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A good portion of the city is flooded. Electricity is out, communication is down, and a chuck of the population is missing.That's the context of the video Izuku is watching. He knows it like the back of his hand and keeps the memory close to his heart, but Izuku is easily a thousand of the million views that the video has racked up.It's not even a good video, especially in this day and age. It's grainy and horrible and it's at 360p, but it still has millions of views. The video is also years old but views still increase by the hundreds every day.A voice is heard behind the camera as soon as it starts.“The tsunami hit yesterday,” it's a female voice, exhausted, tired and without hope as she pans her device across the wreckage of the city she can see from the hole through a wall, “It came without warning, without even an earthquake. The other people who survived in the building think it's a villain's quirk,” there’s a long pause, “Some good heroes are if they can't even stop this long scale attack,” she says cynically.The voice sighs and the video is shaking, “We were lucky enough to live on the upper floors of the building, but the building is leaning, and it won't be long until it tips, with all of us in it. I can feel it and the kids have stopped believing me. Kids are smart nowadays,” there's an empty laugh that follows.The video jerks suddenly and the voice is suddenly full of disdain, “Those dang heroes! Where are they? We're in this collapsing building either waiting to starve or tip over. Heroes are never there when we need them,” she says with contempt.There’s a long moment where all the audio is just strong wind hitting the mic and the video just shows the wreckage of a building across from it.Then there's a yell, “Hello, is anyone EXTREMELY there?!” it's a loud voice with a mechanical quality to it, but it is ear catching and unique, especially when the voice emphasizes the word “extremely”.The video immediately jerks as the female voice yells, “Yes! Yes! Over here! Please! There are families trapped over here! Please help us!”There's a moment of just nothing, until a man suddenly appears through the destroyed wall of the building. He's wearing an out of place black business suit with a yellow dress shirt and a black skinny tie. He has a strange white mask that covers his face and because of the quality, Izuku can't quite make it out, but Izuku has already committed that mask to memory from more clear pictures and videos. There's a pale yellow sun painted with watercolors at the left chin, while on the right side of the forehead, there's a black outline of an open clam with two rifle bullets crossed within it. The man's white hair is slicked back, and there isn't a hair out of place. There are formal shoes to match his attire on his feet, but there's a sparkling yellow fire like substance coming out the bottom that allows him to fly into the building easily.The man approaches the woman behind the camera slow enough to show he means no harm, but fast enough to show his urgency. As he comes closer it's easy to make out a gold object with a bright yellow gem wrapped around the upper left arm of the man over his suit.“Ma’am,” the man says, “Please lead me to the others, we need to get you all to extreme safety,” while the voice is completely serious, there's a strange quality to how he puts slight emphasis on the word “extreme” again.The video jumps up immediately, “Of course!” the woman says and they both start to move, rubble is all the video shows for a while but there is still audio.“How many people are extremely with you ma'am?”There's a grunt, “Three dozen?” the woman asks rather than answers, “At least.”There's silence for a couple of moments before the man is saying something, and it's not Japanese. But luckily subtitles appear on screen, translating the Italian words the man says, “I'm going to need some help around here Alaude.”Alaude has a note next to it, noting that it's a name and not some sort of unknown word.The video cuts to a different view, where the woman has her video focused right on the man who had called out to her, “Excuse me,” she asks, “But what are we waiting for?”The man looks directly at her and the voice is suddenly very cheerful and bright, “Extreme reinforcements! Before they arrive, can I ask if anyone is injured?”There's a murmuring in the crowd that is presumably behind the woman but a man steps into frame holding a child in his arms, “My little boy, Kaidoh, he got hit by some debris.”The man in the mask immediately rushes forward pulling something out of his pocket, “Sir, if you allow me, I could heal your son before his injury gets extremely worse. Is that okay with you?”The father of the child stares at the masked man, “Is that a scalpel?” he asks, scandalized.The masked man immediately jabs the scalpel against his hand but it's completely unscathed, “It won't cut through anything. It's just an extreme tool I use to channel my powers.”The father stares for a second before nodding, laying the child in his lap. The masked man immediately moves forward and the scalpel in his hand lights up in sparkling yellow energy. The man gently brushes the scalpel against the wound on the child's head and the wound stitches back together in seconds.There's awed gasps that can be heard, but it only lasts for a second when a newer voice says, “Knuckle.”The video turns in a flash and it takes a second for the video to focus on a man wearing a similar suit to the man referred to as “Knuckle”. He also wears a black suit and tie but has a dark purple dress shirt instead. He has a similarly blurry white mask but Izuku has also committed that to memory. The white mask is similar to Knuckle’s with the same clam and bullet combination on his right forehead, but on his left chin is the same watercolor painting of purple clouds. The man's hair is an inconspicuous normal black and he steps closer to the group surrounding Knuckle without even glancing at them.“Is this all of them?” the man's voice is also mechanical, altered in some way, but it's also very cold and lacks emotion at its base.Knuckle nods enthusiastically, “Let's get going while we can, while the building extremely remains intact.”The new man turns away from the group and heads for a wall. The man lifts his left hand and there's a rather large silver bracelet around his wrist with a purple gem that lights up in a sparkling purple energy, similar to the yellow energy that Knuckle has, and then strikes the wall. The walls goes down immediately, screams of terror filling the mic of the camera the woman has.“Alaude!” Knuckle scolds with a disapproving tone, “That's not extreme at all!”Alaude barely glances back, “It's here, get them on it.”The woman behind the video rushes forward with a gasp and in seconds, she's at the edge of the building, pointing the camera towards a floating slab of earth, “Oh my god,” she whispers out of disbelief. She turns the camera towards the masked men, both who had joined her at the edge, “Who are you people?”Alaude is the one who turns to answer her, “Vongola.”The video ends as soon as the word leaves Alaude's mouth.Izuku’s mouse clicks on the close button of the tab, closing the video titled “First Appearance of the Vigilante Wonders: The Vongola.”“They're so cool!” Izuku whispers to himself as he clicks on another video. “-They call themselves the Vongola. Now, with us today we have a vigilante expert from Tokyo University to talk with us, Professor Tadashi Hito. Tadashi-sensei, could you tell us about we know so far about the Vongola?”“Well they suddenly appeared during the aftermath of a villain's quirk, rescuing civilians using their quirk. They seem to be a group eight people who suddenly decided to assist the civilians in the city to rescue them. As it is, in the laws of Japan, quirk usage in public areas by those who are not licensed to do so is a crime. For these individuals to appear out of their good will to help civilians could be considered heroic, but it's illegal for them to take such action. And seeing how those individuals decided to disguise their appearances and voices, they knew what they were doing could be punishable by law.” “Vongola, that's what they're calling themselves. That means ‘clam’ in Italian, and it's a rather strange title for themselves-” “From eye witness reports we have been able to identify the codenames they called each other. Giotto, G, Asari, Daemon, Spade, Romeo, Knuckle and Alaude-” “The vigilantes who call themselves The Vongola have appeared again, stopping a hostage situation in a local bank-” “The Vongola Vigilantes have been leaving a clam mark on the victims they take out-” “-we don't have any leads on them at the moment but we are doing our best-” “The Vongola? I think they're great. Petty crime has dropped-” “-what they're doing is punishable by law. They may think they're helping but they're just needlessly breaking laws. We have heroes and laws for a reason-” “-gola have been spotted in broad daylight! They seem to be the individuals codenamed Asari and G-” “-the police gave chase but in the end vigilante Romeo and Spade disappeared-” “-in his testimony that Vigilante Daemon from the Vongola saved the young hero's life-” “I would say the leader has to be Giotto, he's hardly ever spotted, but he's without a doubt doing things in the background-” “-definitely seen heroes working with some guys of the Vongola. But they always seem to escape by the time police-” “It has been ten years since The Vongola emerged from the shadows of a flooding incident, and not once have they been identified nor caught. They've been saving civilians all over Japan from simple petty crimes to large-scale villains’ crimes. What we know about the vigilantes is scarce, and for what we know, they could be our co-workers, our next door neighbors, or a regular customer at some restaurant you always go to. There's not much we can do for them, but we can thank them for the service they've given Japan. I can't imagine what would have happened if I hadn't been saved by Knuckle and Alaude all those years ago from that collapsing building. I wouldn't have been able to see my children grow up to be who they are today. So, for that, I am eternally grateful.”
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Izuku loves heroes. That's a well-known fact, even if everyone in class ridicules him because he's quirkless. A lesser-known fact is that Izuku likes vigilantes.Well, not just all vigilantes. Izuku isn't into Crawler or Pop Step that much. He's into The Vigilantes. With all the emphasis, capitalized letters, and everything else.The Vongola. Comprised of what seems to be eight members, they're a well-oiled working machine when it comes to the justice they serve.Izuku, of course, has profiles on each of them in a notebook similar to all of his “Hero Analysis for My Future” notebooks. It’s the same “Campos” brand notebook but with a black cover with “The Vigilante Analysis: The Vongola” in silver sharpie.The notebook starts with a brief history with the Vongola. After the massive flooding in Okinawa caused by a rampant villain, who has since been jailed by hero duo Water Hose, rescue heroes were called from all over to make attempts at saving all the civilians declared missing in the aftermath. Days came and went, and the general public was starting to lose hope. Each day only a fraction of those missing were found and heroes were losing steam. Days of endless struggle on the part of the heroes and of endless depression on the part of civilians who were missing friends and family made morale low. When all hope seemed lost, eight individuals wearing business suits and masks made their way across Okinawa, saving people from collapsing buildings and precarious perches. In just a few days, hundreds of civilians were returned to their friends and families and the group “Vongola” went viral after a certain video was uploaded to YourTube.For a long time after that, the Vongola seemed to just disappear off the face of the map. People thought maybe it was just a group of civilians that came together to do the right thing. Others thought they were arrested soon after saving the civilians and the government and the police was hiding it from the general public. But just after half a year, members of the Vongola were spotted all over Japan administering justice to things like petty crime to full on villain attacks.Overall, Japan is divided on their views of the Vongola. Some cheer on the Vongola, praising them for their work. Most of these people are people who encourage vigilantes in general or those who have been saved by the Vongola. Others want the Vongola jailed. Because of the way they mask their voices and faces, it’s been made quite obvious none of them are licensed heroes and are thus breaking the law for using their quirks in public. The police and the government have rewards out for the identities of the Vongola and any and all tips are investigated by the police. But so far, none of the tips lead to anything and no rewards have been awarded.The little introduction stops there and next comes a list of all the crimes the Vongola have stopped or contributed to stop. The list is long and detailed, with brief descriptions, creative titles, dates, and which members were at the scene. The section after the list comes a different list, a list with the crimes Izuku suspects the Vongola have contributed to stopping but has not been confirmed.After those sections finally comes the profiles and whenever Izuku sees them, pride fills his chest. Years of research are accumulated into sixteen little pages and he’d pass it on as a family heirloom in a heartbeat.The first profile belongs to Knuckle, because that's who makes him laugh the most. Over the years, Knuckle has grown taller, bulkier, and stronger until he’s a tower of a man – but his personality hasn’t changed a bit. His voice tic of “EXTREME” has stuck around and he’s almost always laughing cheerfully when he’s knocking down villains with his fists of steel. Izuku has him drawn to a smaller scale but Knuckle still fills a whole page in his black suit and yellow dress shirt. Knuckle’s MMA glove covered hands are thrown above his head, his gold bangle with the yellow gem still shown vividly on his upper arm. His white hair is slicked back as it always is, and his mask is the same as it has been over the years: pale yellow sun painted with watercolors at the left chin and a black outline of an open clam with two rifle bullets crossed within it on the right side of the forehead. In the small space above the man’s head is “EXTREME” in bubble letters and a speech tail following to where Izuku assumes Knuckle’s mouth is. Beside one of Knuckle’s hand his draws a simple medical scalpel you could find in any hospital and colors the end with a bright yellow aura to depict his quirk.Alaude follows Knuckle simply because he’s been seen with Knuckle more than anyone else. Alaude’s shorter and lither than Knuckle and Izuku was sure to make that obvious in the sketch. But Izuku isn’t stupid to think that just because Knuckle is larger in size that Alaude is weak. No, rather, Alaude seems just as fast and strong as Knuckle – maybe even more. Unlike Knuckle, Alaude is more brutal in his fights with villains, never toying around and going straight to incapacitation. Alaude never seems to hold back and is much quieter than Knuckle, to the point that most of the media has only ever caught him saying key words and his fellow Vongola members’ names. Alaude stands with confidence in his sketch, a silver tonfa in each hand, black business suit with a violet dress shirt, silver handcuffs hanging from a belt loop, and his gaudy silver bracelet with spikes and chains hanging from it. His black hair is tied into a small and loose ponytail but most of his mask hides his hair. The mask is the same from his first appearance, just like Knuckle: the same clam and bullet combination on his right forehead, on the left chin the watercolor painting of purple clouds. Above Alaude’s head in menacing font are the words “kamikorosu” and “herbivores”.Daemon comes next because Alaude and Daemon seem to have some kind of grudge with each other. Daemon is the tallest of all the vigilantes but has the body type of someone in between the heavily built Knuckle and the graceful Alaude. Daemon has the sharpest tongue of all the vigilantes as well, intimidation and provocation are his game; which is probably why Alaude hates him so much. Daemon fills the page from top to bottom because of his height, which made Izuku struggle with fitting the man’s large silver three-pronged trident onto the page – never mind the intricate designs and nuances the trident has itself. Daemon strays from the business suit style, replacing his blazer with a long and unique coat with leather and metal plating and a European flair. His pants and shoes stay the same, but Daemon lacks the uniform black tie and simply wears an indigo dress shirt and adds black nail polish on his bare hands to his uniform. Daemon is also definitely the most flamboyant of the vigilantes, proved further by the way he wears his gaudy silver earring with indigo gems in each of the four dagger-like objects that hang from his left ear with pride. Daemon’s most defining feature has to be his navy hair tied into a loose man bun but many like to joke that if they could see his face under his mask his smug face would be recognized everywhere. Somehow, the white mask with the same clam and bullet combination and the indigo mist seems to laugh mockingly at you – despite none of the other Vongola masks doing the same. To the side of his head, Izuku has written “kufufu” to depict the man’s signature laugh.Next is Spade, the only woman of the group, following Daemon simply because of their similarities. The same indigo blouse under her pants suit and the exact same mask. Spade even has a smaller matching trident to fit her height and the same dagger-like earring handing from his right ear. As the only woman, she seems almost tiny in comparison to her fellow members – but Spade is petite in general. Spade looks like she could hardly hurt a fly but Izuku has seen her send out terrifying attacks – it shows to never underestimate someone, especially for their size and gender. Her nails are always colored a deep indigo and a photographer was lucky enough to get a picture of her hand up close to see that she has little white skulls drawn on each nail. Compared to Daemon, Spade is soft spoken and hardly ever speaks to her opponents – making people why she wears similar stuff to Daemon. Her long purple hair is almost always in a fishtail braid and shows as such in Izuku’s sketch. Beside her are the only words she ever seems to deign to her opponents, “Prepare yourself”.Romeo comes next only to not crowd Spade with taller people. Romeo is the scrawniest of the group and a similar height to Spade and seems to be growing still. How does Izuku know this? Because Romeo had started out as just a child and only now does he seem to be approaching adulthood. Romeo’s voice always seems so exhausted and done with the world, and often makes sarcastic quips in battle; asking why the villains couldn’t just give him a break. He’s the only one of the Vongola slouched in his sketch, hands shoved in pockets and leaning on one leg over the other as his mask stares on straight ahead. His suit mirrors his lazy teen demeanor, the suit is often rumpled, and his green dress shirt wrinkled. His tie is either nonexistent or tied in a sad attempt in a knot but more often than not he just battles with a couple of his top buttons unbuttoned. But his lazy demeanor doesn’t fool anyone because of his devasting green lightning like attacks that can also serve as a powerful barrier defensively. Romeo’s dark green spiked up hair is often hidden by the giant helm on his head that sports gaudy horns and a large green gem, but it doesn’t seem to hinder his movements at all. His mask is the same as the rest with the black clam and bullet combination, but green lightning is drawn on his chin. Beside the teen are the words “yare yare” written lazily.G follows Romeo mostly because, what Izuku can tell, G is Romeo’s keeper. He has a gruff voice and openly scolds other members for not following his orders in his colorful language. He’s short tempered and rather crass but G has been seen handling difficult situations with speed and calmness that shows not only how intelligent G is, but also how capable he is. He’s not exactly short, but compared to Daemon, he’s not tall. G is probably only a couple centimeters taller than Alaude but it’s too close to actually call it. In Izuku’s sketch, the man is standing tall in his business suit and violent red dress shirt. Unlike the others who have normal belts, G sports a gaudy silver belt buckle with arrows sticking out behind a skull and a red gem for the skull’s mouth. G’s defining feature, besides his dirty mouth, are the accessories he has on. He wears chains around his neck, hanging from his belt loop, and around his wrists. Almost all his fingers adorn rings and he has dynamite in both his hands in the sketch – a weapon that he skillfully uses and seemingly pulls out from nowhere. G has his silver hair spiked up and a deliberate kind of messy but that doesn’t draw away from his mask with his chin designed with red storm clouds with lighting and rain while the rest of the mask is the same as the others. Above the sketch of the man are multiple expletives censored by careful handwriting on Izuku’s part.Asari is the second tallest of the group and next because of his almost funny bickering with G on the battlefield. Asari always seems so easygoing with his carefree laughter – the complete opposite to G’s high-strung personality. But Asari seems to have a mischievous nature as he keeps teasing G any chance he gets. But, just like his fellow vigilantes, Asari has two faces, and it’s said those who see Asari’s more serious side are scarred for life. Asari is built similar to Daemon, all broad shoulders and toned arms and legs – which makes sense as they both carry weapons that command swinging. Asari carries the same sword which a much simpler design than Daemon and Spade’s trident. It’s a simple katana with bandages at the hilt and a simple swallow engraved near the scabbard mouth that Asari always carries in its hilt over his shoulders. He wears the business suit but similarly to Romeo, does not wear the tie with his blue dress shirt or wears it loosely, also unbuttoning the top buttons. When he doesn’t wear his tie, you can clearly see that Asari wears a silver chain necklace that has a pendant of a sword with water-like swirls that surround the blade. There’s a bright blue gem that rests at the hilt of the sword pendant. His mask reflects his fellow members, only with beautifully drawn blue rain. Just next to his mouth are the words “maa maa” written frivolouslyFinally, there's Giotto. Giotto is hardly ever seen but Izuku thinks he did a decent job with all the bits and pieces he’s managed to gather. Giotto wears the same business suit with an orange dress shirt, but he dons an elegant black cape on his shoulders that is capable of encompassing his whole body. His mask has the clam and bullets on it in black on the forehead, but the same clam and bullets in bright orange on his chin. There are always leather gloves on Giotto's hands and there are two differently sized rings on his fingers connected by a chain, the larger one with an orange gem on it. Giotto is the shortest man, Romeo not counting as he is still a teen and still growing and he’s only a bit taller than Spade herself. He has the lithe body type, much like Alaude but somehow seems so charismatic and powerful. Even sight of his brown hair in a low ponytail will make villains quake in their shoes. Giotto speaks and appears rarely, but eyes are immediately drawn to him and it makes Izuku wonder how he manages to always make a smooth escape from authorities. Everyone before Giotto follows his orders and is no doubt the boss of the Vongola. Many who have yet to be in his presence wonder why one of the more weaker looking members of the Vongola lead, or why the one who defeats the least number of villains is the leader, but they haven’t looked into the Vongola like Izuku has. Izuku highly expects that at least 90% of the villain incidents that haven’t been tied to the Vongola in his list are all due to the hands of Giotto.Izuku makes edits to the notes that he already has and adds new theories to them before he shoves the notebook to the bottom of his desk drawer.Izuku may love the Vongola, but half of Japan is with him. The other half isn't.
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“All Might, do you know the Vongola?” Izuku doesn't know what makes him ask his mentor that question, but one day as he takes a break from cleaning up the trash on Dagobah Municipal Beach Park, he asks. Only, because he's curious. Izuku loves the Vongola as much as he loves All Might, because they're helping people with the powers they possess. Regular civilians that are doing their best to make the world a better place – people that don’t ignore the petty crime nor the rumors of villain attacks when they’re just that: rumors. They’ve changed people’s lives for the better just by being there when heroes weren’t. How does The Number One Hero view these well-meaning people? But Izuku also asks because Izuku knows All Might has worked with some of them, no matter how briefly.All Might frowns at the question, “The Vongola?” he repeats, “Why the sudden question Midoriya-shounen?”Izuku panics immediately, “I-I mean! I'm just curious! You've worked with them before, right? Since they're vigilantes I was just curious and-”All Might holds up a hand to stop Izuku, “I wasn't criticizing you, you have a right to be curious, but do you believe what the Vongola are doing is right?”Izuku doesn't know how to respond and he flails, trying to start twenty sentences twenty times before All Might silences him again to respond, “I have worked with the Vongola before. While it was only briefly and not discussed beforehand, they always escaped before anyone could catch them. They're rather slippery.” All Might says with almost some bitterness as he thinks back to his past.“Do… do you not think what they're doing is right?” Izuku asks hesitantly.All Might’s face immediately hardens, “While they're actions can be considered heroic, there are protocols and procedures for everything. There's a reason why there are laws heroes must follow. For as long as they use their quirks to rule with their own judgement, I will not adhere to what they do.”That ends that conversation and Izuku never brings it up again.That is, until he gets into Yuuei and the new term starts. The house seems empty when he walks in. It's completely silent and there's no one in sight. His gravity defying hair almost hits the shoe case by the door when he throws some hastily toed off shoes inside.Then there's a thud and something comes skidding across the wooden floors to his feet.“Natsu!” Sawada Tsunayoshi cheers as he sets down his backpack, picking up his lion cub companion, running his hand through the flame like mane the animal has, “Where are the others?”The lion cub looks directly into Tsuna's eyes as he mewls something to his owner with a continuous “gao gao gao”.Tsuna nestles Natsu in his arms and slips off his shoes, “Lambo took a nap huh? It must have been a rough day at work for him huh?”Natsu purrs into his owner's chest but it's cut off from a low guttural groan from a pillow sized bull that rounds the corner of the house. Tsuna smiles at the drowsy expression on the bull's face, “Hey there Gyuu. Did you and Lambo take a nap together?”The relatively small bull nods slowly and Tsuna laughs openly, “Well let's leave him alone until dinner. I'm sure that Gunhead worked Lambo to the bone again, even over summer break. I’ll get dinner done while he rests.”“No need,” a sleep filled voice mutters as a lanky teen with curly dark green locks enters the living room, “How was the flower shop?”Tsuna smiles when he sees the teen that is his little brother, “It was fine Lambo. How was Gunhead?”Lambo groans at the memory of it leaning against his older brother affectionately, “It was the absolute worse! My ability was useless against this guy robbing a jewelry store! No matter what I threw at him he just kept coming!”Tsuna laughs and pats the teenage boy on the back, “Come on and sit down at the counter while I make dinner and continue your story, okay?”Lambo grumpily pulls away but follows his older brother into the kitchen, continuing his loud protests. The restaurant is hectic at dinner time and Yamamoto Takeshi’s mind is completely calm as he gets through orders, making small talk to customers in the small restaurant.“You're busy as always, huh Yamamoto-san?”Takeshi smiles at a regular brightly, “Haha, I'm just glad people seem to like our food!”“Like?” a man from somewhere else down the bar scoffs, “You have a line of people outside Yamamoto! Don't belittle yourself!”Takeshi laughs again, “Is that so?”A hand smacks the back of his head, not even disturbing his unruly spiked up black hair, “I'm sorry about Takeshi-kun, hahi!” the woman who smacked him says, wearing a waitress uniform, “He's much too humble!”Takeshi laughs sheepishly when he sees the peeved look on Miura Haru's face, “Maa, maa, Haru, we only opened a couple years ago.”Haru rolls her eyes dramatically, “We're one of the best restaurants on the block and you still refuse to expand!”The customers used their bickering as entertainment to chuckle amongst themselves, “There they go again, bickering as always,” a business woman chuckles as she sips her tea.“It's such a shame that those two are just business partners. They could be such a cute couple!” her co-worker teases.“Don't let their significant others catch you saying that!” another cheerful voice joins in and a young female waiter starts to refill tea cups with practiced ease. There's a teasing smile on I-Pin's face, “Take-nii and Haru-nee are off limits and unshippable!”That causes another round of laughter and both Takeshi and Haru are blushing madly.“I-Pin-chan, hahi!” Haru protests, but the Chinese girl just laughs louder.Takeshi points at I-Pin with a knife playfully, “You're not allowed into the apartment ever again. I'm changing the password!”I-Pin gapes at her legal guardian, “You've got to be joking, right Take-nii?”Takeshi pretends to turn a blind eye and the lively store is once again filled with laughter.“Jirou and Kojirou won't stand for this!” I-Pin says as she points a finger at the picture on the wall of an akita dog and a swallow on its head, “They love me!”The restaurant laughs again, and customers continue to come and go like clockwork. When he steps into the house he's greeted by yelling from his legal guardian, “-cannot let that go. Do you hear me?”Futa di la Stella steps deeper into the house with his slippers and sees Gokudera Hayato with his silver hair resting on his shoulders as he paces the room back and forth in a gray suit, “No, I won't settle with that. Not at all. That's just stupid!” Futa pets the small spotted cat with red ears that has made her home on a familiar suit jacket as he steps by the kitchen.There's a pause and Gokudera looks up for a second to send a wave in Futa's direction as Futa sits on the couch and takes a slice of the cut peaches on the plate on the coffee table.“Good. I want that done by the time I enter the office tomorrow,” with that, Gokudera hangs up the phone and slumps onto the couch next to Futa, slipping his tie off.Futa swallows the last of his peach slice and asks, “Rough day?”Gokudera scoffs and runs a hand over his face, “The only thing I had time to do since getting home was getting that plate of fruit out of the fridge and take my jacket off before I got another phone call.”Futa hands his guardian a peach slice sympathetically, “That's rough.”Gokudera takes it and shoves it in his mouth before he groans loudly, “I was supposed to make dinner before you came home.”Futa shakes his head, “You probably had the worst day of work at the office Hayato-nii, let's just order some takeout and be done with it.”Gokudera sighs again, “I said I was gonna make osso buco alla milanese tonight.”Futa is already scrolling through UberEATS pressing through the Takesushi menu, “You like yellowtail, right?”“Yeah.”The two watch mind numbing TV as they wait for their meal to arrive, an unsaid apology and unsaid acceptance between them.“Uri's getting her fur on my jacket, isn't she?”“Yup.” The door opens, and her mouth immediately does the same, “Dinner's ready!” Sasagawa Kyoko yells as she plates the fish onto two separate plates.“It smells extreme!” is what Sasagawa Ryohei tells his sister, his arms pointed up, the same way his hair is spiked, in excitement.Kyoko laughs and sets the fish down before turning to get a better look at her brother. Immediately Kyoko is caught into a hug and she laughs, “Nii-san! you're all sweaty! Let go!” she protests.But Ryohei just rubs his fist into the top of his sister's head, “It was an extreme lesson at the gym today! I do the same amount of exercise my students do when I teach Kyoko!”Kyoko groans dramatically, “Kangaryuu! Save me!”Immediately a brown female kangaroo the size of a small bedside table enters the kitchen and playfully nudges both Ryohei’s and Kyoko’s side with her head with little growls. Both siblings coo at the kangaroo at her adorable behavior.Kyoko slaps her brother's back out of spite when he finally lets go and takes off for the bathroom for a quick rinse.Her hands go immediately for the laptop on the kitchen counter as she continues to edit an article she had been working on.“Vigilantism has always been around since the beginning of quirks and is said to be the origins of heroes…” she mutters to herself as she quickly changes some word choice in the latter half of the sentence.Kyoko is too entranced in her article to notice her freshly showered brother that throws his arms around her waist and carries her into the dining room, “No more work! Let's extremely eat!”Kyoko lets out a half shriek half laugh, “You're the one who was late!” she says accusingly as Ryohei finally puts her in her seat and sets out Kangaryuu’s meal mix, so they can have a peaceful dinner. Haru doesn't want a light to be on when she enters the apartment, but she can't say she doesn't expect it.She peels off her sweater and throws it on the coat rack as she steps into the doorway of the office where a figure is hunched over files illuminated by a desk lamp in the room.“Why aren't you sleeping?” Haru asks in a quiet voice.Kurokawa Hana barely looks up from her files, “There are somethings I need to review for the case tomorrow. I'm sure that I'm missing something.”Haru crosses her arms across her chest, “You're an up and coming defense attorney, Hana. And you may be called a genius in court but you're still human.”There's a moment before Hana just sighs and deflates against the table, “You're right. I should just get some sleep for tomorrow,” she stands up and runs a hand through her greasy bob cut curly hair, “Did you bring any leftovers?”Haru grins like a madman and holds up a plastic bag with takeout containers inside, “From our favorite sushi chef, hahi, because we all know you can't feed yourself.”Hana scoffs as she steps closer and out of her office, “Please, like you don't forget to eat right before your new fashion line is released.”Haru twirls to follow her friend, “But I know it's healthy to take breaks, thus why I'm on hiatus and working for Takeshi, hahi.”Hana rolls her eyes, “Right.” “How about this?” Rokudo Mukuro murmurs as he looks at the man sitting across from him, setting down the picture, “We get half the payment upfront and once we get pictures of your wife cheating on you, we'll collect the rest of it?”The middle-aged man is hesitant but he still hands over the money with a shaky, “And you're sure you can do this?”Mukuro nods with a polite smile, “Of course, I'll be in contact with you within the next few days.”After a signed contract, it copied, and sent out, a phone rings on Mukuro's desk and Mukuro answers it with a sigh, his long indigo hair tied into a long ponytail moving with him, “And what do I owe the pleasure, detective?”The voice on the other side of the phone sighs tiredly, “Mukuro, I'd rather not deal with the bantering so can we just get to the point?”“Of course,” Mukuro says with a shit eating grin, “I can't help you, please call between the hours of nine and five on weekdays.”“Mukuro don't you dare-”Mukuro cuts the call and turns off his phone with a chuckle.“Was that really necessary Mukuro?”Chrome Dokuro enters the office with an exasperated look on her face. Her purple hair is free flowing and covers the left side of her face where a medical eyepatch is.Mukuro rolls his eyes, “That detective thinks that just because I'm a private investigator he can make me do whatever he wants.”Chrome sets a bag on the table with a sigh, “I picked this up on the way here after work. We could have eaten at home, but I was hungry.”Mukuro reaches into the bag with his leather gloves and takes a fry between his fingers before he eats it, “And how is it, being a counselor to a bunch of snot nosed kids?”Chrome takes drinks out of the bag and takes a swig of her pineapple Ponta soda before she answers, “They're a lot better than Lambo and Fran when they were little.”Mukuro chuckles and steals a sip from Chrome, “That's fair,” he pauses and tilts his head at Chrome, “And where is that little brat?”Chrome lets out an exasperated yet defeated sigh as she says, “Fran is at home, exhausted after what the school is putting him through. He said he fed Mukurowl before he collapsed and went to mooch off Takeshi before he headed home so he’s already eaten.”Mukuro sneers, “I didn’t need to know that last bit.”Chrome raises her visible brow judgingly, “Uh huh,” she replies sassily before shoving another fry into her mouth. “The client was safely taken to his home and was satisfied with the company's services,” Kusakabe Tetsuya reports over dinner, enjoying the hamburger steak, “The client praises our bodyguards for being extremely thorough and cautious.”Hibari Kyoya looks at him with steel eyes, “They should be,” Kyoya says with coldness, “I expect nothing less.”Kusakabe nods, “We've also spread our influence farther, just a little bit. We haven't attracted much attention yet,” he reports professionally and succinctly.Kyoya nods, “Good,” he sips his tea and continues to dine as if a bird in his black hair and a hedgehog in his lap is normal.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Izuku is in awe when he enters Yuuei on his first day. It feels like a dream more than anything, “it” being the last couple months of his life. Never in his wildest dreams would he theorize that All Might actually shrunk into a skeleton of a man because of a near fatal injury. Never would he theorize that All Might’s quirk is transferable. Even if Izuku did, Izuku wouldn’t dare to even hope that All Might would give his quirk to a quirkless “Deku” like him.But that is what his life has become. All Might is just Yagi Toshinori, a frail assistant at All Might’s agency. One For All has been passed to seven others before Izuku. All Might gave Midoriya “Deku” Izuku One For All.If it wasn’t for the slime villain on that day, Izuku might still be crying in his room about not being able to be a hero. Maybe he would have eventually taken that swan-dive off the roof. But that doesn’t matter because Midoriya Izuku is a student at Yuuei under the underground hero Eraserhead with nineteen others.Sure, things start out rough with almost getting kicked out on the first day because of the quirk appraisal tests and with the villain-hero simulation training against Kacchan - who still hates him - but Izuku has friends.At least he hopes they’re his friends.Iida Tenya is a bit stiff - almost like a robot - but he’s nice. He looks out for Izuku and doesn’t seem to be forcing himself to interact with Izuku. Even if Iida does misunderstand some of his actions by tacking on hidden meanings.Uraraka Ochako is the first girl he’s talked to for more than half a minute. That’s one of the reasons why Izuku is stiff around her, but also because Uraraka is so cheerful and bright all the time. It’s something he’s not used to - especially when she says his “nickname” from Kacchan sounds like “do your best”.But it’s not just them who are accepting of him. The class seems to be really open to getting to know Izuku. He enjoys the talk the class has in the bus on their way to the USJ, ignoring when Asui Tsuyu told him his quirk resembles All Might’s quirk, he actual feels like he’s part of a class for once.He walks into the USJ, excited to start the rescue training with the Space Hero: Thirteen as a supervisor. What he gets are villains infiltrating the USJ with blocked communication to the outside, his classmates and himself scattered across the USJ, and some method the villains have that will apparently kill All Might.Yup, this is what his life has become.Izuku’s heart has been pounding almost constantly since he has been at Yuuei. Kacchan hasn’t changed: hates him and still violent. He meets and interacts with Pro Heroes he’s only seen from afar. Social interaction is a struggle. There are real villains in front of him.He thinks nothing could make this situation worse.
