"Anyway, I really can't wait 'till the war is over," an excitable private in line ahead of him
chattered. "They never cook the rice right here."
"I thought it was pretty good," Izuho disagreed. "Am I just really bad at making rice?" The quality of food had noticeably decreased since Camie died. She had been so good at acquiring whatever they needed. Izuku was glad to leave the battalion soon. The new clerk clearly didn't know what he was doing and it was going to be rough here for a while.
"Yeah, probably," his conversation partner continued. Izuho didn't even know the young man's name but it seemed polite to reply. The enthusiasm was a bit infectious, too. The end of the war... what would Izuho do if he lived to the end of the war?
"Soon as the war is over... rice... and then back to the sea for a long vacation. I really do miss sailing in the harbor this time of year."
Fossa stopped himself from jerking in place as he registered what had been said. That was False Flag's code phrase. Carefully casual, hopefully not too carefully, he replied, "I've only been once, and I wish I'd remembered a heavier coat."
"Yeah, no kidding. Here! This is the place I love to go."
False Flag handed him what was almost certainly a legitimate business card, but she slipped a small box into his hand at the same time.
"Huh. Cool," Izuho tucked the box and card into his pocket. "Maybe... yeah, when the war's over I'll look them up."
"Maybe I'll see you there," False Flag grinned and continued chattering inanely.
Presumably she had not come all this way just to see Fossa. The journey into enemy territory was too long and too risky to make for such a small purpose, but what she did after handing off materials to him remained a mystery.
Fossa spent the entirety of lunch obsessing about what might be in the tiny box. Izuho spent the entirety of lunch talking excitedly with his squad about their impending transfer. In just a few more days they would all be Citadel guards.
"I hear they have actual permanent residences. Not just bunks, like we'll have almost apartments," Wakiya tried to force a smile onto his face as he spoke, but confirmation of his mother's death still weighed on him.
"A real home would be really nice," Izuho agreed.
"And we get a raise," Shimoda grinned. "We're moving up in the world."
"Well, our performance has been quite exceptional on the field," Sone, joining them for once, preened. "We all deserve it."
"I guess," Arashiro smiled wanly. Even Wakiya was more cheerful than her.
"I do look forward to a bit of stability," Nishida hummed. "My back is not fond of all this forest floor sleeping. You young people," he waved at them vaguely, and continued with just a hint of a twinkle in his eyes, "wouldn't understand."
"I'm not that much younger than you," Sone replied dryly.
"You know, the ground is uncomfortable no matter how old you are," Izuho pointed out. "We can all be happy to get real beds again."
The flesh colored--all the better for hiding in a hand--box contained a few tiny pieces of electronics. The business card was made to pull apart revealing secret text explaining the devices and their purposes. The first device was a disguised flash drive loaded with malicious software that would allow the second device to hijack surveillance equipment of infected systems and either black out data or loop the last few minutes of recordings. Someone had spent a long time getting those ready for him. The third device was an unspeakably tiny camera.
Fossa licked his lips to keep from drooling. Oh the sheer amount of damage he could do with these
items when they got to the Citadel, provided that he managed to make contact with Flag or another agent to get stolen information back to the Chain... That wasn't something he had control over, not really.
"Emergency dead drop location: under the red-gray rock in the gutter on the north east corner of the training equipment storage building roof on the western parade grounds. No guaranteed pickup." In other words, leaving information or a message there would be a huge risk as there was no guarantee that another agent would check in a timely manner. Anything left there might also get wet, of course. Coming up with a reason to be on the roof would be easy enough. He'd just have to take up playing with a baseball... that he would inevitably throw onto the roof by mistake. He'd best take up that habit now if he wanted it to be convincing, and perhaps lose it on another roof or two for good measure.
Four days and they would be transferred to the Citadel. This would be his squad's last battle. Probably. As far as final battles went, it was interesting enough. Some combination of support equipment and quirks had jammed wireless communications across the entire city.
Fossa was beholden to nobody, free to roam across the rooftops of Bandomia and wreak what havoc he pleased, no danger of Sone interrupting by demanding he come down from his perch.
Perhaps the freedom made him careless.
The battlefront drifted steadily away. Fossa had selected the top floor of a business complex under construction for his perch. This half-finished scrap heap had remained abandoned and untouched since the war began and construction resources dried up. It had served him well, but now it was time to move along.
The spy slipped down the stairs, carefully checking each dusty, unfinished floor--and suddenly found Major Nagant.
Izuho blinked. "Major?"
"So it was you all along," Nagant said, fixing her rifle on him.
Izuho raised his hands immediately, dropping his own rifle as he did so. "Major? What?"
