Aizawa was a man who lived in the seams of the world, and following a target was second nature to him. He stayed low, a flickering shadow moving across the rooftops of Yokohama, his capture scarf tucked tight.
He watched Kenji Hoshino navigate the city, and it was like watching a perfectly choreographed stage play. Stinger stopped to help an elderly woman with her groceries, his cerulean armour gleaming in the sun. He knelt to speak to a crying child, offering a small, wooden toy from a pocket, a gesture so practiced, so "heroic," that it made Aizawa's skin crawl.
No one is this clean, Aizawa thought, his eyes narrowing. Only All Might Is ever this sincere, and even he had the decency to look exhausted by the weight of it. Hoshino is like an advertisement.
The city eventually bled away into the outskirts, the luxury high-rises replaced by the dense, suffocating greenery of the Kanagawa forests. Stinger's pace quickened. He was no longer playing to a crowd. He moved with a frantic, twitchy energy, his military-grade posture occasionally breaking into a hurried stumble.
They reached a clearing deep within the woods. In the center sat the Shed, a rotting, ivy-choked structure that looked like a tooth about to fall out of a gums.
Aizawa crouched in the high branches of a Japanese cedar, his breath stilled. He watched Stinger approach the door. A busted down door that he pulled a key to, Stinger looked surprised and then gritted his teeth.
Stinger vanished inside.
Aizawa waited. One minute passed. Then two. The forest was eerily silent, the birds seemingly hushed by the presence of the building. Then, a sound tore through the trees, a high-pitched, jagged wail that sounded like a wounded animal.
Stinger stumbled out of the shed. His cerulean visor was pushed up, revealing eyes that were wide, bloodshot, and darting with a frantic, wild psychosis. He was hyperventilating, his hands clawing at the pristine white polymer of his suit.
"Where is she?" Stinger's voice was a panicked whimper, the voice of a child lost in a supermarket. "Where is she... where is she... where is she?!"
He spun in a circle, looking at the dirt, the trees, the sky. He looked utterly broken, his hands fluttering at his throat as if searching for a phantom wound. He began to pace, muttering a string of nonsense, his melodic voice reduced to a rhythmic, terrified chant.
Then, he stopped.
It was as if an invisible hand had grabbed him by the scalp and yanked upward. His spine snapped into a perfectly straight line with a sickening pop. His face went blank, the terror replaced by a glassy, artificial calm. He adjusted his collar, smoothed his hair, and pulled his visor back down. He looked like a puppet being pulled up by strings, his movements mechanical and eerie.
Without another word, Stinger turned and walked away from the shed, heading back toward the city with the stiff, graceful gait of a mannequin.
Aizawa didn't follow him this time. He waited until the sound of Stinger's boots faded before dropping from the tree.
The air near the shed tasted like old copper and stagnant water. Aizawa pulled a small flashlight from his belt and stepped inside. The interior was dim, the floor covered in a thick carpet of grey dust and centuries of cobwebs.
He swept the light across the floor.
"Empty," Aizawa muttered.
But as he looked closer, he saw the "lumps" in the dust. Near the far corner, there was an imprint, a long, scattered pattern of depressions in the grime. To Aizawa's trained eye, it looked like a collection of loose, rusted tools had been lying there for a long time before being picked up.
A few feet away was a second imprint. This one was larger, deeper. It was a rectangular shape, sitting perfectly upright against the wall. It looked like a heavy box or a small trunk had been stationed there.
Aizawa knelt, touching the edge of the dust. The edges of the imprints were sharp. Whatever had been here had been removed recently, likely within the last twenty-four hours.
Something was here, Aizawa thought, his brow furrowing. Two 'objects' of significant weight. Hoshino came here to check on them, found them gone, and lost his mind.
He stood up, looking around the cramped, rotting space. He felt a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature.
He pulled out his phone, the blue light reflecting in his tired eyes. He opened an encrypted channel to Nezu.
[Aizawa]: Found the location Hoshino was heading to. A shed in the Naka-outskirts. It's empty, but something was moved recently. Two items. Hoshino is unstable, showed signs of a dissociative break before being 'himself' again. I'm staying in Yokohama for the night. I want to see where he goes when the sun goes down.
He hit send and pocketed the phone. He looked at the imprint of the "box" one last time. He didn't know it was the spot where a mummified boy had sat in stasis for a year. He didn't know the "tools" were the bones of a girl.
But as Shota Aizawa stepped out of the shed and into the twilight, he knew one thing for certain.
