*WARNING: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS SEXUAL CONTENT. READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED*
Misaki glanced down at the phone in her hand and smiled as she walked back to her desk from the communal vending area on the top floor. The can of sweetened coffee and packaged cucumber sandwich she'd just purchased were clutched in her other hand. She headed back into her office and sat down at her desk before pulling back the tab on the coffee can and the plastic lining on the sandwich package. Lifting one of the triangles, she took a bite and reached out to her tablet to pull up an enlarged version of the photo she'd been looking at.
The bright, smiling face of Eri stared back at her from the screen. She was holding an enormous, long eared white rabbit in both arms and smiling with an open mouth and closed eyes at the camera. Eraser had told her after he'd sent her the picture last night that the third years had organized a petting zoo for her yesterday afternoon. Eri had asked him to take a few pictures to send to her, since she hadn't been able to be there with them. He'd confessed that it had actually been Thirteen who'd taken the one he'd sent to her, since all of the one's he'd taken had come out badly.
She'd been surprised when he'd asked if she'd be interested in joining Eri at the UA teacher's dorm for a Christmas party next week. To be honest, she wasn't really feeling very festive about the holiday season this year, but she'd agreed to make an appearance for Eri. He'd told her not to worry about bringing any gifts, as Eri was likely to be receiving one from each of the teachers anyway, in addition to the gift they were all contributing to the exchange. As if that was any reason for her to show up empty handed. She was planning on gifting her a stationary set, since she knew how much the little girl liked to write letters.
She sat back in her chair and sighed, leaning her head back against the leather surface and sliding her tired eyes closed. She'd been dealing with the finger case for three days now. The fifth finger had finally shown up exactly where she'd predicted it would; and again, the police had let the person who'd dropped it escape. That had been almost two hours ago. If she was right, it could be any time in the next twenty-four hours that they'd finally get a look at who was behind this morbid game of cat and mouse.
An alert from ROAM began beeping from the speakers of her computer and she opened her eyes quickly, immediately sitting forward in her chair and typing a command on her keyboard to load the hit. A social media post filled the screen. As she read through the text, her eyes began to widen and she scrambled up from her desk a second later, grabbing her tablet and practically running down the hall into the President's office.
"Misaki?" The President's startled voice asked as she swiftly entered the office, heading directly toward the seating area in front of a large television on the far wall.
"I think it's happening," she said somberly as she moved to pick up the remote from on top of the console table beneath the screen.
"The attack?" The President asked, rising from her desk, and walking over at a hurried pace.
Misaki nodded, turning the television on, and switching the input to her tablet.
"Where?"
"Deika City in the Aichi prefecture. ROAM flagged a social media post about a large-scale villain attack in the city with widespread damage that's consistent with Shigaraki's Decay quirk," she explained, navigating quickly to the website with the post.
"Do we have anyone in the area?" The President asked as she read through the post displayed on the screen.
Misaki switched the applications to display her communications terminal and the website side by side.
"I've sent out inquiries to the agencies in Deika and the surrounding area—" She cut off sharply all of a sudden, her eyes flying up to the post on the left side of the screen now displayed as a yellow triangle with an exclamation point.
"What the..." She trailed off in confusion.
"What is it?" The President looked over at Misaki, noticing her sudden change in demeanor.
She stared down at her tablet in shocked concern, flipping over to ROAM to check that she had the right URL. "The post I flagged. It's gone."
As she flipped back over to her communications terminal, her concern multiplied. "All of the responses I'm getting from the hero agencies say the situation is contained and under control..."
The President frowned. "Was it a hoax?"
"That's a pretty conveniently timed hoax," Misaki scoffed, her eyes widening as another hit popped up in her query results.
"Wait, here's another one! There's a picture this time," she excitedly exclaimed as she immediately clicked on the link to load the website, right before the content disappeared. Her eyes widened in disbelief.
"Where did it go?" The President asked, gesturing at the broken link icon displayed on the television screen.
Misaki collapsed onto the couch, flipping through hit after hit of broken links. "What is happening? It's like they're being erased as soon as they pop up!"
"They're being taken down?" The President asked in confusion, turning around to face her.
"No, they're gone! Like never existed, gone," she said frantically, her attention focused on her tablet screen as she typed furiously on her virtual keyboard. "Oh, this guy is good..."
