The Soul of a Hero
Chapter 11
Mission time. And since only one person put up a suggestion, we'll be following Izuku and his partners this time. Though the annoying part with this is that now I have to write up a couple of killers for their targets. Ah well. Se la vie. On with the show.
(No POV)
Izuku yawned after sleeping for a couple of hours at a nice hotel in Paris. "Well didn't expect this when we got sent here," he says with a chuckle. He pops his back before clearing his throat and checking in on the girls. Who were both still sleeping in their bed.
"C'mon you two. We've got work to do." Izuku says with a smile. Shaking the girls to wake them up. "Mmm. Why?" Mary grumbles before putting her pillow over her head. Jane isn't much better, but she at least swings her legs around to start waking up. Only to tilt over a few seconds later with her glasses askew.
Izuku sighs before charging up a little soul charge in his fingertips and zapping both girls. "Yeow! Not cool!" Mary shouts after the shock to her nose. Jane isn't much better when she got a shock to her ear. "We can discuss it later. We've gotta find this killer. All Star and Lord Death said was that they had been killing people in Paris."
"It's not like that gives us much to work with. Especially with how rough it looks out there." Mary says before going to the bathroom to freshen up. While not as bad as some regions, France had seen a spike in crimes and villain attacks in recent years. With Paris being a hotbed of terrorist attacks and planning.
Though some of these had been thwarted with the help of some outside heroes. Namely Stronghold of Germany, a large man with a boisterous personality and a quirk that made him immensely durable and strong. And a British woman with an electric focused quirk that let her create a pseudo railgun with each hand and magnetize villains to the ground.
But they could only be in the country and city so long before their own lands were in trouble again. Which lead to the current crime spree. Especially when two of their best heroes had recently been killed. "So where do we start?" Jane asked while brushing her teeth.
Izuku hummed before saying, "we go to the obvious. The morgue. We'll check the victims' bodies and see what we can make of their situation. Among other things." Mary shivers and notes how creepy those places were. The other two roll their eyes and finish dressing. Though Izuku leaves his scarf behind for the time being.
They soon arrive at the place in question and ask to check the bodies of the victims. "Who do you think you are kid? I don't care if they were a relative of a victim. You don't have… What's this?" the officer in charge said before being handed some papers Izuku had gotten from the Japanese embassy.
Namely a temporary hero license and papers authorizing him to help in the investigations. "What the? Seriously?" the officer asks with a raised eyebrow. Izuku sighs and says, "it's something of an independent study. We know how to track things others would miss."
The officer doesn't seem to buy it, but he had orders and documentation. So he let the teens in to check over the bodies. Mary though asks to stay outside. "I'm not good with dead bodies. And yes, I realize that is ironic considering," she says with an eye roll.
Izuku and Jane shrug before heading in to see the remains of the victims. Remains being quite apt for one. "Jesus. There's barely anything identifiable. But I can at least see the soul." Izuku says while covering his mouth. With his soul perception, he could see a bit of what had happened to the soul in question. As well as some of what transpired before they died.
"That's new. Wasn't able to feel or see the emotions of a soul before." Jane hums before questioning if his soul perception was evolving. "Lot's of meisters have their abilities change or awaken new potential with it. Maybe your empathy has something to do with it?"
Izuku shrugs and says maybe before focusing in on the memories. Eventually finding something linking the first and another few victims. "They left nightclubs. It's not long after they left they got attacked." Izuku surmises from the memories. Jane hums while noting a few victims were completely different.
"Minimal damage compared to those ones. I don't even see an obvi- wait. I take some of that back. There is a wound. A few of them actually. But they are miniscule." Jane says before focusing on her own type of perception. One that focused on noticing minute details or a micro vision.
She checks each of the similarly damaged victims and notes that they each had at least ten small impact or puncture points in their necks. "Different MO and according to these, the people who died were nowhere near clubs or anything. In fact, based on some of these reports, these people just died for no apparent reason."
Izuku lets out a sigh before suggesting they go after the one Jane identified first. "The one who attacked these people could be harder to track. Or even find. These….. meat puzzle ones are more likely to be found." He then looks over the souls to see if any of their memories could tell him anything.
