Archive of Our Own ^beta

RYUKYU… TATSUMA RYŪKO

FAILED HERO

FAILED TO SAVE SAWADA FAMILY DURING A FIRE

FAILED TO SAVE SUZUKI SADAO IN A VILLAIN ATTACK

FAILED TO HELP AZUZA YURI DURING A ROBBERY…

Hawks watched the video that had been aired in every television in Japan last night. Re-watching, really, because he had been attending an event that night. In his eyes, this was a little bit of a low blow. Yes, heroes existed to save people, but no hero was perfect. Not even the Top Ten. And Ryukyu… Ryukyu was a good heroine, she didn´t deserve to have all her failures put on live TV and the public opinion practically lapidating her for those. No, the ones that deserved that were the monsters. Monsters like…

“Hawks… are you paying attention, Hawks?” the President said. The bird quirked hero looked at her to answer her question. He kept it carefully concealed, but he found it entertaining to finally see something other than coldness in her expression. And fear definitely fit her.

“Of course, madam” he answered respectfully, keeping his true thoughts to himself. “So… do you want me to take care of these vigilantes? I thought you wanted my full attention on the League of Villains.”

“You seemed to have that in hand, so in the meantime, we want you to take the case and bring them to us before the other heroes reach them.”

“Yes, madam” Hawks bowed in mocking respect at the President. “Can I leave now? I have half an hour until my patrol with Endeavour. You know, the N°1 Hero that you made me follow around so he could be more appealing to the mases…”

“Go, don´t lose time”

Hawks left the room, his eyes focussing on what he had in front of him, taking flight immediately after exiting the Commission building. He also decided that he needed a coffee after the tedium of this morning, even if unpunctuality turned Endeavour crazy. He smiled, remembering the old bastard´s reaction last time he dared to arrive late to their patrol. It nearly made him smile. He almost rubbed it on the Commission´s face… had he not been sure that they would have taken it out on… well, at least he got to be petty sometimes. And Endeavour and the HPSC had it coming. Specially the Commission, making him work with someone he utterly despised…

“Why are you so late?” Enji asked, pissed off when he arrived, Starbucks cup in hand. “You were the one that asked for this, Hawks, so you at least should arrive in time.”

“Yes, yes, I will make sure to do that next time, Fireman” he answered, a carefree smile on his face. Sometimes Keigo was worried that the man would see his actual physical similarities with… well, it wouldn´t be the first time the old bastard was blind to the truth. “By the way, have you seen what happened last night? Awful, no?”

“The public should stop complaining about Ryukyu´s mistakes” the older pro answered. “And she should tell them what exactly would have happened if she had not intervened in those situations. Ryukyu is not doing a good job at putting them in their place.”

“Really?”

Frankly, Hawks believed the Ryukyu was handling the situation like a true pro. She had apologized for those failures publically, but also stated that she had done her best to avoid more incidents like that during her career. Also, she had demonstrated that she had actually made something to atone for those mistakes. It noticed that she cared… unlike some pros that only cared about fame. Anyway, he continued with his patrol not mentioning the incident anymore, as to not anger Enji more. He then would mention it to Touya, once they were alone and with the cameras deactivated.

“By the way, have you been investigating that case too? That vigilante group, the Boys…”

“Don´t glorify them by calling them vigilantes. Villains, they are villains as much as the rest of the scum that commit crimes” Endeavour answered. “And villains deserve to be put down.”

“Ahhhhhh” Keigo clenched his fists. But he couldn´t think about it, he couldn´t think about it or he might explode and… “But you are in the case, no?”

“Told some of my sidekicks to keep an eye out for them” Todoroki answered. “The younger ones are more technologically literate. They will catch that group in no time.”

“Have they caught sight of something yet?”

“No, but they are used to deal with technologically quirked villains.”

Hawks half closed his eyes. He wasn´t entirely sure that the theory of the Commission, that was apparently shared by Endeavour, was true. In fact, he wouldn´t be surprised if no one on the Boys had a techno quirk and they were relaying entirely on their wits. Would be a good way to hide. Even so, it would be great to find them. He was dying to know why the Commission was so paranoid about them. They must have dug some serious dirt about the HPSC or the pro-heroes linked to them to put them on edge. He wondered for a second how many skeletons would be found on some closets…

--------------------In another place, a week later----------------------

Shouta was currently running on coffee… not that a situation like that would be strange on him. He was a pro-hero and an underground one, running on coffee was practically mandatory for all of them. What made this situation different was that, instead of villains, there was a vigilante group out there trying to discredit pro-heroes. And apparently they were not afraid to go after children. Or good heroes, like Ryukyu. It made him wonder if these people had been hurt in some way by pros. Wouldn´t surprise him, he himself had detained authority abuse on more than one instance. Also, he had been so busy with the Boys case and the classes that he hadn´t been able to talk to Midoriya about his connection to the vigilantes. Something he will have to fix soon.

