Tsugunai
Chapter 1: An Aesop
Hosu City, Tokyo, Japan.
Contrary to the popular belief surrounding his chosen profession, Endeavor didn't feel any sort of satisfaction when he caught a particularly dangerous criminal. It wasn't something felt any shame in admitting, and he doubted he was the only hero who felt the same way.
That wasn't to say that the second highest ranked hero in all of Japan pitied or felt sympathy for the men and women who used their quirks in order to break the laws of the land, far from it actually. He knew the ethical question surrounding the age-old dilemma of the man with starving children, or a sick wife-whichever version was being used as a basis for Ethics 101 at UA and the other Hero-Schools around the country and beyond-had a thousand and one answers these days, and sometimes it felt like Endeavor had heard nearly every one of them. Regardless of their reasonings, at the end of the day a criminal is still a criminal and the law demanded that they were punished, and each year it seemed increasingly like it was up to heroes such as himself and the vaunted "Symbol of Peace" to take them down.
A baker bakes bread and pastries that fuel the human body's basic needs and unnecessary wants. Teachers, like his daughter and father, are supposed to teach children the skills and morals they need in order to become a functioning part of society. Doctors dedicate their lives to curing diseases and comforting the old and infirm, and he's proud of the fact that Natsuo is going to university to become one (for all the backroom politics it's a noble field, far better than what his job has become). Heroes, on the other hand, are supposed to fight villains that the police are improperly equipped to deal with, so that the people could go about their daily lives without the specter of fear hanging over their heads. That was what the job was supposed to be, what he had spent years of his life learning how to do, but somewhere along the way politics and marketing had managed to sink their fangs into the profession, spreading the most dangerous of poisons into what should have been another extension of the Justice System: celebrity. It was a key part of the reason why Endeavor disdained the Public Relations side of modern heroics, and roughly ninety five percent of the so-called "heroes" who had grown up under the shadow of All Might: they pandered to the public's idea that their job was like living out an old manga or an American comic book, rather then the state-sponsored privatized police force they actually were. So Endeavor treated each case file the police and the Hero Commision sent his way with a sense of duty and discipline; he didn't take pride in defeating individual villains, but rather in the fact that the crime rate was significantly down in the areas his agency operated in and that he held the second highest ranking out of all Japan despite the public finding him to be "scary" and "stand-offish."
Rei had laughed and given him a small smile the first time he told her his personal thoughts about Hero Society.
With that said, there were some cases that annoyed him to such an extent that he felt more… accomplished when they were finally wrapped up.
Such would probably be the case with the currently three month long manhunt for the vigilante both police and heroes alike had dubbed "Thirty Minutes or Less."
The epithet came from the bastard's calling card: Before each recorded incident of him taking the law into his own hands, the vigilante would call the local police and hero agency hotlines, telling them that he had found the hideout of a local gang of criminals, and that unless they arrived "within thirty minutes or less," then he was going to take down the criminals "for free." The first time the vigilante had called in one of his warnings, the local precinct had ignored him, since he had listed the address for a local cafe which was frequently patronized by off duty officers… only for it to be revealed less than an hour later to be a front for a Trigger smuggling operation. Half of the precinct resigned in shame and disgrace the very next day and every hero agency was put on high alert.
Fortunately the Commission had managed to keep the media from getting a hold of the story… for all of two days before one of the officers who was forced to resign decided to talk in an act of petty revenge against his superiors.
Less then a week later the vigilante struck again in a different district, revealing an arcade that was running an illegal casino from a room hidden behind a false wall, the week after that was an underground fight club operating out a junkyard, and the week after that was a ring of chop-shops operating out of several different auto-repair facilities and impound lots. The fourth incident was such a cliché that when Burnin emailed him the file when he was working on paperwork from his office at home that night, Endeavor lost control of his quirk, triggering the fire alarm and causing Fuyumi to run into the room and douse him with snow from her quirk as he muttering to himself at the sheer level of incompetence needed to miss something so obvious… it defied any and all forms of rational thought and was just another example of how the world had grown complacent under the shadow of All Might.
In spite of his personal feelings on the matter, Endeavor had been grateful for that file because it had given him more raw data about his target. The vigilante (he refused to use the name "30 Minutes or Less" once he discovered it was a reference to a gimmick for pizza parlors, and regardless he didn't want to give the criminal any satisfaction even within his own mind) had begun each raid by taking out all of the electronics in the buildings he targeted, indicating that he either had a quirk that allowed him to emit an electromagnetic pulse or a piece of support equipment that functioned in the same manner.
