Chapter Text
The Hero Commission was at a complete loss. Everything was in complete and utter chaos.
The citizens of Japan were constantly fearful and had lost all their trust in pro-heroes.
It all started when a single mother and her two sons went on a grocery run at their local supermarket. The woman accidentally bumped into a gentleman walking in the cereal aisle. When she was about to apologize to the gentleman, he disappeared.
Her eyes widened in confusion. As she turned around, that is when she saw them. Small grotesque creatures were flying everywhere in the store.
She was terrified and reported the suspicious situation to the police. They thought she was crazy and told her not to waste their time.
Suddenly, more and more citizens reported that there were these creatures all around the city.
After three months, most of the citizens in Japan could see these horrific monsters. They were everywhere.
They were in homes, schools, and hospitals. Elementary schools all over Japan had been closed because students were terrified of the grotesque creatures in their classrooms.
May 11, 2175 - 5:00 PM
The hero commission president, two HPSC representatives, the top 3 pro heroes, and the principal of U.A. Highschool was sitting in a conference room with tense expressions.
"This is preposterous! It has been three months. We still know nothing about these creepy monsters!" Endeavor exclaimed, slamming both of his hands on the conference table.
"I agree, this is quite concerning. We are all doing our hero duties one day when suddenly, we can see these weird creatures. Citizens have been panicking as they are everywhere . Some citizens have these creatures attached to them like dead weight. Some of these pests have been touching citizens inappropriately. We have tried everything; burning them, stabbing them, trying to imprison them for further study. Nothing has worked," the winged hero, Hawks, said with an unreadable expression.
"I understand how frustrating this can be. Everyone at the hero commission has been working overtime to try and figure out what these creatures are," one of the hero commission officers stated calmly.
The officer took a manilla folder out of her bag. She took a picture of a young girl from the folder and put it on the table.
"This is a mugshot of an eight-year-old girl from three years ago," the hero commission president explained, staring at the picture with distaste. "She was admitted to a mental health hospital in Yokohama. The doctors diagnosed her with schizophrenia. She continuously told her parents that she saw monsters and they were speaking to her. She described them as grotesque, ugly, and disgusting. Even though we have observed that these pests don't have a specific shape, I think she was talking about these creatures."
Everyone sat silently and stared at the photo of the girl. Her hair was messy, filled with tree branches sticking out in odd directions.
"That makes this even more challenging. Why could certain people see these creatures years before we could? Are there people out there who could exterminate these creatures? How long have these things even existed? Years? Decades? Centuries? " Nezu stated calmly, sipping on his tea.
“What I suggest we do,” the hero commission president stated, “is send out some underground heroes at night to observe these creatures. These ‘things’ usually give a very cold and uncomfortable atmosphere—some more than others. What we can do is dispatch heroes in areas where this atmosphere is the thickest. They will try and use their quirks on these creatures and see if they are more powerful than the common ones.”
“I agree with this experiment. We can see if there are different power levels for the creatures. We can also track areas that have the most of them there to find a common pattern. I suggest sending pro heroes with different quirks and fighting styles. I am surprised this mandatory experiment had not been conducted considering the panic all over Japan,” Nezu said softly.
“I apologize for how long this has taken. The hero commission has been extremely busy managing the USJ incident involving the League of Villains, the Hosu Incident and private investigations. We didn’t realize the extent and didn’t even believe that the citizens were telling the truth. We only realized this when members of the hero commission started seeing them and when newspaper outlets started printing papers about these newly discovered creatures. It has also been reported that a cashier at a gas station saw one of these creatures eating a civilian,” the hero commission president replied solemnly. Endeavor scoffed.
“How do we know that the existence of these creatures doesn’t have something to do with the League of Villains? ” Endeavor said darkly.
Everyone in the conference room sat in an ominous silence staring at each other.
Miles away from the Hero Commission headquarters in an abandoned bar, Tomura Shigaraki sneezed.
If Fushiguro Megumi was being completely honest with himself, he didn’t give a shit about pro heroes.
As long as these so-called ‘heroes’ didn’t interfere with his job as a sorcerer, then he didn’t care or even acknowledge their existence.
He was quirkless, every jujutsu sorcerer had to be quirkless. No human being could possess an abnormal amount of cursed energy and the systematics of a quirk. It was impossible, point-blank. In Fushiguro’s opinion, pro-heroes were just civilians with their superior quirks doing mediocre work and receiving praise for it. Regardless of how powerful their quirks are, he would treat pro-heroes the same as civilians.
