Chapter Six: Pick Your Poison

Less than twenty minutes into their meeting with the Shie Hassaikai, Toga wished she were anywhere else. Spinner might have sulked to her about being left on the bench again, but he was living the good life right now compared to what Toga was enduring.

Chisaki Kai, also known as Overhaul, also known as an uppity bastard whose face Toga wanted to rip off, had started the conversation by making several derogatory remarks about both her allies and her home. Toga admitted she had better relationships with some members of the League of Villains than others, but all of them had taken her in and stuck together through thick and thin; that was enough for her. And how the hell was he a yakuza boss if he couldn't deal with a little blood on the floor? It reminded her of the experiences that made life worth living!

She tried to zone out for most of what happened after that. Not only did any further barbs threaten to send her over the edge again, but apart from the occasional jab the conversation got phenomenally boring after that. If she had to pay actual attention to the discussion about the minutiae of how each of their organizations was run, her brain would be leaking out her ears by the end of it.

It dragged on, and on, and on. Toga's pulse pounded in her ears, growing louder by the second. She inched closer and closer to slicing someone open just to make the agony stop.

Then, right as Toga thought everything was over, Overhaul unleashed his final insult. "If you want to move on up in the world, come work for us for a bit. I'll send all of you to heights you could never achieve on your own."

Toga saw red, but to her shock, Magne acted first. Before anyone could stop her, she began marching right toward Overhaul. "Who are you to suggest the League of Villains bow to your command?"

"A realist," Overhaul responded. "Your organization has no plans for the future and an unacceptable amount of waste to their name. I can change both of those things if you're willing to work with me."

"I'm here because it means I'm free," Magne said. "No one holds my leash."

Overhaul cocked an eyebrow. "I'm not so sure about that. The League of Villains seems to be doing that just fine."

Something snapped right then and there: Magne growled deep within her throat, then charged.

Kurogiri once again became the only person preventing all hell from breaking loose. Sounding quite exasperated, he opened a portal right in front of Magne, who was moving too quickly to sidestep it. It spat her back out approximately fifty feet behind them, and by the time Magne was ready to make a second charge, she had both Toga and Kurogiri holding her back with all their strength.

"Magne, calm yourself," Kurogiri said. "We can't have this meeting come to blows. Not here, not now."

"Please," Toga whispered. "He isn't worth it."

Their words swayed Magne just enough to matter; while she still looked incensed, she refrained from going after Overhaul again, instead moving to stand in the back of their group.

Overhaul eyed them with even more disdain than he had before. "I think we should delay this meeting until everyone manages to compose themselves once more. If either of us makes decisions fueled solely by our emotions, it will help neither of us in the long run. I'll keep in touch, though: if you come up with a plan, run it by me, and I'll see if it's worth carrying out."

He threw something at them once he finished speaking. Twice picked it up and made two extra copies: closer inspection revealed the item was a business card displaying a phone number. To Toga's relief, Overhaul and his subordinates departed after that, allowing Toga and her friends to retreat into their hideout once more to discuss the meeting's implications in more depth.

Shigaraki waited until they were back in the safety of their headquarters to start unloading, but something told Toga he'd been keeping himself restrained for the sake of maintaining their reputation. "I can't believe that asshole. Why would I divulge information about our quests at the drop of a hat? For all I know, they could run interference, or share our plans with the enemy, or… or…"

"Knowing what secrets to keep is wise," Kurogiri said before Shigaraki came up with any more ideas. "At the same time, though, our conduct still needs quite a bit of work if we wish to make new allies: professionalism is important to anyone we meet."

It looked like he was giving Magne some side-eye there, but with the fog surrounding his head, it was hard to tell. Nevertheless, Magne hung her head. "Sorry, I should have known better. I don't know what got into me."

Kurogiri nodded. "Learn from it for next time, and I'm sure we'll be able to move on."

"Speaking of moving on, let's go over our upcoming operation," Shigaraki said. "It's been in development hell for longer than I would have liked, but I've managed to turn it into something workable. I've shared the basic concept with everyone here already, right?"

Toga nodded: he had, mere days after the fall of All for One. He'd still been recovering from the loss of his master, but the chance to assert the strength of the League of Villains on his terms had finally brought him out of his funk.

"Excellent," Shigaraki said. "That means we have our work cut out for us. Tomorrow, I'll drop Overhaul a line; I assume he'll be on board but I'm not counting on anything yet. From there, we have a few days to iron out any potential glitches and determine how the Shie Hassaikai fits into the bigger picture before we move out."