So, when he finds himself on a boat in the flood zone filled with hostiles with Asui Tsuyu and Mineta Minoru and there’s a sudden flash of indigo fire-like substance that flares to life before their very eyes and a tall masked figure steps out of, Izuku swears he pees a little. The white mask has the familiar emblem of a clam and crossed rifle bullets and the design of blue rain - a mask he’s only seen in videos, yet he’s seeing it in real life. Today. At Yuuei’s USJ. When villains are attacking his school.Distorted cheerful laughter fills the stunned silence the students are in and the figure throws a sharp katana over his shoulders casually, “Hey there kiddos! What’s going on?” he asks as he’s talking to old friends.Mineta is the first to snap out of it, though his reaction isn’t favorable. Mineta shrieks from behind Izuku’s leg and when did he get there? and yells, “T-THA! Y-YOU-YOU’RE!” and proceeds to foam at the mouth before collapsing onto the wet deck.Asui’s face almost looks as indifferent as always, but there is a crease in between her eyes as she stares down the masked man.The masked man looks down at the collapsed purple haired hero-in-training and laughs sheepishly, “Maybe we overdid it with the dramatics,” he says as he rubs at the back of his head. “You’re Asari. With the Vongola.” It’s not a question when Asui finally speaks but the vigilante still answers.“Yup!” the vigilante answers cheerfully. “Didn’t you think you kids would recognize me, honestly.” He turns his head out to the water where the villains are waiting, “Do you mind telling me what’s going on?”Izuku stutters several times, trying to find a place to start when the vigilante puts a hand on his shoulder and says, “I would pick your purple friend up first, the boat is going to get attacked.”Izuku blanks for a long moment because Asari of the VONGOLA is touching him ohmygawd before Asui yells, “Midoriya-chan!”That’s all it takes for Izuku to grab Mineta’s limp body and cling to the side of the boat as it splits in half.“Haha! He’s pretty strong down there!” Asari laughs as he peers over the side of the boat, looking completely unruffled as he stands on his own two feet, not holding onto anything. “The way we are now, we won’t last more than a couple minutes!”Izuku stares at Asari incredulously. He can’t believe it. Maybe Asari doesn’t recognize the seriousness of the situation. Maybe Asari is denying that there are villains coming after their lives, just like Mineta. But Asari continues to laugh and laugh as he looks down into the water.Izuku’s fingernails dig into his palms. “Asari-san, those villains are after our lives,” he whispers, his eyes glued to Asari’s dress shoes because he doesn’t have to courage to look the powerful man in the eyes.Asari doesn’t stop laughing, “Haha, is that right?”Something snaps in Izuku. “We’re students here to do rescue training for the first time. There are villains who have scattered my classmates all over the USJ and there are sure to be more villains with them. The villains have some kind of method to defeat the number one hero,” Izuku’s voice has becoming louder and angrier with each word. He snaps his head up, his eyes blazing to look where Asari’s eyes should be. “And you’re laughing?!” he finally shouts.Asari stops and turns to Izuku, his body no longer relaxed, but not exactly tense as the mask bores into him.“Midoriya-chan,” Asui says to him, “Don’t forget that Asari is a vigilante. The Vongola follow their own justice,” she reminds calmly, “He may be here to take us out too.”Izuku feels like he’s struck by lightning, suddenly looking at one of his idols with distrustful eyes. He steps backwards, half stepping to the left to block Asui partially from view. The vigilante doesn’t move for a moment, simply staring back at the two hero hopefuls.Then there's laughter, “You're not wrong! But the Vongola are here for that man with those hands all over his body among others. We just so happen to not adhere to the murder of children,” he says so casually that Izuku is sure there's a smile on his face under his mask as he talks about killing. “So,” Asari quickly sobers, “Do you have a plan?”Izuku thinks this is what whiplash feels like. “Us?” he asks, “You’re asking us for a plan?”Asari nods enthusiastically, “Why not? I’ll follow your plans to a T; do you have one?”Izuku can't believe this is his life. His mentor and favorite hero has been threatened with death, the boat he's on is slowly sinking to where villains are waiting, and there's a vigilante asking him for plan.Asui is looking at Asari warily still but she doesn’t say anything to refuse Asari’s help.“Yeah,” Izuku says after a shuddering breath, “I do.” Explosions shake the landslide zone that Todoroki Shouto is in as he watches with wide eyes as vigilante G of the Vongola throws dynamite into the air at villains, dynamite that seemingly comes out of nowhere. Shouto’s hair flies out everywhere each time a dynamite goes off and he suddenly understands why G ties his hair in a ponytail. Hagakure Tooru is next to him, invisible as always and trembling.“T-That's G… am I dreaming Todoroki-kun?” Hagakure stutters, her gloved hands clasped onto his left elbow.Shouto slowly shakes his head, just as unable to comprehend what’s happening as her.“I have no idea what's going on,” he tells her truthfully.Hagakure is suddenly very still, “Are we safe? G may be defeating the villains and all, but he's still a vigilante. Should we run?”Shouto contemplates the suggestion for a second before shaking his head, “No, we'd just be caught in the explosions… and G knows we have quirks, but he still keeps his back turned towards us. I don't think he considers us his enemy.”Hagakure relaxes, just a bit, before the explosions seem to stop and the dust starts to clear, “What's happening?” she whispers, the area suddenly very quiet.Shouto shakes his head once again when the smoke finally clears to show a hunched over G, holding a limp villain up by the collar of her shirt. His voice is modulated so they don’t actually hear his voice but the gruffness G carries with him is clear. “What did those bastards give you to get you to do this shit?” G growls.The villain seems to have a transformation quirk because her hands shift back from claws as blood leaks from her mouth. Blood gurgles as she speaks. “Most men take me out to dinner before grabbing at my chest,” she snarks despite the severe pain she is likely in.G drops her and ruthlessly steps onto her chest with his expensive dress shoes, it’s a brand Shouto recognizes in the back of his head as the villain screams into the quiet zone. “I’m not here to play your fucking games. Someone paid you to attack children. I don’t care what kind of person you are, nothing can justify harming children. I should kill you right here.”She shrieks, “You killed my friends! You and your little group are just like us!” She laughs hysterically, “That’s right! I know who you are! You kill people left and right just because they pissed you off! I don’t see how that makes us any different!” She points to Shouto and Hagakure. Hagakure grips Shouto’s elbow harder and there’s a little yelp. “You’re threatening and torturing me in front of those children you’re here to save! What does that make you?!” she yells.G is silent as he looks down at her, his foot still on her chest, for a long moment not saying anything. She’s giggling to herself, having given in to her fate.G sighs loudly and looks up, “Hey brats.”Hagakure completely moves to hide behind Shouto and he lets her, meeting G head on, “Yes?” Shouto asks tensely.G stares at them before he gestures lazily towards the exit of the landslide zone, “Head outside and wait for me at the entrance. If villains attack you, come back for me and I’ll take care of the shitbags. I’ll take you to the rest of your little friends when I’m done here.”The villain laughs again, “You can’t hide them from all the shit you do Vongola! You’re just creating a false sense of safety. If these brats are actually going to be heroes they’re going to see this every day for the rest of their lives!” she crows.Shouto can’t help but stare at the villain as she laughs so badly that her whole body shakes with the laughs.Hagakure tugs at Shouto’s sleeve, “We should go Todoroki-kun.”Shouto lets Hagakure lead him to the exit, stepping over villains as they go, but there’s something that he can’t quite shake.G is watching them leave, making sure that no villains try to attack them is what Shouto thinks.He plants his feet at the exit and Hagakure lets out a surprised noise, “Todoroki...kun?”Shouto looks up and meets G’s mask that is looking right at him. Shouto really shouldn’t say this. He really shouldn’t. G is a vigilante, there’s no guarantee that he won’t kill Shouto for not listening. G is a vigilante, he could take his own action. G is a vigilante, he won’t believe Shouto. There are too many ears. Villains who aren’t quite unconscious could hear Shouto. Hagakure would undoubtedly hear Shouto. No one would believe Shouto. Shouto wouldn’t believe Shouto.But Shouto looks up, meets where G’s eyes are supposed to be, and says, “She’s wrong.”G stays silent before he tilts his head down to look at the villain then to Shouto, understanding. He snorts, “I’m a criminal kid. A hero shouldn’t really be encouraging a vigilante.” G states it like a fact, something he already accepted.Shouto frowns and squares his shoulders, “You may break the law, but only to do good,” Shouto hesitates but he knows his tongue will only feel heavier if he doesn’t say this now, “You, the Vongola, are more heroic than my father will ever be.”Hagakure gasps behind Shouto but G doesn’t seem to react physically, only letting out a huffed laugh and saying something in Italian.Shouto turns on his heel and exits the USJ. It takes a second but Hagakure follows close after.They settle against the side of the entrance, hidden from view.No words are exchanged between the two hero hopefuls. Kaminari Denki thought he was doing a pretty great job holding his quirk back from potentially hurting Jirou Kyouka and Yaoyorozu Momo. It gets even easier to fight when Yaoyorozu makes a rubber blanket to cover her and Jirou so Denki can use his ultimate attack.But even in his dumbed-out stage he knows they're screwed. There's a villain with an electricity quirk holding him hostage and Jirou and Yaoyorozu can't do anything to save him. Denki may have electricity as his quirk but too much electricity in the right place can kill even him.Jirou had tried a sneak attack but ultimately, both the villain and the students are at a standstill.“Goddamnit,” a voice grumbles from a distance. “He thinks it's so funny sending me to the opposite side of the zone!” the voice is irritated and slowly getting closer, with a strange static quality to it. “And I can't even tell him off later, the asshole would stab me,” the voice is much closer now as if the owner of the voice was right around the-A head of green hair steps around the corner with a strangely familiar mask, a mask Denki can’t quite remember why is so familiar. “Oh look, takes me a solid five minutes to get over here because of you Daemon! And look! One of the students is held captive!” the masked figure yells up into the ceiling of the USJ like some sort of maniac.The villain starts to shake Denki, “You! What are you doing here Vongola!” he says the last word like a curse.Jirou gapes, “Romeo… Vongola’s youngest member…”Yaoyorozu is immediately on guard, “A vigilante?”Denki is struggling to remember what a vigilante is and why Vongola and Romeo ring a bell.Romeo sighs and runs a hand through his green spikes, “You know what? I'm done with this bullshit,” he points a hand at the villain holding Denki, “Let the kid go or face the consequences.”The villain lets out a laugh, “Face the consequences? What is this? One of those old movies? Yeah right-AHHHHH!”There's a sudden green light that flashes next to Denki's face.Denki feels the liquid that splashes on his face before he registers that he had been dropped.“Kaminari-kun!” Yaoyorozu yells and Denki puts an uncoordinated hand to his face and looks at his hand.“Buh… bluh….blood…” he gets out when Jirou grabs him by the shoulders and throws him behind her, using herself as a shield. “Don't come near us Romeo!” she yells protectively.Denki is going to have to thank Jirou after he’s charged up again.Denki blinks again and looks past Jirou to see a small black object on the ground he can’t make out surrounded by blood. Beside it is the villain who held him captive yelling in pain as he clutches at an arm that looks shorter than normal.Romeo, who had been watching the villain squirm, turns his head to look at them as if he’s only just remembered that they were still there. “Oh. Well, you're safe kiddoes so get over to your teachers while the villains here can't stop you,” his voice sounds like he’s done with the world: exhausted by everything.“And how do we know you won't try to cut our limbs off just like that villain?” are Yaoyorozu’s fighting words.Romeo stops and sighs loudly, “A-re, a-re, I didn't you think you kids would be such a pain. I cut off his arm off because he was holding a child hostage. We don't take kindly to people like that.”With that he turns without a glance back, moving towards a clump of villains nearby and nudging them with his dress shoes, “Hey. You alive?”“Yaoyorozu, we should move. If he wanted us gone he could have done that in an instance. We need to get Kaminari to safety.”“...Fine… let's go.”Denki blubbers as he’s placed in a cart and pulled away. “EXTREME!”Ojiro Mashirao winces as the man wearing the familiar mask punches his way through a villain with a monstrous yell, yet again. Mashirao has so many questions that he isn’t sure would get through to the knuckle headed man.Mashirao turns his mind back a couple minutes as he follows Knuckle through holes and inadvertently watching the vigilante’s back.Mashirao is sent to the fire zone, because of course he is. He is literally thrown into a room out of a black mist portal and his tail is badly burned in a patch of fire. Mashirao mourns his fur but is quickly thrust into action because voices he doesn’t recognize are yelling to “find the damn Yuuei brats”.Mashirao is injured, outnumbered, and currently without allies in a perilous environment he’s never been it. Mashirao lets out a dry laugh and quotes a dead meme that would make his classmate, Kaminari, proud, “Improvise,” he huffs as he sneaks through the burning building, “Adapt,” he whispers when he hears villains approaching, “Overcome,” he grunts as he drop kicks a villain in the head and flips the other out a window.Minutes seem to pass as he takes out villain after villain. Mashirao wonders how there are so many villains. Mashirao worries that he can’t find any of his classmates around.But Mashirao isn't stupid so he doesn't call out, trying to get rid of the villains as quietly as possible, practically fighting quirkless because his tail is out of commission. It helps that the cackling fire covers most of the noise he makes. It doesn’t help that all the villains seem to have fire or smoke orientated quirks and are used to the environment.And then, when Mashirao encounters a large group of villains and curses that his luck has run out, thinking that he could have maybe handled them if his tail was in top condition, the wall to the right of Mashirao and the left of the villains cave in and debris knocks a couple of the villains out for the count.For a second, Mashirao is panicking because he can’t handle a villain as powerful as someone who can break in a wall with ease. In the next second, he can’t feel anything because the loud scream of “EXTREME” shakes him to his core.Mashirao gapes as the mountain of a man punches his way through villains with powerful shouts and grunts. The suit clad man fights not only with power but incredible technique so that the villains are down in seconds.Fluidly, the man turns to Mashirao and Mashirao flinches, stepping into a ready stance, hiding his injured tail behind his body. “What are you doing here?” he asks with more courage than he has.The man stops for a moment before slipping his hand into his dress pants pockets and pulling out a silver object. “You’re an extreme student of Yuuei, correct?” he asks loudly, but it’s not a roar. It’s just a question, asked very loudly.Mashirao is tempted not to answer.Instead, Mashirao asks his own question again, “Knuckle from the Vongola, why are you here?”There’s a shift in Knuckle and boisterous laughter fills the room, charming despite the mechanical twist to it, “Oh, so you do know who I extremely am! That makes this easier!” He calms himself and lifts the silver object, a scalpel Mashirao sees now, and says, “You’re injured koukousei! Let me take extreme care of that!”Knuckle steps forward again and Mashirao jerks violently, switching into a more suitable stance against the boxer vigilante. Knuckle stops and takes in the change in stance quietly. “We aren’t here for you.” Knuckle finally says in a quieter voice, “But you’re injured while in an extremely precarious situation. If you want to get out of this, koukousei, then you need to trust me for the time being.”Mashirao hesitates, his resolve wavering. In truth, Mashirao is torn on his opinion of the Vongola. They’re doing good, yes, but they’re also breaking the law. Mashirao is considering his options in the short amount of peace he’s been given since entering the fire zone.There’s the sound of something cracking and Mashirao can only stare with wide eyes as a villain drops in from the ceiling with a scythe of all things aimed right at Mashirao’s head.The scythe comes closer and closer to Mashirao’s face and he’s desperately trying to duck and lean back at the same time to escape but it’s too close and ohnoMashiraoisgoingtodiebeforehe’sevensavedanyone-There’s another sound of something cracking and it happens like it’s slow motion. Knuckle’s fist is breaking all the bones in the villain’s torso with a single punch and each break is clear in Mashirao’s ears.Time goes back to normal and Knuckle towers over Mashirao as the villain is thrown through four walls and probably out of the fire zone.Surprisingly gentle hands are on his shoulders and shakes him, “Are you extremely okay koukousei?”Mashirao looks into the eye holes of the Vongola signature mask and nods shakily, “Yeah… thank you,” he whispers.Knuckle’s eyes light up and he shifts his body to the side so that Mashirao can see all of Knuckle’s body and lifts his yellow energy lit scalpel to Mashirao’s tail and there’s immediate relief.A shaky breath leaves Mashirao’s mouth when Knuckle finally steps away. “Koukousei, I’ll be going through the zone to get rid of the extreme villains. It would be extreme if you joined me and watched my back!” Knuckle says with returned energy.Mashirao nods, “Sure.”That brings Mashirao to where he is now, and he still has so many questions. Tokoyami Fumikage and Kouda Kouji are under some cover when the screams of villains reach their ears.Sure, the two of them had to punch their way through a portion of villains while trying to get under something big enough to cover them, but they know enough to know that they're the only students in the Downpour Zone. Kouda’s quirk is remarkably useful when rats are around, Fumikage notes to himself. It doesn't make sense to hear villains screaming when the two of them are huddling together.Kouda starts gesturing and it's clear and well-practiced enough to know what he's asking. “Should we check it out?”Fumikage frowns, “That’s probably not wise. I could try to have Dark Shadow scope out the area but he's…” There’s too much at stake. Dark Shadow mouths off at the worst of times and is always looking for a fight, especially in such a dark area. Dark Shadow would just get them into more trouble.Dark Shadow resents that.When Fumikage trails off, Kouda raises his hands to his mouth and lets out a low whine.Immediately mice come out of the undergrowth to answer his call again and he whispers something low to them before they run off.Fumikage watches in awe, “Amazing. How long do we have to wait-”He gets cut off as the mice come back, squealing in what seems like fright.“Huh? What's the big deal?” Dark Shadow asks impatiently as they watch Kouda go pale.Kouda blinks multiple times before whispering, “Alaude… is here.”“Alaude? As in the Vongola Vigilante?!” Dark Shadow asks loudly, out of shock most likely, but Fumikage can't help but hiss when the sounds of a fight die down just as his quirk yells out. This is exactly what Fumikage didn’t want.They all go deathly quiet when the rustling of bushes reaches their ears.The mice that had previously clung to Kouda flee into the undergrowth, not even Kouda’s presence and pleas keeping them there.The footsteps are now clearer against the wet ground.Fumikage curses his quirk in his head and flares Dark Shadow close behind him to potentially protect him and Kouda if needed but also so that Dark Shadow won’t give them away immediately.The footsteps are even closer.Then a bush to their right moves and all they can see is the familiar mask of the Vongola with purple clouds on them and a mechanical voice speaking directly at them. “Herbivores,” Alaude says dully like a half-assed greeting.Dark Shadow flares out immediately against Fumikage’s will, “I take offense to that! Fumi may be obsessed with apples but I love salmon!”Fear strikes through Fumikage and he can see the pure terror on Kouda’s face at Dark Shadow’s unrestrained yell. Despite the darkness, Fumikage tries to wrangle Dark Shadow down. Despite Dark Shadow being the two’s only offense, Fumikage tries to wrangle Dark Shadow down. Despite the unbridled fear, he’s dragging Dark Shadow into him.There’s a huff from the dangerous and viciously violently vigilante and he turns on his heels, “Remain there until I say so, herbivores,” Alaude says as he walks away, “You will not be bitten to death today.”And just like Alaude had come, Alaude is gone. Calm footsteps leave them, and the sounds of fighting continue.Kouda collapses on his butt next to him and Fumikage can’t believe what just happened. Dark Shadow is practically yelling into his ear from the inside to let him out, but Kouda’s hysteric giggles is the only thing he can really process.Fumikage wants to do the exact same thing.And so, he does.“Did that really just happen?”Kouda nods his head up and down as if to shake his head from the fever dream they stepped into.It doesn’t work. Kirishima Eijirou is running on adrenaline to ignore the fact that he’s fighting real-life villains by the time Bakugou Katsuki and him have managed to knock all of them out.“That’s all of ‘em,” Bakugou huffs, “Buncha wimps.”Eijirou turns to Bakugou, “Great! Now let’s hurry and go help the others. If we’re still here, I bet everyone else is also still in the USJ. I’m worried about the guys who don’t really have ways to attack,” he says stepping around unconscious villains collapsed at their feet in the collapsed zone, “Thirteen-sensei probably has his hands full because we rushed ahead like that,” guilt hits him, “None of this would’ve happened if we’d just let him suck in the mist guy. As men, we have to take responsibility-”“If that’s what you want, then go ahead,” Bakugou interrupts with a scowl, “I’m gonna beat the warp gate guy to a pulp!”“Huh?!” Eijirou can’t believe what he’s hearing, “You’re pulling that immature crap at a time like this? Normal attacks won’t work on him anyways!”“Shut up!” Bakugou shouts back at him, “He’s how these shitheads are getting around. Bring him down at they’ll have nowhere to run! Anyways! It’s not like I don’t have a way to beat him!”“Yes, keep talking! Let your guard down!”Eijirou barely has time to react before the villain that was rushing at Bakugou with a knife is suddenly face first into the ground and Bakugou talks as if nothing had interrupted him, “I mean, if all they’re sending us are these idiots, we should be fine.”Eijirou gapes, thinking to himself “great reflexes”, but his thoughts are immediately echoed.“Oya oya, such great reflexes,” a voice muses from all directions around them, “And I thought you would be a reckless hothead that lacks awareness. Interesting.”“Who the fuck is that? Show yourself!” Bakugou grows menacingly into the air, sparks in his hands.Eijirou gapes, “Wait, I know that voice!” because he does.“Kufufu, so you’ve heard of me.”The voice comes from behind them at Eijirou’s heart is in his throat, “You’re… You’re Daemon!” and true to his words, the tall man with his blue hair and mask is standing there, trident in hand.There’s wind that passes beside him and suddenly Bakugou is rushing at the vigilante.“Bakugou don’t-!”Bakugou catches Daemon by the mask and sets off rapid explosions on his face, eliciting a pained cry and Daemon collapses to the floor, the trident clattering as he claws at his neck. “How dare you?” Daemon cries in anguish.Eijirou flails, “Bakugou, wasn’t that a bit overkill-?”“Ah so you’re his keeper, hm?” there’s hand on Eijirou’s shoulder and when he blinks Daemon is gone and Bakugou has turned to him with wide eyes. “Keep your leash on your little pup tighter. He may just bite someone he can’t handle one day,” Daemon whispers in his ear.Very briefly, Eijirou wonders what Daemon means by Bakugou’s “keeper” and the implications of that. But Eijirou knows this isn’t the time and he has to act.Bakugou lunges again and Eijirou grabs the hand on his shoulder and hardens himself, “Get him Bakugou!”There’s heat, slight pain, and ringing when Eijirou opens his eyes again and his surprised expression matches Bakugou’s when nothing is over his shoulder.“How long will it take you realize that I’m not actually here, fledglings?” Daemon’s voice echoes from every corner of the room, “So you really are hot heads without any awareness.”“Bastard!” Bakugou yells, “Come out from where you’re hiding!”Daemon chuckles his signature laugh. “There’s no reason for me to. I’d prefer to not have my face blown up. I’m rather handsome you know,” and nothing is giving Daemon away.Bakugou is getting angrier by the second and Eijirou is thinking, “Bakugou, if Daemon isn’t going to show himself then isn’t it just better to go help the others?”Bakugou flinches, as if suddenly remembering what he originally intended to do and glares with his red eyes around the room. Eijirou waits on Bakugou with baited breath.After what feels like eternity, Bakugou lets out a growl and starts to march towards the only exit only for the world to warp around them.Eijirou feels sick to his stomach and the world tilts so that he barrels into Bakugou without meaning to.“Sorry!” Eijirou yells and tries to pull himself away from Bakugou but there are snakes wrapping around them hissing at their every move. The space around them is a stark white that it hurts Eijirou’s eyes, so he looks towards Bakugou’s chest where his face is practically pressed against.“What the hell?!” Bakugou yells, his hands flaring to life.Daemon tuts from somewhere around them despite the world just being pure white, “If you harm my little pets they’ll inject you with their poison that’ll knock you out for weeks.”Bakugou yells in frustration but Eijirou is relatively calmer. “Why are you doing this Daemon?” he asks, turning so he doesn’t speak directly into Bakugou’s chest.Daemon pauses before letting out an annoyed sigh, “The little boss gave out orders so I’m just doing what I’m told.”