Chapter 1: Into the Fire
There was something about quiet nights in the city. That weird way the steps you took echoed off of empty streets. The way that the dull thrum of far-off cars and trains eventually dropped off into white noise. The way the shadows flickered with any passing sort of light. It felt familiar, but also completely alien. It felt like one of those weird internet things…liminal spaces, maybe? Something about a pool-
Thwack!
The lack of foot traffic was also pretty nice. Night allowed someone with the knowhow the chance to just…disappear. To become one with the shadows and the background. Plus, nobody would think twice about someone dressed in all black pouncing between rooftops! On the other hand, it was also pretty inconvenient for shopping. Why was it so hard to find good coffee at 3am? That's the BEST TIME to have coffee!
Thwack! Slam!
After spending so long prowling about at night, having to go out during the day just felt claustrophobic. So many people. You'd think there would be more people with nocturnal quirks out and about, but they usually tended to either work night jobs or keep to themselves.
Splash!
It was the feeling of a nice, quiet city night that allowed one's thoughts to wonder like this. It was a nice time to reflect. Maybe not about one's self, but about the nature of the world in general! So many simple or mundane things were taken for granted during the day that seemed to come alive as soon as the sun set.
"Will somebody get him to stop FUCKING MOVING!"
Tonight was SUPPOSED to be quiet, at least. It certainly didn't last very long.
Izuku ducked under an oversized fist just before it could clobber him against the wall of the building he was pressed against. The attacker, some low-level gang member, looked like his quirk could expand his limbs by filling them with air. The strength his inflated arms granted him was impressive but…he looked kind of silly, to be honest.
The thug pulled his hand back from the now-cracked brick, cradling swollen and bleeding knuckles. No enhanced durability then. What a shame.
"Yuri, now!"
Izuku dove to the side as another thug, this one with some kind of gecko mutation, ran at him with his palms out. Small protrusions, kind of nozzle-looking, popped out before spraying some kind of gel in a wide arc across the alleyway they had been fighting in the last few minutes.
It had been a pretty quiet patrol, up to this point. He had stopped a mugger and broken up a gaggle of drunk teenagers (and on a Wednesday no less!), but that had been pretty much it. Izuku had quietly leapt from rooftop to rooftop, winding through city blocks on his nightly journey towards the nearest source of caffeine, when a burst of light had caught his eye from below.
Moving to the roof of a nearby shop and peering down into the alley below, it looked like a small gathering of 5 people, all wearing run-of-the-mill street thug clothes. One appeared to have some kind of lizard mutation, and another was pretty big and bulky, but the others didn't have any noticeable quirk mutations or features.
Normally, this wouldn't be a cause of concern, outside of how overall sketchy they looked (people out at this hour weren't exactly known for running book clubs), but the lizard guy was spraying some viscous sludge out of his hands onto the side of the adjacent hardware store, while one of the others was holding a lighter. Next to them, a trashcan was burning, bright blue flames leaking over the slide like lava and beginning to spread across the ground.
Great, he shoots napalm out of his hands.
Most of the thugs had gone down easily. Izuku had gotten the drop on them, his stylish outfit of black jeans, black combat boots, and a dark gray padded sweatshirt letting him blend into the background. A few hits to the back of the head and three men went sprawling. The big guy was proving more agile than his frame would suggest, and of course napalm-guy knew to hang back and be a nuisance.
Luckily, Izuku knew how to deal with annoying quirks.
Ducking under another inflated swing from the big guy, Izuku dashed forwards towards the other thug. Not having expected cornered prey to charge straight at him, he recoiled in surprise, bringing his arms to bare and splattering the ground around them in more flammable slime. Not good. He'd have to make this quick. Lashing out with his right hand, Izuku grabbed the man by the face, fingers wrapping around a slightly-elongated snout, making sure the open slit in the palm of his dark red glove gave him skin (or in this case, scale) contact with his hand.
TAKE.
Dark red light poured from his hand in tendrils, bathing the alleyway around him in a dull glow. They almost appeared to wrap around the man, before retreating into Izuku with a snap. The thug let out a muffled scream as his eyes rolled back in his head and he dropped to the ground in a heap.
Izuku rolled the new ball of energy around in his chest for a moment, savoring the odd, almost slimy sensation his newest quirk gave off. He wouldn't be keeping it for long, sadly. Turning on his heel, the big guy was frozen in place, staring down at him with eyes wide, shadows flickering behind him as blue fire slowly consumed more of the alleyway. Izuku took a step forwards, then another, then a third, before the big guy snapped out of his trance, lunging at Izuku in a panic, arms inflating to what looked like their maximum with his quirk.
