Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Midoriya Inko slid a letter across the table to Izuku as the green-haired boy ate his breakfast. “Izuku, Dad’s letter arrived.”

It was an expected and regular occurrence - despite being far away and unable to easily visit the two of them, Hisashi tried his best to keep in touch with his wife and son, writing to them on a monthly basis, if not more frequently. It had always struck Izuku as slightly odd that he never phoned, but the man always included generous sums with his letters, and so the Midoriyas never wanted for anything, even without considering their relatively restrained tastes. It was thanks in large part to these payments that the family was able to live where they pleased, and they enjoyed a modest two-story house of their own in Musutafu’s suburbs.

Izuku finished eating before reading the letter. It smelled faintly of tobacco smoke, as Hisashi’s letters always did - the man must’ve been a smoker.

Izuku,

   I’m glad to hear that school’s been going well. I have faith that you’ll be able to enter any high school you set your sights on. I’ve included a little extra - treat yourself to whatever you want.

Much love,

   Your Father.

PS - remember Yorimasa.

A melancholy smile crept onto his face at his father’s traditional closing. While his obsession had always been with modern Pro Heroes, Hisashi had a fondness for ancient folk tales and the heroes and monsters of myth. When Izuku had learned he was quirkless, born powerless in a world of heroes and superpowers, Hisashi had brought up the archer Minamoto no Yorimasa in his next letter. It was a nice image: amongst the other heroes of old Japanese legend, here was one who saved the Emperor through skill at archery, without any sorcery or divine power to aid him. But, as Izuku became increasingly aware as he grew up, those were only stories.

Well, that went worse than expected , Izuku thought bitterly as he fished scattered pages of his notebook out of the school's koi pond. His day had mostly gone as normal, but after his teacher had decided to tell the whole class about the quirkless kid’s goal of getting into UA, Bakugo had taken this as an invitation to torment him after class. Any (admittedly small) satisfaction he had at Bakugo discovering that he had specially purchased a scorch-and-waterproof notebook had vanished rapidly when the explosive blond had instead decided to tear its pages out and chuck the mess out the window. 

I'll need to see if I can commission Detnerat to make paper that can un-tear - I'm sure it's possible. Actually, would it be possible? There's a number of heroes with transformation quirks and all of their outfits are either relatively sparse on material or made of highly stretchable fabric which would imply that "un-tearing" material, so to speak, is a trickier problem than I'm perhaps giving it credit for, but then again that could also simply be a practical consideration given the disadvantages of looser clothing in a comba-

Izuku's rambling thoughts were cut off by his blundering into someone at the school gates, clumsily knocking both of them to the ground. He had collided with a glasses-wearing girl with short brown hair. He noted that she wore a purple plaid school uniform, as well as a black hat and a cloak inscribed with norse runes on the interior. She seemed slightly older than him, likely in high school. Izuku recovered first, scrambling quickly to his feet.

“I’m so sorry! Let me help you up.”

“Oh, thank you.” She grinned widely as she firmly grasped his hand, accepting his help hauling her to her feet.

Izuku raised an eyebrow at her strange garb - even her uniform wasn’t one he recognized from any of the schools in the area. He calmed his nerves before asking, “I don’t think I’ve seen you around the area, were you looking for something in particular?”

“A friend of mine told me to wait here, but I think I’m gonna sit at that cafe over there instead. Sorry for the trouble!” She brushed some dirt off her cloak, straightened her hat, and hurried off down the street.

Izuku watched briefly as she walked away, before turning and beginning his own walk home. He decided on his usual route, a winding, isolated path that would give him time to think about his future. I need to figure out a plan to pass UA’s entry exams - I can’t be sure I’ll be able to bring items into the exam with me, but it has to be possible to pass without the usage of Quirks. Some UA alumni have Quirks with limited use cases that I can’t imagine fell within the constraints of the entry exams. 

He paused in thought in a dimly-lit tunnel below a bridge. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to look at alumni of other hero schools as well, see if any of them seem like I might have a shot, use them as a backup I hopefully won’t need. Any hero training is better than none, at the very least. He had just begun to add a reminder into his phone to do just that when a squelching noise behind him made him turn.

He barely managed to identify the source of the noise - a vaguely humanoid mass of dark green slime with a pair of eyes had bubbled up through a manhole cover - before it slammed into and engulfed him. Panicked, he began to thrash around, trying desperately to free his mouth and nose at the very least. The sludge laughed at his efforts. “Calm down, kid. Just take a deep breath and it’ll be over before you know it. You’re a real lifesaver, you know that?” 

Izuku frantically looked for some way out. I was facing him when he grabbed me, so pulling back will be fruitless, he realized. I didn’t have time to take a breath - I need to be quick! With all his might, he instead tried to swim deeper into the villain that surrounded him, trying to push through to the other side. . The villain was quick to react, shifting backwards to keep him centered. “Sorry kid, but I need you more than you do.”

Nothing was working. Izuku could feel himself growing weak; he wasn’t sure how long he had been struggling at this point. So this is how it ends, huh?

“TEXAS SMASH!”

It was like standing in a wind tunnel. Hurricane winds blasted his body, flinging the sludge away and spattering the walls with the hapless villain. Wheezing for breath, Izuku looked to his saviour to find…

“ALL MIGHT!?”

The number one hero laughed as he swept the swept the chunks of villain into a dustpan. “The one and only! I really must apologize - I was tracking this villain earlier, but he gave me the slip and you ended up being caught in the crossfire.” He began pouring the accumulated slime from the dustpan into a soda bottle. “Regardless, I suppose it all worked out in the end. Is there anything I can do for you while I’m here?”

“I- um- ah-” Izuku frantically tore through his pack to retrieve his notebook, frantically flipping to the page on All Might. “Please! Could I have your autograph?”

All Might grabbed a pen from his pocket and scrawled his signature with the practiced ease one would expect from a hero in the public eye as much as he was. “No problem at all, kid! Always happy to give a signature to a fan! But, alas, a hero’s work is never done - I need to get this ruffian to the police and resume my rounds!” He crouched, preparing to take off in one of his famous leaps.

On an impulse, Izuku lunged for All Might’s leg. “Ah - wait! I still have so much to ask you!”

Thankfully, All Might’s leap touched down on a relatively close rooftop. All Might scolded Izuku as he was catching his breath from the turbulent flight. “Kid, that was extremely dangerous! You could’ve been badly injured or even killed! Now if you’ll excuse me, I really must go.”

“PLEASE! I… I need to know. Can I become a Hero, even without a Quirk?”

All Might paused at this question. Izuku continued, “All my life, I’ve dreamed of being a hero and saving people. I don’t have a Quirk, but is it still possible for me to become someone like you, someone who saves people with a smile on their- EHHHHHHHHHH?”

All Might had exploded into smoke. When it cleared, a haggard, skeletal man stood in his place.

“WHAT? AN IMPOSTER?”

The man coughed up a bit of blood and wiped it away before speaking. “I am All Might.”

“I DON’T BELIEVE YOU!”

“It’s like how people flex and hold it while they’re at the pool, you know? To make themselves look buffer than they actually are?” All Might sighed before continuing. “I wish I could tell you that you have a chance, kid, I really do.”

He pulled up his shirt, revealing a horrific pattern of spiderwebbing scar tissue and cratered flesh, running up the entire left side of his torso. “I’ve never revealed this to the public because it would undermine the image of the Symbol of Peace. I received this injury five years ago in combat with a powerful villain.”

Izuku was struck dumb at the sight of the horrific wound his idol had sustained.

“My stomach was destroyed and my respiratory system was crippled. As a result of this I’m a shadow of my former self. My strength is limited to only around three hours a day of activity.” All Might let his shirt drop back down.

“A Pro Hero can’t always guarantee that things will go their way. At some point, you will be in a life-or-death struggle. I can’t tell you it’s possible to be a hero without a quirk.” He paused at the entrance to the rooftop stairwell.

“Having a dream isn’t a bad thing, but it’s important to keep them realistic.” And with that, he was gone.

Izuku was still winded from descending the office building’s stairwell as he walked past one of Musutafu’s many shopping streets. I need to work on my fitness… what a joke. I honestly thought I had a shot at becoming a hero when I can’t even handle a few flights of stairs. All Might was right, I’d just be walking to my death in heroics. He stopped. A large crowd had gathered, gawking and commenting on some spectacle further in. Some of the chatter reached his ears.

“Is nobody going to help? Those heroes are just standing there letting this happen.”

“If their quirks aren’t suited to the situation they’ll just make things worse.”

“He’s got a hostage and the kid’s letting loose with a strong quirk, a single misstep and things’ll get ugly quick.”

“Even without a hostage, that Slime guy’s quirk probably makes him tricky to take down.”

Slime? Izuku started forcing his way through the crowd of onlookers. Don’t tell me…  

It was as he feared. The Slime villain stood in the middle of the street, grappling with another victim. He must’ve gotten free when I distracted All Might! A sudden explosion temporarily freed the victim’s head from the mass, just long enough for Izuku to glimpse their unmistakable blond hair.

Kacchan.

Before he knew what he was doing, Izuku had torn loose from the crowd, deftly ducking the arms of a hero trying to keep the crowd back - Death Arms , he briefly recognized - and sprinting towards Bakugo and the Sludge. Acting on instinct, he slung his backpack down from his shoulders and hurled it into the Slime villain’s face before attempting to shovel handfuls of slime away from Bakugo’s mouth to free his breathing.

“WHY ARE YOU HERE!?” Bakugo raged in true Bakugo fashion the moment his mouth was free.

“I- I don’t know! My legs just moved on their own!”

The Slime surged around them as the villain recovered, attempting to force them apart when suddenly Izuku felt a muscular hand close around his wrist. 

" DETROIT SMASH! "

Roaring winds buffeted Izuku for the second time that day as the slime was violently torn away from the struggling boys. After a brief moment of stillness, rain began to fall as the gathered crowd cheered the number one hero's timely appearance. The heroes who had been standing by watching the incident rushed in to check on the children who had been at its center.

"That was an extremely reckless thing you did, kid! You could've been badly injured or even killed, and you had no way to know how the villain would react! If his impulse had been to kill the hostage you'd have blood on your hands, you hear me? In the future you should really stay behind the perimeter and let the licensed heroes-"

Izuku was not, in fact, listening. It's not that he wasn't trying - he could see Death Arms's mouth moving, and was trying his best to give the hero his full attention, but his limbs felt numb and heavy and his head swam. The sound of his voice was faint, as though Izuku was submerged in water and trying vainly to hear someone shouting above the surface. When Death Arms's mouth finally stopped moving and the hero seemed to be awaiting a response, he nodded and walked away.

He had made it within around 5 blocks of his home, well into the residential area, when someone else grabbed him roughly and spun him around. He vaguely registered that it was Bakugo who had seized him.

"--, ---- ! - ----- ----- --- ---- --------- --- -- ---- --! - --- ---- ---- -- ------!"

Izuku stared blankly, trying to parse something, anything, from the muffled sounds. Bakugo shook him and shouted something else before releasing him and storming off. He watched the blonde depart for a few moments before attempting to shake off his daze and continue walking home. He only made it a few staggering steps before he collapsed, his vision fading.

Chapter Text

A faintly staticky male voice cut through the fog of unconsciousness.

“...and in more recent news, the disgraced physicist Okazaki Yumemi has been dismissed from her professorial position at Yabin University. Sources familiar with the decision state that…” 

Izuku blearily blinked his eyes awake, fumbling for his alarm. His hand found nothing but air where his bedside table would normally be. Looking over to figure out how he had missed a piece of furniture that had been in the same place for ten years, he saw that the walls were bare of decorations and painted the wrong color. This was definitely not his room.

"-butted heads with her colleagues in the weeks prior to her dismissal. Yabin University's professor of Quirk Studies, Utagashi Hiroshi, had this to say-”

Jolting fully awake at this realization, he shot straight up and looked around frantically. He had been laid on a futon in a sparsely furnished apartment living room. A table near the wall held a radio, which had been left tuned to some news channel.

“-while I am disappointed to see the departure of such a young and gifted genius, Miss Okazaki's outrageous statements more than justify the university’s decision. Perhaps eighteen years of age, regardless of intelligence, is simply too young for such fanciful notions to be discarded in favor of hard science. I have faith that she will grow out of such childish ideas and look forward to hopefully working with Miss Okazaki at such time.”  

Izuku crossed the room and flipped the radio off before scanning the room. Spotting an attached kitchen, he hastened to it and began to ransack the drawers and cupboards in search of anything useful.

Alright, I’ve been kidnapped for some purpose. There are no visible hindrances to prevent me from leaving, so either they’re watching this room or they’re only out briefly and didn’t expect me to recover just yet.

He groaned - every cabinet and drawer in the kitchen was empty. Who gets an apartment with a kitchen then never even gets cutlery for it?

Growing more desperate, he moved on to ransacking the broader apartment, whipping table drawers open haphazardly, flipping cushions over, and making no effort to clean up after his frenzied search.

Ideally I can find something to alert the authorities and get help. In the worst case, I have to find something I can use to fight off an unknown villain or villains, who possibly have access to an unconsciousness-inducing Quirk. At the very least, since I’m able to do this right now they’re probably not competent.

In the apartment’s bedroom, his desperation bore fruit: a boxy pistol made of 3d-printed plastic lay on top of the dresser.

Alright, they’re definitely not competent. Is this a Liberator? I’ll need to be careful using it, and it’ll make a better threat than an actual weapon considering it’s single-shot, but it’ll definitely be good enough to secure my escape against a single villain. The real question is how to deal with their allies if they have any - abducting me on a street in broad daylight means they have access to either concealment abilities, transportation quirks, or both, and if they’re still with whoever’s in charge of holding me I could have reinforcements breathing down my neck in seconds,

Izuku cut his thoughts off as he heard the apartment door swing open on squeaking hinges. He pulled back the Liberator’s hammer as carefully as he could to avoid making noise, and slowly maneuvered so he was waiting beside the only door into the bedroom. From the living room, a girl’s voice called out, “I’m home! Oh, you’re up. Have a pleasant nap? Feeling healthy?”

Okay, one villain, quirk unknown, they know I’m up and that I’m probably in this room. My advantage is that I’m armed and can likely get the jump on them as they enter.

The girl spoke up from directly behind him. “Yeah, you’ll want to get that muttering looked at maybe.”

Izuku whirled around, 3d-printed pistol at the ready. He jolted slightly upon realizing that he now held the same brown-haired high schooler from yesterday at gunpoint. She glanced at the gun nonchalantly.

“You should put that down.”

“I- I’ll shoot you.”

“You think I’d leave that lying around if it was any danger? Come on, Izuku. That thing poses no threat to me, and even if you don’t know it, it doesn’t pose a threat to you either. The worst that happens if you fire it is we get a noise complaint and some plastic gets embedded in the walls and floor. Honestly, I forgot I even still had it.”

“How do you know my name?”

“I’m one of M- er, Hisashi’s friends, that’s how. I was asked to keep tabs on you, for the eventuality that you’d start to fade away.”

He quirked an eyebrow at the strange terminology. Fade away? She paused for a moment before continuing on.

“You don’t believe me, so I’ll give you some proof that I mean you no harm. Go ahead and leave, I won’t do anything to stop you.”

Not taking his eyes off the girl, Izuku took one hand off the gun and fumbled with the doorknob, opening the door and stepping through while keeping her at gunpoint. He slid outside the apartment’s front door, then, satisfied that she made no move to follow, began to walk down the hallway.

About halfway to the stairs, he started to suffocate. It felt as though no matter how desperately he gasped for breath, there was no air to be found. He collapsed to one knee, too dizzy to properly stand, as he heard her footsteps behind him.

He found himself adrift in a vast void. In all directions stars could be seen, infinitely more clearly than he had ever seen them before. The Moon loomed huge below him, with no Earth in sight at all.

This has to be a dream.

The girl’s voice rang out, seeming almost to echo. “Alright, let’s try this again.”

With great effort, Izuku flailed until he managed to somehow turn his body around to face her. For her part, she seemed amused by his awkward movements, drifting through the void as naturally as if she was walking.

“Allow me to properly introduce myself. My name is Usami Sumireko, and I have spent my life seeking knowledge of the supernatural and occult. And you, Midoriya Izuku, are not fully human.”

“What is this? What do yo-”

She cut him off with a raised hand, shushing him “Stop. Before I answer any of your questions, I need to know your answer to one of mine.”

Seeing her pause, he nodded. She continued.

“You must not reveal anything you are about to be shown or told to anyone not in the know. Is that okay? Can you keep this a secret?”

Even knowing he was dreaming, Izuku hesitated briefly at the request. It felt as though it carried some immense weight, some great implications he was yet unaware of.

Realizing she was waiting for his response, he nodded again. Eh, it doesn’t matter anyways. This is just a dream.

Sumireko grinned. “Excellent. So, as I said earlier, you’re not a full human. The myths and legends of Japan? True stories, if a little distorted over time, every last one. Youkai once walked the earth like you and I, and were creatures to be feared. The greatest among their number, beings like the Four Devas of the Mountain or the Astral Knight, were spoken of only in hushed whispers.”

The second one didn’t ring a bell, but he knew the Four Devas. His father had once recounted to him how, after Shuten-Doji’s story came to an end on Mt. Ooe, his four lieutenants had gone their separate ways and each carved a bloody swathe of vengeance across the countryside. "What changed?"

“Mankind lost its sense of wonder. For all their power, youkai have one major flaw to them. All supernatural beings do, really. They run on belief. Doesn’t particularly matter what flavor of belief that is - fear, respect, worship, even just knowing the stories and genuinely believing they’re true, all’s good. But without belief, a youkai starts to fade from existence unless they have some way to get around it. Which brings me back to your situation. You’re half-youkai, and because of that, you’re starting to fade away.”

He waved his hands wildly, as though her statement was a physical object to be deflected. The motion set him spinning in place as he floated there. "Y- You must be mistaken, surely? I've been quirkless my entire life with no sign of any powers, quirk or otherwise."

She just grinned. "Nope, yesterday's events confirmed it. Honestly, normally you probably wouldn't start showing your youkai heritage for another couple years - I was observing you because of a tip I got. If I had to guess, the near-death experience you had triggered it early."

Izuku grimaced, remembering the feeling of slime against skin, his lungs burning for air as he desperately tried to swim for freedom. "Triggered it?"

"Izuku, you were in that villain for five minutes without taking a breath. You didn't lose consciousness at any point, and you were still functional enough afterwards to grab All Might's leg and cling to it as you went for a brief flight. Unless you’re hiding some Quirk that lets you hold your breath for an unusually long time, only a youkai could’ve managed that, and definitely only a youkai would start to fade away from lack of belief afterwards."

Any response he had died in his throat. Even if she was off on the time he was in the sludge villain, he had to admit it was odd how lucid and energetic he had been when All Might rescued him. He had caught his breath easily then, far more easily than it had been later that day, when he had sprinted at the villain.

The silence hanging between them was shattered as a siren rang out through the void, heralding the appearance of a city. Shadowy, indistinct humanoids bustled to and fro in the morning light. The only clear human, aside from Sumireko and Izuku, was a young girl with short gray hair, looking around at the crowds with terror in her eyes.

With the appearance of the city, gravity was restored and Izuku dropped clumsily to the ground, stumbling but ultimately staying upright. He started towards the girl, who was on the verge of tears. “Wha-”

Sumireko cut Izuku off. “This area of the Dream World’s in use now. Looks like a nightmare of some kind, doesn’t matter. Come on, we shouldn’t interfere with someone else’s dream.”

The young girl looked into an alleyway featuring a distinctly out of place forest landscape as Sumireko floated off. Izuku glanced at the girl, who was now walking towards the alley, for a moment before hurrying off after the floating high schooler.

“Now, if youkai had simply gone extinct, none of this would be happening. You’d be an ordinary student living out a woefully mundane life in a, quite frankly, dreadfully dull world. But, youkai are clever creatures, and the leaders among them saw the way the wind was blowing.”

At some unseen prompting, the scenery of the dream shifted around them yet again, the skyscrapers and streets of a modern city fading away and being replaced by a vast forest.

“So, long ago, a bunch of youkai, realizing the world was starting to view them as nothing more than fairy tales, got together and created a separate existence they could call their own, with a population of humans who would give them enough belief that they could exist.”

She touched down on the ground next to a shimmering portal.

“They called their new land Gensokyo, and ever since, it has been a haven for the creatures of fantasy the world has no use for. After you.” She gestured to the portal. After a deep breath, Izuku stepped through.

He was awestruck by the sight that greeted him. A placid lake spread out before them, with several large stone pillars rising from the water. On the far bank, a well-maintained shrine stood proud and tall, and he could make out what appeared to be a few visitors chatting with a girl with bright green hair and a white and blue dress. Beyond that, there was what appeared to be a cable car station, and then a massive spread of lowlands and nearly untouched wilderness. On top of that, the air was crisp and clean to an extent Izuku had never even realized was possible - his breaths came easily and the simple act of taking a breath and holding it seemed almost invigorating.

He heard Sumireko step through behind him. “So from here we’ll take a cable car down to the village where you’ll be meeting with someone who can teach you to use your powers and give you a better rundown of what you should know going forward.”

“You’re not going to teach me, Miss Usami?”

“Nah, I’m all human and my fighting style’s based around my powers, which you probably won’t have. I’m here mainly to be your guide, since I’m one of the few people in Gensokyo who can freely move through the barrier. Besides, I need to check with some people about my fix for you, make sure it’s viable, you know?”

The trip down the mountain in the cable car was scenic, if uneventful. Sumireko spent the trip reading a newspaper she had picked up from a girl with large black wings at the station. Upon disembarking in a small village that seemed as though it had been plucked straight from the Edo period, she quickly led Izuku out of the village and towards a large Buddhist temple situated beyond the village’s farmland. She had at some point started ranting about the flaws of modern society, and Izuku had tuned her out in favor of taking in the scenery. 

Finally, they came to a small graveyard behind the temple, mostly empty of visitors. In one corner of the graveyard, a purple-haired girl whose outstretched arms and hat talisman marked her as a jiang-shi was talking to a gray-haired girl who was holding her hands up in front of her, apparently some manner of ghost. Sumireko led him to the back of the graveyard where an older woman was idly leaning on a grave and smoking a kiseru.

Sumireko nodded to the woman, gesturing to Izuku. “Here’s the kid, I’m going off to Eientei to have them double-check my theory.” She then turned to Izuku. “Just listen to what she tells you, I can guarantee that she knows her stuff, even if she can be a bit eccentric.” And with that, Sumireko took off again, flying off towards what appeared to be an enormous grove of bamboo.

Izuku shuffled awkwardly as he looked over the woman. She had long, straight brown hair ornamented by a leaf, and wore a green robe over her black kimono as well as a checkered scarf even though it was, in his opinion, honestly fairly warm. She packed another load of tobacco into her kiseru and took a long puff from it as she likewise examined him through round spectacles. “So, yer the Midoriya kid, eh? And you wanna be a hero, back in the Outside World.”

“I’m sorry, there must be some mistake - Miss Usami said that she wouldn’t be teaching me because she’s human and thus wouldn’t be able to help me with any powers I’d get from my heritage.”

The woman grinned. “I’ve picked up enough over my life to handle teaching a sprout like you the basics. I can tell just by looking over you - yer half tanuki. The tells are subtle, and most wouldn’t see them, but they’re there. I happen to dabble enough in the arts of disguise that I’ll be able to help with whatever your Ability is. But first, I need to make this clear to ya - staying in the Outside World is gonna be a huge risk. You mess up and lose that lifeline of yers before you get known, and yer dead. Deader than dead, even. Youkai being spiritual means you won’t leave a ghost. Knowing that, do you wanna stay in Gensokyo instead? Yer life would be a lot simpler.”

Izuku’s response came without hesitation. “All I’ve ever dreamed of is to be a hero. I knew from the start it’d be a dangerous path.”

The woman chuckled. “Yer aspirations are admirable, kid. Call me Kemuri, I’ll help you get a handle on your ability. Come with me, let’s find ya something to practice on.” She began to walk off towards the edge of the graveyard, where it bordered a large forest. Bending down, she scooped up a handful of leaves. 

“Leaves have long been the tool of choice for young tanuki, and for good reason. An inanimate object isn’t going to fight the transformation, and a leaf is a simple object without complex details to work with. On top of that they’re lightweight, small, and generally easy to find. Grab a leaf and just meditate on it. Feel like you want it to be something else, and go with your gut.” With a puff of smoke, the handful of leaves turned into golden coins. “An ability is part of yourself. Even though you’ve only just gotten it, you should feel it there, ready to be used and just waiting for you to call out to it.” She let the coins drop freely into the soil.

Holding a leaf between his fingers, Izuku concentrated. It was strange, now that he had been told what to try - Izuku had always been observant, he prided himself on his detailed note-taking with regards to heroics, but simply holding the leaf seemed to give him far more detail than he ever would’ve imagined possible. He was acutely aware of every bump, every vein, each bend of the midrib and every nibble an insect had given it. And yet, beyond that awareness, was a different feeling, as though he were holding something completely indescribable in its simplicity, a blank canvas which could hold anything. He focused on that canvas, infusing it with his vision - not a leaf.

“Oh? Not bad for a first attempt.”

Kemuri flicked the leaf in his hand, sending fragments of green glass scattering through the air. “I’m guessin’ you focused on it not being a leaf? Created something that was as close to the original as possible without strictly being the original. Not a bad start” She gave an approving nod. “Now, keep working at it. Get a feel for your limits - big, small, complexity, that sort of stuff. You want to be comfortable enough that you can do this without thinking about it.”

Sumireko returned a few hours later, a large box floating behind her. She landed next to the pair, looking quite pleased with herself, and proudly announced, “My formulas are all correct - I even managed to track down the fox to get a fourth check - and I was able to get my hands on the last items I needed for your fix! It’s probably about time we got going.”

Izuku had made significantly less progress than she had. All he had to show for several hours of working on his ability was a scattering of glass leaves and his latest failure, a poor facsimile of a leaf made out of lime green felt. He had intended it to be a sock. Kemuri ruffled his hair. “Don’t look so glum, kid. I wouldn’t expect you to be a master from the start. Honestly, some of the tanuki here have been at it for decades and still sometimes forget to hide their ears or something. Keep working at it and show me what you’ve figured out the next time you visit me.”

Izuku looked up from the products of his repeated failure. “You mean you’ll keep training me?”

The woman grinned. “Don’t ask stupid questions, kid. If I was the sort who’d give up on a fledgling youkai I’d have dropped you after the third glass leaf. Now have a good day in the Outside World, and come back to this graveyard tomorrow.”

Izuku blinked awake, roused by the whistle of a boiling kettle in the apartment’s other room. He shuffled into the main room, still thinking about his dream.

Odd. Normally I forget what I dreamt as soon as I wake up.

He chuckled to himself at the absurdity of it - wandering through someone else’s dream,visiting a temple graveyard to learn under an eccentric sorcerer, and discovering a power science said was impossible for him to have.

“Morning, Miss Usami.”

Sumireko didn’t even glance up at him, busy fiddling with an ornate necklace as she responded, “Morning, Izuku.” 

She had laid out a cup of instant ramen for him. It seemed like the final insult in an awful string of events. He had been attacked by a villain, his dreams were crushed by the number one hero in the flesh, he was scolded by heroes for trying to help, he developed some kind of life-threatening condition that left him stuck in an apartment for reasons he couldn’t understand, he had had an excellent dream that had left him feeling good about his future for once, only to wake up and be plunged back into the nightmare that was quirkless life, and finally, to top it all off, all he had to eat was something that probably cost less than two hundred yen and was about as appetizing as eating the coins it cost.

Tears fell from his cheeks as he grabbed the cup and began to eat. He just wanted to go home, to hug his mom, tell her he was sorry for worrying her, to write to his dad and get a smoke-scented letter that assured him everything would be okay and mentioned some folk hero who went through a similar experience. But more than anything, what he wanted in that moment, was his favorite comfort food: his mom’s home-made katsudon.

A burst of smoke engulfed his ramen, filling his vision and startling him into choking on his food. Coughing, he waved away the (strangely, completely scentless) cloud.

A bowl of katsudon, looking just like his mom’s cooking, sat on the table in front of him.

Sumireko was immediately at his shoulder. “Hey, look at that, you did it! Took you less than a day, too!”

Izuku stared at his new breakfast in disbelief. Slowly, he took a piece with his chopsticks and put it in his mouth. It tasted exactly like his mom’s cooking. Tears once more came to his eyes, but this time they were tears of joy. He turned his head to look at Sumireko.

“Last night - that wasn’t a dream, was it.” It was a statement rather than a question. He didn’t need confirmation. He was eating his proof.

“Uh, technically both yes and no? The metaphysics involved get a bit tricky.” She pressed an object into his hand. “Here’s your cure. Took me most of the morning to finish it up. Wear it at all times, if you get more than around fifteen meters from it you’ll probably die.”

He examined it closely. It was the amulet she had been working on when he came in, an ornate bronze disc studded with six purple spheres. Five of them formed the points of a star, surrounding the sixth, larger, one that rested in the center of the medallion. It was attached to a chain that appeared to be finely etched with runes.

“What is it?” He asked as he fastened it around his neck.

“Basically, I’ve rigged it up to leech belief from a number of occult sites in the world. There’s several locations that never lost that romance to them, you know? People still believe in things like the mummy’s curse. The thing is, though, that there’s actually nothing in those places, so most of the time the belief just builds up and sits there before dissipating. As long as you wear that amulet, you shouldn’t need to worry about belief. It’s just a stopgap measure, though, so you’ll want to figure out a way to get the belief you need if you’re truly set on staying in the Outside World here. Well, that or just grow powerful enough that lack of belief will just weaken you rather than end you.”

“So I’m free to go, then?”

Sumireko nodded. “Remember, wear that amulet at all times. Don’t take it off even if you’re going to sleep or bathe.”

Izuku smiled widely as he left the apartment, beginning his walk home.

"-and he sometimes wanders a little bit out of his normal route home, but only to watch hero fights! Afterwards he goes straight home. I can't think of anything he'd delay for if a hero fight wasn't taking place, and certainly nothing that would take him more than a day. He’s got an excellent sense of direction, he wouldn’t have gotten lost or anything."

Police Detective Tsukauchi Naomasa frowned ever so slightly as he jotted down notes on Midoriya Inko's testimony. He wasn't going into this case completely blind - his good friend Toshinori had asked him to, and he was always willing to lend the number one hero a hand - and Mrs. Midoriya's testimony reinforced the accounts he'd already gotten. His Quirk, Human Lie Detector, hadn’t pinged yet in his investigation, so nobody was lying. The problem was, all the testimony and eyewitness accounts pointed to the same, baffling, conclusion:

Within a two-minute window, a middle schooler with no Quirk had disappeared off a residential street without a single witness to the incident, and had been missing for the past forty-eight hours.

The last one to see Midoriya Izuku had been his classmate, Bakugo Katsuki, on his way home after being caught up in a villain attack. The next person to see the street Midoriya had last been sighted on was All Might himself, who found nothing but a discarded backpack. Nobody else had even been sighted close to the street in question.

Naomasa tucked his notebook into his coat pocket. “Thank you for providing your testimony, Mrs. Midoriya. I realize this must be a trying time for you. I’ll make sure to keep you updated every step of the investigation.”

He quickly ran through potential motives in his head as he walked away from the Midoriya household. The victim was quirkless, so quirk trafficking was out. The Sludge Villain was in prison and had no known associates, and it was too soon to be a retributive attack anyways. The Midoriyas lived in a two story house of their own - Tsukauchi made a mental note to check the family's background and income, to see if it could be someone going after his parents by way of their kid, or if there was a possibility a ransom demand would be incoming. 

Suddenly, a shout jolted him from his thoughts.

“MOM!”

Midoriya Inko sprinted past Naomasa with a speed that, in his opinion, would probably put most of the officers in his department to shame. She was met at the gate by a green-haired teenager.

Midoriya Izuku , the detective recognized, recalling the numerous eyewitness descriptions he had gotten about the missing child. He smiled fondly at the reunion, happy that everything had worked out nicely, as the boy attempted to console his weeping mother.

“Mom, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to worry you. I meant to be home sooner, and I came back as soon as I could, I swear!”

Inko sobbed louder and hugged her son tighter.

“But- but look! Look what I figured out!”

Izuku squirmed out of his mother’s grip and dug through his backpack before retrieving a pencil and holding it up proudly, beaming. A puff of smoke engulfed it, before clearing away to reveal that he was now holding an unbroken pair of disposable chopsticks. His mother’s eyes widened in surprise as her tears stopped.

“You… you have a Quirk?”

Still beaming, he nodded. Inko shrieked with joy and embraced him again, laughing.

“You have a Quirk! Oh, I’m so happy for you!”

Naomasa coughed to get the pair’s attention. “Technically, I’m supposed to issue citations for unlicensed quirk usage. However, given the circumstances, I think I’ll ignore that part of my job for now.”

Inko “Oh, where are my manners? Izuku, this is Detective Tsukauchi. He was just helping me with the missing person case I filed on you when you arrived.”

The detective chuckled. “Thankfully my help didn’t turn out to be necessary. Now, am I correct to understand that you got your Quirk just recently?”

Izuku nodded. “Yes, that’s correct.”

Naomasa produced a form and pencil from within his coat. “Why don’t I help you register that? It’s a quick process and I’m already here. I’ll just need you to answer a few questions.”

Once again, the boy nodded. “Well, if it’s really no trouble…”

“Alright, first off: what can you do?”

“Um, it appears to let me transform objects I’m touching with my hands into different objects.”

“Don’t worry about the exact details, you can always file a quirk change request later if you discover that you were wrong about some things. Now, changing other things, that’d make it an Emitter type. And you said you manifested it yesterday…” He checked a few boxes on the form. “Can you tell me what time exactly?”

“I’m not sure of the exact time, but it was either late at night or very early in the morning.”

“Alright, that’s fine, a general timeframe is good enough. What were the circumstances of you gaining it? This is just a liability question, so we can waive responsibility for any accidental damages that may have been incurred when it first manifested.”

Izuku shook his head. “No, nothing got damaged. I can’t say where exactly I was at the time, other than that I was able to find my way home later. I just… got a gut feeling that I could do something, and my Quirk manifested, you know?”

Lie.

Naomasa stiffened almost imperceptibly as his quirk pinged him. He forced himself to relax.

He’s lying about getting a quirk on his own. But why?

“Was anyone nearby when you got your quirk?”

“No, nobody was with me at the time.”

Lie.

Naomasa felt a lump in his throat. No damage done, but he got a quirk somehow and someone was with him when it happened. He couldn’t arrest the kid just because his quirk registered a false statement - lie detection and foresight quirks weren’t admissible evidence on their own, he needed hard evidence. Evidence he had no reasonable cause to try to get right now. He made a mental note to have someone look into the Midoriya family’s background as he put down the pen and tucked away the completed registration form.

“Alright, well, that’s all I need from you. You should get a receipt in the mail within a few days giving you the filing number for your registration. If you need to update it in the future, you’ll need that number so they can pull up your file.”

He tipped his hat to the reunited family before walking away from the doorstep, heart racing despite his calm exterior. His quirk didn’t lie - Izuku hadn’t spontaneously manifested a quirk, nor was he alone when he got his power. There was only one explanation he could think of, and if there was even the slightest possibility he was correct…

He dialed All Might’s number.

Chapter Text

The second night of training with Kemuri was significantly less stressful than the first. Izuku had a handle on transforming objects now and could reliably, if not quickly, change objects into new ones on command. After an hour of transformations, she slung an arm around his shoulder.

“Y’know, as a celebration, how ‘bout we go get a bite in the village? My treat.”

He scrunched his nose up. Although she hadn't been smoking her pipe, the smell of tobacco smoke still clung to her, mixing with a faint scent of alcohol on her breath.

“Don’t worry about wasting a little time,” she pressured him, “you’ve got an extra eight hours of training on everybody else thanks to being able to work on things in yer dreams, losing an hour or two won't hurt.”

Well, I am a bit hungry…

Izuku nodded. “Do you know any places with good katsudon?”

After a brief walk into town, the pair finally arrived at a modest restaurant located next to a bookstore. They didn’t have to wait for a table - the only other person in the restaurant was a medicine seller in a samue and bamboo hat, who was apparently dropping off a delivery. Kemuri grabbed a seat near the wall, facing the door. An older man came by their table not long after they were seated and gave them cups of green tea.

“What’ll you be having?”

“Well, I’ll be havin’ a bowl of udon with… do you have any tempura crumbs?”

“I’m afraid we don't, ma’am.”

“Ah, darn. Then just a plain udon’s fine by me. And he’ll be having a bowl of katsudon. Your best rice, please,” she leaned towards him conspiratorially. “My son here just got his Ability, you see.”

Izuku choked on his drink, spraying tea everywhere.

The man politely ignored the outburst. “That so? Congratulations, then. Your food will be out as soon as it’s ready.”

As he departed for the kitchen, Izuku leaned over the table to angrily whisper at Kemuri.

“Your son? ”

She laughed heartily at his flustered reaction. “Hey, they won’t charge me extra for the good stuff this way! It’s your first proper meal in Gensokyo, you should enjoy it. Took you to a more modern place, too, so it wouldn’t be too jarring.”

“Yeah, actually, it’s surprisingly familiar in here.” He glanced over at what appeared to be a large portrait of Crimson Riot in ukiyo-e style.

“The barrier’s not absolutely impenetrable, it intentionally allows stuff through. So you occasionally get cast-off junk passing through the barrier - most of that tends to end up in this one curiosity shop, Kourindou, out by the village outskirts - and sometimes other stuff pops up, too. The owner here likes hero stuff, always makes sure to buy it when it pops up. He apparently had that print specially commissioned from one of the artists in town based on a magazine cover he found.”

The owner returned with their food, setting the dishes on the table as he slid into their conversation. “The subject there is a famous hero in the Outside World, I’ve always enjoyed reading about his exploits.”

Izuku eagerly took the chance to converse with a fellow hero fan. “Crimson Riot’s a bit old-school but his views on heroics are among the best in the business! Have you read the interview where he speaks about his early career?”

The man’s face lit up. “You’re a fan of heroics too!? Do you know where I can get more stuff? Kourindou doesn’t stock hero merchandise very often.”

Izuku felt a spike of… something from the man at this. It was difficult to describe, akin to the smell of freshly cooked katsudon perceived entirely through the strange sensation you get when you think someone’s watching you.

It made his mouth water.

“What’s that sensation?”

The man looked puzzled. “Sensation? I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re referring to.”

“It feels like smelling my favorite food, but with my mind, if that makes sense?”

“You’ve completely lost me, kid.”

Realization blossomed across Kemuri’s face and the woman started beaming like a parent who’d just heard their child’s first words.

“Izuku! Yer sensing his surprise!”

It was Izuku’s turn to be baffled. “I’m what?”

“Youkai gain strength through belief and emotion, remember? Every youkai gains power from fear - those who don’t end up getting called gods instead - but Tanuki also are strongly attuned to surprise. It’s why they have a reputation as being pranksters, a good trick can get you both fear and surprise.”

The feeling the man was emanating shifted ever so slightly, becoming more analogous to the smell of a bowl of ramen from a high-end restaurant - not Izuku’s favorite food, but one he’d enjoy just as well, and equally filling. The feeling noticeably lessened after a moment as the man closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

“I see. Well, congratulations on your second milestone, I suppose. I’ll need to excuse myself for a moment, the Motoori family next door usually orders lunch delivered around this time and they’re loyal customers, I always make sure to treat them right.”

Izuku watched as he hastily exited the shop, hurrying in the direction of the bookstore next door. He’d be lying if he said the man’s fear of him didn’t sting on some level.

“Am I really that scary?” He wondered aloud as he took a bite out of his katsudon. It was good quality, but not quite as good as his mother’s cooking.

Kemuri waved off his concerns. “Ah, don’t worry about it. People here tend to be a bit jumpy if a youkai just drops in out of the blue, but the village is generally a safe place and the villagers realize they don’t have to be too afraid. I’m sure he was just caught off-guard to realize his customer wasn’t human like he assumed. If you come back, clarify yer only half youkai, there’s a few of those in the village and it’ll put him more at ease.”

Seeing as nobody was around to scold her for smoking indoors, she packed some tobacco into her kiseru and began to smoke.

“More importantly, this is a perfect opportunity for you to try out something. All that surprise and fear is still hanging in the air like my smoke, see? Feed on it. It’s easy, way easier than using an ability. Just try to take hold of that sensation and tug.”

True to her words, it was easy. Izuku felt the lingering fear fade from the air as it suffused his body, filling him with warmth and energizing him, his senses noticeably sharpening. He took another bite of his katsudon. This time, it was the best he had tasted.

After discovering the sense-sharpening effect of feeding on surprise and fear, Izuku took to pulling pranks on people. He quickly found that he could lessen the effect on him to increase the duration, and adjust its strength on the fly - a discovery that meant that he could feed on surprise at school or on the way home and enjoy his mom’s cooking with enhanced taste without needing to bear the guilt of surprising or scaring his own mother.

Villain attacks became even more of a delight to watch than they already were. Inevitably, the sudden appearance of a villain would cause surprise, as well as a varying amount of fear depending on how dangerous the villain was. The earlier in the attack he found it, the better - once the heroes started showing up, the amount of fear in the air dropped off rapidly, and they usually brought no surprise with them, as it was an expected part of how society functioned. On more than one occasion, he found himself torn between his admiration for All Might and his frustration that the man was just so good at putting people’s fears to rest.

A weaker will probably would’ve turned to villainy, but Izuku instead found it comforting that he could now literally sense fear. It meant he could easily know when people felt safe.

