For about 10 seconds, everyone was completely silent, Izuku suddenly feeling complete and utter shock and dread about what had just been asked, Venom with his usual face, Black Cat sitting looking at Izuku with a hard, inquisitive stare.
Mina by contrast looked confused until suddenly she realized what they were talking about.
"Oh yeah, you never did tell me what the heck that teleporter woman was talking about."
Izuku swallowed.
Shit, shit, shit.
This… Could become a very bad situation, depending on how Black Cat reacted.
"Well?"
He swallowed again.
"So… Do you… Did you know there was an incident earlier this year where two criminal groups gathered at Azura Valley?"
She nodded.
"Yes… And I remember there was an anonymous caller that led to those arrests?"
"Wait, that was you Midori?"
Mina looked surprised, but as he hesitantly nodded, she grinned and gave him two thumbs up.
"So you got two criminal groups arrested? Awesome!"
He felt his cheeks go red at her praise, but he was quickly brought down to reality again.
"So, you were the one who got old Hammerhead on death row are you? Well done. However, you still haven't explained 1. Why you were there, or 2. Exactly what happened."
He swallowed a third time.
"Well… See… I was out in the mountains training…"
"No doubt with the kind of heavy, quirk usage training that is ludicrously illegal for people who are not heroes in training, but do go on."
"... Actually it was mostly just running around, jumping, and pushing myself to the limit physically…"
"... Sounds legit. Continue."
"Well… One day, not long before the entrance exam I was just training like usual when a woman suddenly teleported to a field I was running by."
Black cat looked upon him with the most skeptical look imaginable.
"Sooo… You were out training, but you just so happened to be exactly where the Caribbean League and some flunkies from the League of Villains had agreed on a meeting."
"Yes…?"
"You didn't have any… Visions around this time?"
"You mean like the ones we were just talking about?"
"Yeah, Izuku, like those."
"No, I didn't."
He could tell she didn't believe him, but out loud she just said; "So, they teleported into the field while you were passing by. What happened then?"
"I… I saw that Tel, that is the teleporter, was armed, but since she had her back turned on me, it gave me the chance to hide behind a tree before the rest of the crew teleported in. At that point, I just turned invisible, and I… Didn't really dare move."
Both of the women looked at Izuku with bafflement.
"You… Turned invisible. That's… Just something you can do?"
In response, Venom suddenly shot up and coated him, and very quickly turned both of them transparent.
Mina whistled softly.
"Wow, so you're like a predator too? Nice!"
Once more he felt his cheeks blush at her praise, and once more Black Cat brought him down to reality.
"Okay, so you hid, what happened afterwards? You were noticed as you tried to sneak away?"
"... My phone rang."
"... Ain't that just the way. You're right in the middle of something, and then SOMEONE just calls you out of the blue to screw things up for you."
" Ye-Yeah. Anyway, after that, it was just running, while the bullets flew."
"Sensible of you. And then?"
"Well… I got away, and after jumping over a river, a gun barrel materialized in front of my face."
"And, this the part where you broke her finger and jaw?"
"Ye-Yeah… I ripped the gun out of her hand and socked her across the face. After that… I picked her pockets and used her own phone to call the police."
"Ah… So you possess common sense after all. MOST teenagers would just have used their own phone in that situation. You were smart enough not to do so, but instead use someone else's so you could remain anonymous."
She hesitated a moment before continuing.
"I… Don't suppose you kept the phone, rather than destroying it?"
"No, it's… It's broken."
"Pity. I could have found some use for it. In any case…"
He stiffened. Here it came.
"Keep what happened to yourself. You don't want to have any scandals before you get out of school."
"Oh, so…"
"I'm not gonna drag you to the police for using your own quirk to defend your own life if that's what you're asking."
He relaxed.
"Wait, THAT'S what you were worried about?"
Black Cat snorted.
"Of course he was. He's a sensible kid, with a seemingly good sense of Japan's draconian quirk laws. In any case…"
She turned back to Midoriya.
"You didn't learn anything about WHO the Caribbean League were after did you? Like, maybe something you didn't tell the police?"
"No… sorry."
She sighed.
"Yeah… I suppose it was too much to hope you knew who old Lincoln wanted to kidnap."
"Who?"
"Oh right. You kiddos would know him better as The Big Man."
Izuku just looked at her.
"You… Know who the Big Man is?"
Black Cat just stared at him like he had just said the dumbest thing imaginable.
"Yes, Izuku… I do in fact know him… Which you should well know by now… Because Mina HAS talked to you about this right? Cause I told her everything about the group after the invasion."
She turned her head to scowl at her oldest daughter who got an annoyed look at her face.
"We don't really talk about this stuff when we're hanging out you know."
"Yes… Because what is the intrigue between empires, compared to the sweet, irresistible siren song of arcades and McDonald's?"
Izuku was barely listening.
Black Cat had the answers. The answers to all his questions about who the Caribbean League were, who the Big Man, this Lincoln guy was. Maybe their motivation and goals!
"He didn't exactly ask me about any of this, you know?"
Black Cat was about to answer when Izuku interrupted.
"So you know who he is, and who the Caribbean League is?"
She looked at him. Then gave a long, long sigh.
"... You want to know everything I know don't you?"
He hesitated, wondering if maybe he was pushing a bit too far… But curiosity won the day.
He nodded.
His curiosity, one of his defining characteristics had suddenly become alight, now that the sense of possible danger had passed.
"So, you want the long or the short version?"
"If you want the long version… It's kinda a boring story." Mina interjected. "Also, REALLY depressing."
"I-It's fine, I… don't mind a long story."
Black Cat looked him over, judging him, seemingly considering her next words.
"Alright… Since you seem so interested, I'll give you the entire thing. But first… Tell me Izuku… How much do you know about the societal collapse of the 21st century? Beyond what they teach you in school I mean."
"Um… Well… It… The collapse came about due to the emergence of quirks right? Law and order collapsed, and societal progress was halted due to conflict between quirkless people, and people with quirks. Then… Heroes first began to be active in the United States… the success of which lead to it becoming the norm across the entire world."
Black cat had sat back, leaning against the sofa spine as he talked. When he finished she smiled at him, but not in a joyful manner.
"You gotta love the Japanese school system. It teaches you, kids, to summarize half a century of death, Chaos, and complete and total collapse of society on a global scale in a few, sterile sentences. Not a single word of what you said, was untrue. Yet it didn't QUITE capture the fact that during the almost 3 decades-long period between the rise of Heroes, and the collapse of society, 2/8ths of the entire human race died."
Izuku winced. HARD.
" S-Sorry…"
"I'm not blaming YOU Izuku. I'm blaming the education system, that doesn't even teach you guys about All for One. Can you believe that? The guy effectively ran Japan like it was a fiefdom for over a decade, and there is literally not a SINGLE word about him in the schoolbooks you kids get!"
...
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