The revelation was underwhelming. He'd spent so much time trying to piece the puzzle together and then... in a single sentence from Flag he had all the answers and there wasn't anything magical or mysterious or... Honestly, the explanation for his disappearance and reappearance wasn't really living up to his expectations. He'd been selected at random by a furious MLA general who had come to Japan to have one final grudge match with an old enemy. There was nothing special about Izuku, save that his number came up. He'd been selected because he was quirkless, true, but that wasn't special. There were plenty of quirkless people in the world. He'd just been the first to say yes when Switcher asked permission to borrow him.
To think that once his biggest problems were poor career and romance prospects due to quirklessness...
"So this prisoner just... vanished right out of the truck?" Shimoda asked, eyebrow raised. "How?"
"No idea," Wakiya shrugged, inspecting his breakfast suspiciously. Apparently the fish was the subject of his ire. "And I'm not really sure it's true, either. You know how rumors can be around here."
"Especially given that everybody's looking for a spy," Shimoda groused, clearly still salty about being dragged away to an interrogation after the Battle of UA. "Seriously, what have I ever done to seem suspicious?"
"Probably nothing," Nishida shook his head between bites of rice. "They likely just did a survey at random. I doubt there even is a spy, but checking is likely wise. It's better to be too careful than not careful enough."
"How do you explain this prisoner's disappearance then?" Izuho asked. "Or do you think it's just a rumor?"
Nishida shrugged. "She could have just escaped."
"This girl was certainly quirk cuffed," Wakiya pointed out.
"You know that lock picks exist, right?" Camie pitched in, sliding into a seat beside them and
beginning to wolf down her food as per usual.
"You think somebody here was stupid enough to not find lock picks when searching prisoners?"Shimoda raised an incredulous eyebrow.
"I've heard you can pick locks with bobby pins and things if you're really good," Izuho said. "Maybe she was?"
Nishida shrugged again, more dramatically this time. "Who know? I have no idea whether Chain black ops rescued a prisoner under our noses. I have no idea whether battle plans for the UA attack were leaked and I don't think it's worth speculating on either front. I think that's well above our pay grade."
"I'm more than done speculating after yesterday's interrogation," Shimoda complained.
"I just took a nap for all of that drama," Wakiya said smugly.
"You and Mihara had the right idea, perhaps," Nishida hummed. "Are there spies? Yes. Of course there are. That's just a fact of war. Is there any point in driving ourselves into a frenzy speculating about them and their activities? Certainly not."
"Here, here," Shimoda agreed. Izuho nodded.
Arashiro, although inspecting every grain of rice in her bowl as if it might attack her, had barely eaten two bites. Izuho should ask again if she were alright, but not now. He shouldn't call attention to her in public like this. He'd check on her later.
There was no rumor of either False Flag or Hatsume being recaptured, so they had almost certainly made it back to the Chain by some means. Perhaps they had a flyer or speedster meet them at a prearranged location or maybe False Flag decided to walk or maybe she had a bicycle or something stashed nearby. Bicycles were really underrated war machines. They were extremely quiet, cheap, easy to acquire, aroused no suspicion, and could increase one's travel speed by a factor of ten.
The escape of the rescuer and rescuee was something at least, something definitive. If Fossa weren't here, if he weren't the heir to Tripswitch's quirk, False Flag would probably not have been able to get Hatsume out of here... or it would have been much riskier and more difficult at least. Uraraka's survival, too, was a credit to Fossa. Even if he were caught today--and that didn't seem unlikely amidst the spy frenzy--he had concrete achievements to be proud of. And now the Chain would know what had become of him courtesy of his mentor. Somebody would be able to tell his mother and friends, and Hatsume would deliver his message for Monoma.
The apparent "leak" of the PLF's UA attack plan and Hatsume's escape had much the same effect on PLF police forces as throwing rocks at a hive of wasps. MPs buzzed around the mess tent. They circled the camp. A woman who was almost certainly plainclothes Krypteia went to check in with Camie and speak to Major Nagant.
