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Chapter Text

Keigo Takami, the man better known as the number 2 hero in all of Japan, Hawks, landed softly with a couple long flaps of his massive red wings. He had arrived at the Gunga Mountain villa, headquarters of the Paranormal Liberation Front, and he looked around, expecting to find dozens of Liberation soldiers, moving to and fro, as had been the case in every previous visit.

Tonight, the villa, which reminded Hawks of a medium-sized countryside hotel more than what he would call a “villa”, seemed empty, with no light to be seen through its windows. Odd, he thought, and instinctively split a pair of dagger length feathers from the tips of his wings, and hovered them by his sides, one close at reach to his right hand, the other just above his left shoulder, ready to fly right at an ambusher. Have they figured me out? That my commitment isn’t exactly…what they’d like? 

He stepped forward, splitting off half a dozen more feathers, sending them further along the rustic stone steps leading up to the villa. Four surrounded the building, the other two shifted towards the woods beyond. Closing his eyes, Hawks concentrated on the vibrations his feathers felt, creating a picture in his mind clearer than any sonar.

Fire. For a moment, he feared that his feathers had been found by Dabi, and that a fireball was going right for them…but the fire was static, crackling pleasantly in a clearing in the woods. He sighed, relaxing slightly. His feathers had found no one in the main building, and the fire in the woods, clearly a nice, innocent campfire, matched what Twice had said in his invitation. 

Without glancing at his phone, Hawks could perfectly picture the text he’d gotten from the Liberation Front lieutenant and previous League of Villains member; “ Hey, bro! We’re all gonna hang out at the mountain villa! Join us! Bring a 6 pack of beer and a carton of cigs for me, we’re gonna PARTY!” 

Hawks dutifully reached into a small backpack he had secured to the front of his torso and withdrew a 12 pack of good beer; he had decided to go above and beyond to keep earning the Front’s trust. Soon, he thought, he would really be in …and after that, what to do? How to act? 

The mission he had been given by the leader of the Hero Public Safety Commission, Chairwoman Hana Ishigami, had been simple; find the League of Villains, befriend them, then stop them. If he couldn’t find a way to arrest them, then he had strict orders to kill them all. “Decapitate that hydra, Hawks.”, was what the Chairwoman had said, in a follow up meeting after Hawks had established contact with Dabi, perhaps the most intriguing member Hawks had met so far. 

At first it seemed like a good plan. Hawks had seen all too clearly the type of destruction caused by All for One in Kamino Ward, and, without a hero like All Might to stop any and all tools of All for One by himself, the Commission had decided that sharper tools were needed in the fight. 

Tools experienced in killing villains. 

Hawks didn’t kid himself. He knew there was blood on his hands. Two villain groups had fallen to his blades directly, as well as a few dozen solo villains he had fought and killed along the years. He wasn’t proud of any of it…frankly, he had been close to reaching his breaking point months back, just as the battle in Kamino had happened. 

He had fully intended to refuse the HPSC’s newest mission when summoned by Ishigami to the Headquarters in Tokyo, just after Kamino. He was prepared to take some shouting, to have to bow and grovel, but he thought he just might get away with the refusal. And maybe he could use the time off to finally get a chance to really think . 

He had been flying through life at top speed since the moment the Commission had taken him in. From the instant he was taken away from the side of his poor, hurt mother, after Endeavor had stopped his thieving dad, Keigo had not stopped once. 

There were no breaks in training; by the age of eight he had mastered using his feathers to sense, to hear…and to fight. 

By the age of twelve he could beat grown men in sword fighting. 

At the age of thirteen, he had been given a steel sword, since his feathers were not yet long enough for combat, and his first target. That time he had been lucky, and managed to force the villain to surrender…but not before having to maim the poor guy. 

By sixteen, when other teenagers might be experiencing hero school, bonding with others and having a good time, Keigo’s schedule had already been firmly established. Four hours of sleep every day. Meals and training evolutions scheduled down to the second. And at night, when crime was most rampant, he would find himself riding alone in the back of a SWAT van, or a helicopter, with Hana Ishigami’s voice in his ear. 

Sometimes he would help the police track down targets, sometimes he would intercept the target and knock them out so that HPSC Peacekeeper police squadrons might claim a victory, in an era where they were so incredibly overshadowed by pro heroes. 

Sometimes Ishigami would command a kill. She had all the reasons, all the explanations; this villain sold drugs to children, this one kidnapped women and sold them overseas to the Russians, this one had opposed a budget bill that would have doubled the money the HPSC had for direct action missions…

She was so convincing. She knew exactly what to say, and how to say it. If she spoke the right way, she could even sound just like Keigo’s mom did, in his memories. So he had followed orders in the shadows.

It wouldn’t matter what he was ordered on those nights. He would end his hunt the same way, riding as a passenger in Ishigami’s limo, hearing stories about his predecessor, Kaina Tsutsumi. 

Back then, Hawks hadn’t known that Kaina and Lady Nagant, the infamous traitor to the HPSC, were one and the same. The way Ishigami spoke about Keigo’s “Senpai”, with such nostalgia, had been just the right lever to push him forward…

But then he had reached his 18th birthday, and the Commission had seen fit to use Keigo as a pro hero working in the public eye. Being thrown into the limelight so suddenly was a huge clash. He knew what to say in front of the cameras, how to act as if he was cool, confident and effective…but deep inside, he had never been so lonely.

Keigo had never once been given the time to contemplate how utterly alone he was in life. His parents were completely gone from his life, he had been raised alone. He liked Mera, one of his superiors, now a lieutenant under Ishigami’s leadership and Ishigami herself…he admired her. Longed for her approval. Followed her orders to the letter. 

But there was no one else. 

As Keigo Takami, shadow agent, he could live a structured life that left no room for questions. But as Hawks? He was confronted by his reality the instant he saw the light of day. And it had been a rude awakening. 

As an outsider, he had drifted in hero social circles for a few months, until bumping into Rumi Usagiyama, the rabbit hero Miruko. She was an outsider, too, but it had more to do with her fiercely independent, aggressive, take-no-shit attitude and the fact that she had a known track record for breaking rules and even laws. Once, he had glanced into her HPSC dossier and been amazed to find that she had won several underground (and completely illegal) fighting championships.

The two had bonded quickly, after having made it clear that they would never officially team up, and that neither would try to make the other a sidekick. Miruko loved a good fight, and Hawks never called her unless he had a good battle planned, which would always develop into some quality hero time much closer to what Keigo had fantasized about as a boy, before the reality of his training became apparent…

Among heroes, she was probably his best friend, and someone he could trust…though she was also the likeliest person to kick his ass for fun with some “surprise sparring”...

Besides Miruko, and some sidekicks that Hawks had recruited just to have someone to talk to over the radio while on patrol, there had really been just one person that he had wanted to meet in hero business. It wasn’t All Might; the Commission had educated Hawks thoroughly on how much of All Might’s era of “peace” had actually been kept by shadow agents, like Kaina-senpai and then Hawks himself. It wasn’t some random hero, like Yoroi Musha or Eraserhead or Sir Nighteye…

No, it was his idol, Endeavor.

Not long after his debut, Hawks had finally met Endeavor, the heroic figure that he clung to in his earliest days, an imagined savior that had saved him from an abusive childhood. And the phrase “never meet your heroes” had never made as much sense as during that first meeting. 

And now, a few years later, Hawks knew even more about the man. Some was good, for sure. Endeavor’s efficiency was second to none, and he was steadfast in the face of danger. A short time back, when the two had faced the High End Nomu, Endeavor’s stubborn conviction and drive had impressed Hawks enormously, even inspiring him. 

But Enji Todoroki was an abusive husband and father. His ambition had poisoned everything in his life. 

Soon after the High End fight, Hawks had dropped by the Todoroki house unannounced. Enji Todoroki wasn’t there, having gone out to a doctor-mandated rehabilitation session for his injuries against the Nomu, so Hawks had been able to meet two of Enji’s children, Natsuo and Fuyumi. 

At first Natsuo, who most resembled Enji physically, had been against the idea of letting a hero into their house, as Enji had completely soured the concept of heroism in Natsuo’s mind. But Fuyumi had insisted that they welcome Keigo. 

She had welcomed him into her home, offered him a home cooked meal…and just been so kind . Later that night, Keigo had realized that it might have been the single nicest moment in his life, as far back as he could recall. Nobody had ever done so much for him without expecting something in return. Fuyumi had only asked that he stop by again, so that they might talk more about less superficial  topics. 

Natsuo had been present at the second meeting, warming up slowly to Keigo, who, rather than using the social engineering techniques taught to him, had allowed himself to be himself around the Todorokis. By a third meeting, the two Todorokis finally told Keigo the whole truth about Enji and Endeavor, about his ambition and his anger…

And that was the moment when he had told them his true name, and his true past, rather than the cover story the Commission had crafted. He had never thought it to be that stunning a story, until he had seen shock in Fuyumi’s eyes…and had heard Natsuo declare that he would never pay taxes again. 

Later, as he was leaving, Fuyumi had reached for his hand. With trembling shoulders, she had then hugged him. 

That moment had been burned into Keigo’s heart. It had shaken him to the core. Someone kind, someone beautiful and good , had listened to his story, to the doubts in his heart, the shame he had never shared with anyone else…and she hadn’t turned away. She had offered him empathy with the earnest passion of someone just as hurt, just as broken, who knew that a hug wouldn’t make everything right.

But goddammit a hug would be a start . 

That hug and the moment of respite it brought may have been the instant of rest Keigo had been craving for as long as he could remember. It had finally allowed him to look at himself from the outside…and what he saw was not a hero. The Commission had turned him into many things. A child soldier, a two faced liar, a spy…and it had taken something as simple as a hug to make him see that it had been evil. That he had not fought for the side of good all these years.

No.

Hawks had only fought for the status quo. 

As he walked up the path to a cozy clearing a couple hundred yards away from the Gunga Mountain villa, Keigo Takami couldn’t help but wonder how much of his mission he still agreed with. Stopping All for One’s plans was one thing: the supervillain was clearly a whole other level of evil. Even sitting in Tartarus quietly, the miasma of evil coming from AFO was something much, much darker than the shades of gray Hawks had been fighting in all his life. 

If it was as simple as slicing that man’s throat with a red feather, or disemboweling him, then that would be good enough but the people Keigo had met so far…they weren’t evil, not truly. 

There was darkness in them, yes. But it was the same darkness that lived in Keigo’s heart. 

More and more he wondered if he would have been a member of the League, or a leader in the Liberation front, if he had been found by someone else , and not the HPSC…

Keigo’s Fierce Wings detected several people around a medium sized campfire. The vibrations of comfortably, subdued conversation reached his feathers, and if he concentrated, he could discern some words. If he pushed the wings just a little further he could eavesdrop…but he didn’t want to. 

These were the members of the Liberation front he had met so far. Jin Bubaigawara, alias Twice; Shuichi Iguchi, alias Spinner, Himiko Toga, no alias, and, sitting apart from the others, a pudgy man with a mustache and glasses that Hawks had never met before…but who needed no introduction. Doctor Garaki, alias Ujiko, I presume. As well as whatever other aliases you may have…

The doctor was nursing a beer bottle, almost full, and Hawks wondered exactly why he had been invited for this meeting that seemed to be for original members of the League of Villains exclusively. 

“Hey!” Keigo shouted, raising the twelve pack of beer in one hand and floating a pack of cigarettes towards Twice with a feather. “I thought there would be more people here! You mentioned a party!!!”

Twice rose with a leap and a laugh. He wasn’t wearing his usual mask, and was smiling from ear to ear, as if he really was seeing a friend and not a double agent. And for a long, beautiful instant, Keigo let himself feel the idea of reciprocating that friendship, of truly embracing Jin as an equal, as a comrade. 

So far he had pieced together a grim story for the smiling criminal. Falling through every social security net one after another after losing his parents, Jin had been driven to the brink by desperation and the contempt of all around him. 

It was a story that Keigo couldn’t help but understand. His mind filled all the missing details with his own story, and all the parts fit together. It was impossible not to feel a connection with the earnest, intense blonde guy, and feel the temptation to forget the mission and become his friend for real…

The other two in the circle were a similar story. Himiko Toga’s killer instinct was more than a match for the one that had been instilled in Keigo, and her bloodlust sometimes stunned him…but the fierce love and caring she showed for the League was nothing if not wholesome. 

Every visit Hawks arrived and was amazed to find that not only Toga hadn’t stabbed any of her friends, but she showed her appreciation in different forms that more resembled a feral street cat than a truly evil person. 

And Spinner…in Spinner, Hawks saw loyalty and brotherhood the likes that he could only dream for as a recruit in the HPSC’s clutches. The way he spoke of Shigaraki, currently “indisposed”, was almost fanatical; the young man had found purpose and friendship with the League…and a part of Hawks envied that, screamed for him to join them, to stop his act, to end his spying and join the side that actually embraced the outcasts…

But he remembered Fuyumi Todoroki’s kind embrace, too. His loyalties were more divided than ever, his doubts stronger…and the incognita remained. Why the hell did they invite me here? 

“So…what’s the party about?” he asked, handing out cold beers to Jin and Shuichi, and then holding a third can away from Toga’s reach as she excitedly tried grasping it. 

“Come on!” Toga said, leaping up to try and grab the beer, forcing Hawks to use one of his feathers to lift the can further up (as he was a pretty short guy and Toga’s agile leaps nearly had her stealing the beer. All the while Shuichi and Jin laughed at Toga’s expense, while Hawks put his hands on his hips.

“You may be a criminal already but I won’t incriminate myself for helping underage drinkers!” Hawks said, chuckling, as Toga pouted and looked at him with a narrowed gaze. For a moment, he thought she might attack…but then she laughed too.

“I was just playing!” she said, her cheeks blushing as usual, “I'm a bit curious about the taste but I’d rather sip on some blood. Or even some juice. You didn’t bring any pomegranate juice…did you?”

“Actually…” Keigo said, grinning smugly, and reached into the cooler backpack, then handed Toga a cold bottle of juice.

“YAY!” she said. In the blink of an eye her knife was out and she stabbed through the bottle’s plastic cap, and then she placed a silly straw, green and with a heart shape, through the opening and started sipping happily.

“Then…party?” Keigo asked, shuffling his feet while opening a beer for himself. He knew it was good beer, but he had drunk alcohol exactly two times in his life and had never really seen the appeal. Just like with parties. How many have I attended since I have become a pro hero? All were in direct order from Ishigami… And all I did was entertain politicians with watered down retellings of fights. What a waste of time… “Forest party! Woohoo!”

“Actually, we had thought of having the party indoors.” Shuichi explained. “And the doc over there had some papers to retrieve inside the house.”

“I did.” Garaki said. Hawks hadn’t made a move towards the man; his very presence had him on edge, and he couldn’t even tell why . Where have I seen you, man? Where? WHERE? An…an orphanage? Did you ever inject me? I have seen you before, and not only on Commission files, doctor…but when ? “There are original copies of Destro’s book about Liberation theory that Yotsubashi was kind enough to gift me, but the catch was that they were somewhere in the library, and he did not know exactly where. So I was to enjoy an evening of light reading by the fireplace and maybe have a glass of Suntory afterwards, enjoy the mountain air in solitude…”

“But I lost the building keys…” Jin said, his face downcast. “I forgot them somewhere in the hospital, and we don’t know where…”

“I volunteered to go check!” Himiko chimed in, smiling cheekily. “I’m good at finding things. Like this…” She dug into a handbag and brought out a pair of red basketball shoes. 

“That is a…ratty pair of Nikeys?” Keigo asked, prodding them with his finger. The shoes were rather beat up, as if they had been used in battle by someone with super strength but, due to being protected from the outside by some kind of support equipment, had survived a battle without outright exploding. There’s only been six or seven battles that match such a description in recent times. Only four had people who wore shoes anywhere that relatively small size…Izuku Midoriya’s fight against Overhaul? Likeliest possibility. 

“They are my Izuku’s iconic, excellent red shoes!” Himiko said, her eyes gleaming, and she even gave the shoes a little kiss.

“Toga that is GROSS!” Twice yelled, coughing out a sip of beer. Suddenly, with one of his mood shifts, he matched the young girl’s dreamy mood and squealed, “Ahhhh! Young love is so adorbs. Ain’t they just cute as buttons, Hawks’ Just picture them together! I will be the Dude of Honor at the wedding, it has been decided.”

“That…hmmm.” Hawks pictured the perpetually injured Midoriya being fawned over by Himiko, and the image at least sounded like something funny to watch from a safe distance. “Yeah, I support that. I’ll get a priest and everything!”

“You are the best!” Jin said, wrapping an arm around Keigo’s wing and bringing him to a log seat in between Jin and Toga. Then, shifting to a darker mood, he clicked his tongue and said, “...for a hero, that is.”

“Actually…while we did want to have this talk inside, and play some games while we’re at it, there was something we wanted to discuss with you, dude.” Spinner said, looking Hawks in the eye, “Privately. So…Dabi took the car and went to find the keys.” Spinner’s gaze shot towards Doctor Garaki, and Hawks thought he saw… anger ? Fear? 

“Can I get a clue about what it is about?”

“Later.” Spinner said, then smiled, “You know they got an original PS3 in this hideout? It’s a relic. It must have belonged to like…Destro’s grandpa …I’ve been dying to show it to Tomura, man.” He added darkly, “You know…when he’s back here.”  

