Chapter Text
“You still got eyes on the site?” came through his earpiece.
“Yep,” Iwaizumi muttered into his comms. The building up in front of him was dark, windows empty. Under the cover of night, it was difficult to see any movement in the surrounding alcoves and alleys.
He shifted slightly to keep his legs from cramping, peering down into the streets from where he was perched on the rooftop of the building adjacent to the one they were watching. The only sound he could hear was just the sound of the nighttime winds. They had been staking out this one villain hideout for almost several hours.
“Hanamaki, Matsukawa. Are you sure that you didn’t give us the wrong place?” Iwaizumi asked. He hadn’t seen a single sign of life for the last few hours he had been waiting here, and from what he’d heard from the rest of his team, they hadn’t seen anything either.
“Absolutely not, captain,” Hanamaki said, voice made tinny by the comms. “We’re pretty sure this is the place we reported.”
“This is weird, though. Just yesterday, there was a whole whack of stuff going on here,” Matsukawa said. “It’s completely silent tonight.”
“Yeah. Where did everyone go?”
“Do you think it’s safe for us to go inside?” Iwaizumi asked.
“Eh...it just might. We should be able to deal with whatever we encounter inside.”
“Kyoutani, Yahaba. Watch the outside of the building. If anything happens, let the three of us know,” Iwaizumi said as he got up.
“Right.”
Getting down from the building was fairly easy with the help of the fire escape on the outside of the building. When he landed on the hard pavement, Matsukawa and Hanamaki were already stepping out of the shadows.
“We can just...go in through the door, I guess.” Hanamaki shrugged. “There’s usually people coming in and out, but it’s quiet now...so it’s probably safe to use a designated entrance.”
“Yeah. Kinda wish we had Kunimi with us for this mission,” Matsukawa said, eyeing the single door Iwaizumi had been watching for most of the night.
“But we don’t.”
Well, there wasn’t really an easier path inside. Iwaizumi turned and walked up to the door. He reached out and gripped the door handle, expecting that he’d need to force it open, but instead, the door clicked open when he simply turned the handle.
“That’s not a good sign.”
“Yeah, no shit,” Iwaizumi replied. “Either this is a trap, or the building’s been vacated.”
“How did they hear we were coming?” Matsukawa asked as Iwaizumi stepped inside the building, turning on a small flashlight fastened to his wrist.
The building was dark. No lights were on, and there were few windows. With every step, footsteps echoed down empty hallways. As hard as he tried to strain his ears and eyes, he couldn’t hear or see anything other than their own ragged breathing, their own footsteps, their own shadows against bare walls.
But strangely, everywhere they turned, he saw broken furniture, scorch marks on the walls, signs of Quirk use, starkly illuminated in the pale light of their flashlights.
“I don’t think this building was evacuated,” Hanamaki said, vocalising what they were all thinking. “There’s been a fight. This doesn’t look peaceful.”
“So what happened? Gang war?” Iwaizumi suggested uneasily, tense as a wound spring. It was incredibly unlikely that this was the work of other heroes. Their hero agency was the only agency assigned to this case. Walking into an expected enemy liar and finding the enemies gone, signs of battle left in their absence, was uncanny.
“Maybe.”
A scan of the entire building, up and down, peeking into every nook and cranny and corner revealed more of the same - remains of scuffles and no sign of life. This building was certainly already cleared out.
“Whoever drove them out, they looted the place, too. Nothing left,” Matsukawa commented after an examination of the many lockers and cabinets in the rooms turned up empty.
“Yeah.” Iwaizumi raised a hand to his earpiece to tap into his comms. “Yahaba. Kyoutani. Is there anything going on outside?”
“No,” came Yahaba’s answering voice. “All clear. Did you run into trouble, Iwaizumi-san?”
“Trouble’s...not the word I’d use,” Iwaizumi said.
“What happened?”
“Someone got here before us. Probably another gang. They cleared out and looted the building. The villains here are all gone.”
“It must’ve been pretty recent, too,” Hanamaki added, voice echoing through the air and through the comms. “Everything was fine just this morning. Last I checked, anyway.”
“We need to report this,” Iwaizumi said dully. “These villains are probably still on the loose. Even if we couldn’t do what we came here for, we’ll still need to do damage control.”
“Right. We’ll go through one last scan of the building for anything, and then we’ll head out. That sound good to everyone?” Matsukawa asked.
“Yep.”
“Okay.”
And so, they set out again, wandering through dark hallways. The revelation that someone got here before them did little to soothe how on edge he was, however.
They got to the top floor of the building without much incident.
It was what they found there that was unsettling.
“Hey,” came Hanamaki’s voice from the far side of the room they were currently investigating. “You should come check this out.”
“What?” Iwaizumi asked, turning from the cabinets he was rifling through to turn to where Hanamaki was. When he saw what was highlighted in the beam of Hanamaki’s flashlight, he paused.
“What is that?” Matsukawa asked, joining them.
On the plain, undecorated wall of the room was a spray-painted shape of a crown in blue paint.
“The symbol of a neighbouring gang?” Iwaizumi asked, but he knew that likely wasn’t the answer. They had all studied the gang symbols of the gangs within the area, and this didn’t match any of their known marks.
“Probably not. But it’s still probably the trademark symbol of...whoever did all this,” Hanamaki replied. He frowned. “We should call the police, get them to document all this.”
“I can handle this with Yahaba and Kyoutani,” Iwaizumi offered. “I know you two don’t like spotlights.”
“Thanks for the consideration,” Matsukawa said.
“No problem. And do you think you two can find out what this symbol means?” Iwaizumi pointed to the painted crown. “You two are underground heroes. You have connections the rest of us don’t.”
“We can try.”
“Great. We’re headed out now, Yahaba,” Hanamaki said into the comms.
“Alright, Hanamaki-san.”
The journey back outside was uneventful, but Iwaizumi couldn’t find it in himself to relax. Stepping back out into the dark alleys and cool night air was a relief.
It didn’t last long, however. Yahaba’s voice came through their comms, “There’s someone nearby. Be careful.”
“What? Where? What do they look like?” Iwaizumi asked, nerves immediately firing into overdrive.
“I can’t really tell. They’re wearing some sort of coat and hood. Could just be a passerby. Be careful, though.”
“We should probably get out of here. Even if we’re not in our hero outfits because we wanted to go undercover, it won’t do much good to run into someone in a place that was known for bustling criminal activity,” Matsukawa said.
“Right. Yahaba, are you still there?” Iwaizumi asked.
“Yes.”
“Can you help guide us away? Can you still see whoever that was?”
“Sure, hang on...wait.”
“What?” he asked, alarm starting to seep into his chest.
“I can’t see where they are anymore! They’re gone! Wait- AAA-”
The comms cut out on Yahaba’s scream.
“Yahaba! Kyoutani!” Iwaizumi yelled into his comms, not bothering to be quiet anymore.
There was no response.
Movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention, and he whipped around to see a figure almost appearing to leap from one rooftop to another, vanishing out of sight as it moved out of his range of vision.
“That’s where Yahaba was. Fucking hell. You think that was who did that?” Hanamaki hissed.
“Most likely,” Iwaizumi snarled, torn between chasing after them and staying behind to check on Yahaba and Kyoutani. If they got to Yahaba, it was likely that they also got to Kyoutani beforehand. Kyoutani wouldn’t stay silent in a situation like this.
“You go after that fucker. We’ll stay behind and make sure they’re okay,” Matsukawa said as if reading his mind.
He nodded, and ran into a leap upwards, trusting that they would make sure everything was okay here. Familiar strength pulsed through his body as he activated his Quirk, bounding up the side of the nearest building with ease, using window ledges as handholds and moving quickly from one hand or foodhold to the next. His fingers, now elongated into claws, allowed him a good grip on concrete and brick. A tail extending behind him allowed for better balance.
Kicking off the side of the wall to allow him a boost, he landed solidly on the roof, skidding on concrete. The person whipped around from where they had been crouched at the edge of the rooftop.
Iwaizumi didn’t waste time. He whipped his tail through the air. It cracked against the concrete roof in the spot where that figure had been a split second earlier. There was a click of a gun, and the bullet pinged uselessly off the armoured scales that rippled out from Iwaizumi’s skin.
“I didn’t expect to have company tonight,” the person said. A mask along with the shadows from the hood completely obscured their face.
