'Who the hell ...' He lowered his arms, looking up at his attacker.
All Might stood frozen mid-stance, fist still extended, the mask of righteous fury freezing into an expression of pure shock.
"Young... Young Akutami?"
"All Might?" Yuta's voice carried the same bewildered tone. 'All Might is here. In Manila?'
All Might's gaze turned to the unconscious woman on the ground. Then back to Yuta. Then to the woman again. Then to the fading purple light across the structure. Then back to Yuta.
His expression shifted through several emotions in rapid succession: shock, confusion, realization, and finally landing on something that looked like profound awkwardness.
"I..." All Might straightened from his fighting stance, his massive hand coming up to rub the back of his head sheepishly. "Haha! That is... I may have... miscalculated the situation."
"Miscalculated?" Yuta frowned.
"Yes. Well." All Might's legendary composure was completely shattered. "In my defense, you were standing over an unconscious villain and I... may have jumped to conclusions."
Yuta didn't respond. 'He's here ... Then that would mean ...'
Thud!
The thought had barely finished when Aizawa appeared, landing on a large overturned truck in the distance. "... All Mig .... Akutami?" He took in the scene with a single sweep of his eyes: Yuta standing at one end of the expressway, All Might at the other, an unconscious villain between them, and two fresh gouges in the concrete where something ... or someone ...had been forced backward.
His appearance only clarified Yuta's suspicions.
'They really did come all this way. Of course they came. I should have expected this.'
He had in fact expected this. There was no way U.A would let one of their students wander around freely overseas. He just didn't expect to be found so quickly ... Or at all for that matter.
The shock of the reveal lasted less than a heartbeat. However, that wasn't the problem right now.
Yuta didn't wait for the sentiment to settle.
His eyes scanned the surrounding high-rises—hundreds of windows, hundreds of potential cameras. Every second All Might stood here in his muscle form, the risk of a global headline skyrocketed. Chakra surged through his body in an instant.
Then without a word, he turned around and disappeared. The next moment, he was off the highway and running vertically over a building in the distance.
"Wait! Akutami!" All Might shouted. However, 'They're insane,' Yuta thought. 'They brought the Symbol of Peace to a city of fourteen million people to find one runaway? Do they have any idea what kind of signal that sends?'
"Looks like he isn't happy to see us, Aizawa."
Seeing this, All Might didn't hesitate, scooping Aizawa up under one arm much to his surprise and leapt.
BOOM. The air displaced by All Might's jump was enough to snuff out the small fires nearby.
In an instant, All Might was gone as well. Five minutes later, the police finally arrived to see nothing at the scene of the villain attack except the unconscious perpetrator and nothing else.
Elsewhere, two blurs maneuvered through the streets and buildings of Manilla.
The pursuit was less of a chase and more of a localized weather event. Yuta pushed his chakra to his soles, his boots chirping against the glass panes of a corporate high-rise. His speed was at its limits. At least the limits of what he could physically achieve at the moment. Nevertheless ...
'He's this fast? Like this?' There was always a blond haired man in white clothing, hoisting another under his armpits right on his tail.
He had intentionally tried to lose All Might through multiple changes. Of course, he wasn't running away because he thought he could outrun All Might; Despite testing just how strong he was in recent days, he didn't believe he could suddenly outstat the symbol of peace.
He simply didn't want the man to be seen on the streets.
Forget about being seen with him, just All Might showing up in the Phillipines for whatever reason was good enough to become an geopolitical nightmare.
The thought of the League Of Villains getting wind of it made his mood agitated. Now he could only hope that there had been no recordings or photos taken.
'Honestly. Why don't things ever go my way?'
BOOM.
The air pressure shifted violently behind him. All Might landed on the rooftop Yuta had just cleared, the concrete spider-webbing under the force.
"Young Akutami! Stop!" All Might's voice boomed, even as he awkwardly tucked a very irritated Aizawa closer to his side. "We only wish to talk!"
Yuta didn't stop. He vaulted over a cooling tower, skidding across the gravel of a residential roof before dropping into a narrow, shadowed alleyway between two tenements.
'Well ...' He looked around. 'This should be far enough.'
A shadow eclipsed the moon at that very moment. Following which, All Might descended like a falling star, hitting the pavement at the mouth of the alley with enough restraint to avoid a crater.
