- We've got news on that guy that you, you know

Hawks pretended to scratch his throat and smiled as he moved his thumb from ear to ear.

- Very nice picture, thanks, I said, appetite suddenly gone

Hawks rolled his eyes in good humour.

- Don't make that face: it's not like I've been showing you the autopsy photos

He drank the broth from his noodles noisily, then slammed the bowl down on the table with an 'ah'.

- The point is, he came to Japan by boat

Hawks lit a cigarette.

If he had tried to look the part at the beginning of my internship (why, I couldn't guess), he seemed to have recently decided to drop the mask and show me his wild side.

I looked around us: no one had ever told him not to smoke indoors, and this place was no exception.

- You hit the jackpot with him, because he's the only one of all the guys we've... picked up who could be traced

I thought back to the way the other soldiers - who I now saw as his subordinates - had looked mortified, a few rooftops away, as they watched me fight him.

- Someone important, then ?

- That's what we think, yes

- What does this have to do with the demonstrations ?

When Hawks didn't signal me to shut up or lower my voice, I concluded that my earlier assumptions were correct: some of the places he was taking me to weren't restaurants. Or at least not entirely.

Some sort of public Hero's HQ ? Or perhaps secure places where Commission staff can meet indiscreetly to relax and talk business?

- We believe that All for One is using the demonstrations to quietly set up a few operations around the country.

- That's why so many people are out ? Is he exacerbating public opinion to hide his schemes ?

- Possibly

I leaned forward, my forearms on my knees, interested.

Maybe things aren't so bad for Dad.

- But it could just as easily be any other country or organization that could benefit from a crisis of democracy in Japan.

I sank back into my chair, slightly disappointed.

Hawks was holding his cigarette between his index and middle fingers. He waved his hand, and in the dim light, the glowing tip looked like an ember.

- You think All for One is the big bad wolf, but every country has its own All for One and lots more besides. We have to stop him, of course, but not if we're going to leave ourselves open to further attacks

I was silent for a moment.

I wasn't naive enough to believe that good and evil were the only sides that existed, let alone consider the possibility that All for One was the only antagonist in the game.

But I knew from my knowledge of the original story that he was the final antagonist and that he was the one to watch out for.

Listening to Hawks, they - the Commission - were suspicious of him, but they had other things to worry about : for me, it was all about him, and once I got rid of him, whether Japan burned or not, none of that would matter to me.

...well, it won't concern me anymore once my father finally cuts some slack and retires.

But that's what's going to happen when I get rid of All for One, isn't it? Japan will have nothing to offer us anymore and we can leave everything behind.

The idea of starting afresh with my father - on a solid, trust-based foundation - was attractive.

- We were able to trace some of his comings and goings and noticed some interesting things...

He turned slightly to one side, lifted a buttock, and drew from his back pocket some thick, satiny sheets that immediately gave me the impression they were photographs.

He slid them to the centre of the table.

I glanced at Hawks, then leaned forward to take them.

Hawks put his hand on the sheet and held it there.

His expression was serious.

- No comments out loud and no mention to anyone of what you're going to see on it

We both knew to whom he was referring.

Then he let go and I turned the pictures over.

They were photographs of an almost supernatural quality.

They showed rooms with whitewashed walls supported by dozens of white poles. They seemed to be strengthened by iron reinforcements. Steel reinforcements, poorly set into the ceiling, provided the connection between the ceiling beams and the poles.

A presumably earthquake-proof structure...

The lack of windows and logic suggested that the building was built underground.

Everywhere, for dozens and dozens of feet in all directions, there were huge tubes in which strange fetuses and children were connected by an umbilical cord to a floating transparent bubble.

It was exactly like what I'd seen in Tokyo.

- Of all the bases we found, only two resembled this one. In both cases, the rooms opened onto a network of underground passageways that crisscrossed the cities from one end to the other, from police stations to hospitals.

Hawk's face was closed.

- I don't need to tell you what a threat these tunnels pose to our national security.

I put the photos down.

- You don't

If these things were indeed Nomus - or worse - it meant that All for One had the means to invade and destroy the entire command centre of the country in a matter of hours.

Factions would form and fight for control and monopoly of certain areas, while foreign groups would be sent in to loot or take over the country.

All for One would not simply bring Japan to its knees, he would plunge us into a civil war in which we would destroy ourselves.

Still, he'd have to have enough of those underground tunnels...

