All That's Left

by Mirrond

When All for One died, it was supposed to get better. Japan was supposed to get better. But it didn't. Vigilantes are now as common as heroes and villains, there's a new Trigger epidemic across the country, and things are going from bad to worse. Meanwhile, a group of people has enough of it, and wants to live in peace. But was that ever truly an option?

6. Gremlin

Kilo8 - And it's going to get longer :D

Zanotronxl - Nope, but she'll be here sooner or later :D

Adrianmmgc - Nope, it's not Aiko :P

(***)

Nedzu: Considering the rising danger and importance level of the investigation I have decided to involve further pro-heroes from the area (namely, from UA).

Nedzu: Namely, Midnight, Present Mic (I thought that Eraserhead would like that addition) and Vlad King.

VladKing: oh, so I guess that Eraserhead won't like my addition, then

Midnight: Oh, he'll love you ]:-)

VladKing: you're not persuasive at all, Nemuri

PresentMic: just stop taking your 'dogs vs cats' debate so seriously xD

VladKing: n o

PresentMic: So, from what I gathered we're looking into a group of little listeners from Musutafu that are apparently scaring villains straight?

Nedzu: Yes.

Joke: villains, heroes and vigilantes, Mic :v

PresentMic: Emi!

Midnight: Joke!

Joke: yay, my siblings-in-law are here :D

Midnight: Still trying, eh?

Joke: eventually I will succeed :3

VladKing: what's the present status of the investigation?

Nedzu: Eraserhead is visiting Abegawa Tenchu Kai, a local yakuza clan, together with Sir Nighteye and Detective Tsukauchi Naomasa from local police.

Nedzu: I'm expecting interesting news.

PresentMic: woah, woah, hold your horses boss

PresentMic: Sir Nighteye is in on this investigation?

PresentMic: isn't that an overreaction?

Nedzu: no

Nedzu: consider this the UA equivalent of a state secret but the leader of those kids has a Class-Six quirk that allows them to permanently edit functionalities of other quirks, to unknown degree

PresentMic: … okay that's not an overreaction

VladKing: tell me you're joking

Nedzu: nope

VladKing: that's an option?

Nedzu: It was apparently an urban legend on the street, one that no one 'serious' believed in (myself included), at least until Eraserhead had an encounter with him.

VladKing: What exactly can he do?

Nedzu: Thus far he restored Eraserhead's quirk after he was shot by [and that's another classified thing] what we believe to be a prototype quirk-destroying bullet. We also know he permanently altered the quirk of one of the class 1-A students, essentially adding an on/off switch to her invisibility quirk.

PresentMic: ERASERHEAD WAS HIT BY WHAT?!

Midnight: and he didn't tell us?!

Midnight: I'm going to kill him. In a distinctly unsexy way.

Nedzu: He was told to keep it under wraps. But then he was visited by someone claiming to be the Quirk Healer, who restored his lost quirk. We've managed to track him back to the Numbers, and… well, they have a reputation.

Eraserhead: and they are about to get ten times more of it

PresentMic: SHOTA WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED!

Eraserhead: to avoid getting shouted at by you, I wanted some peace and quiet Hizashi

Midnight: there's going to be a serious talk between us about keeping secrets from each other

Joke: …

Eraserhead: ugh

Joke: khe khe

Eraserhead: not on the public chat for the investigation

PresentMic: ?

Midnight: ?

Eraserhead: I'm on my way back from the yakuza, Tsukauchi is driving, Sir Nighteye seems to be going through the trauma in the front passenger seat but should be able to answer all your questions in a moment, he is probably better with summaries either way

Eraserhead: Also, Nedzu, we'll have to expand more. We will need Hound Dog, Power Loader, Recovery Girl, at least some Top Heroes and maybe some of the eastern Musutafu heroes at least for the legwork (without access to really confidential info), because the situation just went pear shaped

Nedzu: Oh dear.

Nedzu: What happened?

Eraserhead: SirNighteye

SirNighteye: Right.

