Eightfold Cleansers
This is a feel-good story first with the main intention of leaving readers in a happier state of mind at the end of each chapter.
If you are looking for angst / constant character drama this may not be your cup of tea.
Beta: emplatinum
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Through a twist of fate, Sir Nighteye was able to find the information he needed. Their headquarters was confirmed, and on a day when nearly all the Eightfold Cleansers would be gathered, we were called to move.
We—Izuku, Ochaco, Tsuyu, Ejirō, and myself—were alerted through a text late into the night. The message warned us to be prepared to move out in the early hours of tomorrow morning, and attached in the message were some maps, blueprints, and pictures.
We gathered in my room—and I locked the door to make sure no one would enter or overhear—and we each went over the layout of the headquarters.
It was an old-style Japanese compound that had several sub-levels that made up a complex underground facility not registered in public databases. Sir Nighteye's report included sketches of the hallways and rooms, as well as details on who Sir Nighteye was able to confirm as part of the Eightfold Cleansers.
Boss:
Name: Chisaki Kai - alias Overhaul.
Quirk: Overhaul, the ability to disassemble and then reassemble anything he touches with his bare hands.
Description: Pale man, narrow build, shaggy auburn hair parted to the left, small scar on the left side of his forehead.
Member One:
Name: Nemoto Shin
Quirk: Confession, allows the user to force anyone he asks a question to answer truthfully.
Description: Slim man with short-light colored hair.
Member Two:
Name: Katsuukame Rikiya
Quirk: Through physical contact the user can absorb the vitality of others, giving the user more stamina and making the user grow bigger each use.
Description: Tall, muscular—
And so on and so on. Sir Nighteye was able to obtain information on 6/8 of the core members, and it was these that we focused in on. We went over the material over and over and over until our eyes couldn't stay open and our throats were hoarse.
Only when we felt ready, did we allow ourselves to sleep.
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I got dressed in my hero outfit the following morning, double-checking that my utility belt was well stocked and my staff was ready to go. Once confirming I was good to go, I sent a quick text message to Shōto.
Would you do me a favor and stay with Eri-chan today?
My phone buzzed back almost instantly with Shōto's response.
Sure.
I let out a soft sigh of relief at that. Nezu would be checking in on Eri at Aizawa's apartment while we did our raid. I knew Nezu was perfectly capable of taking care of her, but I felt better knowing Shōto would be there, too.
Thank you, I responded back.
No worries.
With my mind at ease, I hopped over to Izuku's room, grabbed him, and did the same for Ochaco before teleporting all three of us outside the compound.
At eight hundred sharp most of the heroes had already arrived—Mirio, Hado, and Amajiki included.
Mirio's hero outfit was certainly traditional, complete with a long red cape. He had a white skin-tight bodysuit that he wore under yellow shoulder pads and dark blue pants. He, like most heroes, had boots that acted as shin guards and stretched up to his knees. He completed his hero ensemble with a golden 1000000 stitched across the front of his shirt and a matching golden visor that protected his eyes. I recalled that his hero name was Lemillion.
Hado's hero outfit reminded me a bit of Ochaco's, but with more blues and spirals. She wore a dark blue skin-tight suit with a teal coloring over her chest, abdomen and crotch area. She had a couple of massive teal gauntlets that covered her hands and a pair of thick boots. Her hero name was Nejire-chan.
Last of the Big Three was Amajiki. He had a wide, flowing white cloak that he kept the hood pulled up on to help cover his face. He wore a black bodysuit underneath, and dark purple body armor covered with different pouches. He also had a hero mask on, but it didn't do much to protect his face or conceal his identity. His hero name was Suneater.
Near the Big Three there were other heroes that had gathered—Fat Gum, and Sir Nighteye, for example—and with them was an entire squadron of police equipped with heavy armor and riot shields.
"Saki-chan," Mirio called out upon noticing me. He gave me a big grin and motioned me over by him. "You're with me!"