As Spinner glanced at Garaki with barely restrained contempt, Keigo decided to lighten the mood quickly, “But Spinner…the PS3 has no games! What do you even wanna show Shigaraki?”

Spinner couldn’t help but burst out laughing. “You got me there, bird-man. Good thing is, there’s plenty of other consoles in the Liberation rec room. How good are you at All Might Combat X: Heroes Unleashed?”

“I’m an absolute pro.” Keigo said. He lied as easily as he breathed. 

“Tomura usually plays as Miruko. He’s good…But I’m better than him now! My main is the Hero killer Stain…Actually, since you’re a hero and everything…how the hell could they add a murdering vigilante to a game?”

“I…” Hawks was dumbfounded, “What the actual fuck, Spinner? Stain in a game?”

“He was added in update 2.3.”

“That…woah.”

“I play as Stain too.” Himiko said, shaking Keigo’s shoulder excitedly, “Actually, the other day I got in a PVP match with Izuku! He was using All Might, so I lost, but he was really nice in the post-game lobby…I had very nice dreams that night…” Then she grinned, and Keigo knew that she would make a joke at his expense, “So what is your main, Hawks? is it the bird hero, Hawks…so you can play with yourself?”

Spinner burst out laughing so hard that he started to cough, while Twice, in between bouts of laughter and slapping Hawks in the back animatedly said, “Toga that is SCANDALOUS!”

Chuckling himself, Keigo looked at the girl and said, “As expected of our resident sassy child.”

She grinned back, then said, “I’m happy I can be a kid with you guys! It’s…it’s not always been the case that I could be… this free .” She sighed, and seemed to retreat into herself a little.

“What do you mean?”

“Oh…you know. Everything . Everyone else. The entire world. My…my mom and dad.”

“I’d be a shit tier hero if I didn’t listen , wouldn’t I?” Keigo said, holding Toga’s golden, feral gaze. “Tell me. Tell me what happened. Tell me why you’re here.”

And so she did. Every little detail. How she discovered her Quirk, how her parents reacted, how the Quirk Counselors traumatized her. How a biological imperative was repressed for over a decade, how she felt the call of blood every day and every night and had no safe way to quench her thirst. Only violence. 

She spoke of running away, of her exile to the streets, of becoming a scavenger, visiting crime scenes to drink her fill on the blood of those murdered by others. She spoke of hurting others, sometimes out of bloodlust, sometimes in self defense. 

She described in vivid detail how she had stabbed a man seven times at a train station, after watching him grope a middle schooler…and then trying the same against Himiko. She hadn’t known if the guy had survived, hadn’t wanted to know.

She spoke of the first victim she had hurt, in middle school, causing her to run away. A boy that looked just like Izuku Midoriya. 

And, when no detail was left out, feeling certain that the girl had been honest, Keigo reexamined the file he had been given by the Commission, how it attributed dozens of murders to Himiko simply because she had been desperate enough to drink from corpses and had tampered the evidence by the time crime scene investigators were on site…

In confidence, Shuichi spoke next. Discrimination against mutants had left him completely isolated, living as a shut in with nothing to do but play videogames and rot in his room. But the Hero killer Stain had given him a reason to move forward, and to reach out to others. Toga gave him a high five as he told that part of the story, and they all listened intently as Shuichi next spoke of his friendship with Tomura blossoming.

The two had found themselves to be true companions, joined by a brotherhood stronger than blood. And in every word of Shuichi’s, Keigo saw the conviction to follow Tomura until the bitter end and then some. If there could be some way to change Tomura’s path, shift him away from destruction, from whatever plan All for One has set in motion…

Jin spoke next. Keigo had already gleaned in bits and pieces…but he had never known about Jin’s trauma with his Quirk.

In crude detail, Jin described the way he made an overwhelming amount of clones…and they turned on him. Unwilling to be bossed around anymore, the clones tied Jin to a chair, and their rage was unleashed. Watching his clones die over and over again broke poor Jin mentally, to the point where he was no longer sure that he had been the true original. 

And for years since then, he had been utterly afraid of dying easily; Jin’s Twice clones could only survive attacks in a pain threshold similar to that of a broken arm. Unsure if he would die from a broken arm, Jin had further lost himself and what little self worth remained, by now adding the self imposed title of “coward”.

Only in open war against the Meta Liberation Army in Deika City did Jin find the strength inside him to face his Quirk head on…and the trauma that had held him back for so long. 

He had become a true hero for the League of Villains that day, saving Himiko from succumbing to the injuries sustained while defeating the Liberation Army’s Lady Curious. He had also helped Mr. Compress, Spinner and Dabi deal with the enemies that outnumbered them, and helped pave the way to Shigaraki’s victory over ReDestro. 

And that was Twice’s true danger. He was a one man army in the most literal sense. The Commission feared him rightly, and he was one of the top priority targets, just second to Tomura Shigaraki, ranking even higher than ReDestro…

But Keigo could no longer reconcile that threat profile with the good man in front of him, wiping tears away as he told his heartbreaking story. Twice was an army, yes…but an army that had only deployed once to save others. Wasn’t that what heroes were supposed to do? Goddammit…I can’t do this. I can't look into his eyes and do it. I fucking can’t . It is just…wrong. We failed him, at every turn. We failed Shuichi, we failed Himiko…The system is broken, the system did this. They are raising their voices to be heard in the only way they have left…

“Goddammit…” Keigo muttered, “I…I can’t lie anymore. Not after what you said. All three of you.” 

“L-lie? “ Jin asked, his face twisting with heartbreak, “What…what do you mean, Hawks?”

“My name isn’t Hawks. it is Keigo. Keigo Takami. The son of a petty thief that abused me and my mother, Tomie. I cannot lie anymore. Jin, Shuichi, Himiko…the Commission sent me to infiltrate you. To become one of you, and betray you.”

“You…you wouldn’t!” Jin said, tears streaming down his eyes. “You…you have been nice to me, to all of us. You…you brought me my favorite cigarettes, man…Would…would someone like that betray us…”

“It wouldn’t be betrayal otherwise…” Spinner said, reaching for a knife at his belt.

“Are all heroes like that?” Himiko asked. Her knife was already in her hands, and her expression was just as heartbroken as Jin’s. But the knife was steady, and just close enough to find Keigo’s heart in the blink of an eye. 

“...no. Some heroes would do it. Some wouldn’t. I…I am done being that person. I am done being a tool. I have made up my mind. I will not fulfill this mission. The Commission may have made me…but I can choose to be someone else. Someone better .”

“They…made you?” Jin asked, wiping the tears away from his eyes with rough hands. 

Keigo nodded, and proceeded to tell the whole story. He left no detail out, no kill, no mission. He bared his soul, knowing full well that the villains may just decide to kill him based on his words.

But none of them did. They listened, just as Fuyumi Todoroki had listened. They empathized, asking questions quietly, softly. Their knives had returned to their sheathes quickly, and by the time he finished, Jin was weeping openly, and Himiko was shaking her head with disgust and righteous anger. 

“How…how could they do that? How could you work for them all this time? How…how can you wake up everyday, knowing you aren’t free? How…how…Let me kill them. Please, Keigo-nii…LET ME KILL THEM! I’ll eviscerate them one by one…Mera, Kashiwagi, Ishigami…I’ll kill them, I swear it, I…”

“Oh…I…I actually do like Mera, kiddo…” Keigo said, raising his hands. He had never expected such passion in response to his story. But he did somewhat expect what came next: jin and Shuichi tackling Keigo off his feet, holding him down…and hugging him. As tightly as they could. 

The desperate hugs of more broken people, Keigo thought, as his eyes filled with tears, tears he hadn’t cried in a decade and a half…

Until he heard slow clapping, “Oh my. What a display. What a fucking display.” It was Dabi’s voice, followed by a dry chuckle, “Twice, Spinner, get back up, you’re embarrassing yourselves…Toga, back away from that group hug, you’ll break Hawks altogether.”

As Keigo’s friends got back to their feet, he saw that Dabi was offering him a hand to get up, too. Keigo took it, and with a little pull, was face to face with Dabi, his first contact with the League.

The fire user had kept his past as vague as possible. Nothing in the HPSC files listed his true identity…but Keigo had his suspicions, after meeting the Todorokis. Those suspicions only grew with the villain right in his face, burning blue eyes staring directly at him…and then at Garaki, who had listened to the entire conversation without interest, still nursing a beer bottle. He has been waiting for something…  

“Hawks. These guys have kept you company for a while, huh?”

“We’ve had a fun few beers and some banter…”

“They tell you yet why we wanted you here?”

“Not yet.”

“Shit, I was almost forgetting that!” Jin said. “With the story he told us…I was thinking of attacking the entire government of Japan, or something…”

“Is that so?” Dabi asked, then leaned in and whispered in Keigo’s ear. “We might just expand on that…After the first plan. Now, Hawks…Do you trust me?”

“Well…”

“Do you trust these three?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” Dabi said, then snarled the command. With the fire crackling behind them, only Keigo heard Dabi’s words. “Restrain the Doctor. Don’t let his hands reach his pockets! Secure him!”

Keigo reacted in reflex speed. Five feathers flew at Garaki, whistling like arrows shot by a mighty longbow, and they swiftly wrapped around Garaki’s wrists and ankles, lifting him up in the air. The gift feather wrapped itself around Garaki’s neck, constricting but not choking. “What…what the hell are you doing???” Garaki yelled, his eyes bulging almost to touch his round glasses. The Fierce Wind at his neck didn’t let him turn his head around to face anyone except Hawks. 

“You have the worst vibes, doc.” Hawks replied, deploying a long feather to his right hand as a sword. He twirled it around deftly, easily, “Plus, I just got asked nicely to hold you there…A decade and a half as a child soldier did help me with following orders, huh?”

“DABI!” The doctor croaked, “WHAT are you doing??? What is the meaning of this? You forget yourself!”

“I forget nothing, doc.” Dabi said, calmly walking a few steps closer to Garaki. “I remember the orphanage, doctor…And your presence all over it. I’ve played along all this time. You had something I wanted. That High End that nearly killed Endeavor? You almost got me what I wanted…but it isn’t enough. You’ve been playing games with us, doc! All of us . For a while now. Am I right, fellas?”

Shuichi nodded, standing beside Hawks now, “Your help after Deika City…it never felt right . You have always been more loyal to All for One than us. You could never deny that. And you have been carrying out plans we knew nothing about …And using us for it.”

“We know about Nine, Doctor.” Himiko said. Hawks hadn’t seen her move, but suddenly she was right in front of Garaki, grazing the skin of his cheek with her knife. “Our clones drove that truck. Dabi’s fire, Spinner behind the wheel. Hell, you even had a clone of me there, didn’t you?”

“We watch the news, asshole!” Twice said, pointing a finger at Garaki, then at himself, “Mostly because the weather lady is cute. But we saw that and we had no idea! I didn’t make those clones!”

“No.” Garaki said, “My dear little Mocha did.” Garaki replied, defensively. “I copied your Quirk. What of it? It was all done in service of All for One, your master .”

“We have no masters, motherfucker!” Twice said, and pulled at Garaki’s mustache until the man screamed. “We are all free! That’s the “Liberation” part of our name.”

Garaki laughed, “You fool. You really believed that word ever had any meaning? ReDestro was a Social Darwinist, hoping to impose the law of the jungle, have the weak rule the strong, and call that freedom. He thought he was strong enough to be a dictator through personal power alone…such hubris! In a world with our master in it, no one else may rule through strength!”

“The clones were a clue, and Shigaraki’s surgery…” Spinner said, before Garaki could say anything else. “That never really stood right with me. Those augmentations were all right but the Quirks you said you would give him…You told us over and over again how you would not turn him into a Nomu.”

“And for once you spoke the truth.” Dabi said, then threw a thick folder full of printed documents at Garaki’s face, slamming against his nose and knocking off his glasses. “it’s all here. It was all in your secret lab…with your secret you !”

“What did you…Dabi, you can’t mean that…you went into my laboratory?” Garaki’s anger and indignation rose, “You insolent, sneaky-”

“The whole thing with ReDestro giving you a book, with twice forgetting the keys? It was all my plan to bring you here, right here. On the anniversary of ol’ Destro’s death, when all the Liberation true believers are busy with their stupid remembrance event in Deika’s ruins…While you sat your ass down and waited, I took a stroll underground into your lab. I met your copy, I met your disgusting little freak Nomus, Johnny and Mocha. And I killed them. I killed you . There was no one there to stop me from taking a good long look through your computer…Hell, the fucking printer put more of a fight than your copy, Doc! A laser printer, really? In the year of our lord two thousand-”

“You fucking BASTARD!” Garaki screamed, straining against the Fierce Wing feathers with all his might. “I understand why you would insult my choice in printers, even why you would kill my clone but MY NOMUS? My little ones? They were INNOCENT! They…they…”

“There were orphans at the same orphanage your people healed my burns, fucker. Little kids. You turned little kids into Nomus. You are right that they were innocent…So I put them out of their misery. You’re one fucked up dude, Doctor.”

“They accepted the Quirks easier…they obeyed better, were easy to control. It was logic .” Hawks didn’t let him speak any further, and slammed a feather over Garaki’s mouth to close it. 

“And I thought that what they did with Hawks was FUCKED UP!” Twice said, and punched Garaki in the testicles. The doctor nearly passed out from the pain. 

Himiko picked up the folder Dabi had thrown, and started reading out loud. “Quirk transfer surgery. Using a Bakta Surgery Tank, it is possible to stabilize bodies to…blablabla…using a mixture of nutrients intravenously, yadda yadda…oooh, here it is, Augmentations! It says “By injecting carbon nanotube muscle fibers in woven patterns all along the walls of organic muscle, it can multiply and amplify the original muscle’s strength by a factor of”…that’s a pretty large number, Doc! And oh! Here it says about the bones…you really coated Tomura’s bones with this? Sugoi …Can we give this thing to Izuku? If his bones are this strong, he can fight longer, bleed more…Maybe I can be his nurse for that surgery! Nod if you agree, Doctor!”

Garaki shook his head emphatically, which made Toga start to wave her knife around, until Dabi interrupted her, “Continue reading.”

“Okay, okay!” Toga squinted at the paper, then read, “...all of this will properly prepare the body to act as a vessel, crystalizing the Quirks thus transferred, and coagulating into a single entity…as the final Quirk is added. All for One. With proper amalgam time, the anesthetic allows the new consciousness full control. A total takeover. At one hundred percent, the process will have permanently, irrevocably coalesced the personality imprint with the host body. “As a man of science, I can not call this “possession”. But there is no other word in our lexicon for the expected result. My master’s true victory. A vessel prepared decades before his birth, surrendered, taken over. True immortality, total victory against the House of Shimura. Complete annihilation of One for All to follow.” This…this…”

“Is that text true?” Spinner asked, ripping the feather away from the Doctor’s mouth, “IS THIS TRUE? Did you conspire to make All for One possess him? How…how is that possible?”

Garaki started laughing. Slow, low chuckles full of malice, “Oh, dear boy…All for One’s Quirk is a genetic marvel. The true horizon of its potential is yet untapped. The Quirk Singularity theory I created, so many decades back? My master is a one man singularity. he is everything …and yet, he lacked just one thing for complete immortality. Continuance of consciousness. This vessel will be but the angular stone of the future! All for One will rule for all eternity, through a million host bodies, growing ever more powerful. Humanity’s true potential will be unleashed through HIM!”

“How do we stop that? How do we undo it? HOW CAN I GET MY FRIEND BACK?” Spinner said, every word more desperate than the last. Twice had fallen to his knees, and even Dabi was stunned. Only Toga seemed calm, and it was the glacial, deep freeze calm of a scalpel ready to bite flesh. 

And Garaki’s only response was to laugh. “Undo the process? You can’t go back! NOTHING CAN! There is no putting the genie back in the bottle, Shuichi. I already transferred the All for One Quirk into Tomura Shigaraki’s host body…and you know what the funny thing is? We named him Shigaraki. SHIGARAKI! My master’s own name. Of course, he is not a “Tomura”, but he can change his name whenever he wants, once he has his new vessel…Oh how clever…He is already halfway there in name AS WELL AS IN BLOOD!”

“Tell me how to reverse it. TELL ME!” Spinner implored, falling to his knees. “Please. i will do anything. Make ME the vessel instead. I’ll do it. Whatever you ask of me. Just…just let my friend go. Let him be free…”

“You fool…” Garaki said, “I could remove it. I could indeed graft it on you. If it was someone else, maybe the bearer of One for All, volunteering for this process, I might even accept. The process would even be simple . But I refuse .”

He laughed, as Spinner’s world crumbled around him. “I could perform the surgery tonight, sure. But you know why I won’t, Shuichi ? Because you are such a ridiculously unworthy vessel! You INSULT All for One by even implying that you could host his imprint! You are NOTHING! Less than NOTHING! A mutant . Only myself and All for One are able to remove Quirks. Isn’t that just wonderful ? The cat is out of the bag now, and the charade is at an end…So you will obey, now. You will fight and die for All for One, follow my commands, and maybe, just maybe…I will save Tomura Shigaraki. You will go forth and bring me a vessel tonight …and I will halt the surgery process. You will burn Tartarus to the ground and release my Master’s original body, and I will see to it that Tomura Shigaraki’s psyche is preserved. You will die for my Master, bathed in the blood of child heroes…and only then will I release Tomura from All for One’s imprint. This is the only path you can take now, all of you.”

