(Extends hand out of snowy grave dramatically)
I live! I have defeated half of organic chemistry. Next semester, I'm going back for more of it.
Have fun reading.
…
"When you said that we were going to perform an investigation, I didn't think you meant that we would start right this instant."
"Well, we're not exactly starting right now." Hans said, "This is more of a meet the team moment."
"You're working with others?"
"Correction." a gravely voice came from the side. "We work for him."
Turning, Todoroki saw a man without a nose and a large upright lizard. The lizard was the person that had just spoken up.
"Hello there. I'm Shuichi Iguchi." the lizard person said.
"And I'm Chizome Agakuro. Oh yeah. I forgot to tell you this, Hans. Is it… okay to say this in front of him?" Chizome said, turning towards the small teen.
"Well that depends." Hans said, turning towards Todoroki with a serious look in his eyes. "Are you going to tell other people?"
Todoroki shrugged. "Depends on what it is."
"I got a recruitment offer from the League of Villains last week. I said no." Stain said.
"What?" Todoroki said, attempting to stand up. The elder tree mother quickly but discreetly restrained him from standing up within the fast food restaurant, where people were already starting to look at the young teenagers talking to the lizard and the product of extreme plastic surgery across different booths.
"Keep down you idiot, there's not much point in secrecy if you're gonna start shouting in public. What we're dealing with… is much worse than the League of Villains, Todoroki." Hans whispered. "Did any of us prepare a presentation about what's going on?"
Chizome shook his head. Shuichi shrugged.
"Well, you did tell me that it was tied in with the disappearances." Todoroki reminded helpfully, Hans had to keep himself from muttering about exposition. "And that I would get more experience catching villains. Endeavor tried to catch Stain in Hosu, but that hasn't worked out. So, I basically did nothing this internship other than being forced to train."
Chizome grew abruptly rigid.
"Now that you mention it…" Shuichi said, looking closely at Todoroki. "Aren't you… that kid from the sports festival that made a huge iceberg?"
"Yes." Todoroki said.
"Great." Shuichi said, smiling slightly. "Nice to finally have some people with firepower on the team."
"Well, I guess I'll use my fire for this. People's lives are on the line here." Todoroki said, looking at his left hand.
"You have fire, too?" Shuichi exclaimed. "That's sick."
"No, Todoroki, what he meant was firepower. As in a phrase commonly used in the context of guns. Fire power is separate and also applicable in your case." Hans sighed, rubbing his brow.
"This is Endeavor's kid!" Chizome whispered harshly towards Shuichi.
"What?" Shuichi whispered back.
"Are we supposed to be whispering?" Todoroki whispered. "I can still hear you."
"Okay, guys, let's stop panicking and being confused about nothing." Hans sighed. "Uhm…. Chizome? Shuichi? Get over to this booth. Bring your food. This is getting weird." Glancing at the other people around who were staring, Chizome and Shuichi nodded at each other and stood up.
The two got over very, very slowly, bringing over the boxes with golden arches printed on them carefully. One fry almost fell to the floor, but Shuichi was able to catch it in midair.
After putting the food down, Stain sat down slowly. Spinner continued to eat his fries, unaware that the person that was formerly trying to hunt Stain down was sitting right next to them.
"So." Hans whispered, pointing at the two sitting across from them. "They were… vigilantes… whichI suppose is the best descriptor, and for that reason, they're a bit scared of Endeavor."
"Is that why we were whispering?" Todoroki whispered.
"Yes." Hans said. "Well, no. We just started whispering because they were nervous. But now we should probably whisper."
"Your food is here, sir." a waiter said, putting a tray down in front of Hans.
Hans tried not to look at the waiter awkwardly.
"So, about that Dungeons and Dragons run we were doing set in… America…"
"Yeah." Chizome said. "About that."
Shuichi continued to eat his fries.
The waiter slowly walked away, casting weird glances at them.
"Well, we're going to be working with them to look for a potentially world ending cult." Hans said quickly, grabbing a fry and waving it around in the air like a conducting wand, drawing circles in the air that were maybe supposed to represent the earth.