Toga raised her hand. "What's that look like at the moment, Mister Leader?"

"I'm trying to avoid being biased at the moment, no matter how hard that may be," Shigaraki said. "Right now, I'll say it depends on whether Overhaul and his confidants are worth the hassle, which we should find out soon enough. If they are, this plan should strengthen our alliance. If they're not, we can just get the dissidents out of the way and absorb everyone else."

Toga accepted the new development with a smile on her face. Sure, the possibility of working under an insufferable jackass for an indefinite amount of time threatened to rain on her parade, but for now, the sun still shone bright. A plan seemingly tailor-made for her loomed on the horizon, one which involved the three things she did best: disguises, infiltration, and drinking blood. She had a few more days to kill before everything could get started, but even that she paid little mind. Other villains would give up their Quirks for a chance at this opportunity; a bit of potential boredom was nothing in comparison.

And the best part? If all went well, she'd have another chance to see her Izuku again. And this time, he wouldn't be able to refuse her.

The topics covered during Nedzu's all-faculty meeting had been about what All Might expected: updates about Kurogiri's activities, recommended security measures to counter any potential attacks, and how Kurogiri's presence affected the League of Villains' potential prospects. Near the end, however, Nedzu launched into unknown territory, sounding like he'd just received this revelation himself.

"According to government informants, just a few hours earlier, the League of Villains entered talks with the Shie Hassaikai, which up until now has been an up-and-coming branch of the yakuza," Nedzu said. "Now, however, it may be little more than the newest source of recruits for the League of Villains, though the current purpose of their alliance is unknown."

Something icy dropped down All Might's back. The League of Villains had been hard enough to keep under wraps at their current size. Dealing with the yakuza on top of that sounded downright nightmarish.

Nedzu kept going, All Might doing his best to absorb every word. Once that topic ran its course, Nedzu left some time for questions, then when those ran out, he concluded the meeting. With nothing keeping them in the auditorium anymore, most of U.A.'s faculty streamed out of the auditorium to commence with the rest of their night, Scythe included. Eraserhead looked after them for a second as if in longing, but then All Might put a hand on his shoulder and the two of them strode toward the stage.

Nedzu, perceptive as always, noticed their continued presence before long: he turned to face them when All Might was still fifteen rows back. "What's keeping you two here?"

All Might had a lot more to say on the subject, but Eraserhead probably had more reason to start since he'd been around her way longer. He kept things brief, though. "We need to talk about our observer."

A raised brow. "I presume you're referring to Scythe?"

Eraserhead nodded.

"Good to know. I've noticed several interesting things about her myself. Now, what would you like to say about her?"

"While it may be a bit early to draw this conclusion, she seems like a rather poor fit for her role," All Might said. "Her training exercises are getting my students hurt, some of them badly. While some of our exercises have regretfully gotten students injured, this new injury rate is far too high to be acceptable."

"I can't say that I disagree," Nedzu said. "Upon Recovery Girl informing me of the situation, I watched the security footage of Scythe's heroics exercise for the day. While I do believe we can't remove all dangers from these exercises and send them into the world to be heroes afterward, at the same time, her lessons have swung a tad too far in the opposite direction."

That sounded like the understatement of the century, but All Might conceded that perhaps his nature combined with working for U.A. for so long might give him a skewed perspective on danger as a whole. Not to mention, it hadn't even been the first lesson where something important had exploded by the end of it: with young Bakugo in the mix, some safety concessions had to be made in the name of career preparation.

"Unfortunately, none of them are going to be seen as too far," Nedzu continued. "While they might be a bit more extreme than the measures we would use, they're not so much of an escalation to warrant outside intervention. Is such an exercise in poor taste with the Hero License Exam so near? Of course. Is it grounds to remove Scythe from her role? No."

Not a wholly unexpected response, but still a disappointing one.

"I understand the government would still like someone observing U.A. for a little while longer," Eraserhead said. "Is there a way we could get an observer whose lessons are less… self-destructive?"

Nedzu gave Eraserhead a knowing look due to his poor choice of words, but that didn't stop him from answering the question in earnest. "Obtaining a replacement for her is possible, but such a thing would be more difficult than it's worth at the moment. Not only will that paint us in a negative light for being unable to handle the person they considered best for this role, but the USJ incident and our student being kidnapped have already strained our relationship with the government. I'd prefer not to damage it further at the moment if possible."

As much as All Might would have liked U.A. to maintain its reputation, there were things far more important than that at stake here. He would have pointed that out if Eraserhead hadn't beaten him to it. "I thought you didn't care about what the government would think of us."