"Yep, on my way over Lemillion," I said, hurrying over to him—I did wave goodbye to Ochaco and Izuku first, though—and gently bumped my fist against his. "We're gonna kick some butt."
"You know it," he said, pulling me in for a reflexive hug. "Let's head over here to talk. Talk to you both later!"
Hado giggled cutely and wiggled her fingers goodbye. "Goodbye cuties! Come on, Amajiki-kun, let's get into our positions."
Mirio guided me over to a more secluded area—enough that I couldn't hear the voices or conversations of the other heroes and police force. When we reached our destination he took a step back and turned his head toward the compound.
"Any Magi Dust?" Mirio asked me quietly, his gaze fixated on the worn-down compound gates that surrounded the estate.
I shook my head, tossing out a humorless smile. "Finally, a villain too poor to buy it."
"Then we'll go with plan D," he told me. "As soon as they issue the warrant, teleport both of us inside to Chisaki."
"Only us two?" I asked, surprised by this. Both of us were only students, after all. Even if we were good students, a student was still a student. At the very least if they wanted us to move forward and capture Chisaki we should have brought along Aizawa, since he was an adult that I could teleport with and ideal for an instant take down.
Mirio nodded firmly, eyes bright with focus and determination. "Yes. Sir Nighteye is confident the two of us will be able to capture Chisaki quickly and without fuss. Once he is down, we can move to either assist teams or further search the compound depending on the mission status."
From a strictly practical viewpoint, it made a certain amount of sense.
'No. This is still really weird. We're only students?'
(No. We're soldiers.)
(He knows?)
I chewed on the inside of my cheek for a moment, thinking about how to voice my skepticism. I wasn't against the idea, because I felt very confident in our abilities, but it was still odd.
It bothered me.
(Does he know?)
(Did he see?)
Mirio placed a warm hand on my shoulder, offering up another one of his smiles. "Don't worry, Saki-chan. We'll succeed, no matter what."
"I'm not worried about losing," I said with a shake of my head, my bubblegum pink hair bouncing at the action. "I don't know... it just seems odd."
Back when I was on my internship with that bumbling hunter Mirko I wasn't left completely alone to patrol. To be left alone with another student on such a vital mission was certainly out of the ordinary. Especially giving those same students the task of bringing down the main target.
Something like that should be given to someone with the most experience.
Someone who knew exactly how to—
(h u n t)
(Hunt-it. Hunt-it. Hunt-it.)
(Are we hunting? Or is he hunting us?)
I didn't finish that line of thought, shaking off the whispers in my head and trying out a confident (wobbly) smile. "Sorry if I made you worry. Let's kick some butt now, okay?"
"It's no issue, don't worry about it, Saki-chan," Mirio assured me.
"Lemillion," I said softly, refocusing on accomplishing our mission, "when we find that man, go straight for a punch. I'll make him double over so aim a bit lower."
Mirio blinked at that before giving me a thumbs up. "Roger!"
Taking a deep breath, I felt my heart still. A sense of calm washed over me, gentle and warm. I placed my hand over my heart, feeling my heartbeat slow down as nerves and anxiety left me. In their place came certainty—familiarity.
Even as a stu—
(soldier)
—dent I had already gained what felt like enough experience to not be nervous. While I still found our roles to be strange, I was not perturbed enough by it to let it shake me.
Chisaki was simply another prey to capture, another villain to put away.
I had already hunted.
Today would not be any different.
The squadrons of policemen were armed, determined, and resolved. They held themselves with unshakable grit to accomplish what they set out to do.
The heroes that had gathered loosely around them had their backs straight, eyes forward, and emitted auras of earned confidence.
My fellow students were less certain—their eyes roamed around and if I looked more closely I could see beads of sweat forming—but equally determined.
Mirio and I watched this gathering of stubborn souls ready to serve justice. We stood apart from them since we would be relying on my teleportation and so did not need to be near the entrance. Hovering too close would only overcrowd and possibly serve as an obstacle for them barging in.
