"Complicated? Complicated how?"
"Look," Izuku whispered, "behind the smaller car. That's Maboromicamie."
"Who?" asked Tamaki. Nejire gasped.
The Quartermaster's men were still rummaging around in the back of the larger vehicle, the back trunk door tilted up toward the sky. They had not spotted Camie. The dark-clothed, wiley heroine was creeping forward.
If she releases an illusion, we'll have to go into it to recover the explosives. And we'll be just as lost as the criminals.
"We need to act," he told the other two.
"Wait-" Nejire urged.
"HURRY IT UP!" shouted the leader of the boat crew, the buyers. The Quartermaster and his men were lagging next to the larger vehicle, still digging in the trunk. "DO YOU HAVE WHAT WE CAME FOR OR NOT?"
"We have this," the Quartermaster called back, and then his men suddenly sprang out from all sides of the larger car, having pulled massive automatic weapons from it.
They pointed toward the boat crew all at the same time, to a chorus of shouts and gasps. The four boat men all responded by pulling out their own, smaller handguns, the two sides swearing at each other furiously.
"TRAITORS!"
"WE HAD A DEAL!"
"LIKE WE'D EVER REALLY SELL TO YOU LOT!"
What is happening?! Izuku wondered in a panic. Why were they so eager to betray one another? He knew the Quartermaster was Harbor, but who were these buyers? Surely they were working for Mustard…?
But one thing was certain: the explosives were not in the trunk of the big car.
The shouts escalated. Nejire said something into the comms that Izuku missed. It seemed moments away from triggers being pulled.
Then pink gas erupted from Camie and enveloped the scene.
"Shit."
Fast-moving silhouettes were thrown into a rosy, sparkling gloom. Confused gunfire crackled all over the place, then more shouts, then grunts and impacts.
Camie's illusion gas completely covered the cars and then spread further, curling out over the lot. Inside, a melee was happening.
"WHAT THE HELL-"
"I CAN'T SEE!"
"AH! WHAT WAS THAT?!"
"DUCK AND COVER!"
More sprays of gunfire.
"I'm going in," announced Izuku.
"Deku, wait! We can wait outside the gas and catch whoever emerges, one at a time!" suggested Nejire, frantic.
"No." He didn't really care about catching the criminals…well, he did, but not so much as he cared about finding the explosives. And saving Camie.
He activated One for All and went down into the illusion.
Izuku knew that Camie was quite good at creating these trick spaces to be as confusing and scary as possible, even on the fly when in the middle of combat, so he had no idea what to expect.
As it turned out, she had outdone herself this time.
Izuku found himself in the clinical, industrial corridors of a dark spaceship. His mind immediately jumped to the movie Alien, which Ashido had forced him to watch one night. There were weird light-tubes running through the stained walls, and the entire space had a sickly green tint to it.
But the walls were not to be trusted: he could still hear the shouts of goons all around him, and more urgently, gunfire, which could crisscross through the entire illusion with ease.
Izuku ducked low and flared out several lengths of Blackwhip to block incoming shots. He moved forward at a crouch, passing through a wall and then another. Danger Sense pulsed. A bullet whizzed past his ear. Someone screamed in pain, and someone else shouted, "TO ME, YOU IDIOTS!" Camie, where are you? Just like before, her illusion did not block the rain: it pounded down from the now-obscured night sky.
He came into another corridor, this one with a hatch-window that appeared to open up into deep space, and there was an actual person in front of him. Not the Quartermaster, but one of his men, who had an automatic weapon.
The man spotted him. "WHat the…"
Izuku grabbed the gun with Blackwhip. The man attacked with a Quirk, swinging his foot around in a low kick, a blast of sharp wood coming out of his heel. Izuku leapt over the attack and countered with a quick knockout punch. He took five more steps, going through the space-hatch and into the next part of the illusion, and then stopped short due to a spike of Danger Sense.
Behind him, the gunfire had subsided. The Quartermaster was shouting, "HOLD! HOLD ON!"
"WHY SHOULD WE?"
"NONE OF US HERE HAVE THIS QUIRK, DO WE?"
A beat of silence.
"OI, LOSERS! I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR ME."
"...NAH, IT'S NOT FROM US." One of the boat people.
"SO I THINK THERE ARE HEROES HERE. THERE'S HEROES IN HERE WITH US-"
Izuku held out his hand in front of him. There was nothing visually there, but his palm touched against a smooth, metallic surface. One of the cars. Danger Sense had prevented him from running right into it. He ran his hand upward and found the car's roof, which was not even at shoulder-level. This is the small car. Was Camie still hiding somewhere around here?
