Chapter Text
“Just minutes ago, another Hero was found dead in downtown Shizuoka. This is the fourth death this month and the latest in a string of murders that, so far, have all been claimed by the mysterious Vanguard.
“The Vanguard has released three statements through local news stations in the form of recorded messages delivered to the reporters anonymously, one after each Hero’s death was discovered. As of now, they have made no formal demands—will the message following this death contain something more? We now go to Riza Soma, live on the scene. Riza?”
“Thanks, Setsuna. I’m coming to you from the corner of Eighth and Fifteenth, just a short jog away from Itsuki Square, where other reporters have been gathering around the scene of the crime. Down the alleyway you can see behind me is the body of Archie McMillan, known locally as Sixth, the Sensory Hero. Police have refused to let anyone through, and for good reason—a Top Ten Pro Hero is already on the scene, and—hang on Setsuna, a car’s pulling up.”
“Riza, is that—”
“It is. Stepping up to the squad car is Sturdy Hero: Red Riot, who was the nearest patrol and responded to the distressed call of the three young women who found the victim. He’s opening the door now for—oh my God—Explosion Hero: Ground Zero has just emerged from the car. Viewers, rest easy. The Symbol of Victory is here.”
“Oh, wow. This is a big deal.”
“Yes! Ground Zero has refused any press appearances for nearly a year now, preferring to work on his myriad initiatives from his agency, Perihelion, and schedule any announcements through his employed Heroes or statements released on a case-by-case basis. For him to come to investigate himself despite Red Riot being present must mean they’re taking this quite seriously.”
“Now what does that mean for the public, Riza? Just how seriously should we be taking this?”
“Well, four Heroes are dead. The killers don’t seem to have any interest in harming civilians, but people should be taking any precautions they can. Don’t travel alone, or always update someone on where you are if you must leave by yourself. Only trust people you know with your sensitive information or your location—now is not the best time for Internet dating or food delivery. And above all, please, don’t panic. The Heroes are working on it. The Symbol of Victory is out here, right now, ensuring our safety.”
BRZZT
BRRZZT
[HELLO.]
[THIS IS THE VANGUARD.]
[WE WILL BE BRIEF.]
[YOU ARE SEEING THIS MESSAGE IN BUSY PLAZAS. IN CROWDED SPORTS BARS. IN YOUR HOMES. YOU ARE SEEING THIS MESSAGE IN YOUR SANCTUARIES.]
[YOU SHOULD NOT BE SEEING THIS MESSAGE.]
[YOU SHOULD NOT BE SEEING HEROES DROP LIKE FLIES.]
[BUT YOU ARE. AND IT’S SCARY. AND YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO, OR FEEL, OR THINK.]
[THAT’S OKAY. THE HEROES WILL PROTECT YOU. THEY WILL TELL YOU WHAT TO DO, AND FEEL, AND THINK.]
[RIGHT?]
[LOOK AT WHAT’S HAPPENING. YOU ARE THE PROTECTED. YOU ARE THE WEAK. THEY ARE THE PROTECTORS. THEY ARE THE STRONG.]
[YOU ARE TRADING YOUR FREE WILL, YOUR STRENGTH, YOUR POWER, FOR AN ILLUSION OF SAFETY THEY CAN NO LONGER MAINTAIN.]
[ARE YOU ALRIGHT WITH THAT?]
[YOU ARE NOT A HERO. YOU ARE NOT A GOD. BUT YOU ARE A FIGHTER. THEY HAVE FOSTERED A WORLD THAT IS SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST, AND YOU HAVE LEARNED TO SURVIVE. THEY HAVE CREATED A WORLD RUN BY OPPOSITION, WHERE YOU ARE EITHER GOOD OR BAD, NO IN BETWEEN.]
[THERE IS NOTHING LEFT TO WIN. THERE IS NO ONE LEFT TO FIGHT.]
