Izuku woke up with a pounding headache, aching legs and, to his surprise, the scent of coffee filling the air. His mother didn't usually go for coffee, so why did he…
Then he rolled off Miruko's couch, nearly falling onto the floor flat on his face, and remembered where he was and where he'd spent the night. As it turned out, his new temporary teacher's penthouse was still technically a single-bedroom affair, because she'd converted the other bedroom into a private gym. As such Izuku had slept on the couch, which hadn't been too trying and affair because it was a couch longer than his living room was wide, and Miruko had enough extra bedding for three king-sized beds with pillows to spare. The only real downside had been the strange sensation of sleeping in her enormous living room with its outer wall made entirely of glass and metal, leaving Izuku with the distinctly unsettling feeling like he was sleeping in a fish tank.
The coffee was Miruko's doing; she had an entire kitchen counter covered in all the trappings and gadgets required to produce the most in-depth cups of coffee Izuku had ever seen, which he witnessed firsthand as her grinder quietly hummed away, reducing beans that cost more for a baggy than his mother made in a week into a fine powder. He stumbled over to the kitchen, wiping the sleep from his eyes.
The fact that Miruko was wearing a fluffy white bathrobe and, insofar as he could discern, nothing else, only clicked with him after he'd leaned against one of the other kitchen counters (there were five, for some reason) and then did a double take. Then he forced himself to stop staring, regardless of how much toned, tanned leg there was on display. It was a mighty struggle, but All-Might's chosen successor would not yield. Not even for thick thighs.
"Morning," she said, casually, as she pressed the freshly ground powder into some kind of puck using a strange device that looked a bit like a tiny panini press. "You drink coffee?"
"Just… just juice, usually," he said, ignoring Valentine taking his own long gander at Miruko's legs using the reflective surface of the stainless steel refrigerator (itself nearly twice as tall as he was) to rub his eyes instead again. "Do you have any?"
"Carrot and watermelon," she replied. "I can't drink apple juice or my stomach churns like crazy, and I don't like oranges."
"Carrot juice?" Izuku walked to the fridge and found that she had almost an entire shelf filled to the brim with glass bottles of orange and red juices. "I… what's it taste like?"
"Carrots, hopefully," Miruko snarked, before her coffee machine started to softly whir behind him. "It's sweet, kinda earthy. Why? Never drunk carrot juice before?"
"N-No, we usually just bought… apple, sometimes grape," he admitted, before taking one of the red bottles, presumably watermelon. "This is fine though!"
"Mmmm." Miruko continued to prepare her coffee, and Izuku continued to avoid looking at her. The bathrobe had slipped off one shoulder and while he could see a strap, he didn't dare try to see what it was holding up. Valentine, on the other hand…
"I had no idea women could develop their bodies with such impressive musculature," the former President of the United States remarked. "Izuku, you must see this. This is precisely the sort of woman a hero should pursue. She could easily keep up with you, even once you are fully grown!"
Izuku said nothing, because Miruko's hearing was scarily perceptive and he really didn't want her to think he was crazy. Valentine continued to… well, it wasn't even really leering. He was looking at Miruko the way someone might look at a fine painting or a masterfully formed sculpture, admiring the shapes and elegant splendour of it all. Izuku swallowed, hard, and poured his newly acquired watermelon juice into a small glass he had to stand on his tip-toes to reach.
"So, on patrol today, do you want to move separately or together?" Miruko asked, as her coffee slowly dripped into the white mug (emblazoned, of course, with a pair of rabbits playing in a field), leaning against the counter and facing Midoriya. "You can follow me around if you want, but it might mess up your legs. What's up with that anyway?"
"What's up with what?" Izuku asked, carefully keeping his glass positioned so it cut off all view of her below the neck as he drank.
"Your Quirk, idiot," said Miruko, scoffing. "Why's it so… weird? You were teleporting or whatever, but when you were running, there was that green light coming out of your legs? But only one leg at a time? And when you punched Bondarchuk, your hand was glowing the same way. So what gives? How does a Quirk like that even work?"
