Mystery from Another World

Part 65: Assembling a Squad

Shine knew no one was going to like her idea except maybe Wally and she didn't even know if he would anymore.

But she swallowed and went on.

"We've been over why we can't use force, so, what is left when you can't do that?"

"Surrender or negotiation," Miss Joke spoke. "But neither of those is possible either."

"I don't know if that's true," Shine leaned on her hands. "The LOV are a group of individuals. Their loyalty isn't to AFO, it's to Shigaraki. It's like AFO didn't plan on that, or didn't care about it. Men like him always overestimate how much control they truly have. My thought has been, divide and conquer."

"You want to turn the villain against AFO?" Bakugo said.

"What?" Momo gasped. "How could you ever do that? They wouldn't listen to you."

"Why can't we just find out what AFO's plan is, and stop it?" Shoto said.

Shine gave him a look. "Shoto, who knows AFO best?"

"All Might?" he said.

She gave him a look of disbelief.

"Shigaraki," Bakugo said.

"Nope," Shine said. "The person who knows him best is himself, but, the person who knows him the second best is whoever has been helping him make those monsters. Which we know is not Shigaraki, nor does he seem to have any direct knowledge of how it works, since the LOV has not been using them lately to do much and we never see any of them around him in normal moments. I believe he's getting them from someone else, someone the heroes have yet to uncover. AFO couldn't make them himself, he was blind and injured from what I've heard. The monsters are very careful genetic planning and only an expert skilled person would be able to make them. Not many people are that immoral... and the ones who are, hide themselves from society."

Miss Joke gaped at her.

"I didn't know there was such a person," Momo was starting to feel how uninformed students were. 

She knew that the teachers didn't want them worrying about his, and yet when they were often the victims of the LOV, it felt staggering to only hear this now.

"Always is a creep like that working for those big boss villains," Wally supplied knowingly.

"The only way to stop someone like AFO is to know what he wants and how he'll try to get it," Shine said. "And I don't mean superficially, like, 'oh he wants to rule', every tyrant wants that. We need to know what makes the guy think he can win. He's pretty sure he and if he bet on going to prison as a way to pull it off. He trusted this second-in-command guy to keep things going enough to take his direct control away. The second in command guy must be a real weirdo. We find him, we'll have a shot at knowing what would get AFO. The only way to find that guy is the league trust us. I don't know what he looks like or his name or where to start. Shigaraki has access to him in some way, based on what's been said. Only the villains can help us. If the heroes knew, the thing would have been ended by now."

That seemed likely... if she was right.

"You're us the LOV sent the ones doing AFO's dirty work?" Shoto said. "They have an army now, they could be making the nomu.

"I'm sure they're not doing that part," Shine pursed her lips. "Or at least, almost sure. Only one way to confirm."

"You'd have to get back in there," Miss Joke said. "But they rejected you. We're talking a sting operation... but don't you think the heroes already are doing that?"

"I know for a fact they are already," Shine surprised her by saying. "And I even know who it is. I also know the League is onto them and they won't get far enough to really do anything. Even if they somehow found out what I want to know, the heroes would jump in and use force. Force won't work. Force is what they expect."