The Commission's Secrets

Chapter 7: The Search Continues

Hawks' POV

It was finally time for our morning meeting. Dabi had a list of all the properties the Commission had out of town, organized from the most likely location for Shoto to be, to the least likely. Aizawa had reached out to Shiketsu High, and they had sent Mr. Matsuda to join our investigation. At first, he was shocked to see Dabi, but he ultimately trusted Nezu's judgement. Even though Shiketsu had been investigating as well, they hadn't come up with anything we didn't already know, so we had to fill Matsuda in on everything. At 1000 [10:00am] we were finally ready to go. Nezu has to stay at the school, since he's the principal, and we decided it would be good to divide and conquer. Dabi set up a check list we could all access from our phones. When we got to a location on the list we were supposed to check it off, and when we were done, if we found our people, we were supposed to call the others on our radios, and potentially call for back up. We'd probably only get to one spot today, but if we finished early, and had time, we would go to the next spot.

It was decided that Bakugo, Kirishima, Uraraka, and Ayoyama would go with me and Dabi. Midoriya, Tokoyami, Ojiro Jiro, and Koda were with Matsuda. Iida, Yaoyorozu, Mina, Sato, and Hagakure were with Aizawa. Finally, Tsu, Shoji, Sero, Kaminari, and Mineta were with Kanzen. Each group loaded into the school's vans, mine being the second to leave campus.

Our destination was was only half an hour northeast of UA, but it was 200 square kilometers of dense forest.

"Alright kids, do you all have your ear pieces in?" I ask. UA had given us all earpieces so we could communicate while searching. The kids nod. "And they're on channel two?" They check, before nodding again. "Good. Find a partner, and split up. Remember, taking out or breaking your earpiece will send out an SOS, so if comes out and/or you break it let us know you're ok." We spread out to start combing the woods. Bakugo and Kirishima ran into the forest. I hope they have good endurance, or they won't last all day. Aoyama and Uraraka went at a slower pace, but it was defiantly faster than a walk. Me and Dabi did the same. We moved in silence, not sure what to say to each other.

After an hour of searching, Dabi decided to attempt conversation.

"You said there were 99 other kids in Project 744, right?" He's bringing that up? Really?

"Yeah, but twenty-three died before the program was terminated two years ago."

"So, seventy-seven of the original one hundred are still around?"

"Right. So far, another three have died serving the Commission, and fourteen are MIA [Missing in Action]."

"That leaves sixty."

"You like math Dabi?" He chuckles.

"I guess. When I became a villain I thought it might be useful to keep studying, and I wasn't wrong. Not only can I do things no one else in the league can, but it also helped me learn to control my quirk."

"Is that how you got those burns?"

"Yeah. When I first got my quirk, I couldn't control it at all." There was a moments silence, where neither of us could think of anything to say. "Back to what I was originally going to say. Even if we find Shoto at one of the locations, this will probably be a scout mission. When we actually get him and the others, we'll probably have to get more fully trained heroes involved. How many people from 744 do you think would work with us?"

"I can only think of six that I really trust."

"What about the ones that are MIA?"

"If you can find them, and they escaped  the Commission, they'd most likely work with us. If they did not escape, they could still be working for the Commission."

It took ten hours to search the entire plot of land. About six hours in Uraraka and Aoyama found a warehouse, but it was abandoned, and mostly empty. Me and Dabi decided that if he could find some escapees from Project 744, I would reach out and try to get them to work with us.

We talked about different ways he could try finding them, and how I might ask them for help. I gave Dabi there names and all the aliases I know of. He wrote them down and said he'd look into it when we got back to school.

On the ride back, the kids were chatting about how we didn't find any new clues regarding their classmate. We ended up being the last group to get to the school at 2100 (9:00p). Once the kids changed into their normal clothes, and got back to the dorms, we started our meeting with Nezu.

"Did any of you find anything?" asked the headmaster.

"There was a warehouse at our location," offered Uraraka.

"Ours was empty, but there were a ton of craters," replied Tsu.

"Ours was just a patch of forest. Nothing special about it," answered Midoriya.

"Ours had some kind of lab, or medical facility," said Sato.

"It was probably both," added Mina. She and Sato sounded as disturbed as they did when we went to the old project building.

"Was there any sign of usage at any of the sights?" asked Nezu.

"None," replied Kirishima.

"Same for us," said a disappointed Kaminari.

"Nothing of the ordinary," agreed Sero.

"Ours looked like it was in the middle of being cleaned, so we didn't stick around long. Just long enough to make sure Todoroki wasn't there," said Iida.

"What?!?!" exclaimed everyone who hadn't gone to that site. Why would they be cleaning it? Why did they have a lab?! Was this connected to our missing people?

"The door was unlocked," started Yaoyorozu, "No cobwebs any where, and some of the rooms were dusted and swept. There was also cleaning supplies lying around."

"How do you know it was a lab?" asked Dabi.

"There were cells, like the one at 744, hospital type rooms, with vital monitors and everything, and rooms like the one we found at the Shie Hassaikai, where Overhaul took samples from Eri. They had the chair, beds that people could be strapped to, syringes, test tubes, everything!" said Aizawa.

"Hawks, do you have a clue as to what's going on?" asked Dabi. I shook my head.

"None."

The next day, we went to the other three sights, but came up empty. They were smaller plots, probably for field training or weapons testing, but no trace of the kids or Shigaraki.