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CHAPTER START---
Minutes after Nomu was defeated, Kurogiri and Shigarami were already knocked out.
All Might and the other Pros arrived and quickly swept up the other villains, which leaves us where we are now.
With Horizon standing at the fountain speaking to detective Tsukauchi.
"Are you sure it's alive?" Tsukauchi asks, looking at the dozens of pieces of Nomu on the floor, all the police officers standing around with disgusted looks, metal cases ready to store the pieces, while others kept loading up villains.
"It is," Horizon says, "it's a walking corpse made from a few different people, it wasn't really alive in the first place, more like the muscles were just getting commands. But it's alive, if you put these pieces in the same box you'll have to deal with it again so don't do that."
"Freaky," the detective says, noticing one of the eyes still looking around as part of its head was still intact. "What kind of monster would think to even do this..."
"No clue," Horizon says. "Now since you know I didn't kill anyone can I go join the others?""Right, I'll be over in a bit to get all the other stories..."
Taking a rather exhausting walk up the massive staircase and out of USJ Horizon sees a dozen prison busses parked outside, a small army of police cars accompanying them.
Off to the left, he sees all his classmates standing with Present Mic at a UA bus, clearly waiting for him. Quietly chattering about their first villain experience.
"Horizon!" Mina yells excitedly, causing everyone to turn toward him. "You were super cool in there, the way you cut up that villain."
"Thanks," he says in a tired voice. "We ready to go?"
"Yup," Mic says. "We were just waiting for you, Eraser and Midoriya are already at Recovery Girl, Thirteen too..."
"Great, let's get out of here..."
Everyone boarded the bus and Horizon immediately gets a text from Nezu, 'My office,' was all it said.
'Of course...'
Present Mic sat at the front while the robot was driving, with Horizon only one seat behind him, sitting beside Momo and Jiro.
Everyone is still chattering about what they just encountered when Todoroki's voice cuts through the noise.
"Horizon," his monotone voice silences the bus, sitting closer to the back while Horizon was at the front.
"Yeah?" Horizon asks, leaning back and trying to relax.
"We know the villains made that creature to kill All Might, but how did you beat it, it was as strong as him, it even shrugged off our best attacks," he glances at Bakugo who was one step from exploding at the memory. "But you beat it by yourself, how?"
Even Present Mic turns to look at him, not sure what kind of answer to expect.
"Simple, because I'm better," Horizon shrugs. Everyone just glares daggers at him before he continues explaining. "I had to overcome its Quirks, Shock Absorption, Super-Power, Super-Regeneration, and anything else it had. Power types are easy for me, but the regeneration was a real pain, without that I could have handled it in one slash. Plus the fact that I had to deal with Kurogiri, every time he made a Warp Gate I had to take a second to close it before he decided to move any of you around again, honestly it was more of a challenge than I ever expected to face at UA."
They look both amazed and horrified that a student could deal with a situation like that.
"Your reaction in stressful situations is also admirable," Momo adds. "You instantly warped us back to our homeroom from USJ when the villains arrived, if he wasn't able to warp us back then I'm sure you would have done that again."
"Yup."
"Man to think you got the final boss while we had to clean up those street punks...not that I could have done anything to help, I mean one of his punches was destroying buildings, I'm not ready for that yet," Kirishima whines. "Good job Class Rep!"
Everyone echoes his cheer, and they could slowly feel the distance between them and Horizon widening. No, not widening, they were simply realizing how far ahead he really was.
Shoto quietly sits and stares at Horizon, 'I wonder how much he suffered to become this strong, I can't imagine what he survived...'
Bakugo just glares out the window, a new sense of numbness spreading in his chest, as if his body didn't have that burning desire to catch up anymore, as if he was slowly realizing how hopeless it was.
Iida was proud of himself, he now knew for sure that he made the right choice voting for Horizon.
And sitting directly beside Horizon, Momo frowns and tunes out Jiro who was chatting with her. Suddenly there was an infinite chasm separating her, the Vice Class Rep, from the Class Rep. Her doubts and insecurities about her own value suddenly amplified to heights unheard of for her.
Jiro notices the change in Momo's mood and rests and hand on her leg, giving her a concerned look, but Momo just puts on a weak fake smile, not even fooling herself.
