45

Chapter 45: The Foxes of War

Merry Christmas

If someone were to ask Mera before today if he would've preferred being kidnapped over returning to work, he… well, he honestly would've had to think about it for a little bit, but he'd most likely opt against it for the sake of his health. No matter how overworked he was, he could reasonably assume that the work wouldn't kill him. Getting kidnapped didn't provide that level of security.

So, it naturally shocked him that being kidnapped was exactly what he needed. He would be a filthy liar if he said that he wasn't enjoying his impromptu time off by watching daytime soap operas and eating Uncle Touchy cheesecake on a very comfortable sofa. Yes, he knew that Uncle Touchy was exposed as exactly what his name implied, but there was no way that he alone made every single cheesecake and pastry sold in grocery stores across the nation. He'd had to have, like, ten times the amount of cocaine in his bloodstream that Lunch Rush possesses in order to fill that much inventory…

…which wasn't necessarily impossible, nor was it even improbable. Huh…

Regardless, the man was very, very dead thanks to Mera's kidnappers and now hosts, so he wasn't seeing any revenue from this anyway. Speaking of his hosts, they were milling around the apartment, presumably waiting for whatever Jin Bubaigawara's mission was to be completed. He hadn't been given any details as to why he was plopped from his home into this new environment; Bubaigawara simply took his measurements, and he was told to stay quiet and be cool if he wanted to live by Tomura Shigaraki.

Mera wasn't going to pitch a fit about it. This was the same man who wiped an entire convenience store chain off the map in one fell swoop, undoubtedly killing thousands of employees in J-Store's headquarters and leaving even more missing entirely (and that's not even to mention killing Death Arms and a number of other pros and would-be good samaritans that tried to intervene at individual stores). He knew when to pick his battles, and if they were going to kill him, they would have done so immediately after getting what they needed from him.

Meanwhile, he was largely left to his own devices otherwise. He obviously couldn't leave; Kurogiri was keeping a close watch over him despite his being a fixture in the kitchen compulsively wiping glasses that Mera knew had already been clean. They took his phone and anything else he could use to contact the outside world, as well, so he couldn't even indulge in Fate/Grand Order like he normally would in his free time to decompress. It wasn't all bad, however. He had TV and cheesecake, and he also wasn't at work on a weekday. That was a win in his book.

"You… you false father!"

"How did they get the Hero Killer to cameo in this show…" Mera wondered aloud before taking another bite of his snack.

"He was an avid fan," Spinner spoke up from the chair near the sofa with a bag of popcorn in hand. "Y'know, before he was captured and all."

"Really?" Mera asked, and Spinner nodded. "Well, I'll be…"

Shortly thereafter, Tomura Shigaraki emerged into the room, and Spinner put his popcorn down. Mera could see the next phase of whatever this was already coming, as Mr. Compress and a fully costumed Bubaigawara entered next, and Kurogiri even left the kitchen to stand beside the TV. Each of them was focused on him, and when Shigaraki sat on the other end of the couch, Mera sighed and finished up the last of his cheesecake.

"Is this finally the part where I've served my purpose and you kill me, Shigaraki?"

"It's just Tomura," he curtly corrected. "Shigaraki is dead, and whether you follow suit or not is up to you."

Mera was taken aback by that, but he quickly regained himself. "I don't follow."

Tomura's expression remained stony, but it wasn't intense. In fact, he was entirely too relaxed for Mera's comfort.

"How would you like an extended vacation abroad?" Tomura spoke up.

Mera was once again taken aback, and it took him much longer to regain his composure this time around. "Excuse me?"

"A vacation abroad," Tomura repeated. "Maybe to Taipei, or Seoul, or even Brisbane. Hell, maybe you go all the way to Honolulu and sip piña coladas on that beach with all the black sand. Just anywhere but here."

"…Why?" Mera hesitantly questioned, knowing in the pit of his soul that he was not going to like the answer.

"As we speak, Twice's clone of you is filling in for you," Tomura began to explain. "He's a perfect clone of you down to the finest detail, so he's doing everything you would normally do exactly as you would normally do it with absolutely no one the wiser. You see where this is going?"

Mera didn't need to think very hard to grasp just what Tomura meant, and the horrible weight of this entire endeavor finally crashed down upon him.

"He has access to my computer," Mera sighed, placing his head in his hands.

"Bingo," Tomura confirmed, "and he's giving an associate of ours a direct link to the HPSC's network. We'll be dumping every bit of dirt the Commission has into a vault that only we have access to."

Mera blinked, and then he furrowed his brow. "I don't have the level of clearance that you might think I do. There's only so much that you're going to get through my computer, and none of it is the kind of information that you're probably looking for."

He probably shouldn't have even acknowledged the existence of that kind of dirt, but he wasn't an idiot; it wasn't like the HPSC being up to their necks in mud was not already an open secret that anyone with a few functioning brain cells couldn't rationally reason. If the League of Anti-Villains went to this much trouble to get inside the HPSC headquarters, they already knew what they were looking for. Still, they weren't likely to get it from him. Maybe Hawks or Yoroi Musha would lead to better results, but certainly not him.

"Don't worry too much about that," Tomura waved him off. "Our associate is really good at their job. If there's a network to break into, they'll be able to do it. Your computer is simply a staging ground for them to work. It isn't their first rodeo."

La Brava was planted at her desk in her pitch-black office with the only light being the illumination of the screen in front of her. She was hard at work maneuvering around numerous firewalls and bulldozing through every security measure thrown at her. The Commission may have discovered and barricaded all of the backdoors she had left previously, but she would never back down from a challenge. She was the best hacker in the Eastern Hemisphere for a reason.

The knock on the door to her office didn't break her concentration, but the voice on the other side did split her attention. "La Brava, my darling, are you doing yet another hacking job of dubious morality? We have a performance to conduct, and our loyal fans are salivating!"

"Well, we're not exactly paying the bills with AdSense, Gentle!" La Brava shouted back. "Give me twenty minutes!"

Mera's palms were running across his scalp and through his messy hair as he held his head in his hands. Slowly, he trailed his hands down his face and faced Tomura with the most exhaustion he had ever felt. "So, in essence, once you all are finished, you'll have everything you need to take down the Hero Commission and plunge Japanese heroics into chaos. Meanwhile, when they find out their internal network was compromised, and they will, they'll trace the intrusion back to my workstation."

"You'll be a wanted man," Tomura finished, confirming his analysis. "So, it's best if you take that vacation abroad, at least until there's no longer a Hero Commission to hunt you down."

"And the alternative?" Mera asked, but he already knew the answer to that.

"I don't think I need to tell you what that is," Tomura chuckled, confirming Mera's suspicions that if Tomura himself didn't kill him, someone like X-Less or Mr. Brave would, and it wouldn't be as quick as disintegration.

"Fucking fantastic," Mera groaned. "How long do I have?"

Tomura hummed. "Realistically? You'd probably want to get out of here before the day is over. Going back to work tomorrow isn't an option. You could try to explain what actually happened, but no one will ever believe you. On the other hand, not going back is just confirmation that you stole classified information. They'll be coming after you by tomorrow afternoon at the latest."

Mera was well and truly done with all of this.

"Whatever," Mera finally sighed. "It's not like I have any family to take with me."

"We'll deposit you back at your apartment to settle your affairs if you wish," Kurogiri spoke up.

"I'll even help you pack," Mr. Compress offered. "We were the ones to inconvenience you, after all."

While Mera appreciated the gesture, it still tasted like ash on his tongue. Even so, he would not turn down the assistance, but he needed to get a little more out of this.

Tomura saw the makings of a hastily thrown-together plan burgeoning in Mera's eyes, and he groaned. "This better be good."