Izuku blinked. He'd grown so used to Class 1-A's general acceptance of his Quirk's weirdness (and their general knowledge of Valentine and his gift) that he'd forgotten how bizarre the fusion of D4C with One For All would look to outsiders. Fortunately, he, Aizawa and All-Might, with some help from Nezu, had devised a fairly satisfactory explanation.
"Right… my Quirk was called Superpower, originally, because I thought it let me channel tons of power into parts of my body to enhance myself," he explained. "But during a training exercise, I accidentally triggered my real Quirk; D4C. Different Dimension Diving, Directing and Channeling."
"Stupid name." Miruko noted. Izuku sighed.
"Well, it was the only one that made sense," he replied. "But the D4C shorthand makes it way easer to say. Anyways, D4C is… weird? It… okay, are you familiar with multiverse mechanics? String theory and that sort of thing?"
"Yeah, I did graduate from a decent school y'know," Miruko snapped. "Jeez, UA students… why do you always think you're so much smarter than the rest of us?"
"I never…" Izuku groaned. "Okay, so you're familiar. Well, it's not theory, at least not to me; it's fact. There are… potentially infinite realities besides to this one, each one different in its own little ways. But it's sort of like a big jar of marbles; we're the marble in the middle, the prime marble. All the other marbles are like us, but the further you get from the prime marble the more different things get. There are constants; from what I can see, most of the same people exist in every reality, just under different forms."
He stopped rambling and looked up, to see Miruko staring at him. Her coffee machine dinged quietly, and she ignored it.
"That's… a lot…" she said, softly. "Okay, so… marbles? Infinite realities? Cool, but what does it have to do with making your legs glow green?"
"Okay, remember what I said about Superpower?" Izuku explained. "So, what I thought was my entire Quirk was actually just a part of D4C. The C stands for Channeling, remember? D4C allows me to channel the strength of other versions of myself into parts of my body, so I can enhance my arms to punch harder and my legs to jump higher, that sort of thing. It's a multiplicative enhancement of my natural physical ability."
"Okay, so you can multiply your own strength by…" Miruko shook her head. "That's a lot of words to explain a basic strength booster. And your warp thing, that's just you passing through realities?"
"Not really, it's more like…" Izuku thought about it for a moment, searching for the right explanation. "When I pass between realities, it's like I make a tiny hole and pass through it, going up or down. But when I warp in our active reality, it's like I make two tiny doors instead, connecting the two holes. But any space between them is erased, because those doors exist on a fundamental level separate from the rest of reality. I think that's why D4C requires space between two objects; it needs a sort of "frame" to latch itself to, or else the door wouldn't be able to exist."
He went on for a while, Miruko proving herself quite astute in puzzling through D4C with him. He explained the mechanics of passing D4C on; the warping power, he explained, was the core facet of the Quirk; the Channeling was present in all of his variants, but only one could warp between realities at a time. Miruko said that sucked, but Izuku didn't agree; the thought of infinite Izukus warping between realities at will sounded terrifying to him.
Maybe he was just greedy, being the current Prime Izuku. He wasn't sure, and he didn't want to think about it.
"That's probably one of the most ridiculous Quirks I've ever heard of," Miruko concluded, putting her freshly emptied coffee mug down on the counter beside her. "But at least it… kinda makes sense? At least I know you'll be able to keep up."
"If you ever need backup, you can take a photo of your current location and send it to me," said Izuku. "I can technically warp any distance with D4C, but I need an appropriate point of entry and I need to know exactly what it looks like when I picture it in my mind. Otherwise it doesn't work, or I end up in the wrong place."
Miruko gave him a look, and Izuku swallowed.
"J-Just, you know… in case you need backup," he repeated, rubbing the back of his head. "So… maybe we could patrol together, to start?"
"You think you can keep up with me?" she asked, and Izuku nodded once.
