. Losing face in front of Revenant by freaking out would be bad. They are already rather clearly lagging behind in terms of position in these negotiations. "Do we know the exact time of the attack?"
"He does." Nakahara replied dryly. "Each place when the date of attack was mentioned was diligently scrubbed clean."
Midoriya smiles smugly at her over the table. She wants to punch him in the face sooo much.
"Hey, you didn't expect me to give you the whole package before agreeing to a proper cooperation." Midoriya then adds. "Consider that a sign of good will from me to the New Vigilante Alliance."
"The fact that this 'good will' will make the NVA kill more heroes before being completely destroyed by them even if you decided to walk out of these negotiations, clearly has no influence on your generosity." Crawler comments from his seat, giving Midoriya a moderately tired look.
"Weren't you supposed to be the moderator of this talk, not a participant?" Midoriya cuts back. Crawler sighs, clearly unmoved by the attack. "Where's your pretend neutrality, Crawler?"
The vigilante shrugs, clearly unbothered.
"So, let me get this straight." Nakahara decides to cut it short. "Your idea is to boost the NVA with Tartarus inmates, and then, while the heroes will be too busy dealing with tougher resistance than they expected, you'd show up and wipe the heroes out."
"Sounds nice and simple when you put it that way." Midoriya replies.
"Do you take me for an idiot?" Nakahara cuts back. "What are the chances of you just taking advantage of the situation to take us down too, while we're at it?"
"Well, I actually planned to make it a bad idea in general by offering Cloud to transport Crawler and a few thousand of his vigilantes to participate in the battle." Midoriya replies. "I feel like that's enough of a guarantee that taking you down wouldn't be easy."
… oh.
"Now you're taking me for an idiot." Crawler comments. "That sounds like a perfect way to leave me behind, together with a sizable chunk of the Naruhata Vigilantes, making sure that you're the only major anti-governmental power left in the country."
"Look, from my point of view, the NVA is dead in the water." Midoriya replies. Nakahara hates him for that. Because, to be frank, he's speaking the truth. "I'm offering to change a certain death to a possible death, because Cloud or Eclipse evacuating you to a location of your choice after the battle is a part of the deal."
"You're not even going to say any variant of 'I won't do it'?" Ryukyu replies, glaring at him coldly.
"Am I supposed to think that you'd believe my words?" Midoriya shoots back. Right, no way they would be doing that.
Nakahara decides that they'll need to shake him up a little before proceeding further. Something to help Nakahara get a better read on him. So, she glances at Crawler, who immediately realizes what it was about.
"I think…" He says. "... that this is the time for a short break to cool our heads down a little after the earlier… incident. And for the NVA to consider the proposal."
Judging from Midoriya's face, he knows what Nakahara is playing at. Well, he probably doesn't know what sort of thing she actually prepared for him.
(***)
"Kouta." Ryuko says, approaching him right after the break started. They are in another room, Crawler preparing them a whole table of snacks and drinks. As one can expect both groups are sticking to themselves.
But not entirely to themselves.
Kouta Izumi was clearly chatting with Mastermind of all people. Midoriya probably expected her to approach him, and set it that way.
"Yes, Landslide?" Kouta Izumi glances at her, interrupting his talk with Mastermind (apparently they were laughing together about Yoshihiro offering Gang Orca an honorary CRC membership). "Also, I'd prefer to be referred to by my villain name."
What was she supposed to say? She had a rough idea before approaching him, but it all flew out of her head. And the way he looked at her… it's like he wasn't even angry, more like she was just being a bother to him.
"K… Jetstream, I want to talk with you." She replies. "It's…"
"Well, unfortunately I don't want to talk with you." Kouta cuts in. "You're working for the New Vigilante Alliance, committing war crimes on a daily basis in the name of a world and values that are already dead. I'm a part of the Meta-Liberation Army, waging a war to finally realize the ideals that this world has been rejecting to its own peril for almost two centuries. We have nothing to talk about."
She is staring at him, Mastermind giving her a smug look from the side. She has no idea what to say, just…
"It…" How to say this? Why is the CRC High Priest here, of all people? "... I've done it all for you, I wanted to …" Her voice fails her.
"... make the world better for me?" Kouta replies calmly. "Another hero thinking the same way and leaving a child for adoption created Entropy."
She stares at him in shock.
"If it makes you feel any better, I don't hate you." Kouta replies, looking to the side, his calm facade weakening for a moment. "You doing what you did helped me find my place in the world. And when it comes to the government, we have a similar outlook on this. If anything, if you had stayed a hero after all that happened… yes, that would have made me hate you."
Silence for a few seconds, before Kouta sighs.
"We took different routes, that's all." He says quietly.
She fucked it up. She fucked everything up, didn't she?
(***)
"Well, I wonder what it is that Nakahara prepared for the meeting." Midoriya says quietly to Tsuyu. "Because she certainly has something in store for me."
"In store for you, ribbit?" Tsuyu asks back.
"Something to shake me up, push me out of the role, make me appear at least remotely genuine." Midoriya replies. "We have them by the balls, and they know it. They knew it from the start, so I'm sure that Nakahara had to prepare something like this."
