(I may have made a continuity error here with Gran Torino, but I will work with it so its not major some of the canon timeline will change by a couple days)
Private Hangar — Kansai International Airport — Late Evening
The vans pulled in one by one, tires squeaking on the glossy concrete. The massive bay door rolled shut behind the last vehicle with a heavy metallic thud, sealing them inside.
Cameron was first out. He rolled his shoulders, wings folding tight against his back.
"Right," he said to no one in particular. "So, now what?"
"We going back to Gotham?" Roman answered, stepping out of the third van and smoothing the front of his white jacket.
Basil emerged from the black car Silver had driven in, stretching his arms over his head. "You know what? Japan isn't bad, they got some great food compared to back home."
Roman opened one of the supply crates in the back of the plane's cargo hold and pulled out a few bottles of whiskey that had been packed last minute. He cracked the seal, took a pull, and passed it sideways without a word. Basil accepted it, then Cameron and the rest of the men.
William watched from the open side doors of the second van. He had an IV line running, and a direct line of sedative to the bloodstream along with a feeding tube. Overhaul wouldn't be waking up again.
Ivy had not joined the group yet either.
She sat sideways in the open door of the farthest van and in the back seat, Eri was asleep.
She had folded herself into the corner of the seat, knees drawn up tight, silver hair fallen across her face like a curtain. She had not exactly fallen asleep peacefully, she still looked tense but she was out. Her body had simply grown too tired from the stress and fear of the day.
Crane appeared from the far end of the hangar and looked at the group before stopping in front of them.
"Listen up."
"The hotel is off the table," Crane said. "The Osaka police and at least three hero agencies are treating the whole district around the compound as an active crime scene. They will be checking nearby anywhere with even the slightest ties to the Yakuza even if they don't know about it, it's best we don't go back."
"Jaina is arranging an alternate accommodation for us. Something away from the incident area. That will be ready in a day or two." He paused. "Until then, we sleep on the plane."
"The plane?" Roman repeated flatly.
"Is that a problem," Crane said, and the finality in his voice made it clear the conversation was over.
"Nah"
Roman topped off his glass and said nothing further.
"Second." Crane's attention moved across the group. "I received confirmation that my other Japanese contact, Garaki, wants to meet in person. He's been dark for a while, his facility was compromised after his master was taken out of action but he's in a stable position as of now. The meeting will happen in a couple of days and then we will leave at the end of the week."
"Why are we staying till the end of the week?" Cameron asked.
"There's one more stop I need to make before we leave Japan, but it's not something you all need to be concerned with"
Cameron studied him for a moment, decided not to push, and nodded once.
Crane's gaze moved to Silver last. She was leaning against the driver's side of the black car, arms crossed, watching him with the particular expression of someone who has already guessed what's coming.
"You'll stay on the plane the rest of the week," he said. "You're the only one of us who was visible and recognizable at the start of the raid so leaving this hanger as of now isn't an option for you."
Silver was quiet for a moment. Then she exhaled through her nose. "Fine."
"The girl will also stay with you."
Silver's gaze moved to the van where Eri was sleeping.
"So I'm the babysitter?"
"I'm not asking you to entertain her. I'm telling you to not let her run off or escape" he said. "Can you manage that?"
"Yes," she said flatly.
The rest of the group began moving toward the jet. William's gurney came out of the van on silent wheels, disappearing up the cargo ramp as he loaded the unconscious Overhaul.
Silver walked to the far van.
Eri was now awake from the noise of the group.
She had her chin just above the window's edge, watching the hangar with careful red eyes. When Silver opened the door, she immediately pulled back, pressing herself into the corner and drawing her knees up tight.
Silver looked at her scared and wanting to hide.
Silver had seen that look before.
She had once had it.
She crouched down outside the open door, making herself smaller.
"You don't have to come with me right now," Silver said, her voice quieter than usual. "You can sit there a bit longer if you need to."
Eri didn't answer.
Silver looked down at the hangar floor. "I was once in your position not too long ago, kid." She kept her eyes down, not pushing. "I was with my class on a field trip for our hero class but we were kindnapped and taken, sold and killed by a lunatic clown." She paused. "Most of them didn't make it."
She heard Eri shift slightly in the seat.
"But the man who runs this group… he kept me, recruited me and gave me a purpose…" Silver chose her words carefully. "It's not a life most people would choose but it's mine now, and nobody takes things from me anymore, in this world you either give pain or receive pain..."
She looked up.
Eri was watching her.
"I don't know what happens to you after this," Silver continued. "I'm not going to pretend I do but tonight you're not in a basement, and nobody is running experiments on you. That's more than you had yesterday." She held out her hand, palm up. "There are movies on the plane. Probably some good ones, you haven't seen yet, I'll watch something with you if you want."
