Chapter Text
It was three in the goddamn morning and all Aizawa Shota had to show for himself was zero point five hours of sleep, a building migraine and the shittiest hand in existence. As he stared at the cards in his possession, the colours started to mix and match before he blinked to order them back between the lines. He raised his head to lock eyes with the boastfully grinning Yakuza head across the table.
“Oyabun wins,” announced the goon standing behind the boss.
In Shota’s humble opinion, you’ve reached peak levels of Yakuza when you have someone speak for you. He could have been that someone. Speaking, not being spoken for, mind you. That would require a bit more— assimilation. But he could be standing in that woman’s place. Sporting an unnecessarily traditional kimono and pretending he was somebody just because he had a dragon tattooed on his ass. But no , he was sitting across them, playing cards , surrounded by every flavour of asshole imaginable. Honestly, infiltrating the mafia was baby’s first underground job. Anyone could infiltrate the mafia. They were practically begging for you to join them at this point. Just look at their ‘leader’ , trailed by two ‘bodyguards’ barely over twenty. Neither of them looked like they could differentiate one end of a katana from the other.
Expensive hilts and cheap blades, that’s the modern mafia for ya.
“No, Best Jeanist beats Climate,” Shota deadpanned even though he hadn’t a single idea what he was talking about. But this game was for children so he kind of expected it to be easy to pick up. Apparently, either children became significantly smarter over the years or he became considerably dumber. One of those had a much higher probability than the other though, sadly .
“Obviously not, since Climate has a higher ranking and bigger firepower.” The other Yakuza goon who spoke sported only one eye in the middle of his face. As of now.
The boss nodded graciously. He was fairly old, not old in ‘normal people’ sense and not even that old by ‘villain’ standards but in ‘Yakuza boss’ terms, he was pretty impressive. He managed to hold his position under the entirety of Shota’s mission.
A god fucking awful year that all led to this.
Welp, there goes my only card that’s actually worth shit. He re-examined his hand, hoping to find at least one worthwhile piece. He didn’t even know who these heroes were , let alone their ‘ranking’. The ones he worked with didn’t have cards made of them and they liked it that way. All the less likely your face is being used to wipe some villain’s ass.
“Who the fuck’s Best Jeanist?”
That was courtesy of the man sitting next to Shota, munching on a thighbone with his severely oversized canines. Chum and saliva were dripping everywhere but he wasn’t too bothered by it. The bone stood no chance. Shota wasn’t particularly worried about the look of said sabre-tooth-like fangs. He was more worried about what they could do .
Where did sabretooth get the thighbone you ask? Well, from the fucking meat processing plant they were playing Heroes the Assembly in at four in the fucking morning. And honestly? That wasn’t even the worst part. The worst part was, it was so freezing cold, Shota felt his balls retreat inside his body cavity an hour ago.
Oh and also the villains. Those were a close second.
Also to Shota’s right, sat the rest of the delightful trio of bank robbers . Made up of the bone chewing guy officially known as Diego, a literal mammoth of a woman so large, she loomed over all of them even while sitting (bigger than Shota’s entire shithole of an apartment, that big) and a ratty little sucker who got rather excited from the mention of the pro fashion icon.
“Jeanist? Jeanist? What does Jeanist do? Make jeans? He makes jeans? Does he, does he, does he-“ the third, uhm, person(??) repeated their question feverishly. Their giant, bulging blue eyes threatened to pop out of their orbits, surrounded by patchy, greyish fur. Whether it was actually grey or just grungy beyond the point of no return was left up to the imagination. Their cross-eyed bulbs looked in the complete opposite direction and their eyelids wetted them with disgustingly loud blinks every minute or so.
Comical? Sure. Robbed nineteen high-security banks without a trace? Yyyupp.
“His quirk isn’t fucking making jeans ya retard !” the Ice Age character reject graciously informed Mr. Thyroid problem. “He gets outta them I think…”
“Is he a porn star?!”
“No! He’s a hero, the fuck ya goin’ on about…“
“Dirty mutts…”
That was the congresswoman to Shota’s left, gracing them with her presence at the very end of the oval table. Someone who almost got the House of Representatives to pass a law that would have made it mandatory for mutant type children to sand down their talons, teeth and claws. ‘For safety reasons’. Thankfully, a lot of people had something to say about that but Mrs. Imamura was still here, and still a congresswoman so clearly, they didn’t say enough.
“Chummy, who let the racist in?” Diego muttered dryly.
Shota seldom agrees with criminals but he can make an exception just this once. God, his fucking eyes ached just by looking at the woman. And Imamura wasn’t ugly by any means. Not on the outside. Standard upper middle class with a diamond spoon up her ass. But Lord, who wears white opera gloves to a villain convention? In a meat processing factory.. Shota cannot press this enough , there were literally crates of diced beef next to them. Hell, since no chair was structurally sound enough to take the weight of her double derby truck of a body, Mammoth resorted to sitting on some sort of ungodly machinery, probably used to make cute animals into even cuter burger patties.
“CANCER QUIRK CANCER QUIRK CANCER QUIRK—” the weasel(??) swayed back and forth, burping the words one by one in rhythm with their springy motions. Mammoth reached out and grabbed onto their head to steady them and coincidentally cover their entire face, the screeching mouth too, thank fuck . Shota will give her one (1) brownie point for taking some mercy on his headache. The villain’s neck stretched a bit when the momentum of their torso brought it forward but it soon snapped back and they boinged on in relatively muffled peace.
