December 28 - Day 16

6:45 am

Tomoyasu stood in front of a wooden door, a rather large one at that, decorated in various intricate markings, with most of them being engraved onto the wood itself. It would have been the perfect wooden door, at least for him, if it weren't for the numerous childish 'extra decorations' written all over it by way of bright neon-colored markers.

It's the door that leads to the League of Villains's designated room in the Gunga Mountain Villa.

Lightly raising the phone he's carrying, Tomoyasu turned around, immediately facing towards some of the people standing behind him. "Is everything ready?" he asked them, his voice low and quiet. "Convenient wind? Flying boulders? Invisible Anti-Flame Force Fields? Repair crew? Duffle bag?"

The person in front of the small group, Frost, responded with a nod. "Everything ready, boss."

"Good," came Tomoyasu's reply, immediately following it with a certain hand gesture to make everyone silently walk away to stand in specific spots further down the hallway they're in like they're keeping watch . And they are. By all means Tomoyasu's not supposed to be here, he SHOULD be at Garaki's laboratory 'trapped against his will and forced to become Shigaraki's mouthpiece'. But since this is an important mission that shouldn't fail at all costs, he'd rather be physically present.

Turning his attention back towards the door in front of him, he then pressed the middle part of the screen of the phone he's holding onto, before quickly shoving it back to one of his pockets. Afterwards he began mentally counting down from ten. Upon reaching seven, he heard a loud gust of wind coming from within the room in front of him, followed closely by the sound of a huge balcony window opening, and then followed closely by some annoyed comments of the League members.

And basing off of their comments, it seems that all of them haven't even left their beds yet.

Exactly as he expected.

He then mentally counted down from ten once more. Upon reaching 4, he then heard moderately loud crashing noises from within, which sounded like high-speed boulders colliding into human heads. And then there is silence.

Good.

Tomoyasu then entered the room, which, in typical League fashion, is completely unlocked. Almost immediately one part of his mind felt heavily disappointed, fully expecting the door would be locked so he could test out some silent door-unlocking equipment his people brought with them. But either way, he finally got in and that's the only thing that matters.

The interior of the room is very much one would expect just from the overall design of its door: It's large, decorated in intricate markings all over, and furnished to such an extent that the whole room looks like something out of a high-class hotel of some sort, but not entirely resembling one. But as for Tomoyasu, he ignored it all, what the room looks like is irrelevant right now. Instead, he immediately turned his attention towards the left side.

There's the general location of the League's sleeping area, with three fancy double-decker beds lined up side to side, just with thin walls covering them from each other. Originally, the room had separate bedrooms, but Spinner argued against it, saying something that it would be too easy to assassinate them if that's the case, especially with Shigaraki's absence, and so the separate rooms are removed.

"Beds are ruined. Boulders went in at too much speed." Tomoyasu commented as he walked in closer to the sleeping area, eventually seeing the unconscious-yet-barely-harmed bodies of the League members, with their heads caved into their beds as if flying boulders suddenly came in at high speeds and crashed into them.

And indeed that is what happened. The wind opening up the balcony window is just the precursor to it. And if it weren't for Backforce, their skulls would have easily broken like eggshells and their brains splattered all over the wall upon impact.

Nodding to himself, Tomoyasu then pulled out his phone and readied up a certain contact. "Crew, Stage 2," he said into it before placing it back to his pocket. Almost immediately, just in a few seconds' time, a group of 4 – lead by Frost once more, entered the room. "Bring these morons to the Party Room. Place down beers, confetti, loud music, and some sleeping gas – Anything to make sure they'll think the first thing they did upon waking up today is immediately throw down a party and get drunk," he said to them, even though his people already fully knew of the plan, just to be sure they won't forget anything. "Also the boulder-tosser ruined the beds, get them patched up back to a functional state-" he abruptly paused, the words 'patch up' made him suddenly remember something. "Also I ruined a patch of wall over at Location 36L-P-52 three days ago. Get it patched up as well."

Frost nodded in response before walking over towards the 'bedroom', with his companions trailing behind him. He then directed said companions to begin hauling out the unconscious League members out of the room. And after they left, in came another batch of people – those with repair-themed Quirks, who (still under Frost's guidance) then immediately started fixing up the ruined beds and tossing out the boulders that crashed into them in the first place.

"That's some top tier comedy shit right there, man…" said a low dry-sounding voice from nearby, making Tomoyasu slowly turn his head towards it. "You should do it again sometime," it added.

"Dabi," Tomoyasu acknowledged the presence of the only League member deliberately not hit by the boulders. "I thought you'd be 'conveniently' in the bathroom…?" he asked, slight annoyance on the tone of his voice, as he sarcastically pointed at the direction of the only bathroom in the room.

"Whatever man, I didn't get hit, did I?" Dabi smugly replied as he went down from the top bunk of the double-decker bed he's on. "Mission still accomplished."

Tomoyasu couldn't help but shake his head. While Dabi thankfully didn't get hit by a stray boulder, but the Elementalist deliberately risking it is definitely contributing to his now-rising levels of annoyance. But still, knowing that getting irritated won't move things faster, he just took a deep breath instead and sighed, managing to calm himself down even by a little bit. "By the way, since you're already here. Can I ask what's up with you joining those pathetic imbeciles in the first place?"

"I'm a simple guy, Skeptic. It always feels very nice knowing you're the only capable person in an entire team of colossal dumbasses. Plus I also have other plans of my own that, of course, I won't be telling you because reasons."

Tomoyasu nodded, understanding what Dabi meant. But still, "how do you cope with the drawbacks? If you're supposed to be the most capable person in the group wouldn't that mean you're always doing a lot more of the 'heavy lifting' if needed?" he asked, genuinely curious as what Dabi said is very much the same case with him within the Liberation Army.

Dabi just walked past him, muttering something about feeling absolute superiority from being part of the League, not even bothering to answer the question directed to him.

