where are you my two commenters lmao
(***)
Monoma finally makes contact the day after the NVA's newest raid. Midoriya spent most of that time trying to get a read on the government's response to the chaos that Nakahara just unleashed.
And the riots.
Because of course there were riots.
At least the pro-heroes in the area seemed to finally woken up to the times they were living in and gave most of the rioters a single chance to surrender. If they didn't, well. The rest was on them.
Some of said rioters actually survived, but by luck rather than anything else. The truly tough mutant villains were in Tartarus, now either dead or kept in line by Lady Murder. Who made a simple policy.
Everyone was free to break the rules, go pillage, riot, rape and whatnot. But she said that she doesn't like any of that, so whoever was going to do that while a part of the ISP was going to get a one on one duel to the death with her. A chance to prove that they were strong enough to do whatever the hell they wanted.
It worked wonders.
Then, as stated, Monoma contacted him. In a very roundabout way.
False account on the Villain Network, one used to send a message to Yaoyorozu. Not to Midoriya himself, oddly enough. At least that was Izuku's first thought. Then he remembered that he was still going by the name of Notebook there.
Heh.
An hour later he picked up a phone call, one redirected and made untraceable by some very extreme technological means.
The government had its cybersecurity division. Midoriya had Skeptic, Mei Hatsume and Mechanist. Midoriya genuinely believed himself to have an upper hand.
"I have your daughter." Monoma starts the talk by going right to the subject. He even included a voice changer, how nice (and conventional) of him.
Technically speaking, all that he has is conjectures. But… why not use them when you have them?
"Of course you do, Monoma-kun." Midoriya replied calmly. "How's that quirk awakening of yours treating you? It allows you to do some rather fabulous things, I presume."
Silence on the other side. A lengthy one. But eventually, when the voice comes back, it's one that's not electronically distorted. And vaguely familiar, even after all the years.
"I see that it's really hard to surprise you, Midoriya." Monoma replies. "Guess you just keep getting better as the time passes. Your little quirk is such an underappreciated gem, isn't it? I'm almost jealous."
… huh, a blow for a blow, it seems.
Monoma knows about Mastery? Eri wouldn't tell him, so he either got some mind-reading quirk or figured it out himself. If it was the latter, good for him, if it was the former, bad for Izuku. Because Eri… Eri knew almost everything, aside from details like Overlook's location.
An exchange of intellectual blows. Both sides proving themselves to know things. How old-school.
"So, Monoma-kun." Midoriya decides that it's enough dilly-dallying. "What do you want?"
"The deal is simple." Monoma replies. "Your daughter is going to be treated like a princess she clearly thinks she is and kept away from the HPSC's hands. Because, believe me or not, I hate those jackasses as well. In exchange, I'm going to give you a number of names and locations that I want excluded from your campaign of terror."
Neito Monoma is, at the very least, predictable. That's good. Midoriya Izuku would have hated having Eri stay in the hands of someone unpredictable. He is also reasonable enough to not try to ask Midoriya to surrender.
It would end badly. Midoriya would have retaliated by taking people close to him as hostages to trade for Eri, and Monoma knows that.
"I assume that you mean your precious classmates." Midoriya replies.
"Yes." Monoma replies. "Including Kamakiri."
Midoriya snorts.
"That's rich." He says into the phone. "So much self-declared hatred of the HPSC, yet you want me to spare one of their lackeys?"
"Jack Mantis made a mistake." Monoma replies dryly. "Not the first person, not the last. When you're looking forward to either going to prison or having your career broken due to a work accident while having recently married someone AND said someone is pregnant, you're vulnerable to HPSC offering you a deal with the devil."
"Mhm, mhm, I see." Midoriya replies. "You missed the point where I actually care."
"Midoriya…"
"Don't even try, Monoma-kun." Izuku cuts in. He is thoroughly disinterested in hearing out what Monoma wanted to say. "Do you have any idea how many thousands of people I had killed ever since the start of the war? You think I have the time or interest in hearing out about their motivation for serving the government? You work for the government, you're already dead in my eyes. Simple as that."
"Don't make me use my leverage on you." Monoma replies.
"What leverage?" Midoriya chuckles. "Neito, my dear. You've managed to mount the tiger, which is very impressive, but you're going to die the second you fall off it. Your leverage isn't worth shit here, just my good will. After all, you should know that if you sell Eri to the HPSC, I'm going to kill you and everyone you hold dear. Slowly and painfully."
Silence on the other side of the phone call. Midoriya, it seems, judged Monoma correctly. Of course… there was also something else to be mentioned.
"But you knew that, didn't you?" Izuku asks. "It's a negotiating tactic, you asking for something you know that I won't give you, so you can then make your more reasonable demand appear much more reasonable in comparison."
