Izuku didn't even have the chance to try and clean his own wounds. Stain had barely sat him down next to the remainder of their campfire when Toga demanded he took his shirt off to take a look at the damage done. With one arm numb and a thousand things going through his head, he allowed her to take care of his injuries.
With yellow eyes filled with fascination, Toga set out to make sure no pieces of quill had been left inside his arm. She wiped away blood and dirt, disinfecting everything carefully, all of it taking her about three times as long as it would have taken Stain. With her obsession with blood and injuries, she sometimes just stared at the wounds and smiled, lost in her own mind. No sane person would have allowed Toga of all people to take care of their injuries.
But Izuku was not only doubtfully sane, he was also worried. He didn't even feel when Toga moved to the wounds on the back of his head, didn't notice the way she parted his hair and got awkwardly close to the wound with a smile on her face, didn't even flinch when the alcohol stung his skin and dripped off his hair.
No, he was too preoccupied with the fact that he knew basically nothing about this new threat.
He racked his brain, looked into every little memory he had in search of any type of answer. He didn't know of anyone -be them hero or villain- that went by the name Curious, nor did he recognize either of the quirks he had been attacked with as anyone's signature powers. He knew pro heroes like the back of his hand, even if the way he looked at them had shifted focus, and he was pretty sure he would remember at least the porcupine mutant. But the more he thought about it, the less likely it seemed that these people were pros on either side of the spectrum. They'd been noisy, out of sync and Izuku alone had been able to fight two of them for a few minutes.
No, whoever these people were they seemed to be apparent nobodies, not even linked to the League of Villains as far as they could tell. No, Shigaraki would have surely sent something better and he most definitely wouldn't have waited for Stain and the rest to leave Kanazawa in the first place.
Curious's voice suddenly echoed in his mind. 'I was looking forward to that preliminary interview' she'd said, as if that was the most normal thing in the world. The clear disappointment in her voice had been obvious to Izuku and it only served to give him more and more questions. What on Earth could she want to ask Izuku but not the others, especially Stain? Was Izuku the only one they wanted alive? Was this something she did for fun or as a job? Had she been hired by someone else? Did the goons sent to attack them work for her or some unknown party?
And most important of all: would she show up herself next time? Because one thing was clear, and that was that she planned on striking again.
"Get up." Stain's voice broke the deep trance Izuku was caught in. The teen jumped, the feeling of gauze and bandages wrapped around his head coming to him along with the pain all at once. He hissed quietly but voiced no complaints as he put his shirt back on. All around him bags were packed, the three bodies of the other attackers were gone and the fire had been thoroughly snuffed out. Stain even had Izuku's own bag over his shoulder and the teen swallowed.
"I can take that," Izuku stood, but as soon as the words were out of his mouth his body swayed to the left, lights flashing in his eyes. Shoto barely caught him, a worried look on his face.
"Are you okay?" It was rare to hear Shoto speak at all to someone that wasn't Dabi.
"Y-yeah. I'm fine."
"No, you're not." Stain said plainly, the muscles in his jaw clenching. "But we have to move."
"I know," Izuku replied, blinking away the fuzziness in his head. He gave his mentor the most sincere look he could muster. "I can do that."
"Shouldn't he rest?" Spinner dared to ask, not one to defy the Hero Killer's decisions.
"Our location has been compromised," Izuku explained easily. "We have no choice but to leave the area."
Stain looked at Izuku with an expression that spoke of nothing but rage, but the teen held his gaze evenly; those emotions weren't aimed at him. Without another word they all started walking, Izuku mostly able to walk on his own but not denying the help Shoto offered him in the first half hour.
It was a stressful walk west from there, long and silent while everyone processed what had just happened to them all. No, that wasn't quite right. Regardless of what anyone was thinking, the silence was a direct result of Stain's aura at the moment. His back was unnaturally tense, shoulders pulled back and squared and head shifting from side to side ever so slightly as he examined his surroundings carefully. His hand was on the hilt of his sword, which was now sheathed at his waist, and his knuckles were white from the force used to grab the weapon. He looked like a caged, hungry animal, one which would strike at any given second without a moment's hesitation. His headband had been discarded due to Izuku using it for the poisoned quills and so his hair was pulled back in a messy bun, making him look oddly different than he usually did. If he was honest, even Izuku was scared of his mentor at the moment.