Aizawa was set on his feet moments later. The underground hero immediately smoothing out his ruffled capture scarf with a look that promised a very long, very painful debriefing later. "Are you done running?"
"Hello Sensei." Yuta sighed, rubbing his head as if developing a migraine. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"We've been looking for you, Young Akutami. For three days. We're here to bring you home."
'Of course they are.' Yuta sighed louder. "With all due respect Sensei, we both know why that can't happen. If I'm in Japan, people die. If I'm at U.A., the school becomes a target. I'm not going back to play house while Shigaraki counts the bodies I leave in my wake."
'This kid.' All Might thought, mind drifting to their earlier transversal. 'Aizawa was right. He has changed.'
Aizawa frowned. "You think we came all the way here just to repeat the same argument?"
"Didn't you?"
In response, Aizawa shook his head. "We didn't come here to drag you back to a dormitory, Akutami. Give us some credit. We know exactly what kind of target you're carrying."
"Then why?" Yuta gestured vaguely at the skyline they had just traversed. "Why bring the Symbol of Peace into a city of fourteen million? Do you have any idea how many people probably just recorded 'All Might' appearing in the Philippines?"
In his view, there was only one reason All Might was here.
To drag him back to Japan if he he refused. 'Shit. If I had known, I would've sent a shadow clone instead.'
"Sigh. Young Akutami. Why must you always assume the worst."
"Well, you did punch me, so .."
Aizawa was stunned. "Punched?"
"I may have accidentally punched our student," All Might admitted, still looking distinctly uncomfortable.
Aizawa's expression didn't change. "You punched him."
"I thought he was the villain! The hood was very misleading!"
"I see." Aizawa didn't say a word, get his thoughts were running rapidly. "That aside. Just as I said, we're not taking you to U.A.," Aizawa added with yet another sigh. "We have a different plan. One that addresses your concerns."
"Huh?"
Seeing his skepticism, Aizawa took out his phone, dialed a number and tossed it over.
"You don't have to take it from us if you don't want to. It's better to hear it from someone else."
'The Principal?' Yuta's eyes narrowed with suspicion. Placing the phone near his ear, he waited as it rang. Finally, the call went through.
"Hello." He uttered. There was silence at the other end of the phone. Until .... "Yuta?"
His body stiffened at the sound of his mom's voice.
"Mom?"
Meanwhile,
HPSC — TEMPORARY JOINT TASK FORCE COMMAND. JAPAN.
The makeshift command room smelled like stale coffee.
In the room, a whiteboard stretched across the far wall, cluttered with maps, red string, and printed photographs. Names were written in thick marker. Some circled. Some crossed out.
Detective Naomasa Tsukauchi stood with his arms folded, watching a feed of the latest raid. On screen, police were hauling several masked men out of an illegal quirk-testing lab.
"That's the last one in the Shizuoka Ward," an officer reported, dropping a stack of files on the table. "We've raided twelve black-market hubs in forty-eight hours and seized three tons of illegal stimulants and a dozen stolen support items. That makes twenty-three arrests in four days." An officer finished.
Detective Naomasa Tsukauchi didn't respond immediately. He stared at the board. Twenty-three arrests. Zero progress.
That alone told him something.
"And the League?" Tsukauchi asked without turning around.
"Nothing. We've interrogated every one of them. We offered reduced sentences, immunity—hell, we even offered witness protection if they gave us a lead on Shigaraki."
Tsukauchi finally turned. "And?"
"They've got nothing to give. Most of them haven't even heard a rumor about the League since the Yamanote crash. One of the brokers we picked up actually complained that business is down because everyone is too scared to move product near the League's 'territory,' but he couldn't even tell us where that territory is."
Tsukauchi walked to the board and crossed out a section of the map.
"If Shigaraki was still using these guys for supplies or information, one of them would have cracked by now," Tsukauchi said. "Criminals are selfish. They'd sell out the League in a heartbeat to avoid the HPSC's new mandatory minimum sentences."
"So the raids were a waste of time?" the officer asked.
"No, they served as a good filter." Tsukauchi replied. "Everything points that The League of Villains isn't the same as other villain organizations. They're not buying or supplying anything on the black market. Their contacts also run from small to practically nonexistent. If I had to bet, he's sitting in one place with everything he needs already there. In simpler terms, the League of Villains has no connections to the underworld at all."
_
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