MosesArk Reborn2000 - "Chimera Mutant? AH! NEDZU THE CHIMERA MUTANT?!"
Chaoscontrol85 - There will be more throwback chapters, don't worry :P
(***)
Izuku wakes up late in the morning, his head still in contact with Tsuyu's belly. Except, it's no longer on it. Instead, she was lying slightly above him, on her side, hunched around his head.
It was a nice way of waking up. Izuku almost considered staying in bed longer, but… yeah, he had a job to do. Destroying society and so on.
He managed to leave the bedroom without waking her up. Tsuyu should rest some too.
Izuku then runs into Uraraka, who was faithfully waiting for him in his unofficial personal kitchen (gotta watch for poison and so on) with a full breakfast up and ready.
"I figured out that Tsuchan would be too tired to do it right in the morning." She announces. Izuku actually blinks at her in surprise, he didn't order her to do that. Sure, it was within her generalized prerogatives (keeping him safe and healthy), but…
On the verge of it. There was no real threat of Izuku getting somehow severely inconvenienced by getting his breakfast late. So, this felt like her actual, own, conscious decision.
Was it Tsuyu? Is it normal that somewhere deep in Izuku the hope is tainted with pain that it wasn't HIM who caused the change? If there even was any?
He tests her reactions with few orders, but nothing seems out of the ordinary. Was it just his imagination? Or maybe the rigors of the wartime made her maintain a higher level of protectiveness towards him?
Strange.
He spends maybe thirty minutes reading the update on the aftermath of Armageddon's rampage that Mastermind sent onto his tablet, before Tsuyu leaves the bedroom as well.
The three of them eat breakfast together, before Tsuyu blows him a kiss on the cheek and wishes him good luck at his job.
The fact that his job is killing an awful lot of people - and that Uraraka is right next to them, smiling like she had it programmed - makes this scene feel extraordinarily goddamn weird to him.
Oh, well. This is his life now.
His plans are immediately derailed when he opens his apartment door just to see Tenko standing there in his favorite hoodie, with an eight-pack of beer in his hands. Izuku is ready to bet his kidney that it was taken out of a fridge a moment ago.
"I came to say goodbye." Decay says. "Care to give me a moment of your time?"
What a dumb question to be asked to a person leading a war against the country at that very moment.
(***)
"I must say…" Tenko says, putting the can back on the desk. "... that it was a fun ride, Player Two."
They repositioned to his office. Decay's face wasn't exactly known to the PLF members as a whole, but Quicksilver vouched for him and Hatsume got him an official visitor's pass to make sure that he didn't trigger automatic security.
Cloud was probably involved.
They small-talked for a while, before Tenko finally decided to move to the subject.
"I wouldn't exactly call it 'fun', Tenchan." Izuku replies. He is sitting in his chair on the other side of the desk, but it's a narrow one. They aren't far from each other. And there is just enough space to put the beer on. "But I'm glad that you were there with me."
"Yeah, who else than me when destroying the evidence was involved." Tenko chuckles. "Seriously, all the stupid shit you've ever involved me into, I always thought that you were supposed to be the smart and reasonable one!"
"Name one time when I wasn't smart and reasonable." Izuku cuts back.
"You had me infiltrate a police precinct in order to assassinate the guy who knew too much about the Support Network and might have ended up clueing the heroes about its existence." Tenko states dryly. "I had to pretend to be a POLICE OFFICER, how the hell did that work, I don't know to this day."
"I bribed almost everyone present at that shift on the precinct with some leftover AFO money." Izuku replies instantly. "They just didn't want to commit the deed themselves, but were okay with an outside infiltrator doing it for them, and then pretending that they didn't recognize that one of the police officers on the scene was sus."
Tenko stares at him for a solid ten seconds before finally speaking.
"You little shit." Izuku grins. "You didn't tell me just to amuse yourself by imagining me trying to do a fucking stealth playthrough through the mission while everyone was just doing their best to pretend that they didn't see me."
"Yes." Izuku nods. "But I knew that you were good enough to get out if things went south AND I had Uraraka and Cloud on standby to rush in and rescue you."
