Author's Note: Sorry for this guys, but this chapter is an information dump and a lot of things will be going on to get the plot moving. I know things may be hard to keep up with but I don't want to keep stretching this mini arc into another three chapters. By the time we reach the climax of this arc we should be at or near chapter 30 and I want to be sure to use these last chapters to build anticipation and dread. Tell me what you think and thank you for reading!

Feet stumble across a barren field, littered with the dead. Civilians and even children were not spared from the fighting, their corpses scattered amongst the Shinobi. There was no ceremony to be held. No prayers for the dead to help the souls to the afterlife. Only fire to burn what remained on earth.

Those feet stumble, and the lone Shinobi falls to his feet, weak from days of fighting. He's young, but doesn't see the world the way a child would. His fingernails collect dirt as he digs into the ground, clawing at it, trying desperately to gather himself. The fighting might not be over, he knows. He couldn't leave himself exposed.

It took a few more long breaths but they became stable. His eyes searched the battle damaged field for any sign of life but found nothing but carnage. A man comes to mind, covered in blood, his white haired stained red. It causes him to double over as his stomach heaves and forces whatever rations he had eaten out.

His mind spun as he coughed violently, the fluid flowing out of him with welcomed ease. His first battle, and only he survived.

All he could think about was where on earth was he. And that question swarmed his mind over and over, like a swarm of angry bees.

XxX

His usual dull eye had color in them as it popped open, surprised to see a ceiling above him. Immediately, he calmed down, his body slackening upon hearing the familiar sound of a heart monitor. He was still in the hospital.

'Why that dream?' He thinks to himself, holding his now aching head. He can hear his own heart beating through it.

"Mr. Hatake, I'm so glad that you could join us here on Earth."

Slowly, he tried, his eye looked down, finding an unfamiliar looking man sitting at the foot of his bed in a wooden chair, a smile on his face that clearly didn't fit it. Like if it were plastered on.

"..."

"Ah, so not much of a talker, eh?" When he receives no answer again, he chuckles and comes to his feet. There's a strange glint in his eyes as he stares and Kakashi can't help but feel excited. Hyper awareness was a problem Shinobi who'd been on the frontline tended to have and he was no exception.

"There was a break in about 10 hours ago. Communications, Wi-Fi signals, security systems, and surveillance systems all went down for approximately 6 minutes. I want to know who you came in contact with and what were their objective. I know you should've had no contact with the outside world anywhere prior to your fight in Hosu. Meaning that whoever came here, came for you."

He was smart. If he is as sure as he looks and sounds than it was safe to assume he's mapped out his location prior a bit prior to Hosu. He couldn't lie his way out of this. He could only keep his mouth shut, something he was notoriously good at.

"Still quiet, eh?" He sighed, reaching into his grey trench coat and pulling out a scratched up metal lighter. It looked old and worn. "Well, we've got nothing but time, right?"

Kakashi stared as the man tugged in his pockets and took out a carton of cigarettes, taking one out and lighting it up. Kakashi waited for him to take a drag. "You can smoke in here?"

He lets the smoke leave him slowly and then turns to Kakashi just as slowly, his sharp eyes staring deep. "I like you, kid. You gather information easily. But I'm confident, so I don't mind telling you. This room is always being monitored, systems that detect smoke are turned off for now."

Kakashi could say for the first time that he had a hard time reading someone from this world. The man confused him. Was he toying with him or just trying to find out what he knew? Regardless, he would gain no useful information conversing.

So he stopped.

"I answered one of your questions, but I feel as though you won't be returning the favor."

Silently, he flexed his toes beneath the cover. He noticed it was slower than how fast he wanted it to go. Did they put drugs in his system?

The man smiled. "Well, I expected as much." The man sighed, putting out his cigarette and stood up. Kakashi eye watched him like a hawk. "Since you won't talk I guess we can let a visitor come see you. Rest well, now. Madam President wants to see you tomorrow morning."

Seconds later, the door slammed behind him and he heard a metal clang, followed by clicking.

