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Tetsurou rubbed at his side as he made his way down the street towards home.
He never thought life at U.A. would be easy but his body sure was taking a beating during their more physical classes.
It had only been a month but it had been the best and worth month of his life in equal measures. They had been warned about depending on friendships to last through the years but Tetsurou thought he had carved out some lasting ones already.
It didn’t help that his body seemed to be going through one long growth spurt that at 15, just didn’t want to end.
His hands, feet, and ears were far too big for the rest of him and even though his moms swore that he would grow into them, he was sceptical.
He had tried to grow out his hair to at least cover his ears but upon growing it out he had learned that he had the worst case of bedhead that no amount of gel or hairspray could tame.
A smell caught Tetsurou’s attention, along with his rumbling stomach, and he hurried into the little shop that was about five minutes from his house.
It meant he could quickly eat a meatbun, or two, before he got home just in time to clean up for dinner. His mother already worried about how much food he consumed, no use letting her know that he spent his allowance on food also.
He just wished he would stop growing up and start filling out, Koutarou was tall like Tetsurou but he was already lean with muscles that only promised to get bigger as they got older. Tetsurou wanted muscles and for his teachers to stop referring to him as ‘oi, beanpole!’
“Oh Kuroo!
What good timing.”
The woman who ran the shop said with relief.
“I was just about to close up but now that you’re here, you can help out.”
“That’s not necessary, if you could just give me directions-” A younger guy probably around Tetsurou’s age started to say but the woman wasn’t having any of it.
“Did you or did you not just say others have given you directions and you’ve only managed to get more lost?”
The woman asked, watching as the teenager in front of her deflated slightly, a pink hue on his cheeks as he glanced over at Tetsurou with dark eyes.
“Yes ma’am.”
The boy admitted reluctantly.
Tetsurou didn’t envy him. The woman was half a meter shorter than Tetsurou but she was fierce and a force to be reckoned with.
Many times Tetsurou had been scolded for having a bag of chips for a quick breakfast.
“And you’re just in luck because we have our very own hero in training and what’s more heroic than helping out a stranger in need?”
The woman asked, false sweetness in her voice as she scooped out two steaming buns to put in a bag and hand off to Tetsurou. “He needs to get back to the train station.”
Which was the opposite direction in which Tetsurou needed to go but he wasn’t about to complain about that.
They left the store with quick bows and the boy beside Tetsurou looked utterly flustered.
Tetsurou thought it was kind of adorable so he let the silence settle between them, reaching into the bag to pull out a meatbun and taking a big bite of it.
The teen looked like he was growing more uncomfortable and Tetsurou had the fleeting thought that it wasn’t very heroic of him to let the tension grow.
“At least give me one of those, she clearly meant it for both of us.”
The teen ordered and Tetsurou let out a laugh, the high cackling one that caused most people to cringe.
The boy didn’t even flinch, though he did shoot Tetsurou a look of disbelief that quickly morphed into a thankful smile as Tetsurou held the bag out to him.
“I’m Sawamura Daichi, you don’t have to walk me all the way to the train station if you just point it out.”
“And face her tomorrow knowing that I didn’t do as she instructed?
No thanks.” Tetsurou shook his head, faking a shudder at the mere thought of it.
“Kuroo Tetsurou. Did you just move here?”
“No, it’s my aunts 30th birthday and she was kind of having a meltdown so my mom insisted we come visit her.”
Daichi said truthfully, which caused Tetsurou to grin. “I was supposed to be getting the cake.”
“There’s no cake shops around here.”
Tetsurou stated, which may or may not be true but he just wanted to make Daichi squirm a little.
Daichi shot him a glare over his almost finished meatbun.
“I got on the wrong train.”
Daichi stated, voice flat and daring Tetsurou to laugh at him.
“Or maybe I got off on the wrong stop.” He admitted reluctantly and Tetsurou did laugh at that, encouraged by the half smile Daichi had on his face.
It was always better when a person could laugh at themselves, Tetsurou was surrounded by people in U.A. that took themselves and everything else too seriously.
“Don’t worry country boy, I’ll get you home nice and safe.”
Tetsurou promised, smug grin in place.
“My hero.”
Daichi deadpanned.
“I like the sound of that.”
Tetsurou crumbles up the bag, tossing it into the air towards a nearby trash can.
It lands heavy a meter away. “The wind was against me.” Daichi snorted as he picked up the bag and tossed it into the trash on their way past it.
It has been a long while that Tetsurou hadn’t had a conversation revolve around or lead back to quirks and heroes or villains, anything along those lines.
Even at home when his moms asked how his day was it was all the same retelling. Koutarou accidentally broke a wall, Tooru got too competitive and charmed an entire room, Yukie ate five complete meals in the cafeteria, and so on and so forth.
Tetsurou pulled out a notebook from his bag after they reached the station.
He wrote down step-by-step directions to get Daichi back where he needed to go.
Tetsurou tried to drag out the time, though he was itching to get home, eat, and pass out.
He found himself liking Daichi, and the fact that he was easy on the eyes was kind of a factor too.
Tetsurou was a little jealous because they were both 15 and why wasn’t Daichi subject to going through growing pains and an awkward phase?
“Say it and I’ll give you the paper.”
Tetsurou said with a smirk, holding the paper just out of Daichi’s reach.
He wasn’t that much taller than the other teen but at least he had a bit of height on the other.
“My hero.”
Daichi said right before punching Tetsurou in the gut and grabbing the paper out of his hand when Tetsurou bent over with a grunt of pain.
Daichi shot him a grin before walking away.
Tetsurou rubbed his stomach as he watched Daichi’s back disappear into the crowd.
He had written his number at the bottom of the page and hoped to hear from the other teen.
-------------------
“What’s going on?”
Tetsurou asked through a yawn as he sat at the table.
He started in on his food even as his eyes darted to the television both his parents were absorbed in.
“A boy defended a train full of civilians against a villain.”
Tetsurou’s mom, Aika told him before she bent down to kiss his temple then sat beside him.
“What a brave boy too, they are saying he’s just your age.”
“Foolish more like it, he should have waited for a hero to show up.”
His mother, Maho said with clear disapproval.
“It was a moving train Maho.”
Aika defended the teens actions.
“That villain could have harmed or killed a lot of people if he hadn’t stepped in.”
Tetsurou watched the news cast as his mothers argued about it. Maho was a retired hero and now both her and Aika worked more behind the scenes for a hero agency.
Maho had to deal with her fair share of civilians ‘just trying to help’ which only caused more issues.
Tetsurou choked on his rice as they finally flashed the face of the teen who had saved a train full of people.
“How many times have I told you you need to chew and not just inhale your food?”
Maho said, nudging a glass of water closer to him. Tetsurou took a sip after he was finished coughing.
“I met him yesterday, he was the one that got lost.”
Tetsurou had put him on the train schedule that made him meet a villain.
“What kind of title is that?”
“A disrespectful one, whether the boy was quirkless or not doesn’t matter.”
Aiko scowled at the tv. Under Daichi was the running title of ‘Quirkless Teen Saves Train!’
Tetsurou remembered how the other never brought up quirks, even though Tetsurou was wearing a U.A. uniform and most people started asking questions right away.
Even strangers in stores or on buses.
“Tetsurou, if you don’t leave soon you’re going to be late.”
Tetsurou gave a cry of despair as he quickly ate his breakfast then rushed out of the apartment with a shout of love for his mothers.
It was all anyone was talking about when Tetsurou got to school.
The Quirkless Hero. By the time lunch was rolling around they were warning others not to do the same.
After classes were done for the day people had managed to turn him into a vigilante who needed to face charges for what he had done.
“That’s why heroes have licenses, they are employed by the country and are allowed to do that work.”
Tooru was saying as they were all packing up their stuff. Tooru always had an opinion about everything.
“I think it’s cool what he did!”
Koutarou defended, tie already discarded and the top buttons of his shirt undone.
“If anyone can do it then why are we going through all this training for it?”
Tooru asked with a long and dramatic sigh. “We take tests and go through exercises to assist people and cause the least amount of damage, if everyone was allowed to run around doing whatever they want then what does that make them sound like?”
“A villain?”
