Tokoyami threw a criminal against a wall, knocking him out. Hawks gave a thumbs up, "Nice, now before they stop serving breakfast, let's go get some"-
-Hawk's phone vibrated and he frowned at the contact: Asshole. He held up a finger, signaling Tokoyami to wait as he walked further into the alleyway, answering the phone "Yo, Danzo. The journalist is pretty friendly now."
"Good, I hate to do this to you so soon, but I have a very important mission that you need to take care of."
'Another one this soon? That's never happened before... is he trying to keep me busy?' "Already? Don't you think it's a bit soon? No one else can do it?"
"No, it needs to be you. Your skill set and cooperative ability guarantee the highest possibility of success. *cough.*"
Hawks exhaled, "Right... what's the mission?"
"A distress signal from a scientist named Alan Key was discovered on the island of Otheon. The reports say that this is the main base of operations for a group known as Humarise."
"Humarise? Aren't they some big activist group against quirks?"
"Well, that activism is soon going to turn into mass terrorism. Alan Key has said he's being forced to develop a bomb that will kill anyone with a quirk within the vicinity. I'm sure you understand the seriousness of this?"
"Yeah, I understand. What do you need?"
"Come back to the commission; you're going to be teaming up with a couple of heroes from other countries for this joint operation, along with another commission agent to help assist you. *cough.*"
"Understood... are you okay? You've been coughing,"
"Thank you for your concern, Hawks; yes, I've been sick. This illness has been keeping me in the building for a while now, but don't worry about that. I'll see you once you arrive."
"See ya then, leave your window open," he hung up and thought, 'Another agent? It could be one of Danzo's personal lapdogs... maybe I've been overthinking things? No... it can never be overthinking when it comes to Danzo, this is the perfect opportunity to get rid of me like Itachi!' He clenched his fist. 'Well, it won't work!'
He turned to Tokoyami as his casual expression returned, "Yo, Tokoyami. For your next lesson, what do you think about taking down a global terrorist group?"
Tokoyami blinked, "Huh?"
He gestured, "I gotta help take down a group making a bomb that'll kill anyone with quirks. Instead of sticking around here with my boring employees, why don't you come? I don't wanna be the only bird out there."
"That... is a huge jump from taking out street thugs. I feel as though I might hold you back."
Hawks placed his hand on his back and started walking, "You'll be fine; me and the other heroes will be dealing with most of the terrorists anyway... besides, I mainly needed you to do something else for me on this mission. Can you do that?" Hawks' tone shifted.
Tokoyami faced him, "What's that?"
"I'm not 100% sure, but I'm pretty sure one of the guys that will come up with us is gonna have it out for me."
"Have it out for you? Do you mean..."
"Yes. If you don't wanna come, I can't force you, but I just need someone who can watch my wings for me."
Tokoyami looked down and stopped walking, "I'll come."
Hawks smiled, "Great! Let's go!" He grabbed Tokoyami and flew up above the buildings, giving a clear view of the Musutafu morning skyline and making Tokoyami yell. "Have you still not learned to fly? Gotta learn how to let your wings carry you one of these days. They're probably gonna drop us out of a plane without parachutes you know..."
Tokoyami slammed his eyes shut due to the wind and distance from the ground; he gripped Hawks' arms, "I changed my mind! I'll stay at the agency!"
Hawks laughed, "Too late now! I won't let you fall, don't worry."
They eventually reached the Commission building and spotted an open window, "There it is."
"Hawks, that window is really small." His eyes were wide.
Hawks continued to smile, "You'll be fine, just tuck your legs in."
"Hawks! Wait we can just go in through the front—"
"Incoming!"
Tokoyami shut his eyes tight and tucked his legs as Hawks dove into the room and spread his wings wide to stop. He gently placed Tokoyami on the floor, "See? Not so bad."
Tokoyami's legs slowly ceased to shake, and he opened his eyes, "I would appreciate it if we never do that again."
