checkmate rewrite

chapter four

Izuku was debating between trying to get a jump on the guy or sending out a distress signal when he realized the man wasn't talking to them. A deafening gust of wind rushed over them. It was lasting and hot as if an enormous oven door had opened and its heat had cascaded out into the night. It sounded like an air vacuum with all the air racing past them, so violent he couldn't hear what Shouji said as he pointed up above them. Izuku looked up just in time to see mulberry sparks crackling above them, twisting in the night and dissipating within seconds. The sound fell to a low hum as the air began to still again.

"I sent out the orders. It will be done before morning," the man said. His voice was more distant now like his back was to them. He was talking to someone else.

"Thank you Mindjack." A deeper voice answered. It floated around them as if it was the wind and not a person talking. Familiarity. He knew that voice.

"Don't thank me. Let's just go," the man said. There was a sharpness to his words.

"Very well," the other said, distant, polite.

There was a shuffle in the sand and some mumbled words exchanged before the breeze ceased abruptly and all at once it was quiet again. They stayed huddled together for a long while, waiting. Would another League member pop out? It had been sheer luck they hadn't been spotted, Izuku could barely believe they'd gotten that close to one of them. He had just enough common sense to text Tsuyu and warn her of the impending bank robbery.

Shouji sat up and said, "There isn't anyone within a one-mile radius of us, we're okay." He helped Izuku to his feet, his hands were steadier than his voice. Shouji was a good hero but he operated long distance, so this would be even more of a shock to him. "Was that who I think it was?"

"Yeah," Izuku said and pulled off his mask. He looked out at the empty beach. The only sign anyone had been there was the kicked-up sand. "If we weren't sure before we are now. That was Kurogiri, which means Shigaraki is giving out orders again." He brushed the sand off his costume as he watched Shouji scan the horizon. "All For One probably could have escaped this entire time. Nobody is more powerful than him, with all those quirks, detaining him without killing him was stupid. He was just waiting for the right moment before he broke out the rest of them and rebuilt the League. And with the ability to brainwash people, they are nearly unstoppable."

"Then why the hell are you smiling?" Shouji asked, disbelief coloring his voice. He looked so pale it was hard to tell if it was the moonlight or shock.

"Am I?" Izuku brought his gloved hand up to his cheek. He forced himself to look grave. He couldn't seem too eager or Tsuyu might actually follow through on her earlier threat. But being that close to a member and then coming out the other side unharmed was an intoxicating feeling. He could do this. He would do this. The League was not this impenetrable force, they were still humans, just like him. And if anyone could find their weakness, it would be him. He wouldn't make the same mistakes again.

"You are so odd," Shouji shook his head. He still seemed a bit shell-shocked, his eyes continuously darted all around the beach. "Come on, let's get out of here." He didn't wait for Izuku to start arguing, he just began to walk back toward some of the old buildings. The walk was silent. Izuku had too much to plan and fantasize over to keep up with his usual running line of commentary and that seemed to suit Shouji just fine. Luckily, it didn't take long for them to find the others.

The group debriefed over coffee at an all-hours diner and parted ways just as the sky started to lighten. Tsuyu and Tokoyami hadn't seen anything, there was no evidence that was where the League's hideout was. But Izuku was willing to bet that's where that guy, Mindjack, was finding most of his victims. He didn't get a chance to prove his theory correct. The next few nights were quiet. The police had managed to stop the woman but upon questioning, she hadn't remembered being at that beach let alone talking to anyone that night, as Izuku had learned from eavesdropping on a meeting he wasn't supposed to know about it with some of the detectives. Annoyingly, when they found out he'd been clocking in every night for the past few weeks, they gave him a mandatory weekend off. It might have also had something to do with the way Izuku began snapping at some of them after day three of him barely being able to sleep. He'd said something about Asahi having the intelligence of a fish that kept swimming into the glass of its own tank- the details weren't important.