Hey all! Posting this on a Wednesday night to make up for the fact that I was posting a little late the last couple weeks LOL.
I'm back from my vacation, so I'm going to be back to my regular posting schedule which are Thursdays. (Latest anything will be posted will be Fridays)
I hope you all have been enjoying the story so far :) This chapter is a bit of a filler, from a different POV and we get a deeper look into the OC's backgrounds. More will be explained in the next few chapters; I've already outlined everything :)
Anyway enjoy the slightly longer chapter!
Chapter 12:
A large manilla envelope was thrown on the table roughly, making the white-haired villain raise his head. Dabi's eyes narrowed into a glare when his eyes landed on the scrawny man with long black hair standing at the end of the table. He found sick enjoyment in watching the man squirm under his intense glare, staying silent longer for the sole purpose of making him even more uncomfortable.
"What the hell is this?" Dabi finally asked after a few torturous moments, but didn't move to pick up the folder, simply continued to glare at the man fidgeting in front of him.
"It's a full background on that woman you asked me about." He muttered, bravely meeting Dabi's glare with one of his own for a second before looking away quickly.
"Took you long enough." Dabi's drawled lazily, slouching further into his seat.
It had been two days since he had asked for the information on the blue-haired woman. Two days since he had first laid eyes on her, and two days since he last saw her. He had gone back twice to try and see her again, but it seemed as if she had vanished into thin air.
The only heroes he had seen patrolling the area those times was the bird headed kid from UA that got in the way of him killing Hawks and some other nobody. It pissed him off that he couldn't find her anymore. Part of him wondered if he had actually hurt her when he had conjured that wall of flames to corner Toga.
"The files on the entire family were heavily protected by top notch security software. I've never seen this type of security on any other files in their system. I wasn't even able to sleep the last couple days because if I stopped for too long it would undo anything I had already decoded." Skeptic sounded annoyed as he remembered how he had to restart the decoding 3 times.
"Interesting." Dabi finally picked up the manilla envelope, intrigued by what Skeptic had disclosed.
Opening it, he found two files. One was thicker than the other which was strange. Why would his mystery woman have two different files?
Raising any eyebrow, he opened the smaller one first. The first page was a full biography with a picture of a woman who resembled his blue haired woman but instead had forest green hair. But what threw him completely off guard was the name on the file; Yakeo Imai. The name his mystery woman had told Toga was Akari, hero name Inkfinity, and it was the names he had passed on to Skeptic.
At first glance, Yaeko Imai looked identical to Akari except the color of her hair and eyes. After examining the picture closer, he noticed other smaller differences indicating that this was a different woman. He lightly trailed a finger over the woman's picture, feeling slightly intrigued by Yaeko, but not enough to forget about Akari.
"I distinctly remember asking you to find me information on Akari, not this Yaeko woman." Dabi's low voice drawled, his eyes lazily moving from the file to the dark-haired man.
"If you look at the next page, you'll find everything on Akari Imai. Yaeko Imai is her elder sister and trust me you want to read the entire file on all three sisters."
He flipped the page, seeing the woman that had been haunting his thoughts for two whole days. No matter how much Yaeko and Akari looked alike, Yaeko couldn't compare for some unknown reason. Akari Imai was beautiful; her complexion, smile, everything about her was perfect. So much so that Dabi wanted to ruin her, burn her perfect skin to leave scars like the ones he had.
"I suggest skip reading that file and just move on to the bigger one." Skeptic suddenly spoke up, noticing that Dabi was carefully reading through the file.
"Why's that?" Dabi asked, not taking his eyes off the picture of Akari.
"Because that file in your hands, is the bullshit file that is available to all members of the Hero Commission. The bigger file is the real file on the Imai family that was hidden and restricted so it would only be available to a select few on the board."
Dabi reluctantly removed his gaze from Akari's smiling face to look up at Skeptic with a raised eyebrow. "Summarize it for me."
"Why would I when you can read the files yourself?!" Skeptic exclaimed.
"Because I'm too lazy to read it." Dabi drawled lazily.
"Then why the hell did you make me put together these files?!"
"Because I wanted you to."
"Fuck you, you lowlife bastard!"
Dabi's arms lit up with the blue flames of his quirk, automatically making the temperature in the dingy room rise drastically. Skeptic flinched, backing away quickly to get away from the sting of the heat coming from the pissed off fire villain.
"I'm not gonna ask you again. Tell me what you learned from the files."
Skeptic gulped, beads of sweat running down the side of his head as he nodded in confirmation. He waited until Dabi extinguished his blue flames, before stepping closer and taking a seat in front of Dabi.
