MHA

Chapter – 4

I looked out towards the passing scenery; I was currently in Yamato's vehicle. All Might had invited us to his agency and Yamato along with Naomasa had swung around to pick up me and Kaina to head over together.

I already knew about this, because I had been briefed to cooperate fully with the Police and All Might. I can only assume, the HPSC was very worried this case which made sense as All for One was involved. Though, I wonder about the change in policy usually HPSC prefers to act alone with its agents instead of cooperating with others deeming them to be a security risk.

We pulled up to the Agency, a huge building fitting the number one hero in Japan. Immediately, my mood fell because I was greeted by the sight of Nighteye waiting for us.

We got out the car and Yamato took the lead greeting Nighteye. Naomasa and Kaina bowed in greeting while I studiously pretended, I had never seen him and he was more than happy to ignore me as well.

I heard Yamato sigh and could feel the puzzled gazes of Naomasa and Kaina which I ignored as well.

As we headed up the elevator to the top floor, we stayed silent not making any small talk. After exiting, I was greeted with an amazing view of the city from the floor-to-ceiling windows. I admired the view for a second before looking at the office which was decorated with various All Might memorabilia, his old suits, some pictures of him saving people and a few newspaper clippings showcasing his deeds.

To be honest, it seemed quite tacky but it certainly was deserved. Some media outlets had even dubbed All Might as the Symbol of Peace, a ridiculous title. I could smell the PR team of the HPSC behind it from a mile away.

We were led to a door by Nighteye who opened it with a polite knock. I was greeted with a sight of meeting room with chairs around a large table, with a curious assortment of occupants.

All Might was present as expected along with him was a White rat-bear thingy who was surely Nezu. I didn't who the last person, an oldish man dressed in a white and yellow costume.

Nezu was the one to speak up, "Ahh, Detective Yamato and Pro Hero Sleeper, thank you for agreeing to meet with us."

Yamato took the lead again, "I could hardly ignore a call from All Might and you mentioned you had information about this case as well. Of course, we would be here."

Nezu smiled politely and gestured at us to take our seats, "Quite. Before we begin, let us finish with the introductions. I am Nezu, the principal of UA and sitting next to me is as you all know All Might."

He then gestured towards the unknown old man, "This is the retired Pro Hero Gran Torino. He is here at our request because he too has information to share about this particular case."

I raised my eyebrow at that, Retired Pro Heroes are rare especially heroes from the Age of Chaos and for this man to know information to know information about this case likely means he is only semi-retired, perhaps taking on a support role in his old age.

Yamato took the lead for introductions on our side, "I am Detective Yamato Ryutaro from the Police Force and this is Tsukauchi Naomasa, my sidekick you could say." He then gestured to me, "This is Sleeper from the HPSC along with his sidekick Lady Nagant. They are working with the police on this case."

The men across us nodded and Nighteye who had disappeared entered along with some files and handed one each to the four of us.

Before we could open it though, All Might spoke up, "Before, you look through the files. Allow me to share the relevant information. We are already aware who the culprit behind the experiments is."

Well, that was a shocking start to the meeting, Yamato and I also knew who the culprit was likely to be, but I didn't expect to hear about him from All Might of all people, if we were both talking about the same person obviously.

All Might continued speaking without bothering with our reactions, "We believe the culprit to be a villain named All for One. It must surely be an unfamiliar name for you, but make no mistake, he is the most dangerous villain to ever exist in the world." He paused and continued, "As you are aware after my return from America, I have worked continuously as a Pro Hero curbing the chaos in the country. But what I didn't share with anyone was that I was actually targeting a specific villain. That villain was All for One, he had a network of crime stretching all over this country and abroad, I am working towards dismantling this very network."

I could feel my shock increasing though I kept my face neutral, 'This was hardly what I expected to hear about.'

Gran Torino cut into the conversation, "All for One has been active for years now. He was present when I was in my prime and was active even before my career as a Hero began."

Naomasa spoke up, "But that's impossible. No quirk can allow for immortality or an extension of life span that long."

Gran Torino chuckled at that, "You would usually be correct young man. But, All for One is not like others. His quirk is the most deadliest and versatile quirk to ever exist. Let me give you a hint, why do think he is called All for One."

It clicked in my brain, "He can copy quirks, can't he? I have heard about other quirks like that, they are always limitations though. I assume his is much more powerful than the others who have similar quirks."

