Viridian: The Green Guide

Chapter 66: Involved

Endeavor was dead.

According to the news reports, the drugs they had found in his system had short-circuited Endeavor's natural limits and forced him to go so far beyond them that he'd burned almost half of his body into ash, a result that seemed to run in the family, if the tragic end of his oldest son was any indication. Dabi would have found the whole thing deliciously ironic if he didn't feel so numb. His father was dead and he hadn't had anything to do with it. He felt robbed.

Dabi knew there was more to the story than what the news was reporting, though. Most people seemed to think that Endeavor's downfall was an isolated incident brought about by his own hubris, which Dabi might have been tempted to believe if he hadn't overheard that conversation between Eraserhead and Viridian. It was almost funny how far the media was willing to bend back on itself to prevent the general public from panicking.

The story went that Endeavor, angry about the negative publicity he'd received after the new years disaster, had sought out quirk enhancing drugs to increase his power and prove that he still deserved the number two spot. He must have gotten a bad batch, however, because the drugs he'd taken had been cut with something that caused psychosis. It was a nice story that placed the blame on Endeavor rather than on the Hero commission or society. Just one more Icarus that flew too close to the sun and burned himself out. It was an easy story for the public to digest, which was probably why the hero commission had done nothing to deny it, assuming they hadn't been the ones to quietly come up with the cover story to begin with.

Dabi, however, wasn't the general public. He knew that his father was too prideful to have ever willingly sought out trigger, something that his brother had confirmed when Kacchan had talked to him. He would have done that part himself, but there was always the chance his siblings would recognize him, and that was assuming he could even get close to him with how sketchy his scars made him look. No, it would have been too risky, but despite his complicated feelings on the whole thing, it was nice to know his siblings were doing alright and have confirmation that whatever had happened, his father had been the victim, not the perpetrator.

According to what Dabi had been able to scrounge up, the villain factory had been abducting people for years and actually running experiments on them. It turned out that a lot of the more powerful villains that had been popping up randomly only to disappear or immediately get caught over the past five or so years were actually the result of these experiments, so it stood to reason that the villain factory had run experiments on Endeavor as well, though what those experiments were was still a mystery.

All those years plotting revenge...all for his final victory to be snatched up by some shadow organization that he hadn't even known existed. His only consolation was that his father had definitely suffered, not that it was enough to stop Dabi from obsessing over finding the villain factory. He wouldn't rest until he'd found the people that had finally succeeded in killing Endeavor.

The only question was, when he finally found them, would he destroy them or join them?

"No. Absolutely not."

Shouta looked at the kid in front of them, eyes full of determination, but he refused to budge, even when Bakugo looked like he was about to explode, probably literally based on what Amplifier had told him about the kid's quirk.

"I've been building a lot of connections in the underground." Bakugo argued. "I can take the role of an informant and help you find the people who took Ogawa. He's my friend, and I can help, so just let me help already!"

"You're a kid, Bakugo." Amplifier said kindly. "It's too dangerous."

"I already figured out that it's dangerous." Bakugo grumbled. "Why do you think I'm here instead of going off on my own."