Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The tape clicks, and the cassette whirs. It's recording.

[We once again open on an argument, where both parties are clearly frustrated.]

- This is my final offer. You give me a Statement, any Statement, about the League, and I will do my absolute best to ensure that by this time next year, you're out on parole for your cooperation with police. I'm not even police, either, and the authorities will receive none of this information! The only record of whatever comes out of your mouth will be on this tape, which is the exclusive property of The Magnus Institute, which isn't even a Japanese company! The police, the HPSC, none of them have any right to access! By giving me your Statement, you're betraying absolutely no one!

- I am not going to be telling you any secrets about the League, and especially not about Shigaraki! So you can take your stupid tapes and shove them up your ugly ass!

- Fine. I tried being polite. I tried extending you offers to reduce the severity of your sentence so that you'd tell me willingly, but it seems that you're not interested. So I suppose I'll have to t̠̔̕͢ã̫̠k͚̯͂͘e̠̚ ͕͒ȉ̱̦̅t̨̛̰̓ ̮͍͊̎b͕̎ÿ̳̭͝ ̥̯͆͡f͈͊õ̱̣͛r̰̪̀ç̍͑͟è̢͎͘.̤̊͢͠

Statement of the Villain known only as Mustard, regarding his former boss, Shigaraki Tomura. Statement taken direct from subject, recorded 17 September 20XX. Statement begins.

Shigaraki was very... disturbed, while I was with the League. Granted, so were the rest of us, we're the League of Villains, and I doubt you end up there by being stable. But Shigaraki? He's got something weird going on in his head.

The man's obsessed with the destruction of everything. He can't wait for the opportunity to dust something, anything, but especially the Symbol of Peace. He's said, so many times, that he hates All Might, but he's never said a word about why. Now, with Endeavor being the Number One, has his priority shifted? Or does he still hold a grudge against a weak and puny skeletal has-been?

Of course, that's not even touching on his weird thing with Dabi. Dabi's an entirely different brand of crazy, the kind that hurts your head if you try to think too much about it, so I don't really want to talk about him. Shigs was absolutely fascinated by him, though. Whenever Dabi made anything like a spark, Shigaraki was there. I think he might be a pyromaniac of some kind.

The whole League was pretty fucked, in all honesty. Everyone had some flavor of crazy, and I hate to say it, but I might have been the sanest one there.

There was also the thing with my quirk being one of the few that actually worked the way that it was actually described, rather than having some extra, unrelated effects that just serve to be extra weird. For example, Shigaraki: his quirk is called Decay, and it's a five-point activation quirk. He puts all five fingers on an object, and that object crumples into dust. Simple, right?

That doesn't explain the burns.

See, it was suggested, multiple times, by multiple people, that he should invest in artist's gloves or something, to keep it from activating on electronics or anything else he didn't want dusted. His response was always that gloves wouldn't work, because he didn't like them.

I told him that he was an idiot, because that's not how five-point activation quirks work. They activate with five fingers, not just because the user just doesn't like something. He rolled his eyes and told me to piss off, so I wasn't going to push it. If he had the money to spend on replacement Xbox controllers and replacement smartphones, then it was none of my business to police him on how to spend it.

Evidently, I wasn't the only one with a problem with his lack of control over his quirk, because I heard plots from the others on how to sneak gloves over his hands without him knowing. I'm pretty sure he heard about it, too, they weren't exactly subtle. Or quiet.

I don't think that he particularly cared, though, considering that one of the plans actually ended up working at some point. He made no move to take them off, either. Instead, he stood up on the bar, cupped his hands around his mouth, and yelled for everyone to get down there, now.

Once everyone was there, he made an announcement, of sorts: "I know I've said this before, but I don't like the anti-quirk gloves that some of you decided to sneak on me. I'll wear them until they end up falling apart, so you know what happens when I touch something I don't like."

Then, he hopped down from the bar and made a shoo-ing motion, to show that the "meeting" was over. Then, he turned to Kurogiri and apologized for standing on the bar. I think that that's the only time I ever saw Shigaraki apologize for anything, but he's also known Kurogiri for a long time, so he knows the guy's limits and which lines not to cross. Kurogiri simply nodded, and Shigaraki turned back around to face the bar as a whole. He lifted one of his hands to scratch at his neck, and the light his his glove strangely, so that I could see something strange about it.

The edges of it, by his wrist, were curling away from his skin, and the edges seemed almost charred. There was also a thin tendril of smoke coming away from it - I don't know why, or how, but Shigaraki was slowly burning his glove.

That observation pales in comparison to the way that, not even half an hour later, both gloves burst into flames and crumpled into ash. There were others around when that happened, too, and I think that all of us jumped back in surprise. Shigaraki just grinned around at all of us, as if to say, "I told you so."

Nobody tried to put the gloves on him again, though, so I think he got what he wanted.

Nothing else he touched had that problem, but people were another matter entirely. He never willingly touched another person, and at first I thought it was because he was afraid of accidentally dusting an ally.

Then, his hand accidentally brushed against my arm. It was a hot day, so I wasn't wearing a jacket - there was no barrier between his hand and my skin.

The flesh of my arm immediately sizzled, which is a sound I never want to hear again. He jumped back, and looked at my burning skin. I was red and inflamed, with blisters already forming. The whole spot was almost bubbling with heat, and it looked so disgusting that I almost puked into my mask.

It took a second or two, and then the pain actually hit. It was the worst pain I'd ever felt in my life, including when I fell out of a tree at age eight and broke both of my arms. This... was almost unimaginable. I can't accurately describe just how much it hurt, and it was less than a second of contact. I screamed, and he just backed up but didn't do anything. Eventually, Magne came running and saw me on the ground, and him just standing there. She snapped at him to go get bandages and burn cream, and he didn't even argue. Just ran off and got it.

She bandaged my burn, and instructed me on how to keep it clean so it could heal. I asked her how she immediately knew I'd been burned the second she saw me on the ground, and she told me that she'd smelled my burning flesh. Not those exact words, but that's when I realized that I could smell it, too, still lingering in the air and seeping into my mask. That's when I gagged, and almost puked on top of everything else, but I kept it down. I don't know how I could even smell anything, nothing's supposed to get into my mask, but I think it was an effect of whatever brand of weird that Shigaraki and most of the League are.

That's not even everything about Shigaraki, though!

You know about how he encountered and threatened the green hero kid, Midoriya, at the mall before we kidnapped the one kid? How he had four fingers on the kid's neck at all times?

I saw the burns on his neck, for a moment, in the training camp. They weren't nearly as bad as my arm, but Shig's fingers had to have been on that kid's neck for at least five minutes. There were four small, fingerprint-sized burns on the kid's neck, but those burns had clearly never been serious. I don't know why that is. I don't know why Shigaraki affected me so much more than the green kid, but from what I saw of Midoriya, there was something weird about him, too.

I don't know what the hell's going on with Shigaraki and that kid, but it can't be anything good. For anyone.

Statement ends.

- ...What the fuck did you do to me-

The tape recorder is clicked off and the cassette stops rolling, for a second or two. It is turned back on in a much calmer environment.

