Naruto30 - Yeah, giving him OFA would be... I mean, let's be honest, he has no quirk because giving him any quirk would make him too powerful for this world :V
MrMateusz - Working as intended then :D
Guest - His heroic resolve is always there, and it kicks in at the weirdest of times :V
(***)
Re-Destro is an expert when hiding his feelings is involved. He carefully listens to Midoriya's lengthy tale. He doesn't doubt him even for a minute, because c'mon, they barely met him, but Midoriya clearly wears his heart on his sleeve.
All the while asking several questions for better clarity.
Midoriya is then told that he has the rest of the day for himself, because Rikiya Yotsubashi and Koku Hanabata need to have a very serious grown-up talk. So he leaves, clearly worried that he did something wrong.
Thankfully, (the totally not-auntie) Curious has been called by Trumpet, who expected this, so she'll probably run into him to cheer him up a little by talking about her newest journalist endeavors. Or maybe some new book that Shoowaysha Publishing is planning to publicize.
Re-Destro waits for about fifteen seconds after Midoriya's departure (Trumpet taking the time to sit on the chair on the other side of Yotsubashi's desk because it's going to be a long one) before suddenly exploding.
"WHAT IN THE FUCKING FUCK!" Re-Destro yells, slamming his fists into the desk. It's not exactly eloquent, but it portrays his present emotional state well enough. "What sort of fucked up assholes do shit like that?!"
Re-Destro never really attended public education facilities. He was the heir of an ancient conspiracy, groomed by the most expensive private tutors you could possibly imagine. This doesn't mean that he always maintains proper decorum.
He learned early enough into his supervillain career that keeping yourself controlled perfectly 99% of the time makes the moments when you go full-blown out of character by screaming in fury and righteous anger really impactful.
His lack of public education background makes his knowledge about school life rather faint. But he's fairly fucking sure that it's not supposed to look like that! Like what the ever-living fuck?!
What Midoriya described sounded like some fucked up angsty fanfiction where the entire world exists just to fucking torture the protagonist just so a bunch of degenerated sickos that enjoy seeing others suffer can get some sick enjoyment out of reading that bullshit.
Doing all of that to soothe their own existential pain caused by never knowing the touch of the opposite sex (or not opposite, Re-Destro really doesn't give a shit here), due to being a bunch of fucking losers.
And no, he speaks from experience. He had a phase in childhood, when the excessive pressure from his parents (due to the whole 'heir of villainous conspiracy') made him temporarily turn into an emo edgy teenager, a phase that lasted until he actually entered a relationship with his future wife.
Students encouraged to bully those with villainous quirks, complex mutations, or god forbid, for being quirkless? Students encouraged to use their meta-abilities (for as long as there wasn't going to be any permanent damage) on those people? Teachers actually actively joining the bullying?! And covering up the abuse, hell, even somehow - just fucking somehow - covering at least three cases of suicides among their students?!
Not to mention not trying to curb the mass illegal use of quirks (and with rather villainous goals in mind), but actually encouraging it?!
"What sort of fucked up person is running that quote unquote establishment?!" Re-Destro shouts, Trumpet letting his boss let the anger out. "I thought that I would have fucking heard of it if Muscular or Moonfish got themselves a teaching license!"
In his opinion, you needed someone (almost) too evil and edgy to possibly exist in the real world to pull shit like this. Surely, even the legendary Quirk Thief, the half-mythical demon lord of Japan, wasn't that evil, right?
Unlike complete psychos like the M&M Murder Duo (who were actually legitimately insane), that man was supposedly sane. And must have had at least SOME redeeming features. Maybe he was a good parent or something?
(***)
Elsewhere
"You know…" All for One says. "... I had a strange feeling just now. It's like I was supposed to sneeze, but it's a bit hard seeing as I don't really have a nose anymore."
Doctor Garaki raises his head from the newest noumu that he was working on (the one that used to be his own grandchild, who ended up being way too loud, obnoxious, and foolish for Garaki's sake so off to the Human Resources department he went), and looks curiously at the demon lord.
"Maybe someone was talking about you?" Garaki asks. "Or, well, at least thinking about you seriously."
"If it was like that, All Might alone would have made me sneeze constantly." All for One replies dryly. He isn't superstitious, but sometimes it's nice to have a funny banter with your co-workers. "Maybe someone found out about one of my multitude of work projects? But if so, which one could it be I wonder?"