A week after he learned to feed on fear, Izuku frantically stumbled into the graveyard, apologizing repeatedly.

“Miss Kemuri, I’m here! I’m so sorry I’m late, there was an accident with an overturned cart in the village and I stopped to help them gather the stuff that had fallen off, which took longer than I thought it would.”

Kemuri wasn’t there. In fact, the only other person in the graveyard was the jiang shi, standing in her normal spot by a dense cluster of graves. For a split second, Izuku had the heart-breaking thought that she had abandoned him.

Wait. I’ve never showed up at a specific time, just generally whenever I get to sleep. She’s probably just wandered off at the moment.

He approached the undead girl. Whoever had reanimated her clearly took great care of their minion - although her skin was pale, and clearly long dead, she showed no sign of any rot or decay. She wore a simple red cheongsam shirt with pink trim, and a black skirt with the same pink frills wrapped around it like a ribbon. A blue cap rested upon dark blue hair, bearing a star and the reanimation talisman one would expect from a jiang shi. The entire outfit was immaculate, as though it had just been cleaned that morning. She made no indication of even noticing his presence.

“Hey, um, hello?” 

Dark blue eyes continued to stare blankly into space, arms outstretched.

“I was wondering if you’ve seen my teacher today? I’m sure you’ve seen me with her before, we usually train in this graveyard?”

A faint breeze ruffled the corpse’s talisman, but the girl herself made no movements. Izuku watched a windblown leaf as it curled lazily through the air before flying off through a well-maintained stone passageway that had been concealed by the graves from a distance. Voices echoed up through the tunnel, too faint to quite make out what they were saying.

His curiosity piqued, he crept up to the mouth of the tunnel to try to listen carefully.

He didn’t have time to try to understand anything that was being said before a cold shin, stiff with rigor mortis, slammed into his midsection with enough force to launch him across the gravestones. He rolled a short distance before impact with another grave arrested his motion.

Blinking stars from his sight as he staggered to his feet, Izuku saw the graveyard’s resident jiang shi hopping towards his position with all the speed she could muster, bellowing “Intruder! Spy! Lady Seiga has commanded me to remove your kind!”

He would have found it almost comical, if she hadn’t been attacking him. As things stood, however, he had barely recovered from the first hit when she swatted him upside the head with an unbending arm before lunging for his throat, mouth wide and ready to bite.

Recovering faster from the arm swat, which had significantly less force behind it than the kick she had opened with, Izuku delivered a reasonable approximation of All Might’s Texas Smash to her stomach.

It would’ve been more impressive if he actually had All Might’s strength backing it up - without the number one hero’s raw, overwhelming strength, the move had a lot of wasted motion for very little return - but it did its intended job of shoving the zombie back enough that her teeth didn’t sink into his neck. He’d seen zombie movies before, and had no intention of discovering if real zombies could infect you with a bite. He frantically grasped for something with his right hand as she lunged again. Hand closing around a rock, he used his ability and shoved a steel bar into her mouth, forcing her head back as she bit down on it instead of his flesh.

It snapped like a breadstick.

He was now more sure than ever that he really didn’t want to get bit by her.

Thankfully, she was temporarily occupied with chewing and swallowing the section of metal, and Izuku took the opportunity to put some distance between them. The moment she had gotten through the mouthful of steel, she made another one of her hopping lunges, leading with her all-devouring maw.

Ducking quickly to the side, he was just barely able to dodge as she took a chunk out of the gravestone behind him. He recognized a clear pattern in her attacks - she preferred to be in close, and made those large, barely controllable lunges to close any gaps that emerged. He could use that weakness.

She turned to make another lunge. This time, he was ready. As she launched herself at him, he quickly sidestepped, throwing a handful of dirt into her face as he did so. The jiang shi didn’t flinch, but had clearly been blinded - after chewing her latest mouthful (a wooden grave marker), she turned to try to spot her prey and apparently saw nothing, continuing to swivel her head around despite Izuku standing in plain sight. He let out a sigh of relief, trying to calm his pounding heart now that the threat was neutralized.

The zombie’s head immediately snapped to face the direction of the sound and she lunged yet again.

In a panicked, split-second decision, he created the first thing he could think of to keep something away: a long spear, the sort you would use to hunt a charging animal. The undead girl blindly impaled herself on it.

For a moment, there was near-silence in the graveyard, broken only by the sound of a slow drip of blood from the spear’s tip. He had landed a solid hit to her stomach, and the spear protruded a good two feet out of her back. A slow trickle of blood made its way past her lips.

Izuku stood transfixed, horrified at what he’d done. The undead girl’s arms wavered, then slowly lowered to hang at her sides. Dead eyes blinked once, then twice, clearing away the dirt he had blinded her with.

She stared at him for a moment, then looked down at the spear lodged in her torso. Floating balls of flame began to gather around the pair.

Hitodama, he thought, the souls of the dead. It seemed that the underworld could tell that another would soon join their ranks.

Finally, the jiang shi broke her stillness. With slow, lurching movements, she staggered backwards, pulling herself off of the spear and leaving a gaping hole in her stomach. The spear fell from Izuku’s grip and clattered to the ground.

Still staring at him, she took a deep breath, inhaling the wayward souls. Her stomach began to knit itself back together; pale, dead flesh reconnecting and repairing itself.

She lunged at him again.

Impact with the ground shook Izuku from his daze. He desperately struggled against the cold limbs pinning him to the ground, trying to do something, anything , to free himself and stop her from biting him.

A veritable wall of brown fur slammed into the jiang shi and knocked her away from him. As he staggered to his feet, he saw he had been saved by his teacher, who now had shoulder-length brown hair topped with the ears of a Tanuki. A bushy, brown-striped tail protruded from her robes, and was probably as large as the rest of her body. Wordlessly, she dumped the ash from her kiseru onto the ground, glaring at the prone undead.

The zombie girl didn’t have a chance. The moment she managed to rise to her feet, Izuku’s protector scattered a handful of leaves in the air and snapped her fingers, prompting the leaves to erupt into a mass of smoke. Silhouettes of birds streaked out of the smokescreen to barrage the jiang shi, distracting her at the same moment that a veritable horde of tanuki poured out of the nearby woods and seized her limbs, dragging her away.

The woman he had known as Kemuri whirled on Izuku. “What the hell were you thinkin’, you reckless idiot! The moment I take my eyes off you you get it into yer fool head to go fight the Taoists’ guard dog!? Do you have any idea how easily you could have been killed?”

Seeing that he was on the verge of tears from her outburst, her expression softened.

“Look, I’m not mad at you. Just- just worried, yeah? I’ve only taught you transformation stuff so far, yer just not ready to get in a proper scrap yet. And to almost lose you because I didn’t train you enough…”

She let out a breath.

“No training today. Visit the village and take it easy.”

When Izuku arrived at the graveyard the next day, his teacher was still in her tanuki form, smoking her kiseru and reclining on her tail as she floated in the air in a casual display of magical power. She had changed her outfit, and now wore a simple ecru shirt and a red-gray skirt with wavelike patterns along the bottom. A jar of sake and a booklet of what appeared to be promissory notes hung from her hip.

She addressed him as he approached.

“So we should probably talk about yesterday, yeah? First up, the obvious: I’m not actually human, and I gave you a fake name when we first met. Name’s Futatsuiwa Mamizou, and I’m the boss of Gensokyo’s tanuki. If you don’t want to learn from me after this deception, you can walk away now.”

Izuku waved his hands to dismiss her concerns. “It’s not a problem, really, I trust you! If you wanted to harm me you would’ve just needed to stand back yesterday, and besides that you’ve had plenty of opportunities during our training.”

Besides, he thought to himself, this isn’t my first time discovering someone I look up to is hiding their true form.

A faint smile came to her face as she continued.

 “Yesterday showed me that yer not ready for a combat scenario. My fault, really. I figured that, bein’ part Tanuki, teaching you tricks and transformations would suffice, and that I’d get to combat techniques later. But from your fight with little ol’ Yoshika, and the fact that it seems like retreat was never an option in your mind, I see I was wrong. You need hand-to-hand training, and you need it now .”

She exhaled, pipe smoke drifting through the early summer air, and pointed to something behind him.

“So I swallowed my pride, called in some favors, and got you a combat teacher.”

Izuku turned to look back up the path to the temple. Approaching was an odd pair of a man and a woman. The woman wore a fairly simple white and black dress and a necklace of green prayer beads. Her long, wavy hair had a strange color, starting as purple but fading to a light brown as it reached her back. She was dwarfed by the man next to her, a veritable wall of muscle in a martial artist's gi who looked like he could give Endeavor a run for his money in an arm wrestling competition. He peered down at Izuku, as though mentally evaluating the boy's potential.

The woman spoke up. “Ah, you must be little Midoriya. I am Hijiri Byakuren, a humble disciple of the eightfold path and head priest of the Myouren Temple. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Izuku bowed politely at Byakuren’s introduction, “Ah, yes, I’m Midoriya Izuku, and it’s nice to meet you too! I apologize that we’ve been using your graveyard this whole time, I hope it’s okay and if I need to go elsewhere to practice combat I completely under-”

Byakuren waved off his concerns as the muscular behemoth brushed roughly past him to stand at Mamizou’s side. “Oh, it’s no problem at all, really. I will want you to learn hand-to-hand in a different location, but that’s simply because it’s more convenient for me if we train in the temple’s yard. We already use it for duels from time to time.”

He did a double-take, looking back and forth between the obvious martial artist and the monk. “Huh? You mean you’ll be the one training me?”

The man finally broke his silence, doubling over as booming peals of laughter wracked his body. Finally catching his breath, he spoke with a low, rumbling voice that seemed to reverberate in Izuku’s bones. “Your kid needs more training, Mamizou! What have you even been doing with him for this past week if he’s still trusting what his eyes tell him?”

The tanuki grinned and playfully swatted the man with her kiseru, “Yer ability’s downright cheatin’ fer deception, Nue, and you know it!”

In the space of an eyeblink, the muscular man transformed before Izuku’s eyes. One second he was standing there, and the next, a large inhuman beast was in his place. It was a dreadful chimera, a being with the head of a monkey, the torso of a tanuki, and the legs of a tiger. Where a tail would normally be, a snake thrashed about, hissing at anything that got close. Izuku recognized the monster instantly: the Nue, the monster which had menaced the emperor and was slain by the archer Yorimasa. An arrow was still lodged in its side, blood matting the fur as it flowed from the wound. He couldn’t drag his eyes away from the grievous injury.

The beast spoke, its voice now a hissing rasp that seemed to come from Izuku’s mind rather than the creature’s mouth.

“I know that look, human. Of course I don’t still have that archer’s arrow in me, I had that thing removed centuries ago.”

Another blink of the eye and the arrow was gone, the surrounding where the wound had been immaculate and untouched.

Kemuri slung an arm around the beast, grinning. “This here’s Houjuu Nue, a friend of mine from the good ol’ days and none other than the very same being shot by Yorimasa. Her ability lets her hide the true form of anything - whatever you’re seeing is what you think she is, rather than what she actually looks like.”

Nue groaned, a strange sound to hear from the chimeric beast. “Why do you always have to bring up that story, Mamizou?”

“Because it’s hilarious, that’s why! You got super drunk and buzzed the imperial palace every night for like a week straight and he shot you right in the ass when you were pulling loop-the-loops over the garden!”

“Oh, like you’re one to talk about embarrassing incidents! Do I need to bring up the stomachache thing in front of the kid?”

“That was one time and it wasn’t due to me pulling the same trick for a week straight like I wouldn’t get caught!”

Byakuren smiled gently at Izuku as the pair of tricksters squabbled. “They can go on like this for a while when they start reminiscing about the past. Let’s go around to the front of the temple so we can get started.”

He nodded and followed her, Mamizou and Nue’s friendly bickering fading into the distance. As they walked, Byakuren continued.

“I must say, I was quite pleased by your response to Mamizou revealing her youkai nature to you. I’ve made it my life’s work to promote coexistence between humans and youkai, and would have refused you then and there if you had had a poor reaction. Truthfully, I had some concerns when she first approached me asking me to train you in hand-to-hand, as she had previously expressed unease to me over whether you’d be afraid of her if her true form were to be revealed to you. Youkai tend to be the villains in old myths, after all. I’m glad you didn’t let that stop you from seeing her for the person she is.”

“Back home we have a number of Pro Heroes who look like stereotypical villains, or quirks that are viewed as ‘villainous’. I feel like you should never judge someone just because of their power.”

Byakuren smiled at him. “I’m glad to hear that my concerns were misplaced. You’d fit in well at the temple, if you ever chose to stay..”

Izuku’s brow furrowed. “I don’t understand why she gave me a fake name, though.”

“Mamizou’s well-known despite being a relatively new arrival to Gensokyo. When she migrated here from the Outside World a few years back she rapidly built up her power base, gathering the tanuki under her banner and establishing herself into the politicking of the various youkai groups. I imagine she was worried that, if she gave you her true name, you’d find out she was a youkai through talking with someone else, or if you went into the village with her and referred to her by name.”

Byakuren turned towards him as they arrived at the temple’s yard. “Now, Mamizou told me about your ability, and I have a fairly good idea on how to incorporate that into your fighting style. Am I correct in understanding that contact with just one or two fingers is sufficient to allow you to transform things?”

Thinking back, Izuku recalled his mostly-unsuccessful attempts at using his power on his first day in Gensokyo. “Yes, but when I’ve only used two fingers I haven’t had much luck with the transformations - I kept turning leaves to glass instead of turning them into completely different objects.”

“That’s excellent, it’s more than enough for it to be usable in the manner I’m thinking. Now, what I think will work best for you is to use open-handed strikes, so that you can use your ability to weaken any armor your target might have - from what you said, changing the material of an object is easy enough for you to do with few points of contact.”

Open-handed strikes so I can use my power at the same time as I strike, huh? Certainly, it seems like a better plan then my initial idea of mixing grappling into my attack pattern - I was hung up on the prevalence of quirks that require contact with all five fingers to activate, but my ability doesn’t actually have that limitation, even if using five fingers makes it easier. This isn’t without risks, though - if I am slow to transform objects then using my fingers to perform a strike can easily result in my breaking them, and if I lose the use of my hand then I won’t be able to use my power at all. I could possibly mitigate this by-

Byakuren interrupted his thoughts. “Naturally, you’ll want to train more with Mamizou so you can use your ability at the speed required. As for the risk of breaking your fingers, I specialize in physical enhancement magic, and can try to teach you similar techniques you’ll be able to use gathered fear for.”

Apparently, he had been mumbling again.

At Byakuren’s prompting, a girl in a white dress and blue headdress carried over a stack of wooden boards. “Thank you, Ichirin. Now, at first we should practice with palm strikes so you don’t risk your fingers. The goal is to master enhancement to the point that the only thing you feel when breaking the boards is the physical resistance of the board itself, no pain or scratches from the splintering wood. The process of enhancement itself is fairly simple, considering you’ve already been performing sense enhancement using fear. Instead of focusing on your senses, you want to pour the energy into your limb as you perform the strike, using it to reinforce your body so you can put more strength into the blow than normal.”

Izuku did as she instructed to the best of his ability, striking the board with all of his strength. It splintered messily, leaving jagged cuts along his arm.

Byakuren called out to a girl sweeping the courtyard, “Kyouko, could you make a quick run to Eientei to get some medical supplies?”

It took Izuku another week to figure out how to properly enhance his physical capabilities. Bakugo’s daily torments were, as it turned out, an invaluable aid to this, giving him the opportunity to work on his defense against harsher blows than his supernatural teachers were willing to throw at him. The explosive blond, for his part, was completely infuriated by his favored victim’s newfound resilience.

Two weeks after that, he was finally capable of altering the material of an object with a touch. He couldn’t change large amounts of material - the speed he needed to work in order to use it in conjunction with his attacks limited him to only changing material within an inch or so of the contact site - but it was sufficient to allow him to bypass any physical obstacle.

And finally, after one more week, one full month after he started training under Byakuren, he was able to put all the pieces together.

Izuku looked at the tree trunk he had been practicing on with no small sense of satisfaction. A fresh hole adorned its center, the edges of which were formed of soft, wet clay. He examined his arm carefully. Not a single scratch marred his skin.

“Nicely done,” Byakuren said as she examined the fruit of his labor. “Do ten more of those strikes with each hand. If you don’t successfully put a hole in your target, or if you sustain an injury, restart the count for that arm.”

Izuku nodded confidently at the instructions. “And after that?”

“If you can do that, I’d say you’re ready for sparring.”

Chapter Text

Dense fog surrounded Izuku, hiding the familiar features of the temple yard as he shifted warily, trying to detect any sign of where the next attack would be coming from. The fog made no move to betray its master, drifting lazily in the air completely heedless of any wind. Sound was no help either - someone had gotten into a shouting match with the temple’s yamabiko, who was merrily echoing everything yelled her way with all the volume she could muster, drowning out any noises that might have emanated from the mass of fog. Scent likewise was useless, as the whole thing smelled strongly of sake.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as he sensed a sudden shift in the fog behind him. Desperately, he flung himself forward as a plume of the dense substance reared up and speared down on the spot where he had been standing, crushing the stones of the yard’s flooring into dust. Rolling to his feet as quickly as he could to keep himself in a good stance, he ducked to the side to avoid a second jab from the fog.

Undeterred, the roiling mass continued its assault. Focusing completely on defense, Izuku deflected at least a dozen hits from all sides before one finally slipped through his guard, a heavy strike to the back that sent him sprawling to the floor.

The fog gathered into one spot, becoming denser and denser before it finally solidified into the form of a short girl with long orange hair and two enormous horns protruding from her head, wearing a white and blue dress with torn-off sleeves. A total of three chains dangled from her wrists and belt, each attached to a weight in the shape of a cube, a sphere, and a pyramid. She uncorked a purple sake gourd and drank deeply from it before speaking.

“Ah, not bad, not bad! You blocked a few more hits than yesterday. I might have to up the speed or power soon.”

Izuku chuckled at her as he set about using his ability to repair the damage to the courtyard’s flagstones. “Miss Ibuki, if you up the power of your hits I won’t be able to block them at all!”

She laughed off his objection. “Then just get better at blocking!”

Once Izuku had started sparring matches as part of his combat training, news had spread rapidly throughout Gensokyo’s close combat enthusiasts, who had soon mobilized and formed a fight club at the Myouren Temple. Byakuren had allowed this on the grounds that they assist in Izuku’s training in any way they were able. Suika, one of the Four Devas of the Mountain and unofficial ruler of a tenth of heaven, was actually banned from participation in the fights since a particularly rowdy battle between her and a hell raven had seen the entirety of the temple yard destroyed in a cataclysm of magma and fire, but she still hung around to watch the fights and was happy to help Izuku learn to defend against unseen foes.

Izuku walked over to Mamizou, who was sitting on the steps leading up to the temple entrance next to an ominous dark cloud that he assumed must be Nue. She was idly packing tobacco into her kiseru as he took a seat, watching Byakuren face off against a white-haired girl with red pants and a white shirt. Izuku couldn’t remember her name, she was a fairly rare sight at the matches.

Mamizou spoke up as Byakuren’s opponent lit herself on fire with a fingersnap. “Today’s the big day at last, huh, Izuku? Those months just blew by in an instant.”

“I just hope I’m prepared. I know you guys have been doing your best to train me but I still haven’t taken any wins in sparring.”

Nue laughed, an extremely irritating noise with the way his mind was currently parsing her - it echoed and had a touch of reverb to it, creating a veritable cacophony after mere moments. “You shouldn’t judge your readiness by if you can take a win against the battle maniacs we’ve got here, some of them are literally the stuff of legends. Mamizou was in the Outside World as recently as three years ago, and from what she’s told me I don’t think many of those so-called ‘Heroes’ out there could take home a win here either.”

She paused. Izuku assumed that if he could see her she’d be putting a hand to her chin in contemplation as she continued, “Actually, maybe against Ichirin? I don’t think she can do much on her own if you get past that nyuudou bodyguard of hers.”

Mamizou interjected, “Also, you got that win against Koishi because she got bored with the fight and forfeited by wandering off.”

Izuku didn’t remember fighting anyone by that name, and he definitely would’ve remembered getting a win, even one by forfeit.

She continued, ignoring his bafflement. “Point is, you shouldn’t sell yerself short. I settled down in Japan for a while before I took to wandering the world, and I saw Heroes in basically every corner of the globe, some better than others. Yer definitely better than the real bottom tier guys, and you haven’t even gotten official hero training yet! You’ll do fine in those entry exams.” She raised an eyebrow as Byakuren delivered a devastating kick to her opponent’s torso. Leaning over to Nue, she asked, “How many of Mokou’s ribs do you think just cracked there?”

“Oh, at least four, easy. Probably lost a lung too. Definitely gonna need to renew herself, but she can probably tough it out for the rest of the round without slowing down if she’s in a stubborn mood.”

Mamizou turned back to Izuku. “Look, no matter what happens when you take that entry exam, I’ll be proud of you, and you’ll always be welcome here.”

She leaned back, blowing tobacco smoke into the air before continuing. 

“Don’t waste any brainpower worrying about how you’ll do. Just remember: Yorimasa was able to be a hero without any divine blessings or magic. If he could do it, you definitely can.”

Everything suddenly clicked for Izuku.

He knew his father was a Tanuki, and a well-connected one at that - Izuku would have ceased to be on his first day with his powers if Sumireko hadn’t been told to watch him. Sumireko had also been the one to introduce him to Mamizou, so there was a definite connection there. 

To his knowledge, very few youkai in Gensokyo were able to cross over to the Outside World, but both Nue and Byakuren had indicated that Mamizou had been there until very recently and Mamizou herself claimed to have settled in Japan for a while before wandering the globe.

Byakuren had said that Mamizou had worried about how Izuku would view her if he knew she was a youkai, but this concern only extended to him - after being revealed she had made no efforts to disguise herself in a similar manner for the benefit of human visitors to the temple, hanging around her usual haunt in the graveyard in her true form without a care in the world.

Mamizou also showed far more concern about his safety than that of her own tanuki underlings - when she had come to his rescue she had used them as a living wave against the jiang shi without a second thought.

As a habitual smoker, the smell of tobacco smoke was ever-present around Mamizou, just as Hisashi’s letters always smelled of smoke.

Mamizou was friends with the same being shot by Yorimasa, found that event funny, and enjoyed bringing up the incident whenever she could.

Mamizou could shapeshift.

Izuku shot awake.

Nue poked Mamizou with her trident as Izuku vanished abruptly. “Looks like your kid finally figured it out. Honestly thought it would’ve been sooner.”

The elder tanuki chuckled. “I could’ve told him outright, but a puzzle is always more rewarding when you figure it out for yerself.”

“If you say so. I’ve always been one for making sure the truth never gets out, myself.” She put her trident down and leaned back on the stairs, folding her arms behind her short black hair. She squirmed a little bit to get into a comfortable position - always tricky when you have asymmetrical wings. After a bit of fiddling she managed to slide her red, sickle-like right wings into a position where they were resting on the steps instead of digging into her back, and the blue tendrils that formed her left wings were able to hang free without being crushed against the stone. “You really do care about him, huh?”

Mamizou took a swig from her sake jar. “‘Course I do, Nue, don’t be stupid. I didn’t nearly kill myself roaming far from my belief base to set up an income stream for no reason.”

“I still think that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen you do,” Nue said, lazily reaching an arm up to use her ability on a passing cloud. An ethereal snake flew off into the sky, and a few moments later the cloud’s form was concealed. She snickered to herself as she sensed a marked uptick in fear and confusion from the human population. “Regardless, don’t forget you’re the boss of the tanuki around here now. You can’t just leave them hanging.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it. They’re my underlings, I have a responsibility to them, just as I have a responsibility to support Inko and Izuku. Now that I’ve recovered, I just have one more thing I need to juggle.”

Mamizou grinned at Nue.

“By the way, I bet you a week of meals from that one soba place in Former Hell that someone shows up within the hour to beat the crap out of you for that cloud stunt just now.”

Nue grinned back. “You’re on.”

Izuku stood before the gates of UA High School, staring up at the school’s imposing “H”-shaped silhouette. Mamizou’s reveal had what he assumed was the intended effect on him - rather than spending his morning worrying about the upcoming test, he had instead been focusing on the fact that his teacher and his father were apparently one and the same. He almost missed his stop on the way in to UA, only realizing he was there because a gray-haired girl had bumped him as she got off the train, jarring him from his thoughts.

He shook his head in a futile attempt to drive out any lingering worries. Refocusing on the upcoming test as best he could, he strode confidently through UA’s front gate. He made it about three steps before someone slammed into him, causing him to stumble.

“Out of my fucking way, worthless Deku,” growled Bakugou's unmistakable voice as the explosive blond shoved past.

It was more of an inconvenience than anything else, really - it wasn’t like a stumble, no matter how clumsy, was going to actually do anything to injure him now that he’d grown into his half-youkai nature. He regularly practiced with someone who could crack stone even when holding back, after all. That said, it was taking a while for him to hit the ground. He opened his eyes to find that he was floating.

“I’m sorry for using my Quirk on you without permission,” a girl’s voice called out, “But I thought it’d be a bad omen if you fell right before such an important test.”

As she pressed her fingertips together, gravity returned, and Izuku dropped to the ground, landing on his feet.

Now on the ground again, Izuku looked over the girl who had saved him. Brown hair styled into a bob cut framed a roundish face with large, brown eyes, and she wore a dark red jacket and pink scarf to protect against the early morning chill. He noticed small pads, vaguely reminiscent of the paws of a dog or cat, at the tips of her fingers - presumably, her quirk was touch-activated.

She huffed. “Honestly, the nerve of that guy, shoving his way through with no concern for others! Well, I’ve got to go find my seat, good luck on the entrance exam!”

Well, she’s certainly in a hurry, Izuku thought as he watched her rush off.

The written portion of the exam went by without issue. Training in his dreams meant Izuku enjoyed the luxury of not having to sacrifice study time, and he reflected with no small amount of satisfaction that he was probably the single best-prepared individual in the room of test-takers. Finishing with plenty of time to spare, he made his way over to the lecture hall where the hopeful entrants would be briefed on the practical portion of the exam.

As he watched students trickle in, he noticed that they tended to be wearing the same school uniforms as they sat in their assigned seats. They're probably seating us by school, which means that I should be next to…

“What are you fucking doing here, Deku?," hissed Bakugou. "You and I both know that you're just wasting everyone's time.”

Izuku didn’t dignify Bakugou’s bullying with a response, instead choosing to focus on Present Mic as the hero strode up the podium, clad in his trademark leather jacket and sunglasses. No microphone was present at the podium - the Voice Hero didn’t need one.

“LEMME GIVE A WARM WELCOME TO ALL YOU LISTENERS HERE TODAY! EVERYBODY SAY HEEEEEEY!”

His shout was met with total silence from the assembled audience. Undeterred, he continued.

“Alright, pay close attention now, little listeners! You’ll have ten minutes to show your stuff at your assigned replica districts!”

In his seat next to Izuku, Bakugou grumbled, “Tch. I guess they don’t want friends or classmates working together. And I was looking forward to crushing you, too.”

“There will be three types of Faux Villain robot for you to take down, each with a different point value based on their difficulty! Your goal is to use any tools at your disposal to rack up as high a score as you can!”

So the key to this test is efficiency and initiative, Izuku thought. Raw strength is meaningless if you can’t act fast enough to get to a Faux Villain in time, or if you spend too much time on smaller groups or groups of low-value targets. This would naturally give an advantage to entrants with quirks suited to area attacks or mobility.

“And, needless to say, don’t even think about directly attacking or otherwise interfering with your fellow applicants! Stepping on others to get ahead won’t cut it in the heroics industry!”

There’s plenty of heroes out there without quirks that specialize in raw offense, so there has to be some sort of other trick to the test - Midnight’s an alumni, and her quirk wouldn’t be usable against robots, so she’d effectively be going in quirkless. Perhaps some sort of off switch, to allow perceptive and agile applicants to subdue the villains and earn points without needing raw power?

A new voice called out, interrupting the hero’s ongoing presentation. “Excuse me!”

The speaker was a broad-shouldered, muscled young man in a suit with neatly-parted dark blue hair. He adjusted his glasses before continuing, holding up the informational pamphlet as he spoke. “You have listed three types of Faux Villain, but the handout we were provided with clearly lists four types! Such an amateur error is not befitting of a school of UA’s caliber!”

“Furthermore,” he continued, turning on the spot to point a finger at Izuku, “You there, with the curly green hair! You’ve been muttering the entire time, being a nuisance to your fellow test-takers! If you’re not going to take this seriously, then you should leave at once!”

Izuku shrank down in his seat at being called out for muttering, offering a sheepish apology as he did so.

Present Mic grinned and continued, “Thank you for speaking up, examinee 7111! That gives me the perfect lead-in to the final aspect of the test! The final type of villain is worth zero points! Think of them like a Thwomp in a Mario game, they’re technically beatable but won’t give you anything for doing so, so it’s better to avoid them! There’s one in every testing area!”

Satisfied with this answer, the boy bowed deeply, shouting out “I see! I apologize for my rudeness in presuming that your statement had been made in error!”

“Well, that’s about enough from me! I’ll leave you with a quote from the great general Napoleon Bonaparte: You become strong by defying defeat and turning loss and failure into success! Or, to put it another way: true heroism is overcoming life’s hardships!”

The presentation finished, the gathered applicants filed out of the assembly hall to make their way to their assigned testing areas.

Izuku looked over the gathered crowd at his assigned testing area as they chattered about the upcoming trial. It made for a diverse sight - the various mutation quirks dotted throughout the crowd gave many of the prospective students extremely distinctive looks. Just at a glance, he could see a huge kid whose arms were actually several tentacles connected by webbing, someone with arms so long they were touching the ground, and someone with what appeared to be pistons of some kind extending from their elbows.

He spotted the brown-haired girl who had stopped his fall in front of the school standing apart from the main group. She had her eyes closed as she took deep, slow breaths, apparently trying to calm herself before the test started.

I should see if I can help with her nervousness, he thought, and started to walk over to her.

A hand grasped his shoulder before he got far. “You.”

He turned to see it was the same boy who had called him out in the auditorium.

“What are you up to? Are you trying to disrupt other test-takers’ concentration? Such an underhanded tactic is unbefitting of a prospective heroics student.”

“I just- she seemed nervous, so I wanted to see if I could help her calm down.”

“If she’s trying to focus, then she doesn’t need other people coming in to make it harder for her. You should think about your actions more carefully before you-”

Present Mic’s voice rang out across the area from a high tower: “AAAAND START!!!”

Izuku immediately rushed through the gate into the city, previous conversation forgotten as he focused entirely on hunting the villain robots. He vaguely registered Present Mic continuing to speak, and felt a wave of surprise roll over him as the applicants realized the test had begun. He gathered it for reinforcing his arms - he was plenty fast enough already.

Thank you, UA High, for having a sudden start to your test to take entrants by surprise. And thank you, Nue, for only giving “Start!” as a warning before tackling me as part of sparring.

Coming to the first group of robots - a cluster of 3-pointers - he leapt into the middle of them, letting the gathered surprise flow into his arms. Hands flat, he delivered a spear hand strike to the nearest 3-pointer’s main body, tearing easily through tin foil that had once been armor sheeting, grasped a handful of the wiring inside, and yanked. As the robot’s husk collapsed, he whirled and crushed another one’s head with a chop before sidestepping a rocket from a third. Grabbing the third’s head, he tore it free of the body and turned it into a spear before hurling it into a fourth one’s rocket pods, setting off a chain reaction of explosions that destroyed the machine.

Before he could get to the fifth one, a beam of light tore through it, downing it. Looking to the source, he saw a blond boy wearing a belt, which had a trail of smoke coming from a lens in its center. 

“Merci for the distraction, my friend! I would stick around and chat, but, alas, time is short!”

The observation room was a buzz of activity as All Might walked in. Looking around, the number one hero could see nearly every member of the UA Faculty manning various observation stations, doing their best to keep up with the frenzied applicants as they destroyed every robot they could get their hands on. 

The strange animal that was UA’s Principal Nezu perked up as the hero entered. “Ah, All Might! Glad you could make it. Please, take a seat wherever you’d like, and feel free to observe whichever applicant you want.”

All Might obliged, grabbing a free observation station next to Eraserhead. He could faintly hear the bedraggled underground hero grumbling under his breath that it was “irrational to judge so many students and send out application letters within a week.” The console was currently displaying camera feeds of a short student throwing sticky spheres from his head to immobilize the villain robots. After some fiddling with the buttons on the side, he was able to get a search box to pop up.

He typed in the name of the first student he wanted to check on, and pulled up their view.

Nezu was suddenly at his shoulder. “Ah, checking on Midoriya, I see.”

The green-haired applicant was currently tearing through a group of eight 2-pointers with vicious efficiency, severing robotic limbs and yanking circuitry in a whirlwind of motion. All Might noted Midoriya’s preference for open-handed strikes - something that required extensive training due to the significant risk of self-injury if performed wrong.

“Yes, he’s really quite proficient with that quirk of his, despite having had it for less than a year.” Nezu continued. “He seems to be using it to weaken the armor plating as he strikes, effectively bypassing the robots’ defences. I imagine there’ll be some complaints from Majima about that, actually - he won’t be happy to find that some of the steel that would normally be perfectly salvageable has turned into what appears to be tin foil.”

His prey depleted, Midoriya dashed off to find another group of victims. All Might’s eyebrows raised at the kid’s speed - it wasn’t anything that would compete with a dedicated speed enhancement quirk, but he’d fought villains who had more all-around enhancements with less speed than that. On top of that, his risky combat techniques hadn’t led to a single scratch on him in the six minutes the exam had been going so far.

Not taking his eyes off the viewport, he cleared his throat. “What is young Midoriya’s quirk, by the way?”

He knew perfectly well what it was registered as.

“It’s registered as ‘Object Transformation’,” Nezu replied, “an emitter quirk that lets him change objects he’s touching. The more fingers he has on an object, the more easily he can transform it, but he’s apparently already proficient enough with it to change something’s material with only the briefest contact.”

So nothing that would account for why he’s completely unharmed, or his physical prowess.

“Now then,” the principal continued, “If you’ll excuse me for a moment, it’s about time the Arena Traps were activated.”

The sound of groaning metal and crumbling stone echoed through the streets of the replica city as an enormous robot, easily at least six stories in height, tore its way out from the ground. Fear filled the air in no time at all as panic swept through the applicants. As fleeing students rushed past Izuku, he heard a girl’s voice cry out in pain.

The girl he had met outside the school had fallen directly in the path of the zero pointer, her leg pinned under a piece of rubble.

Without a second thought, Izuku sprang into action, rushing to her aid. Grabbing the chunk of stone, he heaved it off her leg and turned it into a crutch, offering it to her.

“Can you stand?”

She rose unsteadily to her feet, wincing as she put weight on the injured leg. Taking the crutch, she smiled at him. “Yeah, I should be able to. Thanks for the save.”

The tremendous mech was nearly upon them now - fleeing was no longer an option, not with her injury. Gathering the massed fear around him like a cloak, Izuku let it flow through his entire body, empowering him as the mech’s foot came down.

The strain was immense. He could feel himself burning through the fear as he tried to keep the robot’s massive bulk from crushing the two of them. He’d last maybe thirty seconds, and they had more time than that remaining in the test.

Suddenly, the crushing weight disappeared and he began to push the robot back. Now losing the struggle, the tremendous machine began to flail, throwing itself further off balance as it began to tip backwards.

Touching her fingertips together, the brown-haired girl released her Quirk.

The zero-pointer went crashing to the ground, armor plates buckling as they tried futilely to resist a far greater impact than they had ever been designed for, the whole weight of the monstrous machine now demanding it topple to the earth. The tremendous force caused dust to blow up through the entire replica city, silencing everyone in the testing area.

 “AND THAT’S ALL THE TIME WE HAVE, LITTLE LISTENERS!,” shouted Present Mic’s voice, bringing the exam to a close.

Sumireko was waiting for Izuku outside UA’s front gate.

“I assume the exam went well?”

“I- um- yes, but more importantly, what are you doing here? I haven’t seen you since you gave me my amulet.”

She sheepishly rubbed the back of her head. “Yeah, sorry for ghosting on you for a while there. I got involved in some shenanigans involving evil dream me and needed to resolve that. At least I got you to Mamizou before then.”

“And that’s another thing - how, exactly, do you know Mamizou?”

She looked pointedly at the trickle of students leaving UA. “Not here. Follow me.”

She led him down a series of streets and alleys to a small cafe, grabbing a seat towards the back.

Izuku looked around the cafe as he grabbed the menu. Although it didn’t have many customers, it was still hardly a private setting. “This is supposed to be a better place to talk about that stuff?”

Sumireko put her menu to the side. “Most of the people in town who are into occult stuff come here, and nobody’s more skeptical of the occult than other occultists. Everyone here’s gonna be minding their own business and focusing on their own investigations, because everyone thinks they’re the only one who’s on the right track. Case in point, the guy sitting by the door, Saul, is a crazy drunkard who thinks he found a magical golden city of invisible gods in the middle of the jungle.”

Izuku took another glance at the patrons. They did seem to be engaged in their own discussions - or in Saul’s case, his drink. The nearest group was three tables away, where a red-haired young woman in a strawberry-red dress and matching shoulder cape was in the middle of describing something to a blonde girl in a white sailor outfit, using a funnel and string to illustrate whatever her point was.

“So, anyways, how I got here. My quirk is a pretty useless one - I can take patterns on cloth and make them animate as I please.” She held out her cape to demonstrate, the nordic runes sewn into the inside of it scrolling slowly by, as though they were on an electric billboard. “But, I was also born with psychic powers. I quickly realized that they weren’t a quirk, but something else - something greater. I never experienced quirk exhaustion when I used my powers, and the applications I found for them over time were far broader than nearly any quirk I had ever heard of. I knew enough to keep them secret, and the stress of having to hide my powers while knowing that I was completely unlike anyone else caused me to drift apart from the world. Everyone my age is told to idolize heroes, to obsess over fashion, to watch the latest shows, everything like that, you know? All they care about is petty little modern fabrications while I’m having a crisis over why I was born with my powers.”

She stopped for a moment as the waitress came up to them and took their orders.

“So anyways, I resolved to discover why I had these powers, what I was here to do. I chased lead after lead for years, spending every last yen of my allowance on occult stuff, exhausting every avenue in search of an answer. Two years into this search, I found a single written account by someone who claimed to have been trapped in a land of youkai for two years. It was pure luck I found it - it was a blog post that had only been up for ten minutes when I stumbled across it, and after I spent a half hour copying it onto paper I tried to click through to the rest of the blog and found the whole thing had already been deleted. I knew this had to be something, and focused the whole of my search on looking for answers about this ‘Gensokyo’. At last, about two years ago, it finally happened.”

“You found a way in?”

She grinned. “I ran into a brick wall. Gensokyo’s barrier is meant to only let things in if it wants them in. For a forgotten youkai, getting in is a piece of cake. For a meddler like me, actively trying to get in? Forget it. I’d never have managed it in a million years of work.”

“So how’d you get through, then?”

“I got used, that’s how. Random text message from an unknown number arrived three months after I admitted defeat, outlining a way in and exactly what to do. I managed to convince my parents to tour the globe for summer vacation, and after a year, I had gathered all the ingredients I needed to create six of what I called the ‘Occult Balls’. I just needed one more, and once more my mysterious contact came through - the next morning after creating the balls I discovered an unmarked package laid on my desk, containing the seventh. I was ready to break into Gensokyo.”

At this point, the waitress returned with their orders, and Sumireko paused to take a long sip of her green tea before continuing.

“Those initial seven Occult Balls allowed me to project my consciousness into Gensokyo, letting me mess around as I pleased with no risk to myself. But it still wasn’t enough. I reconfigured the Occult Balls, setting up a ritual to cast them into Gensokyo. They would naturally attach themselves to individuals, and could only be passed on if someone forcibly took them from you. Whenever someone was able to gather all seven, it would pull them out into our world temporarily, and I could then cast the balls back into Gensokyo. I was looking for another breakthrough, and I eventually found it when I reeled in Mamizou. She presented me with the solution to my problems: an eighth Occult Ball, this one not created from something in the outside world, but from items taken from Gensokyo.”

She chuckled. “It was a cunning trap, baited by my own desires. I wanted a way into Gensokyo, and she gave me exactly what I wanted - without a way to return on my own terms. I was trapped in Gensokyo and endured a string of attacks by youkai before I became desperate enough to try to do something very, very stupid. I was stopped by force, and returned to the outside world without the Occult Balls that had caused all that trouble. Imagine everyone’s surprise when I woke up in Gensokyo the next time I went to sleep. Turns out after that whole ordeal, I gained the ability to project myself into Gensokyo when I sleep. If I had to guess, it's because of prolonged exposure to the concentrated supernatural energy of the Occult Balls.”

“From there, I was able to reach an understanding with the residents of Gensokyo. I had been a pawn in a bigger game, so they were willing to forgive me, and Mamizou soon approached me with a request - she had left behind a son in the outside world, and wanted me to make sure he was safe. As someone from the Outside World who had already demonstrated exceptional skill at manipulating supernatural energies, I was the obvious choice.”

After a long moment, Izuku spoke. “Did you ever find out who your mysterious backer was?”

Sumireko’s lips curled into a snarl. “The Lunarians.”

“Wait, like people who live on the moon?”

“Yeah. They're the worst people you'll ever meet. They care only about themselves and their own society and everyone else might as well be insects to them. They have an obsession with purity, in the Shinto sense of the concept - by avoiding anything associated with death, they can keep themselves pure and stop themselves from ever aging or dying. There’s a few Lunarian refugees in Gensokyo who aren’t bad people, but as a whole you’ll generally want to steer clear of them if you ever run into them.”