- This Statement is highly valuable in the investigation as to the link between Heroic and Villainous activity and the increased activity in the servants of the Fears, but the methods I had to resort to were... undesirable. Nonetheless, Mustard is a valuable source of information about the alignments of the League, one that I am loathe to give up now. I can tell that he's still absolutely bursting with various Statements about various ex-allies of his, so I'm scheduling another interview with him at some point soon. In the meantime, I've already got an interview scheduled with this Midoriya Izuku. I'm having small interviews with all students in Class 1-A, including another round with Bakugou Katsuki, just to see if any of them have Statements to give. Somehow, I get the odd sensation that more of them have more to say to me than I currently expect, which is going to be a bit of a headache.

- I'm going to file all of Mustard's Statements in one place, just for easy organization. I'm intrigued by the idea of just how strange Dabi has grown to be since he realized himself at the age of fourteen, though I suspect that it won't be a particularly fun story. When is it ever, though?

- I've... received information regarding the pro hero Hawks, and his current involvement with the League, serving the function of a spy for the heroes. I'm going to attempt to petition for a private interview with him as well, and even if he does have a Statement to give, I see fit to warn him about what, exactly, he's getting himself into. In layman's terms, of course. Though my prospects of being able to speak to him, alone, outside of the purview of the HPSC are not exactly promising, given their continued involvement in attempting to control him as much as humanly possible. This alone makes me suspect the involvement of the Web, but I know that this is just as likely to be the work of normal people with too much greed to know how to handle well.

- As for my display in taking this Statement, and I suspect future Statements, from Mustard, he has simply been informed that I have a, quote, "mild persuasion quirk, which influences people to answer honestly to some questions that I ask. It is limited in scope, and tends to focus on receiving a particular type of answer." Unquote. This is, of course, a lie, but well founded in the forged documents backdated to when I was four, and supposedly asking my teacher a question as to what she'd done that weekend and her reporting with brutal honesty that she'd been bitten by a highly venomous spider that Friday night and spent the weekend in the hospital - this is the cover story for the appearance of my "quirk," which was then registered as, and I couldn't resist this one, "Beholding." A man's got to take his humor where he can.

- This Statement also supports the idea that increased Villainous activity is being associated with increased Avatar activity, and I suspect that Midoriya will add Heroic activity to the mix. I do hope that he's a peaceful sort of Avatar - from what I've heard, he seems the type that would hate to hurt anyone, even if it was for his own continued survival. Him being an Avatar of, say, the Slaughter would end badly for everyone involved.

- Shigaraki Tomura is certainly associated with the Desolation, which is almost amusing, given that when the theory of Heroes and Villains being closer to the Entities than most arose, my immediate assumption was that Dabi would almost certainly be a part of that, instead of something like the Stranger. I'm not sure on whether Shigaraki is an Avatar of or is merely aligned with the Lightless Flame, though I have my suspicions on the former.

- More investigation into all of these leads is necessary. End recording.

The tape recorder is clicked off.

Chapter Text

The tape recorder turns on, and the cassette begins to roll.

[We open in the middle of an argument.]

- Fine! Fine! I'll tell you! Just... please don't use your quirk again.

- I'm glad that we could come to an agreement. I knew that you'd see my side eventually.

Statement of the Villain known only as Mustard, regarding the entity known as Dabi. Statement taken direct from subject, recorded 19 September 20XX. Statement begins.

I said that everyone in the League was some variety of crazy, right? Everyone had a different sort of flavor to their crazy. Some kinds of weird were more unique than others, though.

For instance - Toga and Muscular had a lot wrong with them, but there was the same core basis between them. You could just tell that they were cut from the same crazy cloth.

Dabi, however, was different. He had no one in common with him - just himself. Which is a good thing, of course - I don't think we could've managed anything - anyone- else of his kind.

When I first met him, I thought Dabi was too much of a pretty boy to be any kind of villain, much less the Leader of the Vanguard Action Squad. I'm not just saying this, either - he looked like he'd stepped straight out of a magazine: he was tall, thin, and pale, with a handsome face accentuated by sharp cheekbones, set below bright blue eyes and all surrounded by a halo of pure white hair. The grungy street clothes looked like they were just for show, like he was just some rich kid playing at rebellion.

I wanted to say something, maybe to him, maybe to Shigaraki, that he shouldn't have been the Leader, if anything he should've been on thin ice on suspicion of being a plant from the police. I opened my mouth to speak when he looked at me for the first time.

He stared me dead in the eyes, and he winked. Then, his skin started to peel into these awful purple scars, the healthy skin falling off in great bloodless chunks while the scars were stapled crudely to what pallid living skin that he had left, all while his white hair bled into a raven's nest of black. His thin frame seemed to twist and sharpen into the bodice of what was almost a scarecrow, nothing but straw and wire to keep him from falling apart. His blue eyes, once bright, now began to almost glow in a toxic, electrifying shade of blue-green. I almost wanted to scream, but nobody else paid him any mind, even while looking directly at him as he transformed. He grinned at me, then, a bloody and crazed thing. The skin at his staples began to weep with blood as the metal strained to keep him together, and I knew that I was the only one who could see it.

I don't think that I was the only one that he messed with like that, though. I could swear I've seen Spinner shudder while he looked at Dabi, who was sitting there, silently, doing nothing. Unchanged and unchanging.

Of course, there was also the way that nobody could ever agree on what, exactly, Dabi even looked like. I remember an argument breaking out between Toga, Shigaraki, and Spinner, with Compress and Magne pitching in occasionally, about what he looked like. Toga said that he had scars, but no staples at all - the scars were all over him, but he wasn't falling apart. Spinner said that he had a lot of piercings, but the scars and staples were just on his arms and hands. Shigaraki said the opposite - he had no piercings besides the staples, and the only scarring that he had was on his face.

That's not even mentioning the fights that came out when the argument reached what color his hair was. Toga was of the opinion that it was bright red- "Like blood!"- Spinner said that it was black, but it was a bad dye job because there was white at the back and at the roots- all while Shigaraki was insistent that it was white, but with red at the temples.

All of them were wrong. Of course, that's not to say that I was right - I don't even know what he looks like. I didn't - I can't picture him. For the life of me I can't picture his face. I know that he had scars, dark and mottled purple, and I know that they were falling off of him from all over, attached with staples like a gruesome clothesline on his flesh - but that doesn't come together in a real image. It's like- like if I stopped looking at him beyond the bare minimum to identify him, like if I took a glance, something in the back of my brain said "That's Dabi," and I immediately stopped registering anything else about him.

If you put a photo of him in front of me, right now, I could not tell you who it was.

Somehow, though, I think that even to himself he's as murky as he is on the outside. I don't think he knows who he is, half the time. I've seen him peel at his skin - like he expected anything other than blood underneath it.

Was it blood underneath his skin? Was there blood, running through his veins? Or was the blood I've seen just for decoration? Just for the aesthetic? Just for the added touch of something gruesome, to complete the undead look?

In the moment, I could swear that his skin peeled back to reveal nothing but sawdust.

Of course, I know that it wasn't real. Dabi is a human person, albeit one who has more than a few issues. But he is still a flesh-and-blood, living, breathing person.

Dabi is human. I am sure of it.