All Might looked at me with a grim face, "You are very close, Young Sleeper. But, it's much more worse than that his quirk allows him to steal quirks from others allowing to gain their quirks and leaving the victim quirkless. As far as we know there is no limit to the number of quirks he can possess and his long life can be attributed to the quirks he has taken from others to extend his lifespan."

I was numb after hearing that, crazy meta-abilities were a given in our current society, but a meta-ability like that was unheard of.

I stayed silent while processing the information but I noticed a piercing gaze.

I looked across the table at Nezu who was staring at me and Yamato like a hawk

"You didn't seem surprised when we mentioned All for One to you. Even your apprentices didn't react with much surprise." He chuckled, "All Might, Torino it seems our friends here were already aware of the information we just gave them."

I stayed silent and looked towards Yamato who gave a sharp nod

Kaina didn't wait for me to respond before she began, "Uhm, Senpai and Yamato-san mentioned his name as the likely culprit at the crime scene in passing. I didn't know anything else about him though."

Naomasa nodded in agreement to that statement

I spoke up at that point, "That's because we wanted to share it with you two when we were absolutely certain about his involvement." I looked at Nezu, "You are right. Yamato and I are already aware about All for One. Even the HPSC and the police force is aware of him."

Nighteye spoke up, "The HPSC knew about him already and didn't act at all." He accused

I rolled my eyes at him, "How can you act against a ghost? All the information we have on All for One was given to the HPSC and the Police Force by Yamato and I. The information was made strictly confidential and we are only speaking about it now because you seem to have more information about him than us."

Nezu raised his eyebrows, "Oh, That's surprising. I assume you ran into him in your investigations."

I shrugged, "You are half right. I did gather information on him from my investigations." I smiled and continued, "But I knew about him from when I was a 6-year-old child."

That seemed to have shocked everybody into silence as they stared at me with various expressions only Yamato rolled his eyes.

"Yes, yes you were amazing even as a child. Now, move on with the actual story."

I gave him a stink eye, before coughing into my fist, "Well, as you may or may not know, I was an orphan living on the streets when I was a kid. I only got into the system as a teenager of 14 years because of Old Yamato here."

I looked around and only Naomasa and Nezu seemed to have known about that piece of information.

I continued on regardless, "You need to be street smart and quick to survive on the streets especially without any spectacular quirk. I used to hear stories about someone kidnapping people off the streets and used them for their twisted experiments on quirks. I initially dismissed them as rumours."

I tapped the arms of the chair, "One day, I saw a kid who I knew with a pretty impressive quirk, he had a weak form of regeneration. Nothing spectacular, but it was enough to heal broken bones within 24 hours, he was kidnapped in front of my eyes by a group of villains. I hid in fear to ensure I wasn't taken or killed as well and heard one of them talk about All for One wanting kids."

I looked at them and saw the usual looks of pity from people when I mentioned stories about my childhood and chuckled, "Why the faces. It was a phase of my life that's all. Now, I forgot about that information until Yamato and I investigated a human trafficking ring. The ring was set up by a gang whose leader was tasked to gather people with quirks. After some questioning and gentle persuasion, we got to know that he worked for a person named All for One."

Yamato who had been silent throughout spoke up as I stopped, "We could never figure out anything else. But your information about his quirk has given us some useful intel on him. We knew, he was a shadowy puppet master of the underworld in Japan and information but nothing about him personally. People are afraid to talk about him, we passed the information to our superiors and we keep an eye out for any mentions of him. But that's all the information we have on him."

I raised my finger to get everyone's attention, "I do have some speculation about his associate though."

Nezu smiled at that, "Impressive work for someone with such little information. Please do share your findings with us, Sleeper. "

I smiled in response, "I didn't know about his quirk before but I did know about his quirk experiments and one common theme was the professional set up and skilled medical procedures conducted on the victims."

"Such medical skills are not easily acquired. I searched for various people who would have the specific skillset who had anything suspicious in their histories and lo and behold, I was able to narrow it down to one in particular."

I steepled my fingers, "Principal Nezu, a being of your intellect must surely pay attention to the various fields of quirk science."

The white animal nodded at me, "Yes, it is quite a fascinating field. Something I truly enjoy learning more about."

"Have you heard this sentence before? 'Quirks are a sign of the destruction of the human race.'" I smiled and enjoyed the looks on the faces of everybody on the table.

Nezu looked sharply at me, "It was mentioned in other papers, in a mocking manner."

