Izuku POV, aged thirteen
Things were going well for The Elite. Between the efforts of Eva and I, we were slowly becoming an international powerhouse in the money laundering scene. We were setting ourselves up to be the leading supplier of precious metals to other laundering entities, which was a rather lucrative business. All of our trading was done via carefully controlled proxies that were paid within dozens of countries. We couldn't allow the heroes to trace things back to us, or else they would ask questions as to where the thousands of tonnes of gold and silver came from.
Beyond this, our new member was doing well. Aki, now Keres (and wasn't that an edgy name?) has integrated into the team well. She quickly became the big sister of the group, especially Hitoshi. She seems to have a soft spot for the boy, probably due to their similar upbringing. Even if Aki's morals were a little bit out of whack she tried her best to be a good role model for the boy. We quickly discovered that she was a very emotional and touchy-feely sort of person after she started hugging people out of the blue.
Aki was working daily on training her combat skills with Eva. She proved to have a sharp mind and a surprising talent for defensive strategy, one that would have been unfortunately lost on the quirkless girl. The fact that Hero society could so easily ignore her skills based on such a small trait was yet another of its many failures.
Aki's quirk was far more powerful than we had initially expected. She was able to create shimmering orange forcefields that she could move telekinetically, warping and shifting their shape and scale as needed. The fields became weaker the further they got away, making them primarily useful defensively. That being said, she was capable of sharpening the edges of her fields to be well beyond razor-sharp. Underestimating her would be a mistake.
We let her into the inner circle last week. The conversation went on for hours, but in the end she had taken it mostly in stride. The notion of having multiple quirks deeply excited her, causing Hitoshi and her to spend many late nights researching quirks for her. Hitoshi was working on compiling a list for me to grab over the coming months.
The idea for Aki was to cram as many shielding quirks into her as possible and see what happens. With any luck, we may end up with yet another S-class villain on our team. Aki had yet to actually see combat so far (she wished to be confident in her training first), although the prospect of multiple quirks was changing that. We intended to get her out in the field within the coming months.
Hitoshi has also been progressing with his quirk, as well as his own work. He has been working on trying to follow the trail of a villain by the name of Nine for some time now. The name came up in Father's notes several times, and nothing good ever comes from that.
My own studies were going well and I was slowly but steadily gaining more quirks. None of them were especially powerful, but stacking together a dozen psychokinesis quirks tends to be surprisingly effective. Who needs technique when you have power? Father always said something along those lines at least.
Things were going well.
Izuku POV, month week later
"Izuku. We are going on a trip."
Eva is wearing a white sundress with a short skirt. It's very pretty. I get the feeling that Aki was the one to pick it out for her. I blink in surprise as Eva walks up to my desk and pulls the laptop from my hands. She stares at me expectantly while waiting for my reply.
"Um, okay. Where are we going?"
"We are going to Australia. I have decided that the two of us should do some team bonding. It will strengthen employee relations and enhance workplace cooperation."
I'm reasonably certain that translates to 'i want to do friend stuff' in Eva-speak. She was weird like that.
"Okay, so when do we leave?"
She walks around my desk and bodily lifts me from under my armpits. I flail in the air for a second before she sets me down.
"Okay okay! Give me a second I need to grab my phone and-"
"We leave in fifteen minutes. Wear something non-conspicuous."
She walks out of the room after that. Non-conspicuous? What does she mean by that? I decide after some contemplation to throw on some black jeans and a nice button-up shirt. It was about the most casual outfit I owned. I leave my office and cross over into the main chamber. Eva brightens up when she sees me and walks closer, Kurogiri in tow.
"Izuku, are you ready?"
"Yes, when do we-"
Kurogiri opens a portal. She grabs me by the elbow and pulls me through. When I regain my senses I'm suddenly met with the sight of a… bathroom? I give her a questioning look.
"We are just outside of the Taronga Zoo in Sydney. I wanted to see the animals."
I think she completely missed what I was questioning her about.