"Agreed. And you've already ID a point to investigate from. We just need to find where these others died." Jane says before they get buzzed out of the morgue. Mary sighs before asking what the next step was. "We go fishing." Izuku says with a smirk.
Fishing in this case being wandering around the nicer parts of town and enjoying some sights. With Mary being confused all the while. "So are we going after killers or what?" she asked after they had gotten some snack foods from a vendor. Jane just tells her to not worry about it. "I think I have an idea on what Izuku is up to."
As they were walking past the Louvre, Izuku could feel someone looking at him. 'Had I not been trained by Star, I might not have noticed. Which was what got those others killed.' Izuku had intentionally been taking a route he noticed all of the other victims had. And he had a rough suspicion on when the first few shots would be fired.
"Keep up you two. We've got company," he said quietly as they started towards a side street. Right as he felt the killing intent spike, he quickly turned towards a different street. Once sure they was out of sight of the target, he told the girls to transform and leapt up to the tops of the buildings.
Not long after this, a woman appeared and was cursing that she lost sight of the group. "Étrangers moches," she says with a hiss. Izuku doesn't even have to translate what was said to guess the motivation. "About like some people in Japan calling American's or other people gaijin. That's her whole focus." Izuku mutters before observing the woman.
She wasn't really anyone of note, but he could tell just how much she hated anyone who wasn't from France. Even with all the changes brought about by quirks, she chose to kill and obsess about the fact that there were hundreds of people wandering the city who weren't originally from France.
"That's just sad. There'll always be those types. Which is why we take her down," the weapons and meister say between themselves before stationing themselves atop a roof to wait for the moment. Izuku takes a breath before having Jane become her rifle form. The two resonate their souls a bit more to tap into both of their enhanced sights.
After both calm themselves enough, Izuku focuses on the woman's heart. "Au revoir." Izuku says before squeezing off a soul shot and ending the killer. Surprising many around. Especially when the woman's body turns into nothing but a soul. "When do we collect her soul?" Jane asks with concern.
"A little later. When the police show up we'll call in the ambassador and the others." Izuku says a bit coldly. Once the police arrive, Izuku steps up with his license and asks that the head of the French Hero Commission and for the Japanese ambassador be brought to the scene.
And once they had arrived, Izuku held the soul before the two. Then used a bit of resonance to show what the woman had done to many people. "All because of her distaste for foreigners. Will we ever really get past that?"
"Not the thing to worry about. Also, don't announce that it was a Death Weapon Meister who took out a serial killer. We need to eliminate one more." Mary notes with a serious look. The head of the hero commission is still unsettled by all of this, but he agrees as it would help to turn back some of the rising crime rates. "Do what you must. But we will announce who stopped the killer in a few days."
The trio nod and head off for their next target. "You sure this will be the place?" Jane asked with some worry while looking down at a dive bar on the outskirts of the city. Izuku nodded while adjusting his scarf and noted that most of the victims had come from this region of the town. "And this was the only club I could find a mention of. Though only on rumor boards. Besides. I think our target is already here."
Izuku focuses on his soul perception to check in on a person in an alley nearby. And noticed that the person was scratching their limbs with a manic look on their face. But the biggest tell for Izuku was the appearance of his soul. Looking like a wolf or some kind of beast.
And while focusing in, Izuku saw some of what pushed this person over the edge. He'd been an addict to a new drug moving through the city. But he lost his supplier and refused to try and get clean anyway. So he tapped into his madness from his quirk to turn into a monster wolf. Then attack patrons leaving the club that was peddling the drug around. Drinking their blood and other fluids to get the high he wanted.
"That is a sick man. In more than one way." Izuku says with some sadness. He popped his neck before telling Mary to turn into her weapon form. "I don't want to bet he can't sense some other killing intent as a beast." Mary nods before transforming and asking when they'd move in. All Izuku said was 'soon'.
He was right as a couple of patrons stumbled out and the killer seemed to take notice. He sniffed the air and set on a young woman who was walking down a side street. The addict scratches at his arms again as he starts to transform into his monstrous form.