Koutarou asked hesitantly, heavily lidded eyes glancing at Tetsurou as if this was a quiz and he needed to know the right answer to pass the class.
“Correct!”
Tooru nodded before walking out, proud of himself for teaching everyone a lesson.
“I thought what he did was cool too buddy.”
Tetsurou said, patting Koutarou on the arm and watching as he stood up straight, happy once more.
“It was, wasn’t it?
And I don’t think it makes him a villain, defending people.”
Koutarou leaned over to Tetsurou, as if this was a big secret.
“So what if the train took some damage and the villain managed to get away?
All the people on board were safe in the end, right?” Tetsurou couldn’t help but agree to that.
Tetsurou was putting his finished homework away later that night when the alert for a missing Sawamura Daichi went out.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
12 Years Later
Tetsurou was dozing on the couch in the teachers lounge at U.A. when a heavy weight settled on top of him.
He gave a wheeze as he tried to push the person off but knew it was futile. Koutarou’s face hovered over Tetsurou’s as he said Tetsurou’s name, loud and repeatedly as if having nearly 90 kilogram of full grown man sitting on his lungs wouldn’t have woken him up in the first place.
“Good, you’re awake!”
Koutarou stated happily, wiggling his much too large body until he was seated between the back of the couch and Tetsurou, his long legs tossed over Tetsurou’s side.
Tetsurou shot him a glare as he rubbed his sore side. “We need to talk about Hinata.”
“Who?”
Tetsurou asked just be a jackass.
His class wasn’t so big that he didn’t know each and every one of them after two months of being their teacher.
Tetsurou hadn’t wanted the job and when Tooru, the acting Principal and Director of U.A. couldn’t charm Tetsurou into the job he blackmailed him.
Being amongst the top heroes in Japan, Koutarou was excluded from a full time role as a teacher and was only supposed to come in sporadically to teach special lessons.
Of course that was before Hinata Shouyou was accepted into U.A. and Koutarou laser focuses on his young prodeige.
“Hinata Shouyou!
Little guy with fiery orange hair?”
Koutarou shook Tetsurou and even if the other man didn’t have super strength, it would have been jarring given how big he was.
Tetsurou slapped at Koutarou before the other man made him throw up, which has happened and was pleasant for no one involved.
“You’re not supposed to show favoritism.”
Tetsurou stated offhandedly, which he knew was complete bullshit.
It had only been two months and he already had favorites, though he made sure not to show it in front of any of his students.
Koutarou was a little less circumvent with his favor, he blatantly doted on Shouyou.
“You can’t fail him just because I like him!”
Koutarou argued. Tetsurou slapped his hand over Koutarou’s face and shook it for good measure.
“He has potential, you can’t deny that.” Koutarou pushed away Tetsurou’s hand with ease and Tetsurou sighed as he flopped onto his back, glancing around the lounge to make sure it was empty before they continued on with this particular line of conversation.
“I can fail him when he continually breaks every bone in his body by just simply using his quirk.”
Tetsurou said. Despite acting distant and aloof, Tetsurou knew the real reason he didn’t want to become a teacher.
It was because he got too damn attached to people and it was hard to dislike a bunch of kids who just wanted to become heroes.
But if he passed them and they went out and got themselves killed that was on him. Tooru had given him the class that was on the fast-track to becoming heroes because he knew Tetsurou would be harsh in his judgement.
“He’s getting better.”
Koutarou said slowly, though he cringed his way through it.
It wasn’t a lie, Shouyou was getting better but was that good enough when he only managed to break a couple bones every week instead of every bone?
Hinata Shouyou was an anomaly that Tetsurou wasn’t quite sure how to handle.
Part of him blamed the board for even allowing him entrance into U.A. and a bigger part blamed Koutarou for doing what he did.
Shouyou had been quirkless until Koutarou had seen something in the kid that made him start the process that would pass on his abilities.
The same way Koutarou had inherited his from his previous teacher.
Tetsurou hadn’t even known it was possible, wouldn’t have thought it was something that could happen until he saw it with his own eyes.
Koutarou’s quirk was strength, which was powerful enough in its own right but then his teacher had passed down an ability kept secret and Koutarou went from around the fifthtist percentile of heroes to the one percent.
He had strength before but now he had increased healing abilities and a nearly unbeatable speed.
The problem was Tetsurou could see why Koutarou had singled Shouyou out, despite the fact that he didn’t have a quirk.
Or perhaps it was because of that, because Shouyou had never had anything handed to him or been even remotely made easy by a quirk.
He’s had to fight and claw his way to even be recognized. He also has a tendency to bring people together in an otherwise solitary job department.
“With the increase of villain activity we are planning an outing to the dome.”
Tetsurou finally admitted after giving it some thought.
“Already?”
Koutarou asked in surprise.
They hadn’t been taken to the dome until they were well into their first year.
“Guess that makes sense.”
“I’m going to put him in an area where his quirk would put him at a disadvantage, he’ll have to use his head if he wants to pass.”
Tetsurou warned Koutarou, who winced but reluctantly nodded. It was clear that Shouyou was working on instinct alone but a real hero needed more than that.
“Asahi!”
Koutarou jumped off the couch, sending it flying back a meter in his haste as he leaped over to the nervous teacher who looked like he was considering running out of the teachers lounge.
“Spar with me!”
“I can’t Bokuto, I have class in ten minutes.”
Asahi apologized softly, watching Koutarou deflate in front of him.
Asahi taught the second years and was thought of as a relative push over.
Most who knew him knew that was a lie. Asahi’s quirk allowed him to double in size and strength, he was one of the very few people who could go toe-to-toe with Koutarou in a fight.
“You should come say hello to my class, I bet they’d love hearing from you.” The gentle giant offered up. Koutarou perked up immediately.
Tetsurou tossed an arm over his eyes as he tried to tune the other two out.
Koutarou was unaware of his own feelings towards Asahi, who was convinced the other man didn’t like him.
Tetsurou didn’t say anything because relationships in general were difficult, being a hero made them nearly impossible.
Plus he had other things to think about. Perhaps he’d ask Koutarou to show up near the end of the simulation in the dome, cheer up the kids who had flubbed it.
Tetsurou didn’t estimate too many of them passing. They were only two months into their first year and had much to learn but he thought his particular class might learn more from losing, in a safe and controlled environment, than winning.
Tetsurou would only need one other teacher with him.
Perhaps a rescue specialist like Yaku Morisuke? He owed Tetsurou a favor anyways.
“Um Kuroo?
Didn’t your class start a couple minutes ago?”
Asahi asked hesitantly. Tetsurou stayed still before groaning and pushing himself to his feet.
Might as well go otherwise they might seek him out and who knew what havoc they would reek on the school in that time? ----------------- Get up!
Move you useless piece of trash, move now!
Tetsurou ordered himself, ignoring the warnings his body was giving him that he was broken in the worst of ways and moving would only make it worse.
He could still see the kids, their pale terrified faces off the side. He had ordered them to run while he distracted the attacking villains but they had stayed to try and help him.
Didn’t they realize it for the hopeless situation it was? Didn’t he drill it in them enough that they were under no circumstance to face a villain?
“Inuoka!”
An alarmed shout ran out and Tetsurou felt his heart drop.
He pulled his one good arm out from under him, ignoring the pain from a dislocated shoulder and shattered fingers to control his quirk to put a barrier between the kids and the villains.
“Stop getting in the way.”
The villain who seemed to be the ringleader of this whole attack snarled at him.
Tetsurou was lifted off the ground before being slammed back into it. Something in his body gave away, his collarbone he thought but most of him was in agony.
“Break him until he can no longer use his quirk.”
The creature, for there was no other word for it, that had done most of the damage to Tetsurou beat at his back.
Grabbed his head and repeatedly slammed it into the ground. Black swam in Tetsurou’s blurry vision but he refused to let go of his barrier, knew that the students didn’t have a chance against the creature who had so easily defeated him.
Tetsurou had always been confident in his abilities.
His quirk was almost limitless. He controlled the very atoms that made up everything.
He could build things and rip them apart just as easily. Creating a barrier from air was as easy to him as laughing but it was hard to laugh when someone was breaking his bones.
Tetsurou’s body was picked up and thrown several meters into the air.
He landed on the ground with a sharp yelp of pain, his vision going black and his strenuous hold on the barrier breaking.