Meanwhile, the goons were shouting negotiations at each other. Trying to figure out where the heroes were, how to get out of the illusion, and if they should team up.
Izuku circled around to the back of the car. It was completely invisible, occupying a space that appeared to just be a narrow airlock-tunnel. But he found the latch to open the trunk, and did so.
What happened, visually, was peculiar. Camie's gas had not filled the space inside the trunk, meaning that it looked as if Izuku had just pulled open a dark void, awkwardly glitched out in the middle of the tunnel. Inside that void…inside the trunk of the small car…were the bombs.
Izuku blinked. It was a medium-sized box marked DANGER: EXPLOSIVE MATERIAL, with the lid removed. Inside were dark, sleek, metallic shapes. Unlike any bomb he'd ever seen.
He reached for them, and then…suddenly, inexplicably, the box vanished. Not from Camie's Quirk, but from a different one. Izuku could tell, because the box slowly faded into a sort of turquoise ripple in reality. Almost like a portal.
Whose Quirk was that?! He backed up from the trunk and looked around wildly, swearing under his breath. If he could just see the enemy…but no, Camie's reckless attack had obscured everything, and now he had no idea where the mission objective had gone.
"Alright," the Quartermaster was saying to the others, very close by. "Let's just try and stay together, and…"
"ARGH!" another man shouted, and there was the sound of moving cloth, and impacts. Hand-to-hand combat was taking place.
"There she is, she's-"
"WATCH OUT!"
Pow. Pow. Ratatatatatatatat. More bullets.
Camie was fighting them.
Izuku stepped forward, and another blinding rush of Danger Sense swept through his mind. He swung sideways, windmilling his arms, as the other vehicle, the bigger one, suddenly roared to life. Someone was escaping. Probably that someone with the bombs!
The car burst past him, huge enough to mangle the illusion with its unforgiving movement, its tires bouncing across the wet lot. The spaceship corridors glitched, shimmering and fading, half-revealing the true nature of the open space. Izuku could see fighting, running shadows up ahead. Gunshots lit up the gloom.
Izuku hung in indecision. The big car was getting away now, breaking free of the illusion area. He thought of the regret and panic and anxiety on Camie's face the last time they'd spoke, when she'd realized she lost the phone. How many other things she had lost.
"Stop that car!" he urged into the comms. Those two heroes guarding the fence, Nejire, Tamaki, whoever was listening.
And he turned back toward the fight, fearing for Camie's life.
…
Tamaki heard Deku's panicked command, and then saw Nejire take off from the cruise ship, which loomed up to his right.
She was a glowing blue-and-gold streak in the black sky, flying after the fleeing car through the torrential rain. Going toward the fences, further away from the docks and further away from him.
"You two, with me!" she ordered through the comms, talking to the two heroes guarding the fence, not Tamaki and Deku.
As she chased the car out of the scene, Tamaki turned his attention toward the middle space in the lot. The pink smoke had begun to clear and thin, revealing more of the combat inside. He could see Deku's green lightning.
One man ran out of the fight on foot, scrambling over the slick ground back toward Tamaki. He threw a terrified expression back toward the chaos he'd just slipped clear of.
He passed under the glow of one of the port spotlights, and Suneater materialized out of the rainy darkness in front of him, causing him to scream. Tamaki manifested a clawed bird's foot and delivered a swinging kick, talons slashing. The man went down. Tamaki picked up his gun and threw it toward the river.
"YOU! HERO!"
Another man was running toward the dock. Tamaki hissed and backed out of the spotlight, back under cover of the rain. He was half night-blind, but the opponent surely was, too…
"I'm getting on that boat and getting out of here. Either around you or over your corpse will do." The man stepped into the light, golden slashes of rain passing over him, and Tamaki saw that it was the Quartermaster. From his belt, he was swinging two lengths of nylon rope.
With surprising speed and dexterity, the villain telekinetically pushed the rope forward, like a striking cobra, and wrapped it around Tamaki's waist. Immediately, it tightened, and Tamaki instinctively tried to struggle free, which only made things worse and bought the villain time to throw the other rope toward his neck.
Tamaki managed to duck this one. He felt it slash over his head like a whip and rear back toward the Quartermaster. The villain stepped through the spotlight and onto the dock. Tamaki stood between him and the boat, constricted. The rope dug into his skin and burned, getting tighter and tighter…
He thought of Nova. I am not afraid.
With raw strength, he pushed one hand out from under the coil of nylon, and manifested a massive crab claw. He snipped himself free, and immediately jumped into the air.