There had been two spies captured in the division previously, if the rumors were to be believed. A traitor in Twice's division had been publicly disintegrated by Shigaraki early in the war. That had probably happened several other times. It wasn't the sort of thing TWRR liked to reminisce about.
"Making examples out of people" could be exciting news, but talking about the execution of traitors frequently made it seem like the PLF was riddled with disloyal opportunists ready to switch sides on a dime, decidedly not a good look.
What were the odds Fossa would be caught in this spy hunt? Fifty-fifty. At least the mystery of his missing week was solved now. Save for a few details, he understood everything, and he would have to actually talk to Switcher in person if he wanted to know the answers to the few outstanding questions. If he were lucky and the spy hunt didn't catch him, if he were lucky and made it through the war, he would go to Black Forest and ask for some answers. Not demand, no. Clearly things didn't go the way the old general wanted them to and clearly the body-hopper had made some... bad, emotionally driven decisions but they were Izuku's bad, emotionally driven decisions, too, weren't they?
Like Flag said, Switcher didn't usually dominate his hosts, and the Izuku-Switchblade that had existed that week, bouncing off buildings in front of Ojiro to enact vigilante justice, getting into a fight with Stain after calling the Hero Killer out on hypocrisy, seeking to restore honor for Kuma, arranging to leave Izuku with a quirk like he'd always wanted... that Switchblade had a good chunk of Izuku in him. Izuku might have some choice words for Switcher if they ever met again, but he hardly resented his shoulder-sitter. It was... the choice words he would be having with Switcher would be similar to the choice words he would be having with Katsuki when this was all over. Switcher and Katsuki were both friends but they had also made bad decisions which had significant, negative impacts on Izuku and on people around him and they needed to acknowledge that.
Or maybe he wouldn't have choice words with either of them after all. If he knew Katsuki, the blonde would have suffered more than enough already from the deaths of Tokoyami and Dark Shadow as well as Izuku's apparent demise. Best Jeanist's return had likely made all of that a hundred times worse. Switcher had likely spent plenty of time kicking himself, too. Perhaps neither of them deserved more than a raised eyebrow.
Someone was watching Izuho. Fossa could feel it as he returned to his tent that evening. He wouldn't be surprised if he were interrogated sooner rather than later. He'd almost slipped through the dragnet... but now the hunt redoubled. After the stunt he just pulled with False Flag, how could he ever dodge a truth quirk? If only there had been more time to talk to the master spy before she left, more opportunity to get advice. Fossa wasn't sure how long he could hold his poker face when overwhelmed by this level of anxiety.
"I figure we owe you some favors," Kuma told him, hand on his shoulder as she steered him down a long, red carpeted hall.
"It's you," Izuku said stupidly. Kuma raised an eyebrow. "That was dumb..."
"It has been a while since we talked," she shrugged.
"Well, we did see each other just a night ago in a nightmare. It would have been nice to see you earlier, though. I've missed you"
"It's not... Sometimes I can be here and sometimes I can't. The rules for dead quirk ghosts are pretty unclear. I think you have to be looking for me and I have to be looking for you." Whatever that meant. It wasn't too important, though.
"Did you know?" Izuku asked. "About me being a Switchblade?"
Kuma blinked, opening her mouth in some kind of shock, before realizing she didn't know what to say and smacking her hand against her forehead. "I did know, but I'm not always... I'm not really... it just didn't occur to me that you didn't know and I should tell you, even though I know that I knew you didn't know and of course I needed to tell you. I'm sorry--it's just--"
"It's okay." She was a quirk ghost, not a fully coherent person, and there were things Kuma couldn't remember, things she couldn't properly process in the consciousness that remained to her. Izuku couldn't hold that against her, nor was it kind of him to force her to explain it aloud and emphasize the injustice of her fate. "Where are we?"
They stepped into a familiar meeting room. The MLA high command often planned at this table. "This is the day after Influx came clean and switched sides for good," Kuma replied. "Of all the memories I have, I think this will be the most useful to you."
Arch, Bit Weasel, Epona, Influx and past-Tripswitch sat around the table. Arch was chewing on a pen. "What I want to know," Bit Weasel was saying, "is how you managed to fool me so well the first two times we met. It was amazing . I was completely convinced you were on my side, and Simon-Says," he had a truth compelling quirk of sorts, "got the exact same answers from you as I did . How did you do that?"