"But why are we in a bathroom?"
"Oh. I used geo-mapping to determine the location of a nearby private bathroom so we can teleport without being spotted. Now we can leave and go purchase our tickets."
I slap a palm against my face. That was a… very Eva-like thought process. It was also rather characteristic for her to completely miss my point twice in a row. I sigh.
"Okay, but now we are in a bathroom together."
"That is correct."
"And I am a male."
"Last time I checked that is also correct."
What does she mean by 'last time I checked'? What does that mean? What did she mean by that? I decided to ignore her statement and continue.
"Okay, but people are going to notice us leaving together. Which is going to draw attention."
She spends several seconds considering my words before nodding.
"I do not see the problem."
She pushes open the stall and drags me out. More than a few people notice us. A woman gives me a thumbs up. I flush and try to avoid thinking about it too much. The two of us walk over to the zoo entrance and stand in line with the other civilians as we await our turn. Once the queue progresses enough for us to reach the front, Eva steps up to the ticket desk and clears her throat.
"Greetings. I wish to acquisition two tickets."
The teenager across the desk raises an eyebrow.
"Do you have parental approval?"
Eva nods confidently. The teenager doesn't seem very convinced. He regards the two of us for a long moment before snorting.
"All right, do you want a membership too? It'll cost-"
"Deal."
Eva waves a card over the payment reader and the older teen gives us each a ticket. We enter the zoo and wander around for a while before finding a big printout of a map. I turn to my companion.
"Eva, what do you want to see first?"
She replies instantly.
"Penguins. They are cute."
With that decided we make our way to the penguin exhibit. I was surprised to see that there wasn't any ice or snow involved. Then again, it was over fourty degrees and it's Australia. Having Arctic penguins would be rather silly in this climate.
The exhibition speaker explains that the penguins in the Zoo were native and preferred warmer climates. Apparently they were friendly and playful creatures that could be found along the coast. Eva was delighted by them and vowed to see more animals after the exposition. Once the crowd dispersed a bit I walk up to the speaker and address him in English.
"Hello, sir. Are there any events where we can interact with the animals personally?"
The man gives us a grin before speaking in a dreadfully thick Australian accent.
"Ah you're just in luck mate, there's a Capybara encounter in an hour. There are a few spots left if you want, since you two kids are polite I bet I can get you a discount."
I shake my head.
"That won't be necessary. I wouldn't want to take away money from a place like this. We would be happy to pay."
After that, we spend some time wandering around. We take a look at the bird section and admire the beautiful birds within. Eva has a short argument with an African grey parrot. The parrot wins quite handily. Someone had apparently taught it to swear.
When the hour was nearing completion we go to the Capybara exhibit and meet up with the man. We're combined into a group with some other similarly aged children and their parents, all of whom seem about as excited as we are. There's a long lecture where the Zookeeper's describe what Capybaras are and how to safely handle them. Eva, of course, sits with rapt attention and attempts to memorise as much as possible. Once that is over with we're allowed inside.
"Alright! Now remember you have to be gentle with them, they may be big but they are still our friends."
We are given various plants and are prompted to meet the large rodents. I feed one some lettuce and give him a pat. The giant rodent doesn't react very much, but I assume he likes it. Maybe I should acquire an animal communication quirk? Mhhhm, thoughts for later.
One of the Capybara takes a special liking to Eva and she gives it a big hug. It seems very happy. One of the boys from the other group looks at the two of us curiously, probably picking up on our obvious foreign mannerisms.
"Hi, I'm Sam! Where are you guys from?"
I give a short bow.
"Hello. I am Izuku, and this is my friend Eva. We are from Japan, but are here on vacation.."
The boy looks delighted.
"Woah, that's so cool! My sister and I live around here so we get to come to the Zoo on the weekends!"
The four of us chat for a while longer. It's nice. They talk about school and the hobbies they have, such as painting and playing cricket. I have to make up some creative lies to lay low (saying I was the child of a businessman was most accurate), but thankfully Eva is able to play along. We part ways after that and continue on with our visit. After a few hours, we start to grow tired.