He breathed through the pain and watched with muted horror as the leader of the so-called League of Villains stepped towards the students, his students who trusted him to keep them safe.
The villain with the unknown quirk reached out for Kuribayashi Runa.
Shouyou, with his broken legs tried to reach her as he stared at the large hand heading straight for her face.
She had the unique quirk to disrupt other quirks but she was prone to nervousness that made her quirk fail on her in times of stress.
Even as the creature pulled his big arm back to smash it into Tetsurou’s defenseless body once more, he attempted to put a barrier between Runa and the villain.
But it was too late, the villain was too close and Tetsurou was too wounded to defend his students any longer.
Shouyou gave a great scream as he slammed his fist into the ground, shattering it with his impact.
The villain stumbled back and Runa fell out of his reach.
“You!”
The villain shouted, turning on Shouyou who’s arm now was clearly broken.
His eyes were wide, terrified and looking ready to throw up even though he had purposely just made himself a target.
The villain reached down and grabbed a rock. Tetsurou missed what happened when the creature hit him again, kicking him further away from his students.
“We have to go.”
Tetsurou hadn’t seen the other villain approach, just saw him there standing in between the villain and Shouyou.
He was wearing dark clothing with a hood pulled low over his face, which was hidden behind a blank play mask.
“No!”
The villain shouted petulantly.
The creature stopped attacking Tetsurou long enough to be blindsided by Koutarou.
“No no no!”
“One of the students managed to escape,” The masked villain sounded amused at that.
“Other heroes have arrived.”
“The nomu will take care of the Mighty Sentinel.”
The villain spat out Koutarou’s hero name with clear disdain.
Tetsurou couldn’t see the full fight but he didn’t think Koutarou was having much problem with the creature, the nomu.
“It’s his fault, he delayed us.” The villain turned to Tetsurou who smirked up at him, even if he couldn’t move a single muscle he could distract
the villains until the other heroes arrived. “This will hurt.” The villain promised as he reached out.
An arm came into Tetsurou’s vision just as the villain wrapped his fingers around it.
The black cloth melted off, leaving a horrible burning smell as the skin underneath burned.
“It’s time to go.”
The masked villain said, voice sterner even as his arm looked as if it was being eaten by acid.
The villain’s fingers dug into the damaged skin before he tossed himself backwards and stormed off, just as Koutarou was beating the nomu down to the ground.
Careful fingers touched Tetsurou’s temples, which surprised him enough to look at the blank play mask, the eyes cut into it kept hidden beneath the hood. “Stay safe.”
And then the masked man was gone also, leaving a stunned Tetsurou in his wake.
“Tetsu.”
Koutarou stumbled into Tetsurou’s vision, looking him over with a wince.
“I’m sorry-”
“Forget about me and check on the kids.”
Tetsurou ordered and Koutarou nodded, running off to check out the nearest students.
Tetsurou heard the familiar voices of other heroes and finally allowed himself to slip under the blackness creeping into his vision.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Tetsurou sat down on the hospital bed after putting on his pants.
It had only been two days since the attack and he had spent most of that recovering in the hospital.
After being mostly healed he was finally released but he was finding his energy not up to its normal point.
After just putting on his pants he felt like he needed a nap. His body had acquired a few new scars from the attack but all the students had been accounted for and besides Shouyou they had all managed to escape with just a few cuts and scrapes.
The nomu had thrown Tetsurou off.
According to those who had studied it, its DNA was a split between three known low level villains though it no longer resembled any of them.
That explained why it seemed to have several different quirks but Tetsurou didn’t feel like that was any excuse for his blatant failure.
The door opened revealing a body with a head of flowers.
Tetsurou blinked a couple times to realize the person was just carrying a ridiculous bouquet and didn’t actually have a head of flowers.
“I hope you’re-” A real head popped out from around the flowers before blinking at Tetsurou in clear confusion.
Tetsurou’s heart seemed to stutter as he looked familiar face. “Sorry, sorry I think I have the wrong room.”
“Wait.”
Tetsurou stood before feeling like he was listing to the side.
A strong hand caught him, placing the vase of flowers on the side table as he looked up at Tetsurou with concern in deep dark brown eyes.
“Easy there.”
A smile stretched across a badly scarred face as he helped righten Tetsurou, who couldn’t stop staring.
“You alright? Should I call for a nurse?”
“Fine.”
Tetsurou answered, his voice coming out ragged.
He cleared his throat and tried to stand tall, ignoring the fact that he was shirtless and had just made an ass out of himself.
“Sorry, you just look like someone I used to know.” Which was impossible.
Sawamura Daichi had gone missing 15 years ago.
After years of searching the family had finally decided to let go.
It was obvious to most that the villain he had stopped on the train had come back to get him.
The villain had a tendency to eat her victims, bones and all. He even had a grave in Miyagi. Tetsurou had visited it after he graduated U.A., he had brought a big bouquet of flowers to lay on the grave.
If Daichi had somehow been found, especially if he had been found alive then it would have made national news.
It had been 15 years and Tetsurou had a habit of seeing the smiling teen on the faces of even his students, this was the first time he had pictured Daichi as older which was a new and unwelcomed experience.
“Sorry.”
They both said at the same time as the stranger stepped back, releasing Tetsurou.
The stranger laughed, a warm sound that had Tetsurou smiling back as the man rubbed the back of his neck.
“As long as you’re doing good, I should go.”
The man smiled, it pulled at the scars on his face but even that couldn’t deter from how handsome he was.
He gave a small wave before walking out of the hospital room.
Tetsurou went to grab his shirt and saw the flowers the man had put down in order to help Tetsurou.
He grabbed them and stepped out of the room, glancing down each sides of the hall but the stranger was nowhere in sight.
He dressed slowly after that, waiting for the man to realize his error and come back for the flowers he had bought for someone else.
But after twenty minutes of waiting Tetsurou took the flowers himself with only a bit of guilt before making his way out of the hospital.
Tetsurou stepped out of the building and lifted the flowers up to his face, giving them a soft sniff before smiling.
He wasn’t above lying to himself by saying a handsome stranger brought him flowers. It had been a long time since anyone cared for him in such a way.
-----------------
Tetsurou propped his feet up on his desk as he pulled out his phone.
He had broken his class off into groups by “random”, it clearly wasn’t random but strategically paired those up with the people they got along with the least or those with opposing quirks.
He had given them each scenarios to work through, they had twenty minutes to write up how they would work together to solve said scenario.
Even though heroes belonged to agencies most worked alone.
It was how their world functioned, very few worked with partners and even fewer still worked in groups.
They would need the skills to solve problems by themselves but until they were full fledged heroes they would be mostly working under the stern hand of a certified hero.
Heroes often times had to work with others without any warning.
It was good to learn how to be flexible even if there was bad blood between them.
“You’ve got ten minutes.”
Tetsurou warned them, particularly Hinata Shouyou and Tsukishima Kei’s group.
The blonde took joy in riling Shouyou up to the best of his ability. Tetsurou knew it was lack of confidence in Kei’s part, a disdain for those who put everything they had into something such as Shouyou had the habit of doing.
Tetsurou had been pairing them up more and more, even if they tended to fail more tasks that way. He was hoping they would rub off on each other. Shouyou would become a bit more cautious and analytical while Kei put more effort into things.
So far they mostly just made each other angry.
Tetsurou watched the timer on his phone count down and forced himself not to spend the time looking at news reports.
He hated the media but sometimes it had its uses. He had already read everything involved with Sawamura Daichi, told himself a dozen times that the stranger he had met in the hospital couldn’t have been him.
It had been 15 years, of course Tetsurou didn’t have a clear picture of the teen he had spent less than an hour with one afternoon after classes.
There was a new hire at Tetsurou’s agency, Ennoshita Chikara, who bore a striking resemblance to Daichi.
Dark hair and eyes and a tanned skin tone sounded like a lot of people.
Tetsurou had also looked up what the media was reporting about the League of Villains more times than he’d like to admit.
He couldn’t help but think that the previous attack was just the beginning. But the beginning of what was the big question.
Why attack a bunch of students? They had come with so many but most had been taken out rather easily by inexperienced teenagers.