Fushiguro could never understand how these ‘heroes’ were praised for doing mediocre tasks and treated like literal gods for doing the bare minimum. Being a jujutsu sorcerer is just a cycle of thankless service for non-sorcerers.
About three months ago, society suddenly received the ability to perceive curses. Fushiguro, Kugisaki, Itadori and Gojo were sent to Shizuoka Prefecture to investigate. The higher-ups told them that a cursed user was responsible for this new development. Their job was to kill the curse user and exorcise any curses from Grade 2+ they find along the way.
They were explicitly told not to interfere with the media. They were simply told to kill the curse user and leave. When the curse user is eliminated, the civilians will lose the ability to see the monsters. As long as that was done, they would be paid and allowed to go back to Tokyo.
Whatever society thinks afterwards is none of their business. The fancy quirked gods in spandex costumes can deal with whatever happens afterwards.
May 11, 2175 - 8:53 PM
Fushiguro was in the back seat of the car reading ‘Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan’ by Herbert Bix and he found it quite enjoyable, thank you very much.
Kugisaki, Itadori and Gojo were indulging in aimless chatter about whatever gossip was spreading around the jujutsu community with Ijichi giving input once in a while.
“Oh my god! Look out there, Kugisaki!” Itadori exclaimed while laughing hysterically.
“What are you laughing like a hyena about, I don’t see- oh my god!”
Fushiguro looked up from his book and took a glimpse outside the window and he couldn’t stop the smile from appearing on his face.
It was an All Might billboard advertising male’s underwear. All Might was on it with a large smile and a big thumbs up. ‘THE PERFECT UNDERWEAR, MIGHTY COMFORT FOR THE PERFECT EXPERIENCE.’
“Imagine if Gojo was pro-hero advertising, I don’t know, body lotion! That would be hilarious!” Kugisaki said between laughs while scrolling through her phone.
“I’m sure Gojo-sensei is much more powerful than those pro heroes could ever be,” Itadori said with a cheerful tone, looking out the window.
“Stop, you’re going to raise his already unhealthily high ego,” Fushiguro deadpanned. Itadori and Kugisaki burst out laughing while Gojo tried to defend himself. “I do not!”
Fushiguro closed his book and looked at his two teammates. Kugisaki was in the middle seat in the back of the car, texting on her phone. Itadori was looking through the window at the billboards and interesting places they were passing by.
“What do you both think of pro heroes?” Fushiguro asked, looking at them curiously.
Kugisaki looked up from her phone angrily while Itadori paused his sightseeing and stared at Fushiguro with an unreadable expression.
“Absolute assholes!” Kugisaki said angrily, Gojo chuckled. “They say that a hero’s job is to save people! Most of them are doing it simply for the money and fame. They act like glorified celebrities! Yes, jujutsu sorcerers’ morals are questionable but at least we don’t lie and act like we’re good people. We don’t lie and say that we’re sweethearts because we all know we are insane and immorally questionable people.”
“It’s not like we deny it like those ‘heroes’. Pro-Heroes are treated high and mighty for doing simple things like breaking a robbery and saving a cat. The difference between both careers is that heroes live in their fantasy world believing in the ‘greater good’,” Gojo paused and looked at his three students. “Sorcerers, however, are crazy and have a faster maturity rate. We have seen gore, pain and suffering. They have not. We are not heroes, we are sorcerers. We are in an endless cycle of saving non-sorcerers and receiving no fame or thanks in return.”
The car was silent after that, Ijichi was sweating bullets and almost forgot where the brake pedal was when parking the car near a dark alley.
All this time, Itadori sat silently looking at his lap with a worried expression. Fushiguro looked at him in concern.
Since Itadori wasn’t a jujutsu sorcerer for a long time or didn’t even know curses existed until recently, Fushiguro expected Itadori to be more of a fanboy of heroes. Having loads of hero merch and that jazz. He didn’t have much of a reason to hate heroes, did he?
“Uh.. aren’t we supposed to go to a hotel twenty minutes from here? Why’d we stop?” Kugisaki asked, confused, pocketing her phone.
“Well, my cute little students!” Fushiguro rolled his eyes and Kugisaki grumbled incoherent curses. “About two blocks from here, there is a Grade 3 curse! I would like for” Gojo pointed at Itadori, “ you to exorcise it!”