She put down her empty cup of tea. “Well, I’ve probably taken up enough of your time. I’m sure Mamizou can tell you more when you see her tonight - she dropped the bomb on you, didn’t she?”

Izuku just nodded.

“She genuinely cares about you, it’s just that being a millennia-old youkai that focuses in trickery and disguise doesn’t really prep you for this sort of stuff. Hell, one of my best friends in Gensokyo is a millennia-old human and she’d probably have no idea how to properly handle it either.”

And with that, Sumireko departed, leaving Izuku with the bill.

All Might lingered in the observation room after the other teachers had left, rewatching Midoriya’s struggle with the zero pointer. The green-haired young boy had made it through the entire exam without so much as a scratch, and showing no signs of quirk fatigue. He turned to Principal Nezu, who was finishing up his tea as he looked through a stack of files.

Nezu responded before he could even voice his question. “Midoriya hasn’t been enrolled in any formal training of any kind, nor does his listed quirk have any applications that would enhance his physical strength. His screening test for any quirk-enhancing drugs also turned up completely negative.”

“Certain… incidents… in young Midoriya’s recent history have given me reason to be concerned that he may be connected to villains in some way. It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve had a spy attempt to enroll.”

“I completely understand your concerns, but I will not compromise the integrity of UA’s entrance exams. He’s earned enough points to pass even without adding in Rescue Points. That said, to assuage your concerns, I will have him put under surveillance once he enters, until such time as we can be sure that he is not involved with any criminal elements. As for his unusual displays of physical ability, placing him in Eraserhead’s class should prevent him from being able to do much damage with any hidden aspects his quirk may have to it.”

“Thank you, principal. That truly does take a weight off my mind. I do apologize for making you go to this trouble.”

The principal waved off his apology. “There was another student whose background raised a red flag, so I was already going to have someone watched. It really is no extra bother to add a second.”

Chapter Text

That night, Izuku set out to get answers out of Mamizou.

He found her alone in the temple graveyard, sitting on a gravestone and looking at the forest, back to him, ears twitching occasionally at some distant sound. Unable to bring himself to break the silence, he sat awkwardly on the ground next to her gravestone and gazed into the forest as well. A trio of lights could be seen faintly flitting about deep in the woods.

After what seemed like an eternity, she spoke.

“The people of Sado called me Futatsuiwa Daimyoujin, once. My pack found it an absolute riot - the dreaded Danzaburou, bane of honest men, the tanuki who drove the kitsune from Sado once and for all, being worshipped as a god? Ridiculous, the biggest con job yet. They started to call me by that name as well, and I happily took it for myself. Soon enough, I became famous throughout the youkai community. Futatsuiwa from Sado, cleverest of all the tanuki, who rose all the way from being a lowly, powerless animal to a god. Probably not a single youkai back then who didn’t know that name - I absolutely dominated the gossip, or so Nue tells me. We lived it up like kings, ornamenting our hideout with lavish gifts given to me by worshippers, convinced the good times were never going to end.”

Izuku remembered what Sumireko had told him when they first met. “But humanity moved on.”

A wistful smile crossed Mamizou’s face. “Being worshipped as a god turned out to be both a blessing and a curse. With two separate streams of belief, I outlasted the rest of my pack, and every other youkai I knew from back then. Even Nue, my oldest and most trusted friend, had gone and died on me. And so I soldiered on, completely alone, watching as the years went by and my shrine fell into disrepair, getting fewer and fewer visitors. Soon enough, I knew the end was near. I resolved to leave the world in the form that made me famous, and took on my old human disguise to wait out the final decade or two that I had. And then she came along.”

His voice was a whisper. “Mom.”

“Inko was the first visitor to my shrine in months, touring Japan after graduating from university. To this day I don’t know how she learned about the shrine, but she made the trek out to it to sightsee and found me there. First thing I ever heard out of her was her chewing me out for sleeping on the floor of a shrine.”

She chuckled at the memory. “Then she asked me if I had a place to stay. Absolutely boggled my mind - back in my heyday, I used that form to con people so frequently that nobody’d give ‘Hisashi’ the time of day - and, in my utter bewilderment, I agreed. We hit it off in no time at all, and she offered to let me accompany her throughout the rest of her trip. I figured that even if I was doomed to fade into nothingness, I could at least make sure someone remembered me, and accepted.

“Now, I may be a swindler, but never let it be said that I don’t repay kindness. I offered to cover all the costs of the trip, but she insisted that she pay for everything. We ended up splitting the costs, and when our travels finally came to an end and I figured it was time to part ways, I learned what it takes to genuinely surprise a crafty old youkai like myself.”

Izuku had an idea of what it was. “She proposed?”

Mamizou nodded. “We had a quiet, private ceremony before settling in her hometown, and I got to enjoy a taste of that human life I had watched from the outside for so long. The day you were born was one of the happiest moments of my long, long life.”

Sighing, she continued, “But I never could avoid the inescapable fact of my inevitable end. With every birthday we celebrated as a family, I was reminded of my own ticking clock. I could not - I would not - force you and Inko to watch as I grew weaker and died from something no doctor would be able to even understand, let alone cure.

“I told her I was taking a work post abroad to support you, and set out to travel the world. One last hurrah for wily old Danzaburou. No swindling, no pranks, just the stuff that first got me worship: giving money to people in dire need, acting as a savior in their darkest times. All I asked in exchange was that they pay forward a small amount of their income, and even then, only if they truly felt that they needed to repay my kindness. In five years of roaming the earth, I built a network that would be able to provide for you and Inko for the rest of your lives, as well as any descendants you’d have. And then, I returned to Sado to lay down and die.

“When I returned, I experienced true surprise for the second time. Among the precious few offerings at my shrine was a letter, written in unmistakable handwriting I’d long since given up hope of ever seeing again. Nue, that crazy old bastard, had somehow survived the years just as I, and made her way to Gensokyo. She requested that ‘Futatsuiwa from Sado once more ride to war and remind the world to fear her name’.”

She shook her head lightly. “She always had a flair for the dramatic. Honestly, I never waged war even at my most feared. Her letter came at a perfect time, though. I made my way to Gensokyo and was able to stay in touch with you by writing letters.”

She pulled out her kiseru and began to fill it. “So there you have it, the story of how I failed at being a parent.”

After a brief silence, Izuku spoke. “So… I'm a half-god?”

Mamizou threw him an incredulous glance as she lit her pipe. “That whole story, and that's what you focus on? No, I never got quite enough worship to become an actual god. Still a youkai, through and through. A powerful one, though - not at the level of the Youkai of Boundaries, but definitely up there in the rankings. I heard the Astral Knight even went to her doom because she was worried my fame would eclipse hers.”

Neither of those titles matched up to any myths he knew. “I’m unfamiliar with either of those youkai.”

“Both of them were unique youkai, one-of-a-kind beings who don’t come from any of the types usually spoken of in myths - kappa, oni, and so on. The first one is the creator of Gensokyo, Yakumo Yukari. She’s a weird case - never really cared for fame and legend, but her behavior is otherwise absolutely that of an archetypical youkai. She does as she pleases, when she pleases, for reasons only she fully understands, and there isn’t a force on earth that’ll stop her. To my knowledge, the only one who's ever actually pulled one over on her is the Lunarian Sage, and considering what happened later, I'd reckon Yukari still got the last laugh.”

She blew smoke into the air. “As for the Astral Knight, I don’t truly know her name, only her reputation and the tales of her exploits. She rose to prominence during the Sengoku period, butchering entire battlefields and fancying herself a ruler. Gathered a number of the more violent youkai under her banner before finally getting herself killed trying to take Kyoto. The humans feared her so much they erased every trace of her they could find. I doubt there’s a single myth left out there about her.”

A whimpering from the forest interrupted their conversation. A wolf padded out, making a whining noise as it attempted to open its jaws, which were stuck fast to a strange purple ball.

Mamizou tsked, getting off of her gravestone to tend to the animal. “Blasted wolves get into all sorts of stuff they shouldn’t. The Forest of Magic’s got plenty of weird stuff you shouldn’t eat, but they haven’t advanced enough as youkai yet to be smart enough not to bite whatever they find that smells tasty.”

Stroking the wolf’s fur comfortingly, she turned the ball into a leaf before discarding it. Liberated, the wolf gave a happy bark and nuzzled against her before running back into the forest. As if in response, a few more wolves walked out of the woods, more of the sticky balls stuck to parts of their fur and paws.

“There might be a lot of them asking for help, if a whole pack got into this stuff. You mind giving me a hand?”

As Izuku hurried to free the wolves, he continued their conversation. “I don’t think I can really fault you for disappearing on us, you were caught in a difficult situation and did what you thought was best to support us. It definitely helps that you kept in touch - though, to be honest, even with your letters I was almost starting to suspect you were secretly a supervillain.”

“Ha! You’re not exactly wrong, youkai were basically the villains of the olden days. If you overlay the metrics of modern heroics onto the old myths then about half of Gensokyo’s population is the equivalent of retired villains.”

An absolutely massive wolf, one eye heavily scarred, emerged from the treeline and walked over to Mamizou, looking almost smug. Izuku smelled blood on its breath as it opened its maw, revealing more of the purple balls stuck in its teeth and gums. Mamizou, unconcerned, set about removing them.

“So how’d the entry exam go, anyways?”

Izuku tore his eyes away from the gargantuan beast, which was looking at him the way one might eye their dessert. “Um, I think it went well overall. I’ve been studying before going to bed so the written section wasn’t an issue, and I’m pretty sure the robots they use are made to be easy to take down for untrained applicants. I know they keep Recovery Girl on deck for treating injuries, but I think that’s just in case of a worst-case scenario - I only saw one major injury in my testing group, and it wasn’t even directly caused by a robot.”

She stuck her head into the wolf’s open mouth, looking around for any remaining irritants. “Robots, eh? Yeah, you’d have had no trouble with that. They’re not a threat to youkai.”

Not for the first time, Izuku wished he could take a notebook to Gensokyo when he slept. “What do you mean?”

Mamizou patted the wolf’s side, signalling that its mouth was free of foreign objects. It turned and walked back into the woods. “So youkai are spiritual entities, yeah? Despite being able to affect the world around us, we’re fundamentally creatures of belief. This is why it’s almost always monks and other holy figures dealing with us in myths - they had the skill to use spiritual energy to attack us. Samurai in a pinch could use prayers to augment their weapons, too - I heard ol’ Ibaraki-Douji lost an arm that way. The problem with robots is there’s no soul behind them, so their attacks completely lack any spiritual component. Not impossible to damage a youkai, if the force of the attack is great enough, but since Byakuren’s training focused on yer defense, they might as well have been going at an iron wall with a toothpick. I reckon even some shrimp of a kid punching you would have better success, since at least they’d have their own will behind the blow.”

She stretched, beginning to make her way to the cemetery’s entrance. “Anyways, glad to hear it went well, even if I already expected as much. How about we grab a bite to eat as celebration?”

Hellforge strode down the street with single-minded focus, making his way towards Yoroi Musha’s hero agency. The pavement cracked and bubbled as he passed, unable to withstand the immense heat radiating off the villain’s molten metal form. If he took any satisfaction in his unstoppable advance, it didn’t show on the vaguely skeletal metal that formed his face.

He stopped. At the next intersection was an instantly-recognizable silhouette, standing tall and muscular with two iconic tufts of hair.

“Izuku! Honey!”

Izuku paused the video. He’d seen it before, anyways - Hellforge’s rampage was seemingly unstoppable until All Might had brought it to an abrupt end. It remained one of the number one hero’s more famous takedowns.

His mother burst into the room, waving a letter bearing UA’s seal. “It’s here! UA’s response arrived!”

He gingerly took the letter containing his future. It was heavier than he imagined, like it contained something more than just paper. A good sign, hopefully. Considering how many faux villains he had destroyed, he was probably in the clear, but worrying had always been in his nature. Tearing open the envelope, he found a set of letters and paperwork, as well as a metal disc. As he set the disc on his table, it activated, projecting an image of…

“I AM HERE! WITH YOUR ENTRY EXAM RESULTS!”

“ALL MIGHT!?”

“Yes! It is I, All Might! I have taken a position with UA for the coming year, and, as the newest member of the faculty, I was selected to record the exam result videos to help me acclimate to my duties! Now then, young Midoriya, without any further ado...”

The number one hero coughed and straightened a set of papers handed to him from off-camera.

“Your written exam results were exceptional, speaking to a studious nature and diligent preparation that will serve any aspiring young hero well! On top of that, you earned a respectable 55 Villain Points during the practical portion of the exam, nearly enough to place you within the top ten scorers!”

That’s about what I expected, considering I spent the last part of the exam helping that girl escape the zero-pointer. Anyone who was still hunting robots during that time would’ve passed me.

“But that’s not all we grade on! What sort of hero school would we be if we didn’t reward entrants for doing the right thing? To that end, there was a hidden component to the test: Rescue Points! For risking life and limb to save your fellow applicant from the zero-pointer, the judges saw fit to award you 20 Rescue Points!”

All Might reached a hand towards the camera, as though offering it to Izuku.

“So allow me to be the first to congratulate you, young Midoriya! This is the start of your Hero Academia!”

The video ended, transitioning to a screen displaying the top ten applicants:

He sat there, the scoreboard burning itself into his eyes, as it sank in.

He had made it.

He was going to the school of his dreams, something that had seemed nearly unattainable just a year ago.

Spring rolled around soon enough, bringing with it the first day of school at UA.

“1-A… 1-A… this school’s too big, where’s the classroom?”

He came to a stop in front of an absolutely tremendous door labeled as the classroom in question.

I guess this must be to ensure they can accommodate all sorts of quirks?

Pushing open the door, he wondered who’d be in his class.

With any luck, neither Kacchan nor that glasses kid will be in the class.

“I must insist that you take your feet off that desk immediately! Such an action shows disrespect to your classmates, the craftsmen who made that desk, and the sacred institution of UA!”

“Eh? And what middle school did you go to that put that damn stick up your ass, you two-bit extra!?”

Ah, great, they’re both here.

“Stick up my…?” The glasses-wearing kid was clearly taken aback by Bakugou’s words. Composing himself, he began again.“I attended the respected Soumei High School. My name is Iida Tenya.”

“That stuck-up private school, huh?” Bakugou sneered. “So that’s it, huh, you fucking elitist, you go to one good school and think you’re better than everyone else?”

“Wh- I would never! Someone aspiring to heroics should aspire to promote good relations with their classmates!”

Glancing awkwardly around the room from the entrance, Izuku spotted the brown-haired girl from the entrance exam. She grinned and gave him a small wave, which he returned. Catching the movement out of the corner of his eye, Iida broke off his argument and approached.

“Hello there! I’m Iida Tenya from Soumei…”

Izuku held his hands up in front of him. “Ah, yeah, I already overheard. I’m Midoriya, it’s nice to meet you…”

“Midoriya, I feel I owe you an apology for my actions during the entrance exam. I let my nerves get to me and dismissed you as being unfit to be a hero, when you were truthfully more capable than I. Doubtlessly, you were able to discern the true nature of the exam as a judgment of one’s heroic aptitude, proving yourself the better man!”

I didn’t even know Rescue Points were a thing, though.

Someone brushed against Izuku’s back as they squeezed through the doorway.

“Ah, sorry for blocking the doorway!”

“...it’s no problem.”

A girl with chin-length gray hair covering one eye had slid past him as she quite literally floated into the classroom, contorting her body to minimize her profile and make it through the narrow opening. She seemed to have no idea what to do with her hands, and they instead dangled at her sides, roughly level with her elbows. If not for her school uniform, she would have looked the very picture of the classical japanese ghost.

Iida wasted no time in addressing the newcomer. “It is a violation of the law to use your quirk in public unless you have a license to do so! We may be in a hero school, but unless you have received permission from the faculty to use your quirk outside of training exercises, I will have to request that you obey all applicable statutes!”

Wordlessly, the girl complied, lowering to land on her feet. She then began to walk over to her seat with a slight, but noticeable, limp.

Iida immediately apologized. “Please forgive my insensitivity, I had not realized you were injured! Have you been to see Recovery Girl, Miss…?”

“Yanagi Reiko. And it’s not something capable of being repaired. I was attacked by a wolf when I ventured into the woods when I was younger.”

A girl with long black hair done up into a ponytail put a hand to her chin in thought, wondering aloud, “But wolves have been extinct in Japan since the Meiji period…?”

Reiko took her seat before responding. “Ah, my apologies. Rather, it was a large, irate dog. The incident has been built up in my memory, over time. The injury’s deleterious effects have lingered long after the encounter.”

A brief silence followed, giving way to more muted chatter among the students as Izuku made his way over to the brown-haired girl’s seat. Before he could open his mouth to talk to her, however, the classroom door slid open and a haggard-looking man with long, unkempt black hair made his way over to the teacher’s desk. His outfit was a simple one, eschewing the flashy trappings common in pro heroics - a simple black shirt and pants, as well as a long grey scarf and a simple but functional utility belt.

After taking a moment to size up the class, he spoke.

“It took you lot eight seconds too many to settle down. It’s irrational to waste time, especially when time is of the essence.”

Reaching down to open a desk drawer, he continued, “I’m your homeroom teacher, Aizawa Shouta. Put these on and report to the P.E. grounds.”

Retrieving a pile of blue jumpsuits, he dumped them unceremoniously on the desk and left.

Everyone stared blankly for a moment as his words sank in. Then, there was a brief rush for the desk as the students rummaged through the jumpsuits for ones in their size.

Aizawa addressed the gathered students, “Today, you will be taking a Quirk Apprehension Test, with the aim of establishing a baseline for your capabilities. Japan has yet to adjust the standard of physical testing to account for the age we live in. Irrational as it may be, they bar the usage of quirks in similar tests in middle school, as though differences between individual students will simply cease to exist if they ignore them.”

Nodding to Bakugou, he motioned for the boy to stand in the middle of a marked circle.

“Bakugou. How far could you pitch a softball in the middle school tests?”

“67 meters.”

Aizawa tossed him a softball with some sort of sensor attached to it.

“Use your quirk, and don’t hold back. As long as you don’t leave the circle, anything is fine.”

Bakugou nodded, and wound up for a throw. As his hand let go of the ball, he let out a massive explosion to propel it through the air, roaring “DIIIIIEEE!” as he did.

A measurement device in Aizawa’s hand beeped twice, and the teacher checked the display before showing it to the class.

705.2m

“A hero should understand their own capabilities more than anything else. These metrics will form the foundation of your development here at UA.”

Some students began chattering among themselves.

“705 meters? That’s so manly!”

“Awesome! This’ll be fun!”

Aizawa shot a glare at the group. “‘Fun’, you say?”

The class fell silent as the hero continued.

“I thought you were here to become Heroes, not to enjoy yourselves for three years. How about this, then: I will expel whoever performs the worst over the course of these tests.”

A bit of fear emanated from some of the students at this comment.

Some brave soul piped up, “That’s unreasonable!”

“UA’s heroics department allows its teachers the freedom to do as they please. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to end the dreams of someone who thinks they can half-ass their heroics training before their story ends in tragedy. This is ‘Plus Ultra’. I expect you to overcome these obstacles, if you’re to be worthy of being called ‘Heroes’.”

Izuku’s mind swam with possibilities for how to use his ability as the students gathered around the course for the fifty-meter dash.

Most likely a rocket or something similar would be best for acceleration. I’ll need to be careful with my choice, as I can’t assume I’ll be allowed to spin it up before the dash begins if I use something that has a startup delay.

He plucked a hair from his head and willed it to become what he needed.

Nothing happened.

How have I gone eight months without testing if I can use my own hair!?

“Aizawa-sensei?”

“Yes, Midoriya?”

“My, ah, my quirk transforms other objects, but apparently doesn’t work on things taken from me like hair. Would I be able to get something to use?”

“No.”

As Izuku reeled from the blunt rejection, Aizawa continued, “You can’t always ensure a situation is to your advantage in heroics. This limitation of your quirk is a useful one to know, keep it in mind going forward.”

As Izuku turned back to the course, the blond boy he had seen during the entrance exam was lining up along with a pink girl who had two small yellow horns jutting out from her hair. Bizarrely, he was facing backwards. As Aizawa signalled the start, the boy leapt into the air and fired his laser, the recoil propelling him halfway down the course before he crashed clumsily to the ground, clambered to his feet, and repeated the motion for a final time of 5.51 seconds.

“Bakugou, Midoriya, you’re up.”

Izuku silently thanked the boy for his unorthodox technique as he gathered surprise from the air, taking his place at the starting grid. As Aizawa gave the signal, he poured it into his legs and began running. Bakugou blasted on well ahead of him, as expected from the boy’s versatile quirk, but Izuku still got a very respectable time of 5.6 seconds.

Izuku grinned as he received the dynamometer for the grip strength test, letting his Ability flow through the device and weaken the components it used for resisting the forces applied to it. As he squeezed the grip, it broke.

“Midoriya.”

“Y- yes, Aizawa-sensei?”

“The point of this test is to get an accurate measure of how much compressive force you can apply with the usage of your quirk.”

Taking the ruined device from Izuku, he continued, “With that in mind, wouldn’t you agree that sabotaging the equipment’s ability to take accurate readings is contradictory to the test?”

Chastened, Izuku silently nodded.

“I’m taking this device down to the support labs for repair. Take the second one from Shouji, and use it properly this time.”

As Aizawa departed, someone tapped Izuku in the shoulder. Turning, he saw Reiko hovering there.

“Midoriya.”

“Um, yes, Yanagi?”

“Why did you use your quirk to sabotage the dynamometer? It would have been more efficacious to conjure up a vice in a manner similar to Yaoyorozu. You say you are incapable of using it without an object to transmute, but you’ve been wearing an amulet this whole time without showing any inclination to use it.”

Almost unconsciously, Izuku’s hand covered his lifeline, shielding it. “I, uh, can’t use my quirk on this. It’s, um, got sentimental value?”

Reiko stared at him for a long moment. Just as he began to grow uncomfortable under her gaze, she turned and drifted off.

He measured 125kg on the grip test.

The tests continued without further disturbance, Izuku having given up the thought of using his ability after two unsuccessful attempts. The distance run ended up being an absolute farce - Yaoyorozu (the girl with the long black ponytail, it turned out), Iida, Reiko, and Izuku all competed with each other up until time had to be called in the interest of being able to finish the tests. Yaoyorozu had used her quirk of Creation to produce a motor scooter and fuel for it, allowing her to go on without any risk of tiring, Iida had plenty of experience and a highly-refined running form, Reiko had apparently been using her quirk to levitate herself nearly every day for years and showed no signs of growing tired from the effort, and Izuku simply had inhuman reserves of stamina due to his inhuman heritage.

Eventually, they came to the final test, the softball throw that Bakugou had been chosen to demonstrate at the start. After Kirishima had taken his turn (700 meters), Izuku stepped up to the pitch.

He wound up for the throw-

“Midoriya.”

-and released. The ball sailed a respectable distance. He turned to his teacher, whose hair somehow looked even more unkempt, as though it had just been flipped up and fallen down again.

“Yes?”

The measurement device in Aizawa’s hands beeped twice. The scraggly man looked at it, before turning it to show Izuku his score.

130m

“...never mind. Good throwing arm.”

Bakugou lobbed himself out of the crowd, lunging towards Izuku with a crazed look in his eye while popping off a series of explosions in his right hand.

“DEKU, YOU ABSOLUTE BASTARD!”

As Izuku braced for impact, the sound of explosions stopped. Silvery-gray loops flung out and wrapped themselves around Bakugou, thoroughly entangling the blond. Holding the other end of the coils, which appeared to be the loops of his overly-long scarf, Aizawa glared at the boy with newly-red eyes. His hair drifted up around his head as though he were underwater, and distinctive yellow goggles, formerly hidden by his scarf, were now visible hanging around his neck.

“I’ve erased your quirk. I won’t tolerate disruptive outbursts of this kind during my classes.”

Aizawa was now instantly identifiable to Izuku. “That’s it! You’re the underground hero Eraserhead! You’re capable of erasing the quirks of those you look at, but your power comes with a drawback of drying your eyes out the more you use it! You wear those goggles to prevent things getting in your eye because if you blink, the effect ends!”

The underground hero glanced at Izuku for a moment before turning his attention back to Bakugou. “Stop making me use my quirk so much. We’ll talk after class.”

Bakugou was still glaring at Izuku.

“I said, we’ll talk after class. Is that understood, Bakugou?”

After a tense moment, Bakugou gruffly nodded. Aizawa released him, and he turned away and returned to the rest of the class.

Aizawa pulled out a hologram projector and clicked a button on it, displaying a chart of the class’s overall rankings. Izuku was in the top half.

An invisible girl, recognizable only by her jumpsuit, fell to her knees - evidently the ‘Hagakure Tooru’ who had come in last.

“By the way,” The teacher said, grinning, “The whole ‘expulsion’ thing was a lie. A logical ruse, in order to ensure you gave it your all.”

Hagakure was now bawling.

“Curriculum sheets are back in the classroom, look them over so you know what the schedule is. Class is dismissed. And Bakugou, remember, stick around.”

Aizawa was left on the field with the blond after the rest of the class filtered out.

“Now then, Bakugou, explain to me why you lashed out at Midoriya like that.”

The student huffed. “Isn’t it obvious? The damn bastard’s mocking me, looking down on me.”

This raised an eyebrow. “Really? I could understand you thinking that about Yaoyorozu, who got number one overall, or even Uraraka, who got an unbeatable score on the same event you attacked Midoriya over. There’s more to it than that.”

Bakugou snarled. “There isn’t. They gave it their all, but Deku’s holding back like I’m unworthy to see his full power. I was with him every year of schooling up to this point, so I know him like the back of my hand. He couldn’t even scratch half that distance back in middle school, but now he casually throws 130? He’s hiding something.”

The blond stormed off. Aizawa made no move to stop him.

Aizawa found All Might talking with Kirishima about something. He got the number one hero’s attention and motioned in the direction of the teacher’s lounge before heading there himself. Before long, All Might joined him.

“My apologies, Aizawa! I was just wrapping up my discussion with young Kirishima! Now, what was it you wanted to talk to me about?”

“I still don’t agree with Nezu’s decision on this matter. I feel the more rational decision would be to simply expel Midoriya if you have concerns that he’s connected to villains.”

“While I understand the sentiment - it’s one I initially had, myself - I respect the principal’s approach to this situation. If we are mistaken, and Midoriya is innocent, then all that expelling him would do is push a talented student towards villainy.”

Aizawa threw a folder onto the lounge’s coffee table. All Might opened it, looking through the contents.

“Regardless,” the underground hero continued, “I did what was requested to confirm our hunch. Midoriya wasn’t permitted to use his Object Transformation during the test, those are all baseline physical capabilities. Nothing that would be impossible for a quirkless individual who’s fit enough, even the distance run - I had to cut it off before I ran out of time for the remaining tests. But,”

All Might’s attention was now fully on the underground hero.

“They’re all too good, when taken as a whole. Every one of his results is within spitting distance of athletics records from prior to the emergence of quirks. And they all display tremendous improvement from his middle school data, far beyond what one would typically expect. His quirk should have been erased on the softball throw, but there was no drop in his capabilities. It’s possible someone else has used a quirk to boost his physical ability - that would have gotten around my erasure.”

The number one hero stifled a cough. “I… I see. That is troubling, indeed.”

Izuku was chatting with Iida as he left the school building.

“Aizawa-sensei really had me fooled! I thought to myself, ‘so this is what the most elite school is like!’ However, encouraging your students to draw out their potential via deception is a brilliant strategy! Naturally it wouldn’t do to allow students to simply coast comfortably on their own capabilities...”

A girl’s voice cried out, “Hey, are you headed to the station? Wait for me!”

Iida turned as the brown-haired girl ran up.

“Ah, you’re the girl who threw infinity on the softball toss.”

She nodded. “Uraraka Ochako, pleased to meet you! If I’m not mistaken, you’re, uh… Iida Tenya and Midoriya Deku!”

Izuku coughed. “Um, Deku?”

“Yeah, isn’t that what that Bakugou kid was calling you?”

“Uh, my name is actually Izuku. Kacchan just calls me ‘Deku’ to demean me.”

Uraraka rubbed the back of her head sheepishly. “Oh, really? Sorry about that. Though I have to say, I kinda like the name ‘Deku’ for you! Kinda sounds like ‘dekiru’, ‘you can do it’, y’know?”

Taking an insulting name and owning it, transforming its meaning… yeah, I can get behind that.

A smile grew on Izuku’s face. “Deku it is, then.”

Iida butted in, “Midoriya, don’t be such a pushover! Bakugou’s name is meant as an insult, remember?”

Uraraka, however, had moved on to the next topic. “Aizawa-sensei really had it out for you, huh? He just refused to let you use your quirk! I get that a real hero might be caught off-guard at times, but doesn’t that sorta go against the goal of figuring out quirk’s capabilities?”

They continued to chat about various topics all the way until their paths diverged.

As Izuku returned home, he smiled to himself, satisfied that his first day of UA had gone even better than he could have hoped.

Chapter Text

There were some days when Tsukauchi loved his job.

Today, he reflected, as he sat in a dimly-lit bar that smelled strongly of vomit, was not one of those days. His background check on the Midoriyas had found nothing suspicious about Inko or her family, nor anything about Hisashi's family outside. Hisashi himself, however, was a different story. The man had skipped out on the Midoriyas when his son had turned 3 - Tsukauchi already knew that. However, as soon as he was out of Japan, the man's movements became extremely difficult to track. Either he eschewed modern transportation methods, avoiding cameras and documentation, or he had access to a quirk that allowed him to avoid detection. Months of searching had led Tsukauchi to a long trail of villains and more small-time crooks Hisashi had given money to, but even that was fraught with dead ends and false leads.

His phone buzzed in his pocket. Checking it, he saw a new email from one of the foreign detectives he was working with.

Inspector Naomasa,

    As requested, I was able to get permission from the warden to question Wastewalker about his interactions with Midoriya. Apparently, Midoriya visited him after his business went bankrupt and gave him enough money to pay off his creditors. However, he instead decided to go on the rampage that got him jailed. He was very insistent that Midoriya didn’t require any repayment, and that he never gave the man a cent.

-Inspector Jones

It tracked with all the accounts so far. Midoriya had apparently wandered the world freely giving money to all sorts of unscrupulous types. It made no sense - there had to be an angle he was missing.

A large hand slammed a glass down in front of him. “Bad form to be checking your emails while waiting for your contact, don’t you think, officer?”

A behemoth of a man stared down at him from a single, milky white eye. “Call me Polyphemus. I believe you contacted me about talking with me, so what brings you to my humble bar?”

Tsukauchi raised an eyebrow. “Still going by your villain name even after you claim to have gone straight?”

“Hah! Reminds me where I came from, and what I’m not going back to.”

“Well, I hate to dredge up a past you're intent on forgetting, but I'd like to ask about your dealings with a Midoriya Hisashi.”

A wide smile grew on the cyclopean man's face. “Ah, Midoriya, huh? That man was my savior, got me out of the whole villainy business. Ransom attempt gone wrong - kid I grabbed stabbed me in the eye, blinded me. My right hand man saw an opportunity to make a power play and seized control of my gang, left me bleeding out in the gutter. I would've died that day, but Midoriya found me and brought me to the hospital. Paid for all my treatment, and even left me some money for my own. I saw the writing on the wall, then - ironic, considering I'm blind - and decided to leave the business before I had another brush with death. I took that money, left my native Greece, and set up a bar here with the one member of my group who stayed loyal to me. I've been sending small payments Midoriya's way ever since I got this place off the ground.”

That definitely qualified as something he had missed. “Midoriya asked you to repay him?”

“Hah! That softy? Not at all! He was very clear - only pay him back if I wanted to, and had the means to do so without jeopardizing my finances. Didn't even ask for much, just a small amount paid on a regular basis. Honestly I'd probably be paying loan sharks much more, if I'd tried going straight on my own.”

He typed a note into his phone: possible lead: Hisashi’s income sources “And do you know of any other villains Midoriya, uh, ‘helped’?”

Polyphemus seemed baffled by the question. “Any other villains? No, not at all. Only other guy I know of was a fisherman whose ship was completely lost overnight during a bad storm. Just walked up to the docks in the morning to find his way to make a living completely gone. That guy insisted on repaying him, too.”

Tsukauchi donned his hat and got up from his seat. “I see. Well, thank you for your time.”

As he departed, he heard the former villain shouting after him, “Hey! You just gonna leave without buying anything? I’ve got a business to run here!”

UA’s curriculum was surprisingly mundane aside from being taught by pro heroes, Izuku considered as he sat in the classroom waiting for the afternoon’s classes to begin. It made sense, when he thought about it - UA was still a high school with a duty to give its students a proper education, after all, and heroes couldn’t get by on nothing but combat ability. This only made the upcoming course even more interesting in comparison.

Just three words, with no other explanation given:

Foundational Heroics Studies .

The unknown has a way of making the mind run wild. What could the course entail? Simple studies in heroics history and laws? Reviews of villain takedowns and notable rescues? Quirk training? Actual combat training? Few members of 1-A could resist the topic - Izuku could hear some of his classmates throwing around theories as to the mysterious course’s nature.

The chatter was immediately silenced by an unmistakable, boisterous voice from the hallway:

“I AM HERE!”

The door to the classroom slid open as the number one hero struck a pose at the entrance.

“...AND I AM COMING THROUGH THE DOOR LIKE A NORMAL PERSON!”

All Might swaggered up to the desk at the front of the classroom in a well-practiced manner that spoke of his countless interviews and public appearances. As he did so, the chatter shifted to discussion about their teacher.

“Within Foundational Heroics Studies, you’ll be building up the skills essential to heroics through a variety of trials! In this way you’ll gain practical experience that will benefit you in the field! Now, for the first class, we’ll jump right into the deep end with a Battle Trial!”

He motioned towards a set of slots on the wall, which slid open to reveal sets of numbered containers.

“In light of your first battle, we’ve prepared the equipment you submitted design requests for! The gear you’ll bring to the battlefield as a hero is vitally important! Get changed and gather at Ground Beta!”

At one time, Izuku’s ideal hero outfit had been heavily inspired by All Might. An old sketch, with elements meant to evoke the number one hero’s iconic smile and instantly-recognizable hair tufts. Perhaps he still would have used that design if he had gained a strength-boosting ability instead. However, the ability to transform objects was an entirely different power, that lent itself to deception and unpredictability, and demanded different design elements to match.

Taking cues from statues of tanuki, his costume consisted of a fairly simple samue paired with a bamboo hat in the style tanuki were typically depicted with. Accessory-wise, he had a booklet of blank sheets that, he was happy to find, were made of papyrus, just as requested - he had long since discovered his ability worked more easily on plant matter. A jug normally used for sake instead held water, for usage in disaster relief and rescue operations (This had come with a note from the support department stating that they were trying to find a way to compress the water to allow the jug to carry more without making it spray pressurized water everywhere when opened, and apologizing that, as it stood, the jug currently had a low capacity).

“Hey, Deku!” Uraraka said as he approached. “I like your outfit! Gives a real ‘Tanuki’ kinda vibe, is that because of your quirk?”

“Hm? Oh, yeah, I figured I should go with something matching what I can do, and since I’ve found my quirk is best able to transform leaves and such, a tanuki seemed like the obvious theme.”

“I sorta wish I’d drawn my costume better in my request form, I feel like it came out a bit puffier than I wanted. I’m worried about loose bits catching on stuff while I’m floating, you know?”

All Might cleared his throat, his voice carrying above the class’s chatter. “Nice styles, everyone! It's often said that ‘clothes make the man’, and I can see no better proof of that than all of you! You look every bit the part of true heroes!”

A heavily armored individual who Izuku quickly recognized as Iida raised his hand to put forth a question. “Sensei! I see you’ve brought us to one of the mock cities used during the practical portion of the entry exam! Will we be simulating a villain attack?”

“Right you are, young Iida, though perhaps not in the way you might think! You see, while villain cleanup is statistically seen most often in the open air, the vast majority of villainy is committed indoors! In our hero-saturated society, only the foolish or overconfident villains make open moves, while the intelligent ones stick to the shadows!”

The hero very unsubtly retrieved a folded piece of paper from one of his belt pouches and began to obviously read off of it. “For this exercise, you will be split into teams of two members each. These teams will be randomly selected for either a “villain” or “hero” role. The villainous team will have to defend a mock nuclear weapon they intend to deploy, while the heroic team must either secure the device or restrain all members of the villain team within the time limit. I will now select the teams via lottery.”

He looked around for wherever the team selection box had been placed.

“But sir,” Iida wondered, “Wouldn’t it make more sense to allow us to pick our own teams, rather than determine them by random chance?”

“Well,” Izuku replied, “professional heroes often have to work with other heroes they might not know very well, especially in situations where they might not have the luxury of time. I imagine this is to test our performance in a similar situation.”

“I see! Always developing our skills, to be expected of UA! I apologize for my interruption!”

“Now then!” All Might reached into the box and dug around. “For our first match, we have… The Villain team of Uraraka Ochako and Midoriya Izuku, against the Hero Team of Iida Tenya and Bakugou Katsuki!

Uraraka examined the prop nuclear device closely. “So we’ve got five minutes of setup time to ready our defenses and move the device to a location that suits our abilities, huh? It doesn’t seem like there are any penalties, so I’m pretty relieved. All Might really is as nice in person as he seems!”

“Uraraka.”

“Yeah, Deku?”

“Can you take the bomb and hide it wherever you think is best? I’m going to set up some tricks.”

“I’m happy I was selected to be on the hero team, It would be troubling to have to be a villain, even just for a training exercise. Our mobility will be an invaluable asset in locating and securing the device within the time limit.”

Bakugou ignored Iida, glaring at the building’s entrance. “If Deku wants to keep his quirk secret, I’ll just beat it out of him. I’ll make him use it.”

All Might’s voice crackled over their communicators. “The Villain team’s five minutes of setup time is now complete, the Hero team may now enter the building.”

Iida turned to his partner. “We should advance carefully into the building, together. Uraraka’s quirk lets her attack from unexpected angles and Midoriya didn’t use his during Aizawa’s test - we can’t afford to let our guard down.”

Fuming, the explosive blond rushed into the building, letting off explosions to propel himself down the corridors. Iida attempted to follow, to no avail - the boy was long gone. The hallway was linear, however, and Iida continued until coming to the stairs to the second floor, where he finally accepted that Bakugou would not be waiting for him.

Taking a moment to check the map of the building's layout they had been given, he realized with a start that the map didn’t match up to the portion of the building he had seen. Had All Might given them false information as a way to show that you can’t always trust your sources as a hero? No - more likely that Midoriya's unknown quirk let him shift the building's layout to an extent. He resolved to advance more carefully, as if the building's layout had indeed been altered, it would be logical to funnel attackers into a trap.

He stopped at the stairway’s first landing - where, according to the map, there should have been a doorway to the second floor. Looking closely, the wall was slightly discolored in one area. Tapping it, it sounded hollow.

He spoke over the communicator they had been given “Bakugou, I’ve found what appears to be a doorway to the second floor that was blocked by the villains. I’m attempting to open it and proceed onwards.”

The wall crumbled easily enough - apparently, whatever Midoriya’s quirk was didn’t allow him to actually apply and dry mortar during the setup time, so the bricks were held together very loosely. He carefully moved through the newly-opened doorway, trying to move as quietly as possible, eventually coming to an open room with barricaded windows. The prop bomb sat inside, apparently unguarded.

Too easy, Iida thought, this has to be a trap.

He caught an irregularity in a sliver of light creeping in from behind a corner - the edge of the beam was slightly curved, as though someone were casting a shadow. Capture tape at the ready, he sprinted around the corner to catch the target off-guard and expertly wrapped the tape around… a wooden statue resembling Midoriya.

Something slammed into Iida from above.

“This is completely unmanly!”, Kirishima objected as he watched Uraraka drop on Iida. To his credit, Iida recovered relatively quickly, though he was now in a grappling contest that didn’t allow him to put his quirk to use.

“In the heat of battle, ambushes a valid and effective strategy! You should never pass up an advantage given to you!”

“Additionally,” Reiko pointed out, “That’s one of Midoriya’s decoy bombs. Iida would have been in greater trouble if he had assumed it to be the real one, and acted accordingly.”

Izuku lay in wait for Bakugou on the third floor. If he knew his bully, the irritable blond would’ve rushed in alone without backup, and was aiming for a fight rather than a win.

He tapped the “broadcast” button on his communicator. “Uraraka, what’s the situation with Iida?”

“I ambushed him and was able to use my quirk on him. He’s weightless and drifting, but I can’t get in close enough to restrain him.”

“Leave him - as long as one of us is up, we just need to play for time, and he’s not near the real bomb.”

“Got it.”

A roar of rage accompanied the sound of something being blasted across a room - likely another of his decoys. “Come out and fight me, worthless Deku!”

There’s Bakugou, right on schedule.

“Why should I fight you, Kacchan?” he called from his hiding place. “You spent years calling me worthless because you thought I had no quirk. You’re just looking for another way you can say you’re better than me, now that I have one.”

Another blast from the neighboring room, this time accompanied by the sound of crumbling stone.

“You’re useless in a fight, Deku! You know you can’t win so all you can do is hide and sling insults!” 

“Your quirk wears you out as you use it, while mine doesn’t have the same raw combat power as yours. I have no incentive to fight on your terms.”

A third blast and the wall of the room Izuku was in disintegrated, showering him with bits of stone. Using the shower as a smokescreen, Bakugou lunged at the boy. “You should fight me, Deku , because you’re shit at hiding, too.”