"I'll accept the assistance, but there's another place I need you to send me afterward," Mera resolutely declared.

The walk through the cemetery was silent, especially by Ms. Joke's standards. It didn't really surprise her much; Vanta hadn't been in the best of moods recently. Kajiro Akamoto, a Trigger-dealing slime ball whom they had been surveilling to pinpoint who was producing a new, nasty variety of the stuff, had gone dark. It wasn't as if he was simply laying low, either; he had apparently dropped off the face of the Earth. None of her informants or anyone even adjacent to the circles he ran in had seen him in over a week, and Ms. Joke was beginning to think that he was dead. It wouldn't be out of the ordinary for a dealer to unexpectedly bite the dust.

However, it didn't help Vanta's disposition any. She fumed over never having specifically entered Akamoto's shadow to mark him, deeming it unnecessary when she was simply keeping a close eye on him at a distance in favor of the people he was meeting with, which were their actual targets. It was sound logic, and no one would blame her for keeping at a distance in case he ended up a nothing-burger. Hindsight was 20/20, but Vanta didn't see it that way. She often beat herself up over not having done enough when it mattered, especially in situations where she had logically done all that she could do, and it really worried Ms. Joke. It almost felt impossible for Vanta to accept herself as anything but inadequate whenever there was the slightest misstep, and Ms. Joke was well aware of why that was the case.

They were on their way to see just that, after all.

"We're almost there," Vanta finally spoke up, just barely breaking the silence hanging over them with her low mutter.

Ms. Joke's frown deepened at the near-deadness of her tone, and she placed a comforting hand on the girl's shoulder. Using Outburst to force a laugh out of her was cheap and would likely only anger her, but she really wished for something that could help alleviate her duress.

Vanta made it a point to visit the grave of her late friend every month, which meant that Ms. Joke was there to chaperone and keep an eye on her. Protocol dictated she had to, but she definitely enjoyed spending time with Vanta on and off the job. These trips, however, were naturally very somber. Simply put, the details of Minori Gokiburi's death and the handling of her case afterward were nothing short of horrific, but events of the sort were depressingly common even in this day and age. At least, by Vanta's admission, the boys who were responsible got what was coming to them, even if the legal system was not the one to administer justice.

Vanta would never elaborate as to what that entailed, though. She wasn't going to force it out of her, either.

When she felt Vanta minutely perk up, she knew that they were approaching their destination. The grave of Minori Gokiburi was just up ahead.

"Sometimes, I feel like she's still with me, y'know?" Vanta said, and a fond, slight smile developed as she clutched the flowers in her hand just a bit tighter. "We used to joke about me being a bakeneko, and we said we'd find out what house cat died to make me one day."

Her smile grew a little more, causing Ms. Joke to smile as well. "Now, whenever I'm out on the field, I always keep an eye out for any stray cats, and I never fail to run into at least one per night. It's like a sixth sense is guiding me to them, or maybe it's guiding them to me. Either way, I just know it's Minori keeping up with the joke from beyond… the… grave…"

Vanta trailing off brought Ms. Joke's attention back to the burial plot they were approaching, and her eyes immediately shot open. Before she could get a hand on Vanta, the girl was already in a dead sprint toward the grave, so Ms. Joke quickly followed suit… to the best of her ability, at least. Vanta was ridiculously fast.

"WHAT THE FUCK?!" Vanta screamed, and Ms. Joke hastened her pace to catch up and see what had her so upset.

Skidding to a stop beside a distraught, kneeling Vanta, she finally laid her eyes on the mess of discarded dirt spattering the ground around the desecrated grave. Worse still, the casket had been unearthed, and…

Shit.

The body was gone.

Dabi's easy stride through the halls of the base of operations of The Vanguard put everyone he passed by on edge, which was just how he liked it. The repurposed Shie Hassaikai compound was a spectacular acquisition for the space and seclusion in plain sight it provided above the surface alone. However, Dabi discovered a whole labyrinth of tunnels, offices, and meeting rooms underground that was an entire sub-lair in and of itself, and he only had to incinerate two disposables to get the remaining reluctant holdouts to spill the beans on it. Apparently, only Overhaul and his inner circle were privy to the extent of the sub-lair, and they used it to move people in and out of the compound in secret so as to not expose their location. Dabi had to admit that it was a pretty brilliant idea.

Too bad that brilliance didn't keep them alive. He bet Overhaul would have made for a great second-in-command. Oh well. Finders keepers.

Speaking of a second-in-command, he really needed one…

Before he could think any further on that, black sludge emerged from his throat and poured out of his mouth, and he angrily hacked it out until he was completely enveloped by the black blob and spirited away to Garaki's lab. The darkness receded, and he was unceremoniously dumped onto the floor at the feet of the bald piece of shit who he was strongly considered burning to a crisp.

"You couldn't have just fucking called?" Dabi spat, hacking up any remaining bits of sludge from his throat. "I fucking hate that warping shit…"

"I would have if you ever answered the phone, you carpetbagging dingus!" Garaki shot back before turning and approaching the tube in the center of the lab containing a blonde teen with a bunch of tubes strapped to him.

"What the fuck does that even mean?!" Dabi pleaded, and then he huffed and regained himself. "Whatever, why am I here?"

"This vessel's gestation will be nearing a zenith soon," Garaki spoke up, his eyes planted on a screen beside the tank. "I need an update on your affairs regarding rebuilding our forces."

Dabi's scowled flattened into a bored glare. "There isn't a lot of quality help out there. Most of the guys I could get are trying to get in where they fit in with this power vacuum in the underworld."

"What I'm hearing is that you're squandering the power I bestowed upon you," Garaki assessed with a frown.

Dabi snorted. "I said there isn't a lot of quality help out there. I never said that I couldn't find any. Most of them are expendables for when we need simple tasks done or warm bodies to throw at the meat grinder, but there are a few that could be useful for the long haul."

He placed a hand on his chin as if in genuine thought to continue agitating the doctor. "There's one in particular who I didn't think much of initially, but his magma quirk is interesting. It's really powerful, but he insists on using it at long range when he could get explosive punching power out of it. We'll work on it later; I'm in real need of a second-in-command."

"Fascinating story," Garaki deadpanned.

"You asked," Dabi uncaringly shrugged. "Is that all you wanted to know?"

"Is that all you have to tell me?" Garaki countered.

Dabi hummed. "I guess the compound itself is relevant info. It's a gated office complex that is inconspicuous enough to stay under the radar but large enough to house hundreds of necessary. The real gem is what's underneath, though."

"And that is?" Garaki questioned, his patience wearing thin.

"There's a network of tunnels underground that has a whole host of empty rooms large enough to store plenty of Nomu," Dabi revealed, and he smirked when he saw the doctor pause what he was doing and turn his attention squarely to him.

"Explain," Garaki demanded.

"The tunnels are sprawling and run for kilometers," Dabi continued. "They were apparently there to covertly get people in and out of the compound without revealing its location unnecessarily, meaning there are a bunch of secret exits to the labyrinth all around that part of the city. If we ever needed to attack Tokyo, we could very easily stage Nomu in the tunnels and send them out across the city all at once without having to warp anything anywhere, all while alleviating any suspicion as to where they actually came from."

Dabi stuffed his hands into his pockets and leaned against a tube containing a High-End Nomu while he continued smirking at Garaki. "Sounds a lot more convenient than your current method, don't you think?"

"Perhaps…" Garaki mused, gazing at the tanks of High-Ends lining the wall as well as the Near High-Ends on the other side. "We do need a new place to house the lower level Nomu and a few of the completed upper crust while the rest are finishing development…"

Garaki nodded to himself. "Yes, yes, this is splendid. I'll send the Nomu over right away to be stored. This is a perfect workaround for the meantime while I attempt to craft a portal quirk to alleviate our transportation issues."

