Chapter Text
When noon came Verlaine finally left the beach for the first time that day, he walked to the train station and while waiting for the train he got something to eat and an energy drink, after he finished eating his train arrived at the station and he got on it. The train ride takes just under an hour allowing, meaning Verlaine has just a little more than thirty minutes to get to the gym he was meant to meet Tokoyami, Verlaine uses his phone to work out how to get to the gym, it surprisingly only takes Verlaine ten minutes to get to the gym, despite him taking his time while walking, he even stopped and got another energy drink, Verlaine having a ton of extra time decides to have a normal workout, something that has oddly enough not happened since starting this mission, somehow hero training involved very little strength, cardio, agility and endurance training, it should probably have more of them and less capture the flag but who’s Verlaine to give advice to the people he’ll be going to war against.
Tokoyami walks into the gym expecting to wait a for Amélie Verlaine for at least five minutes, seeing as she’s never been to this part of the city by her own admission, so he’s rather surprised when he gets to the men at the front desk tells him that she’s been there for twenty minutes, he does have to look around for her for a while but he does find her doing a plank with a few others their age around her, one of them has her phone to time it, she seems to be mildly uncomfortable, as if she’s just gotten into position a minute or two ago, but clearly she has been doing this for a good few minutes at least considering the group around her, “How long now?” A girl asks the man holding Verlaine’s phone.
“Twenty minutes, now.” the man answers, Tokoyami thinks the man looks a little dazed, Tokoyami is pretty sure his eyes are impossible wide, he knows that most people can only hold a plank for a few minutes before needing to stop so Amélie holding one for twenty minutes is incredibly impressive, he’s pretty sure Bakugo can only hold one for ten minutes meanwhile Verlaine is at twenty and only looks mildly uncomfortable.
“Ok that can’t be natural, have you ever heard of a twenty minute plank from someone our age?” A girl asks what Tokoyami assumes to be her friend.
“It's perfectly natural, besides she won the sports festival and my cousin is a student and he said she got badly injured during the first event and refused any treatment for it. So if she can do that then why wouldn’t she be able to hold a really long plank?” Tokoyami hadn’t realised she was injured then but according to Midoriya she was injured during the USJ and the sports festival just made it worse, and considering after midterms she came in with a cast he’s inclined to believe Midoriya if only because it’s likely to have been Amélie’s own words he was repeating, but the cast was now gone, which it probably shouldn’t be, considering she likely only had it for a few weeks.
Amélie notices him after a few more minutes, and stops planking, getting her phone back from the man before coming over to him, looking far too put together for someone who held a plank for over twenty minutes, “So you said you could use your quirk here right?” She asked.
“Yes, Verlaine-san, there’s private rooms that they offer for quirk training.” Tokoyami said, Amélie nods and gestures for him to lead the way, he does so with no complaint, happy to get away from the large group of people watching them. Tokoyami was rather looking forward to training with Verlaine, she was incredibly strong for someone their age and he is rather curious as to why Dark shadow is scared of her and why it absolutely refuses to tell him why as well, she was a perfectly nice girl and before the sports festival were she admittedly beat them quite badly a single kick was all she needed to send him flying out of the arena.
Once they get to the private room, Amélie takes her zipper off and sits it too the side along with what Tokoyami is now realising is an energy drink and her phone, he’s pretty sure water would be the better choice but he also knows that Verlaine has a horrible habit of sleeping late, until noon and she was the one who messaged him at half five in the morning, so she probably needs it to stay awake right now maybe that’ll make her easier to train with. “So what do you want to focus on?” She asks him, stretching her limbs, she probably doesn’t need to, considering she was working out before he arrived.
“I wish to work on Dark shadows weakness while in the light.” Amélie hums in response, not offering her goal for their joint training session so he decides to just ask, “What is it you aim to achieve?”
“Using my arms and I’ve been rather reliant on my ability so I want to focus on not using it.”Tokoyami raises a non-existent eyebrow in confusion, while he understands not wanting to be only able to fight with one part of your body he doesn’t know why she would what to not be reliant on her ability, she must be able to tell because she cackles like a madwoman and explains, “Well if I come across someone who can counter my ability or nullify it then I’ll need to be able to fight without it, no?” She said, Tokoyami nodded in agreement, still not entirely sure where or when she’ll come across anyone who could do that but he supposes it’s better to be safe than sorry.
It takes Tokoyami longer than he wants to admit to convince Dark shadow to come out to train, it knows Amélie is there and therefore refuses to come out for almost ten minutes until it’s told that she won’t be using her ability for some of the training they’ll be doing, Amélie is incredibly polite about it not calling any attention to it, she does sit ups while waiting, which was rather embarrassing. After finally getting Dark shadow to come out they start training at long last, Amélie sure enough doesn’t use her ability, charging at him and quickly moving around the room, dodging Dark shadows attempts to strike her, she does it gracefully, easily, not letting Dark shadow lead her into a corner so it can beat her, Dark shadow, swerves violently whenever she tries to strike at it often getting knocked back because of it, Verlaine is more than happy to take advantage of it,using the violent swerves out of the way to elbow Dark shadow and continuously get closer to Tokoyami. Tokoyami is more concerned with trying to direct Dark shadow who is still unreasonably terrified of Amélie to realise her moving quickly towards him and behind, he barely even registers the hit to the head he receives before losing consciousness.
