Talking to Bruce doesn't ease the fear.
It can't.
Because he's still out there.
It does give her focus however.
Not to mention that Bruce's advice is surprisingly good, almost tactical.
She can't beat All for One.
But that doesn't mean she has to let him do whatever he wants either.
She has a lead now, her foot in the door. Even if the thugs don't know everything, they know enough, they know who brought the victims, they know when All for one dropped by to take their quirks.They know the drop off points for the ones too important to just die, and the plans for the weapons, the drugs.
"Hit the foundation at his feet. No matter how powerful the criminal is, he needs a foundation to stand on."
He's right. She'd been too scared to think clearly, but once she's done being a coward, she knows he's right.
She calls Sorahiko the next morning.
Interrogations are slow to set up. Police still largely don't trust quirk users calling themselves heroes. Too much overlap, too many budgets being cut to sponsor top pros.
They stonewall, delay, but she's stubborn.
And a right royal bitch when she wants to be.
They get in.
Not for the grunts either but for people up the totem pole, people with answers.
Even so the process is slow, slower than she'd like.
He already knows one of his sites got hit. He has to.
She doubts he knows of her involvement. Not yet anyway. The Bat did most of the heavy lifting, so the Bat's name is the one he's hearing
The vigilante's good cover in that respect.
Doesn't change that he might come here soon. At the very least a lieutenant will be sent out. Someone to bring down the Bat.
Another reason to find the idiot.
He was in way over his head.
The bad guys give them something to work with. There were three things of interest there. Guns, drugs and victims. The guns and drugs are important, but not so much next to the victims.
She knows there are more.
So that's the trail she follows.
She's hoping that the interrogations would point her to one or, maybe, two guys. Fixers, wetwork specialists.
They don't. They know of four different people that were responsible for these particular victims being brought in… delivered.
Only one of them slipped up enough for anyone to know anything though. The 'newest' one, a doctor. The one who brought in a kid.
A kid half drowning in meds uttered his name loud enough for some to hear.
Ujiko.
Its not a lot. Likely an alias.
But she's had less to work with.
So she gets to work.
(X)(X)(X)
She gets home that night and Bruce is there, and she's grateful for that.
"Long day?"
She scowls, shambling over to the kitchen island where a covered plate of steamed vegetables and chicken is waiting for her.
"That question is becoming routine." she mutters.
"You seem to have a great many long days." He answers back, newspaper crinkling in hand.
She turns, eyeing him; He has his own clothes now, gone are Sorahiko's hand me downs and she's not really surprised most of what he's bought is just dark colors all round, grays, blacks, the occasional dark brown that could pass for black.
Variety is not her friend's strong suit in his color palette.
"Anything in the fifty odd papers today?" She asks lightly.
That's something that she noticed damn quick.
Bruce read.
A lot.
Everything he could get his hands on.
He didn't watch TV unless it was news and most of his time at home could be spent on the newspaper job hunting really, he was diligent but with things as they were no one was really hiring "long term"
But, diligently, he kept bringing her every bit of cash he could spare, an envelope was resting next to her plate, with the full rent money. Not half as usual, full.
Part of her felt a little guilty for taking it, half was fair.
The other half was too stressed now to really consider fair… the extra cash would be useful in the coming months, especially if All For one or his Lieutenants were going to come around.
Informants needed incentive.
And sometimes money was it.
"Quite a bit." He answered, and as she took a bite of her lukewarm vegetables and chicken Bruce fished a folded up paper, placing it on the side of the couch closest to her.
Curious, she picked up her plate, marching forward.
Leaning over the couch, she eyed the paper in question.
It was a story of the takedown last night at the club.
She'd mentioned it in passing to Bruce. Her name was kept out of it, so was Sorahiko's by her request.
Even so it looks like he had enough to put the pieces together.
"That's where your 'Quirk thief' was operating from?"
"One of his places most likely." She answered, then sighed, rubbing at her forehead. "Bruce… what I told you last night… I told you to vent. I was scared. Don't go digging into this. This… quirk thief is bad news."
"He certainly sounds like it." Bruce said nonchalantly.
"Bruce…" She half warned half pleaded.
He turned his eye to her, blue gaze finding hers.
"Don't worry." He said with a slow nod. "I'm not looking to get in over my head. But this villain is worrying you, eating at you. So what's the harm in bouncing some ideas around? No one here but you, me and a hole in the wall."
She tried to look stern, angry even, but her will wasn't in it.
How many years has it been since she told anyone? The secrecy was necessary but it weighed. She'd tried to tell Sorahiko but every time she did she'd remember her husband… she'd told him. And All for one took his quirk, and his life. It was only pure luck Kotaro had been with her that day and not her husband. It had been his turn to take her boy to school.
If they'd both been killed...
Couldn't keep your mouth shut I see, eh Shimura?
She knew him, she could remember that smile and she had no doubt he'd do the same to Sorahiko if he could get his hands on him. Leave her alive again to watch and live with it.
But with Bruce... he might never hear Bruce's name.
He was quirkless, powerless… beneath All for One's notice.
It was a weak excuse, flimsy. Something to justify *her* wants. All for one would kill him all the same… it didn't matter.
But she was tired… tired of secrets, tired of keeping her mouth shut, tired of not talking of not planning, of running.
And Bruce made her feel like she wasn't just running.
"I may have found the name of one of his fixers. Doctor named Ujiko. My guess is he's a pediatrician, scouts kids with newly discovered quirks…"
"Easy victims." Bruce's features darkened.