Kakashi let out a breath, sitting up slowly. 'Yea, there's definitely something in my system. I'll need a bit more chakra but I should be able to flush it out with a healing technique Rin taught me.' He took another long look around the bare room. 'Still, I should be able to escape by now, but I can't tell how long I've been here. It can't be weeks. By then, no amount of poison would be able to slow me down. It has to be still quite early since fighting Kakkō. That means that they are drugging me to prevent me from being at my full power. I could sit and rest more, figure out what I'm going to do once I escape. I have to get home, with Kakkō dead, I have no reason to be here.'

He raised his hand to his mouth, feeling cold without his mask covering his face. 'I need to find my supplies as well. That means I can't sneak out. I'll need to cause a scene and draw that man to me so I can torture the information out of him. I'll need more chakra to make it happen.'

And that meant staying down here a bit longer.

Metal creaked as it shifted. The sound being familiar, he looked toward the door that looked mistakenly like a wall. Light poured in the room, nearly blinding him. But through that light, he saw bright red wings and a human form leading them.

The door closed, and he was left with a man who looked a bit hot, sweat starting to drip down his forehead.

Was it hot out there? It was hot normally in Masutafu, but was he in Masutafu anyways?

The man held an easy smile despite his breaths being a bit fast. He waved as he walked up to the bed. "Hey, Hatake, right?"

"You know that already."

"That I do." He said, stopping before his bed. "Now that you know that, how 'bout you tell me something about you. Maybe how your Quirk works."

"Whatever do you mean?"

His smile became strained. "Oh, don't be like that. I'm actually on your side."

"They wouldn't let someone on "my side" come see me." Otherwise Ryuko would've been the first person to come and visit him. Speaking of her, she would probably be finding a way for him to get out of here. Maybe he could use her. No, too risky and it might take too long. He only needed a bit longer to be fully healed once he flushed whatever drug in his system out.

"Nonsense," he waved off. "After all, I'm here."

"And when are you going to leave?"

"Soon, well maybe," he smiled and took the same seat that the man from earlier took, though looking more relaxed as he practically melted in the seat.

Was he tired?

"But that depends on you, honestly. I can't really leave until I get something out of you."

"And why would you tell me something like that?" Kakashi knew all about gathering information, but this was just stupid. He was basically telling Kakashi he was trying to get her information. Though, honestly, it would do no good to hide it considering the fact that anyone he didn't know coming in here would be trying to gain information.

"Because you know that anyways, don't you?"

Definitely smarter than he looked.

"It does you no good in keeping quiet. I don't know where you come from or why you feel the need to keep silent but we can help you if you let us."

"If you want to help me, letting me out seems the most logical to me."

"Well that would be great if we could. You're a threat, we can't just let you leave. Not only that, you're also affiliated with Blade."

His anger rose from the depths of his exhaustion and he gave a glare that paused the man. Even his wings stiffened.

"I am not affiliated with Kakkō."

It took a second or two, but his stunned expression turned into a humorous shock. "Kakkō, huh? So, that's his real name?"

Kakashi blinked rapidly, realizing his mistake and cursed himself. No way had he given up information because he got emotional.

"So you are affiliated with him in some way. Otherwise, you wouldn't know his name. Kakkō of the Hidden Stone Village."

That name didn't register with Kakashi until a couple of seconds later. He blinked then turned as fast as his body would allow, stunned to even have heard those words uttered from a world not his own.

"Where did you hear that from?"

The man's smile widened as if that were even possible and his eyes lit up. He seemed less tired. "So, it exists?"

'Dammit, what am I doing?!' He yelled at himself, nearly unable to stop himself from showing emotion. He couldn't let anymore of his emotion come out. But this man was good. Unlike the other man who seemed hard to read but easy to follow, this man was the opposite. He seemed easy to read, but hard to follow. A snake hidden in grass, waiting and ready to pounce at any given moment. He knew Kakashi wasn't affiliated with him, otherwise he wouldn't have killed him, but he turned it around to make him reveal that they were enemies and even his name and the fact that he knew it. He couldn't have been losing his edge.