Influx grinned sharply, eyes shining with pride. "Go ahead and gloat," Epona said, bumping her head against her lover's shoulder affectionately.
"It was not easy at all," Influx gloated as ordered. "So. At the end of the day reality is subjective. There's a truth out there, an objective truth, but it's not possible for conscious creatures to perceive it. We're all biased. When you read my mind, when you compel me to speak the truth, what you get is my perspective, my subjective view of myself and the world I live in."
Bit Weasel raised an eyebrow. "Andros... the implications here are a little unsettling." "She's not crazy," Epona shook her head.
"Weeelll," Andros rolled her tongue, "I might be a little crazy. I think you have to be. I think of it like... method acting. I know who I am in the darkest corner of my mind but the pieces you read, the truths that Simon compelled from me, those were artificial perspectives."
"How do you construct those?" Tripswitch asked.
"You know how you can get so absorbed in a book or movie that when you look up from the screen or the page, the real world doesn't feel real for a while?" Epona nodded sagely as Bit Weasel and Arch exchanged unreadable glances.
"Not really a fiction fan," Arch replied.
"Oh well," Influx shrugged, her typical sharp grin returning, "I pity your dull life. I'm sure every undercover agent has a different way of making it work, but this is how I do it. I come up with a cover story and I meditate on it, filling it out and fleshing it out and replaying the scenes in my head," she tapped her brow with two fingers, "over and over again as if I'm reminiscing on a favorite book or movie. I give myself a new name--Influx to you--and invent exactly what I think, exactly what I feel, until I can bury everything under that character and that story. The emotions are the most important part, I think. The truth is a feeling. You have to keep practicing, working over the story until it feels real."
"That's what I have to do?" Izuku asked Kuma. "Just... meditate on important scenes and feelings from the story I want to substitute for the truth?"
"That was what Influx did," Kuma replied. "Although... I strongly suspect that she had some kind of mental illness that made reality itself... unreal to her at the best of times, although I've no idea what her official diagnosis would have been. That probably helped her immensely, because reality was always less... concrete from her perspective."
"I've already been doing some of this," Izuku said, "by separating Izuku and Izuho and Fossa in my head. It always seemed... like a dangerous thing, though."
"How do you keep track of your real self?" Bit Weasel asked Andros. Influx tilted her head from side to side. "I'm not sure I do."
"A dangerous thing, certainly," Kuma told Izuku, "but probably less dangerous than doing nothing. Regardless of how this war goes, you won't be the same person at the end. You'll have to reinvent and rediscover yourself one way or another." That was, unfortunately, a very good point... and if reconstructing himself meant piecing himself back together from the remains of three disparate characters, so be it.
"Every day, first thing in the morning, I spend a thirty minutes or so putting together who I need to be that day," Influx explained, "forcing myself to feel and think and perceive certain things, mentally reenacting recent memories to suit my narrative."
"Sounds exhausting," Arch muttered.
"Being any kind of spy is exhausting," Influx shrugged. "You must know that from your own experience."
"Too true," Izuku replied, although he could not be heard.
"So," Kuma began as they stepped out of the meeting room, "there's nothing else helpful in this conversation, just details of ancient battle plans nobody will ever care about again."
"I might care," Izuku protested, catching the undertone of sorrow and hoping to squash it dead.
"That's sweet of you, but you have more important things to worry about. So. You didn't meet False Flag. You've never even heard of False Flag. You had nothing to do with Hatsume's escape. What were you actually doing?"
"I... was worrying about whether I did the right thing when I convinced Sone not to kill that Chain soldier at the Battle of UA. I still think it was the right thing to do, but sometimes I worry that maybe my good intentions are making things worse."
"Good. Tell me a story." The landscape twisted and dissolved and reformed. Izuku found himself
standing on a familiar bridge over the Mississippi river on a humid summer night, streetlights gently illuminating the gloom. Kuma took a seat beside the railing and Izuku settled next to her. "Tell me exactly what you did that night. Where you walked. What you were thinking about. Tell me until we both believe it, and then tell me that you are Mihara Izuho, that you've never heard of Midoriya Izuku or the operative Fossa. Tell me until we both believe it."
