I don't own One Punch Man, nor do I own My Hero Academia. Each Franchise i owned by their respective owner..
...
Nezu tapped the edge of the desk with a certain rhythm. He made a short work of the UA staff that remained in the school grounds by sending them somewhere else..
Well, the word 'sending' is a bit of an understatement. Shipping is much more suitable to the occasion. The faculty is now nothing more than a vacant lot, with no one else inhabiting it but him.
His plan was dubious, yet he hardly cared about that. As long as everything goes smoothly and neatly, it's all that mattered.
The clock above him ticked, and with every second, he waited, and waited, just for the right time to execute the plan.
But then...
There was a knock at the other side of the room, from the door in front of him. His ear picked up what seemed to be two different identified footsteps from the other end. He stood up, as he raised his voice, "Explain yourselves."
The door slid forward in an abrupt manner, revealing the frame of an unlikely figure.
A man in tad black shirt, a white scarf over his collar, and those dry, empty eyes.
"Not expecting to see me, I know." Aizawa cut through his words, "I see that you've given the other staff members the same treatment as I did."
Hmph.
Nezu didn't utter a single word. Although, he knew that Aizawa didn't come here alone.
"Thinking of a way to scurry yourself out of this, aren't you?" Aizawa spoke, his tone lacing with poison, his feet taking the steps forward.
Nezu cleared his throat, his eyes narrowed for a moment, "I see. You've escaped from the clutches of the Commission. I wonder what methods did you use to break yourself free from their grip."
"Nothing too unconventional," Aizawa pulled the chair from the other side of Nezu's seat back, before sitting on it, "maybe something to do with an external party."
"Someone rescued you?"
"You can say that." Aizawa placed both of his hands on the desk, "Now that we got the pleasantries out of the way, I have to ask...What sort of deal did they strike with you to the point that you were willing to put your own students under the crossfire?"
"I have my own reasons, and I know very well that you will not understand, of all people."
"I know the reasons, I just want to hear it from you myself." Aizawa gripped the edge of the table, "To increase the manpower of the Commission, to maintain peace, am I right?"
Nezu remained static.
"You daft rat with a short circuit for a brain.." He muttered, as he continued, "There's more to this scheme than you know." He said as he reached for something underneath his pockets, before tossing it into the desk, "This."
A miniature, circular device with sharp edges at the end, along with an eliptical red glass at the central area.
"What is...?"
"You don't know?" Aizawa's lips contorted unpleasantly, "You aren't as intelligent as your quirk suggests."
Nezu gestured for him to continue.
"It's a device that can be traced back to as early as the 90s." Aizawa replied, "Precisely, around the height of the cold war."
The cold war? Nezu hummed.
"I see," Nezu leaned forward, "Implying that this has anything to do with the subject at hand."
Ignoring him, he continued, "Do you know anything about the competition that happened at the heat of the cold war? How the Soviets and the United States competed against each other?"
"Yes, I'm well aware of this historical fact, but I don't see the correlation-"
"This device is the center of it all." Aizawa pointed at the miniature device on the desk.
Nezu raised his brow, "Yet I've never heard of this 'device'."
"The company that manufactured this has silenced any form of discussion regarding the technology or their past malpractices and that's what kickstarted the whole hero business into the picture." Aizawa explained.
"And...what is your source regarding this supposedly 'confidential' information?" Nezu asked.
"Kishimoto himself, the man that struck the deal with you."
"Kishimoto-?"
"He's out of the office, and so is Sitch." Aizawa revealed, "And you, my endeared rat peer, has been duped into giving your students away so that they could be exploited for purposes that you don't know of yet."
Nezu stayed quiet for a moment, seemingly in deep thought, his hands clasped. Then, after a good while, he opened his mouth to speak, "And this...device.."
"It's a device used to accelerate the process of any form of mutation through surgery." Aizawa replied, "Though, back then, it was used to accelerate the genetic engineering of the quirk factors that a human body has, but now, they're utilising it in order to accelerate the monsterization of the human body through the amplification of the desire and the obsession of an individual to a marginal amount. Are you familiar with the limiter theory?"
Nezu stayed silent, though his stoic exterior hardly wavered.
"There you go." He tapped the desk aggressively, "Call off the stunt that you're pulling right now. We need the full force of our staff members in order to repel the looming threat that is invading our domitory grounds, ranging from Class 1-A to Class 1-C."
"The other two are not involved." Nezu replied, "Class 1-A is our most valuable asset at the moment, and I'm afraid...I can't call off the attack."