Stepping off the bus Horizon ignores everyone and makes a beeline to Nezu's office, quickly entering and laying down on one of the couches, not even wanting to activate his Quirk to swap his hero costume.
Leaning his sword against the coffee table he closes his eyes and nods off, taking a small nap while the Pros finish up...
---2 Hours Later...
TAP TAP TAP!
Horizon wakes up groggily, seeing Yagi standing over him tapping his visor as if it were a fishbowl.
"Mmm," Horizon groans and sits up, looking around to see Nezu and Tsukauchi on the opposite couch already. "How long was I asleep?"
"It's only five," Yagi says, taking a seat beside Horizon. "You've had a long day, makes sense that you're tired."
"Yeah, from doing your job..." Horizon groans, and everyone frowns in response. "So why am I here?"
"We just need to ask some questions, mainly about the Nomu," Tsukauchi says.
"Right, go ahead."
"What can you tell us about it?"
"Pretty much everything," Horizon shrugs. "Well they cobbled together four corpses to make it, one was a base and the others for the Quirks. Shock-Absorption, Super-Power, Super-Regeneration, a perfect All Might killing combo."
"That matches what Eraser said Shigaraki was boasting about," Nezu says.
"You got all that from touching Nomu?" Yagi asks.
"Yeah, it was nasty," Horizon says. "The thing was a walking corpse so I didn't mind cutting it up. It wasn't even sentient, only the parts of the brain needed to accept commands were working, the strain of multiple Quirks is too much for a body to handle, something had to give."
"Any idea of how it was done?" Yagi asks, a bit of trepidation in his voice. "With medical operations or did it seem a bit more...natural..."
Horizon raises a brow at that, "well I could tell it involved a lot of drugs and operations, the pieces were put together and grafted before the brain was rewired, Super-Regeneration helped pull it all together, but that's a one in two hundred thousand Quirk, if it's even that common."
Yagi, Tsukauchi, and Nezu share a look of relief, glad to hear that it wasn't as simple as someone placing a hand on a villain and giving him multiple Quirks.
"And about Kurogiri?" Nezu asks.
"Warp Gate guy," Horizon sighs. "Didn't get to touch him, I just kept canceling his Warp Gates from wherever I was in USJ at time. It has a pretty obvious tell for me, not the first Warp Gate I've encountered."
"Really!" Both Tsukauchi and Yagi are surprised, but Nezu just nods along.
"Right, her, but this was of a completely different nature," Nezu says.
"Plus this one didn't need an anchor," Horizon adds. "Worked by either coordinates or lock-on, not sure. But After I warped everyone back to my homeroom he pulled us back into USJ, our feet were already in the mist so I didn't want to cancel it or try to rip us out---"
"Good call," Yagi says. "That could have gone bloody."
"I figured as much," Horizon says. "Then I just cut up Nomu, you pretty much know the rest."
"I see," Tsukauchi finishes writing everything Horizon said. "Anything else?"
"Yeah, I think the villains were targeting me, anything on that?" Everyone in the room stiffens at that.
"There was mention of that from Aizawa," Nezu says. "The villains said that since All Might wasn't there they would kill the secondary target, you. But the fact that they were also able to identify you, that is concerning."
"Unless they got in touch with one of my patients or something, but that's unlikely," Horizon says. "Nobody would hand over a miracle cure. Coupled with the fact that they knew we would be at USJ and who would be there...you've got a leak."
"Possibly," Nezu says. "But I'd rather not jump to that conclusion, we need to have a united front instead of all suspecting each other, especially right now."
"I just hope you find the leak before I do," Horizon grumbles out.
"For their sake, I hope so too," Nezu says. "Anyway, now we only have to deal with the matter of our PR nightmare, all eighty villains have been arrested and are already en route to Tartarus, including Nomu."
"And the school was searched, so my job here is done," Tsukauchi stands and politely nods to everyone. "I'll let you all deal with this while I continue investigating this League Of Villains."
"Thank you for all your hard work Tsukauchi," Nezu politely bows to the detective before he leaves the room.
After Tsukauchi leaves Horizon relaxes a bit more, "so, is this crap stopping the Sports Festival, because that really messes up my plan..."
"I think it best that we continue as usual, with added security," Nezu says, ignoring Yagi's worried look. "We need to show the public and our students that this incident won't hinder us at all."