A quarter past eight hundred the warrant officer stepped forward and banged hard on the compound door. We took that as our cue.
I grabbed Mirio's hand and with a flex of my wand we were inside.
I could not teleport directly to someone unless I could see them, or my wand had a certain level of trust towards them. That required level of trust was not hard to obtain—as long as I believed they would not do harm to myself I could teleport to them. That was how I was able to teleport to my fellow classmates, as well as Shōto and Izuku all those years ago. But villains that I knew wanted to kill me?
Yeah, no.
But, Sir Nighteye had provided us with schematics of the compound and that was enough for me to rapidly teleport between each room until—
I saw him.
My lips curled back into a silent snarl, my eyes narrowing with blatant anger the moment I spotted him. Burning anger bubbled inside me, making my whole body feel uncomfortably hot.
He was tall, lean, had carefully combed hair styled to look messy. He had dark eyes, wore a beak mask, and dressed in a fashion similar to edgy K-Pop stars.
At a glance some might have called him handsome.
I only saw him as a repulsive slug.
He was the man who tortured Eri.
Who literally ripped her apart and put her back together again for years.
(Monster.)
Such a creature—I couldn't even allow myself to think of it as human—truly was the epitome of scum. It wouldn't—couldn't—understand the pain of others, solely focusing on its selfish desires and wants.
On its selfish desire to live.
(Take it away.)
(Even if we peeled back its skin bit by bit and burned off its limbs s-l-o-w-l-y it still wouldn't understand.)
Incomprehensible scum.
I flexed my wand, and I did something rather cruel.
I grew a bubble inside its—his—knee cap, made it pop, and watched him double over and howl with pain. In the same instant Mirio used his Quirk to spring himself forward toward the slug with speed that would make it difficult to dodge even without a busted kneecap.
Mirio, who had already anticipated I would make Chisaki bend over, dug his fist hard into its face and sent it flying across the room where it crashed into a wall.
A bubble grew in the palm of each of its hands, bursting forth from the flesh.
The monster grunted from the pain, pushing itself up even as its right leg was twisted grotesquely.
Disabling villains was always a bit of a touchy subject. Force was universally accepted, but permanent disabling was generally frowned upon. With a busted knee cap, it would require surgery but after a few months of physical rehabilitation, it would be fine again. Same for its hands.
As much as I wanted to give him a taste of what Eri had gone through, it wouldn't do anyone any good if I got myself in trouble because I lost my temper.
(It's lucky we didn't come alone.)
"Move and I pop the other knee," I coolly warned it. It stilled, dark eyes assessing me with cold rage.
It had the reconstruction ability.
But how fast could it reconstruct as I disassembled it?
Would it risk it, or did it instinctively sense I would be more than capable of severing its limbs if it tried anything?
Did it know I could sever its spinal cord at the neck and permanently paralyze it?
Such an animal must have had good instincts to have survived for so long. The way its eyes glared coldly at me told me it hated me.
But beneath that hatred, there was a spark of f-e-a-r.
(We. Will. Hurt. You.)
Mirio pulled out a pair of handcuffs and started to move toward it, but I stopped him by placing a hand on his arm.
"He might have something up his sleeve. Let me check him with my bubbles," I advised Mirio, conjuring two bubbles and transforming them into hands. It didn't take long to do a pat-down—and pull out several weapons in the process. Chisaki grimaced at each touch, eyes never leaving mine.
I. Will. Hurt. You.
When I deemed him safe to approach, Mirio handcuffed him with the Quirk-repressing handcuffs.
With the handcuffs on him I felt my body relax.
(Let the bloodlust fade.)
That cretin wasn't enough of a threat to continue to waste our energy on. The jitters of adrenaline made my fingers tingle and I clenched them tightly into a fist. I took a few deep breaths to calm myself, letting my anger and disgust fade out of me like a sunset.