"Hey you didn't answer my question-"

All of a sudden, Dabi turned back, swinging an already-ignited hand towards Tomoyasu's direction. It was a taunting move as if to say 'Do NOT mess with me,' from the Elementalist. Almost immediately afterwards, Dabi then turned around and faced the rest of the people within the room, blue flames crackling on his palm with intensifying force, as if taunting them as well.

Tomoyasu, on the other hand, just quickly raised his right hand in response, stopping his people before they react to Dabi in a hostile manner.

Before long, Dabi eventually stopped his taunting. "Look buddy," he spoke as he slowly turned his attention back to Tomoyasu, his face still filled with the same level of smugness as before, maybe even more. "If you don't want this entire mansion, and the rest of your pathetic people here burned down to the ground, I suggest you quickly point me towards the VIP room right this instant."

Tomoyasu, face all blank, made a series of hand gestures on his raised right arm, directing some of his people to escort Dabi out of the room and towards the place he demanded himself to be in. The response is swift on all sides, and soon enough, general silence returned to the room.

"Dabi seemed to be that he still haven't learned yet that not all can be beaten by his elements. In a way his attitude reminds me of Geten's from five years ago. Everybody tone it down for Dabi a bit, he just hasn't been properly disciplined yet," Tomoyasu spoke in a semi-sarcastic manner upon hearing his people one by one starting to complain about Dabi. He finally lowered his raised right hand. "-Which is why I brought someone with Invisible Anti-Flame Force Fields in here, just in case things like this happen, in which it did," he nodded afterwards, discreetly gesturing towards the person in the room with the invisible Anti-Flame force field Quirk. "Always got to be ready in these scenarios…"

"But what if he can't be taught manners fast enough?" came a joking question from Frost as he continued to direct the people repairing the beds back to optimal condition.

"Frost, you seem to be doubting someone with a near-perfect track record on everything. Of course I'll eventually discipline him. As much as how hateable Dabi is as of the current time, he is still very much an Elementalist, the perfect shock trooper, and more or less human enough that he can understand and execute actual complicated and complex orders better than a Nomu…" Tomoyasu's voice trailed off. "But if he DIDN'T learn to respect fast enough… then I'll give you people clearance to eviscerate him. Make sure it's painful to the very last moment."

Words of agreement emanated from the crew.

"But still, do remember that he could still be useful to us. Do try not to kill him yet, understand?"

Almost immediately he's met with joking disappointed responses.

"Stop whining, will you people? Just get back to work and get the things I wanted patched up, patched up." Tomoyasu shook his head and sighed. "Now if you all may excuse me, I'm going on a little field trip later on today and…" he added as he pulled out his phone and began dialing a number. "I'll be back in-"

"Souvenirs, boss? Some D1-Droid keychains would be nice," Frost jokingly asked, followed closely by other words of agreement by the rest of the other people in the room.

"No," came Tomoyasu's quick stern reply. "By the way is the projector ready?" He immediately asked back, in which he received a whole bunch of nodding in response. "Good. Now get back to work. And after I leave, assemble yourselves on your designated locations on the underground stage. I'll alert Scolopendra when I'm about to start streaming the 'downfall of Sector Zero'. For those positioned at the back, try to reposition yourself so that you're always at the very far back of the resulting crowd. Observe how everyone reacts," he said, once more despite fully knowing that his crew already knew what to do. But still, he just wants to repeat his orders just to be really sure no one would forget anything-

"Mr. Skeptic! Took you long enough!" eventually came a response from the phone. It was from Dr. Garaki.

Tomoyasu, before he could reply, gestured over to a particular person in the room, who then gave him the duffle bag she's carrying. "League's all down and taken care of, initiate warp."

After a few seconds, the black goo portal materialized in the general area of the still-open balcony window. "Stream will start approximately within 15 minutes, make sure everyone's ready by that time," Tomoyasu spoke out, eyeing the portal. He then walked over to it, one arm keeping secure the duffle bag he's carrying. But before he could truly enter, "Frost, inform Turtleneck I'll be arriving at her location in 30 minutes," he ordered.

After receiving a nod of confirmation, Tomoyasu finally stepped into the portal. And just like his usual portal trips to Dr. Garaki's lab, he's once again transported into the same usual dark 'landing area'. And behind him, is once again the same Nomu that 'greeted' him from three days ago, seemingly once again used as a teleport medium. Apparently Garaki still hasn't had it killed yet for some reason, very much unlike what happened to his Anthropomorph golems from yesterday – judging by the torn-up MLW books scattered around.

"To be fair you're quite the entertaining one. There is no reason to kill-" Tomoyasu abruptly stopped talking to the Nomu, an idea suddenly popping into his mind. "Of course!" he exclaimed as his eyes darted back to the humanoid abomination. Without wasting any more time, he carefully led the now-taunting Nomu outside, and through the dark hallways (in which he navigated via his phone's built-in flashlight), and eventually into Garaki's lair…

"You brought the Nomu again? I thought I've told you to run fast enough so he'll just lose track of you?" came Garaki's immediate comment upon seeing him guiding the monster through the entrance of the lair.

"Change of plans, Doc, I'm using this guy." Tomoyasu took multiple steps back, making the Nomu further follow him in. "I need a few background props. And this thing is the perfect background prop!"

"I thought you think Nomus are useless…?" came a sarcastic comeback from the old man as he walked nearer. "Seems to me you just haven't found your ideal use of them yet when you said that…"

"Whatever old man, I'm using this guy," Tomoyasu snapped back, greatly annoyed that Garaki is technically correct in his statement, and that he's wrong.

"Good thing I haven't thrown out anything yet. Or else you won't get any perfect props to use."

Tomoyasu rolled his eyes at him in response, completely unable to find anything to retort with, and instead just focused his attention to guiding the Nomu slowly towards a specific location he designated yesterday as another 'staging area'. Along the way of his efforts, he heard Garaki comment something about being careful not to break anything. Tomoyasu couldn't helpt but just roll his eyes again. Of course he won't break anything! A good percentage of his general plan resides here in this lair, and obviously he knows he shouldn't do anything drastic that could alter it for the worse.