"What did I do to you to deserve that?" Tenko glares at him.
"Three months earlier you 'accidentally' decayed an All Might plushie from my collection." Izuku replies dryly. "I told you that there would be no forgiveness for such a crime."
"Three months, you were plotting your revenge for me destroying an All Might plushie for three months." Tenko mouths in visible shock. "And it included a murder of a police informant. And then you didn't even tell me about it until today, probably waiting to announce it at … wait, why didn't you tell me?"
"You were so happy about your 'perfect stealth playthrough' that I decided that rubbing the truth in your nose would be a dick move." Izuku shrugs. "But now that you mentioned that case as proof of me being unreasonable, I just had to say it."
"Asshole." Tenko states while staring at Izuku. Then they both start laughing. It's a long and heartfelt laughter.
"Suto is going to laugh herself to death when I tell her that." Tenko is the first to regain the ability to speak. "You got me there, I give you that. But now I feel like I'm a much lower level rogue than I thought myself to be."
"Huh?" Izuku isn't sure how to react to that. "What do you mean?"
"My biggest feat of stealth was paid for with your money." Tenko replies. "And yesterday… I mean sneaking upon Yanagi and taking her hostage to keep Monoma's bunch of clowns in check is much less of an achievement when you realize that she let herself be sneaked upon and taken hostage. How the hell did you even do that?"
"B-Rank hero Emily…" Izuku replies" … and Poltergeist, the Exalted of the Ascending Path and Tokoyami's not-quite-a-girlfriend. Two names, one person."
Tenko wheezes.
"Aiko really took a page out of your book." He then says. "Explains why you knew in advance that Eden was in trouble. You want me to tell her about it? I think she'd feel slightly better knowing that one more of her classmates woke up and chose villainy."
Shame that Monoma was probably going to figure it out sooner rather than later. Neito was… dangerous. Yanagi took steps to fool everyone - she apparently even had a small machine in her body to simulate heartbeat in case of encountering a super-hearing quirk user.
But it probably wasn't going to be enough. It couldn't be enough, not when she was an exalted in the hero's midst. Hopefully she could take care of herself.
"Sure, just tell her to not talk about that with anyone." Izuku sees no issue with Ibara knowing. She knows the rules of being an accomplished villain.
Will Ibara feel better knowing that Reiko Yanagi's response to Shiozaki being about to be arrested by Monoma was to send a text message to god? Wait, that's a really weird way of putting it.
Scratch that.
"So, how are you going to do it?" Izuku then asks.
"Selkie is en route to Verize, with all the kids, Juggernaut, Fireline and Eden." Tenko replies. "Cloud will warp me back to them in the moment. Once we're at Verize, well, we have a flight chartered already. All the way to America."
Coincidentally, to an airport near the part of it where his wife and children were living. There was a notable Japanese diaspora in the United States nowadays.
"When is Selkie' coming back?" Izuku decides to ask about that part. Sure, they were more independent subcontractors, evacuating endangered people out of the country for him, so he didn't exactly expect the Oka Mariner's crew to work with him anymore, but maybe they'd trade at least some intel back to him and…
"He isn't." Tenko surprises him. "He, Sirius and the rest of his crew are flying to the United States with us. I think the captain figured out that there is a fair chance of Mindscape trying to trail the Network remnants once you raid the Paragon facilities and that it's enough of a balancing on the tightrope for him and his crew."
"Oh." Izuku really wished he was told earlier. "You think that they would like to meet Tsuyu? She was a part of their crew for a moment as an intern, and…"
"Maybe." Tenko shrugs. "I know that Sirius asked me a lot of irritating questions about her so I told her about the whole 'deep regret, seeks death' thing plus some gossip about the way you two act around each other. You'd have to ask your a bit-beastly waifu if she wants to do it. Verize will be pretty much the last chance for that, since they are staying there for a few hours before their flight."
Izuku makes a mental note to do just that. But it's for later.
"What's going to happen to Oka Mariner?" Izuku asks.
"Selkie will sink it right off Verize' coast." Tenko replies. "Something about 'saying goodbye to your ship is something a captain should do' and all that. The point is, what's left of the Network is going to be out of the country by tomorrow, minus the people you recruited into the Front. By the way, Juggernaut says that he wishes that he could join you all, but the safety of the kids takes priority."