He didn't like anything about their situation at the moment, and he didn't warm up to the ideas in his head even after hours of walking. A trip that would usually take five to six hours took them almost eight, and none of them were in the mood for much once they reached Komatsu. On the outskirts of town, they found a small, abandoned house and they set up camp there.
As soon as their bags hit the floor, Stain told them to not get too comfortable and then left without another word. Only then did the Hero Killer's followers allow themselves to speak.
"How are you feeling?" Shoto asked Izuku. The green-haired teen found himself liking the voice of the other boy, though maybe that was because he didn't speak up all that often.
"I'm fine. I can feel most of my arm again so that's good." Izuku's smile dropped even before it had a chance to truly form. He frowned and looked around at the others. "I wanted to ask you something. Do any of you…"
"Know who that woman on the phone was?" Dabi asked, his head already resting on his backpack. He didn't look like he was about to fall asleep though. "Nope."
"I didn't recognize her name, either." Spinner offered.
"She wouldn't be alive if we met before," Toga said bitterly, her hands not so carefully massaging Izuku's left arm. He assumed it was to help get more feeling back into it, but the motions were too rough to really be counted as treatment.
"She doesn't sound like your average fake," Izuku muttered.
"All of us worked on our own before the League, so we don't really know that many villains either." Dabi said, playing with the staples on his left hand. The skin there was also starting to turn more and more purple.
"I don't recognize her from any public records, or any of the old man's arrests." Shoto offered quietly. With his father being such a high ranking hero before, he was bound to know more than a few of his enemies.
"So as far as we know this person came out of nowhere." Izuku bit his lip. He didn't like any of this. He especially didn't like the not knowing; not knowing who this person was, not knowing what she wanted, not knowing when she would strike nex-
There was no glass in the spaces where windows would be placed, and so the bullet that was shot at them didn't make a sound until it collided with Toga's blood gear, which was on the ground, one of the reinforced glass cylinders exploding and letting out the blood it had been containing. The shot barely missed Izuku's shoulder as it was, and in a second they were all on high alert. But there was no need; a body fell into the room before they were all on their feet, Stain climbing in through the empty window sill right after.
"They're catching up, we have to keep moving." Stain loomed over the body, kicking the head and sending a GoPro flying. The small camera was crushed in an instant, Stain looking like he wanted to murder tha camera as much as any target.
"How many…" Izuku started to ask.
"Three. Help me drag them inside." Without another word, Dabi and Spinner went outside with Stain while the others packed everything. True to his word, Stain had taken out three people by himself, all the bodies now piled up in the little house. When a ringing started sounding from one of the bodies, Stain growled.
They scrambled out of the small place and further into the city, not caring about the time of day as they moved along.
They walked for about two hours before risking a new hiding place, this time it was a small building squished between two small stores, all of them looking like they had seen better days. They snuck in through the back and found all the apartments empty, finally settling for one of the smaller ones on the third floor.
Spinner and Dabi kept watch by the windows and Stain sat in the corner of the room with his katana in his hands, giving off the same energy of a stalking predator.
They all tensed when Toga walked back inside, her face and hair those of a stranger even if her clothes were familiar to them all. She'd risked a short visit to the store next door to get some supplies at Stain's request, though she looked anything but happy about the fact that she'd been forced to use the last bit of blood she had stored.
She dropped two bags of food, a bag of basic medical supplies, and a thick stack of newspapers and magazines. Stain narrowed his eyes at the tall mountain of paper, but Toga simply shrugged, handing Izuku a small disposable cell phone and some cheap earbuds.
"There's a chance we get some info from these. It's worth a shot."
"And the phone?" Stain looked ready to throw the thing out the window.
"You can get radio signals on these if you connect the earbuds. I know your old radio got lost when Izuku-kun and you got separated."
"Thanks, Toga." The girl cheered up at Izuku's gratitude, the mirage of the strange woman melting off her body. She turned on the cheap looking phone and put the earpiece in her right ear to start using it right away. She sat down and, without being asked to, started to check Izuku's shoulder for any signs of infection. Stain huffed but said nothing else.
Shoto and Izuku looked at the sea of information suddenly available to them, unsure of where to begin but eventually just picking up some random thing. Headlines ranged from accidents to political news, and Izuku found himself not sure as to what would be relevant for them. It's not like they knew Curious's real name or face to just look for her specifically.
And so he at least eyed every single page, be it about sports or politics, in the hope that something would jump at him. It wasn't long before things started getting his attention, though none of them seemed directly related to their current situation.
