Intruders (BNHA)

One

The neighborhood was a fairly nice looking one, several homes boasting walled gardens and such, plants and trees well manicured and tame within the urban fabric. The streets were swept, the sidewalks lacking cracks or other deformities. It was practically sterile. This area had been a slum that got burned down when a child's quirk awakened and set off a chain reaction of disasters. Real estate developers had jumped at the chance to buy up the neglected properties and gentrify the neighborhood.

However, one property hadn't exchanged hands when all of this occurred.

People were moving in and out of the household under the cover of night. No weapons, no unlicensed quirk use, no concrete ties to the criminal element that was suspected to be operating out of the building. Far too many shady looking people coming and going for it to be a normal household. It was all suspicious to Eraserhead, but without anything completely pointing to a criminal element, any action taken on this place wouldn't hold up in court.

It was a problem.

There were lookouts stationed at the front gate and door. They had failed to spot Eraserhead watching from the top of a nearby apartment building. There weren't any weapons on them, but their mutation quirks made them look quite formidable. A group of people carrying an assortment of backpacks and briefcases exited the compound, all branching off to follow different routes. Eraserhead didn't like it, but he would try to follow one of them for now. Busting an exchange that originated from there would give them a significant reason to raid the building with full legality.

Tailing the person had brought Eraserhead away from the clean cut neighborhood and into a seedier part of town. The buildings were more decrepit and there were more options in terms of hiding spots. No signs of the person being aware of his tail.

Eraserhead watched the man continue on until he turned a corner and straight up disappeared from sight. He activated his quirk to check for any illusion based quirk fuckery, but the alley remained empty. Was there seriously some kind of secret entrance that they scrambled through?

Eraserhead didn't have enough time to consider it before something coiled tight around his ankle and yanked him hard. He was off his feet and in the air in an instant just as something strikes the roof where he'd been standing milliseconds ago. He caught a glimpse of the arrow just before it dissolved into the darkness that it seemed to be created from. He glanced in the direction it came from as he reached for his knife, but the observation was cut off as the vine whipped and sent him flying through the air across several blocks.

He skidded and rolled across a gravel rooftop, earning a few scrapes and bruises but otherwise coming out unscathed. His mind was whirling as he considered his two attackers. Some sort of plant related quirk, and something to do with shadows or darkness. By the time that he'd be able to backtrack to where he'd been thrown from, his target would be gone and he'd most likely be walking into a trap that he wasn't prepared for.

He huffs out a breath and gets up, brushing himself off. He starts off back towards home, making sure to take an indirect route and checking for any tails. He pulls out his phone along the way.

"I need you to search the quirk registry for any criminals with a plant or vine based quirk currently out of prison, current residence in or around the Jaku City Limits. I also need a registry search with the same parameters for some sort of darkness or shadow manifestation or manipulation quirk. There's something going on at the house on Sakura Street, it looks like it's being used as a distribution point, possibly a full blown production site. More surveillance is necessary."

『•• One Hour Later ••』

The building was nondescript, utilitarian at best and aesthetically boring at worst. It didn't stand out in the slightest, which is why Aizawa decided to get an apartment there. It was hard for anyone to imagine a pro hero, underground or not, living there.

The apartment was dark and quiet as Aizawa limped in the front door. The street lights shining in through the windows gave him just enough light to navigate by, but there was one potential unseen threat lurking in the darkness.

And it made itself known when he heard a hiss and felt claws slash against his ankle. He jumped in surprise and tripped over a pair of dirty sweatpants on the floor, face planting about a foot away from his mattress. His glowing red eyes meet the yellow eyes of the little hell beast that invited herself into his apartment and had refused to leave in no uncertain terms.

The cat, the hellbeast, the intruder of his domain, Katsumi (or as Hisashi referred to her, Erasercat) was still pretty much feral despite all of Aizawa's attempts in reasoning with her, and would attack at the exact moment she smelled weakness.

"I would evict you if I could." Aizawa grumbles and heaves himself onto the bed. He flicks on the little light on his nightstand in order to check over his injuries from the patrol. He had a couple bruises on his arms from the landing on the roof, and his leg was all kinds of scraped up. He wasn't too beat up, all things considered.

He'd been loosely working with Sir Nighteye and Fat Gum on this particular venture, as the drug had been making an appearance in their areas of patrol as well. He knew that both Fat Gum and Sir Nighteye were both approved to take on interns for the upcoming semester.

All Might's former sidekick had been stretched thin lately with a high profile abduction case, Fat Gum was kept busy due to his intern from UA attending a leadership development camp, and Aizawa found logic in attempting to end this hazard before his students in the upcoming semester started their internships. If any significant threats could be silently put to bed before his students could get wrapped up in them, it lowered the risk of anything significantly bad from happening again. Oboro's death during his internship had nearly caused Aizawa to quit his hero studies. He would not risk his students futures with such a possibility. When the Erasure Hero first signed on to teach at UA, he had made sure that a system was in place to fully vet the heroes that requested interns in order to prevent another tragedy like that from occurring again.

Aizawa hissed out a breath as he cleaned the scrape. There was something stuck in the wound and he bit inside of his cheek as he picked it out. A small brown... seed? He set it on his nightstand, intending to have it analyzed tomorrow once the support labs were open. Once his injuries were taken care of, he flicked off the light and passed out.

The hiss of Erasercat and the sound of something falling off his nightstand startled Aizawa awake. Before he could reach his knife, his arms and legs were tightly bound in vines, rendering him immobile.

A human-sized mutant plant was looming over him. It's head was like a Venus flytrap, with sharp interlocking teeth.

"Easy there. I just want to talk." Aizawa glared up at the mutant plant creature that had him pinned down. It's voice was distorted, but had a youthfulness to it that gave the erasure hero pause. "I don't have much time."

"Who are you, and what do you want?" Aizawa asked in a low voice. Something tingled at the back of his mind, not quite a trouble-sense, no... more like a problem child detector.

"You need to go back to that house, with backup. There are kids in danger there, hostages. They're forcing them..." The plant began to wilt, a red substance that seemed almost like blood bubbling up between its teeth. It slowly shrinks back, releasing Aizawa. "Help them, please."

"How many kids?"

"Three. I'll try contacting... when I can..." The plant monster's voice faded out as it shrank down to the size of a normal Venus flytrap, its vines coiling around itself to form a little pot of sorts.

Aizawa stared at the plant for a long minute, completely uncertain about this new information. Or what to do with the plant. He couldn't leave a potentially villainous plant to roam his apartment while he was out and about, even if it was acting as an informant. It would be illogical. Just as illogical as toting a plant around that could very well be informing the enemy of his exact location...

Aizawa scrambled to his phone. Nighteye and Detective Tsukauchi needed to be informed of this new development.