"Well, you better learn to fly then."
"Damn you, Minato! You gotta be cheating again!"
"I wasn't even cheating last time! Seriously Tsunade... I think you might just be really bad at cards."
Both the new arrivals observed a man and woman in swivel chairs playing cards. The man known as Minato wore a long white cloak with red flames on the ends, his clothes underneath were blue, and he wore black boots. His blonde hair was as spikey as Tokoyami's head, and his blue eyes turned to them. "That must be Hawks."
"Don't change the topic! Let's try one more time!" The woman known as Tsunade shared Minato's blonde hair, but had hazel eyes. She wore a kimono-style blouse with a green haori overtop that covered 2 very huge weapons in the front.
Minato replied, "We can continue on the way to the mission."
Hawks observed them and told Tokoyami, "It looks like we have four teammates."
Tokoyami looked around, "Four?"
Hawks waved him off, "Never mind."
Minato approached them and offered a handshake, "Hey, Hawks right?"
Hawks accepted the shake, "Yup. Sorry, but what's your hero name?
"Over in America they call me the Yellow Flash," he spun a kunai around his finger.
"How'd you get that name?"
Minato caught the kunai and smirked, "You'll see."
Tsunade approached, "You're bringing a kid on this mission?"
Hawks patted Tokoyami's shoulder, "This kid is my apprentice, Tokoyami. He'll be fine. He could beat most pro-heroes if he tried."
Hawks stood with confidence and she shrugged, "Well, we'll see. Anyway, my name back home in Germany is Queen Bertha."
Hawks shook hands with her and tried to meet her grip strength. When she released he shook his hand out, "Whew, quite the grip you got there."
The bathroom door opened and out came Danzo with a facemask. "Ah, you've arrived. Good." His eyes averted to Tokoyami, "Why is your work-study student here? You could have dropped him off at your agency first."
"I thought I might as well bring him. I'd feel bad wasting his work study."
"I... wouldn't advise that... this is a dangerous mission for an inexperienced student."
Tokoyami spoke up for himself, "I heard that the group is based around being against quirks. In that case, I'd assume most of their members don't have any. I don't mean to sound arrogant, but I can't see the mission being more deadly than the two villain attacks me and the rest of Class 1-A have already experienced."
Danzo gripped his cane, staring at Tokoyami while Hawks smiled. "Fine... I suppose that's reasonable. The plane will come to pick you up from the roof in a couple of hours; in the meantime, do what you all wish."
Hawks asked, "Didn't you mention another agent would be coming with us?"
"Yes, he'll be the one picking you up on the plane later. Now if you'll excuse me, I must take care of some things," Danzo left the squad.
Hawks thought, 'Is the sickness legit, or just another act? What are you planning, Danzo? I gotta be missing something...' He looked out the window, 'Before I leave, I gotta talk to Edgeshot. Maybe he might have noticed something since he's closer to Sasuke.'
Minato asked, "Since we have a couple of hours, wanna give us a walk around, Hawks?"
"No problem."
A couple of minutes later, they all walked down the street together, and Hawks asked, "So how do you guys know Japanese anyway? I thought I would have had to use my bad English skills. Isn't that the uh... Linga..."
Tokoyami corrected, "Lingua Franca."
Tsunade answered, "I learned it from my mom as a kid since she was Japanese. Minato, on the other hand, just really likes anime."
Hawks sweatdropped and Minato smirked with low eyelids, "You always leave out the part where I was adopted and raised here."
Tsunade smiled, "Hehe, you know I'm messing with you."
Hawks cleared his throat, "What's up with the"—
—SCREECH! The trio's eyes darted to a car turning a corner and running away from cops. As the car sped past a red light, it got closer and closer to a little girl on the crosswalk who didn't have time to get out of the way. Her mother could be heard screaming and Hawks shot a feather toward her, but before it could reach, a kunai flew even faster past it as a yellow flash followed it, turning into Minato and grabbing the girl before flashing back to where he previously stood.
