December 31 - Day 19

Tomoyasu rapidly pressed various buttons on his laptop over and over, going around refreshing and re-checking multiple spying applications, satellite images, and various other things in a complete circular loop. He's been going at it ever since yesterday when he got back from Gunga, and all the way until now. He just kept his eyes glued onto his laptop, and he hasn't even gotten an ounce of sleep yet, but still he just kept on going.

And going…

A strong winter wind blew, but Tomoyasu just stayed put and ignored it all, leaning once more on the side of the trailer of his Command Truck. If anything, what's more important to him (and for everyone in his regiment) is about Hawks's actions from yesterday. He now confirmed that the hero is never really on their side, and he's just a spy all along. One of the MLW books is even within the HPSC headquarters! By all means the heroes have already spotted the PLF!

And yet despite that…

'Why is NOTHING going on?!' Tomoyasu yelled in his mind, scratching the side of his head in utter annoyance and confusion, as he saw, that just like yesterday and the other days before it ever since Hawks arrived (and presumably began spying), the heroes are just completely inactive everywhere. It's just that there's not a single hint of action that's about to happen against him and the PLF.

'What's really going on?!' he mentally repeated himself again as he went over the opened programs on his laptop for the umpteenth time, checking the satellites again, as well as the reports from his field agents, and once again confirming that, no, the heroes are just simply not taking any serious action. He further went into checking the individual reports of his hero crew members - but just like the rest of their reports for the entire day, it's just the same exact story as well.

The heroes are just somehow staying silent for some weird reason…

Tomoyasu was about to scratch his head yet again when setting sun's rays reflected onto the side of his laptop and into his eyes, startling him a little. "Dammit! What are those pesky heroes planning?!" he blurted out loud as he started yet another loop of checking. And once again he found nothing of value.

"Hey Skeptic, tone down the worries! Trust me you're not gonna like the wrinkles in a few years," came in an unusually calm voice of Dr. Garaki, who's just wearing casual beachwear, complete with sunglasses even though it's already late in the afternoon, and holding a glass of lemonade. "So what if Dabi came in to throw a wrench into your plans? I'm already making good progress with Humarise."

"Doc… I've been setting that plan up for over 20 years now…" Tomoyasu couldn't help but smack his face in a very hard facepalm. "I've spent countless hours in preparation… I've gathered the supplies… I've even recreated the Deika City Terror Attack to line up everything… ONLY FOR THAT MORON TO CRASH EVERYTHING?! YOU EXPECT ME TO STAY CALM AFTER THAT?!" Tomoyasu was about to continue but he stopped himself at the very last moment to just do another facepalm.

"Well I'm sure you can just quickly come up with a contingency plan for that. Didn't you say that your competence and ability to make perfect decisions and plans is the sole reason your entire regiment is following and respecting you?" The old doctor shrugged and gestured towards a whole bunch of crewmembers minding their own activities along the airstrip, as well those that are currently constructing a mansion just further away. "Plus we're not in Gunga anyway, and Hawks never made it in here. If anything ever happens to them, that means you'll only lose Gunga and we'll just be completely unaffected by it all, leaving the rest of the MLA/PLF people on the hidden bunkers across the country relatively safe." Garaki shrugged again. "Also, if Gunga does get attacked, you can just whip up another fake video to cover it up and make it look like for the 'bunker people' that it was never even attacked in the first place."

"Well it's definitely nice to hear some positive things for once but…" Tomoyasu sighed and closed his laptop, reaching out to his left with his left hand and holding onto Glitch's arm – the Valkyrie's been silently standing there ever since he arrived here at the beach and he's just been ignoring her overall presence. "Look Doc, not everything can be lied to. I already pushed the limits with the Deika City Re-Shooting. Another massive PLF-related lie would be utterly catastrophic if it's ever found out, and I don't want to risk that. Plus there's a whole lot of final preparations that would take place in Gunga. And no, I'm not going to tell you what they are. Top secret and all that."

"Understandable. But while yes Gunga is technically done for, do know this: It's always infinitely better to just lose a chunk of the current plan than start all over again on a new one, at least in my opinion. Hey, look on the bright side! You already know the basics and the what-to-dos and what-not-to-dos. "Garaki casually shrugged again and took a quick sip from his lemonade. "Look I maybe over 200 years old and still maybe not the best at giving advice, especially in the realm of grand plans, but that's what I think."

"On second thought, you might be sort of right. But still, this is the Number 3 we're talking about. Hawks is quite an elusive hero I tell you that. I'm not even sure of the full extent of his abilities beyond his detachable wing feathers." Tomoyasu shook his head and lightly squeezed Glitch's arm. "And because of that I cannot guarantee that the 'bunker people' you talked about are safe. For all we know he could've already been there as well… if he even knew where they are."

"Yes, that may be the case, but the silver lining is that the heroes aren't even taking the slightest bit of action yet. You could use this to your advantage."

"Doc, I can't just keep looking on the bright side of things, alright? As a planner, I'm required to look at every figurative nook and cranny there is. I have to take into account the big picture, and always the big picture- Wait! I got it!"

"See?" Garaki chuckled to himself and took yet another sip of his drink. "A quick cool-down chat and there you go! You got yourself a new plan!"