“Which is, you annoying fuck face?” Bakugou hisses into Eijirou’s spiked red hair.Daemon hums, “Keep the innocent Yuuei students safe, if I remember correctly.”There’s a pause and an indigo cloud shows up out of the white void and a familiar person is dropped into the white space with a shriek. “I’ve given you another fledgling so why don’t you three play nice while the adults handle the situation,” as Daemon finishes speaking his voice begins to fade and the figure peels himself off a surface of the white space.Eijirou stares with wide eyes, “Aoyama?”Aoyama Yuuga turns to face the two tied together and flashes them a sparkling smile, “Are you two perhaps-”“Don’t you even fucking finish that sentence you sparkling piece of shit!” Bakugou snarls, making Aoyama gulp and distance himself from Bakugou the best he can in their little jail.Eijirou’s shoulders and neck are cramping up as he does his best to lean away from Bakugou but doesn’t complain, opting to ask, “What did Daemon do? Does he have a quirk like Yaoyorozu’s?”“Oui!” Aoyama says, recovering quickly from his fear, “I was thinking much of the same!”Bakugou scoffs, as if he can’t believe how stupid Eijirou and Aoyama are, “It’s illusions.”Aoyama and Eijirou freeze.“Quoi?”Bakugou sighs, “Somehow he creates illusions that trick the minds of his opponents. That’s the only thing that makes sense. Once Daemon releases us we’ll probably still be in that room. Fucking bastard,” he cusses.Eijirou can’t believe how smart Bakugou is to put that together.Then another thought hits him, “Daemon said he and “the adults” would handle what’s happening?”Aoyama realizes the same thing Eijirou does as soon as he finishes speaking and Bakugou had reached the same conclusion the moment Daemon had said it.Daemon is either not the only Vongola in USJ or there are heroes at the scene.Judging by the way they’re still in this illusion, if they believe Bakugou, the former is correct. All seems lost. Thirteen has accidently sucked themself in because of the warp villain’s quirk. The only thing they can hope for is Iida Tenya to get outside the USJ and get help.That’s the reason why Shouji Mezou wraps himself around the mist that is the warp villain, even if it feels like sandpaper against his skin as it struggles against him. He needs to buy time. Just enough to let Iida escape.Mezou watches as the mist runs off and Uraraka Ochako manages to slap her hands on the gear of the villain and the mist floats up to the ceiling. Sero Hanta attaches his tape to the villain’s gear and uses the momentum to launch the villain farther.It works, Mezou thinks incredulously. Iida is off and out of USJ to get help. All they all have to do is hold out against all those villains. Easier said than done. Mezou turns and prepares himself for some kind of fight, his limbs turning to ears and eyes to look out for anything coming their way.Imagine his surprise when there’s an iron box that appears in the ceiling to where the mist is heading, and the box closes in on itself like magic, trapping the mist inside. The students gape.“Please tell me you saw that too,” Satou Rikidou whispers.Ashido Mina, still by Thirteen’s side, nods rapidly, paling, “Oh my god we’re going insane.”“That would be my doing,” a female voice comments from behind them, “Thank you making Kurogiri’s capture easy. Are any of you injured?”Satou, Mezou, Ashido, Sero, and Uraraka turn with wide eyes and see a petite woman with purple hair and a familiar mask on her face.“...Sp..SPADE?!” Uraraka shrieks.Mezou is just as surprised but forces one of his mouths to answer, “No… only Thirteen.”Spade nods to herself and approaches Thirteen’s body, the side that Ashido isn’t on, slamming her trident into the ground and they watch with wide eyes as Thirteen’s suit mends itself before their very eyes, “It’s a temporary solution but it will keep Thirteen stable.”Satou gapes, “What are you doing here?”Spade tilts her head to the side a bit, “We do not condone any attacks to innocent minors.”Sero is staring, “But how did you get here? How did you know the villains would be here?”Mezou thanks Sero for asking the questions he couldn’t even think of.Spade turns her head to Sero and seems to stare at him through the holes of her mask before saying, “That isn’t something I can disclose to you. But if you try to resist or attack me I will be forced to do to you what I did to Kurogiri.”She says it so bluntly that it almost doesn’t seem like a threat, but it very clearly is when the iron box lands beside Spade and all they can hear is clunking from inside the box.“My quirk!” Kurogiri cries, “What did you do?”Spade tilts her head, almost mockingly, “Did you think that we wouldn’t do our own research? There’s a quirk inhibitor, the same they use for children with volatile quirks. You won’t be able to do anything from the inside.”Chills run down Mezou’s spine as indigo flares around Spade for a brief second.“Give it up. You deserve nothing less for bringing these children into a conflict that has nothing to do with them.” Aizawa Shouta feels the panic hit hard as he goes through the villains around him. There are sounds of fighting from all sides of the USJ and the fact that there is such noise means his students are out there. Out there fighting. His inexperienced first year students who are only fifteen. His intervals of erasing are getting shorter and shorter and the ring leader has yet to make his move. All Shouta can hope for is someone getting back up from the outside.Just because their little leader isn’t moving doesn’t mean Shouta trusts him not to move. So, when Shouta sees the hand covered male approach he slams into him. That’s his mistake.Shouta’s elbow burns. Shouta has experienced pain before but nothing quite like this. The only thing keeping him up and fighting is the adrenaline distracting him from his disintegrating elbow. At least Shouta knows that the leader’s quirk is.“Your quirk… it’s not good in long group battles, huh?” the leader’s voice grates against Shouta’s ears and the villains still coming after him don’t help. “This is kinda different from your usual work, right? You specialize in quick sneak attacks, yet you jumped right into this fight. You hoping to make the kids feel safe?” he asks. “How admirable…” he trails off.Shouta feels the presence behind him too late, “By the way, Hero… I’m not the boss here.”Shouta sees a grotesque monster with its brain exposed for less a second before he’s knocked backwards.Shouta feels warm when he opens his eyes and can’t hide his surprise when he sees a bright wall of orange flames separating Shouta and a man standing in front of him from the monster that tried to squish his arm like a gusher.He recognizes that power.“It’s been a long time Eraserhead,” the warm and confidant voice states and Shouta doesn’t doubt that the man is smiling. “I’m sorry I was so late. I was giving your boss a little warning.”Shouta glares but doesn’t activate his quirk, giving his eyes a break when he can, “Giotto,” he grates out, “What are you doing here?”Giotto finally turns, in his suit, dress shoes, cape, and all, tilting his head. “I heard the cries of children being targeted and had me and my group jump in?” he asks rhetorically. “Your students are all safe. We’ve taken care of them.”There’s a loud shriek and Shouta peers past the orange flames to see the leader peel himself off the floor. “Why the fuck are the Vongola here?!” he yells into the air. “Kurogiri! Explain!” he demands.Nothing happens for a moment and the leader looks around wildly, “Kurogiri!”Giotto steps forward. “Unfortunately, Shigaraki Tomura, Kurogiri has been restrained by Spade. You have no means of escape. Give it up and turn yourself in Shigaraki,” Giotto demands coldlyShigaraki stills for a second before scratching wildly at his neck, blood settling beneath the villain’s fingernails, but he doesn’t care. “None of this is going right! It’s game over… game over…” he says to himself.Giotto steps forward, releasing the flame wall, “Shigaraki-”“Noumu!” Shigaraki yells to the idle creature who had stopped after finding no way to its target, “get me Kurogiri!”The Noumu disappears in a flash and Giotto flares orange flames into the ceiling, “Spade!” he yells in warning, the warning somehow echoing into the speakers of the USJ, “The creature is coming your way!”There’s a tense silence and a faint roar before Noumu returns with an iron box and smashes it open, letting the black mist suitingly named Kurogiri out.“Boss!” Spade’s voice is overhead, “I’m sorry the-”Giotto cuts her off, “That’s fine. I need a status report from everyone now.”Spade starts off, “I have five students, Thirteen, and one student who managed to escape to get help.”“I've extremely got my eyes on one!” and there’s only one person that could be.“I have two herbivores,” there was literally one person in existence who used wording like that.“I've got three too,” a lazier distorted voice drawled with a following yawn. “What took everyone so long?”“Quiet!” a rougher voice snapped immediately, “Damn brat… I have two over here,” the voice said calmly at the end, “That's fourteen.”A laugh came over the speakers, “Maa, maa, I've got three at the flood!”“Kufufu,” a creepy chuckle came next, “I have three fledglings.”Shouta realizes at that moment that Giotto was serious. This is the first time since the Vongola’s first appearance that all of them have been gathered together in public.“That makes twenty,” Giotto says, turning to Shigaraki, not looking phased with the Noumu and Kurogiri by the leader’s side. “We’ve also taken care of all the villains. What do you plan to do Shigaraki?” Giotto’s charismatic voice rings throughout the USJ, “All Might isn’t here.”Kurogiri recoils, “How do you know what our intentions were?”Giotto’s hands glow a soft orange, “Does that matter? You should be worrying about your lives,” the man says coldly as he steps forward.“Wait!” Shigaraki yells, “You understand, don’t you? You and your group are going out stopping crime around Japan because you feel the same way! The false peace All Might represents! People are complacent because of him! That’s why you’re vigilantes!” Shigaraki throws his hands out, “We’re after the same thing Giotto! Join us in creating a new era of justice!”For a second, Shouta sees the logic but then sees the holes. He sees how Shigaraki has jumped from A to Z at the speed of light. But for a second, fear strikes Shouta when he thinks Giotto may take Shigaraki’s deal.Giotto’s voice is full emotion as he responds, “The Vongola exists to stop the crime that the heroes can’t spot doing their work. Dealing with the crimes that the heroes can’t touch because of laws and regulations. All Might may have made people more complacent as the symbol of peace, but All Might means well and is also a symbol of hope. Taking that away would be detrimental to society in Japan for the worse, Shigaraki.” Giotto is practically heaving with anger, “The Vongola will never stand with the League of Villains!”It’s silent for a long moment.“Noumu, destroy him.”In a flash Noumu is in front of Giotto and Shouta desperately activates his quirk to stop the Noumu.Shouta realizes how unnecessary his actions are when Giotto holds his hands up in front of him and a shower of orange flames stop the Noumu in its tracks. Shouta can’t believe his eyes when the Noumu is encased in ice.There’s a deafening silence after the creature’s dying shrieks are cut off. Giotto steps back calmly, “Asari.”Footsteps reach Shouta’s ears and he turns to see Asari running up, sword in hand, towards the Noumu. Blue flames encase Asari’s sharp katana and Asari stabs it through the ice and through the Noumu’s brain. Asari pulls back with one quick motion and steps back until he’s standing to the left of Giotto.“You cheated…” Shigaraki’s vicious whisper echoes, “Getting involved in something that has nothing to do with you and you used a gameshark to win,” his eyes glare heatedly at Giotto, “You’ll pay for this Vongola!”Shigaraki recklessly runs forward towards Giotto but Asari immediately steps forward to shield his boss. Turns out, it’s a useless gesture because a bullet goes through Shigaraki’s hand.Heads turn. Heroes are finally at the USJ.“Ahhh they’re here,” Shigaraki curses, “game over. Guess we gotta try again another time, Kurogiri,” he says as he walks closer to Kurogiri.More bullets go through Shigaraki and despite Snipe’s valiant efforts, Shigaraki and Kurogiri manage to escape.There’s a hand on Shouta’s shoulder, “Your allies are here Eraserhead. I apologize that Spade, nor I was able to get you and Thirteen out unscathed but hopefully your students should be okay.”Shouta glares at Giotto, “You’re not getting out of this,” he says with his quirk activated, “You know too much about whatever the League of Villains is. You’re not getting away.”Asari has the gall to laugh at Shouta, “Sorry we don’t owe you anything!” Asari says cheerfully. Then there’s short swords pinning Shouta to his spot against the fountain and floor by his clothes. Asari’s voice goes cold, “You really don’t want to be our enemy.”“Asari,” Giotto scolds.A wall of indigo blue mist appears behind the vigilantes and Asari steps through it first, the mist swallowing him up.Giotto steps back into the mist slowly, “I apologize for him… but I’d be wary about the League of Villains. They aren’t going to give up on All Might.” The mist surrounds Giotto like a hug, “Make sure that he’s going to be ready if they come.”“Wait!” Shouta hears Ectoplasm growl as Giotto gets completely covered by the mist but by the time Ectoplasm gets there, Giotto is gone.“Damn it,” Ectoplasm curses as he puts his hand up to his earpiece, “Giotto got away.” The man pauses before a stressed sigh leaves his mouth, “They all got away. You doing okay Eraser?”Shouta just frowns, “Go check up on the students.”Shouta has to figure out all the implications of that.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Sawada Tsunayoshi can barely feel his lungs as his feet pound into the ground, his short legs taking too long leaps for their length, but it doesn't matter to Tsuna. All that matters right now is that he gets to him.It's one of those examples of a mother that gets the strength to lift a car that’s trapped their child when you consider how Tsuna’s stick legs got him this far.Tsuna stops even though he’s so close because the front gate is crowded with reporters, to the point that Tsuna can barely see the school building through the cracks between people.Tsuna throws his hands to his front pockets, then his back, and then around his whole body until he finds his phone in the side pocket of his cargo pants, trembling hands rushing to unlock it. Before Tsuna can even turn the dang thing on, a hand comes to his shoulder and Tsuna doesn’t jump ten feet into the air, thank you very much.“Are you a parent?” an unphased gruff voice asks, somewhat muffled for a reason that Tsuna can’t quite place from just hearing it.Tsuna whirls around immediately, trying to meet covered eyes, but he unintentionally focuses on the ridiculous over-the-top mask on the man’s face, “Yes! Err, no! Kinda?” he stutters through his words, “I'm a guardian! My ward is a student here! Class 3-A!”The man, a hero - Tsuna briefly realizes, turns on his heel, his cloak flying out behind him, “Follow me.” Tsuna swears he hears the snide whisper of “civilians”, but he isn’t so sure to call him out on it. The hero leads him to a side entrance at a pace that is too slow for Tsuna's liking but he doesn't say anything to rush the hero. Tsuna, rather, decides to ask, “Can I ask what happened?” It's a rather harmless question compared to the first thought of "can you go any slower?"The hero doesn’t even bother to turn back to reply, “There will be an official report later. We have the situation under control. We just ask that you pick up your… ward and go.”Tsuna frowns, hating how standoffish and rude the hero is but knows that this isn’t the place or time. Everything inside Tsuna jitters with impatience.The crowd at the side entrance is smaller in comparison to the crowd of reporters and is constantly moving with people who are coming and going. The school’s pro-heroes seemed to have set up some kind of temporary area for family to pick up their children. There are groups of students and adults with their children holding up tablets to seemingly sign them out. The hero stops right at the entrance and picks up a tablet from a table, and briefly Tsuna wonders just how much money the school has to have all these tablets, but the hero’s gruff voice jolts him out of his thoughts, “The name of the student?”Tsuna almost shouts the name, “Bovino Lambo! Class 3-A!”The hero stops and immediately snaps his head up, “You’re… Bovino’s guardian?”Tsuna almost wants to laugh at the irony of that but nods, “Yes! Is he okay?” he ignores it because his anxiety is through the roof.The hero nods almost flustered under all the layers and covers his costume gives him, “No, no, he’s completely fine. I’ll just have someone get him-”“Tsuna-nii!”Tsuna immediately throws open his arms and wraps his arms around a lanky form that smells of grapes, “Lambo,” Tsuna practically whimpers. His knees grow weak in relief and Lambo is gently setting the both of them onto the ground. Tsuna pulls back just enough so he can cradle Lambo’s face in his hands, “Lambo, I was so worried. Are you okay- what happened? Do we need to call-”?“I’m fine Tsuna-nii,” Lambo says, his voice warm, putting his hands over Tsuna’s, “It wasn’t even my class and I was at the main campus. My classmates and I were sent out to watch the other classes with the civilian teachers when the heroes got the news. I’m completely fine.”Tsuna finally feels like he’s breathing and presses his forehead against Lambo’s heart, “Oh thank god.”“Aa, if it isn’t Tsuna-san making a scene in the middle of the sidewalk.”Tsuna looks up frantically and see the eyes of students, adults, heroes, and police that watch him and Lambo; his face flushed red, “Iieee!” he yelps and jumps up.Lambo sighs and pulls himself up to stand at Tsuna’s side - and that is so, so, reassuring -, “Fran, what are you doing here?” he calls out to his childhood friend.Tsuna turns on his heel to see the apathetic, teal-haired, young adult wearing a hoodie and jeans standing there with a bored expression, “Fran! Are you doing okay too?” He immediately rushes to the man who is, sadly, just a bit taller than him and checks the thin man all over, “Has Rokudo-san been contacted? Do you need me to take you home?” Fran lazily just lets Tsuna fuss over him, knowing better than to resist as it’s much faster to go along with Tsuna when he’s like this, “I’m fine. Power Loader wouldn’t even let me get out of the class. Chrome-nee-san is here so I’ll be going home with her once everything is settled.” Before Tsuna could even open his mouth, Fran continued, “And Chrome-nee-san is perfectly fine.”Tsuna manages a small smile, “I’m glad. I don’t know what I would have done if you two were injured.” And that’s the complete truth - Tsuna would have been lost if his younger brother and Lambo’s childhood friend, that he’s been acquainted with since he was a child, were gone. “Bovino, you ran off before you could finish your sign out sheet,” a voice calls out from behind Tsuna, “What happened?”Lambo lets out a sheepish chuckle as he turns on his heel, “Sorry Midnight-sensei, my brother came to pick me up.”Tsuna turns and briefly takes in the 18+ hero before he reels back to gape at Lambo, “You thought I wouldn’t come to pick you up?” he asks horrified.Lambo shrugs, avoiding his gaze, “Well I knew you had work and you weren’t answering your phone so I just kinda assumed…” he trails off, his voice growing weaker, knowing how weak that excuse is.Tsuna grabs at his brother’s upper arms, “Lambo, you are more important than my work. As soon as Chieko-san showed me the news I just ran out without thinking. I’m sorry that I didn’t answer my phone, but you have to know that I’m always going to be here for you.”A hand lands on his shoulder and a woman lets out a low laugh, “Wise words from a caring man. It’s a shame I’m not exactly into that.” Shivers goes down his spine, standing frozen, as lips come close to his ear, “Such a sweet brotherly love,” hot air brushes the shell of his ear.Tsuna is pulled away as his heart beats out of his chest and his face flushes a complete red. “Midnight-sensei, what the hell?” Lambo shouts for his defense as he stands between his teacher and his brother.Midnight just licks her lips and winks, “Calm down Bovino, it’s just a little bit of teasing.”Fran’s deadpan voice cuts through Midnight’s and Lambo’s bickering, “It’s impossible to me that she has never been arrested for harassment.”Tsuna’s blood is still rushing in his ears but the hole in his stomach is no longer there. And that’s all that matters. “Yuuei Academy’s first year hero class, Class 1-A, was attacked at the school’s Unforeseen Simulation Joint, or USJ for short, by a group calling themselves the League of Villains-” “-hero students at Yuuei were saved by the Vongola!” “-the police are saying little on the matter-” “-luckily not many were harmed. The two teachers were easily treated by Pro Hero Recovery Girl and the only student injured sustained a broken finger.” “Can you believe this school? How lax does the security have to be to allow villains in-?” “The name of students involved are not being released to the public and the press is being pushed away before they can even come close to Yuuei!” “-people are asking how the Vongola knew about the League-” “Those two are alright right?” Haru asks with her hands on her hips, “Didn’t do anything stupid hahi?” I-Pin, who had been pacing the entire shop and had been so distressed that she wasn’t allowed to work for the afternoon, finally lets out a long sigh, “Yeah. They finally responded to our chat. Tsuna-san picked up Lambo and Chrome-san and Fran will be going home together once Yuuei clears out.” She runs a hand through her hair, “What did we expect though? Fran and Lambo are always the one who make Futa and I lose years off our life.”“Haha, you make it sound like you don’t do the same to Futa-kun sometimes.” Yamamoto doesn’t stop laughing even at I-Pin’s sharp glare and Haru’s telling look. “You seriously never know when to shut up, do you?” Hana drawls as she primly shoves a piece of nigiri into her mouth. She points her chopsticks at I-Pin after she swallows, “But from the stories I’ve heard, he seems to have a point.”I-Pin blushes a bright pink. “They’re very persuasive when they want to be,” she says weakly in her defense, like a child who was caught with their hand in the cookie jar. Hana hands Haru’s phone back to her, her eyes lingering on the picture of Yuuei Academy in the article before she turns back to the sushi in front of her, “You four are childhood friends, right?”I-Pin brightens up immediately, “Yeah! Ever since Lambo and I were five. But it kinda feels like we’re still kids even though half of us are full-fledged adults.” And isn’t that the truth. This time next year, Lambo will be a pro-hero and I-Pin will, hopefully, be in the roster for nationals. They’ll be on their own soon. Haru giggles at that, “Kyoko, Hana, Chrome, and I felt the same way when we graduated University.” She remembers flashes of the days when they used to room together for the four years of their schooling. I-Pin seems to perk up at that, her expression as curious but no one in their little groups gets to say anything. “Yamamoto-kun, do you mind turning the news on?” a voice calls across the nearly empty shop, “I think channel 5 is doing an update on Yuuei right now!” It’s a customer and the three workers at Takesushi turn at the call. He’s a regular that is known for getting somewhat rowdy when he’s downed a couple drinks but always leaves with a cordial promise to come back when asked to leave. “Yuuei?” another customer asks from a different table with a furrowed brow, “Did something happen at Yuuei?” This customer isn’t quite as familiar but Haru swears she’s seen the exact assemble of a Best Jeanist jean jacket and Gang Orca t-shirt underneath on this woman. The regular barks out loud, “Haven’t you seen the news? Yuuei was attacked by some kinda gang of villains! Yuuei is being awfully quiet about it - probably don’t have an excuse for the way they put those kids into danger.” He’s the typical middle-aged man that doesn’t makes his own opinions and is too lazy to actually look into issues; he just takes news at its face value and believes.Murmurs start across the shop and I-Pin’s face is pinched in distress. I-Pin may not go to Yuuei, but she’s heard a lot about it from Lambo and Fran to know that the teachers and heroes there are dedicated to their students. This is an isolated incident, she’s sure of that even though the two idiots haven’t exactly said anything to her. Just as I-Pin’s about to open her mouth and start a shouting match (she’s justified alright? She just spent hours stressing about if her two best friends were injured or even dead) Hana sets her empty tea cup down loud enough to silence the shop. The customers are stunned into silence as Hana’s attention-grabbing voice speaks, “Actually, Yuuei isn’t allowed to make a statement immediately because of the involvement of minors. A couple years back there was an incident at a school that wasn’t quite on this scale but after the school made too quick of a statement parents began to sue the school for releasing information about their children without their permission just because they wanted to save face.” Hana doesn’t even turn her head as she gestures for Haru to pour more tea into her cup, “Yuuei is legally not allowed to say anything without getting the facts straight with their students, the witnesses, the police, and the guardians of the students involved unless they want to face repercussions.” She gives the regular a sharp look, “Educate yourself before making wild assumptions.”The regular sputters but Hana just turns back and puts another piece of sushi into her mouth.Haru giggles quietly as she rubs shoulders with Hana, “Did you not get enough sleep last night?” At Hana’s dead look she knows she’s a hundred percent right. “Did you get that case settled?” Yamamoto finally speaks up again, in a low voice that can’t be heard over the jeers the customers are making at each other and the gossip of Yuuei.Hana’s dull eyes become focused and she frowns, “Uncharacteristic of you to actually act like a monkey.”Yamamoto laughs, “What are you talking about? You were complaining about a difficult case last time you were here right?”Hana eyes flicker to the smile on the man’s face before looking into his eyes, “Don’t be stupid.”“It’s hard to break bad habits you know,” Yamamoto says with mirth, “I never was very good at school.”The two don’t look away from each other, one smiling and the other glowering. I-Pin takes the liberty to interject, changing the subject, “Yeah, when I ask Takeshi-nii for help with my homework he just says something like, ‘well you do whoosh! Boom! And bam!’” She crosses her arms across her chest, “It’s annoying.”Haru brightens up, “I would love to help you with your homework if you want me to!”I-Pin sticks her tongue out, “And have to learn from a genius that already knows the answer just from glancing at it? No way! I’d never learn anything. Geniuses are the worst teachers.”Haru gasps dramatically, “Hahi? Excuse you, I am a great teacher! Hana-chan, tell her!”Before Haru can entirely drag Hana’s attention away, Hana sends one last look at Yamamoto with a promise.This isn’t over.But Yamamoto just laughs that carefree laugh.