"That's the plot. That's what we're doing. And it all ties into the disappearances that happened last Friday."
"...Okay." Todoroki said, nodding slowly. "Do we have any leads?"
"We do, actually." Hans said, taking a bite of his food. "Mph, gross and processed, lovely"
After chewing and swallowing the fry, Hans continued, wiping a bit of salt off with a napkin.
"By looking at the public records of missing persons on that date, we can see that, geographically, the people had addresses concentrated somewhere near where we are, which is honestly pretty surprising. Then again, this city is one of the most densely populated areas in Japan, so it makes sense."
"What did they… do… with the disappearances?" Todoroki said, casually taking some of Hans's fries. Hans looked at him strangely, given the fact that Todoroki also had his own fries right in front of him. "Does it tie into anything with the world supposedly ending?"
"Sacrifices." Hans said, subtly nudging his fries closer to his corner of the table. "Specifically, human sacrifices. Probably to power a quirk."
"I see. This was global, right? The disappearances were global." Todoroki said, leaning down a bit. His expression got more stoic than it already was, but the presence of a bit of ketchup spoiled the effect slightly.
"Yes. This is a global cult. And we're going to have to at least find the leader of the Japanese chapter." Hans said.
"Okay." Todoroki said, nodding. "How can I help?"
"We have to go knock on doors and ask about whether or not strange people had been interacting with them. Then, we find those strange people and see if we can tail them back to a cult. An extra pair of knocking fists would be helpful."
"I imagine it isn't just going to be that simple?"
"The world doesn't work like a spy show. Sometimes, stuff like this is bound to work… hopefully." A deep and weary sigh escaped Hans, who slumped back into the restaurant's weird smooth plastic seat-bench amalgamations.
"Really?" Todoroki asked skeptically. "If that's the case, why aren't the heroes actually working on this?"
"First of all, nobody knows the cult exists other than us." Hans said, swirling his soda by twirling the straw around in his plastic cup. "Secondly, do you think this gives them publicity? Knocking on doors in the aftermath of something that isn't a televised hero action scene?"
"...I suppose that's true." Todoroki nodded. "I doubt my father would have patience for it. And his agency isn't focused on gathering intel."
"There you go, then. Your first act of rebellion." Hans said, taking out some flashcards after wiping his hands off with some napkins.
The rest of them stared at Hans, confused.
"What? Finals are in three weeks. I need to pass science and math."
Chizome leaned a bit, trying to see what was on the cards.
"Do you need help?" Todoroki said. "I'm not that bad with those subjects."
Shuichi… continued to eat his fries.
"Well, all I need to do is pass, right? Then again, I don't know how high school grades from a hero school factor into regular college admissions…"
Once again, the rest of the group said nothing. None of them had ever applied to college, after all.
…
"Are we going to start today?" Todoroki asked discreetly, sliding around to Hans with his ice powers.
"No, not today." Hans sighed, returning to a math worksheet on the training grounds. Besides him, Kaminari was acting as a human flashbang, trying to send out electricity faster and faster. Also beside him was Yaoyorozu, who was actually practicing making flashbangs.
Ojiro had been beside them, doing kicks and looking a little underwhelmed at his own progress, but then the flashbangs began to appear.
…Needless to say, learning from Ojiro's example, not a lot of people looked between those two.
…
"Today?" Stain whispered, bumping into Hans outside of school.
"Nope." Hans said, putting away a deck of flashcards.
"Why?"
"Grades." Hans sighed. "I swear, I'll get to it."
"Is this guy bothering you, Hans?" Kirishima said, gesturing at Stain vaguely threateningly.
"Nah. We know each other." Hans said, bringing out the deck once more and briefly forgetting what the acronym DNA stood for. After all, he was a person that lived in the 19th century, where none of this modern science existed. In Chaldea, he had interacted more with bogus mage terminology, and never actually had to understand any of the mechanical monstrosities running on nanomachines or whatever.
Math was math. You either knew it or you didn't. No amount of strength could solve a calculus problem… unless you were All Might, and maybe you could throw a rock in the shape of a curve that you had to find an integral for.