"Well actually I'm now also half-annoyed at myself for wasting too much time panicking for a whole day only to get an instant plan the moment my head cooled down just a little bit… this late in the afternoon…" Tomoyasu shook his head and gestured for the old man to follow him. "Follow me, Doc, I have a plan…" He then proceeded to the end of the Command Truck's trailer and pressed a few buttons as well as a fingerprint scan to open up the back hatch. "The heroes may be not taking any sort of action just yet, but I'm not taking this easy. For all we know the higher-ups could already be cooking up an attack plan that would leave me no time to react once it happened… They're just keeping things hidden…"

"What are you planning then?"

Tomoyasu stepped inside the trailer and immediately opened up the lights, holding onto his closed laptop the entire time. "I'm going to get their attentions focused on some other things for a while-" he then abruptly stopped and turned to Garaki. "When's your next meeting with Mr. Humarise again?"

"Tomorrow morning, why?"

"Good enough. I'm just going to use this computer for an hour or two…" Tomoyasu then pressed another button, this time to close the back hatch once the old man entered. Now it's just the three of them. "And by that I mean I'm going to hack into Tartarus. I won't be breaking into their systems, I mean there's nothing substantial to find there anyways. I'm just going to get their alarm bells going off. Surely someone hacking into the most secure prison of the country would be enough to get everyone's attention to it for a couple of days tops, right? If so, then that's more than enough to get the rest of my people out and salvage what I can from the original plan."

"Not a bad plan. Want me to unleash a couple hundred Nomus as well? That'll surely distract them even more."

..!

"Doc that's SPLENDID!" Tomoyasu couldn't help but get out a toothy grin and slap a free hand on his thigh. He didn't care that he looked ridiculous, the point is that he heavily approved of Garaki's suggestion. "ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL!" he went in and aggressively shook the doctor's right hand. "Yeah we could do that!"

"Oh that's nothing!" Garaki let out an embarrassed chuckle. "I just gave an opinion that's all!"

"Yeah but it's a DAMN GOOD opinion! Simple, but good! Although you gotta make sure the Nomus don't look like Nomus or else it could trigger a pre-emptive strike from the heroes at Gunga to stop any further attacks-! But anyways let's get to this one first. No more fooling around for the time being. Gunga's detected, let's try to delay those pesky heroes as long as possible…" Tomoyasu hurriedly sat on the seat in front of the Command Truck's trailer's central computer and booted it up, but of course not before doing yet another check on his laptop first on whether the heroes are still not doing anything – and they still are, in fact, not doing anything alarming. "Hey Doc, tell me, how's progress with the Mist Biofuel and the new tanks?" he asked as he was waiting for the computer to boot up and pre-load all the necessary applications he's going to use.

"Progress has never been faster in my 200 years of existence! In just a few hours since I started experimenting with them, all low-tier Nomus are instantly obsolete! And by that I mean it's never been easier to instantly jump into the higher tiers!" Garaki then cleared his throat. "But unfortunately, the lack of Backforce is still an issue. They still die too easily."

"Agreed…" Tomoyasu nodded as he guided Glitch to stand beside him, out of the way of Garaki. "It's been the one thing that made them so ineffective against any serious enemy for the longest time. But at least you can now cram in even more toughening Quirks, correct? Does it alleviate the issue in any significant way?"

"While it most certainly did, but toughening them up in a conventional manner is only making them weaker to non-physical damaging Quirks. It's just one way or the other. Halving defensive measures into an even 50% split is not feasible due to genetic reasons. If only I can crack the Dreadnought defensive code…" Garaki gave Glitch a quick glance. "Modern biotechnology is really unique these days."

"Nah Doc, just keep messing around, I'm sure you'll figure something out."

"I sure do hope that's the case."

Tomoyasu simply nodded before turning his attention towards the (now booted up) computer in front of him. But before he could start the hack, he suddenly remembered something. "By the way, I did tell you to start messing around with Zero yesterday, correct? How's progress?"

"A bit slow, I'm afraid. While he's now stashed inside the main stasis chamber, but I haven't really experimented on live humans ever. If I want him to survive, I'm going to need some planning as well to make sure he pulls through the tests." Garaki nodded. "But how about Shigaraki? You told me you'll be handling on keeping him around, right? So where is he now that Zero's the one occupying his original vat?"

"Well Doc… I was technically stressing out yesterday when I took the fake Grand Commander in." Tomoyasu looked around a bit. "I might have went a bit overboard by tasking my Desolator Mini-Dreadnought and a few of my people to look after him."

"You tasked a literal Dreadnought just for Shigaraki? What happened since then?"

"To be honest Doc, I have no idea… but since we're already here let me go tell them to come over by the trailer…" Tomoyasu's voice trailed off as he lifted up his laptop once more and sent in some orders to Shigaraki's temporary caretakers, as well as a playable voice file and some additional instructions to get the Desolator Dreadnought following too. "Okay anyways now with that done, let's hack into Tartarus."

With a quick crack of his knuckles (and placing his laptop on a nearby table out of the way), Tomoyasu then turned his attention back to the main Command Truck computer and wasted no time in tinkering with the applications and setting them up in preparation of what he's about to do. "Alright… I'm gonna hack in a tiny bit. Not too much. Not to drastic. But not too little either. Just enough to trigger their alarms or something… I think I'll just go hack into their cameras…"

"By the way since you're doing that could we check on All for One? I'm just kind of curious."