The more I learned about All for One, the more I realised that he was an intelligent and, above all, highly organised man.

Isn't it said that you have to fear the old in a profession where people die young ?

- You were at a base in Tokyo, Hawks said. You got out on your own just before your father...

He shook his hand to point out the masterstroke my father had pulled off that night.

A volcano is born either in a hot spot - an area where magma is hotter and lighter than the surrounding rock - or at the boundary between two tectonic plates, in which case it is accompanied by earthquakes.

My father had succeeded in artificially creating a volcano by suddenly heating the magma without damaging the Earth's crust: the ground shook under the eruption he provoked, but only in a very small area.

He had managed to contain and concentrate the power of the molten rock in geysers and lava pits without losing control of it: by the end of the night he had extinguished the volcano and calmed the earth, which - already an outstanding achievement - was something of a miracle given Japan's vulnerability to earthquakes.

Tokyo then turned the extinct volcano into a tourist attraction, christening it 'Kagutsuchi'.

The site became very popular - especially with international tourists - and most of the income from the attraction was used to rebuild the capital.

- Anyway, my superiors want to know if you've seen anything remotely resembling the images you've just seen

As my father and I had both destroyed All for One's Tokyo base, I understood the Commission's reluctance to close a public area - which would raise questions - to go sifting through the rubble.

The wisest thing to do was to question the only reliable eyewitness who had come out alive, which was me.

Or maybe they already have their answer and are just testing me to see if I trust Hawks enough to tell him what I know.

I scratched my neck and swallowed the bitter stench that had risen to my mouth.

- There was even more than the two photos put together, I said.

Forehead furrowed, cigarette resting on the edge of his lip, Hawks was pensive.

- One of them looked like you

He looked up with troubled eyes.

- Are you sure?

Despite the grey horns, yellow reptilian eyes and reddish wings, I wouldn't have been fooled for anything in the world.

- You're the only person I know with wings like that

Other - extremely rare - people had been born with wings, but none compared to Hawk's.

Usually these wings varied from tiny, grotesque chicken wings to featherless pieces of cartilage.

All Quirks that gave humans animal attributes or characteristics had a bad habit of looking grotesque or monstrous.

Staring into space, Hawks looked worried.

- Why do you look worried ? Is there something I should know about these... things ?

He shook his head three times, mechanically, not really listening to me.

His cigarette had died between his fingers, staining them with black ash without him noticing.

The story about the burnt nerves is indeed true.

- Those things in there, I said. Have you tested them ? Do you know what they are?

Hawks picked up the photographs and put them in the inside pocket of his vest.

- It's nothing you need to worry about

He said it in a tone that meant the subject was closed.

I squinted, cocked my head to the side to study Hawks' concerned expression, then asked:

- What about the hero's murders ?

- Hmm ?

He barely listened.

- Does All for One have anything to do with them ?

Hawks took a match from his pocket, struck it against the coffee table, then brought it to the cigarette between his lips.

- It's possible, yes.

Hands cupped, he shielded the flame until it ignited his death stick.

The flame licked his calluses: he barely shook his fingers to get rid of the heat.

- For what purpose ?

None of the murdered heroes were working on a compromising case, none were important enough for their disappearance to present a major security problem for the country.

Hawks exhaled a mushroom of smoke.

I waved my hand to clear the dark cloud coming my way.

- My superiors think he's trying to weaken us.

- They're not great heroes, I countered. It's not a big loss.

Hawks gave me a stern look and I immediately backed off:

- ... it's not a big loss in military terms. In human terms, it's a tragedy.

He nodded, satisfied, then made circles of smoke, into which he amused himself by sending other, smaller circles.

- The thing is, we used to think they were the only ones who died. Lately - and all over the country - a lot of heroes are dying, or being mortally wounded and die in the hospitals.

- More than usual?

The death rate among heroes was as high as their astronomical salaries: it wasn't shocking to hear of a dead hero, although the media didn't talk much about it so as not to (unnecessarily) panic the general public.

- Enough for the Commission to consider mobilising the army to make sure things don't get out of hand if, say, All for One prepares to launch a major offensive.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The idea of unknown tunnel networks under cities must really worry them.

- The military ? Isn't that a bit exaggerated ?

If - as my father had told me - the army consisted of even a few soldiers as competent as Jin woo, All for One would take the beating of the century.

