Kirishima looked at his friend's body. No one had touched it, after the medics had made their pronouncement. Bakugou was dead. Given the spittle on his lips and the pained expression on his face, which accompanied the hand shaped burns, he had not died easily. The special forces officer couldn't say he was surprised at that. What surprised him was the announcement that he had been killed by a quirk. There was no way Katsuki would have let someone close enough.

Except someone obviously had gotten close enough. The burns were too hand-like to be coincidence.

Kirishima forced himself to look away from the body as a sheet was draped over it. He looked around instead. The damage was something he expected. It told him that whatever else had happened, Bakugou had not gone down easily. And there was another body there. The medics had spent even less time looking at him. It belonged to the fire villain Dabi, the Leader of the League.

Except... the means of his death was easy to see. The small bullet wound was surprisingly precise and the evidence was pointing to Bakugou wielding the gun. His fingerprints were on it after all. But that didn't explain anything.

Why was Dabi dead? Why was Bakugou dead? Who else had been here?

They'd checked for cameras. There were none. Instead they'd found some holding pens away from the ring which was probably where the Noumu had been kept. There were papers in Dabi's office but so far nothing incriminating and they had picked up a couple of unfortunate villains who had come to work.

But nothing made sense.

Kirishima looked over to a different group. They had a reader here. She was looking around like him, but her eyes were unfocused. More than that, her eyes were not normal. She was using her quirk. Kirishima wasn't sure exactly how it worked but he knew that it would allow her to hopefully see what had happened. That's what readers did. Readers were new in the Police force. They had come into place with the integration of heroes when a proper study of quirk potential in law enforcement had been made.

He didn't feel too hopeful when she shook her head but he wandered over to listen anyway. He had his Special Forces uniform on. No one questioned his presence here.

"There's a lot of interference," she said.

"It's a very public location," her handler said. Readers generally had someone they could rely on because sometimes they got disoriented from what their quirk told them.

"There's that," she agreed. "There were four people here," she continued. "Dabi, ExplodoKill and two others."

"Who were the others?" her handler asked quickly, no doubt realising that was what all the officers wanted to know.

"That's the problem. One feels as if it is everywhere, but it's mostly there," she explained pointing to what looked to be a pile of ash.

Kirishima moved over to it, and gently poked it with his boot. He jumped back when the ash moved, revealing what looked to be a face. "Evidence!" He yelled, looking down at it.

It as definitely a face, but twisted and not normal. Not that there was a set normal these days. Some quirks moved facial features around a lot. Tokoyami was an example of that. He had a beak instead of a mouth.

Several forensic people rushed over. They cleared the ash away. Kirishima saw bits of what had to be brain matter poke through it. And an eye. He didn't recognise it exactly but he knew the pattern. "Noumu," he muttered.

They heard. "Sir?"

"It's a Noumu," Kirishima told them. The memory of the last one he'd seen coming to mind. He wasn't the only officer to be surprised.

"It's everywhere," the reader said, loud enough to be heard. They were all at the bottom of the ring. It had surprisingly good acoustics. Her voice travelled.

"Shit," Kirishima said. "He exploded it," he added the words.

"Sir?"

"ExplodoKill," he said Bakugou's vigilante name. "He must have exploded the Noumu," he explained, gesturing around them. There were black gobs of ash everywhere.

A couple of the officers looked sick. They looked around, seeing the evidence of what he'd said.

"That would be right," the reader said, nodding. "But because he's everywhere, he's covering the presence of the last one. The last one only became important after it was dead, and their presence is subdued."

"What do you mean?" Kirishima asked. They needed to know who that last person was.

The woman looked at him. "I can feel the fourth person," she said, "but I don't know who they are. Whoever they are, I haven't felt them before and their presence is muted. If the... Noumu, you called it?"

Kirishima nodded.

"If the Noumu wasn't there, I might be able to properly sense the fourth person."