“I’m going to time you and see how fast you can exorcise it! Ever since you three exorcised those special grades, I’ve wanted to see how well you’ve improved myself.” Gojo took his phone out of his pocket and grinned menacingly.
Itadori grinned and ambitiously declared, “I won’t let you down, Gojo-sensei!”
"Emerge from the darkness, blacker than darkness. Purify that which is impure."
闇より出でて闇より黒くその穢れを禊ぎ祓え
“The curtain has been placed over the area,” Ijichi said shortly.
“Ready..”
“Set..”
“Go!”
“The short-term pain of accepting the truth is better than the long-term pain of believing an illusion.”
Aizawa Shouta never truly understood what that quote meant, until today.
Aizawa Shouta found this entire situation utter shit.
He had been told by the Hero Commission to investigate these newly abnormal creatures in assigned areas. The Hero Commission was growing desperate, incredibly desperate.
With each passing day, more and more citizens were reporting sightings of these creatures.
Some of these creatures simply buzzed like bees and sat on your shoulder, some were flying around and some killed and ate civilians. It was incredibly frustrating to document properly as these creatures didn’t show up in photographs.
Aizawa wondered if this was someone’s quirk. Making creatures from their imagination and it appears physically? What if these creatures were simply illusions and they weren’t there? These creatures were so grotesque and inhumane. This was just so incredibly bizarre.
May 11, 2175 - 9:00 PM
Aizawa Shouta was on patrol and reached one of his assigned areas to investigate. It was a convenience store. He stood outside the store and saw a creature swinging from the open sign, cackling madly, talking gibberish. The windows were all broken and glass was scattered across the road.
Eraserhead walked into the abandoned convenience store. He suddenly felt a thick powerful presence in the air.
Everything in his brain was screaming at him to get away and leave.
Aizawa Shouta wasn’t one to feel nervous or frightened. As a pro-hero, he should always remain level-headed and calm to keep civilians at ease. However, he couldn’t deny that he was shaking as he entered the store.
There was blood splattered across the white tiles and dripping from the ceiling. The shelves were a mess of items and the overhead lights were flickering madly.
Eraserhead walked around the store and when he walked closer to the meat aisle, a pungent odour attacked his senses. He ran into the aisle, gripping his capture weapon and that’s when his life flashed before his eyes.
He had seen many of these creatures flying around and buzzing in the streets on patrol but he never saw one quite like this.
The creature... What even was this creature? It had a long body shape with purple flaky skin. It had 15 legs coated in blood. Were those even legs? Each ‘leg’ had 7 eyeballs on them lined vertically. The head of the creature had three large red coloured eyes arranged in a triangle. It was horrifying .
He wondered how long it would take before the public realized how useless pro-heroes were against these creatures.
It looked like it came straight out of a horror movie. If it wasn’t for Aizawa’s heart throbbing so fast in his chest, he would’ve thought he was in a real nightmare.
When would he wake up? If this was a nightmare, god... Please make him wake up soon.
The monster was eating a dead girl who looked about 7 years old. Her brown hair was dripping in blood and she had a forever haunted expression etched into her features.
Aizawa stepped backwards, trying to be as quiet as possible.
His phone started ringing in his pocket.
The creature slurped the girl’s eyeball and chewed it in its mouth as though it was bubblegum. It swallowed the eyeball and stared at Eraserhead with its 108 bloody red eyes. Aizawa ran outside the store as quickly as possible.
He suddenly felt the creature’s slimy purple legs pin him down. The creature looked down at Aizawa’s horrified expression with a large feral grin.
Aizawa looked up at the sky, reflecting. So this was how his life was going to end, huh?
Why did the hero commission send him on this mission? Why did they send him to meet his demise before he could even see his problem children become full-fledged heroes?
The Hero Commission is bullshit, life as a whole is bullshit.
Aizawa Shouta believed that he was rational and one of the better heroes. Better than the limelight heroes at least.
Poor Aizawa Shouta, a poor man’s ego. Shattered.
This creature outclassed him. Outranked him on every possible thing. Strength, speed, manoeuvrability. Quirks didn’t do anything to these things.
These creatures don’t have quirks, they aren’t human. They are ghoulish sadistic pounds of flesh. Humanity can do nothing against these otherworldly creatures.
Nothing.
Aizawa sighed, closed his eyes and opened his arms, welcoming death to sweep him away.
Suddenly, the feeling of purple needles poking his skin disappeared. The sound of flesh being smashed and an excited yell made him open his eyes.
Wasn’t he supposed to be dead?
