Izuku couldn't fault his friend for shouldering the fight by himself after seeing the blood of innocent children being spilled for no good reason. These people who condoned the death of innocent children were nothing but dead scrap meat in their eyes. What they both felt was a deep wrath in response to the tragedy where the two lives fell to these lunatics who created these monsters to begin with.

"Ka-chan, I want you to listen to me right now. You can't say anything until I'm done talking. Understood, you stubborn motherfucker?"

Hearing the usually well-mannered Izuku curse like that clued in for Katsuki that Izuku was ready to knock him out if he interrupted the green haired hero. Years of knowing each other well enough made certain things clear between the long time childhood friends. Going out of his way to speak so crass let him know Midoriya was being deathly serious.

"They died, yes. But you saved three of them with others who will continue to be saved by you. You didn't kill them, Ka-chan. They did. Don't let them continue to take lives by letting them mess you up. Those who are depending on you need you at your best. If you need a friend, I'm here for you, man."

A firm hand pat Bakugou on his shoulder. Remaining silent, the storm of emotions began to quell after hearing his best friend speak the truth to him. All he gave Izuku while still keeping his eyes cast downwards was an almost inaudible grunt of affirmation. Midoriya could see Katsuki's shoulders untense a bit after letting him know that he wasn't alone in this struggle. They knew what the other was going through as Midoriya too had failed to save people over his career as a premiere hero. Only his understanding and desire of what being a hero meant kept Izuku the shining icon of peace he was. If it wasn't for the support of those all around him, he wasn't sure how he could have made it this far by himself.

"Anyways, I think I have some intel regarding these things popping up without warning."

Hearing that helped perk up the hero who needed something to distract him from his shame. Katsuki looked upwards towards Izuku as they unlocked their work device and pulled up some files that were given to him a few days ago by his girlfriend.

Neither of them acknowledged how bizarre Izuku's love life was. Considering that Izuku was now married to his mother and he was married to Fuyumi, both did their best to avoid talking about their now legal relationship as father and son in law. They rather be beaten half to death with lead pipes before they spoke to each other in such honorifics. Leaving well enough alone was what they did best when it came to their unique friendship.

Setting the phone on the side table next to Bakugou's bed, Midoriya then activated the holographic display and guided the desired setting to be in front of Katsuki with a point of his finger. It brought up multiple windows filled to the brim with financial documents as well as all sorts of incriminating evidence that the public nor either the police or hero associations were privy to yet regarding the investigation. These attacks needed to be taken care of with the utmost care and things were now taking a turn for the worse.

Izuku decided to provide his most trusted friend with information that was likely not going to be provided to the heroes or police unless necessary. Feeding Katsuki this info would help keep them on a more consistent understanding and make them more effective as a team. As Katsuki scrolled through the information, the more shocked he became at the revelation that came with knowing more of the picture. His hands sped up as he scanned more and more documentation regarding billions of yen being moved with nobody knowing the wiser. Then Bakugou came across the information that Izuku himself was also personally sickened by. The thing that left a horrified look upon the hero's face as the graphic photos were seen.

"Fucking animals don't do this shit…"

Piles of corpses that were locked away in an airtight disposal area were discovered. Apparently using a transport for the corpses would draw unwanted attention and installing a furnace would have drawn on The already limited utilities available at the facility. It seemed that these criminals saw it much more economic to just utilize the already spacious basement area to just shove the corpses into them and cover the bodies with preservation compounds to disguise the smell. The port already had a pungent odor of fish from shipments with burning diesel and grease to hide the chemical smell. Everybody who passed by that very building assumed that the ocean breezes carried the large bulk of the smells downwind.

Reading the report over causes of death just added to the sheer horror Bakugou couldn't understand. His already spinning head was in absolute shock.

"... We're they being controlled? Blackmailed? What on earth made these people…"

Not even Izuku could answer as he shook his head no in response to his friend's questions. Neither had said it out loud yet, so Izuku volunteered himself to be the one to throw it out in the open. He took a deep breath before forcing the awful truth of the investigation.