"I guess that's not too bad of a request. Let's see how that useless bum's doing in prison, and being completely unable to get out despite his hundred thousand Quirks…" Tomoyasu paused a bit. "Surely someone hacking the cameras and checking on him would trigger an appropriate response, right?"

"Definitely, Skeptic. And by the way, when do you want the distraction Nomus to be released?"

"Ah, those?" Tomoyasu thought for a brief while as he continued setting up his hacking systems. "I guess I'll just inform you when. In times like these we have to get the timing of the release right to maximize the stalling effect." He nodded once more before turning his attention back to the screen. "Okay… systems ready… I'm going to send in the first batch of hacking attempts first - consisting of 7 tries, each time with more hacking ability than the last. If this first batch doesn't work, then I'll just send in another, and another… until I finally get past Tartarus's anti-hacking defenses. And then I'll go mess around after that."

"Not bad for an initial plan. Make sure Tartarus won't see us of course."

"How would I even forget that?" Tomoyasu shrugged before cracking his knuckles once more. So far the computer screen in front of him is now empty, except for a couple of numbers and codes scattered across it. All in all it's more than ready. "Alright, first seven attempts… go-"

?!

Tomoyasu didn't even finish his sentence as he instantly saw multiple windowed screens appear right after he pressed the activation button. Said multiple windowed screens are displaying live videos as if he somehow instantly hacked through some of Tartarus's cameras.

"Hey Skeptic, what happened? Are those Tartarus cameras?" Garaki asked as he narrowed his eyes on the screen. "Well that's quick. Good job!"

"Well actually it's a little too quick… I don't like that at all! It's NOT supposed to do that!" Tomoyasu narrowed his eyes onto the screen as well. "Look, I know I'm a hacking genius and all that but come on! Hacking into Tartarus in less than a second and in only ONE try? Suspicious I say!" He then pressed a few buttons, only now noticing that he's actually able to cycle through the cameras in Tartarus, even the ones that are not initially displayed, as if he somehow hacked in far more than what his screen can display at once. "I'm not liking this one bit! Did the heroes find out about my systems and implanted some sort of malware? But that's impossible! My systems would have detected it! No one has ever breached my digital defenses, well except that one time of course but that's a long time ago! I have since upped my cybersecurity!"

"I think it's too much to assume what you're seeing is the effect of malware. I mean, you're literally hacking into Tartarus, and that's drastically different from the Hawks issue at Gunga. There's no way the heroes would just randomly upgrade their anti-hacking software."

"Technically you might be right, but also it's quite dangerous to fall into thinking that everything is going fine, especially around this time…" Tomoyasu cleared his throat. "Alright, let me just go restart my hacking systems again and… Round two-!"

The same exact thing happened. The hacking attempt is once again a success. Same speed of hacking, and same cameras as last time.

Tomoyasu, now even more confused, restarted the hacking attempt once more, and again the same thing happened. He restarted yet again, and still the same thing happened yet again. He just somehow always easily gets in without detection.

"Wait… where are the prisoners…?" Garaki abruptly asked, stopping Tomoyasu from making yet another restart. Almost immediately the hacker too, inspected the cameras - especially those in which there are visible cells. And as with what Garaki saw, indeed there are absolutely no prisoners to be found. Even with switching the cameras around, there's just no one there except the few prison guards walking about. It's as if the entirety of Tartarus is just empty and barely defended. Not even a sign of All for One is present despite him being supposedly imprisoned there. "Something's definitely wrong here… something… Aha! This must be Tartarus's own anti-hacking defense! It's meant to fool hackers into thinking they already got in-!"

Tomoyasu abruptly stopped when he clicked on some applications on the taskbar, displaying their properties. They were the programs meant to detect any abnormalities in regards to the hacking. But as they all turned out, apparently every single one of his attempts successfully hacked into Tartarus without even encountering a single serious digital blockade…

"Nah! This is just gotta be Tartarus's anti-hacking systems! There's NO WAY I just keep getting in this easily!" Tomoyasu, still filled to the brim with absolute confusion, tried to reason out with himself. "Maybe if I send in another 7 hacking programs I'll finally get through this? Let's see… 7 more…"

Tomoyasu pressed a button which ordered the Command Truck's digital network to send in yet another hacking wave. And as usual, this one easily got in again. Now even more confused, Tomoyasu instead just sent out an entire legion of hacking attempts … and still all of them got in with no delays nor encounters with anti-hacking software. He just keeps easily getting into the Tartarus systems and into its cameras…

It's almost as if there's literally nothing defending Tartarus against cyber attacks…

"This has got to be a joke!" Tomoyasu blurted out. "This doesn't make any goddamn sense! Where the hell is Tartarus's cybersecurity? What the hell's going on?! First there's Hawks being a spy yet not wearing any disguises at all and blatantly trying to fool me despite my trackers, then there's the inactive heroes, and now I managed to get to Tartarus just like that and without even triggering any alarms at all?"

"Tartarus is completely empty too huh? Or maybe the prisoners are just holed up somewhere in a place with no cameras?" Garaki shrugged.

