If she could sum up the last… five? Was it five? Five weeks in one word the only word she could really think of was:
Productive.
She'd spent eight years, almost a full decade hiding from All for One, keeping her distance and carefully nursing One for All within, letting it build up more and more power. All the while searching for the person that would use it to destroy him.
It still needed time, and she'd found the person to do it when the quirk was finally ready. Or at least she was pretty sure Yagi would be the one.
But she couldn't deny there was a certain feeling of… empowerment of taking back some control, some semblance of strength and value in her own life.
It was empowering in a way that had absolutely nothing to do with One for All, and it felt good.
They'd hit nine bases.
Nine operations.
Guns, Drugs, Racketeering, Money Laundering, and, of course, Quirk Harvesting.
Hitting three at a time at the same time, piece by piece, bit by bit, chipping away at the lower levels of the operation.
Just knowing that All for One was watching sometimes made her uneasy, but she knew that soon enough, they'd be ready to escalate. Hit bigger operations, disrupt things that actually mattered, if not to the monster then at least to those loyal to him.
Sorahiko and the Bat both agreed (a seldom seen occurrence, really) he'd move against them soon.
Not in a big way; the Bat insisted, Sorahiko didn't see it that way.
Bruce, in their private talks, said it depended on how much they'd hurt his operations. Once things reached a "critical mass" All for One would move. No sooner. No later.
The question was when that critical mass was.
Today, they'd meet up for the third time in these last five weeks. She'd freely admit it was odd, doing "Solo" work, and a bit nerve wracking, honestly. Sorahiko was usually her backup and she his. But the weekly progress reports were something to look forward to and not just because of Sorahiko.
Say what you want about the Bat being crazy, but the man knew how to dismantle a criminal organization.
He always came to them with new information, always had an update to the list of confirmed lieutenants right alongside the "possibles", he always had new records on the money trails, the financial side of the work. It was evidence that he and Sorahiko were slowly, methodically organizing and piecing together to send it to the cops and the media in one big 'bomb' when all was said and done. He always knew when and where to go after the next targets of interest,keeping it as random as possible, keeping All for One guessing.
He was rude, and an ass who kept disappearing mid goddamn sentence or question, and she still wanted to punch him every now and again, but competence carried its own brand of charm.
She descended from the sky, the moon was just peeking through now, the sun going down to the west, weak light casting the clouds above in deep purple.
The rooftop was empty. She double checked to make sure she had the right spot. Because, of course, they had to randomise the meeting place. Random crackdowns, random meetups, random locations. For such a methodical bastard, the Batman sure was random. He'd show up and--
"You're late."
She swore that one day she was just gonna turn and clock him one, right in the damn eye!
"Don't do that!" She hissed whirling around to look at him.
He said nothing, staring at her, though she knew he was just about ready to smirk in that infuriating 'Haha, I snuck up on you' way.
Right in the eye. She swore that to god!
Grumbling to herself, she crossed her arms, floating back down to plant her feet firmly on the rooftop as she glared at him, stomping in a way only she could. "Where's Sorahiko."
"Running later than you."
"You're lucky you're good at what you do." She muttered just loud enough for him to hear.
He smirked.
...
It was official. She couldn't die in this fight. All for One couldn't kill her.She was going to survive this, if for no other reason than to kill the Bat herself when this was all over.
Her life had a new purpose!
As if summoned by her increasingly irate thoughts she saw Sorahiko's yellow clad self flying over the buildings just a block or so away, the air pressure in his boots going off with a hiss to cushion his landing.
"Looks like we're all here." Her friend muttered, standing to the side as he crossed his arms. "So let's cut to it; Either of you discovered anything in the bases you hit? Besides the obvious I mean."
"Not me." She said, deciding to get it out the way. It'd just be embarrassing if they both said they found something and she came out with a simple- "Charged in, beat up some low level guys, called the cops, took the civilians to the hospital. Three of them still had their quirks, so All for One didn't have time to snag 'em."
That made the Bat turn to her. "You're sure?"
She nodded and it was a thrill of triumph that shot through her at the fact that she'd gotten one over on him if his surprise was anything to go by. "Yup." Her grin was probably a little bit more cocky than it should have been.
"Hmm." He brought a hand up to his chin. "That's good, but also concerning."
"Huh? Why?"
"It means All for One's gonna be angrier than we thought." Gran said beside her, turning to the bat. "Still think, he'll wind up slow?"
The black cowled vigilante shook his head. "The end goal is the same, escalate attacks before he's drawn out of his own volition. Do lasting damage to the organization, so if we go down, he won't recover nearly as well as he could have. All this does is move up our timetable."
"By how much?" She asked.
The Bat knelt on the ground, the gravel of the rooftop crunching under his boot and bent knee.
He pulled a device from the back of his belt, a small discus object, and then there was a holographic map of the eastern half of japan staring at her.
"We've hit multiple small time operations, irritating, but not disruptive, at least not towards the larger, greater machine."
"How do we do that then?"