With the girl finally noticing that there was something frightening behind her as she heard the bones popping. She tried to run, but her muddled sense of balance makes it easy for her to trip. And the wolf beast is ready to rip her apart.
Only for Izuku sprint in and intercept the monster's claws. "Jane! Get her out of here!" Izuku says with a bit of strain. The bespectacled girl nods and helps the party girl get away while Izuku and Mary start to trade blows with the monstrous human.
"Get out of my way! I need it! I need what she has!" the killer roars. Izuku pushes back and says, "no you don't! You never did!" Izuku rushes forward and slashes the monster across the chest before turning around and cutting his back. Izuku maneuvers around and slashes the creature multiple times. While only taking minor hits.
At least until the killer roars and the shockwave knocks him backward. He then gets slashed himself and has to roll out of the way of the next few attacks. Izuku gulps while noting that he couldn't use his usual soul force to attack the killer's internal organs. "And my blade isn't cutting deep enough. What do we do Izuku?" Mary asked with some worry.
Izuku grits his teeth while still trading blows with the monster. He thinks for a moment before suggesting they try resonating again. "That took a lot of time though. And this guy isn't giving us much!" Mary says as Izuku evades and cuts into the leg of the villain.
"We'll go slow at first. But we need to try!" Izuku says before dodging another attack and kicking the villain's face to disorient him. Mary grits her teeth before saying, "alright! Let's do this!" Izuku agrees before taking a stance and bringing the blade up by his eyes once more.
The red section takes over the blade once more and Izuku can feel something else tugging at his mind this time and it makes him chuckle a bit. Especially when he rushes forward and cuts one of the villain's arm's clean off. "Hahaahahaaahahahhaha! This is gonna be fun!" Izuku exclaims with a Glasgow grin across his face.
He dashes again and again; cutting the villain apart with each dash. Until all that is left is a bleeding out torso with multiple stab wounds. Or an increasing number of stab wounds as Izuku stabs down into it. His mad grin never wavering as he kept attacking. Mary feels it as well, but she can tell there is something wrong sooner.
She pulls her power back a bit and tries to use her anti-magic wavelength to calm her and Izuku's minds. The combination helps to relax and balance out Izuku's now unstable mind. But when he sees what he'd done, the green teen has a moment where he's about to freak out again. And Mary transforms back into a human to try and calm him down. "Sh. Shshshsh. Izuku. Focus! I'm right here. You are okay. We're safe and you stopped the killer."
Izuku gulps as he looks down at his hands covered in the blood of the villain and he feels like vomiting. "I thought I didn't have a problem with this! I….. I'd gotten used to it!" he claims as the police arrive. Mary shakes her head and says, "yes and no Izuku. You had grown comfortable with killing. But you always did it quick. With a single slash or a bullet. This enemy though was harder to fight than you expected."
She then pulled his face down into her breasts in hopes of calming his panic more. And it works….. sort of. He's not freaking out about the blood or the brutal way he dealt with the serial killer. But now he is freaking out the fact he's getting a face full of Mary's quite prodigious bosom (if I have to write a comparison, look up Queen Mary from Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere. Though this Mary is about…. Suzu from the same show's height instead).
"Do we need to give you two a moment?" Jane asks with a smirk directed the two's way. Mary just says that she was trying to calm him down. "I'm not sure why, but he suddenly started going crazy on that guy. I had to use a lot of my anti-magic wavelength to try and balance him out."
Jane was confused by this and shook her head to before saying the newest soul was hers. While Mary went over to get it, Jane took a moment to check on Izuku as well. She focused her eyes to check him over. See if there was some kind of injury or an outside influence to what happened. But she didn't find anything.
"Despite the brutal state you left the villain in, we must thank you monsieur Midoriya. You've dealt with two of the threats we've been having a nightmarish time dealing with," a tall detective that looked like a panther said. Though said panther was pink. Izuku shook his head at the sight and said it was no problem. "But what is, has to be the fact that we still have one more killer to find."
That is put aside though and the police and heroes get some statements from the teens and an explanation on what they had discovered about the killer. After giving the statement and resting for a while, they went out to Madrid Spain to find a new killer.
