Today's chapter!!!
I only have one word for this chapter.... Power play.
BONUS CHAPTER: 1000PS <
--<<>>--
Detective Tsukauchi walked out of the hospital.
His colleagues were waiting by the patrol cars. Three officers. All of them were expecting him to come out with a teenager in cuffs.
"Where's the kid?"
Tsukauchi loosened his tie. "The HPSC and Principal Nezu have agreed to a two-day grace period. Formal questioning happens at U.A. after that."
All three of them looked confused.
"Until then," Tsukauchi continued, opening his car door, "we collect everything we can. Camera footage. Villain testimonies. Medical reports. Anything that builds the case. I want it ready."
One of the officers opened his mouth to ask something. Probably 'why didn't we just arrest him?'
Tsukauchi cut him off.
"Don't worry about why. Just do what's asked."
They all nodded and left for their respective tasks.
Tsukauchi got into his car and just sat there for a moment.
That kid didn't even flinch.
He started the engine and pulled out of the parking lot.
***
Thirty minutes later, he arrived.
The HPSC Headquarters was not a building that stood out. No flashy signs. No hero statues out front. It was a sleek, high-rise building in the government district.
Tsukauchi parked in the underground parking, took his badge from the glove box, and walked to the main entrance.
Two guards stood at the doors. Both in plain dark suits.
They checked his badge. Scanned it. Checked it again.
Then, opened the doors.
The lobby was quiet as always.
Tsukauchi walked to the elevator and hit the top floor.
As the elevator climbed, he pulled a small notebook from his coat pocket.
He started writing his thoughts out.
Evidence needed:
- USJ internal camera footage (all angles, full duration)
- Villain testimony (focus on those who engaged Shuzenji directly)
- If possible, classmate testimony (handle carefully, they might be close to Akira)
- Medical reports on injured villains
He tapped the pen against the page, thinking. Then added one more line.
- Background on Shuzenji family legal resources. Know what we're walking into.
The elevator dinged.
Tsukauchi stepped out into a corridor that was noticeably different from the rest of the building.
This was where the decisions were made.
People who moved through the corridor were important. Bureaucrats in pressed suits carrying folders. Analysts with tablets, whispering into earpieces.
Tsukauchi walked past all of them, heading to the end of the corridor.
The final door had no nameplate. Just a small electronic panel that read his badge automatically and blinked green.
He knocked twice.
"Come in, Detective Tsukauchi."
A woman's voice called him.
He opened the door and stepped inside.
The office was large but not extravagant. Bookshelves lined the left wall. Filing cabinets lined the right. Everything was organized with military level precision.
And behind the desk sat the woman who ran it all.
Madam President.
She was an older women. Maybe in her Mid-fifties. She wore a dark grey suit, tailored perfectly, with no jewellery except a single pin on her lapel. The HPSC emblem.
IMAGE(COMMENT)
She didn't look up when he entered. She was reading something on her screen.
Tsukauchi gave a slight bow. "Madam President."
"Detective."
Tsukauchi reached into his coat, pulled out a small USB drive, and placed it on the edge of her desk.
"The preliminary findings from the USJ incident. Camera footage compilations, initial villain statements, and the injury report."
She took the drive without a word and plugged it into her terminal.
For the next several minutes, nobody spoke.
The only sound in the room was the occasional click of her mouse and the soft hum of the computer. Tsukauchi stood in front of the desk, hands behind his back, waiting. He'd learned a long time ago that this woman didn't appreciate small talk. Or any talk, unless she started it.
She went through the files methodically. Frame by frame, in some cases. Her expression didn't change once.
Until the very end.
The last file. The external camera recording from a monitoring station near the USJ facility. It showed the sky above the dome.
A flaming bird rising into the clouds. Throwing something. Then a light brighter than anything the camera was designed to handle. The footage whited out completely before the lens auto-adjusted, showing nothing but smoke and a hole in the USJ ceiling.
She watched it twice.