"Maybe the one where you turned Midoriya Izuku's school into an infernal, sadistic hellscape through subtle manipulation of teacher appointments and the right choice of students, all in order to drive him to villainy through intentional overrepresentation of discrimination so that he would ask you for a quirk to fight against it? Or, alternatively, commit suicide and thus drive his siblings into villainy." Garaki replies, the still twitching and thinking corpse of his grandson staring at him in a silent plea for death. "While keeping him from telling his mother what was happening through a slight mind-control quirk. You know, the bigger version of the plan where you had Tenko Shimura kill his family with a quirk you gave him and then kept people from helping so he would stay on the streets, becoming a militant nihilist that you could manipulate in the process? The plan that made Inko try to hunt you for sport."
Oh, yes. It could have been that.
(***)
"Alright, I'm calm." Re-Destro exhales deeply. He's going to leave asking how the hell did Mischief miss all of that for later (she apparently didn't know, was it somehow connected to her wanting to brutally murder her husband?) "We can have a constructive talk about this absolute, steaming pile of shit."
Okay, so maybe he isn't as calm as he thought.
"A quick question before we start." Trumpet decides to say it. "This isn't some fringe MLA recruitment facility led by some half-forgotten radical branch, yes?"
The MLA was, at its core, divided between three factions. The moderates, who wanted a radical expansion of the quirk license system. The centrists, who wanted full deregulation of quirks, maybe aside from some particularly dangerous ones. And, finally, the radicals, who were pretty much quirk supremacists.
It made the MLA sound pretty bad, until you realized that the radicals formed only about 10% of the MLA numbers, and were mostly there because they were extremely useful as cannon fodder.
Most of them were uneducated dumbasses with surprisingly potent quirks.
Figuring out what faction Geten was representing in the inner council of Re-Destro was worth exactly nothing.
Re-Destro had extremely short patience with the radicals ever since a bunch of those idiots tried to overthrow him a decade ago. Geten was actually with them (together with his sister), but Re-Destro succeeded in making him switch sides.
By relentlessly punching him in the face until Geten realized that his enemy is stronger than he is. The fact that it worked was a good picture of the radicals as a phenomenon.
The big problem was that with how decentralized MLA was as an organization (kept together by forced-loyalty quirks that kept people more or less loyal and thereby rendering them unable to tell anyone that the organization existed without the explicit approval of one of the executives, typically for recruitment purposes), it was entirely possible that some fringe group under the banner of the MLA did indeed do something like this.
Re-Destro and Trumpet had an extremely low assessment of the radicals' average level of common public decency after discovering that Geten and his sister were the end result of an eugenic program of quirk marriages that dated back almost to the times of Destro.
However…
"Of course it's not their fucking facility!" Re-Destro actually appears insulted by the sheer stupidity of that claim. "If the MLA, even the dumbass Radicals, actually tried to change a school into a recruitment facility, it wouldn't pick a middle school in the same prefecture as UA, with almost no strong meta-abilities whatsoever! We'd have picked a school far away from Nedzu, a school in a district populated with a significant number of hero-related families for stronger meta-abilities and possible backdoors into the Hero Society! And probably a HIGH SCHOOL with a Hero Course, so we would save some money on training while at it."
What sort of a man leading a massive, ancient conspiracy would have attempted to establish a recruitment facility close to someone as smart as Nedzu, just to obtain a bunch of untrained brats that were too stupid and spoiled to follow orders?!
Surely no one could be as stupid as to even imagine Aldera Middle School as a MLA facility, right? Not even the generally hare-brained Radicals. Trumpet was clearly asking just in case.
"That's reassuring." Trumpet sighs. "So what do we do to defuse this bomb?" As that's what it was to the MLA. Both men in the room understood it perfectly.
It might appear strange for Trumpet to react so intensely to the story (even if you forgot the fact that, excluding his secret political radicalism, he was actually a fairly normal human being, with his main hobby being golf rather than skinning children alive) that Midoriya provided him with.
Until you asked yourself a simple question.
How exactly would the public discovery of an organized micro-society of nearly free quirk usage full of straight up abuse, pain and children's tears were going to influence the public support for a party whose political platform included a very big 'FREE USAGE OF QUIRKS' demand?
Asking Midoriya Izuku a few simple questions made Koku Hanabata - and a few of his fellow parliamentarians from the Hearts and Minds Party present in the room - realize that they just stumbled upon one of the biggest political scandals in the modern history of Japan.
One that could as well tank their entire party if it exploded right before elections. Quite frankly, seeing how incredibly lousy the Aldera Middle School clearly was, it was a mystery how it hadn't become public knowledge already.
All of that is without mentioning the fact that neither Koku Hanabata nor Rikiya Yotsubashi were particularly happy hearing about the bullshit that was happening at that school. Yes, they are supervillains, but they are supervillains with some actual moral standards.