Aizawa turned to his left and gaped. There was a boy, no older than 18. He had spiky pink hair styled in an undercut with large brown eyes.
The boy aimed two consecutive punches at the main body of the creature and it disappeared, completely vanished.
Did it dissolve into... dust? It was almost like the villain with the decaying quirk’s effects suddenly applied to the creature.
The mysterious boy smiled and cheered in victory. It’s almost as if the boy didn’t realize that he killed one of the creatures with two measly punches while a pro-hero could barely do any damage to it.
“That should be one minute and thirty seconds!” the boy cheered happily, checking his phone. Aizawa made a noise of confusion and the boy turned to him with a happy smile.
The boy’s expression turned from happiness to embarrassment quickly.
“Oh gosh! Are you alright sir- I should’ve checked on you before I started celebrating like that..” the boy said guiltily, pocketing his phone.
‘What kind of quirk was that? But they were just regular punches... I didn’t see anything different about them…’ Aizawa thought glumly while standing up.
“I am the underground hero Eraserhead, I have a few-” Aizawa began before a flash of white hair appeared before him.
“Yuuji-kun!” a man with white hair exclaimed, hugging the boy, ‘Yuuji’, from the side.
“Stop, you’re going to suffocate him,” a male with uniquely styled black hair said with an unimpressed glare. The boy walked from behind a trash bin with a girl in the same uniform shortly behind him. She had mid-length orange hair and orange eyes with an annoyed scowl gracing her features.
“Can we hurry up? I want to get to the hotel already,” the female said impatiently, tapping her brown shoe on the ground.
“Alright! Alright! You finished in 2 minutes!” the white-haired man told his pink-haired student brightly.
“2 minutes?! I was sure it was 1 minute and 30 seconds…” Yuuji said disappointedly.
“Dumbass..” the orange-haired female replied, kicking a pebble out of her path.
“I am not!”
“You sure are-”
“Well, time to go back to Ijichi!” the white-haired man said brightly, clapping his hands.
And just like that, the pink-haired boy named Yuuji disappeared with three accomplices. The only thing left as evidence was an odd-metal button that fell off the pink-haired boy’s navy blue uniform during his battle.
“Ego is neither good nor bad, it’s just a result of a lack of self-awareness. It fades away as you become aware of it, since ego and awareness cannot coexist.” -Thibaut Meurisse
Chiyo Shuzenji disliked, correction, hated these creatures that flew around everywhere. She had one attached to her shoulder and tried everything she could to get it off. It wouldn’t budge. She’s too old to deal with this shit.
May 12, 2175 - 5:00 PM
“How did you even get those holes?” Recovery Girl asked incredulously, walking hastily around her office gathering medical supplies.
“You know those creatures that everybody’s panicking about, Chiyo?” Aizawa began, massaging his temples.
Recovery Girl paused in her haste to find alcohol in her cabinet and scowled.
She turned around and pointed to a small grotesque creature on her shoulder. Her face had an irritated look that made Aizawa’s eyes widen slightly.
“Are you talking about these little pests?” Recovery Girl asked, even though it sounded more like a statement than a question.
“How do you even..” Aizawa began, biting his lip.
“I was dealing with a patient and when I suddenly blinked, I started seeing these creatures. One flew and clung to my shoulder. I can feel the deadweight on my shoulder like a bag of rice. No matter how hard I try to grab and pull it off, it just won’t work,” Recovery Girl said while sighing.
“Well, the HSPC sent me on a mission to investigate them, and the thing is... They sent me the notice less than five hours before the mission. They’re usually more prepared.”
“They’re getting desperate huh? I was one of the first people to start seeing these creatures three months ago and like everybody else who was in the same position I was, I reported it. The police said that I was an old woman and I should start thinking about retirement if I was seeing hallucinations. Shows what they know,” Recovery Girl ranted, pulling out a green-capped alcohol bottle and slamming the cabinet shut.
“Believe it or not, I saw a boy about the age of my current students kill one of these ‘creatures’ with two fucking punches while I got filled with holes like a five-year-old shooting a spider with a toy gun,” Aizawa said, tight-lipped.
“Really? Did you get their information and take them to the police?” Recovery Girl asked, wide-eyed.
“He and three other accomplices teleported before I had the chance. There were three kids. Two boys and one girl. There was also a man who had white hair and a blindfold. I think he had a warp quirk as he teleported himself and the three kids with the clap of his hands,” Aizawa took a sip of the water on the nightstand, “The boy I was originally talking about probably had a quirk that gave him speed and strength. Something similar to Midoriya’s, I think. That speed was abnormal.”