Aizawa's brow furrowed, "You really want to be persistent about this operation of yours? Even at the expense of your student's lives?"
Nezu's lips stretched upwards, "I have my own reasons."
Before Aizawa could get another word at him, the ceiling began to rumble. Stunned, he stood up from his seat, "What is the meaning of this..?"
"Aizawa, Aizawa," Nezu chuckled, "You really think I went along with this plan because of those superficial intents that you mentioned?"
"Granted, I could've told you from the start and cease with the play pretend," Nezu chuckled as he went to his feet, "But thank you all the same for the invaluable intel that you have provided me."
"You mean you knew about the.."
"Yep," Nezu turned his back, "I suspected that someone as perceptive as you could've picked on that from the start, but I guess I was mistaken."
Then, the glass in front of him shattered, revealing a hovering helicopter outside, "See you on the other side, Aizawa-san." He hopped over to the side of the helicopter, as it soared to the sky above.
Aizawa ran to the edge of the room, standing over the shards of broken glass.
"Aizawa!"
He heard a voice from behind.
Aizawa turned around, only to see Kishimoto scurrying over to him, "Kishimoto!"
"Looks like you were fooled as much as I was." Kishimoto remarked, "No time to explain, we have to jump."
"And risk ourselves getting splattered on the pavement below?!" Aizawa yelled back.
"Don't worry, I have just the right quirk to regulate the force behind the inevitable impact." An aura flickered from his body, "As long as you stay close, nothing will happen to the either of us..hopefully."
"I'll take what I can get." Aizawa sighed, as Kishimoto wrapped his arms around his chest.
But before they could dive into the ground, an array of explosives erupted from their rear side, and causing Kishimoto to lose the balance in his footings, and slipped over the ledge, falling over along with Aizawa, "Shit!"
Both of them were rapidly tumbling down the air, multiple debris following suit, each of them colliding against Kishimoto's body, and by an extension, Aizawa's as well.
In a split second, Kishimoto could see the dim light emitted by the moon. But before he could bask in the view any longer, a chunk of collosal rubble obscured the sight of the moon, as it hastily made it's way to the area where he was falling.
He knew it was over.
When he felt a blunt object piercing through his torso,
He knew all along,
that this would be his burial ground.
Though he can't speak for Aizawa.
...
"You want my help." Aizawa said, untying the last of the ropes binding him, "With what?"
"Let's just say that I've been... kicked out of the office. Unjustifiably so." Kishimoto replied, "And so was Sitch."
"Serves you right," Aizawa tossed the ropes away, "And you want me to assist you in securing your position back?"
"No." Kishimoto replied, "If I wanted that, I could've just asked you a few days earlier."
"Then what do you want?" Aizawa pressed once again, "You know, I'm not being held by anything, so you don't have any leverage against me."
"You think I'm not aware of that?" Kishimoto chuckled to himself, "Our interests aligns with each other, so there's no reason to believe that we will be at odds anytime soon."
"Elaborate." Aizawa demanded.
Kishimoto cleared his throat, as he continued, "I had a conversation earlier with the new director. I admit, it was an oversight on my part. I could've proceeded with my investigation without indirectly letting him know, I just...had faith that I could convince him, but now that I failed.."
"Stop stalling and get to the point."
Kishimoto stopped short, collecting himself, before replying, "A few days prior, Sitch was said to be in a 'temporary absence', as McCoy has cunningly stated. I, of course, didn't buy it right off the bat. It wasn't like him to go awol on such an important meeting. Then, there's also the recent 'disturbances' at certain school grounds. I thought that might had something to do with our plan, but as far as I remember, the plan wasn't in effect at that time, not yet at least. I conducted an investigation with a team of my choosing behind the executives back, but they didn't take it very well. Once I found out that Sitch has been removed from his position as the director, they kicked and blacklisted me."
"And what does this investigation entail, exactly?" Aizawa asked.
"Abduction. Mass abduction, and not just on the UA grounds," Kishimoto stepped closer, his eyes glooming with dread, "Hero schools all over Japan, THAT'S what he's targeting."
"As if that's any different from your initial plan, but enlighten me on the details." Aizawa said.
Kishimoto took a deep breath, before he began again, "They formed a partnership with the Yaoyorozu Corps, don't know the full details, but they're trying to replicate...something. A relic from the past if you can call it that."
"The Yaoyorozu's are involved.." Aizawa muttered, "They haven't shown up on our radar for so long, said to be dormant for some time."
"That's the thing, they're forging this partnership and it went under my nose all this time."
"All this time? You mean, even when Sitch was on the office.."