A League of Villains Attacking Yuuei
Written by: Sasagawa KyokoAccording to the Musutafu Police Department, at approximately 2:22 PM earlier today, a large group of villains infiltrated the top hero academy in the nation: Yuuei Academy. While twenty students of Yuuei’s hero course were training in their training facility known as the Unforeseen Simulation Joint (USJ), more than 200 villains infiltrated the USJ and attacked them and the two accompanying pro-hero teachers: Eraserhead and Thirteen. The police are saying nothing about why the villains infiltrated the USJ but has a released a statement stating that Eraserhead and Thirteen were healed by Pro-Hero Recovery Girl. The only student that was injured was quickly treated for their broken finger. The police went on to say that the students’ names would not be released to the public and cannot be asked to make a public statement.However, there have been rumors floating around that the infamous Vigilante group, the Vongola, were at the scene and protected the students from the villains. While it is unclear where the rumor stemmed from, there is reason to believe that it may be true. The students that were attacked are in their first year, meaning that they do not have much fighting experience but the police, in their statement, reported that they arrested most of the villains. Not to discount the hero hopefuls’ abilities, but it’s highly unlikely the students were able to fend off the villains until their teachers arrived.Reporters are being asked to leave school grounds as there will be an official statement from Yuuei’s principal later this evening. After the incident, students’ parents or guardians were asked to pick up their children regardless of year and course. Those parents and guardians who were otherwise occupied or too far away were escorted by sidekicks to their homes. Check back here after Yuuei’s statement for more updates. Incident T#483Date: XX/XX/XXXXHero License #: 181Z26A5291Hero Name: EraserheadIncident: While at the USJ (Unforeseen Simulation Joint) at Yuuei Academy, the class of 1-A and Pro-Hero Thirteen and I were attacked by villains. They seemed to be after All Might - claiming to have only come for All Might. They expressed the interest in killing All Might and when they found out All Might was not here, they tried to use the students as an example to intimidate All Might. Communications went down and as such we were unable to call for backup. I engaged while Thirteen was tasked to protect the students. However, the students got scattered by a warp quirk, scattering them across the USJ. It seemed to be a luring tactic to get All Might to the USJ. While I engaged most of the villains, a villain by the name of Shigaraki Tomura used his disintegration quirk to disintegrate my elbow and he command the creature, (Unknown Element #: 1415U169441) Noumu, to attack me. The vigilante known as Giotto, from the Vongola, appeared to seemingly protect me. Called out to his comrades in the Vongola and they answered to confirm that all the students and Thirteen were relatively safe. Giotto froze and had Asari kill the Noumu and only escaped when the villains leave after other Pro-Heroes arrived. Giotto claims he came because he “heard the cries of children being targeted and had him and his group jump in” the fray. Giotto made it very clear that the Vongola would not stand with The League of Villains. Tsukauchi Naomasa is frustrated. The main reason why he is frustrated is because the media is right. The police really don’t know a lot. All the students were questioned at the school after the students had calmed down. Most of the students saw what happened in the USJ from start to finish - with their own different points of view, of course. Iida Tenya was the one who ran to get backup and Mineta Minoru passed out early on; therefore, they did not see a lot of the action. Each of the students within the USJ were with members of the Vongola and claimed to have been saved or aided by the vigilantes. Except for Kirishima Eijirou, Bakugou Katsuki, and Aoyama Yuuga who were trapped in what they believed to be an illusion conjured by Daemon. Though Naomasa supposes that that’s Daemon’s own way of “saving” someone. Eighteen of the students and Aizawa Shouta had seen Giotto’s encounter with the League. The students were either all herded to the entrance of the USJ by the Vongola, escaped there themselves, or were shown what happened through an illusion.So many eye witness accounts yet nothing. They weren’t any closer on Shigaraki, the Noumu, Kurogiri, the League, or the Vongola.It’s frustrating.It’s frustrating that Naomasa has to come to him for advice.Rokudo Mukuro is a piece of shit on a good day. A good day. Today is not a good day.Mukuro has his feet up on his desk and his fingers loosely laced together in his lap, “And how can I help you today, Detective?” He says “detective” like it’s a curse and with emphasis to make it seem like he’s capitalizing the word.Naomasa wishes he could find something wrong with Mukuro’s investigations but he’s always clean. Somehow, even with the suspicion that Mukuro is somehow involved in something illegal, he’s always telling the truth. Sometimes, Naomasa believes that Mukuro is just a stubborn asshole. But Naomasa always listens to his gut and his gut hates Mukuro. Hates Mukuro for a reason he can’t place. Naomasa puts his hat down on the table, “I need all the information you have on the League of Villains and the Vongola.” The best thing to do with Mukuro is be direct as possible. Mukuro quirks a delicate brow and swings his feet off the desk, “I’m not an info broker, detective. I’m a private investigator. Most days I catch cheating spouses and find missing people. I barely interact with villains.”Naomasa sighs, “You heard about the attack at Yuuei and, to be frank, we’re severely lacking information.” His voice drops to below a whisper, “Mukuro, I know that whatever you actually do isn’t exactly clean,” and he does, he just doesn’t have proof, “but I need this information.” And he does, for his friend who was targeted, for the students that were attacked, for the future safety of his country. Mukuro is uncharacteristically silent as Naomasa bows his head, “Children were attacked Mukuro. It was a class with two capable pro heroes and I know for a fact that your ward is working as an assistant to Power Loader. Who’s to say that the League won’t attack Yuuei again?” Naomasa is playing dirty, and he feels a deep shame inside because of it, but he doesn’t have a choice. He needs more pieces to this puzzle. Mukuro doesn’t say a word but he fiddles with something on his desk, the object tapping against the wood rhythmically as he finally begins to speak. “You and I both know I’m not stupid enough to not realize why the League attacked Yuuei and I know that Fran can handle himself enough to escape. I wasn’t interested before, Detective, but now?” Naomasa’s head goes up just in time to see the wicked grin that comes to his face, “now I am.”Mukuro is piece of shit on a good day.On bad days? Mukuro is absolute scum. “What have the police figured out?”The man’s eyebrow, from across the way from Kusakabe, twitches but no violent movement or threat follows. Kusakabe honestly considers that a win. “Nothing,” is Kusakabe’s blunt reply. “They’re hopeless when it comes to discovering anything about the League and the Vongola. We’re not going to get information from them besides the fact that the League was after All Might.” Kusakabe is kneeling in the shadows of Kyou-san’s dark tea room, and it's absolutely not dark because Kyou-san had just woken up from a nap before their guest had arrived. Kusakabe turns his head to his left and speaks, “What do we know about the League?”The first voice speaks up, gruff but still somehow warm, “Ultimately nothing substantial. There’s someone with a warp quirk and a disintegration quirk and they have access to these big monster-like things that have quirks. Besides their goal of killing All Might, we don’t know much. They’re causing a ruckus in the underground, but most are laughing at their attempt.”Kusakabe sighs quietly as his hand comes up his face, “I don’t know if I should be impressed or disgusted that your use of “ultimate” worked in a real sentence.”Ryohei laughs from his gut, “It’s an ultimate word for any ultimate situation.”A quiet, but not hidden, scoff comes from the side of the room that Hibari occupies but both men don’t acknowledge it. It’s not the time and one out of the two of them values their life. “What of Yuuei?" Kusakabe asks as he kneels close to the door leading to the hallway with his head bowed, "Their keeping their mouths rather shut," Kusakabe's eyes flicker across the dark room.Hibari growls ever so slightly, "Trying to get anything about that herbivorous school is like pulling teeth." He bares his teeth in disgust. It’s the first he’s spoken since Ryohei’s arrival.Kusakabe knows it’s best to cut Hibari off when he’s ahead, "Is there anything significant that the heroes are saying?" he asks Ryohei to change the subject.Ryohei shakes his head, unknowing to what Kusakabe is trying to do, "Ultimately, it’s the same thing as we’ve always heard. Even though a lot of them have been told about the real events at Yuuei; people aren’t changing their opinions of the Vongola." Ryohei frowns, “It’s just causing a real stir in our neighborhood. I ultimately wish that this would all settle down.”"Our group will continue our investigation into the League of Villains and All For One," Kusakabe says after a long moment of silence. "I will be sure to inform you of something as soon as it arises."Before Ryohei can say a word in response, Hibari stands up and he’s out of the room, letting the sunlight stream into the room.Ryohei chuckles at the distressed look on Kusakabe’s face, “Maa, it’s fine Tetsuya, I’m depending on you to back me up when things go bad around here!”Kusakabe sighs tiredly, “Ryohei, how many times do I have to tell you that we’re licensed and allowed to use our quirks and abilities to protect people and that you aren’t?”Ryohei just laughs heartily and Kusakabe knows that getting through to his friend is useless. There's a woman standing in front of the class when they enter with Aizawa next to her. They quickly shuffle to their seats when Aizawa doesn't turn to acknowledge them and when the woman sends them a smile.The woman is short, definitely shorter than Aizawa, probably around Midoriya's height. She has her violet hair in a tight bun on her head with two decorative needles sticking out of them. She wears a smart black blazer and pencil skirt, along with a white blouse. Her feet have plain black flats and her legs are covered in a black stocking. She wears a white eyepatch over her left eye and there's a soft smile on her face and a bright twinkle in her purple eye as she waves, “Hello.”The class mostly remains silent, unsure of how to respond, but a few respond politely.“Listen up,” Aizawa says, “I'm not going to say this twice. This is Dokuro Chrome, the school mental health counselor.”The class stare at their slightly bandaged teacher as he just stops, asking with their eyes if that's all he has to say on the subject.Dokuro, thankfully, steps up, “Thank you Eraserhead. Like Eraserhead said, I'm Dokuro Chrome but Chrome-sensei is just fine with me,” her voice is soft and almost fragile but it's warm and comforting as a small smile comes to her face. “Normally we would have been introduced at the school opening ceremony but a certain someone refuses to attend every year,” the woman bravely meets Aizawa's pointed glare for a second with a serene smile before moving on. “I am Yuuei's mental health counselor. That means I'm here from everything to friend problems, home problems, school work stress, relationship problems, and even traumatic villain situations.”The realization of why Chrome is at the front of their class hits.Chrome smiles, maybe seeing how their faces changed in response to their realization, “While I may not be a pro hero or inspiring to be one anytime soon, I know what a villain attack can be like. Especially when everything seemed so peaceful and normal and then everything changes in a second. So, if anyone would like to talk, I am here before school, during school, and after school from six A.M. to five P.M. If you ever need me, feel free to drop by my office near the teacher's lounge or make an appointment through my email.” She promptly turns and writes her email on the top corner of the board before turning back around, “Normally, I don't go to visit the hero course students well into their second year but unfortunately, your class has been subjected to something terrible.”Her eye narrows, and she suddenly seems very serious as she looks out into the class. She doesn’t seem so meek or easily influenced anymore. She stands firm, like an anchored rock, “You all did well in that situation. Standing in the face of villains and coming out relatively okay with minimal casualties is admirable. The fact that you're still sitting here, more determined to be a hero than ever says a lot.” She smiles, “I can't wait to see what the future holds for all of you.”And like that, Chrome is gone, the only trace of her the smell of violets and her email on the board.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“That was such a drag,” a voice complains, words muffled as the speaker talks into the couch he is lying in, “Did I really have to shadow those kids for
two whole days
just to figure them out?”
“Romeo,” a gentle, yet stern, voice prompts, “the information?”
Romeo lifts his head and stares into the orange painted mask, trying to decipher the expression behind it by just looking into his leader’s eyes. He rolls his eyes and lifts himself up into a sitting position, one arm slung over the leather couch and the other reaching up to the back of his ear. He uses a dull fingernail to gently peel off the corner of a sticker that had seamlessly melded to his skin and pulls it off with a grunt. “Here,” he says as he holds it out between his pointer finger and thumb, “It should all be there.”
A hand ruffles his dark spikes and Romeo slaps the hand away with a scowl. Giotto has the gall to just chuckle and move on, “G, if you will?” The gloved hands hold out the small object to the silver haired man. G silently takes the object and places it on the large table with a screen at the center of the room. Immediately the screen comes to life and the beginnings of a hologram appear in the space above the table. G’s ring clad hands type against the table and images and words manifest before their very eyes.
“Kufufu, now why were you so interested in these ducklings little Vongola?” Daemon slyly asks as he slides out of the shadows of the room to drape his arm against Giotto’s waist.
Giotto barely bats an eye as G raises a glock to Daemon’s head in warning, even as G still types with the other hand, speaking over the amused chuckle Daemon lets out as Daemon wisely pulls away from him, “My intuition was speaking to me.” Giotto head tilts, “You know what happens when I ignore it.”
“I think it’s interesting enough that Eraser didn’t expel any of ‘em,” Asari says good-naturedly, “He’s got a funny reputation y’know.”
“Well there is that,” Giotto agrees with a nod, raising a hand to scroll through the information as soon as G takes a step back, “With the information Spade gathered, we should know more than enough about these kids.”
Daemon lets out a low whistle, watching Giotto go through the faces without mercy - only taking a quick glance before continuing on, “Wasn’t that Endeavor’s youngest? Are you sure your intuition isn’t hinting that we take the little Todoroki for our own?”
Giotto stops his movements, the hologram stopped at a masked teen, and turns his head back to Daemon for a silent moment before turning back.
Daemon chuckles at the reaction but knows better than to speak up again.
“Extreme! He wants to be a hero even though he gets stomach aches from using his quirk!” Knuckle shouts excitedly as he stares at a blonde student smiling frivolously at the camera in his picture.
G scoffs, crossing his arms as he stands at the table’s terminal, “It’s foolish what it is. He’s going to get him or someone else killed if he continues like this.”
“Though,” Spade interrupts as she walks closer to the table, “he has a support weapon that allows him to control his quirk better. You never know.”
G glares at Spade, as Knuckle shouts in excitement about an extreme hero-to-be, for setting the white-haired man off as the final member of the room finally speaks.
“We’re here because you’re interested in an herbivore, omnivore,” Alaude growls as he steps forward, standing on his own side of the table, “Identify them.”
Just as Giotto gets to the end of the list of students he stops and blows the profile up.
“This is him?” Asari asks, his voice losing the humor it usually has.
At Giotto’s nod, Daemon snickers as he comments, “He’s rather scrawny for his age, isn’t he?”
“No.” Heads turn to Knuckle at his serious tone, watching as his eyes scan over the teen in the picture, “The oversized clothes hides it extremely well but there’s strength behind him.” Knuckle’s eyes shine with quiet excitement, “He’s worked hard to get to the point he’s at.”
“He’s right,” Spade agrees, her fingers playing idly with the end of her braid, “He’s the boy who destroyed the zero-pointer robot at the entrance exam with a single move.”
For a moment, the remaining members of the room are impressed.
“If I remember correctly, he’s also the kid that destroyed both his legs and an arm doing that,” Romeo calls out from his spot on the couch, his head bent backwards over the back of the couch so his Adam’s apple is on full display, “He also broke his pointer finger the first day I was watching them and got completely battered by his so-called childhood friend the next.”
Daemon, Knuckle, and Asari burst out into their own unique laughs as Giotto silently reads over the profile.
“Midoriya Izuku,” G reads quietly, “Living with his mother alone because his father works overseas… fifteen years old… that’s strange. It says here he only recently registered his quirk.”
Spade leans forward to read the information better, “Do you think he’s a late-bloomer?”
Giotto immediately shakes his head at her question but doesn’t say a word to explain himself.
“Omnivore, is this herbivore going to evolve one day?”
Giotto takes in the oddly phrased question that leaves Alaude’s mouth before turning and meeting Alaude’s gaze dead on.
“Yes.”
They aren't allowed to go home but the parents and guardians that are able to come are let into the staff room they're being confined in. Ah- guarded in. Uraraka Ochako sits with Shouji Mezou on the couch, not exactly talking but just enjoying each other's company while they're alone.
Ochako isn't exactly
sad
when she sees a woman who looks exactly like Deku burst into tears as soon as she sees him. Or when she sees the way a soft-spoken man with glasses easily coaxes Bakugou's anger. But she wishes her parents were here.
A blanket is thrown over her shoulders at the same time a hand holds out a plastic cup of something sweet under her nose. She blinks and follows the hands that slowly withdraw from her personal space, once she has a firm grip on the cup, to see the corners of Shouji's eyes crinkle kindly, "Are you doing okay?"
Ochako feels like crying just from the kindness Shouji is showing her despite not having exchanged many words to each other, but pushes those emotions into a smile, “Yes, thank you Shouji-kun.”
Shouji silently lifts six thumbs up and she can’t stifle the laugh that goes past her lips.
“Uh, Uraraka-san,” Shouji’s deep voice rumbles out in her fit of laughter, “The hot cocoa.”
Ochako is absolutely mortified as the cup is slowly starting to float up to her face and puts her fingers together, “Release!”
Except so many things had happened in just the past hour that she’d forgotten that the second she released the hot cup of cocoa, it would get all over her.
Luckily, Shouji, as she’s now learning, has quick reflexes and is surprisingly fast for his stature and catches it in an outstretched hand. They stare at the cup for a moment of silence before they explode into a fit of giggles.
“Sorry!” she gets out as soon as she catches her breathe, “I didn’t think-!”
Shouji just forms a mouth and gives her a big grin, “No, I think I needed that.”
Ochako takes the hot cocoa again and sets it on the coffee table in front of them as they descend into silence again.
“Everyone’s family members are so distinctive, don’t you agree?” Shouji prompts the second the silence starts to border on awkward.
Ochako brightens immediately because she had been people watching the second their classmate’s families had started to pile in half an hour ago, “Yeah!” She starts to count on her fingers, “Tsuyu-chan’s family, Kouda-kun’s family, Tokoyami-kun’s family, and Ojiro-kun’s family were really distinctively similar to them all!” And it’s true.
Asui Tsuyu’s frog-like father had come in with a tadpole-like girl carried at his hip fussing over his oldest daughter while the six-year-old cried out for her older sister.
Kouda Kouji’s rock-like mother with a flattering afro of bright yellow locks had come in her apron practically in tears and had yet to let go of her son. Never mind that she was one of the first to arrive.
Tokoyami Fumikage’s dove headed mother and pheasant headed father had made a bee-line for their son and were still preening him.
Ojiro Mashirao’s older brother had walked with scorpion-like tail and their tails were still wrapped together.
Shouji nods, “And while some are a little hard to match, you can see some similar traits.” He secretly points his fingers in several directions, making Ochako swivel her head to look around the room.
A beautiful looking college student is helping her little brother, Kaminari Denki by charging him up with electricity from her own quirk and Ochako finally sees her classmate coming around.
A golden-haired man with a rocker vibe is fussing over Jirou Kyouka and despite how put off she looks, she doesn’t do much to push him away.
A broad shouldered and tall woman built like a mountain holds Satou Rikidou close with ease and shoves what looks like homemade sweets into his mouth every time he opens it.
Another young woman shares an identical smile with Sero Hanta as she ruffles his hair and pulls stickers out of seemingly nowhere to put on his hero costume.
A man with shark-like teeth had practically run through the door of the staff room, breaking the corner of it, trying to get to Kirishima Eijirou who begged his father to relax his quirk.
And perhaps the strangest family were the two purple headed tall lanky couple who had scooped up a still unconscious Mineta Minoru.
Ochako muffles her giggles and turns back to Shouji, “Did you see who came for Aoyama-kun and Yaoyorozu-chan?” She can’t help the drool that leaks from the corner of her mouth, “They were like Kings and Queens!”
And Aoyama Yuuga’s French father had looked like an elegant prince, somehow dazzling the room despite the regular looking suit he wore and had ignored the looks he had gotten when he burst in.
Meanwhile Yaoyorozu Momo’s mother had walked in with the true ease and elegance of a queen and had shed the elegant tears of queen when she saw her daughter splattered with blood.
Ochako notices the wince on Shouji’s face after they had remembered the same thing and Shouji is quick to change the subject, “I was more surprised to see Hagakure-san’s and Ashido-san’s moms.”
Hagakure Tohru’s mother had shocked everyone the second she walked in because of her constantly changing face but Hagakure had barely batted an eye and launched herself at her.
Ashido Mina had just laughed when her mother scooped her up and said that her constantly changing colors of her skin was giving her mood away.
Ochako nods in agreement, “I was also surprised when Ingenium had come for Iida-kun but…” she trails off when she sees a woman with white hair flecked with red standing next to Todoroki Shouto.
Shouji’s speaks but Ochako doesn’t turn her gaze we, “I guess we shouldn’t have expected the same from Endeavor.”
Somehow that doesn’t settle well in Ochako’s stomach.
And Aizawa-sensei is right, this whole class needs to work on their awareness.
A man wearing a trench coat enters the room and smiles kindly, “Let’s get started then?”
The room immediately fills with tension and one of Shouji’s mouths whispers into her ear, “All the paperwork must have gone through.”
Ochako’s stomach tightens but she sends Shouji a weak smile, “At least we’re going in groups?”
Shouji doesn’t get a chance to reply as the man calls out, “Officer Sansa will be taking statements first from-”
“...after G was done with dealing with the villains, he led us through the USJ, taking down villains as he went with his gun or explosives. It didn’t take us very long to get there but at that point most of the rest of the class was there and we had caught the tail end of Giotto and that creature’s showdown. After that the teacher’s arrived and the Vongola disappeared into a burst of indigo flames like a magic show.”
Todoroki
Shouto
is more than happy to let
Hagakure
speak while he sits silently at her side. He
had
only opened his mouth once to state his name when prompted. Hagakure, despite her cheery voice and air headed demeanor, had spoken the truth with excruciating detail - making
Shouto
question his first impression of the invisible girl.
She had seemed ditzy and carefree but went through how Shouto had barely the chance to lift a finger to attack the aggressive villains when G had burst in with explosions and explained how she had been the one to explain the situation to Shouto in his confusion. But despite her near ten minute debrief, even listing some of the villains’ quirks she had seen, her debrief was far from perfect.
The cat headed officer nod
s
, “I see,” he wr
i
te
s
in his notebook for a moment before looking up, “Did you interact with G at all?”
It took his years of practice for Shouto to not tense up. This was it. Hagakure was going to out everything he said to G. And once his father got wind of it not even he would be safe.
“Oh yeah!” Hagakure yips excitedly.
Shouto feels cold settle in his heart.
“A female villain was egging G on about how they were the same and how G was being a bad example for us heroes-in-training! Which, is kinda like a ‘duh’ moment you know? Like he’s a vigilante, he’s outside the law for a reason!” Shouto, at this point, wants Hagakure to get it over and done with. There’s no need to drag out the inevitable. “And then G was like ‘you two wait outside and I’ll take you to your friends’ or something like that! That was the only time he spoke to us directly and on our better judgement, from what we had heard him talking about and his actions, we decided to listen and wait outside hidden in the shadows. We barely even met his eyes as we walked out. I guess if that’s what you call an interaction, that was it.”
If Shouto was a lesser person, he would have whirled on Hagakure with wide eyes. Instead, when the cat headed officer turns his gaze to him and asks, “Anything to add?” he just shakes his head and their ‘interview’ is over.
They’re walking back to their classroom together, Hagakure with a slight skip in her step, and Shouto trailing behind a step or two.
It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t. He’s a hero-in-training who sympathizes with a vigilante -
a criminal
. He’s said that a
vigilante
is better than his father:
The Number 2
Hero. It’s implied that Shouto would go outside the law to do what he believed was right.
It. Doesn’t. Make. Sense.
But Shouto can’t will his mouth to open.
“Are you wondering why I didn’t say anything?”
Shouto stops in his tracks and watches as Hagakure childishly turns on her toes like a ballerina, he can imagine a ghost of a smile that is surely on her invisible face.
Even without a response, though maybe just reacting to her words is response enough, she continues, “You know it’s kinda hard to tell if someone is lying if you can’t physically see them and you’re pretty stoic yourself, so I took the chance. It’s not exactly my business you know? And you didn’t really seem fond at the idea of me mentioning that to the officer.”
Shouto’s mouth is dry.
“For what it’s worth, Todoroki-kun, your secret is safe with me. Everyone has their own story and it's not my business to tell it.” Her voice loses its cheer, “Everyone has something they want to hide.”
The hall is silent after her last words and then there’s the sound of footsteps coming towards them.
“There you two are,” Present Mic’s voice hardly reaches Shouto’s ear and he doesn’t react to the arms that wrap around his elbow and pulls him forward.
He just stares at the back of the invisible girl’s head and wonders.
“There’s no shame in asking for help.”
Most of the class jolts. Most had been lost in thought, their eyes following the purple haired woman that had to be far gone by now. Most had forgotten that they were technically in homeroom right now.
Aizawa somehow still seems stern despite the apathetic way he speaks. “Being a hero isn’t easy. Your lives will be endangered, like it was two days ago, every day if you continue with this career. You become used to the fear that your friends may not be okay when on the job. Everyday there’s a chance that you or someone you know isn’t going to make it. It’s not a job for everyone.” No one in the class is looking up at their teacher, their eyes pointed downwards or up or to the side because it feels so fresh - and it is. “But if I didn’t think you were capable, I would have kicked you out on the first day. I don’t teach those without potential. That’d just be another nonsensical death.”
Eyes immediately turn to the underground hero - wide. Aizawa isn’t exactly the sentimental type; the class knows that. There’s a bet going around that his lack of emotion is another kickback to Aizawa’s quirk - along with dry eyes. But here he is, saying stuff they expect to hear from Present Mic despite said hero’s silliness.
“Being a hero doesn’t change the fact that you’re human. If you need to talk about it, talk about it. Dokuro has helped some of the greatest students that have graduated Yuuei to become heroes in the past five years she’s been here. You can trust her.”
There’s a still pause in the room at Aizawa’s last statement but Aizawa doesn’t seem to think anything of it.
“Anyways, we’ll be starting preparations for the Yuuei sports festival-”
“WHAT!”
Asui Tsuyu fiddles with her fingers and rolls her tongue around in her mouth in nervousness. She nearly ties her tongue in a knot before she stops and does the motion again. It’s been her nervous tick since a child and not many notice it because she does it in her mouth. Somehow though, Tsuyu almost laughs at the thought, her mother figures her out every time. Maybe that’s what being a mother means.
Tsuyu shakes her head and focuses herself again, determination sparking within her and she forces her knuckles to rap against the foreboding door. Was it always foreboding? Or does it just seem foreboding now?
For a moment there’s nothing and Tsuyu wonders if all this anxiety was for nothing but eventually Tsuyu can make out the faint sound of a chair creaking and footsteps coming towards the door. The large door opens, and she’s hit with the smell of lavender.
“Hello,” the kind voice greets, “It’s nice to meet you formally Asui-san, come on in.”
Tsuyu smiles a wobbly smile back at the gentle smile, “Thank you, Chrome-sensei.”
The office that Tsuyu steps into is covered in shades of purple and blue. Potted flowers line the windowsill on the right side and right next to it is a horizontal bookshelf with a coffee machine, water kettle, and plenty of candy resting on top of it. The far side of the room has a desk with a large office chair and on the other side of the desk two comfortable looking plush chairs. The middle of the room, however, has a giant fluffy carpet and two big bean bag chairs that could easily fit three people each. There are no tacky posters about mental health or educational puns, instead there’s some incredible Japanese calligraphy that looks handwritten.
Chrome closes the door behind Tsuyu and immediately heads for the little refreshment station she has set up, “Would you like something to drink Asui-san? I have tea, coffee, water, and juice if you’d like.”
Tsuyu ribbits a little, feeling awkward just standing a couple feet from the entrance, “Tea is fine, thank you.”
Chrome turns and pours water from a water purifier into the electric kettle, “Take a seat while I finish this up, you can sit anywhere you’d like.”
Tsuyu pauses, “Anywhere?” she repeats.
Chrome lets out a giggle at that and Tsuyu faintly associates the sound with bells, “Yes,” she says between giggles, “Anywhere.” She turns away from the refreshments and heads for her desk, “I haven’t been here quite as long as other teachers, but I’ve dealt with my fair share of students with peculiar quirks in Yuuei.” She bends down next to her desk and Tsuyu hears the tell-tale sound of a fridge opening, “I used to have a student that would rather build her own hammock out of her hair and string it across my office to talk.”
Tsuyu can’t help but croak in amusement at the story, feeling a lot more calmer than she did when she walked in.
