The Deal

"Ah, there you are! It took you long enough."

"Tch, that's because you called me out of nowhere!" answered Mio.

---

Despite everything that happened between them, Mio was able to talk to her kouhai without issue. She could remember the day of their deal as if it were yesterday. Mio remembers looking around the memories of the people at school and finding what's basically the blackmail material equivalent of a nuke in Sandatsu's head. Murder, shady government operations, stolen quirks—she remembers thinking about what to do with all that information. And then everything turned black.

The next thing she knew, she was in what she later learned were the woods behind the school, sitting leaning against a tree, unable to move her body or use her quirk, and feeling a sharp pain on the back of her head. Standing in front of Mio was her kouhai, Sandatsu Owari, wearing his hero suit.

"Sorry about the pain; I threw a trash can at you from behind to knock you out," said the boy. "Ah, but not being able to move your body has nothing to do with it. That's just one of my quirks."

Mio knew about this quirk from seeing his memories. Controlling others by using his own blood. But how did he become aware that she saw his memories?

"This was going to happen eventually. Your quirk is just too valuable. I just had to have it." Said Sandatsu, now kneeling down to be at her eye level.

Mio felt that she was regaining some control over her face. Was that Sandatsu's doing to let her talk?

"How did you know I saw your memories?" she said straight away.

"Hm? I didn't know that. I have been looking for a chance to get my hands on you for some time now."

Mio was stumped. Maybe if she hadn't said that, she would have been able to talk her way out of this.

Sandatsu stared at her for a few seconds and then stood up.

"You see,"  he said, "I'm under constant surveillance by my handlers wherever I go. So they'd probably notice if you tampered with my memories. Plus, I think one of my quirks could undo the effects of yours."

"Where are you getting at?" Mio barked at him.

"Well, you should be thankful. I've decided to offer you a deal."

"What?"

"I don't feel like learning how to use your quirk when I can just ask you to do it."

Mio could feel herself regaining control of her body.

"So you do all of this and get cold feet at the last minute. God, you're annoying." The words slipped out of Mio's mouth before she could notice. "Why the hell did she have to say that now to the psychopath who had just threatened her?" she thought.

"Yeah, you're right... I guess I'm not ready to go killing innocent people yet."

"Yet... "

And ever since then, they have been meeting regularly. Mio would be called by her underclassman at random times and places, and he'd casually threaten to murder her and take her quirk for himself if she ever broke the deal. Every time they met, she was told to edit the memories of people, mostly police officers. Mio, experienced as she was at building narratives through altering memories, quickly understood that her kouhai was trying to make a small gang of thugs look like a much bigger deal than they were in reality.

---

Back in the present, the two of them were meeting behind the school, right in front of the woods where Sandatsu had his tent.
"Don't worry about it,"  said the boy, retrieving something from his backpack. "Here, you'll get the rest later."

He handed a crumpled paper bag to Mio. Inside, there were several stacks of bills in the same condition as the bag. After their first memory-altering assignment was complete, Sandatsu told Mio that she'd also be paid for her services.

"You should really handle things like these with more care, you know?" said Mio as she started counting the money.

"And you should really shut up. You should be thankful I included money in our deal."

One million, seven hundred thousand yen! Mio's temper improved noticeably after knowing the amount she had been paid. She never thought it would be so much. And she was getting more later!

"So so, when did you say I'd get the rest?"

"After today's assignment. Up until now, we have been doing prep work. Today's the main job."

"Hm? So what are we doing?"

"We are going fishing."

---

The three criminals had taken refuge in an abandoned storehouse. Their leader, Ishida Hideo, had collapsed the entrance using his quirk.

"Fuck...! How's Goto?"  asked Hideo to one of his comrades, who was tending to an injured third member of the group.

"Not good man, his arm's fucked up and he has lost a lot of blood!" shouted Hideo's underling as he checked Goto's condition.

The trio heard movement coming from the collapsed entrance and decided to get moving. If they got to the main streets, they should be fine.