Even if their organization could neither benefit nor lose from the situation, Rikiya Yotsubashi would still at the very least leave an anonymous tip at the nearest hero office, just to be able to sleep better at night.
"I think that we're going to need to do a controlled demolition." Re-Destro decides after a few seconds of thinking. "We can't exactly dismantle the whole thing quietly, it's going to inevitably blow up in our hands. But if we spin the narrative correctly, we can go through it at the very least not weakened, maybe even strengthened."
"Ah." Trumpet realizes it. "Let me guess, Nedzu?"
Re-Destro nods.
"You're going to play the responsible citizen of Japan." Re-Destro says, leaning forward towards his co-conspirator. "You'll go to him and say that an associate of one of your party members told them about Aldera, the person freaked out and contacted you. You decided that a mess of this magnitude has to have some high-profile backers, at least some local heroes or police just have to be on this, or it wouldn't work. So, as a responsible citizen, you decided to go to someone that you know can be trusted to handle it properly."
"And since Nedzu is a, pun intended, political animal…" Trumpet leans forward as well, a faint smile on his face. "... he'll accept the deal with me, fully understanding my need to keep my party clean. He'll spin the tale to describe the more general abuse and discrimination, without mentioning the 'free meta-ability usage' bit. Naturally, I'll be in debt to him over that, but…"
"... it'll be manageable." Re-Destro smiles as well. "Because Nedzu himself won't be happy to discover that his student that won the 1st year UA sports festival this year is actually a product of such an incredibly toxic place. A student that somehow missed his own background checks and was an active participant in bullying. As that might put UA's own graduates under serious scrutiny. And naturally…"
"... the Hearts and Minds Party will offer its help in making sure that UA isn't implicated in the scandal." Trumpet grins, actually baring his teeth a little. Yes, owing favors to the Rat God of Evil was dangerous. Exchanging favors like this, however, opened future possibilities.
They both lean back, sighing a breath of relief at the realization that it might not be that bad. Hell, Curious might even try to swing the narrative about the school's supposed attempts to breed heroes by encouraging excess competitiveness in order to shine some light on the deficiencies of the system!
Then Re-Destro almost falls from his chair (while Trumpet actually does fall from his own) when they realize that Izuku Midoriya was actually standing right next to them, looking like he saw a ghost.
"H-How long were you standing there?" Re-Destro asks, staring at him in shock over the desk. Trumpet corrects his glasses to look at him as well, which actually makes him look a bit like a dumbass since he's on all fours right next to his now empty chair.
"Almost from the beginning, I came back because I was worried that I said something wrong because most adults not from my family that I tried to tell about it were mean to me, and IpromisethatIwon'ttellanyonesopleasedon'tkillme…" Midoriya devolves into barely understandable babble midway.
Okay… Re-Destro is getting extremely lousy nowadays. That or Midoriya is just this sneaky. Probably the latter, all things considered.
Good news, they can technically deal with it with a loyalty-enforcing meta-ability. Without unnecessary bloodshed that would then make Mischief actually hunt them to the ends of the Earth.
Bad news, actually establishing a loyalty contract requires genuine consent. Midoriya Izuku would have to actually agree to the restriction for it to work. Sure, once it's set in, it stays even if you change your mind.
Alright, Re-Destro, c'mon. You can do it. Remember, your family jewels (and, probably, teeth, nails, and more) are at stake here.
"Now, now, there is no need to worry so much!" Re-Destro did his best smile while standing up from his seat. Trumpet actually stands up too. "I do understand that discovering what you just did must have been… shocking. Actually, how much did you get out of it?"
"T-that you're supervillains in hiding and a part of 'MLA', w-which I t-think is an a-abbreviation of M-Meta Liberation A-Army." Of course he figured that out, probably from Re-Destro asking him about Destro on the first day.
"Well, yes, that's true." Re-Destro admits. Seriously, no point in hiding this. "But! We aren't the scary type of supervillains. Right, Trumpet?"
"Y-yes." Koku Hanabata nods his agreement with a second hesitation. "We're very good supervillains." He appears to have some conflicted feelings about putting it like that.
"See?" Re-Destro's attention returns to Izuku. "We're trying to make this country a bit better, without killing people." …if possible. "We're not simple criminals, we're wealthy enough to do our things with legally owned money, rather than, I dunno, peddle drugs to finance our war against the system?"
It'd be like admitting that you've lost your war, trading any potential moral superiority you might have for a few more guns, and completely ignoring the fact that you give your enemy the propaganda ammunition to completely discount all your efforts as simple banditry.
