Nezu was at his desk, typing away on his computer. His work never seemed to end, he had to manage the school, work with various government officials regularly, coordinate with the H.A., and had recently started on mass renovations and improvements to the school. The war and Zeus's attack had called to mind the age before All Might, where AFO ruled from the shadows unchecked. So he had poured a considerable amount of his wealth into improving the school's facilities and its security.
Nezu had thought himself prepared, but he had vastly overestimated himself and underestimated his foes. He was going to be making some serious changes going forward, he was determined to make the school one of the safest places on earth. Where the best and brightest of the next generation could come to learn and become the best they could be. It would also help repair the damage the school's reputation had undergone. After everything that had happened, U.A. was not the bastion of education and safety as many had thought during the age of All Might. Granted, no place was seen as truly safe nowadays, but he intended to change that when it came to U.A.
He was wrapping up a work order for landscaping services when his phone rang. He glanced at the phone, then did a double take as he saw it was Tokoyami calling. Frowning, he picked up the phone and answered it.
"Good evening," he answered.
"Good evening sir, I hope I've not caught you at a bad time," Tokoyami said.
"Not at all, I always have time for my students, both past and present," Nezu said.
"Thank you, sir, though I'm afraid my reason for calling is not benign," Tokoyami said grimly.
There was a slight pause as Nezu took a deep breath and prepared himself for whatever crisis was upcoming.
"I see. Tell me everything, I will do what I can to help." He said.
"Are you aware of my most recent assignment?" Tokoyami asked.
"I am not."
"My most recent assignment was to investigate the recent disappearances of several hikers and search and rescue personnel on Mt. Takatsuma. They were tracked to a cave believed to have been revealed several months ago due to a landslide. A cursory search didn't reveal much, so I was brought in due to my quirks affinity for darkness. It was believed that a plant or animal with a quirk may have been involved, and with no idea as to its strength, they decided to play it safe."
"I brought a squad of QSU with me as support, and we began to explore the cave system. It ran far deeper than we initially suspected and eventually strange growth was observed on the walls as we got deeper. Eventually, we came to a large open chamber that was connected to the region's groundwater. We found the missing people but they had been placed into pods, being used as food for a large chrysalis hanging from the ceiling. We opened one of the pods and found the corpse of one of the search personnel, thoroughly desiccated." Tokoyami said before suddenly falling silent.
"Is everything all right?" Nezu asked after a few awkward seconds.
"I- Yes sir, just a thought came to me. You're aware of the incident at Zeus's old stronghold yes?" Tokoyami suddenly asked.
"Yes, of course, we have yet to track the hound down..." Nezu said trailing off as the same thought came to him.
"The incident is worse than you are imagining," Tokoyami said.
"The hound that escaped... I don't think it was a normal hound. Before the chrysalis broke open, we encountered a creature that seemed to have been corrupted, mutated, and acting as a proxy for the being within the chrysalis. We killed the creature and that acted as the impetus for the chrysalis to open. However... when it was broken open, it was not a hound we were greeted with but Hound Zero itself. Aria Lin is alive sir." Tokoyami said.
There was a long pause as Nezu's mind raced. Possibilities and theories came to him one after another but he forced himself to focus on Tokoyami.
"Continue." was all he said.
"The QSU immediately opened fire and I had them retreat when I fully understood what we were facing. When they had left I tried to communicate with her, and while she seemed to be in control, her memory had some pieces missing regarding recent events. I tried to convince her to come with me but turned violent in response. I was forced to fight her but was unable to subdue her. She seems to have grown stronger with more mutation-type quirks in her arsenal. When I returned and reported my findings, the military and QSU quickly became involved. I was bogged down in discussions and briefings for the past several days. I have only just now been relieved of involvement, but I thought it best to inform you as soon as possible." Tokoyami said.
"This is disturbing news, not least because of Aria Lin's apparent revival and involvement. The military will use whatever it has at its disposal to subdue and likely kill Aria Lin. They are not in the habit of letting people as tremendously strong as her run free. We will need to move quickly if we are to reach her before the military does. Thank you for informing me, I will begin putting things into motion on my end. Call Hawks and let him know the situation as well, the sooner we can get things moving, the better." Nezu quickly, his mind spinning with plans and ideas.
"Understood," Tokoyami said, before hanging up.