There was the business about his sister, though. See, as I've said, he doesn't know who he is, half the time. His personality swings wildly from one hour to the next, and with it his account of his past, and his willingness to divulge it.

Sometimes, he talked about his sister fondly, like she'd be joining us any day now and we'd be lucky to have her. Other times, he'd go off on long rants on how much of a failure she was, because she couldn't even manage to do that one thing right. She was too attached! She chose to cling on to her idiot brothers, and look what that got her! Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!

Usually, he refused to acknowledge that he had a sister at all.

Once, though. Once, there was a woman who came to the base, covered head to toe in black, wearing a balaclava over her head. All I could see were her eyes. They almost glowed, in a toxic shade of electrifying blue-green. She stood in the corner with Dabi, and they murmured together for a while, I don't know how long. Eventually, she left, and I never saw her again. Dabi was grinning when she left, though, so widely that blood trickled from his cheeks and flowed in tiny rivers down his chin, where they drip-drip-dripped on the floor.

She might have been his sister. She might not have been. Something odd about her, something that I find peculiar, is that I'm not quite sure how many fingers she had. I think she was missing a few. I'm sure that Dabi had all of his, so I don't- I don't know why she was missing fingers. I don't know why that stood out to me. But it did.

I don't know what the hell Dabi is. I don't know what the hell his sister is. They're probably- definitely human. They are human beings.

One of these days, something is going to snap. Something is going to make Dabi and his sister become the same thing. I don't know if they're going to be monsters, or if they're going to be dead. But they will be together again.

Statement ends.

The recorder clicks off, and a moment later, clicks back on. The cassette stops and starts accordingly.

- So, it appears to be more of the same, with the Stranger being freaky as usual. It also appears that my earlier guess was correct- Todoroki Fuyumi has not ceased in her actions pertaining to the Stranger. I am at a loss as to how to prevent this- maybe I can't. Maybe the only thing left to do is kill her, and Dabi for good measure. She may be human now, but she clearly will not remain that way for long - no. No. That's... no. She is human, so there is hope. I am not Gertrude Robinson. I will not tolerate unnecessary bloodshed. I will find a way to keep her human. Mustard also mentioned in this Statement that Todoroki was attached to her brothers, the ones that weren't Dabi- Natsuo and Shouto. Perhaps they're her anchors to humanity. If they are, then- then we've got a major problem.

- Todoroki Shouto isn't human. So that means that we've got to keep her relationship with Natsuo strong, and we have to keep him human. At all costs. If Natsuo is her last human anchor, then we will keep it as strong as we can.

- The descriptions of Dabi, besides the visceral descriptions, paint him as wildly unstable. This is... understandable. Dabi was meant to come into this world as one half of a whole, and having to be an entity all on his own when he wasn't built for it, wasn't created for it, must have been exhausting over these past ten years.

- I still have more interviews with Mustard, I can tell that he has more Statements left to give. I must keep going, find all links to the entities in the ranks of the League of Villains, perhaps... perhaps find more who are still human. More that I can save. If nothing else, to balance out all the bad that I've done. To balance out all of my cowardice.

- End recording.

The tape recorder is clicked off.

Chapter Text

The tape recorder clicks on, the cassette rolling with it.

- I told you that I'm not giving you any more! You've got Dabi and Shigaraki, that's the boss and his second in command, what more do you want?

- I want all that you have. This is your last chance, Mustard. We can do this the easy way, or the hard way.

- Go fuck yourself.

- If that's how you want to be; fine then. Quirk it is.

Statement of the Villain known only as Mustard, regarding Imasuji Gōto, otherwise known as Muscular, and Toga Himiko. Statement direct from subject, recorded 24 September 20XX. Statement begins.

I don't like blood. I don't engage in violence just for the fun of it. I became a villain for my own reasons, most of which lie in motivation towards a greater future, not for personal gain.

Toga and Muscular only wanted blood and bloodshed. Toga might have had deeper reasons for becoming a villain, because I know that she'd faced discrimination due to her quirk and that she was probably homeless, but Muscular? He was just in it so he could kill people. The League was just there to point him at new targets. He didn't care who it was, he just wanted blood.

Both of them were wild and crazy, but Toga was a screaming child, who was pulled along by whatever attracted her attention, and Muscular allowed his need for a fight to drive him anywhere.

Toga joined the League before I did, so I don't know how she convinced Shigaraki to let her in. Every time she so much as opened her mouth, he'd get all annoyed. He found her annoying, I guess, which is fair, but he also didn't seem scared of her at all. Again, considering that it was Shigaraki, that's fair, but I found it a little weird that neither he nor Dabi thought that she was the slightest bit creepy. Muscular, Moonfish, and Compress were all fine with her too, but I know that she gave Magne, Spinner and I the creeps.

I don't count Twice. He's... Twice.

Toga's quirk requires her to feed on blood, so I guess that's where her obsession with it started. What she has now, though, that's more than quirk-fueled. Everything revolves around blood for her. If she hasn't seen enough of it? She'll find a way to get it, from you or from whoever's sitting next to you or the back alley drunks, if she's feeling sane that day.

She cut me, a couple of times. They still haven't healed. They're scabbed up, but they'll still bleed sluggishly if they're picked at.

I don't know what she does to her knives, to make them like that. Make their cuts produce more blood than they logically should. It might not be the knives; it might just be her.

Once, I saw her cut up a man who was leaning on the hideout, in the back alley behind it. He was pretty much too drunk to move, at first. When her knife flashed into his eyes, he came to life. He dodged and threw out hits like you wouldn't believe. You'd think he had a speed quirk- or a sobering quirk- if it wasn't for the changing colors of his eyes that made clear all that his quirk actually was: nothing special. Nothing that could actually enable him to go toe-to-toe with Toga Himiko.

I think she preferred the way that blood spatters from a moving target to the way it drips from a still one. So, she made herself a moving target.

There was more blood in that alleyway than there could possibly be contained in the human body. None of it was hers.

Occasionally, very very rarely, she'll be in the mood for a specific type of blood. A specific person's blood. She won't be satisfied by anything else.

She won't be satisfied by anything less than a show.

She went after Dabi once. Ran at him with a knife, which he sidestepped without even looking up from his phone. He caught her wrist on her second try, twisted it so the knife fell out of her hand, and glared at her, with chilling, deadly eyes.

"Don't try that again. Understood?"

She nodded quickly, and he let her go, and turned back to his phone. She never did try again, as far as I know.

Dabi was the only one that was safe.

She went after me, once. It was a peculiar sensation; all at once I knew that I was going to be attacked. I knew that I had to defend myself.

I knew that I was fucking enraged. I don't- I've never been that angry in my life before. I didn't know that that level of rage was even possible.

The rest was a bit of a blur, but at the same time it was absolutely crystal clear. She lunged from behind, and I dodged. I wasn't wearing my mask, so I didn't use my quirk. She swung her knife at me wildly, and gave me a long cut on the outside of my arm. I retaliated by punching her in the nose. She grinned wildly as blood spilled over her lips and flowed into her mouth, staining her teeth a dark shade of crimson.

She slashed at me again, and I had to back up or risk losing my jugular. I launched at her, hands outstretched like a wild animal or Shigaraki, and scraped my nails against her hastily thrown up arm. All I left were red marks, my nails aren't long enough or sharp enough to do any real damage.