- Armies are the true strength of countries, Hawks grumbled. Me - and all the other Heroes for that matter - are just soft power, the watered-down image of superhumans sold en masse to the populace to keep them quiet.

He tilted his head back, curled his lips into an 'o' and exhaled a ring of smoke that dissolved back into the first.

- If all the heroes were to die overnight, there wouldn't be a country that couldn't recover. Reassuring the population that no, society wasn't going to collapse, would be time-consuming, but far from impossible

Leaning over the coffee table, he shook his whisky glass to see if there was any left, and rattled the ice cubes.

He continued to smoke with his right hand and poured himself a drink with his left.

His last ring of smoke collided with the larger one, creating a greyish cloud that spread through the air like sugar.

- You see, he said, without looking up, The thing is, we think the world is at peace, that everything is all right in this day and age, and that intensified globalisation is keeping everyone quiet because peace is our common interest. There's this quote about trade being good...

A brief, obscure memory from a past life flashed through my mind.

- It's the idea of sweet commerce, I said. Montesquieu

He set the bottle down with a crystalline clink, then snapped his fingers.

- Exactly, he said. Le doux commerce

Cigarette in right hand, liquor in left, Hawks took a drag, took a sip, smoked again and drank again, alternating until he was halfway through his cigarette and three-quarters through his glass.

Cheekbones and nose flushed, Hawks sank back into his chair, glass balanced on his knee, cigarette resting on the armrest.

- Except it's not true, he said. Money isn't power. (He smiled) Power is Quirks.

I can see where he's going with this.

- Are you telling me we're at war?

I've always thought that given enough time on Earth, humans would end up killing each other one way or another.

The Quirks would only hasten our demise.

- Everyone is at war : we're even at war with our own allies. If one of them gets their hands on a child with a dangerous Alter, we eliminate them. Low-intensity warfare, no more, no less.

I was quite familiar with the concept.

- You see, we say we're at peace, but we're not. Peace is an anomaly in world's history : war is the norm.

- What's All for One got to do with it ?

Hawks put a cigarette between his lips, then leaned forward on the coffee table.

He placed his empty noodle bowl in the middle of the coffee table, picked up one of his chopsticks, broke it in half and pulled his matchbox from his pocket.

He placed the matchbox diagonally to the right of the bowl and the broken chopstick diagonally to the left.

- Can you tell me what it means to win a war ?

He moved only the left side of his mouth as he spoke, so as not to drop the cigarette.

- Defeat the enemy ?, I said. Defeat his army?

He raised a finger, then shook his head, his lips pressed together in a way that meant 'yes, but no'.

- There's a bit of that, but not really

He put his cigarette between his thumb and forefinger and shook it as if it were a miniature sword.

- You see, wars used to be unilateral : there were only two sides, and the outcome was determined by victory or defeat. Today, even if you think you've 'defeated' the enemy's forces, the humans - if they're not defeated - will take over, and it'll never end.

He sniffed, wiped the tip of his nose with his sleeve, then continued:

- Today's wars are multilateral, with many nations, groups and individuals pursuing their own interests. There's always something going on. Winning a war no longer makes sense in itself, you know ? It's no longer enough to take a base or a fort or kill a general

I hung on his every word.

- Military operations are merely political tools to undermine the enemy, to deprive him of political support and, if possible, to convert him. There are conflicts in which military action actually produces a political result, and others in which it does not. As Clausewitz himself said: 'War is merely the continuation of a political relationship by other means'.

- Okay, I get what you mean, but what's All for One got to do with it ?

Hawks picked up the broken staff in his left hand.

- See, that's All for One

He pointed to the bowl containing his cigarette.

- This is Japan

He threw both ends of the broken chopstick into the bowl, then turned it upside down on the table.

- This is what would happen if he came at us head on : if he tried a straightforward military approach

- Japan would... swallow him up ?, I asked, unsure of the metaphor

- More like annihilate him," said Hawks. No one has ever heard of a single person who could take on an entire functioning army and single-handedly retaliate and destroy it.

Hawks smiled grimly.

- Either we don't let such people live past the age of ten, or they will be wiped out by this very army

He put the bowl back in place and replaced the broken wand.

He took the box of matches and opened it.

- What do you see there ?

I blinked stupidly, looking at Hawks with a wry expression to get him to continue, but he was waiting for my answer.

Embarrassed, I replied hesitantly:

- Matches ?

Hawks smiled, indulgently, not in the least mockingly, and I felt a little less embarrassed.