Transcripts and video files from the interrogations of the arrested criminals indicated that once the lights went out, the vigilante began to strike from complete darkness, incapacitating them one by one via chokeholds or by hitting them in the back of the head with the pommel of his weapons until only the leader of each crew was left (indicating that vigilante had been staking out his targets long enough to understand who was in charge of each operation). The vigilante then asked the gang leaders a single question: did they walk in Takeshi Tatsuo's footsteps?
While it did take some time to find an answer, a search for the name Takeshi Tatsuo in relation to criminal activities eventually lead Endeavor to a tale from the thirteenth century about a near-mythical ninja clan founded by a ronin with the same name who survived an assassination attempt by his former master, leaving bloody footprints on the floor of the castle as he made his escape. From what little information Endeavor could accurately call fact instead of fiction, the clan had existed in some form or another until roughly sixty eight years ago, with a seemingly brief resurrection in America of all places, before disappearing once again into the shadows.
Clearly there was a correlation between the vigilante's targets and the so-called "Foot Clan," but the exact relationship was still hard to nail down. Endeavor had crafted two theories regarding the suspect: He was either hitting locations he suspected were tied to the organization because he wished to join them (making these months of hell a sales pitch), or the vigilante was hunting down anyone remotely linked to the "Foot Clan" in some act of revenge, but didn't want to discovered by his supposed "enemies" or the public for that matter. Going off of the effort the suspect took to avoid being seen, Endeavor was leaning towards the latter of the two. The vigilante seemed to be making sure that enough time passed between the phone call and his escapades for either the police or the local heroes to show up to the scene of the crime, but not long enough for the media to arrive before them and possibly catch sight of him performing the tasks the heroes were forced to take credit for in order to maintain the illusion that had propped up modern Japanese society since the emergence of Quirks. Any attempt to catch the criminal in the act had so far failed, with law enforcement only catching sight of a large figure with a sword and a bo-staff in dark clothing fleeing from the scene of the crime, only to lose sight of the figure in the shadows of local buildings.
'..until today,' Endeavor mused as he caught sight of the hero who claimed to have tracked down the elusive suspect, 'though of all the heroes that could have finally tracked down the suspect, why did it have to be Hawks?'
His relationship with the avian themed man was complicated to say the least, for on the one hand he could respect the drive required to become the youngest hero to earn a spot on the top ten board (beating his old record by two years, six months, and five days), and even more so to become the third highest ranked hero in all of Japan… The fact that Hawks didn't seem to care about his rank, and spent most of his interviews complaining about the system, flirting with female reporters, answering their questions by switching between praising and criticizing his fellow heroes (especially Endeavor for some reason) irritated Endeavor to no end.
Then there was the younger man's penchant to hide all the parts of any plan he concocted until the last minute, trusting his fellow heroes (especially Endeavor, whenever the two crossed paths) to follow along based on their reputations and his perception of their relationships… which was why Endeavor was only mildly surprised when he saw that there was another hero in the alley that Hawks had chosen for their meeting place.
Rumi Usagiyama, better known as the pro-heroine "Mirko" on the other hand, seemed to have been caught completely by surprise. "Endeavor?! What the hell are you doing here?!" she then turned towards the source of their collective confusion and misery, "Kentucky Boy if this is one of your "funny jokes" I swear I'm gonna rip off your wings and make you-"
"Now, now, Mirko, there's no need to tempt me with the process of autocannibalism." Hawks chuckled as he ruffled his feather-like hair, a confident grin on his face, "I have a perfectly good reason to call you both out here on this fine Saturday Afternoon."
"Then explain it to us. quickly" Endeavor bluntly demanded, annoyed at being called away from his home on the one day he decided to take a half day off of work. Shoto was still rebelling against using the fire half of his Quirk, and with the U.A. Entrance Exam a few months away, who knows when he would get another chance to properly teach the boy once their schedules began to become properly hectic. On top of that, for some reason Fuyumi has been determined to get both him and Natsuo to find some time from their equally busy lives to come home for a family dinner and have it "not devolve into a fight within five minutes" (He didn't know why she looked like she wanted to run from him when she said that, all he ever did when he and his eldest living son were in the same room was ask if Natsuo was keeping his up with his studies and if the bursar had sent the bill for the semester), and he didn't want to be the one who disappointed her (Anymore then he probably did).