"I can." He put his freshly emptied glass down in the sink, unconsciously reaching out to take her mug from her. He paused when he saw the plates, forks, and knives lying around unwashed in the basin. "Well… maybe I should take care of this first."
"What, the dishes?" Miruko scoffed. "C'mon, they're fine. Go get your uniform on, I'm gonna get changed."
She set off toward her room, before turning and pointing at him.
"But if I even think you're trying to sneak a peek at me, I'll kick your ass so hard you'll cough up your own shit." she snapped.
Izuku nodded peacably, but the moment she disappeared behind her bedroom door he turned and, rolling up his sleeves, began washing the dishes. He couldn't abide by a messy home, even if it wasn't his. His hero uniform took less than two minutes to put on, after all.
Seven uneventful hours later, he was almost regretting his choice to follow Miruko on patrol. She moved quickly, and even with D4C he was struggling to keep up. She preferred to move via rooftops, and most roofs in the area were devoid of good points to blink to. He could use Thunderstruck as he had yesterday, but after just an hour his legs were killing him again. Eventually he came to a stop, falling into a sitting position atop the edge of one of the many buildings he'd spent the better part of the hour leaping over.
Miruko kept going, but Izuku just signalled to her with a quiet admission of defeat over their communications channel. He felt a little sting when she didn't even look back, as he dropped down to street level with a little tuck-and-roll before walking into a convenience store, looking to buy a drink.
Instead he found a man holding the cashier at knife-point, and another man with a baseball bat. Both robbers were staring directly at him, faces obscured by black surgical masks. Izuku stared right back, hands in his pockets and an eyebrow raised.
"That's the fucking guy from the Sports Festival, dude," said the robber with the baseball bat, hefting it in both hands with a nervous shrug of the shoulders. "What… what do we do?"
"Just play it calm!" the knife-weilding robber shouted, grabbing the cashier by the collar and holding his knife directly to the older woman's throat. "Don't… don't you move! I'll cut her open, I mean it!"
Behind Izuku, the door finally jingled as it closed shut. The automatic closing mechanism atop it must have been rusty, he figured. He raised his hands, calm and collected as he could manage, offering the two men an easy smile.
"Let's just relax, guys," he said. "There's no need for anyone to get hurt. Just put the knife away, please?"
"I said don't move!" The knifeman's hand trembled, and the cashier let out a little wheeze of fear as the blade grazed the wrinkled flesh of her throat. "K-Kiitsu, grab the shit in the register! Hurry up!"
The man with the bat, apparently Kiitsu, circled around the counter and began seizing fistfuls of bills and coins, shoving them into his pockets. The knifeman kept his blade at the woman's throat, and Izuku watched through a pained smile, mind racing.
If he lunged, the woman would be cut. She might survive, but it was a chance he didn't want to take. D4C could get him close, but again; too much opportunity for them to hurt her before fleeing. But… the doorway behind him… he scanned the store, and then grinned when he saw a door to the back room left ajar.
"Look, just take the money and walk away, alright?" Izuku requested. "I'll let you walk, just leave the woman alone."
"You… you'd better!" the knifeman shouted, as his associate finished stuffing his pockets with cash. "Step away from the door! Go… go stand by the freezer, and don't move until we're gone!"
Izuku obeyed with a smile, walking casually over to the freezer. He peered inside, down at the various popsicles and wrapped-up cones, as the two men shuffled toward the door. The knifeman released the woman as his companion opened the door, and Izuku turned to watch them leave, raising a hand. He pointed a finger right at them, as the woman scrambled away, and grinned.
"D4C," Izuku said, as the man with the bat disappeared through the doorway, appearing on the other end of the store.
The knifeman whirled around, watching the door close, as the bat-man looked around with an almost comical "huh" slipping free. Then the knifeman rushed Izuku, a high-pitched and panicked warcry on his lips. Izuku stepped into his charge, driving a fist into his stomach and very nearly lifting him off the ground completely. The knifeman hit the tiled floor with a heavy thud and a soft squeaking sound, gasping for air, as Izuku turned to see the bat-man making as if to flee.