"McCoy." Kishimoto replied, "He was one of our, no, Sitch's most trusted workers, before he eventually usurped his position and became the director, and may I add, unrightly so. He's the main culprit behind this partnership. Never even bothered to discuss it with the two of us, went on his way to do a backstreet and the deed is done." He let out a sigh as he finished.
Aizawa hummed, as he asked again, "Tell me more about this relic."
Kishimoto pulled something from his pocket, revealing what appears to be a miniature device, roughly the size of his pinky nails, "This."
"...'This', as if that explained everything." Aizawa deadpanned.
"Are you familiar with the Dark Age of The Quirks?"
"...maybe, just glimpses of it. History bores me." Aizawa bluntly stated, "To narrow it down, the story goes like this: World War Two breaks out, and after the damages were done, years later, countries all over the world were adamant on trying to compete against each other, mainly in the Quirked Population department."
"Yes, and this relic," To illustrate his point, his lifted the device above his chest, "Is the center of it all."
"...Huh. Look, I know I'm not a bookworm, but I don't recall that ever appearing in the textbooks." Aizawa raised his brow.
Kishimoto then explained, "It may not have been recorded on a conventional textbook, but...it did exist."
"Then how come.."
"Shigaraki Hisashi." Kishimoto said the name like it was a bad omen.
"Am I supposed to know who he is?"
"You should've, if the circumstances called for it, but.." Kishimoto sighed, "He was the central figure of the era. Long forgotten, but he was there."
"That still doesn't explain about who he is." Aizawa inquired again, "Who is Shigaraki Hisashi?"
"He-"
...
"Kishimoto!" The voice caused his senses to jostle, as the mist began to clear, his surroundings began to materialise in his sight.
He groggily jerked his arms around, only to hear an eerie rattle coming out of it.
He took a peek on the current condition of his body, only to find that..
Oh.
Oh damn, was he in a bad shape.
Aizawa looked concerned as well. How uncharacteristically of him to do so.
"Hey." Kishimoto uttered the word in a raspy voice, but he felt something being torn underneath his shirt.
"Don't move," Aizawa said, his goggles covering his eyes, "I had to deal with a few nuisances. They're out of our hair now, so you should stay put and wait until the ambulance arrives."
"The ambulance, huh?" Weird. For such a minor injury, he shouldn't be laying on a-
Oh.
His eyes landed on the huge wound smearing with blood and torn flesh in his ribcage, "Oh."
"Oh indeed." Aizawa chimed in, "You fell through a tree trunk. Your quirk couldn't regulate the force behind your fall, so it sliced you."
"I can see that. But damn, the pain didn't register till now." He tried to move, but couldn't due to the flesh wound straining him down. Taking a heavy breath, he settled his head into the ground, waiting for the ambulance's arrival.
"You waited on me."
"Hm?"
"I said you waited on me." Kishimoto repeated, "That was unexpected. Even for you."
"Well, it's not like I was doing it out of the generosity of my heart." Aizawa stated, "You're my only means of intel."
"Right." Kishimoto rolled his eyes.
"Hey," Aizawa said again, "You got any idea why the rat blew the entire faculty away?"
"Could be a method to cover up his tracks," Kishimoto replied, "Make it seem like everyone in that building died, him included, and in that same day, one of their dormitory buildings got snuffed out by a couple of ingrates hired by the Commission, making it seem like an attack staged by a party from the villain spectrum. An apt strategy, I'll give him that."
Aizawa shrugged, "Dunno, sounds like something that you would pull had it been you that was running things around in the office."
"Can it, vagrant Jesus."
Aizawa dismissively turned his eyes away in response.
Then, they can hear a siren wailing from a good miles away from their area.
"Yep. That's my cue." Somehow forgetting that he was mortally wounded, he tried to stand up on his own, only to rip the wound even wider, "Ow!"
"Are you fucking daft?" Aizawa questioned, genuinely baffled, "Did you somehow forget about the huge gaping hole on your fucking ribcage?"
"Sorry. Didn't cross my mind."
"Idiot."
As the ambulance closed the distance between them, Aizawa scooped the man up and escorted him into the back of the ambulance, to which the paramedics responded tentatively, helping him up into the back of the ambulance.
Aizawa took a last glance at the former vice director of the Hero Public Safety Commission.
With a smile, he said, "Go get those sons of bitches." Then, he settled into the gurney.
Aizawa simply flipped him off, before sprinting into the other direction. As Aizawa increased the speed behind his advances, one last thought occurred in his mind.
Shigaraki Hisashi, hm?