“Shut the fuck up Rubber, and play yer hand,” Diego grunted and resumed his bone. The crack of it breaking clean in two echoed across the whole godforsaken freezer. Shota refused to call anything below ten celsius a ‘room’. That was ‘outside’ the temperature range. So this place gets to be called a freezer and he gets to freeze his balls off. Not really a fair trade if you ask him. Sadly, no one did.
“Their name’s not Rubber and they’re doing excellent,” Mammoth patted the sucker on the head. Their cranium squished a bit after each but they didn’t seem to have anything important stored in there. They muttered ‘cancer quirk’ peacefully a few more times.
“I know but that’s what their father should have used-“
“And I am the uncivilised one?” Imamura wrinkled her tipped up nose. “Of course, I cannot expect you people to behave yourselves.”
“What’re ya implyin’ bitch?” Diego barked back.
Shota glanced longingly at the door. This was going off the rails real fucking fast and Giran was nowhere to be seen. He chose to stare at his pitiful hand instead. Maybe if he squints hard enough, he’ll hallucinate a blue, red and yellow, striped shiny on there. Wouldn’t that be a well-deserved mother fucking break from the universe…
“I do not have to ‘imply’ anything, you are literally chewing on a bone, you dog!” The congresswoman obsessively pulled her already way too long gloves higher. As if the mutts could infect her by proximity alone.
Shota was glad for the shades since this way no one could see his left eye twitch. There were a few other people in the ‘Wearing shades inside like an asshole’ club so he didn’t particularly stand out. Two other villains to be precise. Not bad out of eleven.
Could be twelve if fucking Giran would just bother showing up.
“Actually, Baldy there is right.”
That ‘compliment’, Shota really didn’t like coming from that man. A man also sitting across the table, next to the yakuza with short, blond hair and mismatched eyes, one green, the other blue. In response to Shota’s incredulous stare, he released a soft smile. Too soft. Like the underbelly of a predator. He also sported the fugliest brown dress shirt imaginable but with dual gun holster proudly displayed on each side. Plus a knife strapped to his khaki slacks, the grip of another gun peeking out from his pants etc. You get the picture.
“Best Jeanist moved up on the charts, quite a lot actually. He’s now Top Hundred~” The guy smirked, cold, like sharpened steel.
Out of all the criminals here, he was the one Shota loathed the most. And feared. And that was counting the mafia boss and the racist congresswoman and every other ‘A’ class villain in this room. Not that he’d ever admit that out loud. And he was being real modest with that ‘A’ in the case of the blond and Imamura. The former played with the cards in his hand, fingers fast and deft, used to handling all sorts of dangerous things and handling them fast.
“While Climate is well... dead. Last time I checked.” His smile told of a very thorough checking. A personal one.
How is it possible for a room that’s already minus four-thousand degrees to get even colder? They all sat in highly uncomfortable silence while Imamura tossed a heteromorph hero card into the pile with every intention of losing the round. Shota would pay for that sizable looking hero in the picture to sit on her. Just a tiny plop and a few broken bones. A possible lawsuit. Would be worth it.
But you know what wasn’t worth it? Shaving his head each day so his floating hair doesn’t betray his quirk. Hizashi cried when he brought out the buzz cutter. Shota was pretty sure it was a traumatic trigger to him at this point. They’ll have to work this shit out in couples therapy afterwards. He’s never touching a razor again in his life. He officially became allergic to hairdressers. His scalp begged for a 3 in 1 Head and Shoulders shampoo and that wasn’t even talking about the rest of his skin because apparently , ‘real villains’ only bathe once per full moon. In sewer water or some shit if the collective stench of the room was anything to go by. (Maybe the half-rotten meat also had to do with it but whatever , it was in Shota’s favour if you take into account that most mutant types usually had decent smelling. And there were at least four across the table.)
Giran didn’t show. Which was fine. This is fine. Shota knew he wouldn't but he still couldn’t help to hope. His stupid ass hero heart is to blame. But Sasaki saw he won’t turn up, at least not as long as he’s here. After— It doesn’t really matter what happens after, does it?
Shota released a true to life exasperated sigh. And this? This is how he was spending quite possibly his last hour on planet earth. Playing a fucking children’s game with the most dangerous and deranged people in this nation. Fucking disrespectful, that. His ancestors were rolling in their graves. If only he knew any of them.
Well, it wasn’t a children’s game, not for them. It was a way to gather information. An opportunity to enlist new members (of the Yakuza). A chance to stake out the competition (for the bank robbers). For the blond-haired dude, it was a job offer. Whatever the fuck the racist congresswoman wanted, it was that for her. Shota didn’t concern himself with exactly what Sasaki managed to convince them to come. They were here and that was that.
Because for Shota, this was it.
Possibly the height of his career. The biggest, fattest catch he ever had the chance to reel in.
This was a setup.
Now he has to make sure they all know that too.
The guy in a severely oversized blue bomber jacket next to the Yakuza tossed in a losing card too. He was Tokyo’s biggest X dealer. They have made ‘acquaintances’ already in other ‘gatherings’ but Shota didn’t remember him having this criminal of a fashion sense. The roaring plastic gem tiger on the front is what did it. The prison garb will be an improvement . Shota did note the new necklace around his neck. The pendant was aggressively crimson but too far away to really see what the slender shape was supposed to be.
“Oh, that one’s dead too,” the blond chimed in, pointing at the tossed card. “Areola was the name I think?”
The bright pink-skinned woman on the other end of the oval gave a short snort.
“Is her death entertaining to you?” Imamura obviously wasn’t going to just let a ‘fucking mutt’ disrespect a perfectly acceptable, emitter type air bender heroine. Almost Top Hundred, mind you. Was. Was almost Top Hundred, Shota.