“We didn’t either,” Iwaizumi replied.
Before his opponent could respond, he moved again. Iwaizumi leaped, claws outstretched. But they moved faster than he expected, and once again, he met only concrete. Landing on all fours, he spun around and leapt out of the way of the end of a staff crushing down where he was crouching before. He swung his tail out like a whip again and this time he caught the edge of his opponent’s jacket, sending them off balance.
His opponent grunted with exertion, but was able to right themselves and dodge his next blow. His claws slashed empty air.
“Would you be so kind as to explain what you’re doing with an abandoned villain base?” his opponent asked, voice even.
“So you knew the base was abandoned,” Iwaizumi said instead of replying as he ducked under another swing of that staff. The staff must’ve been collapsable or something, because his opponent hadn’t been carrying visible weapons.
“Yes. Obviously. And you didn’t?”
Whatever he was about to say was swept from his tongue when his opponent charged in for another blow. His opponent was skillful, weaving around his attacks and lashing out with their own, moving with what could only be years of experience of battle. Who was this? What Quirk did they have?
“The way you fight and your voice seem familiar. Do I know you from somewhere?” his opponent commented, light and airy, as if they were having a tea party on a sunny balcony instead of a nighttime battle on the rooftops.
“Can’t imagine where,” he replied.
“Pro hero Lionheart of the Aoba Johsai Hero Agency,” his opponent suddenly said, all airiness gone as they leapt away. “That’s right. That’s where I know you from.”
Iwaizumi blinked, surprised. Even with his disguise and most of his face covered, this strange person had figured out who he was so quickly.
“Well. I’m sorry to have inconvenienced you tonight,” they continued, ducking into a short bow. “I also apologize for attacking your friends back there. I thought you were villains.”
“Wh-”
“I’m sorry for this confusion. I don’t want to harm good heroes. Sorry for tonight.” They bowed again. Stunned at the sudden turn of events, Iwaizumi could only blink.
“Who are you?” Iwaizumi asked.
“You may call me the Great King.”
“‘Great King’?”
His first thought was How pretentious could you be to give me a name like this? But before he could say anything more, his opponent - the Great King - leapt backwards off the side of the roof, vanishing into darkness. Eyes widening in alarm, Iwaizumi ran to the edge of the roof and looked down, only to hear the zip of what sounded like grappling wires and see the Great King flying through the air, coat flapping in the wind, vanishing into the darkness of the winding alleyways.
And then it was just him suddenly alone in the now silent night.
“Bad mission, Iwaizumi-san?” Watari asked.
“Yeah. I’m sure you’ve heard of it by now,” Iwaizumi said. He turned on his side from where he was lying on the sofa in one of the agency common rooms. Early morning sunlight was leaking in through the curtained windows. He had barely gotten any sleep last night after dealing with police and mission clean-up, as well as making sure the rest of his team was okay. The minute he could affirm that everything was under control, he collapsed on the sofa and fell into a light sleep, eventually woken by the sounds of movement in the building as the agency started coming to life in the morning.
“We’ve actually got new info on the case. It just came in.”
Rubbing a hand over his eyes, he sat up. His back protested as he did. “What is it?” After what happened last night, he didn’t know if it could be any good.
“Many of the villains that were seen by the hideout we were supposed to target last night have been confirmed to be in police custody.”
He blinked in surprise. Whatever he’d been expecting, it wasn’t that.
“By when?” Iwaizumi asked.
“Just last night. Around the time the mission to stakeout and eventually attack the villain base was underway.”
So they were just short of knowing who had hit their target before them. “Do the police know who did it?”
“No. Whoever did it, they left no other clues behind. Other than the painted crown you mentioned last night, Iwaizumi-san.”
He slumped back against the sofa. This was very strange. Add all this up with the strange person who attacked them last night and then proceeded to apologize upon realizing they were pro heroes, and this all made for an extremely unusual mission.
“So that’s the end of that mission, huh?”
“Yes, it would seem so. There’s just the paperwork left over.”
Paperwork. Right. Internally grumbling, Iwaizumi said, “Okay. Thanks for letting me know, Watari.”
“Alright, Iwaizumi-san.” Watari dipped his head in a nod and ducked out of the office as Iwaizumi got up from the sofa.
In the sudden silence, Iwaizumi was left alone with his thoughts. His mind’s eye landed on his office with the large pile of paperwork left to do. He groaned, out loud this time, and turned to head up to his office. He might as well get some work done.
After they had been cleared from the hospital with only minor injuries, Kyoutani and Yahaba had given statements to the police last night about what had happened to them. Apparently it was nothing special: their assailant - who fit the description Iwaizumi had given of the Great King - had attacked them, one at a time, and knocked them unconscious. They had been caught so off-guard that they didn’t even have a chance to fight back.
He would assume that the Great King (that name seriously sounded ridiculous, especially belonging to some masked villain or vigilante that most of the world seemed to know nothing of) mistook them as villains, not knowing they were pro heroes as all of them were dressed for disguise last night.
But there wasn’t much he could do right now. The city never slept, and there would always be crime and villains and accidents to happen. They needed heroes, and he had no choice but to move forward. There was no use in dwelling.
A few days after that strange mission and encounter with the Great King came another team dinner and overnight stay at the agency. This had been a strange ritual Iwaizumi, Hanamaki, and Matsukawa had set up together back when they were just starting out with the idea of forming their own hero agency, working late into the evening together over dinner. It had eventually stuck, and was still something they kept at it. Eventually, newer additions to this close-knit core of the Aoba Johsai Hero Agency started joining in, and here they all were, sprawled out over one of the agency conference rooms over boxes of mismatched food and paperwork.
His gaze drifted across the room as he continued rattling over the to-do list. Matsukawa and Hanamaki were seated together at one table corner. Kunimi was sitting at the very far side of the table, accompanied by Kindaichi. Yahaba and Kyoutani, recently discharged from the hospital with no major injuries, were joined by the only support technician in the room, Watari.
“So there’s still the paperwork on that case being finalized. I’m working on that,” Iwaizumi continued. “I don’t think there have been many calls on new cases around lately. There’s just regular patrols for now. You think you’re all okay for that? Yahaba? Kyoutani?”
“Yep. We’re good,” Yahaba said.
“Watari, how’s the support department looking?”
“All good here. No issues yet.”
“That’s great. Thanks.” Not all hero agencies were lucky enough to have their own support department like this, and despite Watari being the only person currently in the room who wasn’t a pro hero, he was vitally important.
“So...I think that’s it. That’s everything we currently need to go over,” Iwaizumi said, running his eyes down the list written on a piece of paper.
“Nice, captain,” Hanamaki said.
Iwaizumi nodded in thanks. “So if that’s all set, you’re all free to input your own thoughts. Thanks for listening.”
“Nah. Our pleasure, captain.” Matsukawa waved a hand at him.
Nodding again, Iwaizumi sat back down. He never knew what to say in situations like this.
“Alright. Is there anyone else here that has anything they’d like to say?” Iwaizumi said.
“Actually, yes,” Matsukawa said.
“Okay. What is it?”
“It’s about the case we got last week. Y’know, the one y’all know about where we tried to bust a villain hideout only to hear that someone got there before us and then we got attacked by a random-ass passerby. The one that’s currently the talk of the agency,” Hanamaki said, going into deep detail as if everyone in the agency didn’t already know. “We were looking for info in the underground, and we think we know who got there before us.”
He blinked, impressed. “Well done,” Iwaizumi said.
“Nah. It didn’t even take that much digging for us to uncover. Apparently the guy who did it is pretty famous within the underground,” Matsukawa said.
Now frowning, Iwaizumi said, “Well, go on with it, then. Who is it?”
“A vigilante calling himself the Great King,” Hanamaki answered, and Iwaizumi stiffened. “That crown we saw is his seal. He leaves that behind in areas where he’s been, in areas where he’s taken down villains. Apparently, he’s the famous saviour of the underground, protecting people from threats that the heroes don’t get to in time. He’s caught and turned in a lot of villains the heroes weren’t able to.”
“If there’s all this fuss about him in the underground, why haven’t we heard anything about him in the news? All those villains turned in by someone who obviously is not a licensed hero? Surely the other heroes or media would’ve noticed something,” Kunimi drawled, speaking for the first time since the meeting started.