[YET THE HEROES STILL SCRABBLE FOR THEIR RANKINGS. FOR THE FLASHIEST RESCUES IN SOMBER DISASTERS. FOR THE HIGHEST STATS ON PEOPLE PUT AWAY. FOR THEIR ORDER BENEATH THE SO-CALLED SYMBOL OF VICTORY, SHINING UNTOUCHABLE FROM HIS DIVINE SEAT.]
[AT SOME POINT YOU HAVE TO ASK YOURSELF: WHO ARE THEY FIGHTING?]
[WHAT ARE THEY SAVING YOU FROM?]
[THEY AREN’T SAVING YOU FROM THIS.]
[HEROES, AS THEY ARE NOW, HAVE STOPPED SERVING THE PEOPLE. THEY HAVE BECOME POPULARITY CONTESTS, GRABS AT FAME, SIX-SECOND STARS WHO CRAVE ACCOLADES AND FAWNING CROWDS. THEY LOOK AT YOU, WHO THEY HAVE SWORN TO PROTECT, AND SEE VOTES ON POLLS AND CHANCES AT RAISES.]
[VICTORY IS GOD AND THESE HEROES ARE A MERCILESS PANTHEON. YOU DESERVE MORE THAN UNANSWERED PRAYERS FOR PROTECTION TO THOSE WHO CANNOT EVEN PROTECT THEMSELVES.]
[HEROES SHOULD RELINQUISH DIVINITY. TAKE OFF THEIR CROWNS. SERVE AGAIN. HEROES MUST GO DARK, BECAUSE THEY CRY VICTORY OR DEATH, AND NOW THEY ARE DYING.]
[THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME.]
BRRZZT
BRZZT
“—iza, Riza, can you hear me? Can y—we have picture, hello, Riza?”
“U-um, yes, hello, I’m here. We saw the whole thing from the display screens in Itsuki Square. It... Setsuna, it was on my phone. On my phone. What happened?”
“It, uh, it... I don’t know. What? What, speak up Griffin!”
“Setsuna? Can you hear me?”
“Yes, yes I can hear you. Viewers, please don’t be alarmed, it, um, it seems our broadcast was hijacked for a moment, and uh—what? They did? I’m getting word that Channel 6 was also interrupted, and Channel 10. Th-that message was just simultaneously broadcasted on every major news network in the country. My God. Cut, go to commercial. Go to commercial.”
—
It’s flawless.
Poison, potent and dark in the veins. It takes only seconds to stop the heart. The man could be sleeping, propped against the narrow sill of a back door, half-smoked cigarette tucked in his rigored hand. He was only noticed in this narrow tomb by some Hero groupies, just young and brave enough to bother a Pro on his smoke break.
He could be sleeping upright, if it weren’t for the nausea that hits when they step into the alley. If it weren’t for the unease that bubbles instinctively at the unnatural stillness or the cold sweat beading at temples over the cigarette, stubbed out too early and dotted rusty red with drying blood.
He could be sleeping if it weren’t for the smell.
No one’s moved the body. They can’t—it’s an active crime scene in the heart of the city—and the potential evidence staining his sagging skin is too important to risk tampering. Yellow tape cordons off the alley and glitters in the damp night, macabre tinsel reflecting the flash of cameras. Cops crawl along the walls and brandish blunt stingers at the crowd of reporters squawking incessantly at either end of the street. In the center of the uniformed hive, Forensics flag specks of dirt and errant threads, block out spatters and snap deathly candids for the two detectives busy taking statements from a Pro and three puffy-eyed girls in homemade merch.
A squad car pulls up, the door opens—Bakugou steps out and the reporters go wild.
“Move,” Bakugou grunts to the police who jump to clear his way. Gauntleted hands perch on his hips as he surveys the body, head tilted. He steps to the other side, crouches to glare at the spidery indigo veins sprawling up the Hero’s neck, and when he stands, it’s with all the information he needs.
Just like the others, this kill is absolutely flawless.
“How old,” he barks.
The nearest Forensic jumps, shuffling through her notebook. “B-between sixteen and eighteen hours, Ground Zero, sir.”