Dabi blinked. "You're crafting a portal quirk? You can do that?"

"What, did you think Kurogiri was a normal human?" Garaki snorted. "He's a Nomu with corrupted programming, and his Warp Gate was fashioned out of several quirks to form a stable portal generator. He is my creation."

Dabi had no idea how to respond to that. He knew the doctor was a mad scientist at the best of times, but he was not expecting this. However, after thinking it over a little more, he really should have been. The Nomu were a testament to not only his insanity but also his readiness to experiment with quirk combinations, and it wasn't like Dabi didn't already have experience with the idea of crafting the perfect specimen out of two chosen people.

"So, you're putting together another Kurogiri?" Dabi questioned.

"Not explicitly, but something of the sort," Garaki answered, returning his gaze to the screen. "I figured it would be a preferable alternative to Warping since you're always belly-aching over it. I mean seriously, warpers don't just spawn out of thin air, you know!"

Right as he said that, a staticky, bright yellow flash erupted from the center of the lab, depositing two more figures to the ground. One was a teenage girl with long, white hair and a glowing horn on her forehead, whereas the other was a child-sized dog… or a mouse… or a bear? What the hell was that, actually?

The two new arrivals looked around before their gazes landed on him, causing the girl's crimson eyes to go wide. Then, her eyes landed on Garaki and the tank, and she went pale… well, paler than she already was.

"We went back way too far," she said to the white creature beside her that had a strange device in its paws, and it just nodded.

"Already recalibrating," the whatever-the-hell assured, and within moments, there was another yellow flash, and the two were gone.

The remaining adults were left in stunned silence. Dabi had no clue what the fuck he just witnessed, nor did he have any explanation for it. Garaki, meanwhile, stared intently at the area they had just occupied in consideration.

"Uhhh…" Dabi tried, but the words just would not come to him.

"So, someone does crack time travel," Garaki mused to himself aloud with interest. "I do hope it's within my lifetime."

Dabi blinked, but he put the clamps on his mounting incredulity by pausing and taking a breath.

"I can think about that later," Dabi assured himself before turning back to Garaki. "Is that all you kidnapped me again for?"

"Since your movements have been satisfactory, no," Garaki bluntly responded, and before Dabi could retort, he continued. "You mentioned needing a second-in-command, and I might have just the solution."

Dabi swallowed whatever biting remark was locked and loaded on the top of his tongue. "I'm listening."

Garaki grinned. "As the new carrier of our Lord's will, and seeing as you are sufficiently powerful given the circumstances, it is high time to introduce you to Gigantomachia!"

"…Giganto-what?"

"Hey, hey, Froppy," Nejire Chan suddenly asked while Ryukyu was speaking to the press after the group cleaned up another villain scuffle on a busy street. "If I licked you, would I hallucinate?"

Froppy's usual blank expression became a half-lidded smirk. "Only one way to find out. Uravity, you in?"

When she got no response, she turned to where her friend was standing a little off to the side. "Uravity?"

Still receiving no response, Froppy grew a bit concerned, and she noticed that she was staring wide-eyed at her phone. "Ochako?"

The sound of her name finally snapped her out of her stupor, and she looked around until she saw Froppy and Nejire Chan looking at her in concern. "Oh, um, yeah, I'll be right there."

What had such a strong grip on Ochako's attention was a text that simply read:

SHE'S FUCKING GONE

The pounding of several pairs of boots to concrete created a cacophony of clangor as a group of masked marauders sprinted down a path toward their getaway van.

"I can't believe we pulled it off!" one of the five men remarked.

"I know, right?" another one agreed. "We're set for life after this heist!"

"Celebrate when we're actually in the clear!" the man leading the pack looked behind him and chastised. "We're not out of the woods yet!"

"You should listen to him, he's not wrong," a casual-sounding voice came from above that startled the group.

Suddenly, red feathers emerged from all sides and swiped the duffle bags out of each of their grasps, and then a black, shadowy figure emerged from the ether and barreled into them. Before any of them knew it, a flurry of strikes from a glowing raven-man left them sprawled on the ground in a groaning, pathetic heap.

"Nice work, Tsukuyomi," Hawks complimented as he hooked the defeated criminals with his feathers. "You're getting faster every day."

"Thank you, sir," Tsukuyomi bowed as Dark Shadow lifted from him, ending Black Fallen Angel. "I've been working tirelessly to come close to your speed."

Hawks chuckled. "You might be working on that for a long while, but I dig your spirit. Offering you a work-study was definitely the right choice."

"I truly appreciate that, Hawks," Tsukuyomi bowed again, ignoring Dark Shadow snickering about him being a fanboy. "It's an honor to be chosen by the de facto Number One."

"Aw, you're making me blush," Hawks joked before motioning to the captured robbers. "Let's get these guys into custody. We can talk on the way."

Tsukuyomi nodded, and Dark Shadow enveloped him once again before the duo set off with the criminals in tow. "I must say, it was certainly a surprise when Mr. Aizawa informed me that you had shown interest. Aside from Midoriya with Mirko, I don't believe any of my classmates received a direct request from such a highly regarded pro."

Unbeknownst to him, Hawks's attention firmly locked onto him with the mention of Izuku Midoriya. Madame President wanted any and all information about him that he could gather in order to find and exploit any potential weaknesses. He didn't like using Tsukuyomi like this, but it was for the greater good… right?

"Oh, really?" Hawks asked, maintaining his casual tone. "Midoriya's an interesting character, though maybe I should call him Beacon. He's always finding himself going viral for something these days. It's honestly kinda funny."

"He certainly is an interesting person," Tsukuyomi agreed, completely unaware of what was actually happening. "I've never encountered a quirk like his before, nor have I encountered the level of comic mischief that seems to follow him everywhere."

"Tell me more about that," Hawks gently prodded. "I've seen all kinds of odd fire quirks before, but his is something really unique. You know how it works?"

"Vaguely," Tsukuyomi shrugged. "As far as I'm aware, different flames correspond to different abilities. One grants him strength, another speed, one grants him advanced healing of himself and others, a fourth creates barriers, and he utilizes another to create physical constructs that can be monstrously powerful. He once theorized that it was the manifestation of different quirk factors in his family line, but it's still unconfirmed."

"Interesting," Hawks hummed. "Anything else?"

"There's the blue one that reeks of death," Dark Shadow supplied, and Tsukuyomi nodded in confirmation.

"That one frightens even Dark Shadow, but I've yet to determine why," Tsukuyomi added.

"You don't wanna know," Dark Shadow muttered, but Hawks heard it nonetheless.

"Regardless, that's as far as my knowledge of his abilities extends," Tsukuyomi finished.

"Fascinating," Hawks commented, and it was only partly disingenuous. Midoriya was genuinely an interesting character, and Hawks would have liked to pick his brain under better circumstances.

Unfortunately, he still had a duty to see to.

"You said that shenanigans follow him wherever he goes," Hawks spoke again, regaining Tsukuyomi's rapt attention. "Between getting kidnapped, being the lovechild of All Might and Endeavor, fighting Mirko one-on-one, and inexplicably becoming a champion for heteromorph equality overnight, it's hard to believe that he's getting up to even more hilarious nonsense."

"A little girl adopted him when we moved into the dorms," Dark Shadow was the one to respond.

Hawks blinked, and then he blinked again. "Come again?"

"Dark Shadow is referring to Eri, Midoriya's apparent new sister," Tsukuyomi clarified.

"…How did that happen, exactly?" Hawks asked.