With Tokoyami out cold on the ground in front of him, Verlaine is able to finally deal with the pest that is Dark shadow, who is panicking quite badly, is he knew how long Tokoyami would be out cold for Verlaine would let it panic until it had no energy left to do so, but he didn’t so it was the alternative of yelling at the dumb shadow bird, “ENOUGH!” Dark shadow instantly stills, whimpering quietly, “Can you sense Guivre?” He asked cutting to the chase instantly.
“YES!” Dark shadow replied, Verlaine hums, his theory was right after all, if it can sense Guivre then Arahabaki is also a given, maybe that’s why Dark shadow didn’t want to come out earlier, it realised that there was more than one person containing a singularity and it didn’t want to take the risk of being found out.
“Then you know that you're a rather large problem for me and my brother.” Dark shadow nods in response, so Verlaine continues speaking; "Thankfully killing him,” He points to Tokoyami as he says that, “Isn’t the only option we have, all you need to do is stay silent about Guivre and Arahabaki and you two will be left alone, with no need to fear me or my brother, alright?”
Dark shadow agreed to Verlaine’s terms quite easily, mainly so it and Tokoyami didn't die, so with that take care of Verlaine sat down and waited for ten minutes before deciding that he should probably tell the front desk since Tokoyami clearly wasn't getting up any time soon so he left the room and headed to the front desk to tell the man there was a small accident and that Tokoyami probably needs medical assistance. Which results in an ambulance being called for him, he's still out cold when ambulance arrives and his parents not long after, everything is written off as a training accident and a bad fall, Dark shadow playing along and agreeing to the events Verlaine laid out to the doctor, although he worded it slightly differently, which if anything makes the lie more convincing.
With the training session and investigation of Dark shadow over, Verlaine was going to head home but decided to stay at the gym for a while longer, choosing to do a round of cardio and then if there's time, weight training afterwards.
Verlaine stays at the gym for two hours, the whole time slot Tokoyami paid for, before leaving to go home, the workout he got was good, better than anything he'd done during P.E or hero training that's for sure, the gym at the mafia is certainly better but it was, all things considered, a good workout. Verlaine was back at the apartment by four and spent the rest of the day with Eri, who thanks to Elise now has a keen interest in killing her rolls husband in different ways; it's adorable and will probably make training her as an assassin easier.
Verlaine didn’t wake up as early as he did yesterday, it was closer to his normal wake up time, it was around the back of eleven when he got out of his bed and sorted for the day, he sent a message to Jiro asking if half two was alright for her, which she agreed to and asked where they would be meeting, Verlaine sent a coffee shop address that was around halfway between where the apartment was and where Jiro lives, Verlaine pointedly ignores the message asking is he knows where she lives, letting her panic would be fun. Verlaine’s appetite has decided that it was currency on break, so he wasn’t planning on eating anything right now, it might be back by dinnertime but it was unlikely, he really needs to work out how to tell when this was going to happen so he could shove his face full of his favourites, it's not like he enjoys going weeks without eating.
Since he wasn’t eating he decided to go to the coffee shop ahead of time and come up with some kind of plan for what to do with Jiro if she won't corroborate at all, killing her is the path of least resistance but if he kills her then he’ll probably not be killing Iida if he sticks his nose where it doesn’t belong, he can’t afford to kill too many students after all, plus if he kills too many of them then he’ll end up with a ton of strangers once again and be back to working out quirks and weaknesses again, which he doesn’t want to do in the slightest, he probably could get away with killing three students and their families but it was still a risk he didn’t feel like taking.
Verlaine arrives at the coffee shop with no problem, Arthur still having not reappeared to stalk him which is still unsettling, but he chooses to put it out of his mind and instead orders a coffee with more espresso shots than a human can have in one go and far too much caramel before sitting at a table to wait for Jiro to show up, while he waits he also checks his notifications, Mori sent a message telling him they would be meeting tomorrow and there was a message from Momo telling him that the whole class was meeting up Saturday to shop for the summer camp.
Jiro felt ill, she was barely able to eat, gods, she’s positive she didn’t do anything to give away that she knows who Amélie Verlaine actually is, so why is he suddenly taking an interest in her? She can only hope she can get off with a warning against telling anyone. When she leaves for the coffee shop, she's rather shaky, her mum stopped her just to ask if she was alright, she was able to just convince her that she was fine.
While walking to the coffee shop, Jiro started thinking about Amélie Fournier and Chuuya Nakahara, one was a former coworker of Pual Verlaine and the other was apparently his brother, she wonders if Verlaine was working with the Transcendents again, Miss Fourier clearly still considered him to be a friend still, considering the way she flinched at Midoriya not using his name.
When she gets to the coffee shop, Verlaine is waiting for her, he's calmly sitting at a table drinking a coffee, as if they really were friends meeting up during summer break. She chooses to order a plain black coffee before joining Verlaine at the table, sitting across from the man she has been sharing a classroom with. “Jiro just on time.” Jiro wonders if he's been waiting for her, he probably has the time, considering he does spend a significant amount of his day asleep.