Nezu leaned back in his chair and rubbed his temples with his paws. He'd harbored a little bit of regret surrounding the way Aria Lin's story ended and wished he could have done more for the poor woman. Aria Lins's history, in many ways, mirrored his own. They both were taken and subjected to experiments due to their unique quirks, and he felt a sense of obligation to try and help those like him as best he could. If that meant going in person to talk to her, then he would gladly do so, he doubted she would take anyone else seriously anyway.
Two weeks later...
The night was cool, crickets and other insects filled the air with their constant noise, and nocturnal animals stalked through the forest. It was a wild place, where humans did not often venture. Yet, deep within Chūbu-Sangaku National Park, there was a place where no insects or animals dared make noise. The place was eerily quiet as if some curse had been cast upon it. Within this area something new prowled, something unlike anything the forest had ever before seen.
The deer was stock-still, it could sense the presence of something nearby, something dangerous. Occasionally, it would hear something slither across the forest floor, at other times with would be the whisper of something heavy snapping a twig. The sounds lasted but a fraction of a second, but it didn't dare move. It knew that to move would be to die. As the minutes ticked by, it slowly started to relax its muscles. It could neither hear nor smell nor see anything amiss. After another length of time, it shifted its weight slightly, causing a few leaves to rustle.
It died, a handful of heartbeats later. It screeched as something speared it through its chest, then fell silent as its head was cleanly lopped off by a massive claw. Its body went limp, and from somewhere else in the forest, a chorus of sounds exploded. Various other animals, prey and predator alike bolted from their nearby hiding spots or else went deeper into their burrows.
The corpse of the deer was picked up, head included, and carried off. The scent of its death spread far across the forest as a trail of blood marked the path of its killer back to its lair. Eventually, the corpse was dropped onto a floor of rock, within a small cove where moss covered the walls, now home to the forest's newest predator. As the deer corpse lay on the floor, its blood slowly oozing from its wounds, the predator started tearing chunks of flesh off.
It ate with a vicious and desperate hunger. As if it had not eaten in many days, the haphazard pile of fur and bones in one corner of the small cave told a different story though. Huge clawed hands ripped an entire leg off and began consuming it in its entirety. Bone, fur, and meat were all equally edible to the creature. Only the hooves remained after it was done, tossed aside to join the grisly pile off in the corner. Eventually, the creature consumed the deer, leaving only hooves, antlers, and odd bits of fur and bone behind. Which were promptly swept into the growing pile by the creature's large tail. The creature crawled into the opposite corner of the grisly pile and slept, sated for the time being.
Yet sleep eluded the creature, as it often did. No matter how much it ate, it never felt satisfied. Only twice in its time in this forest had it felt truly sated, in those moments its hunger left it alone long enough for it to get proper sleep. As it lay on the rock, the hours ticked by with it falling in and out of sleep, and with each passing hour, it felt more of its mind leave it. It knew why it was hungry, and what reason it still possessed was vehemently opposed to it. The denial only served to drive it to greater pits of madness and desperation. It wouldn't die from not getting what it wanted, but neither would it ever feel sated, nor feel truly rested.
A couple of hours before the sun rose, it was rocking back and forth, breathing heavily as it desperately fought to control its urges. It bit down so hard on its hand that blood spilled down its arm and into its mouth. Hurting itself to focus its mind on something other than its rampaging urges. Its claws dug huge furrows into the rock, as it rhythmically flexed its claws.
Just then, a smell wafted in from the breeze. It froze, its pupils dilating as it sniffed the air. It started to drool unconsciously, it could smell what it so desperately wanted. The smell grew much stronger, indicating the presence of multiple people. It slowly got up from its position, and slinked to the cave mouth, its eyes piercing the darkness as it shifted to alternate forms of sight. A tremendously long forked tongue shot out, tasting the air, and acquiring more accurate information.
There was a small splitting noise as huge wings burst from its back and its tail lengthened. It gave a mighty leap and with its wings started gliding through the air, using its long powerful tail to help propel it through the air by swinging off of large branches.
It homed in on the sounds of voices and their smell. It swung itself above the treeline, scanning the area from above. Then it saw the tell-tale heat signature of multiple forms farther ahead, all larger than the normal animals that were awake at this time. It dived through a gap in the treetops, bringing its wings and tail close to its body and shooting through the gap with only the faintest noise, more akin to the wind. It deployed its wings and resumed its gliding.
As it was about to come upon the group, it pulled its wings back into its body and alighted on a large limb of a nearby tree. Its skin rippled and it took on the appearance of the area around it, camouflaging itself. Its form continued to change though, it became more cat-like, more condensed, every muscle housing a tremendous amount of potential energy, a form perfect for ambushing unsuspecting prey.
