TOPCAT-59 - Yep. You'll find out eventually.
Shahryar - Aye.
(***)
Ghosts, generally speaking, do not exist.
Sure, there are exceptions - ghost-themed quirks are rare but they do exist. However there are no such things as 'haunted places', at least not in the 'supernatural' meaning of the term. To think otherwise is to be illogical to the extreme, to the point where Aizawa-sensei wouldn't even expel you, he'd just look at you with disappointment in his eyes.
Similar things can be said about curses. For as much as Izuku often feels like his life was cursed from birth, there is no such thing as curses - aside from, once again, curse-themed quirks.
The overwhelming majority of Japan knew that. Certain branches of folklore were still alive (Tokoyami was a big fan of those, even after dying and coming back to life as something decidedly inhuman), and there were horror movies.
Marukane Ward appeared to exist simply to deny all the expectations and common sense on that field.
Years ago, the town was captured by the forces of the first Paranormal Liberation Front following the Battle of the Marukane Ward.
The battle was named that way because while the stake was the whole city of Korusan, the main clash between the PLF (represented by the MLA remnant forces under Amplivolt) and its defenders happened in the Marukane Ward. The heroes hold for quite a while, before the League of Villains' arrival turned the battle into a rout.
As the Meta-Liberation Army forces pushed deeper into the central Korusan (where the heroes were putting up only a token resistance following the butchery that Entropy subjected them to), the Marukane Ward was garrisoned by the ISP forces.
That alone was something that Izuku back then advised against, but the PLF simply didn't have anyone else in the vicinity. And there were most certainly some leftover heroes, police officers and soldiers spread around, in hiding.
Worst of all, they didn't know when the reinforcements would arrive, and if they did so while Amplivolt and his MLA forces were still engaging the enemy leftovers in the central Korusan, the situation could end up disastrously. If Marukane Ward was retaken by said reinforcements (with the scattered enemy survivors contributing), the Front would have suffered grievous casualties.
In that particular situation, they couldn't allow themselves to suffer grievous casualties. It would be the end for them. The Front had precious little manpower left, the whole clash happening soon before Overhaul's death.
They were trying to buy time for his research to conclude, back then. They lost most of their numbers in Deika. Their support network - the Hearts and Minds Party, Detnerat Company and Feel Good Inc - was practically decapitated.
Most of the Detnerat industrial might was in Deika, the remaining support factories failing to make up to the demand and then slowly being lost to the heroes. Feel Good Inc. satellites still offered them safe communication measures, but the PLF cyberwarfare division lost a large chunk of their numbers in Deika too.
Four out of five noumu factories of the late Doctor Garaki were located and destroyed by the heroes.
They had bases spread throughout the country, and they could still strike against the enemy. They still controlled a sizable part of the country, with CRC and ISP raids forcing the big part of the heroes and soldiers into garrison duty behind the frontline.
But they were losing ground steadily.
Korusan - and, a bit later, Aichi - were supposed to be moodchangers. Midoriya planned them that way. A reminder to the population in general that the PLF could still fight. City-wide attacks, Kurogiri helping transport soldiers to the positions. A way to force the government to delegate even more of their reserves to outlying settlements out of public outcry for improved security.
In all honesty, the triumvirate running the PLF planned to burn Korusan to the ground. It was Midoriya's idea, but Overhaul and Entropy agreed to the strategy in question.
Blow up bridges, destroy the local railways, collapse hospitals, level down the local governmental offices, demolish major landmarks, dismantle infrastructure (power grid, sewers, and so on). Scorched earth tactic at its finest, a way to terrorize politicians and civilians nationwide into demanding better defenses.
But they planned to burn it after evacuating civilians. It was a simple plan - take few thousand people as hostages (preferably heroes and people with connection to important politicians and heroes nationwide, Amplivolt got a list of those that should be present in the area), tell the hero reinforcements to not enter Korusan (or else) and then force the people inside to flee, while starting the controlled demolition.
Then have Kurogiri warp their forces out. Korusan's fate was a prequel and a warning for what was going to happen during the Second Paranormal Liberation War, the world (and Japan in particular) ignoring the lesson to its own peril.
