“That was bloody close, Hiro. Never do that again.”
Hiro’s helmet retracted around his head as he stared at Miles incredulously. The man was also wearing a helmet himself, except that his helmet was hooked up to the aircraft and looked more like it belonged in a medical facility.
“How did you pull me up like that?” Hiro blurted.
“Magnets. They make for easy extraction.” Miles took off his helmet and walked towards him. “You’re only using prototypes, which are made out of ferromagnetic materials. Not to worry; your actual gear will have no magnetic properties. Given our society, it’s a precaution against the fairly likely scenario that you meet someone with a quirk that deals with magnetic fields.”
The man’s eyes glowed, and Hiro’s new equipment dissolved into a cloud of nanobots. They flew like a small swarm of extremely organised locusts, heading straight into a compartment on the ceiling.
“Thank god I hadn’t taken off my Amplus helmet yet, or you’d be Nomu chow by now.” Miles glanced at the medical helmet, and it retracted into the ceiling as if on cue. “Mind explaining what the hell that was all about?”
“That man on the floor… I knew him,” Hiro said grimly after collecting his thoughts. “What was he doing in this place?”
“The thief you arrested that day? I recognise him too,” Miles replied. “Though that hardly constitutes ‘knowing him’, in my opinion. Are you involved in some other business as well?”
Hiro noticed the man looking at his pocket, so he took out Kanna’s tracker.
“A tracker? And one that actively syphons all important network data while on the move, too.” Miles’ eyes glowed again. “This is some serious tech; only a few organisations in the world use something like this. I didn’t know you were involved with the Hero Public Safety Commission, Hiro.”
“Is that going to be a problem?”
Miles hesitated, his eyes still burning a bright green. Maybe he was reading the data on the tracker. Or maybe he was thinking about what to do next. Likely both.
“No, not at all. But only on the condition that you cut me in on this.”
“I don’t understand, Mister Cooper.” Hiro folded his arms. “Wasn’t the plan for me to be a test subject for your gear?”
“Not particularly.”
Miles pushed a button on the plane’s dashboard, and the bay doors slid open again. Hiro braced himself for the cold air to rush in, but a cooling technological laboratory greeted him instead. He hid his surprise; he didn’t even realise that the aircraft had already made it back to Cooper Incorporated.
Panels of sepia glass surrounded the room, overlooking the dark sea stretching from below. Containers of various sizes littered the room, each of them containing unrecognisable products in the process of coming to life. Between the nanobots working on their own and the dazzling production systems, the room had an existence that future generations could only dream about.
“So this is where the sausage gets made, huh?” Hiro stepped out of a ramp, looking around in awe. There was a platform in the middle of the room where another helmet— not too different from the one in Miles’ plane— was dangling over.
“Welcome back to Cooper Incorporated, Hiro.” Miles walked up beside him as the ramp retracted into the plane and the ceiling sealed up again. “Or rather, welcome to my office. There’s a cloaking field permanently surrounding this room. Not many people even know this building level exists, so be very honoured.”
Hiro stopped craning his neck and turned his attention back to the man.
“Four years ago, Kai Chisaki— the Yakuza’s ex-head— developed a drug that could reverse human evolution and remove quirks,” he continued, walking towards a small syringe sealed behind ballistic glass. “That invention shook every part of the world, from the upper echelons of society to the dregs of the underworld. But of course, our mighty heroes managed to keep his ambitions in check, and the government seized almost all of these game-changing syringes.”
Hiro raised an eyebrow. “Almost all, huh? Is that why you have one of them?”
“Hey, don’t get me wrong. I did buy it off the black market, but I never intended to use it against anyone. All I did was understand its workings well enough to create Amplus, a quirk magnifier that doesn’t involve invasive procedures. But that’s beside the point.”
“What is the point, then?”
“Point is, there are dark, invisible forces all around us. Sure, we have heroes and the police to curb evildoers. But they’re not all-powerful, and they are far from omniscient. That’s why things like these grew right under their noses and almost spiralled out of control,” Miles said grimly. “Sometimes, the only way to stop them is to go where the law can’t reach. That is the true reason I reached out to you.”
“Why did you really send me to that base, Miles?”
“Because Yamato Gouma is a villain,” the man answered curtly. “But I suppose that’s something you already know since you have that tracker with you. The truth is, I’ve been trying to find proper evidence about his crimes. That man masquerades as a businessman while being the head of the Yakuza in truth. He already has the underworld in the palm of his hand. And if he follows through with his ambition to be a politician, everything will fall under the control of this vile man. I cannot let that happen.”
Hiro tilted his head in suspicion. “That sounds awfully personal, Miles. Seems like you have a bit of a history with that man. Why do you care so much?”
“That is on a need-to-know basis, and you don’t need to know.”