"That sounds like the longest stream of words he ever let out of his mouth." Izuku chuckles. He was a good bodyguard. Tough, intimidating, not very talkative. "Tell him that it's alright and I'd do the same if I were him."
"I also hope you like eating fish." Tenko then says. Izuku blinks at him.
"What?"
"When Cloud was warping me back, I vaguely heard him inviting the kids into a fishing contest over who catches the tastiest and biggest fish as a 'thank you' for the guy who got them out of the country." Tenko says. "Is supposed to take place during their stay in Verize."
"Well, that's awfully nice of him." Izuku decides. "When it comes to eating fishes, the existence of my mother's and Tsuyu's katsudon makes all other types of food equally inferior, but I'll most certainly eat it. And, well, Tsuyu likes eating fish, so…"
"Just marry already." Tenko sighs.
"How?" Izuku asks back. This time it's Tenko who looks at him strangely. "I can't exactly get the legal paperwork done as a supervillain, right? So the only marriage options left are the ceremonial, religious ones. Unless I risk involving outsiders, the only religious groups in the vicinity are the Creature Rejection Clan and the Ascending Path, and…"
"... and you'd rather kill yourself than ask the high priest of the Creature Rejection Clan to officiate your wedding." Tenko concludes.
"What?" Izuku blinks at him, genuinely surprised. "No, I'd totally do that due to Tsuyu being a mutant, just to see him suffer, but he would simply say no and that would be it. I mean, I can't just order him to do it, he'd get pissy over violating whatever excuse of a religious doctrine they have going. Religious freedom and all that. Besides, witnessing Mastermind's suffering isn't worth making a certain adorable frog angry over a promise of marriage that I can't deliver upon."
"Right, I forgot what your approach to the CRC as a whole is." Tenko sighs. "The sole negative side of, like, not interacting with them for years aside from their rare support towards us sneaking quirkless kids out of the ghettos. I'm also NOT asking you why Ascending Path isn't an option, I can figure that out for myself just fine."
There is a limit to how awkward things might get. And getting someone - probably Tokoyami, to make things worse - to officiate a religious wedding in a rite (do they even have one?) of a religion that literally worships Izuku's little sister as a deity would be…
Yeah.
The fact that said deity would probably be there, overflowing with an intensely religious desire to nom a large chunk of the wedding cake when no one was looking would probably make things worse.
"Honestly, aren't we already pretty much married?" Izuku then asks. "I mean, we seem to have a 'until death do us part' thing going hard, not to mention us promising each other to stay together until then and be a family."
"Did you mention to her that you're 'pretty much married'?" Tenko decides to be a little shit.
"Yeah, you know what, not today." Izuku replies. "We already had an emotional moment last evening and I want her to cool down a bit afterwards. Besides, I wouldn't be surprised if she saw it the same way, but was just… too shy about it to admit it aloud."
Tenko stares at him for a few seconds, as if trying to process something in his mind. Eventually, he gets somewhere.
"I'm not exactly the man to give advice on stuff like that." He eventually says. "Honestly, we all know that Suto's the one who has an actual understanding of all those fluffy 'emotions' things in my family. But don't you think that Tsuyu would be overjoyed to be able to actually exchange those vows with you, especially if she got to wear a wedding dress while at it? And even if it would be just the two of you in the room? Because I vaguely remember Suto reaching the absolute level of fluff and happiness on our wedding day."
Silence. Izuku is suddenly struck with a realization that Tenko is somehow entirely correct, and that's extremely confusing to him.
"Note to self." Izuku then says dryly. "Never drink beer with your older cousin slash brother again. Why did you even come with it? I thought you were more of an energy drink type of person."
"Yeah, but this just doesn't feel like something to crack open with your younger cousin slash brother at what might as well be your last meeting ever." Tenko replies. "I DO expect you to join us with Eri once the whole shitstorm is over, but…"
"... but I left things unfinished once." Izuku replies. "And see where that brought us. I'm getting Eri back AND overthrowing the government and the heroes once and for all this time around. And, well, not exactly a safe job, so I understand where you take it from. I do plan to drop by with Eri and everyone left from the Network once that's done, if possible."