"Don't screw with me, kid," Nagant glowered at him. "I'm the best sniper this half of the globe. I saw someone in our uniform shoot one of our own from here," she jerked a thumb upwards to indicate the room where Fossa had lurked. Well. This was unfortunate. "And I know you're the only one here, and you're running. Fleeing, guiltily." He was going to be transferred to a spy's dream post in four days... and at the last possible moment he blew it.
"I'm not--it wasn't on purpose," Izuho whimpered. "I screwed up! I was aiming for the Chain but the shot was too hard and I missed and I killed one of ours and I can't believe it and I was... I was going to report it! I--just didn't want everyone to know." There were more than enough emotions roiling through his body--self-loathing chief among them--to call up some crocodile tears for the performance.
Nagant sniffed, striding towards him and grabbing him by the hair. She really liked doing that, didn't she? Creep. "Pathetic. I almost believe you, but we'll let the truth quirks sort it out."
She pushed him between the shoulder blades, forcing him towards the door, one hand still in his hair.
Fossa had come much too far for things to end like this. He might fool the truth quirks again, but that wouldn't matter. Even if the PLF believed that this was an accident, Izuho would be black listed forever for killing one of their own. How could he be so stupid? How had he missed Nagant watching him? He was better than this! Damn it.
Wait. What was wrong with him? Why was he wallowing in misery and castigating himself when a golden opportunity to get exactly what he wanted had just fallen at his feet? The only solution to the situation was to pull a page straight from his fantasies.
Nagant looked at Fossa and saw a foolish, sobbing, skinny kid with an exceptionally delicate and pretty face. She'd even come alone, her security detail still not replaced after War Dog's rampage. Communications were down. Chances were good nobody even knew where Nagant was right now. What the hell was Fossa thinking? Trying to fool the truth quirks and slink away in disgrace would be beyond idiotic. This wasn't the time for damage control. This was the time for revenge.
Fossa pulled the knife tucked into his sleeve, tip carefully pointed backwards, and stabbed Nagant, putting all his strength behind the blade so that it slid messily through her body armor and into her stomach. She shrieked, her grip on him slackening enough for Fossa to sidestep and kick at her legs.
She was too quick. "You little bastard," she hissed, drawing a knife of her own and lunging for him. "Almost had me fooled! Filthy little demon!"
Ducks, weaves, false lunges, the glimmering knife blurring into a silver streak as it carved abortive arcs towards his vulnerable flesh.
Even bleeding from a stab wound, Nagant was easily as skilled, agile, and fast as Stain and Izuku had not been a match for Stain, even with Kesagiri Man's help, but that had been a long time ago. Fossa was better now than Izuku had been then and for all that the spy could not land a blow on her, neither could Nagant land a blow on him.
Blood dripped from Nagant's wound as Fossa backed away. The spy carefully managed his steps so that he led his more aggressive opponent in a circle across the partially finished room, somehow managing not to slide on the rebar or abandoned nails or fall into one of the sections of unfinished flooring. "You think you can wait me out?" Nagant hissed and lunged with such sudden speed and ferocity that it was all Fossa could do to avoid taking a knife through the throat. He could not avoid taking a knife straight through his wrist, the blade piercing between the bones. Nagant grinned as Fossa grit his teeth against an agonized scream. She kept on grinning right up until the spy twisted his wrist in an instinctual arc he had never before felt his body inclined to practice and ripped the blade, still impaled through his arm, right out of the major's hand. He would not have been able to consciously perform that hideously painful maneuver, but Switcher provided the instinct; no thought was necessary.
Nagant jumped a meter back and drew another weapon in a moment, but that moment was long enough for Fossa to throw his original knife at her, the blade slicing her lightly armored bicep. He let instinct control him again as he pulled Nagant's blood-drenched knife from his wrist with a single, smooth stroke, holding it confidently and hoping adrenaline would quiet the agony in his arm quickly. He couldn't afford the distracting, ice-fire throb with every beat of his heart. How
was she fighting so easily with a hole in her stomach? Maybe she was just crazy. Crazy people reacted to pain in unpredictable ways.
Nagant's eyes flew wide. She might be thinking something similar about crazy people if he read that expression correctly. "Who the hell are you?" the major demanded, backing off to get distance.
Oh no she didn't.
Fossa lunged for his enemy, every bit of rage at his own pain and at her past atrocities driving his speed and fueling his strength. He had no chance if this turned into a fight at a distance. She'd shoot him dead in an instant, or maybe just cripple him so he could be interrogated later. Not an option. Only one of them was leaving this building alive and it was going to be Fossa.