I nodded, "That sentence was written by Kyudai Garaki, an eminent quirk researcher though he himself is quirkless. Till he put out his paper which mentioned that the increasing strength of quirks would one day lead to powers which could not be controlled and cause the extinction of the human race. After publishing the paper, he was crucified by the community, he was mocked, debased, humiliated and after that he disappeared. I have looked for him and I found barely a whisker of information about him."

I leaned back and looked around the table,

Nighteye cut in, "That paper sounds like absolute nonsense. Quirks are a tool to help people not something which would lead to the doomsday."

I looked around and everyone other than Nezu seemed to incline to agree with his thoughts

"Is that so? I am inclined to agree with him though. Quirks are getting stronger with each generation. Quirk marriages are very common in pursuit of stronger quirks and I have heard reports about children who have caused a lot of damage upon their awakening."

Nighteye moved to rebut but Nezu cut in, "We are not here to discuss scientific theories. Sleeper, why are you certain he is working with All for One?"

I nodded and continued, "I spoke to some of his former co-workers. They said he locked himself up in his lab and refused any patients which changed when he was visited by a man. After the meeting, he disappeared. But I was able to track down his family. He has a son. The man refused to say anything but I was able to get my answers after some persuasion. His son doesn't know who he works for and what he does but he mentioned he had seen some notes belonging to his father about transferring quirks to different users."

I looked at the occupants, "All this does not mean that Garaki is working for All for One. But my bet is that Garaki is working for him."

All Might smiled at the end of my report, "Impressive work, Young Sleeper."

"Yes, it is excellent that you were able to figure this out." Gran Torino added

I looked at them and said, "You are right, it's impressive. But at the time, I was just looking for clues, it was a long shot. I was lucky to strike gold."

Yamato spoke up from the side, "We will start looking for him and bring him in. "He looked at All Might and said, "Though there is one thing, I have to ask, how did we not notice you dismantling an entire criminal network? That should be impossible.

Gran Torino spoke up from the side, "That's because no one knows those crooks are working for All for One, they just see All Might taking out random criminals. The only reason, we know about their true master is because I have been tracking All for One's activities for practically my entire career."

Yamato nodded at that and we all had pause in conversation as we processed the information shared. I opened the file and saw that it was full of data about All for One from his known quirks to a psych profile. I glanced through it and decided to come back to it later.

It was then Nezu spoke up, "We are all on the same page now and know who the target is but we need a plan of action. "

Yamato was the one who answered, "This quite easy. All for One will be feeling pressured because of All Might's actions. Eventually, he will have two options to either hide and come back later or to strike at the source of the problem, that is him." He pointed his finger towards All Might as he finished that statement.

Nezu looked at us and said, "All for One is obsessed with his characterization as the great evil, he will never take attacks lying down. We expect him to retaliate fiercely."

"Great" I said sardonically, "But only one of us here can take him on in straight fight." Looking at All Might.

Gran Torino spoke up at that, "Don't count me out just yet. I may be retired but I can still hold my own."

I shook my head at him, "It's not enough. I don't know all about your abilities but if you faced him in your youth and couldn't beat him. It won't help us now either." I looked around the room, "I have a plan, it sounds simple in theory but practically hard to pull off. If you are right and All for One views himself as the ultimate evil then we should pit him against the ultimate good."

I looked towards All Might, "The symbol of peace calling him out for a showdown should suffice, don't you think? We can choose the location of the battle and set enough traps to destroy him."

Nezu shook his head, "He will see the trap from a mile away."

I smiled at that, "Everyone can be baited. If we can entice him enough, he will willingly enter the trap."

All Might looked pensive and glanced at Gran Torino some message must passed between them as he spoke up, "I have an idea of a way to ensure he fights on our terms."

I looked at him and was about to ask about it, but Gran Torino cut in, "We are not certain about it. We will share the information when we have something concrete."

I decided to drop my questions for later after seeing their recalcitrance.

Yamato spoke up, "All these considerations are for later. For now, let's talk about what we can do now."

All of us looked to him and nodded, the lights dimmed and the screen lit up with various amounts of information about different crime groups. I settled comfortably into my chair as the meeting continued.

Gran Torino saw the young heroes and the detectives usher out of the room after the meeting concluded. Nezu and Nighteye walked out with them discussing something between themselves.

He looked towards Toshi who had a look of exhaustion on his face.

"I though you would be happier Toshi. We are closer to avenging Nana and bringing him to justice." The old Pro Hero spoke up.