The President cocked an eyebrow at her incredulously. "Is now really the time to be impressed?"
She shook her head, her attention still focused on typing as she hastily explained, "Sorry, I'm trying to rewrite the flagging protocols in my query to take a snapshot of the posts as they come up but after the initial one, they're being wiped as soon as I load the website to record it."
The President blinked and shook her head. Not really understanding what Misaki was talking about, she asked instead, "What about the heroes in the area?"
Misaki shrugged, continuing to type with one hand as she motioned swiftly with the other to the television screen where her comm station was still active. "Nothing but the same reports. There was a villain attack, resulting in widespread damage. Assailants unknown. The situation is contained and under control."
"And no reports of any sightings of the League of Villains?" The President prodded.
"Nothing," she sighed and shook her head, never lifting her eyes from her tablet.
"Perhaps it is unrelated," the President considered, looking up at the comments on the comm station.
Misaki glared darkly at her tablet screen as she replied in a haughty tone, "Someone is controlling the flow of information being spread across the network. This kind of hacking isn't something an amateur would be capable of. It has to be them. Whoever "they" are."
Everything she knew to try was being blocked. Every pen test, moving target defense algorithm, backdoor rerouting protocol; nothing she did was even slowing them down.
"This is so frustrating!" She seethed, shoving her hands through her bangs, and curling her fingers into her hair in frustration.
The President switched off the television and turned to Misaki with a resigned look on her face as she told the frazzled woman, "You need to take a break."
Misaki shook her head and returned to her furious typing. "I need to figure this out."
The President reached out and placed her hand on top of Misaki's tablet, staring pointedly into her eyes when she looked up at her and said, "After you've had some rest. You've been working on this nonstop for the last three days. You've barely stopped to eat or sleep. You're exhausted, Misaki. Take a break."
Her shoulders slumped and she slowly removed her hands from the screen, hanging her head in disappointment. The woman wasn't wrong. She was exhausted. She'd barely taken a bite of her sandwich before she'd gotten the notification on her computer no more than five minutes ago. At this point she was pretty much running on adrenaline and caffeine.
The President straightened. "In the meantime, I'll send a team down to Deika to assess the damage and corroborate the local agency reports."
Misaki wiped at her forehead with her wrist and sighed in frustration, sinking back into the cushions of the leather couch as she rhetorically asked, "Why do I feel like we've just been royally Punk'd?"
~*~
Hawks slouched in the clam chair in the corner of Misaki's bedroom, his elbows resting on the raised arms of the chair and his fingers interwoven in front of his face. His golden eyes were focused on Misaki's sleeping form on the bed in front of him. He tilted his head up slightly when she began to stir, turning over in her sleep. It seemed as though she'd noticed that he was no longer lying next to her as her eyes slowly blinked open. She rose up on the bed, holding the sheet over her naked chest as her hazy eyes scanned the room for a moment before lighting upon him sitting in the corner.
"What are you doing over there?" Her husky sleep laden voice asked.
He continued to stare at her, drinking in her disheveled appearance and committing every bit of it to memory. "Watching you sleep."
She narrowed her eyes, shooting him a playful smirk. "Stalker."
He grinned, dropping his hands to rest over the edges of the arms of the chair while admitting, "I was having a hard time letting you sleep lying next to you, so..."
Misaki dropped the sheet and leaned forward, crawling toward him on top of the bed. He inhaled sharply at the sight of her completely naked form sliding off the end of the mattress and making her way over to him with the languid grace of a prowling panther.
"You don't need to do that," she said, her voice low and still husky with sleep, giving it an almost lurid cadence.
He gulped, gripping the arms of the chair a bit tighter as she stopped in front of him and stared down into his eyes seductively. He choked out, "What?"
"Hold back," she said as she knelt in front of him and reached out to part his knees, her practically glowing pink eyes never leaving his.
His eyes widened and he gasped, jumping slightly at the feeling of her hand sliding up his bare thigh before coming to a rest over his already semi-hardened manhood. Her deft fingers slipped inside the waistband of his boxers and pulled them down to release his shaft.
His hand reflexively shot out from the chair's arm to press against her shoulder, holding her back when she started to lean forward. "Wait."