Izuku pointed a finger again, and the bat-man's flight saw him emerge from the still-closing front door, the mechanism creaking softly overhead. He emerged with a wild swing of his bat, one Izuku ducked beneath before twisting and kicking the man right in the chest. D4C flared around him as the bat-man stumbled back through the door again, appearing on the other end of the store and hitting the ground with a confused groan. His bat clattered to the ground beside him.
The door finally closed, with another little jingle. Izuku stood up straight, and smiled at the cashier, who was by then ducked behind the counter, only peering over it long enough to check if the coast was clear..
"Sorry about that," Izuku said. "Just had to get them away from you. Do you have any duct-tape?"
Sure enough, she did, and soon the two unluckiest robbers in that particular district of the city were bound together, hands behind their backs and masks removed. They were young, maybe a few years older than Izuku at the most, with plain faces and short hair. Izuku knelt down beside the bat-man and pulled the money from his jacket pockets, even as he weakly protested.
"Next time," he advised. "Please try to find honest work? There's no need to throw away your futures so early."
"Shut up," the knifeman snapped. "You don't know anything, hero! This old bitch ripped us off! Screwed us over, and our friends!"
Izuku raised an eyebrow.
"What, did she overcharge you for a candy bar?" he asked, finishing his repossession of the bat-man's stolen cash, forming it into a nice orderly pile of bills and walking toward the counter.
"We were supposed to get our Trigger from her!" The knifeman scowled as Izuku whirled around, eyes wide with surprise. "She's a fuckin' dealer, man! But the last batch was fuckin' defective or something, it made our friend go apeshit!"
"Y-Yeah!" the bat-man agreed, nodding frantically and turning his head to try and look at Izuku over the knifeman's shoulder. "She poisoned our friend! W-We needed the money for his hospital bill!"
Izuku crossed his arms. It all sounded… well, implausible, to say the least. Was this a lie, an attempt at earning his pity? If so, why such an incriminating lie? The two were outright admitting to the use of an extremely illegal street drug, one Izuku had only heard murmurs about around UA. Why take that risk, unless…
Izuku looked to the cashier, who was staring at him. He examined her closely for a moment, putting on an easy smile even as he read her expression. She looked calm, collected… maybe a little too calm, for someone who'd just been robbed at knifepoint.
"Ma'am?" he asked, almost playfully, as if inviting her in on a joke. "You wouldn't happen to be storing any illicit narcotics in your store, would you?"
The woman met his gaze for a moment, eyes stern. Then, Izuku chuckled. A moment passed and she chuckled as well, and the two started to laugh. She leaned against the counter and laughed even harder, as Izuku nearly missed the counter putting the money back down.
"I didn't think so," he assured her, putting an extra bill on the table, from his pocket. "Here, for a soda? Heroism is thirsty work!"
She giggled, counting her money, and Izuku walked over to the cooler. Valentine was standing in the reflection, staring intently at the old woman, and Izuku raised an eyebrow.
"She's sweating at the temples," Valentine noted. "Did you notice the money? Quite a few large bills, for such a small business. Who would spend multiple 10,000 yen notes at a single convenience store?"
"You think she launders the money through her own store?" Izuku asked, as he leaned into the cooler to grab a bottle of All-Might branded lemon soda.
"It would be an excellent front," said Valentine. "Easy to conceal shipments of this "Trigger" amidst the assorted odds and ends a store of this type would import. And it's remarkably unassuming."
Izuku took the soda and waved farewell to the woman with a friendly smile. The two robbers sat silently fuming, likely convinced that Izuku didn't believe them. He stepped out of the doorway and, with a flash of D4C, appeared on the rooftop of the building, pulling his phone out of his pocket as he stepped out from between an AC unit and the wall of the taller building adjacent. He dialled the police's report hotline, and as the dial tone rang he opened his soda.