"It is within an eighty-five percentile that none of these people were coerced into their labor. No locks on any of the living quarter doors, lack of any evidence on the bodies that they were physically abused or restrained, not even any sort of chemical imbalance in their autopsy indicating irregular brain activity indicating psychological control or manipulation from a user…"

These people worked themselves to death by their own will. Nobody in that hospital room could utter a single word as the truth was now out for them to acknowledge. These seemingly average people who suddenly abandoned their lives to then show up as corpses working for these organized criminals made no sense. Almost all of these people weren't even of note as they didn't have any sort of meaningful backstory that indicated anything worth working oneself to such an extreme degree. No sane person would ever die so painfully over a stolen identity.

"So, what? Is this another Humarise? Some crazy fucks who want their followers to pump out cash for them?"

"No, that's too simple of an explanation. Plus, these people were likely just sending the most expendable of their group as labor to these guys. They likely tempted the guys producing the goods with their labor in exchange for their own share of the product being made. It explains the evidence found regarding the surplus we couldn't track down at the time."

Both were struggling to come up with an answer without concrete enough evidence as to who this group could be. There was a lot of data to go over in order to connect the dots.

"Send me the data through our usual channels and I'll see what I find."

"Already did. Figured you had some free time on your hands for the time being."

They gave each other a nod of understanding before Izuku got up and returned his chair to where he found it. As he was buttoning up the top button of his sports coat while leaving, he was stopped at the doorway by Katsuki.

"Hey…"

A moment passed before Bakugou spoke his mind to his childhood friend.

"You were right. I'm sorry."

All Izuku did was offer a calm smirk over his shoulder to let his friend know there were no hard feelings. With that settled, they both got to work getting to the bottom of this matter as soon as humanly possible. Each second that passed put more innocent people at risk and they as heroes needed to top this new threat at their doorstep.

One Week Later

Every major hero association was notified that a representative of the ESD would be visiting their firm under heavy security detail as the information They were going to recieve was unavailable for even the press to publish. Any mention of the information being shared during the briefing would automatically be tried as treason against the people of Japan since it directly had to do with the recent attacks that innocent people were dying from.

Since Bakugou had been admitted to the hospital, two more attacks that claimed the lives of five civilians started to make the public extremely nervous. A mother with two of her daughters were killed in a surprise attack in the middle of a shopping district while a single father with his daughter were killed nine days after while going out for ice cream. It was clear that these attacks were extremely difficult to pinpoint as it seemed that the ESD were struggling to find the culprits responsible.

Still, the dissenting opinion didn't prevent the department from putting their best at the front lines to protect their people. Despite the implications, more officers were put out on patrol and were charged with preventing more incidents. This increase of officers felt tangible by everybody as there were visibly more ESD out on patrol. Not even the message boards argued that the department was doing nothing to save their citizens as even photos of public areas all throughout Japan were popping up online demonstrating the effort the ESD were exerting to protect the people.

Izuku had finished reviewing a report of a mugging one of his employed heroes had stopped when his desk phone began to ring. He waved his hand over the receiver to then activate the speaker option.

"What is it, Hekima?"

"Sir, they're here for the briefing."

Hearing that critical piece of news let Izuku know that the scheduled meeting between his hero agency and the ESD needed his personal attendance. Turning off his monitor before exiting his office, Midoriya made his way to the conference room to join the rest of his agency in an important meeting that would update them all on a very precarious situation.

Three Minutes Later

Everybody from the Emerald Agency filed into the spacious conference room designed to accommodate more than the available hired staff on hours. Izuku had intentionally made most of the second floor meeting rooms to make sure some odd always had space to convene an important meeting. In all honesty, the entire project was overly funded and he ran out of things to put into the building that ended up becoming his agency. Still, all the extra space made things easier for the day to day operations as there was no shortage of available flooring to make into another supply closet.