"You know what? I have no idea what's going on at this point!" Tomoyasu slammed his fists onto the metal desk the Command Truck's main computer is on, irritation now replacing all his initial confusion. "Nothing's right at all! There HAS to be a reason to all the weird crap going on!" He blurted out, before going on a long rambling spree about all the nonsense he's gotten so far, all the way to the main plan going to the gutters. "Okay! NEW PLAN! I'm going to do the MOST HALF-ASSED hacking attempt I have done in MY ENTIRE LIFE! HERE WE GO!"

"Just be sure to cover up the traces, okay?" Garaki asked in a calm manner, seemingly unfazed by Tomoyasu's antics.

"OF COURSE I'LL DO THAT DOC, YOU DON'T NEED TO REMIND ME!" Gritting his teeth, Tomoyasu then proceeded with his plan of doing a deliberate idiotic and barely-concealed hacking attempt at Tartarus. "I SWEAR if Tartarus DIDN'T detect this I'm going to lose my MIND! Okay… GO!"

?

"Uh… that's…" Tomoyasu narrowed his eyes onto the Tartarus cameras he (supposedly) connected to. For some reason, within a few seconds of his deliberately lame attempt at hacking, all guards visible on the hacked cameras suddenly stopped walking, and immediately held out their two-way police radios as if they're being alerted of something. And after a couple more minutes, they all eventually pulled out their assault rifles before walking out and continuing their patrol, with some of the guards looking much more nervous than the others.

"What? That hacking attempt got them?" Garaki scratched the side of his head in confusion. "Tell me, in a scale of one to ten, how lame is that attempt you just made?"

"So lame I wouldn't even put a score on it…" Tomoyasu muttered to himself as he kept his eyes locked onto the computer screen, analyzing everything. As minutes went on, the guards starting pulling out their radios more and more, with some of them even visibly shaking. If anything it looked like this particular hacking distraction attempt did work this time around – in which Tomoyasu confirmed by some of his programs, which are displaying that the hack did get detected.

Although he still somehow successfully hacked into Tartarus… and that still doesn't make sense…

"But it just doesn't make an ounce of sense! How is this even a thing?" Tomoyasu blurted out once more, his eyes now going to the cameras pointed towards the empty prison cells. Is this even Tartarus or what? Am I being bamboozled? Is this an illusion? But the guards immediately reacted to the half-assed attempt!" He then looked again on the hacking stats his other programs are displaying, and all of them are still showing normal parameters (except the one showing that the hack got detected). By all means he is, in fact, looking within Tartarus's walls.

But how…?

And where are the prisoners?

How did he get in so easily?

"Er… should I ready up the Nomu swarms…?" Garaki awkwardly asked. "Better to start the back-up distraction systems early, yes?"

"You know what, Doc? You're right!" Tomoyasu indirectly raised his voice due to the still-ongoing irritation, before sighing and shaking his head. By all means he needs a clear head to be able to make up an actual proper plan, but it seems that the clarity he's looking for is not going to come by anytime soon. "Yeah… much better to start with some real distractions…" he muttered before doing one last check on his laptop, specifically the satellite system it's connected to - to see if the heroes are mobilizing, alongside any reports from his crew.

And as it turns out, there's still nothing.

"Although… while the disguised Nomus are good distractions, releasing them all at once would result in heroes having ramped-up defenses for quite some time afterwards, and of course that would not be a good thing when I unleash my own forces…" Tomoyasu shook his head. "We can't rely on disguised Nomus too much… we got to spin things up a a bit… we need to be creative… the distractions must be varied enough and tough to solve at the same time, but also not too serious as to get the heroes really riled up… we need something…" His voice then trailed off as he thinks further on. But unfortunately, his head is just too clogged with worries and confusion to even be able to make up a coherent plan.

"I need to clear my head first… I can't think of anything…" he said as he turned off the Command Truck's main computer, but of course still making sure that the defensive anti-detection countermeasures are still active in the background systems. "Let's go. I hope the fireworks display this coming New Year's Even can clear my head enough… I think I'm leaving my laptop here for a while too…" he added as he swung over an arm to Glitch's shoulder and guided her towards the exit. Said woman-looking bioweapon responded to it by also placing her hand on his shoulder, but Tomoyasu just let it there, he has more problems to deal with than some affectionate Valkyrie.

After a short while, all three eventually went out of the trailer.

"I swear if I have some sort of Stress-stacking Quirk ability, I'll be a literal superhuman right now…" Tomoyasu muttered to himself as he ran a palm down his face. "Hey Doc, can you safely give me an extra Quirk or something? I could really use a Stress Quirk."

"Well if my upcoming experiments on Zero all turn out fine, then sure!"

Tomoyasu raised his eyebrow, finding the old man's response a bit too odd. "Garaki, the main plan is about to turn into ruins… how are you just so casual about all this?"

"I have lived for over 200 years as a 'minion' of All for One. In that long of a time I've witnessed countless plans failing and I just got used to it all." The doctor shrugged. "And knowing how an incompetent fool like AFO managed to live out this long without being caught, I'm sure someone like you will more than likely pull through. Sure some parts of your plan will potentially crash and burn, but getting caught? Not a chance if you play your cards right."

"Hmmm… well I'm feeling strangely calmer with that statement. I don't know why-" Tomoyasu's face then quickly contorted back into pure annoyance and irritation after spotting Dabi smugly walking towards him, accompanied by some of his crewmembers tasked of 'keeping him in check'. Almost immediately he had thoughts of just instantly killing the stupid Elementalist with one clean shot to the head, but he'd rather just listen to what he wants first this time.