SirNighteye: 1. Numbers have a deal with the yakuza. Yakuzas keep the heat off them and help them hide from authorities and other villains, and in exchange Numbers allows them to buy things from them.

Nedzu: things?

SirNighteye: Super high quality (and affordably priced) support items. Information. Cyberservices (like electronic security). And, last but not least, drugs. Apparently one of a kind drugs.

Joke: Drugs?! nani the fuck

SirNighteye: 1a). Overtrigger [weakened version of a trigger that doesn't impair cognitive functions, doesn't make you aggressive and isn't addictive].
1b) Boost [physical stimulant, apparently extremely powerful, makes you stronger and faster for a while, proportionally to the strength of your quirk].

1c) Restore [clan head described it as an energy drink for quirks, something to push the quirk exhaustion away for the time being].

Joke: what

Joke: what the actual fuck

Joke: I've been pursuing drug-related crimes for years and I've never heard of such drugs

Eraserhead: I know dammit

Eraserhead: Tsukauchi confirmed they were being honest about the way these drugs work and their existence, there is a possibility that someone fooled them with a quirk but… not that big

Eraserhead: Yakuza swore to not give any of that to an outsider, only their executives are allowed to use them. Apparently Numbers stole the recipe from someone, and if said someone finds out, things will get ugly.

Eraserhead: so we only have their word for it

SirNighteye: We can technically get a warrant to storm the yakuza headquarters, but we'll anger them, they probably hid the drugs already AND we'll further alert the Numbers that we are onto them.

SirNighteye: Nedzu consider sending Edgeshot to look for the samples and steal some of them. He can do it without anyone noticing.

Nedzu: I'll do it once we're done with this talk, if those drugs exist we need to know.

Nedzu: What next?

SirNighteye: 2. We've got the name for the shapeshifter. Number 12, nickname Carmilla. It took us some drilling but the yakuza heard some of the Numbers talk with each other and mention someone called 'Carmilla' spooking Marksman off.

SirNighteye: No facial description or anything else, though, but I think that I have an idea for the way their quirk works.

VladKing: let me guess, Carmilla?

SirNighteye: Yes.

Eraserhead: ?

VladKing: Carmilla was a vampire from an old book. There is a high possibility that she requires an intake of blood to shapeshift into someone.

SirNighteye: My thoughts exactly.

SirNighteye: I'll phone Marksman later to ask if he knows if someone could get a hand on his blood (was he assaulted by someone who drank his blood, is he a blood donor etc.).

Nedzu: another great idea, yes-yes

PresentMic: okay I expected chaos but it seems to be going oddly smoothly?

Midnight: Mic, no, that's inviting Murphy and his laws

Eraserhead: correct, but the damage was already done, we're just announcing it

Eraserhead: wait until point three, that's when everyone collectively loses their shit

VladKing: uh-oh

SirNighteye: That barely covers it, Eraserhead

PresentMic: uh-oh 2

Sir Nighteye: The yakuza asked the Numbers representative what exactly they are. Said representative (Hijack, Number 10) replied that they are children and teenagers that fell victim to the wars between villains and heroes and decided that they are tired of both sides. And banded together to live in peace away from them both.

SirNighteye: Because if someone finds them, they'll be used again.

PresentMic: okay that's fucking sick

PresentMic: is this how Vox is keeping them all in line?

PresentMic: 'listen to what I'm saying or the scary people will come and kidnap you'?

Joke: Sounds so, but it doesn't feel like a reason for a 'collective losing of shit', it's more of a classic cult behavior ?

Eraserhead: not point three, the real point three is that Vox is fucking right about it.

Joke: wtf?

SirNighteye: 3. The basic requirement to get recruited into the Numbers is (besides being underage) being on the run from either heroes or villains… AND HAVING AT LEAST A CLASS FOUR QUIRK.

Joke: WHAT

Nedzu: oh dear

Nedzu: Ohhh dear

SirNighteye: If Hijack wasn't bullshiting the ATK, we have about 39 holders of some of the strongest quirks in Japan living in a scrapyard at the edge of Musutafu

SirNighteye: Including a potential precise long-range warp quirk and a healing quirk that apparently restored a lost arm of one of the yakuzas.