"What are the odds I accidentally walked into a drug den looking for a bottle of soda, though?" he asked, as Valentine appeared in the blue-tinted glass of the soda as he raised it to his lips, looking as though he was lounging on the bottle's side.
"Izuku, my boy, you have a remarkable knack for stumbling into affairs of nefarious import," the former President said. "I have more confidence in your ability to uncover trouble than I have in the sun's rising on the morrow."
Izuku called in the robbers to the police, but didn't mention any suspicions of drugs. He would talk about it with Miruko first, try and figure out what the play would be. Before he could make that call, however, he took a seat on the rooftop's edge and looked out over the street below, drinking his soda. Up above there were stormclouds building in the distance, blotting out the horizon. He smiled to see them, and thought of Blackmore.
—-
"Blackmore, are you ready for the intercept?" Salamandra's voice was quiet, but thanks to the wondrous black bead in his ear Blackmore could hear her perfectly, regardless of the distance between them.
He peered down at the road below him, bathed in the pale yellow light of the streetlamps. He was bedecked in his full heroic garb, the mask and coat, with his umbrella over his shoulder. The air was warm, the sky above a blank black field. Through the lights of the city he could not see the stars, which would have troubled him had his eyes looked skyward. But he kept his focus on the ground below, where he could scarcely see the four figures in the shadows of an alleyway.
They were trading in narcotics, apparently; not opium or tobacco, some sort of modern drug that apparently empowered Quirks of its users to ludicrous degrees, before a terrible crash. The Manual agency, and the wider world of law, called it Trigger. Blackmore could not see the vials trading hands, but Salamandra could from her perch atop a roof opposite him.
"I am ready," he said, his voice quiet. "At your word, ma'am."
There was a pregnant pause, Blackmore bracing himself. He squatted down low, peering at the alley mouth as if to scry the intent of those within. He could feel the air-pressure changing, the sky above darkening ever more. There were clouds at last, scattered but stretching more and more like a great blanket above… and they were heavy with unspent rainfall.
Blackmore smiled under his mask, despite the nerves that saw his hands tremble gently. Down below, the alley yawned empty and dark and still… until at last he saw movement in the shadows. He tensed, hand squeezing the handle of his umbrella, ready to lunge into action.
"Handoff," Salamandra whispered. "They're not moving yet. Stand by."
Blackmore drew a deep breath, glancing down the street. Somewhere a block or so away Tenya Iida was waiting in the wingsl, their backup if the interception went sideways. The entire mission had been something of a rushed-together plan, concocted by the senior sidekick when Salamandra had overheard the rumours of Trigger deal while on patrol, before scenting the suspect out with her enhanced senses. Police were waiting in the wings, ready to pick up the perpetrators once the heroes had neutralized them.
Across the street, a black shape moved. Salamandra, creeping along the wall, her green goggles glinting slightly in the streetlights as she peered into the alley. Blackmore could feel his heart pounding in his chest. He tensed again.
"Wait, something's wrong," Salamandra said, a note of panic poisoning otherwise cool tone. "They're tense, some kind of argument. Blackmore, stand by to… gun!"
There was a crack, a bright flash from inside the alley, and Blackmore watched as two men, one a hulking figure in a large brown coat and the other a more regular shape clad in green and grey, broke from the alley mouth and took off at a sprint. The large man was clutching his shoulder; Blackmore could see a stain growing across the face of his coat.
He didn't speak. He didn't think to. Blackmore drew back and then dove off the roof, allowing his body to discorporate into its liquid form and chasing after the pair of criminals. They didn't see him at first, a serpentine trail of glistening black fluid, not until he exploded into solid shape again in their midst, the crook end of his umbrella hooking the smaller man's ankle. Blackmore yanked and the green-clad man fell, shielding his face with his arms as he hit the pavement. The larger man turned and cursed, lashing out with a boot; Blackmore liquefied again and the foot passed right through the space his head had formerly occupied, before he poured between the man's legs and appeared behind and above him.