And maybe then he'd just kill the stupid Elementalist with one clean shot to the head-

"I need you to edit this for me…" Dabi said in his usual smug tone, holding up a piece of paper as he approached.

"Good… just in time because I'm feeling very generous this evening…" Tomoyasu straightened his posture, but still keeping a hand on Glitch's shoulder. In the meantime, Garaki stepped back from the scene. "I thought you want another camera again… Glad to hear that you didn't lose the one I gave you yesterday after I got back from Gunga…" he added in a sarcastic manner, just barely managing to succeed NOT to add the part that he only decided to give him a camera after he killed (and revived) him 37 times first (as to which Dabi never even knew).

"Whatever, you dumb bastard… Now, I want you to edit this blank template I printed off the internet." The smug elementalist handed Tomoyasu the paper he's holding. "Make it look like it's mine, and that I'm Endeavor's son."

"Uh-huh sure…" Tomoyasu took the paper. It's a blank DNA Test template that looks like it's just printed off the internet, exactly as what Dabi said it is. "You're seriously just going to hand me this and casually order me around again, huh? After you single-handedly alerted the heroes of the PLF in Gunga?"

"So what? You got a problem with that?"

Tomoyasu narrowed his eyes at Dabi. "You seriously see nothing wrong with that?"

"What… do you have a problem with that?" Dabi leaned forward in a menacing tone and posture, as if ready to ignite his hands at any moment.

"As a matter of fact, I do." Tomoyasu raised up the paper his holding, and with two hands, ripped it in such a manner that conveys a hidden command to the crewmembers tasked of following Dabi. And as ordered, a glowing human-sized concave force field with hexagon patterns dropped onto the Elementalist, completely trapping him within just as he was about to hurl blue flames forward.

But Dabi didn't even flinch at all. If anything it just made him ignite his flames further and attempt another swing. But because the force-field has innate heat resistance to it, a fact made sure by Tomoyasu in picking out crew members to follow Dabi around, all the Elementalist managed to do, is just raise the temperature within to ridiculous levels, and eventually asphyxiate himself by the lack of oxygen, before cooking himself.

Needless to say, what is just left is a singed corpse. Dabi is, once again, dead.

Almost immediately Tomoyasu felt an insane amount of rage at the burnt body. "Garaki! Bring that guy back up! I'M GOING TO TEACH HIM ANOTHER SET OF LESSONS!" he demanded as he pulled out his pistol shoved on his pocket. "Killing Dabi JUST once tonight doesn't cut it! MOVE!"

Garaki shrugged and then pulled out something from his pocket as well, a small gray box-like container. Within it are rows of tiny fingernail-sized syringes filled with bright yellow liquid. "I have 46 in stock with me right now."

"VERY GOOD!" Tomoyasu then made more hand signals to command the crew member who put down the force field to remove it. As ordered, the force field is lifted up before dissipating into thin air, allowing the old doctor to flick one of the tiny syringes he has onto Dabi's burnt corpse.

Upon its landing, successfully impaling itself even, the dead body began glowing a faint yellow glow, slowly intensifying over the course of 5 seconds. Upon reaching its full intensity, the now-blob of yellow light seemingly lifted up and arranged itself in a standing position. And then just a second later, the yellow cloud dispersed, leaving a perfectly normal standing Dabi – who took another second to actually start moving.

"Whatever, you dumb bastard… Now, I want this template I printed off the internet edited-" the Elementalist stopped, seemingly noticing the now-already torn-up DNA test papers lying by the feet of the now-pistol-wielding Tomoyasu. "What?"

"Yes, that's basically the only reaction you need." Tomoyasu quickly aimed his firearm at Dabi's head and pulled the trigger, the bullet easily penetrating through the target's skull and blasting blood behind him, leaving him dead on the cold hard tarmac once again. After a quick huff, Tomoyasu then gestured for Garaki to send in another syringe, in which the old doctor merely shrugged before flinging another one.

Once Dabi is revived, Tomoyasu didn't even waste a single second and blasted his head again, before requesting another revive, and then killed Dabi again, and again, and again… He used his pistol, he used his fists, he used his boots, he ordered some of his crew, he just killed Dabi over and over using a variety of ways, some ways more bloodier than others.

It took him almost half an hour to release all his pent-up rage, but he's eventually satisfied. "Great… I feel REJUVENATED!" Tomoyasu laughed a bit, before gesturing for Garaki to be ready to fling in another syringe. "Maybe one more would clear my head enough to get a new plan going." He then turned to Glitch standing right beside him. "Hey, time to show us what you're made of. Get your gun ready, aim it at that dead body over there. Don't fire until I said so, understand?"

The moment Tomoyasu stopped talking, everyone immediately backed off. None of them haven't seen what Glitch can do and all are eager to see it.

Glitch, on the other hand, took one full second before tilting her head towards said dead body, her expression now strangely changed into that of annoyance, as if she too is now frustrated by Dabi. She then raised her hand, and with an open palm, pointed it towards the direction of her upcoming target. Small glowing particles with a pale white color have began swirling around her around this time, which after a few more seconds, fused together and seemingly transformed into a levitating 2-meter long futuristic rifle just floating behind her.