Eventually, he reached his destination: Shigaraki's stasis chamber (or so what Garaki calls it as). He quickly walked in closer and positioned himself in such a way that the Nomu would be standing behind him, and with the giant glass vat containing the 'Decay Moron' still relatively visible behind it.

"I wonder what Valkyrie should we buy? It's been years ever since I last went to I-Island…"

Tomoyasu, in the middle of unloading everything within his duffle bag (his laptop and a bunch of various electronics) and setting them up, is surprised by the sudden comment of Dr. Garaki - who apparently decided to tag along.

"For a guy who's literally crying over his Nomus just three days ago, you sure are oddly excited about replacing your entire work."

"For a guy who said my Nomus are useless, you sure are using them a lot: Teleportation. Stage plays. Background props…" came a reply, with a tone even more sarcastic than earlier. "Looks like my Nomus aren't so useless after all…"

Tomoyasu's fingers trembled as he continued preparing his laptop for the upcoming stream, annoyance and irritation surging through his systems. As much as he would like to deny it, he was indeed wrong about the Nomus being useless, in fact he's using one as of this current moment. "I'm not wrong. It doesn't count as failure on my part that I didn't calculate the usefulness of Nomus. I will only count things as failures if they ever blew up on my face, either literally or figuratively…" he still managed to mutter out a response.

Garaki rolled his eyes at him, accompanying it with a loud sarcastic sigh. "You sure are quite the perfectionist. So answer me, have you ever lost yet?" he asked in a tone as if he's prepared to launch an irritating joke after he received an answer.

"No."

"Even your virginity?"

Tomoyasu grumbled incomprehensibly in response, making the Doctor laugh, as he continued on connecting additional electronics to his laptop and tweaking his adaptive jammer system's settings to allow a certain device in for just a few moments. "That question doesn't make sense…" he grumbled again, once more giving the Doctor a good laugh, even though in reality Garaki is technically just 'laughing at nothing'. Tomoyasu, despite clearly not the best-looking person around, never had a problem with women – his absurd height alone alongside all his achievements are more than enough to attract quite a significant amount of them, especially back in his college and post-grad days. While no woman he's ever been with ever surpassed his phenomenally high expectations, but he used to be very active with them.

But still, countering Garaki's comment about his supposed virginity would mean he would have to say he LOST his virginity. And that won't do.

"Done. Step aside Doc, this won't take long," Tomoyasu spoke out as he stood up, adjusting his clothes afterwards. "After this I'll give you the coordinates to one of my mansions. We're going to I-Island by way of private jet."

"You have a private jet?! We're going through private jet?"

Tomoyasu just stared at the shorter Doctor, whose jaw is now hanging at him. "Yes," he replied.

"I'm uh… okay I'm leaving…" Garaki slowly backed off and eventually left the area. "Good luck on that streaming," he said one last time before fully disappearing, his voice echoing from the exit tunnel.

"Good," Tomoyasu could only say in response as he finished setting up his things – or more specifically, plugging more assorted electronic devices to his laptop. The entirety of it may not be pleasing to the eyes (and indeed its unsightly appearance is already annoying his perfectionist self), but he'll have to tolerate sights like these if he wants his dreams to eventually manifest into reality. Grabbing a phone laying on the ground (also connected to the laptop by a lengthy cord), he stood up and didn't waste any more time long-pressing the middle part of the screen.

"You ready?" he casually asked the Nomu behind him, which is still seemingly just taunting him into attacking. "I'll take that as a yes." He turned his eyes back to his phone, now seeing two different buttons to press on. Pressing the leftmost blue button in a series of presses akin to that of a code, a small animated icon of a recording camera then began to play on the topmost section of the screen, and on the screen itself is now showing him (with the Nomu and the vat containing Shigaraki right behind him).

Now pleased with the results, he then mentally started counting down from 10. After reaching 6, the blank screen of the laptop lit up with static, and then displayed a view from one of the cameras located on the underground section of the Gunga Mountain villa, directly focused at the stage.

"Scolopendra!" Tomoyasu called out, facing one of the multiple antennae plugged into the laptop while holding down a special button on the phone he's holding. "Report!"

"Underground section population zero. All systems green," came a high-pitched nasal voice from the speakers of the laptop. "Ready when you are, boss."

"Good. We'll start in approximately ten seconds,' Tomoyasu spoke out, crouching down and using his free left hand to type out keyboard commands onto his laptop to trigger the system to once more tap into the projector of the underground stage, causing anything being recorded by the phone he's holding onto to be projected by it, in basically the same manner as yesterday – only this time without the use of Garaki's control panels.

'Showtime…'

One quick press to connect the recording phone to the underground stage speakers, as well as aligning said phone so that it's facing the things he wants to be shown, and contorting his face into that of a look of absolute fear for last-minute practice purposes, he then finally signaled Scolopendra to raise the alarm – the one alarm that's specifically built for Re-Destro to call people 'downstairs' in case he wants to arrange another 'MLW Bible study'.

"Alarms raised," came Scolopendra's immediate comment through the laptop speakers. "People should be arriving in approximately 10 minutes."

"Remind the crew to get in position," Tomoyasu commanded as he waited for the rest of the Liberation troops to arrive to the (still Christmas-decorated) underground section of the villa. In the meantime, he placed the phone down and angled it on the laptop so that it's only recording the Nomu currently there with him, and also of course – Shigaraki within his stasis vat.

It took around just quite over 5 minutes until the underground hall finally fully filled up (with both Trumpet and Re-Destro once again standing onstage). And since the League is 'conveniently asleep', they're obviously not present. Soon enough, Tomoyasu picked up the phone once more and directed it towards him – his face now back to its exaggerated fearful contortion, just like as he practiced. "Fellow Liberators!" he called out, his shaking voice echoing throughout the grand hall. "I'm still alive! I'm still very much alive! And I bring forth words from the Grand Commander, Lord of Liberation, Future Demon King Shigaraki himself!"