We went on like that for a little longer. She didn't get much blood out of me, but by the end I think that she was satisfied by the fight and the way I looked at the end. I had blood on my face, some of it mine, some of it hers. She says that blood is cute, so maybe I just looked "cute" enough for her to stop.

I am sure, though, that the only hits I got on her were the ones that she allowed. I've seen her go much faster than she was moving, then. Maybe she just wanted to give me a fighting chance? Or maybe she wanted me in blood, but wasn't willing to hurt an ally enough to get as much as she wanted, so she used a bit of her own.

She had no such qualms against Muscular. I've seen her flick her knives like lightning strikes at him. He didn't exactly hold back against her, either. Fights between the two of them were spectacular to behold, if you could even see them moving, instead of letting them become bloodying blurs in your eyes. He started it just as often as she did, because he was always looking for someone to try and pummel.

Muscular was in the League because of his reputation. If you've got a big enough rep, or if you've got a long enough list of crimes, Shigaraki'll put up with you regardless. It's a basic reward-loss system, where if the loss he'd suffer by throwing out someone like Muscular, who would be an incredible asset in a fight, as a major serial killer, outweighed the reward of not having to deal with him, Shigaraki had to keep him in and suffer.

Muscular wasn't exactly easy to get along with, either. He didn't attack anyone in the League, though he came close, but he kept insistently muttering about his "next kill" or waxing poetic about the blood on his fists when he made a new corpse.

He stalked the maze of alleyways all through the warehouse district. He kept away from the hideout, which is better than I can say for Toga, but left a massive and conspicuous trail of carnage behind him.

His mechanical eye was unnerving, to say the least. It was just a facsimile of life, surrounded by scar tissue, always looking for something new to kill. Some new battle to have. It whirled around, fixating only on people. Never stopping to focus on anything that couldn't be considered an "opponent."

We were walking the streets incognito, for groceries, and I saw it stop on an infant. His knuckles twitched, like he wanted to form them into fists. Simultaneously, I wanted to move away, because that instability scared me, and move closer, if only to give the mother a head start in running with her kid.

He didn't do anything, in the end. I didn't relax until we were back at the hideout, two hours later. As soon as he was out of sight, it was like my heart could finally slow down, like a jackrabbit had finally found its way back into its warren.

Or like a soldier back in his barracks, because I knew that I still wasn't safe. I knew that I could still be subject to whatever the other members of the League wanted to do to me, but I felt like I was out of the front lines.

Not home from the war, though. Never that. There was always something, someone, who could kill me, some endless threat of violence, some sword of Damocles hanging over my head, threatening, always, to slaughter me.

When he wasn't fighting Toga, or muttering to himself, or clearing out the warehouse district, he was beating this old punching bag that was in the base since before he got there.

The punching bag was entirely normal. If Muscular punched it hard enough, though, it would start to leak blood. You'd think the stains are from fights nearby, but they're from the bag. Eventually, someone cut it open, to see if he'd hidden a body in there for the blood effect.

There was nothing in there but sawdust. There weren't even any bloodstains- they were just on the outside of the bag, nowhere else. Anyone from the League could agree that the blood was from the bag. Not from whatever went on around it.

Muscular's smile was unnerving, too. He would grin, and you'd itch to just punch it. It was unnerving because it felt the same as when Toga fought me. It was unnerving because the anger that I was filled with wasn't my own.

Something about it, though, reminded me of a song that I'd heard in my pre-Quirk history class. We were talking about World War I, and there was a song that had been sung by soldiers in the trenches- a sort of gallows humor. I don't remember what it was called, but it reminded me of him, with the way it laughed in the face of death, made light of bombs and poison gas. I think that Muscular would thrive on a war front. Not for the sake of honor or for Japan, but for the sake of killing people. Killing the enemy.

Sometimes, I felt like his sort of gallows humor, his warfront cheer, his bloodlust only for the nameless, faceless enemy, would infect the rest of us. Sometimes, Shigaraki got a little extra twitchy, and I steered clear for a solid week. Nothing ever- nothing happened. I was just... cautious. Afraid. A little paranoid. All the time.

Is it strange, that before the frustration, anger, sadness, of being arrested, the moment the handcuffs clicked shut, the feeling of relief was what swept through me? Is it strange that the ride to prison felt like a soldier's journey home?

Statement ends.

What sounds like the beginning of a sob from Mustard is interrupted by the click of the recorder turning off. It turns back on, a moment later.

- It appears that Toga and Muscular are both Avatars of, or at least aligned with, the Slaughter. I could understand Muscular, at least, becoming an Avatar willingly. I do... I do feel for Toga. She was clearly never going to be able to escape it on her own, not with her own quirk working against her like that. I hope that she is still human, given that all of the information that we have says that she is only seventeen years old. If not... I hope that she is happy. I honestly hope that she feels fulfilled in her life as a monster. Is that wrong of me? To hope that a child is happy, even if she isn't human anymore?

- I should be more gentle with Mustard. He's reported having dreams, dreams reflecting Statements that he's given to me but with a man standing in the corner; this is likely due to my own negligence. I can't forget that there is a person between me and these Villains. I can't forget that Mustard is a person too, one who has witnessed and experienced awful things, all of which I am making worse in my crusade to know more.

- In other news, it appears that Midoriya is lifting himself out of his depression, though he refuses to watch any of his classmates' training exercises. Somehow, I doubt that he could feed on any substantial amount of fear from those, as training exercises aren't exactly life-and-death; I'll have to communicate that to him, somehow. He shouldn't handicap himself, his development as a hero, as well as others from being able to hear what I've learned is remarkable insight, all out of paranoia about what might possibly happen.

- My meeting with Mineta has apparently been postponed to a later date, which is... not ideal. I'll need to ration out the Statements I have left, in order to keep him from getting my nightmares, in case he has a Statement. I'm going to need to make a visit to the Japanese branch of the Institute soon in order to restock, which I would not prefer, given that most of them are in Japanese, which I do not speak. Reading in a language that I'm not fluent in takes energy, which defeats the point of reading Statements before taking them from unsuspecting students, Villains, and civilians.

- I feel like I'm making headway in being able to finally interview with Hawks and Endeavor both, bar some massive event keeping them from interviewing with me. The HPSC has finally allowed me to speak to Hawks' agency representatives, rather than just cycling me through the same four agents, while Endeavor's secretary has transferred me to speaking to Endeavor himself on the matter- though he still has yet to actually pick up the phone.

- The situation with Todoroki Fuyumi only grows more dire. She has only been seen interacting with her youngest brother recently, and she was unaccounted for for a full 24 hours between yesterday and today. I fear that she is only growing closer to the Stranger as her anchors to humanity shift and break.

- My next meeting is with Mustard, then. Hopefully there will be few of them left, for both of our sakes.

- End recording.

The tape recorder is clicked off.

In other news, Todoroki Natsuo, son of Endeavor, has been reported missing after a full week of missing classes at his University, as well as not being seen on or near campus during the same amount of time. He was last seen wearing a white T-shirt, reading "Save the Bees," with blue shorts and black tennis shoes. An image of him is on your screen now.