“Because it’ll reflect badly on the heroes and reflect well on vigilantism. The media doesn’t want to glorify vigilantism, because it’s y’know, illegal. Not to mention very potentially dangerous to people who aren’t trained like heroes. It’s very likely that the media knows that it was a vigilante who turned in all those villains, it’s just that they don’t want to reveal it to the public. They probably just write it off in the news,” Matsukawa said.
“Yeah. From what we found, the Great King is sort of an underground urban legend,” Hanamaki added. “There’s a lot of stuff you guys probably won’t get because you’re not underground heroes, but we can simplify it for you.”
“Please do,” Iwaizumi forced out.
Matsukawa raised an eyebrow at him, but continued. “Alright. Well, basically, the underground is this network of stuff kept out of the public eye, as y’all probably already know. Some vigilantes work within the underground because it’s their best source of supplies. There’s nearly an entire network of vigilante alliances that actually can be quite a big help when it comes to protecting people and fighting off villains.”
“Vigilantes are illegal and all, we get it. Most heroes, especially mainstream heroes, can’t interact with them. But us special, privileged underground heroes aren’t bound by the same restrictions. We sometimes work with vigilantes and underground informants to get shit done,” Hanamaki said.
“But very basically, we just had to ask around among us fellow underground workers and they told us everything we needed to know about the Great King. He’s a vigilante, he works to take down villains, and he protects the people that the heroes can’t.”
“They also say he’s good with inventions and mechanics. He’s good with providing support items to people who need it, and he uses lots of weapons and support items in battle. That’s probably why he looted the building as well. Needed more materials.”
Iwaizumi slumped back in his chair as the room broke out into discussion. The Great King, a vigilante that did their work before they could, an underground legend, was the very same person that tried to attack them that day and later backed off when he learned that they were heroes. That must’ve been why. He must’ve realized that it would do no good to harm heroes, and left when he learned who they were. Iwaizumi wanted to say he was shocked, but it was hard to say that when he didn’t even know what to expect in the first place.
“You alright there, Iwaizumi?” Matsukawa asked.
“Yeah, I’m good.”
“Anything you want to say? You look like you saw a ghost.”
He raised his head. “That random-ass passerby on the night of the mission. The one that attacked us and fought me?”
“Yeah?”
“The passerby gave me a name. The Great King. I didn’t tell you because I thought it wasn’t serious and there was no way someone would just freely give out that name unironically, but after hearing all this...”
Yahaba said, “So that was the vigilante. The Great King.”
“Yeah. Seems like it. He might’ve been coming back to check on the villain base he cleared out and saw us there.”
“Maybe.”
“So we’re not going to question how one person cleared out the entire base?” Kyoutani asked, speaking for the first time since the meeting started.
“He might’ve had help from other vigilantes,” Hanamaki suggested. “We’ve heard that he’s just been the only known vigilante that actually wants to leave his mark on his targets. I dunno about his habits when it comes to claiming villain takedowns or whatever. You’ll have to ask him about that yourself.”
“The Great King is rumoured to be a good fighter, too,” Matsukawa added.
“He is. I fought him,” Iwaizumi said, the memory of the two of them exchanging blows as they dueled on the rooftop flashing before his eyes.
The food forgotten, the room fell into an uneasy silence. The only people who looked mostly unbothered were Matsukawa and Hanamaki.
“Well, enough with all the grim and death!” Hanamaki said after a few seconds, clapping his hands. “What’s done is done!”
“You’re not upset with any of this, Hanamaki-san, Matsukawa-san?” Kindaichi asked.
“Nope,” Matsukawa said, looking largely unbothered. “Vigilantes have been around since the dawn of Quirks. By the looks of it, the Great King has been around for several years too. And there’s not much we can do to stop an enormous network of vigilantes because if we could, it’d have been done already. And they certainly won’t go away by themselves.”
“And can you think of a way to stop the Great King? He does what he wants. It just so happens that he picked the same target as we did and we had the misfortune to be too late,” Hanamaki said.
“Exactly. There’s nothing we can do except let him go and go back to our business. Good vigilantes know what they’re doing is illegal. They know how to handle themselves, know how to make themselves hard to catch. You really want to spend this much time trying to go after someone who our leader has confirmed to be a good fighter?” Matsukawa frowned. “Unless you actually want to go after the Great King? Iwaizumi?”
All eyes in the room turned to him. Iwaizumi paused. He had no idea what to think of all this after what Hanamaki and Matsukawa had said. As annoying as they could be, they were pro heroes for a reason.
“I...think they’re right. I’m not an underground hero. This isn’t my area of expertise. I’ll trust you,” he said. He didn’t want to make such rash decisions rooted in something he didn’t even know very well. The sneaking tactics of the underground was something underground heroes knew better than mainstream heroes.
“Well, there you have it. The leader himself says no.”
“We can even speak to the Great King himself. It can’t possibly be that hard to pass him a message through the underground channels, can it?” Hanamaki said. “Send him a message saying to leave us alone or some shit.”
“You can do that?” Iwaizumi asked.
“It’ll take longer for us to get done, but yeah. It’s possible.”
“Alright. Can you do that?”
“Sure. We’ll try.”
“Great. Thanks.” He nodded.
“We’ll get back to y’all on that,” Matsukawa said. “And in the meantime, how about we talk about something not related to vigilantes and the underground? I feel like we’ve just been turning circles in the same spot for hours.”
“Agreed,” Hanamaki said, nodding.
The rest of the room was happy enough to oblige.
The pavement was rough under his palms where he hadn’t covered his skin in scales. Scrabbling at the concrete, Iwaizumi managed to gather his legs under him and leap to his feet. Fire bloomed to life among the haze of smoke like deadly flowers, and explosions rang through the air. It was only instinct and years of training that allowed him to dive to the side, taking cover behind a flipped car to avoid the following hail of heat and shrapnel.
“We need to contain the villain attack,” Iwaizumi rasped into his comms. “Kindaichi, do you think you can use your Quirk to make another one of those shield domes?”
“No. Sorry, Iwaizumi-san,” he heard Kindaichi say, voice hoarse.
“Hanamaki? Matsukawa? Can any of you get close enough to the villains to land any surprise hits?”
“Probably, but it’d be risky. The two of us don’t have Quirks like yours or Kindaichi’s. We can’t strongarm our way to the villains,” Matuskawa said.
He growled under his breath. This villain attack was particularly bad. It had taken place in the middle of a crowded city street. They had been dispatched to help contain it, but these villains had powerful Quirks that made them difficult to fight and difficult to do damage control. Another explosion had him flinching and inhaling sharply. How much damage to infrastructure had this one fight already caused?
Then, blue flashed at the corner of his eye, so out of place within the mass of grey and orange his vision had been reduced to. Iwaizumi whipped around only to jump backwards when he came face to face with a masked person wearing a cobalt blue cloak, the hood pulled down over their face.
“What the fuck?” was the first thing he managed to say. They didn’t look like any pro hero that he recognized.
“Tsk, tsk. How rude. I’ve come to help. You look like you’re having trouble with the villains,” the person said.
“Uh...guys? Heads up, we’ve got a weirdo here saying they’ve come to help us...fight the villains, I think,” Iwaizumi said into the comms.
“And I would also like to properly apologize for knocking out two of your teammates and then fighting you. So sorry again, Iwa-chan. Although in my defense, you did come after me.”
“Fucking...what?”
The masked stranger lifted the hood of a cloak high enough to reveal a thin, pronged, painted band going around the forehead of the mask. It almost looked like a crown.
“Great King,” Iwaizumi hissed, the realization sweeping over him. This was the Great King, the vigilante, but in a different outfit.
“Iwaizumi? What’s happening over there?” Hanamaki asked.
“It’s the Great King,” he replied, keeping his eyes on him. “He’s here. And he says he’s here to help.”
“What the fuck?”
Iwaizumi turned his attention back to the Great King. “Why should we trust you?” he asked.
“Because you clearly need help, and I’m the best you’ve got right now. Besides, I’m not a villain. No matter how much you heroes like to paint vigilantes as evil, we have the same intentions as you do.”
He hated how much sense that made.
“Time’s ticking, Iwa-chan.”
“‘Iwa-chan’?” he asked instead of replying. He knew that his real name was out to the public as a pro hero, but he was almost never addressed by it. He was usually addressed by his hero name when talking to strangers, and never by a cutesy nickname rooted in his real name.