She looked up, staring innocently into his wide-eyed gaze as she asked, "What? You don't want me to?"
"It's not that, it's just—" He sharply cut himself off with a grimace.
He wasn't against the idea of her going down on him, it was exactly the opposite in fact. He actually had a pretty healthy sexual appetite. Just the thought of her taking him into her mouth was throwing his already racing libido into overdrive. But it was their first night exploring this new aspect of their relationship, and he didn't want to come across as being too greedy.
She shrugged off his hand and leaned forward, never breaking eye contact as she slowly ran her tongue up the back of his length and placed a soft kiss on his tip before telling him, "Relax. I know what I'm doing."
She suddenly took him into her mouth in one swift, fluid motion.
"Misa-chan!" He gasped, tensing and pushing himself back into the chair as far as he could go.
She wouldn't let him run away from her, leaning forward as he pushed back and steadily bobbing her head in his lap. She alternated between licking and sucking his length, paying close attention to the sensitive areas at his base where his shaft met his sack and the underside of his glans.
Man, she really wasn't kidding about knowing what she was doing. But it wasn't just her experience that was pleasing him so much, it was her attentiveness. She was watching and listening to the way he responded to all of her ministrations, learning what he liked and what made him squirm. To call what she was doing to him "giving head" would be way too crude; she was practically making love to him with her mouth.
"Oh, damn," his eyes rolled up into their sockets and he let his head fall back to rest against the wall behind him. He relaxed a bit as she took him deep, the muscles of her throat convulsing around his head as she swallowed, and his breath hitched at the feeling. She flattened her tongue against him, sucking hard as she pulled back slowly and he shuddered, reflexively lifting his hips to push himself back into her mouth.
Her hands rose to rest against his hips as she met his thrust, sliding her mouth down over him and repeating the action a few more times, increasing her pace with each stroke. She pushed his hips back down into the chair, leaning over him and pulling her mouth back to suckle his tip as she gripped his base in her right hand, stroking him firmly and swiftly. He cracked his hazy eyes open to gaze down at her, watching her quickly work his arousal into a frenzy.
Her eyes shot up to meet his as she removed her hand and slowly lowered her head to swallow almost his entire length down her throat. He sucked in a breath through his teeth at the sensation that shot through him to settle into a simmering heat in his groin. Misaki flattened her tongue against his base and sucked as she pulled back before she steadily began bobbing her head in his lap again. Sliding his eyes closed, Hawks tilted his head back against the wall and surrendered himself to the pleasure.
His chest rose and fell in quick succession as he panted and tensed, his brows drawing together and his teeth clenching as he felt his release gradually begin to build. His hips began to rock reflexively, and he reached out suddenly to firmly press against her shoulder. She let him push her back just as his orgasm crested and he shot his load over her neck and chest with a breathy exhale, groaning as her hand continued to stroke the remainder of his release from him.
He slumped exhaustedly in the chair, panting softly to catch his breath, and watching through hooded lids as she looked down at herself before lifting her hand to run a finger through the thin string of semen coating her neck and chest.
His eyes widened and he scrambled for the box of tissues on the side table. "Sorry! I didn't mean to—!"
He looked over at her just in time to see her inspect her finger curiously and bring it up toward her mouth.
"Don't lick it!" He exclaimed, immediately reaching out to cover her finger with a handful of tissues.
She shot him an admonishing glare and asked, "Why not? You got to taste mine."
He actually blushed at that.
"It's not the same," he said bashfully, using another handful of tissues to clean off her neck and chin.
She tilted an eyebrow up and shot him an ironic glare as he moved the tissues down to clean off her chest. "I know it's not exactly a milkshake, but that's kinda part of the whole experience, ya know?"
He dropped his head and let out an exasperated groan before glancing up at her, cringing in disgust as he asked, "Can you please not compare the taste of semen to a milkshake?"
The sides of her lips drooped into an open pout. He sighed softly before grinning back at her. "Thank you. It felt really good."
Her expression softened and she climbed up to straddle his lap with a satisfied smile, loosely wrapping her arms around his neck.
"Your turn," she crooned as she leaned in to place a quick kiss on his lips.
"Yes, ma'am," he smiled against her lips, sliding his hand into her hair at the back of her head and pulling her into a deeper kiss.
