Fuck You, Pay Me!

15. Bait & Switch

Twenty-eight.

Twenty-eight people were murdered on the night that Katsuki Bakugou had gone missing. Twenty-eight people were mourned by an entire country. Twenty-eight families will never be the same again. Twenty-eight days have passed.

Not a single one of those people have received justice.

Not a single person knows where Katsuki Bakugou or Hitoshi Shinsou is.

Not even one Izuku Midoriya.

Denki hasn't seen his freckled friend this angry in several years, an inevitable path of destruction in his wake with every brooding thought that crosses his already clouded judgement. He's volatile and impulsive; Denki had figured that this would happen the very moment that their plans had gone tits up on the night of the massacre. He was quite prepared to deal with Izuku's moodiness---had even prepared for the very real possibility that Izuku would take out his frustrations on some unsuspecting underling and sentence them to an untimely execution.

He was not, however, prepared to deal with Izuku preparing to wage an all-out war against the entirety of the Shie Hassaikai. 

Denki can list at least a dozen reasons as to why that's a terrible idea right off of the top of his head.

The first being that no one will win that war. They'll all perish. And as loyal as Denki has been to the league---to Izuku?

His loyalty to his Shouto is much stronger.

He understands why Izuku is angry. The Hassaikai broke a very clear deal---a deal that was signed by both parties to be followed down to the fucking tee. It's reasonable to be angry with them.

However, Denki did warn him that it was a bad idea to have put so much trust into those muscle-bound morons to begin with and Izuku insisted that he could handle the affairs without Kaminari's advice.

It's only because of Izuku's arrogance that they failed.

Izuku's mostly pissed off because he doesn't have anyone to blame for this nightmare besides himself. He can't blame Hitoshi. Hitoshi had done his job and then some. Izuku would inevitably owe him for that.

His father must be rolling in his grave at how quickly Izuku has managed to turn his legacy into a shitshow. He'll fix it, he swears. That's what he's said to Denki. At this point, however, he isn't even sure anymore.

"They're calling it the 'Somnambul Massacre'. Can you believe that fucking nonsense?" The freckled man snorts, though his fingers still tap anxiously at the arm of his chair. He's been restless for quite a few days now and while Denki can understand why, it worries him that Izuku may actually snap and lose his shit at any given moment.

"They always have to give that sorta shit a name. People die every fuckin' day, this shit was nothing short of a normality. Besides, only one or two casualties were regular civilians. The others were either one of ours or one of...his." Denki doesn't want to say his name lest he serve to further agitate his friend. "It's annoying to think they're gonna make a bitch like Midnight out to be a fuckin' community leader. She sold prostitutes and drugs, for fuck's sake."

Izuku sighs sharply, hand carding through the mess of curls on his head. "Yeah but she made us a lot of fuckin' money. That one---the one that's held up with Sho right now---he was set to make us a pretty fuckin' penny."

"You know Katsuki cares about that one."

"Fuck, yeah, I know. I'm not planning on selling him anymore. We have to set up shop elsewhere, make new connections. I'm sure we can find better numbers."