Only complete losers do that.
"Besides, you've made it clear that you agree with most of our postulates!" Re-Destro decides to switch to this subject. "Like reforming the hero system! Making the quirk laws much less restrictive! Or burning down the Hero Commission headquarters and then investing billions of yen into thoroughly decontaminating the ruins so that life can grow again in a place so poisoned with petty spite and general stupidity!"
Somehow, the whole 'burning down the Hero Public Safety Commission's headquarters seemed to be the most interesting thing on the list. Re-Destro is slowly approaching the point when he'll have to admit that he is growing attached to Midoriya.
"W-well, that d-does sound nice." Midoriya admits, looking down while fidgeting heavily. "B-but what about heroes? I m-mean, many of them are pretty cool, and…"
"You don't have to worry about that at all!" Re-Destro replies while giving him a thumbs-up gesture. "You see, we don't want to get rid of the heroes!"
"Y-you don't?" Midoriya blinks at him. "B-but D-Destro said…" Oh, great. Now Midoriya started to quote Destro on him. Re-Destro has known the kid for, like, two weeks, but if something were to happen to him, he would kill the person responsible.
He had a strange urge to say 'everyone he knows and then himself', but that would be a pretty dumb thing to do, wouldn't it? Why would he even kill his acquaintances over something like this? Wasn't it a much better option to kidnap the person who hurt Midoriya, and then use him or her as a training dummy for the MLA warriors?
"That was two centuries ago, times have changed." Re-Destro waves the words off. "A lot of people have to become heroes just to use their meta-abilities commercially without having to rely on a quirk license that can be revoked under the flimsiest of justifications. Why did Recovery Girl have to become a hero to be able to use her meta-ability freely? Wouldn't she be able to help more people if she went through a proper medical school instead of learning how to hit villains where it hurts with her cane?"
She was a qualified nurse, yes, but she could be much more than that. And she still had to have that education as something separate from her hero education, because a hero license was the only surefire way of being able to use her quirk legally.
"A lot of people would be able to earn a satisfying living with their meta-abilities without being forced to villainy when their lives took a turn for the worse." Re-Destro continues. "Heroes would still stay there, yes, but properly assisted by the police force, that would also be allowed to use their quirks when needed. I mean, you know Sir Nighteye, yes?"
Izuku nods. Stupid question, of course he does.
"That man is basically a highly successful police detective with a nickname and some merch." Re-Destro continues his speech. "Why does he need a hero license to be able to use his meta-ability for investigations? He could achieve just as much if he was a police officer, but without illogical restrictions! And don't you think that police would no longer be incorrectly seen by the public as a nigh-useless bunch of faceless sidekicks for the heroes if they could use their meta-abilities to perform some normally impossible deeds? After proper training, of course."
To be honest, Re-Destro doesn't think that Izuku Midoriya can, logically speaking, become a pro-hero. Oh, the kid no doubt has a brilliant mind and wide knowledge, there is no denying that. But…
Pro-heroes, in the end, were about performing impossible deeds with their meta-abilities (just as villains were). Without a meta-ability, how could one achieve that? But that was actually the problem with society!
The standing of pro-heroes in society reached the point where, if you replaced them with soldiers, you'd suddenly discover that you're living in a very obnoxious military dictatorship.
Kids, like those from Aldera, were put into some sort of twisted rat race for heroism. Those that had meta-abilities deemed as unsuitable for this line of work were discriminated against. And the same thing happened, to a lesser degree, elsewhere. At all times.
If you were born with a plant-growing meta-ability you were either strong enough to become a hero (or a villain) or you discovered that your additional limb that the meta-ability provided was suddenly restrained.
Where was the goddamn option to become a professional gardener with your meta-ability without needing to spend a lot of money on going through numerous legal procedures to obtain a license?! And even that rarely worked outside of crucial things like medicine, where the meta-abilities were too precious to ignore them in a desperate attempt to pretend that Dawn of Quirks (legally speaking) didn't happen.
Sometimes Re-Destro ponders on how the hell their society (so restrictive, even when compared to many countries overseas) could still exist.
Kids like Midoriya Izuku were habituated by society into pursuing impossible dreams - and feeling inadequate if they failed or if they didn't have the qualifications. Midoriya Izuku had a mind that would keep most of the professions out there open for him (politics, journalism, support engineering, and so on), but no, the public only truly valued heroes nowadays.
He doesn't say it, because honestly, that would be counterproductive to his goal of recruiting Izuku Midoriya into the Meta-Liberation Army. Then again, if someone could prove him wrong and become a quirkless pro-hero (although of the investigative/command type), it was probably Midoriya.