No. No, he was just being emotionally manipulated. Obito had died because of that man. He didn't even want someone to think he was at all affiliated with him. He just needed to be more careful.

"I was worried that this was fake or something," he reached into his brown jacket and pulled out a paper with words written on it. It looked like a mission report. "I didn't have any names, but those words stuck out to me. He's a shinobi from some type of Village, and his last mission he was sent on was him being stationed at Kannabi Bridge. I don't know what that is, but I'll go ahead and let you know what I think is going on."

Kakashi felt dread before his next words even came out of his mouth.

"You both are shinobi from different Villages that were at war with each other. You both were sent to Kannabi Bridge, you and your team with the purpose of destroying it with his team the mission of protecting it. Somehow, you both ended up here and now we are at this point. The point where you killed him."

X

Hawks had certainly been in a lot of situations. Being trained in multiple areas and running different positions during fights as a Pro Hero, he was versatile. And yet, he'd never met someone with intelligence like Kakashi's. Usually, he planned things out. But watching every talk any others had with him made him almost believe that getting anything out of him was impossible. The boy was a stone wall. Secrets were jammed in beneath the surface with no way of leaving forcefully. Until he figured that Kakashi was still human.

He didn't know why no one else had figured that out. It seemed so obvious. If nothing else could work, the only thing that was left was emotion. Emotion was illogical, inescapable, and most of all unpredictable. Emotions were uncontrollable, and if the right buttons were pressed, even the most controlled person could go berserk.

It may be unheroic like, but sometimes, well in his line of doing things, it was just what was needed to get the job done.

Though saying that, he should've realized that Kakashi wasn't just a newbie at killing. He was an experienced killer, just as he was a fighter. And he was an unstable mess when the right buttons were pressed.

Those buttons were pressed.

In a second, the boy wasn't in the bed and he wasn't sitting in the chair beside him. The boy moved faster than he could even think to react and he only felt a pull that flipped his vision until he was laying on his back, facing the ceiling until Kakashi's face slipped in front of it. His breathing was only slightly strained, but he shouldn't been able to move barely at all. He had been given drugs enough to sedate multiple African Elephants.

"How do you know all this?"

"How can you even move?!"

"I'm asking the questions here."

The door bursted open with loud clangs of metal going off as if small bombs went off inside the room. He looked toward the door to see multiple tranquilizer guns aimed at Kakashi, red dots seizing his clothes.

He yelled for them to stop just as Kakashi turned and one of the men shot. Kakashi's head tilted and the shot wizzed over his head, slamming into the wall behind him and breaking against the wall behind him. Even drugged, somehow, he flipped them over and hoisted him in front of him as if he were some sort of shield.

He couldn't hold his surprise at just how strong this drugged child was. But it only took him a second to imagine how a child could become like that and his surprise shaped itself into unbearable sadness.

"Stop! No more shooting!" He yelled, holding out an arm.

Their aim didn't falter despite no shots being fired. That may be the best he was going to get but looking at Kakashi made him somehow aware he wouldn't get anywhere with them in the room aiming weapons at him. He was like a mad dog, fiercely growling as he protected himself as best he could. Using him as a shield.

"Leave, right now," he commanded as he turned around but they only gripped their weapons harder. "Get out!" He yelled, grabbing their attention and stunning them with a deep yell. The way their backs straightened up slightly told him just how he needed to act.

Despite that, the didn't withdraw and he was running out of ideas to make them do so.

"Did you not hear him?"

He recognized that voice. A deep voice, always commanding and always leading. One of the Committee's strongest tools. He was like a general, instantly catching the full attention of his men with only a single sentence and he saw how they completely submitted themselves to him, their guns falling to their sides.

"He might not be your commander, but you still have to listen to him and do as he says. He's the Committee's golden boy. Understand?"

"Sir!" They bellowed like sheep.

"Good. Goodbye now."

Like sheep running from a wolf, they broke past him, nearly getting stuck in the doors trying to run away. In seconds, the only ones left were he, Hatake, and the commander himself.