A small memory of the Zorcon saleslady's floating rifle appeared in Tomoyasu's mind, but what Glitch has currently looks far more formidable. "Glitch, blow this guy's head off after I Rewind him back to life… ready?"

Tomoyasu ordered Garaki to throw the syringe, in which the Doctor did, which in turn began rewinding Dabi's dead body - eventually standing up once more until the yellow light dispersed.

But before the smug Elementalist could even come back to his (Rewinded) senses and be gunned down by Glitch, a spear made of solid ice suddenly came flying in from above, piercing right through his head, and then impaling itself onto the tarmac.

"Wait what-?!" Tomoyasu, alongside the rest of the people there, looked up.

It's Geten. He's standing on his floating ice platform, and once more wearing his blue parka. "Hey uh… I just came to visit and all and uh…" he said in a loud enough voice to be audible enough to the people below. "… Hawks is still pretty harmless back at Gunga, just so you may want to know."

"Took you long enough to finally decide to come around here on your own, kid," Tomoyasu spoke out, his tone finally relaxed from killing Dabi so many times (as well as seeing him hilariously impaled by an ice spear). "What's up?"

"Uh hey can you get your 'Viking' to get her weapons down for a bit?"

"Huh- oh…" Tomoyasu gestured for Glitch to decommission her weapon. Just a brief while afterwards he immediately heard some faint complaints from his nearby crew about not seeing the Valkyrie fire her gun, but those aren't important for now. "Crew, you may leave now. Let's just have Dabi's impaled corpse over there be our New Year's decoration."

As ordered, all nearby crew members immediately walked off, leaving Garaki the only one there aside from Tomoyasu, Geten, and Glitch.

"So… what brings you here?" Tomoyasu asked again with a genuine curious tone, seeing that everyone's left. "Normally I would be the one convincing you to leave Gunga, and yet you came here on your own?"

"Well uh…" Geten, scratching the back of his parka-covered head, lowered himself even further on his floating icy platform. "Actually I was there during the PLF meeting yesterday… But well technically I'm just not officially there, just back there in the dark, and just quietly listening in. There's not much sense on hearing these pathetic LoV discuss their pathetic plans anyways... But I'm there... I saw you enter in…" Geten's voice trailed off. "Anyways, after you left, I overheard some of your crew talking about Dabi exposing Gunga's location to the heroes, is it true?" he asked after taking one quick glance towards Dabi's impaled corpse to his side. He didn't really answer Tomoyasu's question.

"Right you are. Gunga is done for. Dabi over there brought in Hawks and so on and so forth..." Tomoyasu shook his head. "But you know what? I'll still keep him around. He may be stubborn and dumb, but I could definitely use someone I could just drop in an area to attack everything in sight. On the other hand I could also use a portable punching bag whenever I get stressed. Win/Win. And also about Gunga..." He paused a bit to clear his throat, before proceeding to tell the entire story to Geten, starting from his weird observations and all the way until the part where he somehow easily hacked into Tartarus. "If you want you could help out with some extra distractions. I need to buy time to get all my people ferried out of Gunga ASAP."

"Hmmm… I'm fine with that…" Geten nodded before turning to look at a building under construction just some distance away along the airstrip. "So they'll all be living there huh?"

"Of course. I requested it to be as spacious as possible."

"Cool."

"So anyways…" Tomoyasu noticed Geten glancing over at Glitch's very well-endowed chest, but he didn't mind it much. "So how's Gunga when you left this afternoon? You did leave at around afternoon, correct?"

"Toga is running around the halls whining about how the world hates her so much, all while a whole bunch of 'infatuated' troops kept following her around. Some of them even let themselves get stabbed."

Tomoyasu's right eyebrow twitched upon hearing Geten's story. While he very well knew how pathetic Re-Destro's followers can be (just like Re-Destro himself) but them now letting themselves get stabbed? Well that's a brand new low. His respect for the MLA just dropped a whole lot less from virtually non-existent, to even more virtually non-existent. "That's something I would never expect from them, and yet here we are."

"Yeah, your crew were just staring at them while it's all happening. I couldn't even believe it myself."

"Everyday the patheticness of the original MLA grows more and more obvious. But nonetheless that makes them better cannon fodders. All the more better for my true plans… once I got around to remedying what needs fixing, that is… if ever I can even still remedy it." Tomoyasu sighed before re-composing himself back up, and once more noticing Geten looking at Glitch's chest. "Alright, kid, so you're staying here for a while, yes? Helping out the actual non-pathetic MSA members?"

"M-S-A?"

Tomoyasu chuckled to himself. "Yes, it's not the MLA anymore. And no, I won't tell you what that means yet until Doc over here finishes his mission." He then gestured to Garaki, who's just standing nearby and staring out into the sunset beyond the ocean. "But as of now, feel free to just wander around a bit-" he abruptly paused as he noticed his Desolator Dreadnought (carrying Tomura on its right hand), surrounded by his crew and with the small purple Irkalla droid following behind, making their way towards him from a distance. "Hmm, I have some urgent matters to attend to. Move along, kid. We'll just talk later."

With a nod, Geten immediately left.

"Hey Doc, Grand Commander Shigaraki is here."

Upon the words, Garaki quickly turned back. And indeed there he is, the supposed leader of the PLF, being held like a doll by the Desolator Dreadnought as it slowly trundled on its way towards them. "The big guy's pretty obedient for a mindless drone huh? Must be those Valkyrie genes embedded into it."