“Someone skipped their English classes,” she replied with an ever so slight hint of an accent. Shota’s eyelids were threatening to get glued shut at this point. Sasaki shouldn’t have agreed to revising the plan one more goddamn time. He was the one pretending to be a responsible adult out of the lot, was he not? Like it fucking mattered, like any of this fucking mattered.
Shota took in a small breath and concentrated on the next target. Other than the skin colour, it was hard to tell if the very funny ha ha nipples woman was even a mutant type with the cap, matted hair and Indoor Shades™ covering most of her features. But she wasn’t fucking fooling Shota. Not just because he had such a good bullshit radar but because watch out for the woman.
Okay Sasaki but which fucking woman do I watch out for? The one twice the size of a barn, the katana-wielding yakuza member, the racist with the cancer quirk or the expert counterfeiter? Neither seemed like a safe bet against the others.
The problem with the last pink ‘problem’ was that Scribe not just knew how to forge about ninety percent of the wide selection of official documents Japanese bureaucracy had to offer but recently figured out how to believably forfeit hero licences. And that, that won’t fly. It wasn’t a biggie for limelight heroes whose face was on TV every Sunday morning but for the underground type, it stirred up quite some shit. As baffling as that might sound, people didn’t immediately take Shota at face value when he dragged his ragged, coffee-stained, cat-hair covered, sleep-deprived ass towards a distress signal. Shocker, that.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Diego was always as bright as the morning sun. Shota tried to remember what the conversation was even about. Something about English lessons and breasts?
“‘Areola’ means tits, Diego,” Mammoth rumbled, exasperated. She covered Rubber’s ears to prevent them screeching ‘TITS’ for the next half an hour. Two (2) brownie points. Shota might give her the premium treatment if she keeps it up. A nice, cosy, not so leaky jail cell.
“Nipples, technically,” the forger corrected flatly. Great, he gets a free English lesson with his crime, what a fucking bargain.
“Sorry lads, I gotta take this round,” the blond was at it again, leaning forward and winking at Shota while he gracefully let a card fall on top of the pile.
A Present Mic card.
“No way that beats Climate!” Cyclops retaliated immediately.
“He is Top Hundred. And alive.” The man kept.looking.at.him. Smile personable, tone warm as sunshine. It made Shota sweat bullets. Or maybe that was the caffeine withdrawal. “For now.”
Shota slightly crinkled the useless cards of irrelevant heroes in his hands. Fuck him, fuck Giran, fuck this, he’s wrapping it up. There’s no way he’s tolerating even a second more of this. He’ll beat the shit and the info out of that asshole personally.
“This is just a pointless waste of time.” No, he’s not going to agree with the racist but god damn did Imamura take the words out of his mouth. “Where is Giran?” she perked up and the movement was carefully followed by everyone. She curbed the motion, drummed her fingers once on the wood and gestured towards blondie. “Take the round and let us get on with it.”
“No way he’s taking that.” True, having people speak for you was a power move but not so much when they ignored your existence in the process. One-eye stepped forward and disregarded the head’s warning hand to jab a finger at the cards. “Not Jeanist, nor this ‘Present Mic’ is better than Climate. He was Top Hundred for fuck’s sake and not even the bottom third!”
“Well he did bottom pretty hard,” Diego snickered and Mammoth smacked him on the back of the head. Lightly. It only rattled his entire body. Weasel continued his mantra, now screeching ‘HARD BOTTOM’ for a change. Peachy.
“Disgusting.” Imamura drummed her fingers again and Shota’s anxiety spiked with each tap . He swore he could see her digits undulate underneath the pretentious gloving. It made his eyes sting in anticipation of how much fucking erasure he’ll have to do to avoid this room becoming a cancer ward. “Take the card, assassin.”
Shota doesn’t have to tell anyone that for you to be called simply ‘assassin’, you had to do a pretty hefty amount of work. Unofficially, blondie went by Mort but that wasn’t much better either. What he went by officially was even worse.
“Oh you’re just mad ‘cuz he was a ‘dirty mutt’,” Cyclops tittered. His face rippled , two more eyes appearing besides the first. They did a little circle-dance around his nose, skin and flesh squishing and melting like liquid latex to accommodate the rolling orbits.
Imamura blocked out the sight with a hand. “I do not have anything against heteromorph types that can just behave,” she hissed, fixedly looking anywhere but the live special effects display.
“Like a good dog, huh?” Scribe decided to join in again. Shota thought the Supreme cap she wore was way more of an eye sore than the now ‘tricloptic’ yakuza bovver boy.
“Dog? Dog? Where? Dog, where? Dog, Dog, Dog-”
“Oh great, now ya started Rubber again, fuckin’ fantastic.” Diego sighed, preparing to chew on the second thigh bone. Shota imagined shoving that bone waaay up his ass. Non lethally of course. He might even give him some single-use lube he stole from a love hotel.
He pushed all of that down into the basement and slammed the reinforced hatch closed. Then dragged a shelf over it, then packed that shelf chuck full of the fucks he still had to give. Not much but it’s honest work. Then he forced his mouth to speak.
“Well, technically Present Mic isn’t Top Hundred, not according to last year’s evaluation. And this year’s isn’t out yet…” It was hard, immensely hard to keep his tone level and just the right amount of cheeky to be infuriating.
“Well-“ Mort parroted. “-I kinda have to be well informed. It’s an occupational requirement. Pricing and all that.”
The man unmindfully played with a throwing knife. It didn’t do wonders for Shota’s fraying nerves. More fucks on that shelf, quickly. He opened his mouth but several other criminals also had something to say about that.