His words garnered mixed reactions from the crowd. But without access to the audio from the underground hall itself, he has no choice but to rely on his people to tell him if anything really went wrong. But since he received no words from them, that could only mean that all is well.

"Uh," Tomoyasu' continued, turning around and pretending to be extremely fearful of the Nomu behind him, all while making sure the Shigaraki vat is always the main background, "Grand Commander Shigaraki said he wants everyone to see the sheer power and lethality of himself and his trusted comrades and uh…" he then slowly turned back to face the phone he's holding to. "And so I uh… compiled some camera footage from the failed Revival Party and I have to uh… show them to you all…"

The Nomu behind him suddenly roared. It's completely unexpected but Tomoyasu couldn't help but freeze for a bit, utterly impressed at the perfect timing. But still, he also couldn't help but once again feel a slight tinge of annoyance after remembering what he said about Nomus being useless.

"Er… anyways… uh… here goes…" Tomoyasu awkwardly re-continued, followed closely by a little more stuttering before crouching down and pressing a particular key on his laptop keyboard, at which the projector display immediately switched over from him to that of the doctored footage he made of the MLA Revival Party just yesterday:

Tomoyasu started showing the doctored footage of the 'lesser battles' first, such as with Spinner's. As compared to the lizard-person's utterly pathetic original performance, the edited footage currently playing has him rapidly spinning around with his swords and being an acrobatic expert, effortlessly dodging all attacks thrown at him. It's extremely over-the-top bloody to the point of ridiculousness, but it's the only way Tomoyasu's crew could ever make him look dangerous.

The next batch of footage features the battle between Dabi and Geten. Since the two are technically already 'working under him' and already naturally powerful to an extent, there's very little editing that went in here except the 'props' getting 'burned alive'. Although one thing Tomoyasu made sure is that his crew put in blue fire effects under Dabi's feet at one particular scene as an excuse why Geten's massive ice pillars failed to generate under him.

Next up is Toga's. This one is very straightforward, with the doctored footage simply edited to blur Toga's actress so that she would look like she's going in at supersonic speed and knifing Curious's troops one by one before they could even react. Additionally, Tomoyasu mixed in some of the original Revival Party footage to further show everyone how worthless Curious is as she casually blows up her own troops. Obviously, all this resulted in a 'positive reaction' from the crowd, at least for him - in the form of extremely rude comments against Curious (as told to him by his people), as well as outright cheering upon Toga managing to get the jump on her and then 'stabbing her to a bloody death' onscreen.

Before long, the stream went to Magne. It's also just as straightforward, with her Magnetism simply ramped up to ridiculous levels, allowing her to launch entire hordes of people and ram them through buildings.

There's also Twice, whose clones are shown effortlessly plowing through everything. And to make sure no one would complain about how ALL Quirk-created copies of all kinds being naturally innately brittle, lack Backforce, and very easy to beat with enough wide-range damage, he made sure to show fake scenes of clones shrugging off heavy damage like nothing, as if Twice's Double is far superior than standard cloning Quirks.

And then there's Shigaraki, who is shown smoothly Decaying his way to victory. He just ran forwards, arms outstretched and occasionally shooting out Decay beams which not only destroyed nearby structures, but also dusted flying troops, not to mention also capable of blocking all manners of ranged Quirks thrown against him – no matter what they are. Furthermore there's the attached original footage of him going up against Re-Destro, in which he only won because of Trigger drugs injected into him at the last moment causing his Decay to ramp up, plus Re-Destro's own extreme cowardice.

Meanwhile as for Tomoyasu, he's doing his best just to not laugh out loud at the extremely heavily-edited ridiculous doctored footage of the Decay Moron. Over 95% of the footage is simply not true and just made up through editing. At the same time, he could also hear muffled voices of his crew through his laptop speakers. It seems that they are, too, just holding on from laughter.

But still, as ridiculous as the edits Shigaraki received, since no one really saw what he did during the Revival Party as to eventually reach Re-Destro's tower: thanks to Geten's ice pillars trapping certain groups and blocking the entire view, Tomoyasu and his people pre-planning everything, and the (successfully predicted) Twice swarm further helping out to 'overwhelm the streets with random loud flashy battles' - preventing Re-Destro from actually seeing Tomura from his tower…

All is well…

And finally, there's Gigantomachia, whose presence is just entirely done by just cutting off the cameras one by one after a while of slowly-progressing shaking and screaming panicked people.

There was silence for a bit, with the display just staying in static after Machia 'destroyed' the final camera.

After a while, it went back to Tomoyasu, still with a fearful look on his face. "And there goes the entirety of Sector Zero – our best and most fanatical members…" He paused a bit, pretending to be sad. "I'm the one who arranged who got into battle with the League and… now if only I could have known the outcome then I could have avoided such senseless deaths! We lost them… They're gone… Sector Zero… Such irreplaceable people… But still! Good thing Me, Trumpet, and Re-Destro are still very much alive!" he added with a nervous-sounding laugh, as sweat continued to pour down his face. "Oh uh… Grand Commander Shigaraki also told me to inform everyone to uh… NOT question anything anymore, no more questioning nor challenging his comrades and uh…" He turned around, immediately acting extremely scared of the Nomu behind him, all while audibly begging for mercy. He then turned back to face the camera once more. "He said you must all just wait there until he returns. FOR THE LIBERATION!" he yelled into the camera, accompanied by the Liberation salute, before immediately going into static.

"Boss? Some people at the back did not like the performance at all. They're gossiping about how the high-ranking previous MLA leaders have turned into extremely pathetic LoV ass-kissers."

Tomoyasu simply nodded as he wiped his sweat with a towel he got from his duffle bag. He had fully expected this. While his performance might be great, award-winning even, but obviously there will still be people who would think less of the previous MLA leaders after his little 'stage play'. And that is where plan B comes in…

"Deploy shaming tactics. You know what to do. Also do tell Scolopendra to disconnect my systems. We're done here," Tomoyasu ordered. But before he can finally put the phone back to the duffle bag he brought with him, he lifted it up again and re-contacted Frost.