But now he needed to stop thinking about this for a second. Or at least that´s what he said to himself as he drove Ashido and Aoyama to some kind of event Yoroi Musha considered important enough to have his interns there. The old man better not have only called them to parade them in front of the cameras or he was going to…

“Eraser, a pleasure to see you” one of Musha´s sidekicks said when he and his students got down from the car. “And I see you brought Yuuga and… Mina” what was with that tone? “Thank you for coming.”

“This better be…”

Suddenly all the TVs, one of which was bigger than Yoroi Musha himself, turned dark and the credits for the Boys started to appear. The name of the N°9 Hero followed them, not disappearing despite the frantic efforts of the techs to stop the transmission.

YOROI MUSHA… N°9 HERO… QUIRKIST… MURDERER…

THE BOYS PROUDLY PRESENT TO YOU… THE BIRDFLOCK INCIDENT.

As soon as those words disappeared, a film that seemed to come from Musha´s own suit camera, with some side tomes from his sidekicks´ point of view, during a raid. It must be a raid because… A wall was thrown down and the first thing that was heard was the screaming of frantic children. The place was filled with children and teenagers, with barely a few adults that jumped to fight the heroes. They were all bird mutants… probably villains too, but… but those were children, they should have been more… Yoroi yelled to attack and charged himself, stamping over the rubble and grabbing the closest kid, who shouldn´t be more than five years old. This screamed for his mother, but the supposed hero broke his neck. The scream of the woman was one of the most agonizing things he had heard…

Shouta´s hands flew to cover his students´ eyes when the child was grabbed and he ordered them to cover their ears too, but that couldn´t stop the sound. At least not entirely. They heard everything. Heard as Yoroi yelled at his sidekicks to get rid of those dirty villains. The children… how could he call them villains? They were kids!! Kids that could have a chance. And they were acting as if their lives didn´t have a value, as if killing children was right!! This… this was… this was sick… this was…

“MOMMY!!!”

“DON´T!! PLEASE DON´T KILL ME!! PLEASE!!!”

“MOMMMMMM!!!!!”

Shouta tried not to vomit as the screams continued, as the Yoroi present there yelled at his techs to interrupt that, as the film continued and a huge, vulture quirked man, apparently the leader of that band, appeared and showed more children in front of himself acting as shields. The sidekicks and Yoroi didn´t care, they killed them anyway to reach the vulture. Hagetaka Keshuu was his name. He started laughing and telling the heroes that he was going to have a feast with their rotting bodies… Yoroi and his sidekicks fought him, but he was strong. Strong enough to fight back. They finally corralled him, but he grabbed a woman to… Shouta should have known by now that Musha wouldn´t care, but it was still traumatizing when he saw the N° 9 hero piercing through her to reach his objective. Both Hagetaka and the woman fell, she dead and he injured.

“So this… this is it, eh?” the vulture said, laughing as if it was funny. “You can´t kill me, heroes, you have to arrest me…”

“Arrest you?” Yoroi said, looking down at the fallen bird. “Prison is too good for mutant scum like you”

The screen finally died when the hero killed the villain. Killed him, not arrest him like he should. And a hero should never… never if could be avoidable… and that tone, when he said the words mutant scum… Shouta grabbed his students, taking them back to the car. He didn´t care who Yoroi Musha was, he was going to cancel Aoyama´s and Ashido´s internship with him. He wouldn´t expose them to such a… he stopped himself in his track when he realised that he had allowed Ashido, a mutant, to work under him. God, he must have noticed that before. Had something happened to her… He wanted to ask them if they were alright, but it was obvious that they weren´t alright. So he better got them to the safety of the dorms, then talk to them in private interviews and then schedule an appointment with Hound Dog. With everything they have seen…

“Shouta!!!” Hizashi ran out of the 1-A dorms as soon as his husband was visible. “Do you know what happened?” Aizawa nodded, still pushing his two students towards their friends. “We saw some here, it scared the kids… Nezu managed to turn off the electricity before the true carnage began, but they saw something… we are going to need to schedule appointments with Hound Dog for all the school.”

“Yes, we will. And talk to the kids about quirkism” he sighed, watching as the Bakusquad tended to Mina and the Dekusquad tried to do the same for Aoyama. “Has something else happened?”

“The transmission was cut short thanks to the Commission” they both gave a sombre look at each other when the blonde mentioned them. The HPSC was obviously involved in this whole mess, because there was no way Musha could have covered this without their help. “But that didn´t matter. The media still got copies they could analyse in seconds as authentic and the media frenzy started.”