“So it seems you found some information on that mission!” a chipper voice said from the entrance to the nurse’s office.
Recovery Girl and Eraserhead’s eyes swiftly focused on the individual in the doorway. It was the principal.
“Nezu,” Aizawa grunted.
“Are you two happy to see me?” Nezu asked, smiling with a mischievous glint in his eyes. Aizawa grimaced.
“Why would I be happy to see-”
“Well! It seems your mission was useful after all Aizawa-Kun!” the principal laughed, clapping his paws together.
“Yeah, very useful..” Recovery Girl muttered, cleaning Aizawa’s wounds with alcohol.
“But when you say he probably had a quirk... I wonder what type of quirk he might’ve had. If it was simply strength enhancing or a strength requirement, then Death Arms, All Might and other heroes in that category could’ve easily managed this situation. But, their punches don’t do anything,” Nezu said while sighing.
“What were they wearing and did you possibly get any names while they were interacting?” Nezu asked.
“The white-haired man called the young boy who saved me “Yuuji”. That’s the only name I got. I never really processed what they were wearing, I think I was in shock,” Aizawa recounted from memory with a sour expression.
Recovery Girl bit the inside of her cheek with a stern expression and Nezu’s expression became more deranged as Aizawa spoke.
“Well, now we know there’s a society that deals with these creatures. It’s good we at least got that information but... I don’t think the man had a warp quirk,” the principal spoke robotically.
“Why not?” Recovery Girl asked, sitting in the seat next to Nezu.
“Simple, warp quirks are rare. Extremely rare. There are only seventy-two individuals in Japan who have warp quirks. I was extremely interested in the topic of quirks when I just started teaching at U.A. so I memorized the names and profiles of those persons. If I recall correctly, no person in the register had white hair and even if it was dyed, none of the persons had a quirk that damaged or related their eyes for the mysterious individual to wear a blindfold. Unless the quirk is unregistered, there is no way it could be a warp quirk,” Nezu said thoughtfully.
“If that’s the case..” Recovery Girl began slowly, closing her eyes.
“Then that means we have nothing to go off of,” Aizawa groaned, covering his eyes with his bandaged hands.
“It’s unfortunate you don’t remember how the uniforms look... Aizawa-kun..” Nezu sighed, paws tapping rhythmically on the bedside table.
Suddenly, Aizawa frantically checked his pockets as his two coworkers watched him warily.
Aizawa pulled out a shiny golden metallic button with an odd logo on it. He placed it into Nezu’s eager palm and exhaled shakingly.
“That button fell off the boy, Yuuji’s, uniform. Even though all four of them had differently styled uniforms, you could still tell they were a team and the uniforms were similar. The uniforms were dark in colour.. navy blue, perhaps? They looked similar to gakurans.”
An eerie silence filled Recovery Girl’s office as Nezu examined the button, High Spec analysing it deeply.
A chilling grin found itself on Nezu’s face that made Eraserhead and Recovery Girl tense.
“I think I know how to track this mysterious society down and ask for their assistance.”
When you’re eating kikufuku mochi and watching a movie with your three students, you have every right to be pissed when you’re called to a meeting with wannabe heroes at midnight.
May 13, 2175 - 12:00 AM
Gojo Satoru walked down the hallway of the Hero Commission headquarters with a pissed smile. Beside him were Shoko Ieiri, Mei Mei, Masamichi Yaga and Kiyotaka Ijichi.
Ijichi opened the door to the conference room and murmured under his breath, “Heroes wasting people’s time.”
The five of them walked inside and were met with the stares of the Hero Commission president, a talking animal and multiple pro-heroes.
Yaga sighed exasperatedly and Mei Mei shamelessly stated “If I don’t get paid extra for dealing with these pro-heroes,” she took her seat with Yaga and smiled cunningly. “We’re gonna have a big issue.”
All Might swallowed and declared in a booming voice, “Hello there! We would like to make an offer with you all!”
Gojo smiled slyly and crossed his legs.
“What can we have the pleasure of doing for you?” Gojo remarked in a sing-song voice.
Shoko pulled out a cigarette and lit it. She inhaled smoke and exhaled it slowly with practised ease in the suffocatingly tense room.
“You need to teach your students how to cover their tracks better, Satoru. I have more important things to do.”
Deal with the Devil
悪魔に対処する