“No offence, Mister Cooper. But you don’t hold the stakes here.” Hiro stood his ground. “If you’re no longer willing to work with me, I’m perfectly fine with going back to my regular life. You’re the one who needs me, Miles. And besides, we’re partners. Partners share intel. It’s only fair that I properly understand why we’re doing all this before I lend you my aid.”
A dangerous pause hung in the air.
“It seems I’ve officially underestimated you, Zero Hero.” Miles’s sigh turned into a soft chuckle. “You got me there. Fine, I’ll share.”
His eyes flickered, and a display rose from the floor. A black jetpack was housed within it, along with two bright golden wings that extended from its two sides. It was most likely made out of nanobots as well, judging from the way a tiny wave rippled along its surface every now and then.
“You probably haven’t heard of me, but I was a certified hero in both London and Japan. ‘Golden Eagle’ was my very tacky codename.” Miles shook his head in slight embarrassment. “I suppose it sounded cool to my teenage self back then.”
He waved his hand absentmindedly as the display retracted back into the floor.
“Anyway, I worked mostly as a rescue pilot in the Air Force. Getting civilians out of war zones quickly, deploying emergency measures in extremely dangerous disaster zones… That’s pretty much my resume,” the man continued without a hint of pride in his voice. “Not many people know this, but I attended the hero course in U.A. High here in Japan. That’s where I met Yamato Gouma.”
Hiro’s eyes widened with surprise. “Yamato Gouma was a hero?!”
“He attended U.A. High, too, yes. But he never graduated,” Miles replied darkly. “Yamato was a stellar student by many standards. He had an exceedingly useful quirk that allowed him to create shields of ionised gas by electromagnetically manipulating the electrons in the air around him. In the latter years of his education, he could even affect the magnetic fields of humans and manipulate their movements.”
A twang of jealousy stung Hiro. Yet another person who lucked out with such a powerful quirk. The world really was unfair.
“He was my friend. Or rather, he was drawn to me. Be it because of how similar our quirks were or that he saw how useful I could be to him, it didn’t matter to me. I never accepted his friendship, even though he always picked me to be in his team whenever he could. I doubt he was looking for a ‘friend’, anyway.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Yamato was an excellent combatant, although it was only because of how ruthlessly he could get the job done. It always left a bad taste in my mouth,” Miles said. “I’m sure you know that the U.A. Sports Festival is a traditional event where students compete against each other using their quirks. Well, he secured victory for himself by kicking down a teammate and throwing them into the opposing team without hesitation. His tournament match was even stopped midway because he abused his opponent’s psychological weakness over and over again.”
Hiro scoffed. “So that man fights dirty. I guess I know who we’re not voting for Prime Minister in the coming election, then. What a hypocritical bastard; he doesn’t deserve to be in U.A. High at all. Why didn’t anyone pick up on that?”
“Despite his behaviour, his natural charisma makes him fairly likeable among his classmates. He is superficially friendly to everyone. And to most people, that’s enough to get on their good side.” Miles shrugged. “Thankfully, the teachers weren’t that easily fooled, so they kept an eye out for his increasingly unruly behaviour after multiple incidents. And, well, Yamato was eventually caught red-handed as a small-time Yakuza enforcer.”
“The Yakuza accepted teenagers?”
“Apparently, they did. Not like Yamato behaved like one, though. That man’s ambition knows no bounds, and he was always looking for the next frontier to conquer, even as a mere sixteen-year-old. He only tried being a hero because it would’ve brought him prestige and status.” Miles shook his head. “Anyway, that was the last straw that got him expelled from U.A. High, which only gave him more reason to focus on climbing the underworld ranks. And now, he’s even trying to become a politician.”
“So that’s why you want to expose him,” Hiro said. “Because you knew him personally.”
“Because I know him well enough to understand that he can’t be taken down by conventional means,” Miles corrected Hiro. “After being expelled, he has gotten better at covering his tracks. Serving time in Juvenile Hall only taught him even more about the business of racketeering. Those in the light of the law can never bring him to justice. It takes people willing to work under its shadow to take criminals down— people like you and me.”
“That’s a little extreme.” Hiro cast his eyes downward. “We should have more faith in the heroes…”
His voice trailed away. He was lying to himself, and he knew it. Hell, even the tone of his own voice disgusted him; it sounded too much like one of those closing statements that the Hero Public Safety Commission gave on TV. If the heroes really knew what they were doing, they would’ve given him a chance. If they really deserved all that glory, he wouldn’t need to run around as a vigilante.
This society truly idolised heroes too much.
“Now you know why I’m doing this,” Miles said. “We’re outside of the law; this job won’t bring you any glamour. So I can understand perfectly if you’re out. But I’m willing to bet I didn’t choose the wrong partner.”
Hiro gave him a small smile and handed over Kanna’s tracker. “You didn’t. It’s nothing new being outside the law. Society has never thanked me for making the world a better place, anyway.”
And so be it.
ns216.73.216.134da2
and then Add to home screen.