“What? I like it. Cute names are how I remind myself you’re all human,” the Great King said. “Besides, doesn’t it ever get boring, being addressed by your alias all the time? Lionheart this, Lionheart that?”
“There’s a reason why I picked that name, dumbass. I knew that I would be called that a lot,” Iwaizumi said, scowling. Seriously, who the fuck was this?
“Alright. But you didn’t say I couldn’t call you Iwa-chan.”
Iwaizumi couldn’t tell, but he thought the Great King might be smiling under that mask. Little shit.
“Okay, okay. Fuck. Whatever.”
“Iwaizumi-san?” Kindaichi asked through the comms.
“I’m here. Everything’s okay right now. Mostly,” Iwaizumi replied, then flinched as another shockwave of force and heat and flame swept through the air and made the ground beneath them rattle.
“You didn’t say if you would accept my help yet, Iwa-chan. But either way, I insist that you do. It’s pretty clear that you’re having lots of trouble with this attack and that there’s no backup coming pretty soon,” the Great King said. His voice was now strangely level, and Iwaizumi couldn’t tell if it was because he was an absolute lunatic that felt no fear or because he was that good at masking his emotions.
“You haven't even considered the rest of my team yet.”
“I know. But I know that I have to convince their leader before getting to the rest of them.”
Iwaizumi groaned. “Okay.” He turned to his comms. “What do you think? Do you want to accept the Great King’s help?”
“Ah, what the hell. Yes,” Matsukawa said.
“Yeah. We’re struggling with what we’ve already got,” added Hanamaki.
“Kindaichi?”
“Ye-yes.”
“Are you sure about this?”
“Yes. We need all the help we can get.”
Iwaizumi added into the comms before they could break off, “Hanamaki, Matsukawa. Are you sure that you haven’t contacted this guy earlier, telling him to come and harass us instead of staying away like you told me last week?”
“No, we didn’t! Honest!”
“Why, you had your heroes search for me just to tell me to stay away from you?” the Great King asked. “How rude. Please, my company is lovely. I know many people would beg for the very opposite of what you asked.”
“Is it too late to call off the alliance between us? We are not compatible,” Iwaizumi said, scowling.
“Iwa-chan, I was kidding! Can’t you take a joke?”
He sighed. Was this seriously the legendary vigilante that Matsukawa and Hanamaki had spoken of that held such great respect? “All right, Great King,” he relented. They had wasted too much time already. “So, what’s your plan?”
When Iwaizumi stepped into his office at their agency after the debriefing after the villain attack earlier that day, he noticed that there was something stuck to the outside of the window. Upon closer examination, he saw that it was a piece of paper taped to the outside, with the words written on it: Iwa-chan, my plan worked, didn’t it? I think we make a great team!
He groaned. Of course the Great King wouldn’t just leave well enough alone. Once the villains were contained, he had waved goodbye and zipped away into the city streets. Iwaizumi and the rest of his team were too exhausted by the fight to give chase, and none of the police or any heroes were able to catch up to him.
However, he had to admit that the Great King’s plan did work. It dealt with the villains easily enough using what they already had. The Great King must’ve been good with analysis to come up with a plan that used the weaknesses of the villains against them and efficiently took them down without too much further damage to their surroundings.
He opened the window and stepped out of the building and onto the fire escape platform outside to peel the paper off the window before anyone else saw it. He tossed into a wastebasket inside his office, but instead of heading back inside the building, he closed the window and began to climb the rickety steps of the fire escape up the building.
The cool night air brushed against his face and clothes as he climbed. Despite the dark, cloudy night, he had little trouble seeing due to all the surrounding lights of the city streetlights and lit windows. The sounds of cars reached up to him even as he climbed higher.
The roof was normally empty. Iwaizumi often found himself headed up there when he needed to clear his head. Even though the chatter and bustle of his friends in the background was nice, there were times where he just needed the solitude.
But tonight, the roof of their agency building wasn’t empty.
They both jumped upon seeing each other, Iwaizumi activating his Quirk as the Great King jumped to his feet, hands poised to grab some sort of hidden weapon he had stashed on his belt.
“Great King,” Iwaizumi said warily in greeting. “Fancy meeting you here.”
“Same here,” he replied.
After a short pause, Iwaizumi asked, “So what are you doing here?”
To his surprise, the Great King seemed to have no answer, here in the silence of night, so unlike the midst of battle where every snappy comment by Iwaizumi was met with an equally sharp or witty retort. The Great King simply shrugged, the cloak around his shoulders shifting as he did.
“I guess I just wanted to stay here,” the Great King said.
Iwaizumi blinked in surprise. “Why?”
“I don’t know.” The way the words fluttered hollowly through the air told Iwaizumi that the Great King was telling the truth.
Iwaizumi let his posture relax, settling into something looser than the wary battle stance he had taken upon seeing the Great King earlier. “Okay,” he said. “Well, this is our hero agency, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“I know. Did you get my note, Iwa-chan?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
It was hard to tell with the mask, but he thought the Great King smiled.
“Why did you suddenly decide to request the heroes’ help in that battle, Great King?” Iwaizumi asked, suddenly reminded of all the confusion and unanswered questions the Great King left behind when he dashed off after the fight.
“Because I needed your help, and you needed my help. Simple as that,” came the reply. “Normally, I’m enough to deal with whatever problems arise in the underground. But sometimes, there are fights aboveground, in the spotlight, in which the heroes may be overwhelmed. In that case, it’s my job to make sure the heroes don’t fail.”
“You’re a vigilante,” was the only thing Iwaizumi could think to say.
“Yes. But we have more or less the same goal, don’t we? To protect the ones that can’t protect themselves.”
“You operate illegally.”
“You know that already. And yet here we are,” the Great King said. He sounded so tired now in comparison to how chipper and snappy he sounded back at the battle. The hand that had been poised to strike or grab at a weapon dropped.
“I do know that already,” Iwaizumi murmured.
They fell back into silence, and in the sudden peace and even ground they had somehow stumbled upon, Iwaizumi let his Quirk deactivate.
“How does your tail work?” the Great King asked suddenly. “It just...appears and disappears. How do you control it? How does it go around clothing?”
Iwaizumi raised an eyebrow at such an open, unabashed question, and the Great King recoiled. “You don’t have to answer that! I’m just curious!”
“Why’d you ask?”
He shrugged. “I’m curious about Quirks and all.”
“The tail...grows out when I activate my Quirk. When I deactivate it, it just...retracts, I guess,” Iwaizumi finally replied after a long pause, unsure of how to word his reply. He had been using his Quirk for so long that he never really thought about this. “It normally would just rip through civilian clothing, but my hero outfit is designed to allow my tail to go around it. And I control it like I would any other limb. I become aware of it when it grows out, and when it retracts when I deactivate my Quirk, I just don’t become aware of it anymore.”
“So it’s all connected to your Quirk. It’s not a mutation type Quirk, right?”
“No, it’s a transformation type Quirk.” Why was he telling him this?
“Ah, I see.” The Great King nodded, and then turned back to the city skyline. He turned away from Iwaizumi and plopped down to sit at the edge of the rooftop, legs dangling down the edge of the building.
Iwaizumi sat down next to him after a few seconds, and then it was just them, the night silence, and the distant hum of city activity.
“Is your hero agency still on that case about that illegal weapons dealership? The one that was announced in the news,” the Great King asked.
“Yep.”
He nodded. “Just so you know, they’ve got the location of the villains’ hideout wrong.”
Iwaizumi blinked, confused at the sudden turn of topic. “What’s the correct location, then?” he asked.
He gave him what he said was the correct location.
The Great King then stood, and Iwaizumi narrowed his eyes at him. “How should I trust you?” he found himself asking.
“Trust me, don’t trust me,” the Great King replied. “But I’m trying to help. And either way, you’ll find out yourself whether you can trust me or not on the day of your attack.” He nodded. “Good luck.”
Iwaizumi raised an eyebrow. “Why are you meddling around here so much? It's not your business.”
“Meddling in business that's not yours is the very essence of being a hero, isn’t that what you pro heroes say?” the Great King answered.
When Iwaizumi didn’t reply, the Great King turned around. There was a zip of a grappling hook, and then he was leaping off the edge of the rooftop and into the night, leaving Iwaizumi behind with his confused thoughts.
A week later, he found that the Great King’s information turned out to be correct.
