Chapter Text
“This is never going to work,” Twice muttered, fidgeting with his gloves. Magne grunted, rubbing her arms in a clear show of nervousness. There weren’t any members of the Shie Hassaikai in the hallway with them, which was likely the only reason the two of them were willing to show their disconcertion. Shouta flicked his tail against Magne’s cheek and tilted an ear, listening to the closed door behind them.
It was a power play, to make the three – technically four, if you counted Shouta – of them wait out in the hallway like this. They’d had to walk for almost twenty minutes through the labyrinthine underground passageways that the Shie Hassaikai used as their first line of defense, and then once they’d actually made it to the meeting room, their masked guide had vanished through the door and left them alone in the bare, unadorned hallway.
Shouta could hear voices through the door. No coherent words, but certainly more than any of the other three could hear. Several voices, most unfamiliar but one he recognized as Overhaul. He was in there. From the only occasional exchange from inside the room, Shouta suspected that there was no one else who was really important in there.
Which meant them waiting outside was exclusively a power play, and Shouta did not appreciate it.
“I don’t like it either,” Toga huffed, folding her arms and pouting at the wall across from them. “What he did to Compress, and Magne...”
Magne shrugged, and Shouta shifted his weight slightly so he wouldn’t fall off her shoulders. “Nothing actually happened,” she said, tone stiff.
“Because Demon got there in time,” Twice pointed out nervously. “There’s no way to be sure that will happen every time.”
“You know what Shigaraki said,” Toga hummed, rocking forward away from the wall to bounce distractedly on her toes.
Shigaraki had said a lot.
Shouta had heard it all, too, for all that Shigaraki hadn’t wanted him to be there. But Kurogiri was on Shouta's side, and he was the one who brought them places, so Shouta had sat behind a mostly-rotten wooden crate near the place that Shigaraki had met Overhaul and listened very carefully.
Shigaraki had never considered the yakuza their equals. He was planning to bait them from the inside. To do that, he had comited Toga, Twice, and Magne. Shigaraki had freely admitted that he knew the exact reason Overhaul had asked for Toga, Twice, and Kurogiri. To cut down on their mobility and subtlety. Especially with Mr. Compress mostly out of the picture – at least until his prosthetic could be perfected and his physical therapy began to be effective – those three were the League’s most vital members when it came to infiltration and relocation.
Shape changing, even as limited as Toga’s, was a quite powerful ability, especially when it came to the subtle sneak attacks and subterfuge that the yakuza thrived on.
Even beyond that, though. Beyond what Shigaraki had said about their plans or their goals, he had said something much more important. Something that would get him killed or worse if he ever tried to make it as a proper Villain mastermind, but that was cornerstone and keystone to a successful Hero team. He’d said that he trusted Toga, Twice, and Magne.
Sure, context might have led to the conclusion that he’d meant that he trusted them enough to fulfil the mission he was assigning, but Shouta had a lot of experience with people who didn’t like admitting their emotions. He could read body language, and he could read between the lines. Just the fact that Shigaraki had taken the disembodied hand on his face off in front of a relative stranger, the prosthetist that Overhaul had sent as a show of good faith, was enough for Shouta to know that those simple words, that brief admittance of trust, was important.
Likely, more important than even Shigaraki realized.
All For One would never stand for that trust. To trust like that was to set yourself up for betrayal. Worse – in All For One’s eyes, at least – to trust like that was to have someone else to fall back on. To have someone other than him, and to therefore undermine his perfect control over his perfect pawn.
The instant All For One caught wind of just how much Shigaraki cared for and relied on the League, they’d be worse than dead.
Which meant that, no matter what else happened, Shouta had to make sure that information never made its way to All For One.
Somehow.
“This is boring,” Toga whined, sliding halfway down the wall.
“Better boring than deadly,” Magne grumbled, and displayed with that sentence alone more forethought and logic than every single entire class of first-day Hero students that Shouta had ever been burdened with put together.
Twice was fidgeting with his hands, pulling on the fabric of his gloves. “I don’t like it,” he muttered under his breath, “I don’t like this, I don’t like him.”