“What is your price exactly?” The Yakuza sounded awfully interested.
Scribe who was staring daggers at the politician reassessed her priorities, now staring daggers at Mort. Oof, and those daggers were sharp. Not as sharp as the physical weapon blondie refused to just leave the fuck alone but still. Shota slightly moved her up on the ‘woman to watch out for’ list. She was still third out of four but hey, she beat the Yakuza (not that not literally everyone got the Yakuza beat at this point).
Mort opened his mouth and Shota suppressed the urge to perk up. This counted as an admission right? If only I could get it on fucking tape- His hands twitched for the tiny round button sewn inside his wrist. With these people, you couldn’t chance bringing an actual recording device into the ‘meeting’. The Triclops definitely had a sensory quirk and there were at least three people here who lived from sniffing out and disabling such contraptions. And robbing banks, that too.
“Where is Giran?” Imamura sounded stressed. Politicians. They could always smell a coup. Shota wondered if it was an acquired skill or if they were born with it.
The urge became a painful itch. Not yet Shota, Sasaki said to wait, do not blow this because you’re a little trigger happy.
“True, where is he?” He fed into the fire. Not quite ready to ignite yet but the components were there, the wood was bone dry and they were all gingerly pouring gasoline on it.
“Three-eyed creep won the lot and I’m goin’,” Diego was the first to stand up. Shortest temper. His teammates didn’t move, not yet.
“Careful who you’re talking to,” Cyclops narrowed his (three) eyes and Shota could see his hand twitch towards his cheap ass blade. The boss looked a bit lost, honestly.
“Or what? You’re gonna kill yourself to save yer honour? Gimme a break man.”
That was ill-advised in Shota’s opinion. Which was validated when a blade was suddenly pressed against the snake of Diego’s oesophagus. All the way from across the room, the Yakuza woman now had her hand submerged to the elbow in a localised portal. The exit opened right next to Sabretooth’s head. Katana in hand and all. Well, Shota might have been continuously dissing the Yakuza up to this point but they did do him the favour of escalating the conflict to the next level effortlessly. Mafias took notoriously bad to the questioning of their -questionable- authority.
“You’re not going anywhere,” she stated and gave weight to her words by slightly pressing the edge against the coarse orange furred skin.
Mort stopped whirling the blade around. Scribe stopped following the blade. No one moved. Everyone stared. Rubber guy screeched ‘kNiFe TiMe’ but wasn’t paid any mind by either of them. Shota could see the warm, billowing puffs of cool mist exit between the (soon might be) extinct feline’s oversized chompers. The slight tang of freshly spilt blood would have surely filled the room if it didn’t already smell like a slaughterhouse. Which it was. Or will be. Diego released a low, grating growl telegraphing a very real warning. Shota felt it reverberate in his own throat. The tap tap tap tap tap of Imamura’s five fingers abused the rest of the silence.
“Let us be civilised now.”
Leave it to the politician to ‘skilfully’ mitigate the tension.
“The fucking Yakuza bitch has a knife to me throat and now let’s be civilised?!” Diego seemed to deem his offence big enough to risk speaking with steel against his neck. “You’re just— the worst , ya know that?”
“I still win this round,” Mort chimed in. The X dealer next to him just nervously sighed.
“You don’t win shit.” Triclops pushed his tongue out. At the end of it, there was another eye. The quirkist didn’t appreciate the body modification.
“Stop that before—“
“Before what? You call `’Make a Wish’ on me?”
Someone greatly misinformed this goon of his standing. Someone also forgot to tell his boss how to discipline his underlings. Triclops’ face shifted and twisted and distorted before going into a configuration that Shota amusedly realised was the perfect rendition of that one Gravity Falls scene. The woman scooted back a bit, hand hooking under the end of her gloves but she didn’t do anything rash. Thankfully, the quick red flash of Shota’s pupils was also masked by the shades. Two pairs of eyes still snapped towards him. The assassin’s and the forger’s, sitting next to one another like best buddies. Both were fast enough to come off as a figment of his imagination but Shota’s string-cheese nerves caught the looks. He debated moving the woman further up but then just settled for remarking that she might have better reflexes than expected of a paper pusher.
“Uuh! Uh! I want- uhm, let’s see… Can ya get Areola to visit me’ hospital bed?” The blade still wasn’t gone but Diego sloppily smacked his lips at the politician nonetheless.
“Still deeead~,” Mort tittered “I can get you anyone from the Top Hundred if you’d like though. Top Ten too if you pay the price.”
It was impossible not to wonder what that price was.
“I’ll get you a Top Ten all right.“ Shota realised a moment too late he muttered that out loud. Well fuck.
“That a threat?” The assassin smiled at him and Shota shuddered. That was the bad kind of shudder. The Hannibal Lecter kind. But his teeth were so fucking white and straight; god damn, Mort sure as hell flossed every morning.
A promise, Shota didn’t say.
“An observation,” Shota did say. “If you keep wanting to kill them, one is eventually gonna show.” And Smash your bitch ass, he again, didn’t add even though he really wanted to.
“Oh, I’m counting on that.”
Why.Did.He.Keep. Looking ? Shota was starting to believe something wasn’t going in the direction it was supposed to. But Sasaki said it’ll play out the way they want it to so that couldn’t be it.
“ ‘ello? I still have a knife to me throat!” Diego indeed still had a knife to his throat. “Call yer bitch back Yakuza man or I’ll bite this shite in two.”
