Izuku POV, six months later
In the time that Hitoshi has been with us, he has become an invaluable member of the team. His quick thinking and strategic mind were exactly what we needed. Even if we admittedly weren't doing all that much yet, the amount of micro-managing required to control any sort of organisation was simply was absurd. Hitoshi decided to invest himself in intelligence gathering and research, quickly becoming our intelligence officer. He had a corkboard with various villains listed and spent many long nights connecting strings together between them.
I have decided it is about time to let him into our inner circle. I originally presented my quirk to him as Decay (it was a good quirk after all), but now that he has proven his loyalty, I see no further need for secrecy.
I send him a quick text.
'Hitoshi, could you come to my office?'
There's a swift reply.
'Gotcha, just finishing up on something. A small-time hero has been abusing his power for drug smuggling. I'm working on exposing him right now so should be on the news by tomorrow.'
Ah, never change Hitoshi. I spend the next few minutes finishing up my algebra studies while I wait for Hitoshi to arrive. Sometimes the size of our base is inconvenient. Having to wait for people to walk everywhere is rather tiresome. After some waiting, I hear Hitoshi push open the doors to my office.
"You needed me?"
I hum softly and prompt him to sit across from my desk. He takes a seat and raises an eyebrow. I clear my throat.
"Hitoshi, you have become an invaluable member of the team. You have proven your loyalty and I have decided that it is time for you to become part of our inner circle."
I climb to my feet and pick up a glass, decaying it in my hand slowly. The other boy raises an eyebrow.
"Yeah cool quirk, so what?"
I raise my other hand and activate Emerald Flame. Then, I activate Air Hover and slowly float upward. Finally, I activate Bubble Shield, causing a shimmering green field to appear around me. Hitoshi's eyes are blown wide. I give him my most devious smirk.
"I must admit, I may have been holding back."
Hitoshi is able to put it together quickly rather quickly.
"You have… multiple quirks? But none of them seem related… No, that isn't… wait. You inherited a massive fortune from someone who is clearly now out of the picture, presumably some kind of villain. Did you inherit some kind of super quirk from them too?"
I deactivate my quirks and float back down into my chair.
"My quirk, All for One, allows me to take, use, and give quirks. I can steal the quirks of anyone I touch and I can then use them myself, or give them to others. As you have probably figured out by now Father was a villain of… rather significant power."
Hitoshi lets out a slow exhale. It feels oddly exhilarating to be telling my story to him.
"Your father had a similar quirk… No, the same quirk? But how could someone so powerful not be known to the public… unless he didn't want to be known! That would certainly explain the underground facilities and secrecy wouldn't it? I'm guessing this whole complex used to be his?"
Damn, he's smart. Glad to have him on my side.
"Father went by the name of his quirk, All for One. He had lived for more than two hundred years with the help of a longevity quirk and in that time he made a great many enemies. He became the ruler of Japan from the shadows. Just over two years ago, All might finally caught up to him. All might was somehow able to kill him, allowing the Heroes to capture or destroy almost all of Father's assets."
Hitoshi pauses.
"So you can take multiple quirks, but how many quirks are you able to use simultaneously?"
I use a telekinesis quirk to float my pen in front of me.
"Father was able to use fifteen quirks simultaneously, while I am presently only able to use nine. My limit has been consistently increasing as I train, so I should be able to match him within a few years. Both of us possess unlimited storage capacity, but we are limited on the activation component. Using complex quirks requires split concentration. It's easiest just to stack similar quirks together and use them all at once."
Presently my combat plan was to abuse durability quirks and hope Decay can kill anything I touch. It wouldn't be enough to hurt All might, but it would likely be enough to defeat most heroes. Or at least buy time until Eva can save me.
Hitoshi wraps his fingers against the desk, clearly deep in thought.
"With that many quirks, how could All might possibly beat him? How could anyone beat someone with that many quirks?"
A good question. Unfortunately, not one I actually knew the answer to. Base Alpha was nothing more than a giant sinkhole and all news coverage of the battle seems to have been redacted. The battle had occurred entirely on the coast on the northern islands, so casualties were minimal and easy to cover up. I have no clue what quirks Father used to fight him, nor what had actually happened.