"Nice, Saki-chan!" Mirio praised me, completely unbothered by how I intimidated the heck out of the villain. "That ended up being way easier than I thought. I didn't know you could do that with your Quirk."
"It's not exactly something I can show off in spars," I pointed out, forcing my tone to soften.
Not to mention it was still risky. Accidentally popping an artery would be lethal. I only felt comfortable using it in areas with lower risk—hands, knees, pelvis, feet, and shoulders. They were targets easier to hit, and restricted enough mobility.
Maybe if I got enough practice and control over it I could pop small targets like the inner eardrum.
But that likely wouldn't happen for a while. There was a greater risk of accidentally killing them when using my bubbles to pop inside rather than simply using my bubbles as melee weapons and beating them down. I had perfect control over my body and where my weapons would dig in, after all.
Mirio nodded at that, "Yeah, definitely something you shouldn't use against your allies."
As an extra precaution, I rendered Chisaki unconscious while Mirio radioed in. Our initial plan would be to further investigate the compound, but if a team required assistance we would immediately head over to them.
Sir Nighteye responded back with, "All is well so far, continue with the investigation."
I glanced down at the unconscious villain and wondered if maybe I should go ahead and dislocate his other knee to make sure he couldn't escape.
I decided against such actions since he was already handcuffed, had one blown-out knee, and was bleeding enough to slow him down if he even woke up.
"Well," Mirio said, clapping his hands together. "Time for detective work. Got your magnifying glass, Saki-chan?"
"Yes, along with my detective cap," I deadpanned, summoning one of my bubbles to create a sort of claw-like mechanism to carry the unconscious leader around while we worked.
"Excellent," Mirio praised me, peering around the wide underground room. There were two options to go, one to our left and the other to our right. "Now which way to go?"
"Right. Left looks like it leads up, so it probably leads out. Right looks like it leads down, so it'll likely take us further in," I answered, gesturing toward the door at the far right side.
"Right it is!"
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(Checking in with Eri & Shōto)
Eri reached forward and poked Shōto's cheek.
She had come to realize something about the nice boy.
He always fell asleep watching movies!
And to make matters stranger, he didn't seem to even realize he was doing it. When Eri put in her new favorite movie—Howl's Moving Castle—she hurried over to take a seat beside Shōto, only to find him already passed out and snoring quietly. His head was tilted back on the couch, and he was completely oblivious to when Eri would try to gently shake him awake.
But the instant the credits started rolling he would snap his head back up, blink once, then ask Eri if she wanted to watch another one.
'How does he do it?' Eri wondered, poking his cheek while Spirited Away played on the television.
And sure enough when Spirited Away finished his head snapped back up, he blinked once, and then asked if Eri wanted lunch.
Uncanny!
"Eri-chan?" Shōto inquired again, tilting his head as he looked down at the small girl who sat next to him on the couch. "Do you want lunch?"
Eri nodded slowly, still peering up at him. "Are you sleepy?"
"No," Shōto answered honestly. "Why? Would you like to take a nap?"
"Do you remember what happened in the movie?" Eri asked him next.
"Of course," Shōto answered. "I've seen Spirited Away a dozen times with Kiyo-chan."
Eri frowned briefly at that. She guessed he must have stayed awake at least once then. "Is there a movie you haven't seen?"
"Hmm." Shōto glanced over at the stack of movies Kiyomi had set aside in her room for Eri to watch. After she had texted him that morning he headed over to her dorm room to grab the movies, and found them already stacked up on her desk with a note that read: For Eri.
There were also a couple of handwritten recipes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Shōto reached across the gray couch to the dark wooden end table beside it and sorted through the movies. He came across Mary and the Witch's Flower, which was one of the newer movies that he had not yet seen. He handed it over to Eri and said, "I haven't seen this one."
"Then we'll watch it at lunch," Eri stated firmly, her cute high-pitched voice oddly stern.