Midoriya simply didn't want to flood his agency with new hires and cause issues that come with recruiting a large volume of fresh faces out to make a name for themselves. Too many passionate graduates from major hero academies all applied to his agency and were mostly expecting g to be a she in for their accolades and quirks that they felt would make them an obvious choice to hire. Much to their disappointment, Izuku still oversaw the hiring process and rejected some of the most powerful candidates due to the fact they simply couldn't understand that they simply weren't what he wanted in his agency.

Being the number one hero in the nation caused some unwanted issues Izuku never considered before becoming a business owner. First off were the arrogant assholes who barged into his building expecting the most premium of treatment as they walked all over the other employees he hired previous to them.

One freshly graduated applicant came from a rich family and had a quirk that allowed him to fire heated lasers from his firearms. What Izuku saw was how he demanded preferable treatment from the secretaries who were already hard at work providing for the office with condescending remarks about their appearance. Their attractive figures didn't warrant any criticism regarding how competent they were at their jobs. As someone who was already involved with multiple bombshell wives, Izuku hired these highly competent women based on the merit of their work ethic and skills. Seeing this prick act so brazenly with his staff ignited something rather personal within Izuku.

Being a son of a single mother had Midoriya see this younger man as unlikeable. But seeing him abuse what he thought was his birthright enraged Midoriya as they slapped his staff on her ass after he requested her to bring him a hand-brewed cup of espresso.

Watching such a disrespectful act right as they sat down on the chair in front of his interviewers caused the one who held majority power over the hiring process to stand up. All the other hiring managers all winced as they knew what was about to happen next. They couldn't look up as their boss had a smile on their face that completely disguised the anger they contained under that facade.

"Why don't we take a practical assessment of your physical abilities?"

Hearing that line never left the minds of the staff who followed their boss into the combat training room before he beat the arrogant punk within an inch of his life. Throughout the fight, Izuku kept walking away after ending a round with the overly pretentious new hire trying to blindside the man from behind. He actually paid for the young man's hospital bill after leaving them a bruised up mess that needed three months of medical supervision before they could leave the hospital.

Needless to say, he settled for a lesser known agency after he recovered.

Izuku exited his office and said hello to the staff who were also called for their participation in the briefing from the ESD. They all greeted their boss with good tidings and best wishes as he sheepishly accepted all of their blessings in stride. His still humble nature made him extremely popular amongst the employees who saw him as a good manager on all levels of competency.

This rumor helped to dissuade the silver spoon fed trust fund kids from ever applying to his agency since. This then led to a hilarious rush of applicants who applied to Power Igniter's agency and caused a higher failure count than with Izuku's agency.

Not even Bakugou could stomach these entitled kids out to just make a check with their natural gifts. He even quintupled the amount of people he sent to the hospital over Izuku's number.

"Is everybody accounted for? Please have a seat as we are about to begin."

All the costumed heroes as well as the office staff all took their seats after Izuku announced for the beginning of the briefing. He had received a call from his assistant that the ESD escort had just pulled in and was on their way up to the second floor with their representatives. This meeting would unveil the beginning of a joint operation that the government had deemed necessary for the heroes of society to be included in. Midoriya's agency was roughly within the first half of agencies being contacted within the country regarding the highly classified information.

Every hero in every agency was required to acknowledge an agreement to keep all information confidential under threat of being tried and punished as an enemy of the nation of Japan itself. Needless to say even the more loud mouthed individuals felt themselves clam up in the face of the danger this new group presented.

"Everybody, you know me well enough to know I always try to make sure you all are in your best frame of mind. We all work hard everyday to make sure the public are safe and I couldn't be prouder of you all."

A feeling of gratitude could be felt from those under the care of his agency. They all respected their leader for a multitude of reasons and knew he too paid back that loyalty tenfold.

"Right now, I cannot lie to you regarding this new threat. We are under attack by an enemy that is not only powerful but is also amongst our midst. They're creating fear in the public for whatever nefarious purpose they have and we are still searching for the answers as to what they could possibly want."