Unfortunately, while most of Korusan was thoroughly devastated as per plan, everything went pear-shaped when some motherfucking idiot shouted at the head of the forces that were garrisoning Marukane Ward that all mutants were villains, and that they should have made the pogrom more thorough.
Frankly speaking, Tsuyu Asui losing it afterwards was probably a given. Izuku was keeping tabs on her beforehand and he didn't like what he heard. She was keeping herself more or less 'operational', but it was…
She was almost court martialed by the PLF when someone began to suspect that she was responsible for disappearances and murders of several CRC members that happened when she was deployed in the same cities. Izuku was almost certain that, just like the idiot from the Marukane Ward, they said too much.
The impact of the massacre, together with the fact that the heaviest fighting of that day happened in the Marukane Ward, resulted in the fact that for most of the inhabitants of Japan, it wasn't the Battle for Korusan, but the Battle of the Marukane Ward.
The events of that day, summarized above, have greatly contributed to shaping the battlefield for the Second Battle of the Marukane Ward.
Korusan was devastated, Marukane Ward doubly so. While some restorative work happened, many of the displaced citizens simply didn't return. There were a thousand cities out there that suffered less casualties and damage. Where houses were abandoned due to the deaths of their inhabitants, and the government was ready to let people settle in.
And while some life remained in Korusan, there wasn't an awful lot of it. The rest of the city slowly crumbled as time passed, overtaken by nature. Marukane Ward went beyond that.
There were next to no survivors. Those who did survive, despite being hunted by people with superhuman senses and strength, were typically too traumatized to return. The Government attempted to erect a memorial to the victims, but it was promptly destroyed in an accident.
Accidents, in general, plagued the attempts to resurrect the Marukane Ward. Resulting in it being seen as 'cursed' and even 'haunted'.
It was only after Midoriya had a lengthy talk with Nakahara that he understood the reasons for it. Some villainous group moved into the Marukane Ward, and decided to pull some Scooby Doo-villain level deception by strengthening the image of it as a haunted place to make people not bother them at all.
Izuku was slightly disappointed by that discovery.
The NVA, thankfully, cleared them up before using the ruined Marukane Ward as their base. There were enough abandoned buildings in the area. During the day they were hiding inside to avoid being spotted by observation satellites (which wasn't likely to happen as no one was really looking at the Marukane Ward, but…), during the night they came out to train.
Naturally, all of the defenses had to be made with satellite coverage in mind. As a result, even when the Government realized where it was supposed to look, it didn't allow it to magically detect the NVA positions.
Intelli clearly decided against sending out the stealth-specialized heroes. Blindside was needed elsewhere, Emoji most likely wasn't good enough to get in and out without making at least someone realize that he was there.
Which would mean the NVA upgrading their alert level, and, probably, attempting to move out of the Ward.
Of course, the situation wasn't even nearly as easy for Intelli & Co. as the simple numerical comparison and having the vigilantes surrounded would imply.
To begin with, the fact that Korusan was ruined and mostly abandoned (not to mention being under the vigilantes' observation) meant that the JSDF and the heroes would have to operate far from their own bases. If the battle would continue for too long, they would be forced to resupply from the nearest base (that was still nearly fifty kilometers away).
Similarly, it meant having to rely on the JSDF field hospital when dealing with the injured was involved, because the still inhabited part of Korusan didn't have a working hospital.
Worst of all, they needed the encirclement to be as perfect as possible, despite lacking the numbers necessary - due to the need for secrecy. This much was going to bite them in the ass, despite Intelli doing her best to alleviate the issue.
Her plan was simple but logical. The 6th Infantry Division was going to approach the Marukane Ward from the south, through the Korusan outskirts, supported by the majority of the heroes attached to it.
In the meantime, the Rapid Deployment Division (their helicopters offering them greater mobility) was going to be deployed all around the Marukane Ward (aside from the still inhabited central Korusan). They didn't have enough manpower to form a proper encirclement, but Intelli chose several key locations that should allow them to intercept most of the fleeing vigilantes.
The plan assumed that a lot of them would get out regardless. But with their higher-ups being targeted from the start and subsequently eliminated, their headquarters destroyed and (hopefully) some people captured to interrogate, it wouldn't matter in the long-term.