SirNighteye: Under the tutelage of an aspiring quirk analyst who can alter quirks and started writing notebooks on how to use quirks for hero work more successfully right after learning how to write (his first ones were apparently written in crayons).

PresentMic: Okay, shit

PresentMic: this is a big one

SirNighteye: That is a nice way of saying 'this is a nightmare', but yes.

SirNighteye: If any major villain organization manages to find them and kidnaps them en masse or recruits them… disaster is a weak word.

SirNighteye: Worst of all, any attempt to recruit them for the UA will just prove to them that they are going to be exploited again, but by our side, and will make them even more against us.

SirNighteye: Also, someone go to Nedzu's office and wake the rodent out from his sensory overload coma, please.

Nedzu: I'M ALRIGHT, PLEASE AND THANK YOU

Nedzu: just, slightly, overwhelmed

Nedzu: those are pretty much two full pre-trained classes for the Hero Course, and we all know that the majority of hero students in the country have Class-Three quirks, so those are way above average

Nedzu: Majority of future Top Heroes are probably living in that scrapyard. And the majority of the future supervillains if we play it wrong.

SirNighteye: Alright, we can as well have that talk right now.

SirNighteye: They are not future Top Heroes. They are not future Hero Students. There are many lines of work that have nothing to do with being pro-heroes, and if they want to avoid fighting people to the death, that's their decision to make.

SirNighteye: Don't prove Vox right, Nedzu.

SirNighteye: This isn't a 'get everyone into the Hero Course' investigation. If anything, we should focus on getting them a better quality of life (scrapyards can't be a safe place for children). So something like a General Course recruitment with a dorms system so they aren't separated, and we can be sure that no villain organization can raid them.

SirNighteye: And them agreeing to that is an extremely optimistic assumption.

SirNighteye: At this point I'm willing to agree to just let them live there if they agree to regular check-ups (health and welfare), just to keep them from being pushed into villainy by us. Hopefully to build up their trust until they decide to cooperate fully and move to a safer place.

SirNighteye: You got the message?

Nedzu: yes, yes, I'm sorry, I got a bit too enthusiastic

Nedzu I'm aware that my… emotional difference from humans does make me somewhat unpalatable on some occasions.

Nedzu: I expect you to reign me in when needed, SirNighteye

VladKing: someone who can actually restrain Nedzu in a moment like this?

VladKing: Not bad, Sir Nighteye. Not bad.

Nedzu: Ouch.

Nedzu: But you're not wrong.

SirNighteye: I will, indeed, act to reign you in if needed.

Nedzu: We should focus on identifying the Numbers for now and figuring out how to exactly approach them. Because I don't think that they are going to believe any adult, especially a hero.

SirNighteye: Forceful solutions are out of the picture for now.

Nedzu: Obviously!

Nedzu: We can't even reasonably hope to assault the Dagobah Labyrinth, because considering the number of the defenders and the strength of their quirks, this will be a small war.

Nedzu: If even a single of these children dies in the struggle (and they might fight to the end considering their ideology, plus we don't even know their quirks safe for Vine, Vox and Carmilla, and for the latter two we only have rough understanding of), the results will be disastrous.

Nedzu: On every level imaginable.

(***)

Once upon a time, the Dagobah Labyrinth was known to the inhabitants of Musutafu as the Dagobah Municipal Beach Park.

It fell into a rather extreme lack of maintenance for close to two decades, slowly overflowing with (mostly) metal junk. Soon enough close to two kilometers of the beach were de facto a junkyard of abandoned metal parts. Entire cars, fridges and so on were just dropped there. Either by sea or by human hands.

That was only the beginning. Dagobah became a frequent dumping place for electronic waste. Add a few villain attacks in the area (seventy-five years ago) and suddenly the dump began to grow inland, devouring now abandoned or ruined houses near it.

Frankly speaking the local government gave up on the entire area, like it did on so many others. It lacked the funds to do anything meaningful with the junk.