The whole talk was already way off Monoma's prediction, that much was obvious. He probably planned to act as a representative of some insurgency group within the Hero Society, demanding a large amount of present or potentially recruitable assets to be kept out from the target list.
There would be no visible separation from their active assets to the ones that were only potentially recruitable, so that Midoriya would have no idea where to retaliate if the deal was off.
Honestly, now that Midoriya thinks about it, he should have stayed quiet. Monoma would have provided him with a list of Hero Agencies manned by people with less than stellar opinion of the government.
Oh, well. It's not like a lot of them were going to survive until the end either way. He was way past the point of caring for the reasoning of people serving the government. As he told Monoma - you serve it, you have to go.
It was off Monoma's script - now Neito was clearly trying to improvise. And he wasn't awfully good at it .
"... we both know that there are ways of me breaking the deal that will end with you not in a position to follow up on your threats, Midoriya." Monoma, unfortunately, is a tough player, even if surprised. "All I'm asking for is a small favor. It's not much."
"Can I hear her voice?" Midoriya changes the subject.
"No." Monoma replies instantly. "I know your skills and I suspect your level of paranoia. And as of recently, I also know your little devil's skills. I won't even notice when she'll tell you where she is with some secret code you two established in case of her being kidnapped. This is non-negotiable."
There goes Midoriya's main hope of locating Eri. Shit. The moment she's back, he's asking Clockmaker for some tracking implant design. He is going to learn from this clusterfuck and make sure that she doesn't get kidnapped ever again.
She had an uncanny tendency to fall into the hands of nasty people with touch-based quirks, however badly it sounded.
"I see." Midoriya replies. "What if something bad happens to me?"
"Give me Villain Network contact details to Tomura Shigaraki, I'll give the girl and her extras back to him." Monoma replies. "How does that sound? It's almost like a form of insurance about her life."
"Please, don't even try to make this whole affair appear like a good idea to me." Midoriya cuts back. "It's insulting. But you know what? Fine. What's the deadline?"
Monoma isn't stupid. He wouldn't make a deal with no time limit. It's like waving around a large 'I plan to betray you at some point when you don't expect it' sign.
"How does the Liberation Festival sound?" Monoma replies instead. "If there even is such a thing."
Midoriya laughs.
"Oh, trust me, Monoma-kun." Midoriya replies, his voice making him sound almost delighted. "It's no feint, it's no joke. The Liberation Festival is real. The only question is whether the government will keep existing until then."
He has such great plans for that day. Marukane Ward is going to be merely a taste of what's to come. And he is really looking forward to it.
He expected Monoma to say something to that. He didn't. Oh, well, suit yourself. Neito.
"You're officially Eri's nanny until the day the Hero Society of Japan's ends, Monoma-kun." Midoriya replies calmly. It's the 'only on the outside' type of calmly, of course. "In exchange, I promise you that the PLF will not target the hero agencies of your classmates, nor your classmates themselves. Yes, I'll include Kamakiri into the deal. Of course, if they get deployed against the Paranormal Liberation Front's forces, I'm not going to tell any of my followers to pull their punches. If they die, that's on them. Does that sound like a fair deal?"
"... where's the catch?" Monoma asks after a few seconds of silence.
Unfortunately for him, it's not exactly a secret what hero agency he is working for.
"The catch is simple." Midoriya replies. "If something happens to Eri, if she is injured, if she dies or if she is captured by the HPSC or NVA, I'm going to organize PLF-wide tournament of torture experts. All your classmates, including Kendou, will be invited… as star guests. And I'm going to send you the recordings."
He doesn't wait to hear Monoma's response to that threat. He doesn't even want to know it. Besides, it's slightly more… dramatic, if he does it that way, isn't it?
So, he just disconnects.
Tsuyu was impatiently waiting for that moment. She was cleaning after their dinner when the phone call started, then listening intently as she realized that it was about Eri. Now, she was finally free to act.
He barely had the time to put the phone back in his pocket when she suddenly hugged him from behind, her head resting on top of his own.
"I told you that it was Neito Monoma." Midoriya says. Pulling the 'I told you so' card is a bit of a low blow, yeah.
Her vaguely insulted ribbit tells him that she thinks so as well. He quickly makes amends for that horrifying mistake of his by putting his hand on her hand and starting to pat it lightly, concluding the creation of Tsuyu sandwich.
"Ribbit." The frog sounds appeased. "Were you bluffing?"
"I don't bluff when Eri's well-being is involved, Tsu." Izuku replies. "If he makes me, I will do it. I'd just honestly prefer not to have to."
How much of that was because he didn't want to be even more of a bad influence on Eri?
"I might have said that I'm going to play nicely…" Midoriya adds. "... but I won't. I'm going to have someone observe Kendou's agency. Actually, I'll also send someone to keep track of Tokage and Tetsutetsu."