Bakugou huffs. They’re getting found earlier. Took them days to find the first one. That’s good, fresher evidence, but it nags at him. Are the Heroes getting better at finding them? Or are the villains getting worse at hiding them? Is this a fluke, or were they meant to walk into this alley and find this body, cold and stiff and perfect?
He straightens, cracks his neck. “Same poison as the other ones.”
“Uh, we won’t know until we get the, um, the autopsy—”
“That wasn’t a question.” Bakugou mutters it, but barely. He has to raise his naturally loud voice a degree or two to hear his own thoughts with the din of reporters that have tailed him night and day since the first Hero death. He hasn’t had a moment to breathe in over a month, another dead colleague each week sending the wave of paparazzi surging back up against his reinforced fence.
He shoulders past the frazzled Forensics, steps over chalk outlines and plastic numbers, barges straight between the detectives to grab the Pro consoling the rattled groupies by the arm and haul him off to the side. “Brief me.”
“Hello to you too, Blasty. Y’know, I’m the one who opened the door for you. It wouldn’t kill you to use your eyes sometimes,” Kirishima sighs. “The girls came over to ask for a picture at roughly 8:17, that’s the time on Rosie’s—uh, the one with the curls—phone call to 911. Nobody’s even looked down this alley all day, but they said they were looking for optimal selfie light and came in for the neon backdrop.”
“Real helpful information. Skip to the dead body part.”
“Right. Sensory Hero: Sixth, real name Archie McMillan, killed sometime late last night. His quirk was Sense Steal, blinding or deafening opponents and restraining them while they’re disoriented. Bottom of the Top 500, rank like—hey, Daisy, what’s Sixth’s rank?”
One of the girls smears her nose across her sleeve. “449.”
“449. I was patrolling nearby and heard Lily and Daisy screaming. According to Daisy, Lily kicked Sixth’s boot even though she told her not to, and when the Hero didn’t respond, that’s when they noticed the blood.”
Bakugou glances at the spatter down the front of Sixth’s suit, blotching out the insignia. Frothy red at the corners of his mouth and dried flecks on the cigarette, like he’d just taken a drag when the poison kicked in.
“Hey,” he barks at the nearest Forensic. “Bag that cigarette.”
Kirishima raises an eyebrow. “Poison in his smoke?”
“Homerolled,” Bakugou mutters. He shrugs against the shrill piping of reporters, picking up again at his unprompted order. An onslaught of questions that could all be answered by a pair of working eyes, but they’re snapping at his heels for his word.
He used to like the attention. He reveled in it, in his opinion being law, in the subtle shake of his head moving mountains in the public eye. But now it interrupts his sleep and is scripted out by PR managers and gets in the way of his work. And the questions never end.
“You’re thinkin’ it’s the same poison as the other ones,” Kirishima whispers, angled away from the cameras.
“Veins colored the same, blood on his chin, no evidence of a fight. It’s flawless,” Bakugou replies. “And I don’t make a habit of sayin’ flawless.”
“No, you don’t.” Kirishima considers it, weighs it in his mind. Claps a hand on Bakugou’s shoulder. “The girls are rattled to hell. Why don’t you go give ‘em an autograph or something? They’re Hero groupies and they didn’t even blink when I showed up—none of ‘em have moved to bask in the radiance of the Number One Hero, either. They’re really shaken. Go say some Symbol of Victory stuff.”
Bakugou makes a disgusted noise, but the pride that squares his shoulders says enough.
Ten years. It’s been ten measly years since the Symbol of Peace died. Endeavor tried to fill the vacuum he left, but even the crumbled pedestal cast a shadow too long for hellfire to chase out. Not that he didn’t try. He tried until his dying breath. No job was too small, no mission too big, no reporter too inane. No smile meant anything but image management.
It’s been seven years since Endeavor died, and seven years since Bakugou finished that fight with an explosion that rocked the world to its core.
Seven years since he became the Symbol of Victory.
The world’s come far since then. The organized crime that sprung up nearly overnight when All-Might lost has been almost completely eradicated under Bakugou’s glaring watch. Iron and bomb-smoke is the law now, a nation of fighters clawing back to order and safety—he’s the fist of solidity and the face of change. Innovation, progress, the backbreaking work that goes into securing a future free of fear for the people: Bakugou Katsuki, the Symbol of Victory, makes it look easy.