When Chrome stands back up there’s two small glass cups and Chrome smiles triumphantly, “My friend is a little bit of a baker and he made me some matcha jelly this morning, would you like some?”
Tsuyu knows immediately why Aizawa-sensei told the class that it was okay to visit Chrome despite repeating what Chrome had said only seconds earlier before she left.
“So,” Chrome says as they settle down in their own respective bean bag chairs, a small low table between them with their tea and half eaten matcha jelly, “What is your opinion on kotatsu?”
Tsuyu blinks, once, then twice, “Kotatsu?”
Chrome nods sagely, “
Kotatsu
. I’ve managed to get the principal to pay for these bean
bags
,
but it can get cold in the summer. If I manage to get some student approvable, I may be able to get the principal to sign off on the
kotatsu
.”
Tsuyu blinks again, “Ah, well I do get rather cold in the winter and it makes it hard for me to function because of my quirk.”
Chrome smiles brightly, “Thank you, I’ll definitely get that kotatsu before winter break.”
Tsuyu nods, almost confused about the conversation they’re having, “Aren’t we…. Aren’t you supposed to ask about what’s wrong?”
Chrome stills and her smile is less bright but
gentler
, “Ah, well, that would be presumptuous of me to assume something is wrong. Some students just like to come in to have someone that will listen to them. Others do come in to explain what is bothering them
,
but I won’t ask anything out of you unless it’s detrimental to your health.”
“Well… there is something bothering me, Chrome-sensei.” The words fall out Tsuyu’s mouth before she can stop it.
Chrome nods and leans forward to take the indigo
teacup
into her hand, “I see.”
Tsuyu catches herself and thinks, “...How much do you know about what happened at the USJ?”
Chrome doesn’t look fazed, instead she revels in the sip she was taking and lets out a breath before speaking, “Most everything. The principal got me as much information as he could. I know that you were in the flood zone with Midoriya Izuku-san and Mineta Minoru-san. I also know about the events that followed.” She pauses, “Does that answer your question?”
Tsuyu forces herself to nod even though her blood runs cold.
“Then you know I aided a vigilante.”
It’s not a question. It doesn’t ring in the room. It falls flat.
“....
Rather than saying that you aided a vigilante,
Asui-chan
, I would say that a vigilante aided you,” Chrome calmly replies, setting the
teacup
down.
Tsuyu has not taken her eyes off Chrome-sensei and she sees the moment that Chrome’s emotions closed off. “But I didn’t do anything to stop him from aiding us either.”
Chrome sits back into the bean bag chair, “You are a budding hero,
Asui-chan
, only in your first year of heroics training. You’re barely into your first month. What happened was unexpected and far from ideal. What you did
Asui-chan
was brave and courageous. It may not be the most heroic thing you will ever do in your
life
,
but you got out of it okay along with your classmates. You did the best you could.”
Tsuyu’s vision is blurry.
But Chrome keeps speaking.
“The only thing that I can really ask of you is that you take this as a learning experience. This maybe something that haunts you today, tomorrow, the day after that, next week, next month, or maybe even years. But there’s going to be a day where you use this day as motivation.”
There’s a soft lavender scented handkerchief in her hands and she brings it up to eyes to wipe her waterfall tears.
Once her eyes are clear she meets a single bright purple eye, and she swears she sees something like a flame inside them.
A bright smile is on Chrome’s face.
“And you’re going to thrive.”
He’s learned that it's a common occurrence to see Snipe, Midnight, Ectoplasm, and Present Mic standing outside the counseling office shared by Pro Hero Hound Dog and a civilian teacher Yagi has yet to meet. Yagi just doesn't know
why
it is such a common occurrence to see those four pro heroes stand there like starving puppies.
Yagi has yet to have meet the civilian with a strange name but Nezu promises that she is more than capable of keeping a secret and that she's already been informed of Yagi's presence on campus - as in the excuse they gave everyone else who would potentially see Yagi in his true form.
“Yagi-san!” Midnight calls out to him in his smaller form, “Good morning!”
Yagi smiles his usual smile and waves, "Midnight-kun, good morning. How are you doing today?"
Midnight has a wicked grin on her face as Yagi gets closer to their small group, "Because it's a Friday? I'm doing amazing!"
Yagi nods understandingly, "Ah, you have big plans for the weekend?"
Mic stops his conversation with the other two teachers to whirl on Yagi, "Don't tell me you haven't met Chrome-chan, Yagi-san!"
Yagi frowns at the English word that comes out of Mic's mouth despite his fluent English, "Chrome? As in the element Chromium?"
Mic practically wails on his behalf, "How horrible!!!" Yagi assumes that his guess was wrong.
Ectoplasm and Snipe don't seem to be as shocked as Mic, but they do nod in agreement. "I wondered if I missed her friendship gift. I figured it happened when school was still out," Ectoplasm says.
Snipe huffs, "No wonder. I figured Chrome woulda taken one look at ‘im ‘nd gone all out."
Yagi is still confused but can't seem to get a word in with Mic's wailing and Ectoplasm and Snipe's dry conversation.
An arm is slung over his upper back, because his shoulders are too high up for Midnight to reach, and Midnight smiles, "Let me introduce you to Chrome-chan when she comes around. She'll just adore you."
As if on cue the door opens and instead of the huge bulking mass of fur he expects, a petite purple haired woman pokes her head out. "My office hours this morning are now over," is the woman's soft declaration and she's holding a small basket of delicious looking baked goods in her hands, "Please help yourself while I deliver these to Nezu-san."
Mic and Midnight practically start crying and Midnight rushes forward to hug the shorter woman, pressing the head of purple hair into her chest, “Chrome-chan our little god sent angel! You’re the best!”
Chrome blinks as she lets Midnight do as she wishes, as if she has been used to this for a long time, “I am aware Midnight-san, you say this every week.”
While that happens Snipe, Ectoplasm, and Mic have burst into the small office with vigor, racing, “I call the blueberry scones!” Yagi can hear Snipe’s gruff voice yell over Ectoplasm’s betrayed shout.
“Thirteen and Cementoss? You two were here the whole time?”
“A-ah, s-senpai it’s not what it looks like!”
“Chrome, I’m sure you’ve been informed of Yagi-san’s presence on campus,” Midnight says as she lets go, gesturing to Yagi and Midnight sends Yagi a real smile, “Yagi-san this is Dokuro Chrome, our very own mental health counselor. Well, besides Hound Dog.”
Yagi smiles the best he can, because he knows how gauntly he looks like this, “Nice to meet you Chrome-san. It’s a shame that we haven’t met before-”
Before Yagi can finish his sentence, Chrome is suddenly in his space with a look of determination. Yagi knows it’s rude, but he equates her expression to one of a bunny pouting defiantly.
“...thin.”
Yagi blinks. In the back of his head he thinks that maybe if bunnies spoke human language her voice would be that, but he’s also focused on the first word she’s said to him.
Yagi opens his mouth, “I, uh, yes?”
Yagi was never great with words.
Midnight just snickers off to the side, but Chrome doesn’t seem fazed. It seems like forever, but Chrome finally casts her eyes down and Yagi follows, watching as pale thin hands dig through the basket of goods she has and how the hands pluck a delicious-looking muffin out.
“For you, Yagi-san. It’s nice to meet you.”
Yagi is at a loss of words and stalls for longer than what is appropriate in a social setting.
His hands go up first and he shakes them, “Ah, I appreciate the sentiment Chrome-san, but I have several dietary restrictions I cannot break. I’m afraid if I did, Recovery Girl would hunt me down.”
Yagi hopes that that will appease the shorter woman, but Yagi is surprised to find fierce determination instead.
Chrome lowers the muffin back into her basket and frowns, “You said Chiyo-sama would have your dietary restrictions?”
Yagi’s brain is just not working this morning, “That’s not what I said-”
“But it was implied,” she interrupts, speaking so her interruption is not quite a question.
Yagi clicks his mouth closed and blankly nods.
Chrome smiles, a small smile, “Good.”
She turns on her heels to head to her original goal, the principal’s office.
A hand slaps his upper back and he jolts as Midnight is laughing loudly now, not trying to hide her giggles. He’d forgotten that she was there.
Midnight meets his surely confused expression and she grins wickedly, “You’ve just unleashed the beast, Yagi-san.”
And then Midnight steps into the counseling office, leaving Yagi even more confused.
“...the beast?”
It starts with the insensitive question she hears across the room and as Vice-President of Class 1-A she cannot stand for that kind of behavior.
It’s been a couple of days since the USJ incident, and Yaoyorozu Momo still sees blood splattered on her arms and across her clothes from time to time but she’s dealing with it, and the class had been avoiding talking about the subject at all.
That is until Kaminari Denki walks up to Asui Tsuyu’s desk, as she chats with Uraraka Ochako only a few minutes away from the start of class, and asks bluntly, “Hey, Asui. I heard you went to go see Chrome-sensei. Is that true?”
The class almost goes instantly silent and heads turn in near unison.
Momo feels an ugly feeling well up within her because no one should be asked something like that. That’s private information and exceedingly personal. It takes a lot of courage to seek out help and that should never be announced to their whole class. And everything is screaming at her to
move
or just
do something,
but she can’t move. It’s like she’s been stunned and paralyzed with Kaminari’s quirk by just his words.
Uraraka is first to move.
“You can’t just ask someone that Kaminari!” Uraraka shouts defensively, her face going red with anger, “Learn some tact!”
Momo can’t see Asui from where she’s sitting but she wishes she could. Maybe what she saw would give her the final push to act. To move.
Kaminari looks flustered for a second before he composes himself, “Hey, that’s not what I meant! I was just curious, you know? Like, Aizawa-sensei said we should check Chrome-sensei out, but I just didn’t know how I felt about it. I just wanted to know how it went!” His voice is defensive and rightfully so.
Because they’re all curious. Momo is curious. Sure, she’s endorsed by Aizawa-sensei but what does she know? She’s a civilian counselor who has never seen the battles and carnage that heroes have seen. She hasn’t seen what
they’ve
already seen.
The unsaid facts float in the classroom for a long moment.
It’s Uraraka that speaks again, “That still doesn’t give you the right to ask her like this in the middle of the classroom. You could have asked her somewhere private-”
“It’s okay, Ochako-chan.” Asui finally croaks and the class is on bated breath.
Uraraka steps out of the way a bit as Asui stands up to her admittedly short stature, gathering the attention of the whole class. But the hero-to-be only has eyes for Kaminari and Momo can see how uncomfortable Kaminari feels, “Chrome-sensei was actually very great and understanding. She didn’t pressure me to say anything that I didn’t want to and listened to what I had to say. She also helped me rationalize what happened at the USJ.” Asui finally turns her gaze away Kaminari and looks around the whole class, “I’d recommend that everyone go see Chrome-sensei at least once. You don’t even have to say anything if you don’t want to. She’ll take your mind off of things for a while without you even noticing it, kero.”
The class is silent for a long moment but it’s Kirishima Eijirou that breaks it.
“Wow, Chrome-sensei sounds really manly!”
Jirou Kyouka snorts, “You think everything is manly.”
Asui hums, “She also has snacks.”
Hagakure Tohru jumps up to cling onto Asui excitedly, “Really Tsu-chan? Snacks?”
Ashido Mina laughs freely at Hagakure’s action, “Are we going just for the snacks? Because I’m game.”
The class is filling up with chatter again and she can hear vague murmurs of excitement, hope, or some still lingering anxiety but no outright denial.
“Tch!”
Momo isn’t the only one that notices the way that Bakugou Katsuki clicks his tongue defiantly and looks out the window with a frown.
Or she hopes she isn’t the only one that notices.
“The bag check is taking forever…”
Similar whiney phrases reach Sasagawa Kyoko’s ears as she stands near the front of the press entrance for the Yuuei Sports Festival.
Kyoko wants to scoff but keeps the sunny smile on her face. Honestly, if you were just attacked would you be so willing to let just
anyone
enter your premises without a proper check?
“They were just attacked by villains. Of course they’ll be
more strict
,” Kyoko wants to praise the man who responds to this particular woman, “There are even people criticizing their decision to hold the festival this year.”
Kyoko
has to
admit she’s not happy that the festival is being held, especially with how hard it is to manage huge crowds of people, but she understands it. If they don’t hold the
festival
,
it’ll be a sign of weakness and villains are more dangerous than civilians on the outside trying to look within.
Kyoko doesn’t think that this woman can get any worse. Then she hears it.
“Controversy equals ratings!”
Kyoko’s blood boils but she tries to hide it as she puts her bag onto the table and she empties her pockets into a bin and walks through the metal detection gate.
“It’s like they don’t care that kids were attacked,” she mutters with disdain under her breath
“Well not everyone is like you, Kyoko-san.”
Kyoko is placing her phone into her pocket when her face lights up, “Recovery Girl-san!”
True to her word the kindly old grandma hero is standing with her syringe as a cane a little ways away.
Recovery Girl gives her a sweet smile, “How is my favorite reporter?”
Kyoko can feel her quirk activate without her intention as eyes turn their way and she doesn’t quite care as she blushes under the praise of such a respected hero, “Thank you, that’s really an honor ma’am.”
Recovery Girl chuckles, kindly and comfortingly, “I’ll stop holding you up dear, go enjoy the festivities before you have to do your real work.”
Kyoko bows at the waist to the shorter woman, “No, it’s always a pleasure to talk to you!”
Recovery Girl laughs again and starts to turn on her heel before stopping and turning back, as if she had an afterthought, “Oh yes, Kyoko-san?”
Kyoko straightens immediately, “Yes, ma’am?”
“Hold out your hand dearie.”
Kyoko does immediately and gets a pack of gummy bears for her trouble. Flowers start to tumble out around her, some of them deep red roses and others sweet peas.
Recovery Girl full out laughs and leaves the blushing Kyoko just inside the gate of the press check-in.
His companion’s typing finally tapers off and he pushes off from the desk in his wheely chair with a sigh, “Alright, we’re good to go.”
He rolls the lollipop in his mouth around his tongue, “Good work, Choice.”
Choice stretches his upper body out, still sitting in the chair, letting out a loud groan as he does so, “I’m just glad we got it done for the others in time, Mosca. It’s rather impressive the security measures a school has.”
Mosca crushes the lollipop in his mouth with a hum, “We got past them, so I don’t think they’re particularly impressive.”
Choice laughs, “I guess. I’m going to go inform the others. You make sure every camera is working properly.”
Mosca gives a lazy salute to his partner and starts the drag across the dozens of windows that separated the screen into rectangles, each showing different parts of a large stadium.
Mosca’s eyes focus on a figure moving across one of the rectangles on the screen, giving a thumbs up behind their back.
“It’s almost too easy.”
Amajiki Tamaki can’t help the settling shame in his stomach because he’s knocked out of this year’s festival in the first round
again
, despite knowing that it is necessary. He takes solace in the fact that two of his friends dropped out with him and the remaining friend dropped in the following round.
He’s sitting in the very back row the first year’s stadium, curled in on himself, and trying to sink into the floor with his three friends to his left.
Tamaki knows it’s necessary, but he thinks of how unfair it is because his friends are so underestimated by the public. But they’re in their final years of the hero course and they’ve all already earned a name for themselves professionally. No need to attract even more unwanted attention when they have no one to prove themselves to anymore.
Tamaki is kicked out in the first round because he’s too meek to assert himself in the simple game of “be the final forty-two to remain on the center platform” and is pushed out by a crowd of desperate third years still trying to make a name for themselves.
Togata Mirio, his friend since middle school, had phased out of his gym clothes AGAIN because it’s still a struggle to keep his normal clothes on when he’s trying to go all out. The distraction of trying to put his clothes on again had made him an easy target.
Bovino Lambo, his friend from their first year at Yuuei, had done his best with all his bravado to make it to the next round, because Lambo is a sore loser – risks be damned, but after a rookie mistake is pushed out easily by students willing to do anything to get recognition.
Hadou Nejire, his friend from their second year at Yuuei, was the only one of The Big Three to make it to the second round but her team had gotten fed up with her personality by the end of it that they had suffered greatly and did not move onto the next round.
After being knocked out of the running Mirio had suggested watching the first years because most everyone had heard of the incident with Class 1-A and it was hard to disagree when all of them were curious.
So here they are. A couple of failed third years at the back of the first year’s stage trying to blend in.
“Anyone stand out to you Mirio?” Tamaki whispers to his friend as Nejire, on Mirio’s other side, starts to yell in her seat excitedly as she cheers the first years on in the obstacle course.
Mirio has the same smile on his face as he looks with sharp eyes on the screen, “Maybe?” he manages to get out before their companion on Nejire’s other side explodes.
“Nejire would it kill you to calm down?!” the male, all long stick-like limbs, shouts with a hand over his right ear.
Nejire turns on the teen immediately, “Jeez Lambo! I’m just excited! There’s no need to get mad at me! Hey!”
Tamaki leans his head forward to adequately get a look at their friend, Bovino Lambo. The teen has olive skin, as expected from the Italian student, with dark curls nestled on his head. He’s wearing the school uniform with a hoodie instead of a proper shirt and tie but Cementoss doesn’t seem to care so Lambo just wears changing colors of hoodies every day. The teen is tall and lanky, with almost gangly limbs. His green eyes are dull with annoyance towards Nejire and the little hashtag marking at the corner of this left eye crinkles as he leans away from Nejire as she continues to yell at him.
Lambo, despite being very open and blunt towards Nejire, is a good friend to Tamaki, which is why he hesitantly tries to speak up, cueing Mirio to interrupt them.
“Lambo, Nejire, the festival?”
Both stick their tongues out at each other and blow raspberries before they get back to watching the match.
Yes.
Bovino Lambo is a good friend.
And a better hero than he’d ever be.
“Oya, oya, how interesting.”
G doesn’t like the grin on Daemon’s face but doesn’t do anything to stop the man as Daemon steps closer, a hand on his chin.
“He was interesting enough as the only General Studies student to make it into the final event but look at that, his opponent is frozen,” Daemon continues. “He has potential.”
“What’s extremely happening?” Knuckle yells, his eyes following the way Midoriya Izuku follows Shinsou Hitoshi’s command to walk out of the ring.
“Haha, he looks kinda like a zombie!” Asari laughs when the camera zooms on Midoriya’s blank face.
“It’s probably some sort of mind manipulation,” Spade says in monotone, twirling her trident around her wrist.
“Which is why Daemon likes him, it’s basically the same as illusions.”
That comment earns Romeo a smack on the head from Daemon.
They all watch in silence as Midoriya takes leisurely steps until he’s just at the edge of the ring.
Giotto stands up, “...how?”
A second after his question rings in the room, a burst of pressurized air fills the screen and Midoriya is turning on Shinsou. It’s quick and the match is over in a flash.
“He shouldn’t have been able to break out from that,” G mutters, “if it really was a mental manipulation quirk.”
Daemon is sighing, “What a shame, Shinsou would have won, and maybe with a change of strategy he could have won the whole thing.”
Asari laughs, “Really? He kinda looks like a twig from here?”
As the group goes on to discuss Shinsou, Alaude is the only one to hear Giotto’s quiet murmur.
“Something feels wrong.”
And Giotto only has eyes for Midoriya Izuku.
Romeo is laughing his ass off when the cameras are forced to zoom out all the way to show just how big the wave of ice Todoroki Shouto sends at Sero Hanta is.
“It’s like your Zero Point Breakdown, Giotto!” Romeo manages to gasp out between his laughter. “The poor tape kid!”
Knuckle is screaming at the top of his lungs about how extreme Todoroki is and Asari is whistling impressively. The others don’t have quite as big reactions.
But Giotto can’t hide the grimace that comes to his face and feels an imaginary chill run down his spine as he remembers a man he once knew.
A man who believed in his ideals so deeply that he suffered a punishment too extreme for his actions and scars to remind him of it always.
A man who burned too harshly that he had to be frozen.
A man they once knew who was trapped in ice.
It’s okay
“The kid’s as dumb as these three idiots when he’s like that,” G comments as he flicks his lighter open and closed, gesturing vaguely with his shoulder to his right.
The match is done in under a minute and the ivy-haired religious girl managed to avoid the devastating attack the lightning kid had attempted to pull off.
Spade chuckles from her spot on G’s left but doesn’t comment beyond that.
Knuckle, as always, is too excited to retort, already yelling at the screen again, “SHE WAS EXTREME!”
Romeo, however, is glaring at G, “Hey, don’t put me on their level.”
Asari just laughs his free laughter as always.
“When the fuck is this match going to end?!” G yells frustratedly as the match hits the fifteen-minute mark, “Don’t these things have a time limit or something?!”
But Hatsume Mei is on a roll, rattling off about all the creations she’s made, and she doesn’t look like she’s going to stop soon.
Then the cameras turn to a casually approaching green haired figure next to Midnight. The cameras zoom in to get a proper look at the young man. He’s lanky and a decent height next to Midnight. His teal hair is cut into a lazy bob, hidden beneath an oversized black hoodie, and there’s facial marks of two inverted blue triangles at the bottom corners of his dull teal eyes.
By this point everyone has turned away from Hatsume to stare at the strange man. Like a magic trick, the man puts a hand into his hoodie pocket and pulls a full-sized microphone out of it. He lifts it to his mouth and opens his mouth to speak.
“Hatsume. What have I said about pacing when presenting your creations?” the monotone voice fills the stadiums and even the contestants’ eyes are now on the teal haired young man.
Hatsume freezes immediately and turns with a nervous smile, “Ah! Fran-sensei, I still have a couple things I want to show off though!”
Fran doesn’t look fazed, “Either you step out or I drag you out. Power Loader’s orders.”
Hatsume immediately turns around, rattling off about her creations again, but a desperate hint in her voice this time. The man’s deep sigh echoes in the stadium. He shoves the microphone into his hoodie pocket again and jumps into the ring. He takes Hatsume by the back of her collar and gives a short bow to her opponent, Iida Tenya, and then proceeds to drag her out so that Hatsume’s voice is no longer audible. But a camera still follows her and her mouth is still running as she struggles against the taller man.
Midnight looks baffled but raises her flag, “Iida Tenya is the winner!”
Romeo falls into hysterics again.
When Ashido Mina’s acid melts part of Aoyama Yuuga’s support weapon, G can’t help the smug smirk he sends Knuckles way, “Told you he wasn’t shit.”
Knuckle doesn’t look deterred, shouting at the top of his lungs.
“What a shame,” Spade murmurs quietly, watching the way that Yaoyorozu Momo is forced out of the ring, “She seemed so capable at first.”
“She’s too herbivorous,” Alaude comments, his first comment of the day. And that says all.
His comment didn’t deny that she has potential.
“Holy fuck this is just as boring as the support girl’s match.”
…
“...I bet on the red one.”
“I have bets on the iron one!”
“I can’t watch this! Hey!! That’s not the way someone who wants to be a hero acts! If you’re so much stronger than her, just throw her out of the ring and finish it!!”
With each sentence the no-name hero yells Spade can see how it makes everyone else's blood boils. She’s used to this, of course she is, but it makes her feel better when she sees her peers react the way they do.
“Stop toying the poor girl!”
“Yeah, he’s right!” a woman yells after the “hero”.
And the crowd has started booing.
Spade thinks she may have to some measures to calm the others down, but a gruff voice does it for her.
“Is the one who said he’s toying with her a pro? How many years of active duty?”
That quiets the crowd.
“If that’s what you’re taking away from this, then you can leave. There’s no point in watching. Go home and start looking at job-hunting sites. Uraraka has come this far and Bakugou is aware of her strength. His caution shows that he recognizes her as a worthy opponent.”
Spade feels a smile crawl to her face.
“It’s exactly because he wants to win so badly that there’s no room for carelessness or holding back.”
The match ends with silence in the room, watching the way Uraraka Ochako desperately tries to crawl to her feet to fight and Bakugou Katsuki stands blank-faced at the display.
“What an extreme match.”
Asari nods in agreement, “Honorable.”
That’s all they need to say.
The Strongest Match of Yuuei’s Sports Festival
Written by: Sasagawa Kyoko
W
hile all matches of this year’s Yuuei Sports Festival are admirable, I would like to draw attention to the match that caused the most controversy on-sight. This match occurred between Bakugou Katsuki (Yuuei, Class 1-A) and Uraraka Ochako (Yuuei, Class 1-A) and while I was watching a breath-taking match that had me enraptured, others were watching a completely different match than I was.
During the match Uraraka was consistently charging at Bakugou in an attempt to get close to him. However, Bakugou would constantly knock her away before she could come close enough to touch him with his explosions. While I saw that as Bakugou playing strategically on the defensive considering the circumstances, others saw it as a uselessly brutal attack on Uraraka from Bakugou.
Local hero, Justice Pride himself, is quoted to have said, “that’s not the way someone who wants to be a hero acts” and “if you’re so much stronger than her, just throw her out of the ring and finish it” to hero-in-training Bakugou mid-match. And that was when the booing from the audience had started.
Clearly, no one had understood Bakugou’s intentions.
Thankfully, one of the announcers of the festival cleared up what Bakugou was doing for those ignorant enough to not realize it.
Out of respect of Uraraka’s power Bakugou was doing his best to keep her at bay because he couldn’t afford to lose the sports festival. Bakugou was treating his fellow hero-course member as a proper opponent and didn’t even factor gender like so much of the crowd had done.
We see a lot of people nowadays claiming to be feminist but on countless occasions you can see them fall back on misogynistic ideals. But Bakugou Katsuki is truly an idol of feminism now for the display he made during the Sport Festival.
And if you fail to realize that you need to open your eyes to what the world is like now.
The explosion as Midoriya and Todoroki collide silences the room.
“I’m starting to see why my intuition likes Midoriya Izuku.”
If G sees the orange that flares up in his boss’ eyes and the large grin that stretches across his face, he doesn’t say anything about it.
“He’s the Ingenium brat, right?”
“God what is with her and Christ?!”
“We didn’t really talk about it earlier but what are the mechanics of having a being like that as an extension of you?” G mumbles under his breath.
But Daemon is excited about Tokoyami Fumikage for another reason.
“Oya, is that possession I see?”
Spade just sighs into her hand.
“NOW DIE!!”
“...I’m starting to think this kid has problems.”
“A match between two extreme students from extreme hero families! I’m extremely excited!” Knuckle yells as Iida Tenya and Todoroki Shouto get ready to start.
Lambo scoffs, “If the icy-hot kid doesn’t use his hot side he’s probably screwed.”
Asari laughs, “Who knows? We could be surprised.”
The match starts with two strong moves from each student and Asari lets out an appraising whistle, “Well the ice floor was getting a little old.”
“He’s moving down the alley behind fourth!” he says into the headset, just short of yelling as he follows the street cameras as best as he can.
There’s a chuckle on the other side, “Well he is following the path you predicted sir, just like most days. I don’t even know why you insist on being on the scene nearby all the time.”
There’s another huff from a different voice, “Well, even if he is
almost
always right most days, doesn’t mean he’s always right. I’m approaching so cut all the side-chat, alright?”
“Yessir!”
He’s has never been so thankful that he’s never been a risk-taker. Not when lives are at stake.
He’s on his feet, running so fast that his feet pound the sidewalk as he listens to the gravelly voice that reaches through his boss’ headset.
“Fame… Money… For nothing else, these fools call themselves heroes… No, you’re not heroes…”
His boss’ pained screams echo in his ear and he only managed to get out the order to call for an ambulance before he had run out the truck despite the protests of his other co-workers, yelling danger.
“Only he is… the only one with permission to kill me… is
All Might.
”
When he turns the corner to the alley way his boss is lying in, he’s alone. The only movement is the growing pool of blood around his boss.
“Boss!” he shouts, throwing himself to his knees next to his boss, ignoring how the still-warm blood seeps into his pants and fumbles around the bulky gear for the release switch. His bloodied slippery hands finally catch the latch and he
pulls
the armor off as gently, yet quickly, as he can.