Acting on instinct from training, Izuku deftly evaded the blond’s right-handed swing before grabbing his arm and executing a textbook shoulder throw, slamming his tormentor to the ground.

“You open all your fights with a swing from your right hand, before even using your quirk! I’m no longer just a worthless Deku!”

Bakugou rolled to his feet before using his quirk to propel himself away from Izuku, adjusting his course in mid-air with another blast to launch himself back at his opponent from a different angle, capture tape ready. As he tried to wrap it around Izuku, the half-youkai grabbed it and  turned it into inflexible metal, ruining the tape. Enraged, Bakugou slammed a foot into his stomach in response, taking advantage of the lapse in Izuku’s guard to intensify his assault.

“Uh, this is getting a little hard to watch, don’t you think?” Ashido Mina asked as the class watched Izuku get blasted through a wall.

“Whoever trained him did well teaching him to block, but that doesn't help too much against a quirk like Bakugou's,” Ojirou observed.

“On top of his obvious defensive training," Reiko countered, "Midoriya has displayed monstrous durability. I am curious as to whether Bakugou is even capable of inflicting any lasting damage.”

All Might shook his head. “Young Ashido is right - it would be unprofessional of me, as an educator, to allow this state of affairs to continue and risk serious injury in a training exercise.” He activated the mic that let him speak to the teams. “Young Bakugou! If you continue in this fashion I will have no choice but to halt the exercise and deem it a loss for you! Causing severe injury to a classmate during a training exercise is unacceptable for one seeking to become a hero!”

Bakugou had grabbed Izuku as part of following up his latest attack with a headbutt. It was a mistake. Izuku poured the contents of his water gourd over the blond's hands, soaking them and watering down the boy's nitroglycerin sweat. For good measure, he also kneed him in the stomach.

Losing his grip and staggering back, Bakugou aimed one gauntleted hand at Izuku, grabbing a pin on it with the other hand. “You think that I don't know that my quirk weakens as a fight goes on!? That was the first fucking thing I thought about with this design! These gauntlets have been storing my sweat this entire damn time, so I can still let out one big blast when my tanks are dry!”

Something that sounded like All Might’s voice crackled faintly from Bakugou’s earpiece. He ignored it. “Don’t worry - He won’t die if it doesn’t hit him!”

Izuku leapt forward, throwing himself to the floor and flattening himself as best as he was able.

Bakugou pulled the pin.

All-consuming fire engulfed the corridor, then, silence.

After a long moment, All Might spoke through the earpieces. “The Hero team has run out of time, rendering the Villain team the victors! Young Midoriya, please report to Recovery Girl to make sure that Bakugou has not inflicted any serious harm. And young Bakugou: I’ll be reporting this incident to Aizawa.”

Izuku returned from his checkup with Recovery Girl to see another match was in progress. Reiko was visible on the monitors, floating in the air and deftly dodging lasers and hurled acid from the team of Aoyama and Ashido. She was returning fire using a support item concealed in her costume’s sleeves - something capable of firing a barrage of what appeared to be fist-sized pellets of energy - while Yaoyorozu took advantage of the distraction to further hinder the hero team using flashbangs, nets, and other traps.

“Did I miss anything?” He asked Uraraka as he slid back into the class.

“Well, after our round, All Might clarified that excessive force was not permitted. Todoroki was on the hero team next and froze the entire building, and almost got in trouble until it was verified there would be no lasting harm. Yanagi also had a discussion with him about that weird support item of hers to establish that it was nonlethal. The villain teams have generally been playing to stall after seeing how effective it was in our fight. Was Yanagi correct about how you handled Bakugou’s attack, by the way? I wasn’t there to see you fight him.”

“Huh?”

“She said that you likely saw the attack would balloon out from its origin point and got yourself closer to him to put yourself in its blind spot - said she once did a similar thing when fighting an ice user.”

“Oh!” He hadn’t actually had time to think about it, but instead had just acted on impulse. “Uh, I didn’t actively think about it, but I felt like that was the right move.”

“The rest of the class also voted on who was the most effective. They decided on me, because Yaoyorozu argued that you shouldn’t have been antagonizing Bakugou when all you needed to do was stall for time, Bakugou was preoccupied with fighting you rather than the objective, and Iida was ultimately ineffective due to walking into our trap. A bunch of people took issue with that - they thought you were more effective due to making decoys of both the objective and us, and using your quirk creatively to make favorable engagements. I thought you deserved it, personally.”

The hero team finally slipped up, failing to take cover in time from another of Yaoyorozu’s flashbangs. While they were debilitated, she swept in and captured them.

“The Villain team wins by capture! Now, class, who do you think was MVP of this match?”

Chapter Text

“So, I got you something to celebrate yer makin’ it into UA. Sorry it’s a bit late, took me longer to do this than I remembered it taking.” Mamizou handed him a simple journal with an unmarked brown cover, grinning. “I specially treated it with magic, the same way people’d make their Youma Books back when it was in style.”

Izuku raised an eyebrow. “Youma Book?”

“It was popular for a while, back when literacy was on the rise. Some youkai on the verge of being forgotten realized, ‘hey, I can use this’ and wrote a short book about how scary he was. About twenty years later, the story circulated enough that he just popped right back into existence, like he was never gone. This started a whole bunch of folks takin’ the chance to ensure their existence. Another youkai realized that the right rituals could confer the same resistance to harm that they had to the book itself and make their insurance policy that much more viable, and soon enough it was all the rage. I reckon that journal there’d survive pretty much anything short of a professional youkai hunter.

“I also got you this.” She said, pulling out another, much thicker, book, bound with fine leather and decorated with gold trim. A bookmark decorated with a cartoonish image of a tanuki was tucked into it.

Izuku took the book from her and opened it to the bookmarked page. He was greeted by a large, exquisitely-drawn portrait of Mamizou, accompanied by a large block of text that was simultaneously completely different from Japanese but also strangely familiar. Somehow, he just instinctively knew what it said.

Futatsuiwa Mamizou
Ability: the ability to disguise.
Threat Level: High
Human Friendship Level: Very High
Main place of activity: Forest of Magic, Myouren Temple, etc.

“It’s a specially commissioned copy of the Gensokyo Chronicle,” Mamizou said,  “written in the Tanuki script. I had Nue use her Ability on it, so anyone else who happens to see you reading it won’t realize what it is. You should be able to bring both of these items with you when you transition between worlds, but if not, I know for a fact that Sumireko can do it, so I’ll have her bring them to you.”

A new voice cut into the conversation. “I certainly hope those precautionary measures will be enough, if you’re letting your child bring these items to the Outside World.”

The newcomer was a tall, stern-looking woman with yellow eyes and short blonde hair. She wore a white dress and a tabard decorated with intricate designs in white thread, as well as a two-tailed cap that was covered in paper seals. Nine bushy fox tails radiated out from the back of her dress, marking her as a Kitsune, and an incredibly powerful one, at that.

Izuku soon located the corresponding entry in the Gensokyo Chronicle - strangely, she was the only kitsune listed. Yakumo Ran, chief servant of Gensokyo’s creator Yukari.

Mamizou snarled. “What business do you have here, shikigami? Get lost while shopping for Yakumo’s dinner?”

“As I’ve said before,” replied Ran, “there is no need for hostility between us, Mamizou. With your lingering ties to the Outside World, it would be advantageous to have a good working relationship with myself and Lady Yukari.”

“The vampires have their own ties to the Outside World and don’t work with you,” Mamizou pointed out.

“The Scarlets only import items, and so their activities are generally permissible. Your recent activities, however, warrant closer scrutiny. Lady Yukari is currently particularly conscious of the situation in the Outside World, and things must be handled delicately.”

“I was living in the Outside World before you even bodysnatched that fox, I think I know how to handle things.”

Ran sighed. “Have it your way, then. Just remember that the utmost care needs to be taken for the time being. And you, little half-tanuki?”

Izuku stiffened under the fox’s gaze, suddenly acutely aware of how weak he was in comparison. “Y- yes?”

The fabric of reality tore around the kitsune, opening into a void starred with unblinking eyes.

“Tread carefully.”

Just as abruptly as it had opened, the hole in reality snapped shut without a sound, taking Ran with it.

The next day, UA’s front gates were a bustle of activity. Reporters from seemingly every news agency in Japan swarmed the entrance, eager for any shred of information they could get about UA’s newest hire. Anyone who got even remotely close was assailed with queries.

“What kind of lessons do you have under All Might?”

“What were your thoughts seeing All Might at the front of the classroom?”

“What do you think of All Might as a teacher?”

Aizawa groaned internally as the crowd came into view. The press was irritating at the best of times, and the news that All Might was teaching at UA had apparently driven them into an absolute frenzy. They were even in the middle of questioning a random passerby who was trying fruitlessly to explain that he was neither faculty nor a student. The teacher took a deep breath before pushing into the crowd, making his way for the door.

“Are you a teacher at UA? Would you be able to give some insight as to All Mi-”

“All Might has the day off today. Please vacate the area, your presence here is obstructive.”

“Please, would you be able to get All Might to come out and answer some questions? It shouldn’t take up too much of your time to simply relay a request and- GAH!”

As the reporter tailed Aizawa, they drew too close to UA’s entrance gate, which let out a loud ‘BEEP’ before metal pillars shot up to block the entrance. He allowed himself a moment of satisfaction at the muffled, indignant shouts of the reporters before proceeding into the school building.

Aizawa cleared his throat as he stood at the front of the class, flipping through All Might’s notes from the previous day. “I hope you’ve all recovered from yesterday’s Battle Trial. Some of you may have noticed that one of your classmates is not present - Bakugou continued using excessive force despite a warning and has received a week’s suspension accordingly. He will be back in time for the sports festival.”

A murmur ran through the class. Iida raised his hand. “Sir, would this not prove too damaging to Bakugou’s hero education? A school as demanding as UA can’t afford to lose any time with its students, after all.”

“If Bakugou shows that he is unable to keep up upon his return, then I will not hesitate to expel him. The same goes for if he continues to behave quite so violently towards his classmates, and doubly so if he continues to disregard direct instructions. Now that that’s out of the way, I’m sorry to have to do this…”

The entire class shifted nervously.

“...You need to pick a Class President. Doesn’t matter to me how you actually decide, just select somebody by the end of the class period.”

Aizawa then grabbed his yellow sleeping bag from one of his desk drawers and slipped into it, disappearing below the desk.

The class erupted in shouts declaring candidacy. Iida’s voice cut above all the rest.

“Silence, everyone! Just because you want to do it doesn’t mean you’re the right choice for the job! This title implicitly requires the respect of one’s classmates, so the only logical choice is to hold a democratic election for the position!”

“We’re still less than a week into school - it hasn’t really been long enough for us to have developed any trust in each other and everyone’s just going to vote for themselves,” Tsuyu pointed out.

“Precisely my point! Anyone who is able to rally multiple supporters this early into the term will obviously be the correct choice for president!”

Satisfied with his logic, a list of 1-A students was quickly thrown up on the blackboard and a vote taken.

“I don’t understand how I managed to get three votes!” Izuku lamented over his lunch.

“I’m sure you’ll do just fine,” Uraraka encouraged, talking through a mouthful of rice.

Iida paused to swallow a mouthful of curry before speaking “Indeed. I voted for you because your performance in the Battle Trial demonstrated remarkable judgment. I have faith you'll rise to the task.”

“But didn’t you want to be class president yourself, Iida?” She wondered aloud. “You’ve definitely got the look for it.”

“As I said in class, desire for the role does not itself indicate the ability to perform the task. I would have betrayed my principles had I voted for myself when I believed someone else was the better choice.”

“Man, you’re always so upstanding and stuff! Are you from some high-class family?”

Iida sheepishly lowered his head towards his food. “I don’t like calling attention to it, but yes, I’m from a long line of heroes. Have either of you heard of the Turbo Hero, Ingenium?”

Izuku’s eyes lit up. “Of course I’ve heard of Ingenium! He’s super-popular and has one of the larger agencies in Tokyo!”

Izuku figured it was polite not to mention that Ingenium also had a supposed ‘curse’ on him, due to his Hero Office - it had been originally purchased by a wealthy businessman who was found to be a Vigilante when he was killed fighting the villain Hellforge. After that, it had been purchased by the Paladin Hero, Idealist, who enjoyed a rapid rise in the hero rankings until a sudden, completely inexplicable disappearance. The building had then remained vacant for months until Ingenium purchased it.

“That’s correct,” Iida said, smiling proudly. “He’s my older brother, and a beloved Pro Hero who guides the people as a beacon! I aspire to follow in his footsteps. However, I’m very aware that I’ve only just begun my journey. It’s too early for me to take a leadership position.”

Uraraka set down her empty bowl, having devoured the remainder of her rice while he was talking. “You know, Iida, I think that’s the first time I think that’s the first time I’ve seen you smiling!”

He was visibly taken aback. “What? I smile all the time!”

“You sa-”

She was suddenly cut off by an earsplitting wailing, that paused briefly to allow a robotic voice to speak:

“ A Level 3 Security Breach has occurred. All students, please evacuate the building in an orderly fashion. ”

The students in the lunchroom proceeded to begin the evacuation in anything but an orderly fashion, stampeding for the exit. A random male student paused in his escape to shout at the group, “What are you guys doing just sitting there? A Level 3 Breach means someone’s infiltrated the school grounds! We gotta get out of here, quick!”

Reiko floated aimlessly above the crushing herd of students, idly snacking on a skewer of grilled mushrooms as she watched the frenzied withdrawal. She’d be lying to herself if she said she didn’t feel a bit of anger towards how quickly the situation had devolved.

So quick to go into a panic. They say they want to be heroes?

Glancing towards the window, she saw Present Mic and Eraserhead out front, arguing fruitlessly with the reporter horde, which had somehow managed to bypass the gates.

She recognized the heads of some of her classmates in the crowd, being pushed along by the wave of human bodies. The one with the glasses - Iida… something? - was reaching for the girl with the antigravity quirk. They managed to touch, and Iida was able to dislodge himself from the crowd and shove off the wall, propelling himself to the exit sign before beginning to yell about keeping calm.

Reiko finished her mushrooms, turned, and drifted away.

Principal Nezu and several other members of UA Staff surveyed the remains of the UA Entrance Gate. It was immediately obvious how the reporters had been able to breach UA’s security and gain entrance to the grounds - what was left could only be called a “gate” in the loosest sense of the word. The reinforced metal pillars that had formed the security barrier were a complete write-off, reduced to dust by someone’s quirk.

More distressingly, whoever had destroyed the gate had done so quickly enough that the reporters hadn’t been able to give a description.

Nezu spoke after a moment. “No ordinary reporter could have done this. And even if they could , their agency would have never allowed it because of legal liability. This was meant to send a message.”

Aizawa stood at the front of the classroom the next day. “For today’s Foundational Heroics lesson, we’ll be studying the skills used by Heroes when responding to disasters. As such, we will be visiting an external training facility with areas set up to simulate various rescue conditions. Some of your costumes may not have been designed with rescue in mind, so for today’s lesson it’s entirely your own judgment whether or not to wear them. Once you’re ready, gather in front of the school to board the buses to the training site.”

As Aizawa was about to leave the classroom, Izuku spoke up. “Um, sir? I was wondering if it would be possible for me to nominate Iida as the Class President instead of me. He displayed quick thinking and effective judgment during the security breach yesterday, and I, uh, sorta don’treallywanttobethepresidentanyways…” the last words came out as a sheepish mumble.

The teacher sighed. “This sort of thing really should have been decided yesterday, but I’ll get you the paperwork to make the change of role official. Now, if there are no more questions, hurry up and get ready.”

The class soon piled into the buses to take them to the Rescue Trial facility. Iida, pleased with his new leadership position, eagerly took the reigns and guided the boarding of the bus to ensure maximum efficiency when being seated.

He was, of course, crushed when the bus’s seating layout rendered his plans moot, with two long rows of seats facing the vehicle’s central axis rather than the typical aisles. The rest of the class happily chatted as they journeyed to their destination.

“Say, Midoriya,” said Tsuyu. “I always like to say what’s on my mind. I apologize if this is a bit blunt, but your quirk has a lot of similarities in usage with Yaoyorozu’s - you should compare notes sometime.”

Kirishima leapt into the conversation. “Hold on, Asui -”

“Please, call me Tsuyu.”

“- their powers seem similar on the surface, but Midoriya needs something else to work with first, while Yaoyorozu can create what she needs herself! We can’t assume that something that works for one of them will work for the other!”

“Besides,” Reiko added, staring directly at Izuku, “Yaoyorozu uses her own body to create items, and has limits on how much she can viably create. Midoriya has shown no sign of Quirk Exhaustion when using his ability so far.”

Mina joined in the chatter “We’ve really got a lot of heroic-type quirks, huh? You know, the ones that are both flashy and strong! Kirishima’s got that red lightning and that all-around boost that comes with breaking his hardening, Midoriya and Yaoyorozu both make things in a fancy way, Yanagi’s got her-”

“My quirk is just the floating.”

“Oh, right, the projectiles are from some support item.”

“There’s also Bakugou,” Tsuyu pointed out, “But his personality’s bad. Even if he is able to stay in the heroics course I don’t see him being very popular as a hero.”

Aizawa poked his head out from behind his headrest in the front. “Settle down, we’re almost there.”

The training facility was absolutely tremendous, as they had come to expect of anything UA was associated with. The unmistakable astronaut-esque figure of Thirteen, the Space Hero, met the class at the entrance. Uraraka was visibly straining to contain herself from what Izuku assumed was an outburst of pure joy, like he himself had when he met… well, just about any hero, really.

“This,” said Thirteen, “Is a practical training area I created to simulate all kinds of accidents and disasters, ranging from floods and downpours to landslides and fires. I call it the Unforeseen Simulation Joint, or USJ for short!”

Aizawa pulled Thirteen aside for a moment to speak privately, out of the class’s earshot. “Say, Thirteen, where’s All Might? He was supposed to meet us here for this class.”

“From what I understand,” she said, holding up three fingers, “he took some detours while commuting to do Hero work and ran himself out of time. He’s resting in the staff room.”

“Ugh, he’s completely irrational. Well, let’s go with the backup plan.”

The two pros returned to the waiting class.

“Before we begin,” started Thirteen, “I just want to say a few things first. I’m sure most of you are aware, but my Quirk is called Black Hole. It generates a vortex that destroys anything sucked into it.”

Uraraka nodded eagerly. “Yeah! It’s a great Quirk that’s perfect for rescue situations!”

“It could also easily kill people, however. And the Quirks of everyone else here have the same potential. Don’t ever forget that each one of you could kill someone with a single wrong move.”

Izuku noticed Reiko shift her posture out of the corner of his eye, her eyes darting around almost nervously.

“Aizawa’s assessment test taught you your quirks’ potentials, and All Might’s battle trial taught you the dangers of using your quirks against others. My hope is that this lesson will give you a third point of view, and reinforce that your quirks do not exist to hurt others, but rather are a means to allow you to help others!”

The Space Hero took a bow. “That’s all I have to say! My thanks to you for listening patiently!”

Aizawa straightened his posture and walked to the front of the class. “Now then, to begin the day’s lesson we’ll…”

Something behind him, down in the USJ’s main plaza, got his attention, and he turned to it. Suddenly, he whirled back towards the class. Izuku felt a small amount of fear. “Everyone stay together! Thirteen! Protect the students!”

A swirling vortex of black mist suddenly burst into existence in the middle of the plaza, spewing forth a horde of villains. Last out of the gate were a lanky man with greyish-blue hair and disembodied hands clinging to him, and a large, muscular man visibly straining with effort from carrying a large sack filled with a number of large round objects. He set the bag to the ground delicately before hastily moving away from it, joining the larger crowd of thugs.

“Is this like the entry exam?” wondered Kirishima.

“Don’t move!” Commanded Aizawa. “Those are Villains!”

The mist coalesced into a tall figure who appeared to be made of black fog squeezed into a suit. The hand-covered man addressed him in a raspy voice, “Man, Kurogiri, what a disappointment… the raid boss didn’t even spawn after we went to all the effort of getting a party together.”

The mistman replied calmly, “The curriculum we acquired said that All Might would be here. Perhaps he’s running a bit late?”

“Good point. Maybe he’ll show up if we kill the adds first.”

Aizawa flipped his goggles down over his eyes and readied his capture weapon. “Thirteen, try to evacuate the students and get in contact with UA! Kaminari, try to use your Quirk to get a signal out!”

“You can’t mean to fight them alone!” Izuku shouted, “your fighting style focuses on erasure and capture of a single target! Even if you can suppress all their quirks, there’s too many of them!”

He called back as he leapt into action, “It’s illogical to rely on only one tactic as a Hero. Thirteen! I’m counting on you!”

A villain with large, spiny forearms grinned as Aizawa came hurtling in, throwing his arms up in a defensive stance as the spikes enlarged. Just as quickly, the spikes shrank to their original size, leaving a massive hole in his guard through which the hero punched him in the face, laying him out. Without even wasting a second, he whipped around and swept the legs out from under the large, muscular man who had been carrying the bag, who toppled over onto a woman who was busy wondering why her hair was no longer prehensile.

A huge man with six arms and three torsos attached to a single head laughed at his allies’ misfortune. “Morons! That’s Eraserhead! He erases your Quirks just by looking at you! But you can’t erase mutation quirks like mine, huh, little Hero?”

Aizawa didn’t even bother with a response as he slammed an elbow into the giant’s face, blinding him for the brief moment it took to wrap his capture weapon around the man’s legs and fling him into a group of villains who were standing too close to each other.

Thirteen finally gave up on contacting UA through whatever jammer the villains had in place. “We need to evacuate, now!”

In a flash, Kurogiri was between the class and the USJ’s exit. “Greetings. My apologies for the late introduction, but we are the League of Villains. Might any of you happen to know the location of All Might?”

Kirishima leapt from the crowd, red electricity dancing over a hardened arm as he delivered a massive blow to Kurogiri’s torso. “Hah! Bet you didn’t think I’d be able to beat you down before you could react!”

The man soon reformed. “That was rather dangerous. I suppose you can’t be disregarded even if you are mere students. After all, you’re attending the most highly-regarded school in the world of heroics. I suppose there’s no choice but to scatter you.”

Kurogiri’s mist swept over the class, engulfing them and filling the world with darkness. Izuku vaguely sensed somebody’s fear spike much higher than anyone else in the class.

The mist cleared from Izuku’s vision before he knew it, leaving him in the middle of a ruined city. He couldn’t see any other classmates just yet, but he could see a few villains hunting around nearby. He quickly ducked behind a piece of rubble.

How is this even happening? A Villain with a warp quirk is here with an alliance aiming to take All Might’s head!?

The rock he was hiding behind suddenly shifted, lifting into the air to join the leg of an enormous humanoid mass of stone.

“Hey, kid,” A voice like grinding boulders rumbled out.  “Boss says I’m supposed to squish anyone I find like a bug. Nothing personal, you understand.”

As the leg began its descent, something wrapped around Izuku’s waist and pulled him to safety inside a nearby building.

“Oh, come on! I’m too big to fit in there!” Whined the stone golem. “Guess I’ve just gotta smash it, then.”

The building shook from an impact, but remained standing. “Blasted building codes. Give me a second, okay? Stay right there, please!”

Izuku looked to his savior to find that it was Tokoyami, who had apparently sent Dark Shadow out to snatch him. “Thanks.”

The raven-headed boy nodded. “Don’t mention it, Midoriya. The lords of shadow saw fit to ally us in this circumstance, and sent us to the same location. The forces of Makai shall not best us today.”

Izuku paused for a moment at Tokoyami’s strange speech patterns, eventually deciding to put it aside and focus on escaping the current crisis. “Sure. So, first off we need to see if anyone else was sent to this area. If so we need to join forces with them so we can take down that giant guy - he’s too dangerous a threat to let him follow us. Currently, my plan to take him down is…”

“Shigaraki, if we let Eraserhead keep rampaging through our forces we won’t have the combat strength to take on All Might.” Kurogiri observed as he returned to the villain’s side.

Shigaraki groaned. “Fiiiine. It’s about time for our Summoner to earn her keep anyways. How long are you going to sleep?” He firmly grasped the cloth of the bag, which turned to dust in his hands.

Five large orbs rolled a short distance before coming to a halt. They appeared to be predominantly made of brass, each one bearing large cracks that had been filled in with a glowing purple substance, in an effect reminiscent of pottery repaired via kintsugi. After a moment, the orbs floated into the air, taking a flat, pentagon-shaped formation parallel to the ground. Lightning arced from each of the orbs to a central point on the ground, and in defiance of all rules governing electrical flow, the crackling electricity proceeded to take the shape of the outline of a woman dressed in traditional clothing. Suddenly, the orbs snapped open, revealing their nature as large, red eyes.

They fixated on Aizawa, who felt a chill down his spine despite over a decade of heroics experience. There was no emotion in those eyes other than pure, unfettered hatred. He’d seen less hate in the eyes of villains that he’d personally put behind bars. In stark contrast to her eyes, however, the lightning-woman seemed almost smug, as difficult as it was to make out her facial expression in the lines of shifting electricity. The eyes narrowed, as if daring him to make a move.

Chapter Text

Aizawa rushed forward, analyzing the electric villain for weaknesses as he moved, keeping his eyes on her. The obvious mutation aspects of her Quirk wouldn’t be negated, obviously, but if he was lucky the electricity was an emitter, and otherwise he could at least be secure knowing that any range advantage her quirk afforded her was negated.

The lightning failed to subside. Damn it, the electricity’s part of the mutation somehow. Can’t let the capture weapon touch that. In that case, the eyes are the obvi-

A beam lanced out from the closest eye, raking across the ground and forcing him to make a clumsy dive to the side in order to narrowly dodge it. Years of back-alley brawling had taught him well, however, and he was able to convert the hasty maneuver into a roll, keeping himself in motion as two of the other eyes barraged the spot he had just left with bolts of plasma.

Eyes weren’t using a quirk to attack, then. Perhaps some type of support drones and a mutation quirk that gave them a body of electricity? It didn't change the plan either way - the eyes were the only obvious target, and seemed to be sustaining the electrical apparition. The issue was just how to get in when he couldn't negate the enemy's ranged attacks. With five overlapping fields of fire, it was like fighting a more dangerous version of Snipe.

The villain let loose another energy barrage, sweeping another beam across with one eye to force Aizawa to keep his distance as he weaved around the projectiles. Making his way over to the fountain, he ducked behind it, taking a moment to catch his breath from the relentless assault.

He poked his head out from cover for just a moment to check on the villain. Nearly immediately, another barrage forced him back down, but a single glance was enough for his purposes - she hadn’t moved. More importantly, the laser from earlier hadn’t left any appreciable damage on the ground.

He had a plan.

Shigaraki watched with satisfaction as the lightning villain they had brought along easily forced Eraserhead on the defensive.

“So the thing with metagames is they don’t always shift based on what’s OP, they also shift based on what’s popular, you know? All Might’s build has influenced a wave of imitators and such. And this means that in turn, some things just slip under the radar because they’re not commonly used. Summoner builds, for instance - nobody uses those, so when someone does actually roll one it catches everyone off-guard.”

The warp villain decided to humor the lanky villain’s gaming analogies, seeing as their help had the situation well under control. He kept an eye on the door anyways, in case Thirteen tried to make a break for it. “That one mountain rescue team has someone whose Quirk gives them summoned minions.”

“One off-meta build doesn’t eliminate my point, and if I’m thinking of the same team they’ve actually caught a number of villains off-guard with those things, which actually reinforces what I’m saying.”

Shigaraki smiled behind the hand covering his face. “Besides, our Summoner’s a special case anyways. Her Summons are top tier.”

As they were talking, Eraserhead had managed to pop out of cover long enough to wrap his capture weapon around the top of the fountain and break the ornamental structure off of it, giving him a large chunk of stone. Bracing it ahead of him as a shield, he sprinted into the villain’s barrage before flinging it ahead to screen for a kick to the nearest eye.

Pain shot up Aizawa’s leg. Whatever material the “eyes” were made of, it was like kicking solid stone, and the one he had struck hadn’t even budged. The other eyes turned to look at him as he kicked off of the eye, trying to reopen some distance before they fired.

The lightning villain had no intentions of letting him escape, however, and followed him, matching the speed of his kickoff perfectly. Mockingly, she even pantomimed the action of walking as she hovered through the air. As he landed, she reached out with one hand and grabbed him by the neck, hoisting him into the air.

Agony coursed through him as electricity danced over his skin. Dimly, he recognized her grabbing his goggles and tearing them from his head, flinging them aside carelessly before running her free hand along his cheek in a twisted imitation of a caress. More electricity crackled across his cheeks and eyes as he struggled against the ongoing electrocution to do something, anything.

An errant muscle spasm, forced by the current flowing through him, caused him to kick out, his leg aimed directly for her stomach.

It passed through to no effect other than further wracking his body with electricity.

One-handed, almost casually, the villain flung Aizawa back towards the fountain, and he struck the ground in a crumpled heap.

Then, she fired another barrage.

The sound of a building crumbling to rubble echoed through the Ruins Zone.

“Really, at this point I’m honestly just impressed that UA bothered to build all these buildings to code, you know?” The massive stone golem of a villain called out. “Like, this area’s meant to be simulating a destroyed city for rescue purposes, they could’ve just made sure the things stayed standing on their own and called it good enough.”

Is this guy going to stop talking at some point? Izuku mouthed to Tokoyami.

The bird-headed boy just shrugged.

“I sort of wish they had called in some people to smash this place up for them. Might’ve actually kept me off the streets if they had gone and built a fake city and then said ‘hey, we need to simulate the aftermath of a villain attack. People with destructive quirks, have at it - you’ve got twenty minutes, we’ll pay you.’ Actually, that’s a good idea for a business, making destroyed cities for hero schools. Maybe I should try that once I get paid for this job. Eh, who am I kidding, society’s probably gonna collapse when we kill All Might.”

Another impact rang out through the streets of the ruins as the villain threw his weight against another building. This time, though, it was accompanied by a yell.

"Gah, what the hell? Acid!?"

Izuku poked his head out from the rubble he and Tokoyami were hiding behind to see Ashido Mina sailing through the air, showering the villain's stone body with acid from one hand while propelling herself with spray from the other. Uraraka was clinging to one leg, visibly straining to resist nausea.

"Uraraka and Ashido are out there, we need to help them!"

Tokoyami nodded. "Their aid will prove invaluable if we hope to vanquish that earthen entity. Indeed, did your plan not require a distraction?"

Izuku rushed out from cover, Dark Shadow swooping out alongside him. The villainous stone golem took notice of the sudden movement, turning to attack them as they approached. "Ah, more scurrying insects! I'm slightly suspect of UA's quality, now - I clearly have a range and power advantage, one would suppose that the reasonable option is to simply escape!"

A titanic arm slammed down, forcing Izuku and the sentient quirk to split up from each other as they continued their approach.

"One wrong move and you guys will die! Why throw away your lives recklessly? You're still in High School, why does society think throwing children into heroics is a good ide- argh, my back!"

The stone golem's attention focused on the running students, he had failed to keep an eye on the airborne duo, who had now managed to melt a hole in his stone armor with acid. As the gargantuan figure recoiled in pain, Izuku reached its leg and let his Ability flow into it, turning the limb into pumice, which quickly crumbled under the giant's weight. As it fell, Dark Shadow snatched the villain from the hole in its back.

"Okay, that was actually pretty cool," the villain admitted as the shadowy quirk held him in its grasp.

Tokoyami groaned. "Will you shut up already?"

Kirishima sent the final villain sprawling with a punch to the gut, powering through the cloak of flame the man had been using.

“I think that's everyone for my end. Iida, how are you doing on your end?”

The heavy whack of Iida's armor against flesh resounded from the other side of a massive bonfire.

“I've nearly finished over here, too. Whatever nefarious aim these villains had in mind, they were ill-prepared to fulfill their goals.”

Another thud, and, as if on cue, the fires of the Conflagration Zone died out, leaving the pair of trainee heroes standing in a burnt-out replica city. Both of them were surrounded by beaten villains.

One of the thugs groaned and rolled over, spitting some loose teeth onto the ground. “Ha! You think we're not ready? Handsy and Misty could've brought only that brute of theirs and they'd still be overprepared. I'm just here for an easy payday after that thing kills All Might for us!”

A punch to the face from Kirishima knocked the thug out.

“This is bad, man. If they have something they think can kill All Might, it’s definitely a serious threat to us. It’s not terribly manly, but I think you should run for help.”

“But-”

“You’re the fastest one in the class and that warping villain isn’t watching us, this is the best opportunity we’re gonna get.”

“We’re not even close to the entrance! The Conflagration Zone is on the total opposite side of the USJ!”

“Who said anything about going out the door?” Kirishima held up a hardened arm, crackling with red energy. “I figured this out an offensive application of my Quirk a week before the entrance exam. I think it works like an atom bomb - splitting bonds to release energy. The backlash sucks, but I think a full-power punch will be able to breach the wall.”

He was surprised at how easily the lie spilled from his mouth.

He wound up for a punch, letting One For All flow through his arm, grasping the feeling All Might had told him to grasp.

The wall was obliterated, leaving a large hole to the outside. Cracks spread up his Hardening, dripping blood as pain blossomed through his arm.

"Kirishima! Are you okay after that?"

"This is nothing, go!"

After a moment's hesitation, Iida nodded, running out the new exit.

Kouda ran up, following a rat. “ I found the control room for the area and turned off the fire simulation, ” he quickly signed.

Kirishima gave a sheepish, apologetic smile. "I'm so sorry, man, I don't know sign language."

"Satou's done, guys!" Sero called, "He overused his quirk!"

Puddlejumper leapt out of an uncovered pool, knife gleaming as he lunged for the sugar-eater. Ojiro's tail intercepted the villain mid-flight, knocking him back with a distinct cracking noise. Laughing, the villain disappeared back into the water.

"There's too much water here, we need to get out of the area or this guy will never stop harassing us! Shouji, does it sound like there's anyone else out there?"

The ears disappeared from the huge boy's tentacles. "It's hard to tell with all the wind and rainfall, but I didn't hear anything that sounded like anyone else, classmate or villain."

"Alright then, we try to find our way out of here, and be careful of that guy's ambushes."

Kaminari stood there, a dazed look on his face as Jirou and Yaoyorozu tied up the unconscious villain.

"Well, we took down that electric guy but now our antenna's out of commission," Jirou muttered. "You think you can get anything, Yaoyorozu?"

The taller woman frowned at a device she had made. "I'm afraid whoever or whatever was jamming the signal appears to still be active - we just have to hope someone runs for help, I guess. This plateau should be fairly defensible between our quirks, especially once Kaminari recovers. It might be a good idea to dig in here, for the time being."

"Come on, Aoyama! We can't stay on this boat forever!"

The blond gave no response from inside the cabin. Hagakure turned to her companion.

"It's no use Tsuyu, he's completely locked up. Think we can bust down the door and just fling him to shore?"

One of the villains in the water cried out, "Aw, to hell with caution!" and hurled a blade of water at the ship, slicing it in half. Aoyama suddenly burst from the door, ran to the railing, and leapt off, using his laser to launch himself through the air, a look of utter terror on his face.

"Hey, wait, that's not the right direction for the plaza! Tsuyu, carry me, it'll be really obvious where I am in the water."

"This changes nothing, brat," one of the defeated villains spat at Todoroki through chattering teeth, his body firmly trapped in a glacier. "Your little ice trick means nothing to our trump card."

"What trump card? Who are you working with?"

"I'm not afraid of you. You're a hero, you won't kill me."

"Endeavor regularly maims his victims and nothing comes of it. Frostbite's an awful thing to experience."

The ice encasing the villain crept closer to his neck.

"Okay, okay, I'll talk! Won't matter anyways. I don't know their names, but hands and mist are the main leaders, they sent out a call for hired muscle. They're working with a third person, bat-winged girl with long blond hair and a red star tattooed on her cheek. Long pointy ears too. She's in some kinda weird cult, says she needs to gather souls for her master. Gave them this weird lightning creature she claims can kill All Might. I just came along for an easy payday if this works, I've got five kids to feed!"

Shigaraki scratched at his throat impatiently and with just a hint of nervousness. “Kurogiri, what's our Summon doing? It's just been standing there and occasionally casting ball lightning since Thirteen protected Eraserhead. It hasn't even used any beams. Is it out of spell slots?”

“If I had to guess, she's toying with her.”

“I don't think Eraserhead's even dead,” the hand-covered villain muttered. “I think he twitched a bit earlier. Should've brought Nomu, he wouldn't have toyed around with the heroes like this.”

A villain ran up, covered in soot. “Bad news, boss - one of the brats broke a hole in the building with some crazy punch and sent one of his buddies running to UA for help.”

Shigaraki's eye twitched. “You let one of them get away?”

“It- it wasn’t my fault! Burnout was supposed to shift the fires so we could cut them off from each other! But he got knocked out immediately so the whole plan fell apart before I could do anyth-”

Shigaraki’s hand tightened around the hapless thug’s throat. “Our plan relied on catching UA off-guard! If they throw Pro after Pro at us we’re done for. We get the bad ending.”

The thug’s skin began to crack and dry up, falling away from his neck in flaky chunks. Shigaraki ignored his shrieks of pain as he continued, “Kurogiri! Get ready to warp us out of here before we get a game over.”

He dropped the dead thug and paused for a moment, an ominous smile spreading across his face. “Oh, and Summon?”

One of the lightning villain’s hate-filled eyes swiveled to focus on Shigaraki. The apparition herself made no moves, though she ceased sending her lazy projectile volleys at Thirteen.

“Take the Symbol of Peace’s pride down a notch before we leave.”

She turned and began to float away.

Why’d she stop firing? Thirteen wondered, capping her suit’s fingertips now that she didn’t need to intercept any more projectiles.

The leader’s command to retreat had been a massive relief, but his instructions to the so-called “summon” indicated he still wanted to inflict harm. Thirteen was the only one in the plaza, it would take too long to-

The villain was heading towards the Flood Zone.

The villain, who was made of electricity , was heading towards a body of water that presumably had students in it.

Thirteen ran like her life depended on it, mentally cursing her suit’s design - it was made for rescue situations, mobility hadn’t been as much of a concern as protection when designing it.

Almost impossibly quickly, one of the villain’s eyes swiveled and fixed a baleful glare on the Space Hero before firing a beam, ripping through her stomach and tearing apart both flesh and armored space suit like tissue paper. As the hero fell, the electrical villain’s body turned and flew to her foe, ready to follow up on the opening.

A squish rang out, and the villain stopped.

Midoriya Izuku had seemingly come out of nowhere and driven a hand, open in a spear-hand strike, directly into one of the villain’s eyes, sinking deep into the orb, which now dripped black liquid.

In an instant, a series of emotions flashed across the four unharmed eyes.

Pain and Surprise.

Confusion.

Realization.

Then, back to pure, all-consuming Hatred.

Before Izuku could pull his hand out, the injured eye clamped shut, gripping his wrist firmly with its eyelids in an attempt to stop him from fleeing. In unison, the remaining eyes fired beams.

At that same moment, Dark Shadow slammed into Izuku, knocking him out of their path.

Before the eyes could recover and fire again, Izuku kicked the injured eye as hard as he could, wrenching his hand free as it flinched.

The body of lightning flickered in and out of existence as he fell to the ground, the eye he wounded blinking rapidly as though trying to flush an irritant. After a moment, the figure stabilized, holding a hand to one of her face's non-existent eyes. Where previously the lightning forming her body had been tightly controlled, now it freely arced off of her, scorching the earth. One of the eyes focused on his left leg, its iris turning blue.

She lunged for Izuku with her free hand, and, drawing on months of training in the Myouren Temple's yard, he moved to dodge the untrained movement.

His leg, heavy and numb, refused to move at his command.

Her hand tightened around his neck, sending electricity coursing through him.

Izuku had long since noticed the improved durability Sumireko had mentioned being half youkai would impart on him. Kacchan's explosions had still stung, but they had felt muffled, as though he was attempting to blast through layers of padding.

This, however? This ignored that defense like it was never there, sending searing pain through his body from an instant of contact.

The monster immediately threw him as hard as she could, gliding through the air after him to deliver a follow-up kick to his gut the second he landed. Dropping her hand from her face, she reached for his lifeline amulet before suddenly stopping at a CRACK sound. In slow motion, both Izuku and the lightning monster watched a small shard of glowing purple crystal fall from above.

Slowly, the eyes swiveled away from Izuku to the injured one, which Kirishima had just struck with an enhanced punch. Blood dripped from each of his limbs, which bore heavy cracks - any more attacks like that and his Hardening wouldn't be able to take the recoil.

Enraged, the electrical being grabbed both of the students, hauling them into the air.

A resounding BOOM echoed from the entrance of the USJ as it vanished in a cloud of concrete dust. One of the heavy metal doors flew through the electrical apparition, disrupting it for an instant and letting Izuku and Kirishima tumble gracelessly to the ground.

"HAVE NO FEAR…" called an unmistakable voice.

"...FOR I AM HERE."

All Might wasn't smiling.

The moment the words "Villain attack at the USJ" had left young Iida's mouth, All Might had already left the teacher's lounge, throwing everything he had into reaching the place in time to save the students. As he soared through the sky, he cursed the time limit on his powers, which stopped him from being able to both save people and still fulfill his duties as a teacher. Once, he would have been able to keep the whole of Musutafu safe and teach a class at the same time, whizzing out the window to save people before returning barely a moment after he had left.

Okay, maybe that last part was exaggerating a little.

His stomach wound gave a pang of pain and he coughed up a small amount of blood. Just another reminder of how weak he'd grown after defeating All For One. He'd need to make this quick.