"Shit! I shoulda guessed! N-"
Ducking forwards, Izuku buried his fist in the thug's diaphragm, causing him to double over and wheeze for air. Another heavy hit to the back of the neck and he was out for the count. Huffing, Izuku trotted over to the thug formerly known as Napalm-Man, slapping a hand on his head and returning his quirk (ignoring that feeling of emptiness he had long grown accustomed to). Tonight was a bit of a wash, at this point. He had stopped a few would-be-arsonists, but with all of the bright lights, curious people (and the police) would eventually show up to investigate. Best to make himself scarce.
Whipping out his cheap burner phone, he called the police station number he'd memorized 4 or 5 phones ago.
"Musutafu Police Precinct. Detective Tsukauchi speaking."
"Hey buddy, how's it going?"
A long, weary sigh sounded over the receiver. Izuku could hear the familiar sound of an office chair screeching against the ground, which meant he had either woken the detective up from a nap or he had slammed his head down on his desk in frustration. Both were equally funny options.
"You're under arrest."
"Do you want the arsonists or not?"
A gasp. Well that got his attention.
"What do you mean arsonists?! Are there any injuries?"
Izuku nodded, even if nobody could see. "Just five thugs. One of them has a napalm quirk. I think they were trying to torch a hardware store, 5 blocks east of the hospital. I think the sign says 'Frank's' on it? Anyways, can you come pick these guys up before-"
BOOOOOM!
Izuku was nearly knocked off of his feet as a ball of blue fire exploded across the alley, splattering flaming gel across the buildings adjacent, two of the thugs, and Izuku's arms, which had thankfully come up to cover his face.
"What was that?"
"Shit! Looks like there was something flammable at the bottom of that trash can! Tsukauchi-san, I'd include the fire brigade with that! Bring some foam too. Ouch! Shit, that's hot, gotta go!"
Izuku hung of the phone before glancing down at his sweatshirt. Patches of flaming goo were stuck to both sleeves and part of his chest. Patting it out would just get it on his gloves, and water just spreads this stuff around…
"What the hell is this?! Someone call 119!"
Oh, shit.
Looking back, more of the offending gel had splattered up the side of the building on the opposite side of the narrow alley, which looked like a small apartment building. A couple of people were already scrambling out of the side door, but the flames were already starting to spread. Izuku ripped his hoodie off, figuring it a lost cause at this point, leaving his torso only covered by a tight athletic shirt with the word 'SMASH!' written in bright yellow letters. Thinking quickly, he decided to use the quickly-melting fabric to smother most of the flames on thugs before he heard a voice.
"Hey! Are you a hero? We need some help over here!"
Izuku wondered why the heck anyone would assume he was a hero, before he remembered he had his mask on. Well, it was really more of a helmet. He had only gotten it recently, from an offer that was definitely too good to be true. Whatever favor he owed that sketchy guy in purple was gunna come back to bite him. The helmet was pretty nice, though. Solid black and smooth, it surrounded his entire head with a smooth black glass for the face. On the inside, it was completely transparent, and even had a heads-up display, with a ton of random features he wasn't even halfway done customizing yet. It was basically a high-tech, customizable motorcycle helmet.
He did also manage to rip out the four separate tracking bugs planted in it, and was pretty confident there weren't any more.
Shaking his head from his distraction, Izuku ran over to the, now partially ablaze, side door, where a middle-aged man with feathers for hair was ushering a small family out into the street. The man regarded him suspiciously as he approached, hands on his hips.
"The hell happened here? Did you do this?"
Izuku's eye flicked to the top-right corner of his HUD, flicking through a few quick commands with nothing more than his eyes, until he was able to activate the voice changer, making him sound just a bit older than 15.
"A group of criminals were attempting to use a quirk to vandalize the store next door. I knocked them out, but a fire they lit exploded and splattered some flammable gel across the building. Police and fire should be here soon."
The man nodded. Izuku could see flames reaching the windows on the second floor now, not good. God he was stupid. Why the hell did he opt to fight the napalm-spewing villain in a narrow freaking alleyway? Thankfully, it was a crappy building in a crappier part of town, meaning that there were probably only a few people who lived there.
He wished he could do something about the fire, but he had nothing in his arsenal that could help. There was no way for him to access a fire hydrant before the cops got there, and water didn't really work on the gel anyways. Izuku laced his fingers together, trying to think over the roar of the flames, the loud chatter and yelling of the building residents, and the steadily growing sound of sirens.
