[META LIBERATION ARMY – SECURE COMMUNICATIONS – 13:47 PM]
The message from Geten arrived in four lines.
'Acquisition confirmed. Package secured. Decoy convoy intercepted by separate party — League of Villains suspected. No witnesses to our operation. Extraction complete.'
Skeptic read it twice. An ingrained habit formed after dealing with information for a long time. Verification was vital after all, even when the information was exactly what he had expected.
He typed back a single word. 'Understood.'
Then opened a secondary channel and began composing the framework of something more useful — a narrative architecture that could be assembled quickly, deployed selectively, and attributed to sources that would never be traceable back to anyone in this building.
The League of Villains had attacked a classified NPA transport and stolen the remains of All For One. This was, as of forty minutes ago, factually supportable. That the MLA had done the actual stealing was a detail that existed only in a small number of minds, most of which certainly weren't going to say anything. He was most of the way through the framework when the door opened.
"My, you're here?"
"Where else would I be?"
Curious leaned against the frame, watching the gloomy man work. "You got it?"
"Geten confirmed."
"And the League went for the decoy."
"As anticipated."
The Meta Liberation Army. A secret organization compromised of more than 110,000 hidden soldiers from all works of life. Heroes, villains, businessmen, salary workers, NPA officers .. and much more. As of the time of discussion, Skeptic had gotten the information of the transport, reported to Redestro, and received orders on how to proceed forward. With Slidin Go as an insider hero, the rest was history.
Chitose Kizuki, codename Curious, looked at him for a moment. "Hmm. That's good I guess. So what do we do with a dead man in a box."
Skeptic set his stylus down. "Leverage."
"Leverage?"
"The League will eventually want to know where it went. When we let them know we have it, the conversation clearly changes. We have something they want. That creates a negotiating position that didn't exist this morning." He paused. "Additionally, if the story reaches the public that the League stole All For One's remains from a classified government transport — which it will, because we will ensure it does, the world's focus on the league of villains will only increase, and pressure alongside it."
"I see. So we let the world watch as the government and the league tear each other apart until both are systematically destroyed." Curious hummed, tapping a manicured nail against her chin. "An elegant play. It makes for a wonderful headline. 'The Ghost of the Symbol of Evil: A Failure of National Security.' It would sell out across every digital and print platform in the country."
"Then you'll take the lead on the story?" Skeptic asked, his hand hovering over the 'Send' command to transmit the falsified data to her terminal.
"No," Curious replied, her eyes lighting up with a cunning glint. "Defaming the League is work for my subordinates. It's too easy. I'm chasing a much more... nuanced narrative." She stepped closer to the monitors, her gaze fixing on a still frame from a news broadcast. It was a grainy, telephoto shot of a boy with red hair standing behind Aizawa Shouta at the UA gates.
"UA is holding an emergency press conference this afternoon to address the YAMANOTE LINE families and the circumstances of Akutami Yuta's survival." She checked something on her phone. "I've already been credentialed. Hero Network Today covers hero institutional affairs. There's no reason for me not to be there."
Skeptic was quiet for a moment. "He's sixteen."
"He's sixteen and he's the most interesting person in Japan right now." She said it without apology. "The dead boy who came back. The student who stood next to All Might when All Might couldn't stand alone. The YAMANOTE LINE's only survivor." She put her phone in her bag. "To a producer of truth, that's a generation-defining story and I want to be the one who tells it."
"Redestro's interest is in the structural opportunity," Skeptic said. "Not in individual profiles."
"Redestro's interest and my interest have always been compatible without being identical." She smiled. "I'll send notes." Then turned toward the door. "Also, make sure the 'All For One theft' story breaks right as the press conference begins. I want the UA faculty distracted by the news alerts on their phones while I'm dissecting their star pupil on live television."
The door closed behind her. Skeptic looked at his screen for a moment. Then went back to the narrative framework.
__
[TOKYO CENTRAL GENERAL HOSPITAL – MAIN ENTRANCE – 14:03 PM]
Recovery Girl had not said much on the drive from UA.
This was unusual enough that the driver — who had been pressed into service as a faculty liaison given the day's circumstances — had spent most of the journey quietly terrified that he had done something wrong.
He hadn't. She was simply thinking about Best Jeanist's file, which she had read three times on the way here and which was not encouraging. On the other end of the car was Todoroki Shoto who had sought permission to leave the school from principal Nezu.
Now they stood at the hospital entrance currently patrolled and heavily guarded. Recovery girl looked up at him. "Best Jeanist is in the east wing, fourth floor," she said. "Do you know where your father is?"