As the sun begins to set we make our way over to one of the park benches and sit side by side. There's a comfortable silence after that..
"Izuku. "
"Yes?"
"This was fun."
She has a small smile on her face. I shift a little closer to her and lean my head against her shoulders. While we both only started puberty not long ago, she was already significantly taller than me. I hum softly.
"It was.."
There's a long pause.
"Do you want to do this again sometime?"
Taking a break away from the neverending, high-stress work environment is meant to be important. I can certainly understand that now. Spending every waking second attempting to get your anonymous proxies to fall in line while they trade sums of money that could make or break a small country is rather stressful.
"Of course Eva, this was fun."
We find a private spot and send Kurogiri a text with our coordinates. We walk through after that and return to base.
The Zoo receives an anonymous donation of ten million dollars the next day.
Naomasa POV, six months later
The Elite are at it again. This time they decided to take down a child trafficking ring. While I respect the fact they rescued a dozen children from the hands of villains, I wish they didn't have to kill so many of said villains to do so. I'm glad they at least left some alive for interrogation, although the man had some sort of PTSD and didn't seem to want to speak. Whatever they had done was rather brutal.
One of the buildings nearby had CCTV set up and the police had gained a warrant for the files in question. Watching the CCTV footage was… worrying. The camera angles only showed the exteriors of the building, but it was enough to spot a portal form in a nearby alley. Two individuals step through, one who is clearly Armaros, and then a new member entirely. Both appear to be wearing some sort of high-tech tactical gear that looks like something a special forces team would wear.
A shimmering orane field appears in front of the girl as Armaros takes a step back. The forcefield contorts into a blade before suddenly whipping around in a circular manner. A hole is cut in the thick concrete wall before the forcefield wraps around the severed piece and pulls it clean from its supports. A vast chunk of concrete likely in excess of several tonnes lands on the floor with a bang.
The two villains walk through the entrance into the building. The footage ends after that.
I pick up the transcripts of the interviews made with the victims. Based on the recount from the children, the new member of The Elite introduced herself as Keres. She had apparently summoned a black portal and then prompted the children to go through. The portal itself had led to the local precinct (and wasn't that a nice surprise at eleven pm?), an that was the end of the story. The victims themselves never saw any of the violence.
The photos of the scene were… grisly. Bodies cleanly bisected. Heads severed and rolling on the floor. One woman, in particular, looked like she fallen in a blender. Her body had been sliced into dozens of meat cubes and then spread across the concrete. Identification had only been possible via DNA samples, the body too mutilated to even be recognised as human. The human traffickers had been slaughtered like cattle.
Inspection of the crime scene found little information. There weren't any clear signs of battle apart from the dozens of minced bodies laying around. The massacre had been so quick that there was simply no evidence the villains had fought back at all. Keres was clearly a villain of terrifying capability. Clearly whoever was involved in scoping talent for The Elite was very good at their job.
However, the more pressing concern was the fact that this represented an escalation. The Elite so far had not killed, and instead preferred to capture. While I doubt many would protest the deaths of human traffickers, this could be setting a dangerous new precedent. If they were willing to kill over this, what if they start killing regular criminals too?
And also, now that I think about it, didn't Aki Tanaka have a force field quirk?
Izuku POV, one week later
Aki's new quirk, Reflective Barrier, was a rather interesting quirk that once belonged to a petty villain. Interestingly the barriers became orange after the quirk was transferred to Aki, whereas before they were blue. The quirk itself created an extraordinarily powerful barrier that would bounce back attacks in the opposite direction of the initial attack vector. The barrier was also near invincible to most attacks.
Under testing we determined that the barrier would be able to handle basically anything thrown at it. Eva had to push her quirk to full power in order to actually break through, and even then that took a while. While it wouldn't be able to take a punch from All might, it could likely stand up to pretty much anything else.