And then he curses his lack of foreknowledge to bring medical supplies. He throws off his sweater vest and presses it against the biggest wound that spills the most blood.
“Come on, Boss, stay with me.”
When there’s no response he shouts, “How long for an ambulance?!”
“It’s almost there sir!” a panicked voice yells back in his ear.
“You hear that Boss? We’re gonna get you somewhere safe and patch you up. So, stay with me.”
No response.
“
Tensei
-san!”
“Something’s happened in Hosu.”
Heads turn when a hooded figure with a lollipop in his mouth appears, “It’s pretty dire,” his dull voice betrays his words.
G frowns and brings up the table’s terminal, the noise of the sports festival cutting off as the muffled audio plays.
“This is the Hosu Police Station, requesting immediate backup! There’s a hero killer on the loose!!”
Before they can even process the call for backup, the audio continues.
“Pro-Hero Ingenium is down! I repeat Pro-Hero Ingenium is out of commission! Search the surrounding area of area 18!”
Giotto turns immediately, “G, Asari go check it out. Report back to me whatever you find.”
The group sobers immediately, and masks are pulled on. In a short movement Spade’s flames come to life and G and Asari step into without preamble, disappearing without a trace.
“Alaude.”
Alaude doesn’t move but his eyes open at the call.
Giotto can’t even smile.
“I want to know everything that you can figure out about this
H
ero
K
iller.”
Alaude nods and slips out the door without looking back.
The room is silent with its remaining members inside, the good mood spoiled.
“So much for a fun sports festival.”
Smack
“Ow!”
“You deserved that.”
She’s just sitting in the staff observation room with snacks provided by her beloved baker when the door bursts open, “Chrome-san!”
Dokuro Chrome jumps and her tea spills across the, luckily, empty table. She turns with a frown, “Snipe-san, what have we said about-”
“That ain’t important right now Chrome-san!” He yells, “Ya gotta get yer kid in line.”
Alarm bells ring in Chrome’s head at the mention of ‘kid’. She’s on her feet, going as fast as she can in her flats, knowing full well that Snipe is following, “What did Fran do this time?”
Snipe takes a couple steps ahead of her and leads her to the left as they reach the end of a hallway, “More like what the kid ain’t doin.”
Chrome’s face is grim as she marches on, following Snipe on a warpath, but her expression immediately drops when Snipe leads her straight to one of the recovery rooms and there’s angry yelling, shouting, and explosives.
Chrome’s blood runs cold as Snipe swings the door open and she hears, “Please stop young Bakugou!” following an explosion.
She runs into the room and finds her worst fear. Bakugou Katsuki has always been on Chrome’s radar for his volatile behavior but she didn’t think it was this bad.
Todoroki Shouto is sitting on a bed, simply staring past the wall of pro heroes in front of his bed as Bakugou Katsuki is standing on the opposite side of the room, next to a bed with burned bedding and bindings on them. Bakugou is shouting obscenities. The wall of pro heroes is yelling at someone else. Someone who is holding Bakugou back and is getting the brunt of his explosive attacks with barely a flinch.
“Not like this you bastard!”
“This is an order, you bring those restraints over here now!”
“He’s not going to calm down otherwise!”
“So you can tie,” Fran stops speaking as an explosion hits his side but it's barely a pause as he speaks again, “him up again like an animal? I don’t think so.”
“What is going on here?”
Chrome’s question makes the room fall into silence and Bakugou turns to her with wide eyes. No one dares to speak because of the grave expression she is sure is on her face.
“Ah, nee-san, finally. Can you convince these idiots that this Pomeranian doesn’t have to accept his medal if he doesn’t want to?” is Fran’s blunt question and from Bakugou’s surprised expression that isn’t what he expected her ward to say.
“Insolent!” Vlad King shouts and he turns to Chrome, “Chrome-san, tell your kid to bring the quirk restraining cuffs and a muzzle for good measure.”
Chrome can’t believe her ears and she’s speechless. She looks around the room, to the pro heroes, to Todoroki, to Fran, and to Bakugou.
She takes steps farther into the room and reaches for her ward, “Fran,” she starts and the pro heroes are starting to relax.
“Good job.”
The room freezes again as Chrome gently pulls Fran’s arms away from where they had been hooked under the young teen’s arm pits and says, “Bakugou-san, I assure you that if you have no intention of accepting first place in the Sports Festival then you do not have to.”
The short moment of silence where Bakugou’s body immediately relaxes is cherished momentarily, but the room erupts with noise more almost immediately after.
The heroes are yelling at her and Fran now, demanding that Fran bring the restraints and that Bakugou must be at the awards ceremony.
Fran immediately steps in front of the explosive blonde to block him from sight and Chrome hasn’t been this angry in a while.
“He, himself, doesn’t want an award he doesn’t think he deserves but you have taken tactics that are usually used on villains for a simple publicity picture?” Chrome yells and immediately everyone is listening.
Chrome knows. She’s the soft-spoken civilian counselor. She doesn’t have very much pull in Yuuei, but she knows that this is her territory.
“Quirk restraints and a muzzle,” she growls. “Is that the best solution you could have come up with? This whole event is about showing off abilities to heroes that could potentially intern them. Bakugou-san has shown his abilities more than enough, I think. You are heroes and the best thing you could come with was putting a teenager in bindings because he didn’t want to accept a stupid medal?”
None of the heroes in the room have a response for that.
She turns on her heel and looks at Bakugou, “Let’s get you to your classroom, alright?”
She doesn’t wait for a response and turns towards the heroes again, glaring with all she has as Fran leads the explosive blond out. She only follows when she’s sure none of them will try to stop her.
She really doesn’t expect anything from Bakugou when she escorts him to his classroom, taking all the discrete paths they can, but she swears that the second before the door to Class 1-A closes behind Bakugou, she hears a small “thank you.”
And that’s all Chrome can ever really hope for sometimes.
When Iida Tenya bursts into the hospital he doesn’t expect anyone to greet him. He almost immediately beelines towards the reception before a familiar figure enters his vision, “Tenya-san!” the figure says, grabbing Tenya by the shoulders, “Hey, just breathe for a second okay?”
Tenya’s vision focuses and he gapes, “Fuuta-san! I-I’m sorry I was just so-”
Fuuta di la Stella. A tall young Italian man, with the face of an angel. He was soft all around, his face, his eyes, his smiles, even his caramel brown hair looked soft, though it was messy considering the situation. He stood there wearing a dusted green dress shirt, a rumpled but still strangely pure white sweater vest, and black slacks as he held a delicate looking hand in front of Tenya’s face, “No, don’t,” he says in a bitter voice as his smile slips from his face. And for a second all Tenya can see is the guilt and remorsefulness on Fuuta’s face before it’s gone, replaced with a broken smile, “I’ll take you to Tensei-san. Last I heard his surgery was just about finished up.”
Everything in Tenya wants to run towards his brother’s room but he forces himself to remember his manners and thanks Fuuta as they walk through the hospital.
For a while the trip is silent and Tenya’s all fidgety and full of nerves that he doesn’t notice the way Fuuta conflicts with himself.
“Tenya-san, I actually have to apologize to you.”
Tenya stops abruptly, trying to figure out the implications of that and Fuuta stops with him, bowing his head shamefully, “I was nearby Tensei-san at the scene because I created a ranking recently that told me that the Hero Killer would be active in Hosu more than anywhere else.”
And Tenya remembers in the back of his head that Fuuta-san isn’t called Fuuta di la Stella for no reason. Fuuta of the stars, the ranking prince, because of the accurate rankings his quirk allows him to make. Tenya pieces the situation together immediately.
Fuuta’s voice grows softer, “I should have ranked how bad of an idea it was for Tensei-san to go in alone. I should have been stronger so I could have stood there with him. I should have done something but I just-”
Tenya looks closer at Fuuta and sees the dark spots on Fuuta’s black slacks that abruptly stop with his top. Fuuta was the one who had found his brother first and called for help.
“Fuuta-san,” he says, interrupting the older man, not liking when the man doesn’t look up, “I am in the belief that even if Tensei-nii-san knew he was to give up his life against the hero killer he would have still gone against him. And if you were to get involved in the fight and be injured, he would hate it even more.”
Fuuta is not sidekick, nor is he an inspiring hero. He’s strictly a support. Fuuta gathers information from not only his quirk but other sources for Idaten, while also working communications during missions and devising strategies. He’s a higher up within Idaten despite only working there for a handful of years. Tensei always says Idaten probably wouldn’t function anymore if Fuuta was to leave, that’s how valuable Fuuta is. But despite not being a hero, Fuuta has shown consistently that he has the heart of a hero.
So Tenya puts a hand on the slightly taller man’s shoulder and says, “Thank you for being there when my brother had put himself in harm's way.”
Fuuta finally looks up then and his eyes are watery, yet a small smile comes to his face and he says, “Thank you, Tenya-san.”
This is it.
That’s what Iida Tensei thinks as he stares up at the ceiling.
He’s never going to run again, much less walk. He can never be a hero after this. The Hero Killer’s ruined him after one mistake. There’s no mistake. There’s no hope. That’s why he relinquishes his hero name onto his younger brother, who he knows will make his name better than it had ever been when he had carried the name.
This is it.
He’s bitter, angry, and sad; but it won’t change his situation.
He's paralyzed.
This is it.
He closes his eyes with the illusion of getting some sleep when he hears the sound of something sliding open and voices that follow.
Iida Tensei may be injured but he’s a trained hero through and through. He just wished that the hospital staff hadn’t stripped him of all his weapons hidden on his body.
“You could have used something subtler,” a gruff voice admonishes.
There’s a strangely familiar laugh that follows, “Kufufu, but where’s the fun in that?”
“I thought it was extreme!”
Tensei’s body goes cold.
The heart monitor beeps appropriately and the voices goes quiet, “Oya, you were awake.”
The curtain is thrown back and Tensei only has the strength to turn his head to three masked man next to his bed and watches as indigo covers the heart monitor. Immediately the erratic beeping stops despite the pounding of blood in his ears.
“We have a deal, Ingenium. Would you like to hear it?”
Tensei doesn’t know what infamous vigilantes G, Daemon, and Knuckle want from him and he honestly doesn’t have any idea if they’re good or bad. Not like The Crawler.
But he lifts his hand to lift his oxygen mask just a bit.
“I’m listening.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Tensei opens his weary eyes to panicking.As a side note, Tensei really doesn’t want to open his eyes. Everything feels heavy, like his blood is pure molasses and the air around him slowly hardening concrete. It feels like he just had leg day in his whole body – ten-fold. But there’s noise. Shouting, clambering, fumbling, yelling. And there’s a voice he recognizes. "Tensei-nii, are you okay?!" Tenya is in his face and he blinks, once, twice, before slowly nodding his head, "All things considered-"Tenya has the same raw panic on his face as when he had first rushed into his room – how many hours ago that was. "Did the Vongola do anything to you?!"Tensei blinks again, "I- the Vongola?"The bed is jostled when a hurrying nurse runs into it and Tensei cusses. Without thinking, his arms reach out for his leg.All the doctors, nurses, police officers, his family, the specialist. They stop.All activity stops at the motion. All of it. Frozen."Tensei-nii, y-your legs."Tensei is frozen for a moment before he throws the sheet off his legs and wiggles his toes. The room explodes into activity and Tensei gets dragged into it."What do we know about him?"The room is empty besides the two of them. Alaude is a good distance away, but Giotto’s voice still catches his ear as Giotto sits at the worn desk, his fingers laced and arms resting on said desk.Alaude exudes a certain amount of “done-ness” that is clearly still tolerable if he’s still leaning against the rotting wallpaper peeling off the walls. "The Hero-Killer: Stain. Before that, there's evidence he was once the vigilante Stendhal. Real name: Akaguro Chizome. Male, 31 years old. Quirk: Bloodcurdle. By ingesting one's blood he will paralyze them. The time limit is different for each blood type. From longest to shortest: B, AB, A, O. He's killed fourteen heroes to date and Ingenium would have been his fifteenth, if he did not survive." Alaude moves his head a miniscule amount, "But that herbivore is paralyzed."Giotto nods and taps his fingers against the desk in habit, "I know. I'm having someone take care of that." Alaude has a suffering look and Giotto smiles, as if he’s granting a child’s small request of candy to appease them, "It'll distract him for a little while at least." Alaude doesn't verbally respond but his eyes flicker away.Giotto takes a second to think, long and hard, before he speaks, "He believes all heroes should be like All Might, correct?"At Alaude's nod, Giotto snorts."Impossible."Thirty minutes have passed and there's now significantly less doctors, his family is gathered, and there are two police officers at his door. Tensei wouldn’t be surprised if there was someone watching his window from the outside.Recovery Girl is sitting on the stool next to him with a frown, "I saw your x-rays and examined you myself. You should be paralyzed from the waist down."Tensei doesn't know what to say, "I hadn't woken up until everyone had already come into my room already panicked. I don't even know why they started to panic, sensei."She doesn't scold him about her not being his sensei anymore and that shows Tensei how serious this is, "This isn't a medical miracle, Tensei-kun, it's impossible. Your spinal cord was no longer sending or receiving signals to or from your brain just hours ago but here you are, moving your legs again.""But it's not the same," Tenya is protesting now, "They ran some tests earlier and Tensei-nii could barely bend his knee."Recovery Girl doesn't seem surprised, "Well, of course not, your brother was severely injured enough that he’s lucky to even be here speaking to us. However, I think, with enough physical therapy he could be on his feet again."Tensei can't help but feel hope when he hears that, but it's immediately shot down by the seasoned hero."That doesn't mean you can be a hero again. But at the very least you'd be able to walk places." Tenya's face falls and Tensei doesn't know what to feel.The mood is already dead in the room and he knows that the way that his father’s head is bowed is a sign that his father is crying.He changes the subject. He had already paid his dues with the fact that he wouldn’t be able to even stand again. He’s not going to take that for granted after a medical miracle."You mentioned the Vongola, that vigilante group, Tenya. Why?" Tensei asks instead. He wants to not see a distraught expression on his brother’s face.Tenya's expression changes and he opens one of his hands to reveal a gold shiny thing that Tensei hadn't noticed before at all. He walks over and puts it in Tensei's hand, "This was on your chest when I came to check up on you."It's a watch, Tensei realizes, a pocket watch. It's gold, the size of the hand mirrors his mother (and father) always carry around. There's a small chain connected to it. On the surface of the watch is the symbol that each Vongola member has on their mask. The clam with the bullets, intricate and beautiful."I couldn't get it to open and the police let me have it back when an examiner tried to get a read on it and came up with nothing," Tenya says.Tensei fiddles with the latch on the side and it clicks open after one attempt.The silence is palpable. It's his father who speaks up."What does it say?"Tensei swallows."There is no such thing as a true hero. But some heroes are better than others. A gift. Vongola."The hands are stopped at 4:34.Tensei made the right choice.“What were you thinking?”Kayama Nemuri wouldn’t call Nezu scary to his face but Nezu is easily one of the scariest heroes at Yuuei. He doesn’t stand out very much in the media, but he’s known for being one of the only animals to have developed a quirk. Nezu is known to the public and a large majority of the students as a kind, cheerful, and capable principal of the best Heroics school in the country. All the heroes on staff know that Nezu can be terrifying when necessary. And the silence that follows Nezu’s expectant question is stifling. Nemuri is almost relieved she had no part in any of the reason why this meeting was called. She glances around the room and sees Vlad, Snipe, and All Might sweating – literally. Mic is also sweating on her right but outside of villain situations Mic has always been sensitive to pressure. Especially social pressure.All Might makes the first move, “Principal, I take all responsibility for what happened with Bakugou-shounen-”“I didn’t ask to point fingers at who was responsible. I asked what you were thinking when you tried to put a student, a sixteen-year-old boy, into a muzzle and quirk restraints,” Nezu interjects with a deceivingly calm tone. Nemuri can’t help the shiver that goes down her spine. Everyone on staff knows about Nezu’s history. It isn’t easy being one of the only animals with a quirk (as if it isn’t hard enough having a mutant-type quirk), especially when it makes Nezu more intelligent than most of the human population. Everyone on staff knows that Nezu has a grudge over humans because of the experiments he was forced to partake in. When Nezu was treated less than human.Snipe cracks, because he respects Nezu quite a bit, even if he wouldn’t admit. Nezu’s word means a lot to the staff. “He wasn’t cooperatin’ and he wanted to attack Todoroki! The awards ceremony was soon, and we had to get him on that pedestal!” Snipe winces as he finishes speaking, as if he realizes, himself, how stupid he sounds.And it does sound stupid. It shows on Nezu’s face, “If he was volatile it would have been a priority to reach out for Kayama-kun.” Nemuri immediately straightens at her name, her eyes not straying away from Nezu, “Her quirk would have knocked Bakugou-kun out easily. Instead, you asked Fran-kun to restrain Bakugou-kun with quirk restraints and a muzzle.”Snipe looks pained as he speaks, “The awards ceremony-”“Bakugou-kun didn’t feel that he should be awarded for his performance at the sports festival and if Fran-kun and Chrome-kun would not have stopped you, he would have been viewed as a volatile and uncontrollable beast,” Nezu’s eyes narrow, “We would have been looking at a lawsuit from his parents at the very least. Imagine what the media would have said about him.”Snipe loses all his energy and tips his hat to cover his eyes. There’s a tense moment of nothing before Vlad gruffly speaks, “Is Fran okay?”Nezu sighs, “Fran-kun was healed by Recovery Girl and there was no lasting damage. Luckily, all his wounds were superficial. Bakugou-kun seems to have a tighter leash on his quirk than we thought.”There’s a sigh of relief that ripples in the room. Too many times have the heroes of the school gone by Power Loader’s lab to see Fran bleeding from some sort of wound without batting an eye.“Our priority at Yuuei Academy is to lead the future generation of heroes down the right path. Our jobs are to keep them safe and introduce them to the reality of being a hero in the safest environment we can manage. What kind of school are we if we frame one of our students in one that of a villain?”Heads snap up immediately and there’s a sudden coldness to the room.Nezu doesn’t seem fazed, sipping at his tea as if this was any other meeting, “If our students can’t trust us and depend on us, we shouldn’t be educating them.” Nezu smiles, “Please. Keep that in mind.”Nezu jumps out of his seat at the head of the table and walks past all of them to the door on the other side of the room. He opens the door with a click, and it closes behind him with a click.The meeting room is silent for a long time after Nezu leaves and no one leaves after Nezu for a while. Nemuri is pretty sure Aizawa is passive-aggressively staring at Vlad, Snipe, and All Might on Mic’s other side.His mother had cried the last time he’d seen her. They’d sat down from late morning until well into the afternoon to talk. She had hugged him and they talked. Haltingly at first, neither unsure of what to say. But the words had come out easier as time went on. And even after telling his mother everything he wanted to say, more things came out. He talked about his classmates at Yuuei, everything he’d experienced with them. He talked about the USJ and what he said to G. He told his mother that he suspected Midoriya was All Might’s secret love child. His mother had laughed until she cried at that. (He would ever deny panicking when he saw the tears in his mother’s eyes.)His mother seemed well. Somehow, after all this time, with limited interaction with her family and anyone she knew before she was forced into this room with the same off-white walls. Her smiles aren’t as broken as he remembered them to be. She talks cheerfully about the volunteers that come by, the ones that stay, the ones that left, and the caring staff. She’s been doing a lot during the years she’s been gone. He noticed the sketchbook on the table, surrounded by colored pencils and eraser shavings next to the large vase of flowers. She shows him all the sketches she’s done, even from the ones at the very beginning that remind him of the drawings he did in elementary school. He guesses he got her artistic skills from her. That settles as a small heat in his heart and a smile on his face.His mother laughs until she cries at that too.But they’re good tears, she insists, I’m just so glad to see you again Shouto.So, he’s here again. The next weekend, just a little earlier. Early enough so that it’s only thirty minutes after her morning treatment.The receptionists don’t seem so surprised to see him this time around. They smile with what Shouto thinks is relief and they murmur softly that she’s in the same room.Shouto gives them a polite bow and he’s back on the third floor. The hallway to his mother’s room, 315, isn’t quite quiet, but it’s near that. There are quiet voices. And as he approaches the room he recognizes as his mother’s, the voices grow louder.“...don’t know if he’s going to visit again too. I don’t want to get my hopes up.” What surprised Shouto is how his mother’s voice sounded the same as it did in his happy memories after all these years. And he could recognize his mother’s soft-spoken voice anywhere. That really surprised him.He stands outside the room, and listens. His mother is with a guest.There’s a gruff and low chuckle, but it’s not one of animosity. It’s filled with a warmth that Shouto sometimes hears from Natsuo when he stops by and Endeavor is out of the house, “I’m sure he’ll be back, Rei-san. From what you’ve told me, he sounds like a good kid.”His mother's voice sounds detached, “Yes. He is.”There’s movement in the room and the unfamiliar male speaks again, “I wouldn’t worry about it. You sounded like you were cornered from all sides and you didn’t have a conscious choice. We all make mistakes but it’s not our decision if there’s resentment for our mistakes. Your son doesn’t sound very resentful of you. There’s no reason to blame yourself for something that wasn’t your fault.”For a long moment there’s silence. There’s nothing. And Shouto wonders if he’s even breathing or not.“Thank you,” his mother finally speaks, “You’re too good to me.”The man chuckles, soft like the cotton candy clouds Fuyumi used to describe to him before his quirk manifested, “It’s what you deserve.”It’s silent again and Shouto wonders if he should open the door now, announce his presence like he hasn’t been on the other side of the door eavesdropping.A phone vibrates loudly and Shouto knows it’s the man’s. His mother doesn’t have a phone of her own.“Looks like work needs me, Rei-san.” There’s slight movement in the room, “Are you sure you don’t need anything from me?”His mother laughs, “No, but thank you for everything as always.”The man’s voice sounds closer and Shouto needs to move, “I’ll be out of town next weekend, but I’ll see you the week after.”His mother sounds like she’s smiling, “I’ll see you then.”The door opens and Shouto does his best not to flinch.It’s a man, taller than him and Shouto has to look up slightly. The man is built just enough that Shouto is sure his mother couldn’t see past the man to spot him. The man looks like he’s half Japanese and half European. He has long silver hair that brushes his shoulders, but the hairstyle is still somehow professional to complete the put-together businessman appearance he has going on with his expensive looking suit. Emerald green eyes behind thick glasses blink at him, more green than the turquoise of Shouto’s own left eye. “Gokudera-kun? What is it?” His mother peeks around the man’s, Gokudera-san’s, frame and her face lights up, “Shouto!”Gokudera-san moves to the side and looks between mother and son. Shouto still hasn’t taken his eyes off the man.“I see the resemblance. You must be Rei-san’s son.” Gokudera-san reaches out a hand, “Gokudera Hayato,” Gokudera-san’s voice is gruff but not unkind.Shouto reaches out to take the hand, “Todoroki Shouto.” They shake hands until it’s probably been an inappropriate amount of time that they’ve been shaking hands.Gokudera-san pulls his hand away when his phone buzzes again. He frowns at what he sees on his screen, “Unfortunately, there’s been some sort of emergency and I need to go.” The man turns to give his mother a bow and a nod towards him and then he’s gone.His mother pulls him into the room with a smile, even if her hands do tremble against his clothes.“Who was that?”Shouto wants to bash his own head into the wall because is that really the best thing he could say to his mother after seeing her for the second time in years?But his mother doesn’t seem to mind, “Gokudera-kun started to send gifts to me anonymously through the receptionists and nurses shortly after I had arrived here. For a while I thought they were from…” she trails off but Shouto doesn’t need for her to finish her sentence. When he nods, she sends a crooked smile and continues, “But they started to come with slips of song titles. I had a couple of the nurses play them for me and I knew they weren’t from… I started to investigate after that.” She smiles, “It took me a year and a half, but I finally caught him in the act. He looked like a deer caught in headlights when I confronted him. He was only just a young boy then; around the same age you were.” Her smile falters there, “I asked him why he was doing this for me.”Shouto feels compelled to ask her. “What did he say?” So, he does.His mother smiles sadly, “He said he reminded me of a woman he once knew.”The conversation moves on to something else after that but Shouto feels compelled to thank the silver-haired man the next time he sees him.“I’m glad that everything turned out okay,” Tsuna-san says as he hands over the basket, “I was so worried when I found out.”Chrome giggles at the friend she’d made through her charge, “Fran told me about what happened.”Tsuna-san looks physically pained but he pouts, “Can you blame me? Something like this has never happened before, not at Yuuei.”Chrome nods solemnly, “We’re all a bit on edge but we’re doing our best to keep the students safe. I wouldn’t worry about Lambo-kun.”Tsuna-san’s face sobers, “I’m not just worried about Lambo.”This is what Chrome likes about Sawada Tsunayoshi. They had only met because Lambo and Fran had become friends, but Tsuna-san is such a good person. Someone who cares too much, even about a stranger he’s only met for a couple seconds. Chrome truly believes that Sawada Tsunayoshi is the best of people.Chrome just smiles softly, “Thank you.”Tsuna-san smiles back, a smile worth a thousand of Chrome’s.And then he jumps, “Oh, I almost forgot. I finished a batch of those special cookies you had me make.” He gestures to the white box that stands out among the baked goods in the basket with sympathetic smile, “Your friend seems to have a lot of dietary restrictions. It must be hard for them.”Chrome nods her head, “He’s uncomfortably too thin. Like he doesn’t eat a lot because he can’t eat a lot of things. I want to change that.”Tsuna-san smiles, “You’re a good person, Chrome-san.”Chrome practically glows hearing that from Tsuna0-san. But she doesn’t show it. She just smiles back, “So are you, Tsuna-san.”“I’m glad you’re okay Fran-kun.”Fran looks down at the mouse-bear-creature that is his boss’ boss, “I didn’t even need to take a nap after Recovery Girl healed me. It was nothing.”Nezu-san still smiles stiffly, “You shouldn’t have been involved in the first place. I apologize for the actions of the teachers.”“Do you have some sort of control of them to make them do what they did?” Fran asks. Rhetorical, of course.Nezu-san keeps the slightly irritating fake smile on his face as he shakes his head, “No.”Fran reaches a hand up to cover his yawn and speaks through his yawn, “Then don’t apologize.”“Fran.” Fran winces as his nee-san shoots him a glare and bows his head lethargically, “Sorry.”Nezu-san does his squeaky little laugh, “No, that’s quite alright Chrome-kun. Thank you both for your actions with Bakugou-kun. It not only saved us a lot of trouble but I’m sure that Bakugou-kun also appreciated it.”“Speaking of,” Fran interjects in his monotone voice before his nee-san can speak, “that blasty-kid seems like a ticking time bomb. Are we just going to leave him be?”“There is no ‘we’ if you’re involved, Fran,” Chrome-nee-san scolds and Fran sticks out his tongue with a blank face just to tick her off. Though Chrome-nee-san doesn’t rise to his provocation, she never does. If it was Mukuro though… His nee-san turns to Nezu-san, “But I would like to keep an eye on Bakugou-kun. Something doesn’t seem right. If this escalates, I’d like to have him for required counseling with me.”Nezu-san nods slowly, as if he’s in thought, but Fran knows better. Nezu-san always thinks ahead and he’s probably already simulated this conversation in his head, “We’ll see how he progresses but it may ultimately lead to that yes.” Nezu-san smiles a secretive smile that Fran hates, “We’ll just have to wait.”Fran hates waiting.Tsukauchi Naomasa is frustrated, to put it lightly. He’s not physically exhausted, nor has he had to sleep or shower at the precinct, but everything is wearing down on him. Even with a Nomu in custody there’s not a lot they’re getting from it. DNA is non-conclusive, reaction tests result in nothing, and the brain waves are barely there so it’s like the creature is dead. Not to mention they haven’t been able to make significant headway on finding Shigaraki Tomura or Kurogiri and after interrogating all those villains they’d captured, all of them had practically known nothing. Only a promise of money and glory for helping take down All Might.“Detective Tsukauchi.”Naomasa pulls his head up from his desk and forces himself to smile at Officer Sansa, because the man is a good officer and doesn’t deserve the bitterness that Naomasa is swallowing down, “Officer Sansa. What is it?”The cat headed man glances to his side before meeting his eyes, “Detective Mochida Kensuke is here at your request sir.”Naomasa is frozen for a second before he smiles, “Ah. Right. I almost forgot.” He picks up his hat from his desk and motions for Sansa to lead the way.Finding Mochida Kensuke is easy in the bustling bullpen of the precinct. He’s the only one standing still amongst the chaos and the shinai strapped to his person isn’t helping him blend in.Naomasa approaches with what he hopes is an easy smile, “Detective Mochida, it’s nice to finally meet you.”Mochida turns as he reaches a hand up to his ear and Naomasa catches the hint of black in the younger man’s ears. “Detective Naomasa,” Mochida greets with a cheerfulness that Naomasa doesn’t expect, “It’s an honor to meet you sir.”Mochida is nine years Naomasa’s junior, but Mochida has seen a lot. He climbed the ranks quickly to become a Detective and he’s a number of cases behind him. It’s to the point that Mochida is often called around to precincts around Japan to assist in some of the biggest cases for his expertise. And Mochida isn’t jumping out of his seat cheerful but he’s not as jaded or arrogant that Naomasa assumed he would be. Naomasa expected a no-nonsense detective that took everything too seriously or a piece of shit detective who knew just how good he was at his job. Mochida is humble though, a respectful amount of positivity in his voice, and Naomasa’s quirk tells him that Mochida really is happy to see him.Naomasa can’t help but smile, “I could say the same to you. You’ve made a name for yourself Detective.”Mochida waves his hand, “You can call me Mochida, sir, after all you are my senior.” And then Mochida looks past Naomasa, “Officer Sansa, it’s nice to see you again.”Naomasa looks back just in time to see Sansa’s sparse, but not unkind, smile, “You two are acquainted?”Mochida nods, “We were on the same case together a while back, at Officer Sansa’s first precinct. He’s a good man, I wish I had him for a subordinate.”Naomasa turns back and sees the blush in Sansa’s ears. He grins a shit-eating grin that he knows Toshinori is too familiar with and probably shivers at the sight of it, “Is that right?”Sansa growls, literally, like a cat, something uncommon because Sansa likes to distance himself from his cat appearance and walks off.Mochida and Naomasa laugh together for a second.