He never loses.
The girls huddle close, trading warmth over the blue light of phone screens. Their thumbs barely slow as Bakugou approaches. “You three. See anybody around this alley before you came in?”
“No,” a mess of curls says. Who’s this one? Rosie? Sure. She’s the only one that glances up from her texting. “We were on our way to a club. It was empty and looked out on the street with really cool lighting, so Instagram, y’know? We didn’t know he was back here or anything, but once we saw him we had to ask for a picture or something ‘cause Daisy’s liked Sixth since she was like, twelve.”
“Have not,” Daisy snipes, “Miss I’d-Die-For-Chargebolt. Didn’t you have a cut-out of him in high school?”
“Shut up,” Rosie hisses.
Bakugou physically restrains himself from rolling his eyes. He can feel the cameras trained unerringly on his profile, waiting for him to do something story-worthy with these frightened girls as collateral. “You’re a little young for clubs.”
“I’m twenty-two!” Rosie squawks. The other two shush her immediately, cooing on instinct.
“Touchy subject,” Lily mutters.
“Whatever. Your night is over. Get in a cab and go home.”
“Tell the cops that,” Rosie groans. Her phone flashes a rapid series of notifications that she swipes and replies to almost seamlessly. “They wanna take us to a precinct for more questions. A precinct! My mom’s gonna kill me.”
“Thought you were twenty-two,” Bakugou grinds out, eye twitching.
They all actually stop typing and look at him. “Age won’t stop your mom from killing you,” Lily says seriously.
“Okay.” Bakugou puts both hands to his temples and presses. “Tell the cops to comp your cab ride home from the precinct and put it in my name. Take care now.”
He stomps back to Kirishima, who is doing a wonderful job of not bursting into laughter in the middle of a crime scene.
“That was pitiful,” Kirishima whispers.
“That was PR.” Bakugou rolls his wrists, bracing himself to take that step toward the pressline, deciding what he can and can’t say with the lightning reflexes of a Pro.
He realizes in the same second Kirishima does that the reporters have gone uncharacteristically quiet.
They’re all looking at their phones. At the insides of their broadcast vans. At the screens high overhead on the main street, tuned to the nightly news.
They’re all looking at the typewriter text flickering a sickly green-on-black, spitting out real-time blasphemy.
Bakugou shoves past the shocked police with radios going wild and the reporters watching their own networks go haywire until he’s stumbled onto the sidewalk. He stares up, up, up, at the massive screen in the square two blocks from them, unable to do more than watch as his Symbol is smeared.
It’s not the first message the Vanguard have put out. There have been videos, uploaded from random accounts and passed around the Internet grapevine. There have been anonymous emails to agencies that slip out of the spam folders and into the inbox. An epidemic of flyers stapled all over the city, even. But nothing like this.
The last line of the message stays longer than the rest.
[THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME.]
At least the killers are polite.
The moment the picture comes back to the panicked newsroom, the reporters around him descend like vultures.
“This is the fourth death claimed by the Vanguard, is there a plan of action to root them out?”
“Do you consider this a formal demand or just another of the Vanguard’s radical statements?”
“Do the Heroes have any leads on who the Vanguard are? This can’t be a one-person operation!”
Bakugou ignores them. A ring of police stops any of them from actually getting a mic close enough to him for quality audio, but even if they could reach him he wouldn’t have anything to say. What do you say to something like this? The Vanguard want... what? Just to frighten people? To destabilize Heroes as a whole? To have Heroes ‘go dark,’ whatever that means?
It won’t work. Bakugou is the Symbol of Victory. He can’t be beaten.
But he’s better at fighting things he can physically maim rather than television broadcasts.
“Mr. Ground Zero, sir,” someone shouts right in front of him. Bakugou jolts back to awareness.