There was silence but to Shota’s slight disappointment, the ‘Yakuza man’ actually called his woman back. Well, he’d have a hard time erasing a katana so it was probably for the best. They all settled but none of them relaxed. There was real tension in the air now. No chair legs creaked from the weight put onto them, no feet shuffled, no cards were being played. The only thing this situation would have needed to be a perfect showdown is the titular harmonica solo in old westerns and a nice close up of each pair of eyes straining to be on ten other people at once. The only one who managed was Rubber and he wasn’t even trying .
“There’s no way you could bag a Top Ten,” Mammoth grunted and Shota would have been inclined to agree if-
“Mr. Incredible,” Mort tittered, picking a piece of imaginary dirt out from under his nail. “The whole family actually but none was Top Hundred so I guess you wouldn’t know.”
“That was you?!” Diego spluttered.
“That was mee~”
“Those were children,” Scribe’s voice distorted in a strange way, almost like a hiss . Shota tried to catch her expression but it was perfectly blank.
“Let’s not get hung up on the details, shall we?”
Shota very much wanted to get hung up on those details but so did the forger apparently. Triclops however had his mind elsewhere.
“How much for A-“
“Shion.”
Oh, now the boss starts to discipline his underlings. Well, Shota wasn’t surprised. It’s amazing how much power a half-said letter held. Looking at the table now, Shota could see at least half the occupants casting a quick glance at the ceiling as a sort of automatic criminal reflex. It was almost the villains’ rendition of throwing a cross. Because you never know, do you?
“Thankfully he’s on the other side of the globe in a diplomatic meeting,” Imamura said what they were all thinking. Even though all of them knew that, the relief was still palpable. None of them would be here otherwise. “I am asking for the last time.” Another set of taps earned Shota’s undivided attention. “ Where is Giran?”
“Why are we even here?” Diego was as sharp as a rusty spoon but even he started to get suspicious.
“Just to suffer?” Mort offered cheekily.
God damn Shota wanted to punt that blade bending blond piece of work across the room so bad.
“We came looking for recruits as promised,” the Triclops officially named Shion stated. It earned him nothing but a round of confusion from everyone except Shota.
“We didn’t promise no recruits.” It didn’t matter who said that. No one promised any recruits. Those recruits were strictly imaginary.
“I thought someone wanted to place an order,” Mort smirked. He didn’t seem especially worried but he didn’t start flaunting his knife again. Imamura’s fingers were hooked under her gloves and not even in an inconspicuous way. Shota tried to blink as often as he dared while he still could.
“Who has the info about the National Bank of Japan?” Mammoth shifted too, the creaking of that poor metal thingy grating Shota’s eardrums.
“I’m guessing no one’s planning to buy any X either?” the dealer asked, uncertain.
Strings were getting pulled taut across the table. Imamura and Diego were locked in a silent staring contest again. Mort propped his head up with an arm and fixated on Shota while Scribe fixated on him. Diego was the one to stand up yet again. No blades were drawn. This was well past warnings. If a weapon gets unsheathed, it gets used .
“We are leaving.” Mammoth agreed with his partner in crime. She moved her multiple ton body with the sound of a smaller earthquake, picking the unnaturally still Rubber up by the head. Their neck stretched again but they didn’t oppose. Stopped muttering too.
“No one is leaving.” Shion wasn’t smiling anymore. No one except Mort was but his face just seemed to be stuck that way.
“Someone set us up.” Imamura had the audacity to declare that while pretending to inspect her nails. Through gloves.
“All the more reason to leave,” Diego insisted but didn’t move. The air was thick to breathe and even thicker to move in. Shota doesn’t feel that cold now. The central heating must be kicking in. Or the looming threat of an ugly demise, whichever.
“Why are you so eager to leave?”
“Why are ya so eager to stop me?”
“You can’t possibly believe it’s us?!”
“Well it ain’t us either!”
“Like I trust a bunch of dirty mutts!”
Diego jabbed a clawed finger at the congresswoman. “Oh, it would be real convenient for ya if the biggest mutant villain group would just magically ‘disappear’! It’d make such a great campaign slogan. Down with the ‘dirty mutts’ or smtin’.”
He pulled his lips back and the politician pushed her gloves down just a smidgeon. Multiple inch long canines caught the fluorescent lights. They seemed to glow on their own. Satin slid on skin and Shota didn’t blink.
“Do not be so simple, mutt.” Her expression was level but her charcoal eyes swallowed the light coming off those fangs, hungry for more. Her fingers hooked under the silky fabric. Shota felt his capture weapon coil and twist restlessly underneath his clothes. Not yet, not yet Shota, not yet— “I would not want to be compromised by being seen with your kind.” That last sentence was addressed to all of them. The audacity.
“Oh?”
Scribe leaned forward, the motion as smooth as the satin of the opera gloves. Shota shuffled to get a better view of her leaning on the table. Her hair obscured her face but whatever her expression was, it made the racist at least a shade lighter. And she was already so white they’d let him through the US border without so much as a second thought.
“Afraid it would— bite you in the ass?”
There was something in the way she said that, a demeanour very unlike a paranoid paper pusher. Shota didn’t see what she did next but he caught a flash of bone-white between the tresses. Weird, considering her quirk was ‘moving ink’.
“And who are you to threaten me ?” The ‘dirty mutt’ remained unsaid just this once.
“Precisely!” Shion turned towards the forger too. “Everybody knows this bitch and those three just robbed the Kyoto city bank so I doubt the police are too keen on working with them. Who do you have to vouch for you?”
“I hate to agree with organised crime but it is a tad suspicious uh- I never caught your name sweetheart.” Mort finally released Shota from his sights and tilted his head in an equally teasing manner. The playful tone hid interest. Real interest. Hmm, apparently Shota wasn’t the only one having suspicions. Interesting indeed.