And that would allow a picture to be drawn. Generally readers could either see what they sensed, or they could describe the people well enough for the sketch artists. "Just do your best," Kirishima said. The reader knew what they needed. He didn't need to remind her.

"Yes, sir," she replied.

He nodded, and looked away. He knew who Bakugou would say had been here, if the vigilante could talk.

Imoku Kakurete.

Katsuki had been going on about the independent politician for years. But there was no evidence linking Kakurete to the League, and this was definitely the result of Bakugou finding Dabi. Kirishima hoped Bakugou had been happy when he died. He'd taken out a Noumu and Dabi... the Special Forces officer hoped that gave his old friend peace.

From the expression gracing Katsuki's frozen face, Kirishima didn't think it had.

Except... whoever that forth person was, the one who had killed Bakugou, it wasn't Imoku Kakurete. The man was on the campaign trail. He had an alibi. And no matter what Bakugou said, there was no link between the almost fifty Kakurete and the should be late twenties Midoriya besides Izuku Midoriya's now deceased Mother, who had been one of Kakurete's campaign team.

The conspiracy theory wasn't a real one, at least not outside of Bakugou's mind.

Kirishima looked over at his captain.

"This should be interesting for the League," he said conversationally. With their Leader dead, who knows what would happen.

"Chaos," Captain Shirei said shortly.

"Maybe," Kirishima replied. "They obviously didn't expect ExplodoKill but the League has always been quick to recover."

"The League has never lost a leader who had ten years experience," the Captain countered.

Kirishima nodded but he wasn't convinced it would be chaos. He just had a feeling. "We'll deal with it though," he assured his captain.

"We have to," Shirei told him. "It's our job."

And really, no matter the mess here, that was the final word on the matter.

-afop-

TIME FOR CHANGE!

Yatou Rida last night claimed an unexpectedly narrow victory in the national election. While his party has wrested control of the House of Representatives from former Prime Minister Kiyoshi Takenaka's party, their majority is slim.

The victors of the night are the independents. Lead by Imoku Kakurete they have taken control of a record 70 seats in the House. This gives the incoming Prime Minister Yatou Rida a majority but it is not secure and he would be well served by courting the Independents. However, the election results make on thing very clear, Independent Representative Kakurete does not need the support of any party, as his constituents have returned him as their Representative by the largest margin ever seen by any candidate. He won a huge 70% of the vote in his electorate, which makes him the most secure Representative in the House.

Yatou Rida will be able to form a government, but the narrowness of the result should serve as a warning to him that he needs to truly represent the people. It is assured that the Independants, lead by Kakurete will be reminding him of that, which just proves that Kakurete is a true hero to the Japanese people.

Imoku smiled at the paper. The article was rather flattering, and it wasn't even written by one of Phoenix Wave's assets. He'd already sent his congratulations to Yatou and commiserations to Takenaka. Both men had accepted them with good grace though Imoku could tell Yatou was disappointed about his majority. Imoku had reminded him that he had a majority.

No one really wanted a minority government, but if it came to it, he had assured Yatou that he could be relied upon. The new Prime Minister was smart enough to realise that his support would come with conditions. But that wasn't anything Yatou needed to worry about yet. He had a majority, because even a slim majority was a majority.

Still... Things could change in politics. And they could change quickly.

Imoku looked over to his desk, where there were several files. So long as Yatou remained tractable, he wouldn't need them but he did like to have insurance. The best bit was Yatou didn't even know the potential scandals existed, so he couldn't mitigate against them.

Though if Yatou did well, maybe Imoku could increase that majority. After Masami experienced being a Shadow Minister for a while, he could probably remind her why she had gone into politics and pull her over into independence... especially if Takenaka demoted her...

The election was a demotion in and of itself, but if he appointed a different Shadow Foreign Minister and returned her to the back bench then... Yes, she'd become an independent quickly enough.

Imoku smiled. That was the future and that path wasn't decided, but there were so many possibilities and he had time to pick between them all.