Re-Destro wouldn't be sad over it. It was all about achieving your dreams with your own hands, right? Meta-Liberation ideology was mostly about this, just with meta-abilities as a focus due to being created in the age of meta-abilities and superhuman feats!
"T-that doesn't sound that bad." Izuku admits. Is he still at the 'burn down the commission' part? "S-some of my uncles and aunties would certainly a-agree. Like u-uncle Sta… Akaguro."
"You must have very smart uncles and aunties then, Young Midoriya!" Re-Destro smiles. "You must tell me more about them."
It was a mistake.
It was a horrible, horrible mistake.
Izuku Midoriya decided that since they were honest with him about something similar, then he should offer them at least some honesty in return. So he told them the truth. Not the really confidential family secrets, but still a lot.
As a result, Re-Destro discovers that Izuku Midoriya's extended family includes:
The Hero Killer: Stain, one of the most dangerous men in the country, a hero-hunting vigilante preying on unworthy heroes (somehow, most of them connected to the Hero Commission) by publishing the evidence for their crimes and then beating them the fuck up to prove their moral and professional weakness.
Mr. Compress, head of the Levellers and the heir of Oji Harima the Peerless Thief. The country's most successful thief, although of gentlemanly nature. A man targeting the wealth of nasty heroes, villains, and people that were generally very publicly unpleasant. Plus, well, most of the Levellers too.
Knuckleduster, the elusive leader of the Vigilante Alliance, a country-wide organization of vigilantes maintaining peace (or trying to) in the districts where the Government failed to properly enforce laws, heroes keeping away due to them not being medial enough. Plus most of the big names of the organization, including Crawler.
That was just the family (even if apparently not by blood). Because apparently, due to his father's connections, the list of people he ended up meeting in person during his family dinners included:
Eclipse, the secretive and mysterious leader of the Quirkless Liberation Front. Purity, the woman that reorganized the Creature Rejection Clan into the major power of the underworld that it was right now. Glassmaker, head of the House of Glass, this country's biggest remaining criminal syndicate. Mechanist, head of the Clockwork Tower, the country's biggest internet criminal syndicate.
Also heads and notable members of several yakuza clans, including the Shie Hassaikai and the Abegawa Tenchu Kai. And a lot of smaller criminal syndicates from the entire country.
Beast, head of the Inhuman Supremacy Party (polar opposite of the CRC espousing mutant superiority), and Imaginer (serial killer and head of the House of Red, an organization of serial killers and mass murderers for hire THAT ACTUALLY INCLUDED MUSCULAR AND MOONFISH) were, apparently, vetoed from visiting by Mischief.
what the actual fuck
Was Izuku's mother the head of some country-wide club for supervillains that Re-Destro was too well hidden to be invited to?!
Trumpet ended up falling from his chair again when Midoriya started to casually listing the 'met in person but not part of the family' list.
"Okay." Re-Destro takes a deep breath. That was… a lot to swallow. "At this point, I almost feel like I'm the one that is supposed to be asked to join an organization, not you, Midoriya." Izuku appears confused by his words.
This, also, explains why he seems to have missed out on the whole 'common sense' concept. His family connections alone were… very uncommon.
"So, are you interested in joining us?" Re-Destro then asks.
"Well, I t-think that you have a l-lot of good ideas…" Izuku replies, fidgeting and looking away from him. "B-but I'm not sure if…"
"We're so well hidden that it's completely not a problem for you to become a hero while a sworn member of the MLA." Re-Destro cuts in. "In fact, it would actually be helpful to our long-term goals! Also, I won't tell you to do anything you won't agree to on a moral basis, and you'll be allowed to leave us at any point whatsoever, it's not a problem for as long as the loyalty contract keeps you from ratting us out."
To be honest the 'not do anything you won't agree to' is a bit of a special rule, but he is a goddamn teenager. Re-Destro isn't making him do anything really illegal. Besides, Mischief, testicles and all of that.
Midoriya doesn't appear to be convinced and clearly opens his mouth to voice a rejection of the type that - maybe - won't make him disappear mysteriously. Re-Destro decides to use his final weapon.
"We have one hundred thousand members," Re-Destro says, seeing Izuku's eyes go wide in shock. "You'll be allowed to ask questions about their meta-abilities and analyze them freely."
Midoriya Izuku picks Notebook as his official cryptonym as the newest member of the Meta-Liberation Army.
(***)
Re-Destro truly knew how to buy Midoriya's loyalty, ngl.
And how to insult half of the fandom, accidentally.