The last blow was the rampage of an S-Rank villain by the name of Reassembler during the insurrections.

In all honesty, Reassembler was more mentally ill than actively malicious. He saw himself as an artist, who enjoyed… redesigning areas. Who wanted to reshape the world to materialize his artistic visions.

He was one of the most powerful members of the Meta-Liberation Army. His quirk allowed him to reassemble the man-made materials around him, and was powerful. Very powerful. Horrifyingly powerful, in fact.

Geten needed to make sure that All Might was occupied during the coup. His answer was unleashing Reassembler upon Musutafu, timing the coup while the Symbol of Peace was visiting the school.

Reassembler had a vision of a grand labyrinth of metal, glass and circuits. When he heard of the size of the Dagobah dumping ground and how it began to devour the local (now abandoned) houses, he just had to take advantage of it. Geten really knew how to incite him.

He also devoured some passing ships for materials to expand his masterpiece. He was taken down by All Might following a brief but rather intense battle, and was now incarcerated. But his legacy remained.

Namely, the Dagobah Labyrinth.

Several square miles of a literal labyrinth of twisted metal, with walls about three meters high. Starting at the edge of the beach (and regularly flooded) and going at least two kilometers inland. Extremely easy to get lost in. With several open areas on the inside.

The people apparently continued to dump metal parts, just further to the west and east from what was now the Labyrinth. The fact that the local government let it stay like that was, frankly, sad.

Worst of all, Eraserhead was now forced to see this damnable thing every other day, because his new patrol route was right next to it. Which was something that he, technically, agreed to.

Sometimes Aizawa Shota was pretty stupid. And this was an example of such a moment.

Numbers were there. Oh, of course they were there. They kept their distance, but he was almost constantly observed. There was at least a single teenager with a numbered face mask (of numerous designs) watching his movements. Even when he didn't see the Labyrinth itself, it was pretty obvious that the nearby streets were Numbers' turf. No matter what the yakuza could say about it.

And then, when Eraserhead thinks that things can't get any worse… they get worse.

He turns at the corner of the street only to see three figures intensely debating something in a circle. They are certainly no simple civilians. One has a black jumpsuit and what looks like some sort of light biker helmet (with some rather improvised face cover). Another has a yellow hoodie with some thunder marks and a facemask (not numbered at all, he has a good eyesight). The third one is wearing an All Might hoodie, but it's almost certainly not Crawler.

Vigilantes. Really rookie vigilantes. Without access to the Alliance' resources when it comes to disguises and so on. Worst of all, familiar vigilantes. Or, well, all but the All Might one, he doesn't recognize that one.

It's really not a problem for someone like Eraserhead to sneak upon them and instantly capture them all with his scarf. They all yell in shock.

"Detention, all of you." Eraserhead announces. "Kaminari, Jirou and… who are you?" He doesn't recognize the third person, she only squeals a bit in an answer. "Also I don't know where exactly you are, Hagakure, but if you try to escape I'm using my quirk on you." He isn't seeing her and she probably didn't take her hero uniform with her (that would be pretty dumb). So if he uses his quirk, she is going to pop up naked in front of them all. Including Kaminari Denki.

"I'll stay put! I'll stay put!" Hagakure yells quickly, admitting defeat. Good.

"Oh, Aizawa-sensei!" Kaminari says, trying his best to appear cheerful. "What brings you here? We were just… on a walk!"

Jirou just groans in emotional and mental pain. Aizawa agrees with her. That was very, very bad.

"Don't bother." Eraserhead announces as Kaminari shrinks a little under his gaze. Then he frees them all, putting them right in front of him. "Hagakure, line up." He then adds while pointing to an empty space at the edge of the group.

"I'm here!" Hagakure announces five seconds later, informing him that she moved to the position as demanded. Good. A bit slow, but good.

"Now, explain yourselves." Eraserhead then says, glaring at the problem children in front of him.