Yanagi was… honestly, he considered telling Aiko to pull her out right now. Monoma most likely knew or at least suspected her, then again, was he going to genuinely try something fishy after such a threat?
He'll tell Aiko about his suspicions later on, let her decide. It's her worshiper and her organization after all.
"I'll also make someone follow Komori, but tell him to get seen." Izuku continues thinking aloud. "I'm 90% sure that Kuroiro is involved, and putting some 'I know where your loved ones are' pressure on him might be a good idea."
"They are together, ribbit?" Tsuyu appears surprised by it.
"Kuroiro is sneaky but I had him investigated properly when I needed contact with his source within Tartarus Prison." Midoriya replies. "Personally, I really think that the two of them getting their happy endings would be nice." He sighs loudly. "This doesn't change the fact that if Monoma screws up, they'll be there with their classmates."
He is way past playing nice at this point.
(***)
Monoma stormed into his personal building an hour later. Looking angry, but manageable so, at least in Kuroiro's opinion.
Shihai Kuroiro has already done his real job for the day. The positive part of being (mostly) an information broker was that he could do 90% of his job through a properly secure laptop and Villain Network.
To be frank, most of his 'normal' work was just knowing the right people to ask questions in exchange for some money from whoever was asking the questions.
For as long as they were interested in answering said questions, Shihai Kuroiro was always interested in having their questions asked.
Of course, sometimes the questions were of the 'do you know the person who would be willing to take fifty kilograms of cocaine from our hands in Eastern Tokyo' nature. Those typically paid well.
And then, there were the Special Questions. Such as 'do you know someone from the Tartarus Prison warden corps'. Or 'can you find that little shit that vanished on me after I was arrested, taking a solid chunk of the old House of Glass money with them'.
The fact that said little shit was found two days after Glassmaker got her answer, hanging upside down from a lantern, his throat slit with some shards of glass still left in the injury, somehow didn't plague Kuroiro's dreams.
It was just business.
What was left for him for the day was dealing with the Demon Princess and her two sidekicks.
And, well, a clearly pissed off Neito Monoma.
"What happened?" Kuroiro asks from his position in front of the laptop.
"I made contact with Midoriya, let's just say that he massively improved the colourfulness of his threats." Monoma replies. Oh, yeah, that explained a lot. "Contact your girlfriend and tell that she might have a tail. The visible type of a tail."
To pressure Kuroiro, right. Sounded like something Midoriya would do. And, well, what Monoma would do.
Kuroiro's desire to see the tuxedo in front of him stained with blood of its wearer grew in intensity. Alas, he needed him for the time being.
"Before you ask, nothing new about Yanagi." Kuroiro decides to settle on a slightly safer subject. "Your newest child abduction scheme ended with me having to relay the job to someone I know, but they are good enough to stay hidden from her."
"Child abd…" Monoma looks at him, looking actually insulted. "Did you have to put it that way?"
"Did you have to put my girlfriend in the sights of a triple S-Rank villain that probably even All for One feared?" Kuroiro replies dryly.
They end up staring at each other for a few long seconds. Eventually, Monoma sighs and deflates a little.
"Point taken." He admits. "I have no idea how he figured it out that I was responsible, that one's on me. What are the kids doing?"
Kuroiro glances at the open laptop next to him.
"I'm starting to think that she wasn't bullshitting you with the condoms, you know?" Kuroiro says, his eyes returning to Monoma. "They are 'bundled' together most of the time, if you get my drift."
"So much about Midoriya's parenting skills." Monoma groans while moving to stand next to Kuroiro. On the laptop was the image from a thermal sensor. Any camera on the inside would be destroyed by the inmates sooner or later, but some external sensors could at least tell you if the captives were still there, even if the details were scarce. "She's, what, seventeen years old?"
Seventeen years old during the age of public chaos and with a significant part of her childhood spent when Japan was a war zone. Kuroiro really thinks that it changes how fast you mature on the inside, but…
"Something like it, yeah." Kuroiro replies. "Then again, hey, she's a successful one. I wouldn't say no to a threesome, and considering how kinky Komori is most of the time I wouldn't be surprised if she was up to it as well, it's just a matter of finding someone we both find sexy and that's a bit hard when…"
"That horned slime." Monoma cuts in, his eyes still on the laptop, completely ignoring Kuroiro's words. As Vantablack looks at him with surprise, Neito speaks additional words. "Follow me. Now."
(***)
Kuroiro was slightly terrified that he missed an escape attempt, but no, Eri and her sidekicks were in the room when Monoma stormed inside. Although their clothes were rather visibly messy.
"Care to elaborate…" Monoma states dryly, Kuroiro observing him from the door. "... what were you doing?"
"Aren't you a bit too old…" Eri replies, still sitting by the wall of her cell while giving him a death stare. "... to ask people to give you the shovel talk?"
