Bakugo started talking as soon as we were alone. "Monoma hated everyone from Class A."
"But I was friends with him. Unless he secretly hated me, I doubt it. And besides, I could always ask him." I countered.
"But that's assuming he didn't see you as a threat and assuming he won't lie to you."
"He never saw me as a threat. I was pretty nice to him and willing to help him get into the spotlight."
"Okay, well, you're also assuming he didn't secretly hate you. Plus, he totally saw you as a threat."
"And how do you figure that?"
"During the sports festival, you fought me and almost won. You got second place. Remember those pros up in the stands? I dunno if you went temporarily deaf, but everyone, including them, thought you were super cool. You were in the spotlight. No one was looking at him anymore, and besides, when was anyone ever paying any attention to him? And I got first place, so he has reason to hate me."
"I don't think so. I don't think he had the ability to be fake."
"He could have."
"Monoma's not that smart. He only ever thought one move at a time. Fake people are mostly manipulative, and he was unable to do that. He was barely one step ahead of anyone, nevermind being the level of manipulativity he would have needed to fake out everyone he knew."
"You're not a mind reader. He could've thought ahead and just not verbalized any of his moves."
"Katsuki, just stop. This isn't going to get you anywhere. What do you want to do, interrogate everyone in both classes?"
He grabbed my wrist and started walking. "He's a genius," he said to himself.
"No, Katsuki, we're not doing that. I was joking."
"Not that, you're not a genius. Deku is. We're gonna find him."
I twisted my arm away and stopped walking. "No. No way. He could be dangerous."
"You're stupid. Even I'm not irrational enough to rush into a situation like that. We're gonna follow the clues he left us with caution." He rolled his eyes as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, which, to me, it wasn't.
Then, suddenly, it was. Himiko and Stain, plus most of the others from the League of Villains, had been caught red-handed, thanks to anonymous tip-offs that couldn't be traced. The tip-offs were very specific, even going as far as to tell the police details on the person's quirk and how to counter that quirk.
The police had tried every counter, and all of them were effective.
It had been a habit of Izuku's to document and take notes on quirks. He came up with counter-strategies on the spot, and they mostly worked. If he was able to try out the counters, and perfect them...
I stared at Bakugo in shock. "No..."
He smiled. "Yes, he did. Deku's in the League of Villains, and he's getting rid of them one by one. Now that's he's gotten rid of them, he's basically taking the Shigaraki route and killing off people he doesn't like."
"Okay. Let's go to my house. We can find the rest of the clues there." I led the way this time, with Bakugo following me confidently.