Quiet night over, he supposed.
"WAIT! No, lemme go! I have to go back!"
The voice was high and shrill, probably a girl younger than he was. Turning, he saw a young woman, maybe in her late-20s or early-30s, with a little girl thrown over her shoulder. The girl was screaming and crying, tears and snot pouring down her face. The woman, who Izuku assumed was her mother, had one of the girl's arms pinned to her side, but the other was reaching out and up, towards the building that was now much more on fire than it had been a few minutes ago.
The sirens were getting closer…
"Sweetie I'm sorry! It's too dangerous we can't go back inside."
"But Fuzzy!"
Oh hell….
Taking a deep breath, Izuku jogged over before making himself known. The mother immediately regarded him with suspicion (smart) but the kid immediately saw his mask and assumed the worst.
"Mr. Hero! Please save Fuzzy!"
Izuku raised a brow, not that they could see it. "Fuzzy? Ma'am, what's going on?"
The woman sighed, before looking back at the building, nervous. "We ran out so fast I forgot to grab the cat. He's…still up there."
Fuck. Izuku had assumed Fuzzy was just a stuffed animal or something. The fire was spreading more by the second. Even if they started pouring chemicals on the fire right this second…
Flashing blue and red lights came around the next corner, a block or two away. Izuku could see three police cars at the front, guiding a fire engine down the once quiet neighborhood street. He turned back to the mother.
"Which balcony is yours?"
The woman's eyebrows shot up. She looked ready to retort (because not only was he not a hero, he didn't look even remotely like one, come on now) but her retort died when the girl let out another pitiful wail, hand still reached out grasping for the building. Instead, she pointed to a balcony on the third floor. The flames weren't quite licking at the bottom of it yet.
"That one there. He does come when his name is called…sometimes."
Izuku nodded. "Alright. I'll be right back. Stay safe."
Izuku took off at a sprint directly at the front of the building. Already dreading the burn cream he was going to probably need to steal from the pharmacy tomorrow, he kicked off of the burning wall and catapulted himself up, just far enough to grab the railing of a balcony. Hauling himself up, he winced as fire licked the sides of his arms. Between the napalm earlier and now this, he'd be lucky to get off with some second-degree burns.
He climbed atop the railing, before jumping and reaching for the next balcony, just barely getting his fingers along the metal support for the next railing up. Risking a glance over his shoulder, he could see the police cars had parked. He hoped they'd take care of the thugs in the alley before they came and bothered him. Meanwhile, a fire engine had finallypulled up, and several firefighters were spilling onto the street with hoses hooked up to large tanks he imagined contained suppressive foam. This was why he always called his favorite detective's extension. Man actually listened to him, even if Izuku made him want to retire early. Climbing up onto the next balcony, he thanked his lucky stars his fancy mask/helmet had air filtration built in, although he'd probably have to change the filter out tomorrow.
He was almost there! His arms burned and one of his boots may have been melting, but he was now one balcony beneath and one over of where the woman had pointed. With a quick command, he turned his voice changer settings to something just a bit off from his natural, higher-pitched voice, and cranked the volume up.
"Fuzzy! Fuzzy! Come here, buddy! Fuzzy!"
He knew everyone on the ground was probably looking at him, although they were hard to make out at this point through the smoke. He waited one painful second, then another, then another.
*mrrrow!*
Izuku let out a desperate chuckle as a VERY unhappy looking cat trotted onto the balcony. He was hanging off of his own railing just to see up there, pretty precarious for being 2 stories up. It was a bright orange cat, probably a few years old, with big green eyes and a red collar. He looked a bit smokey but otherwise okay. The fire was quickly becoming an issue, though, and-
*creeeeaaaaaak!*
The building gave off an ominous sound. Probably not the sturdiest thing, for this part of town. Crap. Izuku's arms had to be thoroughly burned by now. If he waited too long, either he'd die, or the cat would die, or something in the building would give and they'd both die. He needed a faster way…
Well, there was one, but it was a terrible idea.
So his trademark, then.
Standing atop the railing, facing out, Izuku crouched down and prepared to jump. The fire flared above him, and the cat flinched back, looking miserable. Izuku sorted through the motes of energy in his chest, quickly finding the one that felt the most familiar.
He leapt from the railing and turned, reaching a hand out towards the cat.
Pull.
Thankfully, cat collars counted as small objects.