Landing directly at the gates of the USJ (he was always proud of his ability to land his jumps exactly on-target), he clenched a fist and blew through the doors, bellowing out his iconic line as he did so.

The sight before him hammered in how badly he had failed. Eraserhead lay unmoving on the ground of the plaza, and Thirteen had apparently been dragged to his side by young Tokoyami. Uraraka and Ashido were attempting to provide medical care to the best of their ability despite having no equipment.

Elsewhere, an imposing villain made of electricity was hovered above young Midoriya and his successor, young Kirishima. Both boys appeared to be injured, though they were at least visibly recovering.

Five orbs floated above the villain. Four of them rotated to face him, revealing themselves to be eyes glaring at him with undiluted hate and anger. The last one had apparently been damaged already - it was tightly shut, displaying a material resembling brass and crisscrossed with cracks filled in with a glowing purple material. Black blood dripped from it slowly, evaporating quickly after striking the ground.

Off to the side, a villain covered in hands called out, "Oh, what a surprise, the DPS ran off ahead of the group. Summon, that's our target. Kill him."

Neither All Might nor the electric villain needed to be told twice - both of them exploded into motion.

Their speed was no comparison - in the brief instant it took the villain and her eyes to get halfway to the entrance, the number one hero had collected the teachers and students and deposited them at the doorway, apparently struck the hand-covered leader (judging by the leader suddenly stumbling and the hand on his face falling off), and finally met the lightning apparition in the middle, striking her injured eye with a heavy blow that slightly pushed it back and swinging another strike at one of the open eyes.

Just before the second attack connected, the eye shut and his arm passed right through the sphere.

Shigaraki reached down and picked up the fallen hand. “Sheesh, it’s useless to stand against him without a countermeasure, huh… He even took the opportunity to hit me while saving his colleagues and students… I couldn’t even see him. But then, he was a bit slower than expected. Is it true after all? Are you weakening, All Might?”

All Might delivered a Texas Smash to the injured eye, once again budging it but failing to inflict actual damage.

“How do you like our Summon, mister Number One Hero? It's got maxed out dodge and damage reduction. You could hit it all day and it wouldn't even feel a thing."

All Might grinned. "Is that so? My thanks, villain! If force won't do the trick, I just have to hit harder!" Pouring more power into his punches, he began to unload a vicious barrage of rapid punches to the damaged eye.

Under the sustained assault, the cracks in the eye began to visibly grow as the villain was slowly forced back. Shigaraki, his voice barely a whisper, hissed to Kurogiri, "Give me a portal to his back - the tank's got aggro."

The mist villain complied with the order, creating a portal that Shigaraki thrust one death-dealing hand into.

At the same time, two of the electric villain's eyes glowed blue as they focused on All Might's arms, noticeably slowing his assault as the two remaining eyes began to glow with energy.

Something went wrong with their plan.

The portal briefly appeared at All Might's back before flickering and reappearing in front of the eyes, spread wide to block their line of sight. Shigaraki was barely able to pull his arm back before a massive barrage of projectiles flew through, sailing into the air and blowing a hole in the USJ's roof.

At the same time, the weight was lifted from All Might's arms, allowing him to renew his assault. The lightning villain desperately jabbed an arm into his injury in a futile attempt to slow his attacks. As the hero continued his assault, his hands almost seemed to take on a ghostly blue glow to them, slowly beating the damaged eye out of its spot in the formation.

"You seem surprised by my vigor, villain! Here's a lesson for you, free of charge! You may have thought you could handle my full power, but UA teaches its students to never stop striving to improve themselves! For that is the true meaning of our motto:"

His assault let up for a moment as he wound up a Detroit Smash.

"GO BEYOND!"

The iconic move slammed into the eye, blasting it out of position and sending it careening into the ground. New cracks spiderwebbed across its battered surface.

"PLUS"

As it struggled to move, All Might leapt into the air to deliver a follow-up.

"ULTRA!!!"

California Smash slammed into the grounded eye like the hammer of a vengeful god, crushing it against the unyielding ground and creating a wide crater from the sheer force of the impact.

At last, the heavily abused eye cracked and shattered spectacularly in a blast of dark purple smoke and black ichor, the shockwave propelling small fragments of purple crystal high into the air, where they began to fall like rain. 

The electrical villain let loose an ear-splitting shriek as its form flickered and finally dissipated, its four remaining eyes closing and dropping to the ground.

Uraraka yelped and threw herself over Thirteen's wound to try to stop any of the crystals from getting into the fallen hero's innards.

Shigaraki scratched frantically at his neck. "No, no, no! This wasn't supposed to turn out like this! Our Summoner said there was no way this Summon could lose against All Might!"

Then he paused, throwing his arms out wide. "But then, you're spent after that, aren't you, All Might? I can kill you with a single touch, right now. Kurogiri!"

Blood burst from Shigaraki's hand an instant before a gunshot rang out. The rest of UA staff had arrived.

"That would be our cue to leave," Kurogiri calmly observed as Snipe's bullets passed harmlessly through his intangible body. "Farewell, heroes."

His fog swallowed Shigaraki and the fallen orbs of the lightning villain before disappearing, leaving no trace of the attack's ringleaders other than a small, rapidly shrinking pool of black liquid.

"Thirteen and Eraserhead are both alive, thankfully. Thirteen's actually the one in worse condition, even though she was still conscious when we got here - we had to put her under so we could try to reconstruct her stomach. She insisted on giving us testimony before she'd let us sedate her, though. Good thing, too - she's the only witness we have for what happened between the students being scattered and the group from the Ruins Zone arriving."

All Might nodded to Tsukauchi, motioning for his friend to continue.

"Apparently, Eraserhead's quirk did nothing to that electric villain and a misjudgment of its durability got him downed. She jumped in to save him and stalled the thing for a time before getting taken off-guard, at which point Midoriya jumped in and risked his life to save her, becoming injured himself in the process." 

The detective let out a sigh. "I hate to say it, but we may have treated the kid unfairly in our caution. Of course, I'll get testimony from him once he recovers, just to be sure. His father's still a concern of mine, but that investigation is independent of this one."

All Might nodded. "In light of the day's events, I have to say I agree with you. Young Midoriya's actions display a true spirit of heroism, and I fear I let my hatred of All For One cloud my judgment when you told me of his possible involvement. Assuming his testimony checks out, I'll request that Nezu lift the monitoring on him."

Uraraka watched the ambulance depart with her favorite hero loaded safely inside, not daring to tear her eyes away from it until it was well out of sight. Finally, she allowed herself to take a deep, shuddering breath, telling herself that the ordeal was over.

She began to walk over to Iida, to thank him for running all the way to UA to get help, when a stabbing pain in her foot stopped her. Frowning, she pulled her boot off and shook it. A few fragments of purple crystal fell out, having apparently fallen in while they were raining from the sky earlier.

She shook the other boot out, too, before putting them back on and heading over to Iida.

Unnoticed, a final shard stayed embedded in the ball of her foot.

Chapter Text

Kurogiri's portal dumped Shigaraki unceremoniously onto the floor of the League of Villains' bar hideout, the brass orbs from the lightning monster rolling through at the same time. The mist villain himself calmly stepped through after them, the portal closing behind his back.

A bat-winged woman with pointed ears and a red star tattooed below one eye lay sprawled on a sofa, swirling her long blond hair around one finger as she watched the villains return. She wore a purple vest over a white shirt and a long red skirt, and had tied a large red bow into her hair. A line of runes ran along the bottom of her skirt, glowing faintly purple.

“So how’d it go, then?”

Shigaraki shot a glare at her as he picked himself off the floor, careful to avoid placing all five fingers on the floorboards at any one time. “Your ‘help’ was worthless, Summoner. Our entire force got wiped out before UA staff even got there.”

“Stop calling me ‘Summoner’,” she snapped. “I’m a master of Planar Magic, not that worthless conjuration parlor trick.”

Reaching down with one arm, she grasped one of the orbs and laid it on her stomach as she continued to lounge on the sofa. “Did you manage to kill anyone?”

“No! Our help was worthless, and your Summon was worthless! All Might just crushed it and killed it! Broke it into purple shards!”

“A shame - I was hoping you’d at least get some souls for my master out of this affair. Did you at least stab someone with one of the shards?”

Shigaraki looked very much like he wanted to strangle her. “And what would that have done!?”

She looked at him like he had just asked why you couldn’t eat an entire watermelon in one bite. “Um, killed them? Duh? Or at least had some weird lingering magic effects if you didn't hit something important. I don't know, I didn’t invent this stuff, I just copied the formula from some text message.”

Kurogiri returned with a first aid kit and began to bandage Shigaraki's hand, conveniently stopping the villain from lunging across the room to throttle her. “I believe the point Shigaraki is getting at, Miss Elis, is that he believes your involvement in the plan only hindered us. We have now lost the element of surprise, and, at your insistence, we brought along your own associate rather than the Nomu that Sensei had specifically developed for this purpose. Now your associate is dead and UA will be on their guard against future attacks.”

Elis rolled her eyes. “I can guarantee you that whatever stupid little flesh thing you’re thinking of would have fared worse than YuugenMagan. And I have to correct you - she’s not dead. The girl's a boneheaded brute but her durability is her strong point. Isn't that right, you little moron?” The eye in her lap shot open to glare at her as she ran a hand along it like one would pet a cat. She cooed, “Yes, yes, you hate this, don't you?”

After a moment, she looked up at the other villains. “This isn't the first time she's been defeated - her eyes didn't come pre-cracked, after all. I can get her fixed up within a month. But, I'm curious as to how your ‘All Might’ was even able to damage her in the first place. Tell me everything about your little invasion.”

Uraraka found herself struggling to stay awake that night. It wasn't that she wasn't tired - she was absolutely exhausted, both physically and mentally, after the incident at the USJ - but she could still see Thirteen’s injuries every time she closed her eyes. She was dreading the inevitable nightmares.

At last, however, she lost her battle, and drifted off into the world of dreams.

A young man with short, shaggy dark brown hair took a moment to gaze out across the scenery of the Lunar Capital through golden eyes, appreciative of the splendor of his homeland, the various noble estates sprawling as far as the eye could see. His own family's estate was out there, somewhere, though not visible from the palace.

The white hallways of Lord Tsukuyomi’s palace were always pristine - a detail made possible by the stalwart efforts of nearly fifty Moon Rabbits working a ceaseless parade of cleaning shifts. He admired their dedication, if not their ability. He ran a finger along the windowsill - not a speck of dust, as expected.

“I heard you were promoted to captain of your patrol group recently.”

He turned to face the newcomer, a woman with short gray hair tied into a single braid.  A single wing protruded from the back of her tan jacket, and her red eyes seemed to pierce straight through him.

Kishin Sagume, one of the most reclusive yet important figures in the Lunar Capital.

The greatest threat to his planned ascension.

He stayed calm - there was no way she could know his plans, he had chosen his co-conspirators carefully. “Indeed I was, Lady Sagume. In light of the honored sage's defection last month, I saw no alternative but to step up my efforts. I can only hope the Watatsuki sisters have done the same.”

Sagume remained silent.

“Ah, forgive me for my rudeness, I forgot how carefully you must watch your words.”

A troublesome Ability - by simply speaking of ongoing or future events, she could negate them entirely. How could he have forgotten?

He continued the stunted conversation, carefully maintaining his facade. “My house has been on the decline in recent centuries - I intend to bring our name back into prominence.”

“...It is a matter of policy that I do not speak of the affairs of the nobility.”

“Of course, of course. What brings you here today, by the way? I can't imagine you’re here for a social call.”

She stepped to the side of the hallway to examine a vase that had stood there since the palace's construction. One she had doubtlessly seen countless times before.

“Conspirators will dispose of Lord Tsukuyomi and seize control of the throne,” she stated simply.

His blood ran cold. Where had his scheming failed? Who had sold him out? He tore his gloves off frantically, desperately reaching for Sagume. A single touch was all he would need to kill her.

“Your Ability will bring death to the Lunar Capital before the day is through,” Sagume casually continued as she leaned back, watching him stumble in his haste. Despite centuries of combat training, he somehow managed to jam his foot against the pedestal the vase was resting on. The vase fell to the floor and shattered.

“And, clever as you are, you and your co-conspirators will evade capture.”

The sound of footsteps echoed down the hallway, heralding the arrival of reinforcements. At the head of a troop of Lunar Rabbit soldiers was a sword-wielding woman in a red and white dress, a yellow ribbon tying her light purple hair into a ponytail.

Watatsuki no Yorihime, one of the leaders of the Lunar Defense Corps.

It couldn't even be called a fight. She wasted no time in defeating the treasonous noble, her troops shackling his hands behind him.

“By the way,” said Sagume, “might I trouble you to use your Ability to fix the vase you broke?”

He glared at her, as though his gaze could kill her.

“A shame,” she said, departing, “it was a rather nice one.”

Yorihime read the sentence off right there in the hallway. “Amatsu no Wada, heir to the house of Amatsu-Mikaboshi, for your crimes of treason against the throne of Lord Tsukuyomi and attempting to bring Impurity to our Pure Land, I hereby sentence you to be exiled to Earth, with no allowance for return.”

It was the worst fate a Lunarian could endure.

“May you spend the rest of your days suffering in that impure land, and every night be reminded of the world you turned away from.”

Uraraka was thoroughly confused by her dream once she awoke. It made no sense to her, like she had somehow gotten someone else's dream. Then again, she was grateful on some level - at least it wasn't a nightmare. 

Checking her phone, a message from UA informed her that the school would be closed for the remainder of the week, opening up two days in her schedule. 

She'd need to do some shopping, since she now had two extra lunches to account for.

Uraraka gazed forlornly at a box of mochi next to the register as the cashier rang up her items. Normally, she'd pick one up for herself as a treat, but UA had decided to cancel classes for the remainder of the week due to the incident at USJ. She was grateful for the break, but at the same time it stretched her budget thinner than it already was.

After a long moment, she managed to tear her eyes away to pay for her groceries. The cashier handed her the mochi along with the receipt. “You looked like you were having a bad week.”

Smiling happily as she exited the store, Uraraka turned to begin her walk home when a shout stopped her.

“Oh, hey Uraraka!”

Ashido Mina ran up, tailed by Jirou. “This is perfect, guess we’re in the same area! I actually ran into Jirou earlier and she told me something odd.”

“You weren’t chanting at any point during the attack, right? I know Mina was with you most of the time, but I just wanted to make sure,” Jirou said.

“No, I wasn’t doing anything like that. I was too busy trying to, I dunno, stop my favorite hero from bleeding out in front of me!? ”

“Yeah, it’s like I told you, Jirou, no way was Uraraka doing anything weird like that. You sure it wasn’t Tokoyami or someone somewhere else?”

“Nah, couldn’t be. It was definitely a girl’s voice, and it was coming from the plaza area. It sounded familiar, but without hearing everyone in class chanting I couldn’t say exactly who it was.”

“Creepy. Well, while we’ve got you here, we were going to karaoke to de-stress after yesterday. You wanna come with? I’ll pay for the room.”

Uraraka considered the offer for a moment. “Sorry, I’m a bit busy today.”

“No problem, see you when school starts back up.”

“Testimony from Eraserhead and Thirteen identifies the ringleaders behind the attack as ‘Kurogiri’ and ‘Shigaraki Tomura’,” Tsukauchi said to the gathered UA faculty as surveillance footage from the USJ was displayed on-screen, showing the two villains.

With the exception of Eraserhead and Thirteen, every member of UA faculty was in attendance at the briefing. Thirteen was still unconscious, while Eraserhead had insisted on at least being allowed to remotely attend despite his own hospitalization.

“On top of that, we have testimony from several captured villains describing a third individual involved in masterminding the attack. Shigaraki's comments regarding a ‘Summoner’ are likely referring to this individual. Neither Shigaraki nor Kurogiri have entries in the public quirk registries, nor are there any recorded quirks matching theirs. Either they dodged the registry, or someone erased their files.”

He pulled up an image of the electricity-and-eyes villain that had caused the most damage during the attack. “The main combatant in the attack, pictured here, was consistently referred to as a ‘Summon’ by Shigaraki, and was unaffected by Eraserhead’s quirk. It's possible that it's a byproduct of a quirk in a manner similar to the Earth Beasts used by Pixie-Bob of the Wild Wild Pussycats. In the event that this entity is encountered again, it should be treated with extreme caution, considering its demonstrated combat strength.”

Vlad King raised a hand. “In light of the security breach shortly before the incident, I feel the possibility should be considered that the League may have infiltrated UA. Their comments during the attack indicate that they expected All Might to be present.”

Tsukauchi nodded. “On that subject, another disturbing matter came to light during our investigation.” The image of a middle school student to appear on-screen. The boy was extremely short for his age, with hair composed of several large purplish-black balls - obviously his Quirk.

“This is Mineta Minoru. He attended the UA entry exam before disappearing later that day. It was being investigated as a standard kidnapping, but the possibility that it was directly connected to the League's activities cannot be ignored. Mineta was extended an offer to join the Hero course, but was unable to accept it and his position was given to the next highest-scoring applicant, one Shinsou Hitoshi.”

“That's our spy, then,” said Snipe. “It’s an obvious enough play - take out another applicant so your own can get in.”

The line connected to Eraserhead’s room crackled as the hero unmuted it. “That’s an illogical course of action. If they could get insider information to learn their spy wouldn't get in without their intervention, then they wouldn't need a spy to begin with. If anything, it’s a distraction, meant to try to get us to fixate on a scapegoat.”

“I agree with Eraserhead,” said Tsukauchi, “the only thing we can concretely conclude from Mineta's disappearance is that Mineta himself is innocent. The disappearance itself could be a smokescreen, or it could have been a direct attack on UA by eliminating a student. Either way, the officer responsible for the investigation has been reprimanded for not escalating it sooner, and I apologize that UA had boot been made aware of this incident prior to today. Now, this next slide indicates the primary areas of activity of all captured villains involved in the USJ attack…”

Tsukauchi pulled Nezu aside after the meeting ended. “Principal, a moment of your time, if I may?”

“Certainly! What can I do for you, detective?”

“I apologize for any inconvenience with this request, but All Might and I both feel that-”

“Oh, I've already lifted the surveillance on Midoriya. His actions during the USJ speak to his innocence louder than any interviews could.”

“...I suppose I should have expected as much. Well, while I've got you here,” the detective fished a set of papers out from his folder before continuing, “one of the villains we captured, who goes by ‘Boulderdash,’ filled out a job application for a ‘anti-villain combat practices’ teacher position?”

Nezo looked thoroughly baffled. “There’s no such position at UA. In fact, we don't even accept applications in the first place - we send offers directly to heroes we think would make good teachers.”

“Well, into the trash this goes, then. Thank you for your time.”

Thirteen lay in her hospital bed, watching the moon through the window blinds. Another day of attempted treatment had gone by without success. The doctors were completely baffled - healing quirks had failed and the stomach they had transplanted to replace the ruined one had begun to rot almost immediately after the procedure had been completed. 

The next plan was bringing in a hero from the Philippines with a quirk that let him take others’ injuries onto himself, but there was some debate over whether this would work and whether they should even risk it, considering the possibility that the ailment would simply multiply.

Suddenly, a shadow fell across Thirteen’s bed. The Space Hero tried to turn her head to see who it was, but some force held her back.

“Please don’t look at me,” said a girl’s voice.

Through the copious painkillers, Thirteen felt a distinctive tingling in her wound as a ghostly blue glow illuminated the room. She attempted to see what was going on out of the corners of her eyes.

In response, the unseen force shoved the hero’s chin up, keeping her visitor out of sight.

“Don’t look at what I’m doing, either. It's dangerous for you to know.”

After a moment, the tingling stopped as the room darkened once again.

“Tell the doctors to try whatever they did first again, it’ll work now.”

The force keeping Thirteen’s head in place abruptly disappeared. As fast as she was able, she turned her head to see who was in the room with her, only to find that the stranger had left without a sound.

The cameras, needless to say, had no footage of the event the next morning.

This was very much a different kind of dream than the one Uraraka had experienced two nights ago.

For one thing, her mind wasn't being flooded with fabricated details - she was remarkably lucid, sure, but the scenery and characters of the dream were complete mysteries to her.

For another, the scenery of the dream was a stark contrast to that of the night before. Where previously there had been immaculate, white buildings constructed in meticulous conformity, instead there was Edo-style houses of all sizes thrown up almost haphazardly. Where there had been silence and isolation, the streets were instead a riot of noise and color - horned figures laughed, danced, and drank, cheering and launching fireworks into the sky.

The explosion's light brought a third contrast to light - tonight's dream was apparently set in some great subterranean cavern.

“Oh? You're a new face around here,” came a woman's voice from behind her. Uraraka turned to see a tall, blond woman dressed in a blue kimono and carrying a massive dish filled to the brim with liquid. A single red horn extended from her forehead.

“Name’s Hoshiguma Yuugi, I’m the boss around here. What brings you to our little underground paradise?”

“Uh, I just sorta woke up here? I’m sorry if I’m intruding, you seem to be in the middle of a festival or something.”

Yuugi looked puzzled. “Huh, couldn’t hear a thing you just said. Guess your grasp on this world’s pretty tenuous. Well, anyways, we’re having a good old-fashioned oni festival right now, partying, drinking, fighting, the works. Feel free to drift around and sightsee while you’re here, it’s always a lot of fun. I’d offer you a drink, but it seems like you’ve nearly passed on.”

A horned man - an Oni, Uraraka supposed, ran up. Rather than the tiger loincloth standard to most depictions of Oni, he was wearing more traditional clothing that wouldn’t look out of place on a villager from the sengoku period, if not for the bright colors he had chosen. “Boss Yuugi, Suika just demolished three blocks of the city with one of those black holes of hers!”

Yuugi grinned. “Guess I’m up now, then. We moving up to techniques yet or still just playing around?”

“She said she was done warming up after that.”

“Right then. Gonna go for Knockout.” She looked at Uraraka. “Might wanna back up, ghosty. Kanekuma here can show you where it’s safe.”

The male oni nodded and motioned for Uraraka to follow before hustling down the main street, ducking and weaving through the mass of oni. Uraraka found that she just needed to will herself to follow him, floating swiftly after him and passing through all obstacles in her path. As he ran, he panted out, “Boss Yuugi’s record is smashing up 6 blocks with that move, but she’s been in good form this month so we’re gonna be getting a bit further out.”

An ear splitting shout erupted from behind them, followed by whoops and laughter.

“That’s the warning, let’s hope eight blocks is far enough.”

Straining to see back up the street, Uraraka could faintly make out the small shape of Yuugi taking a long drink from her dish before lifting a single geta-clad foot.

Kanekuma had taken cover behind a wagon filled with cabbages. “Gonna be windy in a second.”

Yuugi brought her foot crashing down.

A shockwave exploded out from the point of impact, throwing rubble and dust high into the air. The lively sounds of the festival faded into silence for a moment, at least nearby - distantly, the revelry could be heard continuing.

Another oni poked his head out of the remains of what had, until recently, been his house. After a moment surveying the huge field of rubble, he cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted out, “SEVEN BLOCKS!”

A huge cheer erupted from the crowd, and the festivities resumed.

Uraraka woke up smiling - she hadn’t been able to go to a festival in months, and the one she had dreamt of had absolutely been lively enough for her to enjoy, even if she had been limited to watching it.

“So the Aichi Prefecture disappearance - and subsequent reappearance - proves that unassisted transfer is entirely possible, if improbable.”

Tokoyami furrowed his brow as he flipped through an encyclopedia of demons he had checked out from the Musutafu Library. His own collection had been unsuccessful at identifying the entity that had attacked the USJ, much to his consternation. Clearly, his resources were lacking - he’d need to resolve that.

“Okay, but without a way to force the desired result from probability space that knowledge doesn’t actually help us.”

The Skeptic Cafe was one of Tokoyami’s favorite places to relax. Despite its name, nearly every occultist in Musutafu frequented the place. Actually, perhaps the name was fitting - the cafe’s regular patrons could unanimously agree that society was incorrect about the accepted nature of reality, even if each of those patrons would disagree on what , exactly society’s incorrect assumption was.

“On the contrary, Chiyuri - we know from the existence of people with ‘luck’ quirks that this sort of thing can work. You’re looking at it wrong. If we can’t force nature to give us the desired result from the probability space…”

The one annoyance, then, was when another of the cafe’s patrons was a bit noisy about their nonsense. Tokoyami shot an annoyed glance over his shoulder to the table behind him, where a red-haired young woman was in the middle of an extremely noisy conversation with a blond girl in a sailor suit. They were discussing some nonsense about non-euclidean spaces and parallel universes.

“...then we find a way to rig the probability space itself! Brilliant, Professor!”

“You appear to be disturbing the other patrons, Chiyuri.”

“Oh!” The blond looked around sheepishly, making eye contact with Tokoyami.

“Sorry,” she muttered, meekly.

Tokoyami turned back to his research. A section about the properties of the Evil Eye seemed promising - the creature had been primarily composed of eyes and lightning, and its eyes had even turned blue at one point, matching up with beliefs from the Aegean region of Turkey about blue eyes being especially potent users of the curse - but ultimately led to a dead end, as there were no demonic entities associated with it as far as he could tell.

He stopped flipping through the book for a moment to admire the quality of a picture of Baphomet. It really was a very nice book on the occult - he made a note of its name, to purchase a copy for himself.

Mamizou hmmed as she smoked on her pipe. “Bunch of eyes and lightning, huh?”

Izuku nodded. “Yeah - I could damage it a lot easier than anyone else could, I assume it has to have been some kind of youkai.”

“Yeah, definitely something nonhuman, if you could hurt it and it could hurt you back. Description has me stumped, though - doesn’t match up with any youkai I know of from back in the day.”

Izuku’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “So we’re at a dead end, then.”

She grinned. “Never said that. Said that I didn’t know what it was. If anyone knows what it is in Gensokyo, it’ll be Reimu.”

Another new name. But then, that was to be expected - Mamizou was extremely well-connected. “Reimu?”

“Our equivalent to yer All Might. She’s extremely powerful - beaten damn near everyone in Gensokyo at this point, and the people who’ve managed to take a win off her can be counted on one hand. She’ll be able to put us on the right track, if nothing else.”

Izuku’s eyes sparkled. A bona fide youkai-slaying hero? He’d need to get her autograph, for sure. His mind swam with possibilities as to who she was - a stoic master of the blade? A living saint, blessing the very ground she walked on?

Uraraka realized something was off the moment the dream started. She could keenly feel the night's chill and the moss and soil underfoot in a way she had never before felt, even in her most lucid dreams. It made her uneasy.

She looked around. She was in the middle of a massive forest of bamboo, tall stalks of bamboo reaching out as far as she could see, with no signs of civilization in sight. The area was bathed in the pale light of the full moon.

“Oh? How lucky, a human,” came a voice from behind her, making her jump.

The speaker was a young-looking girl clad in a pink nightgown, with dark red eyes and  shoulder-length black hair from which two fluffy white rabbit ears protruded. She wore a necklace shaped like a carrot, and was slightly shorter than Uraraka.

“It's not a good night for humans, you see - they don't usually dare to come this far into the forest this time of month. But you're in luck, you've got me!”

Uraraka was completely lost. “I’m sorry, who are you?”

“It's bad manners to ask for someone's name without giving it yourself, you know.”

“Oh! Sorry, I'm Uraraka Ochako.”

“Nice to meet you, Ochako.”

The rabbit girl's boldness in using Uraraka's given name caught her off guard. “Um, wh-”

The girl continued, completely ignoring Uraraka. “So as I was saying, Ochako, normally humans don't dare to venture this far into the forest on the night of the full moon. Thankfully, I'm here to help! I'll guide you to safety for the low, low price of 50 Ryō!”

Uraraka balked at the price. “Fif- fifty!?”

If she remembered correctly from history class, the Ryō was a type of gold coin used prior to the Meiji Restoration. Even if she had money on her it would have been an insane amount.

The rabbit girl looked over Uraraka from head to toe appraisingly as the hero-in-training stood there in her pajamas. “Alright, I can see you don't seem to have too much on you at the moment, so I'll cut you a bargain. 10 Ryō now, and then you pay me the rest once I get you back to the village. Sound good?”

“I- I really can't-”

“I really have to emphasize how much of a steal this is - I'm basically the ruler of this place, nobody's going to give you trouble with me around! And my Ability is to bring luck to humans, so you're guaranteed a pleasant trip!”

“I'm grateful for the offer, but I don't have any money.”

The girl shrugged. “Well, can't say I didn't offer. I'd wish you good luck making it out, but I don't give free samples. Bad for business.”

She walked behind a stalk of bamboo and disappeared, much to Uraraka's confusion.

After a moment of trying to figure out where the girl had gone, Uraraka gave up, picked a direction, and started walking.

After some walking, Mamizou and Izuku arrived at a small shrine a long distance from the Human Village. Though it was clearly maintained, it clearly didn’t receive many visitors, a state of affairs that probably wasn’t helped by the fact that Suika, an extremely fearsome youkai, was comfortable enough in the place to be snoring on the front steps. Mamizou stepped over the slumbering oni and rapped sharply on the door of the shrine.

“Oi, Reimu, get out here! Got a question for you!”

“Go away,” came a muffled, grumpy voice from within the shrine.

“Come on, it’ll only take a second.”

“This is the first weekend I’ve had all month without some idiot youkai trying to start an Incident!”

“Incident?” Izuku wondered.

“What we call major disturbances around here. Blotting out the sun, stealing spring, making the night last forever - you name it, Reimu’s had a hand in fixing it.” Mamizou turned back to the closed door. “Answering a single question isn’t going to cause an Incident, Reimu!”

After a few seconds with no response, Mamizou just shoved the door open and barged inside. Izuku sheepishly followed her.

Inside the shrine, a girl with brown hair a bit longer than shoulder-length sat at a kotatsu, eating senbei. She wore a red skirt and red sleeveless top tied with a yellow ribbon. Her top was paired with white detached sleeves, and she had a red bow with white frills tied into the back of her hair. She glanced irritably at Mamizou as the tanuki entered the room. “You’re not getting any of my snacks. Suika already finished off the rest of them before you got here.

“And that pack was supposed to last me the rest of the month, too,” she grumbled.

“Look, Reimu, I’m serious about just asking a question or two. No pranks this time. My son here-”

“Oh great, there’s two of you now.”

“-okay, he’s from the Outside World, so he’s not gonna be in yer hair, and this could be big. Did you ever fight something made of eyes and lightning?”

“Five red eyes, shoot lightning to a central point, shape of a woman in the electricity?”

Izuku perked up. “Yes, exactly! What was that thing?”

“No idea.”

Mamizou plunked her sake jar onto the table. “That description was too on-the-nose for you to have absolutely no idea. You fancy a break from Ibuki’s booze? I brought plenty to share.”

Now Reimu looked interested in the conversation. “Yeah, gimme.” 

She set out a cup, which Mamizou wasted no time in filling. After draining it, she said, “Seriously, no idea exactly what that eye thing is. I fought it way back before I even got my ability, after some jerk smashed up my shrine. Wasn’t even that hard - I just kicked the yin-yang orb into its eyes a few times.”

Mamizou answered Izuku’s question before he could voice it. “The Hakurei Yin-Yang Orb is an extremely powerful relic passed down for generations. It’s harmful to youkai on contact.”

“It’s harmful to humans on contact, too. Thing’s heavy ,” Reimu grumbled, downing a second cup of sake. “Anyways, I fought that thing in Makai. So it’s not a youkai, it’s a demon. Didn’t see it that time I fought Shinki, so I figured I had killed it. That first Incident was pretty rough, nobody was using the Spell Card system so it was just a free-for-all in terms of lethality.”

“Clearly it survived somehow, though, if Izuku here fought it in the Outside World.”

Reimu gave the half-youkai a glance. “Yeah, sounds like you’ve got an Incident on your hands. Sucks to be you, glad I don’t have to deal with it.”

“Reimuuuuu,” came a voice from the other room, “Have you seen the Miracle Mallet? It should have enough energy stored by now for me to grow again!”

“I haven’t touched it! Did you look on top of your box?” the shrine maiden yelled.

“Yeah! It’s not there!”

“Think Nue mentioned she saw that Amanojaku makin’ off with it and snickering earlier today,” said Mamizou.

Cursing furiously, Reimu stormed out of the shrine, flying off into the night.

Uraraka was quite sure she'd seen this particular patch of bamboo before. Three stalks, all coming out of a central spot in the ground, next to a pair of fresh sprouts - very distinctive. She looked at it closely to try to memorize its appearance, so she'd be absolutely sure if she came across it again. To her surprise, there was a slip of weathered paper tucked into the base of the cluster. She took it and opened it.

Gensokyo.
    If you know this name already, you shouldn't need this paper - put it back where you found it.
    If you don't know that name, read the rest of this as quickly and thoroughly as you can - your life may depend on it.
    I've been stuck here for around nine months at this point. The Paladin Hero, Idealist, was with me for a few months but (the charcoal was heavily smudged and water damaged, rendering the end of the sentence thoroughly illegible.)
    I've been wandering around trying to find a way out. Whenever I think I know a place well enough, I'll leave one of these notes to hopefully help someone else.
    You are currently in the "Bamboo Forest of the Lost". My greatest sympathies to you - I lost two weeks to this place the first time I stumbled in here. As far as I can tell, space bends around here. Even worse than by the edge of Gensokyo (if you don't know what I'm talking about, don't worry about it - it'll be very obvious once you hit the edge). You can walk in a perfectly straight line and then come back to where you started, rotated ninety degrees from your original heading. Be very careful when moving or you'll just get more and more lost.
    Hazard notes: outside of the spatial distortion, there's not many notable youkai in this area, and most of them will keep their distance if you have a torch. As a result, this is probably one of the safer areas to be in if you have a good supply or don't mind eating nothing but bamboo shoots.
    PS - if you haven't prepared bamboo shoots before, you need to boil them first or they're poisonous.

Uraraka frowned. If the note was to be believed, getting out would be a massive pain. She didn't even know how she got in! Maybe she could just sit there and wait to wake up.

A wolf's howl cut through the silence. Startled, she turned to look in the direction of the source.

Around a hundred meters away, a dress-wearing woman with wolf ears stood in the shadow of a particularly dense bamboo cluster, eyes glowing red in the darkness.

She threw her head back and let out another howl.

Uraraka put her hands up in a fighting stance, ready to fight what she assumed was someone with a Transformation quirk. The woman leapt, turning fully into a wolf in midair with another loud howl.

Uraraka was ready - she didn’t seem much faster than the robots from the entry exam, and once the wolf was in the air, its trajectory would be locked in. She just needed to be careful of the jaws when using her Quirk, and she could neutralize it.

Just before reaching her, the wolf transformed back into a wolf-woman, stopping dead in midair, shifted into wolf form to shoot to the side, then shifted back and forth again to resume the forward lunge from a different angle, slamming into her stomach with its head and knocking her to the ground.

Frantically, she scrambled back to try to defend herself, throwing her arms up in a desperate defense as the wolf-woman pounced, jaws wide and wicked fangs ready to bite.

Searing pain in her arm woke her up. In the throes of her nightmare, she had apparently flailed her arm out and split it open against her bed frame. It was bleeding quite heavily, actually - she quickly rolled out of bed and ran to the bathroom to clean and bandage the wound. UA was back on today, she'd swing by Recovery Girl's office before class.

Chapter Text

“Honestly, how do you kids even manage to injure yourselves like this?” Recovery Girl said as she cleaned Uraraka’s wound in preparation for using her Quirk. “You said this was from banging your arm against your bed frame? It looks more like an animal bite.”

Uraraka rubbed her head nervously. It was true she had hit her arm against her bed frame, but there was no way she was mentioning she had been having a nightmare about a wolf-woman.

“It’s quite a deep wound, so there will likely be some scarring. I’ll do what I can to reduce that, though. While you’re here, do you want me to give you a full checkup? Everyone needs one before the Sports Festival, and it’s probably not a bad idea for you to get one anyways, in case one of those villains who attacked the USJ had a disease quirk.”

Almost as an afterthought, she added, grumbling, “I don’t trust those police paramedics.”

“Sure, but can you give me a note in case I’m late to class?”

“You’ve got Aizawa, right? Yeah, you’ll definitely need a note. Now then,” the elderly hero offered Uraraka a handful of gummies. “Eat these, you’ll need the energy.”

As it turned out, Uraraka was indeed slightly late for class, but there was no sign of Aizawa, either. As she walked in, Ashido was engaged in a conversation with Kaminari about whether there’d be a substitute or not, considering the severity of their teacher’s injuries.

“You have a scar on your arm,” Reiko observed flatly.

Iida’s head snapped up from what appeared to be a document he was compiling to fill in any potential substitute on where Aizawa had left off. “Wh- Uraraka! I must insist that you see Recovery Girl for medical attention immediately!”

“I already did, she said she couldn’t do anything to erase the scar but she could at least make it less noticeable.”

“Well, that makes sense, I guess,” Izuku said.

After a moment, he realized everyone was staring at him and elaborated, “W-well! I mean! Recovery Girl’s Quirk, Heal, works by accelerating someone’s natural healing, yeah? So it would leave a scar, since scarring is part of the body’s natural healing process, especially for larger wounds. It’s not magic or anything. That’s also why she didn’t assist during the apprehension of Contagion - her quirk works on injuries, so a disease-based quirk like the one he had needs to be treated by someone else.”

“...leave it to you to know exactly how someone’s Quirk works, huh,” Jirou said. “I always thought her quirk just worked like a healing potion from a game or something.”

“She was pretty annoyed after giving me a checkup, too - I apparently got a shard of that villain from the USJ stuck in my foot during the attack, and she didn’t know about it when she healed my arm, so the shard got stuck in there pretty good. She had to cut it out and use her Quirk a second time. Opened a new pack of gummies afterwards, so at least I didn’t get ones she had left in her pocket.”

“I think she just keeps a bag of them in her pocket so they’re not covered in lint or anything.”

The door slid open.

“Me being late is no excuse for you to be standing around chatting,” Aizawa said as he strode in, covered in so many bandages that he resembled a mummy.

“Sensei, should you really be teaching so soon after your injury?”

“This is nothing, it takes more than that to keep me down. I’m only wearing these bandages because Recovery Girl insisted I keep them on.”

“That doesn't sound like ‘nothing’,” someone muttered faintly.

“Anyways,” Aizawa continued, either not having heard the comment or choosing to ignore it, “we lost a few days because of the villain attack and it's imperative that we stay on track. First of all: Bakugou will be returning to classes starting tomorrow.”

He fixed his gaze on Izuku for a moment. “We will be keeping an eye on him in case of any future outbursts. That being said, none of you,”

He now looked over the whole classroom. “And I mean none of you, should take this as an invitation to needlessly antagonize him. Doing so with the intent of getting him expelled will result in your own expulsion. UA has no place for a student who would try to hinder others’ development due to personal dislike, as Bakugou's punishment has hopefully made clear. I will not tolerate a second offense from anyone .”

Silence filled the room.

After a moment, Aizawa sighed. “On a less threatening note, the UA sports festival is coming up in a little over two weeks' time. You should all make sure you're prepared for the event.”

“Is it really a wise decision to go forward with the sports festival, in light of the recent security breach and the USJ attack?”

“UA is confident we have taken the proper precautionary measures following the recent incidents. We’ve requested an increased police presence, overhauled our surveillance and intrusion detection systems, and will be actively on guard against any attempts to interfere with the event. Rather, what you should be thinking about is what the sports festival offers you as students.”

Yaoyorozu nodded. “All of the country’s top heroes are sure to be watching, so they can scout promising upcoming heroes.”

“Your time at UA is limited. Being scouted by a pro is one of the best ways to get a head start in the heroics industry. You only have three shots at this, so if you’re aiming to be a high-ranking pro this is one event that you have to do your best at.”

“Man, even after the villain attack last week, I’m still freaking pumped for this! This is our chance to show what we’ve got and take a big step towards going pro!”

Izuku glanced at Kirishima’s excited discussion as he exited the classroom to grab lunch. “Huh, everyone’s so excited for the sports festival.”

“Of course!” exclaimed Iida, “This is our chance to make a strong impression on the world of heroics!”

“Iida. Deku.” Uraraka was sporting a surprisingly menacing smile. “Let’s crush this sports festival.”

“You know, it occurs to me - I want to be a hero to help people, and Iida’s talked about his family legacy before, but I’ve never asked what made you want to be a hero,” Izuku wondered aloud

She suddenly got an embarrassed look on her face, sheepishly running a hand through her hair. “I, uh…”

He quickly backpedaled, waving his hands around. “Um- if it’s something you’re not comfortable sharing, don’t worry about it!”

“No, it’s fine, it’s just… I want to be a hero for the money,” she admitted. “I’m sorry, I know it seems a bit selfish of me, especially with Iida and your noble motivations and all…”

“Why, though? There’s really nothing to be ashamed of about seeking a more comfortable lifestyle,” Iida assured her.

“My family runs a construction company, but business has been pretty bad lately. People hire the bigger companies when they need repairs or new buildings. We’ve only managed to stave off bankruptcy due to that villain attack in Saitama Prefecture - they needed all hands on deck to repair that.”

A massive villain attack had occurred in Saitama Prefecture last May, where a single still-unidentified villain had engaged in a high-altitude battle with the flame-using hero Afterburner. Their duel had left much of the city in ruins as the telekinetic villain had torn up portions of road, flung manhole covers into the air, and ripped i-beams out of buildings. Power had taken a month to restore due to the destruction of several key utility poles and a radio tower during the fighting. The hero himself had resigned after the encounter, claiming that he had been forced to use lethal force, incinerating his enemy, and could not continue to call himself a hero.

