Chapter 94: Marching Orders

Summary: Some reassurance, some tinkering, and a new team.

Warning! Chapters 92-95 were all posted back-to-back. Make sure you don't miss any!

Chapter 94: Marching Orders

It was several hours after the initial meeting that Izumi, Momo and 2B responded to a summons from Nedzu, meeting the Dean in his office. He had their favorite teas already prepped for them and, thankfully, the first thing he did was offer a reassurance that had both of them untensing just a little.

"I'm sure both of you have been worried about my statements this morning. Rest assured that, while all of those groups we will be targeting have been officially listed as terrorists, doing so was mostly a way to free our hands to work quickly. Despite the severity of the action, we will not be treating most of the assaults the same way we would with true terrorist cells. With the sole exception of the MLA, which is simply too big and too deliberately malicious to pull punches with, we will be going up against all of our operational targets with something closer to a Hero's approach, rather than a military one."

Nedzu clearly recognized the relief in their expressions, as he did his best to mimic an actual smile for them. It wasn't a very good attempt, but it was one they'd long grown used to, and reassuring for its presence.

"The reclassification of the groups was mostly an effort to free us from the legal needs of warrants and the restrictions on information gathering. That said, we will be going in far more aggressively than usual, and won't be looking too closely at deaths that happen during Clean Slate. The Nomu, in particular, all had de facto kill orders even if captured even before this. Now that kill order is quietly shared by every Villain that would normally go to Tartarus rather than a regular prison. We simply can't afford to pussyfoot around with extremely dangerous enemies at this point."

Some of the tension was back, but…less. Izumi and Momo had already made the call once, with All for One, that someone was simply too dangerous to be taken alive. They weren't looking forward to doing that again, but they'd also both already worked through their limited moral hangups with it. So long as the kill orders were restricted to people like him, they would…accept it. Saying they were okay with it was going a bit too far. But they could and would accept it. Of course, they both realized a moment too late that Nedzu knew that too.

"Given your own…past choices, the three of you have been tapped for operations against the League. We need some heavy hitters and can't pull many of the full heroes that qualify as such from Gate Containment duty. Very few of your classmates will be joining you, as there simply are not many of them I trust to be okay if put into the position of needing to execute a kill order. Most would, rightfully, hesitate. Or, almost worse, some of them wouldn't hesitate, given all the combat they've seen against the invaders. Only to realize in the aftermath that they'd killed a fellow human being and react poorly."

Nedzu paused a moment to refresh his own tea, offering both of them more as well. They waved him off, neither having finished their first cup yet.

"Given that many of the monsters we are fighting during the invasion are sentient, the difference is…philosophically questionable. But it is easier to identify the monsters as other, then it would be with many of our home grown criminals. Worse, it would potentially extend the growing desensitization from fighting the invaders into sociopathy in all too many people."

True. Dangerously true. There was a reason several of their more gentle classmates had bowed out of the war effort early on, and there was little doubt some that remained would develop…issues…before the invasion ended. Izumi and Momo were largely okay only because of 2B. Both of them had pre-possessed a somewhat different perspective on war and morality because of 2B's past, and the parallels between the invasion of 2B's original Earth and their current situation were stark.

Even with that, Momo had struggled with the aftermath of the Counter Invasion, and Izumi herself had needed a long session with Dr. Tsumaki for the opposite reason. Izumi had felt…concern…that she wasn't reacting as badly as Momo was. It had felt wrong to her that she didn't have as much of a negative reaction, given the society and culture she'd grown up in. Dr. Tsumaki had, thankfully, been able to help her understand. While Momo had heard about 2B's life. Izumi had seen it, shared in it over her link with 2B. The result had been that her worldview had adapted to some of 2B's, and the rest of YoRHa's for that matter, pragmatism. She had great empathy for others, and didn't want to hurt people. But once she'd properly accepted that it needed to happen, she was far more pragmatic than most would be when it came time to actually act in violence.

It had been a revelation. Not a particularly nice one, either, given that it had been something of a blow to her own view of herself. But it had been a necessary one. Though it was one she very much hoped most of her classmates would not have to face. Given the Invasion, she suspected that was a vain hope. But she would hold onto that faint, vain hope as long as she could.