With a mental apology to Fuzzy, he gave a hard yank as soon as he felt the quirk latch on, and Fuzzy went sailing beneath the railing out over open air, and directly into Izuku's waiting arms as he turned mid-leap. Tucking the feline in close, he hit the ground hard, but at a roll, definitely hurting something but ultimately not going splat on the pavement and ending up on his back. Looking down, the cat was shaking, and super unhappy, but alive. Thank goodness.
Jogging back over, Izuku was met with a wide-eyed mom and a hysterical little girl once again, who scooped the cat up in her arms, wailing and shouting a thousand 'thank-you's. Smiling under his mask, Izuku nodded at the two. It was far past his time to leave.
"Who…what's your name? How can I thank you?" Just as he turned, Izuku looked back at the older woman, who had scooped the cat out of the girl's arms (much more gently) while she held her daughter's hand.
"Hey! You, right there! Don't move!"
Izuku startled as two police offers started running towards him, hands on their guns. He turned to run, but regarded the woman first.
"I'm Null."
==============
Naomosa was, once again, working late.
He had pretty much just become nocturnal at this point. And by nocturnal, he meant that he slept a solid 3-4 hours each night, and just worked the rest. (Which was fine! He was fine.) If nothing else, his work-ethic got him promoted to full detective pretty quickly. Plus, there were benefits to working such odd, long hours. He got to talk to his sister pretty often, despite the time difference between Japan and New York. Makoto was still working with Captain Celebrity and that Crawler-guy in the states, and was apparently doing quite well as the agency manager there.
He sighed as he finished filling out the last of tonight's incident report. One small apartment building, burned and uninhabitable. Two adjacent buildings that were still standing but would need serious repairs and inspections to function again. No major civilian injuries, outside of, apparently, an extremely unhappy house pet with a burned paw.
And then there were the villains.
Naomosa really would have preferred to just keep them as criminals, but the use of a quirk was pretty obvious once he ran their names through the system. They were nobodies, a few small-time gangsters getting revenge on the owner of a local hardware store. They'd offered him 'neighborly protection', for a ridiculous fee of course, and he hadn't paid. They were basically kids, between 18 and 25 years old, and they threw their lives away trying to imitate some kind of low-budget mobster movie? What a shame.
Moving his attention to his computer screen, he flipped through the video recordings of their official statements and questioning, before landing on Takeya Hui, the man with the Inflatable Arms quirk.
"Interrogation Room 3. Time is 4:06am local time. Officer Detective Tsukauchi recording. Processing Takeya Hui, age 22, quirk: Inflatable Arms. Brought in with 1 charge of villainy, 1 charge of resisting arrest, and 1 charge of arson, degree 1. Takeya-san, is the information I just stated correct to the best of your knowledge?"
The man, unkempt blonde hair a singed mess with several bandages across his upper body, slumps on the video with a sigh.
"Yeah."
The video continued, Naomosa grilling the de-facto leader of their little group on the events of the evening and the surrounding intent. Pretty by the books, all things considered.
Except for the end.
"Tell me about the person who fought you."
The man glanced up, confused and a bit defiant. "Why would I do that? I'm already fucked, what good does that do me?"
Naomosa brought out a few files along with a blurry, dark picture of a person, fairly short and dressed in all black. He had the hood of his dark sweatshirt up and a black medical mask over the bottom of his face. All that could be seen from this angle was the figure's eyes, bright green and glaring at the camera.
"He's a person of interest. We've actually been working on bringing him in for a while now. A vigilante who goes by Null. Does this picture match the person who fought you?"
Silence permeated the room for about 10 seconds. Being subversive isn't really Naomosa's style, by preference. That didn't mean he was unable, or unwilling, to utilize those talents.
"You're pretty young, you know. This is a pretty high-profile case. If you tell me what I need to know, legally it can count as cooperation on a villainy case. It can get your sentence reduced, maybe even get you off with a slap on the wrist and some community service."
It wasn't exactly a lie, those things COULD happen. They probably wouldn't though. Regardless the man perked up for a split second, causing Naomosa to internally grin, before his posture relaxed and he leaned back in his chair, looking like he was about to get out scot-free.
"Yeah, that's the punk. He was wearing a different shirt, and he had a fancy helmet 'stead of the hood, but otherwise, yeah."
"What was he like? Did he say anything?"
"He was quiet. Dropped outta the sky like some kinda comic book character and just started wailing on us. Then he….uh…"
"He used his quirk, right?"
"Y-yeah."
"What can you tell me about it?"