The Quartermaster gasped and backed up, whipping his ropes skyward. Tamaki sprouted feathery wings, just big enough to flap him up and over, behind the villain. The man spun, trying to pull his ropes back to defend, but Tamaki was already inside his space. He manifested a cow's hoof and kicked the Quartermaster in the face, hard.
The man staggered, but somehow managed to shake it off and stay conscious, throwing both his ropes for one last woozy attack. Tamaki made tentacles off all five fingers of his right hand and met the ropes in the middle, the two types of appendages tying up with each other.
Tamaki pulled his forearm back to himself with all his might, and yanked the Quartermaster toward him. With his left hand, he formed a hardshell clam…
And slammed it into the man's chest.
"You thought you could kill me?!" he shouted, wracked with adrenaline. "I am SUNEATER! And you're just an appetizer."
The Quartermaster crumbled, wounded and unconscious.
…
Camie slid and dashed amidst the enemy, a striking panther in the rain. "HYAH! HYAH!" A chop to the neck to one goon, then a low kick to another's shins. She spun about as two guns pointed at her from two slightly different angles, and ducked low, her blonde hair whipping.
Izuku slammed into one of the armed men, tackling him messily to the wet ground, and landed on one knee, firing out a Blackwhip to grab the other gun. The man fired right as he got the whip wrapped around the barrel, shoving it sideways. The stray bullet lit up the gloom.
Izuku kicked off the ground and delivered a leaping, swinging punch to the man's shoulders. Camie crossed beneath him, darting like a lizard, and shimmied up to the back of a hulking goon who had spikes on his arms. She kicked his leg out from under him, ducked his swinging, turning blow, and then balanced herself laterally with one palm flat against the ground, delivering a fast flurry of shuffle-kicks to his chest. The man stumbled back and Izuku clotheslined him with ten percent OFA. ZA-POW.
The illusion was almost totally gone. From a distance, Izuku and Camie looked like demons, working their way through the rabble with horrifying agility.
A fireball split the heroes apart. Izuku whirled back immediately to find its source. The man was charging up another, rain sizzling off the growing orb in his palms as it swelled to the size of a basketball. One other was picking up a gun off the ground and ducking behind the small car, which was still here.
Camie went low again and bobbed and weaved to dodge the first gunshot. Izuku charged up One for All and flicked an air blast, which met the fireball and neutralized it in a release of gaseous wind just as the man tried to throw it.
All the energy from the attack refracted backward, and the man went flying to the pavement, skidding, a huge portion of the rain moving with him. The small car lifted up by two tires and then slammed back down in place, suspension bouncing. The gunman scrambled sideways and lost his grip.
Izuku turned to face the next enemy, and then felt something hard and small, like a paintball, strike him in the upper thigh. Suddenly, his movements slowed dramatically. It felt like he was swimming through thick syrupy air. What kind of Quirk-
His arms and head were resisting the invisible force, trying to push about, but his eyes were fine, and they now flickered as far as they would go to the right, to see the attacker. It was a man with not a gun but a slingshot. A slingshot that was currently holding a tiny glowing ball. He can slow people down with those.
Izuku slowly opened his mouth, trying to call for Camie to help, but even that was glacial, and his voice came out in a low, almost comical rumble. One of the last remaining goons had leapt over the hood of the car now, and came at him. Delivered a hard, drive-by punch to his jaw. Izuku just had to take it, his head jerking sideways at the impact, the pain moderate. The guy turned around and swept past him again, this time punching him in the stomach. Izuku bent inward, his knees buckling. He still could hardly move…
…But Blackwhip was working just fine.
Izuku covered himself in whips as the man came back again, his next blow bouncing off of them. He recoiled, shaking his hand and crying out, and then the whips all lashed out together, throwing him backward. He crashed into the guy with the slingshot like a bowling pin, and they both went down, water splashing up from the pavement where they hit. The second the slingshotter broke eye contact with Izuku, he could move at normal speed again.
He whipped about to find Camie, and saw her taking out the last guy. Next to her was the box that the boat crew had brought. She was glancing at it with interest.
"Hey, wait!" he called to her. When she turned to him, her face was drenched in shadow, all her features obscured. Her golden hair was backlit by the distant port spotlights.
Izuku raised a hand. "Let's-"
She blew an illusion at him.
Izuku blinked, staggered. His vision flooded with darkness, and suddenly there was a Nomu looming, a massive one, with six arms, slavering jaws, and eyes of pure, blunt hatred.
Even though all logic pointed to it not being real, for a moment, Izuku fell for it. He staggered back in fear, taking a second to reprocess as the Nomu seemed to dive down to bite his head off. Of course, the jaws simply passed through him, and as he winced and shut his eyes instinctively, he felt nothing.