"Basically, both files state that 4 years ago, Yaeko Imai murdered rising Pro-Hero Justice, from Sapporo. However, according to the file your reading, Justice discovered she was stealing supplies from the hospital and selling it to the black market and went to confront her in her home since they had been close friends. During the confrontation things started to get heated and it ended with her killing him. Supposedly, she did it because she wanted him to keep quiet about what he found out and offered him a partnership so she could continue with her illegal work. After the heroes and cops arrived on scene, they conducted an 'investigation' where the Hero Commission declared that Yaeko Imai was suffering from mental health issues due to having witness her parents' deaths and struggling to raise her sisters on her own."
At first, when Dabi had asked him to put the file together, Skeptic had been annoyed. His annoyance increased when he found a partial file on the woman and saw her picture. She was unnaturally beautiful, as were her sisters, and thought that Dabi had sent him to find information on some woman he wanted to fuck.
But then as he hacked into the Commission's system and put together the file, he realized there was more to them than just a pretty face. As he finished reading through their file, he had found himself feeling pity for the sisters. Their situation and the unfairness of it had increased his hate for hero society and its unfairness.
"Clearly, she wasn't charged and thrown into prison. Otherwise, she would have been one of the prisoners All for One set free a few months ago." Dabi commented, thinking back to when prisoners from prisons all around Japan had been released by All for One.
All for One had done that, not only to increase the Army's numbers, but also to keep the heroes busy with clean up duties. Not to mention Lady Nagant had been one of the prisoners All for One had set his eyes on to get to that annoying UA brat that was friends with his little brother.
"Correct, because of the mental health verdict, it was decided that Yaeko Imai wasn't fit to be sent to Tartarus. Instead, she would be sent to some mental health facility in Tokyo. Of course, Justice's family was completely against the verdict and since they are an influential Pro-Hero family in Sapporo, the Hero Commission struck a deal with them."
Dabi snorted, rolling his eyes. Of course, leave it up to the Hero Commission to strike a deal with a hero's family to decide what happened, he thought darkly.
"Surprise, surprise. Hero Commission allows the heroes to do as they please. God forbid they actually have to make a decision as the leaders of our society." His laugh sent shivers down Skeptic's spine, but he continued speaking as if he hadn't been interrupted.
"The agreement was that the commission had to send Yaeko Imai and her family out of Japan, making sure that they revoked her hero and medical license. They also made the Commission extend the punishment to her sisters as well. Akari's recently attained hero license was also suspended, while Noriko was forbidden from enrolling into any hero course or from becoming a hero."
"And I'm assuming that the real file tells a different story?" Dabi guessed, throwing his legs out so they were spread wide, and his arm thrown over the back of his chair.
"According to the real file, Yaeko Imai murdered Pro-Hero Justice to protect her baby sister, Noriko Imai. He, with the help of his best friend and sidekick, was in the process of trying to rape Noriko, who was 13 at the time. And as it turns out, Justice targeted the young Imai as a form of revenger on Yaeko because he had been raping her since she began working as a sidekick at his agency after graduation. For two years, Yaeko Imai was a victim until she left the agency when she decided to pursue her medical career."
Dabi rubbed the rough, scarred skin of his chin with the hand he was leaning over the back of the chair. He tried to keep his anger in check as he processed the information Skeptic was giving him. Despite not have a problem with murdering people whenever he felt like it, Dabi was completely against rape or abuse on women or children.
"Why wasn't the scumbag reported when he first attacked Yaeko?" He growled out, his hands clenching into fists, smoke emitting from between his fingers.
"Because the best friend/sidekick was Dissoman, his quirk being Dissonance. It's a form of brainwashing in which he can make a person disassociate. According to his personal file- which I included- when he activates his quirk, his tone of voice changes to soothing notes that causes the brain to start disassociating. Once the person affected is under his brainwashing spell, they essentially become his puppets. When they come to, they often don't remember anything that happened during the time they disassociated. In conclusion, Yaeko Imai may have known something was wrong, but she didn't know the exact details, nor could she prove it."
"If they really did all that to Onee-Chan, then why did they go through so much trouble to lie and make it seem like she was the villain?" Toga's cold voice suddenly spoke out.
Both men turned to the doorway of the dark corridor that led to the sleeping chambers deeper within their underground hideout. Toga was standing there in her classic schoolgirl uniform, her eyes hard as they locked on the file in Dabi's hands.
"Turns out, Justice was Madam President's godson." Skeptic answered, tapping the larger file on the table. "His parents being one of her oldest friends from childhood. They all went to school together from nursery all the way to college. And rumor has it that she was in love with Justice's father."
"If she wasn't dead, I'd be tempted to find her and burn her alive." Dabi muttered, his lip curling in disgust.