Short. Stocky. Broad-shouldered but somehow small in the crowd. Curly hair so dark it gleams green, though it could be a trick of the light reflecting off the verdant eyes that hold Bakugou’s stare. His arm—rolled-up sleeve of a dress shirt, antique watch, freckles and a fair number of scars—is stuck between two officers. He’s holding out a tape recorder. A tape recorder in this mess of high-tech cameras and branded mics.
“Have you considered the possibility of your own life being at risk, sir?”
Bakugou doesn’t think. “That’s ridiculous.”
The reporter blinks. “The Vanguard just made it very clear they don’t like Heroes, sir, and you’re Number One. You’re still unconcerned?”
“Villains hiding behind greentext don’t scare me,” Bakugou snaps. The cameras shutter, the reporters reach just to catch him speaking to any of the press. It’s a rare and precious thing.
“These people have killed four Pros in the last month,” the reporter says. He doesn’t quite have to shout anymore. The others are just craning to get this recorded. He also doesn’t break eye contact, which is more than Bakugou can say for the rest of the media personnel he’s met. “You’re not the slightest bit worried that they’re climbing the Hero ranks just to make killing you a spectacle?”
“They can’t kill me,” Bakugou snarls. “They’re cowards. Tricks with overriding broadcasts, dead-of-night crimes, hurting my colleagues—they’re cowards who think they’re doing anything but bringing Heroes down on their heads."
“Four Pros,” the man repeats. “One a week. The first was low 800s, the second in the 700s, the third in the 600s, and Sixth’s death puts them in the Top 500. That’s a rapidly closing gap between them and you, Ground Zero, sir. Are you confident that you can make other Heroes just as untouchable?”
The word untouchable flares in Bakugou’s blood. One step forward—the reporters slide backward with audible gasps, brave in numbers but well aware of his famous temper. All but the man holding the tape recorder. He still hasn’t looked away.
Bakugou opens his mouth. So-called Symbol of Victory, shining untouchable rings soundlessly in his ears. He is untouchable—he’s a Symbol, a shared meaning across the nation of Victory, of safety and security—but the gleam in this reporter’s eyes is coating his tongue metallic.
Four flawless murders. No evidence left behind but poison made from common ingredients in any superstore. The first three were likely needled in, based on a tearing of the skin on the second victim, but the fourth, Bakugou knows in his gut, is in that cigarette. They’re getting better, getting sneakier as they become more and more public. These aren’t revenge kills, they aren’t perceived justice for some personal wrong.
He knows with heavy certainty that this national hijack was a declaration of war.
He closes his mouth, and the press riots. The reporter’s too-bright eyes narrow for a moment, then he’s shouting too: “Ground Zero, sir!”
“Leave,” Bakugou growls, pushing through police back to the crime scene, where Kirishima stands helplessly with the detectives. No media hounding him day and night, no—that’s Ground Zero’s job! Speaking for the nation and defending it are two extremely different things, but somehow, both have ended up in Bakugou’s contract.
“Ground Zero!”
He sets off little warning pops on his palms. “This is an active crime scene! Go! Away!”
“Sir, do you have a plan to move on the Vanguard before they disappear completely?”
Bakugou whirls. “And just what in the fresh hell makes you think they’re gonna disappear?”
The reporter stiff-arms the tape recorder at him, mere inches from his chest. There’s a divot in the line of police and he’s smack in the center of it somehow, an outstretched hand that no one’s paying attention to. He’s frowning, a little line between his brows. Bakugou has that line too. Stress. He sneers. What kind of comparison is a reporter’s stress to a Hero’s?
“It’s just, sir, respectfully,” the reporter stutters out, “that their tactics are changing, and your strongest leads right now center on the manufacturing of the poison and the locations in which Heroes have been killed. The correlation is—”
Bakugou claps a gloved hand over the reporter’s mouth. Shock ripples through the press.
“I do not want to hear about the correlation,” he snarls. The reporter is staring at him with eyes brighter than the neon lights of the city, eyes that almost glow. Maybe they do glow. It’s a quirked-up world, and it wouldn’t be the strangest—or lamest—quirk he’s seen. Glowy eyes. Superficial, useless.