Conspiracy theories ran wild in the aftermath, as the only footage of the fight was shaky and from such a distance that neither party was easily identifiable - the most outlandish theories claimed that Afterburner wasn’t even involved in the fight, but rather had jumped on it for publicity to sell a fabricated memoir before retiring to prevent anyone from realizing it wasn’t him.

“If you got permission to use your quirk, you could massively reduce the costs involved with moving material,” Izuku considered aloud.

“I know, right? That’s what I said to Dad when I was really young!” She exclaimed. “He said I should follow my own dreams, though. So I’m gonna be a hero, and I’ll use that money to make sure my parents have easier lives.”

Iida smiled at her. “Trying to give your family an easy life is as noble a goal as any! I applaud your practicality!”

True to Aizawa’s word, Bakugou returned the next day. Izuku was dreading it, to be honest, but the blond stayed silent and withdrawn for most of the day. It wasn’t until lunch that he finally approached.

“Deku,” he hissed, “I’m only going to say this once: you beat me. And if that weren’t enough, that ice bastard’s show of power, and floaty chick’s little fireworks display - they weren’t even winded afterwards! How the fuck am I supposed to compete with that!?”

Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath, visibly trying to calm himself down - clearly, his suspension had gotten the message across that he at least needed to try to keep his temper in line. “I’m going to make it clear that I’m the best in this class. I’m not going to lose again, so you better make a good showing at the Sports Festival so I can stomp you into the dirt, properly this time.”

As he got up to go grab his lunch (and presumably find a seat somewhere else), Uraraka walked right by him and took a seat at the table. 

Bakugou did a double-take at her lunch. “Fucking hell, Round Face, you think you’ve got enough meat on that plate?”

Her plate had several large cuts of rare steak on it, which she was visibly salivating at. After a moment, she tore her eyes away from the slabs of meat. “I know, I know, I grabbed a lot of food! I usually have mainly rice and tempura, but today the steak smelled really good and I just couldn’t resist!”

Bakugou scoffed and turned away, muttering under his breath. Shortly thereafter, Iida arrived at the table, glancing in the direction of the departing blond as he sat down.

“Bakugou wasn’t harassing you again, was he, Midori- Uraraka! I must insist that you go back up to Lunch Rush and get a properly balanced meal! Nutrition is of paramount importance as we train to be heroes!”

Uraraka stopped abruptly as she opened the door to leave at the end of the day. “What the-”

A huge crowd had gathered outside the classroom, shoving and pushing to try to get to the front, completely blocking the exit.

“The heck!?”

“What are they even here for?” wondered Sero.

“Obviously they’re scoping out the competition,” grumbled Bakugou. “This is the class that survived a villain attack, it’s natural that they’d want to check us out before the sports festival, try to get whatever advantage they can.”

The blond strode up to the group of students. “No point in doing so, though. Out of the way, you damn weaklings!”

A smug-looking boy with slicked blond hair sneered at Bakugou’s declaration. “Huh? You think we’re weaklings compared to you? Why, I had come to see the ‘mighty’ 1-A that had fought back a villain attack, but I’m really not impressed. Why, didn’t you guys even have one of your members suspended prior to the attack?”

Bakugou’s hand curled up in the telltale motion of preparing to fire off an explosion, but he visibly restrained himself.

The smug blond continued, “Really, this just shows that 1-B is the superior hero course class, doesn’t it? We’d have had no trouble with such an attack - unlike you, we actually work together and-”

“I’ve heard enough of this drivel,” Reiko said with shocking forcefulness, glaring at the boy. “I can guarantee you that if 1-B had been attacked, there would have been more casualties. There would have been deaths .”

The complete certainty in her tone, as though she was stating a simple fact, made the boy visibly gulp.

She continued, “It was nothing short of miraculous that we handled the attack as well as we did, and you shouldn’t be making light of someone else’s brush with mortality.”

Having said her piece, she floated up and over the crowd, down the hallway, and out of sight.

“That’s just great,” muttered Kirishima, “between the two of them we’ve got a whole mob of people that hate us now.”

Satou sighed, “We really got a bum draw in the people skills department, huh? Todoroki barely talks, Yanagi’s usually blunt as hell and Bakugou’s, well, Bakugou.”

The weeks leading up to the sports festival seemed to blow by in an instant, which left Izuku with distressingly little time when he realized that the festival’s ban on support gear for non-support students would prevent him from wearing the amulet he depended on for his continued existence. He approached Aizawa after class with three days to go until the festival.

“So you’re saying that your necklace is required support gear for you?” The teacher asked, picking at his scarring - the demon that had attacked USJ had left him with dark lichtenberg figures all over his face and body.

Izuku nodded. “I’ve got a condition that threatens my life - it radiates energy that keeps it at bay.”

Well, at least his statement wasn’t a complete lie.

Aizawa typed a message into his phone, sending it. “I’ll see what Principal Nezu thinks, but I imagine you’ll need to bring in some documentation about your condition, as well as letting the support department examine it to make sure you’re not trying to conceal some other functionality.”

Almost immediately, his phone buzzed with a reply. Aizawa turned his phone around to show the reply to Izuku.

Aizawa : Midoriya Izuku is requesting permission to use a support item, saying that it’s necessary for health purposes.

Nezu : I’ve looked into the matter already. Approved.

The phone buzzed a second time as Aizawa was showing Izuku the reply. It was faint, and he couldn’t have caught it without his enhanced senses from being a youkai, but for an instant he could clearly see the words “ Not delivered ” appear below Aizawa’s message, before they vanished again, leaving no sign they were ever there.

“Anything else you need while you’re here, Midoriya?”

He shook his head silently.

“Then go ahead and get out of here - every second you can spend training for the festival is important.”

At last, the day of the Sports Festival arrived. Izuku was woken up bright and early by a shout from his mom.

“Izuku, honey, come down and see who’s come to see you!”

He tumbled out of bed - it was a bit earlier than his usual wakeup time, but not by much - and quickly dressed himself before heading downstairs to see his mysterious visitor.

Sitting on the sofa was Midoriya Hisashi, clean-shaven with a head of messy green hair, peering at Izuku through round spectacles as he smoked from a kiseru. He was wearing a gray suit with a small lapel pin in the shape of a notched leaf.

“DAD!?”

“What, you really didn’t think yer old man would miss something as important as his son’s sports festival, did you?”

“But what about your-” Izuku caught himself just in time. “Your job? Don’t they need you ‘overseas’?”

“Hah! A day or two off won’t kill me, and I was finally able to slip away. Though, uh, Inko, that does remind me - someone I know from work is also showing up, I had an extra ticket. I hope you don’t mind, I can totally tell her no if it’s an issue.”

Inko smiled. “Oh, it’s no problem at all, dear.”

A knock came from the door. “Oh, that should be her now.”

A suit-clad Sumireko strolled in, looking rather displeased with her formal attire. Seeing Inko, she straightened her posture and stopped picking at her collar, giving a formal bow and an introduction. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Midoriya, I’m Renko Hearn, one of Hisashi’s coworkers...”

‘Hisashi’ jumped in to help her as she trailed off. “She works in the investigative department of the investment firm, looking into things that catch our interest.” He made a show of checking his watch before adding, “We should probably go - I know it’s still a little early, but they’re sure to have stricter security checks in light of recent events.”

Izuku made it to his class without issue - the students had notably less strict checks to go through. They had gathered in the 1-A Prep Room, which turned out to be a relatively bare room close to the Sports Festival Arena’s main entrance, furnished with folding tables and chairs.

“Whoa, Uraraka, are you growing your hair out?” Ashido wondered. “It’s almost past your shoulders now.”

“It’s been growing faster than usual for about a week now, I’ll need to get a haircut by the weekend if it keeps up like this!”

“They let you keep your amulet,” Reiko observed, staring at the object.

“Um, yeah. I sort of need it,” he replied.

After staring at it for slightly longer than was comfortable, she turned away.

Bakugou approached Izuku, several students watching the interaction uneasily.

“Deku.”

“Y- yeah, Kacchan?”

“I’ve told you to stop calling me that, you fuck!” He took a deep breath before continuing, “You better not take a dive to avoid fighting me. I’m gonna prove to you that I can beat you in a straight fight - that I can beat anyone in a straight fight.”

“I don’t know why you feel the need to say you can beat me, Kacchan.” The blond fumed at the use of his nickname. “Your Quirk is amazing - it’s always been amazing. But if you really think I’d lose on purpose to avoid fighting you, then you don’t understand anything. I’m here to be a hero - we all are. If I was the sort of person to give up when things seemed hard, I wouldn’t be here. I’m aiming for the top too - with everything I’ve got.”

“Uh, hey, Tsukauchi,” crackled a voice from the detective’s radio. “Got some bad news.”

“What happened? I can get backup to you within half a minute - Kamui Woods, Mt. Lady, and Death Arms are all on active patrol right now, to say nothing of police presence.”

“Nah, no situation here. Got word from the station - someone paid Boulderdash’s bail. That obnoxious chatterbox is walking the streets once more. Noone will be safe from his nonsense.”

Tsukauchi groaned. “This is serious, Goto, we need to be looking out for actual threats. Cut the radio chatter and focus for once in your life.”

“I might have something here,” came Officer Tamakawa’s voice. “UA’s got surveillance on the private boxes, right?”

“Yeah, they installed them as a backup measure. Why?”

“That Hisashi guy you’ve been looking into just checked in, party of three. Him, his wife, and a ‘Renko Hearn’. Their IDs all checked out, but considering you’re actively investigating him I figured you might want to keep an eye on them.”

“Yeah, I’ll speak to Nezu immediately. Thanks for the heads-up.”

“Now this is pretty nice!” Sumireko cheered as she sank into an armchair. “Never been one for sports stuff, myself, but I could definitely get used to these sort of events if this is what the seating’s like!”

“Don’t get too used to it, ‘Renko’,” Mamizou said as she grabbed a bowl of Tanuki Udon and a bottle of sake off the VIP box’s dining table. “This is a VIP box - most of the crowd’s gonna be packed in like sardines down below.”

“Figures,” the high-schooler pouted.

“Well, I think it’s nice just to be here in person,” Inko said as she picked out a plate of eel from the selection they had been provided with. “I’d have been happy just watching Izuku on the television, but to think you actually got tickets - and VIP tickets, no less!”

“Nothing but the best for you, dear,” ‘Hisashi’ said, beaming proudly. “Care for a drink?”

“Oh, not right now - I’d be too drunk to pay attention if I started now.”

The first-year students strolled out onto the field, filing in through a set of entrances in the stadium wall that also served to sort them by department. Present Mic provided accompanying commentary for their entrance.

“ Welcome, one and all, to UA’s annual Sports Festival! Every year our rising heroes compete to show their stuff and see who comes out on top! First up… You all know them! The shining stars who’ve already fought off a genuine villain attack! Put your hands together for the battle-hardened veterans of Class 1-A! ”

“Quite a crowd…” Iida observed. “I suppose doing our best when the public eye is on us is just another skill we’ll need in the world of heroics.”

“They’re really building us up, huh,” said Kirishima. “But we’re not letting that get to us, huh, Bakugou?”

“Just pumps me up to put all the extras in their place,” agreed the explosive blond.

“ Next up, while 1-A was fighting, they were honing their techniques! What they lack in experience, they make up for in preparation! Everybody give a warm welcome to Class 1-B! ”

“They definitely gave us a shorter introduction,” muttered Tsuburaba.

“One more reason we need to show the world we’re superior to 1-A,” responded Monoma in his usual self-assured way.

I’ll prove to everyone that I’m not just here because they needed to fill a seat in the Hero Course , Shinsou thought as he looked over the crowd. The general studies students had held a grudge against him ever since someone had realized one of the students who scored well enough to pass the entry exam had disappeared and left their slot to him.

“ And then we’ve got classes C through E of General Studies, classes F through H of the Support Department, and the Management kids. ”

Up in the Midoriyas’ VIP box, Sumireko unsuccessfully attempted to stifle a snort of laughter, earning herself a light slap on the shoulder from Mamizou.

“ And now, your lovely Referee for the First Year event… Midnight! ”

The R-Rated Heroine strode proudly onto the field, clad in her corset and flesh-colored bodysuit and brandishing her whip.

“No idea how she got a teaching position at a school,” Mamizou muttered.

“Your student representative for this year is Kirishima Eijirou!” Shouted Midnight.

“Guess it’s cause he came first in the entry exam,” whispered Sero.

Kirishima awkwardly took the stage, glancing at the crowd before focusing on the microphone handed to him. He cleared his throat nervously.

“We’ve had a rough few weeks, huh? Villains breached security and attacked us, trying to snuff out the future of heroics.”

A confused murmur went through the crowd, clearly unsure as to where he was going with his speech.

“But we faced it and survived, and we’re holding the Sports Festival anyways to show that we won’t run and hide! My idol, Crimson Riot, said that chivalry - that manliness - means to live without regret! Even if we’re scared, we push through it and fight despite our fear, because that’s what courage - what heroics - is! And all of us here today, by participating despite the recent events, are demonstrating that we’re heroic in our own right!”

Sumireko was now wheezing with laughter “Chivalry? Manliness? They don’t vet these speeches at all, do they?” she managed between cackles.

Midnight smiled - it was far from the most disastrous speech in UA history, honestly probably in the upper half. They really needed to check what the students were going to say ahead of time, honestly. “Now, without any delay, let’s get on with the main event! This is the elimination round, which sends so many students home broken-hearted every year! Our fateful event this year is…”

The large screen behind her made a show of spinning through text before landing on the final result:

Obstacle Race

“The Obstacle Course Race! A competition between all eleven classes to see who can complete a four-kilometer lap around the edge of the arena despite the hazardous terrain! Anything goes as long as you don’t leave the course!”

Chapter Text

On cue, a set of shaped metal panels began to unfold across the stadium entrance, forming a starting gate for the participants. There was a brief scramble to try to get to the front of the pack, primarily on the part of the General Education students who were anxious to place well - the Heroics students were generally confident enough not to care too much about their placement at the start, the Support students were only there to show off their equipment, and the Management students didn’t particularly care.

Present Mic bellowed out a “ Racers, to your positions! ”, on account of the fact that Midnight had stepped in to bring some order to the lineup process.

“So, thoughts on the course?” asked Mamizou as she lit her kiseru.

“Yeah - it’s moronic,” huffed Sumireko. “From what we can see here they’ve got some sort of robots set up, then some pits, then a flat field. Someone with flight or teleportation can just breeze through the whole thing.”

“Both of those are actually fairly rare, though - Quirks suitable for flight have about a 2% incidence in the population, and teleportation quirks are closer to 0.5%, often with restrictive conditions that would render them unusable for a race like this,” Inko pointed out.

Mamizou whistled. “You knew that off the top of your head?”

“Izuku loves learning about quirks - I guess I’ve just sort of absorbed it.”

“Should’ve known. His love of all things Heroics came across even in his letters. Always knew he’d get a good power, even if it took some time.”

The struggle had been broken up and Midnight  returned to her position at the side of the gate. 

“Now then, without any further delay…”

The lights above the starting line lit up one by one.

“ Start! ”

Every student rushed for the gate at the same time. The problem with this strategy immediately became apparent. The wave of bodies slammed against the metal as those at the front failed to pass through the narrow opening quickly enough for the rest of the horde.

I see, Izuku thought, the starting gate itself is the first obstacle.

A slight chill ran up his leg as Todoroki broke away from the front of the pack, racing out onto the field and trailing ice in his wake. The Heroics students, having been training relentlessly, dodged in their own ways - Izuku saw Ashido lay down a coat of acid to block the ice’s progress, Yaoyorozu produce a staff to pole vault with, Bakugou blasting himself into the air, and the purple haired kid from class 1-B standing on a platform of human bodies. He could probably power through the ice, himself, but it was faster to dodge it.

As Todoroki continued to widen the gap, two of the 1-pointer robots from the entry exam rolled in to block the advance of the remaining racers. A group of zero-pointers, seemingly every robot that hadn’t been destroyed in the entrance exam, towered above Todoroki himself.

“ What would an obstacle course be without obstacles? Our first hazard is the Robo Inf erno!” Present Mic’s volume decreased drastically as his sentence ended. “Hey, Aizawa, buddy, what gives?”

“I turned you down. The racers don’t need to hear you anymore, and I imagine our viewers will thank me.” Aizawa deadpanned.

Todoroki didn’t hesitate - another wave of ice swept out with a gesture of his hand, encrusting the towering robots as they moved in and halting them.

Someone shouted out, “Nice, he stopped them! Quick, everyone, he left an opening for us!”

Someone else reached out to stop them. “Wait, you fool! That doesn’t look stable!”

Almost in slow-motion, the zero-pointers began to shift and fall from their unstable positions. Before they could fall onto the unlucky students heading the pack, a tremendous burst of air launched them aside.

“Damn it, Todoroki!” Kirishima grunted out through gritted teeth, clutching a heavily-cracked arm, “Someone could have died there!”

Bakugou didn’t waste any time - while the rest of the racers were gawking over the display of raw power, he launched himself over a fallen robot. Reiko, Tokoyami, and Sero were quick to follow, zipping along with the mobility afforded them by their own quirks. Izuku, for his part, raced along on his own inhuman speed and stamina. While he couldn’t compete with speed quirks for raw sprints, he knew he wouldn’t tire and his physical capabilities would let him slowly draw his way to the front of the pack. Already he was beginning to outpace the non-heroics students, along with…

Most of Class B? He realized. That’s not right - they should have the same training we do. A single Villain attack isn’t going to make us magically - heh, “magically” - better than them in a race.

One of the few Zero-pointers that Todoroki had missed was struck down by a cannonball to the head courtesy of Yaoyorozu, giving some of the straggling racers the courage to push forward into the battlefield.

“These robots suck,” said Sumireko matter-of-factly as the racers pushed through the robot horde.

“Now, now, ‘Renko’, UA can’t just kill off their students, and not everybody in the race is going to be a trained heroics student - or even seeking to be one. I have to imagine some of the Gen Ed students are just here because they want a good education and they have to participate in the sports festival whether they want to or not. It’s understandable they’d err on the side of caution.”

“Yeah, but the robots are slow and go down easy. I could take all of them blindfolded. Hisoutensoku’s more threatening than that, and it’s a marketing gimmick. You could thrash these things even more easily than I could, Mami.”

Mamizou’s hand immediately shot to cover Sumireko’s mouth as she spared a panicked glance in the direction of her wife. Inko was too engrossed with Izuku’s performance to have noticed, it seemed - the boy had just skirted another falling zero-pointer a bit closer than she’d have liked.

“Don’t use that name here,” Mamizou whispered.

“Right, sorry,” Sumireko responded sheepishly.

Tsukauchi raised an eyebrow.

Mami?

A pity his quirk didn’t work remotely - he’d have liked to know if this Renko character was truthful about her capabilities.

Better assign some extra officers to the arrest group, I guess.

He typed out a message on his phone.

Tamakawa-
     Can you do a search for any ‘Mami’ in the database? Thanks.

The racers leading the pack arrived at a massive chasm, dotted with platforms connected by a branching network of ropes.

“If the first obstacle was too easy for those combat fanatics, how ‘bout the second? Presenting - the Fall! One wrong move and our hopeful racers are out! ”

Todoroki was already making his way across the first tightrope.

“This is just a glorified tightrope walk, isn’t it?” Asui muttered to nobody in particular as she picked a rope and began to crawl across it.

“Fufufufu… This is my time to shine! Support Companies of Japan, behold my beautiful babies! I give you, the Wire Arrow and Hover Soles!”

Uraraka looked over at the speaker, a girl with bright pink hair reminiscent of a discolored bunch of bananas and covered in gadgets. “Waaaait, you’re allowed to bring devices into the festival?”

“Heroics kids get actual training! It’s only fair that we in the Support Department get to bring in the devices we’ve made during our own classes! Now then, keep watching, and be sure to see how useful my devices are!”

A launcher attached to her torso fired a dart into the next platform over, which was trailing a long steel wire. Without even so much as a tug to make sure the line was secure, she leapt into the abyss, cushioning her landing with a burst of air from her specially-constructed boots before beginning to climb up the side of the platform.

“Honestly,” said another student with glowing hair and eyes like a starry night sky, “Hatsume is too much of a show-off for my taste.”

He planted a metal signpost into the ground, which made a pinging noise for a few seconds before expanding a screen that displayed the network of platforms and tightropes. A path through it was highlighted. He looked at the screen for a moment before proceeding.

“What? I’m more of a programmer. This thing’s just a shortest-path traversal problem.”

As Reiko drifted over the chasm, she spared a glance at Izuku. He had apparently gotten his hands on something - maybe a piece of robot debris - and had turned it into a zipline trolley, and was clinging to it, using it to slide across the tightropes quickly and efficiently. He was taking a slightly suboptimal path - likely to avoid colliding with others and potentially knocking them off the line as the sheave slid along the cable.

Elis sat up straight on the sofa as she brushed powdered crystal onto one of the fragments of YuugenMagan’s shattered eye, pointing at the television with her free hand.

“That kid, right there - he the one?”

Shigaraki stood on tiptoes to see over her large batlike wings. “Yeah, he’s the one who hurt the Summon.”

“I’ve told you before, YuugenMagan’s not a summoned creature, and I’m not a summoner.”

“The racers in the lead might be feeling pretty comfortable about now! But complacency sets you up for failure! I present - the final obstacle! A Minefield! They’re not hidden super carefully, but if you move hastily or carelessly you won’t see them till you set them off! They’re not overly lethal, but they’ll definitely knock you around!”

“That’s obviously dependent on who sets them off.”

Todoroki’s pace slowed, but not by much - the upturned dirt and bare patches where the landmines had been placed stood out to him plain as day. However, the act of slowing down allowed Bakugou to catch up, rocketing for the lead under his quirk’s recoil-based propulsion.

Izuku had gained a significant amount of progress in the race at the canyon crossing, and was now one of the top 5 - outside of Bakugou and Todoroki, both Tokoyami and Reiko were also ahead of him, though Tokoyami had slowed to a crawl comparatively. Apparently the flashes of the landmines were devastating to his quirk.

However, discounting Tokoyami, the three remaining frontrunners had too much of a lead on him. While Bakugou and Todoroki’s struggle had slowed them, they were within spitting distance of the finish, and Reiko was airborne and breezing through the course with no heed for obstacles. It seemed Fourth Place was the best he’d be getting.

A blast from Bakugou’s palms and a spike of surprise from some hapless student hitting the landmines gave him an idea. 

The explosives’ placements were obvious enough, though he’d had to slow to navigate the field safely, but perhaps thinking of them as obstacles was the wrong way to go about it. He forced the gathered surprise into his legs, augmenting his defense just like Byakuren had taught him, and took a running start before leaping onto the closest landmine, aiming for the edge of it.

I hope this works, or I’ll just look like an idiot who threw my lead away.

He touched down perfectly on the edge of the mine closest to the finish line, bracing himself for what came next. It promptly detonated, flinging him closer to the line. Focusing as intently as possible, he positioned his legs such that he would land on the edge of the next landmine as well.

“Wh- this is absolutely INCREDIBLE! Midoriya Izuku is skipping across the minefield, using the blasts to propel himself!”

Bakugou and Todoroki watched as he sailed right past them, breezing through the minefield. They immediately broke up their squabble to try to catch up, Todoroki freezing the field to disable the mines ahead of him and Bakugou launching himself into the air with his quirk.

“DEKU! GET YOUR ASS BACK HERE!”

Izuku spared the briefest of glances in Bakugou’s direction - the blond wouldn’t be able to catch up in time. Reiko, surprisingly, was catching up to the three of them and would probably pass Bakugou, but still wouldn’t be able to grab first place from him.

He turned back to the course ahead of him just in time to realize the mine he had been aiming for was no longer there. His foot hit the ground hard and he crumpled into an awkward roll.

Reiko zipped across the finish line just ahead of him, a landmine circling her lazily.

“Gonna throttle that gray-haired ghost wannabe,” Mamizou muttered as she passed Inko a handkerchief.

“Now, now, Hisashi,” She gently scolded, “They did say anything goes. It’s not like Izuku would have come out of that any worse than he would from exploding all those mines, anyways. He still got second, and we should be proud of that.”

“This is exactly what I meant when I said that flight trivializes that course,” Sumireko remarked as she lay back in her armchair and began looking through social media posts. “You saw that burst of speed she put on at the end - she was probably holding back for most of the race looking for an opportunity.”

Naomasa’s phone buzzed with a response.

Tsukauchi-

    Police database search came up with a “Mami the Headtaker.” Assassin, signature is decapitating their victims, travels frequently. True name and appearance unknown.

The detective frowned. Assassins. Always a headache to deal with - never as flashy as villains, accustomed to acting in secret, very effective at covering their tracks almost as a rule. If Hisashi really was the Headtaker, then he’d need to be very careful in his approach.

“The Second Event is the Cavalry Battle! Participants will have 15 minutes to form teams of up to four people to form a horse-and-rider formation! Each of you will be given a headband based on your placement in the Obstacle Race, starting at 5 points for the student in 42nd place and increasing by 5 points for every rank above that! The sole exception is our 1st place, who instead will be given a headband worth a whopping Ten Million Points!”

Everyone looked at Reiko, who had finished the Obstacle Race in first.

“This is your chance for a comeback - just because someone did well in the first event doesn’t mean they’ll still do well here! It’s anyone’s game! Your 15 minutes for team selection starts… Now!”

With a decent score, I shouldn’t need to worry about grabbing other headbands, and most focus will be on Yanagi. Ideally I want a team with both offense and defense,  so we can easily secure new headbands while protecting our own - though I imagine we won’t have to deal with too many attacks.

While Izuku was planning his team, Uraraka approached. “Deku! Wanna team up with me?”

“Oh, sure, Uraraka! I was actually about to ask you myself. We work well together and your Quirk is extremely well-suited to a contest like this. Now we just need someone for offense…”

“I could help with that,” offered Tokoyami, who had apparently been hanging around waiting for an opening. “Might you be persuaded to join forces with me to overcome the forces of darkness once more?”

...Yeah, that works.

“The fifteen minutes are up, and all the teams are gathered on the field! It’s time to get this show on the road!”

As the starting signal was given, Reiko, Hatsume, and Bakugou immediately launched themselves into the air - Reiko and Bakugou with their quirks, and Hatsume using a combination of her air boots and a jetpack. Wasting no time, the explosive boy blasted himself at the number one duo, aiming for the bandanas around Reiko’s neck.

“And we’re off to a high-flying start with an aerial battle courtesy of teams Bakugou and Yanagi!”

Hatsume huffed. “They’re not giving me enough credit - gotta fix that!”

She grabbed two spherical orbs from her pack, tossing them into the air where they took up positions orbiting her. As Bakugou got close, they began to spark menacingly, forcing him to back off and land on his team to prepare for another launch.

Mei deployed a megaphone from her pack, using it to project her voice to the audience. “How do you like my Orbiting Deterrents? They keep opponents at bay without you having to lift a finger - perfect for people with long-range quirks!”

Down below, things turned into a hectic scramble as the teams without a ranged option realized their only choice was to attack other teams while Yanagi began showering the grounded teams with volleys of ball bearings. Izuku directed his team to make for Hagakure, who was busy fending off an attack from 1-B’s smug-looking blond. With their attention elsewhere, it was easy to snag their headband while they weren’t looking.

“Kid’s a chip off the old block, huh?” Sumireko asked, glancing at Mamizou.

“Heh - you’d have to be a fool to pass up easy points off an unaware opponent, and he’s no fool. I’m sure even Heroes can appreciate seizing the advantage, at least the ones who aren’t obsessed with concepts like ‘honor’. What do you make of that Bakugou kid’s aerial maneuvering?”

The girl huffed. “Eh, he’s decent - for a power tripping high-schooler.”

This raised an eyebrow. “You, of all people… That’s the insult yer goin’ with?”

Easy points secured, Izuku’s team slunk off to continue trying to avoid attention. 1-B’s apparent ringleader moved to cut them off.

“Ah, so we have a vulture skulking in the wings, it seems!” he exclaimed, holding his arms wide. “What’s the matter, 1-A? Can’t stand a fair fight so you need to resort to dirty tricks?”

“You’re trying to pull the exact same trick,” Izuku countered, pointing to Monoma’s neck, which had about three more bands than he had started with. “Lemme guess, picked a team lopsided towards defense?”

“Wh- I never! Tsuburaba, go!”

Tsuburaba exhaled, creating a veritable maze of solidified air barriers and proving Izuku’s point about being lopsided towards defense in the process. Dark Shadow wasted no time in bypassing the maze by running through a crack in the floor, swooping up in an attempt to grab the bandanas from Monoma’s neck.

High-fiving another of his teammates with a spare hand, Monoma’s forearm began to spin rapidly, allowing him to deflect Dark Shadow’s attack.

Yup - close-ranged quirk and a defensive quirk, as well as what looks like contact-based mimicry judging by the high-five. Whatever the last guy’s got, it has to be similarly limited, since he didn’t use it for ranged offense or as part of their defense.

“Tokoyami.”

“Yes, Midoriya?”

“Call Dark Shadow back - they’re a heavily turtling team, we’ll just waste each others’ time like this.”

“Time’s coming up - we should make our move.”

“Got it. Making cover!”

Yaoyorozu produced a folded umbrella and an attached cable from her free hand, pointing it into the air at Reiko and opening it.

“Kaminari!”

The electricity user nodded. “On it!”

Grabbing the cable, he let his quirk flow into it, feeding electricity into the umbrella and powering a laser pointer hidden in the device.

Reiko’s eyes widened with sheer panic as the red dot appeared on her chest, and she pulled into a nearly-uncontrolled dive, avoiding a shot from a net launcher Yaoyorozu had concealed within the umbrella.

“Now!”

“RECIPRO BURST!”

It happened so fast Izuku could barely follow it - a huge burst of exhaust billowing from his engines, Iida suddenly gained a huge amount of speed and propelled his team past the falling Reiko and straight to the other side of the arena. At the same time, Todoroki was able to reach out and snag the Ten Million Point headband off of Reiko’s neck.

Bakugou launched himself into the air immediately afterwards, aiming for Todoroki.

“Deku, what’s the plan?”

“They’re across the arena from us - we can’t pursue. It’s disappointing, but we should at least have our positions secured, as long as nobody gets the drop on us in these last seconds.”

“5”

“4”

“3”

“2”

“Hey, you’re Midoriya from 1-A, right?”

“1”

“FINISH! Everyone stop grabbing headbands!”

Izuku looked over at the person who had addressed him - the purple-haired kid from 1-B. “Yeah, what did you want?”

The kid looked surprised and somehow slightly disappointed. “Never mind.”

“The top four teams in the final are as follows: Team Todoroki, with first place! Team Midoriya, at second! Team Bakugou in third! And, finally, Team Shinsou in Fourth!”

Reiko, who had lost the entirety of her score within the last minute, just stood there with shaking hands, staring into the distance in disbelief.

“Now then - as we have only three members in Team Midoriya, could fifth place Team Tetsutetsu please choose a member to enter the tournament so we have a nice 16-man bracket?”

“Sorry about the delay, folks - a few members of Team Shinsou have elected to withdraw, prompting us to select a few more members from Team Tetsutetsu. But without further ado - your bracket for the final, traditional, Tournament Round!”

A bracket of matchups was displayed, facing each section of audience stands, as well as another display for the actual participants.

Midoriya vs Todoroki
Sero vs Iida
Uraraka vs Awase

The screen flickered almost the instant the matchups were displayed - even with what little he had been able to read in that moment, Izuku realized that the before and after were altered. Nobody else commented on this fact, however.

Midoriya vs Shinsou
Shiozaki vs Tokoyami
Todoroki vs Sero
Aoyama vs Kirishima

Ashido vs Yaoyorozu
Iida vs Awase
Tetsutetsu vs Kaminari
Bakugou vs Uraraka

Chapter Text

“You caught that too, right?”

“Yep - bracket just got rigged.”

“Want me to beat some sense into, uh, ‘her’?”

“I’m gonna say this as nicely as possible: please do not get into a fight with Yakumo Yukari in the middle of a massively popular public event .”

Tsukauchi checked the wiring on the headset he was monitoring the Midoriyas’ VIP box with. It was plugged in on both ends and the cable was in good condition. Finding no obvious issues, he slid the headset back on in time to catch Hisashi saying “Didn’t sound like a joke, and knowing you, it wasn’t.”

Strange - the audio had cut out for a moment. He’d need to let Nezu know they may want to check their surveillance system wiring.

“And we have the first round! Anything he touches is clay, and he is the sculptor! In the blue corner, we have 1-A’s master of transformation, Midoriya Izuku!”

“We don't even have colored corners for this ring,” Aizawa grumbled, barely audible.

“And in the red corner! The master of manipulation himself, the verbal virtuoso, Shinsou Hitoshi!”

“‘Virtuoso’ is really stretching it,” a General Studies student muttered.

“Yeah,” another agreed, “he mainly just insults people and looks down on them. Then again, guess they don't have anything else to hype him with. He wouldn't even be in the Hero course if that kid hadn't gone missing.”

The two combatants stepped into the ring, Midnight checking them over. “As a reminder, the rules of the one-on-one round are simple. If you are knocked unconscious, leave the ring for any reason, or declare your forfeit, then you lose. You are not allowed to bring anything into the matches that you were disallowed from bringing into the festival itself, but other than that, everything's allowed.”

“Midoriya, huh?” Shinsou said, scratching his head through his purple hair. “Good luck - may the best man win.”

Izuku remembered what Ojirou had told him before the match.

“I can't remember anything from when he spoke to me until after the cavalry battle ended.”

“So do you think he can wipe memories?”

“No. I was in a different place than before, and if he could convince me to join his team he wouldn't have needed to wipe my memory. I think he's got Mind Control.”

He stayed silent.

Shinsou sighed. “He told you, huh? Makes my job harder.”

He took a wary, but clumsy fighting stance - indicative of some amount of combat training, but ultimately very little.

“I don't get people like that,” the tired boy continued, “obsessed with ‘honor’ and ‘fairness’. Half of general studies is howling for my blood because they think I don't deserve to be here, that I haven't earned a spot in Heroics, that I somehow ‘cheated’ because someone else didn't accept their spot. They’d give anything to be up here right now. And that monkey just throws his spot away? What a moron.”

“What did you-”

Izuku's eyes went blank.

Shinsou grinned. “And that's game. Walk out of the ring, please.”

Mamizou let out a whistle. “Mind control, huh? That's a rarity, all right.”

Inko wrung her hands nervously. “Do- do you think that’s it?”

“As his power is now - absolutely. Izuku can’t break out without outside intervention. He could still surprise us, though.”

Izuku's legs began to carry him to the edge of the ring against his will. He needed to do something, anything, to jolt himself out of Shinsou's control. If he could just manage to move his fingers he could touch his pants - would that even help? Would he be disqualified for stripping?

Probably not, they did say ‘anything goes’ and there was that kid a couple years ago whose quirk stripped him mid-event.

Even if he could somehow touch his pants he'd need to make something that would be able to jolt him immediately, without needing further input - his mind raced with ideas as he drew closer to the ring’s edge, there wasn't enough time, if he could only trip or something - the ground was flat stone, nothing to trip on.

As he took another mindless step, his foot sank slightly into mud that definitely wasn’t there before and slid out ahead of him. He fell on his back, knocking him free of his opponent's quirk. Shinsou ran up, panic clear on his face, to attempt to kick Izuku into unconsciousness before he could recover.

It was too late - Izuku had pushed himself into a crouching position by the time the 1-B student reached him, and seized the incoming foot with a grip like an iron vise. The brainwasher struggled for a bit, trying to keep a good fighting stance - nearly impossible when one of your legs is in the opponent’s hand.

Finally, he relented. “I forfeit.”

Mamizou and Inko made for a strange sight as they toasted to Izuku's victory - a fit, lean, man with messy green hair, laughing uproariously and happily, paired with a slightly chubby woman wiping away tears of mixed nervousness and happiness, toasting with an equally dissonant pairing of a full bottle of sake and a significantly more restrained glass.

It was Mamizou's fifth bottle of the event, and the disguised tanuki drained it in a single long, uninterrupted swig before tossing the empty bottle over her shoulder into the trash.

“I don’t get it, what happened there?” Sumireko asked.

“People’s powers often develop in unexpected ways once they start using them regularly. Something like ‘creating ice’ actually being ‘manipulation of cold’, for instance.”

Inko smiled. “Certainly a more significant example than I would have used - a classmate of mine back in high school had a ‘hair growth’ quirk that actually extended to all keratin. She had never tried using it on her nails before.”

Sumireko recalled her own long hours of practicing her Ability in secret, pulling down trees and warping space until she figured out how to teleport herself, create fire, and generally do almost anything associated with psychic powers. The idea that someone might think their own power had hard restrictions was foreign to her. “Oh, so his ability to transform objects…”

Mamizou patted down her pockets looking for more tobacco to pack her kiseru. “...wasn’t actually tied to his hands, it would seem. He just thought it was because it was easier to use that way. The question is how soon until he can do that at will, and how much further he can take it.”

Ugh, she thought to herself, I’m going to have to thank Yakumo for this, and that means being civil to that damn fox of hers.

“Now that we’ve repaired the minor damage to the ring,”

It was one tile, Izuku thought to himself, slightly embarrassed to be the reason for the delay, Cementoss fixed it in five, maybe ten seconds.

“We can get on with the second fight! First up, we have the holy woman of class 1-B! Her faith gives her strength: Shiozaki Ibara!”

A girl with long, thorny vines for hair stepped into the ring. A pair of the vines had been carefully braided with each other and tied around her head, forming the appearance of a crown of thorns.

“How unseemly,” Shiozaki muttered, “Though I am a follower of His teachings, to presume to call myself a ‘holy woman’ would be unacceptably prideful.”

“And, her opponent, 1-A’s master of darkness, the lord of shadows, Tokoyami Fumikage!”

Dark Shadow emerged from the bird-headed boy’s shadow, resting an arm on Tokoyami’s shoulder.

“BEGIN!”

A wave of vines immediately shot out towards Tokoyami, sweeping up and around with an aim to completely encase him and stop his movements. Dark Shadow wasn't fast enough to stop all of them - it battered and tore at the wall of plant matter to no avail, struggling even as it disappeared into a thorny cocoon along with its owner.

Midnight waited for a moment to see if there was any sign of a comeback. Just as she began to raise her arm to declare Shiozaki's victory, a muffled roar emanated from the bundle of vines before a significantly larger Dark Shadow tore its way out.

Fixing its gaze on Shiozaki, the berserk quirk threw itself at the girl, shrinking rapidly in the sunlight. Ducking down, the vine-haired girl pulled her hair together and swept it upwards, redirecting the raging shadow's momentum up and over her head.

Tokoyami was dragged along for the ride as his quirk flew out of the ring, landing on the ground as it returned to its normal size.

“Tokoyami has left the ring! Shiozaki moves on to the next round!” Midnight declared.

Izuku frantically jotted notes into his journal, muttering frantically the whole time.

“So Dark Shadow grows stronger in darkness? Makes sense, but it seems uncontrollable when that happens - I suppose that’s the drawback of a sentient quirk. Maybe he could use some portable lights to direct it if he can’t find a way to control it, though obviously actually being able to control the quirk would be far better… Meanwhile, Shiozaki’s vines are extremely versatile and effective, and I have no way to cut through them fast enough to take them on directly. The best strategy is probably to avoid them while I go for her, there’s a slight delay when they change directions so if I can dodge the initial rush…”

“Wow,” Uraraka said with an impressed tone, “Your match only just ended but you’re already planning ahead for your next opponent, how diligent.”

He was slightly embarrassed to realize she had been watching him. “I, uh, this is sort of just a hobby of mine, I’ve always been really fascinated by peoples’ quirks, and this is the first time we’ve really been able to see the other classes in action.”

He flipped back a few pages in his notes, turning the book towards her to display the pages detailing Uraraka’s own quirk and possible applications of it.

“I’ve got stuff on our own class here, too, even your Zero Gravity, Uraraka!”

She was speechless for a moment as she looked over the pages. He had even jotted notes on possible fighting styles she could use, as well as ideas for possible uses she hadn’t even tested. She’d never considered looking into her quirk in that much detail, and she had lived with the thing for eleven years now! He’d even written out an idea for a shapeshifting glove that could retract from her fingertips and effectively let her turn her quirk ‘off’, and noted Pro Heroes’ outfits that incorporated similar design elements to show it was possible!

“I’ve always thought you were amazing, Deku, ever since the day we met, but the Sports Festival is really letting you show that.” 

“Born to the best, raised by the best, and trained by the best: the heir of the number two hero Endeavor, Todoroki Shoto!”

Todoroki’s eyes flashed with anger, though he didn’t say a word.

“And his opponent: though his presence in 1-A speaks volumes about his ability, he’s still as plain as they come, Sero Hanta!”

Sero stretched his arms as he took his position. “They could’ve given me a better introduction…”

The moment Midnight signaled the start of the round, he immediately shot two bands of tape at Todoroki, wrapping around the boy's shoulders and knees in an attempt to restrict his movement. Wasting no time, he whipped his arms to the left, flinging Todoroki through the air in an attempt to eliminate his opponent via ring-out before he could react.

The temperature dropped noticeably as the tape around Todoroki's body froze and shattered, releasing the boy. His motion, in turn, was stopped by a pillar of ice that formed to tie him to the ground before he whipped his right hand forward, fury in his eyes.

Before anyone in the audience could even flinch, a massive glacier had formed in the arena, encasing Sero up to his neck at the front end of it and ballooning outwards behind him to the point that it was threatening the stands.

“Um… Sero, are you able to free yourself from that?” Midnight asked.

“That's a joke, right?”

“Sero has been immobilized! Todoroki Shoto advances to the next round!”