Hideo moved and helped the other man lift the injured Goto. They dragged him to the other side of the storehouse, where Hideo used his quirk to break down part of a wall so they could leave. Right after they exited the building, the rubble of the collapsed entrance was blasted away by a barrage of hits from at least a dozen clawed arms.

Hideo looked back as they ran. He saw a young man enter the storehouse. The arms disappeared under his ragged cape.

"Move your fucking asses; he's right behind us." The sharp pain of something hitting him from behind stopped Hideo in his tracks. The caped aggressor had thrown a piece of debree at him.

He tried to stand up, but the best he could do was crawl a couple feet before he was struck again. This time the hit was to his face. The stranger had caught up to them and delivered a powerful kick to Hideo's face. His vision was becoming blurry; all he could see was the light emitted by one of his comrades, Hachiro, as he used his quirk to try and defend himself.

Hachiro had thrown Goto aside as he panicked and began launching random barrages of fiery waves at the attacker with his quirk. The boy covered himself in layers of arms as he moved closer to Hachiro, the burned tissue quickly regenerating almost as fast as it was damaged. When he was close enough, he grabbed the thug by the neck, lifting him up. He watched as Hachiro fainted due to the lack of oxygen.

Sandatsu spent a few seconds admiring his work. He dragged the unconscious Hachiro to the side of the road. The boy was ready to curbstomp the criminal but was interrupted by the wall in front of him being destroyed by a muscular man wearing a ski mask and goggles.

"Oohh yeah!" said the man as he tackled Sandatsu with superhuman strength.

Sandatsu smiled, even as he felt his bones breaking. The bait had been successful.

The enforcers still had some limitations when it came to their operations. He had been driving them closer and closer to his true objective: an area that the enforcers had identified as the territory of a vigilante.

Sandatsu knew that the enforcers could manipulate heroes through the government and villains by conducting classified operations. But vigilantes were like heroes outside the system, and they were harder to catch than villains because they were reactive, which meant that they wouldn't appear unless there was a crime happening.

What's more, enforcers had a hard time setting up operations against vigilantes because, unlike with heroes and villains, they lacked information about them, making greenlighting the operation extremely difficult unless it was a very exceptional case.

But they could still take care of a vigilante if they interfered with enforcer activities. There had been reports of vigilante activity in that area for some time already. Using Mio's quirk to generate enough fake evidence and reports from the police by altering their memories, the enforcers were allowed to conduct a strike against the small trio of criminals as if they were full-blown villains.

Sandatsu had been cornering the thugs into the territory of this vigilante, hoping he'd jump into the fray.

He sprouted more arms from his back to prevent himself from falling down completely, and then used them to push himself back up. But just as he stood up again, his face was met with an inhumanly strong punch.

"Siddown!" shouted the masked man.

The hit was strong enough to send the quirk reaper flying to the other side of the street. He quickly regenerated and was making a dash towards the vigilante when he saw his opponent stumbling forward in his direction. His movements looked like those of a drunk, which made Sandatsu lose his focus for a second and take a hook from the man that sent him flying once again.

Sandatsu's next surprise came right after he landed. Instead of coming after him, the man was taking a sip from a hip flask he pulled out of the inner pocket of his coat.

"Woohooo! And the audience roars in excitement after seeing Kampai's amazing homerun!" said the vigilante, imitating the sound of the cheers the public would make.

Now Reaper had no doubts; this man was drunk. He decided to dash at him again. The boy saw his opponent stumble again, but this time he didn't even try to regain his footing. The vigilante stopped himself from falling face first to the ground by landing his hands first, and then used the momentum to lift his legs up and go for a low kick. The man's movement had been strongly reminiscent of breakdancing, only clumsier and much more violent.

Sandatsu took the kick head-on. He felt Kampai's foot obliterate his ribs. The boy felt his mouth filling up with blood and seized the opportunity, spitting it all over Kampai's face. He felt his quirk activate. Some of his blood had probably gotten inside Kampai's mouth.

