The Broker's Assistant

Chapter Twenty: Deal

Chapter Twenty
...

A raging river of emotions flowed through Dabi. Izuku was taking the initiative, but he wanted no he needed to be the one who killed Endeavor. The permission to kill wasn't Izuku’s to give and yet the boy's plan made sense. Hawks was going to be a ploy but he was never a true part of the Grand plan and someone like the Hero Killer would be more suited to the tasks. It was genius and yet Dabi had to admit it was too ballsy for a child like Izuku to come up with it.

Noticing Izuku’s posture, he began to realize that Izuku, despite being young, wasn't a child. He had gone through a lot, and his childhood dreams had been crushed by his idol All Might. This wasn't a plan constructed upon a basis of fear it was a cold and calculated move that Izuku had put into play.

"You expext me to belive a couple of bank robbers can take down Endeavor." Stain said his words, confident yet intrigued. Izuku had him hooked, and Stain knew that Endeavor was a mockery of hero kind. If Endeavor were to be allowed to continue, he would Stain the hero legacy with his wretched behavior.

"You haven't killed us, and that means you feel some truth to our words." Izuku replied plainly, his face free of fear.

"Once we kill Endeavor what's stopping me from killing you both." Stain asked nonchalantly his sword glinted in the vault lights. "There will be plenty of heroes who would come of I kept you here, you two are the perfect bait to draw out false heroes." Stain added his long tongue, whipping across his face as if it had a mind entirely of its own. It's twisted and flicked as Stain's blood red eyes darted from Dabi them to Izuku studying both.

Stain revled in watching his future victims, observing their movements and waiting for the perfect moment to strike. He was patient, and he understood what separated a liar from a truth teller. Falsehoods cast a particular shadow upon the guilty condemning their souls to forever remain crooked. The boy wasn't crooked, yet he wasn't telling the full truth.

"The only thing stopping you is honor." Izuku said as he held out his hand closer to Stain.

"I could slice every finger off bone by bone." Stain warned his tongue whipping from side to side.

Izuku showed no signs of fear, yet his eyes moved to Dabi for a second. He wasn't a killer like Stain, but he knew that Hawks would need to be replaced. "Shake it, and we can continue our plans going forward." He said sternly.

Stain looked at his hand, studying it once more before shaking it and smiling with his long slimy tongue sliding in and out across his lips. "A deal then." He said as the yet again Izuku and Dabi found themselves in a trio in Illumina City.

...

Mirio Togata saw the Sakura TV feed as it was announced his friend Tamaki Amajiki had been killed by masked assailants robbing the Illumina City bank. Mirio tired to leave to rush to the scene of the crime but as he ran he realized even with One For All he wasn't as fast as All Might. He couldn't leap across Japan or change the weather with a punch.

Mirio wasn't egotistical he knew even with the increase in power due to One For All he wasn't an immortal all powerful being. Yet how could he be the successor to the Symbol if he couldn't even keep his friends close. All Might had said he shouldn't keep such close attachments, but he could never cut himself off from his friends. It wasn't in his nature, and it wasn't the heroic thing to do.

Yet the feelings he felt were far from heroic. He didn't want to arrest the man who did this to his friend, he wanted him dead. The happy self that often propelled him forward seemed to shatter apart, splitting and rearranging into something different than he had previously thought he could ever be.

Mirio looked at UA High, which had been like a new home for him and then into the direction of Illumina City. He was too late to avenge his friend's death today, but he would make things right, or he would never be able to accomplish his goal.