Garaki looked around, then ordered, “Shuichi. If you kill Hawks right now, and release me, I swear I will keep my word. I will not let your work go unrewarded. Are you loyal to Tomura, or not?”

“...you ain’t the only one who can take Quirks away.” Twice muttered under his breath. 

“Overhaul's bullets…” added Toga. 

“Really?” Garaki asked, incredulous, “You think that hack , that idiot savant chemist, knows anything resembling the truth of Quirks? You think that injecting the Bakta tank with the girl’s bullets will work, that it’ll purge All for One? You can’t be that stupid. Only in dreams would that work…and leave Tomura a Quirkless husk. His psyche would never recover from having the imprint ripped apart. You could never be so reckless if you love Tomura, if you call yourselves his family…NO! I am your only chance. Only ME! Shuichi, obey. Kill Hawks, then Bubaigawara, then Himiko Toga. Dabi, you will help too. Only through my Nomus will you have a chance to kill Endeavor. There is ONE path, League of Villains! ALL FOR ONE’S PATH! OBEY!”

Shuichi took a step forward and grabbed both sides of Garaki’s neck. “What…No. STOP! STOP YOU BRUTE! YOU MUTANT!”

“With such complex medical issues, we’re gonna look for a second opinion, Doc.”

With a grunt of pure anger, contempt and desperation, Shuichi twisted Garaki’s head violently, with such force that the face rotated all the way back, and the head was nearly torn free from the mangled neck. 

Wide eyed, Hawks withdrew his feathers, letting Garaki’s corpse fall to the ground, just as Spinner fell to his knees, screaming at the sky in utter despair. 

As Twice and Himiko rushed to comfort Spinner, Dabi put a hand on Hawks’ shoulder, “This is what we wanted you for. Offing Garaki seemed easier like this. And…I thought it could be a test of loyalty but…that motherfucker has been playing us for months .” He spat at Garaki’s corpse, “He was already talking Shuichi the other day into getting more Quirks. And taking samples from hundreds of Liberation soldiers. This bullshit was always a plan on AFO’s behalf, not ours . I thought I was using the Doc for my own revenge on Endeavor…it was the other way around. So…we should burn it all. Twice was right…the “Liberation” in the name should stand for something, for some fucking change …even better if it’s change where I can drag Endeavor through the streets and break him …”

“You’re done being manipulated. So am I. You want to burn it to the ground…And so do I.”

“Do you, really?”

“It took me far too long to realize…but I want to end the Commission. I want its influence, its terror, its corruption, I want all of it gone. I want a world where someone like Jin can be seen as the hero he is, rather than a world where we forgive Endeavor’s abuse because he is “useful”. I am done being a weapon for others to wield. I’m done being “Hawks”. I’m Keigo, and I’m fucking done .”

“Guess Garaki wasn’t so far off, then. Just one path for us in the League…you included. Revolution.”

“Not exactly.” Hawks said, his gaze trailing towards Tokyo, far away beyond even his keen eyesight, beyond mountains and forests and towns and cities. “If we set the whole country on fire it plays into All for One’s hands. He will thrive on chaos…He must die. And we have to end the Commission. We can’t let them enact martial law; if they do, any chance for change is gone. They must lose their heads. The system will not defend itself against change without leaders to oppose us. The way forward is through coup d’etat. ”

“What’s that? Yo no hablo Español.” Twice said, and Himiko poked him in the ribs.

“That’s French, dummy! It means taking over the government!”

“OH HELL YEAH!” Twice said, standing up, “Are we gonna overthrow the Shogun?”

“Honestly not that far off.” Hawks confirmed, “I do have a plan-”

“Does it include protecting Tomura in case Garaki had some safeguards in case someone murdered him?” Spinner asked, wiping tears of rage from his eyes with grim determination. “If not, I’ll take that task. There are some boys in the Liberation front I can trust, I will take them with me. The rest…I don’t know. I’m sure that Tomura could lead the whole army if he was awake but…in a medically induced coma?”

“ReDestro could try and take over if he finds out we murdered Garaki. If he figures out we’re now against AFO, he’ll take his army back!” Himiko said.

"No." Spinner said, shaking his head. "ReDestro fell in line because of Tomura. All for One had jack shit to do with that. But the rest? Trumpet, Skeptic, even that pretty boy Geten...I'm sure some of their commitment stems from that lab tour where Garaki showed them the next High Ends he was making..."

Himiko nodded vigorously, "We need to do this coup quietly and keep the Liberation diehards in the dark…”

“Then we’re gonna need people we can trust. Spinner has those boys. Twice…you have yourself. Himiko?”

“I can sell the lie that Garaki’s still alive, or help infiltrate the HPSC. I don’t really think any of my Liberation peeps will follow me, they’re still pissed about me killing Lady Curious…IN SELF DEFENSE, I MIGHT ADD! And recruiting my Izuku and Ochako-chan, even Tsuyu-chan…really would be a fantasy. But maybe, if you’re Prime Minister after this, Keigo Takami…you can pardon me and give me a UA scholarship…you’ll owe me a favor!”

“I guess I will. How about you, Dabi?”

“I prefer to work alone. But that little bitch Overhaul you mentioned earlier…if we can use him to save Shigaraki, then that’ll be great. Plus…I’d like to make Endeavor Quirkless. That would be delicious irony. How about you, chicken man? You must have tons of allies to call in your time of need?”

“Actually…just two women.” he replied. 

“Oho! You’re two-timing some poor ladies!” Toga said, jumping over Garaki’s corpse to go and tease Hawks up close. “Who are they? Or is it maybe a poly relationship? How progressive? Add Twice into it! He’s a good man at marrying age!”

“Don’t talk about me like I’m a 19th century bachelor!” Twice said, while trying not to laugh. 

“It is nothing like that…” Keigo replied, while quickly considering if he’d be interested in dating Rumi, Fuyumi or Jin. Well…maybe…Who knows, later… “I will call Fuyumi Todoroki,” He saw Dabi raising an eyebrow, “And get her help distracting Endeavor. Get him as far away from Tokyo and Tartarus Prison as possible. I will also call Miruko. She’s got my back through thick and thin. And there’s a third person.”

“Another lady?” Toga asked, smugly.

“Actually, yes. She’s the one person who succeeded in assassinating a member of the Commission in its century of history. We’ll need to break her out of prison…but I’m sure she will help us.”

“What’s her name?”

“Kaina Tsutsumi. Alias: Lady Nagant.”

Chapter Text

“Hi, hello! This is Fuyumi Todoroki, class C teacher speaking, what can I do for you?” Fuyumi said, after noticing that the call came from a phone number she didn’t recognize. She thought it might be the parent of one of her elementary schoolers, but a sudden electronic chime and then a background static changed her mind. 

“Encryption complete.” said a synthetic, androgynous voice, which immediately made Fuyumi anxious. Encrypted? Who would call me and encrypt a call? I’m just a teacher…Is it about my father? About Shouto? Uuuuuuu…what can it be? 

“Who…who is this?” she asked, clutching the phone tight, and wrapping herself tighter with her blanket. The call had found her lying in bed, still awake, half her mind thinking about a piece of creative homework she was absolutely giddy to assign to her students, which involved painting piggy banks and was always a lot of fun for the little ones, and the other half worrying about so many, many things. 

Her youngest brother Shouto, currently studying at UA High School, was often on Fuyumi’s mind. Seeing the brutality of the Sports Festival, she was equally worried that Shouto might get hurt in some training, as she was that he might accidentally hurt someone else, even if he was getting better and better with his Quirk. And then there was always the issue with the villains…

Then, there was her other younger brother, Natsuo. Natsuo’s anger and resentment against their father, Enji, were completely understandable…and Fuyumi had felt similar things, too, but her anger had mostly given way to deep, deep sadness, and a longing for a family life that had never truly existed, while Natsuo just rejected everything to do with the family. 

Fuyumi worried that Natsuo, in his haste to be as different as possible to Enji, might end up making other mistakes. He had told Fuyumi about his intentions of marrying the girl he was dating, an adorable girl, for sure…but both were only twenty years old. And look at how my parents’ marriage went. They married just as young, Natsuo…Father was that young and determined to have a kid to surpass All Might and you…are you also eloping with that same defiant energy? You worry me so much…

There was also, of course, her father, Enji. As Japan’s number one hero, the chances of him getting in a fight to the death daily were astonishingly high…but father had so far been powerful, smart and relentless, and had not yet been hurt too badly…

Fuyumi’s mother, Rei, didn’t worry Fuyumi quite as much, but every moment that hinted at the possibility of her parents sharing a room again was nightmarish . Even if Rei had recovered from the trauma-induced breakdown…it was absolutely unfair to put them back together. 

But the chances of it happening increased day by day, as Fuyumi saw that Rei wanted closure, and Enji wanted to atone for his abuse… I guess I will handle that like the rest of my life. With all the kindness I can find within me, with all the love and care and resilience I can muster. I will be a peacemaker, like with Natsuo and dad…for mom’s sake. For her peace. For everyone… God, I wish…I wish my father had never fixated on All Might. Would I even exist if that hadn’t happened? 

“Hey there, Fuyumi! It’s me! Calling from a fancy new phone I got?”

“Oh God KEIGO!” she said, in a strangled, quiet scream, “You scared me with that encryption-thingie…Was that even real, or just a prank to tease?” While they had shared a few heart to heart conversations and she felt she could trust Keigo wholeheartedly, he was a relentless tease whenever he was feeling happy…or when he was deflecting from the impossible amounts of stress in his double life as hero and spy. 

“It’s completely real.” Keigo said, and, while he could still hear a smile in his voice, his tone was rather serious.”Listen, Fuyumi…I learned some bad things tonight. About my mission. And…I’m making a very, very dangerous gamble right now.”

“D-dangerous? What…what do you mean? If it is about your mission, then that must be…spying on the villains.” Fuyumi said. While he hadn’t told them all the details, she had put two and two together, “The League, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.” Keigo sighed, “I…I lost my nerve. The government wanted me to be a traitor and…I’m done with that. I’m not gonna be their agent anymore, Fuyumi.”

“Then…then that’s great, Keigo!” Fuyumi said, knowing how all he had done weighed the handsome pro hero’s soul. Ironic, isn’t it? He can fly wherever he wants…and yet he has never been free. If only my ice was strong enough to break his chains by myself, if I was brave enough to…to do more … “Are you going to tell the Commission that you quit?”

He chuckled and said, “Not…not exactly. I realized that I can’t do things halfway. That’s the gamble I mentioned…”

“What…what does it involve?” 

“Oh, you know…Some tactical anti-establishment action, regime change, breaking out my senpai out of jail…The usual.”

“KEIGO!” Fuyumi hissed, “You said the call was encrypted but that encrypted? Are you sure this is safe to say?”

“Do you think I'd ever put you in danger?” he replied. It was an honest question, vulnerable, not the swaggering charm he wore for the cameras, and the earnestness made Fuyumi’s heart skip a beat. 

“Uuuu.” she said, softly, “You wouldn’t. At least not with something like a phone call…”

“Are you saying I’m reckless?”

“Would that be inaccurate?”

“...touché.” he said, chuckling, “I’m doing reckless stuff real soon, so I can’t really argue the point. Fuyumi, I wanted to ask for your help.”

“Help?” Fuyumi said, raising an eyebrow, “With the, umm…civil war? I don’t think that I’m qualified for that type of stuff.” She giggled lightly, trying to stop terror from taking over her words. 

“I promise you. There won’t be any chaos. I will sooner die than let everyone suffer to keep a few corrupt elites in power.” he declared, “The country will change. That I swear . But…no. The help I need from you is…I need you to get Endeavor as far away from Tokyo as possible.”

“My…my father?” Fuyumi asked, “I…I see. I have a couple of ideas, and I will be very insistent. I will do my best. Just…why?”

“...the first change I have in mind is abolishing the hero rankings.” Keigo said, and she could picture him grinning mischievously. “I…I just don’t want to fight him. I’m…rather flammable, you know?”

She couldn’t help but giggle at his comment, “Okay. I have a plan that could work…And I’ll tell Natsuo to get mom out of the hospital. His girlfriend will help, too, and she has a minivan, mom will be comfortable…we can take her to the beach! And Shouto…” Fuyumi sighed.

“Maybe he will be safest in UA. Musutafu is not exactly walking distance from the Commission’s HQ…I don’t think the school will play any role in the takeover.”

“That’s a relief.” Fuyumi said, “I…I will also do my best to get my students to shelter in place.”

“You…you can do that?”

“Not without losing some dignity…” she chuckled and, with some embarrassment, added, “I’ll tell them there was an outbreak of lice and that I’ve been scratching my poor scalp raw!” 

“When everything’s over, maybe I’ll visit you and see if you do have any lice in that cute hair.” he said, making Fuyumi’s cheeks redden. 

“You…you shouldn’t be flirting while planning some…coup!” she stammered back.

“I mean, I’ve been complimenting Twice a bunch while we get some other stuff ready and it seems to be working wonders…”

“You’re way too silly.” Fuyumi said, then, in a whisper, “Take care, okay? I want to see you again, alive and well. Maybe introduce us to that Twice person!”

“I’m as ready as I will ever get to be to finally break my chains…don’t worry about me, Fuyumi.”

She shook her head, marveling at his confidence, “You sound like you haven’t even considered losing.”

“Nah. I’d win.”

Enji Todoroki felt his phone vibrating in its pouch at the side of his hero suit’s belt. He quickly retrieved the device, hoping it was a message from his son, Shouto; Enji had been feeling much closer to his youngest son recently, which only pushed him forward to make an even bigger effort as a pro hero.

But instead he found a message from Doctor Komatsu, the official doctor on call for the Endeavor Agency and all the sidekicks Enji employed. He felt a flare of fiery frustration, expecting to see something he had no time or interest to attend, like Burnin’ taking a week’s leave to get wisdom teeth surgery, or Kido having injured his wrists again…

But instead, the Doctor’s text concerned Enji himself. 

“Endeavor. I was pouring through the results of your latest routine medical checkup, and it seems like something had slipped by us back when delivering the report two weeks back. The sodium levels in your body seemed a little high, but not concerningly so…but I hadn’t considered the saline solution regime administered after this Monday’s fight against that dehydration villain! Miss Burnin’ gave you extra salty electrolytes, standard prescription for most cases. By itself, that would not be enough, but your daughter called to inform me of a prodigious amount of steak consumed this Tuesday night as a celebration…”

“That little snitch…” Enji muttered with a grim smile. Fuyumi’s concerns for his health had been almost paranoid after the fight against the High End Nomu, Hood, to the point that she had been monitoring his salt intake …which was welcome, as Enji had always been prone to developing kidney stones. 

He could vividly remember a UA classmate teasing him after Enji returned to class after passing a kidney stone one time, mocking the future Endeavor with “It is poetic! Throw fire from your fists! Feel like you’re peeing fire when you pass a stone!”

He had beat up that guy so badly when the Sports Festival rolled around that he had quit UA and all dreams of heroism altogether. 

His gaze returned to the phone and he squinted to keep reading.

“It is my professional opinion that, coupled with the stress of the Number 1 Hero position, as well as your…temper, sir, you are susceptible to kidney stone formation as of the time of writing. And…with your duties and responsibilities… It is my professional opinion that a simple, noninvasive procedure to dissolve the minerals will be best to keep you in fighting shape.” 

Enji gave a middle aged man’s grunt as he squinted at the text again. He then pushed the screen to record a voice note. “Do it, then. Right now. Make it happen.”

Doctor Komatsu replied instantly. 

“Sir, I would love to, but my duties as a surgeon have called me to the North, to Hokkaido. I may refer you to another doctor. Recovery Girl, perhaps? ” 

 Enji grumbled his reply, “Komatsu, I have placed my trust in you for seven years. I will not have Recovery Girl prodding my kidneys or anything of the sort. If you have what you need in Hokkaido, I will go. Clear up one hour of your schedule.”

“Gladly. It will only take half an hour, anyway. That way you will be in peak condition to face all threats to our country without worry.”

Enji shuddered, terrified at the prospect of having to battle a foe as dangerous as the High End while clutching his stomach and groin in pain… No. I will see Komatsu and fix this right away, and be back here by tomorrow. He clicked a phone number quickly, and didn’t wait for Burnin’ to identify herself before he spoke, “Burnin’, it’s Endeavor. Call me a cab, to the airport. I will leave for Hokkaido for one day. Apparently, I am at risk of kidney stones.”

“Wuoooghhhh…” Burnin’ said, reacting with the same maturity as middle schoolers when seeing another male getting kicked in the balls. “Boss, that is exactly the kind of thing one shouldn’t let develop, damn! We’ll keep everything running smoothly, you relax! You want us to check on your family? Tell ‘em something?”

“No.” Enji said. He didn’t want to worry Fuyumi, and he knew Natsuo would resent the news. “Keep it quiet. I will not be gone for long.”

Doctor Komatsu, a sixty year old surgeon and general practitioner, sighed and put his phone down. Endeavor would be coming his way, probably still in hero suit and everything, for a treatment that was probably still premature. 

The middle aged hero did have a history of kidney stones that he had hidden with care, but the daughter’s worry on the matter and her insistence on getting the pro hero to submit to the procedure were a little odd, if Komatsu had been asked. 