Kei had even admitted that the villains had reacted to them as if they didn’t even know their abilities, which showed a lack of preparedness in the attack.
They might be young teenagers but they were apart of the hero course at U.A.
“Times up.”
Papers were handed over and Tetsurou gave them new scenarios.
He set the timer again as he settled down to grade their papers.
He could already tell Kei and Shouyou’s was incomplete but given to their sudden silence they had realized their error and were trying to fix it.
They still weren’t communicating which was a big problem.
The papers gave away weaknesses and where the students thought their own strengths lay.
Tetsurou made added notes to each file he kept on his students. He had taken the job under blackmail but that didn’t mean he would do it half assed.
For some reason the League of Villains had decided to target the new generation of heroes.
It made sense in a way. Despite their chosen career paths they were still seen as children and the teachers were supposed to protect them.
When that failed the civilians lost faith in their heroes for if they could not protect students in a well secured building then how could they protect the country?
Tetsurou tapped his pen against his notebook as he called out the time.
He would need to accelerate his teachings. He would have to be even tougher, push them all to their limits so that when the time comes they could defend themselves.
Tetsurou was going to punch Tooru in his face the next time he saw him for putting this responsibility on his shoulders.
-----------------
“Again.”
Tetsurou said as he pushed himself to his feet.
His body was going to be one big bruise by tomorrow but he couldn’t afford the rest.
He had let himself get complacent over the years of relative peace in the city. The fight with the nomu had proven that.
“Are you sure you don’t need a rest?”
Ogano Daiki asked, already bouncing on the balls of his feet as he warmed himself up.
He was sweating but wasn’t nearly in the state Tetsurou was in.
The U.A. sports festival had gone off pretty much how Tetsurou had guessed it would.
There had been no new attack by the League of Villains, which put them all on edge but the students were now spending time at different agencies.
It meant there was free time for the teachers and Tetsurou was spending that time working on bettering himself.
Protecting civilians was second nature to Tetsurou.
He could build a wall or a barrier between them and the danger and they usually took themselves out of the situation unless too injured to do so.
The students were different because they wanted to help. With that help they more or less ended up in Tetsurou’s way and he hadn’t been trained on how to deal with that.
“Again.”
Tetsurou ordered.
Daiki took a deep breath before his body split off into five copies of himself.
Tetsurou guessed Daiki was getting tired too considering he had started off with ten copies.
The copies attacked before Tetsurou could assess the situation and figure out his best course of action.
Daiki knew Tetsurou better than any villain would, knew his fighting style and his abilities, knew how his quirk worked and the extent of it.
Just as Tetsurou knew all those about Daiki.
Tetsurou needed to be stronger so he could better defend his students.
There was no other option for him.
-----------------
Tetsurou dodged one of Taint’s swords, felt it snag on his shirt as he took a couple steps back and put himself between the villain and Kei behind him.
He felt ridiculously stupid. He knew what Kei had been going through, knew how his brother had been attacked by the infamous Taint but he had let himself believe that because Kei had been acting like his usual removed self that he wouldn’t do anything idiotic.
Idiotic like search down the villain who had single-handedly killed a total of 12 heroes.
If Tetsurou wasn’t so angry at the moment he would be impressed that a 15 year old kid had managed to do what a group of heroes and police officers couldn’t by actually tracking down Taint.
Now if only Kei had used that big brain of his and turned over his information to the police of even to Tetsurou himself. Instead Kei had searched him out himself.
Shouyou had figured it out, along with the help of Yachi Hitoka and now all three were spread out in an isolated alley with a wounded hero.
None of them could move and Tetsurou was only there because Shouyou had the presence of mind of texting Koutarou, who was half way across town dealing with the numerous nomus who had been unleashed on the city.
It was never clear what Taint’s quirk was considering he left all his victims dead by numerous knife and sword wounds.
Kei’s brother had been the only one found alive, though none would consider him lucky with the shape he was in. He was stabilized now but he still hadn’t woken up.
The three students and the hero were somehow paralyzed.
Tetsurou didn’t know if it had something to do with being cut by the jagged blades or something else but he was having a difficult time blocking the attacks towards himself and those around him.
Tetsurou’s eyes widened as Taint sent a blade towards Shouyou, who had managed to force himself to his hands and knees and didn’t see the weapon coming.
Tetsurou reached out with his quirk and tore the blade apart, sending it to pieces around Shouyou.
Taint attacked, which was most likely his plan all along.
Tetsurou managed to dodge the first blade but the second one scraped along his arm.
Tetsurou jumped back once more, assessing the wound quickly. It wasn’t life threatening and he didn’t feel like it was paralyzing him so he thought the quirk must not have to do with the blades.
Tetsurou was about to direct his quirk to pull up the concrete beneath their feet and incase Taint within it when his body crashed to the ground.
He didn’t understand as he looked frantically towards Taint, only his eyes able to move. He watched the villain’s tongue pull away from the blade, from the blood gathered there.
“Pathetic.”
Taint spat out, twisting his blade in his hand as he walked towards Shouyou.
Tetsurou wanted to scream but his vocal chords were paralyzed also. He couldn’t seem to use his quirk no matter how hard he tried and could only watch as Taint kicked Shouyou back down.
“You call yourselves heroes but your greed betrays you.”
“Shut up.”
Kei hissed out, forcing himself to his feet.
Taint turned towards him and in the blink of an eye he’s on Kei, stabbing his sword through Kei’s shoulder and into the wall behind him.
Kei cries out in pain as he’s slammed back and Tetsurou commands his body to move, to do something,
anything!
“You come after me in a pitiful state of revenge, is that heroic?
Is that what we are teaching the new generation of so-called heros?”
Taint twists the blade, causing Kei to yell out in pain. Shouyou is on his feet as Yachi sobs down the alley.
“Leave him alone!”
Shouyou shouts, feet staggering as he tries to punch Taint who easily dodges out of the way.
“Get out of here Hinata!
This is mine, I don’t want your help!”
Kei shouts though he’s paralyzed once more, kept standing against the wall by the sword through his shoulder.
“Shut up!”
Shouyou screams.
“A hero doesn’t just go where he’s wanted, he goes where he’s needed!
Your brother understood that, he was a hero because he went into an unknown situation to help someone!”
Kei’s eyes were wide, one of lenses cracked.
Taint pulled out another sword, slow and easy before sending it into a downward slash against Shouyou, who was still too injured to move properly.
Tetsurou tasted blood in his mouth as the sword shattered around Shouyou instead of cutting into him. The surprise made Shouyou fall onto his ass as Taint rounded on Tetsurou.
“Enough of this silly game.”
Taint stated. “Your childish notions of heroes are all lies.”
He moved towards Tetsurou who thought it would be a good time for his body to get up and move but it was to no avail, he could barely twitch his fingers.
“I think it’s time for you to leave.”
A new voice said. Taint’s stride faltered before he turned to look at the newcomer, a man dressed in black with a blank play mask over his features.
“Your people are running amok, they are even worse than these so called heroes.”
Taint spat out but the man didn’t flinch as he stood in front of Shoyou.
“Says the man attacking children.”
The mask man said back, face turned over to the pinned Kei.
“I thought you only killed unworthy heroes.”
“They got in my way.”
Taint said but Tetsurou couldn’t help but find it curious that he made no move to fight the masked man.
Tetsurou had thought the other villain with the poisonous hands had been the leader but the way Taint reacted it seemed like he had been mistaken.
The nomu and poisonous hands had listened to the masked villain also. So was he really the leader behind the League of Villains? Why save Shouyou then?
“I think that’s enough for tonight, don’t you?”
The masked man asked in a way that Tetsurou very much suspected wasn’t a question.
Tetsurou could only see the back of Taint but he did see the villain tense at the order hidden within a question.
“Are you going to stop me?”
Taint asked, voice pitched dangerous low.
“If you insist.”
The masked man answered with a shrug.
Tetsurou could move his muscles though he didn’t want to pull either of their attention to himself.
He gathered his power to himself, mapped out the area beneath Taint’s feet. He thought maybe the masked man was the bigger threat here but he knew he needed to stop Taint first.
The hesitancy of which Taint approached the fight towards the masked man, when he had been so willing to fight anyone else, gave Tetsurou pause.
