He stood in the darkened halls of UA. It was the perfect set up, with the Cultural Festival,the whole academy was open to the public! The perfect time for them to strike! A plan that could only have been crafted by Japan's favorite ne'er-do-well, the Gentle Criminal! He found himself laughing, even as he directed the start of this, their latest video.
"Lights!" With a wave of his arm, the lights flipped on. "Cameras!" He turned to look at his partner in crime, La Brava! She was holding a camera and gave him a thumbs up.
"We're one hundred percent green, babe!" Excellent! This would be the one video that would shoot them into the stratosphere! Nothing and no one could stop them today! He slapped his face a bit to get himself into character, and then…!
"Omigosh, it's the Gentle Criminal!" The speaker that stumbled upon the two was some green haired student. Gentle couldn't tell which class they were in, because instead of wearing the traditional UA uniform, they appeared to be dressed like a maid.
"Why are you wearing that ridiculous costume?" Gentle asked, curious about what he was looking at. "Did you lose a bet or something?"
"Err… no. Our class is doing a Maid Cafe and Host Club for the UA Cultural Festival." The youth answered, as if that explained everything. They probably had an imbalance of boys versus girls in their class and needed to make do.
"And which class would that be, Young Man?" Gentle asked, looking over to his producer who gave him another thumbs up. They were still recording, excellent! Though, he wasn't certain that fighting some General Education twerp would make for a good video.
"Oh! I'm Izuku Midoriya! I'm in the Hero Course! Class 1-A!" He wasn't just dealing with some twerp, then! This was the cream of the crop of this school!
"Well then, Izuku Midoriya! Dare you face the Gentle Criminal?" He looked over the teenager, using every bit of theatricality on him. His particular class had been in the news for many, many different adventures over the last couple months. This would make for a fantastic video!
"... uhm… do I have too?" The young man asked. "On one hand, I'm kinda wearing a full length dress and I've yet to cover the whole fighting in disguise thing. And on the other hand! I'm a huge fan! I'm your 856th subscriber on ViewTube! I've watched every video you put out! Despite calling yourself the Gentle Criminal, you're not a villain at all!"
This was not what Gentle expected, he expected a hero student to declare war on himself and his partner, but here he was having the young man tell him all his videos back and that he got it! He understood that the Gentle Criminal was a satirist, shining a beacon on the absurdity of the world they live in.
"I did not expect a Hero student to be a fan of my particular oeuvre. I find it absolutely fascinating that instead of fighting you suggest what? That La Brava and I make our escape?" It did mean not fighting a hero student, especially if they get beaten and especially if the fight calls down any other students, or worse, their teachers.
"Well, this is the World Famous UA Cultural Festival. You could do a travel vlog. I could even show you around!" Now that had potential! A travel vlog of the Cultural Festival, interviewing students and their teachers… it was an untapped gold mine and even better, despite calling himself the Gentle Criminal, he wasn't some supervillain with a hundred warrants… "I… might be able to get the Principal to agree to it, he's easily convinced if he thinks it can help the school."
That settles it! "I'll do it!" And that was how Izuku Midoriya, the Gentle Criminal, and La Brava found themselves in Principal Nedzu's office. The small furry principal was drinking from his cup of tea before smiling at Izuku.
"I think it's a wonderful idea for Mr Tobita' and Ms Aiba to do a video on the Cultural Festival. I too enjoy their videos very much and would love for a… different outlook of the school to be out there." He pointedly ignored the ghastly look that the ViewTube team sent at him for using their real, actual names.
"The POV of someone from… across the lane as it were?" Gentle asked, only to smile when the principal nodded.
"Of course, I've watched enough of your videos to know what it is you do. You point out the absurdities in our society. The absolute worst you've done is made heroes look like fools." Nedzu nodded along. "I don't know if you noticed, but every hero you've encountered has improved for the better. The meek become more assertive, the arrogant humble, and so forth."
"High praise coming from you, Mr Principal."
"I'll personally escort you through the Festival, to keep any of our teachers, visiting heroes, or our precocious students from bothering the two of you." Nedzu looked over the Izuku. "Run along, Mister Midoriya. I'm sure you're needed back at the cafe 1-A is running."
Izuku… didn't need to be told twice! And he wasn't the only one headed back to the Festival proper.
"Alright, Babe! We're rolling live now!" La Brava exclaimed as their live stream was set up. They took the mossheaded boychild's advice to heart and we're doing a live stream travel vlog! It was also a chance to rake in some much needed donations as well!
"Greetings, dear viewers, it is I! The Gentle Criminal, here and live at the UA Cultural Festival. I am taking a much needed break from my nefarious machinations and I am instead seeing what the future of heroism, nay, our nation is looking like!" With a sweep of his cape, he led La Brava down the venue.