He brought his umbrella down on the hulk's bald head with a resounding clanking noise, the solid steel stem of his customized umbrella bending slightly. The huge man stumbled, forward and away from Blackmore, before whirling about with an angry roar. Blackmore, operating on his baser instincts, went for the gun in his jacket, the one he no longer possessed, and was forced to duck under the man's swing before jabbing him in the stomach with the tip of his umbrella.
The man swung with his other arm, a big wide-angle punch with all his weight behind it, and Blackmore discorporated again and flowed up the man's arm, emerging atop his shoulders with his umbrella across the man's neck. He pulled and squeezed, strangling a neck that seemed as thick as a tree trunk, as the big man tried in vain to reach over his own shoulders. His size was a disadvantage, until his grasping fingers found Blackmore's ponytail and pulled, hard.
Blackmore swung up and over the man in a graceless arc, culminating in a heavy crashing impact against the pavement that blew the wind out of him. He gasped for air, his entire back roaring with pain, watching the sky above vanish behind the massive man's boot. He crossed his arms in front of his face and barely caught the man's stomp, though the impact rocked his arms down to his shoulders. He drew in a long, ragged breath, fighting the man's crushing weight, before discorporating again and flowing between his legs.
This time, he waited a moment for the man to start his wild punch, staying far below the arc of his swing, before reforming his solid form and slamming an elbow right into the man's ribcage, just below his armpit. He put his legs, hips and waist all into the blow, and it paid off with a satisfying cracking sound and the feeling of something giving way under his elbow. It was the hulk's turn to gasp for air as Blackmore pulled back and drove his foot into the same space, another crack and an anguished cry of pain informing him that something was definitely broken.
The large man fell onto his side, weeping and wailing, and Blackmore looked at the green-clad man. He had rolled onto his back and was staring up at Blackmore, hands in front of his face.
"J-Just don't fuckin' kill me, man," he begged. "I-I swear I didn't know Kowasu stole the stuff, man, I-I just needed the cash, alright? T-Tell Mimic he'll never see me again, I-I'll leave Hosu! I'll leave Japan!"
"Quiet," Blackmore ordered. "Put your hands behind your head."
He turned the man over and retrieved one of the sets of handcuffs Salamandra had given him during the planning phase, cuffing the man with his hands over his head to a nearby shop's door handle. The man kept his head down, whimpering and whining the whole time.
"Please d-don't kill me man…" The man was weeping openly. "Please, I-I have a family…"
"I'm not…" Blackmore paused a moment. "I am not a hitman, or an assassin. I am Blackmore, with the Manual hero agency. You are… you are under arrest."
The man froze up, blinking tears from his eyes. He wriggled uselessly in the cuffs for a moment, before swallowing hard and speaking again.
"Y-You're a hero?" he asked. "Y-You gotta save me, man! Those two guys, th-they weren't junkies at all! They're with the Yakuza, th-they tried to kill me!"
Blackmore sighed, before the sound of another gunshot interrupted his train of thought. He whirled around to see another figure running from the alleyway, a tall, lean man with long black hair trailing behind him. There were things glinting and gleaming in his hair, little metal tokens of some sort. Blackmore blinked, before the man looked toward him. His eyes were huge, black as coal, and his face shifted into a hideous rictus grin as he raised the gun in his hand toward Blackmore.
Blackmore discorporated right as he pulled the trigger, feeling the bullet tear through his liquid form as he rushed the assassin down. The man cackled manically, adjusting his aim, and Blackmore watched helplessly as he fired past him, into the curled-up figure of the hulking man.
Then he reformed into solidity and brought his umbrella down, directly toward the grinning man's horrendous smile. The man didn't try to dodge; he just grinned, as strands of his hair surged forward and wrapped around the umbrella, yanking it to the side as the man yanked backward with his neck. Blackmore stumbled, eyes going wide, and then immediately discorporated as the man shoved the gun into his stomach, another bullet passing through his liquid form harmlessly.