'Uhm…" Jirou is probably the group's brains. And the speaker. Or that's how Eraserhead is interpreting their arrangement. "We kinda… I mean, Japan is the state that it is, and we know that bad things happen outside of it, and…uhm, we just didn't want to wait until graduation so, we, uhm…"

Not a good speaker (at least now, the stress is probably eating her up) but the best they have.

"So you, uhm, decided to go vigilante." Eraserhead says, while totally not parodying her with the uhm. "Listen, I really appreciate the willingness to help others. But I should technically expel you all for this, you know that?" They go white as a sheet. Even the unfamiliar girl. So she is probably from UA, just from a different class. "I said that I should, not that I will. That's still on the fence. What have you done thus far?"

"Err, just minor things?" Kyoka replies. She is normally way more confident. Then again, normally she isn't facing her scary teacher in such circumstances. "We aren't doing much. We helped some cats off the trees, found a lost dog, technically stopped two robberies by calling the nearby heroes, and, uhm, we might have apprehended a D-Rank villain but he attacked us first so it was fully legal?"

Of course they read the Knuckleduster smash hit book. Eraserhead isn't even surprised. Jirou did all but quote it.

Don't attack anyone, just patrol the area and call the heroes or the police. Do not operate on your own, always walk in a group. If you are spotted and get attacked, self-defense will be perfectly legal. If the enemy looks to be out of your league, they probably are - leave immediately and then call the heroes to avoid being targeted. If you do minor things like helping people's pets or carrying some old person's groceries, nobody is going to report you for illegal quirk usage - but it will help you build the rapport with the locals so that they'll be more likely to look the other way if you'll have to dodge the police/heroes.

That was pretty much a good summary of Legal Vigilantism™. It more or less worked, if you excluded the fact that casualties sometimes happened.

"Alright." Eraserhead sighs. "This isn't enough to expel you. There'll be a week-long detention, though. You didn't manage to get in contact with the local Vigilante Alliance network, considering your rather… bad disguises, am I right?" They all quickly nod, looking slightly relieved. "I'll contact their local headquarters and tell them how to find you."

Now they stare. Jirou and Kaminari especially look like they just saw a ghost. Eraserhead, the scary underground hero, acknowledging vigilantism?

"E...eh?" Is all that Kaminari manages to utter. Jirou is even less vocal. Hagakure seems to have let out something resembling an Aaaah?

"What you are doing isn't exactly illegal at the moment." Eraserhead replies. Knuckleduster's book basically told everyone in the country how to use a self-defense loophole to legalize vigilantism, and the government went 'fuck it, we need all the help we can get at the moment' and appeared completely unable (or more accurately, unwilling) to fix said loophole. It pissed him off, but… "And if you are oh so interested in helping others, you'll probably keep doing that. So I can as well put you in contact with someone who will help you not kill yourself in the process. By, for example, giving you some actual disguises. Also, you're accompanying me on the patrols until I decide you're passable enough to be on the streets. And if you break the law in any way or degree, I'm going to become your worst nightmare. Got it?" They nodded with fervent enthusiasm. "Also if you tell anyone about this, I'm going to become your nightmare's nightmare. Got it?"

This time the nods are slightly less fervent and more worried. Passable enough. He'll explain to them that they shouldn't even mention their vigilante work in school due to Nedzu having ears everywhere on the way back. Rat probably knows about them, to begin with.

"Now. Jirou." She tenses suddenly. "I assume your job in your party is to detect trouble and probably non-lethally blast people with your soundwaves, yes?" She nods. "Kaminari, you are probably there as a human taser, yes?" The electric user nods. "Hagakure is there to be a scout and probably for some ambushes, yes?" He hears a meek vocal confirmation.

That confirms it.

"Alright, that's a relatively logical group for lightweight work.: Eraserhead admits. "You lack firepower, but that's good. You aren't supposed to fight anyone. Now, you." The last member straightens up, obviously intimidated. She is a teenager with messy black hair. Eraserhead doesn't recognize her. "Who are you?"

"Ayako Nakahara." She replies. "First year from UA. General Course. I'm… Kyoka's my internet friend and she invited me to tag along."