It lept, silently and lightly from limb to limb, until it came to the clearing where the group of people was located. It observed them, watching as they milled about, talking and gesturing to the woods. It could see the weapons they bore and scanned the group for the weakest among them. Eventually, it spotted one, slightly apart from the others, facing the trees, not paying attention.
It tensed, muscles rippling as it prepared to strike. It waited for a moment longer, watching the figure wander just a bit farther... then it struck. It launched from its hiding place and in the blink of an eye, it slammed into the man, crushing him instantly. The body practically exploded beneath the impact, sending viscera everywhere.
It intended to leap back into the trees, to pick off the others one by one, but as the smell of man's blood assailed it, it froze. It reached its clawed hands into the pile of viscera. felt the warm blood beneath them, and began to drink. Blood flowed into it through the pores of its skin, it bent down and with its long tongue lapped at the blood in desperation. Every drop made everything better, it felt strength slowly drip into its limbs, and its mind became sharper.
Then everything went dark, it could no longer feel, hear, taste, see, or smell. It no longer knew where it was as if the world had suddenly ended. Then there was a brief flash of light, and its consciousness faded.
The group slowly crowded around the figure. It lay there in a pile of viscera, slumped over and limbs at awkward angles like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
"Is that... her? It?" asked one of the group, looking at her horrifically mutated appearance.
The man who appeared to be their leader bent down and looked her over closely, pulling out his phone and checking something on it as he looked her over.
"Yup, that's her. She matches reports and has vague similarities to her human form."
"Call for evac, the sooner we're out of here, the less time the heroes and QSU will have to track us. The boss will be delighted to know we completed the job so quickly." The leader of the group said. standing up.
At that, the whole group smiled. Pleasing their boss... now that was something to be proud of.
While they waited for their evac to arrive filled with what they would need to transport the woman, one of the others spoke up.
"You know after all the stuff the boss said about her, I expected things to go a lot worse. Only lost Ren, but the guy always had a few screws loose. Surprised he lasted as long as he did."
"We got a bit lucky. She's a mess in the head apparently, but turns out she was even worse than we predicted. Gave me plenty of time to charge my quirk, the easiest capture I've done in the past three years! We shouldn't need to worry about her waking up any time soon either. She'll probably be in a coma for a week." Said the leader, grinning.
"You won't be able to use your quirk for the next month though right? Are we getting paid enough to compensate for that?" Asked one of the older group members.
"Don't worry about that, we are getting paid PLENTY for this job. Probably one of our bigger payouts. We'll be able to take it easy for a while after this." Said the leader smirking.
It was then that they heard the noise of the helicopter, it got louder until its running lights shone down into the clearing. The party started loading up into the large helicopter, dragging the now-restrained woman with them. The entire operation had only taken a half hour.
The bay door rolled up into its housing, its well-greased parts making little noise. The truck drove into the large and spacious room and parked. Its lights shut off and four people clambered out of it. The leader looked around and spotted their employer just off to the side, the others moved to the back of the truck, opened the door, and started wheeling Aria out, tightly bound with metal restraints and resting atop a rolling platform.
"As you can see, we completed the job. Didn't take us as long as I thought either." He said with a smug look on his face.
"I'm impressed, you have more than earned your pay. Move her into the basement, and then I'll see to it that you are paid well for your services. I will most certainly be calling for your services again in the future. Such reliability is hard to come by." Said their employer.
The leader of the team veritably swelled with the praise and he felt a rush of dopamine so intense that nothing compared. He smiled broadly, as did his men, and they rushed to complete their task.
An hour later, everything was settled. The man entered the wide and open basement. Then started down the staircase that acted as a shortcut to the ramshackle slope he had made to accommodate the rolling platform. He approached the platform with the still-bound woman and proceeded to undo the restraints. He did so extremely slowly, always monitoring her for any signs of waking. As he worked, he talked to her, the subject matter was unimportant, just so long as he spoke to her. Even when he was done removing the restraints, he continued to talk for hours. Rambling about both the pointless and philosophical. Eventually, though, he checked his phone and saw how late it was.
He yawned and stood up, doing a little stretch as he did so. He looked back at the woman one last time before leaving the basement.
"Don't worry about a thing, when you awake, everything will be fine. Just remember, my light will be your salvation. You will be beautiful in your service, and you'll never need to worry about anything complicated ever again."