"Station some people near the League at all times. Protect them at all costs. I may have given everyone Shigaraki's warning and shown how 'powerful' they are, but we can never be too sure if some people there would still try to attack the League and blow our cover. How are they anyways?"

"Still gassed in sleep. Shall we awaken them, boss?" Frost replied, following it with a comment about how Dabi is still in the VIP room.

"Tone down the sleeping gas, let them awaken normally." Tomoyasu paused a bit as he cleared his throat. "Make sure no one would question them of anything Revival Party-related, understood? I want my puppet leaders intact as much as possible."

"Understood, Mr. Skeptic."

And with that, the line cut. "Good." Tomoyasu began packing up his things and shoving them back to his duffle bag.

"I see that you're done?" came the voice of Garaki coming from the direction of the exit tunnel.

"Sector Zero is done. I have shown everyone how the League managed to beat an entire army: An entire army of people wanting them to win, that is." Tomoyasu chuckled to himself as he stood up, slinging his duffle bag over his left shoulder afterwards. "Sector Zero's nothing but an imaginary 'Revival Party regiment', created by me and staffed by my crew, just to further my plans. Nothing more, nothing less," he added despite knowing he already told the story of Sector Zero to Garaki some time ago. But still, he felt he just had to repeat it, also fully knowing how old people tend to easily forget things.

"An entire terrorist attack… and only one person really died, eh?" Garaki muttered, turning around and gesturing for Tomoyasu to follow him out out into the main lair. "And then she's brought back and died again. Just like you said- Oh! I think you need to-"

"No need for that. Right now if you have nothing to say about I-Island, Humarise, nor any of the current events happening right now, I suggest you just keep quiet." Tomoyasu walked on, eventually overtaking the slow-moving old Doctor. "We need to keep our eyes on the prize, and always just on the prize." He then reached over his duffle bag and got out his phone again and began dialing a number. "I'm calling Turtleneck to prepare our jet. Where's teleporter-Nomu?"

"I can only talk about the useful things, eh?" Garaki commented as they exited the tunnel, immediately walking towards his small teleporter Nomu, and not really answering the question directed to him. "So about Humarise… have you really researched about them beyond just being 'followers' of the Quirk Singularity Theory?" he asked as he picked the Teleporter Nomu up, immediately rubbing circles on its back as if it's just a toy dog. "Because I think you're misunderstanding what I'm trying to-"

"Is there anything I need to know more about them? Because if there's one thing I know about terrorist organizations, is that they all operate and behave the same." Tomoyasu replied, still awaiting his intended person to pick up the call.

"Humarise is an Anti-Quirk terrorist group. I was actually trying to tell you-"

"WHAT…?!" Tomoyasu suddenly turned to face Garaki, one eyebrow raised in an exaggerated manner as he quickly cancelled the call and shoved the phone in his pocket. "ANTI-QUIRK…?! THEN WHY IN GOD'S GREEN EARTH DID YOU EVEN BOTHER TO SUGGEST THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE?!"

"Actually I was trying to say something else about them. I think you just misunderstood." Garaki shook his head, seemingly unafraid of Tomoyasu right in front of him giving him a death glare. "In all these three days I'm trying to talk to you about them but you just kept on cutting me off."

"THEN WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TRYING TO TELL ME THEN?!" Tomoyasu asked again as he yelled, his voice echoing throughout the lair, his thoughts swirling on all the times in these past three days where Garaki would try to tell him something about Humarise, only for him to cut the old man off. He opened his mouth once more, feeling the need to throw out an insult, but he simply just doesn't have any ammo.

"First of all I have to say that I'm not doing any backstabbing here. If I was planning to stab you in the back, then I wouldn't be telling you that Humarise is the polar opposite of the MLA, correct?" Garaki shrugged, now feeling a slight amount of fear at how menacing Tomoyasu's glare is at his shorter self. "Look, I only talked about Humarise because at least they worship the theory I came up with, and with me being allied to you I figured that you could maybe plan something out to make something out of it despite the clashing ideologies. But ALSO on the other hand… there's also another Western Europe-based terrorist organization – The People of Tomorrow: They follow the same principles as the MLA, where the strong shall rule the weak, Quirk freedom, and all those things… the only problem to allying with them is that we have nothing to build an alliance from…" Garaki sighed afterwards. "But Humarise? Humarise may be a whole lot different from the MLA, but at least they're all technically following me… in a way… through my theory and uh… we could ally to them using me and uh…" The old doctor shrugged before taking a few steps back. "I just figured out since uh… you know… I was just trying to help…"

Tomoyasu could only stare at Garaki with one eye twitching. "Garaki… There's literally NO WAY Humarise would EVER ally with us with such a clashing ideology… I have spent days trying to contact them and only now you're telling me this…?" he asked in an almost overdramatic tone, despite fully knowing he's the one at fault for not properly listening. But before Garaki could respond, he dropped his duffle bag and hurriedly pulled out his laptop, not wasting a single second on re-researching Humarise, hoping that Garaki is just wrong on them having an Anti-Quirk ideology and he didn't make such a colossal failure in trying to-

Garaki is correct. Humarise is, indeed, an anti-Quirk terrorist organization – the literal complete polar opposite of the Metahuman Liberation Army.

… And he literally just spent days trying to contact them in the hopes of allying with them… Humarise may be following a theory made by the person right beside him, but still, that's almost like deliberately challenging them - and with the obvious technological superiority of Humarise (according to his research), they will easily mop the floor with the MLA within minutes.

Fingers trembling as a million thoughts raced inside his mind, Tomoyasu began researching further on the thought that maybe the first bunch of researches he just did just somehow turned out to be flukes. But no. 'HOW COULD I MISS THIS?!' he asked himself mentally, seeing more and more of the same thing. Humarise being so obviously anti-Quirk SHOULD have been the first thing he saw, but he somehow missed it! 'HOW?!'

