Musutafu — Nemuri Kayama's Apartment — Early Morning
Nemuri had been calling in sick for days.
She had been barely sleeping ever since the news of chaos in Gotham reached Japan and since then her television stayed on constantly, and held the phone her son had given her checking for messages that never came.
The news anchor stood on the mainland side of the OWL Bridge with a heavy US military presence in front of her.
"We have lost contact with our Gotham affiliate as of yesterday afternoon," the anchor said. "We continue to hope they are safe."
Nemuri had been this worried because when they first united Suguro had said he worked for Maroni before but it was complicated.
Her thoughts were cut off when the live footage on the screen shook.
The anchor stumbled and the cameraman stumbled toward the water before catching himself and filming the source of the shockwave. The Gallavan Bridge was crumbling into the ocean and a mushroom cloud rose above the gap.
The military line hardened immediately and they started beating back anyone on the mainland and threatening anyone trying to leave Gotham stuck on the OWL Bridge. Warning shots fired into the air and a military commander saw the news crew and pushed them back.
Nemuri looked at the remote in her hand and threw it at the wall.
She looked at her phone, and saw three messages from Aizawa this morning asking if she was feeling better and if she could come in today. The last one was about Sen Kaibara the missing student.
*We're discussing the Kaibara situation this afternoon, it would be good to have you there.*
She put the phone face-down on the cushion.
Half an hour later she was still on the couch and the television was on a different channel now in a news station based in Chicago, four anchors and two specialists were around a table, the background behind them reading GOTHAM: DAY FOUR, with distant pictures of the city.
"We're receiving reports from online posts in Gotham that the fighting across the city appears to have diminished significantly over the past several hours. Social media footage posted by residents—"
The screen cut to a compilation. A phone video from what appeared to be the Iceberg Lounge operating at full capacity. Another video taken from an apartment window looking down on a street where several men in gang colors were sitting on car hoods, passing something between them laughing seemingly no longer on edge. Another showed a family looking out from what appeared to be a third-floor window at a street that was damaged but quiet, one of the children waving at whoever was filming.
"While the situation remains extremely dangerous and access to the city is still restricted, these reports suggest the primary armed conflict may be entering its final stages. It remains impossible to independently verify—"
Nemuri picked up the remote from behind the coffee table and turned it off.
She sat in the quiet for a moment, then picked up her phone and messaged Aizawa.
*I can be there this afternoon.*
UA High School — Teacher's Meeting Room — That Afternoon
Aizawa found her in an observation room watching students in the training grounds below.
"Are you okay?" Aizawa asked.
"Not really…" she said. She kept looking at the training grounds.
"Is there anything—"
"There isn't," she said. "Sorry… It just isn't something anyone here can help with."
He looked at her for a moment before nodding and looked at the training grounds.
"The meeting is in ten minutes," he said.
"What are we covering?"
"Kaibara," he said but when she didn't respond he spoke louder and a little upset she didnt even remember.
"Sen Kaibara! from Class 1-B. He's been missing since the festival and his parents have filed a report, you should know that the school has been conducting its own—"
"Right," she said, cutting him off. "I remember, I'll be there."
She turned from the window as Aizawa led the way.
They walked the corridor together, passing a group of second-years heading home from their last classes of the day. The students were talking and the one thing common in all the students they passed was the chaos on the other side of the world in Gotham...
She looked at the floor and Aizawa noticed but made the decision not to push further… yet.
The teacher's room had everyone present Principal Nezu at the head, Toshinori in his now permanent diminished form at the side, Present Mic, Ectoplasm, Cementoss, Vlad King and Power Loader and others arranged around the table. Kayama took a seat at the end that had been kept for her.
Nezu began once her and Aizawa took their seats.
"It has been approaching two weeks since the UA Festival and Sen Kaibara has been absent from Class 1-B without explanation or contact since that day. His parents said they received some strange texts the night after the festival but have had no contact since."
The screen behind him activated, showing the UA gate security footage ready to review everything once more.
"Sen was observed completing his assigned cleanup duties from Class 1-B's play," Nezu continued. "He left the main building at approximately 6 PM."
The footage then showed him walking towards the gate where Sen stopped at the perimeter, watching the last of the day's visitors leave.
"He then pauses here," Nezu said, advancing the footage. "He appears to see a large man with moth wings across the street and then runs to it, leaving UA grounds."
"Could this moth man, been causing trouble?" Present Mic asked.
"That was my assessment as there is other footage showing this man kicking and assaulting a man before forcing him into an alley from a nearby store. Unfortunately the store's cameras didn't have anything after that," Nezu said. He looked at Nemuri, "Kayama-san. Do you recall anything unusual from that evening? You were still on campus at this time."
She had been looking at the table lost in her thoughts about Gotham, not really listening.