They’re doing something to him though. Some little spark. Enough to keep him looking.
He’s been standing there a while with his hand over a reporter’s mouth. “You do not have the information or the authority to speak about the details of this case. Don’t say another word to me or I will have you banned from every appearance I make for the rest of your shitty career. Do you understand me?”
The reporter’s jaw works, brows beetling sharply. Another little jolt goes up Bakugou’s spine. “Just nod if you’ve got the message, dipshit.”
The reporter stubbornly does not move.
Kirishima’s hand lands on Bakugou’s shoulder. “Let’s just get this area cleaned up, okay? Clear out everybody, go on, clear out. Go sit in your vans for a bit, we’ll have more information in a couple hours after the police finally get to do their jobs rather than fence you off from the Symbol of Victory.”
The press does some more shouting, but the police start shouting back, so they lower to a dull rumble. The cameras point down at city pavement, the mics drop to pantsuited sides; Bakugou has his hand over a glowy-eyed reporter’s mouth and neither are backing down from it despite the pink Bakugou can clearly see creeping over the man’s cheeks.
Bakugou eases back slightly. “You gonna say some snarky shit?”
The reporter raises one eyebrow, silently screaming yeah, of course I am. Bakugou almost smiles. Most press members are arrogant, weaseling in on his day-to-day like they deserve answers to any stupid question they can come up with. This one’s determined, confident without self-absorption. It’s a little endearing. At the very least, it’s different.
Bakugou lifts his palm from the man’s mouth. Yep. That’s a blush. Not very different at all. “You’re a ballsy one.”
“You don’t remember me, do you,” the reporter murmurs. Bakugou pauses. Flicks his gaze over every plane of him, watches the blush wash up to the tips of his ears.
Bakugou would remember eyes like that.
“No,” he grunts. “Which station you with?”
“None of them. I’m a journalist.”
“Writer, huh? Who looks at newspapers anymore?”
“No one,” the journalist laughs. “That’s what I’m here for. You’re easy money, Mr. Symbol of Victory. And I’ve got an angle most don’t.”
“Really.”
The reporter smiles. His right cheek dimples, freckles like stars dusting a streak across his nose, dark lashes sweep long into amusement over glimmering green. “You really don’t remember me at all.”
He sticks out the hand not still brandishing a tape recorder. “Midoriya Izuku. We went to grade school together. Pleasure to re-meet you, Ground Zero.”
PR instincts drilled deep into his skull have Bakugou grasping his hand before he processes the statement. The moment their palms touch, recognition flickers—he did know a scrawny kid a little like this guy, didn’t he?
Dark curls and freckles are about the only similarities to the child in his memory. Even as a shrimp himself he could’ve tossed that twig of a boy into a pile of kindling without a second thought. He was quiet, meek, never made eye contact and was always scribbling away in a notebook. Bakugou barely paid attention to him, but he’s never been one to miss details.
Hm. Kid filled out. Found some spine somewhere. Probably got himself a dose of authority and ran with it.
“Bakugou,” he hears himself say. He’s still looking into the glowy green eyes locked on his face over a smile that flickers between genuine humor and strained circumstance. God, when’s the last time he told a press member to call him Bakugou? Not that they wait for permission, but of his own will? It’s a bit out of left field. But they’ve got the school history, so it’s just a classmate greeting a classmate. It has nothing to do with the weird magnetism hovering under Bakugou’s skin, slipping toward Midoriya—that’s just realization, recognition, remembrance.
“Pleasure, Bakugou.” His smile is easy. Sweet. Perfect teeth. “You think you could spare me a question or two, help revive the dying art of print media?”
“No.” Knee-jerk response. He doesn’t do interviews anymore; if he has something to say, he just grabs the nearest pap and says it. He could tweet random letters and half the population would throw roses at his feet.
Midoriya’s smile falls. His glowy eyes slide away. “Oh. I understand. You must be real busy with the Vanguard. I can’t imagine the leads will stay warm forever.”
“They won’t.” Bakugou blinks, shakes his head slightly.
