Planning a murder wasn't difficult.

Planning a clean murder, however, was a different matter.

"I suppose you've already thought about the 'how', haven't you ?"

Hawks was perfectly cool, flawlessly professional.

He opened one of the Chinese food boxes, peered inside, then handed it to me.

"It's yours"

I picked up the stretchy shrimp noodles and a pair of chopsticks lying on the coffee table.

"The 'how' is the hardest part. If he dies suddenly, mysteriously, then..."

Hawks, nostrils flared, smelling a box of egg rolls, looked up at me.

"You'll be culprit number one even if no one can prove it's you"

I nodded.

Hawks smiled good-humoredly.

"You shouldn't have said you hated him at a press conference"

I shrugged lightly, with a 'such is life' attitude.

Hawks rummaged at the bottom of the paper bag.

"So, about the 'where' that you had in mind... I can't find the sauces, you've seen them ?"

I shifted the bottle of Shochu and pushed the transparent bags with one hand.

"Here"

"There they were"

He poured them briskly over his noodles, added some cheese he'd melted in the microwave and expertly cut slices of katsudon pork, which he placed delicately on top.

Hawks was one of those strange people who ordered food as if it were ingredients to be combined into... monstrous dishes.

He interpreted my disgusted look as he saw fit.

"Want some ?"

"No, thank you"

He shrugged and started to eat.

I lowered my mask to eat, feeling his gaze hover over my face.

Living covered for so long made me feel naked every time I took it off; I didn't feel uncomfortable when I did it with my father, but I had never taken it off even with Katsuki.

Hawks... it was hard to say.

I felt naked and vulnerable right now, but I needed him to think that I trusted him - and what better proof of trust than showing him my face, a face that only two people had seen in eleven years ? - and in some way I did trust him, but at the same time I didn't know if I would have shown it to him in circumstances where I didn't need him.

We ate in silence, the sound of the TV providing conversation.

Hawks pulled the cork off an alcohol bottle, offered me a drink as usual (which I declined) and then helped himself to a shot glass.

Why he had shot glasses in his apartment was not a question I wanted answered.

Still, the fact that he isn't drinking from the bottle directly is a good sign.

He exhaled, satisfied, dropped onto the sofa and patted his belly like a pregnant woman.

He took a cigarette from the inside pocket of his jacket, then lifted one buttock and pulled out a lighter from his jean's pocket - lighter when he's in a good mood, match when he needs to feel every cigarette he takes - then lit his personal drug.

"You were talking about the location"

I wiped my mouth, drank a glass of water, then pulled my mask back on.

"It's not the murder itself that's going to be the problem, but rather the 'how' "

The tip of Hawk's cigarette reddened.

- Go on

"We shouldn't think of the murder as murderers, but rather as investigators. The question is, what makes it possible to track down a murderer ?"

I went to get some of the markers from the pen cup on the dresser at the entrance of Hawk's apartment.

I tore open the kraft paper bags in which our food had been delivered, pushed the boxes aside, then spread the brown papers on the coffee table as if they were sheets of paper.

"Truth is, there's no such thing as a perfect murder"

I wrote "murder" in big letters, in the middle of everything.

"A good murder, on the other hand, is one that sows enough doubt and confusion that no one can come up with a clear trail"

I drew a line between the "murder" bubble and a freshly drawn "murderer" one.

"74% of homicides involving people over the age of 15 are committed outside the family*. In this case, however, the police will be more interested in the victim's domestic environment, as he is literally sequestered in his home while awaiting trial"

I wrote 'intra-family setting' under 'murderer'.

- "The intra-family scene is restricted : there's my father, myself, Fuyumi, Natsuo and Rei. In fact, out of the five of us, I'm the only one with a motive"

I put my name below the 'murderer' category.

- "If the police decide to widen their scope of search, they could consider my grandmother, my father's co-workers, Rei's friends Fuyumi's and Natsuo's, or even - more potentially - my friends"

Katsuki, Natsu and Leo, Keigo.

"And who's the only other person with a motive among all these people ?"

"Me", Hawks quietly said.

I nodded.

"Exactly"

I then wrote his name under 'killer'.

"The police might look into the victim's criminal connections, but only for a little while : they'd soon realize that no one he knew had the means to contact him or get him out while he was living in seclusion. On the other hand I'm in contact with Touya and so are you through me"

I circled both of our names.

"Erasing the evidence to the point where no murderer can be identified sounds like a good idea on paper, but it's the thing that will lead to our downfall in the long run"

"For if the police don't have a single lead that can lead anywhere but to us, then they are bound to come back to us", Hawks said.

I made another dash below both our names.

"Exactly. What we need is to give them someone who could have killed Touya with a little luck and a lot of chance. We have to give them someone who panicked, who tried to cover his tracks, but who was rude, disorganized, and afraid of getting caught"

Hawks watched me in silence, eyes narrowed, his smoke rolling in gray swirls around his face.

"I suppose you have some idea who that might be ?"