He scratched one of his goat horns absentmindedly, “It’s almost like the daughter wanted to get the dad away…and I’m on the furthest tip of Japan today. I wonder…maybe she just wants to have a house party? No…that Fuyumi is too responsible. Maybe some tea with a boyfriend? Ha! I would be terrified of facing Endeavor as a father in law…yes, that must be it. I shall keep your secret, young lady. And it’s not like it’ll hurt your dad or anything…”

“So…was that your girlfriend?” Toga said, elbowing Hawks in the ribs and grinning like a rascal. 

“Ooooh, Hawks is in love!” Twice added, then wiggled his eyebrows, “And it is with me, clearly!”

“We…we really should discuss that some other time.” Keigo said, hiding a blush with a chuckle. It’s not my fault that I constantly meet hot people and the Commission just trained me to manipulate them , not to handle any real feelings… “We’re nearly here, after all…”

“I never thought I’d willingly be this close to Tartarus prison.” Toga said, with a shudder, as Mr. Compress parked the nondescript van they had taken from the Paranormal Liberation Front in front of a gas station konbini half a mile away from the bridge to the supermax security prison. “I’m just not ready yet, guys…but I guess I’ll do my best?”

“There is no other way.” Dabi said, blinking away sleep; the pills he had taken to ward off car sickness had knocked him out for the entire ride between Gunga Mountain and Tartarus. “We are going to have to be very smart about things if we want to win. And don’t pout like that, you little shit…” Dabi grinned, then messed up Toga’s hair a bit more than usual, with an older brother’s casual closeness. “...You’ll get bragging rights like you can’t imagine if we pull this off. Your silly boyfriend, Zaku?”

“Deku! Not Zaku! That is a big green robot, we’re talking about a normal sized green boy! And I prefer to call him my Izuku.” Toga said, folding her arms and huffing, “The one that calls him Deku is Ochako . And I must give my bestie and love rival a fair chance at winning , you know? So no using the same nicknames or anything.”

“That’s very mature of you!” Twice said, proud. “And super dumb! Many people will call him that cause it’s his hero name!”

“Jin!” Toga said, pointing at Twice with a finger, like an owner disciplining a big, yellow dog. Jin’s big, bright eyes matched perfectly with the metaphor. “Oh come on, don’t be like that…”

“Just kidding!” In a flash, he was beaming happily again. “So, let’s start the plan! Hawks, let’s do it!”

Keigo nodded and withdrew a tablet from his bag. He opened up two maps, one for Tartarus prison, another for the HPSC headquarters. “As we discussed a few hours ago, these are the two most secure locations in Japan right now. Forget UA, forget the Imperial Residence, forget any bunker you’re thinking of. This is it. And in the maps, you can really tell. I picked the best routes for each objective in each target, with some contingencies…But they aren’t easy infiltrations. You’ll need to be very, very careful.”

“Bloody fortresses…” Mr. Compress muttered, looking at each map in turn. “We have our work cut out for us. The roles you outlined yesterday night…I get them now. Though…I really wish I could keep my hat. For the mission you have set for young Himiko, Dabi and myself…well…I could use the emotional support of a nice top hat and a painted mask.”

“Relax, Compress.” Dabi said, clapping the magician on the back. It’ll all be fine…and we’ll have your outfit at the ready. Just like Toga’s.”

“Now…” Keigo said, clicking send and hearing the chime in each League member’s phone. “Before I forget, show me your phones, all of ‘em. I need to see that…Toga. Your phone is more stickers than phone.”

“How else am I supposed to show my love for the adorable Sanrio animals???” she said, and with what seemed like physical pain, started peeling off a Cinnamoroll sticker, making a great effort not to break off the character’s cute, fluffy ears. Keigo was amazed at the hand-eye coordination displayed by the girl, and was surprised to see her careful manipulation of the phone. He noticed the screen wasn’t cracked, which would have made sense for an aggressive teenager. Every second I spend as one of the League, I see more of their hidden deaths, even in dumb stuff like this… “Okay, there! As nondescript as possible. And I even changed my screensaver to a lame factory standard saver! Yuck!”

“Mine’s a big cheeseburger!” Twice said, winking at Keigo, for some reason. 

“Perfect. If anyone looks at your phones, they won’t notice anything suspicious for a few seconds, at least. Not that anyone should notice anything, anyway…Compress, Himiko…it’s time to become other people. Jin…give us reinforcements. And Dabi-”

“I know my role, don’t get your feathers ruffled. Let me just stretch a bit before…I’m sure all my muscles will end up cramped…”

Keigo had given what was arguably the more difficult task to Dabi, Compress and Toga, to infiltrate Tartarus in perfect stealth, and fulfill all the objectives they could until time ran out. If things turned sour, being imprisoned right there in Tartarus would probably be the best future they could look forward to…

Meanwhile, Hawks would only make a very, very brief appearance in Tartarus, make a bit of small talk…and then his team would make their way to the Comission’s true headquarters, a brutalist fortress of concrete and steel just in front of the Diet Building. 

From the moment Hawks had told the HPSC Chairwoman, Hana Ishigami, about the extent of the threat posed by the Liberation Front, the HPSC leadership had bunkered down in their Tokyo fortress, a building that could withstand nuclear attacks and was said to be strong enough to stop even All Might himself from breaching the gates…

But of course, Hawks would not be attacking from the front. And even with all the hardened concrete and steel…there were weak spots to be exploited. Tiny fractures in the cement that would never have been detected by anyone without feathers that could feel the slightest vibration as the air brushed around and through them, angles that might appear perfectly defensible to just about anyone, hero or villain…

But could be exploited by the only people that knew the fortress like a home. 

“Here you go.” Keigo said, handing Himiko a small, police-issued handbag that female officers preferred having close by while on duty. The girl had already dressed up in the uniform of a Tartarus Guard Force Lieutenant; the sleeves and pant legs bunched up a bit, as they belonged to a taller officer…but she’d grow into them . “Every second counts, Himiko.”

“I know.” she moved in and gave Keigo a very energetic hug, then smiled, “Thank you!”

“For…the bag? I mean, it’s essential to get inside. The contents, you know…”

“No, silly!” she hugged him harder, and Keigo found himself returning the hug. Is this what having a sister feels like? “Thank you for being a hero that looks out for the little guy. That looks out for us . That wants to save everyone, not just those the bosses say can be saved .”

“Hey…I’m sure your UA friends feel the same…probably.” Keigo shrugged. “You’ll probably have it easiest…you already infiltrated a highly secure event, didn’t you?”

“That exam…it was fun to be Camie!” she said, then donned the Tartarus Guard Force hat, “This hat looks just the same as my Shiketsu hat…but it’s a size bigger. Lieutenant Sumeragi has a big head…”

“It will get you inside. After that…”

“I will improvise.” Himiko said, and reached for the blood bag inside a cryogenically-cooled compartment in the little backpack. “Thank you for your donation, Lieutenant! This blood is going to the children in need, after all…which means, me! Bottoms up!”

As Toga drank the entire blood donation unit in one go, Keigo briefly regretted having raided the nearest blood bank several hours earlier, using his stealth and his feather detection to steal three blood bags for Toga, all of them sourced from a recent blood drive imposed on the Tartarus Guard Force by Warden Shishikura, commander of the prison garrison…and father of one of Camie Utsushimi’s classmates. Better not to let Shishikura find out Toga is on the loose in his prison…or he might take out his son’s fright on the girl. 

“Healthy, healthy blood!” Toga said, licking her lips. “This is more than enough for 24 hours…I don’t know the Lieutenant one bit, so I won’t have her Quirk…but I’ll make do.” Toga said, shifting into her new appearance, growing several inches taller and more muscular. “Oh sweet! It’s a tanned tomboy with short hair! I’ve always wanted to be one of these!” she said, twirling around merrily. 

Meanwhile, Twice had been studying the measurements of half a dozen Tokyo Metropolitan Police SWAt officers, and Compress had dressed himself as a SWAT sergeant. Too handsome to be a cop, is what I’d usually say, but that Detective Tsukauchi kinda has those rugged, handsome looks…Focus, Hawks. 

“Okay!” Twice said, “I am ready! I can make the cop clones right away!”  

“And I’m just about ready to be a leader of men! An officer and a gentleman!” Compress added, until Toga whispered in his ear, “Oh, bummer, sergeants are not officers…Well, they can take my gentle manners from my cold, dead hand, and slightly colder, inactive prosthetic.”

“As for me…get on with it.” Dabi said, curling into a ball on the ground. 

With a swipe of his hand, Compress turned Dabi into a marble, and proudly showed his handiwork to Hawks. “Whoah…he’s tiny right there.”

“It’s like a Super Monkey Ball character!” Toga exclaimed, which sounded very weird with Lieutenant Sumeragi’s voice. “Go ahead, compress the rest!” 

Nodding, Compress next swiped several large duffle bags, filled with useful goodies they would need for the mission. He handed half the marbles to Toga, then pocketed the rest himself. He placed Dabi’s marble in a pocket on the chest of his tactical SWAT vest, then asked, “Umm, Twice…I was wondering something?” 

“Yeah?” Twice said, “Be quick about it, we’re nearly there!”

“Will the clones be…you know…armed?” Compress said, “We procured a disguise for myself but…no rifle, no pistol, nothing at all. I am as well armed as a cosplayer…and not even one with a decent enough paper weapon…”

“Oh…I…Hawks…will my Quirk give ‘em guns?” Twice said, “Bro, I’ve never done an attack of the clones like that, you know? But if I can…”

“Just make them as you can, Jin.” Keigo said, smiling and placing a hand on his friend’s shoulder. 

“I’ve GOT THIS!” Jin said, and, with confidence, used his Quirk to produce three clones of himself. Then each clone produced two of the cops Keigo had told him to study, and they materialized in front of the crew from a base of brown mud.

Keigo had picked six SWAT officers out of the hundreds in Tokyo Metro PD, looking for the ones that were best known for following orders… any orders. The six officers that would follow Toga’s commands without question, as long as she pretended to be Lieutenant Sumeragi.

As each clone started blinking into consciousness, the four Twices ran like hell, jumping into some nearby bushes. They were well out of sight by the time the six cops were wide awake. 

“Sasaki! Saotome! Ginji! Wake up!” Toga started screaming at the SWAT cops, fully kitted out, but (miraculously) unarmed. “Shinji, you little shit! Everyone in your precinct said you were slow, but DAMN! Move it! You two, there, what are you blinking for? Don’t you recognize an officer? Tartarus Guard Force is no joke! MOVE!”

The clones started pulling themselves together, stammering some responses, but Toga caught them off. “Look at you! Confused! Disoriented! Can barely stand on your own two feet! We got hit by a villain’s Quirk fifteen minutes ago. A hero already came and defeated the villain, even went ahead with the rest of the team and our van, to Saitama Prefecture Low Security prison. That weak was the guy that did that to you.”

“We got hit by…a Quirk?” one asked, holding his forehead tightly. “I don’t remember…I don’t remember how I got here. Where are we? Why?”

“Tartarus Guard Force requisitioned a squad of cops for a prisoner transfer.” Hawks said, making sure all gazes were on him. “Because I asked them to. And the Commission asked me.” Hawks said, then flashed the forged documents he had prepared last night and printed at the Gunga Mountain villa. 

“That…looks legit.”

“Who’s the prisoner?”

“Some chick in her thirties. Kaina Tsutsumi.” Hawks replied, nonchalantly. “Purple hair or something. I didn’t ask. Also, the L.T. here has an unscheduled interview with another prisoner on the same cell block, some shithead called Kai Chisaki.” 

“I know that name.” one of the cops grumbled, “Yakuza. Piece of shit. The prison didn’t provide prosthetic arms for him, right?”

“Just so.” Hawks said, “Now…you’ll have that visit with Chisaki, then pick up the prisoner, Tsutsumi, and grab a van from lockup. The drive to Abbadon Interim Prison, in the mountains, will take you an hour or two. There an HPSC team will take over.”

“Easy day, Hawks.” One of the cops, Shinji, said, saluting. 

By quickly convincing them of the ruse and giving them orders to follow, the League had sidestepped the chance that the guards might do something rash and dangerous…

“We will also rearm at the prison. Shotguns and assault rifles.” Shinji said, and Hawks felt a bead of cold sweat running down his forehead. Well…that will make your escape a whole lot more difficult, Kaina-senpai…

“Enough yapping! We’re close enough to Tartarus! Double time it, men! You too, Tanaka!” she said, slapping Compress’ shoulder, and the gentleman mage joined the column, huffing and puffing as the other cops, extremely fit and trained, started running quickly down the road towards the bridge checkpoint at tartarus. 

“Well, so far so good…” Keigo said, as Twice emerged from the bushes, flanked by his clones. “I’ll do my part here quickly, Jin. Then we take the van right into the heart of Tokyo. Deal?”

“Dude…I’m excited as hell. This really could work!” Jin said, and this time no voice contradicted him. He had full confidence in Keigo’s plan…and it made Keigo want to cry. I wish I’d been on your side all along, Jin…

Himiko Toga felt a wave of fear washing over her as she trotted to the “Bronze Gate” gatehouse at the end of the Tartarus bridge. The black bridge was long as hell, stretching almost five kilometers off the coast to a manmade island. 

Toga waved energetically at the gatehouse guards, who opened a metal slit at eye level and looked at her with suspicion. The Bronze Gate, contrary to its name, was pitch black. Titanium, she guessed, or perhaps reinforced steel, designed to withstand punches from superpowered people like All Might…though probably nowhere near strong enough to really be on that level, it was nevertheless much stronger than anything Himiko could throw at it.

“Hello!” she said, trotting up to the gate. “I’m Lieutenant-”

“Sumeragi.” a gate guard interrupted with a clipped tone. “You reported sick . Why the hell are you here?”

“You better not be contagious .” the other guard added. “A flu outbreak among the guard force, traced back to a single culprit…Shishikura will fire you on the spot.”

Himiko swallowed hard, nervously. This was NOT on the cover story! Hawks! What the hell? “I…I got better! Just some vitamin C, y’know…”

“...why are you speaking in a Kansai accent?” 

Shit! “I usually hide it, mamma said it made me sound like a Yakuza and not a proper young lady but…I’m trying to live more authentically, y’know…”

“...right.” the guards didn’t seem too convinced, and their scrutiny was shifting to the SWAT clones, when Hawks swooped in, literally. 

“Hey, fellas!” he said, casually obstructing the view with his wings. “Here’s the orders. All signed by the Commission.” The guards eyed the papers carefully, and one tried snatching it from Hawks’ hands. “Nuh-uh! Chairwoman Ishigami said she’d serve my corpse at the next HPSC leadership dinner, slow roasted and spiced with lemon and pepper, if I lost my papers, so…I’m not about to let the docs out of sight, guardsman!”

“You think you’re hot shit, eh?” the first guard asked, all but spitting the words, “That protocol doesn’t apply to you because you’re a top hero?”

“Oh no!” Hawks said, chuckling. Then his tone turned cold, “If I ignored protocol, I’d just jump over your big door over here with a single flap of my wings. And if you tried stopping me, I’d chop off your pinky finger with a stray feather. I’d fly top speed to the prison, finish my business, and be back here before you’d even stopped the bleeding.”

“Fucking try it . Half the guard force is just itching to show you so-called pros who really put in the work to keep Japan safe.” the guard said, and Himiko could see the guy was reaching for a very advanced looking submachine gun. She wondered if Hawks wore any sort of bulletproof clothing, or if he could maybe protect himself with his wings…

“Don’t worry, my good guardsman!” Hawks said, all cheer again, “I will respect protocol…which includes riding in your quaint little golf carts across the bridge?”

“Their name is “Personnel Shuttles” and you will refer to them as such.” the second guard said, then slammed a button. A heartbeat later, a buzzing siren nearly deafened Himiko’s ears, and flashing red and white lights on top of the Bronze Gate nearly burned her retinas. 

The massive gate started opening, just enough to let Himiko, Compress, Hawks and the cloned cops through. Then the gate was shut behind them with an echoing clang . Himiko looked back at the gate in awe and a little bit of fear; it was at least five meters tall and almost as thick…and completely flat. 

She was an agile climber, thanks to having lived on the streets for a few years now, and was no stranger to vaulting over fences or climbing up a building’s facade…but this gate just seemed impassable. Unless I learn to fly… She looked at Hawks, who was directing the SWAT clones, by now much less confused and as mission focused as a Twice clone could be, to sit in what really looked like a bigger version of a golf cart. 

She sat down on a free seat and looked out to the rough sea beyond the bridge. They really picked an ugly place for their prison. The nastiest bit of coastline that’s still connected to Tokyo by road. And the island beyond…

As the golf carts started their automated journey to Tartarus, Himiko’s mind returned to some mythology books she’d read as a kid. At least when going through the river Styx to visit Hades and the dead, there’s a funny li’l boatman, Charon! You have to pay him, that’s a bummer, but you aren’t sailing all alone…Tartarus was just a nasty hole they shoved the Titans in and put a gate to seal them. Then they forgot the key…

The automated carts were not fast, but they were comfortable. The sea breeze, the plush seats…Himiko let herself daydream a little about being a golf superstar playing a championship game in a beach golf course, palm trees and fresh cocktails, and maybe Izuku beside her as they drove a cart. 