When he opened them again, he was still in darkness, but the illusion of the Nomu had dissipated…
"CAMIE!" he shouted, running forward. "GET BACK HERE!"
He knew he must have been running toward the edge of the lot now, but he could not seem to escape the illusion-void. She had to have been ejecting it out behind her as she escaped. Where did she go?
He ran straight into the wall of the building that he'd been staking out on top of earlier.
Izuku saw stars, disoriented. He'd forgotten which direction he'd been looking in all the chaos. As he turned around…
…He heard an engine.
…
Tamaki Amajiki ran toward the center of the lot, and then saw the motorcycle coming in from his left.
"Hey, whoa!" he shouted. The bike had been hidden in the shadows beneath a building, and its rider was the girl from earlier, dressed in that dark, zipped suit. The pink smoke curled and faded around her, clearing away and dissipating to reveal the true environment. She flicked the visor up from her dark helmet, letting her eyes see in the rain, and revved back in toward the battlefield.
Two of the goons were getting back to their feet and scrambling for weapons. The girl slid the bike sideways and crashed into them, knocking them back on their asses with mutual shouts of pain. She completed the sliding turn expertly and swung by the box on the ground, picking it up and putting it on the back of the bike. Then she hit the accelerator out toward the fence, fleeing.
Tamaki hurried forward and intersected with Midoriya. "Do we let her go?!" he asked, shouting over the rain.
Deku looked like a malnourished, hunching goblin with both the state of the weather and the state of his costume. "I…" he seemed briefly conflicted.
"They're getting away!" Nejire shouted through the comms. "They got past our roadblock and are heading onto the expressway now! They'll speed off! I don't have the stamina, I can't keep up-" It sounded like her voice broke.
Midoriya stood up straight. "That's the big car. Those were the explosives. We cannot allow those to slip from our fingers."
…
"But if they're already on the highway, then…?" Amajiki's face was slightly despairing. "We don't have anyone who can catch up."
"Yes we do," said Izuku Midoriya.
He looked down at the unconscious man on the ground, the only one who'd actually come close to giving him some real trouble. His slingshot was collecting raindrops next to him.
You're a weapon, said Lady Nagant.
Next, it's your turn, said All For One.
"I'm a slingshot," muttered Deku.
He glanced at the building on the other side of the lot, then at the cruise ship. They were about twenty meters apart, and the space between them pointed downriver, toward the expressway.
Izuku used Float to get up high, not even taking the time to explain to the wildly questioning Suneater what he was about to do. He threw out two thick whips and attached the end of one to the corner of the building, and the other to the side of the cruise ship. He put himself in the middle and stretched back with them. Like a slingshot. Stretch. Streeeeetch…
The dark, rainy space before him seemed to tunnel. He could see the repetitive distant circles of light that indicated the highway, almost a mile ahead. Izuku flexed his legs over and over. Built up Fa-jin. They began to glow red with energy.
He activated One for All. Pushed it up to forty percent. Fifty. As much as he could strain without damaging himself. The air around him crackled.
"One for All…FAUX ONE HUNDRED PERCENT!"
Izuku threw himself forward with the whips and released Fa-jin. A green light erupted across the Harbor. A cone-blast of wind ejected out backward, kicking up a massive wall of water in the river that sloshed onto the opposite bank. FWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH.
…
From the perspective of the man who'd gotten away in the car, driving solo down the empty, abandoned highway, all he heard was something that sounded like a rapidly approaching jet engine.
His ear twitched, confused. He felt a slight shudder from the back. He pressed the accelerator a little harder.
Then, there was an impact to the side of the car so fierce that it flipped up and over, several times, skidding and splashing across the wet road, car parts flying everywhere, rain striking metal, sparks flying.
The man was shaken and thrown about, but somehow, miraculously, survived. He landed upside down, the roof of the vehicle crushed against the ground below him, the window next to him now completely empty of glass. The car came to a stop.
Slowly, terrified, and in disbelief at having not broken any bones, the man turned his head to look out the window.
Upside down, a shadow walked on the highway toward the car.
The golden glow from the highway's tall lights surrounded the shadow like a halo. Rain bounced around its slow, steady feet. Tendrils flared up around its shoulders. Two floppy ears hung from its head. And two piercing green eyes shone out from its sunken face.
Deku arrived at the car, tilting down to look through the window at the man. He pulled him out.
…
"WHERE ARE THE EXPLOSIVES?" Izuku demanded, shaking the man by the shoulders. Above their heads, the rain was beginning to subside.
The man was crying. "I swear, I don't know! I'm one of the buyers! I never saw them!"