Nedzu's gaze dropped for a second before it returned to normal. "You are correct in that assumption: normally, their perception of us matters little to me. However, we just got a rather costly grant from them to fix our security flaws. Nothing is stopping them from cutting us off until the new measures have been completed, and we need all the help we can get with the League of Villains still on the loose."

All Might never cared for all the politics that came with being a top hero, but this time they hurt even worse. Both Scythe's removal and the additional security measures were meant for the safety of the children under his and Eraserhead's tutelage. Why did either need to be turned into tools to use against them?

Eraserhead didn't take this development well, either. "So, she's functionally invincible?"

Nedzu sighed. "I wouldn't say that. She's still walking a fine line between okay and not okay at the moment. She strays much further, I'll pull the trigger."

"We appreciate your concern, Nedzu," Eraserhead said, All Might unsure whether or not he was being sarcastic.

They departed the auditorium, All Might with no spring in his step and Eraserhead not looking any better. Both of them plodded down the corridor, keeping an eye out for Scythe or Bounce Back in case either of them wanted to try starting a conversation again, but thankfully, that didn't come to fruition: the two of them made it outside unscathed.

Once All Might was sure Scythe couldn't possibly be in earshot, he tried to start a conversation of his own. "I wish something more productive had come out of that. I'm not sure how many more of her lessons I can keep something resembling decorum through."

"It should only be for a few more days, so you'll just need to hold it in for two lessons maximum," Eraserhead said. "I might not like her much, but no one can expect to like all their coworkers, and I can't disagree with Nedzu's points. For now, I'm just going to pull her aside before class tomorrow and insist on non-contact exercises until the Hero License Exam. If she ignores me or her position sticks around afterward, then we'll probably have the leverage needed to remove her or at least lodge a complaint, but until then, it looks like we might just have to tough this out."

All Might sighed. As much as he wanted to sometimes, he couldn't solve every problem he saw. He was just one person, and no matter how strong a hero he was or had been, the world, or even his world, was far too big for him to be the solution for everything.

It left him feeling as hopeless as he'd ever been in the moment. He'd taken down All for One and he currently resided in Tartarus: that should have been the end of things, or at least given Class 1-A a lull to further prepare themselves for what was to come. Yet, nothing had changed for the better. The League of Villains remained at large, another attempt to tear society to shreds surely in the works. The teacher preparing them for the inevitable encounters down the line was only marginally better. His students couldn't even have their own bedrooms anymore: common-room sleepovers would be the new norm as long as Kurogiri remained free.

They'd take these developments in stride, that wasn't the problem. Class 1-A had grown a resilience befitting any hero during these past few months, all these dangerous and horrifying events hardening their psyches further. But they shouldn't have needed their psyches hardened this far in the first place: even with their desire to be heroes, they were still high school students. Life wasn't supposed to hit them in the face for another few years, yet everything they'd been through set more and more of its full weight on their shoulders, and that load wouldn't lighten anytime soon.

He wished Class 1-A had a chance to just be teenagers again. Unfortunately, Scythe had been correct about that one detail: the world was often a cruel place, and it never held anything back.

Bakugo had been simmering for much of the day, even though almost twenty-four hours had passed since that fucking horrendous Heroics exercise.

He didn't know what the hell Scythe had been thinking when she'd tried that bullshit, but he also knew she needed to stop thinking it. If they'd been any slower, they might have all gone home in body bags, and as much as he felt angry enough to murder some of his classmates at times, he never would have followed through on such a horrific act: heroes didn't kill except in defense of themselves or others. He knew that now.

Perhaps Scythe's experience with the military had skewed those values, since the JSDF would handle most scenarios far differently than heroes would. That was as charitable a fucking interpretation as Bakugo could come up with at the moment, and in the interest of not accusing Scythe of all sorts of horrendous things without concrete proof, he'd stick to that for the moment. That wouldn't stop him from digging into her past, though: Deku probably had done the same already, even if he didn't think that information had been shared.

Right now, Deku seemed a little occupied: he and a group of his classmates had been joined by several members of Class 1-B. That in general gave him a sinking feeling these days, but then the first legible words escaped from the cluster and Bakugo knew the best thing he could do was get his ass over there.

"What's the matter? Afraid of a little hard work?"

The voice was bland, but was also the kind of noise that lodged itself into your ear and stayed there, like a toothpick being jammed straight into your brain. He'd made the connection within a split second, but when the first thing he saw was a perfectly-combed head of blond hair, he knew he was in for a shitshow.