Aoba Johsai, also known as Seijoh, was seen by the public as a small but reliable hero agency. It already had the reputation of a successful agency that had been started up by a group of young pro heroes and had taken off fairly well, on a strong course. Many of the public knew the heroes that operated there, with the exception of the underground heroes and the vigilante that had somehow taken to shadowing their heroes.
Iwaizumi was seeing the Great King around more often than he’d like to admit. The shadow of a blue cloak at the edge of a battle, the notes left on his window, the quiet meetings on the agency’s rooftop with whispered information exchanged. Somehow, it became strange not to see some shadow of the Great King around.
And even stranger, the rest of his team started to become accustomed to having him around. Iwaizumi was already sure that Hanamaki and Matsukawa were communicating with the Great King, as they were both underground heroes that must’ve felt some sort of kinship with the vigilante. But the rest of his team was taking notice of the Great King. Not everyone in the agency knew that Iwaizumi was constantly talking with the Great King, but the core team of the agency did. They knew he would sometimes show up at their battles to help them out, darting away before other heroes or police arrived. They knew that he was there to help. Just the other day, Iwaizumi had heard Kindaichi and Kunimi exchanging comments about him. Even Watari had mentioned him when Iwaizumi had asked him how the support department was going and he replied that the Great King had spoken with him and given him suggestions and tips on working with mechanics. It also seemed that Yahaba and Kyoutani had mostly forgiven the Great King for attacking them on that botched mission, albeit reluctantly.
But at the end of the day, the Great King was a vigilante mingling with pro heroes. They were already walking a very thin line by not turning him in to authorities. Their interactions with him were kept a secret only the very core of Seijoh were privy to.
Honestly, Iwaizumi had grown more comfortable with his presence than he ever could’ve expected. In battle, having the Great King at his back was a sign that there was an ally beside him.
And so, a few months after that first meeting on the rooftop, Iwaizumi found himself in battle against a villain duo with flame and acid Quirks, with the Great King by his side, dancing around each other as easily as they battled side-by-side.
“Yahaba, you still on standby?” Iwaizumi asked into the comms.
“Yes, Iwaizumi-san,” came the response.
Force rammed into his side as the Great King threw them both out of another acid blast. They both were sent sprawling to the ground.
Iwaizumi leaped up and dragged the Great King out of the way of a following fire stream. This one burned closer than he’d like, close enough that he could feel its heat, searing and dry against his skin.
They drew apart in opposite directions as a stream of flame tore through the space where they had been moments before. The villains’ powerful and versatile Quirks kept both of them at a distance, and they didn’t have Kindaichi with them this time to help block the villain’s attacks.
“Matsukawa. Hanamaki. Any ideas?” Iwaizumi asked. They were still on standby at the moment, waiting for the right opportunity to slip into battle.
Matsukawa made a considering hum through the comms. “Maybe. If we can split the two of them up, the four of us might be able to take them in pairs.”
“Alright,” Iwaizumi said. That was a start.
“The two of us can take the acid one,” Hanamaki said.
“Okay, we’ll deal with the fire one.”
“What’s happening? I don’t have access to your conversation,” the Great King said.
Iwaizumi relayed their plan to him, and he agreed, as they didn’t have many other options.
Like two partners splitting ways in a dance, the one mass of flame and acid that the fight had become broke off into two smaller skirmishes. Even as Iwaizumi ducked and dodged around fire streams, he could see the way Hanamaki and Matsukawa were corralling the other villain back away from where he was fighting alongside the Great King.
The two of them continued to fight together, trading blows and weaving around their enemy. But no matter how well-trained they were, no matter how well they fought, they would always have openings in their defence and moments of weakness. Iwaizumi knew this.
But it still came as a shock when one of their own fell in battle.
For a moment, he saw the Great King falter in his movements. The sudden opening was a very brief one, but it was one the villain took full advantage of.
A whip of flame flew through the air and tore across the Great King’s face and torso. The following scream that rent the air, full of pain and fear, made Iwaizumi feel sick.
The villain moved again and threw the Great King backwards, slamming him into a nearby wall. The Great King slid to the ground, unmoving and silent.
The villain’s back was now to him, having been preoccupied with the Great King. Iwaizumi didn’t waste time. He took the offered opening. Ignoring the nausea that boiled up in his stomach and throat, he leapt up and brought his claws crushing down on the villain’s armoured head. Desperation made his blows powerful, and the villain crashed to the ground, limp.
Iwaizumi immediately leapt off the villain’s back and ran to the Great King’s collapsed form on the ground. He knelt beside him, grabbing his shoulder and turning him to face him.
“Yahaba! We need you!” he yelled into the comms.
“I’m coming,” came Yahaba’s reply.
It couldn’t have taken Yahaba more than a couple minutes to reach them, but it still felt far longer than it should’ve been. Iwaizumi was frozen, gazing down at the Great King. He wanted to reach over, but he dared not touch any of the burned areas. He wasn’t a stranger to injury, but the sight never got easier. At least the villain’s flames were extinguished, leaving only the burns to deal with.
“I’m here.” This time, Yahaba’s voice came from somewhere behind him. “What happ- oh.” He trailed off as he joined Iwaizumi, crouching by the Great King’s side.
“Yeah,” Iwaizumi said. His throat felt raw. “Can you heal him?”
“Yes.”
That was a relief, at least. Iwaizumi sat back to allow Yahaba room to work. He watched as Yahaba tore the burnt remains of the mask off to reveal the Great King’s face, disfigured and raw with burns. The burns snaked down his throat and ended just at the bottom of his neck.
He watched Yahaba put his hands on the burned area, fingers running over damaged skin. The burns began to heal and recede, being replaced with undamaged flesh. Throughout the healing, the Great King didn’t stir, even as Yahaba’s fingers danced over the back of his scalp.
Yahaba’s Quirk was a very valuable one - the ability to heal himself and others. It was an ability that had saved many of them trips to the hospital. And now it looked like he’d be using it to heal a vigilante that had chosen to help them.
“Whoa.” Hanamaki’s voice drew Iwaizumi’s attention, and he turned to see him and Matsukawa walking over to where they were gathered around the Great King, both looking relatively uninjured, their battle seemingly finished. “Is that…?”
“The Great King? Yeah,” Iwaizumi replied. “The villain got him.”
“You might want to get him out of here,” Matsukawa said. “The police are coming to pick up the villains we stopped, and I don’t think they’d be nice enough to let a vigilante go.”
Now that he mentioned it, Iwaizumi thought he could hear the distant wail of police sirens in the distance.
A grumble caught his attention, and he whipped around to see the Great King stirring, slowly blinking his eyes open. Yahaba got up and took a step back, his healing now complete. There weren’t even the shadows of scars left on the Great King’s now unblemished skin.
“You need to run,” Iwaizumi interrupted before the Great King could speak. “We stopped the villains, but the police are coming.”
Whatever the Great King was about to stay died down, and he nodded, closing his mouth. He slowly moved to get up, but fell to the ground again as his right leg gave out under him. Before he knew what he was doing, Iwaizumi found himself moving forward to catch the Great King before he collapsed to the ground.
“Can you walk?” Iwaizumi asked, instinctively wrapping an arm around the Great King’s waist to support him.
The Great King blinked at him. At how close they were pressed together, Iwaizumi could see his long lashes, framing luminous brown eyes. “Probably. I think so,” he said.
Iwaizumi released him. He moved to stand, only to wobble and almost fall over again, having to lean on Iwaizumi for support.
“No, you can’t,” Hanamaki said. “Is something wrong with your leg?”
“I could try to heal it,” Yahaba offered. “But it’ll take longer if it’s a complicated injury.”
“We don’t have time,” Iwaizumi cut in. The wail of police sirens was coming closer.
“Iwaizumi, you should head back to the agency with him and wait for Yahaba to get back so he can finish his healing. The rest of us can cover for the two of you,” Matsukawa said.
“Wouldn’t you be faster, with your Quirk?” Iwaizumi asked.
“It’s a lot harder for me to teleport if I’m carrying someone else with me. That’s not to mention that it has to be from shadow to shadow, which means my range is limited. You’ll have an easier time getting around with a passenger.”
Before either of them could speak again, Hanamaki nodded and said, “Just go! We can deal with specifics later. We’ve wasted too much time.”
“Alright, alright, I get it,” Iwaizumi said. He turned to the Great King for agreement.