"Well, uh…we'd heard about him, ya know? Just neighborhood rumors. Some dark-dressed kid running around turning off peoples' quirks by touchin' em. Freaky. Yeah after he gave me the slip, he ran at Gene, grabbed his nose, and this weird red light came outta him. Next thing I knew, Gene's quirk cut off and he was on the ground."
"I see. This matches most of what we had, but you're probably one of the best first-hand accounts we've gotten."
"Oh! Good! Yeah, it was freaky. It's not permanent is it? Gene's a fun guy, it'd suck if he became a quirkless, ya know?"
Naomosa cringed. "Usually it isn't. While I'm not at liberty to discuss what details we've found, your friend most likely still has the use of his quirk. That'll be all we need today, thank you. Detective Tsukauchi, signing off."
"Hey! Wait! What about my community ser-"
The video ended, and Naomosa tried in vain to rub the tiredness from his eyes.
Null's case had gotten passed onto his desk a little over a year ago. Vigilantes, while not common, were really nothing new. They usually got an influx across Japan in early summer, just a few months after the Hero Course entrance exam results went out. Kids who thought they were destined to be heroes, realizing they'd come up short, strive to make a name for themselves. Most realize how difficult being a vigilante actually is, and either quit after a few days or are caught because they're reckless. An unfortunate few get injured, maimed, or killed by villains (or, as much as he despised to admit it, by police or heroes who mistook the plucky teenager throwing their quirk around for an actual villain).
Null was different though. Reports of him had started popping up all over the prefecture within a few days starting a couple of years back, surging in frequency and plateauing but never stopping. He wore dark, amateur-level clothing to conceal his presence and identity, and fought with a brutal hand-to-hand style that spoke of some kind of professional training. His takedowns were fast and efficient, although they teetered right on the edge of excessive force. He certainly wasn't afraid to aim for weak spots.
Frankly, Naomosa was happy to pass off the reports to the local hero agencies and move on with his week, until he got that email. Why him, specifically, he may never know, but when the Secretary of the Hero Public Safety Commission sends you an email, you tend to pay attention. The email requested (read: demanded) that the Null case be moved to high priority, and even advertised a reward to the hero agency or precinct to bring him in.
They put a damned bounty on him.
Naomosa was no stranger to the Commission. They crossed paths with one another during villain processing, usually finding themselves in the same email chains and signing the same forms but never directly interacting. But for them to go to these lengths was certainly odd. Naomosa imagined it must have been his quirk.
As best they could tell by piecing together eyewitness accounts, Null had a powerful erasure quirk. If he touched someone, he could disable their quirk completely for an unknown period of time. There were some visual components to it, a bright red light, and probably some kind of activation requirements, but it was enough. The authorities had absolutely no idea how powerful it actually was, only that it usually wore off after some time, or if Null touched the person a second time.
Emphasis on usually. They had one report of a criminal Null had…dispatched about a month ago. The man had, or at least used to have, a mutant quirk that turned him into some kind of humanoid mammoth. Naomosa didn't work the case himself, but apparently the man had gotten screwed over by his boss because of some underlying quirkist issues at the factory he worked at, and had taken both his boss and the man's wife hostage.
It was the only time anyone had seen Null during the day, and the only time one of his targets hadn't ever regained their quirk. They ran tests on the man after the fact, and while his DNA was intact, outside of what was thought to be heavy trauma from having your body forcibly changed in such a way, his quirk factor was either gone or suppressed in a way blood tests couldn't identify.
Naturally, he immediately called Yagi in a panic, confidentially be damned, because if All for One was still alive (or had a child? Or WAS a child??) he needed to know immediately. The Number One Hero was, of course, alarmed, but was confident AFO was dead and gone. Plus, according to him, All For One didn't take mutant quirks to keep his normal appearance, and Null hadn't exactly sprouted tusks and fur (and several feet of muscle) in the last few weeks.
Regardless, an erasure-type quirk was exceedingly, one-in-a-billion rare, and one that was potentially permanent was completely unique. Certainly unique enough to get on the Commission's radar.
So now he had a high-profile vigilante, with enough knowhow and skill/training to keep up and not get caught. Who also had a probably-completely-unique erasure quirk, one powerful enough to disable someone else's quirk, permanently. Who was now well-known enough to not only get on the radar of both heroes and villains, but also the HPSC, who were worried about him enough to put a (barely legal) bounty on him. Naomosa rubbed his eyes again and groaned, opening his email.
It was time to call in the expert.