Reaper tried to restrain Kampai's movements, and it did work for a couple of seconds. But the vigilante managed to break free of his control and deliver a headbutt strong enough to break the boy's neck and shatter his skull.

"Ya think I'm a lightweight, shrimp?"  screamed the man.

Sandatsu panicked as he realized his blood quirk was useless against the man. Was it something about Kampai's quirk? Or was it because he was so absolutely zoinked out of his gourd that he was immune?

The boy sprouted more arms, trying to reach for anything to prevent himself from falling down while he recovered. Some of his arms managed to snatch away Kampai's mask.

This shocked the vigilante, as he tried to first cover his face with his hands and then try to recover his mask.

The quirk reaper didn't waste this chance.

He stopped himself from falling, anchoring himself to the ground with more arms, and then got into a stance. He remembered Bobby's advice:

"Pack more power starting with the leading foot, like before, but you also build more strength through rotation of your waist, bringing back the shoulder of the arm you aren't using, and pushing off your back foot. Then it's a matter of keeping your arm straight and delivering the punch."

Sandatsu followed these steps, focusing on the strength he had been stockpiling from his Comeback quirk and layering several arms on top of his main one to add even more power to the hit.

Reaper landed his hit on Kampai's cheek, sending the man flying back just as he had done to him at the start of the fight.

Before the vigilante could stand up, Sandatsu had already grappled him. The boy's arms were constantly wrapping around him, even as he broke them trying to break free.

"So you like to drink, old man?"  said Sandatsu as he dragged the struggling Kampai. "Then let's make a toast! Kam...!"

And then the reaper slammed Kampai against a fire hydrant, face first, with enough strength to break it, causing a torrent of water to gush out and making it look like it was raining as the water fell back down.

"...pai!"

After that hit, Kampai relaxed his body for a second, giving him enough space to maneuver and break free of Sandatsu's grapple. The man hit the quirk reaper with the back of his hand, grabbing him by the neck with the other, before he was sent flying by the impact.

Before Kampai could say anything, he noticed that his opponent was clawing at his own face and arms, spraying blood everywhere and tearing some of those arms, then throwing them at the now broken fire hydrant. The blood mixed with the water, coloring it red as it was falling down on them.

Even with his downgraded mental capabilities, Kampai noticed that the boy was probably trying to use his blood to stop him, like last time.

"Didn't I tell you already, shrimp?" I'm no lightwei-" Kampai's enhanced sense of smell caught something. Blood, flesh, and bone. But from different people.

He turned around, looking for the people that were lying around when he got there. Two of them were now dead, their heads almost completely separated from their bodies as the skin, muscle, and bone had fallen apart. The third one, whom Kampai presumed was the culprit, was holding his own neck in a trance. Kampai saw the skin on the neck of the man unraveling as Sandatsu forced him to use his quirk.

"Oi, are you crazy?" Kampai tried to move and stop him, but something was holding him back.

He looked again at his opponent. Sandatsu was smiling, driving some of his arms into the pavement while keeping a firm grip on Kampai to prevent him from stopping Ishida Hideo from taking his own life.

The vigilante tried to punch him to break free, but Sandatsu's defense had noticeably improved thanks to one of the quirks he had absorbed.

Sandatsu kept dodging Kampai's stronger hits while restraining him. After struggling for a few seconds, the vigilante heard the man he was trying to stop fall down.

Reaper smiled. His plan had been successful, and with his stolen quirks, he could turn the tide of the battle and get rid of the vigilante.

"That was your doing, wasn't it?"  shouted Kampai.

The man, enraged, started ripping and tearing Sandatsu's arms while delivering punches that would have killed anyone without regeneration. His onslaught was fierce enough to send the boy farther away than any of his previous hits had.

Sandatsu crashed through a wall and into a bar. Panic ensued as the customers screamed; some tried to run straight away, while others warily tried to check up on the caped individual who had come crashing, only to see a bloody mass of arms clawing at anyone who got near and running away as well.