"Dunno," Dark Shadow shrugged, which inadvertently forced Tsukuyomi to shrug, as well. "'The scary bird-man tried to kidnap me for my mommy and big brother' is all she'd ever say about where she came from."

"She seems to be readjusting nicely after whatever torment she experienced, fortunately," Tsukuyomi picked up. "She brings a degree of joy and childlike bluntness to our dorm that we sorely need after the school year we've had."

Hawks was torn between smirking and stabbing his heart out. On the one hand, this kind of info is exactly the kind Madame President would want.

On the other hand, this kind of info is exactly the kind Madame President would want.

'Greater good, Hawks. Greater good.'

"Man, I love kids," Hawks said, his casual tone even more put-on but still convincing. "Tell me more."

Nezu had long perfected the art of mental warfare. There he sat at his desk, silently smiling at the tired, frazzled, and scraggly man sitting before him with a smile that for all the world seemed pleasant at first glance, and perhaps even at the second, as well. However, that smile somehow still embodied several lifetimes of malice, hatred, and a barely restrained desire for bloodshed shooting out of a pair of beady, black eyes.

Mera hated it. He hated it so much that he'd genuinely rather be in the presence of Madame President. He now completely understood why she wanted this creature dead with every fiber of her being, and that same creature now might have been his only lifeline.

"I must say, Mera, it is highly unusual for employees of the Hero Public Safety Commission to be warped right onto our campus by, presumably, the same villain who is in league with Tomura Shigaraki," Nezu finally spoke up, taking a long sip of his tea without removing his gaze from Mera for even a fraction of a second.

"He just goes by Tomura now, apparently," Mera managed to reply, and he had to congratulate himself for that.

Nezu hummed. "Is that right? I'll be sure to make a mental note of that. Please, have some tea."

Nezu procured a kettle and poured Mera a cup before sliding it across the desk to him. Mera, however, simply eyed the cup with a very, very healthy degree of suspicion.

"Thank you, but I'll pass," Mera carefully declined.

Nezu remained smiling, and then he nudged the cup a little further toward him. "It wasn't a request."

Then, his smile vanished, but the murderous intent in his gaze remained. "Drink your tea, Mera."

Mera wasted no time grabbing and sipping the offered tea. If it was poisoned, then there was no way around it at this point.

Once Mera finally began drinking the tea, Nezu's smile reemerged. "Now, please indulge me in your tale of how you came to be at my mercy this afternoon."

Mera sighed. "The League of Anti-Villains kidnapped me and sent a double in my place. They're using that double to steal a bunch of the Commission's secrets, presumably to air their dirty laundry before enacting their brand of punishment. They've done it with J-Store, the Creature Rejection Clan, and Uncle Touchy, so it stands to reason that the HPSC is next to fall."

"Or perhaps the first to fall," Nezu mused, earning a questioning gaze from Mera. "Their past targets have been low-level in the grand scheme. Indeed, the J-Store event was on a large scale and fully displayed their destructive capabilities to the nation, but it was their reintroduction to the public. Any good rebrand must begin with a bang. In terms of impact, however, the other three are of very little consequence in comparison to a government institution. Perhaps this is an indication that they're about to make very severe movements."

Nezu took another sip of his tea. "Never mind that; I won't bore you with a tangent. I can reasonably assume that you are the unwilling fall man for the League's infiltration. How and why did you find yourself here and not within a dustpan courtesy of Tomura?"

"Tomura told me that it was best to leave the country ASAP," Mera sighed.

"He is correct, assuming the Commission discovers your treachery before the day is over," Nezu mused. "What relevance does that have to UA?"

"I have no means of fleeing the country and starting a completely new life with a new identity within a mere 24 hours max," Mera bluntly answered before. "I need help urgently."

Nezu hummed. "And what reason would I have to assist you, assuming I could?"

"I can provide you all of the information on the Commission and Madame President's movements that I'm privy to.

"Such as?"

"She wants Izuku Midoriya either under her thumb or dead, no in-between."

"I'm well aware of this," Nezu interrupted. "I was hoping for the information that the League of Anti-Villains no doubt stole."

Mera blinked. "I don't know what or how much information the League was able to obtain."

"But you do know what the HPSC is hiding," Nezu pointed out.

"Don't you?" Mera earnestly questioned with a quirked eyebrow.

"I have inklings, but it is never unpleasant to receive confirmation before I show my paw," Nezu replied, and then he produced a small vial. "Now, if you'd like the antidote to the slow-acting neurotoxin that I laced your cup with, I suggest you make haste with spilling your guts."

Mera didn't even have it in him to be shocked.

"I'm just saying," Kusari began, raising his hands in surrender to the red-headed woman eyeing him with suspicion. "Your hair is objectively fantastic, and I'd simply like to know how you care for it."

Kusari put forth his best attempt at the dreaded puppy dog eyes to sway Slice into sharing her hair care routine with him while they waited for their client to arrive. He valiantly accentuated the watery sparkle of his violet eyes illuminating the darkness of one of the empty warehouses that the MLA conducted black market deals in, hoping it would help push her over the edge.

It was not working.

"Maybe it's Mabeline, maybe it's not," Slice denied him with a smirk and her arms folded. "I don't want you freebooting my hair care routine."

Kusari recoiled from her as if he was offended by the insinuation. "Who says I don't already have one?"

Slice couldn't stop the snort before it escaped her, and Kusari's resulting look of offense only made it grow into a chortle. "Seriously? You have a daily routine for that?"

A portion of her hair lifted and sharpened into a fine point to gesture to the chin-length hair sitting atop Kusari's cranium, and a chain emerged to lightly bat it away.

"Just because my fabulously crimson hair isn't as luscious as your ankle-length locks doesn't mean I don't take care of my hair," Kusari asserted with exaggerated snootiness.

Slice hummed, and the skepticism pouring out of it practically seeped into Mummy's bandages as he stood off to the side. "I'm willing to bet that you take better care of your chains than your hair."

"Who says I can't do both?" Kusari challenged with a smirk. "I'm a man of many talents."

"And one of those talents is bondage," Slice sniped with a smirk of her own.

Kusari quirked an eyebrow at her, but he would not back down. "You say that like it's a bad thing."

"Maybe not," she hummed with an "innocent" finger on her cheek and a vaguely predatory glint behind her domino mask. "Maybe I'm into that."

"This is becoming wildly uncomfortable," Mummy muttered from his increasingly deeper spot in the darkness to get away from this interaction.

Fortunately, he was rescued by the arrival of a frazzled-looking Kajiro Akamoto. Mummy could swear that the air around him momentarily shimmered, but perhaps it was just a trick of the light from him entering the building.

"Akamoto, you look like shit," Kusari chuckled as the haggard man approached. "You get jumped on the way here?"

"Something like that…" Akamoto muttered, briefly making to scratch his arm before he stopped himself, and his arm fell back to his side. "You got the stuff?"

Kusari quirked an eyebrow at him before picking up two silver briefcases that were resting behind him. "Wouldn't be here if I didn't. Seems like a lot of trouble to go through just to lure you into a trap when I could simply hunt you down and kill you the moment you're about to fall asleep."

Akamoto paled, and his already anxious demeanor became a feverish shiver. "Come on, man, don't joke like that."

"Who's joking…?" Kusari said with a slow, deliberately blank inflection that drove Akamoto to shakily run his fingers through his unkempt hair. Even Slice was sending him a curious gaze. "Or did you think I wouldn't notice the stragglers you brought in with you?"

Those words froze Akamoto in place, and Kusari sneered at him. "I'll admit, you almost got away with it, but that little shimmer when you entered the building was just too odd to ignore, and what else could be the reason for such an abnormality if not unwanted interlopers?"