The man tossed his head back and Blackmore's umbrella skittered away across the street; Blackmore himself reformed behind the man, going for a chokehold, only to have the mass of the man's voluminous hair blanket his face, strands of it entering his mouth, his eyes, even reaching toward his ears. Blackmore discorporated immediately, streaming away from the man. Gun at the front, hair at the back… his mind raced.
Then he remembered the bead, solidifying again to speak quickly.
"One enemy with a gun, some kind of control over his hair," he said quickly, before liquefying again as the man turned, raising the gun again, and he swirled away from the bullet before reforming again. "One suspect shot, potentially-!"
He couldn't discorporate quickly enough the second time; a bullet ripped through his arm, punching right through the muscle of his bicep and grazing the bone. He stumbled backward as the man fired again, panicking and discorporating as he fell only to re-solidify on the ground, clutching at his bleeding arm. The man loped forward, pistol in hand, and Blackmore forced himself to focus past the pain, focus on the fight at hand.
The sound of an engine roaring interrupted his attempts to think, as Tenya came roaring down the street, sprinting at speeds Blackmore could only equate to a locomotive at full burn. The lank man fired once, but the shot went wide as Tenya ducked down low, before rising back up and driving his shoulder into the man's chest. There was a vicious thud as he lifted off the ground, before crashing back down to the unforgiving road with a limp smack. Blackmore climbed up to one knee, as Tenya brought a foot down in a vicous stomp to the man's wrist. The gun fell from limp fingers.
Overhead, thunder rumbled.
"Are you alright?" Tenya asked, turning to look at Blackmore, who managed to get on his feet with a quiet groan. "He shot you? I'll call for a medic. Where is Salamandra?"
"She's preoccupied."
Blackmore and Tenya both whirled around to face the figure who had spoken, looming large in the alleyway with Salamandra's crumpled figure in his arms. He dropped her on the ground, his black shirt stained at the front with her blood. Salamandra' goggles were still glowing a soft green shade, looking right at Blackmore. She rasped something, words spoken too softly for him to hear. The man stepped over her, striding toward the two heroes.
Blackmore's blood cooled, his mind screaming at him to withdraw. Tenya seemed to share his sentiment, taking an involuntary step back. The man loomed large in the street, tall and pale and bald, with a heavy brow beneath which his black eyes glinted with a cold malice. His nose and mouth were hidden behind a plain white surgical mask, his hands wet with Salamandra's blood as he reached up and nonchalantly adjusted the collar of his shirt. He spared the limp figure of the lanky man a single glance.
"You two should have stayed safe at your school," the man said. "But you still have a chance to walk away. Leave, now."
"We w-won't leave without Miss Salamandra," Blackmore said, with much more confidence than he felt. His right hand still held his bleeding left bicep, but he felt it curl into a fist. "Step aside."
"Can't," the man replied, shaking his head. "I have orders. Both of the thieves die."
"Blackmore," said Tenya, quietly so only his earpiece could hear. "I called for backup. Dustbowl and Manual are on their way."
Just a short way down the street the man in green cried out in fear. The bald man looked toward him, and when his head was turned Blackmore moved. He discorporated, noting the increased toll it took on him with his bleeding arm, and solidified to deliver a vicous chop to the back of the man's shiny head. At least, such was his intent; the sudden eruption of iridescent white crystals from the back of the man's head blocked his blow. Blackmore cried out as the jagged edges of the crystals tore the skin of his hand, before the man drove his elbow into his side and threw him to the ground.
Tenya let out a roar of defiance, blitzing toward the man, who thrust an arm out in interruption. The entire limb almost instantly exploded into a mass of those same white crystals. Tenya's momentum slammed him directly into the clothesline-blow, throwing him off his feet. The man scoffed.