In the meantime, a significant police detachment together with a handful of pro-heroes would focus on evacuating Central Korusan, in case the battle spread there.
Naturally, the Rapid Deployment Division was going to bring several warp scramblers with them, carried around by heavy transport helicopters. Locking down the attempts to warp out of the district. Because while nothing suggested that the NVA had warpers, Intelli wanted to play it safe.
Besides, the PLF most certainly had a warper. And while the warp scramblers couldn't do a lot to interrupt arrival through a warpgate, it would certainly prevent anyone from warping out of the Marukane Ward.
Just in case something went catastrophically wrong, the JSDF 9th Division was ordered to proceed towards Korusan earlier on the day of attack. It wasn't going to arrive until at least two hours into the battle, but even if there was an NVA spy in its rank, its report would arrive too late to change a lot.
In short, the trap was laid out perfectly. Especially as the 6th Division was noticeably strengthened when compared to its pre-quirk times status. It was composed of three infantry regiments (20th, 44th and 120th), a fire support regiment (composed of the 6th Anti-Air Artillery Battalion, the 6th Artillery Battalion and the 6th Missile Artillery Battalion), a logistical support regiment and, finally, the 6th Tank Battalion.
Izuku wasn't a soldier himself, but he always thought that numbering the support elements with the same number as the division itself just made things confusing. Welp, it really wasn't going to matter all that much.
In short, nearly fifteen thousand well-equipped people with a lot of heavy equipment, out for blood. And that's without mentioning the numerous pro-heroes attached to it, and the Rapid Deployment Division that nearly doubled the amount of JSDF manpower involved in the battle.
In the end, nearly two and a half thousand pro-heroes were involved, including the majority of SS-Rankers. No one beneath a B-Rank was involved. B-Rankers and A-Rankers were typically attached to the JSDF platoons as additional fire support, while S-Rankers were typically gathered into small groups supposed to act as a reserve force.
Deployed - together with SS-Ranks - if some of the NVA big names were spotted.
The exceptions included SS-Rank Molecular, who was to be attached to the field hospital, and Mindscape, who was going to spend time at the field command base (together with the leadership of the 6th Division and its commanding officer, Tetsuo Higuchi. Together with a handful of S-Ranks for defense, just in case something went horrifically wrong.
On the other side, was the New Vigilante Alliance.
To be honest, they were pretty much a standard anti-governmental guerilla force, except boxed in by numerically overwhelming hostile forces.
Yes, they were reasonably well-trained, including some foreign 'advisors' that helped them a lot. Yes, they obtained a lot of 'misplaced' military equipment - you could expect every one of their members to have at least a helmet, a tactical vest and an assault rifle. Yes, they were organized and trained like an army.
They still lacked a lot of heavy equipment. No tanks, no heavy artillery, meager AA defense. Morale was high and they knew the place like the back of their hand, but there were limits to how far they could get with that.
Worst of all, there were only about ten thousand vigilantes in the Marukane Ward - a bulk of their forces nationwide. The fact that the Government expected about five thousand of them was going to be a big surprise, however.
Those weren't even the Tartarus inmates. Nakahara finally got access to a long-distance warper - namely, Eclipse - and used it to its logical extreme. Warping in additional forces from the outlying bases of the NVA was going to change a lot.
It was also going to mean that the NVA's collapse would be total if the battle ended up with its defeat. Then again, it was going to be the decisive moment of the war as a whole. You could either go all out or go home.
Out of about ten thousand vigilantes that were going to make their stand in the Marukane Ward ruins, around one thousand were former pro-heroes, with reasonably powerful combat quirks. Their number of SS-Rankers was also comparable to what the pro-heroes fielded.
Most importantly, the vigilantes' defense was well-thought and prepared ahead, even if due to the satellite observation they had to focus their preparations on the insides of the buildings.
That was naturally going to change the moment the first salvo was going to be fired.
Lastly, there was one more factor in play that was going to be incredibly important later on.
On the day of the attack, the weather forecast was that of rain. While the cloud coverage was nigh-total, and composed mostly of dark cumulonimbus clouds, the rain wasn't quite there when the battle was starting. The opening salvo happened around 6:35 am, while the rain was projected to start at least two hours later.