Many of the classes in the various years had put up stands of various types, serving food and drink! Okonomiyaki, takoyaki, yakitori, and one enterprising class was serving grilled eel over rice!
"Truly, I am at a loss of which to try first!" There was boba tea and cola slushie and hand pulled cotton candy! And that didn't even include all the various games to be had! To think that he wanted to wreck this delightfully kitsch carnival, alas all good things must come to an end as Gentle and Brava were sharing a slushier they were confronted by one of the patrolling teachers, Power Loader.
"What do you think you're doing here?" He asked, looking over the pair of ne'er-do-wells.
"Enjoying the festival, just like anyone else, Hero." Gentle replied as Brava finished up their drink.
"I mean how did you get in here?" The professional hero asked through gritted teeth.
"The same as anyone else." The pair pulled out their tickets. "Tickets, bought and paid for. And you know that means, don't you Power Loader?" He did, but… no, this was impossible! It couldn't be happening…
"No… no!"
"Oh yes, hero! We… are customers and everyone knows that in Hospitality… the customer is king!" Gentle ended up cackling. It was too perfect and the donations we're rolling in!
Unfortunately… this was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. Power Loader, over the school year, had found himself under no small amount of stress. And who could blame him? He was teaching a once in a generation genius who treated all rational safety protocols as mere guidelines she was fit to ignore!
The stress piled up and up until finally something inside him snapped, fairly audibly. "Never! Not in the face of Armageddon! You might have won this round, Gentle Criminal! But one day! Perhaps not tomorrow or not even next week! You will slip up and I will be there to clean up the pieces and declare victory!"
He grabbed one of the cola slushies for sale, drank deeply from the straw before roaring out in the pain from the inevitable brain freeze and took off down the venue, promising righteous vengeance!
"Hey, check it out. I think you just made your first arch nemesis! We're really moving up in the world!" La Brava told Gentle, who was so happy he was crying. His first arch rival! He couldn't be happier!
Elsewhere, at the Cultural Festival, in the back office of 1-As host club, Minoru Mineta was hosting a very particular guest. Honestly, he was surprised she came on to him! Maybe being a hero was working!
"I am not sure how it is so, that a wretched pagan beast such as yourself can task me…" who knew Ibara Shiozaki had it in her! "But you, Mineta, have lit a fire inside me."
Currently, he found himself pressed against the wall, the Faithful Heroine looming over him. "A sinful fire of desire, tempted as I am much like even and her forbidden fruit!" He couldn't understand any of it, but this was the first time a girl had shown interest in him, of all people.
"Well, Shiozaki, I'll have you know, I'm.. uh… I'm a pretty tasty snack if I do say so myself." He knew how cringe it sounded, but he had no practice with flirting save for a couple of dating Sims he played in middle school.
"I'm beside myself, Mineta! I should be repulsed, but devil that you are I can't help find myself drawn to you!" Ibara seemed beside herself, unable to reconcile who she wished to be versus what she was.
"Ain't it written somewhere to be fruitful and multiply, Shiozaki?" Minoru said, assuaging Ibara's fears. "Maybe all a poor sinner like me needs to see the light is a being as pure as you?" He couldn't believe this was working! He was excited, Izuku was right! He didn't have to be himself, he just had to be better!
Nothing could ruin this moment!
Until Denki Kaminari opened the room to his back office, filling it with light. Both Minoru and Ibara turned to see who dared to interrupt them and, noticing it was another student, Ibara made a Yelp, then dived out the window.
"Uh… was that Shiozaki? How'd you convince her to get back here…?" Denki asked, as Minoru looked up at him with large wet eyes.
"I didn't, Kaminari. I didn't do anything at all! She came onto me… and you had to go and ruin it!" He was beating his tiny fists uselessly against Denki's body as he continued to wail. There was no way Ibara was going to give him the time of day now! There was wailing and the gnashing of teeth as Minoru found himself dragged into his own personal hell!
Elsewhere! A dark room was illuminated by a single light. A large round table, with seven individuals sitting around it. At the very head, was a single man… slight, sickly, with pale white hair. "I think it's obvious why we're all here, isn't it?" He sent a look to the man sitting in the fifth seat, and frowned.
"Hey, you really gonna blame me for what happened? What was I supposed to do? Let the kid get shot?" The man sounded incredulous, like he couldn't believe what he was being accused of. He wasn't gonna let some kid get shot, what kind of hero let a kid get shot? The man two chairs down from him clicked his tongue.
"We agreed that there was to be a process. An order to how this would happen. But here you are, skipping ahead and spoiling the story." The man said, rolling his eyes… shaking his head. He had nothing but disdain, it felt, for the fifth man.