Eri looked at the hand for a long moment.
"And ill keep the Pyg man away"
Then, very slowly, she reached out and took it.
Her fingers were cold, Silver closed her hand around them gently and straightened up. They walked toward the plane together before she looked down at the girl and told her.
"I think you can be just like me one day"
Later — Private Hangar
Crane stood at the far end of the hangar near the locked bay doors making sure he was alone.
He was looking at his phone.
The UA website took a while to load and once it did he saw a banner across the top showing two photographs side by side: a formal group shot of UA's hero course students, and below it, the announcement.
UA SCHOOL FESTIVAL — END OF WEEK.
The article confirmed that several students had participated in the Yakuza raid earlier that day. It mentioned injuries but no UA students were among the fallen…
Crane rolled his eyes at the attempt of calling that success and scrolled down to the faculty listing.
She was there, his mother…
He locked the phone and put it in his coat pocket.
"I wonder how she would respond to a surprise visit."
Crane stood there a while longer in the empty hangar, then turned and walked up the boarding ramp.
Shie Hassaikai Compound — Lower Tunnels — Same afternoon
The gas masks had finally arrived and the police and heroes could begin entering the tunnels below to recover the wounded they had lost contact with and any lingering Yakuza. Ryukyu moved at the front of the column, with Gran Torino beside her.
Heroes with wind-based Quirks had gone in first, clearing the air in the main shafts as best as they could but they couldn't get rid of all the mysterious toxin.
They found the first UA student, Tsuyu who was in the corner, knees drawn to her chest. She was still conscious albeit not in her right mind, her eyes tracked toward Uraraka when the girl crouched beside her, but she didn't speak. Her body was still in shock after the toxin had slowly begun to wear off.
"You're okay," Uraraka whispered, voice cracking behind her new gas mask. "We've got you."
Tsuyu gave one tiny nod.
Mirio and Tamaki were in the room behind her, both unconscious but breathing steadily. The medics moved them first, given the visible extent of their injuries. Ryukyu pressed deeper into the supply room and Inside, police flashlight beams cut through the darkness and slowly resolved the scene.
Aizawa was slumped against the ground, unconscious, his capture weapon partially raised around him as if he'd used it as a limited gas mask before fading. He was breathing though but what confused them was the medic said he had gone unconscious from a head injury, pointing to the boot imprint on his face and bruising, he hadn't passed out from exhaustion or the toxin.
They then noticed the severed head on the floor near him and everyone went silent.
Bubble Girl took one look and stepped back gasping while two officers behind her were less composed as one turned away quickly leaving the room. Gran Torino, not averse to death, had crouched beside what remained of Kurono.
"This wasn't a hero's work," he muttered. "Tamakis the only one who could have done it but his claws wouldn't make a cut this clean… but we don't know of any members in Shie Hassaikai who could do this either or why?"
Uraraka made it two steps inside the doorway after seeing her friend was loaded up and taken to the surface, before she stopped after hand flew to her mouth once her eyes landed on the head of Kuruno with his lifeless eyes looking right at her.
Ryukyu directed the medics as Aizawa was taken to the surface, then turned to Gran Torino.
"Whoever did this was already gone long before we entered the tunnels," she said.
"Obviously," he replied.
The tunnel forked at the end of the supply room corridor; it only went left and right, Centipeder examined the junction, then the outer wall and floor.
"Mimic," he said. "The layout's been altered there should be many tunnels, this fork wasn't in any of the schematics we recovered in the surface level of the compound"
"the absence of confirmation on his capture is concerning as well," Bubble Girl added.
They split.
Centipeder, Bubble Girl, and half the remaining officers and medics took the right fork. Ryukyu, Gran Torino, and the rest turned left, into air that was already noticeably warmer than it should be underground.
One of the officers pointed ahead. "I see something burning."
The pit was at the end of the passage, visible through a wide collapse in the tunnel floor. The fire had to have been massive a couple hours ago but all that remained was mostly glowing embers and the final small flames clinging to what was left.
Ryukyu called for the fire suppression team who arrived after a couple minutes and once the flames were mostly out, she and Gran Torino descended. The officers stayed above since there was no safe path down for them yet.
The floor of the pit held the remains of a large group.
Gran Torino found the police badges first, small blackened metal shapes that fire hadn't completely destroyed. He stood with one in his hand and looked around the pit for a long moment without speaking, and after seeing what little remained of the bodies around him realized this was the second group.