Now, both Slice and Mummy were on their guard and staring daggers at Akamoto. Both were kicking themselves for letting that slip by them, but Kusari remained still with the cases in his hand, almost as if he hadn't just openly outed his buyer for crossing them.

Akamoto, on the other hand, completely lost it, and he hurriedly made his way toward Kusari and Slice. "Please, you have to help me! They kidnapped me and they're gonna fucking kill-"

Whatever words were about to pour out of him next were halted when an arm pierced through his back and out of his chest, spattering blood in all directions in front of him. Slice was quick about shielding herself and Kusari with her hair by forming a wall (at the cost of getting blood on her hair), and Mummy ensnared a plethora of nearby objects to create puppets for battle.

When Slice lowered the wall, they saw a furry, clawed hand extending out of Akamoto's bleeding chest with his still-beating heart locked firmly in its grasp. The arm was covered in a toxic, red miasma that was slowly burning the muscles of the heart away, and the same was happening to the flesh surrounding the puncture wound. A growing, red blotch marred Akamoto's once-white mask over his mouth, and he shakily looked down at the arm sticking out of his chest and holding his heart.

Then, the head of a fox with golden fur and the same red miasma hanging over it leaned around Akamoto to face them. His piercing gaze stared them down, blood-red irises and slitted pupils scanning over them like cattle to be slaughtered. He bared his long, menacing fangs and spoke to Akamoto in a gravely, just-human-enough voice:

"You've done your job. Rest now."

Suddenly, his grip on Akamoto's heart clamped shut, and the organ splattered with a sickening squelch. Without further preamble, he wrenched his arm out of Akamoto's chest and discarded him to the side, allowing his body to limply hit the ground with a thud. Immediately afterward, the area behind him shimmered again, and what was thought to be empty space revealed itself to be merely an illusion: seven other mutants were flanking him, each of them possessing mutations that ran the gambit from canine to reptilian to even… whatever the hell the blonde with four eyes was.

"Sorry to crash this party," the frontman spoke up, his red cloak slowly dissipating and his features becoming less feral, "but we came upon some interesting information about this I-Island technology."

Slice and Mummy were ready to leap into action, but a single gesture from Kusari stayed their hands. He still hadn't yet tensed like his two subordinates, but he did finally place the briefcases back onto the ground. While down there, he covertly pressed a button on the inside of his sleeve to send a signal to Deika, specifically to the Grand Commander in his office.

Re-Destro was once again doing battle with the greatest enemy of CEOs the world over, his greatest foe, and the one entity that no amount of stress could ever grant him the power to defeat: paperwork. He had been at it for hours with seemingly no end in sight. At least orders for custom replicas of Beacon's scarf were through the roof, meaning Detnerat would see a financial boom in the near future.

"I don't care if the Paperworkinator is a bad name, I'm approving mass production," he grumbled, but the blaring of a small alarm on his desk halted his progress and snatched his attention away from the papers in front of him.

That alarm was connected to Kusari's receiver, and he had never once felt inclined to trigger it. Re-Destro knew perfectly that he could handle himself just as well as Geten if not even better, so whatever compelled him to trigger the alarm demanded Re-Destro's full attention.

Pressing the button that connected him to the audio of the receiver in Kusari's sleeve, Re-Destro quickly paged Skeptic with his other hand.

"Skeptic, Kusari triggered his alarm. Get me the camera feed to his location immediately."

"Right away, Grand Commander."

Kusari stared into the newly cerulean eyes of the fox-man in front of him. He was a curious sight; his fox mutation presumably covered him from head to toe if his furry, clawed hands were any indication. However, they seemed to be purely genetic leftovers, as his meta ability was undoubtedly that toxic cloak he summoned earlier. Fascinating, and quite terrifying if it granted him the strength to punch out a man's heart and crush it in his grasp. He wondered what other surprises this group would reveal to him and the Grand Commander listening in.

"So," Kusari finally spoke, breaking the silence, "I take it you're not here to buy."

"You could say," the fox-man chuckled.

"Well, don't keep me in the dark," Kusari insisted. "You have a name?"

"Call me Kitsune," he answered with a predatory smile. "Allow me to introduce you to Fukkō."

That name made Kusari light up, and the dots immediately connected. "Oh, so you're the guys I've been hearing so much about lately!"

Kitsune's smile widened a fraction. "So, you already know of us."

"Oh, do I," Kusari chuckled. "This impending 'mutant renaissance', the introduction of Zoo Trigger to mutant communities, a simple, mutant street gang trying to move up the pecking order in the criminal underworld, and even the news of a villain or group of villains absolutely tearing apart a pro hero in Hosu, with none other than your group's name written in blood above his remains."

Before Kitsune could reply, Kusari spoke again. "I do have a question about that, though. Fukkō… 'Restoration'… what exactly is it that you're restoring? I mean, you can't possibly bring Japan back to a time when mutants were accepted. Can't exactly restore a state that never existed, right?"

"Hah," Kitsune deadpanned at Kusari's deeply unsubtle barb. "No, and that's precisely the problem we're aiming to solve; we ain't restoring Japan to any former glory, because just like you said, there never was one."

In the pit of his gut, Kusari could feel the Grand Commander grind his teeth at that assertion.

"No, no," Kitsune continued, his smile returning. "What we're doing is reviving our mutant pride nationwide and bulldozing this oppressive society to ruins."

"Well, whatever floats your boat," Kusari dismissively shrugged, drawing the group's ire once again. "What was it that you hoped to accomplish by coming here today?"

"That depends on you," Kitsune replied, his smile vanishing and his gaze becoming hard as he dropped all pretenses. "This could be simple recon, it could be networking, or it could be an extermination of competition. What do you want it to be?"

Kusari's eyes gleamed. "Oh hoh, now that sounds like a threat."

"I don't make threats," Kitsune shrugged. "I just kill."

"You any good at it?" Kusari questioned, feeling the tips of chains protrude from his back as he eyed Kitsune's ruffling fur and reddening gaze.

"I don't know," Kitsune shrugged again before kicking the foot of Akamoto's corpse. "Ask your dealer."

Kusari hummed. "Brutal, but not particularly impressive. I prefer efficiency over style. I do have a buddy who would probably find you pretty based, though."

"Bro, he's clearly not taking this seriously," Mirage said to Kitsune from his right.

"Let's just kill him and take the tech," Weaver agreed, stepping forward from his left side. "Get this over with."

"I agree," Kitsune said, and the miasma bubbled around him once again, forming a translucent, red cloak with two long ears and a tail.

Kusari's blood was starting to pump, and the urge to hunt was growing stronger. "You truly have no idea just who you're fucking with, sunshine."

Kitsune just shrugged it off and took a step forward. "It really won't matter in a few minutes."

Kusari's desire to hunt and kill had reached a fever pitch. He scanned the tense group of mutants for who should die first: the reptilians were eyeing up Mummy, meanwhile, the taloned wolf and the dog were focused on Slice. Finally, Kitsune, the blonde, and the other fox were focused squarely on him.

Then, Kusari remembered one little detail; the other fox called Kitsune "bro." She was either his sister or familiar enough to stand in as one. Well, Kusari had his target.

Faster than most people could even blink, a chain shot out that was aimed directly at the fox-woman's brain. No one would be able to dodge or intercept that; he had trained himself into the ground with the use of his chains to the point where he could lash out and retract faster than a frog could swipe a bug with its tongue when he truly wanted to. Her face when the chain impacts her skull will be absolutely delicious-

The chain was snatched out of the air by Kitsune before anyone else had registered that either the chain or Kitsune had even moved. Kusari was positively dumbstruck by the development, and that continued as Kitsune crushed the chain in his hand and vanished from his spot, reappearing in front of Kusari with his arm cocked and ready to decapitate him with his razor-sharp claws.