Someone in the stands shouted out, “You did your best!” As Todoroki began to thaw Sero out of the glacier.

“Next up: the dazzling Aoyama Yuuga against the fierce bruiser Kirishima Eijirou!”

“ Merci for the introduction, Mon Ami,” Aoyama said, striking a pose.

“There's no way he can hear you, dude.”

“It's still polite to thank him!”

The moment the start of the match was signaled, Kirishima hardened up. Immediately, a beam from Aoyama's stomach slammed into him, shoving him back slightly but leaving him otherwise unfazed.

He grinned. “Is that all you got?”

Aoyama's smile slightly faltered, but the blond continued to fire beams while backing away from Kirishima's reinforced advance.

Soon enough, it became apparent to the audience that this fight was going to be nothing like the previous two crowd-pleasers. Aoyama had no chance in close combat and he knew it, ducking across the ring to keep away from his opponent.

Kirishima, meanwhile, was too resilient for Aoyama to pose a threat, but too slow to catch up to the nimble boy while keeping himself hardened and braced. One For All would let him handle it no problem, but he was unwilling to injure himself just to end the fight faster - such a tactic would be suicidal in a real fight.

As a result, a decent portion of the crowd was ready for the fight to end when Aoyama finally bent over in pain, his quirk's effects on his stomach finally too great to continue fighting.

Someone towards the front of the stands threw a tomato onto the field, an extremely ill-advised decision that nearly immediately got him tackled by around a dozen pro heroes and a police officer.

“Class 1-A’s ace, the brilliant Yaoyorozu Momo, can create anything her mind desires! Let’s hope that her stuff is acid-proof, though, if she’s going up against Ashido Mina!”

Yaoyorozu took a slow, steady breath, trying to calm her nerves.

“I still need to pay you back for the battle trials,” Ashido called across the ring.

The moment the round started, the pink girl started laying down a layer of acid, skating towards her opponent with impressive speed. Yaoyorozu froze up, realizing only a moment before the acid-user reached her that she needed to make something and hastily producing a shield. The acid sizzled and hissed as it splattered on the metal - she had forgotten to give it an acid-resistant coating.

What’s acid-resistant again? Certain steels, but they need the right molecular arrangements…

Yaoyorozu was doing an impressive job of dodging, considering she was also frantically trying to remember what material she needed on the fly. She tried to stall for time by producing a flashbang grenade - she had practiced that one until she could do it on reflex.

Mina immediately doused the trigger mechanism with acid. “Oh no you don’t! Had enough of those, thank you very much!”

Backing up further, Yaoyorozu realized with a sickening lurch in her stomach that she had reached the edge of the ring and began to topple off. She immediately produced a staff to steady herself - aluminum, a simple element that was the first one that came to mind. Smirking, Mina flung some more acid onto it.

It didn’t melt.

Taking advantage of her opponent’s momentary confusion, Yaoyorozu heaved herself back up into the ring and went on the offensive, battering Ashido with a series of quick, efficient strikes while staying cautious of the lingering pools of acid. When the pink girl stumbled, falling onto her back, she moved in for the finishing blow, only to be taken off-guard when her opponent made use of her inherent acid resistance to begin spinning around in it, using a series of spinning movements more akin to breakdancing than actual fighting techniques and throwing Yaoyorozu’s strategy completely off.

A foot hooked onto the staff and wrenched it to the side, causing the ponytailed girl to stumble and fall out of the ring.

“Class 1-A’s very own speed king Iida Tenya faces off against 1-B's immobility master Awase Yosetsu!”

Great, Yosetsu thought to himself, nothing I can actually use for Welding.

He braced himself for the incoming rush - this was going to be a tough fight. He could only hope he could keep his guard up as Iida picked at him from any direction the bespectacled boy pleased.

Before he could even realize what Iida was planning, his shoulders had been grabbed and he’d been shoved out of the ring.

“ Yeeeesh Awase got a bad draw, huh?” Kinoko asked, turning to Monoma. “He’d have had trouble with that speed even if he did have something to work with.”

Monoma was steadfastly attempting to crush the arms of his seat with his hands, furiously muttering about “bias against 1-B” and “rigged brackets”

“Dude, chill,” Kaibara remarked from the seat next to the blond. “No way did UA rig the matches, we’ve got one win so far, and Tetsutetsu hasn't even gone yet.”

“Next up, we have a truly electrifying battle: Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu the iron man of 1-B against Kaminari Denki - Raijin brought down to mortality!”

Aizawa stifled an uncharacteristic snort of laughter at the pun.

“If you wanna surrender, do it now,” Kaminari said with a smirk, lightning playing across his fingers. “I don’t think me electrifying your metal body’s gonna be pretty.”

Tetsutetsu’s body took on a metallic tinge as he activated his quirk. “I think I like my chances just fine, thank you.”

“Your funeral.”

Tetsutetsu boldly threw himself into Kaminari’s arms as the electricity-wielder unleashed the greatest voltage he could with a yell of “Indiscriminate Shock!”. The more squeamish members of the crowd looked away from what they assumed was a suicidal move. Others watched, transfixed.

After a moment, the sparking of electricity stopped. Tetsutetsu tapped Kaminari on the shoulder as the boy stood there dazed. He turned to Midnight.

“Hey, he seems to have fried himself! I don’t think he can fight anymore, do I really have to throw him out of the ring?”

“No, if he’s really unable to keep fighting then it’s your win without needing to ring out or knock him unconscious.”

Present Mic chattered excitedly as the medical bots grabbed an idly compliant Kaminari and led him off the field “Absolutely amazing interaction of quirks right there - that gamble on Tetsutetsu’s part really paid off for him! Aizawa, why don’t you explain to our viewers just what that was?”

“You know this. I know you know this, working with electronics is one of your favorite hobbies, why are you asking me to explain this?”

“Because it’s no fun if I’m just monologuing into the microphone all the time, come on, work with me here!”

Aizawa heaved a sigh directly into the mic. “Tetsutetsu’s quirk allows him to protect himself by turning into metal. However, since he can still move and, more importantly, breathe while under its effects, he made the assumption that it either acted only as a shell, or that the metal in different parts of his body had different traits to mimic the organs - crucially, including different conductivities.”

“And what exactly does that mean for their fight, Eraserhead?”

Another sigh. “An electrical field, when applied to the metal coating his body causes the charges within his metallic surface to align in such a way as to cancel the effects on his interior. In essence, he’s got a natural Faraday Cage, making him immune to electrocution.”

“There you have it folks - you can’t always guess how a battle’s gonna turn out at first glance!”

“That outcome was easily foreseeable, though.”

“Mute your mic if you’re gonna snark at my commentary!”

Uraraka sat in the prep room trying to psyche herself up for her match against Bakugou. Memories of the boy’s savagery during the battle trial on the first day came to her mind immediately. Though she hadn’t been there to see him fight in person, she had seen the footage afterwards as part of a review they had done a week later. He was a vicious, cunning opponent - the sort who definitely wouldn’t hold back, no, who’d view it as an insult for either himself or his opponent to hold back.

On top of that, his quirk had the definite power and maneuverability advantage. This was going to be an uphill battle for sure.

“-raka! Hello? Are you feeling ok?”

She snapped back to reality, realizing that Izuku was both shaking her and calling her name. Blinking a few times, she turned to him. “Yeah, I’m fine, sorry - I was just thinking about the upcoming match.”

“Yeah, they’ll probably call you up in a moment. Listen, you’ve helped me out so much so far at UA, so I wanted to return the favor. I made this on the fly, so it might be a bit rough around the edges, but it’s a strategy for fighting against Bakugou - one that uses your Quirk.” He held a journal out to her.

She stared at it for a moment, her mind blanking for some reason. After a moment, the odd feeling passed. “Thanks, Deku, but I’m going to do this on my own.”

“Huh?”

“You do amazing things all the time, without needing any help, while I just joined up with you during the cavalry battle because I thought it would be easiest to team up with friends. Even then, I guess I was just relying on you again. But not anymore - I need to do this without your help. We’re all fighting for our futures here, so that makes us all rivals.” 

She gave him a thumbs-up as she headed for the door. “I’ll see you in the finals!”

“And now for the final match of round 1! He’s stood out from the rest since his middle-school days, the ever-explosive Bakugou Katsuki of 1-A! And against him, my personal pick for the match, also of 1-A, Uraraka Ochako!”

“Round Face.” Bakugou said, an intimidating glint in his eyes. “If you’re gonna back down, do it now. I won’t hold back.”

She could smell the burnt sugar scent of his nitroglycerin sweat even from across the arena. Steeling her nerves, she met his eyes with a determined gaze of her own.

“START!”

Uraraka immediately broke into a run, dropping to an animalistic all-fours scramble to minimize her profile and present a smaller target for Bakugou’s explosions. Initially surprised by her speed, the blond quickly recovered and whipped his right hand forward, unleashing a blast before she had time to react and change course or block.

As Uraraka was thrown backwards, he took a few steps back from the smokescreen his explosion had created, to give himself more time to react to further attack.

A UA sports jumpsuit began to emerge from the smoke - too easy , Bakugou realized, Round Face hangs with Deku, she’s smarter than that - and the way the sleeve is fluttering, there’s no arm in it.

He slammed an arm down on the empty shirt, unleashing another explosion and sweeping his arm back to project the blast to his right - the only side with enough smoke to cover a flanking movement.

As he expected, Uraraka went flying again, visible in the brief moment of clarity before the smoke filled in the gap opened by the shockwave again.

The crowd watched in disgust as Bakugou blasted Uraraka away again for the umpteenth time that match.

“Doesn’t matter how good you are, you can’t dodge blasts of that size that close.”

“She’s just desperate at this point, the match is already decided.”

A pro in a brilliant white outfit stood up, pointing to the ring, shouting at the top of his lungs, “Hey! That’s not how a Hero should act! You’re clearly stronger than her, just end it! Stop toying with the poor girl!”

Aizawa’s furious voice immediately responded, practically screaming into the mic, “Who just said he’s toying with her!? Is it a Pro!? How long!?”

A hush fell over the crowd as the erasure hero’s tirade continued.

“If that’s all you’re getting from this, then you should just leave right now and start looking at job sites. There’s no point in you watching. She’s come just as far as he has - he’s not toying with her, he’s being careful , A concept apparently foreign to you. He’s making sure he doesn’t make any massive moves that leave any openings for her to exploit.”

Mamizou grinned as she lit another pipeful of tobacco. “Clever.”

Sumireko, however, was outraged. “Hey, that looks like ‘Illegal Dumping’!”

“That’s not even yer best move.”

“I can still be angry!”

Uraraka gave an exhausted smile. “Thanks for keeping your guard up and not ending this quickly, Bakugou.”

Slamming her fingertips together, she released her quirk.

Bakugou looked to the sky in sudden realization as her weapons began to fall - pieces of debris, hundreds of them, varied in size from pebbles to fist-sized chunks of stone, carefully gathered and thrown into the air by her quirk while her low charges had kept Bakugou’s eyes from ever drifting skyward and spotting her trap before it was sprung.

And now, the jaws of that trap were closing around her prey.

Whether he dodges or repels this, it’ll give me an opening - I just need to close the gap in that instant, and I can win this.

Bakugou flung both his hands skywards, unleashing a tremendous blast, larger than any he had used without his gauntlets. Even without being the direct target, it knocked her back. Her entire rain of projectiles was completely vaporized.

“Knew you were up to something,” he said, voice slightly shaky. She could smell something… off. It didn’t smell like burnt sugar - was he running out of his explosive sweat?

“Now then - let’s get serious, shall we?”

She was about to collapse when she saw it - blood, dripping from a cut on his arm. His blast hadn’t been enough to deflect her full attack. She had gotten through his defense! The sight gave her a second wind, and she rushed forward once more, mouth open and panting hard.

Her hesitation in the face of his last attack had given him time to recover, sealing her fate - Bakugou’s knee slammed into her chin, slamming her jaw shut and knocking her unconscious.

Chapter Text

“Let's get started with the second round! First up, Midoriya Izuku showed us a glimpse of his strength with an amazing comeback last round, using his quirk to escape his opponent’s control even without being able to move his limbs!”

Izuku awkwardly shrank in on himself - he wasn't even sure how he had done that, and hadn’t been able to replicate it so far. It seemed sort of wrong to him, to be praised for something he hadn’t intentionally done.

“His opponent is 1-B’s Shiozaki Ibara, who demonstrated her versatility with a dominating performance, using her vines both for offense and defense!”

The vine-haired girl made no indication she had heard Present Mic’s commentary, eyes closed and hands clasped in silent prayer. She opened her eyes as Midnight signaled the match start.

“Begin!”

Just as with Tokoyami, Shiozaki's first move was to send her hair out in a massive wave, seeking simply to overwhelm Izuku with the sheer breadth of her offense. He rushed forward, hoping that he hadn’t been mistaken in his observation of her round. 

There - an opening in her attack, one that appeared only briefly as an effect of how she partitioned her vines. If he had waited, it would have closed as the vines sent to the right and left rejoined into the cocoon trap, but by rushing into the attack he was able to escape through it. His arm caught on a thorn as he dove through the opening, landing on the bed of plant matter and rolling to his feet.

Kirishima let out a cheer of excitement. “Yo, that was super manly, diving through her attack like that! No fear at all, he just went for it!”

“I see that my inglorious defeat yielded fruit, at least.” Tokoyami said, a small smile on his beak. “That technique is a devious one - I was completely unable to see the weakness in it, to my shame.”

Ashido, however, wasn't so jubilant. “Uh, guys, does Midoriya seem okay to you?”

“What do you mean? Midoriya’s one of the toughest guys in the class. Recovery Girl always just sends him back and the only thing that really slowed him down was that USJ villain.”

She pointed Kirishima's attention to one of the monitors set up to give a close-up of the fighting.

“ Shit, ” Mamizou cursed under her breath.

Sumireko didn't even glance up from her phone. “What is it?”

“That's someone who can actually hurt a youkai.”

Izuku's right arm burned like it had been doused in boiling water. It was also bleeding, but that was a lesser concern. Shiozaki’s thorns must have had some kind of poison in them - his arm was already starting to feel numb. He couldn't let her hit him too many more times.

More worryingly, she could harm him as easily as though he hadn’t gained his youkai abilities. He hadn't seen his own blood since before the Sludge Villain incident, close to a year ago now.

The vines writhed around him, drawing back to give themselves the space for another rush - apparently Shiozaki’s control of their movement was best towards the tips of the tendrils, forcing her to maneuver them longer distances after a narrow miss.

He took advantage of the extra time by reaching down and using his Ability on the floor of the ring, turning it into a large metal sheet and flipping it up to use as a shield against the next attack.

It came soon enough - an onslaught of foliage from his left apparently aiming to simply force him out of the ring. He quickly adjusted his makeshift barrier to intercept it, bracing himself as the tide of plant matter crashed around him like a rock in the middle of rapids. As the vines slowed, he grabbed one - careful to avoid touching the thorns, now that he knew they could harm him - and tore it off so it was no longer part of Shiozaki before turning it into a machete and beginning to hack away at the mass of greenery.

He almost didn’t notice the second wave of vines that swept in from above, only just barely managing to clamber up his metal sheet in time. The vines grazed against him regardless, pain blossoming through his body as the vines raked across his back.

This wasn’t working - her vines were just too much for him to cleanly dodge, and each scratch she left made his defeat draw closer. Did Tokoyami have to deal with this? He seemed fine after being cocooned by her. Was she somehow more effective since he was a youkai?

Although he had cut back a third of her vines, she still had enough to continue her assault. He needed an opening. 

Transforming his weapon into a club, he hurled the blunt weapon at Shiozaki. She reacted to the projectile with shock, breaking from her prayers to duck the object. Wasting no time, he ran in to engage her in close combat, fighting through the burning numbness in his arm to try to keep her from regaining the focus or space needed to make the best use of her vines. Whatever power had been enhancing her attacks earlier had disappeared, and he barely felt the few lashes she sent his way as he attacked.

Shiozaki faltered under his assault, slowly ceding ground as she simultaneously tried to stop him from landing a decisive hit and use her vines despite the problems posed by their length at such close quarters. It was a difficult task, made even harder by Izuku’s strength - his youkai heritage made him a fair bit stronger than he appeared, even if he didn't descend from one of the stronger types like an Oni or Tengu.

Finally, she made a mistake, placing her foot wrong and losing her footing. She fell onto her back and, with a silent prayer for victory, lashed out with the two vines she had kept wrapped around her head as a crown.

Weakened from the fight, Izuku was unable to dodge the attack at such close range. The thorny vines, their strength renewed by her devotion, lashed across his shoulders like flaming whips.

Izuku lost consciousness.

Mamizou stared at the arena, unresponsive. Inko had already hurried off to locate UA's infirmary.

At last, the elder tanuki spoke. “I’m going to kill her.” She said, disconcertingly calmly. “I am going to cut the gap hag open and rip her heart out with my bare hands.”

“I’m going to say this as nicely as possible: Please do not get into a fight with Yakumo Yukari in the middle of a massively popular public event, ” Sumireko echoed sarcastically, earning herself a glare from the furious youkai.

“Okay, seriously, lighten up. Plants-for-brains there had no idea what she was doing, and wouldn’t have been able to fully exterminate Izuku without going for a killing blow that the ref would’ve stopped. She’s just throwing raw faith around without an idea of how to actually channel it. Not even samurai-level, those guys could use it on their swords. She wouldn’t have been able to do anything with it if her vines weren’t part of her.”

“I’ve seen enough youkai get exterminated by hunters they underestimated for ‘she didn’t know what she was doing’ to be little comfort to me.”

Sumireko idly pulled up her social media feed on her phone, scrolling through it disinterestedly. “Then think of it this way instead: fighting people who can use faith is a blind spot for him, and now he knows that. Were you just assuming he wouldn’t run into anyone who knew how to do that?”

“I-”

“You were worshipped as a god, Byakuren is a devout Buddhist, and the highest-ranking priest in her temple is simultaneously a tiger youkai and an avatar of Bishamonten. The Taoists have that necromancer of theirs who’s refined her practices enough to become a Hermit despite being, like, one of the worst people I’ve heard of and someone who heaven refuses to acknowledge. You can't just assume it won’t come up.”

Mamizou hung her head in defeat. “I suppose you’re right.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it - figuring things yourself out is one thing, teaching them is another entirely. You spent centuries leading a pack of youkai who’d figure things out for themselves and the most you would have to worry about is taking revenge if one of them got injured. Now go check on your son already.”

Power Loader scratched his head. “Yeah, it looks like it should be fine - there’s no issue with the wiring on this end that I can see, and the diagnostics say all the monitoring equipment should be working fine. You sure they just haven’t left or gone quiet?”

Tsukauchi shook his head. “They were in the middle of a conversation when the feed cut, Midoriya’s mother was in the middle of saying she was going to find the infirmary.”

The hero put the headphones on his head for a moment before taking them off. “Yeah, I'm hearing some faint tapping - I think the Midoriyas have left and their guest is just looking at things on a phone or something. I can open up the walls to check the wiring after the event’s done, just to be sure, but as it stands there’s nothing I can do that won't make it obvious we're monitoring them, and I know how you police types are about that.”

“Next up, the ice-cold powerhouse Todoroki Shouto takes the field! He’s blown through every round so far without losing his cool - will Kirishima Eijirou be the one to break that streak?”

Neither competitor made a comment. The moment Midnight began to raise her arm to signal the start of the match, Todoroki simultaneously created a chunk of ice behind him and let loose a massive wave of ice, comparable to the one he had used on Sero. Kirishima immediately responded with an enhanced punch, shattering the inbound ice before it could fully form.

“That won't work on me, Todoroki,” he yelled, clutching his cracked and bleeding arm.

Todoroki simply let loose another wave, smaller than the first, that Kirishima was able to punch through with the aid of Hardening, activating his quirk and throwing himself shoulder-first at the ice to shatter it before it could immobilize him.

“I wouldn’t have realized it without my own Quirk’s recoil, but you have some kind of limit too, don’t you? That’s why you’ve tried to end every fight quickly so far. So if I draw this out, then it’s just a manly battle of endurance!”

Endeavor fumed , prompting several nearby spectators to scooch away from the heat radiating from his seat. The number two hero had been too cheap to spring for a VIP box. 

“Shouto, this boy should be nothing more than a pebble in your path,” he muttered. “Are you really going to throw away a sure victory over some childish rebellion?”

A shiver ran up Todoroki’s spine as he sent out more ice. Kirishima’s statement wasn’t wrong - he had a definite limit before he grew too cold to continue. He couldn’t use another massive glacier like he had used to open the match or to defeat Sero, due to the amount of cold needed to generate the attack. At most, he’d be able to go even with Kirishima’s most powerful, self-damaging punches, but then he’d be at his limit and Hardening would give his opponent the advantage. Closing in was a bad idea for the same reason, Kirishima thrived in close quarters.

“You’re shivering,” Kirishima stated, no, accused. “You aren’t immune to the temperatures of your own quirk.”

Gritting his teeth against the biting chill in his arm, Todoroki loosed another wave of ice. 

“You have fire, don’t you!? You’ve thawed people out after sparring matches before - use it!”

His body was growing numb from the cold - the waves of ice he sent out were weaker, smaller than before. Kirishima’s rocky body seemed less conductive of the cold, that or his exertion to break through each wall of ice was keeping him warm. Regardless, Todoroki could see him panting through jagged teeth, a clear sign that the extended combat was wearing on his stamina.

“What happens if a villain shows up and your ice doesn’t work? You can’t just stand by and watch as innocent people pay the price!”

“Shut. UP.” Todoroki grunted out, putting his full right side to work and creating the largest burst of ice since the start of the match. Sluggish and debilitated from the cold, he misjudged Kirishima’s approach, and the ice was aimed too far away, spreading out only once it had passed his opponent. The audience in the front rows flinched away from the incoming wall of frost before realizing it wasn’t quite large enough to put them at risk.

Returning to her spectator seat in time to watch Todoroki’s ice wave miss a target directly in front of him, Reiko stifled a snort of laughter.

Jirou shot her a sideways glance. “What’s so funny?”

“Oh, you wouldn’t get it.”

Now in front of his opponent, Kirishima let out a bellow of “DON’T HOLD ANYTHING BACK, TODOROKI!” as he swung in with a punch from his good arm, sheathed in red lightning.

Instinctively, Todoroki’s left side flared up as the attack came in, but the flames were too small, too insignificant to do anything. Kirishima’s fist slammed into Todoroki and launched him from the ring.

Midnight was quick to announce the resolution of the match. “Todoroki has been launched out of bounds! Kirishima Eijirou is the winner of this round!”

Kirishima let his arms dangle limply as he watched the medical bots carry Todoroki off to the infirmary. “I’ve been there, Todoroki,” he said, faintly, to himself. “You don’t want to have to stand there watching something terrible happen because you can’t bring yourself to intervene. You want to be able to look back on your life and say you have no regrets.”

“Kirishima Eijirou,” beeped a medical bot that rolled up behind him, “it is advised that you report to Recovery Girl after a match of that intensity.”

“Yeah, I’m going.”

Izuku blinked awake to the sight of an unfamiliar ceiling.

“It’s the UA infirmary. Doubt you’ve been here before, not for very long at least. They turned Inko away at the door - guess it’s school policy that only students or faculty can be in here.”

Turning his head, he saw a bespectacled Uraraka sitting next to his bed with a look of worry on her face. She fiddled with a hair ornament in the shape of a leaf - a key tell as to who it really was.

“That was quite a fight you put up, Izuku! Honestly surprised, yer a tougher customer than I thought.”

Izuku couldn’t bring himself to meet her eyes, instead fixating on the television that had been set up for students to watch the matches. Iida had grabbed Mina by the shoulders and was running her towards the arena’s edge while she was powerless to stop him.

Not good, Iida, he thought. You’re relying on your speed to blitz the opponent. Bakugou will see through that in an instant - you’ve done it twice in a row now.

Mamizou continued to press him. “Don’t worry about the loss, Izuku. I’m proud of how well you did, considering the circumstances. Truthfully, I wasn’t expecting anyone like that girl to show up here. Wonder if she wouldn’t be happier as a monk…”

“She felt just like that Demon at USJ,” Izuku said at last. “Most things feel like they’re hitting through a layer of padding, way weaker than they should be - but her attacks didn’t have that.”

“That’d be her faith,” Mamizou said. “I imagine you also felt a burning pain when she hit you. Remember the story of the Oomukade of Mount Mikami?”

“Fujiwara no Hidesato fired two arrows that splintered against its shell, before the third arrow, when…” Izuku muttered in realization.

“...he prayed to Hachiman, who governs archery,” Mamizou finished, “and his faith and devotion let that final shot strike true. That Ibara girl would’ve made a fine student for a youkai hunter, back in the day. Not a hunter of her own, oh no - she’d be dead within a month without proper training - but she shows potential. Not the sort of person I wanted you to fight this soon. Not the sort of person you should’ve fought this soon.”

It was clear what she meant by that. “The matchups.”

She nodded. “Yukari’s meddling, no doubt about that. I don’t know what game she’s playing, but there’s a storm coming, one way or another. I wish I was strong enough to act freely in this world.”

Kirishima burst into the room. “Midoriya, dude! I’m fighting Shiozaki next round, do you have any tips? Oh, sorry, Uraraka, didn’t realize you were here too - I thought you were calling your folks?”

Mamizou-as-Uraraka smiled. “I just wanted to check on Izuku and make sure he was fine after that match. You’re right that I should really call my folks - I’ll be going now.”

The red-haired boy watched the disguised Tanuki leave, none the wiser. “Huh, didn’t realize Uraraka needed glasses. She should wear them instead of her contacts more of the time - she looked pretty cute in them. Anyway, like I said, I’m fighting against Shiozaki next round and wanted to know if you had any advice.”

“This next match is a battle of steel and explosions that wouldn’t look out of place in an old war movie! We have Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu vs Bakugou Katsuki!”

“I’ve been looking forward to this since I saw the bracket,” said Tetsutetsu. “You’ve rubbed me wrong from the start. Now I can beat you down myself!”

“WHAT DID YOU SAY, YOU DAMN EXTRA!?”

Bakugou let explosions rip from both palms, launching himself at his opponent. The speed of his attack caught Tetsutetsu off guard, the boy only barely managing to metallize before Bakugou struck with a heavy left hook. He staggered back - even metallic, the sheer momentum behind the punch stung.

Recovering, he retaliated with a jab from his right hand, which the blond deftly avoided, retaliating with a blast to Tetsutetsu’s ribs. No doubt about it - Steel wasn’t enough to let him ignore the hits. He gritted his teeth and pressed on, hoping he could get a decisive hit in before Bakugou wore him down.

He didn’t.

“As our tournament reaches the semifinals, we have a battle of two individuals who’ve proved to be extremely well-rounded combatants! Shiozaki Ibara’s had plenty of opportunity to show how her vines work both on the offense and defense, while Kirishima Eijirou’s powerful strikes and extreme durability have definitely left an impact after his match last round!”

Shiozaki gave a simple nod to Kirishima as she entered the ring, her hands clasped as they so often were. Kirishima returned it, though his mind was elsewhere.

“My mistake when fighting Shiozaki was that I let her keep me at range for too long. Her quirk is extremely well-suited to longer range combat - she can maintain pressure on the opponent without needing to compromise her own position, and the sheer quantity makes it hard to find an opening once the assault starts. Tokoyami fell victim to this as well. However, the fact that her first action is always to send her vines at her opponent as a delaying tactic shows that she needs one thing…”

Sorry, Shiozaki, he thought to himself. This is gonna be pretty unmanly of me.

“Start!”

Immediately infusing his arm with One For All, Kirishima mimicked one of All Might’s Smashes, launching a gale-force wind across the arena and sending Shiozaki flying out of the ring.

“...time to get her vines set up.”

“And in contrast to our generalists last round, we have two specialized combat machines! Iida Tenya’s used his raw speed to blitz every opponent he’s had so far - will this tactic keep working for him against Bakugou Katsuki’s explosive offense?”

Iida kicked his engines into gear the moment the match started, but was still a bit too slow - Bakugou had already let off a huge explosion, creating a smokescreen like he had during his fight with Uraraka. It was a good move, concealing his position and obscuring vision so Iida couldn't move too hastily.

The crowd disagreed about that, a groan rippling through them as the realized they were about to spend a round staring at smoke.

Iida looked around for any sign of Bakugou in the thick smoke - he rushed in as fast as he could, the blond couldn’t have gone far - when he realized what he was overlooking. Quickly using a boost from his engine, he flipped his leg up in a bicycle kick, striking Bakugou as he tried to drop on him and launching him away.

To his chagrin, he noticed that Bakugou had managed to get an arm up in time to block the kick. Now the blond was both conscious and hidden - not a good combination. Recipro Burst would be useless due to uncontrollability and the risk of causing himself to leave the ring.

As a boom rang out from the smoke, Iida prepared himself to receive Bakugou’s attack, catching the blond off-guard yet again as he launched a counter at the moment the explosive quirk-user emerged from the smoke. Taking the hit in the shoulder, Bakugou grabbed Iida by the arm and fired an explosion at close range, where Iida had no way to dodge. He was sent flying back - it was a wonder he didn’t ring out, he had to be close to the edge after that. A dangerous place to be, but not without its benefits - a good reversal could get him an easy ring-out victory.

Another explosion heralded Bakugou’s next attack. Iida focused intently on the smoke, readying his hands to grab and throw, to toss his opponent out of the ring.

Bakugou was spinning like an artillery shell - his form was completely off, there was no way Iida could correct his positioning in time.

The blond slammed into him with an exploding palm, launching him out of the arena.

Iida’s phone buzzed just as Recovery Girl shooed him out of the infirmary. It was his mother - she must’ve seen his loss.

“Hello, mother. I’m sorry that I disappointed you.”

“What? No, that’s not...”

Her voice sounded raw - had she been crying?

“Tenya, please stay calm. It’s about Tensei.” She paused for a moment to take a shuddering breath. “He didn’t return from a patrol on time, so the other members of his team went out looking for him.”

Iida could’ve sworn his heart stopped.

“The Hero Killer ambushed him. He’s in critical condition.”

“At long last, we come to our final matchup! Our combatants should need no introduction at this point, so give it up for Kirishima Eijirou and Bakugou Katsuki!”

The crowd erupted with cheers and applause, as well as a few faint yells of “No smoke this time, please!”

“May, the best man win. No hard feelings, yeah?”

Bakugou just growled in response.

Though he was calm on the outside, on the inside, Kirishima was desperately trying to psych himself up. Bakugou had a decisive advantage in maneuverability and sustained offense - he could surpass Explosion’s raw power with One For All, but he had a hard limit on the number he could fire off - four shots, or only two if he didn't want to render his arms useless. It was going to be an entirely different type of battle of attrition than against Todoroki.

Midnight signaled the start of the match, and Bakugou stalked forward, bold yet wary, ready to use an explosion to dodge at a moment’s notice if Kirishima tried pulling the same ring-out trick that he used against Shiozaki. Kirishima knew that he had to pin him down somehow - Tetsutetsu’s quirk was too close to Hardening for comfort, and Bakugou had already shown he could overcome it.

When Bakugou finally reached him, he threw a few experimental punches, mentally grimacing as the blond dodged each one and gritting his teeth as he responded with a blast to the ribs.

“Hey, Shitty Hair.” Bakugou hissed. “Don’t hold back.”

There was a brief moment after each explosion where Bakugou was stationary - he needed larger explosions to go against Hardening, and had to brace himself not to go flying from recoil. It was during this delay that Kirishima seized his chance, recovering from the first hit faster than Bakugou anticipated and grabbing the blond firmly by the wrist as he readied for another blast.

“Wouldn't dream of it.”

Bakugou’s eyes widened as Kirishima threw his punch, his free hand sparking with a massive explosion to launch himself into the air, dragging Kirishima’s arm with him and flipping the red-head. The Smash flew wide, leaving the Hardening on his right arm in ruins with nothing to show for it.

One down, they both thought.

Bakugou wasted no time at all launching another attack from their prone position on the ground, slamming an explosive palm onto the arena floor and blasting them both with the shockwave. Kirishima, his arm damaged, weathered the blast worse and ended up losing his grip on his opponent, who rolled quickly to his feet and launched another attack.

Kirishima, thinking quickly, used his remaining good arm to Smash the floor from his prone position, breaking up the arena's smooth surface and ruining Bakugou's footing to buy him time to get to his feet.

Two down.

By smashing the arena and forcing Bakugou to interrupt his finisher, Kirishima had only managed to turn a certain defeat into a very uphill battle. The arena, now in pieces, was far easier for Bakugou to navigate using his explosion-based flight than Kirishima, who was landbound. Unless UA was going to pause the fight to replace the arena.

As if reading his mind, Midnight announced to the whole stadium, “We have precedent for this - the battle is still on, but touching the floor instead of one of the arena chunks counts as a ring-out regardless of if that floor was in the original bounds of the arena or not!”

Well, there goes that plan.

Bakugou immediately resumed his offense, blasting a nearby chunk of arena into rubble and showering Kirishima with fragments, forcing the redhead to cover his face while guarding. The moment Kirishima dropped his guard again, Bakugou had vanished. A second blast from above gave away his plan, and Kirishima whipped around to counter the blond’s dive, only to realize almost a moment too late that Bakugou was aiming not for him, but for his foothold. With no other choice, he let loose a third One For All-enhanced punch, forcing Bakugou to evade at the cost of his left arm.

Only one left, now.

Before long, Bakugou’s aim became clear: rather than just using debris to harass Kirishima, he was systematically destroying every foothold within the redhead’s jumping distance. Of course, this also meant he was destroying his own footholds. Just as Bakugou was about to land on a larger chunk of rubble, Kirishima sacrificed his right arm to launch it clear across the arena. To his despair, the explosion-user’s reflexes remained as quick as ever - that or he had anticipated the move - and he immediately launched himself back into the air.

With both of Kirishima’s arms broken, Bakugou moved in for the finishing blow. At the moment of impact, Kirishima launched one final One For All-enhanced punch with his shattered right arm.

For once, Bakugou wasn’t expecting it, nor was he able to react.

Both boys went flying, launched by the strength of their opponent’s final attack. It was sheer dumb luck that decided the winner, as Bakugou landed on a slanted piece of rubble that had come to a rest at the arena wall.

Shigaraki clapped loudly at the television screen as the awards ceremony commenced. “Spectacular, simply spectacular!”

Elis rolled her eyes as she ground a small rock taken from Stonehenge in a pestle. “Why are you bothering to applaud them? You’re a Villain, they’re Heroes. You’re their enemy.”

She picked up the pestle and looked at the powder carefully, shook her head, and continued grinding.

“Weren't you paying any attention to the matches? The boy who won - vicious, relentless offense, underhanded tricks like smokescreens, kicking his opponent while they’re down and going for their injuries… don’t you think he’s much better suited to be a Villain?”

The bat-winged woman shrugged. “No, not particularly. Why do you even need more Villains? Aren’t your oh-so-special ‘Nomu’ things good enough for you?”

“I wouldn't expect you to understand, considering you can just conjure up any allies you need.”

“Not a Summoner.”

“Kurogiri - we’ve waited too long since our last Raid. Set up a GLFM, and also one direct party invite. We need a DPS rogue…”

The League’s misty bartender suppressed a groan at Shigaraki’s gaming terminology, but nevertheless set about making the necessary arrangements.

Mamizou and Sumireko said their goodbyes and left for what they claimed was the airport but Izuku suspected was whatever method Mamizou had used to leave Gensokyo. Coupled with his mom retiring early for the night (citing the excitement of the festival), this left Izuku alone with his computer, all ready to do one of his favorite yearly activities: taking notes on the UA Sports Festival. He hadn't been able to watch the other years' events, after all.

He pulled up UA's webpage for the event and turned to a fresh page of his special festival notebook - the same one he had taken notes on during the tournament.

His blood ran cold.

Someone had already written on the next page.

Two short lines of text.

I know what you are, Youkai.
Dagoba Beach. Midnight.

Chapter Text

Dagoba Beach was neither the cleanest nor the most picturesque place by any stretch of the imagination. At some point, some anonymous individual had left some large piece of garbage there - an old dresser, a refrigerator, a washing machine, who knows, really - and before long others had begun dumping their own trash there too. The beach became an illegal junkyard within the year, and had remained a dumping ground ever since, the authorities generally having better things to do with their time than stake the beach out looking for litterers.

It made for an eerie sight in the light of the half moon - silver illuminating the pathways people used to navigate the mess while the towering piles cast long, menacing shadows. The perfect place to hide for an ambush. 

Izuku advanced cautiously, carefully watching the darkness for any signs of movement, a task made significantly easier by the enhanced senses of his youkai heritage. The only sound to be heard was the distant lapping of waves, running up on the beach and crashing against junk that was too close to the water’s edge.

The creaking groan of metal heralded a refrigerator toppling towards Izuku from the summit of a nearby heap. He leapt forward to avoid it and ran smack into a shimmering, pale blue wall of energy that materialized from nowhere.

Looking down, a ring of runes glowed with an eerie light, producing the barrier. He reached down to touch them, only to retract his hand in pain as it shocked him in response.

“They’re warding glyphs,” called a calm, female voice. “More than strong enough to contain something like you. I’ve spent the past three years practicing them daily.”

Yanagi Reiko limped out of the shadows, dressed in her full hero gear - a knee-high white kimono with a furred collar and a black mask covering her nose and mouth. Her injury was clear to see in the moonlight, a mess of scar tissue covering her entire lower leg. Sand, gripped in her telekinetic quirk, circled her right arm, carefully arranged into more runes.

“Y- Yanagi? You’re the one who left that message in my notebook? What do you mean ‘something’ like me?”

“We both know what I mean, Midoriya. Those runes wouldn’t work on a human.” She sighed. “Truthfully, I was hoping that I’d be wrong about this. That you were just possessed or something, and Shiozaki knocked it out of you, and I’d just be standing here trying to make an excuse for why I called you to a beachside junkyard in the middle of the night.”

“But I’m not wrong, and you’re a Youkai. I don’t know how you escaped Gensokyo, or how that amulet can sustain you out here, but you’re putting this world at risk just by being here.”

There was something almost pleading deep in her eyes. “I can send you back , but it has to be willingly.”

“I… I want to stay here. I want to be a Hero.”

“You and I both know that’s impossible,” She said, staring into Izuku’s eyes.

Izuku didn’t falter.

Her expression hardened. “I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this. For whatever it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

A glow from the runes circling her arm was the only warning he got before a barrage of projectiles issued forth, blanketing the area. If he hadn't been ready to move, he'd have been hit directly. Instead, he avoided the attack, jumping into the air within the cylindrical confines of the barrier while the attack eradicated the warding glyphs and freed him. With a wave of her hand, she rearranged the runes in mid-air, fanning them out in front of her as they twisted into new shapes. He scampered into a side passageway between two piles of discarded microwaves.

She had clearly prepared her battlefield well - more of her runes, carved into pavement and wood alike, lined the beach's entire boundary, ringing the whole thing in one giant barrier. Escape, it seemed, was not an option.

Faintly, Izuku considered folklore regarding binding circles - they needed a full circle to work. Reiko, he assumed, must have nearly completed the circle before finishing it once he stepped onto the beach.

A beam of pale blue light lanced through a massive pile of trash, narrowly missing Izuku and filling the air with the aroma of burning plastic as the destabilized mound collapsed on itself. Reiko stared across the debris at him.

“Please, just yield!” she begged. “I can still send you back, it doesn’t have to end like this!”

He answered by running back towards her.

Sand flew up from all around him, forming rings of glyphs in the air even as their absence left runes carved into the beach. Magical bolts began to rain from the sky, launched by the array Reiko had created.

As he ran for cover, Izuku stepped on one of the runes left in the sand, which crackled with energy for a brief moment as its delicate pattern was broken, then exploded with uncontrolled energy before he could fully get out of range. He winced with pain as the blast licked at his leg, but kept running, snatching what appeared to be the handle of a coffee mug from a junk pile as he continued to dodge the rain of fire.

Turning it into a hand fan, Izuku swept it towards Reiko with as much strength as he could muster, producing a fairly impressive breeze and destroying several of her landmine runes with the sheer air pressure. They detonated in a chain reaction, triggering other runes that were too close and working their way into the junkyard’s close quarters.

He sensed a jolt of surprise, and the runic circles in the air faltered and crumbled, falling from the sky as lifeless sand. In fear for his classmate’s life, he ran into the devastated dumping ground, trying to avoid putting too much weight on his wounded leg.

He made it ten feet before Reiko’s quirk excavated a new set of runes around him, a set of four forming the corners of a square that shot out ghostly ropes to tether his leg to the ground. He clung tight to the fan as he felt her pull at it as well, stopping him from simply blowing away the runes again. Debris lifted from the nearby piles and flew straight for him from all sides. With his leg snared, had no way to evade.

Object after object slammed into him, blocking out any trace of moonlight and burying him under cast-off garbage.

Reiko took a moment to catch her breath and regain her focus after burying Izuku. Rune Magic was ideal for her - quick to learn and easy to use at the cost of needing to prepare every rune, which Poltergeist allowed her to shortcut. However, the headache brought on by extended and vigorous use of her Quirk threatened the precision of her craft. And to exterminate a Youkai, she needed every rune of her finisher to be perfect.

After a deep breath, she began to sculpt the spell runes. Sand - as much as her quirk allowed - flowed into the air in streams at her command, partitioning into forty-four clusters. She focused on one symbol at a time, meticulously guiding its creation before moving to the next. It took a single, agonizingly long, second to craft each one. Any other spell would take a fraction of that time, but this was her strongest, her most dangerous.