'Let's see if you sleep through this!'
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(Kiyomi)
The compound wasn't well tended to and worn down. The floorboards creaked with every other step, and the paint on the walls was chipped and peeling. This underground maze beneath the compound had a nasty smell to it; an unnaturally wet combination of something sweet, musty, and coppery. To top it all off it was poorly lit, with some lights straight up going out entirely when Mirio and I stepped down the hallway.
Given the state of it, and the nature of these villains, I was genuinely surprised that there weren't bloodstains everywhere.
Jerks who tortured children would probably proudly display those gruesome marks.
Which led me to believe that the hallways Mirio and I traveled down were the ones more commonly used, or certainly not the ones used prisoners would be dragged through.
From Sir Nighteye's observation, we knew that the Eightfold Cleansers wanted to eradicate Quirks from society. Their motivations were unclear—what could be understood by an insane sadist who tore apart an innocent child?—and their backers even less so.
There was some hint that the League of Villains—the group that attacked U.A., and kidnapped Katsuki and me—had come to an agreement with the Eightfold Cleansers but nothing concrete had been found.
Ideally, Mirio and I would stumble upon a room filled with evidence to tie the two groups together and provide a list of names in each group.
Obviously that wouldn't happen, but there was a solid chance some information could be gleaned from this hellish dungeon.
So we quietly explored each room we came across. We took pictures with the camera Mirio had brought, and if we found anything we would bring it with us.
Under normal circumstances we would leave evidence exactly where it was, but given the nature of these villains and their tendency to destroy evidence they come across in their attempts to escape, Sir Nighteye and the others decided it was best to bag and bring evidence along.
Still, there was proper protocol to follow. We had to take a picture of the evidence where it was, use gloved hands to deposit it in an evidence bag, seal it, then tape off the room and sign off on the tape.
If something was too big, or too valuable to carry around, I would teleport it straight to Sir Nighteye's office.
It should go without saying that all of this went out the window if Mirio and I came across any other prisoners, or hostages. Then they would be our absolute priority to escort safely out of the compound and into an ambulance with police escorts.
We moved down the halls, examining one room at a time. Nothing of note came across us until we found the jackpot room.
I brushed back my hair behind my ear as Mirio rather handily jimmied a lock on another room that we had found.
"Honestly didn't pick you for a lock picker," I idly commented.
"Honestly don't know how I know how to do this," he cheerfully admitted.
"I understand," I said with a nod.
Mirio slowly opened the door, sticking his head in and looking around. "Hey! We found the computer room."
"We're awesome," I said, holding up my hand for Mirio's expected high five—it came barely a second later. Stepping inside, and looking around, I determined it was indeed the computer room. There were monitors set up that looked like they were hooked into the security system. There were at least a dozen or so monitors lined up on the back wall, with only half of them turned on. There were computers and servers shoved to the side, and the cables—like the dungeon—were an absolute mess.
"Take it all?" Mirio asked me.
"Um..." I scratched my cheek. "I don't know. If we unplug willy-nilly we might trigger a failsafe. This might be a good room to just patrol around until they finish detaining the rest of the villains."
"Good point."
◟(◕◡◕❀)
(Returning to Eri & Shōto)
Eri munched happily on the teriyaki chicken that Shōto had made for her as per Kiyomi's recipe. The movie was unsurprisingly very good, and she was pleased that Shōto was at least awake while he was eating. Eri sat on the living room floor, the bowl of chicken covered in yummy sauce sitting on a bed of rice resting in her lap as she ate.
When she finished her bowl she turned her head to look over at Shōto to see if he was done eating, too.
He was indeed done eating.
And he was also once again passed out and snoring.
'How?'
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Originally wanted to fit the entire arc in this chapter, but had writer's block for the second half. I'm sorry.
Answer: Fantasy ranger, pls.
Question: Weapon of choice?
Reviews are love!
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