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CHAPTER START---
---October 17th, 10 PM…
Sitting in a small, dimly lit bedroom, Shigaraki carefully reads from a large stack of notes.
He carefully reads and takes notes, highlighting everything he can use while pacing the room.
After a few more minutes, he looks up, gazing at the clock before walking to the window and peeking through the curtains.
He squints and quickly looks away from the beautiful beach outside, a hallmark of the Ogasawara Islands, sitting just on the edge of Japan's borders to the southeast.
Far enough to evade Horizon while hiding under his nose."Stupid bird, always late," Shigaraki grumbles while grabbing some of his notes, files, and laptop.
He then walks out of the bedroom into the small living room, sits at the table, and turns on his laptop.
"It's time to end the League Of Villains," he hears Horizon say, then immediately mutes the video.
The video shows Spinner's corpse for just a moment, and Shigaraki pauses on that frame. He inspects the image, compares it to his notes, and then continues the video.
Observing the hundredth time as Horizon warps to Korea.
He pauses again, double-checking his notes and quickly doing some math, then continues as Horizon warps about, destroying Nomu and capturing villains.
Finally getting to the self-destruction Nomu, and pausing when Horizon warps it into space.
He stops and takes a few notes, then opens up a map on his laptop, and takes some more notes.
"That's a big circle," Shigaraki mutters as the front door finally opens.
"Yo! Brought food!" Hawks says as he walks into the room, holding a bag of boxed lunches. "Figured you'd like it since you haven't been in Japan for a while."
"You're late," Shigaraki says as he continues taking notes, all while Hawks sits in the chair opposite him.
"It's part of my style. Anyway, I'm late because I got you some intel you'll want to use."
"How good?" Shigaraki looks up as Hawks takes a few files out of his jacket. "Hard copy?"
"Handwritten, which was a pain in the ass, but I couldn't exactly go print a copy after stealing from Pantu's office."
Shigaraki pushes his computer aside and grabs the notes, excitedly reading them.
"Yeah, she only has these in hard copy, so I figured putting them on anything connected to the internet would trigger the alarm bells," Hawks says as he eats.
"Autopsy reports," Shigaraki mutters. "Spinner and Toga, but dead, killed by Horizon. They showed Spinner, but Toga. He killed her with…what the hell is Bioelectric Mimicry?"
"He zaps their brain and copies the patterns or something, downloading their memories, melts the brain through."
"Yeah, clearly, it is said that the brain was fried in places."
"That's why I called and told you to bail on whatever plans and safe-houses you had. If they knew it, now Horizon does too," Hawks says as Shigaraki keeps re-reading the intel. "He's not pleasant to be around right now."
"How bad is it?" Shigaraki asks while glancing over at his little Nomu, Shiji, who will alert him of any lies.
"I fed them some bullshit about you having connections in The Democratic Alliance Of North Africa. Horizon and his team have been painting that place red the past two weeks."
"Will they get anything?"
"A new trail heading to South America. I fed Pantu some shitty intel, but it looks authentic enough, and gets him far enough from Japan for you to stay here for a while longer."
"And what did he learn that made my contacts all turned on me?"
"Wasn't me," Hawks raises his hands in surrender. "The intel I give doesn't lead to that, but Team Horizon is a lot more competent than we gave them credit for. Cellophane is taking down entire groups of villains with Horizon's brand of justice, minus the excessive murders. And Simon is collecting intel like crazy.
But Mudman, he's the problem. He's a good detective, annoyingly good. He found your supply line and sent word to the villains. Sent them a nice long list and gave them until the first day of next year to hand you in. Otherwise, Horizon would come for all of them.
And whoever turns you in, he'll skip. That kid is dangerous and knows how to seed chaos. That's why everyone turned on you so quickly. He isn't much of a fighter, but Tsukuyomi is always with him, so that hardly matters.
"Your former intern."
"Yeah, and he's a lot stronger now. Most Pro Heroes can't handle him."
"Why'd you split from him anyway?"
"Horizon and I have some history. I used Tsukuyomi to get intel from him. Liked the kid, but then things got worse and Horizon realized what I was doing."
"Do you finally trust me enough to tell me why Horizon hates you?"
Hawks shrugs, "Bad first impression. He holds grudges."
"Right, well, that explains why you're helping me bring him down instead of arresting me."
"You're the lesser evil," Hawks scoffs. "Hell, even All For One would be the lesser evil."
"So now what? We're friends?"
"Until Horizon is dead, then things get…difficult."
Shigaraki sighs and opens one of the bento boxes. "How are the other countries reacting?"
"They aren't," Hawks says as Shigaraki eats. "Nobody wants to step on Horizon's toes with the first shipments of Panacea leaving in three weeks. But Pantu told him not to kill any villains overseas, and he's been following that order. As much as he complains about it."
"I'd imagine collecting intel is harder when you can't rip apart someone's brain."
"At least you don't have to worry about that. She wants you alive."
"Me? Why?"
"She mentioned it would be a moral victory, but that can't be it."
Shigaraki sits back in his chair and thinks about it for a moment, leaving Hawks to eat in silence.