“Don’t talk like yer above suspicion!” Diego quickly redirected his barking. Orange eyes flashed between him, Scribe (who remained silent) and Shota.
He snorted with very real offence, “Uhm, do I look-“
“Like a hero?” Mort’s mismatched gaze was upon him once again, coupled with a smile that was just a tad too sharp. Like the glint of a rifle in the distance. Blindingly obvious but by the time you notice, it’s already too late. “I would know, wouldn’t I? I’m kinda in the business of killing them .”
“If you are who you say you are.”
“Want a demonstration?”
He playfully reached for one of the holsters on his chest. Scribe’s hand shot out, claws extending from her pinkish fingers. But by the time she reached him, Mort was gone. A flash of poisonous green and a small plume of coloured smoke is all that remained of him. That was the straw to break the camel’s back for everyone.
Imamura yanked her gloves off with speed belying her status. Diego took that as an invitation to open his maw and lunge at her, teeth heating up and glowing like orange plasma. The entire body of the Yakuza booked it for the nearest door. Mammoth had something to say about that , tossing the first thing she could at them. Which happened to be Rubber, maniacally screaming ‘KNIFE TIME’ and ‘CANCER QUIRK’ while their practically boneless body flopped and twisted to entangle Shion and the boss completely. The other Yakuza goon unsheathed her blade but Shota didn’t have time to see what she did with it since he had bigger fish to fry. Namely, to activate his quirk just at the moment Imamura swiftly avoided the plasma fangs and laid a palm on Diego’s shoulder. Shota saved that sucker from a malignant melanoma and then he badly bent his wrist to press-
“There you are, Eraser.”
There was no training good enough to avoid the edge of that maliciously green blade. Shota nearly snapped his neck to cast his quirk behind him in a desperate attempt to do something. It disappeared in a juniper flash. He then had enough time to duck the second one coming for his kidney in an underhanded fashion. He jumped back and Mort’s smile stretched and stretched and stretched-
“Oh, you really are the real deal~.”
Shota prepared to duck. The villain was fast, way too fast. And there was that green light again. Definitely a quirk but not even Sasaki’s connections or Shota’s miserable months undercover could figure out what it does. But there was already another attack to evade, another knife to watch out for. No time for speculation. Shota felt his back press against the table while that asshole just grinned and grinned. The hairs rose on his whole body.
Metal found his skin right under his chin. It only nicked him but Shota still felt the whisper of death from the attempt. He parried and tried to entangle the assassin’s hand in his capture cloth. Somehow it missed and he had to dodge yet another go at his life. The skin around his neck started to feel weird. It burned like crazy, slowly but surely spreading.
Poison. Fan-fucking-tastic.
He didn’t have time to cry about that, however. Poison like that (even if it gets into his bloodstream) will kill him much slower than a cut throat will. And the villain handed out plenty of those.
Suddenly, Mammoth’s flour sack sized fist slammed down onto the table, splintering it into atoms. She made the ground shake from the unbelievable raw power, startling Imamura who was about to lay another hand on Diego. She also saved Shota from Mort’s next attack, even if it cost him his backing.
The assassin however, recovered immediately. He spun around to embed a dagger or two in his liver. While evading it, Shota saw a flash of pink from the corner of his eye. He shot his capture cloth out at Scribe who was coming straight at him.
Watch out for the woman.
She evaded the capture cloth with a steady side step. Shota activated his erasure again because no way that speed was natural. The woman stumbled mid-step, rolled into it, changed trajectory and arrived where Mort stood half a second ago. The only notable difference was that for a hot second, she changed colour. The flash of eye bleedingly vibrant gold was almost blinding.
That wasn’t in any way related to ‘ink’.
Shota wrote it off on the poison spreading in his veins. He backed away to force himself and take a breather he had absolutely no time or need for, to assess the situation.
The rubber guy is on the triclops with the katana woman trying and failing to stab them. The point of her blade repeatedly submerges into the semi-furry villain’s springy flesh while she passionately screams ‘YiELD tO ThE pOWeR Of tHe BlAdE!’. The druglord is gunning for the exit and the congresswoman is trying her hardest to reach the sabretooth. Mort fucking disappeared again and the forger is alarmingly ready to lunge at Shota.
In short; everything is going to shit, just as planned
Before Shota could come to his senses, his tired, possibly poisoned, beaten and bruised brain screeched NOW bitch! and he was on top of the metal thingy. He flashed his quirk at its full capacity, capture cloth whirling and twisting around his body like a grey, dirt and sweat-soaked mythical dragon.
For a second, he commanded the room.
“I’m pro hero Eraserhead and you’re all under arrest!”
And he cracked his wrist to push down on the button which had one single function. To activate the thick, metal casings hidden inside the walls of this very room. (How even, Shota didn’t know. He didn’t dare question Sasaki’s meticulousness or David’s innovation.) As the heavy carbon-infused-metal-coated-Kevlar slammed down and effectively air-sealed the room, it also sent a small, inconspicuous signal onto a pager ‘on the other side of the globe’ as Imamura so eloquently put it. She did have her info right, at least.
The mayhem stopped for a silent second. They all stared at him. Triumphant on top of this fuck knows what it does machine with half an hour of sleep and a year of pure fuckery behind him, Aizawa Shota stood, breathing hard. Up here, Shota allowed himself a moment of glorious, glorious gotcha bitches. All the sleepless nights, all the missed baths, the lonely ratholes in shady Tokyo districts, all the shitty sake and even shittier instant ramen and fucking never-ending card games—
It was all for this.