Izuku unconsciously tore off pictures of pro heroes doing any type of publicity stunt, already trying to memorize every face in case they ever came across any of them. Any target was a good target, but Izuku firmly believed that very popular heroes would serve them best in the long run. He didn't have his notebook anymore, but he could probably keep the papers at the bottom of his backpack for later reference.
His third newspaper had an article about the League of Villains, though it was mostly regarding Shoto's kidnapping. His family was offering a very generous amount in exchange for any information that would lead to his safe return. Izuku took a mental note that perhaps getting some makeup on that scar would be a good idea, considering that it was his most recognizable feature.
Scattered throughout magazines and tabloid papers he found small articles about the Hero Killer and his miraculous escape. Some articles even made him sound supernatural, like an urban legend that was simply beyond the reach of heroes everywhere. More than once he read something about people threatening to sue someone or another for what had happened in the villain hospital, but none of that really mattered to him.
He also came across more than one article regarding the U.A's imminent closure sometime in the next few months. It seemed the school was at least attempting to get all of their students to relocate to other schools without losing all the progress and money already spent on their studies. The new headmaster had been unable to save the sinking ship that had been handed to them, it would seem.
For a moment, Izuku was struck by nostalgia. Not so long ago, he would have given anything to be a part of that prestigious school. He would daydream about it in class, would make plans as to how, at the very least, he could make it into their general courses. But now here he stood, in direct relation to the demise of that very school, and he frowned. Would he be able to retrace all the steps that brought him here? Probably, but he didn't have time for that at the moment.
He looked through gossip magazines, finding a surprising though probably fake dirt on a bunch of heroes. He felt a pang of something akin to disgust hit him and he threw the magazine away as soon as he was done with it. The fact that people would read these and actually care about everything they said sickened him.
Shoto eyed him, turning his head and reading whatever was in the cover of the magazine Izuku had just thrown. Toga, who was done with his wounds, picked up a different magazine and flipped through its pages slowly.
"Have you found anything?" She asked.
"Not me," Izuku murmured, watching as she turned off the phone and removed the earpiece. "Anything on the radio?"
"Nope. Doesn't even seem like they've found those three bodies we left behind."
"Thank God," Izuku sighed. Shoto looked at him with furrowed brows and placed the paper he was reading on his legs.
"Do you think they would link the bodies to us?" The scarred teen asked. Stain shifted his eyes to look at the youngest Todoroki, but said nothing.
"Not necessarily. We just don't want the police to get too involved."
"Why? If you can handle pro heroes then the cops should be easy to deal with."
Izuku swallowed. He could see how Stain narrowed his eyes and even if he was otherwise still as a statue, something about him made Izuku shiver involuntarily. There was a moment of silence in which Izuku looked at Shoto with a doubtful gaze.
Out of all of them, the only one that had never killed anyone was Shoto himself. It came as no surprise, considering the kid had spent all his life among pro heroes, not to mention the months he'd spent in U.A. attempting to become a pro himself. Izuku wondered briefly if Shoto personally knew any of the people that were pictured in what they were reading, wondered if Shoto cared about any of them beyond what would be normal for a student and a teacher.
If it came down to it, would Shoto be able to strike down one of those people?
"Police officers are out of the target list," Izuku finally explained, his words careful. "We don't kill or hurt them."
"Huh," Shoto murmured, glancing sideways and looking at Stain. Izuku knew that Shoto's true loyalty rescinded exclusively on Dabi, but he hoped that Dabi's own loyalty for Stain would keep the other boy in line.
"Only people like our old man are targets." Dabi explained, low and threatening. His hatred for Endeavor was still as evident as ever.
"But are all heroes like him?" Shoto asked, the question aimed at the room.
Izuku could feel Stain's red eyes burning into his soul and he knew he had to say just the right thing to ease the tension.
"Bakugo was," Izuku said simply, his chest constricting painfully. It was hard to admit, but at least Shoto used to know the other teen and so he might understand what Izuku meant. Shoto looked honestly taken aback, but then he looked down at his hands silently.
"Endeavor's allies all knew what he was doing to us. So yeah, they all are." Dabi offered bitterly.
"All Might is the only true hero," Stain finally spoke up, all eyes on him suddenly. He was looking at Shoto with intensity, seriousness, but also some patience. "Everyone else calling themselves 'heroes' and advertising themselves to the public, are targets."