He wore a small smirk of a smile looking at them, lighting up a cigarette.

"The brass isn't going to be happy if they know what just happened in this room. You owe me."

He left after saying that, leaving only a trail of smoke coming from his cigarette and slow footsteps getting further and further away. To him, it sounded like thunder. The door snapped closed after that, leaving them back in dim artificial lighting once more.

What could he have meant by that? That man was starting to scare him.

"Hatake?" Looking back where Kakashi was supposed to be, he found nothing but the ground beneath him. When did he move?

"Get out."

The words sounded so close to him, yet no matter where he looked, he could no longer find the boy. It was like he disappeared, but he knew the boy was still in the room.

'He's like a real Ninja.' He had no doubt the boy would probably be able to break out soon. Despite their best efforts to hold him here and keep him weak, nothing they did worked. So far he couldn't be convinced that joining them would help him in the long run. They also couldn't physically keep him here, well, not for too much longer from what he could tell. Where he stood, the boy was an invincible killing machine coming from a village or group of villages where they were made.

But if this village existed, where was it? And why haven't they shown their faces yet?

Closing the door behind himself, those questions circled his mind over and over. Questions that wanted to be answered that he had no answers to. Not yet.

X

In an cluttered city, filled with heroes, villians, and civilians alike, she stood atop a building. She hadn't stopped since she woke up. She wondered where she was, and context clues pointed to her that this was probably the place Kakashi had been dumped off at, the reason for him disappearing. It wasn't until she had seen his face plastered upon a large tv screen that she'd realized that he was here somewhere. And he made a mess big enough to rock this world.

"Kakashi. Kakashi, what have you done?"

Her whispery voice felt hollow, her worry and grief causing a single tear to slip down her face.

"You have to be alive, Kakashi. I can't lose you too."

XxX

A couple days later, and Midoriya had been fully admitted from the hospital. His class had decided to have a get together to celebrate it and he was more than happy to do so. He wanted something to distract him from thinking about Hosu and about what All Might had told him.

Things were getting bad. While seeing heroes was about as common as a cold, he never saw so many patrolling areas over and over. Multiple heroes in large groups would be over areas. He'd seen so many over the last couple of days of him being out that he even mapped out their routes and where some would appear.

They were cracking down harshly. He didn't blame them. From what happened at the funeral, obvious criminals weren't the only things that had to worry about. And with Gentle Criminal being killed by Mirko heroes were being scrutinized harshly. Student Heroes were all sent notices that if they participate in any fight against another using their Quirk without express permission from the staff of UA, they would be expelled.

First seeing that made him feel like his heartbeat had all but stopped. It was like time stopped itself. Just thinking of his dream ending from a single word frightened him. He hoped it wouldn't come down to that, and he asked himself what he would do if someone were in trouble. He wondered if he'd be able to stop himself.

Would he be able to give up his dream?

A buzzing in his pocket broke him out of his thoughts. He reached in his pocket and pulled it out. Todoroki? He answered.

"Hello."

"Midoriya, I found something interesting. Meet me at the train station and bring some money. We're taking a small trip."

He hung up well before Midoriya could get a word out.

Something interesting? And he sounded so serious, so it had to mean it was important. He looked at the time. Three hours, plenty of time to be on time for the party. Energized, he took off in a sprint, intent on getting there on time.

XxX

Annoying, annoying. That's all he could think as a ringing in his ear became louder and louder. It wasn't until the view of his room came to view that he knew what it was that was annoying him to no end.

Without looking, he turned the ringing alarm off. He didn't know why he kept the damn thing other than the fact that it was a gift that came from Mic. If it weren't for that he would've made sure to beat the thing to hell before tossing it out of his window.

He felt a soft rumble on his leg and pulled back to cover to see his cat hiding underneath. He picked her up.

"You hate it too, huh."

The conversation ended before it could really begin as another ringing sound erupted a bit of ways from his room.

Dammit, he left his phone in the other room. Sighing, the teacher set the car down and forced himself out of bed, taking slow steps toward the kitchen and reached his phone once inside.