"Indeed." Tomoyasu stood straight and kept his hand on Glitch's shoulder. Soon enough, the entire 'battalion' arrived, with the huge 8-foot tall war machine certainly getting a ton of looks from the other nearby crewmembers on the airstrip. "So what do we have here?" he asked in a sarcastic tone directed towards Shigaraki, all the while standing in such a way that obscures the 'Grand Commander's view of the impaled Dabi.

"Watch your tongue. I'm in charge here."

Tomoyasu, perhaps still feeling a hint of irritation from all the strangeness that happened so far, as well as Dabi's presence (even though he already killed the Elementalist many times beforehand), felt the urgent need to pick up a random pebble and throw it at maximum force on Shigaraki's face. It hit its mark dead center on-target.

"Whoever you are, MLA bastard, you have just set my destruction-hellbent eyes on you," Shigaraki immediately responded all while he's still on the Desolator's grasp and unable to escape. "I'll destroy you first, and destroy everyone ever affiliated with you. And you can't even hide from me because I'll destroy all there is to hide in. I'll just keep destroying and destroying until there's nothing left."

Tomoyasu merely raised an eyebrow. "Are you a bugged-out NPC who only knows one word?" he asked, with his crew (and Garaki as well) barely stifling a laugh at how pathetic Shigaraki is at his current state. "Why don't you be true to your word and kill me right here right now?"

"No one belittles me and stays ALIVE!" Shigaraki immediately planted his hands down upon the metallic fingers of the Desolator Dreadnought carrying him and wasted no time in activating Decay. But since the humanoid war machine - like all Dreadnoughts, is immune to Quirks, it accomplished absolutely nothing. Decay didn't work. Around this point, the rest of the nearby crew members are now laughing at Tomura.

"Alright let's get this show going…" Tomoyasu raised a hand and made some hand gestures to command some of the nearby crew members present to conceal the impaled Dabi behind him. What happened next is that a bush spontaneously sprouted over the location of the corpse. It's not perfect, and technically even sticks out like a sore thumb on the paved tarmac, but it did the job nonetheless. "Crew, ready up," Tomoyasu spoke out loud before making more hand gestures. "Desolator, put the Grand Commander down."

As ordered, the small Dreadnought released his grasp of Shigaraki, who then immediately proceeded to slam his hands on the ground. They would have made contact to the floor and succeeded, if it weren't for an invisible barrier preventing the destructive ability into coming through.

"My main problem with Decay is that it's just so simple. It's excessively dependent on the hands…" Tomoyasu sighed, a brief memory of faking Shigaraki's ability to shoot out Decay waves from his hands to defeat flying MLA troops appearing in his mind for a bit. "It has potential, definitely, but the easily-counterable mechanic is a massive roadblock," he added, his mind shifting towards his own Quirk's ability to command existing Anthropomorph Golems even if his touching capabilities are countered. "Crew. Mime. Silence. Pin."

As commanded, Shigaraki is instantly encased with a barrier of barely-visible air, trapping him within. After a few seconds, Blockhead appeared and placed a hand onto the solid surface of said barrier and muted the irrelevant taunts from the trapped villain. Right afterwards, green glowing force fields appeared further on Shigaraki's hands as a back-up so he literally couldn't touch anything.

"Alright crew, dismissed." Tomoyasu waved a hand and made the entire crowd leave, with only the Desolator and the purple droid staying, alongside Glitch and Garaki. "Hey Doc… this guy seriously doesn't have a functioning brain huh?" he chuckled as he made stupid faces on the hapless Tomura, who's still taunting from inside his areal prison as if he's the one with the upper hand.

"I told you there's nothing right on him in the head. He's a complete fool just like AFO. You know, you really shouldn't be paying these people much attention. They're not worth it. I'm surprised you just didn't kill him for a Rewind revive or something," Garaki replied, not even wondering at the fact that Shigaraki somehow can't recognize him in his casual beach wear. "By the way, what are you going to do with him now that Dabi revealed Gunga?"

"Okay… this is not the final plan and I just cobbled this up right now…" Tomoyasu cleared his throat as he prepared to speak, his gaze still centered on Shigaraki's patheticness in front of him. "If the distraction is a success, then I obviously need Shigaraki as a puppet leader. If the heroes still attack, then I still need Shigaraki as a puppet leader for any PLF remnants I could recover. Either way, I need this guy as a puppet leader." He then smirked, fully knowing how stupid and easily-manipulated Shigaraki is, just like the rest of his (pathetic) League.

"Not bad."

"Hey Doc, what if I just pretend I'm just mind-controlled by the heroes earlier that's why I threw a pebble at him, would Shigaraki instantly forgive me?" Tomoyasu asked Garaki with a smug chuckle, fully knowing a resounding 'yes' as an answer.

Garaki nodded. "Tomura is a very simple person. He doesn't really question anything as long as he thinks that person is his ally." The old man shrugged. "Always remember that he easily accepted a seemingly impossible mission from AFO to kill All Might, and then to ruin society… He also easily accepted a mission from me to make Machia submit. He simply just doesn't question anything."

"That very much connects to how he easily accepted Re-Destro's challenge as well…" Tomoyasu nodded, once more seeing the big picture of the absolute brainlessness of Shigaraki-

?!