But it was only a second worth of one as he pulled the concrete from around Taint and entrapped him inside it.
“Smart.”
The masked man stated with a nod before turning around and helping Shouyou to lean against the wall.
“Best not move for a bit.” He then stood up and surveyed Kei, who eyed him warily.
Tetsurou shared a look with the other fallen hero, who was in no condition to get up and assess them though he looked about ready to do so.
Tetsurou stumbled to his feet just in time to watch as the masked man pulled the sword out of brick and flesh and help Kei to sit down on the ground.
“You’re lucky this isn’t worse.”
The masked man admonished Kei as he quickly and efficiently applied pressure to the wound and did some minor first aid on it.
“You almost got your teacher and two of your friends killed because of your selfish actions. You should think before you act.”
Tetsurou stumbled and suddenly the masked man was there, holding Tetsurou up.
“You work with the League of Villains.”
Tetsurou said in confusion.
“I do?”
The masked man pondered, there was a hint of amusement in his tone.
The mask muffled his voice but it was deep, powerful. Tetsurou had yet to see his quirk yet but he had managed to back down not one but two villains so it must be powerful.
“Don’t you?”
Tetsurou asked.
“I suggest putting them on volunteer clean up duty as punishment.”
The masked man said instead of answering Tetsurou’s question. The sound of pounding feet and sirens were coming closer.
“Nothing too serious, they are just kids after all.” There was movement down the alley and Tetsurou turned to see Yachi coming to her feet.
When he turned back the masked man was gone once more.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Tetsurou held the ragdoll cat in his arms, scratching her softly behind her soot covered ears and trying to keep her calm as chaos reigned around them.
She had scratched his hand when he pulled her out from underneath the bed but he didn’t blame her for that, she was scared, he was a stranger and the building had been on fire.
She seemed rather content in his arms now as he glanced around for the man who had told him his cat was left in the building.
The ground shook as Koutarou landed near Tetsurou, jumped from the fifth floor of the still burning building holding onto three people.
Medical units rushed towards him as he bent down, allowing each of the people in various state of distress off of him.
“That’s the last of them.”
Koutarou informed the fire chief, who immediately went on his walkie to pull his own men out.
Tetsurou found the owner of the cat already loaded into an ambulance.
Tetsurou had found him collapsed in his apartment when the ceiling came down on him, he had been heading to his room to get his cat when it had happened.
He had woken up just as Tetsurou cleared the building and Tetsurou had never found it in him to leave a pet behind. He placed the cat on the sobbing mans lap, nodding as the man sobbed out his thanks and his bandaged hands tried to hold his cat who seemed to be trying to curl herself up on his neck.
“Mighty Sentinel!”
Koutarou’s name was called out and Tetsurou turned, lip curling into a sneer as he caught sight of the media.
He checked in with the fire chief and the head of police, making sure they didn’t need any help, before he made a quick exit.
Let Koutarou deal with the media, he had always been good at it.
Tetsurou arrived at his apartment with his stomach growling.
He had used his quirk quite a bit that night and during the day when he had gone over more physical tests with his students.
As he stepped in the shower to wash off the ash that had accumulated on his body he thought of another lesson plan. Many of his students were athletic but they were putting their young bodies through a lot of strain.
He would go over the importance of nutrients and what they should be eating. It had the added benefit of boring them to death, he’d have a pop quiz at the end to really terrify them.
With tomorrow's lesson plan figured out he stepped out of the shower and quickly dried off.
He already knew there was no food in his kitchen and most restaurants would be closed at this time of night.
None of his students should be out this late so it should be safe for him to head to the fast food place down the street.
It had the added benefit of being quick and close to home so he could at least get in a couple hours until he was required to be at U.A. before Tooru tried to chew him out for being late again.
Tetsurou let out a long yawn as he made his way down the quiet street wondering if three burgers was too many burgers.
The League of Villains had been quiet lately and that worried him. He needed to be better prepared and the board of the school was talking about accelerating the students learning so they could better defend themselves.
Tetsurou didn’t see any sort of fighting until he was 19, over a year into his internship with his agency.
He remembered how terrified he had been then but he had three well trained heroes around him along with five other interns.
That and he was four years older than the students were now, with four more years of experience under his belt. He wanted to protect them but he knew coddling them would only cause them harm but it’s not as if he could give them permission to use their powers without supervision.
They were foolhardy teenagers after all.
Kei had nearly gotten himself killed when he had taken the law into his own hands.
He deeply regretted his actions now but it didn’t change the fact that he had done it.
There was no telling what those kids would do if given permission to use their quirks, probably go searching for the League of Villains themselves.
“Thank you.”
Tetsurou took his cup and number before walking over to the drink station.
He decided against coffee or anything caffeinated, he did need as much sleep as he could get despite the fact that he was already dead on his feet.
Tetsurou began walking to a free table, most of the tables were empty, when he caught the profile of someone familiar.
He turned and his abrupt movement must have caught their eye as they looked over before smiling up at Tetsurou.
“You.”
Tetsurou stepped closer.
“You left your flowers.” They had lived in his apartment for a couple weeks before he was finally forced to admit they were dead and had to toss them.
Part of him wished he could have brought them to work and put them on his desk but he didn’t want any prying questions. Especially since the answer made him sound a little pathetic.
“You looked like you needed them more.”
The stranger from the hospital motioned to the empty seat across from him and Tetsurou found himself sitting down without question.
“You disappeared pretty quickly.”
Tetsurou stated lightly.
“I like to give a mysterious air whenever possible, did it work?”
The man grinned and Tetsurou couldn’t help but laugh.
“Did I really look that pathetic?”
Tetsurou asked referring to how he looked at the hospital.
Mostly he just wanted to hear that deep laugh once more.
“I’m glad to see you’re looking much better now.”
The scarred man said and Tetsurou felt a little spread of warmth in his chest.
“Though you do look exhausted.”
“I just got off work.”
Tetsurou whined, trying to defend himself.
He expected the scarred man to ask him what his job was but a worker came up and deposited Tetsurou’s mound of food with a grunt that Tetsurou thought wasn’t needed.
It wasn’t that much food.
“That’s a lot of food.”
Tetsurou couldn’t help but whine a little more at that.
It was then that he noticed the pile of wrappers on the scarred mans own tray and he pointed to it.
“Those were there when I got here.” He lied badly and both of them laughed at it.
It had been a while since Tetsurou had done something like this.
Just sat down for a meal with someone, teased each other lightly while learning about one another.
Tetsurou hadn’t been on a date in years, not that he would consider this a date but it was going considerably better than his last one.
“I guess you could say I help troubled kids.”
The scarred man said once Tetsurou had asked what he did.
He still couldn’t believe they hadn’t even exchanged names but everytime he thought about asking for his name he got distracted.
“It’s not their fault, they’ve gone through a lot in a short period and most of them blame heroes for not stepping in when they needed it.
It’s hard for kids to realize heroes are human too and sometimes they make mistakes, harder yet to even want to hear that when it’s the kids lives they are overlooking.”
Tetsurou dusted the salt off his fingers as he scarred man looked away, out the dark window.
“They needed rescuing and no one was there to step in?”
Tetsurou guessed. It was difficult to hear but he knew it was true.
There were only so many heroes and problems arose all over the country, too wide spread and too many for them to handle.
Even the Mighty Sentinel and the other Top Five had their limits.
“Sometimes society overlooks them because they think a hero will be along so why bother?”
Intense brown eyes met Tetsurou’s, as if pleading for him to understand. Tetsurou understood all too well.
It’s a problem they faced at U.A. also, wondering if something they did, if turning away a kid would make them go willingly to the other side.
“There are some with the belief that society is broken.”
Like Taint and the League of Villains. They wanted to shatter it completely and rebuild from the ashes.
“Not broken, just-” The scarred man looked to be searching for a word.
“Damaged but fixable.” He looked as if he was going to touch one the of the scars on his face before he curled his hand in a fist and hid it beneath the table.
Quirks manifested in physically odd ways sometimes.
Despite all that, Tetsurou had guessed that the damage done to the mans face, and most likely his body since he saw scars disappear beneath his sweater collar, was not part of his quirk.