I straighten the cuffs of my shirt with a grim look set on my face.
"All might's quirk, One for All, is the only quirk strong enough to face All for One. It was created by Father at the dawn of quirks and works by passing itself on to others, getting exponentially stronger with each transfer. All might is currently the eighth holder of the quirk and wields the combined power of all the previous users. The quirk itself makes the user immune to most attacks, anything from poison, disintegration, or even mind control. Father spent nearly two hundred years attempting to find a trick around it, but was ultimately always forced to use raw kinetic energy."
Hitoshi's eyes narrow as the seriousness of the secret I just told him sets in.
"And to think that All might is already so powerful… that is terrifying. I guess that means that All might's successor will end up even MORE powerful than him, and we are very much not ready to face that."
I sigh, my cheeks tinging pink with shame.
"I have been… slacking when it comes to collecting quirks. Eva is, frankly, our ace in the hole if the Heroes show up. Her quirks give her limitless growth potential and serve to more or less make her our own personal All might. As she is currently she wouldn't be able to so much as scratch him, but in the future that will change."
Hitoshi blinks.
"Sorry, did you say quirks? As in quirks with a plural?"
I give him a nod. I type away at my laptop and look for my own personal notes. I pull up the page detailing Eva's quirks and turn the laptop to face Hitoshi. There's a long minute where Hitoshi simply reads over the list. In the end, he simply whistles softly.
"Wow. Okay, I suddenly understand why I see her spending every waking second in the gym. That combination is… ridiculously overpowered. I presume she is your answer to One for All?"
I give him a grin.
"Her quirks actually recreate the effects of One for All almost perfectly. Father created One for All by giving an energy stockpiling quirk to his brother, who he believed to be quirkless. However, his brother was not quirkless and in fact had a useless quirk with the ability to transfer itself to others. When the stockpiling quirk was given to him, the two quirks fused, forming One for All."
Hitoshi takes this information in and digests it for a long period.
"You said you can give quirks, right? Do you think you could give me a second quirk?"
I wrap my fingers around the table and muse over potential options in my head. If I stack together mind control quirks it would likely work.
"Depending on the type of quirk you want I should be able to easily slot another into you, most likely two if they are both mental quirks. The additional quirks typically need to be similar to the user's one so as to avoid their body rejecting it. Perhaps we could synergise Brainwashing with another hand-picked mind control quirk?"
Hitoshi looks excited. He's probably imagining dozens upon dozens of possible combinations that he could play with. I spend a lot of my free time doing the same, although unfortunately actually acquiring said quirks is often tedious and difficult. The only discreet option was to take them from low-level villains, but few of them had quirks worth taking. Why did the Heroes have to make quirk trafficking so hard?
After a minute Hitoshi looks up with a big grin on his face.
"Okay, so we want to take a quirk from someone that no one will miss, so perhaps a villain? If I look through the Hero Commission's logs that we hacked into, I should be able to find villains that are preparing to be transported to or from prison. If we use Kurogiri and Eva we can intercept the transport and kidnap the villain, and odds are the heroes won't miss them all too much."
I hum, a plan formulating in my mind.
"We would want to be careful not to do it too many times, as we don't watch them catching on, but it's definitely a good idea. Capturing the villain would be trivial once we stop the convoy as they are already contained, and conveniently enough I am still able to remove quirks from individuals still on quirk suppressants."
We discuss the intricacies of such a plan for the next half an hour. We decide that we need to determine our villain names as a group before we go public. Hitoshi and Eva don't care about keeping their identities hidden, but a proper name is professional. As well as that, having an identifiable name for our organisation will make us far more credible. Ah, that reminds me.
"Hitoshi, how would you like to officially become our head of intelligence operations? We can perform a salary review if you are interested in the new position."
The purple-haired boy preens.