“The whole point is-” Magne’s impatient retort was cut off by the door finally opening, and she immediately went quiet. Shouta swiftly dropped his head against her shoulder and withdrew his tail into the coils of Spinner’s borrowed scarf, watching the newcomer intently through a gap in the scarf.
It was the little puppet person they had seen in their first meeting with Overhaul, the overconfident, proud one.
“Come inside now!” he commanded in his shrill, irritating voice, “the boss will see you!”
Toga pushed away from the wall with a pout, and Twice followed her through the door. Magne hesitated for only a moment before reaching two fingers under the scarf she’d borrowed from Spinner to catch Shouta’s tail in a gentle, reassuring grip. Then, she followed them into the room.
Overhaul was sitting casually on a worn but spotlessly clean gray couch. He looked almost exactly like he had at the warehouse, but under the pushed-up sleeves of his bomber jacket, his right arm had a long black sleeve over it, while his left arm remained bare. Shouta was sure that, if the black sleeve were pulled up, underneath it there would be a prosthetic forearm not unlike the one Mr. Compress had just recently been fitted with.
“Welcome,” Overhaul said casually, “Thank you for being here. I am Chisaki Kai, the leader of the Shie Hassaikai.”
Toga had lost all her bouncy lightheartedness, staring at Overhaul with a sharp sort of attentiveness. “I had no choice. I was ordered to come here. I’m Toga.”
“Long time no see, birdman,” Twice practically growled, “I can’t forgive you for doing that to Compress! I look forward to working with you!”
“All of us are only here because Shigaraki told us to be,” Magne said bluntly, “and we already know who you are.”
There were several responses from the yakuza members – excitement, curiosity, threats of violence – all of which were ignored by Overhaul.
“What happened to Mr. Compress was a terrible accident,” Overhaul said, tapping gloved fingers against the back of his false hand, “I didn’t want to hurt him.”
“Then why did you?” Magne pressed, taking half a step forward to loom over Overhaul, looking seconds away from vaulting over the table and strangling him with her bare hands.
Overhaul was unphased.
“Simple self-defense,” he said, shrugging fluidly with his left shoulder, his right notably still. He must still be working on his own physical therapy.
Since Mr. Compress had a neat, already mostly healed injury caused by Overhaul, his physical therapy would hopefully progress quickly, especially if Overhaul’s doctors provided the promised Quirk-boosted healing and strengthening. Even if Overhaul had received that same treatment, it had only been about a week and a half, and his injury had been much messier than Mr. Compress’s. If he was willing to use his Quirk on himself, he could cut down on that recovery time – as well as any potential complications stemming from the messy break – but he would have to balance the neatness of the injury with how much of an arm he had left when all was said and done.
“I understand why you’d hold a grudge,” Overhaul said, “but now we’re working together. I want your assistance in carrying out our mission.”
Twice seethed, trembling with rage and cursing at Overhaul under his breath, then abruptly stilled, brightening. “So, what do you need?”
“You’ll just need to follow my instructions, like everyone else in the Shie Hassaikai,” Overhaul said smoothly. “But to properly issue instructions, I need to know the details of your Quirks.”
“No, thanks!” Toga smiled sunnily. “I’ll tell you if there’s an emergency, but I don’t trust you guys yet!”
“You should just tell us!” the shrill-voiced puppet man interrupted angrily. “Don’t underestimate the yakuza!”
There was a moment of tense silence.
“No, no, that’s no good,” Twice motioned as if he was waving the idea away, “Unacceptable, really. I’m not telling either.”
“What is your Quirk?” The words seemed to ripple through the air, hitting Shouta like a physical force, like a shockwave from a distant explosion. And they weren’t even directed at him.
Information spilled out of Twice, and he went through – in excruciating detail – the exact requirements and drawbacks of his Quirk. Details on the information he needed to clone someone, the weaknesses of the clones, and even his own personal holdups about cloning himself.