Tokoyami thought, 'Was Hawks just outsped?' He snapped back to reality, "Dark Shadow!"
Dark Shadow emerged from his cloak to grab the car, but Tsunade came from above and axe-kicked the car through its hood, totaling the car.
Minato asked, "You ok?"
The girl trembled and teared up, "Mhm! Thanks, mister!" The girl's mother came by and hugged her.
"Do you see why you should hold my hand now?"
The girl nodded and they left. Hawks and Tokoyami's eyes were wide.
Tsunade walked over to the car's driver side and knocked on the window with a smile. The thug opened the window shaking and Tsunade ripped him out of the car with one hand, handing him to the cops.
Hawks cleared his throat, "That explains where the name comes from. How did you do that so fast?"
Minato answered, "I can teleport to wherever my kunai are thrown."
"It isn't the kunai specifically that you're teleporting to though, right?"
Minato grabbed the kunai by the blade and showed Hawks the marks on the handle. "That would be correct. My quirk lets me make marks that I can then teleport to. I call it Flying Raijin."
Something clicked in Hawks's mind, "Does your quirk have a distance limit?"
He put his kunai away, "No, why?"
"... I have a favor to ask."
Out in the flat cut field at the agency, Sasuke sat on a bench and watched videos of Crow beating villains effortlessly with his quirk. He could walk down streets of villains without lifting a finger and beat them all just by staring at them. Any villain who fell under his gaze was set aflame and unable to defend themselves in any way.
In one video, a news reporter walked up to him, "Crow! What are your thoughts about reaching rank 3? Do you plan on trying to surpass Endeavor?"
Itachi turned to her and wiped blood off his cheek. She frowned, "Oh! Were you wounded at some point?"
"Yeah, I'll be fine. In regards to ranking, it's irrelevant to me; I'm simply cleaning up the streets."
Sasuke thought, 'Those flames are stronger than anything I've seen, but what's up with his eyes bleeding in some of these clips?'
"Sasuke!" Tenten called out.
He looked up from his phone to see her and Mina, "Yeah?"
"Edgeshot is out right now, so you two are gonna spar."
Sasuke stared at Mina who was punching the air, "Are we allowed to use quirks?"
"Of course, but not enough that the sparring turns into an actual fight. And try to keep things human-sized."
"Gotcha," Sasuke and Mina walked out further into the field.
Mina said, "We're 1 for 1 right now, ready to have a losing record again?"
"We'd be 2 and 0 right now if you didn't get lucky the first time," his eyes turned red.
There was a hint of a frown before she smiled again, "Uh huh, underestimating me is what's gonna get you beat again."
They both got in fighting positions and Tenten raised a hand, "First to land in their back loses. Go!" She swiped her hand and they went to attack one another.
Sasuke threw some low kicks that she avoided like she was playing hopscotch. He aimed higher but she avoided everything as if she was playing a game or dancing. Sasuke thought, 'Her moves are more unorthodox than ever, I don't think I've seen her do half these moves before.'
He manifested a Susanoo hand to slam her, but she did a backward cartwheel, sending up acid with her legs that tore through the hand with relative ease.
Sasuke grimaced as the hand was turned to swiss cheese. He recalled his previous fights thinking, 'Am I not able to improve my defense faster than her acid strength increases?'
Mina threw an acid veil at Sasuke; he made a Ribcage instinctually but consciously jumped away as the bones melted before his eyes.
Mina smiled, "I'm starting to think my quirk counters yours."
Sasuke goaded, "You wanna try out countering my Armored Susanoo then?"
The ribcage grew and slowly covered itself in layers leading up to armor. Tenten stated, "I said keep things human-sized."
Mina replied, "Nah, it's ok. I wanna do this."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure!" She saw concern on Tenten's face and her mouth twitched, 'Why are you looking at me like that? Like I'm incompetent?'