If you have any information on his whereabouts, please call the toll-free number at the bottom of your screen. The number is (XXX) XXX - XXXX. Thank you.

Chapter Text

The sound of the tape recorder being turned on is heard.

- Why are you doing this to me?

- I have to. There is no other way. For all that it's worth, I am sorry.

- Tell that to the nightmares. Tell that to Dabi's peeling flesh, every night, day in and day out.

- You weren't supposed to have nightmares. That was a mistake, one that I wish that I could rectify - but I can't. I am truly sorry.

- Fuck your apologies. Fuck you and everything you stand for. I'm not giving another Statement into that tape.

- You are. One way or another, you are.

Statement of the Villain known only as Mustard, regarding Sako Atsuhiro, otherwise known as Mr. Compress, of the League of Villains. Statement taken direct from subject, recorded 27 September 20XX. Statement begins.

Of all the members of the League, I think that I liked Mr. Compress the most. He was... chill, for lack of a better word. He never really bat an eye at anything, and he always had a cool magic trick that he could show you if you were bored.

Not to mention, he was the only one who you could actually hold some semblance of a real conversation with. Spinner would go off on long tangents about either Stain or swords, Shigaraki used so much gamer slang that he was almost incomprehensible, Kurogiri was alright when you could find him, but he mostly interacted with Shigaraki or his Sensei. Magne had the same problem, she generally hung around the more reputable parts of town before we attacked the camp, because she didn't exactly have much of a reputation; she knew how to sneak around and disguise herself.

Honestly, if it wasn't Compress, Dabi would be the best conversationalist. Dabi. Dabi was one of the few who could be consistently found around the base, and provide actually on-topic, somewhat normal responses about 50% of the time. 5% of that time, he was actually insightful. Mr. Compress, on the other hand, at least had the decency to keep on topic a solid 75% of the time, and be insightful a good 15% of that time.

But I digress. The point is, Mr. Compress was by far the best choice in conversationalist in the League. Ergo, he genuinely seemed like he was one of the normal ones.

Well. Normal for a villain, anyway.

Sometimes, he'd drop some... comments. Concerning comments. He's expressed a deep desire to become compressed, himself. He's said that he's jealous of everyone and everything that he's trapped like that. He says it like it's the most natural thing in the world to want, like all anyone should aspire to have is the closeness of being compressed into something so small that it could fit into a child's hand.

I actually thought that he was suicidal, for a bit. We were at the docks, doing something for the League, I don't quite remember what it was. I made some offhand comment about falling into the ocean, because we were in danger of doing that, and he looked out into the water.

He said, "If only. That would be the dream, wouldn't it? To fall into the ocean, return to the primordial ooze? That essence to life, the one thing that allows us to continue upon our mortal coil? Oh, to be in the ocean, surrounded by the water which gives us everything, by the creatures who thrive within it, pressing in on your skin! To sink, to feel the water press inwards in an effort to crush the air from your chest! The water filling your mouth, your throat, your lungs - I can only imagine that it would be simply sublime. An experience - a holy experience - we have no gills so that we may have this! To drown, to be buried at the very bottom of the ocean, so deep that none may disturb you. What I would give - what I would do! - to be one of the lucky bastards on a sinking ship. To drown far from the coast, far from the people who wish to keep you above sea level. That is my idea of pure, blessèd ecstasy! Nothing may come close to the transcendent bliss of drowning, in the sea or even the mud. To lie in repose, to rest, deep within the Earth for all of eternity!"

What the fuck, Compress.

He didn't seem especially suicidal? He didn't act like he wanted to hurt himself or anything. I know that the main thing about depression is that often, people don't realize that someone has it until it's too late, but... honestly, I got the feeling that he wasn't talking about wanting to die. I don't think that Compress actually craves death, he wants... whatever he monologued about. "The transcendent bliss of getting crushed" or whatever. Maybe the guy just wanted a hug, ha.

His quirk probably doesn't help with that, though. He can crush anything into a marble except for himself. I know that he acts like it doesn't bother him, but it does. He's grabbed his arm or leg before, and made the moves he'd make if he were trying to compress it. Almost as if trying to see if his quirk had changed, so that he could see what it was like.

I noticed this for a while before actually doing something about it. Normally, I'm not exactly the kind of guy who does favors, but Compress and I were on somewhat good terms. I figured I'd be a good Samaritan. So, one day, I walked up to him and offered to tell him what it was like for him to compress me. Of course, he hadn't compressed me before, so I was offering both to be put in a marble and put the whole thing into words.

He agreed, with obligatory protests, but he was clearly prepared to make me into a marble the second I laid the offer down. Honestly, I figured that I'd be blacked out while I was in the marble, and was trying to figure out how not to disappoint him when he reached out to touch me.

I was wrong. I was so, so wrong. I wasn't claustrophobic at that point- I had no problem with tight spaces- not until after that.

It was horrific. I couldn't move, I couldn't see, I couldn't breathe.

I felt the walls of the glass marble prison pressing into my very bones. I felt my joints dig into the soft organs of my torso, while my knuckles and wrists creaked and cracked from being curled so deeply into my arms that I couldn't tell which was which. My nose would have run with blood from the pressure, but there was no space for the blood to go.

I could see one thing. A small, blue-tinted pinprick of light, to remind me that there was still a world out there, beyond the confines of my marble. It moved, I think. A bit.

After the first few hours.

I must have been in that marble for 24 hours at least. Maybe more. I spent so long in that hot, painful marble, hoping that at any moment, Compress would release me. My skin must have turned purple from the bruising pressure inside. My breath fogged up the glass so badly that drops of water rolled down the wall and into the bottom of my prison.

When Compress finally, finally let me out, he told me that it had been 3 minutes. Three measly minutes. I told him, after gasping for air for what felt like ages. I told him exactly what it was like to be in that marble. To be squeezed so tightly that you feel like your very cells are going to subsume each other. How every second is drawn out into what feels like hours.

Strangely, I think that that just made him want to marbleize himself even more.

So, Compress was just... a bit weird. His quirk's just a bit weird. Nothing more than that. Mr. Compress is great, aside from his burning, passionate desire to be crushed by the water, his own glass marbles, or the Earth itself. Nothing against him; he just has a deep admiration for the Buried.

Statement ends.

The tape recorder clicks off, then turns back on.

- Overall, this Statement is rather tame in terms of severity. Mustard only experienced a moment of the Buried, which, while unfortunate, was also under the purview of someone within the entity and had abundant reasons not to allow Mustard any harm, not least of which are self-interest. Mr. Compress appears to be involved with the Buried, though I've no clue on if he is a fully realized Avatar or not. Further investigation should commence once I am completely finished with interviewing Mustard.

- Speaking of Mustard, he is almost certainly Marked by the Eye at this point. Some Statement-givers manage to avoid it, as I am bending over backwards to ensure for many of the Statements that are given while I am here in Japan, but it is clear that Mustard has not. I have been too negligent and lackadaisical in allowing myself to feed upon his fear, and compelling him to give Statements far too liberally. He will be finished giving Statements soon, and after that, I hope that he can move on from the horrifying experience of meeting me.