He told her. He told her again, the tale becoming more detailed and elaborate with each rendition, like adding layers of paint to a canvas.
It was not an arrest per se. He was simply invited into a trailer, shown to a seat, and handed a glass of water. "You don't seem surprised to be here," said The Reader, the only familiar face. Izuho didn't know either of the MPs present. One of them was a captain, tall and thin like a birch tree, the other a sergeant who looked more like a prickly bush than a birch.
Izuho shrugged. "Well, no?" He was not at all surprised to be here. He knew the day was coming. "Shimoda had to answer some questions and since she's... I mean, I'd doubt anyone's loyalty before hers."
"Fair point," hummed the MP captain. "I am Captain Soga, this is The Reader and my compatriot is Sergeant Opalbear." Two code names and a family name...
"We've met," Izuho nodded to The Reader. "He was the one who talked to me when I joined the PLF."
"I'm afraid I don't recall," the lie detector admitted.
"When Angband was liberated," Izuho elaborated.
"Ah, yes... I think I do remember you." Izuho smiled.
"To business, then," began Captain Soga. "Where do your loyalties lie, Corporal Mihara Izuho?"
"With Sergeant Sone, Major Nagant, General Geten, and Grand Commander Shigaraki in that order," Izuho replied. He was Mihara Izuho, and while he might be too idealistic for the war and object to some of the things the PLF had done, at the end of the day there was nothing but loyalty to the army in his heart.
"Have you ever divulged confidential information or delivered sensitive documents of any kind to individuals who were not authorized to see them?"
"No, sir," Izuho shook his head. Izuho would never. The Reader's face was expressionless as a stone bust. He could be detecting nonstop lies and Izuho wouldn't know... or would he? Would they call him out immediately?
Captain Soga continued. "Are you aware of any individuals in the army who you suspect may not be loyal to the cause?"
Izuho tilted his head back, considering. "No, sir. I know some people who are... really too squeamish to be soldiers and very unhappy here, but I don't think any of them are traitors."
"Alright," Soga nodded. "I hear you're something of a common site about camp at night."
This was going to be bad. "I have trouble sleeping," he explained. "I go for walks... The solitude helps me calm down sometimes."
"Two nights ago, did you see anything unusual during your nightly walk?" asked Opalbear.
"Uh... define unusual? I think I may have seen a bat. I ended up being more tired that night than I thought so I didn't end up going too far. I fell asleep against a tree..."
Opalbear cocked her head, narrowing her eyes. "Really? Nothing out of the ordinary at all?"
Fossa had seen plenty out of the ordinary things, but Izuho was not Fossa. Izuho had not seen False Flag or Hatsume or anything else worthy of note. Nothing at all. Izuho had seen a bat. That was it. "I don't think so. Really." Except the way they were looking at him... they knew.
Somebody had seen him doing something. Okay. Think fast... what would they have seen? They couldn't have seen everything or he would have been arrested immediately and much more forcefully. Alright. Izuho went for a walk and then Sergeant Sone came to talk with him, his usually grouchy sergeant seeming unusually friendly as she sought him out in the dark. They walked together into the brush and spoke a bit more as the silver moon peeked between the clouds. Sone was well groomed, as if she hadn't yet turned in for the night at all, although she didn't seem tired, either. Izuho, in contrast, was still covered in dirt and debris and no small amount of blood. His dusty hair smelled strongly of explosives and structure fires. Sone cocked her head in that raptorish way of hers whenever Izuho said something of interest to her. Her eyes caught the moonlight like a cat's.
"Sergeant Sone came to talk to me? That was... I suppose that was weird in retrospect but I was so tired and I just thought she was being nice because she could see I was still a mess from the battle. I hadn't managed to shower yet."
Opalbear steepled her fingers and The Reader looked decidedly unhappy. "Sone claims she did not speak to you that night. Are you calling her a liar?"