Izuku POV, three hours later
After bringing in Eva and Kurogiri the four of us had a long discussion. We talked about what the name of our villain group should be, as well as our individual villain names. Kurogiri had been insistent that he did not require a codename, and ultimately I agreed. He wouldn't be seeing direct combat much, or even if at all, due to his quirk working so well from a distance.
We decided to name our group The Elite. It's a strong, bold title that expresses both our skill and our power. Most importantly, it's clean, professional, and most certainly elegant. Hitoshi decided to commission a black-market manufacturer to create special business cards made from solid gold, each weighing 250 grams a piece. They should be done within the next few days hours. Sadly they would not be ready in time for our first appearance.
The gold plates would be the calling card of The Elite and a not-so-subtle reminder of our prosperity. When someone saw our card, there would be no doubt as to whether it was legitimate. I doubt many would be willing to make a counterfeit using sixteen thousand dollars worth of gold.
In terms of villain names, Eva decided upon Apollyon. It was a fantastic name. Apollyon was the destroyer and the angel of the bottomless pit. It was a name that commanded both fear and respect in equal measure. Eva stated, "It is a name that will strike terror into the hearts of our enemies". She said so with a completely straight face. I couldn't help but giggle a little, I must admit.
Hitoshi went with Armaros. The name simply meant "cursed one" and was the name of a fallen angel. Hitoshi had said early on that he didn't want to have a name that revealed his powers. He felt that Armaros was intimidating and mysterious, all without giving away any hints as to his quirk.
I eventually decided upon the name Azazel. I chose it for its namesake, Azazel representing a desolate place where a scapegoat bears the sins of those sacrificing it. The name also represented the name of a demon, keeping with our demonic/angelic theme. It also started with the letter 'A' like the names of my other teammates. The alliteration of Apollyon, Amaros, Azazel was delightfully dramatic.
The part regarding the scapegoat had a hidden meaning. If the heroes ever learned of my true quirk they would judge me as being a monster, purely because of who my father was. I was the scapegoat for my Father's sins, even after his death.
With that decided, we were ready.
Hitoshi POV, two hours later
"Targets are closing in, over."
I drop the binoculars onto the concrete beside me. The van is now in clear sight down the road. The prisoner we were kidnapping today was being transported to prison after being charged with malicious quirk use. The quirk, Suggestion, made people highly receptive to the words of the user. In theory, there should be a strong synergy with my own quirk. Brainwashing hypnotised people, but couldn't give complex commands. Suggestion could give strong commands, but could not hypnotise people. It was perfect.
The plan itself is simple. Stop the cars, take out the guards, grab the prisoner, and then retreat. Unfortunately, the prison and court were both built within the same city, so this would have to be a rather public attack. With Kurogiri we should be able to get out before any backup can arrive, so it should be fine.
I can hear the two armoured vans now as they trundle along the road. There were a few pedestrians on the footpaths but nothing to worry about. Once the vans are two hundred metres out I click on my radio.
"ETA ten seconds, engage on my mark."
There should be two heroes in the front van serving as protection, Laserdream and Smash. The former could fire superheated beams of plasma, while the latter had a rather powerful strength quirk. The van behind contained the prisoner as well as two police officers. I take a deep breath as the vans draw nearer and nearer. Once they reach the target line I click my radio once again.
"Mark."
Eva kicks a ball out into the middle of the road before running out after it. The vans skid to a halt a dozen metres from her. She's dressed in a stolen middle school uniform as a disguise, as far as the heroes are concerned she is just a random twelve-year-old.
The door of the front van slams open. A costumed man storms out and starts strutting toward her. The hero, Smash, is dressed in a hideous neon yellow costume that barely contains his oversized muscles. He stops a mere foot away from Eva and sneers down at the pre-teen.
"Hey kid, get the fuck off the road!"
The hero shoves the pre-teen.
Nothing happens.
The hero pauses for a second. Eva cocks her head.
"That's rude."
She backhands him.
The man soars through the air and slams into the first van. The sheer force of the impact throws the vehicle back, instantly hitting the van behind and launching it as well. Both vans spiral through the air and gain easily five or six seconds of air time. The vehicles eventually roll to a stop further down the street.