"Don't lie to me. I saw them get removed from the other car by a Quirk, and then you drove away. I opened your trunk and they weren't there!" He had caught up to the vehicle and immediately stealthily checked the back, but the bombs' absence had made him mad enough…to basically shoulder check the car itself. Which had resulted in the crash. I could have killed him. But he was hardly thinking of that now.
"No, please, believe me!" the man blubbered. "I'm one of the guys from the boat, I…" He licked his lips. "We brought drugs, that's what we had on us! When the fight started I found this car and just got out while I could! It wasn't part of any plan, I promise!"
"Drugs? That was what was in the other box?" Izuku wrinkled his nose in disgust, and then thought of Camie. She took them. "What was the deal for? Why didn't it go through? Why did they betray you?"
"YOU TELL ME, MAN! WE DIDN'T DRAW THE GUNS FIRST!"
"Who do you work for?"
"I…I can't tell, I swore not to tell…"
"You'll want to rethink that." Izuku shook him, tightening his grip.
"AH! I work for the…the Company Town, please, I…"
The man fainted.
Izuku took a step back, leaving the unconscious goon against the side of the wreck. The rain had stopped. Water dripped off his costume and onto the highway.
What the hell is the Company Town?
Something fell out of the man's pocket.
Izuku gasped, and stepped forward to pick it up. His fist tightened around it and shook. Of course. That's why they were betrayed.
It was a business card, identical to the one at the scene of the Shiketsu murder official. A Hojo business card.
…
"That's all of them," said Tamaki, as the other heroes and the few police officers restrained the villains they had caught.
Nejire Hado was pensive. The rain had stopped. Her facial burn tingled as loose drops fell from her soggy blue bangs and trailed down her cheek.
"Careful with him," Tamaki was telling the others, as they restrained the Quartermaster. "Keep the ropes well clear."
Unbelievably, her partner had something like a twinkle in his eye. "Did you get him yourself?" Nejire asked.
"Yeah. It wasn't hard." Tamaki looked around behind them, toward the fence. "Deku should be back in a minute. Did you see what he did?"
"I saw. Let's hope he caught up."
"There's no way he didn't. I'm confident." Tamaki spat some rain out of his mouth and let out a small laugh. "We completely neutralized them. Except for that girl, I guess. Though she helped, so I think she was a hero…?"
"She was." Nejire did not elaborate further, since she hardly knew more about Camie than Tamaki did.
Still, to see him in such a good mood…I mean, we haven't found anything out! We barely know anything more than we did before! And he's Tamaki Amajiki, for crying out loud! He's never like this!
And for herself…well.
First, Midoriya had appeared to join them for the operation, looking slightly…worse for wear. And she'd been trying not to think about her recently realized…favorable opinion of him. Those feelings had combined with her worries about he was looking and acting, and then when the fight had begun, she'd gotten all flustered because what if Akira shows up here?
And then she'd foolishly allowed herself to almost get shot while chasing the car, and had been forced to back down. Basically accomplishing nothing useful in the end.
Back to the old me, I guess. What if her recent successes were just a fluke? What if this was not improvement, but simply a spell of luck in a sea of mediocrity? What if my real normal is performances like…getting a bunch of blue fire to the face, or running from a guy who fights with MUSIC NOTES?
Midoriya-kun reappeared.
He was carrying an unconscious man in his arms. "Here's the last one. The car crashed. You'll need to send personnel to clean up the wreckage. No one's out on the roads anyway." He began to walk past Nejire and Tamaki.
"Did you find anything out?" Tamaki asked. "What about the explosives?!"
"They vanished. They're not here. We were duped. And I think all these guys were, too." Midoriya's voice was not happy. "Mustard's puppet strings are all over this."
"But…then…"
"I need to connect a few more dots. But for now, we can safely assume that Mustard will soon have the tools he needs to carry out the next bombing. If he doesn't have them already. So our priority should shift to thwarting that." Midoriya went past Nejire, and she heard him mutter, "She might know."
"Midoriya-kun." She spoke up, surprised at how hollow and nervous her voice sounded.
He stopped, but didn't turn back to look at her.
"You need to come back to our base and shower and eat, at least. You'll get sick if you leave now. That costume needs to be washed."
For a moment, she was deathly afraid of what he'd say and do. What kind of power do I expect to have over him, anyway? When has he ever listened?
But then, he answered with a soft "Okay."
…
"He's terrible at hiding things. I'm not going to fall for this," Shoto declared, pacing restlessly back and forth across the small room.
He had just come back from a meeting between all the students in his class, the principal…and Endeavor.
"Calm down, dear," Rei pleaded, sitting on the bed. "You need to keep a cool head."
