Rejected Stones

Come Home To Roost

Beta'd and edited by Kylekatarn77 and Poliamida

60. Come Home to Roost

Things come apart so easily when they have been held together with lies.

― Dorothy Allison

The sun had just risen, pale and bright in the winter sky, but Chitose Kizuki had been in her office at Shoowaysha Publishing since it had set long hours before, working frantically to process the incredible news story that had arrived only the night before.

"Pillars of Peace: Shaken! That's the headline I want, you understand? And put it with the picture of the Demon weeping on the back of that ambulance!" Kizuki ordered. Her chief editor bowed, and hurried out of the room. She rubbed her hands gleefully. They'd gotten the inside scoop on this one, and had already published several articles about just what exactly had gone down at the yakuza base only hours before.

"This just might be the one!" Kizuki hummed to herself excitedly. She picked up her phone and dialed a number she had memorized long ago.

"This is Yosubashi," a weary voice said on the other line. She must have woken him. How could he be sleeping at a time like this?!

"Hey hey, it's me!" Kizukui said cheerily. "Just wanted to check up and see if you had any statements about the developing situation, as CEO of Detnerat."

"Developing situation?" Yosubashi asked, the weariness in his voice rapidly fading. "What's happened?"

"Have you not seen? Check my page! Oooh, it's a juicy one!! Tell you what, I'll give you 30 minutes, then call you back for a statement. I think you're gonna love it!"

She hung up and got to work, weaving her narrative tapestry. The real story of the Pillars of Peace. The one you weren't supposed to know. Too bad Hanabata was busy right now, she could have used his sources for this, but she'd make do with what she had at her fingertips.

She started all the way back at the UA Sports Festival, where an unlikely boy had risen to the top, propelled to fame and glory by intellect and friendship, with a dash of romance. It was a great story, and one that had passion, revenge, rivalry, old grudges, and an underdog victor. The first time, Yosubashi had called her in and chewed her up one side and down the other for turning Izuku Midoriya into a fairy tale hero. She'd made excuses about how she was building him up to tear him down later, but really, she'd just wanted to tell the best story she could.

"Well now you'll get what you want," Kizukui hummed to herself as she moved on. After all, Izuku Midoriya's meteoric rise hadn't been free of blemish. Next came the Battle of Kamino, where the Quirkless Wonder had stood alongside Mirio Togata and Class 1A to defeat The League of Villains and all for one. At first blush, it seemed merely another tale of triumphant heroism.

Unless you had the files from the Ministry of Justice that Kizukui had, which showed that Class 1A hadn't been there as interns: they'd blatantly violated the law, going in as vigilanties. True, a few weeks ago, if that news had broken, people would have dismissed it. After Feel Good and now the Shie Hassaikai, people were feeling much less generous towards Izuku Midoriya and his classmates.

Next came the even juicier bit: the fact that they'd used radios to cheat during the Licensing Exam. That little detail had been hidden from the public by the government, as well as the fact that when they'd been caught cheating, 1A had rushed in and threatened government officials. True, they'd done it because they thought that Midoriya's lover and her sister were being threatened with violence, but who needed details like that? It just didn't paint the picture that Kizukui wanted now.