Kusari could only see the rage and hatred boiling in his blood-red gaze, and he just barely caught a glimpse of two more tails joining the first before Slice's hair filled his vision. A portion of it coiled around his waist and dragged him out of harm's way while a plethora of blades made to intercept Kitsune's attack before the others could dogpile on her. Unfortunately, Kitsune slashed straight through the crimson blades like paper mache, shocking Slice and distracting her long enough for a feathered fist to slam into her face.

Just then, Kusari's phone rang, ripping him out of his shock and placing him back at the scene. As Kitsune refocused his gaze back onto him and slowly stalked toward him, Kusari held up the phone and signaled for a moment to be granted to answer the call. Kitsune, so completely taken off guard by the sheer audacity of the gesture, stopped in his tracks and tilted his head as Kusari answered the phone.

"Grand Commander?" Kusari addressed.

"Put him on the phone."

Kusari was not going to argue with the tone Re-Destro was taking for a single moment. He did as he was instructed and put him on speaker before holding the screen toward the now-halted action.

"Did this motherfucker seriously just answer a phone call during a fight?" the man who resembled a Komodo dragon indignantly muttered before he was shushed by the snake-man holding a knife beside him.

"You're on speaker, sir," Kusari informed.

"Excellent. Kitsune, you are speaking to the Grand Commander of the Meta Liberation Army, Re-Destro."

If the action hadn't already halted, that would have stopped any activity in that warehouse in its tracks.

"I've been watching the feed of this enlightening interaction from the cameras in the building. I've heard everything that has been said, and I've taken interest."

"Cut the shit and say what you wanna say," Kitsune growled, barely keeping a hold over himself in his heightened state.

"You said earlier that one of the potential goals of this meeting was networking. Well, I'd like to take you up on that. I am formally inviting you and your cohort to come to Deika City in one week to discuss business. Your ideology has garnered my interest, so I'd like an opportunity to pick your brain and test your resolve."

Kitsune managed a derisive laugh through the haze of murderous intent. "And if we say no?"

"It'd be in your best interest to accept."

"If that's a threat, then you're going to have to get in line."

"I figured as much, which is why you're not the one I'm threatening. Facial recognition technology has advanced quite a bit over the centuries, so tracking down your mugshot once I had a screengrab of your face was child's play, Inari Okami."

Kitsune froze, as did the other fox mutant. Back in Deika, Re-Destro grinned maliciously.

"And since I had your surname, locating your sister wasn't very difficult, either."

Kitsune's gaze flickered to Mirage before returning to the phone.

"No, not that one. The tall one."

Kitsune's eyes went wide, and the miasma began to burn a bright crimson and layer atop him like a skin-tight void. "I swear to every deity imaginable, if a single hair on her head is out of place-"

"Then you'll die, just as she will. It's not that complicated, Kitsune. Help her avoid that fate by arriving at Deika in one week's time. This is your only warning."

Kitsune literally burned an imprint into the floor with the heat of his cloak. A fourth tail was on the cusp of emerging, which would have launched him to the point of no return. He took as deep of a breath as he could manage, and then he kept doing so until the cloak incrementally waned. Little by little, the miasma vanished, and the tails dispersed with it. When he was back to his normal, golden self, he glared bloody murder at the phone.

"If this is a trick, a set-up, or a ruse of any kind, I will tear you limb from limb with my teeth," he coldly warned.

"You'd better pray to your god that it isn't. A bit of warning, though: I won't be listening."

The call ended, and Kusari returned his phone to his pocket. He signaled for Slice and Mummy to return to his side, and they did, though Slice was nursing her cheek like crazy.

"Seems our business here has concluded, so we'll be on our way," Kusari announced to the group after picking up the two briefcases. "Good talk. See you in seven days."

With that, the three members of the MLA vanished into the darkness of the warehouse, leaving only the eight members of Fukkō remaining. All eyes were on Kitsune staring into the darkness that the three submerged into, but no one could summon the gall to speak.

Well, everyone except Weaver, who wouldn't know tact if it slammed into her courtesy of Truck-kun.

"Eight people don't constitute an army, boss," she bluntly informed the group. "If things break down, it'll be a hell of a task to fight our way out."

"Then we'll fight," Kitsune stated simply.

"Come again?" Viper spoke up with a mixture of incredulity and disbelief.

"We go to Deika, and we kill every last one of them."

The others were silent. They knew that Kitsune was dead serious, and while they also knew that they were potentially stepping into something complicated when investigating stolen I-Island technology, they never imagined that it would land them at odds with an underground, anarchistic militia.

Weaver, once again, was there to vocalize their thoughts. "Boss? I know you still really care for your giant of a sister, and I'm just as pissed as anyone that some faceless dipshit dared to threaten her life, but just from a numerical standpoint, the odds aren't fantastic. Are you sure we're up to this task?"

"Yes," he answered, and it was the quickness and sureness of his response that took them all by surprise. "I believe in the strength of every single one of you. I have no reason not to. I'm more than confident that we can take down a slipshod militia if we all finally get to cut loose without worrying about the consequences."

"Okay, hold on," Viper stepped in. "We need to address that 'cutting loose' is different for each of us."

He pointed to Titan. "Titan here can bite clean through cars and punch guys through several buildings."

Then, he pointed to Weaver. "Weaver could probably deadlift one of those same buildings."

Ignoring the smug smirk from their drug manufacturer, he stopped in front of Chimera. "…I honestly don't even wanna know what you can do with all your animal parts."

Chimera's dark chuckling also went ignored as Viper finally stopped in front of Kitsune. "And I'm sure you can annihilate a whole fuckin' city block when you're going ape shit, but not all of us have the gift of comparable strength to go with their animal physiology. Look at me; I'm a regular dickhead with scales and snakeskin. I can hypnotize people when I look into their eyes, but that's just my quirk. I don't even get heat vision or some shit!"

Viper opened his mouth and pulled down his bottom jaw, exposing his fangs to Kitsune before tapping them with his fingers. "Yeese hangs are gust hor show!"

Then, he shut his mouth and stared at his leader intently. "They don't even have fuckin' venom, dude! The fuck am I gonna do against an army?"

Kitsune heard every word, and he nodded, closing his eyes and taking a moment to gather his thoughts. They were right that the coming fight, and there was definitely going to be a fight, would likely be THE fight of their lives. He knew enough about the whispers of the MLA to know that if there was one thing they had in spades, it was numbers, and without top-tier firepower on their side, walking into that sort of fight would be tantamount to suicide for most people.

But they weren't just most people.

"I don't trust you all to have my back out there just because of your quirks," Kitsune stated, garnering their rapt attention. "I trust you all because you're fucking hardened. Because you understand. Because you're strong, regardless of your quirks, regardless of your situations, regardless of who made it their mission to shit all over you at every opportunity. You all got up and decided to fight back. You're all warriors to me, and you always will be. That's why I trust each and every single one of you. That's why I'm more than willing to go into battle with you."

The group was silently hanging off of every word, and even Viper was beginning to feel a tinge of that self-doubt wither away.

"Those MLA bastards," Kitsune continued with a snarl, "they didn't just disrespect us. They didn't just threaten us. They looked us in the eye and spat on our pride as mutants just like everyone else. They continued to dehumanize us, to step on us like we were so far beneath them that we weren't even worth simple acknowledgement. There wasn't a single moment where that redheaded fuckwit wasn't looking down on each of us, and when we finally threw it back in his face, his master had to bail him out of a painful death, and I'm fucking sick of it!"