"Don't you get it? I'm supposed to be out there fighting, and I'm being held in here like a…" Her youngest son ran a frustrated hand through his hair. "I dunno. I'm bad at metaphors."
"You will get your chance. But for now, it makes sense for you to be here until the next battle…"
"The next battle already happened! Touya attacked you, and I was the only one in the family who wasn't there!" His volume was not lowering.
"Shoto. Please. You're scaring me." Her voice trembled. "There just wasn't time to get you there."
That stopped him. "Huh? What do you mean, there wasn't time?"
Rei was confused. "Didn't he…? While we were planning for the attack, Endeavor said he would…get into contact with UA to try and get you out there. Did he not do that?"
A new fire of fury entered Shoto's eyes. "NO! That never happened! I never heard a single thing about that!"
She stood up and held out her hands to placate him. "Shoto, please, cool off. Like I said before, he attacked a day earlier than we expected. The message likely just didn't get through in time. I'm sure Endeavor didn't mean to…exclude you on purpose."
"But you all could have died! Fuyumi and Natsuo told me that all three of you had to fight. That should never have been the case, I should have-"
"It's okay. You don't need to put that burden on yourself, dear. It was well-handled by Hawks and Deku and-"
She shut her mouth abruptly.
Her son did not fail to notice. "What?" he whispered.
"I…uhh…" Well. At least I did not say Izuku by accident.
"Midoriya was there?"
"He…"
"Don't lie to me, Mom. Don't keep this from me." Shoto looked…hurt. "We've all been so worried about him, and it feels like everyone knows what he's doing but us." He did not have to specify that he meant Class A.
"He was there, yes." Rei did not dare elaborate any further.
"Fuyumi and Natsuo told me that Hado and Amajiki-senpai were there, but they said nothing about Midoriya."
Yes, because I told them to keep quiet about it. But she had just broken her own rule. And Deku's too active otherwise. There were plenty of people staying here in UA that had been saved by him or had witnessed his feats over the last month. It was only a matter of time before Class A received the information they desired, from one source or another.
"Nezu said," continued Shoto, "that he couldn't support us or let us go look for Midoriya. He took Endeavor's side. He claimed it was because Midoriya already has people out there supporting him." His face twitched. He seemed to be working something out. "We talked about it as a class and we didn't have any idea who he could be talking about. But if my brother and sister say Hado and Amajiki were there. And you say Midoriya was there. Then."
Rei did not know what to tell him. "Shoto…I'm sorry. It hasn't exactly been my place to…"
"I understand, Mom. I'll see you later. I have to go find out something." He left the room.
…
Izuku sat on the ledge, the breeze rippling Gran Torino's cape on his shoulders. He was clean again, the costume was clean again. He had the hood down, exposing his still-damp hair to the wind.
The city stretched out before him. The clouds had cleared off. It was nearly dawn.
"You're lookin' spiffier."
Almost wearily, he cast his eyes sideways, to the young woman leaning against the wall of the roof-shed. We last parted in a place like this. And moved to first name basis. "Hello, Camie."
"Hiya." She slid toward the ledge, the shadows releasing her like the tip of a leaf releases a drop of water. "I never found the phone, btw."
"I am aware. Lady Nagant found it. Where'd you leave the bike?"
"Down in an alley." Her lips curled into a smile. "Unless ya mean back at the fight. I was at the place like, hours before you guys. Had plenty of time to hide my wheels somewhere and plan my escape route."
"Have you been lurking around Kijimi this whole time?"
"Oh, I've been here and there, finding out the tea…I only found out about the deal from the blue-haired chick, though."
"Hado-senpai."
"That's the one. She's kind of a slay queen, from what I can tell."
Izuku blinked at her. "And the drugs?"
"Ah…" Camie's whimsical expression suddenly turned a bit strained. "What drugs?"
"The ones in that box you stole from the crime scene."
"Oh…is that what's in the box? Haha, I like…totes didn't know."
Izuku deadpanned. "...Cap." He allowed himself a dry smile of victory.
Camie wilted. "Okay, fine. You got me. I took the drugs. Whoop De Doo." She crossed her arms and huffed, looking away from him. "They're not Quirk enhancers if that's what you're worried about. They're just psychedelics."
"Just psychedelics. What a relief."
"I can hear your sarcasm, buddy. They're worth a lot more to me than they are to those clowns."
"They'd be worth the most if you turned them in. To the heroes."
"They're with a hero already." Camie tapped her foot. "You think it's easy for a gal like me to survive out here? I need bargaining material."
"The idea would be to transform out here back to what it was before. You know, where you didn't have to bargain with psychedelics to survive."