“Thank you, Mochida, for coming on such short notice. Things have been moving a bit slow and it’d do us good to have a new set of eyes.” Mochida smiles easily, “Lead the way, sir.”Naomasa has to marvel at the way Mochida had changed from easy-going, all smiles and openness when they had first met, but as soon as Mochida had entered his office and he had started to speak about the Noumu and Shigaraki and Kurogiri he had immediately sobered. He looked through all the papers Naomasa had with sharp eyes and listened intently as Naomasa spoke. It was like he was a different person. When Naomasa is done, Mochida stays silent for a couple more minutes. And Naomasa watches as Mochida goes through statements from the students, from the villains, from the tests they had had done.It takes a while for Mochida to speak after that.“You did a DNA test on the Noumu and came up with nothing, correct?” Mochida asks, his tone much more subdued. As if he’s consciously trying to keep all the emotion out of his voice.Naomasa nods, “That’s right. All the other tests also came up with nothing.”Mochida taps his pointer and middle finger on his knees repeatedly, alternating back and forth between the two fingers in thought, “To our knowledge, there is nothing in the world that can create a quirk. No pill, no injection, no miracle. Humans and a handful of animals are the only living things known to have quirks in our world. Consider this,” Mochida says with his eyes narrowed, “What if you’re looking at the entirety of the DNA as one? What if you need to look at the DNA in parts?”Naomasa doesn’t follow.Mochida must see his confusion because he elaborates, “This Noumu, you said that he had multiple quirks. So, what if someone found a way to combine, what, four or five people to create a being with multiple quirks, like-”Naomasa feels breathless, “Like the Noumu.”Mochida grins, and it’s boyish and suits the man’s young face, “I believe another test is in order?”Naomasa already knows that Mochida is going to be a valuable member in this investigation.The door closes behind them, cutting off the specifics of the conversation that Tensei is having with their parents. Tenya still feels numb, but he’s trying to think on the bright side. Tensei will be able to walk again. Someday. Tensei isn’t doomed. His nii-san is alive.He snaps out of his thoughts when he hears the shuddering sigh from his right and turns, turns to see Fuuta-san rubbing at his eyes.“Fuuta-san,” Tenya starts.Fuuta-san doesn’t let him continue, “Sorry. Sorry, I’m just so relieved.” Fuuta-san lifts his head and gives him a teary smile, “I thought the boss was dead. The fact he was going to live was reassuring enough but I thought that if I was only quicker that I could have stopped Stain from paralyzing him.” He looks far off, whispering, as if to himself, “But there’s hope… there’s hope.”Tenya grits his teeth, “It’s not your fault that nii-san was attacked, Fuuta-san. Please don’t blame yourself for that.”Fuuta-san nods, “Yeah, I know.” He takes a deep breath and lets it out with a long sigh. He takes a moment to smile and makes sure it stays on his face, “I have to go back to Idaten and get back to work. Team Idaten doesn’t stop when there’s people in need.”Tenya nods. It makes sense. Idaten is headed by one of the iterations of Iida-family heroes but there are more heroes and sidekicks at Idaten than just Ingenium. But there’s a reason why Tenya isn’t by his brother’s side right now, “What did you want to speak to me about, Fuuta-san?”And then Fuuta-san brightens, as if he had forgotten why he’d asked to speak to Tenya outside, “Oh, right! I know that Idaten sent out a work-study offer through Yuuei for you. Will you be joining us next week?”Tenya can’t control his emotion and forces himself to look down before Fuuta-san can catch it. It takes him a couple of tries, but he finally makes the words come out of his mouth, “No. Thank you for the offer but I already accepted an offer elsewhere.”“Oh,” Fuuta-san sounds disappointed, “That’s okay. Maybe next time, Tenya-san.”“Yes,” Tenya says, with his face still bowed, “Next time.”A familiar jingle rings in the hallway and Fuuta-san is grimacing at his phone when Tenya looks up, “Speaking of work, duty calls.” Fuuta-san looks at the door they had just closed before sending Tenya a sad smile, “Make sure the boss doesn’t do anything stupid. Pretending we really need him really brings the team together.”Tenya knows it’s a joke but it hurts.He forces himself to smile, “Of course.”Arriving at Gunhead’s agency, Ochako doesn’t know what to expect. Ochako expects to learn some of Gunhead’s legendary martial arts. She expects to learn a fraction of what it’s like to be a pro hero. She expects for Gunhead to be gruff and she’s slightly scared because of it. She sort of expects Gunhead to yell at her because she’s slightly late because of a problem with the train she was on.When she walks into Gunhead’s agency she doesn’t expect Gunhead to greet her cheerfully as there’s a truly dramatic, action-cinema worthy, fight behind him. “Uravity!” Gunhead greets, in a much cuter voice than Ochako expected, “It’s good to have you here!”Behind Gunhead, Ochako sees a man with red face paint get thrown into the wall with a thud, only to bounce back into battle, swinging a large staff at a lanky teen, who carries what looks like a police baton, with a battle cry that shakes the room.Ochako’s right eye twitches but she forces herself to respond, “A...Ah. I apologize for being late. The train was held up.”Gunhead claps a large hand on her shoulder, “That’s fine. You can go get changed in the back and then we’ll get started, huh?”The only way to the back, that she can see, is through the open dojo area that the two men are fighting in. She gulps, takes off her shoes, and shuffles against the wall, never taking an eye off the two men in fear of getting caught in the crossfire. She winces when the staff hits the teen in the stomach with a quick jab.“It’s intense, huh?” Ochako blinks when she realizes she’s made it across the dojo and there’s a beautiful woman standing at the other side with a shaved head, wearing a black and white hero costume that has heavy looking gauntlets on her legs. She smiles wickedly, “Welcome to the Gunhead agency. I’ll show you to the changing room, Uravity.”Ochako follows after the woman’s big steps, only faltering for second, “...intense?”The woman barks out a laugh, “Yeah. Don’t worry, you won’t do something like that while you’re here for the week. The most you’ll get are the basics engraved into your every motion. Those idiots just kinda have a grudge for each other.”Ochako blinks, all that for a grudge?The woman laughs louder and Ochako blushes when she realizes that she had spoken out loud, “I like you kid,” the woman announces, “Yeah, well, Takehiro knows better to take the fruit tarts that Lambo brings in. They’re his favorite.”“Oh,” Ochako says, all that for a fruit tart? She’s careful to not say that out loud.The woman pushes into a room with a single bed and a desk, “You’ll be staying here for the week. Someone else will give you the full tour later tonight but Gunhead probably has plans for you right now. Get changed, huh kiddo?”Before the woman can close the door, Ochako stops her, “Wait, I’m sorry. I, uh, never caught your name.”The woman stops and blinks, “Oh.” She grins wolfishly, “Call me Hanako.”Ochako almost drops her case when Hanako-san closes the door.A cute name for such an intimidating woman.Getting back to the dojo, she comes back just in time to see the lanky teen knock the staff out of the face-paint man’s hands and pin him to the wall with what looks like a live taser, “Give in!” the teen huffs.The man struggles for a couple seconds before groaning, “Fine! I give!”The teen lets go and holds out his hand for something. The man rolls his eyes and holds out his left arm straight in front of him. The teen collapses the baton and throws both that and the taser into the pockets of the large brown coat he’s wearing. He grabs the man’s wrist in his left hand and raises two fingers with his glove-covered right hand, “You ready?”The man rolls his eyes again, “Yeah, just get it-”Before he can finish the teen slaps his two fingers onto the man’s wrist and a loud smack echoes in the room as the man falls to his knees in pain with a muffled whine of pain. The teen, meanwhile, just grins triumphantly and punches his fist in the air.Ochako didn’t expect this when she accepted the offer from Gunhead.“Taurine, please. Set a better example for your underclassman.” Gunhead says as he walks onto the mats. The teen, Taurine, looks confused for a moment, “Underclassman?”Taurine turns and Ochako finally gets a good look at him. Taurine is a somewhat tall lanky European teen. He has dark green locks that look like a mess more than anything and his lidded eyes are a dark green. Taurine is wearing a well fitted brown coat with beige fur lining the hood. Underneath he’s wearing a form-fitting white shirt and black cargo pockets with plenty of pockets. He’s wearing what looks like combat boots and black leather gloves on his hands. And he looks vaguely familiar.Taurine’s face brightens a bit and there’s a grin on his face, “You’re from 1-A. You lost to the explosive guy during the sports festival.”Ochako can’t help the scowl on her face, “My name is Uraraka Ochako.”Taurine holds up his hands defensively, “Hey, it was a good fight kid.” He holds out his hand, “Bovino Lambo. But Lambo or Taurine are okay. Class 3-A. I intern with Gunhead.”Ochako’s face drops a little, “3-A? You’re my senpai?”Taurine laughs from his stomach.Ochako’s body is already aching and she knows it’s going to be worse when she wakes up tomorrow morning. Gunhead martial arts is really intense.“Hey, Uravity, go take a shower. You did good today so I’ll treat you, how does that sound?”Ochako bolts up and she’s only slightly aware that she’s drooling.Taurine laughs from his stomach again, “The faster you get cleaned up the faster we can get food.”Ochako practically runs to the showers. That’s where she has time to think and she feels like she’s going to die from embarrassment.For a while, Ochako had been doing basic drills with Gunhead’s sidekicks and Taurine, which they considered warm-ups, under Gunhead’s careful watch. It made Ochako feel a little stupid because she’d realized how careless she had been starting out in heroics because some of her punches could have left her with a broken wrist or broken fingers. But according to Gunhead she catches on quick.At some point the sidekicks branch off to do some actual sparring and Gunhead sits her down for a conversation of what they’re actually going to do. It’s mostly training but there’s patrols and with patrols there’s the potential of real villain situations. But after that Gunhead puts Taurine and her together and instructs them carefully as she learns how to flip people. And how to not let herself be flipped and recover from a flip. She learns that Taurine only looks lanky. He has a significant amount of strength behind him. And Taurine had just offered to buy her dinner and she’d drooled like an idiot.“Stupid!” Ochako mumbles to herself as she hits her head against the wall of one of many showers in the locker room.Ochako brings her wallet with her after she’s changed into some casual clothing. Standing by the door is Taurine, or Lambo-senpai, fiddling with his phone in jeans, sneakers, and dark green hoodie.“Lambo-senpai.”Lambo-senpai looks up and grins, “There you are. I hope you’re hungry. I told my friend’s guardian about you and he’s excited to meet you. Which means he’s going to spoil you.”Ochako is confused but also, “Lambo-senpai, you don’t have to treat me to dinner! I can pay for myself so-”Lambo-senpai throws his arm around Ochako’s shoulders (it’s almost a head lock) and leads her towards the door, “If it’s money you’re worried about, forget it. Yamamoto is practically dying to meet you.”“But I can’t just-” Ochako tries to protest.“Hey, why don’t we call it tradition?” Lambo-senpai says as they leave the office and head down the street in the cool night of Musutafu, “The intern when I first came to work-study with Gunhead bought me dinner too on the first day. So, come on, let’s make it a tradition.”Ochako thinks that Lambo-senpai is really good with his words sometimes, “...Only if you’re sure.”Lambo-senpai’s face practically lights up, “Get ready to have the best sushi in the world!”The shop Lambo-senpai leads them to is only fifteen minutes away and truly small compared to the other shops around them. It’s a Monday, almost nine o’ clock but the restaurant still has a good number of people inside. “Lambo!” a cheerful voice cries and the customers don’t even bat an eye.Lambo-senpai grins, “Yamamoto! Where’s I-Pin?”Lambo-senpai leads Ochako right to the counter and there’s a tall, spiky haired man with a smile that could go on for miles and water all the dying crops in the world. He’s dressed like a typical sushi chef and he’s waving his knife around freely, “I-Pin’s doing some late training. Her sleep schedule has been a little off so she’s working backwards until it’s back to normal.”Lambo-senpai winces as he plops himself down onto his seat, “Sounds rough.” He pats the stool next to himself, “Sit down, kid. You got a favorite sushi?”Before Ochako can respond, the sushi chef, Yamamoto is holding out a clean hand to her, “Nice to meet you, I’m Yamamoto Takeshi. Owner and chef of Takesushi.”Ochako smiles back because the man’s smile is infectious, “Nice to meet you Yamamoto-san. I’m Uraraka Ochako.”Yamamoto-san pulls his hand back and goes to wash his hand in the nearby sink, “So, you’re gunning to be a hero like Lambo right?”Ochako slowly relaxes, and she wonders momentarily if Yamamoto-san just has that effect on people, “I am! I’m a first year at Yuuei, though, so I have a long way to go.”Yamamoto-san laughs again, “I’m sure you’ll get there one day! Lambo did after all!”Lambo-senpai groans, “Yamamoto, that wasn’t necessary. Can’t you just let me be a cool senpai for once?”“You’re cool?” Yamamoto-san teases.Ochako can’t help but giggle at Lambo-senpai’s defeated expression. “Here you are!” Yamamoto-san announces.Ochako blinks when a wide assortment of nigiri is laid out in front of her. Lambo-senpai gets something similar but there’s less variety with his. She blinks again and looks up at Yamamoto-san with what she knows is a dumbfounded expression.Yamamoto-san just continues to smile, “I know what Lambo likes but figured I’d start with an introductory set for you. If there’s something you don’t like for the next round or something you really like, tell me.”Ochako feels a little bit of panic come on. She didn’t even notice that Yamamoto-san had been doing something during their conversation, “I, b-but, really I would be fine with some kappa-maki-”There’s a hand ruffling her slightly still wet hair, “Calm down. You worked hard today, right?” Lambo-senpai smiles, “Just enjoy it. You deserved it.”Ochako tries to look pleadingly at Yamamoto-san but he’s turned away, doing All Might knows what.So, she pulls apart her wooden chopsticks and picks up what she thinks is salmon. She dips it fish first in soy sauce and puts it in her mouth.And it just melts.The next time she’s fully aware, her plate is empty and Lambo-senpai and Yamamoto-san are looking at her with fond smiles.Yamamoto-san grins, “More?”Ochako’s stomach is beyond pride. “Yes please.”“They’re looking for Stain, Kyo-san.” The room is dark again, but Tetsuya knows that he’s awake. Roll knows better than to interrupt Kyo-san’s sleep and the last time Tetsuya had saw Roll, he’d been on Kyo-san's chest. And just minutes ago Roll had scrambled into the kitchen demanding food. Roll knew better to move before Kyo-san was awake.“That herbivore is baring his neck to another herbivore, asking to be killed,” Kyo-san responds from somewhere in the darkness. “He’s bartering the wrong things to the wrong herbivore.”Tetsuya nods, “It’s most likely Stain will refuse, but should we even give them a chance?”Kyo-san lifts a hand and waves it dismissively, “Inform the omnivore.”Tetsuya nods and bows his head. He closes the door with barely a thud before getting up from his knees.
Quirk-Restricted MMA Predicted Champion
Written by: Sasagawa Kyoko
Quirk-Restricted sport season is about to start, and fans are already buzzing with a potential champ for mixed martial-arts! I-Pin (18), born in Hong Kong but a Musutafu native has been trending on social media ever since she posted a gym mirror selfie of herself at the gym after working up a sweat with the caption “ready to kick butt and take names”. People on social media started a hashtag almost immediately after with “#thewinnerwillbeI-Pinanyways”.
I-Pin has been a big name in the mixed martial-arts scene since her debut in the junior tournaments. She’s infamous for losing to almost no one and her unassuming appearance. I-Pin is only 5’4” and usually wears baggy and cute clothing. But as soon as she steps into that ring, she is relentless.
While I-Pin is not without a quirk herself, she’s been an icon for people without a quirk and people with quirks that are harmful to themselves. I-Pin has been open since her debut that her quirk causes her body to explode and will render her completely helpless for more than a week. She’s spoken out that regardless of one’s quirk or lack of one that they can do whatever they want.
I-Pin is a crowd favorite and often regarded as a strong young female icon. We can’t wait to see what kind of performance I-Pin will show in the matches to come!
By the fourth day, Ochako has gotten used to the grueling practice that is Gunhead Martial Arts. And Ochako feels good. It feels good that she can defend herself against someone wielding a common weapon and hold her own in close combat situations. Ochako has pledged to be a hero to her parents since a young age but she’s never had the opportunity to be in a situation that required combat or receive combat training. She’s thought about what kind of training she needs to become a hero with her quirk but no way to actually get it done. And she’s finally getting it done and she’s taking to it like a duck to water. Or that’s what Hanako-san, Gunhead, and Lambo-senpai promise her. Hanako-san reassures her that she’s doing much better than Lambo-senpai had done when he first joined Gunhead’s agency. Lambo-senpai had a lot to say about that. But it gave her the motivation and strength to push through with the training.On the morning of the fourth day, after finishing breakfast and her warm-ups under Lambo-senpai’s watchful eye, Gunhead has all of them gather in rows in the dojo. Everyone is pulled out of their work for this, except maybe the secretaries and receptionist who work management at the Gunhead Agency. Next to her, Hanako-san is practically buzzing with excitement. Lambo-senpai, on her other side, looks uneasy at Hanako-san’s excitement.Gunhead clears his throat at the front of the room and smiles, “Today, a special guest will be joining us.”Immediately the room fills with what Ochako thinks is apprehension, but also hope, as the men and women in the room start to shift.Hanako-san puts her hand into her air with her wicked grin, “Is it who I think it is?!”The whole agency is practically on bated breath as Gunhead looks at Hanako-san with his lips in a straight line. He takes a moment, before opening his mouth, “Yes, it is, Hanako-kun.”As Hanako-san cheers the rest of the agency looks like someone just crushed everything good about their childhood.Ochako’s anxiety goes through the roof when Lambo-senpai throws himself onto the floor and announces, “I’m dead. Leave me to rest in peace.”Hanako-san practically cackles on her other side while the other members of the agency look like they’d want nothing more than to join Lambo-senpai in his “death”.“Shut up Taurine,” one of the men grumble behind them, “You actually last a decent amount of time.”Lambo-senpai lifts his head with a raised brow, “What? You think that’s something to brag about? Who has their pro-license here?”The man rolls his eyes, “You know I’m here to even out the numbers for all you close to mid combat fighters.”Before Ochako can ask Lambo-senpai about anything that’s happening Gunhead has clapped his hands together for attention again, “He’ll be here in a few minutes so get yourselves ready!”Grumbling fills the dojo and all the members start to slink off to who knows where.“Uravity!” Gunhead calls as he comes closer. When he gets close enough, he looks down and sighs at Lambo-senpai, “Lambo-kun, please get off the floor. It’s not clean.”Lambo-senpai doesn’t move, “I’m dead. Leave me alone, Gunhead.”Gunhead sighs again, “Lambo-kun.”When the older teen doesn’t move, Ochako takes the chance to ask the question that’s been in her mind since Gunhead’s announcement. “Excuse me, but who’s going to be here?”Gunhead smiles at her, “I came over here to talk to you about that!” He holds his hands out in front of him and closes them into fists cutely and Ochako swears Gunhead is glowing. “He’s a famous combat specialist known in pro-hero circles. He gets asked to come teach some of the newer heroes at some of the bigger agencies when he has the time. You’re lucky that your work-study is this week, Uravity! If not, you probably wouldn’t meet Sasagawa-san until you officially debuted!”Ochako frowns at the specific words Gunhead uses. “A combat specialist?” she repeats, “not a hero?”Gunhead giggles, and it takes everything in Ochako to not react, “No, Sasagawa-san actually has a boxing gym. He has a few athletes out there in the youth quirkless circles.”Ochako blinks, “Boxing?”The doors to the agency burst open and a tanned man with pure white hair stands there, legs shoulder width apart, his hands anchored at his sides, a wide smile full of teeth, and yells, “ULTIMATE BOXING!”Ochako swears her ears ring for minutes after the fact.Gunhead is moving to approach the man but there’s a black blur and the white-haired man is thrown out of the doorway and into the street with a deafening thud. Ochako can’t help the strangled squeak that leaves her throat.Hanako-san is standing by the entrance, slowly lowering her leg with a too-wide grin, and she shouts out the agency, “You let your guard down Ryohei-san! You’re getting lazy!”Gunhead throws his face into the open palm of his hand, “Hanako-kun, we’ve talked about this.”Hanako-san turns and throws Gunhead a wicked grin, “Cut me some slack! Ryohei-san hasn’t been here for a while and I’ve been itching for a-”A lot of things happen in just a couple of seconds. Maybe it’s the training that makes Ochako act like she does, maybe it’s just pure instinct, but there’s a rush of pressure heading straight in her direction, and there’s something large and black suddenly in front of her. And she reaches out, her pads of her fingers touching the object, pushing it up, even as the black blob and the pressure throws her back. She follows the flow of the pressure, throwing herself backwards over her shoulder, rolling at least two times before everything dies down and she’s crouched on the floor, a couple of feet away from where she was originally, and Hanako-san is floating in the air and the white-haired man is slowly pulling his fist back from the end stance of a proper punch.Then white-haired man lifts his head, and there’s a shadow over his eyes and that’s how Ochako justifies the reason why she thinks she sees the man’s eyes glow yellow, and he grins and shouts, “ULTIMATEEEEEEE!”In the silence that follows, Hanako-san, still floating in the air, says, “Thanks for the save, Uravity, but do you mind?”The blush on her face when everyone in the agency stares at her with a gape is impossible to hide. Maybe she should take a page out of Shouji-kun’s book and get herself a mask. She bows at Hanako-san repeatedly, giving off a Deku-worthy sprawl of apologies and justifications that fall short of actual sentences. All the while, Hanako-san is laughing her ass off, “It’s fine Uravity!” A strong hand clamps down on her shoulder, “I’m actually really impressed, kid. Most everyone’s first meeting with Ryohei-san results in disaster, and I’m talking about pro-heroes, side-kicks, and students with provisional licenses. You did good.”Ochako is still flustered, “But, I just acted without thinking-”“Some of the best heroes act without thinking like you did, and most actions don’t work out the way yours did,” Gunhead gently intervenes, forcing her to straighten up, “I’m proud of your improvement Uravity.”Ochako thinks her face can’t get any redder.“URAVITY!”Ochako will forever deny that she yelped when her hero name was shouted at the volume worthy of Mic-sensei. “Ryohei-san,” Lambo-senpai sighs, looking annoyed, Ochako notes when she turns around, glaring at the mountain of the man known as Sasagawa Ryohei, “Inside voices, please.”Up close, Sasagawa Ryohei towers over Ochako by a couple heads, if Ochako had to guess, maybe a little less than a foot taller. Everything else is three times as large. His shoulders, his arms, his legs, maybe even his fists. Sasagawa Ryohei is built like an absolute tank and she wants to cower in fear under his sunny smile. As Ochako stands only a couple inches from the man, and his face leans closer and closer down to her, she squints, because looking directly at Sasagawa-san is like looking right into the sun. And Sasagawa-san yells at the top of his lungs, right in her face, “YOU WERE ULTIMATELY INCREDIBLE! SPAR WITH ME!” completely ignoring Lambo-senpai’s request for him to quiet down. Ochako would rather fight Bakugou-kun five times in a row than have a spar with this man. So, her body goes into fight or flight - flight, obviously - and looks around for some sort of help. Her eyes go to Gunhead first, but he’s no longer standing where he once was. He’s off towards the front doors, checking it for damages. So, she moves onto Hanako-san, who instead of looking like she’s trying to help her, is holding up two thumbs and smiling encouragingly. Ochako has never wanted to cuss more. Her eyes go to her last hope and her jaw drops when she sees Lambo-senpai slinking away. “Wuh-, Lambo-senpai!” Ochako chokes out before she can stop herself. And Lambo-senpai whirls around with a murderous expression on his face, “Uravity, you-”“LAMBO!” Sasagawa-san yells, reaching over and pulling Lambo-senpai into a headlock, “How are you doing?”Lambo-senpai flails in the larger man’s grip, trying to escape the man’s noogie, “Ryohei-san, not the hair! God, freaking - g’off me!” Ochako watches as Lambo-senpai digs his hand into his coat pocket and whips out a small 4x4 inch piece of cardstock and a lighter. The teen quickly lights the lighter and holds the cardstock up to where Sasagawa-san can see and yells, “Let me go or I burn her!”Whoever is on the other side of the cardstock must mean a lot to Sasagawa-san because the man immediately freezes. And Ochako swears the room has gotten a couple degrees colder.“You wouldn’t,” Sasagawa-san growls in a low voice.Lambo-senpai grins vindictively, “Watch me!”In a movement Ochako can’t track, Hanako-san rushes forward and grabs the piece of cardstock out of Lambo-senpai’s hand and runs off to the side with a grin, “Come and get it Ryohei-san, or I rip her to shreds!”Sasagawa-san lets go of Lambo-senpai in a heartbeat to run after Hanako-san, but Lambo-senpai is close on his heels, “Damnit Hanako-san! That’s my leverage!”Ochako watches as the three whirlwinds rush around her, like she’s the eye of some sort of storm.Ochako has officially given up hope that there’s anyone normal in the hero industry.“You’re not bad, but you’re not good either!” Sasagawa-san declares, his arms crossed, face bright; as if he isn’t standing over the sweating mess that is currently Uraraka Ochako and he laughs from his gut, loudly.Ochako can’t say anything, savoring each swallow of oxygen that enters through her throat with a small prayer for another. When she tries to speak, it comes out a weak wheeze like she just got the air knocked out of her. Which isn’t true. That was a couple minutes ago after Sasagawa-san elbowed her in the gut. They’d thrown themselves into a spar, after Gunhead had all but commanded them to stop their shenanigans; an all-out brawl, quirks allowed, weapons allowed. The spar ends when one of them is knocked out, incapacitated, or at first blood.Ochako had only lasted until the end because she’d snuck between Lambo-senpai and Hanako-san, who had been targeting Sasagawa-san. After that, it was just herself against Sasagawa-san and he’d drawn out their fight.Ochako had thought that, technically, sending Sasagawa-san to the ceiling would count as incapacitation but Sasagawa-san was surprisingly fast. Overwhelmingly fast, despite his large frame and the hefty weight of his own body. Too fast to get her damn fingers on the man.It wasn’t fair. A hand on her upper arm drags Ochako into a standing position and she sways on her feet. She’d have fallen over if not for Sasagawa-san’s firm grip on her.“Uravity! Why are you here at the Gunhead Agency?”Ochako blanks for a moment, blinking through the sweat that drips from the top of her head, “I- huh?”“Why are you interning with Gunhead, Uravity?” Sasagawa-san asks again. His voice is at a normal speaking decibel, his tone solemn and face serious as he looks down at her.Ochako flounders, “I, it’s not an internship. It’s a work-study, sir.”Sasagawa-san waves his hand, “Specific terms aren’t my strong point. I’m asking why you’re learning under Gunhead.”Ochako stops. And she thinks about her fight with Bakugou-kun and she grits her teeth, “If I had been stronger, I could have been able to beat Bakugou-”“You’re here because you lost a fight and you think Gunhead martial arts could help,” Sasagawa-san interrupts flatly.“No!” Ochako immediately denies with wide eyes, “I have never been trained to fight properly by anyone. Everyone else in class seems to be much better at that than me, so I-”“And Gunhead martial arts will help you catch up to your classmates,” Sasagawa-san interrupts again.“No!” Ochako shouts this time. Irritation wells up in her chest after being repeatedly interrupted, “I just-”“Why do you want to be a hero, Uravity?” Sasagawa-san asks.Ochako bites back the building bark, unable to tell the man her reason in a room full of heroes, watching them interact.Sasagawa-san sighs and he lets her upper arm go, instead steadying her with a loose hand on her shoulder, “Whatever your reason, it is important for you to realize your weaknesses and try your best to make your weaknesses a strength. Becoming a hero means that you will fight villains and you will be risking your life and the life of others. Which means you shouldn’t take risks or chances because of your pride, Uravity.” Sasagawa-san pulls back and gestures to Lambo-senpai who is knocked flat on his ass against the far wall, unconscious, “Lambo excels in mid to short range fighting, but he uses weapons because he can store many with his quirk and it gives him an advantage. Your quirk can send me, and others, up in the air. It could lift up heavy pieces of concrete that could be pinning a civilian underneath it. But like in the sports festival, you can use your quirk to make projectiles out of the stuff around you.” Sasagawa-san gestures to the mats on the floor, “You don’t have that kind of luck here, unless you want to cause property damage that comes out of your paycheck. Consider support items that can help you in combat. Then come back to me when you’re ready to spar.”Sasagawa-san claps her on the shoulder one more time, almost making her weak knees buckle, and he turns, calling out for Gunhead.Ochako stands there with her head bowed and thoughts swirling in her head.“Damn, Uravity. Ryohei-san must really like you.”Ochako whirls her head on Hanako-san with a frown, “Is that how any person shows affection?”Hanako-san snorts quietly, swinging a heavy arm over Ochako’s shoulders and leading her towards the dorms, “He asked you to come back, right? That’s enough of a sign for me.”Ochako doesn’t get a chance to say goodbye to Sasagawa-san but his words ring in her head when she settles down to sleep that night.