“I am?” They only agreed on the vague time of after lunch, so that could be anytime after midday.
“Yes, just on time, now I see no point in wasting time so let's go somewhere less public.” Verlaine said, getting up and walking away, Jiro follows behind him, quickly finishing her coffee and throwing the cardboard cup away. Verlaine, despite being short; is incredibly fast and she needs to run to keep up with him. Jiro follows Verlaine as he leads them into an alleyway and farther away from the main street, she knows it's probably not a smart thing to do but she's not got much of a choice in the matter either. It's after about five minutes of walking that Verlaine stops: "We should be far enough now.”
“Far enough for what exactly?” Jiro asks, looking back the way they came, they were really far away from the main street, they definitely wouldn't be heard here.
“Well that depends on you. I'd say it's enough that you stay quiet, but my boss might disagree with that.” Verlaine explains, Jiro isn't sure if it's reassuring or not that the response wasn't murder, she should find it reassuring but it just makes her stomach twist and her hairs stand up.
"Well then what would your boss want?” She asks, already dreading the answer she'll get.
“Hmm..” Verlaine hums in thought, dragging it out for a few seconds before answering, “Insurance, something that will guarantee you won't say anything at a minimum, see i could capture your parents and hold them hostage to guarantee you won't say anything against me but it’s also incentive to go against me so I can't do that.” Jiro couldn't even feel thankful because of how casual Verlaine sounded while explaining that, has he done that before? “How about you lend me a hand in exchange for your own life and since I'm just so nice, I'll even throw in your parents' lives.” Verlaine said at last, Jiro's head went blank for a few seconds before she realised what Verlaine was saying.
“You want me to spy on my classmates?” She asked just to make sure she wasn't misinterpreting what Verlaine was saying to her.
“More specifically I want you to keep an eye on Sparky’s group so I can focus on Midoriya for a while.” Verlaine answers casually, before adding; “I'll even make sure you get paid for it so you and parents live and you get a job working for me and I'm a much better boss than mine is.” Jiro isn't sure if that's accurate even in the slightest but it was a good deal, no matter how much she disliked it.
“Fine, anything else?” She asked, hoping that the answer was no.
“Not right now.” Verlaine says, “You can come meet my boss tomorrow when I go to report to him, we'll be leaving at half six, don't be late alright.” Then Verlaine walks away from her, leaving her standing in an alleyway, having just agreed to spy on her classmates for God knows who and just to save her own ass, well not just her own, her parents as well but she still feels like a horrible person, she doesn't even have a name for Verlaine’s boss, god, how will she explain this to her parents when it eventually comes out.
Verlaine gets back to the apartment quickly after leaving Jiro, he's pretty sure she’s going to be easy to manage, she might play it cool, but when she's actually confronted by a real threat she folded quicker than a wet piece of toilet paper, which was good for Verlaine and if he manages to toughen her up then she's be brilliant at spying for the mafia, worse case scenario he can shove her onto the Armed Detective Agency if she ends up useless.
Chuuya's not there when Verlaine gets back but Kouyou is, she glances at Verlaine in acknowledgement before directing Eri's attention to the TV and heading to the kitchen, Verlaine follows her, while slightly confused seeing as the only times they have ever interacted a few times outside of when Verlaine was training Kyouka and Kouyou took an interest in her. “Verlaine-kun, when are you planning on starting Eri's training?” She asked Verlaine hadn't really thought about it, mainly because he hasn't had the time to train her or the things.
“After I'm back in my basement and have the tools I need to train her as an assassin.” Verlaine answers honestly, he can see the clogs turning in her head before she hums in acceptance.
“Seeing as you are now back, I'll be leaving now, is there anything you would like for me to pass on to Mori-buchou?” Kouyou asks, walking away to the front door.
“Let him know we're going to need two cars, I got Kyoka Jiro to agree to help with the spying on the hero course and I'll be bringing her with us tomorrow.” Kouyou nods in agreement before leaving, Eri is distracted with the TV, so Verlaine quickly goes to write a report and send it to Mori.
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MISSION REPORT WEEK SEVENTEEN DAYS 3&4
DAY THREE
I met with Tokoyami and found out that Dark shadow, his quirk could sense Guivre and Arahabaki as well, it expressed a great fear of them both and refused to come out when I was there for almost ten minutes, It has agreed to keep quiet so I don't kill Tokoyami, I also hospitalised Tokoyami by accident, I only hit him on the back of the head so I could talk to the bird without him knowing.
DAY FOUR
I met with Kyoka Jiro and have convinced her to work alongside the mafia in exchange for her parents and her own life's, she's going to keep an eye an Sparky’s group so I can pay more attention to All Might's successor, she will be attending the meeting tomorrow alongside me and Monoma.
The whole class will be meeting on Saturday to go to the mall to buy things for the summer camp.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Arthur has currently stopped stalking me, I have not seen him since the train when he was planning the kidnapping.
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With the report written and sent, Verlaine returned to the living room to watch over Eri.