“So soon?”

“They must have received the evidence as soon as the Boys started airing it” Hizashi passed a hand through his hair with difficulty. “It´s… Shouta, I don´t want to say things I shouldn´t, but… Yoroi Musha is finished.”

“Yes, I thought it too” the underground hero sighed. “That video…”

“Kitten, what you saw there… wasn´t the entire video. I have a friend in a TV station and he sent me this” he unblocked his cell and searched for something. “The Birdflock incident had survivors and… well, it´s better if you see it.”

Hizashi pushed his phone towards him, a video already on the screen. Aizawa put play and saw another film, one of Yoroi Musha hunting the survivors from the group he had all but exterminated. Most of them were children, a few teenagers leading them. And it was… it was so brutal. He wanted to throw up when he saw the heroes trying to kill kids. And Yoroi… Yoroi was fighting the oldest teen. A teen he ended up killing because… because no survivors were the order. Eraser frowned at this. The Commission definitely had to be involved in the covering of the Incident, that´s why there must be no survivors…

“There were no survivors that we know after this” Hizashi said sadly. As if Shouta needed another reminder of what those bastards were capable of.

“I see”

His phone sounded in that moment. He took it out of his pocket and starred at it. The shit had finally hit the fan, apparently, because the news was spreading like wildfire. And those reporters were having a field day with this. Blatant disrespect for human lives, quirkism running rampant in the lines of heroes, national disgrace to have a quirkist as N°9 Hero… a small protest was forming outside of Yoroi Musha´s agency, mainly formed by mutant quirked people screaming murderer. Well, small for now, because every second more people arrived with signs of “mutant pride” and “down with quirkism”.

“Yamada sensei” Iida said, peeking out of the dorms. “The Principal restored the light and the TV turned on. The HPSC President is talking on TV.” Probably washing her hands and her associates of the issue. “I think you and Aizawa-sensei should see it too.”

“Of course”

The two teachers got in and sat down with the students. There was no way they were going to leave them alone in such a situation. Shouta wanted to keep an eye on them, especially on Aoyama and Ashido, and answer whatever question they might have. And they must have many. He felt actual pleasure when he saw the Commission cornered, so much that he actually smiled when he saw them try to placate the public, telling through clenched teeth that they didn’t agree with Yoroi Musha´s actions and hereby stripped him of his licence and status, along with the sidekicks that participated in that incident. The rest of the sidekicks’ licences would be suspended pending investigation, but he wouldn´t augur a good career for them after all of this. Endeavour and Hawks were then shown making the arrest and the N°2 made a short speech about quirkism and how he would fight it. Sounded a little bit insincere, just like his cheerful mask. Not matter, it seemed to pacify the people, so it somehow worked.

The next day, when he entered the classroom for homeroom, instead of getting into his cosy sleeping bag as always, he walked directly to the board and wrote a word: QUIRKISM.

“Settle down, class, we have quite a lot to cover in this session, so ethics class is going to be long and we will take homeroom too to make everything clear” he said seriously. “I will answer all of your questions at the end of the class, but first… can someone tell me the definition of Quirkism?”

-----------------------In another place------------------------------

Hawks got through his door. No one had seen it, but he had actually been present at Yoroi Musha´s event when the video had been aired. He felt sick and angry and… but he needed to keep his façade. His damn façade called Hawks, so the Commission could be happy. So he had swallowed the show, the arrest, the damn speech his handler gave him and the reunion after it where the President blamed him for everything. All with clenched, shaking fists hidden and clenched teeth so he didn´t rip any throats.

But as soon as he closed the door, the façade was dropped and Keigo Takami, the actual person behind the mask, emerged. And he was furious. Furious and… and… oh, God, that video… that video that… that showed… that showed his… his… his…

“Keigo? Are you…” Dabi barely managed to see his boyfriend before this one rushed to the bathroom and hurled his lunch into the toilet. The arsonist was right behind him, holding his hair out of his face. “Easy… easy there, birdie… easy there… I got you…”

“Why?” Keigo asked as soon as he was sure he wasn´t going to vomit anymore, slumping against his boyfriend´s chest. “Why didn´t he tell me?” Dabi would know who he was referring to. If Hawks had noticed it despite THEIR brief appearances on the video, then Touya must have too. “I… He… I… He should have told me.”

“Oh, pretty bird” the villain hugged him, pressing the hero against his chest. “There is a simple reason. You were a child, Keigo. You were a child and he was your father. He wanted to protect you, because he actually loved you.” He sighed. “You should be glad to have him.”