"If the commission fucked them over so bad, why is Onee-Chan working with the heroes?"
"Because the heroes are holding Yaeko Imai's freedom over their heads. They were desperate for her to work for them because of her quirk, Molecular Manipulation. All three sisters have different variations of that quirk, but Yaeko is the only one that can use it to heal or reconstruct limbs and organs."
"No doubt they wanted to use her to heal heroes like Eraserhead or Best Jeanist, that were hurt the worst and have the strongest quirks." Dabi hummed, looking down at the file thumbing through the files on the three sisters.
"Exactly, and in order to get the sisters to work with them, they struck a deal with Yaeko. They reinstated her hero and medical license, but that wasn't enough to get her to accept. They had to also reinstate Akari's hero license and allow Noriko to enroll in the Hero Course for her to consider it." Skeptic explained.
"They're a bunch of conniving bastards. I'll kill that bastard Dissoman and the rest of the hero commission for my new bestie's big sis." Toga growled, making Skeptic sweat drop.
"You know that wouldn't be such a bad idea. You know, the whole you killing that Dissoman bastard." Dabi murmured after a moment of consideration.
"What do you mean?" Skeptic asked confused.
"The Imai family quirk is pretty special, especially Yaeko's quirk. She could be useful with helping Shigaraki heal from the last battle and recover the missing fingers he lost. It would be easy to get the sisters to switch to our side. We all hate the heroes and the hero commission, and there is no doubt in my mind they must hate them too. If we can convince them that we have the same ideologies and goals, then we can use them as our own spies, the same way that oversized bird infiltrated our camp."
"That might be a little harder than you think." Skeptic reached over to open the bigger file to a part somewhere closer to the end and putting in front of Dabi so he could read it. "Part of the deal Yaeko accepted, was that they were to live in a pro-hero's agency. Not only that, but they're also required to always be escorted by a licensed hero."
Dabi's hand clenched tightly when he read where Akari and Yaeko were living and working. Hawks, the same asshole that lied his way into their group and caused them so much trouble. Granted Dabi had never trusted him, but towards the end he had been hoping the pro was actually on their side. He would have been the perfect weapon against the heroes.
"But that day Akari-Chan was alone." Toga spoke up, a creepy smile lighting up her features. "That was how we were able to have some girl time and bond so easily!"
Dabi thought back to that day, noting that the maniac was right. The blue haired woman had been completely alone when she entered the alley way. No hero had shown up to back her up in the entire time she had been with Toga, and they didn't run into any heroes when they left the scene.
"Should have grabbed her right then and there." Dabi tsked, cursing his mistake.
"See that's what happens when you interfere!" Toga pouted, crossing her arms over her chest belligerently. "Now they're definitely never going to let out alone again."
"Not entirely true." Skeptic spoke up, moving to grab his laptop. "Even with the publics opinion of heroes changing lately, and the increase in work study students, there is still a shortage of heroes available." He typed rapidly on this computer.
"That's probably why Onee-Chan was alone that day!" Toga exclaimed, moving to stand behind Skeptic to look over his shoulder.
"Precisely, that day there was an incident at one of the local banks. Akari Imai and Hawks were the responding heroes, and she was hurt during the arrest. She was walking back to the agency from the hospital when she ran into Toga." Skeptic confirmed, moving the computer to show Dabi the screen.
He watched as one of the street cameras showed Akari arriving to the scene, wings protruding from her back. His eyes didn't move from the screen as she watched her protect the bird headed kid and get hit by a motorcycle the villain had thrown at her. His lips curled in disgust when he saw how Hawks failed to stop the bike from hitting her.
Useless hero, Dabi thought darkly.
"How do we proceed? Should we inform Shigaraki?" Skeptic asked.
"No, All for One and him are working on getting his strength back up after the last fight. Not to mention the production of the quirk enhancing and canceling darts. Without the doc, things have been slow moving. For now, get me a USB with both these files on it." Dabi ordered after a moment of consideration.
"Why?" Skeptic question but moved his laptop back towards him to get started on the villain's request.
"Because it's going to be our bargaining tool. Until I'm ready to use it, we will start surveillance on the sisters to get an idea on their routines."
"Oh, I call dibs on Akari Onee-Chan!" Toga squealed, jumping up and down, her excitement giving Dabi a headache.
"Whatever, just shut the fuck up." He conceded, knowing it be best if the maniac focused on Akari.
Dabi couldn't afford to be distracted even more by the alluring woman. He had already missed once chance at getting his hands on her. That couldn't happen again. He needed to keep a clear head in order to plan accordingly, and so the best course of action would be for him to focus on the other two sisters.