Izuho should be baffled by this. Izuho was baffled. This didn't make any sense at all. "What? No... I didn't just imagine talking to her. We talked for like... five, ten minutes I think... It sure seemed like her. Could she have been under a mind control quirk? Or... Wait? What? I'm so confused. Sone says she didn't talk to me but you must have asked her about this already so somebody else must have told you that they saw me talking to Sone--what exactly is going on?"
The three interrogators exchanged glances. "That's what we'd like to know. What exactly did you and Sone talk about?"
"Uh... sorry sir," crap. What had they talked about? Um... the battle a bit. Whether they thought they'd survive the war. The location of prisoners. "I was really tired..." would that be enough to throw them off? No, clearly not. "Uh... the conversations I had that night, we talked a bit about how the Battle of UA went, whether we thought we were going to... survive the war." That was somehow embarrassing to admit aloud. "I talked a bit about the battalion's prisoners, how they hadn't been shipped to camps yet. I don't think I said anything helpful, certainly nothing she didn't already know. I mean... if it was someone pretending to be Sone to try to get information from me I can't imagine I told them anything helpful."
The Reader sighed. "Specifics, Mihara. What exactly did you say about prisoners?"
"I can't remember," and that was true. The way the suppressed terror scrambled his thoughts, Izuho really couldn't remember what he had said during his wanderings two nights previously. "She knew that all the prisoners were in run down vans already. She knew the prisoners were still with the division, hadn't been sent to camps yet. But everybody knows that and that's like... everything I know about prisoners. How could I have possibly told an imposter something useful? Uh, sorry sir..."
"Where were the two of you during this discussion?" Soga asked after a significant pause to digest his borderline-terrified rant.
"In the brush over on the far west side of camp. I can show you exactly if you need me to."
The three exchanged more unreadable glances. Eventually Soga shook her head. "There is no need at the moment. That's all for now then. Do not discuss any of this with anyone for any reason without my permission."
They let him go. Whether his Izuho disguise had saved him or The Reader now knew of Fossa's deception and the MPs just wanted to follow him to see whether he might lead them to additional spies... was impossible to say. There hadn't been a single hint.
Fossa sighed. Well, saving Hatsume had still been worth it. Even if it got him killed, it had been worth it.
Usually he knew if someone were following him, could feel those little pinpricks on the back of his neck, instinct whispering that he was being watched. Now, he felt those pinpricks all the time, and it wasn't clear if someone were watching him all the time or if his paranoia had overwhelmed his senses, ringing false alarms day and night.
He still went out for his nightly wanderings as usual. The stress certainly didn't help him sleep and if he suddenly changed his habits after the interrogation... that would be beyond suspicious; it would be incriminating.
Presuming that he hadn't already incriminated himself, anyway.
Hopefully False Flag would break her promise and not come back. She was liable to get caught if she did. Even if they weren't watching him all the time, the PLF would be foolish not to watch him some of the time given what they already knew about his involvement in what had certainly been an enemy action.
"Still feeling gloomy, you two?" Nishida asked as he joined them at dinner that day, jarring Izuku from his whirlwind of catastrophizing.
Arashiro, too, jolted to attention, almost standing from her bench. "We're fine," Izuho sighed.
"Neither of you has touched your food. We've been here ten minutes," Wakiya pointed out. "You're not still upset about the Battle of UA, are you?"
"No," Arashiro said immediately.
"Not really," Izuho shrugged. "I think it's just... everything getting to us, maybe." Nobody would ask what "everything" was. There was no need to explain, at least not to Nishida and Wakiya, who were not sociopaths for all that they could be cruel or vengeful.
Nishida nodded gravely. "I never dreamed I would see something like this happen to the country. I don't always know what to think."
"I know what to think," Wakiya muttered bitterly. "I think it's all bullshit." He'd received a bulky envelope in the mail that evening. Everyone suspected that it was the inevitable confirmation of his mother's death during the destruction of the district Wakiya had called home, but nobody would ask.
"Yeah, maybe" Arashiro mumbled. Silence fell over the table like sunset. Eventually Izuho forced himself to eat his meal and head out to the firing range. He ought to do something with his time, not just wait for the hammer to fall.