“Yes, but I had a right to know.” The bird was now angry, but he didn´t know at whom. He… He could understand HIS motives, but… but… “It is part of him, part of ME, a piece of our past that I should have been aware of” tears started to fall from his eyes as anger was slowly replaced with grief. “I… I had to find out that way… to see it on TV… that was my grandmother that Yoroi Musha killed to get to that… vulture… and I think that the kid crushed by the wall falling in the unseen part was… was my uncle Toriko” he breathed in and out. “HE said he died young, but… but… HE must have been so scared… HE looked the same age as me when the Commission took me…”

“Shhhhh, it´s all right” Touya continued holding his lover tenderly. “You know what he always said about heroes, no? That they were villains in shiny costumes” Keigo gave him a small smile at this. “Maybe now we know why he believed that.”

“Yeah” the bird blinked. “Slapping the handcuffs on that bastard felt great.”

“And slapping ones on my old man is going to feel even better, pretty bird” Dabi smirked. “Are you better, birdie? Can we get up now or you need more time?”

“No, I… I´m better” Keigo grabbed the sink to get up. “I just… don´t want to think about it anymore. Can we just… have dinner and try to forget this for one night? I can start processing everything in the morning.”

“Sure, let me prepare you something for lunch”

Later that night, Dabi sat down in bed. His tired boyfriend was lying next to him, completely passed out. It had taken him such a long time to tire him out enough to achieve this and Touya was tired himself, but… there was one last thing he must do before sleeping himself. The villain grabbed a prepaid phone from the bedside table and marked a number. He only hoped that he was still…

“What the hell have you been waiting for?!! I have been expecting your call for hours!!” Natsuo yelled on the phone.

“Shhhhh, Keigo is asleep. He had it rough…”

“I´m not surprised” the white haired brother answered. “Must have been hard to see other bird mutants getting slaughtered.”

“Yes, especially because it was his own family” Natsuo made a choked sound. “Yes, it surprised me too. Shinyo Takami never mentioned them, but I could recognize him on the video. And that vulture guy… he was a carbon copy of Junto Takami” he talked with a bitter taste in his mouth. “Or Junto was of him.”

“Is he alright?”

“He will be, he is strong like that” stronger than he should be.

“He should take the day off tomorrow…”

“He can´t, you should know that by now. And WHY” he didn´t feel comfortable sharing this kind of information with his little brother, putting him in danger, but Natsu had an ability to infer things with the littlest bits of information that made that nearly impossible. “One day I´m going to fucking finish them. The Commission and that fucking old man of ours.”

“I will cheer for you” the icy brother answered. “Returning to what we were talking about, you should… stay with him? He is going to have a few rough days after this and it might be better if someone is there for him when he returns home.”

“I already thought about it, will bring my things in the morning” he sighed. “I will keep an eye on him.”

“Oh, enjoy it… lovebirds.”

“Don´t be immature” the villain yawned, tired. “Well, I´m going to sleep. Goodnight, Natsu, and give Shouto my regards.”

“You aren´t planning anything that will endanger him again, no?”

“No? this problem is between the old man and me, nothing you little brothers have to worry about” he smiled. “Goodnight, Natsu.”

-----------------------In another place----------------------------

Enji Todoroki was rubbing his temples so hard that he might go bald there. And he might as well do it, because… because of that fucking bird. When he had seen the video of Yoroi Musha killing villains he had expected another thing. He had been away from a screen when it was aired, so he hadn´t seen it at first hand, he also had been warned about the quirkism in it, but he thought that it wasn´t that bad. But it was. It was and… Enji didn´t know what to say. It was then that he saw a familiar face. This made him freeze. The damn bird. What was the damn bird doing there? What was… then he saw it too. That woman with a sparrow quirk, that looked so much like…

Heroes are only legal villains in shiny costumes.

FUCK!!! He banged his table when he finally realised that this was where it came. This… this had been the bird´s family, those were the bird´s little siblings getting massacred by heroes, this was the bird fleeing… fleeing Japan because, if Yoroi Musha wanted to keep his licence, there could be no survivors to this incident. But there was. There was and… HE learned. Learned to… No wonder the bird returned willing to do anything to survive.

“Why didn´t you tell me, you damn feathered nuisance? I would… I would have helped you out” Enji said, even if he wasn´t entirely convinced himself. Theirs was a complicated relationship, but if he would ever be asked… he wouldn´t answer… but the bird was the closest thing he ever had to a friend.

Anyway, he should look at the future. And the future meant finding and captured this vigilante group called the Boys. The HPSC had asked him for help and he wouldn´t disappoint. After that… maybe he would see the bird again and convince him to testify against Yoroi Musha if it was needed. Maybe.