She was further into her fantasy, picturing Izuku in a polo shirt and some slacks that draped over his nice butt and left little to the imagination, and also adding in Ochako Uraraka as her friendly rival golfer, when the “Personnel Shuttles” abruptly stopped. 

They had finally reached the prison. 

“Well, this has been remarkably pleasant thus far…” Compress said, before joining the SWAT clones in a tactical formation. 

“Officers!” Himiko said, back in her cover identity, but remembering to omit the Kansai accent. Well, not every Osaka native is proud of that heritage. Sumeragi clearly wasn’t… “Quick, march! To the inner gatehouse!”

Hawks flew leisurely, matching their pace, as they met the inner gate’s guards. These ones were content to scan Hawks’ documents by sight alone, and didn’t spare a second glance to Himiko and her squad of cops. Seeing eight police officers and a pro hero was an everyday thing for them, clearly.

They were waved in, past a door just as massive as the Bronze Gate…though this one wasn’t flat. Its surface was covered with cameras, infrared imaging equipment…and weapons. Tear gas launchers, heavy duty taser turrets, even a set of heavy miniguns.

A visible laser aimed itself right in the middle of Himiko’s chest, and she suddenly felt anxious. What if they spot Compress? He donned a balaclava and tactical goggles, but his ARM! The long gloves and full sleeves might hide the metal but…what if they use thermal cameras?   

“Let’s just hurry.” Hawks said, once again blocking the two League members with his ample wings. He gave Himiko a knowing wink; he had been thinking the same! 

Inside they came face to face with a trio of pro heroes with multiple arms. 

“Well well! If it isn’t the Hecatonchires Triplets!” Hawks said, swooping into their midst and starting to shake hands, laughing out loud as he shook several right hands with one of them. Himiko didn’t know which was which; Cottus, Briareos, Gyges…

If we’re found out, these big boys will be leading the charge…  

“Hawks!” said the one who appeared to be a leader. His voice seemed to echo and reverberate, as if more than one person was speaking at once through the same throat, probably as a side effect of his mutant Quirk. “We had no word you were coming! We would have told the gate guards to expect you…you know how they are.”

“I do…I had some banter with them.”

“They reported that you threatened them…classic Hawks!” another triplet said, booming with laughter. “Anyway…which prisoner are you here for?”

“Oh me? I am just a messenger. It’s L.T: Sumeragi here to pick up the prisoner.”

“Sumeragi?” the third triplet asked, squinting at her from behind his masked helmet.”

“Hiya, fellas!” she said, waving energetically. The three lit up, and one sighed in relief. 

“Oh I’m so glad you’re okay. That stomach infection in your leave request sounded horrible!”

“I was very brave and powered through it!” Himiko replied, holding up a beefy bicep and making the heroes laugh again. Oh good. They like Sumeragi. They’ll be nice to me. 

“The Warden, though…if he sees you around, expect extra duty. You missed a couple hours in your shift already, Lieutenant…and the Warden is not easily pleased by slackers. Even if they bring joy to everyone else…”

“As soon as I finish with my current Commission duties, I will report to him personally.” Himiko promised, and the Tartarus guardian heroes led them into a fortified concrete building. A cross between a bunker entrance and a guardhouse, it was right next to the vehicle depot.

Hawks subtly pointed towards one of the prisoner transfer vans, and both Compress and Himiko noticed a driver already lounging by it. Just how much work did Hawks do last night? He really is too fast at everything…I hope he’s just as quick and effective in the rest of his plan. If Jin gets hurt I’ll never forgive it…

Turning back into the bunker-like entrance, Himiko led the SWAT guards inside. “Whoah…I’ve never been here. It really looks like a tunnel entrance into Hell…”

“Yeah, if they had OSHA compliant metal stairs there, Shinji. Focus already.”

“Gimme a break, the red ambient lights, the humidity, the echoes of the ocean all around…It IS hellish, Saotome.”

Himiko saw Compress shudder, noticing even more security cameras everywhere. But whereas he saw the danger they posed, Himiko saw their blind spots. The surveillance was fairly robust, she saw…but it was not perfect. Only 87% of the space is correctly covered by the cameras, not enough overlap in some areas. They can compensate with human guards, or roving drones, but…I can move here. Just like the exam! 

“Okay, then.” Hawks said, clapping his hands. He handed “Sumeragi” the papers and said aloud, “Take care of these. It’ll be both our heads if the HPSC sees you lose them.”

“You aren’t staying, Hawks?” One of the triplets, that Himiko was thinking was Briareos, looked at the #2 hero expectantly, “Come on, at least have a meal with us. You know how bored we are here on guard duty…at least tell us of some new adventure…”

“Can’t!” Hawks replied, tapping Himiko’s shoulder and giving her a look that seemed to say ‘Focus, this will be important’. “Gotta fly. Lieutenant, great as always. You’re one of the good ones, here in Tartarus.”

He extended his hand and Himiko shook it…and saw that Hawks had given her a full set of discreet, almost invisible earpieces. With sleight of hand trained by years of knife tricks, Himiko had hidden the earpieces long before anyone noticed she had been given anything. 

And with a casual tug to move a strand of her short brown tomboyish hair out of the way, her earpiece was in place.

She had been given enough for Compress, Dabi…and their future recruit, Lady Nagant. 

Himiko turned to Cottus, Briareos and Gyges as Hawks took flight, leaving Tartarus as fast as a bird of prey. “Okay, fellas!” she said, “I have a quick visit with Kai Chisaki. Just a couple questions, for an ongoing HPSC investigation.”

“An investigation? Which hero agencies are involved?” the one she was pretty sure was Cottus asked.

“The Nighteye Agency. I mean…whatever they’re called now.” Himiko improvised, remembering that Izuku had been an intern there during the Yakuza hideout raid. “They did the arrest, after all…”

“Is it about the…you know? The little girl?” the third brother, likely Gyges, asked, as he led Himiko, Compress and the clones to a transport gondola that traveled into the depths of the Earth diagonally; most of Tartarus’ most secure sections were completely undersea. 

“Yeah.” Himiko said, and it was partially true. If the Quirk eraser bullets can save Tomura…we MUST use them. “Something like that.”

“I see…rough stuff, that case.” Gyges replied, as he keyed in the commands and the gondola started descending deeper into the tunnels, red wall lights all around them emitting a dim crimson hue. Hell indeed…

“The prisoner transfer is Kaina Tsutsumi, on the same floor. Cell C-46.” Himiko said, remembering the information Hawks had given them. “Fifth cell block.”

“You usually never go so deep, Sumeragi.” Briareos chimed in. “But at least it isn’t as creepy as the sixth, deepest level. Being there gives me chills every time . That bastard, All for One…”

“I plan to stay as far away from that monster as I can.” Himiko lied. The plan would take her there…and every second the mission proceeded smoothly, that moment got closer.  

She had always been a little scared of Tomura’s “Sensei”. The man’s voice was all she had known before the battle against All Might, and even then it had unnerved Himiko. But now that she knew the plan AFO and Garaki had for Tomura and the rest of the League…she was terrified of All for One.

There was also something else; All for One had been interested in Izuku. He had not said why, but it didn’t matter. If Izuku was a target, just like Tomura, then Himiko would just have to kill the supervillain to protect two people she cared about. The “how” part of killing him…well…we aren’t exactly weak in the League. And we’ll show that potato faced asshole! 

The gondola descended further down slowly. The mechanical gears whirred all around them. She knew this wasn’t the only way to reach the deeper cells, or even the most efficient one; there were normal elevators and stairs descending, all blocked by strong metal doors, of course, and plenty of service corridors…but Tartarus had been designed to emulate hell. And the visceral feeling of being devoured by Earth’s unrelenting maw probably did a lot to break the prisoners’ spirits…

The journey down took almost ten minutes. Gyges led them to a tunnel entrance, while his brothers secured the gondola’s landing. At the tunnel, they were met by a pair of Tartarus Guard Force elites in full riot gear and big shotguns, escorted by a pair of dog drone robots. 

And, just around the corner, Himiko saw an armored mech, standing three meters tall and four wide, bipedal, armed with a heavy machine gun and a launcher for tear gas and an electric taser net. 

Himiko’s breath caught in her throat. Oh fuck this…This is dangerous…and this isn’t even the deepest level! 

“Sumeragi, is that you?” the muffled voice of one of the guards said, his hand tightening on his shotgun’s grip.

“It is me, yes!” she said, and handed over the papers. 

“...not your usual wheelhouse, is it?” the other guard asked. 

“Not really. But when the Commission asks, I answer.” Himiko said, shrugging. 

“You mask that ambition behind a bubbly facade. You’re a climber, aren’t you?” the first guard replied, chuckling and giving the papers back. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were aiming for Warden Shishikura’s job.”

“Well…I sure would like a pay raise.” Himiko said, chuckling. 

“You’re alright.” the second guard said. “Just…don’t let anyone hear you saying that. At least not on levels three and above. All of us down here, with the shit jobs…we don’t give a fuck who sits in the chair. Might as well be you.”

“Gyges, don’t rat out the tomboy. The leadership really could use a change of pace.” the first guard said, and led Himiko down the corridor. 

“I’m covering my lips with six pairs of hands. Not a peep from this hero.” Gyges words were soon lost in the distance as the squad moved in. 

“I imagine you will want privacy.” The guard said, tilting his helmeted head a little to the side. “Want me to take your boys to the cell block’s armory while you speak with that prisoner?”

“That would be awesome. See you at C-46 in ten?”

“You got it, L.T:” The guard saluted, and led her clones away, as well as Mr. Compress.

“When I return, I shall bear the accouterments befitting my rank.” Compress said, waving at Himiko, and she was left all alone in front of Overhaul’s cell. 

“Well…here it goes.” she said, and slammed her fist three times against the fortified metal door. Then she slid open a small viewport that let her peer into the cell, where she saw Kai Chisaki, staring at the door in disbelief. 

He was a mess. His eyes were crazy, moving from side to side as if he was keeping track of a pack of wolves closing in on him. The shadow of beard stubble covered his face, and his expression was one of absolute desperation. He was broken , and it was fucking tragic . Even if he had killed big sis Magne, Himiko’s friend…the guy in front of her was just…so broken. 

“Who…who are you?” Overhaul shrieked. Himiko saw his sleeves were empty, and flapped to his sides limply. Fuck! They didn’t even give him some prosthetics to wipe his own butt. He deserved our vengeance for Magne…and for the little girl, Eri, but…goddamn. This is the government “justice” we have to change. That Hawks needs to change. “What do you want from me?”

“Kai Chisaki.” Himiko said. She looked around…and saw the hallway camera would see her if she transformed fully. She wanted to ask her questions as Himiko Toga…but maybe a partial transformation was the best she could do in the circumstances she found herself. “I have two questions.”

“You…you are a cop? A guard?”

“Not exactly.” Himiko’s face morphed back to her own, uncanny as the rest of her head was still Sumeragi’s. 

Overhaul shrieked in shock and leapt back a step, “YOU! YOU TRAITOR! I will never, ever help you. This…all of this…It is as much YOUR fault as it is Deku’s, or Lemillion’s…or Eri’s.”

“Good thing I don’t need your help, really.” Toga said. “But…I can offer you something. Something you want.”

“There is NOTHING you can say that will change-”

“Your Boss is alive.” Himiko said. Hawks had found out that the Yakuza boss was indeed alive, and that advances in medical tech might one day revive him. It was a process that might take months, but they felt confident it was doable…and Himiko would stretch out the truth a little. “We know you put him in a coma to take over your group. We know you have been worried about him ever since they arrested you. Especially after Tomura and Compress took your Quirk away. You think nobody can bring him back, unless it was you, right?”

“You…how could some unclean traitor ever learn that?”

“I’m a very silly and curious girl by nature!” Himiko replied, “It doesn’t really matter how I know. What matters is that you’re wrong . The coma won’t last forever. He’ll wake up. You have my word…it will happen.”

“That…that is what you will give me?” Overhaul said, blinking in shock. “You will undo my greatest mistake?”

“Your greatest? You fucking PIECE OF SHIT! You weaponized a little girl ! You murdered my friend! You don’t get to call some old man in a coma your “greatest mistake”...”

“Do not lecture me. I know my sins full well, and don’t need a brat to tell me what to regret. Is it my reward or not?”

“The reward is getting you two to talk!” Himiko said. “I don’t wanna. I really don’t wanna give you anything . But I need the answers, Chisaki.”

“Talk with the Boss again?” Overhaul’s eyes glazed over, and he actually smiled . “I will do it. I will answer truthfully.”

“First, What do you know of the All for One Quirk?”

“Just the legends and the whispers of the inmates here.” Overhaul said, “And what I could see in the footage from Kamino. I have my theories, too. But if you want the hard facts, the indisputable? All for One is a Quirk that lets the user wield several powers at once. Rumor and myth say he steals these powers, the emergence of your League’s synthetic Nomu monsters hints at the power being replicable somehow, on a smaller scale. My hypothesis is that All for One can freely give and take Quirks, and use them himself.”

“That’s…pretty much it.” Himiko replied, “At least…that is how Garaki explained it. But there’s another factor…it comes with a personality imprint.”

“Yet another damn curse within Quirks.” Chisaki grimaced, “If you are even theorizing about such a…such an imprint , that must mean a copy exists.”

“Garaki took the original Quirk and grafted a copy into the man we call All for One.” Himiko said, her tone serious, concerned. “And the original Quirk-”

“Will be given to Tomura Shigaraki.” Overhaul concluded. His eyes, earlier wild and desperate, were now sharp and focused again. “If it was anyone else it would not make sense. But your leader…Yes, that is why you came here.”

“Can your bullets erase it? The AFO Quirk?”

Chisaki was quiet for a moment, then he spoke, “Eri’s Quirk in its raw, natural state, is a very, very powerful Quirk. When activated without care, it will rewind an adult into nothingness in mere instants. This is what happened to the girl’s father; he was brought back to his earliest, most primeval stage. As it was, the girl could only affect a living organism as a whole.

“But with a certain biochemical refinement, the girl’s raw materials could be focused , concentrated. With the right catalyst, Rewind would target a person’s Quirk factor directly, and rewind it back to a state where the factor was isolated in the genes themselves, disconnected entirely. THIS is how Lemillion lost his Quirk.”

“You had a plan to undo it, didn’t you?”

“I did. The theory exists; Rewind can be refined to restore Quirks just as it can be refined to take them. A natural balance, a counterweight…but that part of the project was never the priority like the Quirk eraser was.”

“So…can your bullets erase a Quirk like All for One?”

Chisaki shrugged, “You might think I just experimented like a cartoon villain, laughing maniacally as I atomized Eri again and again and simply bottled up the condensed Quirk factor in her DNA. But I ran the math. I am not an idiot savant…my Quirk requires… required unimaginable levels of math.”

“Well…I only finished middleschool. I stabbed a cute boy at the graduation ceremony, drank his blood…Wait, you’ll think I’m easy , won’t you, judgemental asshole? Izuku’s cuter, and his blood tastes sweeter. Anyway…I got lost…Just…skip the math! Gimme results!”

“Each of the Quirk erasing bullets we had by the time of your betrayal has more than enough material to remove a Quirk of the power level befitting a top ranking pro hero or A-list villain. It could take away my power. That student you kidnapped?”

“Ughhh, Bakugou.” Himiko said. Only months after the kidnapping she had learned that Bakugou was Izuku’s childhood bully, and had nearly stabbed Tomura for the plan. Great thing it backfired! “Listen, I have no idea what we were thinking at the time. He was the worst possible recruit! Even Muscular was nicer. And Muscular is Muscular! Maybe Tomura wanted to dye Bakugou’s hair, dress him up with a coat and have a second Dabi.”

“...why the hell would you people want two Dabis?” Overhaul asked. The conversation had quickly turned bizarre.

 “We can burn stuff twice as fast, it’s pretty awesome when twice clones him!” Himiko replied excitedly. “Anyway…my answer, Chisaki.”

“Right.” Chisaki sighed, “A single bullet is enough for Endeavor, Hawks, Miruko or any of those. It is more than enough for you and each of your friends. A single human’s Quirk factor reaches only a certain threshold naturally…even with the whole projection for the Quirk Singularity and the rates of increase in power we see in statistics today. A single bullet should have been enough to erase a single Quirk for the next 167 years.”

“That number is…specific.”

“I may have failed in achieving my grand plan…but I did not make my bullets without backing them up by theory. Now…the question is…does each Quirk stolen by All for One have the same amount of Quirk factor in it? Look into my cell, see that machine by the bed? That is an autoinjector. Every morning and every night, each prisoner here gets a mandatory injection. It administers a medical grade Quirk blocker that lasts for 12 hours. If All for One is only getting one injection, then a single bullet should do it. If not…”

“It may take as many as one bullet per Quirk…”

“Garaki told you how many were implanted?”

Himiko shuddered, “Several hundred…”

“And how many bullets do you have?”

“...just five.” Himiko replied. She wanted to cry. Their best option, their biggest weapon…seemed as effective now as a water pistol.

“You must find All for One here.” Overhaul said, “If the guards weren’t keeping his Quirks dormant…he would have escaped already. Even if your Doctor Garaki left him with a clone of his power, and removed any Quirks…he is still the man I saw fighting All Might. These metal walls…imposing, for sure but…even I could walk out, if I still had hands. For a true monster …He’d have a pretty decent chance.”