"Well, Kijimi was sorta like this even before the war, so…" she muttered.
Izuku stood up. "I get why you fight this way," he said, seriously.
"Do you? You, who still doesn't know shit about me or my life."
"I know you have a history with the criminals in that place. And that it fuels you to keep hunting for justice." He pulled out the business card he'd found. "The guy I caught had this on him. He said he was from a place called the Company Town. Do you know what that is?"
Camie stared at the card. She bit her lip. "You…this was one of the buyers? Who had it?"
"He said he was a buyer. He was driving a Harbor car, but he claimed that he stole it out of panic."
"Did you find the bombs?"
Izuku lowered his eyebrows. "I don't know. What's the Company Town?"
Camie laughed. It was a frustratingly alluring sound. "Is that really how you wanna play it, Izuku?"
He tried not to let his heart skip upon hearing her say his name. "I want to trust you, but you screwed us up back there. We're trying to catch Mustard and whoever's working with him, and you…"
"And I am trying to do the same thing!" she snarled, taking an angry step closer. "His bombs killed half my friends and wounded the other half. Yoarashi, remember him? He could control wind? He may never be able to walk again, let alone be a hero! And these stupid clues we keep finding…the fact that they point to other villains I know, people who've taken things from me before…it's like all my enemies are congealing into one, perfect target. So I don't intend to stop. Not for your convenience, not for anyone else's."
"Yoarashi? Inasa Yoarashi?" Izuku's voice broke. The victims of the bombings, a nameless mass, had been weighing upon his conscience from the beginning. But to put a name to one. A lively young person that Izuku remembered well. He's alive. But he may never walk again.
"Oh, don't you dare. I see that look in your eye. Don't think you get to take this all on yourself." Camie's nostrils flared. "I've failed plenty more than you have, so don't think you have the authority to bench me now. I'm going to fix this. For everyone I knew back at Shiketsu. For my mom."
"Who's your mom?" he asked softly.
The blonde girl faltered. She looked away from him, upset and possibly on the verge of tears, inhaling angrily as she swayed by the ledge. He wanted to comfort her. To help her any way he could. But she's so…Camie.
"She…she worked for the Hojos."
His eyes widened. He hadn't expected her to answer.
"She was a court magician. But she also provided shields, safe spaces for the mafia to meet and talk. Sometimes she went out on…field duty. I was not told what that meant."
"Sounds like she had your Quirk."
"Similar enough."
"What happened to her?" he dared to ask.
Camie shrugged miserably. "She got caught." Her voice tapered off into the breeze. "But when the country collapsed, her prison wasn't important enough to be liberated by All For One."
"That means she got moved to a shelter. All the prisoners did. Oh, Camie, I…" Izuku put a hand over his mouth. "Weren't there prisoners at…at Shiketsu? Did she…?"
"Male prisoners were kept at the Shiketsu shelter before the bombing, yeah. Not female prisoners. They were all put at Seiai Academy, since it's mostly a girls' school. Safer that way."
"So…she's alive then. At Seiai." Izuku couldn't help but feel relieved.
"Yeah."
"Have you…visited her at all?"
Camie blinked at him. "Seiai's a hard journey in these times, even with a motorcycle."
"...I guess so." He realized that she had not really used much slang at all during her entire explanation. "And…your dad?"
This time, the girl made direct eye contact with him. "You don't get all the answers tonight, Izuku."
"Ah…that's fine. I'm sorry for asking and bringing up bad memories, anyway."
"Don't sweat it." She cracked her knuckles. "I don't know Mustard, and I don't really know how to find him, but I know these guys." Her hand swept over the cityscape. "And when I find out which one of them is working with him, which one of them is still causing me pain…no one is going to stand in my way."
Izuku remained quiet.
Camie laughed a little, nervously. "Say something."
"I think you're very brave," he murmured. "It's hard enough for me to survive out here by myself, and I have seven Quirks. But you make it look effortless."
Her eyes swam with emotion.
"You…you're amazing. And…a little dangerous, too." He drew himself up confidently, meaning the words.
She was grinning now. "Doesn't that just lift a gal's spirits," she whispered.
They both remained silent for a minute. It was a more relaxed, comfortable silence.
"I'm sorry for losing the phone," she blurted, as if it had been weighing on her mind. "I guess you ran into Lady Nagant again, then?"
"Yeah. I did what you suggested and flirted with her. I think it worked. I think I'm going to try it again next time. She won't want to kill a guy if she's half in love with him." To tell the truth, his ongoing struggle with Nagant felt so absurd compared to the more serious pursuit of Mustard that it felt only right to treat it with some levity in his head. "I can turn her. I know I can. That gives me a ticket to AFO's hiding spot, and gives him one less servant."