(***)
The start of the battle was marked by an artillery barrage, the 6th Artillery Battalion and 6th Missile Artillery Battalion beginning to shell identified vigilante positions within the Marukane Ward, just as the police force detachment appeared in the Korusan (alongside with mandatory evacuation announcement showing up on every TV screen in the town).
First casualties on the vigilante side resulted from artillery shells hitting one of the abandoned houses that happened to be one of the fortified checkpoints. First casualties on the hero side were the result of the police officers and heroes barging into the Korusan town hero agency, only for said agency to violently explode.
Obviously, one of the first things that Ayako Nakahara ordered when she was establishing the NVA headquarters in the Marukane Ward was to covertly recruit Korusan hero agency members to the cause. And having the ones that didn't want to cooperate moved elsewhere or die in accidents.
Unfortunately, Saiko Intelli quickly realized that things weren't going to go to plan.
The joint command center for the hero side for the duration of the battle included a large screen, one displaying the satellite imagery of the Marukane Ward that the SatCom analysts found important.
In front of it, Saiko Intelli, lieutenant general Tetsuo Higuchi of the 6th Infantry Division, and lieutenant general Arata Noya of the Rapid Deployment Division were standing, surrounded by command staff and three S-Ranks tasked with assisting defense of the command center.
SatCom managed to find something incredibly interesting almost right after the missile barrage began.
Sixteen Type-17 Self-Propelled Anti-Air Missile Launchers spread throughout the Marukane Ward, camouflaged on the streets or hidden within a variety of garages of abandoned apartment blocks. Now, exposed and firing.
While they couldn't do an awful lot to the artillery rounds, missiles were an entirely different thing.
"Well, that's just great." Intelli comments dryly as the staff members report that the initial missile salvo put a completely new level of meaning to the term 'ineffective'. "Looks like we were being expected."
The airstrike that was going to happen next was immediately called-off. It was going to be way too costly with an AA defense this thick.
So much about secrecy. At least there were no signs of the Paranormal Liberation Front forces anywhere in the vicinity.
Small mercies.
"Where the hell did they get so much heavy equipment?" One of the generals complains. The 6th Division forces begin to advance, yet to encounter any resistance.
What is Saiko Intelli supposed to say? That thanks to the sanctions the government decided to stimulate the economy by a rearmament project? That while the technology improved slightly in the meantime (and the designs tended to be better in terms of ergonomy and so on), the Japanese armaments industry was lacking access to certain importer parts, meaning that in the end both pre and post-program equipment was pretty similar in quality?
And that due to the inflation making the prices for everything go up (thanks to sanctions increasing the cost of food, which always drives inflation up), a number of officers supposed to be tasked with disposing of the old equipment or putting it into reserve clearly sold an awful lot of stuff on the black market?
Saiko Intelli was increasingly tired of the bullshit that was making her job harder and harder.
Still, so many military vehicles disappearing and promptly appearing in the hands of the insurgency groups was a new low. And it opened up the subject of 'what fucking else the vigilantes had around'.
She realizes it two minutes later when the SatCom locates an artillery battery deployed to some open space in central Marukane Ward. Several self-propelled howitzers, of quality comparable to newest military equipment.
It promptly retaliates to the JSDF shelling by starting to fire at the JSDF artillery battery. It'll probably take a while to nail it, and hopefully, the counter-battery fire will silence it before it can deal significant damage to the 6th Artillery Batall…
One of the army's shells hits the vigilante artillery. The explosion rocks the area. The smoke clears, but the enemy howitzers are untouched. There is some sort of glowing force field around them, someone's rather powerful defense quirk.
God, the attack started five minutes ago, but Saiko Intelli is already getting a headache.
The government side might have outgunned the defenders, but it didn't mean a lot when someone was having a quirk to deal with that. That was just… ugh.
"Deploy Redirect to the 6th Artillery Battalion." Intelli orders. "Have him make sure that we don't lose our artillery support." It's one less SS-Ranker on the frontline, but the artillery will be probably more useful.
"RDD is in position." Noya announces. "Warp scramblers active. We have the entire battlefield in range."
At least so much.
Two minutes later the JSDF vanguard encounters the vigilantes, fighting erupting everywhere throughout the Marukane Ward.