The raw passion and anger in both his eyes and voice gripped each of his comrades as he continued, unaware that his sister had opened her phone's camera and started recording.

"Every single time someone deigns to take a shit on mutants, here comes Big Brother to bail them out because they don't see us as citizens. They don't even see us as people! They didn't see Minori Gokiburi as a person when they ruled her death a suicide after she was viciously murdered in a hate crime! They didn't see any of those innocent civilians in Jeda that were brutalized and lynched by a bunch of fucking bigots as people when how many of those scumbags got off? They don't even see us as people right now! How many mutants are profiled by police a day?! How many perfectly qualified mutants are passed over for loans, job opportunities, or housing lotteries in favor of a more human-looking candidate?! We're so deep into being second, even third-class citizens that we just accepted it as the norm when it's high time that we started fucking fighting back!"

"This is what we do, this is why we're here, THIS is our mission! Our mutant renaissance is not going to come until we stand up on our feet and fucking take it! Are you all with me?"

Mirage stopped recording and sprang to her feet. "One million percent!"

"Always was," the usually silent Hellhound uttered from under his hood with a nod.

"You bet your fucking ass I'm going into war alongside you," Weaver smirked.

"I'll follow you wherever, boss," Titan agreed.

"Co-signed," Chimera nodded with a smirk.

Kitsune smirked in return, and then he turned to the final two of the group. "And you two?"

"Hey, you went out of your way to bust me, a total stranger, out of police custody when you really didn't have to," Komodo remarked with a smile. "Tearing some uppity assholes apart is just a bonus at this point. Hell yeah, I'm in."

Kitsune nodded, and then he turned to Viper. "How about you?"

Viper stared at him for a long, intense moment, then stepped forward and grasped Kitsune into a firm handshake. "Let's go kill us a fuckin' army."

Kitsune's grin was damn near feral at this point. He looked back at his group that was completely and utterly behind him, and he felt like they could take on the entire planet in that moment. He finished it off with a final statement:

"Our mutant renaissance begins by painting the canvas with the blood of the Meta Liberation Army, and then we'll pave the first leg of the road to a just world with their bones."

Bonus Scene

"Down this hall," the corrections officer instructed, and a skinny, light brown-haired teenager silently complied, doing his best to not drag his feet in doing so. He hated it when the guards started shouting, and they took any opportunity available to them to do it. He wouldn't afford them one today.

The silence continued as they walked down the hall. They were no longer within the bounds of the detention center proper, instead having gone through several gates to enter what he assumed to be the administrative section of the campus. He really couldn't be sure, honestly. The juvenile training school he was sent to after the stunt with the League of Villains was structured in such a way that made it hard for any of the inmates to know quite where they were on the premises at any given point. It was most likely to avoid breakouts, not like those ever happened outside of movies and TV anyway.

Still, as they turned a corner down another hallway, his curiosity was getting the better of him, so he finally bit the bullet and asked. "Where are we going, exactly?"

"You're being transported to another facility," the CO responded, and then he shrugged. "That's as much as I know."

Well, that wasn't particularly helpful, but it at least meant that he wasn't being sent back to solitary confinement. However, it could also mean that he was being sent to an adult prison after all. They initially wanted to try him as an adult for his connection to the League of Villains and near-fatal attack on hero students, as well as violation of the Firearm and Sword Possession Control Law, and he likely would have ended up in Tartarus if he had been. However, something happened at the eleventh hour to flip the decision and convict him as a juvenile instead, and he was sent to this facility in West Tokyo. He didn't know what or why, but it was never wise to look a gift horse in the mouth.

He wished that he didn't have to wear these tight and heavy quirk suppressant cuffs, though. Not only were they uncomfortable, but they chafed like hell, and he felt like a lead blanket had been draped over him the second they were locked onto him. Hopefully, he'd be out of them soon, as the door they were approaching at the end of the hall had light coming through the window, so it stood to reason that he was halfway done with his journey.

Stepping through the door and finally into the sunlight, he couldn't help but take a big gasp of fresh air. There were outdoor programs and activities available at the facility, but they weren't open to everyone, and he wasn't fortunate enough to have yet earned that privilege. Whatever. Those activities were all full of kiss-asses and psychopaths who could play the part of the reformed criminal to a tee.

There was something peculiar about the scene they stepped out to, though. On the road in front of them wasn't a police van or a bus or anything of the sort, there was simply a clearly high-end, black car waiting for them. He knew just from looking at it that it wasn't a muscle car, but he couldn't tell anything beyond that. He didn't really know or care for the difference between sports cars and luxury cars.

He was really into trains, though.

Then, the door opened, and out from the driver's seat came…

What the hell was Midnight doing here?

"Afternoon, Midnight," the CO greeted with a salute.

"No need for the formalities," she replied with a smile and a vaguely sultry tone, and then her gaze fell on him. "I'll take it from here."

The CO nodded, and then he guided him to the front passenger door. "Alright, Ryuji Takasu, you are now in Midnight's care until you reach your final destination. I wouldn't try to crash the car; I'm certain the driver's seat is death-proof."

"It's Mustard…" he lowly grumbled, getting into the passenger seat.

"I'm not calling you that," he replied as he undid the cuffs on Mustard's wrists. "It's stupid."

Mustard just scoffed and looked away, crossing his arms now that he finally had that ability and silently relishing the disappearance of the lead blanket. Midnight soon got back into the car and sat in the driver's seat beside him, and she shot him an undoubtedly practiced smile.

"Why the sour face?" she asked. "I know you're happy to be out of there."

Despite the truth to that statement, Mustard's expression did not change. He wouldn't buy the friendly act from this pro hero for a second.

"What is this?" he demanded, turning to look her directly in the eye. "This isn't an ordinary prisoner transfer. What else is going on here?"

"Sharp boy," she complimented, her smile remaining in place. "You're correct that this is an atypical situation. I'll be escorting you to your next destination personally."

Mustard silently eyed her with the purest of suspicion. His eyes narrowed, locking his sky-blue gaze with her own. "…What's your angle?"

He wasn't expecting the snort and following fond chuckle that left her, which put him further on guard.

"What makes you think I'm getting anything out of this?" she questioned.

"The guard addressed you by name," Mustard replied.

"I am rather infamous," she countered with a teasing(?) smirk.

"He said that I was being transferred to another facility when I asked him where he was taking me, but that was all he knew," Mustard continued. "Then, as soon as we're outside, he starts acting as if he's privy to more than he's telling me."

Midnight hummed before putting the car in drive and setting off on their journey. "Interesting, but ultimately circumstantial. What else can you tell me?"

Mustard was silent again, and it was begrudgingly for longer this time. He didn't want to admit it, but that was all the information he had. He needed to try it from another angle. Midnight was personally escorting him somewhere, but why? Was it that she was tasked with escorting him because she's an experienced pro hero? If so, why her of all people? As far as he was aware, she did double duty as a hero and a teacher at UA, so he doubted she had a ton of free time to spare. Why choose her specifically when there were so many costumed dumbasses out there to choose from that were bound to have nothing better to do than be a chauffeur?

"There's no way this is random," Mustard lowly muttered, his hand stroking his chin (seriously, he was really glad to be out of those cuffs).

"You're thinking hard over there," Midnight joked, casting him a mirthful glance before returning her eyes to the road. "I'm surprised you haven't once asked where we're going."

"Doesn't matter, I'll find out when we get there," Mustard lowly dismissed before setting his sights back on the pro hero. "Why you? I know about your quirk; you can take me out if I put up a fight, but if that was the only reason, you would've just said so."