"I suggest you not keep your eyes too much on the prize. It's a big world out there. A big dog-eat-dog world. There could be bear traps at any corner. And it appears if it weren't for me reminding you something, you've already gotten both of your legs cut off," Garaki shook his head in disappointment. "Also… of course I do want to apologize for suggesting a harmful idea in the first place."

Tomoyasu just glared back. He's about to yell out a counter-statement, but just found himself at a loss for words. He couldn't find anything to throw back. Garaki is simply right, he jumped in too fast and tried to cross the road, not knowing there's a truck coming at him at full speed. He kept his eyes too much on the prize, and didn't look anywhere else. Good thing Humarise hasn't responded yet so he still has some leeway to make it so that it's nothing but a prank call on his side.

But still, the failure just kept on ringing inside his head. 'DAMMIT!' Tomoyasu thought to himself, gritting his teeth as he angrily folded the laptop back and re-stuffed it in his duffle bag, before re-slinging the entire thing back on his shoulder. 'How could I miss the single most obvious fact about Humarise?!' He slowly stood up, now thinking about whether the whole thing couldn't be really his fault. But try as he might, he can't logically pin it on anyone. Garaki is already trying to tell him but he simply just repeatedly cut him off, and that's it. The only one at fault is him. He thought about it some more. How did he miss it? How did he fail? Is it because he's just focused too much on enacting his already-20-year old plan that he's easily distracted by anything that slightly went in his favor? Is that it-?

"Enough tantrums, Mr. Skeptic." Garaki lightly chuckled to himself as if to lighten up the mood, shaking his head. "So what if you got things wrong? At least it didn't blow up in your face, just like you said. Best part here is that Humarise looks like they haven't even answered your contacts yet! That means your errors are still easily fixable! There is still ample time for 'repairs'!"

Tomoyasu just kept silent, annoyance and irritation still swirling around in his system.

"You know… word of advice from an almost 200-year-old man like me: You better tone down the stress, it'll not be good to your skin. You don't want to be all wrinkly in a few years, yes?" came Garaki's lighthearted tone as he nodded, still carrying his teleporter-Nomu with him.

"I did NOT fail to research on Humarise's-"

"Blah blah blah you failed to consider some things. That's it. Just stop throwing a damn tantrum over it and move on. You sound like a kid. You should be glad they haven't answered yet from all your attempts."

"Whatever old man…" Tomoyasu's voice trailed off as he re-composed himself. But at the moment he was about to speak, he felt the phone in his pocket vibrate. Checking it, he found a message sent to him by 'Turtleneck'. 'Private jet prepared, Mr. Skeptic.' It said. Almost immediately Tomoyasu wondered how did the message even arrive when he didn't even manage to call and order 'Turtleneck' since he hurriedly cancelled said call after hearing a fact about Humarise. In the end he just assumed that the person must have already heard her phone ringing before just cancelling itself. And since she already knew of the overall plan (like the rest of the crew), she already had the general idea behind his cancelled call.

Tomoyasu just nodded to himself, acknowledging what 'Turtleneck' did. He then turned to the short old man beside him. "Initiate warp," he ordered.

Garaki took one step back, face looking all smug. "Nope, not yet," he said, his voice sounding like he's incredibly confident on what he just said. "Let's go settle a deal first. You see, I 'reminded' you of Humarise's ideology… You didn't like it at all but the point is that my reminder technically prevented a potential rival terrorist group from collapsing right onto the Liberation Army. You understand what I'm trying to say? And for that I want something in return."

Through gritted teeth, Tomoyasu asked, "what would it be?"

"My Nomus will stay. We'll replace some of the glass tanks, yes. I'll make our own Valkyries, yes. But the Nomus? They'll stay." Garaki nodded. "They're very useful, yes? Stage performers, Background props, teleportation… they're all useful and you just haven't realized yet! Not everything has got to be a competent field agent!" he nodded again before gesturing to something behind Tomoyasu afterwards. "See that fella over there? A great actor is he not? A natural-created actor, I tell you! I shall name him, Cupcake!"

"F-fine… FINE… whatever… the Nomus will stay… sheesh" Tomoyasu couldn't help but facepalm immediately after his utterly pathetic response before turning around, and finding that one Nomu once again just some distance behind him, taunting as if it wants him to attack it as usual. "The Nomus will stay…" he repeated in an exasperated tone. He doesn't have any energy left to argue anymore.

"Finally, some ounce of respect for the old man! Things are changing, right Johnny?" Garaki held up his Nomu and began muzzling it, once again as if it's nothing but a small dog instead of the hideous flesh-abomination it actually is. "No more big meanie Demon King wannabe, now there's only big meanie Grand Commander wannabe!"

"The hell…?"

"Oh quit your whining, Mr. Skeptic." Garaki paused a bit as he held up his teleporter Nomu. "Okay. Coordinates? Let's quickly get this thing over with so we could have some more time to patch up whatever needs patching up in the Humarise contact."

Tomoyasu raised his phone again and pointed its screen towards the old man in front of him, showing the coordinates he's asking for. Receiving a nod in response, he then took a few steps back, turning his attention towards the Nomu behind him – who just got recently named as Cupcake.

Not long after, its mouth began dripping black ooze, ultimately manifesting as a black swirling portal.

"It's been decades ever since I've flown in a private jet. I wonder what they feel like now?" Garaki said as he put down his teleporter Nomu and immediately headed towards the portal and entered, whistling along as he does so.

Tomoyasu, on the other hand, took one quick glance towards his wristwatch first. Is his mistake of contacting Humarise still fixable? Or he's now screwed-up big time? He thought to himself. But then again, since Humarise hasn't even responded to anything he discreetly sent up to this point, it's almost very much safe to say that they haven't even received the secret contacts yet. Whatever online defense they're running, it must have just 'blocked and deleted' everything.

Looks like he doesn't even need to fix anything. All is just well as it is. Good.