Ryukyu moved carefully through the space until she found a shape at the edge of the main debris field. She recognized what remained of the distinctive Quirk-hardened bodysuit and the skeleton with half its flesh burned or melted off.
"Rock Lock…"
Torino's expression didn't change. He crouched beside a slightly less burned body nearby.
"So this is what happened to Mimic."
A single gunshot wound to the head was visible in his slightly less burned flesh.
"He didn't see it coming," Torino said quietly.
Ryukyu opened her radio. "Command, this is Ryukyu. We have found the missing officers, including Rock Lock."
She paused, clearing her voice.
" There are no survivors."
She heard multiple angry murmurs and disappointed voices on the other end before continuing.
"We also have found the villain Mimic who is deceased from a gunshot to the head but it looks like it was by surprise, possibly by someone he knew."
Torino's radio crackled a moment later with the voice of Bubble Girl.
Her voice was steady but tight. "Centipeder found a secondary exit. It runs out under a bridge, there's an entire fake construction site covering the access point, anyone could have escaped through here and be long gone by now, this is probably where someone took the real Eri."
Ryukyu looked at the pit around her, at the charred remains of the police then at what was left of Rock Lock.
"We will be there soon," she said.
She and Torino were climbing back toward the tunnel mouth when another update came through, this one from surface command.
The ambulance transporting Overhaul had been intercepted on the highway, Its escort was all dead. By the time heroes arrived Overhaul was gone.
The damage pattern and decay marks on the pavement were consistent with the quirk of Shigaraki of the League of Villains.
Torino listened to the report with his eyes looking ahead down the corridor.
"So," he said when the transmission ended, "Overhaul's operation is destroyed. Most of his people are mysteriously dead or in our custody, but the girl we came to save is gone with no leads and the League just walked away with Overhaul himself or he is dead."
He was quiet for a beat.
"There was something larger going on down here, it must have been connected to those foreigners on the surface,"
Ryukyu didn't answer, the biggest concern right now was preventing more death and gettin those who needed it to the surface.
Osaka General Hospital — Two Days Later
Izuku had been staring out at the city through his window for most of the morning and where Eri could be now and the feeling of guilt growing in his chest not going down at his failure.
His left arm was in a cast now, but his left leg… the doctors had been careful with their words, but he understood. He had pushed One For All too far and while he would eventually recover even with it, he likely wouldn't be healed up completely until the winter.
But even when he thought about this his mind kept going back to that moment after he defeated Overhaul.
He thought about the girl he promised to save.
He had fought that battle with everything he had left, taken Chisaki apart in the sky, and was now out of action but had gladly done all of it for her.
To get her out.
To make sure she was safe.
But she had never been there.
Izuku looked down at his bandaged hands resting on the blanket.
He had broken himself for a decoy.
Somewhere down the hall, Mirio was in a room like this one, Tamaki too and Nighteye was in a different wing. He heard that Aizawa had been cleared to leave the hospital once they confirmed his skull wasn't fractured.
They had all been in those tunnels.
They had all come back without her.
The door opened softly.
Mirio moved carefully, one arm held against his ribs on the left side.
He sat in the chair beside the bed, the same one his mother Inko had occupied until a few hours ago when she'd finally been convinced to go eat something.
Mirio looked at him for a long moment.
Then he said, quietly, "Midoriya… We need to go see Nighteye."
His voice was flat in a way that didn't sound like Mirio at all.
Izuku looked at him.
"He's—" Izuku started.
"Yeah," Mirio said, swallowing. "We need to go now."
Izuku managed to get onto the crutches he would be stuck on for a week or so until the recovery girl could at least get his leg able to be walked on.
When they reached Nighteye's room, a nurse gave them a small, sad nod and stepped aside.
Sir Nighteye lay in the bed, frailer than Izuku had ever seen him. Machines beeped softly around him.
"Mirio. Midoriya." His voice was thin but steady. "Come closer."
Nighteye looked at them both for a long moment, as if committing their faces to memory.
Izuku's throat tightened. "Sir… we—"
"You did everything you could," Nighteye cut in gently. "More than most could have managed. The fault does not lie with you." He looked at Mirio. "Either of you."
Mirio's fists clenched at his sides. "We lost her. After everything… we still lost her."
Nighteye was quiet for a few seconds.
"Then find her," he said. His voice gained a fraction of its old strength. "Whatever it takes, however long it will take, do not let this end in failure. The future… can still be changed."
Outside the window, the pale grey sky continued its indifferent watch over the city and Nighteye had finally gone, still his time had come.
His final thoughts of somewhere in Osaka, or beyond it the girl he promised his students would be alright was being carried further and further away from the heroes who had bled and died to save her.