-afop-

Captain Shirei looked around the small storage area. It had been brought to his attention as part of the murder investigation for Shouta Aizawa. The current theory was that the former underground hero, turned private investigator had possibly been engaged in some illegal hero work when he had been killed. Said illegal work was with the now dead vigilante who called himself ExplodoKill, real name Katsuki Bakugou who had been wanted for questioning on the Mustard Midnight double homicide. The Captain wasn't a fool. Questioning would have lead to an arrest, and then another warrant for Dabi's arrest, which probably would have gone nowhere.

It was very tempting just to say that since they were all dead, the case was closed except... They had managed to match genetic material from the Noumu at Dabi's fighting ring to blood samples taken at the cemetery where Aizawa and Candidate Toogata had been killed.

The Noumu was dead but there was one person unaccounted for in the fighting ring. The person who had actually killed Bakugou. He might have been a vigilante, but everyone deserved justice.

Which was why the case couldn't be closed and why he was here.

Investigations had found the storage area, and a warrant had been granted. Though they had also gotten permission from Hizashi Yamada, former hero Present Mic, who had also been on the storage rooms rent payment summary, to enter here. Hizashi had told them that the storage was for things he and Aizawa had used when they were heroes.

There was nothing illegal with that. Heroes had been able to keep some of their gear. Especially Hizashi. His voice modulation equipment was primarily for public safety and no one had wanted to take some of the keepsakes from heroes.

Now he was looking at the boxes of stuff. It had been well packed but the forensics team had gone through it looking for evidence. They hadn't found anything much, except some fingerprints. Most came from Shouta but there had been a cheer when they found some from Bakugou.

It established the link between the former underground pro-hero and the vigilante. Hizashi had claimed that they'd never met here but obviously they had. The radio presenter had admitted that he knew Shouta had been talking to Katsuki and possibly working on something but he was being tight lipped on what.

Given ExplodoKill's artefacts had been found earlier, it wasn't hard to figure out what. The only question that remained as if Aizawa has shared the vigilante's delusions.

So far, they had found nothing to support that. The boxes just contained Shouta's old hero gear and some files from cases he'd taken soon after reintegration. Nothing illegal, nothing out of place.

But Captain Shirei had a feeling that they were missing something. After all, something had lead Aizawa to be in that cemetery with Candidate Toogata, and something had then murdered them. It had been a horrific scene, almost as bad as Dabi's fighting ring. The Captain had expected gore at Dabi's fighting ring. He had not expected it at a suburban cemetery. He was just thankful that no one from the public had been caught up in that.

That there were victims were bad enough but it would be worse if they were innocent. Given that there was history between Aizawa and Toogata, he knew that there was a reason they were dead.

Infact, that could be the reason Sir Nighteye was dead as well, or at least related to it. They could all be involved in some sort of conspiracy.

Captain Shirei shook his head. They should have just reintegrated. They would have been happier then. Not dead but he guessed some heroes couldn't let go of the past. There was ample evidence of that.

He looked around the storage room. They had to be missing something. He examined all the boxes, running his eyes over them. None of them had false bottoms or anything like that. They were cardboard. Captain Shirei's eyes moved over the walls. He looked in the corners, examining them carefully. There was nothing lurking there but... He felt his eyes narrow. There was a tiny mark on the floor.

That wasn't anything special, he told himself. The floor was cheap. The storage people made their money from rent, not from fixing marks on the floor. Except his eyes kept going to it, tracing out the mark as it ran all the way to the back wall. Wait! That was it. The mark went under the wall. That wasn't right.

Captain Shirei tapped the side walls. They were hollow. They lead to the storage rooms on either side. He tapped the back wall. The sound was different. Just a bit, just enough to mean he couldn't dismiss his thoughts about the mark. He kept tapping his knuckle against the wall. It sounded different in places.

That could mean that the boxes on the other side were packed up against the wall but it wasn't right for that. There were hollow areas under where other bits had sounded solid. That wasn't right for a well packed room and when he tapped in the corner... The wall moved.