***
Hawks awoke abruptly to the sound of his phone vibrating on the nightstand.
He blinked a few times at the jarring sensation before sitting up and reaching out for it, raking a hand through his hair with a heavy sigh as he gruffly answered, "Yeah?"
"Hope I didn't wake you," Dabi's voice replied through the speaker.
His eyes widened, the villain's familiar drawl pouring a bucket of ice water over his simmering libido courtesy of the dream he'd been having. "Dabi?"
He was actually grateful for the sudden wakeup call, given the slippery slope he appeared to be sliding down in his subconscious lately; that dream being one of many to have plagued his sleeping hours since he'd decided to stop going to see her anymore.
"Did you complete the job I gave you?" The villain's naturally bored sounding voice inquired.
"Sure did," Hawks said, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and tilting his head to hold the phone between his ear and shoulder while he pulled on his clothes. "You missed our meeting though. Did something happen?"
"New time and place. Meet me at the docks in Matsue in a half an hour," Dabi dodged, his tone clipped.
"That's pretty short notice," Hawks complained, sliding on his coat, and shifting the phone back into his hand.
"Thirty minutes. Don't be late." The sound of the line cutting off sounded in his ear a second later.
Dropping his arm, Hawks slid the phone into his pants pocket as he glanced over at the large black bag in the corner of the room with a dark expression. "It's about time..."
He headed over to it and hefted it up onto his shoulder as he looked up the location Dabi had given him on his phone. The Matsue Docks were in the Wakayama prefecture of Kansai, near Osaka. It would take him most of the thirty-minute time limit he'd been given to get there from his apartment while lugging the dead weight of Best Jeanist's body with him, even flying at top speed.
Taking off from the balcony, he swiftly turned and headed northeast toward Kansai. Dabi sure was cutting it close. Hawks didn't know what the rush was all of a sudden, but he wasn't complaining. He was glad to finally be getting a sense of urgency from the shady villain. Something must have happened recently to spur him into action; something like the Deika City massacre that had been going down during their scheduled meeting yesterday.
The official report named a group of anti-hero terrorists as the culprits, but he strongly suspected that the League had somehow been involved in the tragedy. It was the only thing that made sense, given how extensive the damage had been. Whether a Nomu had been involved, or if it was just the League themselves, once Dabi finally let him into the fold, he hoped to get a better idea about what had really happened and report that back to the Safety Commission. Whatever had actually caused that giant crater in the middle of the city, they definitely needed to know about it.
~*~
Thirty minutes later, Hawks arrived at the location of the coordinates Dabi had sent him, dropping down to land a few meters away from the tall, hooded figure.
"That it?" The villain asked, inclining his head toward the bag Hawks had slung over his shoulder.
"Yep," he quipped, setting the bag on the ground in front of him.
Dabi knelt down to unzip it.
"Hey, what happened over in Deika? That was you guys, right?" Hawks inquired lightly, carefully trying to gauge any kind of reaction from the villain.
Dabi ignored him, prying open the unzipped bag. His expression was one of morbid fascination as he stared down at the apparently dead body of the Number Three Hero, Best Jeanist, folded up inside.
"Whether this is actually him or not, clearly you killed someone," Dabi drawled, his tone darkly impressed.
"Trust me, it's him alright! Go ahead and have the body checked out if you don't believe me," Hawks suggested with a nonchalant shrug.
"Don't worry, we will." He stood, sliding his hands back into his pockets and gazing back at Hawks disinterestedly. "Well done, Hawks. Welcome to League of Villains, or something like that."
"Great!" Hawks grinned, dropping his hands into his pockets, and leaning back a bit before asking with a light tone, "So when do I get to meet everyone?"
"There's a meeting in a few days. I'll send you the location when it's time," Dabi smirked at him snidely. "You don't mind being searched, right?"
He held his hands up with an open grin. "I have nothing to hide!"
Dabi narrowed his eyes. "Right. Your movements and phone calls will be monitored as well."
"Is that really necessary?" Hawks asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Not my call," The villain replied before smirking coldly behind the zipped lapels of his jacket. "But even if it was, I can't say I'd be comfortable letting you just roam free."
"That the boss's call? When do I get to meet him?" Hawks continued to probe.