Tsuyu gives him a weird look.
"Supervillains are weird, ribbit." She announces.
"Said the person that told me to sleep on the couch for not telling her about the Marukane Ward…" Izuku replies. "... only to join me on the couch, because I might have felt lonely and cold there."
"That was a perfectly logical action, ribbit." Tsuyu replies, with an adorable certainty in her voice.
Yeah, right.
"To be honest, I think that it'll happen soon." Midoriya adds, while glancing at the scene on the other side of the room. "If only because Nakahara will want to retaliate against me for doing the exact same thing to her."
Why exactly did he bring Miruko and Ms. Joke here? Why exactly did he bring Rini Akaguro, despite knowing that Lady Murder had next to no brain-to-mouth filter? Because he wanted the ghetto issue to be brought up.
There is some sort of faint sound suppression quirk in the room, projected by one of the Crawler's vigilantes. It clearly limited the spread of the sound, making it so that you could only hear what was happening in maybe a meter long zone around you. Everything else was drowned to silence.
As a result, Izuku wasn't sure what was happening. But he could find a very limited set of reasons for Miruko to grab Gang Orca by the collar and start yelling something into his face, Ms. Joke standing right behind her, clearly talking to Ryukyu.
Judging from the look on Ryukyu's face, the Dragon 'Hero' wasn't being complimented either.
He saw Nakahara look at the group in question, and then look at him. Instead of being angry at him getting one over her (she had to realize that it was his work), she instead smiled wryly. And gestured at someone completely unfamiliar to Izuku, who clearly came with the NVA delegation.
The woman started to walk towards Midoriya.
Uh-oh.
"I know her, ribbit." Tsuyu comments. "Camie Utsushimi. Goes by Mirage nowadays. We met during the Provisional License Exam."
"Oh, right, now I recognize her." Izuku sighs. Is that all that Nakahara prepared? His former bully's former girlfriend?
Sigh.
"I was told…" Camie announces when she enters their little bubble. "... to deliver this to you."
She then extends her hand to him. In it, a sealed envelope, one large and still clearly filled almost to the brim. The paper looks aged a little, at least by a few years if his eyes are to be trusted.
Even if it's filled with anthrax, it won't do a lot to him in his current state. So, he grabs it, painfully conscious of Nakahara observing him. Probably wanting to not miss a single detail of his reaction to whatever was inside.
"Oh my, by whom?" He asks Camie while unpacking the envelope.
"By Bakugou Katsuki." She replies shortly. None of her usual TikTok-style behavior (he remembers her now, he read her file a while ago, while preparing for the Marukane Ward). Then again, she started to cool down with those after becoming a villain/vigilante.
Izuku's first instinct was to tear the envelope into shreds. But it would betray way too much to Nakahara. Including the confirmation that there were still places where he was emotionally vulnerable.
So, he controls himself. Perfectly (or so he hopes). And instead of doing what his instinct was telling him, he opens the envelope.
Inside are two things. A folded poster and a letter.
Izuku recognized the poster immediately. All Might's tenth anniversary poster. Precious and nigh-unobtainable merchandise nowadays.
Midoriya had one. He gave it to Eri as a present, letting her display it in her room. He never wanted to look at it.
It was Sir Nighteye's copy. Izuku got it from Overhaul, Chisaki taking it on a whim (due to him hearing Midoriya talk with Uraraka about the rare poster that Sir Nighteye apparently crowned his collection with) while assaulting Sir Nighteye's old agency on the day when he murdered Centipeder while looking for Sir Nighteye's archives.
Overhaul sometimes did shit like that, for no apparent reason. His whims were a powerful force indeed.
Eri didn't know. Eri would never know. The poster was too valuable to just burn it, and… to her, it was just a hero collectible, a reminder that there used to be great heroes in this country. It was a way to put the poster to a good use, its past be damned.
He handed it to Tsuyu (who ribbited in confusion), before moving over to the handwritten letter. Even after so many years, he still recognized Bakugou's handwriting at a glance. It's like he tried to murder the paper with a pen.
He almost tore it into pieces accidentally a few seconds later, his grip coming out stronger than he expected.
Izuku glances at Nakahara. Who gives him a smug smile. Yeah, she got him. She got him good. Midoriya should probably stop underestimating her. Intelli was being a menace in general, and Nakahara held her at bay for a long time.
"What is it, Izuku? Ribbit." Tsuyu clearly grows worried over the flinch on his face. And, besides, she remembers his and Bakugou's… complicated past.
"He… used to have that stupid dream of being the only hero to come out of his class, back in Aldera." Midoriya replies, still holding the letter while trying to calm down the internal turmoil that was tearing him apart. "He bullied me because I wanted to become a hero, and…" He glances at Camie. "... it seems that his dream turned into a nightmare."
Nineteen students that he shared his class with. And then, one by one, all of them leaving him. Until he was the last person from the old 1-A class that still tried to become a hero. Everyone else having either dropped out of school, was expelled, arrested or died.
