Chapter 9 – The Hunt (part 1)

Five Days Later

It had been a week since my last meeting with Giran, it was time for the second one. This time, I was dressed in my new Vigilante costume. I really liked it, as it was practical, stealthy and pretty intimidating. Most importantly, I protected my identity really well, they were no ways to deduce anything from my appearance except from my height and vague shape.

As I entered his office for the second time, this time I had a lot of cash with me, the information I requested was probably going to cost a lot.

As always, Giran was seated behind his office and had a small smirk on his face. We shook hands once again and Giran spoke without waiting, furthermore, quickly getting to business.

"Knockout, a pleasure to meet you once again. It was quite difficult, but I have found the information you requested of me, though, I was you, it will cost you a pretty buck."

Not wasting any time, I asked, using Voice Change to make my voice deeper:

"How much are we talking about?"

"1 000 000 ¥ (10 000 USD)."

I handed him the money, not bothering trying to negotiate, because it wouldn't work. At best the price would stay the same, at worse he would find a way to make me pay more. Giran was as ruthless as he was talented in business, and he was a genius in business.

When he received the cash, Giran's smile grew visibly larger and he started talking:

"I conducted a search for criminal groups that had a decline five to six years ago, but that are still active right now. I excluded all local gangs and small villain groups. I found five groups fitting those conditions. Those are:"

"One, The Tokyo Monsters: A group of villains operating in Tokyo, all of their members have a quirk related to monsters. All of their members are a bit mad, they are the types are villains that heroes are always fighting in the TV. Endeavor tried to eradicate them 5 years ago, but some of them escaped and they quickly rebuilt."

"Two, Atlantis: A group of water-based villains that raid transport cargos, but rarely go after civilians. Some hero team almost succeeded in wiping them out five years ago."

"Three, AnArchY: A group of "cliché" villains that create the most chaos they can. They are chaotic, evil, mad and dishonest villains. They have more enemy than I can count and six years ago, their enemies got tired of them and wiped most of their bases and killed most of their members. Still, because there is no shortage of chaotic and evil villains, they just recruited more members."

"Four, The Invisible Rose: A group of assassins. All their crimes are extremely clean, it is said that nobody ever saw one of their members. It's also difficult to contact them and their trademark is to leave a rose on the scene of all of their assassination, on the corpse most of the time. They are a legend in the underworld. They slowed down a lot five and a half years ago, but it didn't last long."

"Five, The Gold-Plated: A group of villains that specializes in robbing banks and rich people. Their heists are always extremely fast and very well planned. Six years ago, one of their members betrayed them and the heroes were ready for them when they tried to rob a bank. They lost a lot of members that day, truly a pity. They made a comeback three years ago, though and are still active to this day, occasionally robing banks."

The information just gave me was very useful, I now understand why he is so expensive. It would've taken weeks or even months to get the information he just gave me. I replied, satisfied with the information.

"Thank you, this information will be useful."

"No problems, but I must warn you, you'll die if you fight against AnArchY or the Invisible Rose. AnArchy members are completely crazy, they don't hesitate to kill themselves if they have a chance to injure an opponent. They are evil, but their main strength is their seemingly infinite members, you kill a member and two new pop up out of nowhere to replace him. On the other hand, The Invisible Rose are deadly and mysterious. Don't go anywhere near them, you'll only get a quick death."

I nodded and left his office. I hoped that the ones that kidnapped me wouldn't be one of those two groups, but with my luck, I would somehow end up against both.

While I continued to patrol that night, I thought about the groups Giran had told me about. I could probably remove Atlantis and Tokyo Monsters from the list of suspects. Atlantis were water-based and didn't go after civilians and Tokyo Monsters were monsters, and the people that kidnapped me didn't have a monster or water quirk and I was a civilian.

I would still investigate them, because it was possible that they were the culprit, but it was very unlikely.

I could also maybe remove AnArchY from it, as they don't seem like the very loyal type, if their boss had been injured, they would've probably killed him and chose another one, but I couldn't know that for sure.

Now, for The Invisible Rose, I could possibly remove them as well, because they wouldn't have sent inexperienced members like those that kidnapped me, they were a notorious assassin group after all, they would've done a better job. Although I do concede that the quirks of the villains that kidnapped me were very well suited for assassinations.

So, the culprits most likely were The Gold-Plated, as the two that kidnapped me had well-suited quirks for heists, but they were famous for their good planning and I was almost sure that they had a warp gate quirk at their disposal and my kidnapping was honestly poorly planned and there were no warp gate quirks involved. Maybe their leader had a warp gate quirk and was injured, so he couldn't use it. Still didn't explain why it was so poorly planned. I mean, six years old me could've done a better kidnapping.

Frustrated, I opened a warp gate leading to my room and decided to try to remove the most suspects possibly with the help my most useful tool, the internet.

I began with Atlantis. I hacked into the police to see the files concerning them. I had to spend a little more efforts and time compared to the last time I hacked the police, but it still wasn't very difficult. I quickly read their files, and I could officially remove them from the suspects, because their leader was on vacation at the time of the hero raid, he wasn't injured.

Throughout the night, I continued my investigation and, to my surprise, the next group that I managed to remove from the list of suspects was The Gold-Plated, because it was clearly stated their police files that the leader was the one with the warp gate quirk, as I suspected, but, as soon as he saw heroes waiting for them, escaped quickly with a gate, abandoning his allies. The heroes weren't able to do anything at him.

I also removed The Tokyo Monsters because, after a bit of research, it was quite clear that they only accepted people with monster quirks, they even refused people with extremely useful quirks, and they operated only in Tokyo, so they wouldn't've gone to Kyoto only for my father, there were plenty of good healers in Tokyo.

I was starting to think Murphy's Law was real, as the only suspects remaining now were the two groups Giran had warned me against.