Chapter 7 - Face to Face

Mastermind looked back at Izuku from the full length mirror in Giran's office. He didn't want to get dressed in his villain outfit at home and potentially risk getting caught by his mom or the neighbors. If everything went well tonight, he would be finding his own base soon enough, but until then, Giran's office would have to do.

His villain outfit was practical, but still managed to look intimidating. Or at least it would, if Izuku wasn't so short. The black armored pants were fitted, but flexible, and were paired with a black armored shirt made from the same material, but what tied the outfit together was the jacket. It was a dark green and had a hood he had pulled up, his hair just peeking out from underneath it. There were dozens of pockets that had smoke bombs, grenades, flash bangs, and, of course, his knives. He also had knives strapped to each of his legs and a few hidden in his dark red boots for emergencies. After a few months training with Toga, he was deadly with a knife, if not quite as good as his teacher. The last thing he put on was his mask. It was a solid black and covered his entire face below the nose. It didn't look like a standard gas mask, looking instead like a simple ski mask, but Giran assured him it would filter out any harmful gas attacks. Looking in the mirror, the effect was stunning. The knives alone would have been intimidating, but the hood partially shaded Izuku's face so that the only distinguishing feature were his bright green eyes, lit with a deadly sort of fire. He loved it.

Giran had arranged a face to face meetup now that Toga said he probably wouldn't die immediately as soon as he was attacked. The meeting was with a small gang that had territory in eastern tokyo and were wanting to rob a casino. Izuku himself was still considered small time, even if he was becoming more well known, so Giran said this would be a good chance for Mastermind to start showing his face, even if it was behind a mask.

"Looking pretty snazzy." Giran was leaning against the doorframe, smoking his ever present cigarette. "I'd say knock 'em dead, but that'd be bad for business."

Izuku rolled his eyes, again marveling at how they stood out against his outfit, "Let's go. The sooner we get this over with, the sooner I can pretend I'm not nervous."

Giran chuckled, but grabbed his keys, "You're such a smart kid, I keep forgetting how new to the game you are. Normally it takes years for small fry like you to get to this point in their careers."

"Yeah well, normally small fry don't make a living killing heroes."

The drive to the warehouse was short, but maybe that was because there's not really any traffic at two o'clock in the morning. As they walked in, Giran and Mastermind were met with a dozen armed guards surrounding a man almost as big as Fatgum who was obviously the head honcho. Izuku immediately started analyzing, matching the people and quirks he saw to the research he'd done beforehand.

The head honcho was sneering at him "Giran, I said I wanted to meet with Mastermind, not some kid who's still wearing diapers! What kind of a joke are you trying to pull here?"

Giran just smirked, Izuku was fairly certain it was his default expression, but there was a possibility that he was genuinely amused by the situation. "Yeah, I know he doesn't look like much, but I guarantee you he's the real deal. Apparently, you don't have to be tall to be smart."

Izuku's nervousness was slowly morphing into anger and determination. If there was anything he was used to from his life before villainy, it was jerks who thought it was their right to look down on him. The head honcho had gone on a rant about Giran not taking him seriously and how he was powerful and blah, blah blah. Izuku just sat down on the chair provided for him and spoke quietly, the determination in his voice and eyes passing for confidence in his words.

"Takumi Fujito. Age: 42. Quirk: Spines, you convert the fat in your body into spines that can be detached, however they have a tendency to bleed when you do that, so you avoid detaching them if at all possible. Family: you have a wife that you married ten years ago and four kids, all under the age of 15. Your youngest just turned six last wednesday, congratulations, by the way. Weaknesses: your family, the dependence of your quirk on your previous fat stores and the risk of blood loss if forced to use it in the wrong way. You also have a severe allergy to shellfish. Did I get anything wrong?"

The room had gone completely silent and Izuku smiled innocently beneath his mask and looked directly at the head honcho, who gulped. "So," Izuku said pleasantly, "Shall we begin?"