"I suppose that's right," Yagi says. "And M---our students need the opportunity to make their proper debut to the world."
"Good, because I've had the info packs ready to send to news outlets for a while," Horizon says. "When I win the sports festival and everyone is searching my name they'll find what I want them to find."
"Careful now Young Horizon," Yagi says. "If you're too confident victory could slip away from you. People are most vulnerable when they think they've won."
"I'm not arrogant," Horizon says. "It's a proper assessment of my skill compared to everyone else I've seen, honestly the closest is probably Bakugo and he's hot garbage compared to me."
"Well I'll be sure to watch your performance closely," Yagi says.
"One thing, since my Quirk is warping, it's legal for me to summon my sword right?"
"Completely, after the game officially begins that is," Nezu says. "But if you cause too much damage with it you'll be disqualified, the same goes for everyone and their Quirks too."
"Easy win then," Horizon says.
"Well now that we've handled those things, I just need to figure out the PR nightmare this situation has caused. People are already demanding All Might step down for the safety of the students," Nezu says sadly.
"Why not tell the truth?" Horizon asks flatly.
"What do you mean?" Yagi asks.
"Well, if you just consider it all at face value, villains made this incredibly intricate master plan expending a crap ton of resources to kill All Might, only to be stopped by a class of first years three days into school, their homeroom teacher and a rescue hero that almost never fights. Villains suck and UA looks good and---"
"And," Nezu cuts him off. "You'll want us to name you specifically and credit you with taking down their weapon and disrupting their Warp Gate user, playing an instrumental part in our victory, and putting the spotlight on yourself even before the sports festival."
"Well," Horizon shrugs. "It's not like we'd be lying."
"But we'd place our students in the crosshairs of any revenge attacks, and antagonize the villains by humiliating them," Nezu points out, a serious frown on his face. "That's why I already disregarded this option, while I am proud of my students we still don't know the full extent of the League Of Villains."
"Yeah, but you'd put most of the heat on me, and I'm certainly good bait," Horizon says
"Hmm, if another attack happens and any student gets hurt we'd be in a lot more trouble after pulling such a stunt," Nezu says. "I already plan to more properly insulate the school and all our teaching schedules."
"Smart move," Yagi says. "And I should make a better effort to actually be here, I got sidetracked doing heroics and wasn't even here when my students needed me..."
"Agreed," Horizon says harshly. "You made a deal, honor it, no matter what. Breaking contracts is grounds to be put down, remember that."
Yagi just looks at him a bit nervously, "right...yeah."
"Well I should get the press statement out," Nezu says. " I'll follow Horizon's plan, showing that everyone at UA is capable will look much better, I don't want any students scared to come to our school."
Nezu immediately takes out a tablet and types up a proper statement. And twenty minutes later it's posted.
"Already at five million views and it's only been seconds!" Nezu chuckles.
Horizon's phone immediately begins going off, he unlocks it to see his 'Yay!' profile going crazy.
"And I'm already at a million followers," he can't help but laugh. "Man those hero-worshipping idiots are too easy..."
"Hey now, you shouldn't call your fans that," Yagi says.
"Tch, fuck those sheeple..."
BEEP BEEP BEEP!
Yagi's phone goes off, he reaches for it so quickly you'd think it burnt him.
"Emergency Hero Network alert," he says, then his face looks drained of all life as he sees the article. He places it on the table for Nezu and Horizon to see, an entire city block turned to rubble. Dozens of armored trucks and cop cars were crushed and tossed about as if they were nothing.
"What the hell did that, where is that?" Horizon asks.
"That, was the League Of Villains convoy," Yagi says. "Apparently they were attacked by something, hit with a EMP and attacked before anyone could respond, no survivors or witnesses, but lots of missing prisoners, including a certain trio..."
"Let me guess," Nezu groans. "Shigaraki, Kurogiri, and Nomu..."
Yagi just nods sadly, knowing this fight was far from over...
END CHAPTER---
So I failed to explain properly the interaction between Amputate and Super-Regeneration last chapter and a lot of people got mad, it'll come up again and I'll go more in-depth at that point, just need you to trust me until then, Law is still op :)
pat.reon (5 Chapters ahead): Keanu_Eugene