"Moral victory, doesn't make sense," Shigaraki says. "Toga, a 16-year-old girl, that would have been a more moral victory right, classic victim story. I'm considered beyond saving, so that objective isn't the problem."
"Then what is?"
Shigaraki snaps his fingers. "The bonus."
"What?"
"When Horizon captures a villain, the 'bonus,' is the intel. So I must know something she doesn't want Horizon to rip out of my brain."
"Do you?"
"Not that I'm aware of, otherwise I would have used it."
"But she thinks you know something."
"No," Shigaraki says. "She thinks I know something that I wouldn't tell my friends, otherwise she wouldn't let him tear apart Himiko and Spinner."
Hawks stops eating and looks up at Shigaraki, suspiciously. "No, there is only one thing I can think of you using that would make Horizon even more dangerous."
"What is it?"
"Something worth me dying to protect," Hawks says. "I'm here to put Horizon down before he cracks the world in half. Giving you that intel, nah…that would break down his kingdom. And the only thing keeping him from flipping the table is the fact that his little Pro Hero game is still going. And whatever Pantu promised him."
Shigaraki smiles. "Good, that means Pantu is serious about not letting him get into my head. That buys me more time."
"Not much, so, do you have a plan?"
"Did you get what I need?"
"Last page," Hawks says, and Shigaraki flips to the last page of the file and begins reading.
"Pantu's job is protecting the public from Pro Heroes, means she has files about whom to deploy if one of our own goes rogue. And who to deploy depending on the type of Quirk the target has."
"What's your file say?"
"Fire, armor, basic Power Type Quirks," Hawks shrugs. "The interesting thing is that Horizon is considered a universal countermeasure."
"Yeah? And what's in his file?" Shigaraki says before getting to the end of the page. "Never mind. Seriously? One line? 'Star and Stripe, Lightshot'. Who the hell is Lightshot?"
"Some assassin Pantu thinks can take down Horizon. She assigned a team to make sure she knows where he is at all times, ensuring he was kept away from Horizon at all times and if he came anywhere near Japan, she'd give Horizon a warning."
"Never heard of him."
"Well, the only famous assassin was Arsenal, but most don't treat collateral damage body counts like a high score in a video game, so that makes sense
"What can he do?"
"No idea, all I know is they built a deep dark prison in the middle of a mountain to contain him."
"Ok, I'll make some arrangements to get him here, but the other thing, the window?"
Hawks nods. "What are you planning to do with it?"
"Make a play and lower his guard."
"How."
"Depends on how big a window I have to act."
"You have two options," Hawks says. "He spends two hours every day in the Panacea facility. During that time he's focused, but it's here in Japan and any play we make will be extra risky."
"And the second option."
"I could send him somewhere across the world, give you a bit more time before his phone rings."
"How far doesn't matter for his response time. But it'll be easier for them to place the signal blocker if he's far away, at least a thousand kilometers away."
"Blocker?"
"Signal blocker in UA. Dabi wants Shoto dead. Twice wants to go get Kurogiri, and I'll be sending compress to capture Nezu."
Hawks choked on his food. "Nezu, are you crazy?"
"No, and I don't expect him to succeed. I trade Twice for Kurogiri, but, in the worst-case scenario."
"They captured Twice, Compress, and Dabi, leaving you as the last man standing. Then what?"
"Then Horizon feels comfortable enough for us to make a play with Lightshot to take him out. After that, we go back to playing our intended roles."
"I haven't felt like a proper hero in years, but are you capable of sacrificing your friends?"
"Dabi doesn't care about living, just killing the Todorokis. Compress wants the challenge of stealing the most valuable thing, and he figures kidnapping the person Horizon holds most dear would qualify. And Twice doesn't care about anything but hurting the people who killed Toga."
"So they're all set for a suicide mission."
"The question is, are you willing to let me attack UA?"
Hawks thinks about it for a moment, then nods. What you read in those files is nothing compared to what Horizon is doing to people as we speak. He's pissed, like, beyond pissed. Putting him on a wild goose chase was bad, but now that no government in the world will stand up to him…
The leverage he has with The Panacea is too much. Do whatever you have to do, because if this is his way of making the world more peaceful.
I don't want to see what he's like when playing the hero gets boring."
Shigaraki nods in agreement, then turns the laptop for Hawks to see what he was working on, sliding his notes across the table.
"What the hell is this supposed to be?" Hawks asks, seeing lines connecting Japan, Korea, Beijing, and a few other places, with dashes in the lines.
"His estimated range, assuming Hand of God works how I think it does."
"And how would that be?"
"Like a big fucking circle, about a thousand kilometers wide, assuming it forms with him in the middle."
"Jesus Christ," Hawks looks at the notes in awe.
"Jesus wouldn't let someone like him have power like this. But I will say, as usual, Horizon was right."
"About what?"
"Well, if I'm right about the range of his Quirk. Then he was just being honest when he said the more you understand his Quirk, the more hopeless fighting him seems."
END CHAPTER---
Happy anniversary! Yesterday, January 21st made it exactly 4 years since I started writing. Look how far we've come!