Detective Tsukauchi rubbed his eyes in frustration before taking another gulp of his coffee. The Mastermind case was rapidly turning from a minor headache to a massive migraine. The guy had been on the scene for less than ten months and he was already becoming one of the most dangerous villains the detective had ever been tasked with finding.

He looked at the file again, filled with whatever neatly written plans they had managed to confiscate from villains and a handful of blurry photographs pulled from security cameras at internet cafes. All the evidence pointed to one thing: Mastermind was a ghost. The police hadn't even known about his existence until months after his first murder, and it was the media who first caught onto the fact that all the recent hero deaths were connected. The heroes and police hadn't even thought to check. Why would they? Each murder was committed by different people with different quirks and there wasn't any signiture connecting the deaths.

It wasn't until Nedzu noticed that the villains committing the crimes weren't smart enough to pull off the kinds of heists they were doing that they began looking for a strategist rather than a serial killer. A strategist for hire. Looking at it now, it seemed obvious and simple. The murders were only possible because there was some genius pulling the strings from behind, making sure that the villains knew every possible weakness and how to exploit it. Nedzu was anxious to catch Mastermind mostly because he wanted an intellectual equal to play chess with, but Tsukauchi wanted to catch him because the more his influence grew the more dangerous he became.

The only comforting fact about the entire case was that Mastermind never agreed to in person meet-ups, which limited his influence considerably. If the police and heroes could catch him before he got up the courage to show his face, then they might be able to nip this in the bud, but Mastermind was starting to change his MO and that made Tsukauchi nervous. For a long time, Mastermind had used internet cafes to communicate with the villains who hired him, which had been the only solid lead the police could get on the guy, as thin as it was. He had been caught on camera multiple times, but always kept his hood up and seemed to know where the cameras were placed, so they still had no idea what he really looked like. Tsukauchi and Sansa had gone to interview employees at the various cafes but because they didn't know about Mastermind until several months after he became active it had been too long for most to remember a random guy in a hoodie. The only thing they had to show for the interviews was one clerk who remembered a young man with green hair, but even he admitted it could have been black and the harsh fluorescent lights were just messing with his eyes. In short they still had nothing, but were tracking any suspicious activity at dozens of internet cafes in the city.

And then he stopped using them.

The crimes continued, accelerated even, but there was no physical sign of Mastermind anywhere. Tsukauchi and the rest of the police could only guess that he had either bought some sort of untraceable tech, or he had figured out how to build it himself. Either way, their most solid lead had gone cold and they were back to where they started. Well, almost. At least they knew the guy existed now.

A slight movement in the corner of his eye made Tsukauchi reflexively drop the file and reach for his gun.

"Hey now, I didn't think I was being that quiet."

Tsukauchi curbed his panic for long enough to recognize the long white scarf, tangled hair and tired eyes of the hero in front of him. He sighed in relief.

"Eraser! Sorry I didn't hear you coming, I just…" He looked at the papers spread all over the floor, "got lost in thought, I guess."

Eraser grunted in response, "I guess I should apologize for sneaking up on you. Stealth is just kind of a reflex for underground heroes, it takes too much work to turn it off."

"No," Tsukauchi shook his head, "It's not a problem. So, why are you here Eraser? Normally you go straight to sleep after patrols."

Eraserheads expression, minute as the change was, turned grim, "I heard something concerning from one of my informants and needed to let you know as soon as possible." He glanced down at the file that was still lying in disarray at their feet, "I have something else to add to your file."

Tsukauichi perked up half in excitement and half in dread. While he hoped Eraser was bringing good news, his grim attitude made that much less likely. "Please tell me that you have some sort of lead on how to find him." Even as he said it, he knew it was a useless hope. If Eraser was bringing something like that, he'd be smiling, as unhinged as the hero's smile was.

As expected, Eraser shook his head and frowned, "Much worse. According to my contact, over the past week, Mastermind has met with the leaders of several minor gangs. In person. "

Eraser waited a moment for his news to sink in, watching as all the overworked cogs in Tsukauchi's brain finished turning to the correct positions, and when they did…

"Fuck."