"Chill out Number 2, there's no need to grill me for information" Hawks shrugged, smirking as the increase in local temperature indicated that Endeavor had indeed noticed the fire based pun, "During the mess that was the fourth 'delivery' of our mysterious vigilante, Rumi and I were the first heroes to arrive on the scene-"
"Not that it meant anything, the bastard still managed to give us the slip!" Miruko interrupted.
"-just in time to catch him making his getaway" Hawks shot an annoyed look at the rabbit themed heroine who had interrupted him in front of his(unknown to Endeavor) childhood hero/favorite target for heckling and tried not to notice the small smirk on the older man's face. Still, seeing as how she had been on the hunt for their mysterious prey longer than either of the other two heroes, it made sense she was upset. "We figured the best way to catch him was with Mirko chasing after him on the ground and me being the eye in the sky." He stretched out his wings as a couple of his feathers he had sent out earlier to stop a mugging finally caught up with him, "But you know the old saying about what happens when man decides to make plans, we seemed to lose him when he threw genuine smoke bombs while running into a dark alley."
Endeavor raised a flame lit eyebrow "The two of you fell for smoke bombs?" He expected that kind of failure from his student-interns or glory hogs like Mt. Lady or Death Arms, but Hawks and Miruko were veterans in the field and the 3rd and 6th highest ranked heroes in Japan and in spite of his own thoughts on the system that still meant they had some level of competence.
"Considering our perp seems to be from a clan of genuine ninjas, I'd say we did pretty well against him." Hawks countered as he reached into one of his jacket pockets, "Miruko pointed this out to me when we swept the alley to figure out how 30 Minutes gave us the slip." he pulled out an evidence bag that contained shards of eggshells and a piece of wax paper with a circle with divided into five triangles with eleven dots within and without the circle, arranged in a way that vaguely reminded him of a turtle sticking its head out of its shell.
A voice that sounded like Rei told him it looked like a bell-flower.
The rabbit themed heroine then grabbed the bag out of Hawks hand, a proper smirk on her face as she thumped her foot on the concrete, "I did some digging with a specialist ("your father" Hawks added in an act of petty revenge), and found out that this weird pizza/bellflower drawing is the symbol of the Hamato Clan, an old family from a small town in Osaka who were known for three things: training ninja, law enforcement, and a centuries old feud with another group called-"
"The Foot Clan." Endeavor nodded his head, pleased to see that his investigation and theories were being confirmed by another source. He turned towards Miruko, subconsciously raising the temperature of his flames as his thoughts whirled. "Do we have any suspects?"
Hawks shook his head "Sorry old man, according to official records the last living member of the Hamato Clan was a man named Hamato Yoshi, and from what I've gathered it doesn't look like any of us are going to get to play good cop/bad cop anytime soon."
"And why is that?" Endeavor had a feeling where this may be going, but he wanted to be certain.
"... Hamato Yoshi immigrated to America following a fire breaking out in his ancestral home, claiming the lives of his wife Hamato Shen and their infant daughter." Hawks voice was somber as he delivered the news. "From there it looks like he disappeared somewhere in New York City roughly three decades ago."
… If Hamato Yoshi was still alive, then he had Enji's sympathies. There was nothing quite as devastating then having to bury one's child, It was even worse when there was nothing to bury.
"My own investigations revealed that a group claiming to be the Foot Clan briefly operated in America for roughly three to four years." Endeavor noted, "What are the odds that fire was started by the Foot Clan? And that the reason they were operating in America was because they managed to track down the last member of their ancient enemy?"
"If even a quarter of the tales I heard from the village locals who knew about the clans and their feud are true? Pretty damn high." Hawks mused, "And seeing as how we apparently have a highly trained vigilante running throughout Japan raiding gang hideouts that no one knew existed in an attempt to find out if anyone knows anything about them, I think it's safe to say that both clans are active in the modern era, and that their conflict is still ongoing."
Miruko rolled her eyes and muttered under her breath "This is why I prefer to work alone," before raising her voice to be heard over the other two heroes, "Not to interrupt The Hawks and Endeavor Power Hour™ going on here, but can we actually get back to my original question: why are all three of us here?"
The two heroes turned to look at the third member of their strange trio, who was wearing an increasingly annoyed look on her face, and then Endeavor adopted a similar look and directed it at the man who called them together.
"... During our vigilante's getaway I launched a mixture of wing, contour, and down feathers into the smoke, hoping that at least one of them would stick to him and I'd be able to track them down later." Hawks admitted, "Of the three that landed, two were shaken off and a single down feather hasn't been detected yet." Hawks then pointed towards a manhole cover, "Based on my link with the feather, our convict's hiding down there."