Hopefully…

Tomoyasu eventually made his way into the portal. But this time however, unlike his previous teleport experiences involving instantaneous transfers from a dark area into that of a brightly-lit one, he made sure to cover his eyes first before entering as to not be temporarily blinded– something Garaki failed to take into account, which is why the old man is now stumbling around and eventually bumped on a nearby metal pole.

"We're going to be doing more teleports soon. I suggest you light up your lair, physically, to avoid further circumstances such as this."

"No, I just need better glasses. I'll just go make a purchase on that soon. Where were we?"

Tomoyasu took a deep breath and sighed before replying. "An Oceanside property. With an airfield included," he said, his voice audibly tinged in sarcasm as he gestured over to the crimson-colored civilian luxury helicopter parked just within meters of their teleport exit. "And by airfield I mean on the other side of the property, this is just the helipad," he added, discreetly pointing over to the old-style mansion in front of them, as well as the well-kept garden in front of it.

"Hmmm… sweet ride you got here…" Garaki commented, eyeing up the aircraft in front of him. "Not bad. Are we going by this? It's a bit too windy out there, would this be safe enough?"

"I'm not a fan of helicopters. They make me ill. We'll go by fixed-wing aircraft. Faster method of travel, too." Tomoyasu turned his attention back to the mansion. "Follow me, Doc, we're arriving in first class," he called out and began walking towards it. Soon enough, they eventually passed by a fountain with a statue of a dinosaur on top, with the water pouring out of its mouth. It's an incredibly silly sight, and Tomoyasu's already expecting Garaki to make a comment about it any second now.

Only Garaki didn't. Tomoyasu noticed the shorter old man is just too busy admiring the flower beds and various other plants around, and judging by his words, he's also calling them by their scientific name afterwards. Tomoyasu could only nod at himself, the scenery around them is definitely quite the view, spectacular even, with the early morning sun's rays majestically streaking across the heavens confirming that statement. There is, indeed, no more need to comment on a silly dinosaur-themed fountain.

Soon enough, they reached the mansion, stopping by a massive wooden door, intricately designed as if the entire thing (mansion included) is made over half a century ago – and it's definitely true. Tomoyasu reached over and did a series of knocks arranged like some sort of code.

The wooden door opened, revealing a tall woman with short bright pink hair parted at the middle, wearing a dark indigo-colored long-sleeved turtleneck sweater, with the neck portion all stretched up and reaching up to her nose. "Boss," she said with a deep bow before moving out of the way and gesturing for the two to get in. "Sector Zero is over, I presume?" she asked after they entered. Meanwhile Garaki wasted no time in admiring the interior of the mansion.

"Sector Zero's been dealt with. They're completely eliminated. Is everything ready?" Tomoyasu calmly asked the woman. For some reason he couldn't help but feel relieved of something. It's a very good thing he hasn't told anyone in his crew yet about his planned allegiance to Humarise, or else he's got some extra explaining to do.

"Aircraft inspection complete, we're cleared for flight."

Tomoyasu nodded. "Good, let's go. I do suppose you already know the coordinates? I-Island is conveniently still within general range of the country, we must not let this opportunity go to waste." He paused a bit and checked his wristwatch. "This entire trip shouldn't take long. I could use a whole lot of free time after this-"

"There's an awful lot of Destro and Re-Destro pictures hanging on these walls… am I missing something here? Is this really your mansion, Mr. Skeptic?" came Garaki's sudden comment, as he continued to inspect the interior of the mansion. And indeed, there's a whole lot of decorative references to the two, alongside the whole 'Liberation' concept.

"We're in one of Re-Destro's Oceanside properties. And his private jet is the one we're going to be using today," Tomoyasu replied, gesturing over to the Doctor to follow him towards the other side of the mansion. "With him stuck in a Mountain Villa far away from civilization - kept there by false threat of a 'Liberation God in stasis', his properties, alongside some other things, are basically mine. I'm the one in control. I'm the one in charge. I get their properties, while they rot in some 'gigantic jail cell', not knowing there is nothing for them after this except 'execution'." He chuckled to himself maniacally as he continued walking.

"You sure do have a knack in planning, eh? Impressive. Although do try not to forget to not focus too much on the prize."

"Agreed." Tomoyasu nodded, feeling a considerable amount of annoyance on the old man's second sentence, even though it's technically true. He just doesn't want to be constantly reminded of his failures. "So tell me, how did your pathetic moron of an old boss used to plan things?"

"All for One's entire planning basically just boils down to just sitting around in one of my labs for years, and not doing anything at all aside from just occasionally spouting out nonsense about how 'Everything is his plan' whenever some random event happens that even slightly involved him. For short he's not really a planner-type of person and more like he just likes to pretend like he's planning for something…"

"What can I say to the self-proclaimed Demon King of Japan?" Tomoyasu could only shake his head, a smug smile now etched on his face as he continued walking. "Some people are just destined to be pathetic no matter how much time passes."

Eventually, the two of them, alongside the woman that let them in the first place, reached the other side of the mansion, and out they went. They're all immediately greeted with a magnificent view of the ocean. Tomoyasu might have an incredibly low opinion on Re-Destro, but the moron does have a great taste in mansion locations. 'Even the Gunga Mountain Villa is well-placed - just enough elevation and forest to create a spectacular view of sunsets,'he couldn't help but think as he visually inspected the clean and well-maintained airfield runway just in front of them.

"Good luck out there, Mr. Skeptic!"

Tomoyasu turned around, hearing the voice. Behind him are the whole plethora of mansion workers – all part of the MLA, and specifically aligned to him (although they weren't present during the Revival Party re-shoot, unlike the woman who's guiding them – who acted as Curious). In response, he just gave them a small wave before gesturing over to the woman – Turtleneck as he calls her as, to keep moving towards the particular private jet they would be using for the trip.

"You're quite the popular kid around huh?"

"It's a double-edged sword. I'm not good with small talk," Tomoyasu muttered as he walked on. "As long as they're not asking me about my day, it's all good."

"I'm never the popular kid back then."