They were both losing blood now and striking superficial cuts every few seconds, but Nagant was still striking more. Fossa wasn't going to win like this--all that rage bled in vain--and they both knew it. Nagant grinned, showing all her teeth.
In this game, defeat was inevitable. The spy would have to change the rules then, make a new game. This was a construction site, after all... and False Flag had taught him well.
Fossa feinted forward, dropped his knife, skidded along the ground a fair distance, swept a piece of rusty rebar into his hand, and enjoyed the "oh crap" expression on Nagant's face in the instant before he whipped the metal bar's whistling end into her head. "Argh," she gasped, stepping backwards, off balance.
He didn't let her recover. "That's for that poor kid at Hosu!" he snarled, striking her across the neck. "That's for Utsushimi Camie!" Something cracked in her skull. "This is for everything else!" It was cliche. It had definitely been said in action movies but, god, the power, the delicious vindication it gave him to turn those once unreachable fantasies of revenge into reality. "Who's helpless now?" he demanded. "Who's forced to watch you murder teenage prisoners now?" That didn't really make sense, but it was his spirit that mattered and his spirit was on fire. He didn't need to make sense in the same way that somebody driving a tank on the freeway didn't need to make sense. The words didn't matter. The bloody rebar did.
The fight had gone out of Nagant some time ago. Fossa got a hold of himself forcibly, like muzzling a rampaging bear. The rage faded to emptiness as it so often did, exhaustion filling the empty spaces anger left behind. He retrieved the major's abandoned knife, pushed her head forward and slit Nagant's throat methodically, feeling nothing at all as the blade scraped bone and Fossa's blood on the edge mingled with the blood of his foe. There might be something poetic hidden in that gore.
In the distance quirks, gunfire, and artillery explosions carried on. Izuku looked upon the woman he had killed and tried to remember how many it had been now. Ten? Twenty? He'd lost count, hadn't he? That should be horrifying. But he wasn't capable of feeling it right now and later, well... He'd wanted Nagant dead for so long. Would Fossa be proud of this? Should he be proud of this? It was an impressive kill. And she had it coming as much as anybody in the PLF. Somebody had to do it.
Who was he trying to convince? He'd had these thoughts, crossed this line, when Fossa killed Misaki. There wasn't time to go through the whole mental dance again. He was still bleeding, wasn't he? A handkerchief would have to do to staunch it for now. He hissed as he clumsily tightened the binding--god that hurt with the adrenaline wearing off.
He had two options for dealing with the body, globe her and toss her into the storm drain system or burn down the building around her corpse. The former was more convenient, although the amount of flammable Styrofoam tossed in heaps around this partially finished floor put the second option on the table.
Outside, the tide had turned. The PLF was retreating, although it might be a Pyrrhic victory for the Chain. There was no time to set a fire. Storm drains it was.
"Did you see Major Nagant during the battle?" the MP asked. They hadn't even bothered to bring in The Reader for this. They didn't suspect anything at all. They were asking the same question of all the PLF's spotters and snipers as they tried to ascertain the major's fate. It was almost amusing. They'd accepted his explanation for his injuries--a fight with a Chain operative who had fled-- without any questions at all.
"Yes sir, several times."
"When was the last time you saw her?"
"I was in a building under construction, trying to get a clear shot on the Chain. I saw Major Nagant in the street down below, probably moving to a new sniper nest."
"Do you know what may have happened to her after that?"
"I mean, I presume she's either dead or a prisoner but other than that I've no idea, sorry, sir." "Thank you, Mihara. Dismissed."
Fossa preened. Not only had he taken down the PLF's most menacing sniper single-handedly, he'd gotten away with everything. Usually a spy would have to burn their cover to make a move like that. Fossa found it all cathartic. Revenge soothed him, dousing some of the uncontrollable fire that had blazed through him demanding blood for blood. Fossa could make peace with Camie's death, and with his own inevitable demise, in the primordial law of equal exchange.
Izuku resigned himself to the horror his life had become. How had he gone from marathoning All Might documentaries and wearing a towel cape around his house to assassinating officers on the battlefield and losing track of how many people he had killed with his own two hands? Revenge soothed him not at all. He still raged for Camie and raged at Nagant. What good did shedding blood do? Taking Nagant's life, or Misaki's or even Geten's or Shigaraki's would not return the lives of their victims, so what was the point? Revenge was an empty act, hollow in the center like a rotting pumpkin. But even Izuku couldn't find it in himself to regret what he had done. What he had become, certainly. What he had done, never.
Meanwhile, Izuho obliviously dreamed about the end of the war and wondered whether Major Nagant had been killed or taken prisoner.
Four days later the spy found himself on a bus bound for the Citadel like nothing had ever happened.