MHA : Shoto Todoroki - Modern-day Terrorist

FOUR MONTHS LATER

"He's emulating his father. He'll serve our country devotedly"

"He killed a boy"

"It was months ago"

"He's unstable. Nobody can tell for sure what's going on inside his mind. We can't trust him"

The other shrink snorted.

"He's been working for us for the last couple of months. I think it's a bit late to think about his trustworthiness"

"We can still backtrack", the other one insisted. "He's been doing small assignments-"

"-that he's acing"

"-but once he gets in the big league we won't be able to stop him. Covert operations will give him enough dirt on us for him to bury us all"

"Can't he already ?"

There was a silence.

"And if it comes to the worst", said the other one. "We still have Jin Woo"

They stamped a bold red 'APPROVED' on his file, right across his name.

*

Shoto stood in front of a one-way glass panel, flabbergasted, wide awake as he hadn't been in weeks.

He watched the scientist walk around, chat happily with his coworkers, make a lame joke, and dare to laugh.

He shouldn't have been here. He shouldn't even be alive.

"I've been waiting for you in the briefing room"

Shoto's flesh didn't crawl as it used to when Jin Woo rose from his shadow.

He had been getting better at sensing him though he was not good enough to pinpoint his location at all times precisely.

There was still something quite disturbing about knowing that an enemy was hiding in your own shadow and you could do nothing to prevent him from slitting your throat.

"Isn't he supposed to be dead ?"

Jin Woo followed his gaze.

"Dr Garaki ? Officially he is, yes. We put on a show last time to ensure nobody would come after him" Jin Woo shrugged. "He's more useful to us dead than alive"

The double meaning wasn't lost on Shoto.

"He's creating Nomus for us, isn't he ? Japan wants its own Nomus army"

Scientists - no matter if they were war criminals - always got a free pass when it came to advancing a country's hard power.

Jin Woo nodded.

They both watched Dr Garaki happily squeeze the shoulder of one of his subordinates, both getting worked up over a tube full of yellowish liquid.

"Most of his work has been based on All for One's genome and his ability to transfer Quirks. Things are more difficult because we don't have him to do the gruesome work for us, though Garaki is certain that given enough time he can replicate the experiment"

Shoto blinked. Floating behind Garaki's face were the half-thousand screaming people feasted upon by a swarm of Nomus.

Jin Woo walked away, gesturing for Shoto to follow him.

"I heard your trial period is done. It's quite different from what you've been doing until now, but I know you'll adjust easily "

He paused.

Shoto was still standing in front of the laboratory.

"You coming ?"

Shoto spun swiftly and followed him.

There was no slouch, no hands in pocket, just the cold, efficient grace of a soldier.

"More murder ?", he asked, picking up the conversation.

Jin Woo cracked a smile.

"Murder of more important people, yes. A bit of hit-and-run tactics. A couple of wars on stalemate we want to be turned in our favor"

They arrived in a locker room where four people were already waiting for them in full gear.

Special Forces squads were small but extremely powerful.

One squad was reputed to be strong enough to take on a small country and win. Japan only had two squads of that sort, quite a feat considering their small and dwindling population.

One of them had worked with Shoto a couple of times, thus he greeted him quietly, nodding, and most hadn't, thus they said nothing.

Here nobody cared about who he was and what he's done. Only his abilities mattered.

Shoto understood why his father had joined them long ago. There was a certain appeal to anonymity.

"This assignment will be a couple of days long", explained Jin Woo. "We need to assassinate a Turkish politician who's been very vocal about the necessity for their country to enter the Asian league. We'll play it as usual, and make it look ambiguous enough that people will wonder if the US or somebody else in the West isn't behind it. It should anger Turkey enough that they'll finaly enter the league, if only out of spit"

Which would be extremely beneficial for Japan went without saying.

It had been a few decades since the 'Asian Europe' plan had been set in motion, but a lot of wars and targeted hits from foreign countries that didn't want to see such alliance rise had set them back numerous times.

A decade ago China had joined them and, merely two years earlier, Russia did too.

Tensions with the West were at their highest but tensions with the West always were at their highest because they wanted – and demanded – pure submission from everybody else.

Times had changed, though. Quirks had leveled up the field.

Once in a while, to remind everybody not to mess with them, countries showed what they were capable of in undercover operations stamped with their names in bold red letters.

Japan hadn't missed their shot.

Exhibit one : Wonder Boy.

Shoto had been asked to use a couple of his signature skills during various assassinations and sabotages during the last couple of months ; his unsettling skillset had put off everyone, even the foreign politicians who'd been adamant they'd get him to work for them.

"When do we leave ?", Shoto asked.

Jin Woo smiled.

"Immediately"

*

He was aware that they were watching him.

Jin Woo had come clean the first day.

"The higher-ups want me to keep an eye on you", he had said. "I'm not gonna play pretend, you and I are going to see each other a lot from today onward"

Shoto didn't bother to pretend it annoyed him.

It had taken a while for Jin Woo to let his guard down around him.

They'd spent assignments huddled in cramped places for hours on end, waiting for a signal to start the hostilities. Most of the time Jin Woo had pretended to fall asleep, draped in his shadows, the inky swirl on his skin a quiet warning. Shoto didn't even close his eyes.

At first, they hadn't spoken much.

Neither were talkative.

Yet Jin Woo, despite his quietness, was as far from what Shoto had pictured him as one could be.