"They told me third floor. West ward."
"Then we part here." She pointed her cane at him once, which was as close as she got to a formal instruction. "Whatever you're feeling when you walk into that room ... let yourself feel it."
"Huh?" Todoroki looked at her.
"I know how you feel about him," she said. "I've been patching up Endeavor's injuries for six years and I've watched you in my office twice. Don't go all emo as you kids normally do."
"..." Todoroki deadpanned.
"Did you hear me or do I have to repeat myself?"
"No. Understood Mam."
"Good." She walked toward the east wing.
Todoroki watched her go. Then he turned toward the elevator and headed for the third floor west ward with his hands in the pockets of the civilian clothes he'd changed into before leaving UA. The ward was quieter than he expected. With heavy security, most of the political and media attention were shut outside.
'Reasonable. The last thing people want to hear is All Might getting assassinated in his current state.' He mused inwardly. Countless thoughts flooded his mind as he walked forward.
'It's kinda ironic. If he wasn't involved then he would become the new number one hero if All Might retired after this. Would he have accepted it though?' He shook his head, tossing out these useless thoughts.
The answer to that didn't even matter now.
If what he saw last night was really what happened, then ... 'Father's career is over in all likelihood.'
He thought about what Recovery Girl had said.
The problem was that he wasn't sure what wasn't performing at this point. The complicated architecture of how he felt about his father had been under construction for fifteen years. Two years ago .... No, two months ago, he would have been sure of having nothing but hatred for him. Things were different now. Endeavor had lost his quirk on live television.
Todoroki had watched it happen on the common room monitor like everyone else — the flames that had defined his childhood, that had burned in his memory as both the thing his father was and the thing his father had tried to make him into, simply gone. Stripped out by a villain's hand. He didn't know how to feel about that. No, he had expected to feel something about that. Satisfaction, maybe, in the way that part of him had always wanted his father to be brought low.
Or nothing. A clean absence that would signify that he truly didn't care about his father anymore. That would assure him that he could face his left side without associating it to him as he had tried to do after that talk with Yuta at the sports festival.
That all his gifts, were his to use and not just to prove that he didn't need the man's legacy to be a hero. Instead he felt something he didn't have a name for. Now that the mountain had actually crumbled, the view from the ground was hollow.
He turned the corner. At the end of the hall, near a set of heavy double doors, he saw two familiar figures.
Fuyumi was pacing a small circle, her fingers twisted together so tightly her knuckles were white. Beside her, Natsuo leaned against the wall, staring at the ceiling with a jagged expression that sat somewhere between fury and complete exhaustion.
Fuyumi saw him first. "Shoto!" She moved toward him and then stopped herself halfway, which was very Fuyumi — the impulse toward warmth checked by the uncertainty of whether it would be welcome. "You came."
"Yeah." He said. "I wasn't sure UA would let anyone out after the lockdown. Thankfully, the principal was understanding."
He turned his gaze towards Natsuo. "Hey," Natsuo said.
"Hey," They stood in the corridor for a moment. The three of them. The ward door closed between them and whatever was on the other side of it.
"How is he,"
Natsuo let out a sharp, mirthless laugh. "How do you think? The 'Number Two' is officially a civilian."
Fuyumi looked at the door. "He's stable. The physical injuries are .... they said the injuries will heal. The quirk however ..." She stopped. "The doctors aren't sure yet. Whether it can come back. Whether anything can be done." She pressed her lips together. "There's no precedent for what was done to him. He hasn't said much since they brought him in."
Natsuo made a sound that wasn't quite a laugh. "Can't exactly yell at anyone without flames to back it up."
"Natsuo."
"I'm not being cruel." He pushed off the wall, restless. "I just — I've been standing here for two hours trying to figure out what I'm supposed to feel and I haven't gotten anywhere." He looked at Todoroki. "You either, right?"
Todoroki said nothing, which was answer enough. The three of them stood in the corridor. Todoroki looked at the ward door. "Has anyone gone in?"
"I did, earlier," Fuyumi said. "He was awake. He looked at me and then looked at the ceiling and I sat there for about twenty minutes. "I don't think he knew what to say either."
"I don't" Natsuo said flatly.
Todoroki nodded, his gaze on the door
On the other side of it was his father. The man who had defined a significant portion of his interior life through fear and ambition and the specific damage that came from being treated as a project rather than a person.
'How do I face him now?' He thought.
"We don't have to go in today," Fuyumi said carefully, taking his silence for hesitation.
"I know," Todoroki said. Then he reached forward and pushed the ward door open.
__
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