And Aizawa Shota was s, so done with it.
They were all going to fucking prison for the shit they inadvertently put him through. Shota will visit each and every one of them to rub his pay cheque into their faces. Maybe even send a postcard from the priciest, most pretentious bar he’s going to spend it all in. ‘Sincerely fuck you all, Eraserhead <3’
“I told ya we shoulda fuckin’ scrammed,” Diego stated.
“What? And miss the best part?”
Where the fuck did Mort appear from this time? Shota didn’t care. He couldn’t fucking teleport through almost two metres of the toughest material known to man. The thing Tartaros was made of. He corrected his footing, definitely feeling a bit wobblier than appropriate. Nothing he didn’t have to get used to when engaging in at least two bar fights per week.
“This is unheard of,” Imamura was seething. “How dare you-“
“Oh shut the fuck up! ”
Diego lunged at the congresswoman once again, completely ignoring the obvious target Shota became. Villains… But the sabretooth did force him to keep erasing Imamura’s quirk. That left him wide open for all the other hungry villains just aching to get a piece of this prime hero meat. The Yakuza woman stopped trying to shishkebab the mentally challenged bank robber and opened a portal which no doubt packed a katana-wielding arm coming straight for his throat. But before Shota could do something about that, Mort sprinted forward and tossed a blade at him. He automatically started to shirk it but the villain wasn’t aiming at him for once.
The blade spun in the air before caroming off the machine underneath him. The hilt pressed a big red button on the side of the contraption Shota used as an impromptu podium to indulge his singular dramatic vein. It whirred to life with an aggressive brrr. He made the mistake of looking down.
Yep, that is a meat grinder all right. And he did have the misfortune of possessing a multiple dozen metre long scarf that was just perfect for getting caught between those thick teeth of metal waiting to make chum out of any unsuspecting underground hero who should have really looked where they stepped.
Shota sighed. He imagined tomorrow’s headline.
‘Aizawa Shota (handle Eraserhead) professional hero and certified dumbass killed by Grinder’. Wouldn’t be the first time that happened to a poor unsuspecting gay.
Alas, his unsteady dodge resulted in his scarf coming within churning distance. He felt the pull of the material as he stumbled further towards his unheroic demise while the promised katana-wielding arm materialised next to him. But Shota had even bigger problems to deal with.
See, while getting choked by his capture cloth wasn’t too high on Shota’s extensive and shameful list of kinks, getting diced by a murderous looking villain was definitely lower. Because as soon as she saw his blunder, Scribe decided to add insult to injury. She shouted something rendered inaudible by the overly-loud buzzing of the impromptu death machine and beelined straight for a rapidly cursing Shota. How that insulting cap stayed on at those speeds was the real mystery.
Shota; however, was not just rapidly reciting every curse known to man but also searching for his curved caltrop to try and cut the swiftly disappearing material with. Where the fuck is it?! Why did you put the knives in the inside pocket Shota, you deserve this death honestly. God damnit my hands are so fucking sweaty- is it just me or is the room swaying a bit…
Scribe shoved Mort aside to try and mince this hero meat first. If Shota wasn’t in Full Panic Mode™, he would have noted how her hand seemed to go through him. Mort rollicked away with that annoying ass satisfied grin stapled to his face. Against every logical bone in his body, instead of erasing his or the katana-wielding woman’s quirk or doing literally anything of use, Shota flashed his eyes at Scribe because watch out for the woman, watch out for the woman-
Again, there were like four of them. Two in the process of actively trying to kill him and the rest will join in soon. If he survives the grinder that is. The odds of that weren’t looking in his favour.
She didn’t falter from the erasure this time but the pink did flicker out into yellow again. Like when someone swipes their hand on a sequin pillow. The claws sank back inside her fingers in tandem. The speed and the threatening aura stayed though. Shota officially had to come to the realisation that this woman did not, in any capacity, possess a quirk related to ink. And that brought with it the logical (if saddening) conclusion that this woman wasn’t the woman Sasaki worked so hard to coax out of her hiding place. The situation was made even worse by the fact that this one was rather capable in terms of making his life miserable.
She shouted something, sounding awfully pissed and leapt to grab the detached hand aimlessly waving a katana in the direction of Shota’s compromised neck. She wrenched the weapon away and Shota’s eyes went wide. Not just as a last-ditch effort to try and erase whatever skillset this asshole possessed to be this fucking fast but also because there was a woman with a lethal weapon aiming straight for his gizzard. Fuck, how he hated Sasaki to be right.
He miraculously found the caltrop in time and didn’t hesitate to try and jab it inside her somewhere. The woman hooked the tip of the katana under the rapidly tightening coils of fabric and yanked it up, trying to cut through it. Of course, the reinforced carbon-cotton blend will not succumb to something as measly as a cheap ass mass-produced status symbol so all she achieved was giving Shota an opening to gingerly poke her in the side.
Expensive hilts and cheap blades, I tell you.
The woman seemed just as surprised as he was at the successful attempt. Shota twisted the caltrop because he will literally choke on his last words if it means he can stick it to these people one last time.
“Should have thought that through, bitch.”
The woman’s mouth opened in reply and all Shota could think was that’s a LOT of teeth before she pulled on the cloth further, lifting it above his head. She kicked him in the guts just in tandem with a subdued bang that was the staple sound of a Gun Joining the Battle. Shota flew back and met with the wall in a rather unpleasant way. The room blurred together for a moment, only a flash of gold turning back to pink occupying his vision. His head spun, his ears buzzed and his neck was going numb which was never a good sign regarding poison. At least he didn’t get a Final Destination death as a last tasteful ‘fuck you’ from the universe.