Looking through the file again he noticed that Yaeko and Akari Imai were together at Hawks' agency, but the youngest sister was interning with Endeavor, therefore she was living at his agency. His lips curled into a twisted smile, loving the irony of the fact that he'd be stealing one of his father's prodigies.
"Oi, wacko, take Spinner with you. Akari and Yaeko are together at Hawks' agency. I've got the youngest." He ordered, standing, and moving out of the room without saying anything else.
He didn't bother listening to whatever else she had to say. Instead, he went to his room and grabbed his jacket, a brown wig, and a face mask to help him blend in with the crowd. Once he had everything on, he moved out of his room and stalked through the tunnels to reach the hidden entrance.
Dabi didn't plan on wasting anymore time that they already had. He would make his way to Endeavor's agency to start his surveillance on the youngest Imai sister. Even if Toga and Spinner were able to get close enough to the older sisters, there was no way possible they'd be able to get them alone. As it stood, Dabi was sure Noriko would be his best bet to communicate with the sisters. Not only was she the reason that her sister murdered someone, but she would also be the one least watched.
Yaeko Imai would be the one the Commission kept a closer eye on, as well as Akari since both had their hero licenses. They were also older and the ones more likely to go their own way. They also would be the ones with the most experience. No one would suspect the 17-year-old girl as being an accomplice to the Liberation Army, just like they didn't suspect their other teenage spy.
Dabi sucked his teeth in annoyance as he started the long walk to the city. Having let her slip through his fingers, pissed him off to no end. If he hadn't been so focused about finding Toga, he would have taken advantage of the fact that Akari had been alone.
The damn maniac had been MIA for the past five months, and it had cost him a lot of time and resources to find her. The only reason he had kept looking for her was because of her quirk and abilities all together. Aside from the fact that her quirk made her excellent for stealth missions, she herself was incredibly agile and lethal.
Toga would be a key element in getting closer to the three sisters once they found an opening. And that was only step one. Step two would be to convince them of joining the Paranormal Liberation Front. Step three, the final step, was to bring he heroes down with the intel they would get from them.
So far the best way Dabi could think of to get things started, was to appeal to them by giving them the files. No doubt they would be interested to know exactly how corrupt the Hero Commission was, and how they twisted the events to benefit them. That was assuming they didn't know the full story.
"Doubt it." Dabi muttered to himself.
There was no way they knew the extent of the lies made up to cover up the truth of what happened 4 years ago. Skeptic himself said that the real details of the case were only available to certain members of the board. Even if they tried to get access to the file, they probably would only find the bullshit file with the bare minimum details.
So, for the rest of the week, Dabi, Toga, and Spinner spent their days trailing after the sisters, learning their schedules and routines. It was pretty boring for the most part, especially on Dabi's end since Noriko didn't leave the agency much unless it was to have lunch with her sisters occasionally.
Toga, reluctantly, had to shadow Yaeko since she was the one that worked in a relatively crowded environment. People were always constantly coming in and out of the hospital, so it was easy for her to steal blood to go in undercover. But of course, there was no way for Toga to reach the area of the hospital where she worked. Only Yaeko's patients were allowed near her office, no nurses being needed since Yaeko handled all her workload herself.
That just went to show how powerful her quirk was, making the villains all the more determined to get her on their side. Shigaraki would be ecstatic to have her on their side, and would no doubt make her one of his most valued members of the Army. It was just unfortunate that it made it harder to reach her, because after work she was escorted back to Hawk's agency by her sister and the two sidekicks that shadowed Akari.
Spinner also went through a slow period the first two days since Akari had been in constant meetings with the heroes. On the third day, she started back up on patrols but was never alone long enough for him to get to her. She was always with the bird headed kid from UA and one other sidekick. At the end of the days, her little patrol group would go pick her sister up from the hospital and head back to the agency.
At the end of the days Spinner and Toga would meet up and watch the two from t the building across the agency. They were mindful of Hawks catching them since he had a tendency of coming in from his rooftop office balcony. Their surveillance would only last a couple hours, since the sisters had fallen into a routine of training for a couple hours before returning to their apartment.
The villains didn't seem to be catching a break until finally, on one of the days the sisters had lunch together, Toga went in undercover as a nurse whose blood she stole. She made it into the break room where they were having their lunch and overheard their conversation. They were talking about how Noriko had been invited to go out with Class 3A, making it the perfect opportunity for them to get to her.
Unfortunately, the teenager decided to cancel last minute, having been exhausted from the extra trainings she was having. It pissed Dabi to the point where he almost torched his two partners. It wasn't until almost a week and a half later that the villains would get their chance at getting one of the sisters alone.