Picking it up off the counter, he saw that it was Midnight calling him. Great.

"Hello?" He said putting it to his ear.

"You sound lively today. Did you finally get laid?"

She sounded the same as ever. Far too much energy for his liking.

"Yes, I was lying down just fine in my bed. What's the reason your calling?"

"Your humor leaves much to be desired. I'm outside. Could you let me in?"

He tried hard to hold in a sigh. She was going to complain the second she stepped inside.

"Why didn't you just knock?" He asked, trying his best not to just go back to bed and actually open the door for her

"I didn't want to wake the neighbors."

"You don't seem to mind waking me up."

She laughed. "Oh, please. That alarm Mic got you woke you up. Blame that on him. I made sure to call after it went off."

"Don't laugh. I'm still deciding on whether I'll let you in or not."

"I can hear you through the door. You've made up your mind already."

He sighed, hanging up on her and opening the door, only to be met by a frown on her face.

"Don't you ever clean," she asked, stepping into the room. "It's a mess in here."

"I've been busy."

"Mhmm," she sniffed the air. "At least it doesn't smell like an animal lives here. What's your secret?"

"No one wants to come home smelling cat piss."

She laughed, "I suppose so."

"What did you come here for," he asked as she took a seat on his small, gray couch. "I know you didn't just come here to judge my room."

Her features set thin, a look he accustomed to her growing serious. So she came here for something important than?

"Do you remember the meeting we had discussing the potential spy inside of UA?"

He nodded, "I do."

"Great, listen. This is hard to say but, I think that one of your students may be the spy we've been searching for."

What? A spy coming from his class? That didn't seem possible. He wanted to think she was lying, but he already knew she wasn't. He didn't want to believe that one of his children could be working for the League of Villians. No, that shouldn't be possible. They were a new organization. How could any of his kids be in contact with them?

"Explain." He let out as calmly as possible. He didn't want to show too much emotion. Not when she had to have an explanation for believing so.

She was frowning, obviously feeling sorry for him, but she continued on at his request regardless. "Of all the students we have in UA, only certain classes were assured to have given up the information of class trips. If the USJ was given up, that meant that the only two classes that could have gotten that information easily would be Class 1-A or Class 1-B."

Going by that theory, which he agreed with, they narrowed down potential students from hundreds to dozens. His class may have had the easiest access to the information, but Class 1-B were still a factor. How did she narrow down the search?

"Going by that theory because no student with the ability to mind read is in our school, I also took the time to go over school records of every student from both class. We only got rid of obvious names like for instance Izuku Midoriya or Iida Tenya."

"How did you narrow it down to my class?" He asked, still not seeing how it was possible.

"Police reports." She answered gravely. "I took every interview and interrogation reports that police took from students and every criminal that were rounded up and taken to prison. Between the children, nothing stood out. But between the criminals, a single one did. He described how he was rounded up. Saying, 'Most of us accepted the offer of killing All Might simply for the glory, but I wasn't sold. It sounded foolish at the time. Turns out I was right. But there was nothing I could do to escape them. I became a criminal for my daughter. They used that against me, threatening her life if I didn't do as they instructed. So I did.'"

That's it. Now he got it. Their methods. She used their methods of intimidation as a way to weed out the wolf among the sheep. But that meant one of his students were forced to become their spy. They were unwilling.

"Seems you understand," She said. He wished he'd been able to keep a look off his face. Not that she wouldn't be able to spot it even if his face remained completely blank. "Our spy is Yuga Aoyama."

XxX

"A meeting?"

Inside the his private office was becoming more and more part of her day. It had been a while since she'd gone on patrol.

Kakashi's situation was more disastrous than they'd thought. It would require a lot more work. She was willing and so was Tsukauchi.

"Yes, the Commission has requested me for a meeting in a week. I'm telling you this because I suspect it has something to do with Hatake."

An uneasy feeling swept through her body. "It's possible that they are watching us. They know we are planning a case for Kakashi."