The fact that such a painfully untrained quirk was able to resist so much force at all was utterly shocking. Who knows how strong it could get after a few years of practice? She was even able to increase the size of Reflective Barrier, forming it into walls or bubbles to protect others. It was a truly amazing quirk and one that significantly upped The Elite's fighting force.
Aki was ecstatic with her new quirk and was throwing herself into training every morning with an inspiring passion. The older teen was rapidly putting on muscle, as well as gaining some badly needed self-confidence. Her outward aggression seemed to be a protection mechanism against bullies, but having the power to back herself up was slowly making her mellow out. A tiger has no need to posture when it knows its own strength, after all.
It is a concept I know well. I was growing stronger with each day, especially as I would be turning fourteen in a few more months. I was able to hold twelve quirks currently and I hope to be able to raise that to thirteen soon. Going through puberty was doing wonders for my quirk, as well as my strength in general. I couldn't wait to finally be adult sized. Being small is annoying.
I hope I grow really tall like Father.
Naomasa Tsukuachi, six months later
I receive a phone call from Sir Nighteye. I pick up the phone and place it to my ear.
"Nighteye. What is happening?"
The man gets to the point.
"I have uncovered something that may explain how The Elite is so well funded, as well as several other Japanese villain groups."
I raise an eyebrow at that. The Elite were a massive thorn in my side. Or rather, a thorn in the side of all law enforcement in Japan. They appeared in random locations at random times, destroying drug labs and trafficking rings. The only solace we had was that they seemed to be invested in fighting other villains, primarily targeting larger-scale operations. They have been doing more to battle the Trigger epidemic than the police force has.
I crack my knuckles.
"Okay Nighteye, you have me interested. What did you find?"
"In the last month, a massive international money laundering scheme has been uncovered. Or more specifically, an organisation in Spain that was serving as part of this international operation was captured. There seems to be a network of organised crime groups around the world that perform mass-scale money laundering, and trade currencies with one another. This seems to be part of the method they use to launder. It looks like these gangs trade between each other with precious metals mainly so as to avoid any tracking effort."
I tap my pen against my desk.
"So, you think The Elite are funded by one of these laundering organisations?"
"No. I think The Elite are funded by something of an entirely different scale. These organisations need someone to buy and sell metal from, or else they themselves cannot make money or increase their trading scale. Interrogated members of the Spanish group stated that they received gold and silver via a black portal. They said that both themselves and most other laundering entities traded precious metals with a group known as "Monolith". Monolith itself buys and sells metal as well as providing global range warping on demand, giving them massive influence behind the scenes. The portals described are exactly like the ones The Elite uses."
I chew the end of my pen. So, perhaps instead of being the children of businessmen, these are the children of some sort of secret trading ring?
"I… I think we were somewhat underestimating the scale of the operation here."
I can hear Nighteye exhale through the phone.
"My belief is that Azazel and Apollyon are the children of whoever is running Monolith. They probably see this as a playground for them. The two are having fun playing villain while making use of Monolith's warper to get themselves around."
"Nighteye, do you think you could-"
"I have already written all required documentation and forwarded it to the relevant authorities."
Bless that man.
Mirio POV, a week later
I shove the rusted fridge until it is resting atop the pile. The truck was nearly full and it wasn't even the first one I had filled today. Toshinori's idea of training was… unorthodox, but it seemed to work. Clearing an entire beach of rubbish was also good community service. I wipe the sweat from my brows and jog back over to the beach. I spot Toshinori and Sir standing side by side on the beach.
"Ah, Mirio my boy! Your mentor is here, you should say hello!"
All might was a powerful hero with unending charisma. Toshinori Yagi, however, was an endearingly awkward man who meant the best, even if he didn't know how to say it. The juxtaposition of character between his Hero persona and his off-duty persona gave me whiplash every time I thought about it. He was a truly strange individual, in the nicest way possible.