If he had a quirk at all. Tetsurou had seen some pretty bad scarring over the years, his carried a few of his own, but the man in front of him looked like he had been ripped apart and then sewed back together with the most rudimentary of items.
Tetsurou wondered if this man who gave flowers to a stranger just because he looked like he needed them and worked with troubled youth, who smiled easily and laughed deeply, if he had been overlooked by society.
If he had been young once and expecting a hero to save him but none had come.
“I should really be going but thank you.”
The man stood with a gentle smile and Tetsurou got the feeling that perhaps he also didn’t get to have casual meals with too many people either.
“You too.”
Was all Tetsurou could get out as he watched the man walk out the front door.
He kicked himself for not learning his name. Perhaps he would go down to the police station and ask Iwaizumi Hajime if he knew of anyone who worked with troubled kids and matched the mans description.
If they really were troubled then most likely some of them had come in contact with the law at one point or another.
With that in mind Tetsurou stood and tossed away his trash before heading back to his apartment. -------------- “Hinata?”
Yachi Hitoka called from the door after the bell had rung for lunch and Tetsurou had dismissed the class.
Most had booked it out of the class before Tetsurou had even finished dismissing them, and usually Shouyou was amongst them.
The kid was small but he ate like Koutarou did, which made sense given they now shared the same power.
But instead Tetsurou looked up from gathering his stack of papers to see Shouyou nervously fidgeting in front of his desk.
“You go ahead, I’ll follow after.”
Shouyou called out. Hitoka nodded before quickly exiting but Kei wavered by the door.
He might still not like Shouyou but the other boy had risked his life for Kei and that wasn’t something anyone easily forgot.
Tetsurou could tell Kei was still trying to figure out Shouyou, who didn’t fit into any of the neat little roles Kei assigned people to.
Finally Kei clicked his tongue and walked out of the class, as if angry at himself for the pause.
“What’s up kid?”
Tetsurou asked once the last of the class had trickled out.
Shouyou stared down at the desk before looking up at Tetsurou, face unusually serious and intense.
It was times like this that Tetsurou understood why Koutarou had chosen Shouyou to pass on his power to.
He was awkward as hell with too much passion and energy yet not enough of anything else. But when Shouyou got intense like he was now Tetsurou got a peek at the man he could become, the force he would be.
“During the attack at the dome.”
Shouyou lost that intensity as he started to fidget again, once more his normal nervous self.
“There was a kid with the others.” The others meaning the League of Villains.
Tetsurou, along with many others, had gone over the footage from the attack repeatedly.
After the battle with Taint, Tetsurou had watched it once more but paid specific attention to the masked man and his movements.
He hadn’t been there when Tetsurou had first started fighting the nomu but nearly across the dome in the same area as Shouyou.
When Tetsurou had first watched the footage he had thought the masked man was just a poor fighter.
He constantly got in the way of his comrades, tripping them up and knocking them over. At one point he managed to stumble in the way of an attack.
When Tetsurou watched it after the battle with Taint he had paid closer attention and learned several things. The masked man was not a bad fighter, not in the least.
He had purposefully gotten in the way of his supposed comrades, keeping them from ever really harming the U.A. students.
Tetsurou hadn’t been sure what to do with that information and still didn’t know.
Did the masked man have an agenda of his own or did the League of Villains have a mole?
“A kid?”
Tetsurou asked though he was pretty sure he knew who Shouyou was referring to.
Hitoka had always spoken about the guy, who was more a boy than anything being around the same age as Shouyou and Hitoka.
He had a perfect shot at Shouyou at one point but he hadn’t taken it, had lowered his shaking hand and stumbled backwards.
Tetsurou had also been curious about the teen with the deep scowl and black hair because not only had he hesitated but the masked man had definitely stepped up to protect the boy.
One of the other villains had chewed the scowling boy out, there was no sound in the recording but body language was easy enough to read. The villain had raised his hand, as if to strike the boy and the masked man had stepped in the way, taking the hit.
“He could have hurt or killed me but he didn’t.”
Shouyou’s fingers curled into his white button down shirt, wrinkling it.
“He looked so scared.” Shouyou finally admitted, voice near a whisper.
There were many different reasons people wanted to become heroes.
The money and fame were at the top of lists for most, though that was never as easy as anyone thought it was.
For some their quirks made it a no brainer as to what they were supposed to come and going to U.A. would give them the permission and experience to use and grow said quirks.
There were very few who had the true heart and soul of a hero, the ones who only wanted to help and save people.
Bokuto Koutarou had always been one of those people.
From the very first day of meeting him when they had been only 15 years old Tetsurou had known Koutarou was a little too good and pure for this world.
The fame and money were secondary to Koutarou, he had been unknown and broke most of his adult life after all but he hadn’t cared because he had been allowed to help people.
Shouyou was like that.
There was a healthy dose of nerves and fear inside the boy that Koutarou never had because he had the quirk of strength and Shouyou had gone 15 years quirkless.
But Shouyou had that same instinct to protect and help, no matter if he had a quirk or not. It was why even the likes of Taint had a difficult time denying that he was a hero.
The problem was not everyone could be saved and that was a lesson Tetsurou didn’t want any of his students to learn for many years to come.
He had learned it when he was 15 after Sawamura Daichi had gone missing.
“His name is Kageyama Tobio.”
Tetsurou said, even though that was privileged information.
“There was an earthquake in Miyagi about four years ago. His house collapsed on top of him and his family.
He pulled himself out of the rubble after days.” It was as the scarred man had said, everyone had failed Tobio and the League of Villains had most likely fed on that.
Tobio’s hesitancy to harm Shouyou was promising though Tetsurou couldn’t claim that he could save the teen.
“I feel like if I could just talk to him.”
Shouyou frowned down at his feet, his hands hanging defeatedly by his side.
Tetsurou sighed as he reached out and ruffled the teenagers hair.
“We’ll do what we can.”
Tetsurou promised, causing Shouyou to look up and nod in determination.
“You should go before lunch is over.” Shouyou let out a squawk before racing out of class. -------------- Tetsurou caught the bottle thrown at him before taking a long, deep drink from it.
Now he remembered why he didn’t train with Koutarou, it was like beating at a solid wall.
If that solid wall punched back. He was covered in sweat and new bruises and his only comfort was Koutarou breathing hard also.
“You’re getting stronger.”
Koutarou said with a wide grin, as if Tetsurou was one of his students.
Tetsurou wiped the water that had spilled over his chin off as he looked over Koutarou.
Tetsurou could be getting stronger or Koutarou could be getting weaker.
Tetsurou didn’t know how Koutarou’s extra power worked but he had been told eventually it would all go to Shouyou and Koutarou would be left without.
That terrified Tetsurou more than he would admit.
Being in the Top Five meant Koutarou had a big target painted on him and Tetsurou wanted him to have all the power he could to defend himself.
But that was the issue with selfless heroes, Koutarou thought more about others than he did about himself.
“Ready to go again?”
Tetsurou asked and Koutarou’s grin turned a bit more sinister as they dropped their towels and bottles near the wall before walking to the middle of the room to start again.
Before they could really start the door opened and both their attention was pulled away from the fight.
Asahi stepped inside, looking sheepish and sorry for interrupting them but Koutarou perked up and leaped over to him like an overexcited puppy.
Tetsurou rolled his eyes as he went back over to where he dropped his towel, using it to wipe at his face once more.
“I’m sorry for interrupting.”
Asahi apologized to both of them, though his eyes were only for Koutarou.
“Bokuto, I heard you were teaching today and I know last time you forgot your lunch.”
Tetsurou hid a snort in his towel. Koutarou hadn’t forgotten his lunch, he had never made one to begin with but he hadn’t wanted to seem ill prepared when Asahi asked him about it so he lied.
“Oh right.”
Koutarou rubbed his nose in embarrassment, bicep curling and flexing with the movement.
“I brought an extra lunch if you wanted to-” Asahi stopped himself as he held the rather large bento box in front of himself.
“It’s stupid because you’re obviously busy.”
“Do you want to have lunch together?”
Koutarou asked in surprise, head tilting downwards so he could catch Asahi’s eye.
“Wait, you made me food?”
“It’s not anything special.”
Asahi admitted softly but he had a pleased smile on his face because Koutarou was beaming at him and it was hard not to smile back when Koutarou looked at anyone that way.