"All in good time," Dabi replied disinterestedly.
"So what should I do with this?" Hawks asked, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder at the bag containing Best Jeanist's body.
Dabi glanced down at it briefly before returning his slightly suspicious gaze back to Hawks. "Bring it to the Zyost Clinic in Shiga. They'll be expecting you."
"Yeah sure, no problem," Hawks quipped amiably in response.
Dabi turned around and began walking away, lifting his hand in a short wave over his shoulder as he drawled, "Later, Number Two."
Hawks's expression fell as Dabi disappeared in a swirl of black goo. That had seemed way too easy. After the run around he'd been getting for the past two months, they'd suddenly let him in without even confirming the body yet?
Something didn't feel right.
Pulling his phone out of his pocket, he quickly looked up the Zyost Clinic using his GPS app. It appeared to be a family run clinic in a small suburb of the northern area of the Shiga prefecture. It was probably wishful thinking to hope it might be the location of a secret Nomu manufacturing lab. Slipping his phone back into his pocket, he reached down to zip the bag closed and hoisted it back onto his shoulder. When he'd gone over the plan with the Commission after Dabi had given him the assignment to take out another hero, they had actually been the ones to recommend Best Jeanist, given the fact that he was still on hiatus while recovering from the injuries he'd sustained during the Kamino raids. Having him undergo the Nomu procedure had been Hawks's idea.
He hadn't really known what kind of reaction to expect when he'd stopped by to talk to him about it. The man had already taken a bunch of time off to recoup from losing a lung, and now they were asking him to play dead until Hawks was able to flush out the League. It was asking a lot of the nation's Number Three Hero. All in all, it had gone over better than he'd expected it would. Jeanist had successfully undergone the living dead procedure while his office continued to publicly confirm his disappearance. Dabi had taken the body in the bag at face value for the moment and had finally allowed him entry into the League of Villains.
Now if only he could shake the nagging feeling he had that everything was going a little too well all of a sudden. He wasn't really worried about the meeting being a setup. What he was more concerned about was the timing. The League had definitely been involved in the attack on Deika somehow. He was sure of it now. The fact that they had let him into the loop so suddenly likely had something to do with it.
Hawks spread his wings and took off into the lightening sky, lifting his phone up to his ear as he initiated a call to the President of the Hero Public Safety Commission.
~*~
The President reached over to end the call on her cell phone sitting atop her desk as the line went dead.
"Sounds like he finally made it in," Shadou said appraisingly, in reference to the call they'd just had from Hawks.
"It's about time," The President said under her breath.
"Think it had anything to do with this?" The man Misaki had recruited to replace her in the secretarial role asked, gesturing to the television showing the paused video report from the team she had recently sent down to Deika.
She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes at the screen. "I suppose we'll just have to wait and see. It's hard to believe, after all that build up, that this incident had nothing to do with the League."
"The eyewitness accounts and the video evidence all corroborate the story that this was an unaffiliated militant group, not the League of Villains," Shadou said, staring sideways at the television as he lifted the remote in his hand to press play.
The President shook her head and frowned. "None of this makes any sense."
Shadou sighed. "The eyewitness testimony could be explained away as a brainwashing quirk, I suppose. But the video footage is pretty damning."
"You don't look convinced?" The secretary observed, addressing the President.
"When is a random series of events not random?" She asked suddenly, holding her fist under her chin thoughtfully as she watched the report play back.
"Enlighten us," Shadou drawled with a sour tone.
She narrowed her eyes. "When it's a design. Misaki had been tracking disappearing social media posts from immediately after the attack took place. She was convinced that someone was erasing the information from the network as fast as it was being posted. If that's true, it wouldn't be farfetched to conclude that the mastermind behind the fingers and the incident in Deika would have a way of manipulating the media as well."
Shadou sighed. "Say you're right. What would be the point of going to all the trouble of publicly calling out the League, just to cover up their involvement in the end?"
The President turned her head toward him and coolly replied, "If the League really was involved in this incident, hopefully Hawks's next message will answer that question."
~*~
AN:
The plot is really starting to gain some traction now! Hawks finds himself neck deep with a new enemy and Misaki gets dragged into an interesting new case in the next chapter...
Thank you so much for reading! ❤️
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