“He won’t get one.” Himiko replied, her voice cold.

“I pray you will succeed. And…that you will keep your word.”

Himiko did not reply. If the plan somehow worked…maybe she would try to set up that talk with Overhaul and his mentor. If the plan didn’t work, everything would burn, and it would no longer matter. 

She morphed her face back to Lieutenant Sumeragi’s, turned to the hallway cameras and gave them each a nod. None of them had microphones; the prison did not monitor what the guards said to the inmates, only their actions; there would be no beatings going on without the Warden finding out but insults? For sure. 

She stepped away from Chisaki’s cell, shaken. Her hopes on the plan had almost been dashed… almost . Tomura’s future and that of Japan at large, would now hinge on dealing with All for One.

Well, how hard can it be? Dabi, Compress and i will jump the bastard while he’s tied down and with his Quirks dulled out. We’d never win in a straight fight…but I’m way too bisexual for a straight fight. 

She giggled under her breath as she rounded a corner, getting close to Lady Nagant’s cell…when she almost crashed against a man with purple hair and small, beady, despective eyes full of cruel intelligence. Had it not been for a rich, neatly trimmed mustache, she would have thought the man was Seiji Shisikura, Camie’s classmate. 

Seiji had been the closest to figuring out Himiko’s identity when disguised as Camie. he had suspected from the start, and had been downright evil with his interrogation. Himiko had managed to exasperate the guy into leaving her alone, and had been rather successful after that…but another day or two with the Shiketsu students and she would have been found out and exposed. 

And this man was clearly Seiji’s father, Warden Shishikura. 

“S-sir!” Himiko said, standing straight and saluting energetically, a split second after remembering that cops seemed to salute each other here in Tartarus. 

Shishikura pierced her with a glance, and did not return the salute. “Sumeragi. You called in sick .”

“My mother’s chicken soup was all I needed, Warden Commander!”

“Your mother is dead .” Shishikura replied. 

“Ah…I mean…her family recipe. Passed down for generations…”

“Chicken soup, huh?” Shishikura raised a sharp eyebrow. “I smell no chicken broth. I smell excuses . you think guarding Tartarus is a game?”

“N-no, sir!”

Warden Shishikura scoffed. “You have not impressed me yet, Sumeragi. You are not leadership material. And your current assignment, that you apparently got the call to complete while “sick”...tread carefully, Lieutenant. The Commission may seem like good allies for career progression. They are not . The HPSC is a cutthroat organization. You should do your best to avoid them. Do your job here and I will reward it.”

He moved closer and whispered in Himiko’s ear. “The nail that sticks out gets hammered down, Sumeragi. Don’t try and play games with me for something as small as a pay raise . Transfer your prisoner quickly. You have a double shift ahead of you. Sewage duty .” He pressed his hand against Himiko’s transformed, muscular shoulder and he squeezed until it hurt. 

“If I hear about any other ambitions from you from here on out, bypassing the chain of command and contacting the Commission directly…Consider that personnel layoffs from Tartarus Guard Force are in the public record…and many inmates still have friends out there. Watch your back.”

“Yes…yes sir!”

The Warden Commander started to leave, then said, “And one more thing, Sumeragi. Fix your uniform. You are an officer . I expect better. I won’t fire you for looking like a mess…but you should have some fucking dignity .”

Himiko looked down at her uniform. It looked as cop-like as possible, she had no idea what could be improved. Shishikura is just being an asshole, I guess? I’m so, so sorry for the trouble we’re putting you in but…hey, maybe when I’m Supreme Vice-Admiral Captain of the Japanese Parliament, I will give you a better job! 

The Warden left, scoffing. Under normal circumstances, Himiko really would have liked shanking the guy, but not today. She all but sprinted down the corridor and found her squad of clones, with Compress sticking to the wall in an effort to avoid being seen as much as possible. 

“Okay! You ready?” she asked, noticing that her clone cops were now very heavily armed. Compress was also holding a submachine gun, a classic MP5, though rather unconvincingly, as if it might bite him at any moment. He tapped his earpiece, and Himiko heard him whispering. 

“This part will be a walk in the park. What’s next…It concerns me.”

Then Hawks’ voice chimed in. “You must be at Nagant’s cell?”

“Okay, okay, who has the key? Shinji?”

“Yes, ma'am.” The SWAT cop stepped forward, key in hand, and Himiko motioned for him to open it. 

“Has the prisoner been given Quirk blockers for the journey?” one of the cops asked.

Before anyone could check, Himiko said, “Yes, yes, it’s all in the papers here. Just open the door, I want to see her before you take her away.”

“Alright.” the cop with the keys said, and quickly unlocked the cell door. He opened it, and Himiko walked through.

Where Overhaul had been a broken mess, Kaina Tsutsumi was very much not. A beautiful woman in her late thirties stared back at Himiko, a thick eyebrow barely raised. Her baggy orange prison uniform hid her muscles quite well, but Himiko knew that the woman was a beast, with powerful legs and arms strengthened for combat, with a strong back and core to match. 

She had an air of understated, subtle refinement about her, as if she was a warrior princess, undaunted by her environment and just as regal in an orange jumpsuit as she would have been in a ball gown. 

She sat on the floor in a lotus position, and did not interrupt her breathing exercises to acknowledge the newcomers. 

“Hiya!” Himiko said, grinning. Tsutsumi’s face barely shifted. “You’re getting transferred to a different prison, C-46. The boys here will drive you there.” Himiko pointed at her SWAT clones, who greeted the prisoner politely.

“Transferred?” the woman who had once been Lady Nagant asked, “Odd. I thought I would be here for life.” 

“Not anymore. Let’s go!”

A soft smile spread along Nagant’s lips…and a dangerous glint flashed in her eyes. Oh she’s ready to go. “I don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. I don’t have any possessions, we can leave right away.”

She rose to her feet in a single, graceful movement and Himiko had to make an effort to keep her mouth shut. Hawks, how long were you going to keep this lady a secret? I want her to be my sister…or my mom! She must adopt me and make me cool like her! 

“Great! Just…a quick search. Won’t hurt any, right?” Himiko said, and ran her hands along Nagant’s pockets. They exchanged a look, as if she was asking “What the fuck is actually going on?”, but Toga just kept going with her halfhearted search…until she reached the prisoner’s shirt lapels. 

Casually, she brushed a strand of Nagant’s hair back, and slid the earpiece in at the same moment. 

Before anyone saw it, Nagant let her hair fall back in place, fully covering the earpiece from anyone’s sight. 

“Hello there, Nagant-senpai! You might be wondering “what the fuck is going on?” “Why am I being moved?” and “Who does this charming voice belong to?”...All will be answered right away, never fear.”

Himiko saw Nagant chuckle and shake her head. In a whisper, the former heroine said, “I know the voice. Hawks…my successor. This must be the Commission’s orders, then? You were still a boy when last I saw you…I really hope that you will kill me yourself . That’s what they want, isn’t it?”

“Actually…I couldn’t care any less what the Commission wants. Not anymore.” Hawks said, and Nagant’s eyes brightened almost triumphantly . “We’re breaking free, Senpai…and I want your help for it.”

“The meds will be keeping my Quirk blocked for two hours more. You have two hours to convince me. If I like your plan..”

“A friend will meet you along the road. I will need you to be in Tokyo to take a shot.”

“Come on, then.” Nagant said, out loud. “Slow is smooth, smooth is fast, and every step away from here will be better than the last.” And then, whispering into the earpiece, “And with the right vantage point…I have dreamed about the perfect shot. The right bullet, the expected recoil. One shot didn’t end a regime, ten years ago…but maybe a second shot will finish what I started.”

Chapter Text

Kaina Tsutsumi, once known as the heroine Lady Nagant, walked through the corridors of the fifth level of Tartarus, dozens of meters underground and underwater. 

They passed the tiny “yard”, a tall, classroom sized hall with padded walls and floor, illuminated by harsh light panels that made up the entire ceiling. When the inmates were let into the yard every three days for an hour, in groups of four, randomly selected so that they would not form bonds or friendships, the lights would be turned up in power, to the point where looking directly at them or at the white padding was likely to cause an inmate to go snowblind for a while. 

The convicts would have a chance to stretch their legs, talk with others, and watch the TV, the only bit of furniture in the room except for sturdy metal benches on the sides. The TV would always be playing the news, and would be the inmates one link to the outside world…and Kaina suspected that they were all fed propaganda directly from the minds of the Hero Public Safety Commission. 

The armed cops escorted Kaina past the yard, then past the kitchens; every cell block had its own kitchen and a ten person staff of cooks, skilled in producing the nastiest, most demoralizing gruel known to man, that would keep the inmates alive and in relative health. It wasn’t exactly the stuff that would be beneficial for muscle growth, but the human body adapted. 

Even eating that scop, Kaina had kept in shape, kept her mind as sharp as it had been when she had been an assassin, and maintained her muscles with care, for the distant, nearly impossible chance of escape. 

She had thought it a futile hope for years. Kaina didn’t even know how long she had been imprisoned; it might have been fifteen years, it might have been ten. She had been twenty years old when she had assassinated the Chairman of the HPSC, Nobuo Takemura, so did that mean she was now thirty? Or thirty five? She shook her head, and felt her limp hair brushing against the nape of her neck. So short…Damn you, Tartarus. 

The guards sedated Kaina, secured her to a chair and shaved her hair in her own jail cell every two weeks, as a secondary safeguard against Kaina getting full use of her Quirk. Thanks to her Quirk, Rifle, and the side effect mutation of it using hair as ammunition, Kaina’s hair grew very fast, going from a smooth, shiny bald scalp to a rather cute pixie cut in a week, a short bob by one and a half and today, just three days away from her next visit from the “hairstylist”, it looked like a layered, messy wolf cut that she had grown to like…but was taken away from her every goddamn time. 

She hid a grin; if Hawks was telling the truth, she’d be free once again to grow her hair. She had longed for it more than she thought possible, and dreamed about hair care products, feeling a strand of hair between her fingers as it shifted from silky to crystalline to metallic to smooth again…

She made her way to the slanted elevator gondola, her eyes fixing the position of every turret gun along the elevator’s path. She knew perfectly well why they had chosen to make the gondola as they had; the guards had all the cover they could ever want on the upper levels, and a perfect shot at any escapees using the elevator to ascend, and fifty turrets along the path would help them out if their handheld guns weren’t enough. 

And then there were the drones; camera drones moving around, scanning people and objects, dog drones at every level ready to charge at people and headbutt them with taser heads…and a few armed mechs, three meters tall and armored like a SWAT van, equipped with tear gas grenades and machine guns…

It was formidable. For most inmates, the ride up the diagonal tunnel would end very fast if they attempted an escape. Kaina wasn’t one such inmate. With Rifle and a medium ponytail to create ammo, maybe a set of infrared or night vision goggles, she could destroy everything she now saw…though it would take hours. It would inevitably end with her getting swarmed by pro heroes called in as reinforcements and, contrary to what the press had said about her, Kaina had never, ever killed a fellow hero, and she didn’t want to start now.

Even after ten (or fifteen, which she dearly hoped wasn’t the case) years of bitterness, self loathing, anger and resentment that had cooled down to a depressed hope that someone out there would change things in some way , Kaina still felt in her heart a desire to do the right thing. 

The right thing should have meant fighting for justice, to save lives. But she had always been a weapon. That is how the HPSC had seen her, that is how she had been used. And it wasn’t until the blood on her hands had grown too overwhelming that she decided to grow a conscience…far too fucking late. 

Part of her had been grateful to be locked up in prison. She saw it as atoning for those she had killed unjustly, those that had only been guilty in the Commission’s eyes. If her sentence had been only about paying for that crime, Kaina would have even proudly walked to the electric chair.

But it wasn’t. Her prison sentence wasn’t justice. She had been punished for the one thing she was proud of, for the one kill she knew was truly righteous. The lives of dozens of “suspected villains” had been mere numbers in HPSC reports, statistics, details to be summarized by analysts and delivered in one-sentence briefs.

But the life of Chairman Nobuo Takemura, HPSC leader for sixteen years… that had meant something to them. It had taught them the ugly truth that they were still mortal . That even if they could parade superheroes around as a deterrent, even if they could send shadow agents as state sanctioned murderers, the higher ups were just as human as any of the civilians they claimed to protect. Just as killable . 

Lady Nagant’s moment of crime had been Kaina’s first true act of freedom ever since the Commission had approached her as a pre-teen, praising her Quirk, promising scholarships and money and every kind of opportunity that Kaina’s mother, Kasumi, couldn’t refuse. 

Kasumi had never spoken about her past, not when Kaina asked for her father, who had never been there, or when she expressed shock that Kasumi was only fifteen years older than Kaina herself. Only in prison, with time to think and grieve, did Kaina really see how messed up the situation was, and how much Kasumi had sacrificed…and how easy it had been for the Commission bastards to take advantage of Kasumi and Kaina’s situation to make the girl a child soldier . 

As Kaina’s years in prison had lengthened, she had thought long and hard about her mom…and her death. It had been reported as an accident, a hit and run, with nobody getting any pictures or video of the driver, and security camera footage being corrupted over the intersection where it happened. 

In her bitterness, Kaina blamed the Commission for it. She had no proof, none at all…but she suspected it. 

The elevator gondola brought her to the surface little by little. Her gaze traveled from target to target, as she imagined bringing up her Rifle and taking the shot. Headshots for the living, right in the CPU for the guards of carbon and metal…

She sighed heavily. She had been injected with Quirk blockers earlier that day; every cell in Tartarus had an autodoc injector system that would administer daily vitamins, mostly Vitamin D to compensate for the complete lack of natural sunlight inside Tartarus, and Quirk blocker drugs, tailored to each prisoner’s Quirk. In Kaina’s case, the blockers prevented her biomechanical arm rifle from deploying, and left her unable to transform her hair into bullets by removing all keratin-calcium-iron transformation power…which left her hair limp and matted. 

She absolutely HATED that part of the Quirk blockers. She could live without Rifle itself; she was ambidextrous and could hit a target with any firearm, and was even accurate with thrown knives and javelins…but her hair? Soon, Kaina, soon. The drugs will wear out very soon. One hour and a half now, given how slow we have been moving. Maybe not soon enough to shoot any of my guards, but soon…

Once she reached the surface level of Tartarus, Kaina started relaxing a bit. Whatever Hawks had planned, so far it was going smoothly. But if it started going too smoothly, she’d end up simply transferred to another prison…

The SWAT team walked briskly, guiding her out of darkness, and Kaina felt her breath catching as she saw the sun for the first time in more than a decade. I never knew how much I missed it…Good God…

The warm kiss of the sun on her skin was nearly enough to make Kaina cry. It had all been worth it; even if nothing else went right from this point on, even if the guards turned around and filled her with bullets, she could die with a fierce moment of happiness, looking up at a slightly cloudy, windy sky, smelling the scent of the sea salt, and hearing seagulls far away in the distance. 

It was freedom, and they’d have to take her from her cold, dead hands now. 

“This way please, prisoner.” one of the SWAT cops said. They were several times nicer than Kaina’s usual Tartarus guards; the guard force generally became worse and worse the further one went down underground. At Kaina’s fifth level, she knew that all her guards would shoot her if the command was ordered; in the sixth level, she imagined that torture was in their routine, and that they would all be government sanctioned sociopaths, able to kill without hesitation. She wondered how many escapes had already been foiled by those assholes…

The SWAT guys led Kaina to the Tartarus motor pool. If one ignored the massive metal walls around it all, it looked almost like any police station’s parking lot, with patrol cars, SWAT vans, and ambulances. The outliers were five up-armored International MaxxPro ambush protected vehicles, originally designed to resist mines and currently used to tank direct hits from dangerous villain Quirks. If they could keep tanks here, they would…

The cops walked their prisoner to a panel van marked with Tartarus Guard Force logos. Kaina stared at the symbol in disgust; Tartarus had chosen the Tokyo Metropolitan Police’s symbol, flipped it upside down and switched around the colors. In Kaina’s eyes, it was very tacky. Guess it fits a hellish prison. Thank goodness it isn’t the symbol of some cute place, like a cat café…

For about six years, Kaina had been dreaming about cat cafés, unleashing her full imagination to picture cats of all sizes and types, with every possible personality. Fat cats, skinny cats, fluffy, hairless, clingy and aloof. She even threw in rabbits and puppies in her fantasies, and little bear cubs with their tiny round fluffy ears, and even penguins once in a while. 

She didn’t know if she would survive the next hour, or the rest of the day, even if Hawks’ plan worked, but she was determined to fight like hell and be at a cat café by 10 a.m. tomorrow. “I WILL snuggle those cats.” she muttered, with the grim determination of a soldier stepping out of cover to find and destroy her enemy. “I will love them very much. Pat their heads, Feed them kibble. I’ll end my fight today, and tomorrow…Kittens.”

“Did you…say something?” one of the SWAT guys asked as they sat her down in the middle of a bench seat lining one side of the van. The team took positions, some sitting to either side of her, the rest arraying themselves in the bench directly in front of her. 

“Just…talking to myself.” Kaina said. She still had the earpiece, but Hawks was quiet on the other end, and she didn’t hear the guard impostors either. Did they hear my outburst? Will they think I’m insane, muttering about kittens like that? “It’s a difficult habit to avoid when you live in individual cells. Even more so when you can hear a booming voice go “SOLITARY!” for any misstep. That cell is much worse.”