“You made it so of course it’s special.”
Koutarou said honestly, which was probably the closet to a confession as he’s ever gotten.
“Those are the updated alarms.”
Tetsurou said quickly when a blinking light and a siren started to go off.
Asahi and Koutarou immediately slipped into a more professional role as they all rushed out of the training room.
Someone was inside U.A. that wasn’t supposed to be.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Tetsurou’s eyes went from one screen to the second as people filed into the room.
The two interrogation rooms were shown on a large split screen in front of them all with Kenma pulled up to the desk in front of them.
Tetsurou stood near his apprentice, protective but not hovering. Kenma was often on loan to the police department even though he worked for the same agency Tetsurou was apart of.
Anything technology related, Kenma was the guy for the job considering his quirk let him literally connect to any sort of technology. All and any information was at his fingertips.
“It has to be a trap of some sort.”
Tooru muttered darkly as he took the spot next to Tetsurou, eyes narrowing behind his glasses as if thought if he stared hard enough all secrets would be revealed.
The intruders at the school had turned out to be the League of Villains.
No one was harmed though the kids had been quite frightened. They had made off with a lot of information but the most worrisome part was that the villains had clearly been after information involving students and not the teachers.
The break-in and failure to capture the thieves had immediately made the news and parents were calling in constantly asking about the safety of their children, questioning U.A. and its ability to keep the future generation safe.
Tetsurou did not blame them but also he knew the strain of everything was starting to affect Tooru, who had to deal with the majority of the blame.
They had captured two members of the League of Villains but like Tooru, Tetsurou did not believe it had been anything they had done that had resulted in the arrest.
The two suspects had simply given up and handed themselves over.
“I think it’s simpler than that.”
Iwaizumi Hajime spoke up after overhearing what Tooru had suggested.
He pushed closer to the screens but like everyone else in the room, he gave Kenma space.
“Can you replay the schools footage, right before the arrest?”
The footage played out instantly, a shot down the hall.
Little Hinata Shouyou had his arms waving as he stood in front of an impassive looking Kageyama Tobio.
Tetsurou wanted to make Shouyou run laps until the boy passed out for even considering approaching an enemy, especially since Tobio hadn’t been alone at the time.
The masked man had stood behind Tobio, head tilted to the side as he watched the scene without moving.
Nothing in his body language gave away any animosity or wish of harm towards Shouyou, he simply watched the scene unfold.
Watched as Shouyou slowly convinced Tobio to give himself up.
Tetsurou watched himself along with Koutarou and Asahi come speeding around the corner just as the masked man raised his hands in easy surrender.
A soft nudge to Tobio had the younger boy raising his hands also, face steely but Tetsurou had seen Tobio himself. He might be particularly good at burying his real emotions deep down but Tetsurou had seen the fear there, the acceptance that he was going to be hurt.
“A trap.”
Tooru echoed his earlier statement and there were soft noises of agreement from around them.
“Look at them Shittykawa.”
Hajime snapped, pointing towards the split screen of the two suspects in separate rooms.
Tetsurou saw some of the people in the room startle at the hissed out nickname. Tetsurou had been surprised himself at the insults the two traded back and forth, before releasing they were old childhood friends.
Hajime had the quirk of intuition.
It wasn’t particularly powerful and some even claimed it wasn’t a quirk at all.
Tetsurou didn’t care if Hajime’s ability was a quirk or not because the special investigator was never wrong when he felt strongly about something.
“What am I supposed to be looking for?”
Tooru asked petulantly but his eyes were scanning both live feeds.
Tetsurou found himself doing the same, felt Koutarou step closer to him to see better.
“The restraints.”
Kenma spoke softly but the room had been quiet and everyone had heard him.
Tetsurou compared the detail and was ashamed he hadn’t realized it earlier.
Tobio had a set of handcuffs that nullified his ice quirk, the rooms temperature had been kicked up also.
It was warm in there but not enough to be truly uncomfortable. Besides his cuffs being attacked to the steel table in front of him, Tobio was rather free to move about.
The masked man was a different story.
Unmasked man now, considering they had removed it to reveal a familiar face to Tetsurou.
A horribly scarred face that led to an old name from his teenage years. Part of Tetsurou hadn’t even been surprised when he learned the identity of the man, Sawamura Daichi.
It had been too big of a coincidence and despite the scars and the added years he still looked like Daichi.
Daichi was in full containment.
The cuffs covered his hands and went up to his elbows, connecting both his arms together in a cage of solid metal.
The cuffs were not only attached to a steel pole drilled into the floor but also to his cuffed legs and a large metal plate around his chest that allowed him very little movement.
He had also been tied to the chair and
the entire contraption weighed about 70 kilograms.
“It’s only logical that he be locked up like that, we have no idea what his quirk is.”
The fact was that Sawamura Daichi, at the time he went missing, was thought to be quirkless. But the League of Villains thought they were above mundane people and they would not have one
in their midst.
“It’s not about Sawamura, it’s about the kid.”
Koutarou said, finally figuring it out. “If we had just taken Kageyama into custody we couldn’t have the luxury of treating him as a minor.
He’d be just as restrained as Sawamura if he hadn’t come along too. They had plenty of time to leave, Sawamura could have left Kageyama behind at any time but he didn’t.
He could have attacked Shouyou too, who left himself wide open but he didn’t.” Koutarou had a hard time getting that last sentence out, facing the fact that his prodigy had come quite close to death that day.
“But it’s not only that, play the dome footage please.”
Hajime instructed and it started to play immediately, showing the silent footage of Daichi fighting as if Kenma had known exactly what Hajime wanted to see, which he most likely had.
Tetsurou didn't even want to know how many times Kenma had reviewed the footage.
“I counted six times he saved the students around him from getting hurt. They were outnumbered four to one and yet a bunch of kids still managed to come out on top?”
The footage switched and Tetsurou contained his surprise as he once again saw himself on the screen, this time sprawled out on the ground and not in too good of shape.
“He protected Kuroo.”
Misaki Hana spoke up for the first time.
She was Hajime’s partner. With her quirk of being able to copy herself she came in handy to the police department more often than not.
“The children are more easily explained. It’s difficult to watch kids get hurt but protecting Kuroo makes no logical sense, no offense.”
She gave Tetsurou an apologetic smile but he shrugged it off.
“It’s true.”
It wasn’t the last time Daichi had protected him either.
“If he hadn’t shown up during Taint’s attack we all could have easily been dead.”
“That’s why I keep saying it’s a trap, it has to be.”
Tooru insisted.
“Incoming message from medical.”
Kenma interrupted the fight before it could begin.
The screen split again before two more faces appeared standing next to each other.
“Hello heroes.”
Tendou Satori grinned at them, skin flickering with scales.
“We’ve finished our preliminary checks of both people.”
Sugawara Koushi interjected before Satori could pull them all off topic.
They had done a routine scan of both suspects and sent off the results to Koushi and Satori to analyze.
“What did you find Suga?”
Tooru purposely lowered his voice, messing with Satori by flirting with Koushi.
Mostly Tooru didn’t have issues with Satori, it was Satori’s well known close relationship with Ushijima Wakatoshi, enemy number one in Tooru’s book, that had Tooru flirting with Koushi while his boyfriend stood next to him.
“I’ll start with the younger one, Kageyama Tobio.”
An x-ray of Tobio came up on the screen with several markings.
“Do you see this in his forearm? The right one but not the left.
That is from a severe injury that was never set correctly after it was broken so it began to heal that way.
Before it could fully heal though it was broken at least two more times. Previous injuries also include a broken leg, four broken bones in his foot, three cracked ribs, and a serious of head injuries all within the past couple years.”
Koushi had the face of an angel but he looked like an avenging one at that moment. Kageyama Tobio might be a known associate of the League of Villains but that didn’t change the fact that in Koushi’s eyes, he was still a boy in need of protection.
“How do you know they weren’t accidental injuries?”
Tooru asked to which Koushi gave him a flat look.
“I might give you that if it wasn’t for the second person.”
Another skeleton appeared and even with Tetsurou's limited medical knowledge he knew there were several things wrong with it already.
“Where do I begin?”
“How about we make it simple for them?”