"What?"
"On the evening of the festival, do you recall anything unusual outside the main building or just in general?"
"Not really," she said slightly apathetically.
Vlad King's expression shifted in a mix of disgust, anger, and bewilderment first.
"We need to take this seriously! One of our students, one of my students, has been missing for almost two weeks!"
"Vlad, she has been sick, perhaps she still isn't the best, " Toshinori said, trying to keep everyone level headed. "Let's—"
"Kayama-san," Nezu said abruptly, causing everyone to refocus. "This footage shows you speaking with a young man near the faculty exit not too long after Sen went missing. I wanted to wait for you to come in before discussing it, can you tell us who that was?"
Nemuri looked at him.
"Why does that matter?"
"It may not," Nezu said. "I'm simply covering everything of the night and this man is unknown to us and seemingly can't be found in any facial recognition archive in Japan."
"Nemuri…" Aizawa said.
"They should know," he continued.
Her eyes went to him and stayed there for a moment.
"No!" she said.
"What's she hiding?" Vlad asked.
Aizawa looked at Nemuri and saw her looking back at him, eyes pleading…
"The man in the footage," Aizawa said, "is Kayama-san's son."
The room went quiet.
…
Toshinori was the first to speak. "You have a son?"
"Yes… though it was something that wasn't supposed to be shared" she answered glaring at Aizawa who she revealed this too after the festival and trusted to keep a secret.
"We didn't—"
"I left him," she said. "When he was a baby, I was barely 20 when I left him and I have spent every year since then wishing I hadn't." She looked at the floor rather than at the faces around the room. "We've only been in contact recently and it was supposed to be private..."
The room was quiet again, but the response was different than what she thought.
"We apologize for pushing," Cementoss said.
"I understand that this is hard for you, what you've told us is enough," Nezu apologized for his accusational tone earlier.
Vlad King cleared his throat. "I too apologize for how I spoke earlier. I also didn't realise what you were dealing with recently."
"It's ok," she said, glad they didn't push but surprised that they trusted her this much to drop the topic of her mystery son so fast.
Nezu waited a few seconds before he continued.
"There is one more piece of footage," he said. "I want to preface this by saying I received it this morning and its connection to Sen's disappearance could be thin but I think it warrants the group's attention."
He opened his laptop looking for the video.
"This was posted to social media from inside Gotham by a civilian. Given the current situation there, this is the kind of footage that is circulating internationally. I wouldn't typically bring such gruesome material into a school meeting but—"
"Just show it," Aizawa hurried him up.
The video played on the screen.
A man was filming with his phone from his apartment window. The view was of the Gotham southern waterfront where several large transport vessels were on fire and sinking, while smaller boats and jetskis moved between them.
The civilian filming had managed to zoom in somewhat. On the water, between the boats, men on jetskis were going down fast from gunfire and the man filming looked everywhere trying to find the source.
Then the camera caught him.
High, above one of the larger vessels. A man with large moth-patterned wings, was firing down with a sniper rifle before continuing his attack with strange silk.
"That looks like…" Ectoplasm said.
"That's him!" Power Loader yelled. "Look at the wings, it's the man Sen went after!"
The figure was now flying fast and dropping lower, and then the camera caught him using silk on one of the smaller boats, wrapping it up suffocating the men on it to death.
The room was very quiet.
The civilian had stopped filming when a distant explosion from somewhere off screen deeper in the city produced a shockwave that rattled the apartment window.
Vlad King said what they were all thinking first, "that moth villain, he's from Gotham?"
Nezu confirmed this fact, "The Japanese Quirk registry has no man on record matching this profile, he is almost certainly from Gotham."
"He was outside the festival…" Mic began, "and now he's in Gotham? In the middle of a mob war?"
Nezu rubbed his temples before speaking up.
"The question of how someone like this entered Japan without any hero agency or government awareness, conducted what appears to have been a targeted abduction of a UA student during a high-security school event, and then returned to Gotham worries me greatly."
"With the situation in Gotham…" Cementoss said, "and the US government's containment policy—"
"We won't be getting any answers about who this man is, if they even have him on record," Aizawa said.
"What about Batman? He is the only hero still in the city from what I've heard," Ectoplasam said. "Also his associates—"
"They don't take calls," Toshininori said.
"There's also the matter of the Hassaikai raid and this might be more connected than we thought," Cementoss said. "There were foreigners involved in that, those masked gunmen led by that woman were never captured and no one we captured seems to know who they were."
"We also don't know what happened to Rock Locks team," Power Loader added.
"Overhaul is also still missing," Ectoplasm reminded everyone. "The ambulance carrying him was attacked and no one was alive afterwards."
"The League was responsible for that," Mic said. "The evidence of Shigaraki's decay was obvious."
