Deep Red

60

It had been a while since something horrible had happened. I was almost getting used to the peace and quiet around me, as if all that weird stuff that was going on with the League of Villains was finally over, once and for all. As if villains were still an issue, but not an imminent one.

That was until I got a notification while I was napping in Shota's room one evening. I got out my phone, wondering what the hell people wanted from me. The kind of notification gave me some weird alert feeling, but I couldn't really remember what this one was about. Probably nothing too wild.

Until I saw what it was. An alert. An alert calling for my help with a mission. There was apparently a meeting the next afternoon about it. I immediately got a sort of uneasy feeling, as if something terrible had happened. Which was probably the case with that sort of alert. I checked my calendar. Thank God, tomorrow afternoon I had nothing planned... well, except for a date with Shouta.

But the good news was that he was supposed to go, as well. So we could just move our date to another day and... well, work instead. At least it wouldn't be one of us sitting at home in the dorm room while the other one had to be out working for some meeting. I was honestly looking forward to going on a mission with Shouta. We had worked together one time and it went well.

So now that the day had actually come, we were both on our way on the train. Thankfully our hero costumes weren't very flashy, so we just looked like a bunch of normal people on the train on our way downtown.

It did feel pretty lowkey and I wasn't sure how all this would work. Sure, I had read all the reports that we had been sent and everything, but it had been a good while until I had been a part of a big mission like this. And it seemed like a quite dangerous one, too. Taking on a young Yakuza leader? That was a big thing to aim for. And it seemed like a dangerous mission in general.

And the thing was that the students who were doing their work studies were also here. At least the ones that were working under heroes that had been called here. It felt weird knowing what kind of a dangerous mission we'd be bringing them on. They really shouldn't be doing stuff like this.

"Ready?" Shouta asked me, as we were making our way upstairs. The Nighteye agency was pretty big. For some reason I hadn't imagined it to be like this. I had no idea what I had imagined, but it wasn't this.

"I guess so. Not like I have much of a choice." I muttered. Shouta ruffled my hair gently, before the elevator doors opened and we were faced with a huge crowd of heroes from all over the town.

This was ridiculous. There were some big names here and... why was I here? I wasn't a big shot, I hadn't done much hero work the last few years, I wasn't even that good... this made no sense. Maybe they made a mistake or something. Who knew. It could have happened... they meant someone else...

"Are you getting out or are you just gonna stand there?" Shouta asked me. I quickly snapped out of my trance.

"Oh, right. Sorry." I said and stumbled out of the elevator, my eyes still wandering over the masses of heroes that were here. I felt incredibly out of place. I wasn't even that popular or anything.

I figured I'd be following Shouta who quickly was involved in some sort of conversation with one of Sir Nighteye's sidekicks. I decided to just stand next to him and ingratiate myself into the conversation whenever I felt like I had something to say. Which wasn't very often. I was still looking around wondering whether I could maybe spot someone I knew... Possibly Aiko? She might be here...?

"Hey, hey! What're we doing here? I know you said something about a meeting, but what is it?" I heard a somewhat familiar voice shout excitedly. I turned around and saw Nejire Hado, one of the third-years, hugging Ryukyu tightly.

"You'll find out soon. Shall we begin, Nighteye?" Ryukyu asked, looking over at him. As I looked around I saw a few more of our students - a group of first years and Mirio and Tamaki from the third year hero courses.

"Thanks to the intel provided by all of you we're making great strides with this investigation. The small organization known as Shie Hassaikai is plotting something. I've called you all to this discussion to share with you exactly what we know. Let's go over everything step by step." Sir Nighteye announced and motioned for us to follow him into the agency's meeting room and get settled quickly.

"Well, looks like we should get going..." Shouta mumbled and subtly nudged me. I smiled up at him and followed him towards the meeting room when I heard two girls calling out to him. Or maybe both of us, I wasn't quite sure.

"Sensei!" one of them called. I turned around and saw that it was Uraraka with Asui following close behind.

"Why are you here, Sensei?" Asui asked, quickly catching up to her friend. Shouta turned around to them.

"I was called over. They asked for my help, so here I am. I've been told the gist of what's going on and there's something I have to tell everyone." he just answered. He looked a little tense saying that. Of course I had read the bit about the Quirk erasing bullets, too. And I could imagine this whole thing might get awkward, especially for him. After all people had been calling him a villain for his Quirk, even at U.A. where you'd think this kind of stuff shouldn't fly.

"And you too, Miss Takahashi?" Asui asked, looking at her with a tilted head. I smiled and nodded.

"Yup, they wanted me over here, too. Not exactly sure why or how I can be useful, but here I am." I replied with a shrug.

"It's probably because you're, like, really smart, Sensei." Uraraka commented which actually almost made me blush. Me? Smart? Hell, no. That's not why they'd... or did they? After all, I did know exactly how to use the terrain to my advantage... maybe they wanted my help to work out a good battle plan?

"Feeling kinda outta the loop here... Hassai-what now? What's that?" I heard Kirishima say somewhere close by. He was working under Fatgum, right? My suspicion was confirmed when I saw Fatgum walking up to him.

"They're probably planning to do something rough, which is why we're here to talk about it. And it's got plenty to do with you two." he told them. I noticed Tamaki trailing behind them slowly, looking somewhat uncomfortable. Even more so than usual, which was odd. Being able to see a difference there was not a good sign.

I looked at him closer, as I settled in my chair in the meeting room, next to Shouta. He had a bandage on his arm which he was rubbing self-consciously. What the hell had happened there?

He sat down, his head hanging low, while Mirio was beaming at him proudly from across the room. There was Midoriya, too, who seemed incredibly nervous, as if he had a really bad feeling. Uraraka and Asui had settled next to Ryukyu and Kirishima was with Fatgum and Tamaki.

The amount of heroes was insane and so was the range of heroes that were here. There were lesser known local ones, there were some of the top heroes that appeared on the rankings and then there was anything and everything in-between. A big, wild mix. I was surprised not to see more U.A. teachers here.

I looked back at Shouta who seemed to be deep in thought about something. I wondered if he was nervous about this. It was hard to tell with him, especially when he was in his own little, rational headspace. He was basically unreadable in that state. I reached for his hand under the table quickly and squeezed it, which seemed to snap him out of his trance, as he looked over to me.

He didn't exactly smile at me (he rarely ever did in public), but I could see the smile in his eyes. It was weird how most people could fake a smile and not have a smile in their eyes, but Shouta could fake not smiling, but have a smile in his eyes all this time. I loved seeing that.

"Now then, let's get started."