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"I do"

It was a man accustomed to honor killings, whose brother - whom he knew to be in contact with Dabi - had recently perished in a gas leak.

"It's best you know as little as possible, for your own safety"

And in the eventuality that a policeman with a Quirk of some kind forces you to reveal everything you know about your fellow partner in crime.

Hawks raised a hand to interrupt me.

"Is he a civilian ?"

I interrupted my explanation for a second.

Ah, obviously he's more worried about me framing an innocent man than killing someone who 'deserves it'.

"Only a criminal with a record longer than my arm. He sold... pictures of children and stuff like that and got caught. He spent a few years in jail for that and only recently finished his sentence"

The picture I painted of him seemed to revolt as much as it soothed Hawks.

"He's a computer specialist; he sells his services at a high price to whoever needs them, and not necessarily to the right people"

I wrote "computer specialist" in the "murderer" bubble.

"Murders are usually carried out by people close to the victim: he and Touya already know each other, so the police will have no trouble finding connections"

"Why would they meet ?" Hawks asked. "What reason would they have to meet that would be important enough to force Touya to leave your house ?"

I crossed out our first names.

"An excellent reason..."

Involving a video Touya shot, a dead brother and an unmade 'payment'.

"But I insist, Hawks : better you don't know everything, in case you are asked questions with a Quirk suited for interrogation"

Hawks' cigarette remained on the edge of his lips.

He pulled it back.

"Why should anybody question me ? Why do you keep insisting that I know as little as possible ?"

I glanced at him briefly, then returned my attention to the diagram.

Pure surprise, not a shred of distrust.

"Because you're the one who's going to catch the murderer"

Hawks studied me silently.

He resumed smoking.

"I have the means to, let's say, convince our scapegoat that he really did kill Touya. He has a motive, a reason to get rid of him, but we're the ones who are going to commit the murder. What we have to do is get rid of the evidence so we don't get caught"

To the left of the 'murder' bubble, I wrote 'circumstantial evidence'.

"Most murderers get caught because of three things : DNA, crime concealment and post-crime"

I wrote 'DNA' in large letters.

"Whether it's hair, dead skin, a piece of fingernail, or saliva, we spend our time losing and sowing DNA everywhere we go. DNA is the surest way to prove you've committed a crime, so if you're not sure how to get rid of it, the smartest thing to do is to commit your crime in a public place that's likely to contain a lot of DNA from different people"

"Kind of like an amusement park or a shopping mall ?" said Hawks. "Might be difficult because I'm pretty sure we don't want anyone to spot me"

A detail I could have handled with a genjutsu without informing Hawks, although I would have had to convince him to kill someone in a public place, which would have been considerably more complicated.

"Let's also not forget that Touya certainly doesn't want to be seen in public because of all the controversy surrounding his 'resurrection': logic would dictate that he should meet his "friend" in a deserted, low-traffic, unoccupied space like an apartment or the roof of a building. Not to mention that I imagine certified heroes must have their DNA in a government's database or something ?"

I looked up at Hawks.

He hesitated for a second, then nodded.

Well, I wonder if All for One knows : they could create Nomus with the DNA of the top ten heroes if they searched hard enough.

Although I wasn't too keen on the idea of a mini-clone of my father trying to kill me.

"All they'd have to do is cross-reference the DNA out of habit and they'd find yours. It wouldn't be incriminating, given your profession, but it's a mistake we can't afford"

I wrote 'destroy the evidence' under the word 'DNA'.

- "In fact, Touya will offer us the solution : he'll probably try to immolate you, and since he's not the type to do things delicately, he'll burn everything with him"

I wrote 'fire' next to 'destroy evidence'.

- "He favors blue flames of which temperatures range between 1300 and 1600 degrees Celsius. The melting temperature of a building varies depending on the construction materials, the presence of safety devices such as fire doors or fire extinguishers, and other factors. I need to find out exactly which building we're targeting so we can study it in depth, but if it's quite old, we can pretty much assume that it doesn't meet current standards, and so the steel structure must be-

"Okay, calm down, Einstein, take a deep breath and explain this to me like I am five years old"

I blinked, looking up from the diagram I'd scribbled.

"Touya's going to melt the building, and since I'm pretty sure you don't want to end up as a statue in burning cement, you're going to have to face him on the roof of a building"

"Why not a street ?"

"Too much risk of collateral damage"

There were two reasons Hawks was willing to help me:

1 - He liked me

2 - Touya was a public safety threat

If I wanted to kill someone Hawks didn't think deserved to die, I was 95% sure he would have turned me in.

As long as we didn't hurt any 'innocent' people or involved them in our little affair, his conscience would be clear - and his loyalty would lie with me.

At least, his loyalty would lie with me until he realized what kind of game I'd really been playing.

Meh, that's the problem of future Shoto.

*

Author's note :

Again, sorry for the disgusting cut in the middle of the discussion but I wasn't able to do otherwise.

If you want to read ahead up to 27 chapters AND support the story, you can go check the story's P@treon, Nar_cisseENG

See you in the next update everyone !