The Great King slowly nodded.
“We’ll see you back at the agency, then,” Iwaizumi said, turning to the rest of their team.
“See ya.”
Iwaizumi turned back to the Great King and bent down to slide an arm under his knees to lift him. The Great King twitched and grabbed onto his shoulders, but otherwise didn’t protest.
The ground fell away as Iwaizumi leapt into the air, kicking off the side of the nearest building to gather altitude. He heard the Great King inhale sharply. They thudded onto the rooftop, and Iwaizumi didn’t waste a second before he started running again, leaping from rooftop to rooftop with ease. Iwaizumi’s tail trailed behind him, keeping him balanced.
“So...your Quirk also makes you much physically stronger, as well as allow you to generate hardened scales, claws, and a scaly tail,” the Great King mumbled, his words almost lost to the sound of air swishing past them.
“Yeah. Obviously,” Iwaizumi replied.
“By how much stronger?”
“Enough. Although if these gaps were wider, or if that first building was a floor higher, I probably wouldn’t be able to do this.”
He hummed in response, and they fell silent again.
They made good time, Iwaizumi reaching their agency within several minutes. He landed on the roof, and set the Great King down so they could pick their way more carefully down the fire escape. Iwaizumi had to support the Great King as they moved. They reached his office window before Iwaizumi realized that the window was locked shut.
“Gimme a few minutes,” the Great King said, before sliding away from Iwaizumi to crouch on the floor next to the window, fiddling with a bag attached to his utility belt. After a few minutes, he somehow managed to pick the window lock and open it up.
“Impressive,” Iwaizumi commented as he helped him inside. Credit where credit’s due, he supposed, even if the person on the receiving end of his acknowledgement was a little shit.
“Thanks.”
Iwaizumi stepped inside after him, and reached over to help the Great King sit down on the couch in his office. He then turned to pull out the chair at his desk and sit down in front of the Great King.
“What’s wrong with your leg?” Iwaizumi asked. “What hurts?”
“My knee,” the Great King answered after a short pause. “It’s an old injury I think I aggravated during the fight.”
So that must’ve been what slowed him down enough for the villain to hit him. Iwaizumi nodded, and then they were silent.
“Why are you doing this?” the Great King asked, breaking the silence.
“Doing what?” Iwaizumi replied.
“This. Sheltering me from the police when it’d gain you a lot to turn me in instead.”
Iwaizumi leaned back in his chair to ponder the answer. “I don’t know,” he finally said. It was the truth. “I guess we’re all just used to having you around. You’ve been a big help too.”
“You’re not lying.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement.
“I’m not, and you know that.”
They both fell silent again. Iwaizumi took the breather to examine the Great King’s face - the face that had always been hidden under a mask until now. He was young, maybe around Iwaizumi’s age. And now that they were out of danger, with the adrenaline from danger fading and his heartbeat coming slower than before, Iwaizumi could see that he was pretty, milk chocolate eyes set in fine features and soft, wavy brown hair.
“Why did you approach me that day?” Iwaizumi found himself asking. “That day when we were having trouble against the villains. You were there. You helped us.”
“How honest do you want me to be?” The Great King flashed a grin at him.
Iwaizumi didn’t smile. “As honest as you can be. I was, after all.”
The grin slid off his face like water and the Great King nodded. “Okay. Honestly, I don’t know. I saw you guys struggling against the villains, and I just...hopped in there to help. Just because I prefer underground battles doesn’t mean I’ll completely avoid aboveground battles. Whatever helps to save people.”
“You...want to save people.” Iwaizumi wasn’t sure if he sounded more confused or disbelieving at such an open answer.
The Great King lifted his head, and Iwaizumi was struck by just how cold such a warm shade of brown could suddenly appear.
“Why else do you think I’d do this? Glory?” the Great King asked softly, almost dangerously. “Being a vigilante isn’t easy. It doesn’t pay bills. Doesn’t put food on the table. As a vigilante, you fight in the dark, knowing there will be no help coming for you if you get hurt. All it gets you is just a little bit of recognition in the dark underbelly of the city, and the savage joy in knowing that you saved someone with your own two hands.
“Do you have any idea how many people are out there? How many people are waiting for heroes that never come? How many people don’t get saved? Heroes aren’t perfect. They can’t save everyone. Sometimes, people need to protect themselves. Sometimes, they need to rely on people other than heroes to help. And where the heroes fail, the vigilantes step in. I am proof of all of that.” The Great King’s voice by now had dropped to a low growl, vehement and burning. Those luminous brown eyes felt like they were searing into him.
Eyes wide, Iwaizumi slowly nodded. “Alright,” he said. “Alright, I believe you.”
The Great King nodded again, and sat back on the sofa. After a few minutes, he sighed and said, “Sorry for getting so intense. I was worried that I’d have to convince you of my convictions.”
“No, it’s fine. I think I understand now,” Iwaizumi said quietly.
“Oh. Well, that’s good, then.”
They elapsed into silence. Time passed. Iwaizumi’s phone buzzed, and he pulled it out to see a text from Hanamaki telling him that the villains were contained, the battle scene cleaned up, and they were on their way back to the agency to check on him and the Great King.
“The others are on their way back,” he said. “Yahaba can finish up with his healing and then you can be on your merry way.”
The Great King nodded.
“By the way, where did you get that suit made?” Iwaizumi asked. “It looks like it’s fireproof.”
At that, the Great King smiled. “I designed it myself. I had some outside help getting the parts and all, but I put it together myself. I made sure it was fireproof, but I didn’t think to make my mask fireproof too.” He frowned, seemingly to himself.
“Don’t worry, I’m pretty sure no one got a clear view of your face. There aren’t many cameras around here either,” Iwaizumi said, then wondered if it was a good idea to tell him that.
“O-oh.”
“We’re not gonna turn you in. Like you said, you want to save people. I can’t turn my back on people who basically have the same goal as I do.”
“So, you want me to stick around?” the Great King asked.
“Uh, yeah. Pretty much.”
“Aw. Iwa-chan, what I said when I asked to help in that first villain fight was true. My company is lovely. You all but admitted it yourself!”
“Actually, you can help, but you need to stay away from the agency.”
The Great King laughed, before seeming to reign himself in, his fine features smoothing out into something more businesslike. “I’d be happy to help around.”
“Great.”
The Great King’s eyes seemed to flicker over Iwaizumi’s face. Then, the Great King extended a hand. “My name is Oikawa Tooru,” he said. “It’s nice to meet you, Iwaizumi Hajime.”
Iwaizumi accepted the offered hand. “It’s nice to meet you too, Oikawa Tooru.”
“Alright, alright. Break,” Oikawa gasped, flopping down to sit on the ground.
Iwaizumi was glad to acquiesce, breaking off from the sparring session they were holding and sitting down beside him. The night air was cool against his skin.
This was somehow becoming more and more common - late night sparring sessions together, practicing their skills against each other. Oikawa had extended an invitation a few weeks ago, and Iwaizumi had accepted. One session had turned into another, and then another, and here they were. Tonight, they were out at an abandoned junkyard. The nighttime bustle of the city was ever-present, he knew, but it felt far away here.
Iwaizumi turned his head to see Oikawa massaging his knee, retractable staff laid on the ground beside him.
“Your knee still bothering you?” Iwaizumi asked. “I thought Yahaba fixed it that other day.” He didn’t actually know what happened. He’d been called away to help with the captured villains, and Oikawa had already left by the time he returned.
“He did, but he said he couldn’t heal all of it. It’s an old injury, so he said he could only fix the present strain. Older wounds that have been sitting for a long time take lots more to heal according to him. Surgery, and all that,” Oikawa said.
Iwaizumi slowly nodded. “And you didn’t accept any of the treatment he offered, I’m guessing.” Why was he not surprised?
“No way in hell I would. I love you guys and all that, but I refuse to go through a process that requires me to be unconscious.”
“Oh.” Iwaizumi nodded again. He wanted to ask how Oikawa got his knee injured in the first place, but it wouldn’t take much deduction to make an educated guess given Oikawa’s profession as a vigilante.
A clunking sound echoed through the air, and Iwaizumi jumped to his feet. He saw Oikawa do the same at his back, picking up his staff and twirling around.