“Ah…I see…” the SWAT guy said, and scratched his neck just below the balaclava. Something about the cloth on their gear is off . Their pouches are the right size, but the cloth looks cheap, as if it had been sewn by some amateur. And their skin looks a bit too sweaty, as well. There’s something strange about them… 

“I apologize in advance if I mutter by accident again…” Kaina said, smiling at the SWAT guy, who blushed under his balaclava and looked away. Lowering her voice again, Kaina whispered softly, “Hawks? Hawks?”

“Here I am.” He sounded calm superficially, but Kaina knew exactly how people like Hawks operated and she knew he was very stressed, under extreme pressure. 

“Sitrep on the guards?” Kaina asked for a situation report, hoping for something useful, efficient. 

“They’re clones.” Hawks said, smugly.

“They are… clones ?” Kaina asked. “I wouldn’t have guessed without the white armor and a space wizard with a laser sword leading them.”

“That reference is positively ancient , senpai!” Hawks chuckled, then said, “It’s a friend’s Quirk. They’re perfect copies of real SWAT officers. They’ve got every skill, every trait. They’re just…made of goo. Jin’s a bit embarrassed that the goo is brown and looks a bit like poop before turning to a clone.”

“Are they…alive?” Kaina asked, eyeing each of her guards in turn. There were six of them, tall and well built. One had taken the driver’s seat, another had called shotgun, and four sat with Kaina. Badly cloned cloth or not, their weapons are real. The ammo in their pouches is real. And I…am in cuffs.

She had been fitted with a set of prison manacles of the style used mostly to physically obstruct Quirks located in the hands, that encased the prisoner’s hands, wrists and a portion of forearms within a liquid-filled container made of titanium plate. In Kaina’s case, it would not prevent her from deploying Rifle in the event the Quirk blockers ran out, but it prevented her from loading any bullets. 

The SWAT guys, definitely not experts in prisoner transport, hadn’t thought of securing Kaina’s manacles to the floor, or cuffing her feet together. Big mistake . 

But they did have guns, two assault rifles, two shotguns, more than enough to kill her in a confined space if she gave them half a chance. 

“Jin’s got a lot of trauma about the clones being fully alive or not. They’re sentient, for sure, but they’re generally obedient so I don’t know how much free will we can say they have…”

“You sure love talking my ear off, kohai.” Kaina muttered, with a little smile. She had not heard many friendly voices in over a decade, and the former HPSC agent was a very, very welcome change. 

“Fuyumi says the same thing.” Hawks said, with some pride, “Rumi too…”

The panel van started up and drove slowly out of the motor pool, and to Tartarus’ inner gate. Kaina was in awe at the size of it…and how much stronger it looked than when she had been put inside Tartarus. 

“Any of them your girlfriend?” Kaina asked, hoping her tone would be a bit teasing. She hadn’t interacted with any guys that she had any reason to trust in years, so she might as well have a little fun with this one.

Hawks chuckled, “Senpai, do I sound like the kind of guy to kiss and tell?”

“Definitely.”

He choked a laugh into a wheeze, then said, “I’m not!” he sounded more relaxed as he continued, “Anyway…Jin says you shouldn’t feel guilty if the clones die. They can’t take too much damage…but they can dish it out. Don’t underestimate them.”

“I won’t.” Kaina said, more seriously, and settled into her seat as the van crossed the span of Tartarus’ bridge, and then past the outer gatehouse, just as heavily armed as the first. 

Freedom… The moment the van left Tartarus behind and went into a tunnel, driving under a mountain in the direction of Tokyo, a few hours’ drive away, Kaina started to truly feel hope. Revenge…no, justice was at her fingertips. The chance of meeting someone else like her, this Hawks, who had been in her same position and rebelled, too, excited her. 

She didn’t know how he looked; she realized that she had heard his hero name in the news, but they had been cut up, edited, and she had never seen her kohai in action. Dammit, was he a child soldier too? Did they treat him even worse than me? What was your life like, Hawks? 

And the friends he mentioned; Fuyumi, Rumi, Jin, the fake guards she had already met…after Tartarus, she craved conversation, she craved connection, she craved touch . A simple handshake might bring her to tears, she thought. And if she could somehow convince one of these people to go with her to the mall, if she could finally have a friend accompany her to a plushie store…

My Taro… When she had been twelve years old, just before being scouted, Kaina had a favorite plush doll, a soft, huggable maneki-neko with a raised arm. The lucky cat had been with her for years, until it had been lost some weeks into training at the Commission’s camp in Hokkaido. I asked for another plushie, it wasn’t much. Just…anything I could hug at night, something cute and silly, something that could let me keep playing, keep being a girl a while longer…Takemura always said no . 

Kaina counted the minutes after leaving Tartarus. There were small towns along the route, several smaller villages as well…but an hour along the route, they would pass by Yokohama, a massive city. She would have Rifle by then, and her hair would once again be ammunition…but a city of millions would hear the scuffle. No. I will have to act before that. Rifle or not. What’s life without challenge? Without my hands and half of my forearms, without my Quirk, against good weapons…

Forty five minutes after leaving Tartarus, Lady Nagant flexed her shoulders, and brought her manacles lower. She took a deep breath, picked her target. The guards were starting to get bored; only snipers really trained to keep their attention on a target for hours while nothing worthwhile happened. 

It was time.

Exhaling in a quick burst, Nagant dove to the floor of the van, manacles first, pushing her hands deep into the viscous liquid. Gelatin, molasses and slick oil, the liquid shifted and resisted her, adding friction until it became an almost solid surface stopping her palms that held her body weight as her dive became a handstand and her legs kicked up the van’s wall. 

One step, two, three…Nagant extended her legs vertically, her entire body in a straight line…and then she kicked, striking the men to either side of her with swift, sudden kicks that pushed their weapons away. 

The SWAT officers in front were reacting quick. In her heightened state of awareness, product of all the adrenaline in her veins, Nagant could hear weapon safeties shifting to firing modes, and being raised in her direction…

She flexed her core, strong from endless hours of bodyweight training in her cell, and then sprung forward, like a snake striking its prey, with the heel of her Tartarus issue non-slip shoes slamming right into the throat of an officer with a descending axe kick. 

“What the…pull over! Stop! The prisoner is trying to escape! She’s…Fucking hell!” 

The guard in front of Kaina was melting . The kick would have fractured a grown man’s neck, for sure, and with a direct hit to the throat, would have caused some very nasty damage to the windpipe…and it had apparently been enough damage to kill the clone. 

She let her momentum carry her, pulling in again, her thighs, abs, shoulders and arms following the movement of her foot, a swift, full body arc that ended with her slamming manacles first against the panel van’s wall. 

Taking advantage of the shock in the SWAT officers’ faces watching one of their own melt to suspiciously brown goo, Nagant raised her heavy manacles up. The special Quirk cuffs had to weigh at least twenty five kilos, more than fifty five pounds, and she felt her biceps straining with the speed and violence of the movement…and then the explosive tension reverberating along her triceps as she slammed down the manacles to crush the second SWAT cop’s head. 

She yelled wordlessly as she brought down her cuffs with all her might and easily caved in the clone’s skull, her scream turning triumphant as this one again was dying before her eyes. Once again she let her momentum carry her, diving towards the back of the van into a roll, putting the titanium-plated manacles in the way as she did, trying to make herself smaller behind them…and just in time, as two 5.56 bullets fired by one of the guards slammed against the manacles a moment later, and then a blast from a shotgun.

The manacles held up against the rifle fire and blocked some of the buckshot…but not all. The shotgun’s spread was wider, even at this distance, and a couple pellets of 00 buck hit Nagant, one of them slicing a shallow cut across her cheek, another slamming deep into her shoulder. 

Nagant yelped in pain, scrambling with her legs to move back up again and keeping the manacles covering her vital organs as the rifle wielding SWAT officer shot at her five more times, and the shotgun wielder racked his weapon’s pump back. If she gave them a chance, either of them would finally adjust their aim and finish her…

She moved forward, feinting a charge to the left, towards the cop with the assault rifle, then jumped to the right, using all the strength in her calves and thighs, her hamstrings tense to the limit with a jump that might have earned her a regional record if she had been out in the open…but inside a van, pushed her to the wall. 

If her jump had been slower, if her legs had been weaker, a 5.56 mm bullet would have torn through her stomach and intestines. But instead it just bit into her skin, drawing a spray of blood and flaring a lance of burning pain along Nagant’s side.

But it didn’t distract her. Her non.slip prison shoe made contact with the van’s wall and she launched again towards the enemy, buckshot cutting the air inches away, filling her nostrils with the scent of exploding gunpowder as she rotated her hips to add more power to her strike.

With more room to maneuver, she would have hit the cop with a nasty wheel kick to the chin, an instant knockout. Instead, she slammed her knee against the man’s head, neck and shoulder, and whatever fractured in the dirty attack was enough for the clone to start dying, clawing at Nagant while screaming in panic, but the fingers that reached her were half melted, warm goo, unable to hold anything. She spun then, hitting the last guard’s rifle to the side with a kick that used her knee strike’s speed to its advantage, then she launched herself at the man, bracing for a shoulder tackle. 

The SWAT officer’s rifle fell to the ground as they both slammed against the van’s side door. The clone yelped in pain, having hit his hip bone against the door handle, but it wasn’t enough damage to kill him yet, so Nagant used the instant of confusion and brought the manacles around, wrapping her forearm and biceps against the clone’s neck. 

She held the man in a headlock as the driver swerved violently off road and the passenger side guard tried finding an angle where his assault rifle’s shot wouldn’t kill his teammate.

“Open my cuffs!” Nagant ordered, applying pressure to the SWAT clone’s neck. “You know how fragile you are…And you aren’t fast enough. Neither is your friend. Are you ready? Are you excited for what’s next? I’ve thought about it a lot. Heaven, Hell…Will you go to any? Will I go to either? Will I meet Chairman Takemura again, kill him again?” 

The clone swiftly brought up a digital keycard that instantly drained the liquid and unlocked the manacles. And then three things happened at the same time.

The SWAT officer Nagant had been holding took her by the wrists, newly freed, and used all his body weight and speed to throw her down. 

The officer in the shotgun seat fired a burst, fully automatic, and Nagant felt a round going through her leg as she was thrown, just before the pain of slamming down against the hard metal floor made everything, every ache and pain, so much worse. 

And the driver, having missed a pothole, or perhaps a rock after going off road, had lost control, and the van was turning on its side…

Nagant crashed against the ground again…but this time the ground was the van’s left wall. Her leg, her shoulder, the cuts on her skin…it felt as if they had been set on fire as shock moved across her bones and joints and muscles. 

For an instant, nobody moved. The driver had managed to release himself from his seatbelt and was reaching for his pistol, the passenger was recovering from shock and finding his target, and the cop that had grappled Nagant to the ground had also fallen, two feet away, and was placing his hands against the wall to push himself back up. 

His rifle had fallen right between him and Nagant. 

Her eyes met theirs, each cop acting in unison. The driver pulled his pistol in a single, fluid motion, the passenger secured his rifle to the seat to have a steadier aim…and the last guard locked eyes with Nagant. He would reach for the gun…

He was a fraction of a second too slow. 

Nagant was already moving by the time her eyes had even found her targets. In the back of her mind, she knew that she wouldn’t have her Rifle for another seven or eight minutes, maybe even nine… But the SWAT officer’s would do. 

Her right hand closed around the rifle’s pistol grip, her left caught the handguard and brought it up. It was a standard police carbine, used by SWAT forces worldwide. With a standard magazine of thirty 5.56x45 mm, it was a good weapon. She didn’t know how many times her enemy had fired.

But she only needed three bullets. 

Nagant pulled the trigger and the SWAT clone’s head exploded into goo. A quick shift right and the driver fell. Less than half a second after the first shot, Nagant’s sights were over the last officer’s face, and her bullet was going through the clone’s eye. 

Exhausted, she let herself fall to the floor. Pain coursed all over, from bullet wounds and the car crash, and she knew she’d soon be in trouble if she didn’t tend to the wounds…but she could barely catch her breath. 

She had won, and her victory, dirty as it had been, was very, very sweet. The clones had been dangerous, and they had been pretty close to killing her a couple of times…but she had won. 

She let out a laugh that turned to a chortle as she started choking on thick saliva with blood. Fuuuck…

Kaina started slowly, using the rifle as a crutch to sit up first, then get to her knees. She scanned the vehicle and saw that no sign remained of her guards except weapons, handcuff keycards and ammo. She remained kneeling for a few minutes, slowly but surely recovering from the short but frenzied combat. “Okay, up. One foot at a time, smoothly…”

She felt a wave of nausea washing over her as she finally rose to her feet, but she pushed the bile down, and took a tentative step towards the van’s back door. If she could open it, it would be much easier than all the movement she’d need to exit through the driver’s side door. Climbing over that…with a shot leg and a left shoulder that might be busted? Bad idea…

The back door was locked. In frustration, Kaina threw her rifle to the floor, heard it clang, and reached up to run her hands through her hair…and she felt her hair reacting to her touch, the plasticity returning, the smart bonds in matter… 

Rifle. I have you again…I really have you again! 

Tears burned at her eyes and ran down Kaina’s cheeks as she plucked a strand of hair and molded it into an expertly shaped bullet that would penetrate the door lock, destroy it and stop there. Essentially a breaching charge in bullet form, she loaded it eagerly into the chamber as she extended her rifle, the biomechanic construct reaching its full size quickly. 

She didn’t need a scope to aim, just point and shoot…and goddamn did it feel good to shoot. After years of not using her Quirk, it was an overwhelming feeling that made her shudder and shiver, and even made her legs a little shaky. 

“Um, Senpai?” Hawks called in, “I had heard fighting, didn’t wanna interrupt, but that stopped a while back, and you just let out a weird…sound right now. Like a moan.”

“...no I didn’t!” Kaina said, defensively, extremely embarrassed. What an insolent young man. I did NOT. I just missed using Rifle, and destroying stuff is always fun. That’s just it. I am a capable woman.

“I thought you might have just gotten a little…distracted.”

“I’m fine. A couple injuries, nothing that will slow me down.” Kaina said, changing topic swiftly. I haven’t even held hands with a man, and I just let one hear me moan? Impossible. I can’t let that happen ever again. I’m a Senpai, after all, I must be a good example.  

The door fell open a few moments after Kaina had destroyed the lock, and she staggered through it. She looked at the road, about fifty or sixty meters away from the crash site. If she could meet Hawks’ friend there, she could get to a pharmacy or even a convenience store and get what she needed to patch up and continue the mission. 

The idea of sitting down in a car’s passenger seat sounded just heavenly as Kaina limped forward towards the road. “Hawks…you said your friend would meet me along the way. Can you send them to my location?”

“She’s already closing in. She’ll be there before you know it.”

“Right.” Kaina said, “While I wait, tell me the plan.”

“I’m going into the Commission headquarters with Jin, the guy who made the clones escorting you. He will clone himself over and over, and we will blitz the HQ, corner the leadership and push them to the old Situation Room. The one they used fifteen years ago, when you shot Chairman Takemura?”

Kaina felt a pain almost as powerful as her injuries realizing she was thirty five years old now. It…it can’t be. But I feel so young, so strong…I am old! People will think that…that I am silly when I ask them to go with me to the plushie store. They’ll think I’m a hag ! Young men will be disgusted…The age of thirty five can’t be in demand…can it? At least I will have the cats…

“Yes, I know the place…” Kaina replied. 

“You sound really depressed all of a sudden, Senpai.”

“It’s just…the inevitable passage of time, Hawks…Fifteen years…”

“Yeah, you mentioned “ten years” earlier with so much conviction…but it was fifteen…”

“Well…I will have plenty of time to…to be a hag after we change this country for the better…I know the place, Hawks. Are you thinking about the weak spot on the roof? Angled high?”

“Exactly.” 

Focusing on the mission, Kaina nodded, “Then I know where to take my shot from. Top of the Sky Egg. The antennas and everything go almost a hundred meters higher. Easy enough…Wait-”

Kaina saw someone sprinting towards her with ludicrous speed. Some kind of speedster hero? “Ah, my friend says she’s right there and she sees you. She’s waving at you.”

Nobody in any car was waving at Kaina…but the runner was, with a beautifully muscled arm. “Are you…are you serious, Hawks? The car…”

“Rumi never learned how to drive, sorry.”

The runner, Rumi, closed the distance in two seconds more and nearly tackled Kaina to the ground. She was shorter than she appeared, and, after seeing nobody but Tartarus inmates for fifteen years, she was stunning , with long white hair, a healthy tan complexion and piercing red eyes. And her legs… 

“OI!” she yelled, her voice booming and energetic. “You must be Lady Nagant!”

“I…was.” she replied, softly, “Please just call me Kaina Tsutsumi. Tsutsumi is okay-”

“Kaina! I like it!” Rumi said, and pushed her right hand forward. Going with the flow, Kaina caught the hand in a mighty handshake as both women flexed their forearms and biceps. Kaina was strong and well muscled, but Rumi…

The woman laughed. It was a boisterous laugh, a bit smug, powerful. “You have a good handshake, Kaina. I know we’ll be friends. Any friend of Hawks is a friend of mine.”