He was nice. Genuinely, profoundly a nice guy.

Shoto had seen him backtrack when he'd heard one operative had been compromised to save them even when it could've jeopardized the objective. He took care of everyone he worked with, field agents and mere administrative operatives alike.

Shoto had thought Jin Woo's smiles calculated, the little anecdotes about his life sprinkled here and there the results of deep scheming – but Jin Woo was like that with everybody.

He was a pretty affectionate guy for somebody who dealt a lot in murder.

When he laughed he had the habit of touching people's shoulders, and when he wanted your attention his fingers grazed your arm.

The first time he'd done so Shoto had jumped out of his skin, flesh crawling, and the next second he was standing at the other end of the corridor, eyes blazing, Jin Woo encased in shadows and hands raised in a sign of appeasement.

His reaction had been instinctive. In hindsight, he knew he couldn't have done better even if he'd been acting.

Something akin to an affectionate relationship began to form between the two.

It was a far cry from what he'd had with Keigo, and it also couldn't be labeled as friendship – more like an understanding of each other's abilities and the respect that ensued.

Shoto was too cautious about letting everybody get close to him and Jin Woo was wise enough not to force the issue. Anyway, they were here to do a job.

Shoto spent a lot of his time observing Jin Woo.

He'd noticed that Jin Woo's shadows were less wary of him, certainly unconsciously, and took half second longer to spring to action.

Half a second was good, very good, better than he'd expected so soon.

Jin Woo looked up from the report he was filing at his desk.

He had already showered, wet black hair crowning his face, the tip slightly curling.

"Did you need something ?"

Shoto was still in full gear, hovering at the threshold of the room.

He raised his hand and showed the file he was holding.

"You haven't signed my transfer documents yet. I am to give them back to HR before noon"

Jin Woo invited him in, finishing quickly what he was doing.

His trusting manners pleased Shoto greatly.

Shoto handed him the documents ; as Jin Woo leaned forward to grab them, his eyes flickered briefly to Shoto's ink-stained fingertips.

As soon as Jin Woo's thumb grazed the paper, Shoto let go of everything, smoothly leaned forward, and grabbed Jin Woo's naked wrist, pulling him forward.

"Wh-"

Ink spread on his skin from where Shoto was holding him : his shadows flickered to life then receded as the ink spread up his arms, disappearing under his clothes, an uncoiling snake bolting to life.

Jin Woo's eyes widened : for the first time in his life his connection with the shadows was severed, and he wasn't they anymore but just him.

Shoto brought him closer, his grip strong enough to bruise.

"You were the trickiest variable" He said, eyes fully black."Their strongest player. I had to bid my time before I got you"

Jin Woo's eyes are bulging as he crumples to the floor, one hand grabbing the place over his heart.

Shoto looked down at him, black veins pulsing on his neck.

Fire flickered on his skin. He didn't wait until Jin Woo was unconscious to finish him.

Shoto cracked his neck and rolled his shoulders, mocking eyes flickering briefly to the camera.

That's when he heard the hum.

A slow, steady hum, the hum of somebody who's doing his job and who knows he's doing it well.

Shoto's eyes snapped towards the stairs.

Downstairs, Dr Garaki finished tidying the place.

One of his assistants should've done it but sometimes he liked to do the gruesome work himself : it helped him remember his gruesome beginnings.

And people's opinion of him improved greatly if he played the slightly insane grandpa persona rather than the mad scientist who experimented on children.

He turned, holding a test tube, jumping in fright.

It slipped from his hands and broke on the floor with the might of a bomb, glass shards rolling everywhere.

Shoto was standing there, a faint smell of smoke to him.

Garaki brought a hand to his chest as if to calm his beating heart.

"You scared me", he chuckled nervously. "Don't you know that creeping up on scientists in their labs is a bad thing ?"

Shoto looked around at the tanks full of embryos or developing organisms that looked like blotches of cells.

In a transparent cube farthest from the other were small, child-like Nomus, failed experimentation, Quirkless bodies filled with nothing but the urge to eat. They paced in their cell all day long, made unintelligible noises, and fought for the scraps of food they were given.

At night they didn't sleep, merely closed their eyes.

Garaki calmed down.

The boy couldn't have possibly recognized him : they'd barely met, and when they did he'd been unconscious.

"Is that your only lab ?"

Garaki acted casually as he bent down to pick up the shards.

At least the liquid wasn't corrosive.

He briefly looked up as he answered.

"Yes, why-"

His eyes locked on the black veins throbbing in Shoto's neck, pulsing individually like a choir of hearts.

All of the shards he'd gathered fell softly, the last nail in the coffin.

"You have the-"

Shoto lifted him easily, one hand on his mouth, fingers pressing against the soft, full cheeks.

Garaki's feet left the ground.

Shoto's eyes were fully black.

"Experimenting on people is funny, isn't it ?"

The doctor looked like he was about to burst, so red he looked like a rip fruit, struggling to breathe, the top of Shoto's large palm holding tight on his nostrils too.

"Here's a taste of your own medicine"

Shoto pushed him into the infants' room.

They perked up, rose from crouched or fetal positions, looked with wonder at the new food, circled it live vultures.

Garaki, barely catching his breath, jumped to his feet and frantically hit the glass door, feverish, mustache shaking as if it had a life of its own, screaming wildly as the children closed on him.

There was nothing in Shoto's eyes as he watched the doctor being eaten alive.