"... I didn't skip any lines! He!" he pointed accusingly at the white haired man at the front of the table. "Contacted the kid first! Gave him a hokey explanation of what was going on and he only bought it because he was still woozy from his emergency surgery!"
"No one is on trial." The speaker was a woman. "Not you, Fifth, and not the First. The point is, the boy is probably going to figure out where the black whips came from, he's clever and smart and has an obsession over heroes." There was grumbling from the other seated members of this… well, for lack of a better word, cabal.
"Seventh makes a good point, Gentlemen. If we're going to contact the Ninth, we should do it sooner rather than later, and all of us should be there. There's no sense in carrying on with our original plan. Things out of our control are accelerating." Sixth spoke up. The First nodded, and raised his hand.
"All in favor of bringing the Ninth up to speed…" He looked around and all but two of his compatriots raised their hands. Even the wispy phantom of the Eighth was able to show how he voted. "Well then, in that case, we should prepare another chair. It's high time we introduce ourselves to Izuku Midoriya."
This was not the only clandestine meeting happening, what felt like a dimension away from the first eight holders of One for All, another meeting was occurring. Chairface Chippendale, Tomura Shigaraki, and Kurogiri were on one end of the table and at the other were representatives of the Meta Liberation Army. Chairface had taken the lead for the League of Villains, as he pulled out a cigar case from his vest pocket and very deliberately tapped one of his cigars, before cutting it with a cutter.
When one of the representatives started to talk, a woman with blue skin, the American super criminal shushed her, as he burned the end of his cigar. His disdain for the ones on the other side of the table was palpable. "I've read Destro's manifesto. The man was a lunatic, trying to justify his crimes. A terrorist, at that. There's no profit in terrorism."
"You seem to have a grim view of the MLA and it's mission, Mister Chippendale." The blue skinned woman, who had introduced herself as Curios, said. "The fact is, the governments of the world oppress people and their meta abilities. The only way to express one's meta ability is to apply for a government sanctioned license in which you're essentially a costumed police officer."
"You'll have to forgive me if I don't find the plight of the average person all that compelling. I'm a criminal, Ms Curious. I'm greedy, pernicious, and all around bad company. I like money, fine wine, and a good cigar." Speaking of, he took a long drag from his lit cigar, and exhaled a wreath of acrid, blue smoke. "I also have a chair for a head, so all this talk about using one's quirk or meta ability or enhanced humanity quotient means NOTHING!"
The blue skinned woman blinked once, then twice. "Weren't you the ones that requested this meeting, though? Hasn't the League of Villains been sent underground since the Horror in Kamino."
"The League of Villains…" Tomura spoke up. "I won't say we haven't been stronger, but our core has been through the fire and came out alive. People have written us off since our major defeat, but we still exist. We're still here. And more to the point, those that are paying attention know about our mission. The downfall of this society that, despite all evidence to the contrary, has failed everyone."
"So what do you need the Meta Liberation Army for, then?" Curious asked. She did not like the grin on the young man's face as he looked her over.
"The MLA has what? Ten thousand members? A hundred thousand? It probably doesn't matter, but we have ambition, you have the numbers. We already took out the Japanese branch of the Creature Rejection Clan, bastards that they were, so we're flush with cash. But we don't have the means to raise an army by ourselves, not entirely..."
"The means for what?"
"... would you like to know…" Tomura said, with a wicked smile. "How the noumu are made?" That… well…
"Now you have my attention." Curious was… curious about what they had to share…
The day after the Cultural Festiva, Higari Majima was in Ryo Inui's office. "... and then I just snapped. I don't know what came over me. All the stress I was dealing with just… I couldn't do it, I couldn't take it any longer."
"What is cathartic for you?" Ryo asked his fellow Pro Hero.
"At the time, it felt so good to unload like that, but then everything else that happened."
"The viral video?"
"Oh, God… the viral video!" Someone had clipped his rant from the Gentle Criminal's live stream and it set it to a synth beat. It had only been a day, but it had already managed to make 10 million views on ViewTube and if it did any better, might actually enter the Hot 100 if it got radio play.
"It'll be fine, Higari. You should look at the bright side, instead. You went viral. That'll boost your ratings. That can only be a good thing." Ryo was doing his best, but he was mostly the emotional support dog for teenagers, so it wasn't quite the same with Higari.
"I… maybe? Maybe my students will start taking it easy on me…" Higari said, almost to himself. "Heh. And maybe Hell will freeze over. Anyway, thanks Ryo. I just needed someone to talk to. I don't know if I can take another year of this…"
"Well, look at it this way: Would you prefer to live in a world where Mei Hatsume wasn't taught by you?"
"... oh… oh no. No, no, no, no! What a way to motivate a man!"