Accurately guessing how many of your ribs broke from a single impact was an acquired skill. Shota was proud to say he got it right nine times out of ten. Right now it’s either five or six. At least none of them punctured anything, evident by how he could still breathe, no matter how wheezingly.
He missed a few seconds ( minutes? hours?) of the action but the current state of events was as follows. The machine was done for. Pieces of what was once his capture cloth stuck out from the smoking metal. ‘Scribe’ was standing in front, staring daggers at the assassin who was smiling back with one of his twin guns set on her. She briefly squeezed her shoulder, face twisting up. Shota was pretty sure that bullet was originally meant for him. The Yakuza woman was cradling her right which she managed to get a bit womanhandled when the weapon stealing occurred. The rest of the gang stopped trying to do Shota’s work for him. A gun usually demanded some attention. True, they were a rare sight these days. Hard to acquire and more and more limited in usage but it was a gun nonetheless. It had a silencer on it but that flash was unmistakable.
Oh and also, Shota was still alive. That was an unexpected development. Damn, wrong woman, I guess.
Well, ‘alive’ might be a bit overshooting it considering he started to feel like someone was kneading his brain into a croissant but beggars can’t be choosers. He knew what he was getting into.
“I don’t like my mark being stolen,” Mort grinned wider even though that shouldn’t be possible since that’s all he fucking did during this train-wreck.
Great, so apparently Shota wasn’t the only one scheming during this little game of cards. But how the fuck did he know who I was and more importantly, why stay if he knew this was a setup? Shota said none of those things out loud. The thing his petty mouth wheezed in the end was:
“I’m your mark? Flattered honestly. I’m nowhere near Top Hundred. Are you doing a charity case or is business this bad?”
Mort didn’t take his eyes or the gun off ‘Scribe’ (who was mostly unbothered by the caltrop in her side or the gun wound on her shoulder) but he did say, “Consider it a future investment, Eraser.”
“There ain’t no future for us if we ain’t haul ass outta here right now!” Diego growled between sizzling teeth. He was locked in a stalemate with Imamura. Neither was willing to risk losing a body part if the other’s quirk comes too close.
“Let us stop antagonising each other and work together to avoid a rather— unfavourable outcome.” The woman was a politician down to the bone. She sensed the opportunity and groped for it with her greedy, cancer-ridden fingers without hesitation.
“I hate to agree with the racist but she’s right,” Mammoth rumbled. “There’s only one hero and ten of us.”
“There could be more of ‘em any minute now, he sure as fuck alerted the other pigs oinkin’ by,” Diego grumbled.
“No AHABs in our multiple kilometre vicinity. I’m sure we all checked the schedules.” The Yakuza boss spoke up unexpectedly. They were veterans in this game, Shota admitted. That is why he was the only hero here as of now.
“And I would have known if someone was hiding inside the meat!” Shion managed to produce a mouth on the few inches of skin uncovered by Rubber, hitting a rather self-confident tone. “No hero to save you ‘Headeraser’ or what’s your fucking name.”
“Yet,” Mort winked at Shota and the hair rose on his sweat-soaked back. There was something going on, something he did.not.condone. But not like he could do anything about it other than try to be alive long enough to stop it. That was proving to be a challenge in itself.
“We could use him as leverage.” Of course, the politician would suggest that. “Or maybe somewhat persuade him to come to an agreement…” She took a half step forward and raised a finger. Shota tried to scoot further back but his body didn’t second that.
Everyone tensed but only two people moved. One was not-Scribe (with the caltrop still in her side by the way). Before she could declare Shota to herself, there was a muffled bang and Imamura screamed, clutching her hand. Her finger was shot straight off. The pinkie, Shota noted with equal parts amusement and aversion. This really was the guy.
The ‘guy’ in question blew on his weapon and declared, “Sorry tits, I’m not much of a team player. And as I said, no one lays a hand on my mark.” He spun the old-school looking revolver around his finger with ease.
The nonexistent trigger discipline wasn’t the most frightening thing about him by far.
“You ff— you are being unreasonable-“
“I’m sorry but do I get a say in this?”
Shota sneakily readied himself to spring up at any given second but for now, was content with verbal engagement. He wasn’t sure what his noodle limbs would do if he did have to get movin’ eventually but that was future Shota’s problem. Present Shota was currently getting yelled at by five different enraged villains.
“Shut the fuck up hero-“
“Obviously not-“
“If you cooperate-“
“Okay, okay, got it.” Shota slumped back further, not quite feeling the cold metal behind his back anymore. “Then— could someone tell me what time it is?”
Multiple brows were furrowed. No one humoured him. Shame, he had such a good reply to that.
“Oh, oh, I know!” Mort even put his hand up as if he would call on him.
Shota didn’t fight the fed up groan that bubbled up inside his chest. Anyone but you-
The assassin graciously ignored his monumental sound of disapproval and very animatedly plunged a hand inside his pockets. As if it was their cue, everyone scrambled for their weapons and/or behind cover. Mammoth grabbed a truck full of meat Imamura was preparing to hide behind to chuck it at Mort. The Yakuza woman switched to her off hand with a spare wakizashi. Both Diego and not-Scribe kicked it into high gear to get to him before he finds what he’s looking for but in the end, neither of them did.
Mort stilled. Grinned. He yanked his hand out and tossed a very shiny, extremely rare, blue, red and yellow striped Heroes the Assembly card in the air.
“It’s time to— du-du-du-du-duel!”
And someone broke through the ceiling.