"...You mean to tell me that our suspect has been avoiding police and hero patrols by hiding in the sewers?" Endeavor asked, disgust lacing his voice while Miruko audibly gagged beside him, already dreading the smell that was going to be clinging to them for weeks.
"You guys gotta admit, it's the last place anyone of us thought to look," Hawks said as he pulled out three facemasks from another pocket, "If I'm being honest it took me a while to figure out the guy was underground even with the feather, but when I did I thought of you two immediately."
"Miruko's been hunting this guy down since he exposed that Trigger den while she was patrolling in Kameno City, and has the best quirk for operating in tight spaces out of the three of us." Hawks then gestured to Endeavor, " Meanwhile, you and your agency have been burning through patrol routes and police records in order to find out everything you can about the guy so you could catch him… and since I tracked the guy down and both of you need to work on your P.R. I figure that I'd give you two a call: we do this right then a dangerous criminal gets captured, the public gets to see three of the greatest heroes in all of Japan work together, The HPSC gets to swoop in and steal my idea as their own and we all get a boost in our ratings and get to feel like we made a difference in the world, it's a grand slam."
Endeavor rolled his eyes at Hawks usual (to him at least) antics while Miruko glared at the younger hero for the implied insult, but after a few minutes of silent thought she spoke up "So long as I get to take the first swing at the guy and we make it clear to the press that this was a one time thing, and that we're not becoming a team, then I'm willing to go down this particular rabbit hole."
That left the decision up to Endeavor, who admittedly couldn't see a downside to Hawks' plan beyond the fact that it was Hawks who suggested the idea and as a general rule he thought the man acted more like a pigeon instead of his namesake. There was another part of Endeavor that spoke out against this plan, a small, vestigial part of his mind that his pride and determination always fought to cow into submission whenever it reared its head. That part of him had started screaming the moment Hawks revealed that their suspect was hiding in the sewers, a place where Endeavor would not be able to properly use his Quirk in order to avoid igniting gasoline runoff or a pocket of methane gas formed from decomposing waste in a confined space…
The part of Enji Todoroki that remembered how his father died, crushed under steel and concrete, and was terrified of dying in the same manner.
With a quick burst of flames that hid the subtle(futile) shaking of his head in a childish attempt to dispel those thoughts, Endeavor extinguished his quirk and nodded his assent. "Lead the way."
30 Minutes Later…
Rumi Usagiyama was not one to often regret her decisions, if that was the case then she wouldn't have continued to visit underground fighting rings after she got expelled in Middle School, but walking through a sewer system in nothing but her white unitard and her signature rabbit-foot boots was definitely something her future self would be embarrassed about once they caught their perp, if for nothing else then the fact that she was probably going to have to burn everything she wore down here in order to get the smell off of her. Truly, there was nothing that made one question whether or not the career path of Professional Hero then walking down a damp man-made tunnel in near complete darkness (thank whatever deity was listening that rabbits had excellent night vision, cause she knew her phone flashlight wouldn't cut it down here and Hawks didn't think to bring one) filled with puddles of what she was trying to convince herself was just dirty water and nothing else.
"... You better be right about this one Hawks." She growled as she resisted the urge to shudder as a droplet of condensation fell onto the tip of her ears. The sooner they found the guy and she got to kick his ass, the better.
"For all of his numerous flaws and bad habits, Hawks is an excellent detective and tracker," Endeavor replied without looking back, walking through each puddle with a near visible heat haze instead of his usual flames. "That is especially true if his suspect has been tagged with one of his feathers."
"Careful Endeavor, that almost sounded like a compliment." Hawks threw back with a cheeky grin.
"I am stating an opinion based on your arrest record and what you have told myself and the public about how your Quirk functions." Endeavor retorted in a matter of fact tone. "Make of that what you will."
"I'm still counting it."
Rumi rolled her eyes, it was like watching an old dog having a puppy run circles around it, or a dad interacting with the son-in-law he doesn't like (In another part of Hosu, one Fuyumi Todoroki suddenly felt the urge to sneeze, and decided to make herself a hot chocolate once she got home).
Suddenly, Hawks stopped dead in his tracks as his body language did a complete one-eighty. "Shit."
"What's wrong?" Endeavor fell in besides the younger hero, his earlier annoyance bleeding away in an instant. Rumi started hopping in place, warming up her muscles as she slipped into Mirko's intensity with a feral smile. It looked like it was showtime.