There was a long moment of silence. Izuku worried for a moment, that either Shoto would defy Stain or his ideology, but to his credit the teen stayed silent. He gave Dabi a look, the young man giving him a rather meaningful nod. They stayed like that for a while, only looking at one another.
It wasn't the first time, and it definitely wouldn't be the last, but Izuku was glad that Dabi was with them.
"The system is broken," Izuku said, blue and grey eyes focusing on him. "Dependency on quirks and power… None of that should be at the top. It is our duty to try and dismantle it so that the word 'hero' can get back it's rightful meaning."
Shoto blinked and Dabi smirked at Izuku. And just like that, everyone went back to their task at hand.
Hours passed, the sun starting to set as they all shifted places in the tiny apartment. Toga and Stain sat under different windows, glancing outside like birds of prey. It had been quiet for far too long now, and a shared anxiety floated in the air. It seemed unlikely that the woman chasing them would give up so easily and, after being found so fast before, they were all expecting an attack of sorts. True, she hadn't attacked them while in the city before and so that might be playing a part in her silence, but none of them liked it. Dabi was resting against the wall, phone in hand, and Spinner was checking supplies. Shoto was classifying papers into useful and worthless.
Izuku was on his tenth newspaper when he was met with a photo of himself, though he looked entirely too young and innocent in the picture. Next to his middle school photo, was a blurry pixelated image of the Hotaru Park incident, probably from a security camera inside the hospital, that showed him next to Toga and Shoto. 'League of Villains directly linked with the Hero Killer's escape. Suspects still at large' the headline read and Izuku swallowed. Smaller underneath him, were blurry and pixelated pictures of Stain and the rest of the group, along with pictures of Mustard, Mr. Compress and the nomus that had attacked the park. Well, Stain's picture was clearly from when he'd been arrested, much closer and personal than the rest, but they were all there for the world to see.
Their descriptions, along with Izuku's and Stain's ages and full names, were listed below the images. There was also a phone number in case someone had any tips on their whereabouts.
"Ugh, they couldn't get a better pic?" Toga scoffed, clearly unbothered by the fact that anyone that saw them could be a potential danger to them.
"Count yourself lucky that they don't know your name just yet," Izuku told her, and that sentence alone got everyone's attention.
"Are we on the paper?" Spinner asked curiously, a hint of awkwardness in his voice. He didn't strike Izuku as the kind of guy who would relish in public attention.
"Yeah, all of us. They seem to believe we're still with the League."
"We were the last time they saw us." Dabi commented, pulling the earbud out and glancing at the paper.
Shoto got closer and glanced over Izuku's shoulder, curiosity in his eyes. His photo was blurry and barely showed his face, and with the addition of his dyed hair it was no wonder that the media hadn't picked up on the fact that it was him. He'd surely seen himself in the papers mentioning his disappearance, but his high school photo was drastically different from how he looked now.
"We should probably cover up your scar," Izuku commented, rubbing his chin.
"I can probably get him some cheap foundation somewhere." Toga waved off, a small smile on her face.
Shoto poked at the area around his eye carefully, a thoughtful expression on his face. His eyes darted from Izuku to Toga.
"Is it that bad?" He murmured, and Izuku was suddenly overcome with the need to embrace the other teen.
"No! No, no, i-it's just that it's recognizable! You're fine!" Izuku panicked. Shoto was still looking weird and Izuku stumbled to try and find words to fix what he'd said.
"It's just a temporary thing," Dabi intervened calmly. "Scars on the face just stand out. Nothing you can do about that. It's better to not draw too much attention."
"You don't cover yours." Shoto said. Dabi chuckled dryly.
"I can't exactly bandage my whole body. And I'm pretty sure makeup would end up cracking my skin even more." As if to prove a point, Dabi pulled at the skin on his jaw. It barely stretched and Izuku could see the separation between dead and healthy skin threaten to tear. He winced slightly, afraid that the piece would just come straight off. When Dabi released it, the skin remained oddly placed for a few seconds before very slowly getting back to place.
Shoto nodded silently.
Izuku, not wanting the air around them to stay too heavy, cleared his throat.
"D-did you find anything?" He asked Shoto, nodding towards the stacks of papers next to him, hoping to change the subject.
"Things about me being missing, about the Hero Killer still evading capture, some villain attacks though they don't seem to be related to the League."
"Yeah, I didn't find anything about the League either. At least not anything new." Izuku reasoned.