- My interview with Mineta isn't scheduled until October, so it is likely that I will finish with Mustard before going in to get another member of Class 1-A's experiences. I am not entirely sure if this is a good thing, as my investigation on Heroics is essentially halted, but it gives the kids- because no matter their aspirations, no matter what they've gone through, they're kids- more time to prepare.

- I've been here for nearly a month now, and though I do love Japan, I am becoming rather homesick. I miss London. I miss Martin, though I doubt that I'd be getting any more interaction with him in England than I am now, which is to say, none.

- I miss his tea. I can't finish a cup of tea anymore, because none of them were made by Martin. Isn't that ridiculous?

- I shouldn't be getting sentimental. I am here in Japan to do research on a theory, and hopefully find some humans in the mix and get them out of the sights of the entities that they may have garnered the attention of. I am here to be helpful. Useful. Better than just sitting on my arse all day, feeding on Statements and wanting to talk to Martin. Of course, I'm still doing that, but now it's got... purpose. It is nice, to have purpose again.

- End recording.

The tape recorder is clicked off.

Next, on Hero Gossip Network! What are these new tears in Endeavor's costume?! Is it decorative? Is he fresh out of a villain fight? Are they here to stay?

I'll tell you one thing- they certainly add to his rugged image! Unfortunately, the reason behind them is rather mundane: bee stings.

Yes, you did hear that right! Our new Number One is bee-ing stung left, right, and center! Rumors have been circulating on a new bee-themed villain, but nothing definitive has yet been confirmed. We're keeping an eye out for any news related to this, but we have to wonder: just how are these bees piercing through the no-doubt highly reinforced material of his hero costume?

We've consulted experts, support techs, the works, and, frankly, I can summarize everything they've said into three simple words: We Don't Know!

I know, everyone's got to be buzzing with questions, but more information on this will be covered at a later date! In the meantime, let's just be glad Endeavor's not allergic!

Next up, are UA Hero Course student Bakugou Katsuki and current Head of the League of Villains Shigaraki Tomura secretly related? Sources vary widely on their stances...

Chapter Text

The click of a tape recorder being turned on is heard, the subtle roll of a cassette tape with it.

- If I may ask, how old are you, Mustard?

- Why do you care? Why now?

- Just... humor me. Please.

- Fine. I'm fifteen. Sixteen in December.

- That's... I never realized. I am sorry. Deeply, truly, sorry. For all that I have put you through with this.

- If you were, then we wouldn't be here. You're just saying that to make yourself feel better, aren't you? Cut the act. All you cops and heroes are the same; you act like all your evils are for the "greater good," but really, you're no better than the rest of us.

- For what it's worth, Mustard, your Statements have been helping people-

- How? Tell me how a scary story every other day is impacting laws. Creating change. Tell me who would have died without my goddamn tape recordings!

- Todoroki Fuyumi. She's a preschool teacher, and because you've warned us of Dabi and his sister, this woman who would have been directly impacted by them is now far safer, for herself and for others, than she would have been if we were ignorant. Or, perhaps Midoriya Izuku. Mentioning him in your Statement allowed us to realize exactly what he is- and allows him to mitigate the damage that he didn't even know that he was causing. Did you know, he wasn't aware that he wasn't human until he was brought in here? He didn't know that he was feeding on the fear generated in hero fights, from Heroes and Villains alike. So you are helping people, I promise. I just need you to help a little bit more.

- I... I don't want to. I don't want more nightmares, I don't want to keep being scared.

- I can promise you that any more Statements will not cause any more nightmares. If you tell me what happened, of your own volition, then my quirk will essentially be nothing more than a little nudge in your mind, helping you to put words in order when you may not normally be able to. I don't want to hurt you any more, Mustard. But I need more information on the League of Villains. You're the only source that we have.

- How many more Statements do I have to give?

- Including this one? Two. Both of which I can guarantee come with absolutely no nightmares or side effects. You have my word.

- Okay. I can... I can do two.

- Thank you. I know how hard this must be, so I truly appreciate that you're willing to do this.

Statement of the Villain known only as Mustard, regarding Hikiishi Kenji, otherwise known as Magne, and the Villain only known as Moonfish. Statement direct from subject, recorded 1 October 20XX. Statement begins.

I know that I tend to hold Dabi up as the weirdest and craziest member of the League, but that's only if you discount the obvious winner here: Moonfish. Moonfish was a literal cannibal, whose craving for human flesh often overrode his rational mind. I never spoke more than two words to him, but that didn't stop his ceaseless mutterings to me.

Moonfish was certainly the strangest of us. There was someone else, though, who may have been inclined to... well, I don't want to say, "follow in his footsteps," but Magne absolutely had some kind of a similar presence about her. Both of them focused, almost involuntarily, on the meat and flesh of a person. Both of them were so very aware of the human body- their own or someone else's. Of course, the degree to which Magne was affected by this madness was far, far less than Moonfish. But she was affected, all the same.

Moonfish was more affected by it. The idea of flesh, of fresh meat, consumed his every waking moment. It was a subject that he frequently latched on to during his murmurings, and when it was brought to his mind, he wouldn't stop focusing on it for hours at a time.

Moonfish also went out of his way to ensure that his mouth was the only thing of his visible. He made certain that his teeth, and by extension his quirk, were the only thing that he could use. He always wore a full fake leather suit, functioning as some kind of emo straitjacket; he had belts of some sort crisscrossing over it, either to ensure that he couldn't move or that the suit couldn't come off.

Maybe both.

Sometimes, the leather that was usually flush with his skin... wasn't. Sometimes, some poor soul could catch an accidental glimpse at what lies beneath.

Unfortunately, I was one of those few people who saw what was under that accursed mask. There was a full inch, fully lit, in between the mask and what must have once been human skin, and I could see every bit of it.

There was an air bubble that formed in his mask, peeling it slowly, inexorably, away from his skin- until he smashed his face into the counter in order to replace its position. He was standing in the starkly lit area of what may have been generously called a kitchen, so the light flooded the crevice in between the mask and what must have once been a face.

Did you know that trees will continue to grow around any obstacles that are put in their paths? A tree will grow to fill the gaps in a fence that once was near it, but is now a part of it.

Human skin will do the same. If you wear the same thing, for months or years on end, your skin will start to grow around it.

I don't know how long Moonfish has been wearing that costume, but I suspect that it has been longer than a few months.

Strips of gangrenous skin were stuck to the mask, with the consistency of still-wet paper mâché. They were attached to what may have once been an unblemished face, in some cases dangling freely, others bridging the gap between Moonfish and the mask like some kind of demented banners in miniature. They dripped a filmy, yellow-tinted clear liquid, liquid that could have just as easily been pus as saliva. What used to be the flat expanse of flesh on his cheek was instead pockmarked and multicolored, like a quilt of many fabrics. Some of it was tinted a candy-apple red, with the blood that must have still been circulating through him. Some of it was stained a sickly green with gangrene, or perhaps even a mold or rot. Most of it was yellow; either due to lack of nutrition and sunlight, or just stained with the infectious pus of the permanently open wounds upon him. Maybe both.

He didn't seem to be affected by it. You'd think that he'd be in some kind of pain, with that kind of mangled flesh, but no. He even ate more than anyone else in the League, even though he logically shouldn't have been able to.