Even then, that wouldn't help. A graphing calculator could do the same thing.
"So, when?"
"This weekend." Hans said, flipping a card over. "Damn it. It's Tyrosine and Cytosine that are the pyrimidines. Why is the one with the longer word indicating the smaller base pair? Biology doesn't make any sense."
"That's the two-ringed one, right?" Kirishima said, leaning a bit closer to Hans and his cards.
"Nope. One ringed." Hans said, flipping it over and showing the flashcard. Kirishima cursed lightly.
Stain walked away. The conversation was getting too academic for his out-of-high-school brain.
…
Hans put a can of coffee on the glass counter.
"Oh, hey, Hans. Is it today?" Spinner said, from behind the glass counter
"Did Stain not tell you anything? Not today." Hans sighed. "This weekend."
"Shame." Spinner sighed, looking bored out of his mind. "I had my swords sharpened and everything."
"Won't it… stay sharp?"
"Not with the way I use them."
"What are you even doing with them?" Hans whispered. "The supposed poster demons now work for me."
Nursery Rhyme wriggled in Hans's backpack, wanting to be let out to interact with the lizard person. The backpack stayed closed.
"Oh, you know…" Spinner said, looking suddenly shifty-eyed. "I have to… pay back the debts that I incurred when buying the sword."
"Did you pay to get the sword sharpened?"
"Yes."
Hans looked at Spinner with sheer incomprehension.
"So, what you did was that you borrowed money to get this cosplay sword forged, and then used it to commit vigilante acts so that you can steal the wallets of villains and pay back for both the sword and the sharpening service?"
"What can I say?" Spinner said. "I paid for a sword, and so I'm going to use the sword."
"...Convoluted doesn't even begin to describe why you made that terrible financial decision."
"I also considered, you know, a huge blob of swords. Just every single knife I could find duct taped together. Because, you know, unlimited blade works?"
"...No."
"I thought it would be cool, though." Spinner said, swinging an imaginary mass of metal around. "Is it not cool?"
"You should probably not step within one hundred feet of any art museum. Actually… wait…"
Hans remembered the banana duct taped to a wall.
"Actually, you should make that thing, and sell it as modern art."
"Thank you for your confidence in my skills!" Spinner said, smiling. "Would that be all?"
"Wait, you got a job?" Hans exclaimed, looking at Spinner's convenience store apron.
Spinner pointed at the lizard themed signs. "I was lucky the owner liked lizards."
"...This world is so weird." Hans sighed, before opening the can of coffee and drinking it.
"Wait, you didn't pay for the-"
Maybe the world would make sense after coffee.
…
The world did not make sense after coffee.
…
At last, it was the weekend. After filling out some more health forms as a part of his vice representative work that Iida said would "build character" (Somehow, Hans actually thought that Iida genuinely believed it would build character, and was completely well intentioned), Hans was finally ready.
"It's time?" Todoroki asked from the doorway.
"Yes." Hans nodded, putting the final paper in the out box. "It's time."
Together, they left the classroom, to the confusion of everybody else, who was still doing a little socializing (or, in the case of Bakugo, very pointedly ignoring everybody around him).
Wordlessly, the two began the walk out of the school. Entering the hallway and continuing to the stairs, the 1-B students peeked out of their classroom and looked at the combination strangely, while the general education students looked at Todoroki like they would probably look at Endeavor.
Todoroki, of course, didn't realize. He was already used to it.
Hans didn't want to make Todoroki test his social awareness at this critical juncture, and just continued walking.
After exiting the absurdly large building that was UA and its… approximately one thousand students, Hans saw Stain and Spinner standing slightly awkwardly along the nearby buildings, with some UA guards watching them like a hawk, along with maybe a couple security cameras. Despite everything, Stain not having a nose really wasn't doing him any favors.
"Is it time?"
"Yes." Hans said, finally pocketing his flash cards. It was time for him to do something that was not school related.
"Now stop asking that. I swear, we're not doing another little comedy skit."
…
Within the very same fast food store as before, before the very same, confused waitress, the four gathered around one small, old computer.