Then she sighed and leaned back in her chair. She looked at Tsukauchi for the first time since he'd walked in.
"I don't know whether to be happy or annoyed."
Tsukauchi blinked. "Pardon?"
She studied him for a moment. Weighing something. Deciding if he was worth the information she was about to share.
Apparently, he was.
"Tell me, Detective. Why do you think I'm after this kid so desperately?"
Tsukauchi considered the question carefully. "I have no clue. The only thing I know is the 'special job' you keep mentioning."
The President nodded slowly. She stood up from her chair and walked around the desk.
"What do you think about our society, Detective? The hero society."
Tsukauchi frowned as he thought for a while.
"It's a game of cat and mouse. Villains do stupid things. Heroes chase them. Rinse and repeat."
"And that," the President said, "is exactly the extent of what the general public knows."
She paused, letting the words settle.
"But every now and then, Detective, there are bugs. Insects that jump far too high in the air. Sometimes they are so drunk on power that logic doesn't apply to them anymore. Common sense stops working. For them, the law becomes irrelevant."
Tsukauchi listened. He didn't interrupt.
"Bugs like those don't need to be sent to jail," she continued. "They need to be eliminated. So the government can maintain the illusion of an ideal world."
The room felt colder.
Tsukauchi's expression didn't crack. But something shifted behind his eyes. He'd suspected. Every detective who worked close enough to the hero system long enough eventually suspected. The random disappearances. The villains who never made it to trial.
But now hearing it being confirmed, out loud, by the woman sitting at the very top of the system, was something else.
The President continued.
"To do that, we need specialized personnel. Strong heroes who are capable. But more importantly, heroes who have no issue committing the necessary acts for the greater good."
She looked at him.
"People who are already in situations where we can train them. Mold them. Make them loyal. Orphans. Outcasts. The broken ones. The ones society has already forgotten. We give them purpose. We give them direction. And in return, they give us results."
Tsukauchi's hands were sweating behind his back.
He processed what she said. Then spoke.
"Thank you for sharing this with me, Madam President. But what does any of that have to do with Akira Shuzenji?" He kept his voice as steady as possible. "He's not broken. He's not an orphan you can scoop off the streets. He has a family. A powerful one. A grandmother who works at U.A. and a mother who could buy half the buildings in this district."
He paused.
"So why the obsession?"
The President stood and walked to the window, looking at the skyline.
"Because he's too strong."
Tsukauchi stared at her back. "What?"
She didn't turn around. Instead, she walked back to the desk and picked up a remote. She pointed it at the large screen mounted on the wall behind him.
It flickered on.
The image was a wide-angle shot of a mountain range. The Hida Mountains. Specifically, a canyon.
But the canyon wasn't normal.
The entire floor of it was glassed. Like someone had taken a blowtorch and melted the rocks. The walls of the canyon were scorched black.
It looked like the aftermath of a bomb test.
Tsukauchi leaned forward. "What am I looking at?"
"You remember the Muscular incident? Two years ago?"
"Of course. The Water Hose duo, along with Emberheart, engaged and defeated Muscular during a rampage in Kamikochi Village." He paused. Looked at the image again. "But... this wasn't in the report."
"No," the President said. "It wasn't."
She turned the screen off.
"That's because Muscular was not defeated by the heroes."
Tsukauchi looked at her.
"He was defeated by a thirteen-year-old Akira Shuzenji."
The words hit him like a truck.
"What?" Tsukauchi's composure cracked for the first time. "You're telling me a thirteen-year-old child managed to bring down Muscular? The same Muscular who killed the Water Hose duo? The villain who required an entire task force to-"
"Yes."
One word. She didn't elaborate. She didn't need to.
Tsukauchi's mind raced. The implications were staggering. The official report stated that the heroes had defeated Muscular in a coordinated effort. That Emberheart's quirk had been the deciding factor.
All of it was a cover story. A thirteen-year-old boy had done that.