Leaning forward with both gloved hands gripping the sides of his metal podium, Izuku leaned in with a gravely serious look everybody rarely ever saw on his face outside of the anniversary of Bloodsoaked's retirement. Nobody dared to split their attention as they collectively gave him their undivided attention.

"They want to leave us in the dark to get their way. We are that flame that guides the innocent through that darkness. That emptiness is the thing we push back every single day. You are all a part of that great flame that we provide for those in need. For those we want to shield from fear. From the things that lurk in that very darkness."

His short but impactful speech helped unite everybody then and there by spirit and left them with a confidence only he could provide. Their resolve cemented behind the banner of courage he waved against the enemy he was prepared to fight with all his might. Much like what his former mentor did when they were a hero himself.

The polar opposite of his other former mentor.

Timing couldn't have been more perfect as the elevator doors opened to the left of Izuku. Emerging from the elevator was a squad of fully armed ESD officers armed with fully automatic weapons and equipment for any combat situation. About eight officers all maintained a disciplined yet perfectly spaced perimeter around the female representatives dressed in black office wear with white dress shirts with a thin tie for each of them. These women looked just as intimidating as the officers escorting them to their destination. They also wore high heels that didn't seem to affect their stride alongside the combat-ready agents. Their pencil skirts ended mid thigh and even drew the attention of those who felt a bit shy as they found these women very attractive for how strict they seemed to be at first glance.

One wore her obsidian black hair up into a messy bun with loose locks of hair adding to her mature allure paired with thin framed glasses sitting on her upturned nose. Her fellow ESD operative shared a look under the one long bang that hung over her right eye. Dark amber hair like a waterfall of molten bronze bounced in time against her lower back as she entered the glass conference room that was being held open by the leading officer ahead of the group. The rest all filed in without missing a beat and all took positions at the edges of the room with their rifles ready at the split second things took a turn for the worst.

None of the heroes could stare directly at the gas masks tinted black. Several heroes who had first applied to the ESD years ago felt a bit silly after witnessing how intimidating these men all felt by just standing in one spot. These were proper soldiers who were ready to shoot whatever was even considered a threat to public safety.

"Good Afternoon, heroes and heroines. My name is agent Sasami and this is agent Hiruma. We shall be your representatives in the ongoing investigation against a possible terrorist organization deemed to be of high priority against national security. Please save any questions until we open the room for inquiries."

About a dozen hands went back down after the agent notified them of the way the briefing would be handled. The paperwork and tablets they were carrying in their leather bound binders were set down on the podium where they each extracted their tablets and were synchronized with the office's facilities almost immediately. Every window making up the sides of the building all began to block out the light from outside while the front of the transparent room became a wall monitor to display all the key evidence gathered so far. Only the monitor provided the necessary light for those who were inside of it.

"What we know from this group is that their influence over its members is one of blind fanaticism. Our studies show the facility your agency assisted in the neutralization of had been able to produce an excess of about seventy-three percent past expected estimates by those facilitating the creation and distribution of illegal firearms and narcotics. These values were only achieved through the work force that was being employed at the time. However, this large increase of production came at the cost of those who assembled said contraband."

Everybody in the room, except for Izuku, were shocked to see the coroner reports and photos of all the piles of rotting bodies all stacked to the ceiling with a map of the basement showing that only a third of it had been filled up. Had they not intervened, the possibility that the entire space would be filled with corpses was a morbid one at that. Some of the newer heroes almost threw up in their mouths with the graphic photos of the bodies that were practically falling apart on the coroner's metal table. Others managed well enough on their own and were even studying the images closely to get a better idea of what had happened.

"The funds produced by this facility alone is well into the billions of yen. Our analysts had managed to put together a comprehensive enough report that can tell us the accounts the funds had been traded with."

Now it was the auburn hair colored woman's turn to speak. She tapped on the file she wished to pull up onto the monitor and presented a world map with charts associating with the points the arrows were jumping between countries and nations.