- As a whole, yes. I can take them and set a lot of things on fire with them, see ?

He took out some matches and handed them to the All for One camp, then poured the contents of the box into the bowl.

- All for One has a few matches left, and we've got enough to start a forest fire. Who wins, then ?

- We do.

Hawks nodded in satisfaction, then took another quick drag. The glowing tip of his cigarette crackled.

- Yet All for One isn't stupid : if he's after us, it's because he thinks he has a chance of winning. What would make him think that ?

I thought about the tunnels and the Nomus.

If the matches are his army, then...

- He's planning to attack key points in the country,' I said. police stations, command centers, hospitals, supply points, power lines, any kind of network-like infrastructure.

He could blow up aqueducts, cause floods, blow up schools and public places...

Prevent everyone from regrouping, getting to safety, communicating.

It would only take a day for the whole country to go mad.

Hawks whistled, eyebrows raised.

- Almost as if you'd thought of that yourself...

I didn't answer, and Hawks looked back down at his miniature diagram.

- In other words, All for One is waging a war of attrition against us. It makes no difference to him whether it takes ten years or fifty to 'win'.

He took one of All for One's games and played it against one of those in the bowl.

- It's not just the infrastructure and the army, says Hawks. To 'win' a war, you also have to win over the population

Hawks straightened up.

- All for One is waging a three-phase war, Hawks said, holding up a finger. First, he attacks the Heroes to make it look like he's about to launch a frontal assault

He pointed to the two crossed matches in the bowl.

- Second, he's using the socio-political context to weaken us.

He put three All for One matches against three others in the bowl.

- He sows panic on social networks, launches conspiracy theories that the entire government is corrupt and that all the Heroes are in cahoots-

- Which is undoubtedly true, I interrupted.

- … which may be true, Hawks conceded. In short, he plays on discontent and mistrust and exacerbates it as much as possible. Through your father and all the controversy surrounding him, he's trying to provoke a crisis of democracy in Japan.

Hawks put the rest of the All for One matches in the bowl.

- Third, he's actually going to attack key points with his Nomus - the ones he must have left - and his mercenaries through his underground network.

I looked thoughtfully at the three matches.

- He's carrying out an onion-shaped plan of attack in which each higher layer is supposed to divert the attention away from the lower layers

My eyes returned to the broken stick. I pointed at it with my chin.

- What about it ? Once he's got all his pieces in place, what's he going to try and do?

Hawks laughed softly.

- If we only knew, he said, Do you really think I'd waste my time telling you all about it?

- What ?

Hawks picked up the matches one by one and put them back in the box, even the soggy ones.

- All for One is not stupid at all. If he's busy right now, it's because there's something he wants to get that's worth losing a few matches for

My brain raced.

One for All or...?

- Do you think he'll try to kidnap me again ?

- It's likely, Hawks said, relighting his extinguished cigarette. We're not sure, but it's our only lead

- And all this?, I said, pointing to the plates, the restaurants and all the customers-employees-of-the-commission whom I now suspected weren't even customers.

Hawks smiled a knowing smile that clearly confirmed to me that he understood what I was saying.

- It was unanimously voted that you should be informed so that you can prepare for the worst (He pointed at me with the tip of his cigarette) This gives you enough time to create another magical power to defend yourself.

In the back of my mind I tucked away the idea that they thought I could 'create' Quirks.

- What about my father? What about All Might? Do they know about it?

Hawks shook his hand.

- Don't worry about the logistics, we'll take care of everything

My eyes returned to the broken match.

He'd tried to kidnap me just a few weeks ago.

All for One isn’t the kind who makes the same mistake twice...

I had a bad feeling.

*

Author's note :

I can't believe I foreshadowed this shit so long ago.

I know at least one among you is going to read the whole story again once I finish and you'll get how I played you all since the beginning.

One of the greatest chapter I ever wrote, The Eyes of God, will be dropped next week for the P@treon's members and I am so freaking excited for everyone to read it.

Everything you've read until now is absolutely nothing compared to this one. It will start the end of Part 2 and send us until the final chapter of the Purgatory arc.

Gosh I'm so excited, gonna stop my rant here before I spoil stuff by mistake.

You know the drill, if you want to read up to 27 chapters of schedule, you can go check the story's P@treon, Nar_cisseENG

For everyone else we will have an excruciating wait but it's going to be so worth it.