She nodded. "Yeah…"
Bruce was quiet for a moment, eyes closed.
Then, abruptly, he stood marching away.
"Bru-"
He rummaged in one of the drawers on the computer desk he'd recently organized, pulling free a pen and notebook.
Then, he walked back to the couch and sat down.
With a click of the writing utensil he looked to her.
"Lets see if I can help you make sense of everything you know."
(X)(X)(X)
She learned something that night.
Several somethings. Not the least of which was just how much damaging information she actually had on All For one after almost a decade living in his shadow.
But more than that was how very… frankly, scary Bruce's intelligence was.
Definitely not homeless. Some kind of doctor. A psychologist or criminologist or something.
He'd asked her simple questions at first, gradually going into more and more detail, some of which she knew the answers to, a lot of which she didn't.
But even with the few scraps of concrete information she did have, Bruce's brain worked like he was fitting pieces to a giant jigsaw puzzle he could see in his head.
She didn't consider herself an idiot by any means but she would freely admit Bruce was frighteningly smarter than her after last night.
He'd started the beginnings of a psychological profile.
A psychological profile on All For One.
Then he'd gone and started using what little information she had in her own files and memory, along with the paper thin police record to begin narrowing down possible areas she could search both for the doctor and another Quirk harvest site.
There was still too many unknowns for a definitive hit on either target.
But she was gonna go digging.
He was good at this, better than Sorahiko, better than most cops she'd seen.
He'd managed to cram days worth of analysis into a handful of hours.
She wanted oh so desperately to ask. To prod and question what he did before he was 'homeless' but, she refrained. Not only because she herself was keeping a fair few secrets of her own from him, but because she knew somehow, that if she did, Bruce would be out that door in a heartbeat.
And his brain if nothing else was too damn good to lose as a resource now that she knew about it.
That and… frankly, she wasn't sure it mattered, outside of her own curiosity.
She'd told Bruce she was a good judge of character and so, secrets or not, hidden past or not, she still thought he was a good person behind the mystery.
As long as that held true, what he did before he walked out of that alley with a beard and kung fu grip action shouldn't and didn't matter to her.
(X)(X)(X)
Sorahiko, also known as Gran Torino, sighed quietly. The man grumbled to himself, removing his eyemask and unclasping the cape from his shoulders as he entered his little home.
It had been a long day of chasing dead ends.
Dead ends were always the worst, not only did they not catch anyone, not only did they not find any information that could lead to a future capture but it was another day where Nana had to smile and not mean it.
There were too damn many days like that, honestly.
She always smiled, because of course she did. And if he didn't know her as well as he did he would never know the difference.
But there were days when that smile came easy, when it reached her eyes and made her whole face glow.
Other days, days like today, it was just there out of habit, a force of will. Like she needed it to be there to avoid crying.
He hated it.
Ever since they found that… quirk lab, whatever it was it seemed like her true smile had burned away, replaced by the fake one.
She was sure there was another lab somewhere so sure of it that Sorahiko couldn't help but try and sniff it out, find it, if only to bring his friends' smiles back.
But he couldn't.
Why would anyone but a single offshoot mad scientist have a need for a quirk lab? Quirks couldn't be copied or erased unless by another quirk and it was only temporary. A hundred damn years of research proved it.
Even if they did find the doctor they were looking for, there was no wa-
He froze at the door to his room.
There, laying on the nightstand was a folder and a radio he most certainly had not seen before in his life, much less left there.
Instantly on guard, his hands flew to the lights flicking them all on and immediately checking every door and corner of his home before locking every window and entrance.
A minute later, he returned to his room.
The walkie was directly over the folder and Sorahiko had to look and check for tripwires or other traps.
"If I wanted to plant a bomb. You wouldn't have known until you lay in your bed."
The voice made him jump, and Sorahiko felt his lip curl in a sneer.
He recognized that voice.
Reaching gingerly for the walkie Sorahiko plucked it free from where it rested and eyed the thing.
Short wave. The range couldn't be more than a single square mile, two at the absolute most.
Had to be close. If he knew he was in his room enough to call he had to be damn close.
He clicked the transceiver button.
"Vigilante." He said, eyes moving this way and that way to the windows, searching for anyone that might be watching, down to the street to see anyone on a strange phone or hoodie.
Where was he…
"I'll keep this brief. On your night-table is a file. Its all the additional evidence I've dug up on one Dr. Ujiro. I know you're on the trail as well."
Torino's eyes narrowed, suspicion clear as he eyed the folder. "Why share it with us? You vigilantes don't play nice with licensed heroes. You dropping this?"
"Hardly. The both of you are… loud. With your official resources I'll be able to pick up new leads."
"Loud?"
"Loud enough for me to find your home. Haven't found hers yet. But I've narrowed it down to Nanta district. Shouldn't take me more than a few days."
"You stay the hell away from her!" Torino snarled. Nana did not need that, did not need some other villain showing up in her house. Losing her husband and giving up her kid had hurt her enough as it was.
"I don't care about either of you. All I want is to find that doctor before he hauls off some other kid to a quirk lab. If you want to keep playing at this little pissing contest, go ahead."
Gran Torino rubbed at his bearded chin, eyes still scanning the streets beyond his home, searching.
"You think he's taking kids to quirk labs too? Why? You know something we don't?"
"You have what you need. Use it, or don't."
The line went dead with a hiss of static.