“He’s my kohai…though we have never really met. I just know his voice.” Kaina said, “Are you really…a part of his plan? You must be some kind of pro hero. And what we have planned is treason. Assassination. If we fail, we die.”

Rumi shrugged, then grinned, “It’s simple, really. I’ve never really cared for rules. Authorities. People in suits with tiny arms trying to tell me who I can or can’t be. I hated ‘em when I was a kid getting my nose bloodied in every brawl and getting punished for winning, I hate ‘em now that I know they’re bastards behind closed doors. I’m not the kind of hero that does things half assed. I treat every fight like it’s the last. Every kick like it could be the last time I’ll feel my calves flexing, my thighs pushing for just a bit more power to smash some fucker’s face in. That scares some. The fact that I’m competitive as fuck scares others. And some are just fucking cowards who feel threatened because a fucking bunny is faster, stronger…Hawks ain’t like that. He’s a weirdo. A different type of weirdo than me. But he gets me. And he’s there for me. And…”

She smiled more softly now, “And that was enough. I trust him, I’ve trusted him with embarrassing shit like hopes and dreams, with fears …Everyone else just assumes Rumi Usagiyama fears nothing…And that isn’t true…” Looking down, she said, “It’s rare for me to open up to people. It’s rare for him to open up to anyone . So this trust… matters . And I’m okay with fighting for his cause, whatever it is.”

“Are you okay with being an accomplice to assassination? I will put a bullet through Hana Ishigami’s brain today, Rumi. If you want to step away…I would never judge you.” Kaina said. 

Rumi’s cute bunny ears twitched slightly. “...Keigo told me about his childhood. It’s fucked up. If it’s not your bullet or Hawks’ feather ending that woman, it’ll be me. The people deciding who gets to be a hero, the people running the whole thing…they took my friend from a bad childhood and stole the rest of his life . I’m fully on board, just like those League of Villains folks Hawks mentioned.”

“Villains?”

“Yeah! Strange bedfellows, aye?” Rumi said, “The ones inside Tartarus right now are part  of the League. To think that just a few weeks back I’d gladly have kicked one of them to death to help out Hawks and Endeavor…”

“Endeavor? He’s still around?”

“Not today!” Rumi said proudly, “The daughter, Fuyumi, is with us! You know, Keigo’s…”

“Girlfriend?” Kaina said, “The way you talk about him, it almost sounds as if-”

“Haha…Ah! HeroNet is getting reports of this van crash, no time to talk, especially about that!” Rumi said, pivoting away from the topic. But you started it…

“What’s the exfil plan? I took a couple hits and could use first aid…but you’re not even wearing a belt or anything…and you have no vehicle.”

“Kaina, I AM the vehicle!” Rumi said, then turned around, an adorable fluffy tail moving excitedly as she motioned to her back. “Hop on! It’s just a 10 minute run from Yokohama when carrying someone!”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Think I can’t lift ya?”

“No, it’s just…you know how much attention it will attract? How many will see us? How many will take pictures and videos?” 

Rumi frowned, thinking deeply. “You’re…right. I…I can’t drive. Keigo tried teaching me last summer, stresses me out…and I kick through the pedals when I get stressed…I have destroyed four cars by accident. Total loss…”

“Just…run us to a quiet parking lot. I’ll steal a car for us.” Kaina sighed as she hopped on Rumi’s back and wrapped her arms around the strong bunny girl’s neck. The pro hero held Kaina’s legs firmly but gently…and it was the kindest way she had been held in decades. 

“We’re returning the car, right?”

“You’re okay with coup d’etat but not grand theft auto?”

“Listen, I just never know what to think about cars…they’re just so alien. I can run from Tokyo to Osaka with no problem but driving…even worse, parking …That’s horrible!”

“I’ll teach you when this is done. I’ve got different tricks than Hawks.” Kaina said, as Rumi took them to a parking lot nearby and they found a suitable car; a nondescript sedan several years old, but well maintained. 

With a strand of hair, Kaina quickly created a key that fit into the car door and with some subtle modification, also let her start the engine. “The Commission could only make me a weapon. They could only teach me how to make bullets from my hair, how to shoot my Rifle to kill every time. But…I have wanted to be more for so long…”

The car roared to life, and Rumi started clapping energetically, “That was fucking COOL!”

Kaina grinned, “Let’s go…I really, really need bandages and disinfectant or I’ll pretty much die before we even get to Tokyo…”

Himiko Toga felt cold sweat running down her spine as she took the elevator gondola down to Tartarus’ sixth underground level, the worst of the worst. No other guards had joined her and Compress, or even looked their way. 

Even the Tartarus guards patrolling the corridors in the sixth level barely looked their way. All were focused, switched on, but their entire focus was on the prisoners. Himiko had no idea who else was entombed in these cells, hidden away until some kind of death reached them, forever out of sight and out of mind for Japan. 

There were no names outside the cells, only numbers. She nearly jumped when something slammed against one of the metal doors, but the tough entrance didn’t even budge. Whoever was behind it was formidable, even with their Quirk dormant.

“Hey, Compress?” she whispered, after they passed a duo of patrolling guards with suspicious eyes and twitchy movements that made Himiko think they had used some stimulant far stronger than caffeine that day. “I’m scared. I’m honestly really, really scared. If we lose, do you think we’ll be down here? It’s so…dark and ugly and…”

“It scares me too, kiddo…” Compress said, shivering, “But we can win. I have hopes we can. It will be the best trick in our lives, and we’ll look fondly back to it in a decade. The performance of a true artiste! A bit of magic so wonderful that it will fool even the Devil…”

She saw him grasping Dabi’s marble openly now, as if it was a stress ball.

“We’re nearly there…” Himiko said, as they turned a corner and she saw another pair of guards just outside of cell Z-0001. 

The deepest, most secure vault in all of Japan, cell Z-0001 was at the very end of level six. The door was massive, almost as huge as one of the outer gates of Tartarus, and the walls of concrete and metal looked like they would survive even if the rest of the world cracked open. 

And two guards with bloodshot eyes stood outside it, one armed with what looked to be an impossibly large shotgun, another with a cleaver as tall and wide as Toga. Both were much taller than the average guard, and looked heavily augmented with cybernetics. Just what I’d expect outside AFO’s door…And I doubt it would be enough if he was anywhere close to his peak condition. But now…

The guards pierced Himiko with a glare, but they didn’t speak. They wore metal facemasks over their mouths, and Himiko even wondered if they had anything under the masks, or had them removed in exchange for cybernetics…

“We…we have a paper…” Himiko said, weakly, holding the forged orders Hawks had given them. The guards scanned them, then stood aside and moved to push a set of two buttons. Their slow, deliberate movements as they activated the giant door reminded Himiko of a nuclear submarine’s missile launch method…or at least how Tomura’s videogames portrayed it. 

“Go ahead. You have one hour.” the guard with the gigantic sword said, and Himiko took another look as she moved past him; she saw that the eyes weren’t bloodshot, but had been replaced with implants. And very little about the guards looked human anymore… 

They entered into what was essentially an airlock. Himiko noticed water receding rapidly as she stepped in, smelling like the sea…and some other, much nastier water stenches that nearly made her gag. 

“A true airlock, huh?” Compress asked, stepping in beside Toga. “Clever, I guess. Smell that salty tang?”

“It smells salty to you? Uncles really lose a lot of their sense of smell when they grow old!”

“Ah, I forget your nose is so sensitive…apologies.” He poked a tiny clump of metal cylinders that looked like ferrofluid, “This is what I meant to point out. Heavy duty electrolytic particles. When they flood the airlock, the water becomes very conductive…and zap.”

“If we screw up we can always go the deep fried way!” Himiko whispered enthusiastically. She imagined that the electric current would be more than enough to kill even All for One. 

Behind them the big door started closing, and the door started to shift inwards the moment they heard the heavy metallic thud of the outer door locking shut. 

As the door opened, they finally saw All for One, separated from them by a thick pane of glass. His head shifted slightly as he heard them approaching, and Himiko gave the “Sensei” a closer look. Bald, eyeless, noseless, with a medical mask firmly put in place, and dozens of metal and plastic tubes connected into his spine, veins and chest through a series of catheters and IVs. 

He wore the simple orange uniform of Tartarus, and he sat at the edge of his bed rather meekly…but he still made Himiko’s skin crawl, and her fight or flight response was in full throttle. 

“An unannounced visit. Excellent.” All for One said, rising from the edge of his bed and walking a few steps over to a chair vaguely reminiscing of a dentist’s that made Toga recoil in almost physical pain, remembering a time when her parents had tried getting her fangs filed flat and she had struggled with all her might, only to be slapped nearly unconscious.

AFO sat on the chair, half a patient dutifully hooking up to a medical system, half a king settling into his throne. As Himiko pressed the button that would raise the protective glass and let them walk into the cell proper, AFO raised his sleeve and let the autodoc system close around his right forearm. 

Red and blue liquids started flowing into the autodoc immediately, and AFO let out a middle aged man’s grunt, sort of like what Compress would groan when getting up too quickly from the couch…

As the glass partition fully retreated into the ceiling, Himiko knew that AFO had taken a very, very large dose of Quirk blockers. So far, so good! Let’s see how this goes…

“So, you made the effort to visit. Lovely.” All for One said, giving each of them a nod. His skin was pale from years or even decades of little sunshine. “Now, then…come closer. I do not bite, unlike you, Himiko Toga.” He chuckled, staring eyelessly at Himiko. “You didn’t think your disguise would be enough to fool me, did you?”

Himiko shook her head and let her Transform retreat back into her skin, becoming herself once more. 

“And you, Mister Compress…I am impressed. Infiltrating this place with Himiko Toga’s powers is quite possible but with yours…clearly there is more to you than meets the eye…Though I wouldn’t know about that!” He laughed again at his own joke, while Himiko and Compressed shared a quick look.

“So…to what do I owe this pleasure?” AFO asked. “Why do Tomura’s underlings visit me? Is it advice you seek? Conversation? Or have you been sent to free me?” 

Himiko took a step forward. Her legs felt heavy, and she could feel despair overwhelming her. Is one of his Quirks still active? Or is this just…how much he scares me? 

“We have a couple questions.” Himiko said, keeping her voice steady. She had never acted a role this dangerous. 

“Do go ahead. When we are finished, will we leave?” All for One asked. 

“We’ll see.” Compress said, cautiously. 

“Go on, then.” AFO replied, giving them what might have looked like an inviting smile on someone other than that monster . 

“First question.” Himiko said, taking a couple steps closer. “Garaki says you gave away the original All for One Quirk to Tomura. Is that true?”

“Yes.” All for One said, smugly. “I gave everything to Tomura. He truly has become worthy of being my successor…” Himiko heard the venom in AFO’s words, how his lips had formed “successor”, but his heart had meant “vessel”. A meat puppet, nothing more. A new body so he can have eyes again, is that it? Bastard. It pisses me off so much. Everything my parents did so I wouldn’t use my QUirk, everything they controlled…you go so much further. 

“And you have a copy, right?” Compress asked, walking close. The two villains were now almost close enough to strike. “With less useful Quirks stockpiled.”

“Well, yes-”

“Did Tomura know?” Himiko interrupted. She was closer now, much closer, and Compress held two marbles, one in each hand. “Did he know about All for One, about your personality taking him over? That the surgery was not only about power, but to keep his brain soft and pliable while you rearranged it, changed everything from the inside out? To keep him asleep and unable to defend himself as you took over? DID HE KNOW?”

All for One raised his head slightly, a grin spreading across his face. “Of course he didn’t know. None of you knew. Only Garaki. My ally, my friend. And it was so very, very easy .”

AFO started laughing. He felt invincible, Himiko knew, victorious. He was gloating. And then the marbles in Compress’ fingers were thrown up in the air, almost gently. All for One was still laughing as the crystal split and the two compressed marbles explosively returned their contents to original size. 

One contained their equipment, and Himiko snatched one of her knives with speed and agility, in the blink of an eye, while Compress found his mask and hat, setting them in place with a flourish. 

And the other marble had contained Dabi, who landed with a roll to place himself behind All for One. The supervillain’s laughter died when he realized that, for once, he didn’t know what was happening. He had thought himself a mastermind, a dozen steps ahead…

But right now he was just a man, a man struggling to free himself from the autodoc injector, the syringes biting deep into his skin as he tried pulling away. “You really thought you’d get to laugh about body snatching our friend?” Compress asked, swiping furiously with his hand and compressing All for One’s left foot and the prison slipper he had been wearing. 

The supervillain howled in pain, shifting his head to the Quirk blockers still pouring into him even as he tried getting clear of the machine. But he couldn’t. He wasn’t strong enough with his muscles alone. 

“You thought we’d just take it? That we’d just cry a bit and leave and ACCEPT IT?” Dabi yelled, bringing his palm to AFO’s shoulder and starting a concentrated blue flame that cut deep into the man’s skin, muscle and bone. 

“If you tell us how to stop it, how to get Tomura back we can stop this!” Himiko said, reaching in with her knife and thrusting it deep into AFO’s kneecap. “Take it back! Give him back! He’s our family…you are NOTHING!”

All for One cried out in agony. His shirt was burning and Himiko could see the supervillain’s collarbone just below Dabi’s flame. And the knee was mangled by every eager stab of her knife. 

“You are not regenerating!” Himiko said, as Dabi moved his fire up and started burning a line across AFO’s cheek. “You gave that away, didn’t you? DIDN?T YOU?”

All for One screamed again…and then started to laugh. “I did. But this? Fleas biting a lion. All Might killed me…Do you think you are enough, even in this state I am? You think this stops anything? You think you can prevent what has been set in motion? My imprint, my vestige…I can feel it taking over as we speak. There is no way of removing me from Tomura. His fate, the fate I planned for him from before he was born, cannot be stopped. None of you can stop me. Not you, Himiko Toga, not you Atsuhiro Sako and definitely not you, Touya Todoroki…You are the dregs of society. Useless, except as pawns in my game. You think you can save Tomura Shigaraki? Don’t kid yourselves…you are villains. You can save no one.”

Himiko felt tears running down her cheeks as she steadied her knife. “Maybe you’re right…Maybe we’re just a bunch of losers that had no one else, that had nowhere else to go. Maybe we’re not as strong as All Might. But you know something?”

She saw that AFO was pulling harder, ready to permanently maim his arm to escape the autodoc to escape, and that he had reached for Dabi’s wrist and had started to crush it. If he got free and mobile, maybe he could take all three of them on and win… 

“You didn’t bring us together. Tomura did that. You didn’t make us a team. That was all of us! You didn’t make us a family.”

“Fools. All of you. A true waste of potential. We could have toppled society. We could have killed the last wielder of One for All, Izuku Midoriya. We could have ruled …”

“Don’t you say my Izuku’s name!” Himiko said, and plunged her knife deep into All for One’s gut. Dabi set his wrist on fire, then the whole arm, and AFO’s hand started to burn, filling the air with a horrible, nauseating stench. And Compress moved right in and punched AFO in the jaw with his prosthetic, as hard as he could. 

“This is all futile. You will never finish me in time-”

“This is for Tomura, you bastard.” Himiko said, pulled out her knife and aimed it carefully. Today she was not using her usual tanto-style blades, but rather a thin, sturdy stiletto, closer to a spike bayonet than a sword. Her keen blade shone in the bright white lights of All for One’s cell…and then she plunged the knife at an angle through the skin flap covering AFO’s eye socket.  

If All for One still had his regeneration, Himiko knew this attack would not have caused any major damage. The skin would have reformed, trapping the knife, and the brain would have recovered soon enough. 

But All for One’s hubris would cost him. 

Himiko’s knife stabbed through the empty eye, through skin and tissue…and brains. She screamed as she held on with both hands, pushing the knife deeper and deeper, scraping through the brain and severing the connection between the prefrontal cortex and the frontal lobes of the supervillain’s brain. 

The lobotomy’s result was almost immediate. AFO’s jaw went slack and his arms and legs started flailing, uncoordinated, until he fell to the ground, convulsing. Himiko fell with him, moving her knife all around, as far as her knife would go, still screaming. 

All for One joined her screams, with primal panic, an animalistic reaction as he tried moving away. Himiko let him, letting go of the knife and scuttling away in hands and knees as Dabi strode forward and brought his hand to All for One’s head and, with a raging inferno of blue fire, Dabi set the supervillain’s entire head and neck alight. “For Tomura.”

The inferno drowned out All for One’s screaming as Dabi now used both hands to burn and burn and burn away. Skin melted off, then muscle and connective tissue. Himiko looked away in horror as All for One’s tongue started bubbling and burst inside the flames. She heard the skull starting to crack, and Dabi stopped his flames then, as All for One finally fell. 

With a quick stomp, Dabi crushed the brittle remains of AFO’s skull. 

The supervillain was dead, clearly…but Compress still approached, placing his hand on All for One’s chest. “It’s…it’s still beating. Whatever Garaki did to bring All for One back from the beatdown All Might gave him…it’s hardcore. But like Osiris, cut up and spread over the Nile…even immortals can be vanquished.”

With a whoosh, Compress collapsed All for One’s entire chest into a small marble. With grim determination, he said, “For Tomura.”

And, after kicking the butchered remains of All for One for good measure, Mr. Compress calmly strode to the toilet in All for One’s cell, dropped the marble into it and, with a final hand flourish, he flushed down the darkest heart in Japan.