“Well!” Midoriya brushes himself off, squares his shoulders, smiles sunnily. It’s bright in the night lights, dwarfing the neon behind him. “I’ll leave you to your footage then. Have a good one, Bakugou.”
“Yeah.” For a moment, his brain is mush. Then his spine snaps straight. “What footage?”
Midoriya stops, one foot in the air, looking back over his shoulder in surprise. He turns, leaning closer, conspiratorial. “From the security camera, up there?”
One thick finger points at a slim grey camera, pointed down the alley.
“That’s a nightclub. You sent people in to talk to employees, right? They didn’t mention the camera?”
“No, they didn’t,” Bakugou growls, face flushing. A goddamn security camera at the perfect angle and no one even bothered to look up. He’ll have someone’s ass for missing that.
“Oh. Then I’m glad I said something.” Midoriya smiles, eyes flicking over Bakugou’s tensed jaw. “Now can I have a couple questions as a thank you?”
Bakugou pivots, waves a hand over his shoulder. “Still no.”
“Okay, well—” Midoriya hollers after him, “—I work at Majesty Times, whenever you wanna give me that interview!”
Bakugou bodily lifts Kirishima away from the groupies and into the nightclub. He marches them past velvet curtains and a stocked bar, the place empty by order of the cops swarming outside. The staff room is an absolute mess, hastily vacated by employees and patrons alike. The only clear surface is a single folding chair, skewed in front of a tableau of screens showing various angles of the building.
He shoves Kirishima down into the chair by the shoulder. “What,” he hisses, flinging a finger at one of the boxes, “is that.”
“That’s the alley,” Kirishima says incredulously. “How’d we miss this?”
“How did we miss it?” Bakugou hauls the chair (and Kirishima) backward and shucks his gauntlets, dropping them with a heavy clunk to the floor to start searching unhindered for the buttons that can show him sixteen-to-eighteen hours ago. “How did the employees of this lovely establishment forget these were active ‘round the clock? How did the cops forget to check for convenient cameras on my crime scene? How does anything get done with hacks in charge?”
Kirishima puts a hand to his bare chest. “You callin’ me a hack?”
“Not you, jackass, pay attention.”
“You callin’ you a hack?”
Bakugou glares. Kirishima shrugs.
“You’re the one in charge, Blasty.” Kirishima leans around to eye the screens as Bakugou rewinds to the time of death. “You’re always the one in charge.”
“Damn straight.” He moves slightly, enough to let Kirishima see as the film plays slowly. Dark alley, getting darker—no, getting lighter. It’s the pinnacle of the night, the neon at its brightest. There. Sixth walks into frame. Sighs, slouches against the wall, pulls a cigarette from a hidden chest pocket and hangs it from his lip. Two flicks of a Bic, a long drag. A cloud of smoke.
Bakugou and Kirishima watch closely as he convulses, just once, like he might vomit. The angle is too high to see the blood that came up, but he pushes back into the wall and sinks to the ground, shoulders heaving. And then he’s dead.
No motion in the alley until the girls come in, nervous like deer skirting a rabbit.
Bakugou picks up the computer’s mouse and throws it at the wall. Plastic shatters.
“Flawless,” he mutters, gripping the edge of the flimsy desk. “Absolutely flawless.”
Kirishima rubs his wrist, unhardening where errant plastic shrapnel struck. “Hey, at least you were right about the cigarette, huh? Same method, different delivery.”
Bakugou can feel his left eye threatening to start twitching.
“This gives us nothing.” He snatches up his gauntlets and stomps out, kicking the door frame as he passes for good measure. Fuck this useless lead. It was perfect, it was a perfect lead, and it did nothing. They know nothing.
No, he has to think about this.
Sixth was killed by a poisoned cigarette. That takes planning. That takes very, very careful planning. How would they have known he’d light that cigarette in that alley on that night? How would they have known how long it’d take a Hero to find him, or did they just have the broadcast on standby until he was discovered? The kind of manpower it’d take to have that dance perfectly choreographed, to have a plan like that go off without a single hitch...