For a few seconds, they didn’t move. They simply stood back to back, scanning the area for any sign of life other than them. Oikawa wasn’t wearing his vigilante outfit or his mask, but Iwaizumi was pretty recognizable with or without his hero outfit due to his status as a pro hero. Every muscle in his body was wired for movement as his eyes scoured back and forth across the shadowy junkyard.
“Geez, you two are jumpy. Calm the hell down,” a very familiar voice drawled. Matsukawa stepped out of the shadows cast by a pile of jumbled scrap metal.
“Yeah,” Hanamaki said, following Matsukawa out of the shadows.
“You guys.” Iwaizumi sighed, letting his guard drop and his stance loosen. “What are you doing here?”
“Nothing much. I thought a night out would do both of us good, and we came here,” Matsukawa said.
“Bringing your date out to a junkyard? Doesn’t sound very romantic, Mattsun,” Oikawa said.
Iwaizumi sighed again, internally this time. Oikawa definitely had conversed with Seijoh’s underground heroes before tonight, but he supposed that wasn’t too surprising. It was how annoying they’d get that he was worried about.
“But clearly a junkyard has its merits, if you two are anything to go by,” Hanamaki said, gesturing to Iwaizumi and Oikawa.
“We are here because it’s a safe place for us to train without being spotted,” Iwaizumi said.
“What if we want to train here too?”
“Go find your own place to train, dumbasses.”
“Nah, let them stay, Iwa-chan. It’s good to train against lots of other people so you don’t get predictable habits from fighting one person too much,” Oikawa said.
He scowled. “At the cost of my remaining lifespan. Y’all are gonna annoy me to death.”
“You can stay, you guys!” Oikawa called, waving them over.
“Who died and made you king?” Iwaizumi asked.
“I made myself king. It’s even in my vigilante name.”
Iwaizumi might just be reading too much into Oikawa, but he thought there was something simmering behind his eyes.
“Alright, alright. Fine,” he said. And if he was being honest, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to include Matsukawa and Hanamaki here. It wouldn’t be bad practice. It had been a while since he sparred with them.
“What Quirks do you have?” Oikawa asked. “I don’t think I’ve seen you guys use yours that often.”
“Shadow-travelling. I can teleport from shadow to shadow,” Matsukawa said.
“Mine’s chemical generation. I can create chemical compounds from my skin as long as I know the chemical formula,” Hanamaki said.
“You haven’t asked them that before, Oikawa?” Iwaizumi asked. “I thought you guys were talking regularly behind the agency’s back.”
“Oh, we have, Iwa-chan. It’s just that we were discussing mostly how to annoy you. We weren’t really talking battle strategy.”
“This night’s gonna just be fantastic,” Iwaizumi said, rolling his eyes.
It actually turned out pretty fun. Friendly sparring with friends was something Iwaizumi hadn’t realized he missed until tonight. And there were the breaks in between matches where they’d trade words and snipe at each other with jokes or comments. Oikawa integrated himself pretty well into their group, laughing and chatting with the rest of them. Iwaizumi could almost believe that he was an old friend instead of a vigilante ally. The familiar atmosphere of it all burned warm in his chest.
Eventually, though, the night out had to come to an end. Hanamaki and Matsukawa retreated back into the shadows a little after midnight, waving their goodbyes. That left Iwaizumi and Oikawa alone in the junkyard.
“They were interesting,” Oikawa murmured in the silence left behind.
“Don’t give them shit for their Quirks,” Iwaizumi said, feeling the sudden need to defend his friends. “They’ve already gone through that in high school...so called ‘villainous Quirks’ and all that.”
“What? I wasn’t gonna say anything like that!” Oikawa actually looked offended that Iwaizumi would suggest that.
“Oh...alright.”
“Well, I should probably get going too,” Oikawa said after a short bout of silence, stretching. “Don’t wanna be too sleep-deprived the next morning.”
“Yeah,” Iwaizumi muttered. He should go to sleep too.
As Oikawa turned to grappling-hook away, Iwaizumi was suddenly struck with the feeling that he wanted this to become something to keep.
“Hey...Oikawa?”
“Yeah?”
“We should do this again.”
When Oikawa turned around again, Iwaizumi saw a small smile make its way across his face. This one was crooked and open.
“We should.”
Iwaizumi nodded and turned to leave. “See you later, then.”
“And Iwa-chan?”
He turned back around. “Hm?”
“Thanks.”
The way Oikawa wove himself further into both the agency’s and Iwaizumi’s own routine was so gradual that Iwaizumi didn’t even notice how often he was seeing Oikawa around until several months after their initial encounter, until Hanamaki offhandedly commented at another one of their team meetings, “Have we brought Oikawa at one of these team dinners? He’s been around so much that it’s probably a good idea to let him properly meet the rest of the team.”
Iwaizumi brought that up the next time he met Oikawa, out on another sparring session in the night.
“Hm. I want to say yes...but…” Oikawa trailed off, lowering his staff.
“You think it’s a trap?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s not,” Iwaizumi said. “We could’ve turned you over to the police so many times and haven’t before. Like that one time you got caught by the fire villain and needed Yahaba to heal you?”
“You could’ve changed your mind since then,” Oikawa pointed out.
That was a good point. Iwaizumi sighed. “Alright. You can bring your support items if you want. But the rest of the team wants to meet you, so just come over.”
After a short pause, Oikawa said, “Okay.”
And so, at the next team dinner, a knock on his office window signalled Iwaizumi that Oikawa was waiting to be let inside the agency.
“Can’t you just come in through the front door like a normal person?” Iwaizumi asked as he opened the window to let Oikawa in.
“Nope. Didn’t trust that there wouldn’t be other heroes other than you around.” Oikawa landed lightly on his office floor and stood up. He wasn’t in his vigilante outfit, but Iwaizumi didn’t doubt that he had many different weapons hidden under the baggy jacket. He wasn’t wearing his mask either, so Iwaizumi took that to mean Oikawa trusted them enough to at least show his face.
“There’s no one in the building except for us and a few other receptionists. Most everyone has gone home for the night,” Iwaizumi said as he led the way out of his office and down the hall.
“I didn’t know that.”
“Whatever, whatever. You’re here now.”
When Iwaizumi opened the door to the conference room, they were greeted with a round of applause and laughter.
“All hail the Great King!” Matsukawa said.
“Welcome, welcome,” Hanamaki followed after.
The rest of their team didn’t say anything, but curious eyes followed the two of them.
“So, what do you think of this? You were welcomed warmly by the idiot duo,” Iwaizumi said as he pushed Oikawa down onto the only other free chair and took a seat at his regular spot at the table.
“It’s very nice,” Oikawa said, face breaking out into a charming smile. “Thank you all for this gracious invitation.”
“Eh. No problem. You’ve been around long enough that it was only time,” Matsukawa said.
Food and plates were passed around. This meeting, there was very little agency business discussed, most of the focus on the agency’s visitor.
Oikawa laughed and chatted with the rest of the team, regaling them with tales of the underground and stories about past battles. He seemed to be integrating with the team very well, better than Iwaizumi ever expected. Both Kindaichi and Kunimi seemed very interested in what Oikawa had to say, Kindaichi more visibly excited than Kunimi. By this point, Yahaba seemed to have gotten over Oikawa attacking him when he mistook him for a villain, peppering him with questions about the underground. Kyoutani sat back and let Yahaba do most of the talking, but Iwaizumi could see that he was still paying close attention to Oikawa’s words. Even Watari seemed very engaged, asking Oikawa questions about his support gear, most of which Oikawa waved off. Hanamaki and Matsukawa were less forgiving of Oikawa, though, jabbing at him with jokes and sass.
The night passed by much faster than Iwaizumi expected. When it was time to clear away the dishes and clean up and send Oikawa on his way, it was late at night.
“Well, Oikawa? What did you think of the agency’s core team?” Hanamaki asked, sitting up in his chair as Oikawa stood.
“You were all very lovely. Thank you for inviting me in, and thank you for the delicious food,” Oikawa said, smiling widely. “Was this home cooked?”
“Most of it was,” Iwaizumi said. “All of us usually try to bring something home cooked.”
“My, my. I see many of you are multitalented, then.” Oikawa cast another smile, one that shone across his beautiful face like scattered light over the surface of polished crystal.
There were some muttered, “Thank you”s from all sides of the room, and Iwaizumi seriously thought he saw some blushes.
“So you’re a flatterer, Oikawa,” Matsukawa said.