Sometimes, he even brought "leftovers" to the base. Once, he walked in with a full human arm in his mouth, like a dog dragging in a treat. I saw him eat a few bites, before leaving so that I wouldn't lose my appetite for the next millennium. He'd take a bite before throwing his whole head back, rolling it around with his tongue, which was just as blood covered as the muscle that he was gnawing on, enough that it just looked like pulsating meat within a cage of teeth.

I don't know where his fascination with meat comes from. Not only is he a cannibal, but he's a carnivore besides; I've never once seen him touch anything that wasn't meat. I think that he drank blood instead of water, but that might just be speculation.

Magne was the same kind of strange as Moonfish. She was never that intense about it, and I didn't see her that much, anyways. When she was around, though, there was a reason that she had the nickname "Big Sis."

Did you know that she died? I didn't. Not until last week. I never got to tell her goodbye. My last words to her were, "I'll see you when I'm out of these chains!"

Now she's dead, and I'm still stuck here.

I don't want to speak ill of her. She was a good person. She made Toga and I hot chocolate, once. She was actually nice to us. Treated us like kids, which is nice, every once in a while. Even though I knew that she was a bit scared of Toga, she still treated her fine.

She wasn't as bad as Moonfish. She could never have been as bad as Moonfish, she was too... human for it. She did rarely eat anything other than meat, and something about her was very... grounded. In herself. She was confident in her own body, even though it didn't fit who she was. She said that she liked it, and I respected that.

She was the only one in the League to actually offer up touch. She used to hug me if I was having a bad day, Toga too. I could just relax in her arms, press my face into her chest, even as I heard the blood flowing through her arms and encircling me. I don't think that I should have been able to hear it, but she wasn't concerned. It might have been creepy to some, but I found it comforting, to know that she was fully there.

She hugged me a lot after the burn incident with Shigaraki.

Something about her made you think of your own body. Not in a strange way, she just had a way of making you aware of it. Moonfish did that, too, but more intensely. His presence made you know that you were just meat. He only saw anyone as meat. Nothing more, nothing less.

I miss Magne. She was like the sister I never had. She might have been a little weird, but everyone is. I don't mind it. I wish I could've given her a better farewell.

If there's an afterlife, I hope that she's happy in it.

Statement ends.

Mustard, whose voice had been growing cracked and shaky, takes a shuddering breath as the tape recorder clicks off. It clicks back on, a moment later.

- I am very grateful that there is only one Statement left for Mustard to give. I don't want to keep hurting him like this, no matter how much his actions may condemn him. This has clearly taken a toll on him, and I don't want to keep adding on to the burden that I have placed upon him. The boy deserves to rest.

- I believe that this Statement gives insight not only on Moonfish and Magne's leanings towards the Flesh, but also a litmus test on who in the League is human and who is not. Magne was described as a much milder follower of the Flesh than Moonfish, so I believe that she was merely a human, while he was a fully realized Avatar. I think, referring back to his Statement on Toga and Muscular, that those who were unbothered by Toga have all ended up being Avatars, or so close to it that the only difference was death. Those who were consisted of Spinner, otherwise known as Iguchi Shuichi, Magne, and Mustard himself. Shigaraki's Sensei, now known as All for One, and Twice, were not explicitly mentioned.

- In regards to my divulging of information to Mustard: I should not have. At least, not with names and that much specificity. But, it did its job and I cannot bring myself to fully regret it. I think that he needed to know that I wasn't just torturing him because I could.

- In other news, Midoriya has been more social with his friends again, which is of course a good thing. He needs to anchor himself back to humanity, since he isn't human himself. I can only hope that he isn't starving himself; I've sent him back with Statements, as well as the address of Japan's branch of the Magnus Institute, which is located in Musutafu.

- Todoroki Fuyumi is still a concern; her habit of disappearing has become noticeable, and it has a pattern. There have also been rumors circulating about a new affiliate of the League of Villains, a woman covered in black, who may or may not be missing fingers. I fear that the situation may become uncontrollable soon; I am doing everything in my power to help urge along Todoroki Natsuo's Missing Persons case, but even Beholding refuses to give me an idea of where he may be. That alone gives me a strong sense of foreboding at his fate.

- Things are close to falling apart completely; I can feel that something is coming. Something is going to happen soon, and I can only hope that no new monsters are made.

- End recording.

The tape recorder is clicked off.

Welcome back to Tokyo News on Channel 6! In local news, Tokyo University's male dormitories are being fumigated due to an infestation of bees, forcing all students residing in them to migrate to temporary housing situations. The University has offered to pay for lodgings in a nearby hotel for the week in which the fumigation is taking place. All classes at the University have been cancelled during this time.

Of course, the University is also taking care to harm as few bees as possible, considering that they are currently in danger of a rapid global decline; the removal process involves spraying a gas often used by beekeepers to sedate the bees, removing the hives, and relocating them to a better environment for both their safety and out of the way of human activity. This is also why the process is going to take a full week, as the dorms are dealing with a full-blown infestation, which will make it difficult to remove the bees while harming as few as possible.

In related news, Todoroki Natsuo, student at Tokyo University, is still missing. If anybody has any information as to his whereabouts, please call the toll-free number at the bottom of your screen. The number is (XXX) XXX - XXXX. His family is offering a ¥500,000 reward to anyone with information that leads to him being found.

Now, to the weather.

Chapter Text

The familiar click of the tape recorder turning on is audible.

- This will be your final Statement. Are you ready?

- Okay. I want to get this over with.

Statement of the Villain known only as Mustard, regarding Bubaigawara Jin, otherwise known as Twice. Statement direct from subject, recorded 6 October 20XX. Statement begins.

Anyone could tell you that Twice is weird, you don't need my insight for that. He contradicts himself with every other sentence, you know that. If nothing else, it's been seen on the news, multiple times.

I don't know if that's even a real disorder, you know, DID doesn't work like that and I can't think of anything else that would.

There was a bit more to it than his speaking habits, though. He would always stop and stare, entranced, at violently clashing colors in store windows. He got ahold of some neon spray paint, once, and vandalized an entire brick wall, coating it in an unholy rainbow of fractal patterns.

He was pretty nice on the whole, though. If, of course, you only listened to the first thing that he says- that's what he means to say, according to Magne.

Dabi always freaked him out. I don't think that it was even on purpose, most of the time- I just think that Dabi has an uncomfortable similarity to a mannequin. It's not a rational thing, of course, but I looked at Dabi sometimes and the thought of him being doll-like, not quite human but resembling us just a bit too much, wouldn't leave my mind.

Twice hates mannequins, dolls, anything that falls into the Uncanny Valley. And- and clowns. Twice is absolutely terrified of clowns. He's muttered about it before, one of the few things that he always agrees on.

He's said the name "Nikola," before. "Nikola Orsinov." It was about 3 in the morning in the base, I couldn't sleep and evidently neither could he. The name was almost whispered, with a terrified sort of reverence, like someone would say "Great White Shark."

"That's what Dabi reminds me of. Nikola Orsinov."

He didn't even argue.

I don't know who that is, and I didn't want to ask. He continued anyway.

"I don't think I can get another book this time, I can't escape it again, I know who I am, I'm not joining the circus, no, no, no."