"These tactics are common amongst white collar criminals who try to evade taxation on hidden accounts. As you can see here from the dates of transfers here…"

Singapore and France were zoomed in with the line between them glowing as the chart associated with the example began to scroll downwards with additional data. Most were able to follow, but others depended on their own displays on their communicators to thoroughly absorb the presentation.

"It was transferred before the initial date for tax records to be filed for the Singapore government. Keeping the accounts interacting with each other with countries with conflicting tax laws creates a chain of bureaucracy that ends with the account being defaulted and removed. Following this data, we can determine a path of sorts that splits the amount into four major groups. One here."

She zoomed in on the southern Chinese province closest to the nation of Korea.

"Here."

Germany had been another country brought up onto the big screen.

"Here."

Seeing Central Russia brought onto the monitor made Izuku uncomfortable. He knew that Nakamura had a recent political visit to the government. If he had been involved with the money of this investigation, he didn't know what he would think of the man anymore.

"And most concerning, here."

Over forty percent of the money had apparently landed itself back into Japan. Many were murmuring in confusion over such a confusing fact. When the floor was opened up, one hero was called on that had a costume themed around dragonflies. Their quirk allowed them to fly like one with higher precision than his natural predecessor.

"Um, why? Why would they send the money all over the world only to send it back to the original country? Wouldn't have holding onto the money saved them time and, well, money?"

A lot of his fellow heroes all somewhat mumbled in agreement with his initial deduction. The bespectacled office beauty straightened her glasses before answering the young man.

"Had they done just that, the ability to utilize the fund would have needed numerous fraudulent countermeasures to avoid detection. Our intelligence network is more than equipped to detect such activity on any irregularity. Without any incriminating evidence of fraudulent activity, foreign transactions are less likely to be scrutinized from the ground up. To assess the face value spending of the funds would be impossible to scrutinize with every transaction that takes place within the country. All we know is that there is a portion of that fund hovering over the nation of Japan and we have no means to see it in the sea of other fortunes that share the same space."

Witnessing the threads of this entire conspiracy against their own country almost felt overwhelming for a majority of the heroes attending the confidential meeting. Some weren't even with the agency for a year.

Going from handling robberies at local banks to stopping national terrorism could send anybody's head spinning till their eyeballs came flying out of their sockets. Several concerned murmurs illustrated the increasing concern over the size and level of the danger this new group posed. They weren't given time to come to their own conclusions yet when the agent with long flowing hair spoke again while brushing her bang behind her right ear. That small display of feminine charm charmed almost everybody in the room as she moved on to the next agenda.

"We as the ESD are navigating with the government as well as every available analyst at our disposal to pursue this threat from the financial institutions. What we wanted to also discuss is of the highest importance. For your safety as well as for the public.

The tablet she held was tampered with for a few moments and left on the podium before a massive holographic display started to float in front of the room. The monitor dimmed in order to give the new presentation better visibility. Bright blue lights levitated and created reports that were legible enough for everybody to read. What was being projected actually made half the room recoil in realization of what they were looking at.

"These creatures who have been disrupting public welfare exhibit an incredible amount of aggression with a single minded focus on causing as much collateral damage as possible. After studying them through our available sources, we have significant data regarding these dangerous threats."

Izuku paid close attention along with his heroes so that he could be better prepared for the next encounter. He even leaned forward in his chair at the front. This caused the others to then lean forward individual by individual since their leader seemed to see this information as critical as well.

"Physically, they are made of the same components that make up the regular human body. Nothing of unusual note could be found as they all had organs of the normal count with no change to their location or orientation. The only conclusion that could be extracted from our research confirms that these were once normal humans."

There were very detailed three dimensional images emerging that made the heroes curious as to how the ESD got these accurate scans. All of them remained silent and decided that forgetting about it was the best for everybody involved.

"However, what is of note is the muscular and skeletal composition of these individuals."

A breakdown of one of the mutant's arms illustrated all the data extracted from them. Skin, muscle fibers, bone cross sections; information on these things had been thorough.