"Looks like our perp finally found my feather," Hawks commented as two of other feathers lengthened and hardened into organic blades (seriously what kind of genetic lottery did he win to get that bullshit? So unfair). "I might be wrong, but I think he's using it to write something in what I hope is mud or mold."
"What is he writing? And how far away is he?" Mirko asked, falling into a runner's starting position.
"...Neat trick, but I'm all out of crackers…" Hawks muttered, "and to answer your question Mirko, about forty yards down this tunnel, though I don't know for how much longer he's gonna be there. Guy just lit my feather on fire."
Mirko was running the moment Hawks gave her a direction, her blood pumping as she blitzed through the sewers toward the person who had made a fool of her all those weeks ago. She had made a point to stop at that particular cafe whenever she patrolled in the area because they had some excellent carrot-cake, and had never suspected there was anything sinister going on behind the scenes until she turned on the news.
Her impromptu warmup came to a close as she counted out the last yard in her head, nearly sliding into the water as her feet slid upon the muck that the bastard had used Hawks' feather as a quill in. Her eyes darted around the scene as she extended her ears to their full height, trying to catch any sound that would indicate where her target had gone following his discovery.
All she could hear besides her own breath and the closing footsteps of her two erstwhile "teammates" was sewer water lapping against the concrete as it made its way down the canal to the treatment facility.
Mirko squinted at the water, focusing on a spot in the water that seemed to be darker than its surroundings in the lightless atmosphere, almost as if something was stuck to the bottom of the canal…. Or someone.
"The bastard's in the water!"She shouted out before the dark shape exploded into motion, swimming with the current in order to avoid his fate. She was chasing after him in a heartbeat, bouncing off of the walls and ceiling of the tunnel while the vigilante swam in its murky depths, waiting for her prey to make a mistake. Unless he had a spare oxygen tank with him, the bastard had to come up for air sometime…. LIKE RIGHT NOW!
The shape briefly rose to the surface, a cowled head peeking out from above the artificial waves to take in precious oxygen.
"LUNA FALL!" She roared as she launched off the ceiling, aiming her right leg at her opponent in a vicious kick that would at the very least give the bastard a concussion if it connected.
Unfortunately for Mirko the bastard seemed to realize her intent before she even shouted out her attack, and used the brief seconds before she connected with his head to redirect his body against the current, and she splashed into the sewer water, touched the bottom of the canal, and used it to launch herself at the target with reckless abandon. She couldn't see anything in the murk, so she relied on her instincts to direct her body as she lashed out at the vigilante and attempted to dodge her opponents blows as her lungs screamed for air. It seemed like her opponent had also had enough of underwater combat, since he grabbed onto her and dragged both of them out of the water. They rolled away from each other the moment they were on relatively dry land, gasping and coughing up swallowed sewer water.
"... Should've..*cough* left me in the water." Mirko forced herself to speak as her body began to purge itself of the filth she just swallowed and was already dreading the barrage of antibiotics she was gonna need once this was over. "Cause I'm not gonna let you escape me again."
The vigilante was quiet for a few minutes, not nearly as winded as she was from this mess, but not yet running either.
The punk muttered something under his breath that her water-clogged(?) ears couldn't properly pick out, but it sounded as if he was talking to someone else instead of her. Filing that bit of crazy for later, she finally decided to get a proper look at the bastard who was going to be the reason she needed to go to the hospital outside of her yearly physical.
The first thing that stood out to Mirko was the amount of gear the guy was carrying, over a black hooded jacket was a hodge-podge collection of leather and metallic armor covering every joint and his hands and feet. A utility belt laden with extra pockets filled with who knows what ninja bullshit the vigilante used to evade heroes wrapped around his waist, in one loop an old pair of nunchaku were crudely shoved into place alongside a three pronged Sai, its steel dulled with age and use. Those weren't the only weapons that the pro-heroine could make out on her opponent's person though, since alongside the already noted bo-staff and katana he kept strapped on his back, the vigilante had pulled out a pair of metallic tonfa from seemingly nowhere. It was when she noticed the tonfa that she saw that her opponent's hands seemed to only have two thick fingers and a thumb, and that odds are he probably had some kind of mutation based quirk.
"... I don't have a quarrel with you, or any other hero for that matter," The vigilante's Japanese carried an Osaka accent alongside one that Mirko couldn't immediately place, but there was also a hint of weariness and danger that kept her from launching herself at him with a vengeance."Let me go and I swear once I am done with my task you will never have to worry about me ever again."