"There's one thing that might be related to them, though." Shoto took the paper at the very top of the file, the one he'd been reading when Izuku had found their pictures in the other paper, and offered it to Izuku. "Page seven."
Izuku opened the paper in the page indicated and, after looking at the multiple small articles there, found one that caught his eye.
"Shootout in Osaka leaves local hero quirkless." Izuku read aloud, the words not even making sense as he spoke them. He glanced up from the page at the others, looks of equal confusion on their faces. Stain nodded for him to keep on reading.
"Last night at around 7 pm an open shooting took place following the three million yen robbery in Mikimoto's jewelry store in Osaka. The suspects remain at large after being able to escape pro hero Synthetik, who midway through the persecution suffered a quirk malfunction. One bystander described the following: 'Synthetik was flying, he was close to catching them, but the robbers turned and opened fire against him and the crowd. Synthetik got hit and suddenly he couldn't fly anymore.'
'Whatever they fired, it wasn't bullets,' another witness assured.
Other pedestrians were apparently hit as well, all of them also suffering some type of alteration towards their quirks. All affected have been transported to a hospital near the site of the accident, where reports indicate that they are in stable condition and in full control of their quirks once more. The police declined to speak when asked to give an official statement, and further investigation is needed."
Izuku frowned. He said nothing, instead going back to his own stacks of papers and searching amongst them like a maniac. Stain got to his feet and walked closer, Shoto scooting backwards to give Izuku more space. Finally Izuku found what he was looking for and he flipped through pages to find the one article he needed. He placed the page next to the article Shoto had given him, pointing at both.
"Your paper is from four days ago. This one is from almost a month ago. There's an article about someone ending up in the hospital after a gang fight, and apparently he kept yelling about his quirk going missing for hours. Hospital staff thought he was acting paranoid because he'd just been shot and I thought it was nothing, but…"
"But it might be related." Spinner finished.
"I'm willing to bet it is." Izuku affirmed. Stain looked at the papers on the ground carefully. Izuku turned towards him. "Is it possible? Something that can take your quirk away?"
"There's quirks that can do that," Shoto offered.
"But these people were shot. This was no quirk."
"There's drugs that can enhance quirks," Stain said, brows furrowed. "Make them more powerful. I've seen them before, though not in a good couple of years."
"So maybe something works the other way around?"
"Wouldn't a quirk removing drug be all over the news? This is just two articles." Dabi asked.
"The police might be trying to stop this from getting too known. After all, something that can take your quirk away in this society would cause absolute panic." Izuku mused.
There was a moment of silence, long and tense. This felt important, there was no doubt about it, but…
"How do we know it's related to the League?" Shoto asked.
Dabi and Spinner shared a look, the mutant looking far more uncomfortable than the burnt man. Dabi was the one to speak up after a while.
"Shigaraki had us take some heroes back to the base after some missions. He gave us a list of heroes with 'useful quirks' that we couldn't kill, and those were the ones we took back."
"What did you do with them?"
"He didn't tell us. Kurogiri just warped them away and we never saw them again. A few of them reappeared with time, but they all retired. None of them ever served as heroes again."
Dabi shrugged and Spinner shook his head. Toga spoke up.
"I wasn't allowed to take blood from those people either. We basically couldn't kill or take anything from them, just take them back to the bar so they could be sent who knows where."
Izuku swallowed. He remembered what had been said the last time he was at that bar. Someone had mentioned Mr. Compress taking heroes during the Hotaru park incident, but he'd assumed that had been so that Shigaraki could either kill or torture them on his own. But what if there was a deeper meaning to all of that? What if the heroes that had returned had been forced to retire because their quirks had been messed with?
What was the League doing with these people?
"Whatever is happening, it has nothing to do with us for now." Stain finally said.
"But if it is the League? They'll eventually come after us." Izuku sounded worried. Despite the audience, Stain placed a hand on his shoulders and looked him in the eye.
"Hence the 'for now'. We'll keep an eye out, okay?"
Izuku sighed and nodded. It seemed that looking for answers had simply left them with more questions, and his head was swimming with anxiety and half baked theories of what could be going on. Stain patted him on the back.
"Get some rest. We're moving once the sun goes down."
"I'll help you keep a lookout, Stain." Spinner offered cheerfully. Stain almost rolled his eyes, but the fact that he didn't made Izuku happy, if only a little bit. He helped Shoto put the sea of papers back in the bags they had arrived in and soon enough, he had fallen into an uneasy sleep in one corner of the room, Toga softly patting his hair.