"Is that everybody that disappeared on that day?"
"Yes." Hans said. "You see, if we sort by date here, we can actually see who was reported missing then. I'm also including the ones that were reported missing on the next two days, because their loved ones may not have noticed. However, for our work, it's probably more straightforward to just look at those that went missing last Friday."
"Makes sense." Spinner said. "After all, people more concerned about relatives are more likely to report them faster, and thus talk to us about them."
"Indeed. Our goals on the weekend involve traveling to the general area, and interviewing those people for any potential strangers that may have contacted them and their family." Hans said. "...This is going to be incredibly awkward, isn't it?"
"We might as well get to it." Stain said standing up from his seat. "You know, whenever you do these kinds of operations? Tracking he-peoples of interest down… it's exactly like this, except maybe a little more internet."
"What did the H indicate?" Todoroki asked.
"Uhm… healthc- no, hedonis- well, actually, pretend I didn't say anything." Stain said.
The very same waitress from a couple days ago looked at Stain again, and slowly backed away after dropping off a soda.
"...I think we should do this somewhere else." Hans sighed, also standing up.
…
In the end, Todoroki was left with the job of plotting out where every single missing person was on a map, they would then meet back up Saturday, and actually go take a train or something to that area to maybe find somebody that would actually talk to them about what they had experienced.
Apparently, Todoroki had experience pinning things to a board… whatever that meant. Or whatever that referred to.
"So, we're trusting the newest member of the team?" Stain muttered to Hans, right as Todoroki boarded the train back to wherever he lived.
"I was not aware that we were a team. This is more of a cooperative effort." Hans said. "Let's be perfectly honest here. We have no idea what it's like to work in a team, and we literally do not know anything other than basic character traits and motives."
"You just did a character dissection on me like three days ago!" Spinner said. "What else do you want as an indication of understanding?"
"Maybe knowing your favorite foods?" Hans said. "Or where we were from?"
There was silence between the two.
"Denmark. I'm from Denmark." Hans sighed, hanging his head. "See you two Saturday."
"...In hindsight, that was kind of obvious." Stain said. "I mean, he's obviously a foreigner."
"I thought he was German." Spinner muttered.
Without turning around, Hans gave him the middle finger.
…
"Shoto, I got the pins you wanted." Fuyumi said, carrying the red tacks with her as she knocked on the door.
"Come in." the teen answered, in a somewhat distracted tone.
The girl pushed open the sliding door, and was greeted by a strange scene.
The lights were completely off, and the only thing illuminating the room was the wide-open window with drawn curtains exposing the skyline outside, where the moon shone brightly into the traditional Japanese style room.
In the middle of the room, where the moon shone the brightest, another light competed with the soothing yet eerie natural light. The fluorescent glare of a computer met her eyes, illuminating the heterochromic pupils of her brother. The computer was set on top of a large map of Japan. One that was a bit old, but was nonetheless accurate.
"What… are you doing?"
"Looking for people." her brother said, stabbing the last pin that he had on hand into the map. "Can you put those down over here?"
"Okay." Fuyumi said slowly, placing the box down on a nearby table. "Let me get a light for you. It's not good to work in the dark."
She walked over to a sliding wall, where one of the light switches were, beside her brother's bed, before noticing that it was slightly out of place.
"That's weird." she muttered. "Did you move this wall?"
"Don't move it." her brother said, standing up and walking towards her.
"It's fine. It's fine." she said. "I'll fix it for you.
Moving the wall a bit, a pin was revealed.
"Oh, are you hiding a poster from dad?" Fuyumi said, smiling. "Don't worry. I'm not going to sni-"
She stepped backwards.
The sliding wall, continuing on its path of revealing the content behind it with its initial inertia, revealed bright red yarn. There were faces. All Might. Endeavor. One of Shoto's green-haired classmates. A short, blue-haired boy she remembered from TV. A tall girl with a ponytail. A lot of people. They were all connected with red yarn in a haphazard, yet organized way.
Secret Love Child?
Cult?
Working with Hero Commission?
Dating?
"W-what is this?" Fuyumi gestured.