"WAIT A MINUTE! Something's not right here!" he abruptly exclaimed, his grip on Glitch's shoulder tightening a bit.

"What is it this time? Hawks not wearing a disguise and ignoring the trackers? Heroes not attacking? Tartarus hacking going smoothly? Or is it something else?"

"No! A new one at that!" Tomoyasu walked up to the bush growing on the tarmac that's currently hiding Dabi's impaled corpse, and then ripped it out of the ground, revealing everything to Shigaraki, who seemingly didn't even react to it. But whether the (stupid) villain just didn't mind it or he somehow just didn't even see it at all, it's not important anymore as of now. What's important is, "THAT!" Tomoyasu gestured aggressively to Tomura, pointing at him repeatedly. "HOW…?"

Garaki raised an eyebrow. "What? What are you talking about? I'm not understanding anything here."

"Doc… look…" Tomoyasu cleared his throat before walking in, pulling Glitch with him, and standing near the confused old man. "Look," he repeated as he gestured towards the trapped Shigaraki and the dead impaled Dabi."Tell me what's wrong with this picture... Just take a good long look and tell me… What's wrong with it?"

The doctor narrowed his eyes on both Dabi and Tomura in front of him. "They're both part of the League?" he muttered, his voice sounding confused. "They're both fools? Easily manipulated? I really don't get what you're trying to say here, Skeptic."

"Doc… those two are part of the League, yes?"

"Yes I said that, so what about it?"

"The League's been Japan's most wanted for how many months straight now, right? The country's public enemy number one? It's like almost every crime these days are being pinned onto them!" Tomoyasu kept his eyes lined up front, ignoring Shigaraki's visual taunts. "But seriously, just look on these two… Do you really think these people are worthy of the title? Just look at them! Do you think that these pathetic morons have what it takes to be the country's most wanted?" Tomoyasu indirectly raised his voice towards the end of his sentence. "Dabi is a one-note one-trick pony! Shigaraki is so moronic it's not even funny! I literally even have to save Toga from Curious OUT OF ALL PEOPLE during the Deika incident! Spinner and Magne are self-explanatory! And Twice is just an extremely easily-manipulated idiot!" Tomoyasu grumbled something incomprehensible afterwards before facepalming hard. "Look, what I'm saying is that these fools have NO reason to be treated as they are! Literally NO REASON! I mean, we literally PRANK-CALLED them into arriving into Deika City for cryin' out loud! Do these guys really look like country-wide threats to you? Seriously? You could literally bait these guys into a frikkin' JAIL CELL!"

"Skeptic, to be honest I just don't really think of those. All I know is that the League is just a bunch of colossal fools. How the heroes are treating them is none of my concern."

"Well Doc, looks like it's time for you to look into it and start asking questions…" Tomoyasu sighed and shook his head. "Just image all the various tracking Quirks and gadgets the heroes have, and yet they can't take the League down? Seriously, they can't do that?" He grumbled some more, his voice rising in irritation. "And do you not remember all the news about the League's influence supposedly ramping up? Then how come there's only 6 of them that arrived in Deika? Where's that influence huh?"

"Skeptic, do you really think we should be taking those seriously?"

"Yes I do. It just fits in line with all the strangeness the heroes are acting right now: Hawks not wearing a disguise and ignoring my trackers, heroes not moving at all, one of the MLW books being at the HPSC HQ, Tartarus easily hacked in… times like these we can't just ignore anything like those. Some things are just not adding up, and it could mean far worse if we didn't take it seriously!" Tomoyasu crossed his arms before uncrossing them again to order his Mini Dreadnought to stand behind the trapped Shigaraki. "The heroes are hiding something. It might not be directly related to discovering Gunga, but they got to be hiding something."

"Well you're the one who's good at figuring things out. Do you have a guess?"

"I have no idea Doc. All I know is that there's something, that's it… A small group of people acting odd is still somewhat excusable, but when you have an entire 'faction' acting nonsense? That's NOT normal." Tomoyasu cleared his throat and straightened his posture. "I'll try to figure it out sometime, but as of now? I'll just keep on monitoring them and focusing on sending in distractions to hopefully delay whatever attack they're planning... Plus I still have to keep Trumpet's loyalty aligned to the PLF-"

Shigaraki then suddenly, from within his areal prison, gave him the middle finger on both of his shielded hands. It's as if he just couldn't understand that he already lost.

'The heroes are definitely up to something…'

Notes:

I kinda ironically love the fact that Skeptic – the guy who has control over electronics and even has his own frikkin' satellite, got blindsided THREE times by the heroes. It's just ridiculous!

- The first one is how he somehow didn't even detect the masses of brightly colored heroes marching over to the Gunga mansion.

- The second is that he somehow didn't see that there are heroes defending Machia's prison in the Final War, and just casually sent in Midnight's Killer's regiment over there.

- The third is that he somehow didn't see Ms. Joke and friends coming in to get him in his little cave base.

Yeah… the guy is practically blind. But then again, it's pretty much in line with how Hori made the MLA: nothing more than just pathetic losers. Hell, their first introduction is them getting stomped by six people (Machia technically didn't do much in MVA)! And then they're also just off-screened in both the War Arc and the Final Battle, as if they're really just irrelevant losers!

…

This time, however, Skeptic won't be too blind...