"Sorry pal, but I'd be a real shitty hero if I let every villain who used that line get away from me." The rabbit heroine grinned as she tilted her head in an effort to get the water out of left ear, briefly catching what she thought were the echoes of footsteps and feathers rushing towards her. "Besides, who in their right mind would trust a low-down ninja like yourself to actually keep their word?"
Something flashed across what little she could make out of her opponent's face, "I'm a Ronin, not a ninja," The vigilante countered as he slipped into a fighting stance, "Besides, if a ninja broke their word as easily as they broke into castles, they wouldn't have any clients."
"So you're calling yourself a ronin instead of a ninja, big deal." Mirko countered, "All that means is that you used to be a ninja, but your master died and now you're supposedly adrift in the universe for all eternity or something-I dunno philosophy was never my strong suit in school." The footsteps were louder now, and while it stung her pride a bit, she decided to keep on stalling for time. "I just wanna know something: is the reason you keep asking crooks about an old dead guy's footsteps cause you want to hunt down the so-called "Foot Clan? Or are you trying to join them?"
Whatever her opponent's response was going to be, it was cut off as a host of feathers surrounded the two of them as Hawks and Endeavor finally caught up with them. "Come on Mirko, there's no need to torture a guy who still thinks being a Ronin is an honorable thing instead of an admission that he couldn't get into a good college."
The ronin shifted feet into a defensive stance, his eyes bouncing between Mirko, Hawks feathers, and the smoldering intensity of an Endeavor whose patience was at its wits end.
"Now then, I think we all got on the wrong foot here, mister…" Hawks waited for the ronin to give his name, but it was clear that wasn't going to happen, "Well, I'm just gonna call you Ronin then, since 30-Minutes is a bit of a mouthful. When I'm on the job my name's Hawks, the tall menacing figure behind me is Endeavor, and I'm pretty sure you know Mirko already."
"I know who the three of you are." The man was blunt as his grip tightened on his weapons, "I just don't know why you're wasting all of our collective time hunting me down instead of catching a bank robber or someone actually harmful to society."
"You are a known vigilante: a person using their Quirk without a Hero License and potentially endangering the public." Endeavor stepped forward, a brief flash of flames igniting upon his face. "As properly registered pro-heroes it is our job to bring people such as yourself to justice."
"Section 213 of the Code of Criminal Procedure says otherwise," The ronin countered, slowly moving around the feathery cage he had been locked into, "Besides, I did the responsible thing and dialed 119 before I did anything. Not my fault the police didn't respond to an accurate tip."
Endeavor was losing his patience and with it his ability to hold back from filling the tunnel with fire. "Are you trying to justify your blatant violation of the law by claiming it was a citizen's arrest?" He had to admit, that was an answer he hadn't heard before..
The Ronin had the audacity to grin at Endeavor, and it took all Mirko had not to let loose a little giggle herself.
"Alright I gotta admit, that's a new one for me." Hawks didn't even bother to try and hide his laugh, "We still have to bring you in, my good man, if for nothing else than the fact that you're carrying a sword in public without a permit, cause that hasn't been legal for a long time." Hawks shrugged, holding his two feather blades loosely in his hands "Besides, with what we do know about you… I have a feeling you're gonna keep on hitting hideouts until you find anyone who's working for the Foot Clan, am I right mister Hama-"
"The Hamato Clan is dead." The admission hung in the air for a few moments as the ronin knelt onto the ground, placing his tonfa in front of him before putting his hands behind his back. "I'm unfamiliar with how this part works with heroes: do you read me my rights or just slap the cuffs on me?"
"You're giving up just like that?" There was a part of Endeavor that was actually a bit disappointed at the scene before him. From the profile he had created based on the information available, he had expected more of a fight from the vigilante, not this… absolute surrender. Mirko, on the other hand, was starting to get pissed off at the fact that the man that had managed to evade people barely getting a glimpse of him was just giving up now that the odds weren't in his favor.
The ronin snorted, "First, I'm currently surrounded by three of the best heroes in the country, who managed to track me down with a feather." The amount of disbelief in the criminal's voice was palpable, "Second, in case my decision to vanish before the pigs and the vultures showed up weren't clues enough: I don't want anyone to know I'm in Japan." he then nodded his head towards the thoroughly drenched Mirko, who was now running a hand through her ears in an attempt to wring the sewer water out of her fur and hair. "And finally I just don't feel like going another round with the P.B.B. over there."
"What the hell is a P.B.B?!" Mirko glowered at the still kneeling vigilante.
"It means you need a better costume." the bastard commented without a care in the world.