"Engaging."
I leap up from behind cover and meet up with Eva. The two of us begin casually approaching the wrecked vehicles down the street while civilians cower. Smash has been rendered unconscious, his body now firmly embedded in the engine block of the first vehicle. As I come closer I spot Laserdream through the cracked windshield. Moments later she begins burning a hole in the side of the van.
I cross my arms and tap my foot against the ground while I wait. Eva looks bored. Once Laserdream eventually shoves herself through the hole, I cup my hands to my mouth.
"Hey lady, you stink! My teachers say I'm the best!"
The woman looks utterly furious.
"You little shit-"
Heh, too easy. I don't say anything so as to not give away my quirk. As far as anyone watching is concerned she just froze suddenly. Eva and I cross over to the van that contains our target. The guards in the front seats are limp in their seatbelts, the tumble clearly knocking them out cold. We move around to the back where the rear doors are exposed.
"Apollyon?"
She punches a fist through the steel door and rips her arm back. The entire rear door is pulled clean from its mounts. A rather dazed and confused man is inside, a pair of handcuffs around his wrists and a muzzle across his face. I send a quick text to Kurogiri with our coordinates while Eva goes in and grabs the larger man. We're out and through the portal seconds later.
The heroes didn't even know what hit them.
Izuku POV, three hours later
Hitoshi's new quirk, Suggestion, has a rather fascinating dual synergy with his main quirk. He was now able to issue very intricate commands and instructions to his target. He could even order someone to forget a recent event, and as long as it was within the last ten minutes it seemed to work. Older memories were too strongly ingrained to be affected, but that may be possible to train. More importantly, Suggestion has another, more direct use.
"You ready?"
I deactivate Mind Protection and nod. Hitoshi exhales.
"Reply to me."
I feel nothing.
"Reply to me."
That sounds like a good idea, I should reply to my friend.
"Yes-"
I blink. Hitoshi is standing in a different location but it feels like no time has passed. He looks at me with a huge grin on his face.
"It worked! I was able to take control of you after using Suggestion to make you reply!"
I'm proud of him, but we should probably test the limits of Suggestion first. I straighten my shoulders once again and prepare myself.
"Alright, this time I'm going to resist it."
"Reply to me."
That makes sense, I should reply-
No, that's not what I want to do. Isn't it? Replying wouldn't hurt, he's just my friend after all…
I shake the thoughts out of my head.
"Resistable, but difficult. I think Suggestion makes your commands sound safe and trustworthy to the target. I was struggling to accept that I shouldn't reply back to you. I think that anyone caught off guard will fall for it almost every time."
Hitoshi and I play around with his new quirk some more. He was able to extract passwords from me and give me instructions. He ordered me to record myself juggling a few glasses and amazingly it worked perfectly. Unlike with Brainwashing I didn't even look dazed or hypnotised, I appeared perfectly normal to any inspection. This had immeasurable possibilities.
Eventually, we get bored of testing, and Hitoshi decides to go check the news. He's tapping away at his phone when he suddenly freezes.
"Oh. My. God. Izuku, look at this!"
He shoves his phone in my face. I read the various headline articles in front of me.
'Mysterious preteens embarrass heroes?'
'Smash and Laserdream defeated by children!'
'Child villains take the Internet by storm!'
'Villain children kidnap prisoner, what you need to know'
I burst out in laughter. This… is hilarious! It seems like there were multiple recordings of our attack, and people were loving it! Smash had apparently suffered a broken ribcage after being backhanded by a twelve-year-old. Laserdream being frozen in place for unknown reasons was a hot topic on news stations. People were wildly speculating that she had been somehow drugged beforehand.
People were also wondering why two children had decided to kidnap the prisoner. The most prevalent theory seemed to be that Eva and Hitoshi were part of the Yakuza, and this was some form of initiation. The clip of Eva backhanding Smash and subsequently launching two vans down the street was being replayed a lot on social media. A few people were jokingly referring to her as "little villain-might".
Oh how little they knew.