Good job, Shihai. By the time Monoma looked in the direction of the loud 'pfft', you already looked as if nothing happened. Shame you were the only person in that direction, so it's not like he didn't know that you found that funny.
"You know what I'm asking about, Miss Midoriya." Monoma then tells her, while her two sidekicks are looking away, clearly ashamed and busy correcting their clothes.
"Well, it was a contest." Eri replies, with a faint smile on her face. "Me in the middle, them on both sides, applying their fingers and tongues, although the latter only for the things above the belt. Who would perform better, would get a reward, namely the 'only above the belt' rule being revoked and…"
Wait. Is this actually bad that Kuroiro actually finds that pretty hot? Not with the people in front of him - they are teenagers, goddamnit, he might be a villain but he has standards - just as a rule. As an idea?
If he and Kimoko actually got a woman interested in a threesome, doing that with Komori in the middle would be pretty hot, right?
He is so fucking confused right now. Completely unlike Monoma.
"You're extremely good at lying, Miss Midoriya." Monoma cuts in, interrupting both Kuroiro's musings and Eri's words. "You weren't doing that. You were testing our means of surveillance. Namely, you wanted to see if Kuroiro would act as if he thought that you were actually having sex in here."
Kuroiro can feel his jaw drop. Did they…
"If he did, it would tell you that you didn't miss any camera on the inside, because there were none." Monoma continues. "It would also tell you that he has some sort of external sensor, one that isn't precise enough to tell what you are doing, only your general positioning in the cell."
The unspoken intensity in Eri's stare that Monoma was now receiving should, theoretically, set his clothes on fire. Somehow, it didn't. Kuroiro is slightly impressed. On top of, well. Being slightly terrified.
"It would also have an additional bonus." Monoma continues his lecture. "Namely, it would let you gauge whether I possess quirks capable of seeing through the walls, and if so, how precise they are. And if they weren't precise enough…"
He pauses for a second, his eyes narrowing. Eri still says nothing, but it's clear that she's boiling.
"... it would get rid of that problem entirely." Monoma continues. "Because there was a large chance that I would stop using it on you, if the end result was me thinking that I just saw you have sex, while in fact you were just going through the motion while having your clothes on. Besides, it was going to make Kuroiro knock on the door before entering, giving you precious wiggle time to hide the evidence for whatever you were doing under the pretense of fixing yourself after another day of hardcore sex. Am I wrong?"
Kuroiro and the two sidekicks stare at Monoma and Eri in silence for several seconds. Eventually the girl explodes.
"You rancid pile of shit in a tuxedo from a second-hand store." Eri says slowly, still glaring daggers at Monoma. And, phew, Kuroiro is noting that one down for a future reference. "You think you're so smart?"
"I am so smart." Monoma, clearly, doesn't consider humility a virtue. "Once again, I give you that, you'll be a terrifying villainous mastermind. Next empress of crime, daddy's little villain and so on. In a… decade, maybe? If you're so good at this age, you'll probably outgrow me completely in a few years. But for now, you're just not good enough yet."
"It's not a matter of being good or not!" Eri throws her hand around. "I don't have fucking resources to work here, to begin with, and you know that! I would have beaten you up if not for that!"
"Yeah, right, go throw a tantrum, I don't care." Monoma shakes his head. "From now on, this is a PEGI 12 unconstitutional detention facility for chibi supervillains. Anything aside from cuddling is forbidden. Kuroiro is going to make periodic check-ups on you without knocking. If you do anything more lewd than unprotected handholding, you're going to lose your TV privilege. Are we clear?"
"I'm going to tear your kidney out and make you choke to death on it." Eri replies, her eyes still drilling holes in Monoma's skull. Neito sighs loudly.
"Your dad just agreed for me to act as your babysitter until the end of the war." Monoma tells her, with something akin to a smug smile. "For as long as I keep you away from the HPSC hands, and make sure you're not injured. Just be aware…" His eyes narrow. "That I can be very creative when seriously inconveniencing your life is involved, without the slightest of injuries. So, once again, are we clear?"
"Yes." Eri replies through her teeth. That's some serious anger.
"Great." Monoma walks out, Kuroiro taking a step back. Neito locks the door, before flicking his companion in the forehead.
"What are you…" Shihai is about to reply, but Monoma speaks first.
"Less daydreaming about your next's date with your girlfriend…" Monoma cuts in, staring daggers at Kuroiro. "... and more actual fucking attention. You were just outplayed by a seventeen years old girl, where's your dignity as a villain?"
"It's seventeen years old daughter of Izuku 'I sleep on the bed made from capes of heroes I murdered' Midoriya." Kuroiro replies. "It's not the same thing, and you know it."
"You better not use excuses on me if you let her escape." Monoma replies. "Because then I'm going to prove to you that I can be as vicious as he is."
Days until the Second Battle of the Marukane Ward:
14