"Enough." Endeavor might not have been around that much when they were growing up, but he'd seen his three eldest children argue enough times and had faced down enough supposedly clever villains to know when someone was trying to win some petty mind game. "I'm still not convinced, why are you truly surrendering to us?"
"... I already told you, I don't want anyone to know I'm in Japan." the vigilante answered with an exasperated look on his face, "Besides, I wanted to truly make a scene, I would've already hit a target I knowto be affiliated with the Foot instead of trying to set the police and heroes on their trail."
…. Did he just imply that the entirety of his actions over the past three months were essentially the equivalent of a WILD GOOSE CHASE?!
"... You know, telling us about this so-called "target" would go a long way towards convincing us that you actually want to get caught." Hawks added with a quick glance towards Mirko and Endeavor that told them to play along. "And for an added bonus, if you tell us without having to get someone with a lie detector quirk to interrogate you, we'll avoid telling anyone but the Hero Public Safety Commision that we caught you." It would mean sacrificing the boost in P.R. he claimed the other two heroes needed, but the case would still be a pretty neat feather in all of their hats.
"And if I don't?"
Hawks' signature smirk twisted into a grin that made Mirko's instincts tell her to run for cover, "Then I'll call up every reporter and newswoman who's given me their number since I started doing interviews and tell them that the elusive "Thirty Minutes or Less Vigilante" has been caught, complete with a photograph." He then took out his phone and snapped a quick picture, the flash blinding to eyes that had adapted to the darkness of the sewer. "You'll be what every major news channel is talking about and on the front page of every newspaper in the country. Now I'm no master strategist or anything, but I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be in the best interest of your plan to stay under the radar, now would it?"
The vigilante went deathly quiet, his arms briefly leaving their assigned spot behind his back as instinct warred with intellect, before he thought better of it and began to speak, arms firmly behind his back. "Later tonight at the Port of Tokyo, There'll be a Dragon's Path Shipping Company affiliated 18-Wheeler that is carrying cargo meant for Deika City. Alongside its cargo of basic consumer goods-food, over the counter medicine, everything a city needs to survive- there will be a couple of containers filled with a glowing green liquid." He paused for a moment, then added "I don't know where exactly they are on the truck, but when full the containers emit this crackling/humming sound, so it won't be too hard to miss."
"And what makes this 'glowing green goo' so special that if you attacked it, The Foot Clan would know it was you who hit them?" Mirko was getting annoyed that they were even having this conversation instead of bringing the punk in and questioning him in an interrogation room.
"It's essentially a powerful, non-addictive form of Trigger," the vigilante explained "It's not really well known outside of the Five Boroughs, and even over there very few gangs have access to the stuff."
Miruko scoffed, "Please, how powerful is this stuff if it isn't really well known?" The creation of a new strain of Trigger was usually met with major investigations by federal agencies and heroes alike, and it was one of the few things everyone willingly shared information on without any form of petty rivalry getting in the way. For a variant of Trigger with seemingly no drawbacks to not be talked about by any one in law enforcement or heroics to exist meant either it was brand new or just didn't exist.
"It can give quirks to the quirkless, and the results are nearly-permanent."
It took a few moments for the significance of that simple sentence to truly sink in, and when it did it was Endeavor who first recovered his senses and activated his communicator. "Burnin, it's Endeavor, I need you to get a hold of Detective Tsukauchi immediately. Tell him Hawks, Mirko, and myself have managed to apprehend the vigilante…. Yes THAT vigilante…. No, do not inform the Hero Commision just yet, I want to bring him in first before we do anything. Also, have a team prepare to the Port of Tokyo and search every Dragon's Path affiliated truck for unregistered cargo-" the Number 2 Hero paused, and then looked back at the vigilante, "Do you have any physical evidence of what these"mysterious containers" look like?"
"Does a photo on my phone count?" The vigilante asked, and waited for Endeavor to nod his head in affirmation, "Then yes."
"Slowly take out your phone and then send the photo to the following number." Endeavor ordered and watched as the vigilante's hands moved from their previous location, "Hawks, Mirko, if he tries anything-"
"Pound his face into the ground? Gladly." Mirko responded as she hopped from one foot to the other in anticipation, ignoring the side eye she was getting from Hawks and the vigilante while the latter reached into a belt pocket and pulled out his phone. Endeavor quickly rattled off Burnin's work phone number, watching as the message was sent and confirming with Burnin before demanding the device to be handed over to Hawks. He pocketed the phone, took notice of how cracked the phone's touch screen was and the vaguely turtle shell case, before pocketing it and pulling out a pair of black cable ties. "Do you mind taking off the belt and jacket? These things can be cut pretty easily and we wouldn't want that now would we?"