"Those students, from both your year and above, who I believe are mentally ready, are being called back to UA over the next few days. UA will also host the Pros that we can spare for this, allowing our facilities to be used to plan and practice for each assault. As for the two of you, I'd like you to get together with Miss Hatsume and tighten up some of the gear she's been making for various students. I want every edge we can get when we go in against the League of Villains, who are going to be our first target."

Izumi and Momo stiffened, then nodded. It made sense, in a way. Even if the League was perhaps the most dangerous group on the list aside from the MLA, the truth was that they'd already been given too much time to do…whatever they were doing in Jaku City. The fact that the activity there was focused around the Hospital was concerning. As were the sheer number of Nomu that had been identified by scout teams. And on that topic…

"Do we have a count on the Nomu that have been seen so far? And any identification on the villains that have been mass cloned in the past?"

Nedzu accepted the change of topic from Izumi with a nod.

"We do. I'll send everything our observers have managed to record, along with what the few analysts we could spare have come up with about their powers and objectives. We also have tentative IDs on two of their members. I'll make sure 2B has the complete files, but the basics are…"

All three of Nedzu's guests settled back in their seats as he started a brief briefing on their target…

... ...

Izumi was unsure if this time, the return to UA felt more or less alien than her previous stint. The last time, for hashing out the new tactics to use against the Rifts, had bore some actual resemblance to normal heroics training. That, in turn, had only made the alien elements like the inclusion of JSDF forces stand out all the more however. This time, the JSDF component of their assault group had yet to join them, as Izumi and Momo were spending a few days meeting with each UA student that had been shifted to the anti-villain group. They were also working on support equipment and talking about how to use that support equipment against villains. All things that were fairly normal…except that there were still no classes and Izumi had rarely worked in the UA support labs, preferring her own facilities over the UA workshops.

Kodai, Tusonotori, and Kaibara were the only members of Group B to make Nedzu's cut of those that could handle the orders as they were being given. Kodai had already been processed, her Quirk making equipping her basically a wet dream for anyone with half a brain. Since her Quirk altered weight with size, Mei had already realized just how utterly broken her Quirk was. A powersuit that legitimately rivaled Momo's had been one of the first things Mei had done, abusing the ever-living-hell out of Kodai's Quirk to miniaturize parts instead of making them in miniature in the first place. Then, the crazy-in-the-fun-ways girl had gone on to add miniguns (multiple), a wrist-mounted rocket launcher who's missiles went from tiny darts to person sized in eyeblinks, and a close-range option that deployed anvils with ACME stamped on the side.

Apparently, Mei had a sense of humor.

Izumi loved it.

Sadly, Mei had actually done such a good job with Kodai's gear that all Momo and Izumi could really do was overhaul and upgrade the materials used. With filled QE power crystals easy to come by, they'd replaced the one of the two miniguns and its ammo limitations with a hard-light minigun like Izumi's Pods often used. It was relatively easy to make it QE powered, as the original design had been Maso tech made by YoRHa. The missiles had gotten some more variable payloads. The armor had gotten upgrades to alloys that didn't exist without Momo making them. And last-but-not-least Izumi had quietly added some of the artificial muscle that they were using for the current combat-chassis that 2B used to bodyguard their mother. It wouldn't put Kodai in the same weight class as the two of them, but it would boost her strength thirty percent beyond what Mei's initial purely-mechanical version had achieved.

Technically, there was more they could have done with Kodai, but not without overloading her with too many things to learn. As such, they'd reluctantly moved on to their current visitor. Here, at least, they felt they could make more improvements, even if Mei had done a pretty solid job. Kaibara's Quirk, Gyrate, had been relatively easy to weaponize for the Invasion. Simply adding blades to certain parts of his costume had turned him into something of a whirling dervish of death. Mei had also gotten creative and used strong carbon nanotube paracord to give him an agility boost. By activating Gyrate on certain parts of his arms or legs, he could rapidly reel in lines that he could shoot out via somewhat more traditional launchers built into his boots and gauntlets. Overall, it was a very good set of additions.

What it lacked was any sort of real ranged option.

They could fix that.

"Alright, Sen, you need to understand the mantra for this to work. That mantra being simple…Quirks are Bullshit."

Kaibara, who'd insisted they simply call him Sen, looked at Izumi like she was Hatsume. Izumi wasn't that crazy!