"When placed under close examination, the structural integrity of these components far exceed the durability of even some known commercial body armors. None of them demonstrated a consistent level of durability, but none of them failed to stop small caliber ammunition fired from standard law enforcement firearms."

Tapping her tablet, the monitor, the next hologram zoomed into the muscle fibers. It seemed that the majority of the data had to do with this part of their anatomy. Over seventy percent of the group needed to refer to their personal communication device to go over all the information being presented.

"However, the most alarming factor has to do with their increased muscle mass. Both mass and density had increased exponentially without compromising other necessary bodily functions such as blood circulation, range of movement, or flexibility.

Increasing mass has been documented as well as increase as density, but for both to take place would put the body under stresses preventing normal biological functions in the organs. No damage from transformation into these enhanced states had been recorded when compared to available records regarding how they are activated."

Perhaps the hardest part of the meeting happened as footage from nearby local cameras were being played when the attacks were first instigated. Individuals wearing a variety of normal clothing made the footage seem extremely unremarkable. That was, until a moment where everything broke down into pure chaos.

Right as they walked past a dense cluster of people, they would suddenly stop walking and begin to bubble up with body mass until they transformed into their massive forms. Many of the heroes were unable to contain their horrified cries of sorrow as these large beasts began swinging at the panicked pedestrians all scrambling to get away from the danger.

Having a higher mental acuity left Izuku to silently mourn the sight of a mother walking their child in a stroller as both mother and child were punched and rendered into a violent splatter against a nearby highrise office building.

"... As we can see, their transformations are spontaneous along with being drastic. They gain body mass dozens of times their previous weight."

Somber calmness kept her voice cold and distant as she ended the mortifying video footage. Seeing that destruction claim so many innocent lives left a deep sorrow that slowly transformed into grim determination. None of those people deserved to die at the hands of those abominations. Not in such a terrible way.

"These subjects all obtained a large amount of dense muscle mass that exceeded all biological normalities. All cells were fully functional with only an increase to metabolic functions to compensate for the changes in their bodies. Not only this, but the ductile capacity and range of movement within these muscle fibers did not decrease. This in combination with their durable skin creates a natural armor that makes it so that only 5.56 ammunition of high velocity capacity can penetrate this defense."

Seeing how deep the round traveled into the example in the hologram didn't install a lot of confidence for a lot of the heroes. Watching the dense piece of high speed metal only stop part way into the shoulder muscle was one of the most defeating things to see for so many heroes unable to produce the same amount of lethal force.

"What we will be reviewing today will be to recognize weaknesses that will assist you all in your mission to save the people. We have compiled ideal techniques that will be sent to your communication devices for review, though the rest of this briefing will be covering general strategies and possible survival tactics when faced with these threats to public safety and security."

Two Hours Later

Both sides of the presentation bowed in respect to each other before the ESD marched back in formation to their vehicles parked in the lot. Midoriya was already making notes in his mobile when he felt his neck being gripped and pulled down unexpectedly. Some individuals watched their boss being pulled into the long haired beauty's personal space and felt their jealousy emerge in tears they struggled to hold in regarding their personal failures in getting a date.

Knowing your boss was married to practically all of the top of the line gorgeous heroines of the nation would make any guy feel a bit antiquated. Nobody thought much of the incident when they saw the unexpected act of intimacy.

In reality, all that happened to Izuku had the man catching himself mentally as he heard the very attractive ESD representative whisper into his ear.

"Please follow us to central, Emerald Paragon. We have information to disclose to you."

Her letting him go just as suddenly to follow the escorts almost left him confused. Being quick, Izuku followed the ESD and messaged Hekima that he would be out for an important task.

Izuku just got a request for him to move to the spacious second floor for his own private office with rows of shelves to let him keep working as a mainly paper based office worker. Midoriya told him that if the first floor would sign off on the request, he would happily fund the project.

None of the office workers wanted to contend with an elevator or stairs when delivering to a boss who wanted to work with paper as much as possible. Although it wasn't said, it was the most polite 'get fucked' possible as the assistant was once again met with the reality that he was the source of impeding his own request.