"You heroes… you just don't get it…" The man stalked past them, toward the man in green where he was still cuffed to the door. "Trash like this, trash like me… none of it really matters, so why fight so hard?"
Blackmore bit down on the inside of his cheek, before discorporating again, surging toward the man from behind. He was losing blood from his arm and hand, but he still had his legs, and he still had enough fluids left for one good rush. He moved swiftly, silently, rising above the man to come crashing down. He aimed for the base of the spine, where the crystals hadn't grown, with his heel. He could cripple the target, stop him from reaching the enemy.
He solidified six feet in the air, descending, and the bald man scoffed. Blackmore's heart stopped.
"I can see you in the crystal," he said, and Blackmore saw the reflection of the man's hollow eyes in the mantle of crystals surrounding his neck. "Did you think I was blind?"
The man twisted and smashed Blackmore out of the air with his crystal-covered arm, dashing him against the ground. Then, as Blackmore tried to roll onto his front to stand, he smashed the arm down again, battering him against the pavement. Blackmore collapsed, barely able to raise his head. He saw Tenya up the street, staggering to his feet. Past him, he could see others; Dustbowl and Manual, racing down the street, the former surrounded by a whirling cloud of particulate.
Raindrops started to fall. Fat, heavy things, hitting the ground and exploding like tiny bombs. Blackmore felt them falling on him. Catch The Rainbow made him aware, more aware; he could feel the rain, the downpour, each droplet where it struck something and halted in its downward motion. In his mind's eye he could see the bald man, raising the crystal-covered arm high.
He willed the rain that fell into his wounds to stop, ceasing the flowing blood that wept from his arm and hand. Then he rolled, as the man brought his crystalline mace down and raised a hand. The rain above him froze, and the man's crystal arm smashed helplessly against the shield of raindrops. Blackmore wheezed, discorporating.
As he raced between raindrops, an idea struck him. He'd done it before, in the other time, the other world. He didn't know if he could still do it here… but in his liquid form he commanded part of himself away from the whole. He could feel himself growing faint, the blackness of sweet unciousness creeping into the corners of his vision. But if he could steel away the man's mask…
He pulled his hand from the whole of himself and let it fall with the rain, to grab at the man's face. He snatched at the mask, hooking the string with his fingers, and yanked hard, exposing the man as he turned to look at Blackmore. He was surprisingly plain looking; a blunt, heavyset jaw like a solid rectangle at the base of his skull, with an equally heavy nose.
The exhaustion overtook Blackmore, and his body forcibly solidified a dozen feet away. He lay in the rain, the blood spilling from his wounds washing away in the gutter, his head propped up on the curb. The crystal-man scowled at him, then at the encroaching heroes, and then turned and fled. Doubtless he sought to maintain his cover, but Blackmore did his best to fix the man's face in his memory.
Then, blessedly, unconsciousness took him.
AN:
Whoa is that two different instances of foreshadowing a future arc in a single chapter? Crazy, I know, but the whole Overhaul/Yakuza fiasco is gonna be a pretty big deal here, what with Okuyasu bumbling his way into breaking the timeline. "OY JOSUKE, I USED 『ZA HANDO』AND ACCIDENTALLY ERASED MAJOR SERIES CANON, AIN'T THAT WACKY?"
Anyways, Izuku's whole deal with Miruko is off to a better start than was probably expected, now that they've both figured out that they can at least cope with the circumstances. Meanwhile...
Oh, Blackmore. My dear beautiful boy, so broken in your element and so... okay outside it. If only this were Persona 4 where it rains every time something important is about to happen, you'd be unstoppable! But alas... yeah, Blackmore took some hits this time around. Fighting hero students is one thing; trained hitmen are another entirely, especially considering our boy is no longer a fully grown man with all that handy-dandy muscle memory... or a gun. He misses the gun too.
Thanks for reading, I'll see you guys later with Chap. 29, in which I do the unthinkable and resolve romantic tension before the end of a series.