"No, no we would not." The vigilante's sarcasm was palpable, but he complied nonetheless, further increasing Endeavor's suspicions. No criminal was this calm when getting arrested unless it was a part of a larger plan, and he didn't like the idea of being used to further anyone's schemes… But at the end of the day the very idea of a new form of Trigger being released onto the streets of the cities of Japan was a risk he was not willing to take lightly, especially with memory of the so-called "Villain Factory" and the havoc they caused still relatively fresh in the minds of the populace. "Besides, it's no scale off my shell."
"No scale off my shell? What do you…. Ohohoho man! Well isn't that interesting!"
Endeavor looked back at the vigilante, trying to figure out what was so 'interesting' about their suspect. From what he could tell in the low light of the tunnel, the vigilante was not wearing anything underneath his thick jacket, though it seemed as if he had some kind of segmented chest armor and a rounded plate strapped to his back….
Endeavor squinted as his mind finally connected that he couldn't locate any straps connecting the chest and back "armor" alongside the color of the suspect skin and the variant of the phrase 'No skin off my back,' to come to a conclusion about their suspect's quirk that shattered many of his current theories "You're a chelonian heteromorph."
"Just say 'mutant turtle,'using scientific terms makes you sound like an ass ." The ronin commented as he placed his jacket and belt on the ground and allowed Hawks to lock in the cable ties around his wrists, "I'm also not adverse to being called a Kappa if you're superstitious." He then turned to Miruko, who had stopped pacing and gone deathly silent. "What's wrong with you? Cat got your tongue?"
"... I lost a race to a turtle…" The rabbit heroine's ears visibly drooped for maybe three seconds, before she turned and kicked the concrete wall of the sewer hard enough to create a crack. "I can't believe I lost a foot race to a goddamn turtle!"
"Clearly someone's parents never told them one of Aesop's Fables." The ronin muttered under his breath loud enough for everyone to hear, which only made Mirko angrier then she already was. "You were never going to win."
Endeavor let loose a sigh as Hawks started laughing at the scene, and then answered a call from Detective Tsukauchi in order to give him directions to their original meeting place, internally questioning whether or not this case was truly worth the effort he had poured into it.
This might be a hot take (no pun intended), but I really like Endeavor's Redemption Arc in My Hero Academia.
Now don't get me wrong, it is by no means perfect for a variety of reasons, particularly because I don't think Horikoshi really did enough to set up Endeavor's redemption early on to make it seem easily believable. I haven't read the early story in a while, but from what I recall Not-Zuko(Shoto) told Japanese Peter Parker (Izuku) that his father was an abusive piece of shit who drove his wife mad enough that she burned him, so in an act of petty revenge Not-Zuko wouldn't use his fire powers to become a hero. While this is true to a degree, the situation became much more complicated when the author decided to actually expand Endeavor into the "Batman" to All Might's "Superman" instead of a bootleg Ozai. His relationship with his family was expanded upon, introducing us to his other kids, the reason he married his wife went beyond "strong quirk + strong quirk= Number 1 Hero," and his motivations for being a hero were finally in a way that only expands my Batman comparison: GODDAMN DEAD PARENTS! He's even given a Nightwing and Red Hood of his own (Hawks and Dabi respectively), characters that exist to point out his in-universe flaws and make him a better hero…
Despite what people say about the so-called "status quo" of comics, heroes and villains alike do evolve over time, just in generally small increments instead of large leaps and bounds. Remember, Golden Age Superman used to just be "faster than a speeding bullet, more power than a locomotive, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound," not fly in outer space fighting eldritch gods with heat vision; that all came later on as "The Last Son of Krypton" was made even more unlike the common man to showcase his humanity.
Franchises and stories change, and in my mind there's no better example of this fact than the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. From the violent parodies of characters like Daredevil to the pizza-loving radical dudes who keep the spirit of the 80s alive and well into the 21st century, the four brothers' dreams of being accepted for who they are resonate throughout time… which makes the Last Ronin even more devastating, since it's heartbreaking to see any of the turtles being well and truly alone, especially the literal life of the party that is Michelangelo. So in honor of the 40th anniversary of TMNT and the tenth for MHA, I give you this story of honor, redemption, and family.
TLDR: a workaholic gorilla ends up adopting a thrill-seeking rabbit, a snarky bird, and a depressed turtle, and ends up reconnecting with his family while becoming a better man.