Mina kicked off the dirt, charging at Sasuke and he passively attacked her. His mind was elsewhere. 'If my Susanoo can be burned that easily, then AFO could definitely still just blast right through this... This quirk is amazing, but is it enough?' Mina burned off one of his Susanoo arms and he landed a swipe on her, but she recovered before she could land on her back. 'If I had a quirk like Amaterasu, I wouldn't even have to do all this, just covering myself in a black flame would make me untouchable... It's so obvious!'
"Think about the safety of people like Mina." He snapped out of his thoughts as he saw her rushing at him. He made a hand to grab her, which she burned through, but she didn't see the thick hand behind her that gripped her; in response, she tried to emit acid from everywhere; it burned through most of the hand, but not fast enough to stop it from throwing her to the ground.
Tenten blew a whistle, "Sasuke's win."
Mina sat up frowning. 'I didn't even get to try out everything I've learned.'
The needle kept popping into Sasuke's mind and he turned to jog away, "I'll be back later. I gotta take care of something."
"Huh? Sasuke, wait, you can't—" Sasuke already ran into the building and Tenten muttered, "You idiot!"
She approached Mina and offered a hand, "You did way better than I expected, Mina! You're pretty strong."
Mina winced at her words and forced a smile, "...Thanks. I just made a bad move and couldn't melt it fast enough."
"That's ok, there's something I wanted to give you regarding your acid."
"Yeah?"
Tenten pulled a scroll out of her pocket and poofed a white block into her hand, giving it to Mina. Mina raised a brow as she played around with the bendy soft white block, "What's this?"
"It's a specially made pure Teflon block."
Mina closed her eyes, "A what now?"
"You don't know what Teflon is?" Mina shook her head, and Tenten sighed, "It's the most acid-resistant material in the world. And this one is a pure block modified to be even more resistant."
Mina perked up, "Oh! Am I supposed to practice melting this?"
"Yeah, when you can melt that, then it's safe to say your acid is probably as strong as possible."
"Gotcha!" Mina licked her lips and held it with both hands; acid poured out of her hands and surrounded the block, letting off steam, but it all slid off without even leaving a blemish on the block.
Mina frowned, and Tenten patted her shoulder, "Well, I would hope you couldn't melt it on the first try. You have a whole month to improve everything, so don't worry."
"Yeah, you're right. I'll turn this thing into a puddle by the end of the month!" Mina hastily stood up.
"That's the spirit!"
"Where did Sasuke go?"
Sasuke opened the door to his room and approached the drawers. 'It should be obvious. It's not like it comes from AFO anyway, this is the kind of power I need to put him in the dirt... no, to turn him into ashes!' Sasuke shuffled through the drawer and drew out the needle as his breathing became heavier. 'How will I know when my spiritual side is strong enough to accommodate for another quirk anyway? There's really only one way to know for sure,' he brought the needle to his arm and found a vein. He gripped the syringe harder as his palms became clammy. 'For my parents, for the sake of killing him, I'll take anything I can use!' He injected the fluid into his arm until it was completely emptied.
After doing so, his eyes became teary, and warm liquid poured down his cheeks. He rubbed his face and saw that it was his blood. 'What the hell?' Suddenly he felt a massive headache and groaned in pain as he grabbed his head. Images flashed through his mind like a reel.
He tried to grab the dresser for support, but accidently knocked it over and fell. He saw a woman with purple and pink hair who looked troubled, "There's something you should know, your parents, I—"
The image cuts to one of riding on a plane with Hawks, "What kind of name is Shisui?"
Sasuke scratched at the floor and clenched his eyes shut. The scene went to another where Sasuke saw himself side by side with Hawks facing against a villain. The villain had white hair and a strange purple and black mask. He and Hawks looked up to see a storm cloud manifest above them.