I still have no idea why he is training me personally. I have the feeling there is something I'm not being told about, and it probably involves Sir. He always had this uncanny ability to make everything revolve around him.
Speaking of, I give Sir a wave.
"Ah hello Sir! I have been training with Toshinori, it's been going well so far!"
Sir gives me a firm nod. I notice immediately that he is even more stiff than usual. He has that look he gets when he's heard bad news, like that time his favourite cafe shut down. I'm still not sure he will ever emotionally recover from that one.
Sir clears his throat.
"That is good news. I expect you to keep up with your study as well."
Sir seems conflicted for a moment before he decides to continue talking.
"Unfortunately, I come bearing troubling news. Considering Mirio will be the future Symbol of Peace, I think we should start keeping him up to date with hero politics."
Sir has been obsessed with the idea of me becoming the Symbol of Peace since day one. He wishes for me to live up to the standard All might has set, and expects nothing less from me. He even seems to have somehow convinced him to train me. While I am deeply thankful for the opportunities Sir has given me as Lemillion, I can't help but think he has always been hiding something from me.
Sir lectures me while I train for the next hour. He talks of the long-standing rivalry between the Hero Commission and Nedzu, something I had never heard of. He explains the basics of Hero politics and how Nedzu has been waging a one-man war for the better part of twenty years. It's honestly almost inspiring to behold an individual so utterly motivated by nothing more than spite. He's like a villain with all of the sadism but none of the evil, it's a fascinating balancing act.
Some of the things Nighteye tells me are hard to accept. He doesn't go into specifics, but he tells me of the corruption and cruelty of the Commission. Toshinori seems a little confused about it all but I suspect the man didn't have a political bone in his body. While he was a fantastic Hero he really struggled with concepts outside of punching, the idea of his fellow Heroes being anything less than pure is simply inconceivable to him.
Unfortunately, I'm not surprised by the concept of corrupt heroes. A few of the students Eraserhead expelled last year blended in perfectly, only to be suddenly exposed for discrimination and assault. If they had kept their abuse hidden for another year they probably would have gotten their licences, and not every school is as good as UA.
Sir explains how as the future number one Hero I will need to pick a side, and he wants it to be with UA. It's easy to accept. A lot of things make a lot more sense after learning about the Commission, like why my mutant-quirk classmates struggled so hard to get their Hero licenses. The Commission explicitly discriminates against mutant quirks behind closed doors. I suddenly understand why so few mutant quirk heroes get into the top rankings.
Toshinori latches onto that topic and explains how he sees the hero rankings as a complete waste of time. Nighteye seems to disagree but concedes that the Symbol of Peace doesn't need a numerical representation of their performance. They either inspire others, or they do not. It's a powerful sentiment that I agree with very strongly.
After the conversation, Sir tells me it's up to me what I do with the information. He tells me that it would be a bad idea to spread it publicly, so I should be careful who I entrust it with. The Commission would very much not like me going against them and would probably attempt to tank my career if I spoke out.
I decided that I should tell Nejire and Tamaki about it. My friends were trustworthy and deserved to know, I have no doubt that with the Big Three working together, we could make a difference. I should practice public speaking so I can make more of a social impact and influence others towards good. I would be in the third year of my study within eleven months so I wanted to get a head start early.
Stopping discrimination against so-called "villain quirks" would stop future criminals before they ever turn to the path of evil.
Unlike many who seem to believe that villains are simply innately evil, I find myself seeing it as a bit of a spectrum. There were of course many villains that were horrible psychopaths and pure evil, but many villains could be reformed with some minor effort. As a Hero, I want to stop villains both with my fists and with my words. While it was not my job to rehabilitate every individual who has made a mistake, I can at least put some effort into making sure that others are.
I want to make a difference.
Author note:
Fluff! I am super exhausted so this chapter may be a little scatterbrained, but I hope it makes sense. We are now at the point where canon starts basically (Izuku is fourteen and would have just met All might). Sorry about all the fluff, I will be sure to give you guys some action shortly :)