If Bakugou weren’t the Symbol of Victory, he might be impressed. But he is the Symbol of Victory, and he never loses. The Vanguard wants war? They’re getting war.
Whoever they are. Wherever they are.
Bakugou will find them.
He slams the front door open, startling cops and reporters alike. “Someone get me the footage from every security camera in a square mile. Now.”
—
The neon lights grow distant. Three streets over, five streets down, up two flights of stairs, a lock, a deadbolt, a chain. He throws them all behind him—no one should be following him in. They should already be here.
He hangs up his coat on the hooks by the door. Slings his keys over the knob for the deadbolt, a precaution so he never forgets them and so any unwelcome turn has a bell. Kicks off his shoes, sighs as socks hit the thin carpet.
His little kitchen is dark. He navigates by sense memory, letting the hum of the fridge guide him forward. Chilled air and yellow light flood his silhouette as he pulls the door open, ducks for a moment and stands with a bottle of cold brew.
The light edges furniture and figures in pale gold. Shadows take definition for mere seconds, and he counts three—four—in the slow swing shut.
Pop. Crrrack. The bottle opens.
“Glad you all could make it,” he says quietly. Sound travels in the dark, but no one replies. Without the light, he’s talking to himself.
He takes a sip. Ugh, nasty—no, there’s the nice aftertaste. It just takes patience, like everything else he does. “The Flowers did well. I’m proud. Report.”
“We’re clean,” a shadow murmurs, so soft he might’ve imagined it. “No one’s got our faces.”
“Heard your names.”
“As if those names would come up again.”
“It was still dangerous of you to show around press.”
“You wanted one of these chucklefucks to do it? No way. We’re small-timers, none of our friends were there.”
He takes another sip, an audible gulp. A sigh. “Fire, report.”
A different voice this time, deeper, smokey. “Clean.”
“He got what he needed?”
“Working on it.”
“Take less time.” He turns, leans against the fridge, tips his drink up. “Flood. Report.”
“I’m clean,” a high voice chirps, almost as annoying as the alarms set on his phone. “But you knew that. I don’t do anything ‘til later, right?”
“Right. Stay low.” He resists the urge to rub his temple. “I’m clean too. He didn’t recognize me at all. This went off without a hitch, so who’s the extra?”
A fourth shadow shifts, tucked near the first. The voice is firm, but forgettable. Perfect.
“I’ve got a tail.”
Not perfect.
He straightens. “You know who?”
“From Perihelion. She’s good. I’ve been able to shake her so far, and I don’t think she actually knows she’s tailing me—she’s just sniffing around. But she’s getting too close for comfort.”
He sighs deeply, weighs his options. “Okay. Keep doing what you’re doing. Don’t twitch a toe out of line. Give her no reason to suspect you. Do not contact any of us until you’re sure she’s moved on, or until I contact you. The other Flowers can handle any directives until you’re clean. Got it?”
“Understood, sir.”
He takes another sip. Pinches his nose. Thinks. “All right. The next move is mine. No one does anything before I send an update.”
A dark assent from the nooks and crannies of the apartment.
“Now get out.”
The sound of shifting, of rustling blankets as if someone sleeping rolled over. Not a single creak from his very creaky floorboards. Just the hum of the fridge, then the briefest press of a cold cheek to his own.
“Don’t be too long on the update, Izuku,” chirpy-shadow whispers playfully. “I’m ready to put on a show.”
He waits the five beats of silence it takes for them to disappear out his windows, down his fire escape, through the pull-door to the attic, then his knees start to give. He barely makes it to the bed before he collapses, clutching the cold brew tightly to his chest.
Everything went perfectly. Everything is on track. It’s starting. His perfect plan is starting, and so, so soon, it’ll end. The Vanguard will change the world. He’s shaking—he hasn’t felt like this since he got the job at Majesty Times, since he turned to tell the only person that mattered and she wasn’t there. He feels so utterly, frighteningly alive.
He drains the rest of the bottle and lets it roll somewhere, asleep almost as soon as his head hits the pillow.
Midoriya Izuku, leader of the Vanguard, dreams of knives.