"The truth." Todoroki said, putting two hands on his wall, before sliding it back. "My truth. And you didn't see anything."
"Y-yeah." Fuyumi muttered, before slowly walking out of the room.
It was better not to understand.
…
The alarm clock rang, and Hans woke up groggily. Feeling the aftereffects of copious coffee consumption, with the tiredness accumulating finally rearing its ugly head, Hans stumbled out of bed. He reflexively reached out for a can of coffee, but slapped his hand.
"No." he muttered. "No more."
Taking his bedside mug and drinking what was probably two day old water, he shook his head, before going to the sink across the hall to splash his face.
Finally, he was awake.
Pulling out his phone, he checked his texts with Todoroki.
"Chiba is where most of them are." the text read.
"Chiba, huh?" Hans muttered. "That's not so far away. That could be worrying… But it's convenient at the same time, so, whatever."
"Going out with friends?" his mother said from the kitchen table. She was actually off work, and so she was currently eating breakfast. It was just sandwiches. The cheese went on the freshly sliced bread, and the jam went on the cheese. Classic Danish style breakfast. That, and coffee.
"Yeah." Hans said.
"Are you going to want breakfast? I didn't think you would wake up this early. Normally, these days, you wake up at ten, which-"
"I know, mom." Hans muttered, sitting down at the table and taking an open-faced sandwich.
"-Really is unhealthy." his mother continued rambling on. "You have to fix your sleep schedule."
"I'll get to it." Hans said after chewing the blend of jam and cheese. It was honestly somewhat underrated as a breakfast option, in his opinion. Open faced sandwiches needed more of an audience, as well. "After the finals, everything will be normal again. I'll be back to waking up at eight."
"Good!" his mother said, smiling triumphantly. "Well, don't be too late. And remember, that test's coming up, right?"
"I know, mom." Hans grumbled. "...Thanks for caring, though."
"Hans… come on… you insult me by even thanking me for that." his mother said, holding a hand up to her mouth in mock affront.
"I'm just being polite." Hans said, a bit of a blush forming on his cheeks, hidden behind his mug of water. "I should be back by four, though."
"Well, I'll be out shopping then. Maybe we'll meet up." she smiled. "Have fun!"
"It's not very likely…" Hans grumbled. "Actually, it's really not that likely that I'll have fun."
…
Akari had been slightly skeptical when the woman that had knocked on her door a couple of days ago suddenly came around to invite her to a support group. But now that she was here, she realized that it was actually pretty legitimate.
All around her, men and women of various ages and occupations were sitting in rows, waiting for somebody to come onto a stage. But all of them shared a very similar look.
They were nearly mirrors of her own expression.
It was one of loss. One of confusion. Of both of them mixed.
All of them had a loved one simply… disappear.
There was no closure. There was no consolation or even an opportunity for a funeral.
One day, they were in their lives. The next? With no warning, they just disappeared.
"Is this everybody?" she heard a voice whisper from behind the stage.
"Almost." the voice of a teenage girl said, almost too cheerily for her taste.
"Well, after this, we can send them out to find more of their kind. The more, the better. The faster we get this done, the faster we proceed to the next stage.
The housewife was very confused. Was this some sort of psychology terminology she had never heard about?
After a bit of rustling, the very same woman that had knocked on her door appeared on the stage, followed by a girl in a school uniform. Both of them had somber expressions on their faces.
It felt a little… manipulative.
But despite everything, she continued to wait for them to begin to speak. She was desperate for any sign of her husband. Any hint as to where he was, or if he was even alive.
She had even put her own, personal email on the missing persons notice. Looking at her empty inbox had gotten very, very anxiety inducing.
This meeting would explain things, right?
Right?
…
AN
It is done. I've finished finals and Christmas celebrations are kinda over, so now I write and post.
Yay.
Please follow, favorite, and review! It would mean a lot to me (late christmas present? :P) Nah, I'm joking. Do whatever you feel like.
Discord: discord . gg / s2uFUydRVd
There are update polls that determine what fics I update, but I promised another chapter of this and it should be out within 1-2 weeks.
-SpiritOfErebus