Satori offered, fingers tapping on a tablet before all the bones lit up red.
“All the bones that are red have been broken.” All of it was red. Next blue smeared across the x-ray.
“These are muscles that have been torn, shredded, cut, you get the picture.” On and on it went, new colors replacing the old ones until the skeleton was dyed black.
“He shouldn’t be alive.” Satori said in a near-cheerful voice.
“It’s not just that, he has four complete DNA profiles that are not at all related to Sawamura Daichi.”
Files and pictures appeared one after another. “All known criminals with various quirks.”
“But where it really gets interesting is this.”
A close up scan of the brain. Koutarou leaned heavily against Tetsurou’s back as he narrowed his eyes at it.
“Let me help you, this is an average, mundane brain.” Another brain appeared with a name stamped below it.
“Hey!”
Tooru squawked in annoyance considering it was his brain they were using and that Satori had just called mundane.
“Can you spot the difference?”
Satori asked in a sing-song tone.
“It’s been cut into, again and again and again.”
Koushi answered. He began pointing out the various incisions, what areas they seemed to concentrate most in and how that would affect anyone.
The others in the room came closer to the screen as Tetsurou slipped into the background.
Satori added his own comments, sounding fascinated while Koushi was showing an appropriate amount of horror.
Tetsurou remembered the boy who he had eaten meatbuns with on a cool weekday evening.
He remembered how flustered that teenager had been at the beginning before settling into light teasing, his face lighting up and his laugh warm in the low lighting of the setting sun.
A boy who had his whole future in front of him, he just needed to get on the right train and go back to his aunts and celebrate her birthday.
No one in Tetsurou’s life understood why he had been so deeply affected by Sawamura Daichi’s disappearance.
He barely knew him after all. But Tetsurou had been the one to place Daichi on that train, he could have stalled the other teen and waited for the next train instead of forcing Daichi to run for the one that had just been pulling up.
It would have only been an extra fifteen minutes but despite Daichi’s smile and the natural flow of conversation between them, Tetsurou had been tired and he wanted to go home.
Daichi had wanted to wait for the next train but Tetsurou insisted he could make it simply because he didn’t want to feel obligated to wait.
Twelve years of guilt and shame driving Tetsurou to always push above and beyond.
As if that would somehow make up for what had happened to Sawamura Daichi. Everyone had been positive he had died, most likely a horrific and slow death by the hands of the very same villain he had protected innocent people from.
That was enough to keep Tetsurou awake at night, to keep him training past his breaking points, to never accept credit or even truly call himself a hero.
Tetsurou took a small tablet off the desk and caught Kenma’s attention, who tilted his head to the side.
Tetsurou held up two fingers and motioned to the screen, knowing Kenma understood what he was saying before walking out of the room.
Hana split and her copy followed Tetsurou out, closing the door silently behind them.
“How can I help?”
Hana asked with a wide smile.
Tetsurou wanted to hug her in appreciation but resisted.
“Could you bring the kid some food?”
Tetsurou said as the tablet came to life in his hands, showing the live feed of Tobio’s interrogation room.
“I don’t know, meat buns and some milk?” Hana laughed but nodded and walked briskly down the hall.
Tetsurou took a deep, steadying breath as he walked to the more secure interrogation room, guarded by two people.
He nodded to them, watching as one keyed a code in without question before opening the door for him. Deep brown eyes looked up at him as the door closed behind him.
Being face to face with Sawamura Daichi, knowing who he was and part of what he had gone through was like taking a punch to the gut from Koutarou.
It made Tetsurou just want to lie down and not move for a good long while but he knew he couldn’t do that. He shook himself out of his own pity party before stepping around to face Daichi and showing him the screen with Tobio on it.
Daichi’s eyes widened as he watched the screen for a long moment, watching as Tobio shifted in his seat and tried to curl into himself, making him appear smaller.
The boy was clearly terrified but trying to act like he wasn’t.
“Nobody here is going to hurt a kid.”
Tetsurou assured Daichi, who looked back up to meet Tetsurou’s eyes.
Tetsurou had many questions, his mind was a jumbled mess but he muddied his way through it.
“I should say nobody here is going to hurt either of you.”
“But I’m a villain.”
Daichi pointed out, his voice muffled by the muzzle they had over his bottom part of his face.
Tetsurou hated it, he hated all the restraints and the scars visible and the ones Tetsurou knew ran deeper than the eye could see.
“Are you?”
Tetsurou asked because he wasn’t quite sure if that was true.
“Villains usually don’t go around protecting kids and saving people.
Villains don’t put their lives on the line and go against other villains.”
Villains don’t bring flowers to injured heroes and they certainly don’t sit down to have a pleasant meal with them, teasing and joking for near two hours.
Tetsurou didn’t say any of those things but placed it between them. He hadn’t told anyone about his encounters with the scarred man.
“Maybe it’s apart of my masterplan, a big trap for all the top heroes.”
Something twitched on Daichi’s face and Tetsurou thought the other man was trying not to grin.
Before Tetsurou could debunk that Hajime walked into Tobio’s interrogation room with a tray. Tobio sat up straighter, eyes wide and shoulders tense as the tray with food and a carton of milk was placed before him.
Tetsurou turned the volume up on the tablet so they could both hear what was being said.
“I’m going to release your hands but don’t try anything.”
Hajime said, his deep voice unusually soft as he did what he said he was going to do.
Tobio stretched his hands, his eyes glancing down at the food before looking back at Hajime, who took a seat across the table from the boy.
“There’s no strings attached to the food, it’s yours to eat and I’ve always thought nikuman were better eaten when hot.” Tobio carefully reached for the food, as if expecting his hands to be hit at any moment.
He grabbed one of the meat buns and took a large bite.
“Where is Sa-” Tobio cut himself off and hunched more in on himself, taking another bite of his food.
“You know his name?
The man you were arrested with.”
Hajime asked. Tobio swallowed slowly, his eyes downcast.
“He said only to call him his name in private, they call him something else.”
Tobio said softly. If Tetsurou hadn’t been paying close attention to Daichi he would have missed the wince at that information.
“What do they call him?”
Hajime asked. Tobio pressed his mouth into a thin line, glancing up at Hajime before looking away again.
“He told me that if I- if I decided to surrender I should answer any question you ask.”
Tobio clarified.
“It’s a good piece of advice.”
Hajime said softly, not pushing for an answer.
“They call him Kai for short, but they mean kai nashi.”
Daichi stiffened, his restraints clicking in warning at even the smallest movement.
Tetsurou wanted to turn off the tablet but he knew Daichi needed to see them treating Tobio fairly.
Worthless, junk, discarded, hopeless.
Sometimes one word has many meanings but everything involving kai nashi was an insult when referring to a person.
They had taken Daichi, they had hurt him and stripped him of everything, even his name.
“And what do you call him?”
Hajime asked.
“Sawamura.”
Tobio answered quickly, strongly.
“Sometimes Daichi.” He added on, losing his confidence quickly.
“Is he okay?”
“My associate Kuroo is in with him now.”
Hajime answered honestly and Tetsurou watched as Tobio relaxed at the mention of his name, which was odd.
“You know who Kuroo is?”
“Hinata talked about him a lot, said he was scary looking but he would- he would be willing to help me, protect me.”
Tobio finished off his meat bun in a hurry and Hajime let him have his moment to pull himself together. “Sawamura said if anything ever happened to him I should go to Kuroo.”
Tetsurou looked at Daichi in surprise to see the other man already looking up at him.
“He was worried about being caught and arrested?”
Hajime asked, his voice staticky on the tablet but Tetsurou couldn’t look away from Daichi’s dark eyes.
“No, the Master takes him away more and more often, Miya told me that one day they would break him beyond repair.”
Tobio’s voice was low, a small tremble beneath his words belied his fear. “Miya likes to mess with me though so I told Sawamura and he said if it ever happened that I should go to Kuroo.”
“If it’s so dangerous there then why not come to us sooner?”
Hajime asked carefully.
“Because of the others.”
Tobio answered.
“The other villains?”
Hajime asked, Daichi’s eyes seemed to be impossibly dark, fanned by ridiculously long lashes.
Tetsurou could only see from Daichi’s nose up but the restrained man looked deeply saddened.
“No, the other kids like me.”