"Every time we attack, before and after, I monitor communication within the local area, from everything I've intercepted, All For One has divided his territory across Japan into seven sub sectors, each with their own lieutenants.This inner circle is beyond those that would be considered his top enforcers, or bodyguards, closer to him personally than the locations we've been hitting."
"How the hell did you even find all this out?"
"Various tracking, listening devices, and wiretaps. People will reveal quite a bit when they think no one's listening."
"Who are the lieutenants?"
"At the moment, I only have two confirmed identities. Three others have suspect lists, the last two are completely unknown, both are in North eastern Japan, too far to be of concern."
"You want us to hit these guys three at a time as well? That's… a tall order. All For One wouldn't give positions and power like that lightly, not to mention that he could have given them quirk combinations too."
"He likely did," Batman nodded grimly, " It's why they're so loyal. But I'm not planning on fighting them one by one, eventually, All For One would see the pattern and just wait with one of them in secret. Catch us with backup behind him and if he does, we're dead.
"So what are you planning?" Gran asked.
The Hologram shifted showing twelve criminals, two in green, the other five in orange.
"These are the two confirmed and the other five we have as our list of suspected persons," Batman waved to the gallery of images,
Their images shifted to red with an X over their faces. Stating it coolly as if he was describing how to properly steep tea, the Batman declared "We take them all out in one shot."
She looked at Gran. Gran looked back at her.
He was crazy.
No doubt about it.
But crazy or not… his plans hadn't failed so far.
"Go on-" She acquiesced
The Hologram shifted again, showing All For One, or what she assumed to be All for One, in silhouette, surrounded by seven other figures.
"All For One manages his organization like a mob boss manages his, and mob bosses all like to have some degree of oversight over those working for them. It also feeds into his self aggrandizing image. They rule their slices of the 'Kingdom' completely autonomously, until the 'King' comes calling and they all have to answer."
"It feeds his ego." Gran rubbed at his beard, pulling at it.
The Bat nodded. "Correct. In about three months, All For One will have a meeting with his Lieutenants, an official one."
Nana felt her breath catch in her chest.
"The plan is simple. Alter the date, and the location."
The Hologram shifted to an old construction site, Nana remembered it in Nanto district, half abandoned years ago when the workers strike happened over quirked workers doing three times the work for the same pay in lieu of their quirks allowing them to do so.
"We feed them false information, get them to arrive at the specified time and date. They're so fearful of All For One, they won't question any order they think comes from him and he's so secretive the idea that someone outside his organization knows his name and methods isn't something they'd consider.
Gran nodded. "Maybe. If we do, we should definitely make it a 'last minute' change, less time for them to ask questions and find out something's wrong."
"You have access to the police database and other resources. Can you discover what their quirks are officially listed to be."
"I damn sure can try. But what do we do in the meantime? It'll be strange if we suddenly drop off the face of the earth for three months."
"We don't stop hitting them. We'll stick to smaller sites though, no more Quirk harvests. If we stumble onto another shipment, he'll move before we're ready to face him."
"It's not shipments," Gran growled, "It's people and those are their quirks he's violating! Stealing!"
"I'd rather stop him forever than not stop him at all," Batman stated.
Nana stared at the hologram, as the two bickered not even looking at it but through it, her mind going a mile a minute.
They were really doing this.
They were really going to hit All for One. And not just hit him, hurt him.
This was happening so fast… so…
She felt her heart beginning to hammer into her ribs, a spike of fear shooting through her as the situation suddenly became all too real.
"This plan only works with you on board."
She snapped her eyes over to the Bat, who stared up at her through the shining lenses of his cowl.
"You're our heaviest hitter. If you're not on board with this, we can't do it. Are you in or out?"
She looked at him, and he stared back at her with an inscrutable expression, hidden behind his cowl.
They needed her for this.
It suddenly wasn't just the Bat asking, or Gran Torino looking on questioningly, but her Master standing at her side, his hand on her shoulder.
She found it in herself, somehow, to smile.
"I'm in."
The Bat stared at her for a long moment.
Then, he gave a single, firm nod. "Good."
(X)(X)(X)
By the time she got home later that night, the rough draft of a plan and a timetable was in place.
Honestly, it gave her a headache just thinking about it.
The main thought she had was the fact that in just three short months… they might actually deliver a blow onto All for One that he'd actually feel. That she might do something other than nip at his heels a bit.
It was an exhilarating and infinitely terrifying thought.
Her apartment was cold, empty, it'd been a while since Bruce had moved out but she still found herself missing the smell of cooking food, and her apartment was slowly but surely returning to its less than pristine state that it'd existed perpetually in in the Pre-Bruce era.
She fell onto the couch with a sigh, not even bothering to remove her cape, which only served to make it drag down the front of her neck and shoulders. She rolled her eyes, fumbling with the clasp for a second or two before it came undone and fell away.
Then she sat there.
Her head was against the backrest as her hands came up and rubbed the heels of her palm against her eyes
This was stupid.
Her hand found its way to the phone, despite her thoughts.
It rang three times.
"Long day?"
She smiled.
"Yeah… you could say that."