Before he could see more, his mind was flooded by the memory of looking over a cliff at the ocean as the sun set on the horizon. The view was beautiful, but it quickly ended as a bullet shot straight through his chest, his head darted around, and he set the sniper aflame with Amaterasu.
He saw one last memory of Hawks running to his almost lifeless body and holding his hand.
Finally, the memories ended and Sasuke was dripping sweat on the floor below as he got on his knees. 'Those were... memories! Crow's memories? What the hell?"
The door opened and Sasuke scrambled to hide the syringe under his blanket. He looked up to see Tenten who got the slightest glimpse of something metal, "Hey, are you ok? I heard yelling so..." Tenten saw the blood going down Sasuke's face and her face tensed, "Sasuke... what happened to you?"
Sasuke quickly rubbed the blood away and regained composure, "Don't… worry about it."
Tenten drew a sharp breath and shut the door behind her as she marched over to him, trying to help him stand up. "Don't worry about it? You're leaking blood from your damn eyes! Do you need a hospital?"
"I'll be fine… just my quirk acting up," Sasuke leaned on another dresser and took a deep breath.
She released him and crossed her arms, "Since when did your quirk make your eyes bleed?"
Sasuke's brow twitched, "I don't know, alright?" He rubbed his head and groaned.
Tenten's eyes narrowed as she analyzed Sasuke. She sighed, "Right, well at least let me give you some medical care."
He rubbed his head, "Fine, just headache medicine."
"All right," she poofed some medicine out of a scroll and Gave him a pill; after he took it, she turned to leave, "Let me know if you need any more later."
"Hn."
Tenten strolled down the hall and called Edgeshot. "Tenten, what's up? I'm about to meet Hawks right now."
"Sasuke has been acting really weird lately. Also, I just saw him bleeding from his eyes."
"... What?"
"Yeah. I don't know how, but I think it has something to do with that old guy you mentioned yesterday. I couldn't tell exactly what it was, but I saw something in Sasuke's room that he tried to hide when I came. That must have been the thing that caused the bleeding."
"All right… we'll talk more about this later, thank you."
"You're welcome."
Edgeshot hung up and walked into a café to be greeted by the sight of Hawks group. He observed the people he brought with him and his eyes met with Minato's. "Is that you, Minato?"
Minato perked up and smiled, "Shinya?" Minato stood and they shook hands. "Dude, what is that crazy hair? Is that real?"
"Heh, yes it's real. I see you still have the exact same hair."
Minato swept a bang, "If it's not broken, don't fix it. How do you even keep your hair like that? I used to have a sidekick with gravity-defying hair, but that's insane. How do you sleep with that?"
"It took a lot of training, but I can sleep sitting up now."
Hawks asked, "Hey, Tsunade. When did they meet?"
"They met back when Minato used to live here. He's the same guy he got the kunai idea from too."
Tokoyami pointed out, "You seem to know each other very well despite being from different continents. Have you done these kinds of missions before?"
Tsunade sipped her drink, "Yeah, we've done a lot of international missions together. Also, our schools visit each other a lot."
"You mean your hero schools?"
"Yeah, oh that's right. UA still hasn't let any schools from other countries visit yet. You guys gotta change up your policies, my granddaughter has wanted to see UA for years now."
Hawks blinked, "Granddaughter? You're a grandmother? You don't look that old."
Tsunade scowled at him and cracked the glass she drank out of, "Cause I'm not old! I'm only 55 years young!"
Tokoyami and Hawks tensed up. Tokoyami said, "You've aged like fine wine, Tsunade. Do you have a secret to your youth?"
Tsunade smiled, "Thank you, Tokoyami. It's all part of my quirk Vril."
Tokoyami tried to repeat it, "Vlil?"
Tsunade chuckled, "Oh yeah, you guys have some difficulty with R's. It's like… spiritual life energy. Here in the east, you guys call it Chakra."
"Ah, I understand. How does a quirk work as chakra?"