Copycat was up to his old tricks again. Lovely.

Several of Copycat's classmates uselessly sat nearby, although at least they had the decency to act like they were tired of his shit. That didn't make his words any less obnoxious and self-aggrandizing, though. "No response? I guess you know I have you this time. Good for you, you're finally figuring it out. Only took you four months…"

Trying to keep his building rage under control, Bakugo inserted himself into the conversation, drawing the attention of everyone involved. "Copycat, would you mind fucking laying off for once?"

"Of course not," Copycat said. "What reason would I ever have to do that?"

"Because no one else appreciates this shit, not even your classmates as far as I know," he responded. "Who are you doing this for? Everyone else who used to rag on us has moved on; get with the times."

Copycat looked at him with a simpering gaze that made Bakugo want to vomit all over him. "So, you survived the League of Villains taking you hostage, but can't even handle a little trash talk? Oh, boo hoo…"

Bakugo's restraint came a millimeter away from snapping, and based on how fast Copycat's useless classmates jumped to their feet after that, they saw the writing on the wall. Big Hands, the closest person they had to a peacemaker, took the lead before Bakugo took it for her. "Monoma, too far. If that'd been you, you'd either be in the ground or in public school by now, so zip it."

If nothing else, that put enough of a dent in Copycat's ego to shut him up, the bastard returning to his food in silence. His classmates gave Bakugo a look that might have passed for an apology five minutes ago, then they followed Copycat's example, everyone else seemingly working to forget that this incident ever happened.

After a few minutes of this, Pink Cheeks decided to try her damnedest to cause another one, much to Bakugo's chagrin. "I know you guys got an observer as well. What are their classes like?"

"Bounce Back's been working with Vlad King these past two weeks to inject some self-defense training into our Heroics lessons," Big Hands said. "I mean, it's kind of boring, but none of us have gotten hurt or anything. What's been going on with yours?"

"Lots of fucking shit, that's what," Bakugo said. "Scythe's exercises keep sending people to the infirmary, yet she doesn't realize that maybe she's the fucking problem here. I get that the real world is goddamn harsh, but she's gone way too far in that direction."

Copycat rolled his eyes. "Oh, please. Nedzu could have literally buried you during your term exam and you'd have been singing his praises to high heaven. Plus, don't Eraserhead's lessons work the same way? Why aren't you going after him too?"

"Because as far as I know, none of his lessons involved live explosives," Deku said. "How she got them in there is beyond me, but that's not the point. Maybe she had some double-secret failsafe in place that she didn't want to tell us about, but if we'd gotten out of that building ten seconds later, I don't think I'd be here talking at the moment, and I was at the front of the pack."

That statement got a reaction if nothing else: a handful of Class 1-B's students gasped, a few more expressions switched to shock in an instant, and Copycat…

Well, his mouth moved for a solid fifteen seconds or so without any noise coming out, and then his face went pale and he clammed up, his lips sealing firmly shut in something resembling his signature shit-eating grin.

Copycat didn't have a fucking way to spin that negatively, which Bakugo considered a win on any day. Then again, when it came to Class 1-A he didn't break easily, so he added that as another strike against Scythe, the number of which had surpassed three a long time ago and was only going up.

Lunch ended on a somber note: no one addressed each other for the remainder of the period and it remained quite silent until the bell rang, after which Bakugo threw out his trash and prepared to handle the rest of the shit that was coming his way today. Once he dealt with classes, then he could prepare for the Hero License Exam, and once he smashed that out of the park, he could fight villains alongside everyone else, a job that he hoped culminated with bringing down the League of Villains, destroying the organization that had tried to ruin his life.

Oh, he almost wished they came after him again. If and when it happened, no thanks to Scythe, he'd be ready. And when that happened, he wanted to make sure Bad Touch never forgot the name Katsuki Bakugo.

This chapter was the trickiest one by far for me to write: the first scene in particular took a few tries to turn into something decent. (Initially, it was going to be Nedzu's presentation, but when that reached 1.5k words and hadn't even touched on the Shie Hassaikai yet, I scrapped it in favor of something hopefully more interesting.)

I also have the rest of the Hero License Exam arc sketched out: my notes for it get me to Chapter 10. How I handle the Shie Hassaikai arc is still up in the air, though: I'm currently working out the logistics behind it.

The next chapter will come out a day early, simply because Christmas Eve is going to be busy. Thank you for reading this far, and I hope to see you on the 23rd for Chapter 7!