"That's obvious." He fiddled with the cup of coffee in his hand, seeing his tired eyes through the reflection. "It should be obvious we sympathize with him. We met him first. But I think it's worse than that."

Her eyes narrowed at him even as she looked down at her lap. His words were worrying. "What do you mean?"

"...Hatake didn't go through the proper channels. When children are found with no parents it's usual to send them to child services or a foster family. Usually it's the latter."

"Aren't I considered a foster family?"

"Heroes cannot be foster families. There's too much on their lives for any child to be completely safe. Villains hold grudges and heroes risk their lives the second they step out of their homes and into their costumes."

She was now looking directly at him, jaw clenched tightly. She felt queasy. "What does all this mean?"

"Kakashi was a special case. Even though what we did wasn't illegal, it was incredibly risky. We are lucky that Kakashi's exploits are public knowledge. The Committee won't come out fully to say this until it gets to a courtroom because it implies their incompetence. With recent event, they go through enough scrutiny. They won't risk more unless they have to."

"So you're saying they plan to convince you to drop the case for Kakashi?"

"Something like that. I don't know exactly."

The smile he wore was off putting. Now that she thought about it, he could lose his job. It was a risk he was taking, and Kakashi probably wouldn't care anyways.

"Aren't you scared you could lose your job?"

"No, not really."

He took a long sip from his coffee mug and then a sigh escaped him.

"Whatever they plan to do, firing me is something they have no jurisdiction over. We police work closely with the Committee, but we are our own jurisdiction. I only agreed to the meeting because I was curious."

She didn't hear the coffee mug hit the desk.

"Curious?"

His eyes had grown more calculating, as if waiting for someone's next move. No, it was more like they were anticipated it.

"Yes, curious."

XxX

Dabi could say that he hadn't been happier in a long time. Those that truly deserved the worse were finally getting what came to them. True to his word, Shiguraki had promised a change of the status quo. So he would hold up his own end of the bargain. He would remain as a loyal member of the grossing Villains Organization.

He hadn't expected them to grow so big. To have about a hundred members in so little time was truly impressive. Most, he knew, weren't very useful but they could be. He supposed that was the reason they were truly scouted. And going by their first outing at the USJ, he knew that they were most likely going to be nothing but puppets put in place for grander schemes. He was surprised that none of them had realized it.

His mouth quirked a bit and he almost laughed. The fools they were.

A bang of aluminum caught his attention, stopping his leisure walk. He froze in place, his eyes slowly turning to the source.

Nothing. Silence.

He waited even more but it was the same. Every streetlight except the one he was underneath turned off simultaneously. He took one of his hands out of his pockets and produced blue flames.

"If you wish to play, I don't mind indulging you."

He received no reply and he was getting fed up. Irritation crept to the surface and his flames grew hotter.

Then he heard something. An engine!

He turned following the sound and saw a rather expensive looking car speeding toward him. It was coming for him. He aimed his flames and set them off on the car. His flames had enough power to floor the car, slamming into it as if it were a wall and the car exploded in an instant.

Black smoke rose high, but he was unconvinced it was over. The car was a model of electronic cars that could drive on their own. That would mean someone had to have been hacking it. No one who would buy a car like that would use it for this sort of purpose.

"Show yourself. I know you're still here somewhere."

Static sounded. He wanted to not be able to hear it. It was not only static but a distorted screaming noise. Or maybe a sharp tone from an instrument. He could tell it was coming from the black smoke that had began to lighten up. The single light over him shut off audibly, leaving him in near darkness.

Careful footsteps took him toward the car. The noise grew louder and he saw light on the ground before the car. Through the embers, he grabbed it and the static stopped.

A child is what came upon his screen. No, it wasn't a child. Those eyes were cold and swept with darkness. Most children couldn't muster those eyes. It was a woman, her pink hair and round face made him believe she was a child. But if he thought as if she were a grown woman, the actions around him were acts to gain his attention.

"You wanted my attention, correct? Now you have it."

Her next words made his chest constrict.

"Toya Todoroki, I wish to join the League of Villains."