I don't know what he was talking about, with "last time." I've never seen him with a book, either- whatever he was muttering about must have happened before he joined the League.

In fact, I only know of one book that he even owns, and it's not even really a book, it's a manga. I saw it on a shelf in his room in the hideout one day, and I picked it up out of curiosity.

From just a look at the cover, I could tell that it was pre-quirk. It was clearly old, and the characters on the cover all looked exceedingly normal, so much so that they had to have been quirkless.

From there, I only got more curious- why would Twice own a pre-quirk manga? Its pages were yellowed with age, so how did he even get this manga?

I picked it up, and saw the title: Uzumaki. The spiral. It was written by someone named Ito Junji. The cover advertised itself as a collection of every part of a series, and the volume had the heft to support that.

I cracked open the front cover to see a library bookplate, with English on top, and what I assume was the same message on the bottom, but in Japanese.

From the library of Jurgen Leitner.

From there, it was like I couldn't put it down. Like I was being hypnotized, its mesmerizing influence drawing me further and further in.

The first few panels were colored, and the age of the book clearly hadn't impacted their saturation. It was of a girl, addressing the audience, introducing the reader to her hometown of Kurozo-cho. Then, it shifted into monochrome to show that same girl running towards the train station to meet up with her boyfriend.

Before she reaches the station, she sees a man staring at the shell of a snail. He is smiling as he looks, and picks up the shell. His smile curls into itself, high on his face. His fingers are long, and sharpened to deadly points. The girl leaves, seemingly not noticing his inhuman appearance.

It continues, with the boyfriend trying to convince the girl to run away with him, due to the strangeness of Kurozo-cho. He points out various spirals around them, and that there are far more than should naturally appear. When he points out various spirals, such as miniature whirlpools in the nearby stream, she looks directly at them and then says that there are no spirals; she cannot see them.

The girl then leaves and goes home. There, she sees the man from the station at her home, talking to her father, who is a potter. He is smiling that same smile, which curls into spirals on his cheekbones. He is ordering a custom piece of pottery, one with a multicolored spiral upon it. On the opposite page is an image of what he is describing, a clay pot covered in spirals, all of which are violently saturated with clashing colors.

I don't know what the girl's father says about the request, because in that moment, the book was snatched from my hands by none other than Twice.

"You don't want to read that, it'll hurt you. You should keep reading, it's safe!"

Twice's costume never had a spiral on it. But when he was talking to me, all I could see were the spirals, curling in and collapsing on each other, colliding in brilliant swirls of color.

The air fled my lungs. I realized that everywhere I looked, there were more and more spirals- in the walls, on the ceiling, in the particles of dust that floated around. I started frantically looking around to see somewhere, anywhere, that wasn't contaminated by that wretched pattern. My breathing grew labored as I began to panic.

Twice grabbed my shoulders, and looked me in the eyes. His irises were two different neon hues, swirling in opposite directions.

"You should never have picked up that book. Focus on me. Picking it up was a great idea! You should read it the whole way through!"

I did what he told me- the first time- and eventually the colors of his eyes faded, and I relaxed a bit. The spokes within were still writhing in spiral patterns, still swirling opposite each other.

"The spirals will never quite go away, but they won't hurt you. Nah, they'll be gone in a week, don't worry!"

I just nodded at him, and walked back to my room in a daze. I forgot why I was even in Twice's room in the first place. I sat on my bed, whose blanket was newly adorned with spirals. I closed my eyes, and on the backs of my eyelids, I still saw them.

Even now, if I even blink, there they are. The spirals. They never leave.

I think that that was the book that Twice was talking about. I think that it saved him from whoever Nikola Orsinov is.

I think that he read it to get away from her. To get away from her influence. "I'm not joining the circus," he'd said. I think that he read that book, and joined something else.

The lesser of two evils, in his mind.

Statement ends.

- Thank you, for this. For all of this. I know that it was not your choice to help me, but the information that you've provided is invaluable. I'm going to tell the police on your case that you've been fully cooperative with me, and request that they lighten your sentence. It's the least that I could do, to apologize for what I've done to you.

- The best "thank you" that you could give is leaving. Please, just leave me alone. Don't come back.

- Alright. Goodbye, Mustard.

The tape recorder clicks off, and back on.

- I did not lie about telling the officers that he was cooperative. Even though I had to compel him, he didn't even try to kill me. No violence, just... resentment. I truly did terrorize him, didn't I?

- It appears that Twice used a Leitner to escape the Stranger, similarly to Mike Crew and the Spiral. He appears to now be an Avatar of or at least affiliated with the Spiral, by use of a prior-to-now undocumented Leitner.

- I was not aware that Nikola was ever in Japan, but I would believe it more than the idea of Twice having left. I'd been under the impression that the Circus' journey from Russia to the UK was somewhat linear, without leaving Europe, but I might have been ascribing too much strategic thought to them. It is the Stranger, after all.

- I do not believe that Dabi is attempting to recruit Twice to the Stranger again. His motivation has never been to recruit anyone but his sister, and his reasoning for that is almost self-explanatory. Quite frankly, I don't believe that Dabi is stable enough for a long-term mission like recruitment, at least, not anymore. Not after nearly a decade of being merely half of a whole being.

- This is the end of Mustard's account of the League of Villains. As of our current information, the only members of the League without an alignment are Spinner and All for One. I have suspicions about both of them, but... somehow, I get the distinctive feeling that both of them are entirely human.

- The next Statement should be with Mineta Minoru tomorrow, unless something else happens to change that, again.

- I still feel that something is looming closer and closer. Something is going to happen, and soon.

- End recording.

The tape recorder is clicked off.

My name is Yamada Kaori, and welcome back to Musutafu Tonight at 6! Recently, new rumors have been circulating about a new member of the League of Villains, with many eyewitness accounts having described a woman, entirely covered in black, with missing fingers. She has been consistently described as being near Dabi, or, in the rare cases that she is seen alone, many say that she seems "very similar to him."

We are here with Goshima Taro, head of our fact-checking team, to address these rumors, and see if there is any weight to them. Goshima?

Thanks, Yamada. As we know, these rumors are gaining traction, but popularity does not necessarily mean veracity. No police reports have given any evidence of a change in the lineup of the League, so another high-ranking member would likely have been noticed if there were the introduction of one.

However, some eyewitness accounts also include photographs, which does lend a bit of credence to the accounts, as all photographs have been run through image processing programs and have proven to be real. The photographs tend to be blurry and unsettling in their composition, similar to modern surrealist art. Most often, these photos are of two blurred figures, one with reflection coming off of his body enough to discern him as Dabi due to the stapling, and a shorter figure next to him; the eyes of both figures are always seen, and are similar to cats' eyes in their appearance in the dark. As you can see now, the eyes are always fully visible, even when they anatomically should not and the recounting of events explicitly states that the witness remained unseen.

All in all, we cannot verify that there is a new member of the League of Villains, but we also cannot condemn the rumors as false. We at the news station advise all of our viewers to remain on guard. Back to you, Yamada.

Thank you, Goshima. We advise all viewers to attempt to keep business to daylight hours, and to keep away from alleyways in this dangerous time.

Next up, some hero experts claim that All Might should have retired far earlier than he did, and not just for his own sake...