The "New-Port Hero" was a lie. And the truth was currently walking the streets of Yokohama with black eyes and a broken heart.
___
The cavern was a hollow ribcage of stone, hidden deep beneath the industrial outskirts of Yokohama. In its center, a small fire flickered, its orange tongues licking at the damp air, casting long, dancing shadows against the jagged walls.
Yoshi sat on a flat rock, hunched over, his hands tucked into the pockets of his black hoodie. The designer shorts he had stolen were dusty, and the "Golden Child's" face was obscured by the deep shadow of his cowl. He stared into the embers, his black eyes unblinking, but he wasn't looking at the flames. He was listening to the screaming in his head.
It was a choir of ghosts, and they were furious.
"You're a monster, Abara!" The voice was rough, cracking like a whip. It was Daigoro Banjo, the fifth user. "Tucking a man into the power lines like a gruesome ornament? That was evil. That was rot. You're using the power of One For All to decorate a city with corpses!"
Yoshi hadn't even thought to use another quirk but his own. But he didn't care to correct the fool.
"The light does not belong to you," a softer, more melodic voice joined in, Yoichi, the first wielder. His presence felt like a cool breeze against the heat of Yoshi's rage. "You have unmade the Symbol of Peace. You have stained the hands of a boy who only wanted to save. Even if you fully seize this body, the good of the world will not permit you to stand. Balance will find you."
Yoshi let out a short, jagged giggle. It was a dry, hollow sound that echoed off the cavern walls. "The good of the world?" he whispered, his voice vibrating with a mocking resonance. "I lived a short thirteen years in that world, and the 'good' never even knocked on my door. Keep your sermons. I'm tired."
"What happened to you?" Yoichi asked, his voice tinged with a terrifying, ancient curiosity. "What manner of darkness was forced upon you to make a child's soul so iron-cold?"
"None of your business," Yoshi snapped, his fingers digging into the fabric of his pockets. "You're dead. You're just souls lost in a quirk. You don't get to judge the living, and you sure as hell don't need to know me. Stay in your attic."
"Yoshi... stop."
The voice was Nana Shimura's. It was heavy with a grief so profound it felt like a weight on Yoshi's chest. "I know what you're planning. I see the name Stinger carved into your mind. Don't do this. Don't kill Kenji Hoshino."
Yoshi shook his head slowly, his eyes reflecting the dying embers of the fire. "It's not up for debate, hag."
"You have already done the unforgivable!" Nana's voice broke, becoming a strangled sob that vibrated through Izuku's vocal cords. "You used Izuku's body to dismantle his idol. You used his hands to weave a man into the wires. When that boy wakes up, and he will wake up, what do you think will be left of him? If you have any warmth at all in that soul of yours, if you remember the sister you loved, then stop. Do not violate this vessel any further. Don't make him a murderer."
Yoshi's jaw tightened. He felt a sudden, violent throb in his temples. The "Golden Child" was still there, deep in the dark, and Nana's words were reaching him. Yoshi could feel the attic of the heart trembling, the green lightning of One For All flickering sporadically across his skin like a warning.
"He's already a murderer," Yoshi hissed, his voice dropping into a feral, distorted growl. "His hands did the work. My mind just gave the orders. We're partners now, whether he likes it or not."
With a sharp, mental shove, Yoshi slammed the door on the Vestiges. He flooded his consciousness with the cold, damp silence of the shed, drowning out their voices until they were nothing but a faint, distant static.
He stared back at the fire, his breathing ragged.
He didn't have much time. He could feel Izuku's will beginning to stir, a slow, agonizing recovery of the self. The boy was looking for something to hold on to, a memory of his mother, a scrap of his hero's legacy, anything to use as a lever to pry Yoshi out of the light.
"Tomorrow," Yoshi whispered to the flames. "The ritual ends tomorrow."
The Hone-Kara was incomplete. He had the White Stones, his own mummified remains hidden. He had the Vessel, this muscular, powerful body that hummed with a stolen legacy. Now, he just needed the Red Thread. He needed to find the Man of Iron and steal the life that had been taken from him in that dark, quiet box.
Once he had Stinger's blood, he could leave. He could build his own house. He could let the Golden Child have his broken body back, though it would be stained with a darkness that no hero's smile could ever wash away.
Yoshi stood up, the fire dying down to a pile of grey ash. He looked toward the mouth of the cavern, toward the distant, shimmering lights of Yokohama.
"One more day."