"No, seriously, you should understand this more than most. It doesn't make sense, biologically, for you to be able to just randomly rotate part of your arm, right? I mean, you don't have a metric ton of extra joints and shit to allow that. It just works. Because, well…Quirks are bullshit. Got it?"

Blinking at the reasoning, Sen finally nodded.

"Okay, if that's what you mean by it…then yes, Quirks are pretty bullshit."

Izumi smirked. He was getting it!

"Right. Now the reason that Quirks being bullshit matters for this test is that there is no reason your already bullshit Quirk can't rotate things in more than one direction. In order to launch the projectile, you need to accelerate it as fast as you can around your forearm via Gyrate. But if you just let it go at that point, it wouldn't be spin stabilized and would arc randomly like crazy. So, you're going to spin it in multiple directions, like shown on the display."

Izumi tapped a key, and the display inside the thoroughly-everything-proof shooting range in the Support Department, used strictly for testing, lit up. On it was shown a diagram of a bullet being spun like it was going through rifling, while also being flung in a rapid orbit.

"The key will be to getting the ratio's right. Your HUD has been updated with a rangefinder and a program that can help you dial the speeds needed to hit what you ping with the rangefinder. This is going to take practice, practice, practice to be able to do rapidly. But even the slow, deliberate version of this should produce a muzzle velocity far beyond anything but a railgun, while also launching with spin-stabilization that will keep the bullet from arcing off like crazy. You could easily punch right through a couple of inches of steel with a properly charged shot and the right ammo. Got it?"

Kaibara's eyes were wide as he nodded.

"Right! Then let's get testing! Just…make sure you fire from behind the shields! We might end up with a few ricochets before you get the hang of this…"

Looking concerned-but-interested, Sen began to rotate the first bullet he'd been given…

... ...

The entire group that could be spared for operation Clean Slate had finally all trickled in. Aside from Momo and Izumi, Bakugo, Jirou and Sato from Group A had been added to the taskforce. From among the older years, Hado and Amajiki had shown up…without Togata. Apparently, Nedzu didn't think Miro could hack the level of possible violence, which Izumi sort of agreed with. The older student might be a fantastic Hero, but he was too optimistic to be a soldier, and they were straddling the line a little too closely. A pair of second years, Fuwa and Sugai, had also made the cut. But their year had been the smallest UA had seen in some time.

Joining them from the UA staff was the entirely-expected form of Eraserhead, though he was joined by Midnight, Present Mic, and Snipe this time. Given all of UA's other commitments, that was actually quite a strong showing from the teachers, with an emphasis on two important areas. Crowd control of large groups by Midnight and Present Mic, then pinpoint critical-asset elimination via Eraserhead and Snipe. They admittedly somewhat lacked in raw power, but the utility they brought was going to be clutch if mass clones appeared again.

The visiting Heroes, operating out of UA for the upcoming strike, helped make up the power difference. Miruko and Ryukyu were two returning faces many of them had worked with before…but the third big name had drawn some shock. Gang Orca had, apparently, survived his initial encounter with the Yokohama Greater Gate…barely. His sidekicks had not, and Gang Orca had only survived by retreating to the water in a severely wounded state. It had taken him days to crawl his way back to help, and he'd been in terrible shape when he'd gotten that help.

Even with healing Quirks, it had taken weeks to get him back in fighting shape, after which he'd joined in containment of the Yokohama Greater Gate. Looking at his scarred, grim visage now, Izumi was pretty sure Nedzu had pulled him away from that Gate in a bid to stabilize his mental health. Despite how hard they were going to go in against the Villains, they were still Villains. Not the invaders who had killed two of his sidekicks, wounded him almost to the point of death, and then trashed a good chunk of his city. For him, specifically, this was actually taking a step back from the worst, rather than an escalation of sorts as it would be for many of the others.

Of course, those three were only the 'heavy hitters' that had been brought in. There were another eleven heroes and sidekicks, ranging from Gunhead to Dasher and Flasher. In total, they were bringing 30 Heroes, Side Kicks, and Provisional License students into the attack. A pretty serious amount of muscle to target a single Villain group with. At least in the current climate, where every hero pulled from the nebulous 'front lines' was one less set of boots to kick monsters with.

Izumi just hoped it was actually enough.

... ... ... ... ...

A/N: Not much to say here. A return to dealing with Villains...but the background of the Invasion means they won't be as gentle about it as they might have been otherwise...