"You're ever so slowly getting warmer," Midnight hummed, no doubt taking pleasure in his growing irritation. "I guess I can spare you a headache and give you a hint: we're a lot alike, you and I."

"Beyond our quirks, we have nothing in common," Mustard dryly rebuked.

"We have more than you think…"

The way she asserted that combined with the glance she sent him out of the corner of her eye irritated him. "You're speaking as if we have some sort of established rapport. I've never met you, I don't know you, I don't want to know you, and, honestly, I think I hate you."

Mustard could have sworn that he caught a nearly imperceptible flinch from her, but maybe that was just his imagination. There was no logical reason for her to flinch at that rebuttal.

"Let's focus on the quirks, then," she said, and he didn't know if he was hearing strangled pain in her tone. "Your quirk is remarkably similar to mine."

"And?"

Her smile returned, albeit smaller, as if she regained some ground in the conversation. "And I know very well the troubles that most definitely came with it. Uncontrollable knockout gas as a quirk is a bitch and a half to be born with, but it somehow only gets worse when you can control it. All of a sudden, you're the kid that's known as the walking date rape drug."

"…That sounds oddly specific-"

"My point is that I can relate to your situation," she interrupted, but then she visibly paused and scrunched her face before quickly amending her statement. "At least in that regard."

It was not nearly enough to halt the scoff that came out of him, though. "You know nothing about me, about my quirk, or about my situation."

That might have come out with more venom than he intended, as evidenced by a much more noticeable flinch from Midnight, but he didn't particularly care. The feelings of a stupid pro hero meant little to him…

"…I'd like to," she quietly uttered, but it was loud enough for him to catch.

Her tone was strange. It wasn't exactly vulnerable, but it was lighter than it should've been given the current dynamic. To make matters worse, he couldn't ascertain if it was simply part of the ruse to get him to drop his guard.

This was much too odd for him. This whole day had been much too odd for him.

"It's not difficult to control," he finally muttered, refusing to undersell his prowess with Gas.

"Hm?"

"Gas. My quirk. It's not difficult to control. I can freely manipulate the movement of the gas and have it swirl around me like a typhoon, and I can also sense anything and everything that happens within the cloud based on subtle fluctuations."

That wasn't true, at least not completely; he couldn't manipulate the gas at all, it just naturally swirled around him. However, she didn't need to know that.

"Fascinating," Midnight commented, and the fact that Mustard couldn't tell if it was a condescending remark or a genuine compliment truly grated him. The return of her smile only made it worse. "It's a wonder that you didn't unleash your quirk the moment those cuffs were off of you. That's would I would have done in your position. Is there any reason you didn't?"

"None that I'm willing to disclose to you," he pointedly replied, hoping against hope that she'd take the hint and move on.

"Ah, so you're not immune to the effects of it," she immediately put it together, and her oh-so-infuriating smile grew a few centimeters more at his clenched fists. "Don't be embarrassed. It's more common than you'd imagine."

"I'm strongly considering letting it rip just to get you to stop talking," Mustard growled.

Midnight simply hummed in consideration, keeping her eyes on the road as they drove through a busy city street. "I suppose you could do that, but something tells me that I might be immune to your gas."

"What in the world would lead you to believe that?" he questioned with a quirked eyebrow.

"Call it a hunch," she evasively remarked, sending him a sidelong glance alongside a smirk. "Would you like to put it to the test?"

"No, you psycho," he huffed, turning away from her and staring out of the window at the sea of unsuspecting civilians, ignoring her soft laughter all the while.

It seemed he picked the right moment, as a hulking, humanoid crab-man barreled from around the corner in a panic. His upper body was that of a crab with big, meaty claws and a bright-red carapace to go with his goofy-looking mouth and eyestalks protruding from either side of his head. On the other hand, his lower body was entirely human, albeit clad in only a pair of tighty-whities over his ridiculously muscular legs. It was definitely a sight to see.

Rushing around the corner after him was…

Was that a washing machine?

Further inspection revealed that it was simply Wash, that strange hero in the Top Ten who had all the rumors about him being a multidimensional Eldritch god under that ridiculous suit, but he was sprinting at the tall crab-man with a glare, and then he opened his lid and pulled out a giant pair of pants.

"What the fuck…" he muttered aloud just in time for the crab-man to get punched by a floating, disembodied arm and stumbled into a white oil slick courtesy of some pink-skinned hero. Now, why did she look familiar…

"Venus makes me so proud," Midnight fondly remarked, drawing his attention before she continued driving and maneuvering around the other rubbernecking motorists without a second thought.

"Aren't you gonna stop to assist?" Mustard questioned.

"Oh, no," she shook her head and sent him a conspiratorial smirk. "So long as you're here, I'm still on a job, and I can't afford to get distracted and risk you potentially sneaking away."

Her face then lost any and all levity it had before becoming deathly serious. "Besides, the day Wash needs help is the day this universe crumbles."

Mustard had no earthly idea whatsoever how to respond to that, so he didn't. In long-awaited, blissful silence they remained for a solid ten minutes as she moved past the developing fracas and onto the highway. The silence allowed him more time to his thoughts, as if he really needed any more of it after his time incarcerated. He was a runaway from the orphanage that he had lived at his entire life, pulling petty crimes with a few other orphaned delinquents until the rest of them were pinched by a low-level pro hero. He was able to get away, but he didn't know if the others ratted him out, so he laid as low as a filthy, homeless thirteen-year-old could until he ran into a sleazy info broker…

He internally hummed. Giran proved himself to be many things in their few interactions, and Mustard still wasn't entirely sure if trustworthy was one of them. Still, he managed to score a gas mask to weaponize his quirk without succumbing to the effects himself, and he later got his hands on a revolver from the corpse of a criminal. Finding somewhere to covertly practice with it was hell on Earth, but he was a great shot nonetheless. Perhaps that was what earned him a place in the League, or maybe it was his unplanned tirade against those spoiled, pampered UA brats and alumni who fancied themselves better than they actually were just because of their alma mater. Who could really say?

Regardless of what gained him entry, his gross failure at the training camp attack was what landed him in his present position. He couldn't even be mad at the UA brats for taking him down. They outplayed him, outsmarted him, and simply outdid him. They figured him out and exposed his weakness, then they pounced on him with their strengths. It was an embarrassment; he was an embarrassment.

Perhaps it simply came down to a bad matchup. Perhaps it was a stroke of luck on their part that he encountered a bulletproof guy…

Perhaps they earned their places amongst the "upper echelon" of hero academia?

What did it truly matter anymore…

"Penny for your thoughts?" Midnight's sudden inquiry snapped him out of his musings.

He slightly turned his head to just barely meet her gaze. Two pairs of sky-blue eyes met once again, but this time, for whatever reason, Mustard didn't particularly mind the moment.

"Where are you taking me?" he finally asked.

"Ketsubutsu," she replied with her ever-present smile. "You've heard of it, right?"

This is the second dog I've had to bury in a 3 month span. I hate it here, man.

Fuck it, we ball. Keep on trucking.

I'm not doing too great in general (physically or mentally), so I'm not entirely sure when any of my stories will be updated next. That said, I didn't imagine when I began this story that it would reach 45 chapters and over 350K words. It's a bit absurd to think about, at least to me. It's also absurd to reckon that I have so many people reading something I created. I'm glad even one person stuck around.

The bonus scene isn't super relevant to the story, but I wanted to include it to payoff a plot thread. Might do a collection of side stories for this fic after it's over, or maybe even before. I'm not entirely sure.

I've also been putting off giving Ippan Josei (the tall fox lady) an actual name for the longest time, even after alluding to her in an earlier chapter. I suppose Okami as a surname is a decent place to start.