Camie giggled deeply, almost mischievously. Her eyes did not leave his face. "For real?" she breathed. "I wasn't, like…legit suggesting that. But it doesn't surprise me that it worked."
Suddenly, he realized how close they were standing. And that she was getting closer.
On the edge of the roof, a dark cityscape beyond them, one shadow stalking toward another.
His heart rate accelerated.
"You call me dangerous and then talk about that kinda thing so nonchalantly?" she whispered, still staring into his eyes. "I think you're the dangerous one, Izuku Midoriya."
He stared right back. Dared right back. "If I am, it's your fault."
Another small giggle bubbled up from her throat. "And if I told you that I did it all on purpose? That I've been working on you every time we meet?" Another step closer.
His voice dropped to a husky whisper. "To what end?"
"Maybe I prefer you dangerous." She was very close now.
"Who says we can't both be?" Their breaths mingled in the narrow space between them.
Her finger traced up between his ribs. "No one. Is that how you prefer me…Izuku?"
Goosebumps. They were so very close now.
"I prefer you right here," he heard himself say.
Her head tilted up toward his. "Now that's more like it," she breathed.
Then she practically stole his lips.
All at once, Camie articulated into him, pushing her slim, curvy body up against his broad, firm one, sliding into the kiss with an unfairly natural ease. Her hands brushed up his chest and one found the back of his neck.
Izuku was dizzied. Her lips were the softest and fullest of the four women he'd kissed, and she used them like an expert, pushing and pulling at him sensually.
He put his arms around her tight waist and kept her close. Her breasts squished against him from beneath her catsuit. She smelled like heaven.
As they tentatively began to open their mouths, possibly shifting into full-on making out, he dared to let his palm roam to her butt, of which there was plenty to feel, and he did so, giving her a soft squeeze.
She chortled happily between kisses, lifting up on her toes a little…and gave him just the slightest hint of her tongue, an infuriating tease, before pulling back, dragging his bottom lip between hers for a moment before releasing him.
She did not, however, leave his arms, or lower her own arms from his chest and neck.
"The Company Town is the Hojos' only legit holding outside Kijimi," Camie whispered. Her eyes were still on his mouth. "It's way out west. It was a new thing when I…left them the first time. Didn't know much about it. Still don't. Just that it's controlled by old Naru's Quirk, which means…going there is a death sentence. For anyone who isn't you, that is." She tapped his mouth with a finger, felt up his muscles one more time, and then stepped backward. "If you need me for anything soon, meet on this roof again at sunrise." Those perfect lips of hers stretched up in a smirk. "Until then, Izuku."
She merged back into the shadows.
Izuku stood there, watching the spot where she'd vanished, while the sky brightened in the east.
It took a while for him to remember how to walk again. Or think, or do anything else.
Well, I can't say THAT wasn't a long time coming.
It was Nana. It was the first time any of them had spoken since he'd shouted at them to shut up while fighting Nagant.
Oh, are you guys ready to not be annoying now?
A smattering of responses from the ghost gallery.
…Yeah.
Only if you promise the same!
Picking up girls left and right now…
We saw what you did with all our Quirks. The third user. Parallel processing in order to simulate one hundred percent without invoking physical damage. This may be the key going forward.
Izuku didn't disagree. Not when it comes to battles, that is. But something tells me…
He heard Camie's bike in the distance, driving away down some side street. The sun was coming up.
The immediate battles from here will be those of mind and heart, not fists.
…
"The charity ball is soon," Marlo Hojo told his father, his voice shaking. "Are you sure you don't want to try and rescind the invitation…"
"The heroes are being run by children now. I'm not afraid of them. They'll never figure out what we're doing. They're too focused on…"
The door to the room was thrown open.
"Sir!" one of the men said, sweaty and frantic. "I tried to stop her, I really did, but she insisted-"
"That's alright," Naru Hojo chuckled, holding up a hand to calm the man…then gesturing with that same hand, beckoning the newcomer forward. "I know your face."
Kaina Tsutsumi smirked. "Then you know why I'm here?"
"I honestly can't say that I do."
"I'm after a certain hero, and the gap to finish him off is closing."
"Hmm." Naru took a sip of wine, and tilted the glass back and forth, watching the liquid level itself. "Well, this presents an issue. Many of my colleagues know your face as well. And many of them would rather see you dead."
Lady Nagant gave a shrug. "Bring them to me. I'll take them one at a time or all together. The end result will be the same."
"No doubt." Naru chuckled darkly. "In any case…we will need to hide that face of yours. As luck would have it…the theme of our charity ball is masquerade."