"Maybe we should call Lord Death to find out more about this next target." Jane suggests when they arrived by train. Izuku sighs and agrees with the gun type weapon. Once they reached their hotel, Mary put in the number on the bathroom mirror to call in. "Hello? Ah! Izuku. Mary and Jane. Good to see all of you." Death said amicably.
Which was returned by the teens before asking for some details on the target they were going after in Madrid. "Wait have you already dealt with the other two?" Death asked with some incredulity. But a quick confirmation from all the teens told him that they were almost done with their mission.
"Ahem. Well. Impressive. Anyway. Your target this time is a strange rat-like man. He's been behind multiple poisoning and disease epidemics. Not just in Madrid. He was behind a mass epidemic that struck Marseille and a few of the surrounding towns. Hundreds died due to this man's actions."
Izuku hummed before asking if it was the man's quirk and wondering if this was more of a case for the heroes and police. "I'm guessing you didn't question it when you looked into the other killers. But no. Apparently, the man's quirk is that he is rat-like. And that is it. He shouldn't have the ability to poison others."
While Lord Death went over a few more details, Izuku started contemplating how this person was carrying out these attacks. "If it's not his quirk….. then. Could it be something like a skill he taught himself?" Izuku thinks aloud.
"That's probable. Or he got some other help to pull this off. Given he's a rat, he might have been forced into some…. Probably nasty places and maybe used that and his nature to make him more dangerous." Jane analyzes while Mary checks with Lord Death on the previous attack in Madrid.
She notes the area was in one of the most dangerous areas of the city. "And a place that most of the police and heroes likely wouldn't go. But this is just the start," the blonde girl surmises and suggests the likely next target area. "My guess; he's moving up through the economic standings. Slums first since they could fester his disease and no one would care. Then he moves up to low income."
"Then we stop him and this disease now." Izuku says with finality and points to Vallacas as the place they needed to search. "And it would be best if the two of you were always in weapon form. Should keep you safe. Or at least safer than me." Izuku says and the girls both agree.
Though only after Izuku goes out and gets an old military styled holster for Jane. "You stuff me in your pants again, and I'll pull my own trigger on you," she said with deadly seriousness in her cross haired eyes. Izuku gulps and quickly puts on the holster for the girl.
Mary meanwhile is sheathed and put inside a cloth bag and slung over his shoulder. After getting close to the suspected next area, Izuku started his soul perception on full observation. As he walked further into the region, he could feel something odd on the wind.
"Izuku! Get up high now!" Jane commanded and Izuku followed. He quickly ran up the side of a building and then hid in the shadows of the roof. And right where he had originally been, a large pool of some kind of substance was festering. Some others who walked near him, had stepped into the slime, and soon began exhibiting signs of sickness.
Namely, a few of them were coughing and then vomiting on the ground. The vomit looking black. "Okay. I guess you could see him?" Izuku asked while putting out everything with his soul perception. Jane noted she could.
"But that's because I was looking at it a different way. You were looking to alleys and the like for where he could throw bombs and the like from. I suspected though; he was using the sewers. And that was exactly what he did."
Mary notes it wasn't the only thing. "I may not have your soul perception! But I know magic when I feel it! And that is a magic induced disease!" Izuku is worrying about what they could do to take this one down. "I can't or shouldn't get close, and we can't see him!"
"Not necessarily Izuku. Bring me out. Let's try what you did with Mary. Only using my rifle form and hit him from up here. Oh, and I don't want the soul. That's just too nasty." Jane says as Izuku unbuttons the holster. He spins her around a bit, and she transforms into her Henry rifle state.
Izuku and Jane take steady breaths and quietly say, "soul resonance" and do just that. The resonance causes the barrel of the gun to extend, the scope to become more precise, and Jane can feel her rifling improving to where she could punch through concrete. 'Still not at… no. Not right now. I'll deal with that later. We have a job to do.'
Izuku uses this and linking with Jane's own variant of soul perception and could see the rat man scurrying to a different part of town. This one near a local clinic with a few people (children) from the disease filled slum district. Hoping to make them better. And the rat just wants to make it worse.