Toshinori Yagi looked towards his mentor and spoke up, "This is just the beginning. All of us will have to work very hard to ensure success."

Sorahiko looked to him with a wise look on his face, "That's not why you look tired." He pointed out.

The number 1 Hero grimaced, "I am not comfortable with hiding information about Nana and my quirk from heroes who will fight with us to bring down All for One."

Sorahiko gave a wry smile, "You know as well I do why it is important to hide the information."

All Might's expression crumpled at that reminder.

Sorahiko spoke up, "We have just started working with them and hiding this information will not cause them any harm. Perhaps in time after All for One is defeated, we can share these secrets with them. For now, let's focus on what we need to do."

All Might nodded in agreement while clenching his fists looking at the image of All for One displayed on the file.

I was looking at Kaina who was using the shooting range in our training facility, I looked at the result and it was as expected, a small cluster around the centre of the target.

When she finished, she placed the gun down and looked at me, "Senpai, you do realise, my quirk allows me to form a gun at any time right?"

I hummed and fired off a shot of my own which hit the bullseye and said, "Your quirk has many limitations, the prime one being the gap between shots. It would be better than train in different firearms now and you will be carrying 2 backup weapons on every mission."

I gestured at the target she had shot at and said, "I have seen your ridiculous skills with your quirk. I want you to be able to replicate with any gun you will have to use."

Kaina looked like she wanted to protest but wisely decided to not say anything as nothing she said would have changed my mind.

"Now, I want to know one thing." I paused looking at her seriously; Kaina noticed my change in tone and looked at me with a serious expression on her face.

I raised my finger and said with absolute seriousness, "Why didn't you ask All Might for an autograph?"

Kaina just blinked at me in shock and I immediately burst into laughter and received a slightly painful punch to my shoulder in response.

"Okay, okay. I am sorry for messing around, but I know you are his fan. It seems like you missed out on the perfect opportunity." I said placatingly

She pouted at me, "There was never a good time. At the crime scene, he was busy examining everything and the meeting was hardly the most suitable time for it as well."

She looked at me and said, "I will ask him for one later when they are more pleasant circumstances."

I nodded at the sound reasoning and then headed over to sit down on the mats,

"You were very silent after the meeting. Is there something on your mind?" I asked

Kaina sat on the floor near me and seemed to be in thought, "Senpai, do you really believe that quirks will eventually be out of control?"

I wasn't particularly surprised with that question; it was a given in the current society that quirks were the best thing ever and being quirkless was practically a sin. Even a person with a useless quirk was better than a quirkless.

"Yes, it makes sense. More and more powerful quirks are born in every generation. The number of Heroes and Villains are only ever increasing with people utilising these powerful quirks. It makes sense that eventually the quirks might become too powerful. But you don't need to believe the conclusion which Garaki made. There are many ways to constrain quirks and perhaps someone will come up with a way to suppress or even destroy quirks in the future." I laid out my thoughts to her on the matter.

She shook her head at the response, "I just never thought someone would think that quirks were harmful to the world. I know, that people feared quirks feared when they initially appeared but this was written by a person whose entire life was dedicated to study quirks."

I smiled at her naivety, "There are many who think quirks are harmful to the world. Its just you never have met them or heard them espouse their views. That's not your fault though, the government and HPSC actively suppresses such ideas. It is very hard to meet someone who believes such things these days."

She looked towards me, "What about you, Senpai? Do you think that quirks are a bad thing?"

"There is no point mulling over such things, Kaina. Quirks are a reality and all we can do is deal with the ground reality. "I said to her.

But I knew quirks had caused more harm than good. They had stopped the advancements of technologies, caused widespread anarchy, genocides were perpetrated and there was chaos everywhere. But like all things people adapted and quirks had become something to be celebrated.

Kaina seemed to have picked up on some of my thoughts but didn't press me any further for which I was grateful.

I ruffled her hair, "My cute kouhai, don't worry your pretty little head about these topics with no answers. Focus on what you are supposed to do and that is our job."

She gave a look of anger which was playful and smiled, "So, we discussed a lot of things in the meeting. What are we going to be doing?"

"The usual investigations, I will teach you how to conduct investigations like these. But we will also be doing some missions for the HPSC. We put all our focus on All for One like All Might."

She nodded, "So, we will be tracking Garaki then."

I was about to respond before my phone started ringing and I moved to answer it.

"Well, Kaina. It looks like we have a mission after all."