"I think everyone has some amount of Vril in them, but my quirk specifically gives me a huge overload of it. I have so much life energy that I can utilize it as super strength. It gives me a pretty good healing factor too."
"How good of a healing factor?"
She looked up at the ceiling, "Well..." she stretched out her leg, "I got my leg cut off in a huge fight once."
Tokoyami scoffed, "That's... an extraordinary secondary ability! I have a classmate that can do that with his arms, although that's 'cause his quirk specifically duplicates his arms."
Tsunade blushed and waved her hand, "Heh you're so sweet. You should see my granddaughter, her healing is better than mine. She can even heal other people."
Minato and Edgeshot sat down at the table. Edgeshot asked, "Sorry to interrupt, but Hawks. Why did you call me out here?"
Hawks cleared his throat, "It revolves around Sasuke. Have you... ever seen Sasuke hang around with an old guy?"
The events of last night crossed his mind, "Yeah, just yesterday. Why?"
Hawks smirked and thought, 'So Danzo being sick is bull after all.' "Did you see him do anything?"
"I saw him hand something to Sasuke; I couldn't see what it was... but I just got a call from my partner; she said his eyes were bleeding."
A chill ran down Hawks's spine as he gazed down at the table. "Bleeding... eyes?"
Edgeshot nodded, "Yeah, do you know what that could be about?"
Hawks covered his mouth in thought, 'Bleeding eyes? There's only one guy that I've ever seen bleed from his eyes...' Crow crossed through his mind, 'He mentioned once that Danzo somehow had two quirks... does he have an ability like AFO to give and take quirks from people?'
"That old guy is the commission president, Danzo Shimura. That guy is dangerous, he's trying to manipulate Sasuke into being one of his secret agents."
Edgeshot's eyes narrowed, "Danzo? The same one in the news over an assassination conspiracy?" Hawks nodded. Edgeshot crossed his arms, "I'm trying to get a grasp of what's going on here. I don't think you're lying, but explain to me how Danzo is trying to control Sasuke."
Hawks got a text and saw that it was Danzo informing him the plane was waiting for them on the roof of the commission building. 'Crap.' "I can't explain everything now, but hold onto this," He handed Edgeshot one of Minato's kunai. "When my mission with these guys is finished, I'll come to you and explain everything. In the meantime just try to make sure Sasuke doesn't meet that guy again."
Edgeshot observed the kunai and put it away, "I'll hold you to that," they stood and shook hands. Edgeshot turned to Minato, "It's unfortunate our meeting was so brief. Don't forget my username."
Minato performed a secret handshake with him, "I won't. And I'll see a way to come here again soon. I might be able to convince Kakashi to come."
"That'd be great."
Tokoyami turned to Hawks, "Whatever happens, you can count on me. I'll watch your back."
Hawks smirked, "Thanks, I'll need it..."
They all soon departed and made their way back to the commission building. Minato asked, "Danzo said it was on the roof?"
"Yeah."
Minato tossed him a kunai, "The elevator will take a while; just fly up to the roof."
"Good idea," Hawks smirked mischievously at Tokoyami who then stepped behind Minato and Tsunade.
"I will go up via the kunai."
Hawks sighed, "Alright," he flew up to the roof and landed, with the rest of the group soon following in a yellow flash. They all spotted the black jet and made their way towards it. Hawks whistled, "Haven't been in one of these before."
Tsunade replied, "This is the standard type of jet we usually fly into missions on."
The cockpit of the plane lowered and they halted in their tracks. A man walked down the cockpit with a smile. He wore glasses, a purple turtleneck, and pants, and had silver hair tied into a ponytail.
He walked up to Hawks and offered a hand which Hawks shook. "Hawks! It's great to finally meet the soon-to-be number 2 hero up close! I always hoped we'd get a mission together."
Hawks returned his smile, "Always nice to meet a fan. What's your name?"
"My name is Kabuto."