He truly does. Not leaving Eri alone is kind of important to him, after all. Not just her safety, but also happiness. And Eri loved him. He knew that much for certain.
"Cool, so we have that covered." Tenko decides to change the subject. "And, we're still like midway through the beer. Anything else to add?"
"You know that while we're having that talk, Uraraka is grabbing Hypothermia, Quicksilver and Aiko, and making sure that you aren't leaving without telling them goodbyes, right?" Izuku asks.
Tenko shivers visibly.
(***)
Ibara isn't sure what prompted that. But when Sirius announced that the Japan' coastline was about to disappear on the horizon, she somehow found herself on the Oka Mariner's deck.
She wasn't the only person to do that. A lot of kids (the ship was positively filled with them) popped up as well. At least those that weren't suffering from seasickness (so, most of them, the sea was calm and the weather was pleasant).
Shiozaki stood by the railing, Mitsuru (the clingiest of her kids - although she understood where the clinginess was coming from) in her arms, hugging her as if her life depended on it. They were both watching the coastline slowly grow smaller and smaller.
Ibara had no idea what to feel about this.
Selkie was there, next to her. Oka Mariner's captain looked uncharacteristically… serious? sad? Solemn? She wasn't sure how to describe it, but… she could understand where it was coming from.
It was - if you exclude the brief stay on Verize - the last time they were within Japanese borders. They were leaving their homeland for good. And Verize was honestly barely a part of Japan.
It was practically run by smugglers nowadays. Its allegiance to the Japanese government was a matter of a color on the map.
"I know that it was the right thing to do." Ibara eventually ends up speaking. Selkie's head turns towards her. "But I feel like I betrayed the country by doing this. By not staying to fight to make it how it should be."
Kids. The kids - especially the ones that treated her as pretty much their adoptive mother at this point - had priority .That much was unquestionable. But, despite all of that, she remembers her oath as a hero.
To this day, she stayed loyal to it in her eyes. To its spirit, not the letter, but… this was crossing the border in more ways than one.
"You didn't betray anyone." Selkie replies.
"I became a villain." Ibara replies. "I joined the Paranormal Liberation Front. I participated in the attack on the Tartarus Prison, killing multiple wardens and a hero. And it wasn't my first kill, either way. And now I'm fleeing the country rather than fighting for it to the bitter end. How's that not betraying Japan?"
"You didn't betray Japan." Selkie replies once more. "Because Japan betrayed you first."
"Huh?" Ibara stares at the old hero in surprise.
"You were just kids, Shiozaki." Selkie replies. "Kids who wanted to make the world a better place and decided to become heroes. All that chaos, the HPSC takeover… It all started while you were at high school. It wasn't your job to stop that from happening, it was at least a solid decade before that. It was ours. The older generation of heroes, like me. And we failed you."
"It wasn't your fault." Ibara, naturally, defaults into that. "You didn't even know that All for One existed, that Re-Destro existed, what the HPSC was doing in secret, and…"
"We knew that there were villains out there, Shiozaki." Selkie cuts in. "We were trained to stop them from hurting innocents, and we failed. All Might ran himself into an early grave trying to deter them from rising against us because he saw all those theatrics, all that showbusiness, focus on rankings and popularity, less and less team-ups because who wants to share the glory… and he realized that we weren't ready."
He turns his head towards Japan slowly fading away on the horizon.
"Thirty years." Selkie adds. "That man fought for thirty years to make this country livable. We were supposed to help him in that, but instead most just grew complacent while living comfortably in his shadow. And then, when he died in front of cameras, we let all that he built off his blood and sweat fall to ruin in… what? A year? Two? And it has only grown worse ever since."
He sighs loudly before turning his face towards Ibara again.
"You were all born at the worst time possible." He says. "You remained loyal to the Japan that was dead and gone by the time you graduated. The country that replaced it? It did its best to break you. You tried to fight for the country that never tried to fight for you. There is no shame in you deciding to save as many children as you could by getting them to safety, Shiozaki. There is no shame in 'betraying' such a country, but there is a lot of shame in trying to defend it. Never forget that."