The President clicked the remote again.
The screen lit up with a different recording. This one was shakier. Lower quality. It came from a security camera on a monitoring station near the USJ facility.
The footage showed the sky above the USJ dome.
First, a shape rising from the broken ceiling. A bird. Covered in red and gold flames, wings spanning dozens of meters.
The bird grabbed something in its talons — the Nomu — and hurled it higher into the air.
Then it opened its beak.
Light.
A beam of concentrated flame that turned the sky white. The camera's exposure blew out. When it recovered a second later, there was nothing left. Just smoke, heat distortion, and a shockwave that rattled the camera on its mount.
The President paused the recording.
She turned to Tsukauchi.
"Akira Shuzenji is someone with potential to rival — or rather, surpasses — All Might."
The detective stood there processing. It was hard to believe.
But given what he'd seen in that hospital room — the way the kid looked at him, the calmness, the absolute lack of fear — and given the footage he'd just watched.
It wasn't that hard to believe at all.
But then a question formed in his mind. One that had been sitting at the back of his mind.
"But you never tried to do any of this to All Might," Tsukauchi said. "He's been in the public eye for decades. The strongest hero of Japan. And he was never under you. Never under the HPSC's shadow division."
He looked at the President.
"Why not?"
The President's expression didn't change.
"Because All Might is an idiot."
Tsukauchi blinked. "Excuse me?"
"You heard me, Detective." She walked back to her chair and sat down. "All Might is a man with a classic hero personality. He smiles. He saves the day. He makes others smile. And that's it. That is the full extent of what All Might is."
She folded her hands on the desk.
"He is easy to predict. He will always do the right thing. He will always save the civilian. He will always hold back against villains because he believes in justice and second chances. He will always, without fail, follow the script that the public expects of him."
She leaned back.
"We always knew he would never be a problem. A man who is that predictable is not a threat. He's a tool. A very useful and powerful tool that practically runs itself. We never needed to control him because he was already doing exactly what we wanted. Smiling, saving, and keeping the public happy."
She paused.
"Akira Shuzenji is the opposite."
"From everything I have seen and heard," the President continued, "that boy does not care about the traditional hero playbook. He is smart. Cynical. He has already demonstrated a willingness to use lethal force on villains — and not out of panic or desperation, but out of choice. He chose to sever those limbs. He chose to burn those villains."
Her eyes narrowed.
"A hero like All Might is predictable. He's a chess piece that only moves in straight lines. You always know where he's going to be. But Akira Shuzenji?" She shook her head. "He is an uncontrollable piece. He moves in directions we can't predict. He makes decisions based on his own moral code, not ours."
She looked at Tsukauchi.
"And that, Detective, is what makes him dangerous."
"That's why we need to get him under us. Because if someone with a quirk like that goes rogue, we will not be able to withstand the consequences. Not the police. Not the heroes. Not HPSC. Not even All Might."
The room went quiet.
Tsukauchi stood there. His notebook was still in his pocket, untouched since the elevator. He hadn't written a single word during this conversation.
Some things didn't go in notebooks.
"Two days, Detective," the President said, sitting back down and turning to her screen. "Build the case. Make it solid. And when we sit down at U.A., we make sure that boy understands exactly where he stands."
Tsukauchi nodded.
He turned and walked to the door.
But before he opened it, he stopped.
"Madam President."
"Yes?"
"What happens if the case doesn't hold? If Nezu outmaneuvers us?"
The President didn't look up from her screen.
"Then we find another way like we always do."
Tsukauchi nodded and left.
--<<>>--
GOVERNMENT STUFF! Lol. So, how was it? I tried to cook something with the HPSC, as they had such a small role in the early part of MHA.
All I will ask is, just let me cook. I am sure you gonna love it😁.
Plus if you want, you can read up to 8+ because you guys are too fast(10 will be up soon) advanced chapters and support me you can alway join my P@treaon. (Just search up Joe_Mama p@treon on google.)