(***)
"We've confirmed the positioning of the warp scramblers." One of her staff members says to Ayako Nakahara. Spyglass is standing in her command center, wearing a white shirt, a pair of jeans and a bulletproof vest, staring at the screens.
They are much less high-tech than what Intelli has. Still, it will have to do.
"How many matches?" Nakahara replies. That's what mattered the most right now.
"All of them." The staff member replies. "Most of the RDD blocking positions are according to the predictions. Furnace estimated at 80% effectiveness."
Phew. That was, well, more than Nakahara genuinely expected. Her predictions were 30-40% maybe, not 80%. It was going to hurt the government a lot.
Mastermind's calculations were a potent asset, indeed. Shame that she was only going to have access to those until this evening.
"It looks like…" Midoriya announces. He is standing right next to her in his villain uniform (black suit and fur coat), shadowed by Asui. This time, they are here in the flesh. "... the situation is progressing better than we expected."
"And I think that we should focus on the battle at hand…" Nakahara replies, Crawler behind her. "... rather than daydream about destroying the Rapid Deployment Division today."
"What can I say, I'm a tiny bit ambitious." Midoriya replies with a wry smile on his face. "With 80%, we can deal a massive blow to them, enough for the RDD to stop being an organized fighting force."
"As I said, first things first." Nakahara decides to ignore him. "We have to first drag them deeper into the Ward. Before we deploy Crawler's forces and the Tartarus heroes."
Crawler's forces ASIDE from artillery and AA batteries. How the hell did the Naruhata Vigilantes get so much military hardware when she wasn't looking? Nakahara has a lot of questions to ask about Crawler's supply channels.
"Not to mention the Paranormal Liberation Front, although I believe that you're doing your best to avoid acknowledging our presence." Midoriya comments. He isn't wrong about it, it's… distasteful, but the plan they've crafted together should work, has to work.
Midoriya won't stay here for long. Neither will Crawler. Nakahara will stay here, of course, and so will Asui. Spyglass needed some guarantees, and having the person that seems to be Midoriya's fiancee around should be enough.
Reports are steadily flooding in. The vigilantes are fighting fiercely, but there is a limit to how much one can do against an organized military. Defense hardpoints are blown up from a safe distance by tanks, soldiers securing the ground around them so that the vigilantes carrying anti-tank weaponry wouldn't get close.
On the other hand, vigilantes were clearly capable of doing some proper feints, managing to avoid losing too much manpower while being steadily pushed back.
"I think it's time to dampen their advantage in terms of tanks." Midoriya comments. Nakahara agrees with him.
They made some plans for that, too.
(***)
The thing about Landslide's quirk was that it was heavily dependent on the available materials to work with. However, there was a limit to the availability of earth so deep into an urban environment.
Theoretically.
The vigilantes forces knew the area. And could foresee certain things, such as make a list of potential routes that the JSDF tanks took. With Eclipse warpgates it really wasn't hard to fill some large buildings along those routes with imported dirt.
When the time came, and the tanks of the 6th Tank Battalion came close to one of said buildings, Landslide was already at the position (redeployed as per Nakahara orders. The rest was just touching the soil and making it flow out of the building through the empty windows..
And then enter the nearest tanks through tank barrels, through the currently opened hatches and so on. Burying their crews alive by filling their tanks with earth so densely that the crew members couldn't even move a finger, forced to slowly suffocate before they could be dug out by the soldiers surrounding them.
The singular attack knocked out eight out of fifty tanks that the 6th Division deployed.
Landslide disengaged before the heroes could respond, taking full advantage of her knowledge of the area, that particular application of her quirk (naturally) Midoriya's idea.
A moment later, raging flames of exploding ammunition envelop another tank column, causing a titanic explosion that destroys three more tanks, Firestorm vanishing into the basement of a nearby building that she fired her attack from.
It's at this point that the attackers discover that there was a large network of underground tunnels dug out under the Marukane Ward.
A few more explosions happen when Tornado begins to send guided explosive packages towards another tank company, the raging winds throwing the soldiers surrounding it aside, and stopping them from interrupting.
"Well…" Saiko Intelli commented when the reports started arriving. "... it looks like someone's prepared quite well."
The remaining tanks are swiftly recalled before they can lose even more of them. It seems that the heroes will h