"He was looking for you." Camie replies. "He wanted to apologize. But you clearly hid too well."
If a random hero trainee could find him, his career as a supervillain would have been very short and would've ended in Tartarus years ago.
"Did he really think…" Izuku replies, Nakahara still studying his reaction from a distance. "... that a poster and some words would suffice for what he has done to me?"
He doesn't touch the part where - if he read it from the letter correctly - it felt like it was all his personal punishment. Even in his attempts for redemption, he was still as self-centered as always.
"He hoped that it would work." Camie replies. "I'd say that he proved his sincerity well enough, seeing how he died."
What?
"Wasn't that some undisclosed villain fight?" Izuku asks. He never bothered to investigate, he just… didn't want to think about Bakugou anymore. People died all the time. Though… now that he thinks about it…
Why wasn't the death of the last of All Might's students more public?
"Some 'concerned citizens' decided to help the heroes fight the Paranormal Liberation Front." Camie replies. "Some villains out for 'fun' mixed into them. And since they had no regular members of the PLF to fight, they settled on attacking their supporters."
Izuku can see Tsuyu tensing suddenly in the corner of his eyes. This was… painfully familiar logic to the frog girl.
"They settled for a district populated with a lot of quirkless." Camie continues. "Most local heroes refused to respond. Bakugou interned at one of the hero agencies in the area. Instead of standing down, he rallied some sidekicks and police officers that were present in the district at the time."
He… did he really…
"There was no quirkless pogrom that day." Camie continues. "The government realized that announcing the truth would ruin the image of way too many compliant heroes, and swept everything under the carpet. It… contributed to where I am now."
That was…
Izuku has no idea what it was.
Ayako Nakahara knew where to strike.
"Ironic." Midoriya replies, before sighing. "I remember the time when people told me that I was the heroic one… and Bakugou had the makings of a villain."
Tsuyu herself said that, ages ago. Midoriya's life kept getting weirder and weirder by the day.
"People change." Camie replies.
Right. Almost everyone in the room could serve as evidence for the truth of that statement. Especially Midoriya.
Izuku has no idea what to think about what he just heard. He has no idea what to feel about it. It was… it opened an old wound. To Izuku in his current state of mind, it wasn't good. Worst of all, he was certain that Nakahara was studying said state of mind right now.
And, regretfully, being a good judge of character was a crucial part of being an organizer of her magnitude. You needed to know whom to trust. Re-Destro was a master of that sort of stuff, but Nakahara was very nearly his equal.
Midoriya would have to get extraordinarily creative to get intel out of the NVA leadership, if not for a… surprising set of coincidences that even Nakahara couldn't foresee. Otherwise, it would have been a completely lost case.
PLF would have benefited so much if she joined it. Maybe, just maybe, if Izuku hadn't hid with his little family life for so long, if he had kept working quietly on the rematch for the defeat of the first Paranormal Liberation Front all those years, if he had recruited her before the NVA was born…
Shame. Lost opportunity.
He'll take revenge for her little stunt, though not now.
There is something he has to do first though. Something he really never expected to happen.
"Well, then." Izuku sighs. "It's a bit too late to do this, but… I forgive him for what he has done to me in the past. I genuinely wish that I could tell that directly to him, but…"
"I know." Camie replies. "On that one subject, we agree completely."
Goddamnit, Nakahara.
(***)
The meeting resumed not long after that.
"After thinking it over…" Ryukyu speaks. "... we believe that agreeing to the cooperation lies in our best interest. Both the cease-fire and the alliance would, naturally, only last until the conclusion of the Second Battle of the Marukane Ward."
Looks like they've come to the only logical conclusion. To be honest, that much was a given from the start. The government cornered them and they know it. Acquiring a one-time PLF support was going to cause a lot of dissent among their ranks, but…
… it was the only option.
Ayako Nakahara had something of a smug look on her face. So, she either figured out something about him, or quite the opposite - but was bluffing about him. Izuku had no idea which option was the correct one.
Damn it.
"I also believe…" Crawler adds. "That deploying some of my vigilantes is an option. Naturally…" He glances at Midoriya. "... that depends entirely on the strength of the safety guarantees that I'll obtain."
That much was a given.
Time for the real negotiations to start.
(***)
Even with the full authority of an SS-Rank hero, her skills as a supervillain and the few assets that she stored away in her prime (that Revenant failed to find), it wasn't easy to obtain all of that.
Especially as the government still wasn't trusting her wholeheartedly. Thankfully, Kurogiri was an asset that she could use to a similar degree as Midoriya could.
And, well, her precious Specialist Noumu was another blessing.
"It should work as intended, yes." Doctor Garaki (well, a copy of him, but they were working on it already) replies from his seat, deep into his new, temporary lab. "But why are you so sure that Revenant will show up in the Marukane Ward?"
"Oh, trust me." Entropy smiles. "He wouldn't miss such an opportunity. He is planning to end the Hero System in the Marukane Ward. And I'll be right there to steal his most precious possession."
Days until the Second Battle of the Marukane Ward:
11