The green teen hardens his resolve even more and waits till the rat was in just the right place. His head peeking out of a drain in front of the clinic. And Izuku can see him through gaps and windows of a few other buildings. "Time to die. You sick son of a bitch." Izuku says before squeezing off a round.
One that travels perfectly straight and true, between buildings and completely missing anyone walking by some of the areas. Until it impacts the rat's head. Disintegrating it. Izuku and Jane let up their resonance and say that the deed was done.
"Not yet. I think I can help these people Izuku. And we can use my anti-magic wavelength to help with that." Mary says from her sheath. Jane agrees but suggests that they hurry. Izuku nods and quickly draws Mary. Who put out all of her special wavelength she can.
Izuku pulls his scarf over his mouth and asks if he just needed to touch them with Mary. "Yeah! That should be enough!" the katana confirmed as Izuku got to curing as many people as he could. But after 20 or so, both of them were feeling a bit burned out.
"It's not fast enough! We need more coverage!" Mary exclaims in worry. "I know! But it's not like we can cure them all with just one blade. And I have to run to each to make sure they are healed." Jane then suggests that they try resonating again.
The other two in their group look at her like she's crazy. "Jane we tried that. It backfired hard. Izuku almost went crazy and so did I for some reason!" Mary claimed. But Jane stayed firm in her point. Telling Mary to focus on her anti-magic wavelength alone as she passed it to Izuku and he passed it back.
"You sure about this? No. Great. Well we don't have a lot of other options!" the three say between themselves as Izuku grips Mary's tsuka tight and feels the wavelength expand over him. Turning the blade white and filling it was as much anti-magic as they could. "Okay! Here we go!" Izuku exclaimed before holding the blade aloft.
He then slashed down and unleashed a wave of anti-magic in front of him. Dissipating the disease the villain had tried to infect more people. While many weren't healing completely, they were shaking off the sickness thanks to the removal of the magic that was empowering it.
Izuku unleashed two more slashes to purge as much of the magic as he could before feeling drained. He takes a knee and stabs Mary into the ground to steady himself. "It worked this time?" he asks as Mary lets up her own wavelength from exhaustion.
All she could say was, "I guess so. Not sure why." Jane mentions they could talk about it later. "Mary should rest up. While we could get some help to try and cure others. Given this was a curse or magic enhanced disease." Izuku agrees and they take off to the clinic to save more lives.
"Blast. I was hoping it would infect so many more. Oh well. Not like I can change that now," a woman watching some magic orbs was saying. She sighed and was curious on how many of their old test subjects would be able to fight back against the chaos they were hoping to grow.
"Though I have to say. I'm impressed the little blade is able to push back against what we put into her. Guess that anti-magic wavelength is stronger than I anticipated. Perhaps I could find a new person to spread my concoctions and diseases."
As she was saying this, a person walked in front of her orbs and set some food down on a table next to her. "Oh! I barely noticed it was time for dinner. Thank you for that. Now give me a hand?"
The person then reached down to where the woman was. Or rather where he head was just sitting. And the one picking her up was her own body. The witch Akran set her head down on her neck and twisted it in place. Popping out a few kinks afterward. Around her eyes and cheeks were black markings that made her look more akin to a skeleton. Even with her head attached.
"That boy though. I'm impressed by how well he held up to try and save all those rats. He could be an interesting boy to test some serums on. Once I get my hands on him~." Akran says with a malicious grin as she picks up a glass that had pulque in it to drink deeply.
Enjoying the scent and flavor as it goes down. But it had also been spiced with one of her toxins mixing a few different snake venoms. And when she let out a breath towards some rats in cages, the rats started falling victim to the various effects of the toxins. From paralysis, hemorrhaging, and heart failure.
So I may have gone over the fights a bit quick, but two of them were going to be anyway due to one of Izuku's partners. A sniper shot can make all the difference in something like this. And I wanted to set up another of the witches I made for this whole mess. And yes, I'm basically making a god into a witch. It was just a good one to work with. Especially for a pestilence spreader. Please review!