Carefully Captain Shirei applied more force. The wall slipped and revealed that it wasn't a wall at all. It was a board. Particle board, made to look like one of the internal walls. He pulled it away, slipping it against the floor and looked behind it.

His eyes widened. There were photos there, pinned up against a backing board, with string linking them in what seemed to be random patterns. He put the concealing board down and stepped back. There was enough room to do that, and suddenly the way this room had been packed made sense. Only a few boxes had been hard up against the back wall. They would be quick enough to move so that Aizawa could look at this.

Captain Shirei recognised a case board when he saw it. The strings were colourful and connected to photos of people he recognised. Dabi, Mustard, Himiko Toga, Kurogiri, Ujiko... All the major members of the League. Tomura Shigaraki's picture was there too, as was All For One's. There were black marks around their images, the same with Mustard's and Ujiko's...

The Captain knew it meant they were dead. Aizawa had been updating the board.

He looked at the strings. They all lead to one person. The Captain lifted his eyes to the top of the board, looking at the image.

Even with all the strings attached to it, so many strings that it almost concealed the image, he recognised it. Imoku Kakurete. The Representative Kakurete.

Captain Shirei breathed out and just stared for a few moments before he shook his head. "Aizawa, you fool," he muttered.

The underground hero should have known how dangerous it was to go up against politicians. And going up against one like Kakurete, who was both popular and influential... that was suicide.

The Captain reached out and unpinned the photo. He put the pin back, placing it slightly higher, through the question mark that had been over Kakurete's image. He was careful to make sure he didn't disturb the strings as he put the picture in his pocket. Then he looked at the board, nodding to himself when he saw there was no outline to give away that there had been a photo there. He could only do that much modification without risk. If he moved anything else, then his fingerprints might come up. Best to be careful. .

"I found something," Captain Shirei called. That brought the forensic team running.

They skidded to a halt at the door and he heard them gasp when they saw the true back wall of the storage unit. He turned away from it as several team members rushed in.

This was just more evidence for the case... a case that appeared would not be solved today.

He had a feeling it would not be solved any day.

-afop-

Despite being dressed in prison orange, Yū Takeyama was still filled with rage. No one was taking her seriously. No one saw the danger and no one was doing anything!

She had felt a slight regret when informed of the woman's death but she had gotten in the way! Why didn't anyone understand that? The woman, Inko, she'd been told, had just gotten in the way. She shouldn't have interfered. No one had interfered when Shinji had been killed. They'd simply watched. They'd let the League do what they want.

They'd let him burn.

Yū took a deep, shuddering breath at the thought. He'd screamed and screamed, and screamed and no one had done anything. She could still remember it.

The police never hunted for Dabi. They knew who killed Shinji. They knew who it was, but they always claimed they couldn't find Dabi. They couldn't find the League!

That's why she'd acted. She'd had to act and she couldn't find Dabi but she'd found something even better. She'd found the man who destroyed heroes. She found the man who had made it so that Dabi could walk away. It was all his fault! He was the one who had killed heroes.

And yet, she was the one in prison. She was the one lying on a lumpy bed, with a quirk suppressing anklet as the waited for her trial.

At this time of night the prison was quiet. If Yū concentrated she could hear the tread of the guards but they were faint. At night they relied on cameras.

It was because of the quiet that she heard the whisper of noise from the far end of her cell. Yū pretended to be asleep but she looked down there. The back of her cell was in shadow but it was darker now, and swirling?

She was hard pressed to keep her eyes mostly closed. Someone stepped out of the shadow, confirming her suspicions that the swirling was a warp gate.

Kurogiri, she identified the quirk user. And the person who had come... a woman. Blonde hair and yellow eyes. Himiko. Yū knew all the League's main members. The blonde looked around, spotting her on the bunk before she smiled as someone else emerged from the warp gate.

"You can sit up you know," Toga told her. The villain knew she wasn't sleeping.