A few seconds after every customer had left, Kampai entered the bar. He saw Sandatsu lying on the floor, coughing blood, and struggling to stand up. The man sat in front of him. There was a table between them, and the food and drinks the customers had ordered were still there.

Kampai drank all the alcohol left at the table while staring at the quirk reaper. His frame becoming even bulkier, not only filled with alcohol but also anger.

They stared at each other for a few seconds, though it felt more like several minutes.

Sandatsu moved first. He lunged at the man but was interrupted by him breaking a bottle of sake against his face. Still, he endured and grabbed one of Kampai's arms. The vigilante felt his skin and muscle fibers unraveling and flinched because of the pain before breaking free of the boy's grasp.

The reaper smiled as another arm came out of his back and lashed at Kampai's head. His grasp on the man's face was firm, yet nothing was happening. Sandatsu had miscalculated; he couldn't use Separate through the arms made by Branching Grasp.

He saw Kampai winding up another punch. The boy panicked. Taking hits from this man was already incredibly hard, even with his endurance and regeneration. And this next strike looked even more dangerous. He activated another one of his stolen quirks, and his perception of time slowed down just enough for him to make a decision. He wouldn't be able to completely dodge the punch with speed alone. But maybe if the man flinched again...

A blast of fiery embers came out of the hand that was still placed on Kampai's face. The heat didn't burn him that much because of his durability, but it was still enough for the hit to not be as dangerous.

Using his speed, Sandatsu contorted his body so that the hit sent him crashing through a wall again, but this time he landed outside the bar.

Kampai gave chase, of course. While he couldn't see very well due to having tanked a wave of burning cinders to the face, he was capable of following him through smell. But the boy's trail was becoming more faint as he put more and more distance between them.

Kampai knew he needed a vantage point, not out of any conscious thought, as those were heavily impaired by his quirk, but out of instinct. He climbed to the roof of a building through the fire escape and caught a glimpse of the torn cape of his opponent in the distance.

---

"Oh God, you smell like shit,"  said Mio. "Stay away from me, you idiot!"

"I had to escape through the sewers,"  said the reaper.

"What, you? Holy fuck you reek,"  said Mio as she took a couple of steps back. "I already led him in the opposite direction. There was no need for you to do that, troglodite!"

They had met back in the woods behind the school. Just as they had planned, Mio covered Sandatsu's escape with her quirk, misguiding the vigilante.

"I think his sense of smell was also enhanced, so I didn't want to take any chances,"  said the boy as he took off his dirty cape.

"Ugh. Anyway, you said I'd get the money later, right? So? Where is it?"

"Give me second,"  answered the boy, now in his underwear after taking off the rest of his hero suit.

"Can't you wait until we're done before you get naked, you retard?" She said, "Know what? I'll get it myself because if you handed it to me, your stench would be all over my precious money. It's in the tent, right?"

"Yeah"

Sandatsu stood there waiting as Mio got into his tent. He stared at the sky. It was already morning, and he'd have to go to class in a bit. His thoughts were interrupted by the sight of something flying over the woods.

"Alright, I got it. I'll get going now." As Mio was coming out, she was kicked in the face by Sandatsu, sending her back inside.

"Keep quiet, idiot!" he said while he closed the zipper.

"Hey Sandy! What are you doing naked in the woods, man? That's creepy!" shouted the boy riding a green dragon. It was Inigo. He had come to school flying on top of Gigan and probably took a different route to avoid being seen by people, so he ended up near Sandatsu's place.

"H-hey man, I'm just getting ready for class!" Sandatsu's thoughts were all over the place. Inigo was up in the air, outside the range of Mio's quirk. Maybe he could lure him to get closer, but he could notice something before getting in range, so it was a risky move.

Of course, Mio could edit his memories later if he saw anything, but he could always tell other people before they caught him. High school rumors spread like wildfire.

"Something wrong?" asked Inigo inocently.