“Please. I try to think of myself as less of a flatterer and more of someone who simply tries to tell the truth,” Oikawa replied, voice honey-sweet.
Iwaizumi couldn’t contain a snort at that. “You should’ve become a mainstream pro hero, Oikawa. PR would’ve loved you,” he said.
“I feel so adored, knowing that Iwa-chan thinks I can make it as a pro hero,” Oikawa said, laughing.
Iwaizumi groaned.
Oikawa turned back to the room. “Thank you all for this amazing night, all! I’ll be on my way now. I hope to see you all again!”
“It was nice having you here, Oikawa-san,” Kindaichi said. “We hope to see you again!”
“Yes, nice having you here, Oikawa. See ya later,” Hanamaki said. “Iwaizumi, you should see him out.”
“Right,” Iwaizumi said, nodding to Oikawa.
Oikawa waved over his shoulder as they headed out of the conference room.
“Iwa-chan. I think I’ll leave the same way I came in,” Oikawa said.
“Through the window?”
“Yep. From the roof.”
“Right.”
Iwaizumi led the way through the building until they reached his office. He held the window open for Oikawa to step out, and then he followed him out onto the fire escape. They walked up to the rooftop together, Oikawa walking a little in front of him.
“Did you enjoy the night?” Iwaizumi asked. “And answer honestly this time. Don’t give me any of that flattery bullshit you said back there.”
“Trust me, Iwa-chan.” Oikawa turned around and cast him a soft smile. “I enjoyed it.”
He wasn’t lying, this time. The softness of his voice and the sheer openness of his smile told Iwaizumi so. Idly, Iwaizumi wondered when he had last become so good at reading these things.
“That’s good,” Iwaizumi murmured as they stepped onto the rooftop.
The rooftop was empty, as usual. The clear night sky hung silently above them, the streets below lit with the light from the streetlights and echoing with the sounds of cars that reached them from where they were standing on the rooftop. Even at night, the city was always full of life.
“Thanks for the invitation. Really,” Oikawa said.
The streetlights below cast a soft light over his face. Here, out on the empty rooftop, everything felt raw and open. Oikawa looked more like a regular person Iwaizumi could’ve walked past on the street and stopped to say hi to instead of the legendary vigilante whose mission was to save those the heroes didn’t get to.
“You didn’t wear your mask here. I’m surprised you’d do that when you were so convinced this was a trap when I was inviting you,” Iwaizumi said.
“I thought you already knew what my face looked like. It felt like there was time between when Yahaba healed me and I woke up that day.”
Iwaizumi nodded. That made sense, he supposed.
“Hey. Can I ask you something?” Oikawa reached up to rub the back of his head. “I’m sorry to ruin this night out, but I want to know.”
“That depends on the question. Ask,” Iwaizumi said.
“Have you scanned through the police databases to look for me? You already know my face and it would’ve been so easy to get my DNA while I was unconscious. Did you use that to try to find my real identity? Find out everything there was about me?” Oikawa asked softly.
“No. I didn’t, at least,” Iwaizumi said. He had actually never considered such a thing.
Oikawa seemed to scan his face for a few moments before nodding and turning away, seeming assured of Iwaizumi’s honesty.
“Was that even your real name that you gave me?” Iwaizumi asked, unsure of what to think. This was strange territory, seeing pieces of the person underneath the vigilante mask.
“Yeah,” Oikawa said. He laughed humourlessly. “Now that I think about it, that was probably a bad idea. Now everyone here knows my real name.”
“Not everyone. Just the very core of Seijoh, which are the people you met tonight. You were already talking to them even before they knew your real name. They won’t turn you in, I promise.”
“That’s nice. You’re all very nice.” Oikawa huffed a breath, lowering his head. “Thanks. I mean it. You guys are genuinely some of the best heroes I’ve seen out in this damned city.”
“No problem,” Iwaizumi muttered, frowning. “What do you mean, we’re some of the best heroes you’ve seen in this city?”
“You work to save people. You’re not just there for fame, or money, or whatever it is some of these other heroes seem to chase. You actually work to help people. At least, it looks like it.”
Slowly, Iwaizumi nodded. He knew what Oikawa was trying to get at. “That’s what being a hero is about,” he said softly.
“I know. But many other pro heroes seem to have forgotten that.” Oikawa’s voice was now hollow and drained of energy, unlike the way he had laughed and joked with the rest of Seijoh.
“I’m guessing many other pros haven’t taken so kindly to vigilantes.” Iwaizumi winced immediately after saying that, wondering if it was too blunt.
Thankfully, Oikawa didn’t seem to mind. He waved a hand. “Yeah. You guys are the first pros to agree to work with me like this, one-time alliances with lone underground heroes aside. Man, I wish I could stay with your agency. You guys are fun to work with,” he said, and turned back to the city lights. Without his mask and standing against the background bustle of the sleepless city, he looked so small and forlorn, a lone vigilante who tried all he could to save people but had next to nothing to show for it.
Somehow, Iwaizumi found his mouth moving of its own accord. “You know, you don’t have to keep showing up to Seijoh as just a vigilante.”
“What?” Oikawa turned around to look at Iwaizumi. He was frowning.
“Come around the agency as a civilian. Everyone here will be happy to see you around. Get to know us outside of just being heroes.”
Eyes now wide, Oikawa said weakly, “That’d be unprofessional, wouldn’t it? Meetings like this outside of work?”
“Who said being part of an agency had to be all work and professionalism?” Iwaizumi asked. “The dinner you just attended? Completely out of work uniform. We normally do it to run over agency affairs but mostly it just turns into friends having fun together. Being part of an agency isn’t just about working at the same company as pro heroes. It’s about being part of a team.”
“I...I never heard of anything like this, even with all the info I’ve been gathering around.”
“Well, it’s not the most common thing for most agencies to broadcast. And I really don’t know how common this is among other agencies. Seijoh was a startup between me and my friends only a few years out of hero school. We all really worked hard for it, so I guess that also really helps with the team bonding.” Iwaizumi shrugged.
Oikawa slowly nodded. “Alright,” he said quietly. “I’ll come visit, if you’ll have me.”
“That’s great.” Iwaizumi didn’t notice how anxious he was for his answer until he felt the beginnings of a smile start pulling at his mouth at Oikawa’s reply. “Do...you want my phone number? I can text you about a good time to visit.”
“Oh, sure.”
After they were done trading phone numbers, Oikawa said, “I’ll see you around...then? When we plan out a time for the visit.” He sounded vaguely breathy.
“Yeah. Sure,” Iwaizumi said.
“And I’ll just be me. The regular, civilian me. Not the vigilante me. Not the work me.”
“Yep. And we’ll just be our regular selves. We’ll all just be friends hanging out. No work personas.”
“Okay. Okay. Cool.”
They then stood in silence with only the noise of the city to keep them company, and then Oikawa said, “I should probably get going.”
“Sure. Yeah. Have a good night, Oikawa.”
“You too, Iwa-chan.”
Oikawa smiled at him one last time, then turned to the edge of the rooftop. He took a running start before he was leaping off the roof, soaring into the air on the wires of his grappling hooks. In the darkness, the wires were near invisible. He could almost be flying.
And then it was just him, accompanied only with the buzz of the city nightlife.
“Wow. How romantic,” a voice said.
Iwaizumi whirled around to see Matsukawa and Hanamaki standing by the fire escape, both wearing identical shitty grins.
“I thought we agreed for me to see Oikawa off? What are you two fuckers doing here?” Iwaizumi asked, scowling. “And what do you mean ‘romantic’?”
“You were taking too long so we were wondering if something happened. We thought Oikawa killed you, or maybe you killed him, or something,” Hanamaki said. “And as for the romantic part, wow. Were you even listening to yourself? You two sounded like awkward high school crushes asking each other out for the first date.”
“We came up here expecting dead bodies, but clearly we should’ve prepared for something more horrifying: your shitty sense of romance,” Matsukawa said.
“There is no romance here. I just invited him over to the agency in civilian uniform so he could talk to everyone.”
“You say everyone, but something tells me that he’ll be just sticking to you,” Hanamaki said.
Iwaizumi turned to head past them down the fire escape. He was too tired for this shit. “Whatever, whatever. I need to go back inside. Goodnight, you two.”
Matsukawa and Hanamaki followed him, their pestering never letting up once.