Come back.
Come back, Uravity.
Work-Study with [shuriken emoji] @ridley_alien_queen reblogged a post.
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Renowned Fashion Designer Hints at Big Collaboration!
Written by: Sasagawa Kyoko
At 3 in the morning, famous fashion designer, Miura Haru, dropped a teaser of some sort of collaboration with a major company on her Instagram! Why she decided to post at 3 A.M. is a mystery to us but the picture showed a blurred out mannequin wearing clothing in a place that was definitely not her studio. In her caption she wrote “I’ve never worked with such efficient people before (or with such a large group of capable people) but things are finally coming to a head. Look forward to what we have! #Icantbelievetheywantedtoworkwithme”
While the people she’s working with hasn’t been revealed, her disbelief that such a big name would collab with her says a lot.
Miura Haru has been famous for her ostentatious and colorful clothing, but also for her more casual brand. She works with models of all shapes, sizes, and nationalities. Her clothing is particularly famous among high school boys and girls across Japan and also overseas. We’re excited to see what else Miura Haru will bring to the table!
(Ochako doesn’t have time to check her phone when she’s training on that third day. She tries to ask Deku-kun why he sends his location but the group chat going off distracts her. She back reads and there’s mounting horror over the Stain video. She and Lambo-senpai follow the news together until Lambo-senpai has to head home for the night, but the last thing they hear together is Endeavor being taken into custody. She sends her concern to her three classmates and only sleeps well that night because she’s physically exhausted. On the fourth day, no one talks about the elephant in the room and Sasagawa-san is a great distraction, if not a tough opponent. What follows is what happened on that third day of the work study week the Hero students of Yuuei participated in.)When Gran Torino rounds the corner and his eyes land on him, Izuku is already bracing himself for the scolding of a lifetime. Instead, Gran Torino’s eyes go higher and he shouts, “Are you behind this, Vongola?!”The simple word makes the four of them stop. Iida-kun, Todoroki-kun, Native, and Izuku all stop with terror in their veins. They turn and turn their eyes upwards, finally settling on a lone figure standing on the edge of the roof carrying a trident and wearing the mask of indigo mist.“We do not meddle in experimentations that create things that are beyond human, hero,” a flat voice answers, firm and distorted. “It is insulting to imply that we would.”“Spade,” Izuku chokes out, eyes wide.Izuku wonders what the odds are. To see another Vongola shortly after the USJ. To see two of eight Vongola so close. How many of his fellow fans could ever claim to have achieved that. Of course, it’s still up there if seeing a Vongola so soon again is a good thing.“How long have you been here?” Todoroki-kun shouts, frost already coating the ground beneath them.Spade coolly looks away from Gran Torino to look down at them, “Does it matter?”“We could have died!” Todoroki-kun shouts, “You could have-”“Todoroki-kun!” Iida-kun harshly interrupts, “No matter if the Vongola has saved us before, they are still vigilantes!”Izuku watches as Todoroki-kun bites his tongue, fists clenched at his side.“You handled it well enough yourself,” Spade says, not fazed by their small argument. “I was not to interrupt until I sensed that your lives were truly about to expire.”“Then what are you here to do?” Gran Torino barks, still on his guard behind them.Spade stops and tilts her head, truly looking like she’s about to answer.She never gets a chance as sparks crawl up the side of the building Spade is standing on, stopping at the very spot beneath Spade’s feet. Fire explodes upward, swallowing up Spade like a hungry beast.What. Izuku is whirled around when he hears cheers somewhere behind them. But he can’t compute, can’t acknowledge mentally that such an attack would incapacitate Spade.“You idiots!” Native shouts when five sidekicks from the Endeavor agency crawl out of the alley they were hiding in, guns blazing, “He was getting information out of her!”“We could ask her more questions after capturing her!” the one wearing goggles spits back.The one wearing a mask, with big black bold lines across it, easily climbs the building with sparks at the bottom of his feet. The only female of the group smirks, “She wouldn’t have been able to escape my attack. She never saw us coming.”Izuku wonders, mutely, if everyone at the Endeavor is like Endeavor himself.“Interesting, is that what you saw?” The whole group turns to look, as a whole, to the cloud of indigo blue mist a couple feet behind the sidekicks.Izuku prays his sigh of relief is ignored and dismissed by Native.To credit one of the sidekicks, he does whirl around and launch what looks like a grenade at the vigilante, but it phases through the corporeal image of Spade and hits the street with the explosion of a firework.“G-ghost!” one of the sidekicks shrieks. Spade just rolls her trident around her wrist, swirling the mist around her until she’s no longer there.“Where’d she go?!” the female sidekick shouts.“I would have left quietly, but I did not want to give plebeians the false credit of my so-called death,” a disembodied voice calls out to them, seemingly, coming from all over. “Please, do not underestimate us. Especially if you want to capture us,” Spade says, her voice blank fading by her last word.Spade is definitely somewhere near the top of the list of people that Izuku would hope to never piss off.He notes in the back of his head to add to his notes that Spade can throw shade when she wants to.The video is blurry for a moment, swirling into colors with loud noise interrupting the audio. It eventually settles to show burning buildings, people are being ushered away by sidekicks and heroes in all directions. The audio clears up with a shriek of something not human. A shriek like one would hear in a horror movie. Fire bursts into view, Endeavor just behind as the fire rushes at a thing that doesn’t look human in the slightest, with an exposed brain and eyes that don’t blink. The second creature is a step behind but is quickly backhanded by a flaming arm.The man is clearly yelling at the creature, mouth running like a motor, but it’s indistinguishable to the thuds the creatures make as they run across the concrete and their ear-piercing shrieks.And then, startling everyone, even the person holding the recording device, a wave of pure blue energy crashes down onto one of the creatures Endeavor is fighting. And the creature cripples like a precarious Jenga tower without so much as a cry.“What the hell?” the person behind the camera asks, incredulous. But it quickly turns into an indistinguishable yell as a purple streak slams into the remaining creature, brutally bashing its brain in with a single strike. The purple streak propels itself quickly upward and the camera follows dutifully, not without catching the incredulous look on the flame hero’s face. All of a sudden, the video is all too quiet.“I hope you don’t mind us helping out!” a voice calls. And it takes a moment for the camera to focus, zoomed in on the two figures on the top of a nearby building, “but it looked like you could use some help.”“Vongola,” Endeavor snarls out of view.“Oh, you recognize us,” Asari says as he swings his katana over his shoulder, “It’s quite the honor, Mister no. 2.” Asari turns to his side and nudges his companion, “Isn’t that right, Alaude?”Alaude doesn’t say anything, or it’s too quiet for the recording to catch, but the man visibly dismisses the statement with a turn of his head.Asari laughs from his stomach, “I’m sorry about Alaude. He was looking for more of a fight. He gets cranky when he doesn’t fight enough.”“If it’s a fight you want, then come down here!” Endeavor shouts, flames flaring visibly at the edge of the screen.“We have plans for that later,” Asari replies, waving a flippant hand. “We’re not just here to show you up.”“Then why are you here?” Endeavor shouts.The eye holes of Asari’s mask glow cerulean blue. Iida Tenya has never been good at making friends. For quite a while, Tensei-nii had been his only friend. To this day, Tensei-nii is still his best friend. There’s something about Tenya that makes him different, he knows that. Tensei-nii tells him that it’s because Tenya cares about everything, which isn’t a bad thing, but not quite the norm. Tenya likes routines and rules; and he dedicates himself to them. To others, he seems strict, unfriendly, rigid, and heartless. Tenya simply cares too much and is very solid in his beliefs. That, along with Tenya’s occasionally strange movement tics and his struggle to interact with his peers, who are intolerable to his strangeness, leaves Tenya mostly friendless.Tensei-nii’s friends are all kind and take Tenya’s quirks in stride. Some even find it endearing and Tenya finds himself that some of Tensei-nii’s friends are also his friends. (Which makes Tenya do a double-take when he sees Hizashi-san in full costume at the entrance exam and as his English teacher, and Shouta-san as his homeroom teacher, looking much of the same, actually.)But, Todoroki-kun and Midoriya-kun are injured trying to save him because he foolishly rushed in, believing he could avenge his brother.Tenya is bowing at 90 degrees before he knows it. “Both of you… You were wounded because of me. I am so terribly sorry…” The ground becomes blurry as he continues, “I… was blind… I lost sight of everything.”It's Midoriya-kun that speaks first, “No… I'm sorry too. I couldn't tell at all what you were upset about, and I'm supposed to be your friend.”Tenya stiffens at that and it feels like Midoriya-kun’s words stab at his heart.Todoroki-kun speaks next, words rushing over him like a cool breeze, reassuring, pushing. “Get it together. You're our class president, aren't you?”Tenya wipes his tears and forces himself to nod.“Right.”And he wonders if this is what it’s like to have friends. But they don’t get a full minute of peace before a Noumu with wings comes out of nowhere, grabbing Midoriya-kun off of Native’s back, and for a terrifying moment, Tenya wonders if he’ll learn what it’s like to have a friend and what it’s like to lose a friend in the span of five minutes.The hero killer, escaping his bonds, catches up to the Noumu when no one else can. And he starts to speak.The video zooms out quickly when a large billboard screen comes to life behind Asari and Alaude.“Check, check, un deux trois,” a bland voice calls out from speakers from an unidentifiable location, “I hope this is on, because, boy, do I have a show for you.” The blank black of the screen shifts to an eagle view of a group of people in a dark street. “I call this the fall of Stain!”The video on the billboard zooms closer to the group and the clear image of a green haired teen, pinned under the hero killer as said killer slips his knife out of a creature similar to the ones Asari and Alaude took down.“The phonies that have overrun society and the criminals who so aimlessly sprinkle around their ‘power’,” a gravelly, haunting, voice snarls, almost echoing in the nearly empty streets, “Those. Those are the targets of my purge.” The voice chuckles but it’s without humor and the billboard’s camera gets closer to the hero killer to get a look at his scarred face. “All of this is for the sake of a just world!” he crows. The man stumbles to his feet, and he looks drunk as he shrieks up to the sky. “Fakes! This sin must be rectified! Someone. Someone must be stained with blood! If I don't redeem the definition behind the word ‘hero’!” he rants. He whirls on his feet, and the group visibly flinches backwards as he does. “Try me! Come at me, you pretenders! The only one who is allowed to kill me is the true hero! All Might!”And the man stops, cut like a puppet cut from his strings, tilting forward.Startled yells come through the video, but the camera turns away from the crowd of watching people to show Spade standing over Stain with her trident held high. “Spade, wait!” someone shouts.The camera follows Spade’s movement as she stabs her weapon through Stain’s body, lifting him, effortlessly, like a limp pasta noodle on a fork. “Holy shit,” the person behind the recording device whispers, saying something for the first time in a while.“Stain was quite literally a hero killer. What he did is unforgivable and the Vongola will never tolerate killing for such ruthless ‘justice’,” Asari speaks in the stunned silence and the camera focuses on Asari and Alaude again, “But he had a point. Hero society, now, is warped. It’s no longer about doing the right thing. It’s about being famous, a paycheck, or showing your superiority. For others, it’s akin to a dick measuring contest.” Asari tilts his head and leans down, “But you would know all about that, huh, Endeavor-san?”The camera zooms out the best it can to get both the angled view of Endeavor and the vigilantes both in frame, “What are you on about?” Endeavor growls up at the two men.Asari snorts, “Playing dumb doesn’t look attractive on you, Endeavor-san. Honesty is a quality most people look for when trying to find a significant other. But that would be something you have no concept of.”“What are you implying?!” Endeavor bursts out, impatient.Asari stops moving for a moment before slowly leaning back into his usual slouch, “Heh, sticking to your guns, huh?” Asari raises his hand and starts to count down on his fingers, “Let’s see… Honesty, consent, how to raise children, how to treat people respectfully. Those are four things you’re not good at, Mister no. 2.” Asari tilts his chin downward slightly as he gleefully says, “Unless the best way to raise children is by beating them black and blue and ignoring the ones that are useless to you.”“How dare you-!” Endeavor gets out.“Can you say, in all honesty, then, that you married your wife out of love, and not for the powerful ice quirk she wielded to create the best weapon to knock All Might out of top spot in her womb?”Endeavor’s fire flares around him, “Preposterous-!”“Herbivores like you have no right to be entrusted with the lives of others,” Alaude’s regal voice says above Endeavor’s protest. “The strong protect its weak. And yet you use your weak as sacrificial chess pieces, discarding them when they are no longer of use to you.” Alaude turns and starts to walk out of view, “The Vongola will treat you as any other common villain the next time you cross our path.”“WAIT!” Endeavor roars, launching himself upward with a burst of his flames against the concrete.Asari’s blue wave of energy crashes into Endeavor, anticipating his action, and smoke fills the screen.When the smoke finally clears, the two vigilantes are no longer in sight and the billboard displays a doctored photo of Endeavor behind bars.The camera focuses on Endeavor one last time, pulling himself out of the hole the wave pushed him into.“Holy fucking shit.”“Holy fucking shit,” Todoroki Natsuo whispers under his breath, panting like he’s run a marathon despite sitting in the same spot in his apartment since he saw the news break. He runs a hand down his face, “Shit!”And the laugh bubbles up before he can help it, and before he can stop it, it overtakes him like something has possessed his soul. And he laughs and cackles, so ugly, his body wracking with each aborted breath in and his face screwed up into something resentful.He laughs so hard tears come to his eyes and his lungs burn. He wonders, as he laughs, what would someone think if they saw him like this. Laughing hysterically about life-ruining allegations pointed at his father shared all over the nation. Would they think him a monster? Think him a bad son for enjoying, finding joy in the slander of his father’s name. Or would they give Natsuo the benefit of doubt and start to doubt - start to wonder if Endeavor was not the man he seemed to be. Wonder if Endeavor was the hero persona of the villain known as Todoroki Enji. He’s lying on the couch, staring up at the ceiling, chest heaving from his fit, when the phone goes off. He slides his phone off the coffee table and accepts the call. And out from his mouth is the most cheerful “hello” to ever escape him.“Na-tsu, Natsu did… did you see the news?” his older sister’s voice sounds worn over the phone.“Yeah, I did, ‘Yumi-nee,” Natsuo replies, “Wasn’t it great?”“Natsu,” Fuyumi hisses at him.Natsuo scoffs, ignoring her, “If all it took were some mysterious vigilantes accusing him to cause all this, I would have become a vigilante a long time.”“Natsuo!”“What?” Natsuo barks back, “What do you want me to say, Fuyumi-nee?” He’s not yelling but he’s close to it. His sister doesn’t respond. “Do you want me to say that I feel bad, or sad or something? I won’t! Because the only thing I can see is that light at the end of the tunnel is ten times closer than it was just a few hours ago! The world is going to see Todoroki Enji the way we did. And pretending that we could be something like a normal family isn’t feasible when our father is a monster, Fuyumi-nee!” He takes a deep breath, lowering his voice, “So yeah, I’m a die-hard Vongola fan if they get Enji to pay for everything he’s done.”“...Shouto is calling me. It must be important, give me a second,” his sister says in a thick voice.“It’s fine,” Natsuo says, hanging up before he hears a response. He drops his hand and his phone lands somewhere on his carpeted floor.He looks up at the ceiling and laughs; dry, weak, and uneven.But he laughs.And he smiles.Because, holy fucking shit.Holy fucking shit, hell-effin’ indeed, Shouto thinks as he’s getting patched up, watching the video that the public jumped on immediately after it was released.He’s glad Iida and Midoriya are in the next room so they don’t see his mouth fall open, watching the Vongola verbally tear his father apart with accusations that hold water. Shouto can’t help his spiraling thoughts. Did G look into his father because of what he said to him at the USJ? Did G tell the rest of the Vongola and launch into this public display? Or did they know? Did they know what Endeavor was really like - what kind of person he was before? Before Shouto opened his big mouth? Did they plan on broadcasting and taking down Stain in order to take Endeavor down? Or was Endeavor just a convenient secondary target? Accusing the second-best hero in Japan of such heinous crimes would certainly attract the attention of people, not only in Japan but, all over. Was it to garner support? Or attention at least?The worst part is, Shouto doesn’t know how to feel. He should be happy. His father is a terrible person. His father drove his mother insane - literally. His father destroyed any semblance of Shouto’s childhood. His father tore his siblings away from him. His father, to Touya-His door is thrown open and Shouto gapes as Aizawa-sensei walks in, capture tape tight in his grip and his eyes glowing.“Sen...sei?” Shouto asks.But Aizawa-sensei doesn’t look at him until he’s finished scanning the room and his capture tape and hair fall when he closes his eyes, “I’m sorry, I needed to make sure Endeavor wasn’t here.”“He’s here?” Shouto blurts out, incredulous.Aizawa-sensei scowls, “I don’t know. What I do know is that he’s not in custody.”“Custody?” Shouto repeats, eyes wide.Aizawa-sensei stares at Shouto and Shouto doesn’t shift under the man’s strange gaze, too used to his own father’s more intense stare. But Shouto can’t figure out what Aizawa-sensei is thinking.“There are many who are of the opinion that your father should be detained, for the time being, because of the accusations of his character and crimes he’s apparently committed,” Aizawa-sensei takes a deep breath, eyes flashing, “There are others, who think, that because the Vongola are making these accusations, it is just talk.” Aizawa-sensei says “others” like he’s talking about the scum of the earth. “Oh,” Shouto can’t help but say. His fingers curl into the fabric of his pants. “What do you think, sensei?”Aizawa-sensei stares at him again, the same look from before. “I’m more concerned with the fact that my student has the potential of being in danger. It is my responsibility to protect you when I can, not only as pro-hero, but also as your teacher. If Endeavor is a potential danger, he will not get to you. I promise you that, Todoroki.”Oh. Oh. Shouto can’t really think straight anymore. Because there’s someone who believes him. Who’s telling him that Endeavor will not come near him. There are whispers of “they never believe us-” in the back of his mind that echoes. He’s grasping at strings.“My sister and my brother. My mother-”“They’re alright,” a new voice says. Shouto does a double take, staring at someone who looks like his English teacher, but his hair is down and he’s not wearing leather. But the voice is Present Mic when he’s deep into a lecture. “I just got word that Endeavor was taken in by the Hero Public Safety Commission. He’ll most likely be monitored.”“Mic-sensei?” Shouto asks as Aizawa-sensei nods at the blonde man who may or may not be his sensei.The man smiles, and that is Present Mic’s smile, “Todoroki! Glad you’re doing better compared to your classmates.”“Iida, Midoriya, are they okay?” Shouto rushes out.Mic-sensei nods, “They should be okay. Iida and Midoriya may have some future troubles with the mobility of their hands but they’re not gonna keel over any time soon. Though, they will be missing the rest of their work study.”“As will you,” Aizawa-sensei says, “Not only do I not trust Endeavor’s agency, but you, your mother, and your siblings will have to move to a safe house so your father won’t come find you if he manages to leave volatile. Can you contact them?”“My mother is in the hospital. She is unable to leave,” Shouto says instead of answering the question.Shouto sees Mic-sensei and Aizawa-sensei exchange unreadable looks.“Security guards at hospitals are licensed to use their quirks in certain situations. It’s a requirement. While they wouldn’t be able to stop Endeavor, they could cause a scene big enough to deter Endeavor from making more of a scene, with his already declining popularity,” Aizawa-sensei patiently says. Aizawa-sensei grimaces, “With all of this… speculation out there, things are going to change quickly and you’re going to hear a lot of things that you’re probably not going to like. You may be contacted by a social worker; they’ll be detectives asking you about the allegations. It’s just going to get tougher going forward and I’ll do my best to help you with what comes.”“Me too!” Mic-sensei says enthusiastically, raising his hand with a wide grin, “You can depend on me too!”Shouto considers Aizawa-sensei’s words and thinks, no.It may just get easier going forward.In the bed across the room, Midoriya-kun makes a strangled noise.“Midoriya-kun, are you okay?!” Tenya shouts, ready to jump out of bed.“Spadewasn’ttheonlyVongolaatHosu!” Tenya blinks, “Midoriya-kun, please take a deep breath and speak more slowly.”But Midoriya-kun doesn’t repeat himself, instead he half-shouts, “The news! Check!”“Midoriya-kun are you sure you’re okay-”“Just check the news!”Tenya dutifully pulls his phone off the nightstand and heads for his usual news source. And then his stomach drops.“...Is this why Todoroki-kun wasn’t allowed to stay with us?” Tenya asks, not really seeking an answer from Midoriya-kun.“What if… what if Todoroki-kun is with Endeavor?” Midoriya-kun whispers.The tension in the room makes the room cold.“Todoroki is fine. You two, however, have a lot of explaining to do.”Both teens flinch, eyes wide as they process the sight in front of them, “Sensei!”Aizawa-sensei closes the door quietly behind him and approaches the charts left next to the beds, “I would have imagined you two were asleep, you’ve had a long day.”“Sensei,” Midoriya-kun says, like a dehydrated person desperate for water, “The news- Endeavor, is he being investigated?”Aizawa-sensei raises his eyebrow at the green haired teen, “Why am I not surprised you already heard the news?” He sighs and sets the charts down, “It’s being handled. And Endeavor will not be in contact with his family for the possibility of all this being true.”Midoriya-kun breathes a sigh of relief, “Todoroki-kun told you-”“Todoroki has not given a statement, official or otherwise, on the topic,” their teacher interrupts. Tenya watches as blood drains from Midoriya-kun’s face in an instant, “Do I need to point some detectives to you too?”Midoriya-kun drops his head, hands pulling tight at the sheets covering his legs.“Midoriya-kun!” Tenya calls before he realizes it, arm moving its usual repetitive motion, “The doctor said not to strain your hands if you could help it!”Midoriya-kun jumps like he’s been burned, bringing his hands up, “Ah… thank you, Iida-kun.”Tenya nods his head curtly and his eyes naturally go to his teacher, “Aizawa-sensei, you said Todoroki-kun was fine, but I am concerned about Endeavor’s influence. Even separated, I’m sure Endeavor could find a way to contact Todoroki-kun if he tried.”Aizawa-sensei looks at him like he knows that Tenya is trying to change the subject, and it makes Tenya shift in his bed, but Aizawa-sensei dutifully replies, “Mic is currently with him. He’ll be leaving with us tomorrow morning.”“Todoroki-kun was not as injured as us,” Tenya says, confused, “Could he not leave for a safer location now?”“He would,” Aizawa-sensei drawls, “But he, along with two others, decided to idiotically run into a fight without thinking of the consequences and needs to be chewed out by the Hosu chief of police in the morning.”Midoriya-kun chokes and Tenya feels his cheeks go red, his glasses fogging up.“So, go to sleep,” Aizawa-sensei says with a terrifying grin, “You’re going to need the rest.”When their teacher leaves, Midoriya-kun is the one to break the silence.“How many bones do you think I would break from jumping out the window?”“Midoriya-kun, no!”They gave him his phone because his siblings needed to be contacted. He spent thirty minutes in a group call, assuring his siblings that he’d meet them at the safe house they’d been escorted to tomorrow morning. Fuyumi had been in tears, but she’d learned a long time ago how to cry quietly. Natsuo just kept repeating “about time”, “finally someone gets it”, and “he deserves it” which made Fuyumi cry even more. Shouto had just been numb to it all.He stares at his phone, surprised by the notifications waiting to be read at the top of the screen. Before Yuuei, the numbers in Shouto’s phone were limited to the numbers of his father, his father’s agency, and his brother and sister. After the sports festival, though, his class had made a group chat. Immediately, Shouto dismisses the messages from the group chat and then mutes the group chat after the notification comes back because the group chat is being actively used. He has a couple of individual messages from his classmates, showing their concern for him.But only one name catches his eyes. He clicks it without thinking.Hagakure Tooru: Seems like ur secret was outed for u Todoroki-kun >.< thats r00d af!!Shouto hesitates over the keyboard. He wants to deny it. Say that this isn’t his secret. Say that he hasn’t made a statement. Say that no one has ever believed him. No. He can’t say that. That would imply it was true. But it would disrespect Hagakure to lie to her. He forces himself to type.Me: What is “r00d” and “af”The response is immediate.Hagakure Tooru: Oh, u sweet summer child.If his thumbs are sore and eyes are bloodshot when he yells at the Hosu chief of police the next morning, that’s his business.