"I see." Eraserhead nods. At least she didn't look like she was lying. "Quirk?" He sees no outside signs that could have acted as a clue.

"Quirk Detection." She promptly replies. "I can detect quirks at a distance. I only get a rough outline of what they are. Like, when I see you, I know that your quirk is about negating something, but I don't know what exactly."

Oh, now that's an interesting power to have in the field.

"Range and accuracy?" Eraserhead asks.

"Normally it's something like ten meters unless I see the target." She replies. "And I detect all quirks in that range. But when I focus really, really hard, I can pick strong quirks at a few kilometers range. I'm… I'm mostly here to tell Kyoka who is outside of our weight class." She quickly adds.

If Eraserhead's job description wasn't 'teacher in a hero school', he would probably congratulate Jirou on her extremely logical choice of party members. Jirou herself to detect crime or scout ahead, Kaminari to electrocute people into unconsciousness, Hagakure to distract enemies if things went awry, and Nakahara to tell them all when to fold and call the heroes.

Unfortunately, saying any variant of 'good job' to an active vigilante is just a nope. Eraserhead has standards.

"Are you interested in heroics?" Eraserhead promptly asks. After all, she is a wannabe vigilante. In an All Might hoodie. Eraserhead feels like he is staring down Crawler in that dark alleyway again. Nostalgia hits him like a speeding truck. Just with fewer broken bones.

"Well… yeah?" She asks, obviously taken aback. "But it's not like I could fight robots on the entrance exam, yes? But I was good enough in my theoretical exam that I ended up transferring from my school to the UA's General Course." Eraserhead decides to screech at Nedzu to change that abomination of an exam asap. Twice as much as he already does.

"Did someone ever tell you that if you do well enough during the sports festival, you can be transferred from the General Course to the Heroics Course without fighting robots? That's how I managed to get into heroics." Aizawa asks, and he sees her eyes go wide. Of course, no one ever told her. "We'll have a talk about potential supplementary combat lessons with me to help you achieve that tomorrow. Now you're all going home. And I'm going to escort you there, because you really, really, shouldn't be here."

"Eh? Why?" Jirou is surprised. "Nothing serious happens around this place, I checked it on the internet."

It wasn't an incorrect statement. The territory directly surrounding the Dagobah Labyrinth was the only part of the Western Musutafu that was… calm and peaceful. The Abegawa Tenchu Kai was mostly active to the west of it, forming a triangle between the Labyrinth and Hosu River. Which was a bit of no one's territory.

The worst you could encounter there on the street were a handful of thugs, a solid part of them of similar age to the dumbasses in front of him. Most of them were taking advantage of the fact that serious names were scared off by the Numbers, and ATK was yet to occupy those streets to act as if they owned a space.

"That's because the Dagobah Labyrinth is apparently inhabited by a group that's giving local villains nightmares. And we are quite close to it." Eraserhead promptly replies. He can see their eyes widen. "If you had a connection to the Alliance, you'd know that the entire area is off-limits to them because of that. One vigilante compared it to the Bermuda Triangle, because people vanish here without a trace all the time. Up to A-Rank villains and at least a single pro-hero." They are now borderline terrified. Good. That was the point. "Now, as I said, we're going home. Hagakure, I expect you to make a sound every twenty seconds or I'll decide that you escaped and then I'll get very, very mean."

(***)

The shortest way back makes them walk on the very edge of the Labyrinth. It's intimidating, to say the least. The entrance they are passing is a glaring hole in a wall of twisted metal and plastic, extending forward until it all but devours half of a ruined house.

Eraserhead calmly ignores the Number 13 [teenage boy in a black long coat and a gasmask] and Number 17 [teenage girl with multicoloured hair, wearing a hoodie and a plain surgical mask] staring at them. But then he gets a sudden blast of inspiration.

"Nakahara." The girl jerks up a little in surprise and looks at him. "Can you scan the Labyrinth for quirks while walking?" She shakes her head. "Can you decently pretend to have fainted and then scan it while you're laying on the ground?"

Turns out that this was a possibility. Although, considering the results, it was probably a bad idea.