"But this moth Quirk user wasn't at the Hassaikai raid as far as any witness can confirm. If he had been there at the beginning or the end, you'd think they'd have deployed him." Vlad said frustrated at these mystery foreigners.
"There was also the large clay figure," Toshinori said. "The thing that was pretending to be Eri, who it was, is still unidentified and we have 0 leads."
"And Eri herself," Aizawa said. "Is still missing..."
A longer silence.
"Aizawa," Nezu remembered another one of the strange things from the raid. "You said there was a masked individual in the tunnels, who was present when you were incapacitated and killed Kuruno but said that Kuruno called him something–."
"Crane," Aizawa said. "That's the name I heard, I've been having more difficulty remembering what he looked like though the farther we get from that day I was barely conscious when it happened on top of that."
"Anything you still remember?"
"He was masked so I didn't see many of his features," Aizawa said. "I remember he was tall, he also had somewhat long dark hair, and was an English speaker. That's all I can say with confidence unfortunately."
"There are rumors," Nezu said, carefully, "in the limited intelligence I used to get from Gotham before the pro-hero presence evaporated this past year I did hear rumors about a group called Crane's Wings. However the only group that looked into this as far as I know were the Southside Defenders, unfortunately they were all massacred many months ago…"
The room went very quiet.
Nemuri was looking at the screen where the video had been.
She was thinking about Gotham more than before now, and noticed that the moth man they were watching was attacking a Maroni backed gang… then her son came to mind and she remembered that he said he had worked for Maroni.
"This man could also be after my son too…" she thought.
Her phone vibrated in her pocket.
She looked at it under the table.
It was her sons number.
"I'm sorry," she said, standing. "I have to—"
"Kayama-san–-" Nezu started.
"It's a family emergency," she said. "I'm sorry, I'll be in tomorrow."
The room understood what she meant by this and that it must be this abandoned son of hers and they all felt bad and didn't object as she went.
UA High School — Outer Grounds — Moments Later
She found a corner of the outer grounds away from the main building and away from any security cameras or prying eyes.
Then, she answered the call.
However instead of Suguro, she heard strange breathing, then a woman's voice far from the one she had been expecting.
"Who is this?" Nemuri asked, a little worried.
"Ivy," the voice said.
Nemuri was quiet for a moment, then realised she remembered this woman she was with her son back in Gotham.
"Is my son alright?" she asked now calmer but still a little on edge.
"He should be," Ivy answered, sounding like she didn't really want to even be on this call.
"What does "should" mean?" Nemuri asked now with the worry back in her voice.
"It means he's in the middle of something, and for some reason he asked me to tell you he's going to be alright."
"What is he in the middle of?" Nemuri asked, still on edge.
Ivy was quiet for a moment, then Nemuri heard the sound of paper crinkle and a note being unfolded.
"He wrote this down for me to read to you. He said: he is finishing a final obligation to Maroni, and after that he will no longer be doing anything for Maroni's organization."
Though Nemuri did not understand that Maroni was now working for him, who would guess something like that.
"A final obligation?" Nemuri said. "What kind of—"
"Fighting someone," Ivy said. "He won't lose."
"How can you know that?"
"I know him," Ivy said, "and I know what he can do." A pause. "He also wanted you to know that when things settle down he's going to be in touch."
Nemuri was quiet.
"He wrote that?"
"in exactly those words," Ivy said.
Nemuri looked at the outer wall of the UA grounds, and smiled..
"Ivy," she began.
"Yes?"
"Tell him—" She stopped.
"Tell him that's good," she said. "The Maroni part, and leaving those criminals in the past."
"I will," Ivy said.
The call ended.
Nemuri stood outside UA for a while, with her primary fear from the past few days alleviated and put her phone in her pocket and started walking back to the main building.
UA High School — Teacher's Meeting Room — After Nemuri Leaves
The room was quieter after she left, the shocking secret they learned about their colleague still in peoples minds as they adjusted in their chairs.
"The Hassaikai operation," Cementoss brought up again. "I keep coming back to it, there were too many unexplained elements, this potential link to Gotham may explain these elements..."
Nezu's small hands were folded on the table.
"If we accept the possibility that a Gotham-based group was in Japan during the Hassaikai raid period then several things that were unclear become somewhat clearer, however it is disturbing to see how easily they went undetected" he said.
"What would a Gotham organization want with the Hassaikai?" Vlad said.
"Overhaul's work," Present Mic said, as if it was obvious.
"The quirk-destroying bullets," Power Loader said.
"Eri as well," Toshinori said.
After the group was quiet for a minute with the realization this was far more than any expected, Nezu spoke up, breaking the silence as he looked around the table. "And we do not give up hope for Sen Kaibara, he is still a UA student. Whatever the situation and wherever he might be, that remains true."