"The mind believes." Ibara replies. "But the heart still hurts."
She can only hope that they'll all arrive safely in the United States. And that maybe, just maybe, her old classmates would see reason.
(***)
The stare contest between Aiko and Tenko lasts for a solid fifteen seconds. Izuku can almost feel tension in the air. Eventually, though, it ends.
"Give them hell, you little demon." Tenko announces.
"I'm a god, not a demon." Aiko replies steadfastly.
"Let's meet halfway and say demon god." Tenko replies.
"I can dig that." Aiko admits.
"I'm going to miss my favorite end-game boss a lot." Tenko then states with an uncharastically wide smile. "Good luck converting everyone in Japan into worshiping you."
"Nah, most of them are assholes." Aiko replies. "The endgame is killing 90% of them and letting the rest worship me at altars made with blood and still living flesh of those who dared to defy me."
Silence in the room.
"It was a joke." Aiko then adds. Uraraka then laughs in the background, maybe slightly nervously.
"Sure it was." Tenko replies. "So, who comes next?"
Hypothermia takes a step closer, hugs him closely for a few seconds, then takes a step back.
"Be happy." She says, while giving him a thumbs-up gesture. Her expressions are… reserved. "For us all."
"Oof, Michiko." Tenko replies dryly. "That was a big oof, but I'm going to do my bes…"
Quicksilver takes that moment to slam her hand into his back. With a lot of speed.
"Hey, that actually hurt!" Tenko complaints. Quicksilver gives him a shit eating grin and flips him the bird. "You little shit, just because you never managed to beat me in Mortal Kombat doesn't mean you get to do that."
She flips him the bird harder. So with both her hands.
Tenko stares at her for like five seconds. Then he pulls two of his villain uniform hands out of his hoodie's large pocket and decays all their fingers aside from the middle one (a nice way of saying goodbye to your villain uniform).
Then he flips her the bird with two fake hands and two normal ones. While grinning at her with an expression of smug victory on his face.
Quicksilver goes slackjawed. Uraraka and Hypothermia laugh openly.
"I'm not helping you if she tries to set your ass on fire." Izuku instead adds, because he knows well enough what sort of temper Quicksilver has.
Tenko appears unmoved. Quicksilver after a few seconds of considering murder as an option sighs before signing at him that she'll keep watching his videogame streams even once he moves overseas.
Izuku expects an explosion in popularity (of that already quite popular channel) once Suto starts showing up in it. She loves video games. Having a dog-eared waifu as a video game streamer? One that can kick your ass in a lot of games?
Tenko's going to strike rich. If he survives this meeting that is.
"Awww, there are actual human feelings in our favorite murder-lesbian." Tenko deadpans. "Or wait, isn't that Jirou now?" Quicksilver snaps back to flipping him the bird. "Yeah, I'll love you too. Izuku?"
"Yeah?" Izuku asks.
"Watch yourself and don't do anything stupid." Tenko replies. "Because there won't be anyone to pull your of the burning trashcan now that I'll no longer be in Japan."
"What about me?" Uraraka decides to ask.
"My bad." Tenko corrects himself. "Uraraka's right. You just lose 50% of your 'save your ass from the consequences of your own fucking actions' team, not the whole thing. Speaking off, keep him alive, alright?"
"Going to do my best!" Uraraka salutes him. "Say hello to Suto from me!"
"That I will. "Tenko nods, before looking to the side.
Tsuyu felt clearly out of her depth while accompanying her boyfriend in that particular meeting. She barely knows the people that are a part of it, aside from Uraraka. She did spend some time with them nowadays, but… especially Tenko was someone she barely interacted with.
"Keep doing what you're doing." Tenko says. "He really needed you in his life."
"I know, ribbit." She looks down while fidgeting nervously. The fact that she could probably murder him if she put her back into this makes for an adorable (in Izuku's opinion) contrast. "Safe travels."
Cloud opens her warpgate a few seconds later.
Days until the Second Battle of the Marukane Ward:
21