The fur along Shouta’s spine prickled, and his ears pulled all the way back to flatten to his skull. There was a difference between Naomasa's truth-detection Quirk and this forced admission. Sure, it would be useful in the right hands, and Shouta could think of a dozen different – legal – ways to use it in Hero work. But in the wrong hands... that sort of ability could force anyone and everyone to spill every secret they had. Personal, corporate, even matters of national security.
And it belonged to a member of the Shie Hassaikai.
And they were using it on Shouta’s students. That, more than anything, made him mad.
That sort of compulsion was incredibly violating, and the last thing any member of the League needed was someone else digging around in their head. Some of them couldn’t even bear to do it themself.
Shouta forced his hackles down as Overhaul’s minion pulled the details of their Quirks out of Toga and Magne, too.
“Tell me one more thing,” Overhaul’s masked minion said, and then another wave of force slammed into Shouta. This one was more forceful, more real, as though it was actually pointed at him. “Did Shigaraki instruct you to betray Overhaul?”
“No!”
“Nope.”
“Nah.”
“No,” Shouta added to the three other answers, the word spilling out of his mouth automatically. It came out as a soft nyaa, but that was enough.
Overhaul stilled. “What was that sound?”
“What sound?” Twice demanded, “I didn’t hear any sound! You’re going crazy, birdman!”
Overhaul tipped his head slightly, waving his right hand in a ‘carry on’ gesture. His truth-Quirked subordinate spoke again, with shockwaves of power echoing in their words.
“What was that sound?”
“It was Demon, he’s hiding under Magne’s scarf,” Twice blurted.
Shouta sighed and dropped his head down on Magne’s shoulder. Spilling secrets.
“Oni?” Overhaul asked, “that’s not someone I’m familiar with. Magne?”
Magne reached up to her borrowed scarf, and Shouta tilted his head to glance at her face. She looked conflicted. Shigaraki didn’t know that Shouta was here; he never would have greenlighted it in the first place, and it was never a good idea to give your enemies information that your allies didn’t have.
“If you’re going to be one of us, you’ll have to follow orders,” Overhaul said, just casual enough to be dangerous.
Magne’s hand closed into a furious fist around the scarf, but she took a subtle deep breath and slowly unwound the coils from around her neck. Shouta took advantage of his newfound freedom to stand up on her shoulders, stretching out his paws. He’d been lying in the same frozen, coiled shape for almost an hour at that point, and it was starting to get irritating.
“A cat?” Overhaul asked.
“You’ve met,” Magne scowled, reaching up her free hand to lay it across Shouta’s back. He allowed it, closely watching Overhaul’s face as microexpressions flicked across it.
Confusion, realization, shock, and a split second of furious hatred before it was smoothed away to his usual neutral baseline.
“How... interesting,” Overhaul observed dully. “What’s his Quirk?”
“Even we don’t know that!” Toga grinned, “he can change sizes, sometimes, and he never stays where he’s supposed to be!”
“I stay exactly where I’m supposed to be,” Shouta huffed, stretching one final time before draping himself over Magne’s shoulders again, “That’s just not where you put me.”
Overhaul looked from Shouta to Toga, then back. He was silent for moment, then seemed to make up his mind.
“Very well,” he said, moving to stand. “We will accept you as members of the Shie Hassaikai, but you are still wanted criminals. We cannot let you roam around freely.”
Overhaul started towards the door, not even looking at them as he pulled it open. “If you don’t have any other instructions, do not leave these underground facilities.”
“You’re putting us under house arrest?” Twice demanded, and Magne and Toga were moments behind him, objecting loudly to Overhaul’s orders. Shouta remained silent, watching the other yakuza members shift subtly as Magne took a furious step towards Overhaul. A fight, here and now, with these people, would be a bloodbath. Shouta didn’t know if he’d even be able to help, what with his transformation being so unpredictable.
“Once I trust you a little bit more, I can let you do what you want,” Overhaul said, not even glancing back at them. “It’s up to you.”
The door closed with a click.
“That means,” the irritating puppet person said shrilly, “that you can’t keep acting like that! You guys have got to lose the attitude and get used to following orders. We’re yakuza. Don’t underestimate us!”
