hero's shadow // mha

46) the old and the new

(cw: implied drugging)

Izuku is sitting on the table in the dark conference room with his brows furrowed, surrounded by stacks of documents. A large portion of the words on the pages are either highlighted or circled, with little notes being written off to the side of them. They're all color-coded for his own convenience, as he likes to keep things neat when it's for work.

Red for times and dates, green for locations, blue for names, and purple for information that will be crucial for forming his future plans. If he's supposed to do what the Board is asking him to do and still make it out alive, he has to be careful. He has to be thorough.

And, as always, he has to be one step ahead.

Izuku balances a pen on his knuckles and tugs at his hair with his other hand, perplexed. It didn't take him very long to pull up all of the files he has on the Yakuza, specifically its line of bosses, and print them out using the extra printer in this room. Actually, the only difficult part now is just picking all of the information apart and deciding what will be useful to him.

Some of the names listed on the documents have already been crossed out by Izuku, either because the data given was outdated or because he determined the people were unimportant.

But even with doing that, Izuku is still left with around three dozen persons of interest to look over. Some of them are directly affiliated with the Yakuza, others are not. He figures that after his internship is over he should go and somehow secretly talk to the non-affiliated people first.

It's best to get some background information before running headfirst into things.

I wonder if Yagi knows anything. I'm sure he's run into the Yakuza before, being who he is. Maybe I can ask...

How exactly he can word a question like that without alarming Yagi or putting him in another one of those I feel like I should snitch to Aizawa moods, Izuku doesn't know, but he should still try.

This is an important mission. Lives are at stake. He needs to do anything and everything possible before starting.

Aizawa's first fight down below has long since ended, but the man doesn't stop there like Izuku thought he would. Instead, he ends up agreeing (only a little reluctantly) to a few more matches.

For a warm-up, he says.

Izuku is watching it all go down through a hologram that's set up in the middle of the conference table. It has great quality, and Izuku is happy he got his hands on it. Now, did he steal this very expensive piece of equipment from one of the board members before they left? He can neither confirm nor deny.

(They'll probably send someone over to get it back from him in a few weeks, but Izuku is a good runner!)

The camera feed shows Aizawa continuing to fight any of the members who come up to challenge him, and it's pretty entertaining, honestly. Izuku has seen most of these moves before—hell, he uses a lot of these moves!—but not many at the club have. Which makes watching their reactions to Aizawa's quick takedowns and brutal blows all the more hilarious.

Izuku works as efficiently as he can, glancing up every now and then to watch whatever fight is going on. He knows, despite Aizawa's guarded and outwardly blank expression, that his teacher might be enjoying this.

This is just a workout for him. It's like fighting on patrol but without the risk of any civilian getting injured.

That's why Izuku likes it so much, too.

It's obvious that Aizawa already has the respect of most of the people there. If he didn't before, he's definitely earning it right now. Izuku is only grateful that they're not counting these as ranked matches—otherwise, his title as Champion might be threatened sometime soon.