Tomoyasu just nodded as Garaki started recalling his days as a high school student. He felt the need not to listen too much about them anymore. What matters now is the I-Island trip they're about to make. There's still also the Humarise issue at hand that he had to fix later. But since they haven't responded to any of his secret messages, they're hopefully nothing but a minor issue at this point.

After a short while, all three of them eventually reached a certain hangar - a rather stylish one despite its purpose just being to house aircraft. "Aircraft choice, Turtleneck?" he asked the woman in front of them as they stopped.

"M1 Skybreeze," came the quick reply.

"Good choice," Tomoyasu said back as he nodded, fully ignoring Garaki still reminiscing about the old days. "Lead the way," he added, signaling the woman to proceed, who then immediately went over towards the right side of the still-closed hangar entrance and pressed a few buttons on the keypad installed on the wall, causing the metal gate to raise, revealing a white luxury private jet within it.

"Garaki, enough reminiscing, let's go." Tomoyasu quickly gave Garaki's back a quick pat and off he went, following Turtleneck as she entered the aircraft. "Save that for the folks we're going to meet in a few hours," he added in an obvious sarcastic tone.

Soon enough, all three finished boarding the aircraft. The interior is very much what would one expect from an insanely expensive luxury private jet purchased by the CEO of Detnerat Corporation – stylish, classy, sleek, sophisticated, and virtually indistinguishable from modern-style high-end hotel rooms, complete with bolted-on chandelier-like light fixtures embedded on the ceiling, with the only the small circular windows lining the walls acting as reminder that it is, indeed, not a conventional ground-based high-end hotel.

Tomoyasu once more ignored Garaki's words of amazement and just went to sit on the nearest chair after signaling Turtleneck to start their flight to the coordinates he gave her.

Before long they finally took off the ground. Garaki is still not done inspecting his surroundings, uttering words of praise every now and then, but the good part, as far as Tomoyasu is concerned, is that the next stage of his current plans are finally once more in motion.

But not all is well, for just a few minutes later, a memory quickly flashed in his mind.

'HOW COULD I MISS THIS?!'

He instinctively grit his teeth at the sudden surge of annoyance.

And yet another memory soon came in…

"I suggest you not keep your eyes too much on the prize. It's a big world out there. A big dog-eat-dog world. There could be bear traps at any corner. And it appears if it weren't for me reminding you something, you've already gotten both of your legs cut off…"

What Garaki said is defnitely right on the matter, as much as how it annoyed him. He is looking a little too much in such a narrow scope that he almost received the full brunt of another terrorist organization upon him. It is, indeed, a big world out there. He's been planning his MLA take-over for more than two decades now and not even within a week of actual execution he almost got potentially wiped-out by another terrorist organization…

'Do not keep your eyes too much on the prize… It's a big world out there…' Tomoyasu thought to himself as he placed his duffle bag on his lap. He then took one quick glance of the Doctor somehow still not done walking around and inspecting his surroundings. 'It's a big world out there…'


A mere two hours later, words from the pilot echoed throughout the aircraft passenger cabin.

Their destination is already within visual range.

Almost immediately , Dr. Garaki came running off to look at the nearest window. As for Tomoyasu, who's still half-asleep sitting on the very chair he sat on ever since the flight began, he could only care less. But still, he pushed himself up but instead proceeded to the cockpit, where it's only Turtleneck there – operating the entire aircraft by herself without a co-pilot.

And just up front, visible from the front glass, is a gigantic circular metal ocean-going platform in ever-perpetual motion, an artificial island so enormous it's easily visible from space.

I-Island.

Tomoyasu couldn't help but shake his head on the sight. The entire high-tech man-made island, complete with four distinct cities, is said to be home to over 10 thousand scientists, among other people, all sharing one main goal of advancing humanity's grasp on Quirk knowledge and various technologies…

Or so what it wants everyone to believe…

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that there's more underneath the well-kept exterior. There's far more than meets the eye. Some things are just not lining up as it should.

'If it's supposed to be a high-tech island city, why aren't there any flying cars?' – Is one of the main questions surrounding it, and also the most obvious (as far as Japanese people are concerned). After all, if UA can regularly throw out AI-loaded training bots for its students to wreck, then how come the truly 'high-tech city' don't have such flying automobiles? Even their own security drones are completely dwarfed and out-gunned by said average UA training robots, not to mention easily hackable due to all of them being connected to only one control center.

Furthermore, despite being supposedly populated by the most brilliant minds across the globe, I-Island hasn't accomplished anything notable in Quirk research over in the last 50 years. Meanwhile their technological advances aren't any better – they also haven't done anything worthwhile within the same time frame as well. While sure there are some newer techs here and there, but none of them ever went anywhere.

Needless to say, a lot of people across the globe have been criticizing its existence as nothing more than a massive tax drain. And in response to that, I-Island management always only spouts out one excuse: 'You can't rush science.' It's the same excuse time and time again all until critics finally stopped, eventually realizing their complaints are just falling on deaf ears.

But as 'useless' I-Island is to the general public (aside from being a tourist attraction), on the other side – on a villain's perspective, it's been always the best go-to for any material acquisition, but not because of the security bots being lackluster making it relatively easy to do crime. No. There is nothing substantial to be gained from the surface.

For the longest time, aside from criticizing its existence, people have always wondered why I-Island's walls went higher and higher over time in the past 50 years, to the point of as if there's already enough space underneath for another city.

Because that's the main point.

I-Island being 'populated by geniuses all working together for the betterment of humanity' is now nothing more than a front. It stopped doing its core purpose about half a century ago and slowly evolved into something else. What is it now, is the biggest 'organized black market' in the entire planet.


Notes:

It's kinda silly how despite I-Island is made to look like this high-tech island, barely anything were used (or even considered) to fend off Wolfram's invasion. Also the security bots were utter crap and easily hackable though ONE control tower without any backups.

Some things are just not adding up!

….

Also I'm fully aware of the existence of the super geniuses from the Shield family. I have a 'different' plot line set up for them.