They were a failing, faltering yakuza who needed to piggyback on the renown and reputation of the new up-and-coming Villain group to get even a fraction of their power back.
“We’ll rise up from the shadows and take over society! The restoration of the yakuza is coming, and our triumphant return will bring to fruition the longstanding ambitions of our bedridden boss! You should be grateful you have the chance to be part of our greatness, you wretches!”
Sometimes, it was difficult to figure out the weak point of any given enemy. Exactly where best to hit them to make them crumple. For some people, though, it was obvious. Shouta didn’t know exactly how he’d manage it as a housecat, but if he ever ended up in conflict with that specific member of the yakuza, all he’d have to do was target his pride.
Oh, who was he kidding. Shouta was already in conflict with him and every single other yakuza member.
Shouta yawned widely in the yakuza member’s face, popping his jaw and automatically digging his claws into Magne’s shoulders. She didn’t even twitch, but Shouta gingerly pulled his claws out of her sleeves.
While the yakuza member got irritated and huffy, Shouta jumped down from Magne’s shoulders and started poking around. People rapidly began to disperse once Overhaul left, vanishing out the door to return to whatever duties they had been drawn away from for the meeting. From what Shouta knew, he was pretty sure that every noteworthy or high-ranking member of the Shie Hassaikai had been there.
As the yakuza with the answer-enforcing Quirk left, Shouta slipped out the door with them.
Magne, Toga, and Twice could handle themselves, and, worst case scenario, watch each other’s backs. Shouta needed to get the lay of the land, map out anything that might be important in an emergency. Defensive areas, locked doors, dead ends, crossroads, fatal funnels, exits. Places that could be exits with the right force applied...
Shouta glanced both ways down the hallway. He’d come from the right, but it had been quite a while of wandering through winding, complex hallways before they’d actually made it to the door. He wouldn’t be at all surprised if there had been some walking in circles and doubling back that he’d missed from his position under Magne’s scarf.
Just as Shouta was about to start off down the hallway, the door opened once again, and someone stepped out. It was the yakuza in the yukata, with the long hook-beaked mask that only covered his nose and mouth.
“I was hoping to catch you here,” he said calmly, stepping off to one side of the door and dropping into an easy, practiced crouch. “You look quite lost, Oni.”
“’Lost’ just means you haven’t bothered looking yet,” Shouta grumbled, eyeing the man dubiously.
“Come here,” the man said, not unkindly, and offered Shouta his fingers.
Shouta obliged, leaning forward to sniff the man’s hand. It smelled of leather and disinfectant, ink and paper and polished metal, along with his own personal scent that Shouta stowed away in the back of his mind. In addition to granting Shouta a small insight into the man’s lifestyle and previous activities, the motion put his hand in prime biting range.
Shouta sunk his teeth deep into the yakuza’s fingers, but he only flinched slightly and gingerly pried his hand from Shouta’s grip.
“Not very friendly, are you,” the man observed, tucking his now-bleeding hand into the opening of his yukata. “Or, perhaps, simply wary of strangers.”
He stood fluidly and glided away down the hallway. Shouta absently licked the tiny drops of blood off his teeth and watched him leave. He had to admit, that wasn’t the sort of reaction he had expected from a member of the Shie Hassaikai, all of whom until this point had proven to be hotheaded and uncontrolled, with more sensitive triggers than anyone in the League. Honestly, probably more sensitive than any of Shouta’s students, Bakugou included.
It was interesting. Shouta wouldn’t be surprised if there was some tension between this seemingly more level-headed member and the other spitfires. That would be something else he could capitalize on, if he needed to.
Shouta twitched an ear, flicked his tail, and put that thought out of his head for now. He didn’t have a lot of room for error at the moment – not surrounded by enemies and with no way to ask for directions even if he wanted to – so he needed to focus solely on his exploration. Having an understanding of where he was and what was around him at any given time could be the difference between life and death, and Shouta had always preferred to be overprepared than under.