At long last, it was finished, a tremendous circle of runes in the sky. She took a moment to visually confirm the pile was still intact - the last thing she needed was for him to escape after all her effort. Satisfied, she intoned her spell’s name.

“Afterlife Sign:”

The runes crackled to life, illuminated in blazing glory. She took a moment to steel herself for what she was about to do.

“Eternal Oblivion”

Pure, brilliant energy surged forth from the magic circle, bringing day to the beach as it annihilated all within its zone of effect. After four seconds, the beach was plunged into darkness yet again, and she blinked away the shadows, cursing the limitations of the human body.

I should look into becoming a Shikaisen, like Master.

Once her sight returned, she walked to the edge of the beach’s new crater, just to be sure. Nothing but sand remained. With a heavy heart, she turned away to return home.

Izuku landed a solid hit to her back, making her stumble despite the defensive runes she had sewn into her costume’s lining.

How? How did he survive?

She whirled around - wincing as her leg made its displeasure at her haste known - and threw her quirk into use, crafting three circular barriers around herself. Barriers one and three failed, her haste and exhaustion compromising their construction. Barrier two held firm against his next attack before immediately shattering from a second hit, which carried through into her stomach and launched her a few feet down the beach. She struggled to keep her dinner down.

She reminded herself not to fear - Youkai fed on fear, gained power from human weakness. She could still win this. She had to win this, even if she didn’t want to. It was for the sake of the world.

As Izuku approached, she poured magic into the runes sewn into her sleeves and drew upon the full might of her quirk once more.

Unbidden, memories of a sunny morning during his training came to Izuku's mind.

“Miss Kasodani?” he asked.

The teal-haired youkai didn’t acknowledge him, continuing to sweep leaves from the courtyard while idly humming sutras.

“Miss Kasodani?” He repeated, a little louder. Her strange, doglike ears twitched.

Nue padded up alongside him, her serpent tail hissing at him as she approached. “You’ll never get through to her like that,” the chimera remarked in an amused tone. “Yamabiko embody echoes, you need to be louder. Watch.”

The creature cupped two paws around its mouth, his mind providing his interpretation of the beast with an extra two forelimbs to explain why the quadruped wasn’t toppling over.

“GOOD MORNING, KYOUKO!!!”

Kyouko's response was immediate - clutching the broom tightly, she screamed back in an equally loud tone, “GOOD MORNING!!!” Before blinking and apparently noticing Izuku and Nue. “Oh, hey guys, what’s up?”

Nue smirked and slunk off. Izuku stepped forward. “Um, I was trying to figure out how to make my Ability work faster - for my training, you see. I was wondering how you can reflect sound as quickly as you do? Your technique might be something I can use, too.”

She scratched her head, leaning on her broomstick. “I just slap up a barrier ahead of time. My Ability creates intangible fields that bounce sounds off them, I can set them up in advance.”

“Oh.”

He was visibly disappointed with the unusable answer.

Kyouko shrugged. “Hey, if you think it might help, Mysty and I are putting on a concert tonight, on the road between the village and the Hakurei shrine. You could come and watch the mosh pit, we get all sorts of youkai showing up and throwing their Abilities around, you might see something useful! Last night Miss Suika showed up and punched a fairy so hard I’m pretty sure she made it to Muenzuka!”

Though he hadn’t realized it at the time, Kyouko had actually given him excellent - though difficult to use - advice. 

Just moments ago, he had been trapped by Reiko’s sorcery and buried under junk, desperately trying to be free. Then, he was out, fading echoes of power reverberating through his very being.

Now, without even truly understanding what he had done, he was trying to wrangle that feeling once more, to reproduce it, suffusing his skin with his Ability as a defensive layer. It took immense concentration to maintain.

Waves of junk slammed into him and poured off as water while he advanced towards Reiko. He chose to weave around her other projectiles, though - he doubted ‘magic’ was on the list of things he could negate with his transformation powers. As he drew nearer, her desperation showed through, the magical barrage increasing in intensity at the cost of its accuracy.

Once he was at the closest range he was still comfortable dodging her attacks, he waited for an opening, then dashed in and engaged her in hand-to-hand combat.

Just as before, she threw up a barrier that protected her for a paltry two hits before failing, but this time she was expecting the failure and swayed aside as her defense collapsed.

For a brief moment, the two of them were a flurry of motion - the half-youkai making quick, short, efficient motions while the human narrowly dodged each one, looking more like a flag in a windstorm than a flesh-and-bone being as she whipped back and forth with incredible speed.

She couldn’t dodge forever, though, and before long she slipped up - he kneed her in the stomach before hitting her in the jaw with a palm strike. Dazed, she staggered back, her mask falling from her face. Before he could close the gap again, she whipped her arms up, using her Quirk to assemble three rings of runes - one in front of her, and one to each side.

“Goodbye, Midoriya,” she whispered, just loudly enough for him to hear.

As she moved to unleash her spell, the sand suddenly collapsed, falling limply at her feet as her eyes widened in surprise at her Quirk failing her. She whirled around.

“Aizawa, you’re making a mista-” was all she got out before a familiar capture weapon restrained her.

“Yanagi. Midoriya.” Droned Aizawa’s perpetually tired voice. “Care to explain why you appear to be having a deathmatch in an illegal dumping ground?”

If you were to ask him, Aizawa Shouta would be extremely emphatic that he was in no way paid enough to deal with this. Late night patrols? Sure, he did that by choice and the heroics salary was good pay in return. Teaching courses every weekday? Also fair - he took the position willingly and Nezu paid well. He also genuinely cared about the upcoming heroes he mentored, though he’d never admit that out loud. 

But two of his students fighting to the death in an illegal junkyard, throwing around Quirks they had never demonstrated in any heroics lessons? That was absolutely not what he signed up for. He found himself longing for the prior week - a purse snatcher here, a botched burglary there, a case of someone trying to buy Trigger from a dealer who was in actuality attempting to offload counterfeit chocolate syrup - normal crimes.

The worst part was the students involved. Yanagi was always fairly quiet in courses, but studious and diligent. She hadn’t posed a single problem during any of his courses. And Midoriya, well, loathe though he was to admit it, he actually liked Midoriya. The kid was bright, quick to pick up on things, and hadn’t yet overexerted himself and needed medical attention, which immediately put him above at least half of the class.

Seriously, he’d have put money on Bakugou if he had been told to guess which of his students would be trying to kill someone on the beach at midnight.

However, life seemed to want to watch him suffer, and so he now sat in Principal Nezu’s office at 1AM, about to take part in an interrogation with the aid of a panel of whoever they could grab on short notice: All Might (who looked like he had just tumbled out of bed and slapped on the first formal outfit he could find), Detective Tsukauchi (who smelled strongly of coffee and looked like he hadn’t gone to sleep yet), and Nezu himself (who looked immaculate and perfectly awake).

The principal gave the detective a nod. “Thank you for your assistance with this on such short notice, Detective.”

“Not a problem,” Tsukauchi responded, casually ignoring his quirk as it informed him that he had, in fact, just lied. “I’m happy to be of help.”

“To bring everyone up to speed,” Aizawa started, “During my nightly patrol, I noticed a massive disturbance at Dagoba Beach and went to investigate the possible Villain activity. I instead found Midoriya and Yanagi engaged in what appeared to be a fight to the death, using their quirks to levels they haven’t displayed in class before, and further, displaying capabilities far beyond their registered quirks.”

All Might and Tsukauchi were immediately at full attention. “Like what, exactly?” the detective asked.

“Yanagi was creating defensive barriers and wide-area energy blasts, while Midoriya displayed the ability to teleport.”

“He can teleport ?” “I can teleport ?” Both Izuku and Reiko asked, simultaneously.

Aizawa gave Izuku a strange look. “You appeared directly behind Yanagi and struck her while she was still unaware you had done so.”

Nezu added, “Additionally, both Midoriya and Yanagi were flagged for observation during the first month of courses, on account of unexplained disappearances in their histories. Midoriya was missing for slightly over a day before returning with his late-blooming Quirk, while Yanagi was the individual involved in the Aichi Prefecture Disappearance Case from five years ago. She returned two years later, refused to testify where she had been outside of her insistence that it was not a kidnapping, and had a substantially stronger Quirk than when she initially disappeared.”

“Depending on the exact timeframes involved, Yanagi could have contacted All For One before my battle with him, but Midoriya...” All Might shook his head sadly. “To think that my nemesis is still alive, and actively recruiting spies, to boot…”

“That still leaves the question of why they were fighting each other, and in a public area, no less,” Tsukauchi pointed out.

“Um, All Might?” Izuku asked, “Who’s All For One? Was he the Villain who gave you your injury?”

“All Might’s injured?” Asked Reiko, keeping her voice carefully level and quickly smothering the small amount of surprise Izuku sensed from her.

“Don’t play coy with me, Midoriya. Based on what Aizawa is saying, you have to have received your quirks from All For One.”

“I only have one quirk!”

“That’s a lie,” interrupted Tsukauchi. “My quirk is Lie Detector, it lets me know when people are lying. You don’t have just one quirk, and you’re obviously not quirkless, so you have multiple.”

“I only have one quirk,” Reiko said, prompting a bewildered look from the detective as she apparently told a barefaced lie in defiance of his quirk.

“...True,” Tsukauchi begrudgingly admitted, after a moment.

“So this All For One figure can give quirks to people…” Izuku was mumbling to himself. “Quirks don’t just materialize from nowhere, so he has to be able to take them, too. All Might referred to him as his nemesis, meaning he’s a massive threat, probably able to stand up to All Might with proper use of synergistic quirks…”

All Might started looking paler and paler as Izuku continued to mumble, eventually pleading with him, “Young Midoriya, please, this information cannot be revealed to the public, just like my injury.”

Tsukauchi fixed a stare on Reiko. “Needless to say, that goes for you too, Miss Yanagi.”

“You need not be concerned.”

Clasping his paws together, Nezu said, “Midoriya’s comments reveal an important detail, however. He was unaware that Quirks could be transferred, or, indeed, that one can have multiple quirks. And since his statement that he has one quirk is false, the truth, however outlandish it may seem, is that he is, in fact, Quirkless.”

There was an awkward silence, during which Reiko made eye contact with Izuku and mouthed something to him. Unfortunately, Izuku didn’t know how to read lips.

“That’s completely irrational,” Aizawa objected. “It’s also possible that Midoriya has a single quirk with multiple uses that he views as multiple, like how some people view inherited mutations as a secondary quirk.”

“Inherited mutations are not viewed as quirks as far as the quirk registry is concerned, except in cases where the owner has no other quirk, however. And while it is certainly possible that the average layperson could view one as a second quirk, Midoriya is by all accounts fascinated with the science, and would use the accepted view that they aren’t quirks of their own.” Nezu pointed out. “Regardless, this particular debate is a moot point - we have a Lie Detector in the room.”

He turned expectantly to Izuku.

No getting around it at this point - they expected an answer, and he had no way to get around Tsukauchi’s Quirk that wouldn’t be obvious. He took a deep breath before answering truthfully, “I’m quirkless.”

The gleam of curiosity in his eye, Nezu went on the attack. “So how are you mimicking a Quirk? A symbiotic Quirk user, perhaps? A drug, like Trigger, designed to emulate a Quirk for brief periods? Advanced Nanom-”

Reiko interrupted the rodent-like animal before he could press any further. “Why does it matter? We’ve established that we have no connection to villain activity. Further, Midoriya is quirkless, and thus cannot violate any laws against quirk usage. This doesn’t concern you anymore.”

“Any matter that endangers my students concerns me,” Aizawa replied.

“She’s trying to run interference,” Tsukauchi realized. “Whatever the answer is, they both know it.”

“That only works when neither party being investigated has a reason to tell the truth. Or,” Nezu added, a cruel gleam in his eye, “A weakness to exploit. Midoriya, if you refuse to cooperate with this investigation, I will be left with no choice but to expel you from UA.”

Izuku yielded nearly immediately. “I’m quirkless because I’m not human!”

As the adults waited for Tsukauchi’s quirk to go off, he elaborated, “I’m half-youkai. Part Tanuki, to be precise. I don’t have a Quirk, I have what’s called an Ability.”

“Half Tanuki… You’re Futatsuiwa ’s kid?” Reiko realized with shock.

Tsukauchi slammed his head onto the table as his quirk failed to indicate a lie in Izuku’s statement. “I’ve been trying to arrest a mythical creature,” he moaned. “Nearly eight months of planning a sting and trying to track Midoriya Hisashi, and he’s a tanuki .”

“Actually,” Nezu pointed out, “Futatsuiwa Daimyoujin is the name of a deity enshrined in Aikawa. So by another interpretation, you were trying to arrest a god.”

“I’m calling in sick tomorrow,” the detective declared. “Or today at this point. I need a drink, badly , and I need to figure out how to bury this investigation without having to admit I was chasing a literal fairytale.”

As the detective began to sob, Nezu turned back to Izuku. “So what meaningfully distinguishes these ‘Abilities’ from Quirks? If they were functionally identical, you’d be calling your power a Quirk.”

“I don’t think Erasure works on them?”

“They tend to be more mystical in nature and don’t have an equivalent to Quirk Fatigue,” Reiko added. “I’ve got the Ability to Use Magic.”

“So then,” Nezu concluded, “I imagine that Miss Yanagi has some sort of grudge against Youkai, and attacked Midoriya for that reason.”

“I have no particular ill will towards Youkai, Principal Nezu,” Reiko stated. “You don’t understand what’s at stake here.”

“And you, Miss Yanagi, are dodging the question again. Why did you attack Midoriya?”

Her answer was simple: “To protect our world.”

“Explain,” Nezu pressed.

Reiko sighed - there was no getting out of it at this point, as much as she wanted to keep the truth of the matter secret. “As Principal Nezu has already stated, I was the individual at the center of the Aichi Prefecture Disappearance Case five years ago.”

“A young girl - who went nameless in the papers on account of privacy laws - was separated from her parents before disappearing off of a busy street in broad daylight without any witnesses to the event,” UA’s Principal helpfully supplied.

Izuku's memory had been jogged as well.

A young girl with short gray hair, separated from her parents, watching the crowd rush by with terror in her eyes.

Sumireko stopped him before he could get closer. “This area of the Dream World's in use now. Looks like a nightmare of some kind, doesn't matter.”

“I saw you,” he breathed, “in your dream - you were alone, afraid, and wanted to be somewhere safe. You saw a forest in an alleyway.”

“You’ve been watching my nightmares?” Reiko asked, sounding slightly hurt. She recovered after a moment. “Trying to get away from the crowds, I did something very stupid, and when I turned around the city was gone and I was alone in a massive, ancient forest, trapped in a world inhabited by the creatures of our myths: Gensokyo.”

“The Land of Illusions,” Nezu mumbled.

“I survived my first day by sheer dumb luck. My leg got savaged by a wolf and I barely managed to use my Quirk to escape into the treetops in time. It’s fortunate I did, because that forest is filled with mushrooms. Most of them give off spores around noon, creating a toxic haze that’ll kill anything dumb enough to still be there when it happens. The youkai themselves are immune to it, and the animals all know to get to shelter when it’s coming, but I would’ve died. For my first month there I hid in trees, trying not to make any noise at all during the night. Once the dawn came, I would descend for a bit to forage around the forest floor. I ate a lot of mushrooms during that time. A lot of mushrooms. Learned to love them, after a while.”

“If you have any particular favorites, you could ask Lunch Rush to stock them,” Nezu suggested, in a rather transparent ploy to learn as much about the Gensokyoan ecosystem as possible. “Or perhaps that girl in 1-B.”

“The purple ones with the glowing yellow spots are good - their spores aren’t too poisonous so if you eat them in moderation you only get a tingling on your tongue, followed by numbness.”

“That… doesn’t sound like any mushroom we have out here.”

Reiko sighed. “How disappointing. After a month, my fortunes started to improve. Found a big lumbering idiot in a full suit of armor passed out on the forest floor after the daily miasma. Managed to haul him into my tree and nursed him back to health for three days, during which time I thankfully managed to go unnoticed by the local predators.”

Izuku recognized the description immediately. “Idealist.” The Paladin Hero’s unexplained disappearance had long been one of the most hotly debated subjects in the field of Heroics Conspiracy Theories.

“Turns out the fool was investigating my disappearance and got himself spirited away too. Biggest idiot I’ve ever known, and my favorite Hero to this day.” Though she had a faint smile at that last bit, her voice maintained its usual carefully-controlled emotionless tone. “We started wandering, once he was better. Now that he had found me, he felt it was his duty to return me safely home. Another stroke of luck - I manifested my Ability three months in, which was crucial to my escape, and was finally able to discover a way out after two years.”

She had rather conspicuously avoided mentioning what became of her companion, Izuku noted. Idealist had never reappeared.

“And you believe that Midoriya somehow puts us at danger from this other world?” Aizawa asked, obviously skeptical of her whole story despite Tsukauchi’s verifying presence.

“Youkai need belief to exist, it’s why they created their world in the first place. For Midoriya to continue to exist out here, he’ll need that same belief, and that opens the door for other youkai, less benevolent youkai, to come through.”

She gave Izuku an apologetic look. “I offered to return Midoriya to his world, I didn’t want to have to kill him. But as long as he’s here, he puts us in danger. It’s already started - the thing that attacked USJ was a youkai, and even though I helped All Might kill it, it won’t be the last.”

“We could fight them off,” Nezu proposed. “Japan has some of the strongest Heroes in the world, and with your information, we’ll have the advantage of knowing what’s coming.”

“Absolutely out of the question,” Reiko said with finality. “If the most dangerous ones enter our world, nobody will be able to stop them.”

“I find it hard to believe that they’re completely undefeatable. Every great youkai of myth was eventually brought low.”

“The Heroes of old never fought the Youkai of Boundaries.”

That was a title Izuku had heard before. “Yu-”

“ DON’T SAY HER NAME! ” Reiko shrieked, emanating more fear than Izuku had ever sensed from a single being. He reeled from the overwhelming sensation.

The rest of the room silenced, she continued, voice still trembling slightly. “She’s the mastermind behind Gensokyo’s existence, and the one who controls the barrier separating it from our world. Any spiritings away - me, Idealist, and who knows how many others - they’re all her work. She cannot be allowed to enter our world.”

“Certainly our strongest Heroes could-”

“Her Ability is Manipulation of Boundaries,” Reiko said, “Any physical or conceptual boundary is her plaything.”

“She could twist reality to her whim,” Nezu whispered in realization. To his credit, he maintained an admirable poker face, though Izuku could sense fear through his facade.

“You understand what’s at stake now? We can’t risk letting Midoriya stay in our world. If he does...”

“Since he needs belief to exist, then becoming a Pro Hero - a public figure - will end up allowing the Youkai of Boundaries into our world,” Aizawa realized. “But if we prevent that by making him become an Underground Hero, we’ll just be condemning him to death.”

“Actually, from what I’ve been told, that’s not true,” Izuku replied. “If people believe in me specifically rather than just youkai in general, that belief is only usable by me.”

“So if we keep what we’ve been told today between us, the risk is minimal,” Nezu concluded. “As long as that happens, the public will just assume that Midoriya is like any other Hero - just a human with training and a quirk.”

Reiko was silent for a long while, her face kept carefully neutral as she tried to handle her concerns proving to be unfounded. Izuku suspected she was trying to avoid breaking down entirely.

The Principal took the silence as a cue to render his judgment. “In light of the circumstances, I feel neither party should face expulsion from UA. Mr. Midoriya was fighting in self-defense and had no ill intent, while Miss Yanagi was fighting out of an admittedly misguided belief that she was defending our world. On a more pragmatic note, we should keep hold of them if only for the fact that they’re the only people we have who can viably fight Youkai. That being said, Midoriya fought back rather than retreat, while Yanagi was the one who instigated the fight. You can decide their punishment at your discretion, Aizawa.”

Looking more than a bit guilty, Reiko broke her silence. “Actually, Midoriya couldn’t retreat - I set up a binding circle around the beach to trap him there. He had no choice but to fight.”

“...Very well. Midoriya, you’re free to go. Yanagi, you will be barred from attending any internships you may get offers for, will consult with Nezu on ways we can prepare for any other youkai threats that may arise, and will otherwise be subject to any requests to help around the school, within reason.”

Aizawa got up and prepared to leave the room.

“That’s more than fair, considering what I did. And Aizawa?”

The teacher paused at the door. “Yes?”

“Thank you.”

Chapter Text

“Today we’ve got a special Hero Course,” Aizawa said in a bored tone while idly running a hand over the Lichtenberg figures covering his face. Izuku noticed he seemed slightly more uneasy with them than he had previously been. “You’ll be coming up with your Hero names.”

A cheer went up from the class.

“But before we get to that,” he continued loudly, instantly silencing everyone, “I should clarify something regarding the internships I mentioned before the Sports Festival. They’re essentially a way for Pros to express interest in your futures - they’ll make offers to those who they think will be ready to join the workforce upon graduation. However, there’s also plenty of time for their interest to wane. Their offers can be revoked for any reason, and it’s fairly common for this to happen.”

“So if we’re picked, that just means we’ll have to keep our performance up,” Hagakure observed.

“Correct.”

Aizawa tapped a button on a remote, causing the projector to display a list of names and numbers. Bakugou, Kirishima, and Todoroki topped the list.

“Now, typically there’s a bit more of a spread, but our top three this year all had powerful and flashy quirks that tend to draw the Pros’ attention.”

The class started chattering at the list of internship offers, some happy, some upset. Uraraka was excitedly shaking Iida over the 20 offers she had received, while Izuku was just satisfied to have gotten 30 despite his lackluster showing in the Sports Festival - a quick stomp and then a losing matchup where his defense was overwhelmed hadn’t left him with the greatest hopes.

“Regardless of whether you were picked for an Internship or not, you will all have the opportunity to work alongside Pros. The experience you have in dealing with villains aside, there are more aspects to Heroics work than simply fighting, and working with a professional Agency will be important to your growth going forwards. UA has a list of Heros that we work closely with and are willing to extend offers to any Heroics student regardless of performance. However, before we get to that, we have the matter of your Hero Names to address. While it’s true they’re only temporary, you’ll still want to pick something you’re happy with-”

“Or else you’ll regret it,” Midnight agreed, suddenly striding into the classroom. “The name you pick today may very well end up being what the world calls you. It’s happened to plenty of Pros in the past.”

Izuku immediately thought of an obscure Hokkaido hero known simply as ‘Help’.

“I’m no good with deciding names, so Midnight has volunteered to assess your tentative names,” Aizawa said, grabbing his sleeping bag from under the desk as he did so. “Try to pick a name that suits the image you have for yourself - your name will be the first impression most people get of you.”

After fifteen minutes of brainstorming, Midnight quite literally cracked the whip, using the distinctive (and loud) noise to alert the class that it was time to announce their names.

Yuuga was the first to present, eagerly jumping at the opportunity to be the center of attention. “The Shining Hero: ‘I cannot stop twinkling’,” He proudly proclaimed.

“It’s a bit of a mouthful at the moment,” Midnight considered, “but it should work if you remove the ‘I’ and contract ‘cannot’ to ‘can’t’.”

“Ah, excellent advice, mademoiselle!”

And with that, the floodgates were opened - nobody had to worry about the pressure of being first anymore, and Midnight had shown she was treating all names seriously.

“Alien Queen!” “The horror movie association means you’ll need to work a bit harder on public image, but if you’re fine with that, by all means go for it.”

“Froppy!” “A lovable, cute name!”

“Earphone Jack!”

“Tentacole!”

“Cellophane.”

“Tailman.”

“Sugarman,” muttered Sato, clearly slightly embarrassed and annoyed someone had used the same naming scheme as him.

“Chargebolt!”

“Invisible Girl!”

“Creati.” “What a creative name!”

“Shouto.” “Just your name? Well, if you’re fine with it…”

“Tsukuyomi.” “The god of the night, huh?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Izuku saw Reiko raise an eyebrow at that one.

Koda, too shy to speak in front of the whole class, simply raised his board reading Anima .

“King of Explosive Murder.” “That’s way too villainous. Try again.”

“Onikiri.” “Nice pun! Certainly fitting of the strength your quirk gives you!”

“Uravity.”

“Exorcist.” “Isn’t there already a hero by that name?” “There isn’t, I checked. There’s an ‘Exorsister’ but no ‘Exorcist.” “Huh, kinda weird they went for the portmanteau first. Well, go right ahead, then!”

As Reiko returned to her seat, that only left three of the class left. Bakugou, trying to think of a new name, and the ones that were most visibly struggling with their decisions: Iida and Izuku.

Iida was the first one to make his choice. After a long moment of silence, clearly grappling with something - Izuku suspected his brother’s injury had something to do with that - he finally stood, walked to the front of the class, and displayed his sign, reading simply ‘Tenya’.

“Simply your name, just like Todoroki, huh?”

Somewhat hesitantly, Iida nodded.

Izuku decided on his name soon after that. In retrospect, he wasn’t sure why it had taken so long.

He held up the sign to show the Hero name he had decided on - Deku .

“Huh? Are you really okay with that, Midoriya?” Ojiro wondered aloud, seeing Bakugou’s old insult for what it was.

“Yeah. I used to hate it, but someone helped me to see it in a new light. It was surprising, but it actually made me feel sort of happy.”

He could see Uraraka’s face light up at that. He continued, “On top of that, my quirk lets me transform things. What better way to symbolize that than transforming what used to be meant as an insult to me?”

Midnight gave him a warm smile. “That's a wonderful reason for that name.”

“Lord of Explosive Murders.” “The word ‘King’ really wasn’t the issue with your previous name, Bakugou.”

While everyone was looking over their internship offers, Tokoyami took the opportunity to approach Izuku.

“Midoriya,” he began, seeming slightly nervous. “I apologize if this request seems odd, but if you have any internship offers in Hiroshima Prefecture, and especially in the area of Hatsukaichi city, would you be willing to take it?”

That was an odd request. “I don't know of many major heroes near there - Miruko is the only one that comes to mind, but she makes a point of working alone most of the time. Why?”

“My mother’s side of the family has passed down a diary for generations, supposedly from one of my ancestors. According to the entries, she was an accomplished warrior who roamed Japan, dueling people to test her skill until an injury left her unable to fight.”

Izuku nodded hesitantly, not quite sure where this was going.

“In one of the more fanciful stories, she supposedly fought a monster on the island of Itsukushima, sealing it away in an isolated cave. Most of my family treats her stories as just bedtime stories or interesting peeks at what life was like back then, but I have to know if this one is true. I’m taking an offer from Komuso, the monk hero, in the area. After USJ, I feel like you're the best one to help me if there is something after all.”

“Youkai hunters were con artists,” Reiko said dismissively. Apparently with Aizawa banning her from internships she had decided to just wander the room eavesdropping and was now jumping in to interrupt the conversation.  “Preying on people’s fear for easy money. She either didn’t do anything, or she killed some poor peasant and left him to rot there.”

The bird-headed boy looked outraged at the accusation. “But her descriptions of the confrontation!”

“She was a good writer, so what? The facts don’t match up even if we do say youkai existed. Religious power - prayer and the like - are anathema to them, they get used to defeat them in all the stories. Why would a youkai be hanging out on Itsukushima of all places? The whole island’s a shrine - they don’t let you go there if you're sick and make you leave if you’re elderly, terminally ill, or pregnant. It’s surrounded by the sea, which is traditionally the best medium for purifying yourself. The place is probably as pure as you can get.”

“She- she says it had golden eyes and wore the skin of a man! It could have been blend-”

She snatched the list of offers out of his hand, giving it a quick glance over. "You've got an offer from Hawks , one of the most promising and popular up-and-coming Heroes, and you're passing that up for someone I've never heard of just because of a fairy tale? Grow up."

Having said her piece, she turned and floated away.

“I… I think she’s just mad about not getting any offers,” Izuku said weakly.

“It’s fine,” Tokoyami reassured him. “I’m used to people not believing in the darker aspects of this world. Though I’m somewhat surprised - Yanagi seems remarkably knowledgeable about folklore for someone who dismisses them as ‘fairy tales’. Perhaps she was once a kindred spirit?”

Hard to beat someone who actually interacts with youkai for knowledge of them, Izuku considered. “Anyways, I’m sorry - if I had any offers in that area I’d happily help you, but most of mine are in the Musutafu or Hosu.”

The bird-headed boy nodded. “About what I expected, truly.”

As Izuku turned his attention back to his own list of offers, Tokoyami began to give his list a second look.

After class let out, Izuku grabbed Reiko for a moment. “You didn’t have to be so harsh.”

She looked at him strangely. “You should know better than I do that I was just telling the truth. He won’t find anything on Itsukushima. It’s better for him not to waste his time when he wants to become a Hero.”

“And if he does? USJ and my very existence both prove a youkai can be in the Outside World.”

“Then it’ll be too dangerous for him, and he shouldn’t be chasing after it anyways.”

The League of Villains’ bar hideout was nothing like one would picture a villain hideout - Kurogiri made sure of that. It was kept nice and clean like a proper bar should be, and well lit on top of that. The only issue was that much to his chagrin, the misty villain had not managed to convince the other members of the league to get rid of the sofa and television that had been set up in the middle of the room, and it presented an absolutely unsightly blight on what would otherwise be a very nice drinking establishment. Making matters worse, Elis was currently sitting cross-legged on that sofa, meditating and chanting in a tongue Kurogiri had never heard before.

He really hoped this wouldn't cause an issue in negotiations.

Stain regarded the bar warily, shooting a sideways glance at the magician. “What’s with her?” He rasped.

The hero Killer was an imposing figure even if he did look like he had stepped out of a gritty 90s comic book. He had bandages wrapped around his arms - likely more for aesthetic than healing, considering his preference for ambushes - and wore a simple black sleeveless shirt and pants under a huge amount of assorted pouches and sheathes. A red bandana adorned his head, drawing one's attention towards his utter lack of a nose.

“Communing with her ‘Master’, apparently,” Shigaraki replied, scratching at his collar. The lanky villain’s tone made it clear what he thought of her claim. “She’s part of that weird death cult that's popped up lately, does it at least once a day.”

Keeping his gaze locked on her for a moment more, Stain finally looked back to the League's young leader. “You contacted me. Why?”

Shigaraki sat up a little straighter at this, clearly hoping to make a good impression. Kurogiri was slightly impressed - he hadn't thought the young villain had it in him. Maybe dealing with the Hero Killer would go smoothly after all.

“Our organization has been on the rise lately, and boasts a decent amount of support as well,” he started, gesturing to the tidy bar. “We’ve recently made our opening move against hero society an-”

“Stop,” Stain hissed, silencing the lanky villain. “I have an idea of where this is going. You’re the ones who attacked UA, and you want me to join your little team.”

“Naturally. When it comes to villainy, you’re-”

“What’s your goal in this?”

“Well, we want to kill All Might, ideally. But mainly I just want to destroy anything I don’t like. For example,” he held up a photo of Izuku, “this kid. He stopped our trump card at USJ.”

The Hero Killer grit his teeth. “You’re the type I hate the most,” he snarled, sliding his blades from their sheathes. “Just aimless bloodlust, throwing a temper tantrum against the world. Without a creed, bloodshed is worthless.”

Kurogiri flinched away slightly, shooting a glance towards the computer monitor set up in the room. “Sensei, should I stop him?”

“No, this works,” the individual on the other end of the call replied in a wheezing voice. “Simply telling someone how to grow is useless. Growth comes through struggle, he must come to the necessary conclusions on his own, with our help if necessary, but without us simply carrying him there.”

Stain struck like a viper, lashing out with impressive speed for someone without an enhancement quirk. Striking Kurogiri in the arm first, he brought the knife up to his mouth and licked the blood from it, and flung it towards Elis in a single fluid motion as he kicked Shigaraki directly in the chest. Unprepared, the young villain toppled to the floor and Stain dove on top of him, shoving his second knife into the young man’s bicep to keep him pinned there and unsheathing a third knife, pressing it against the hapless villain’s neck.

The knife thrown at Elis slammed into a wall of water that materialized out of nowhere, killing its momentum and causing it to tumble to the floor. The magician immediately flung an arm towards the Hero Killer with a single cry in a demonic tongue.

Stain toppled forwards onto Shigaraki, unconscious.

“And why didn’t you do that earlier, Miss Elis?” Kurogiri wondered aloud. He was paralyzed - apparently the effect of the Hero Killer’s quirk.

“I forced him to commune with my Master,” she replied. “It’s not something I can do easily - I need to prepare for almost an hour before I can start to commune. So I can absolutely do that again, if you’re willing to stall for me for a full sixty minutes.”

“We’ll consider it,” Shigaraki sarcastically grumbled. “Now get him off of me, he’s heavy.”

Stain's eyes widened in surprise as the League of Villains’ bar hideout vanished around him, leaving him suddenly kneeling in some ancient stone ruin.

He mentally kicked himself. An amateur mistake - focusing on the most lethal quirk to the point of letting his guard down about the complete unknown in the group. Did the League have two warpers? He should have focused more on taking her out first, removed uncertainty from the equation. Instead, now he was in this place, probably miles from civilization.

He looked around. The chamber he was in was made of some unidentifiable dark stone, carved by some ancient craftsman's hands in a distant era. It had the trappings of a temple - large, open space to make the visitor feel smaller, more humbled, while paths carved into the floor drew the visitor’s eyes to the center of the room and pillars drew their eyes upwards, where a hole in the ceiling allowed golden light to filter in, shining a spotlight on the center of the room and illuminating the rest of the temple.

At some point there had evidently been either some great battle or a botched attempt at demolition - some unknown force had left deep gouges in the floor, and numerous indents and cracks spread from points in the floor, walls, and even the ceiling, marking where a round, heavy object had been slammed into the structure.

Akaguro Chizome.

Tense, Stain looked around for the source of the voice, booming yet gentle, that echoed in his mind. A foe with an unknown quirk was bad enough. An unknown foe in a hidden location was even worse. And there was nowhere in the ruined temple that could provide a hiding spot for him.

Be not afraid. I mean no harm.

His hand went instinctively to his blade’s handle, only to realize that it wasn’t there. When had he lost it?

I shall reveal myself to you.

In the center of the room, a crack formed in reality. As it grew, Stain realized that wasn't quite right - it had been there from the start, just hidden. Six appendages unfolded from a central point, spreading wide, each one easily six feet in length. They had a curious quality to them, appearing without texture or any sense of depth, as though they were holes in reality, pulling it away to reveal a shifting purple vortex underneath. This had been the cause of his initial confusion.

As they reached their full size, he realized from the shape of the appendages that they were wings, attached to a central figure that was at once humanoid yet obviously completely inhuman. It emanated a strange sense of dissonance, as though it was simultaneously a pitifully weak creature on the verge of death, yet so powerful it could kill him with a careless action. His breath refused to come.

Breathe, Akaguro Chizome. Your time has not yet arrived.

It sounded almost amused.

You have been sent here for a reason, Akaguro Chizome.

He finally found his voice. “And that would be?”

To be judged.

The Hero Killer sneered. “Only one man is worthy of judging me.”

The entity ignored his comment.

You bathe yourself in the blood of others, bringing lives to ends without hesitation. Have you no remorse?

It was a question asked out of genuine curiosity, without any hint of accusation.

Stain's answer was never going to be any other. “They were false heroes, a blight on our society seeking only to glorify themselves.”

A good answer.

The winged void reached out to him and touched his forehead with its right hand.

Go with my blessing, Hero Killer.

Stain opened his eyes to an extreme close-up of the League’s bartop. Picking himself up, he saw an empty room.

“Shigaraki and Kurogiri already left. Didn't think you ‘brought enough value to the partnership’, in Kurogiri's words. Shigaraki said your ‘gearscore’ wasn’t high enough, whatever that means.”

His katana was immediately in his hand as he whirled on the speaker.

The bat-winged woman was sitting on the stool next to him, resting her head on one hand and looking completely unconcerned about the sword pressing against her neck.

“Explain. Now, ” he demanded.

“Oh? And what could you be so worked up about, I wonder?”

He pressed slightly harder. A trickle of black blood oozed from her neck, sizzling against the blade in a distinctly inhuman fashion. “What. Did. You. Do? ”

She grinned a wide, evil smile. “I gave you an audience.”

Stain flinched slightly at the look in her eyes - it was something he recognized well, the look of a crazed zealot.

“Your actions glorify death, Hero Killer,” she said, grabbing his katana by the blade and pushing against it. Despite his efforts, she began to force it back, away from her. The cut on her neck sealed up before his eyes even as she sliced her own hand open.

“I sent you to my Master and you came back with a blessing - you are chosen , one of the few in this world who can say so, and-”

“Stop.”

She looked mildly offended at the interruption. Tearing his katana out of her grip, he examined it for any damage from her strange blood before sheathing it.

“I need no higher power backing me. I alone decide whether to swing or stay my blade. I am the only judge.”

He got up and stormed out of the bar, unwilling to continue listening to her delirious claims. There were false heroes to be judged, anyways.

“I’ll be watching!” She called after him as the door swung shut. “Don’t disappoint!”

Stain grumbled to himself - it was gonna take him the better part of a day to make it back to Hosu.

Izuku didn't actually have to go far from UA for his internship - Kamui Woods had elected to set up his agency right in downtown Musutafu. It was comforting, really - he could pop back home for lunch if he really wanted.

“How much can you transform at once?” the hero asked, immediately cutting straight to his point. Izuku had expected as much - the man was known for being very serious and focused while on the clock, which almost certainly played an important role in his rapid rise.

“Depends on how much time I have to work with the material - I can transform anything I’m directly touching nearly instantly, but if I keep maintaining my focus I can spread out to around a ten meter radius.” To say nothing of the much simpler transformation of leaves which, he was increasingly starting to believe, was an aspect of his Tanuki heritage rather than strictly part of his Ability. It could be passed off as part of an overarching quirk anyways, so there wasn’t a problem there.

“The first thing we’ll work on is your speed, then. Try to see if you can aim it, as well. Transforming the ground twenty meters ahead of you is much better than transforming all the ground within ten meters of you.”

“Right, I’ll start working on that immediately, then.”

“The idea will eventually be to-”

“Transform the ground to trap enemies before resolidifying it, or creating snares around the enemy at range.”

Kamui’s eyes widened. “You figured that out immediately?”

Izuku shrugged. “I was already thinking of it as a tactic, I just hadn’t had the range or ability to properly do so before. Now that I’ve figured out how to transform things without needing to use my hands, I don’t have to sacrifice my mobility.”

“That, and your combat style focuses on restraining the target and I feel like you’re the sort who would pick an intern you can directly help develop rather than one who might cover your weak points,” he added after a moment.

“You’re very astute, Midoriya. I know he doesn’t work directly alongside me, but I feel I should apologize for Death Arms’s harsh words that day. Your quirk may have come in late, but you’re already well on the path to being a splendid hero.”

Izuku beamed at the praise.

The Battle Hero Gunhead looked over his two interns approvingly.

“Uravity, Mind Blank, you look great!”

Uraraka personally thought that Shinsou didn't quite look so good - he was clearly a fan of Aizawa, judging by his outfit, but somehow managed to look even more exhausted than 1-A's teacher. She kept that thought to herself, however.

Gunhead continued, “I extended offers to both of you for similar reasons, and I'm happy to see that you both accepted. Simply put: I believe both of you would benefit greatly from hand-to-hand training, and, considering you both accepted, I imagine you two agree.”

Uraraka nodded eagerly, Shinsou less so.

“Don't worry, you’ll still get to go on patrols,” he added, chuckling, “but you’ll be both intern and student during this time. Uraraka, I’m sure you realize that grappling will be orders of magnitude better with your quirk, and Shinsou, I hope you’ve realized you need a way to handle things if your quirk fails you. But before we start - what do you guys want for lunch? My treat.”

Komuso’s hero agency was extremely modest, as one would expect from a hero who modeled himself on a type of Buddhist monk that wore face-concealing to represent discarding their ego. It was only a few rooms, barely taking up a single floor of the building it was in and sparsely furnished, with the few pieces of furniture needed (such as a desk and filing cabinet, for storage of paperwork) being simple and unadorned.

“I would have rented less of the building, but the owner has a strict policy requiring a minimum of one floor rented for heroes,” he said, sounding somewhat embarrassed about the matter. Tokoyami imagined he bore a wry smile as he said this, but the tengai he wore betrayed no details of his face. “Anyways, I should get to business. Do you know why I extended an internship offer to you?”

Tokoyami had no answer - he actually hadn't thought of that.

“Well, if you don't have an answer for that, why did you accept? I hardly think it’s because of my enduring popularity,” the hero joked.

“As shameful as it is to admit, I picked you because hoped to visit Itsukushima,” Tokoyami muttered, hanging his head. “I understand if you don't want me as an intern now that my deceit is exposed.”

Komuso let out a laugh at that. “Why, not a problem at all! In fact, it sounds like you’re well on the way to the lessons I was hoping to teach you anyways!”

“I am?”

“Of course! Do you know what my quirk is?”

“I did regretfully little research before selecting you.”

The monk tsked. “You should never let your worldly desires distract you from the bigger picture. But anyways, my quirk is Channeler. It allows me to commune with the recently deceased and call upon their knowledge to aid me!”

Tokoyami was in awe - a real life medium, standing right in front of him.

Komuso continued, a little more sheepishly, “...is how I explain it for the kids, but really it just hyperanalyzes the body and takes on aspects of whatever personality I subconsciously think the deceased had. I had a lot of preconceived notions when I was younger - not any large ones, but the subtle ones that slip into your day-to-day life, things like ‘that guy has tattoos, he must be a yakuza,’ or ‘that guy in a yellow raincoat must be a fisherman’.”

He sighed. “Those little mistakes caused me no end of grief. The key thing here is that my quirk doesn’t necessarily cooperate with me - it takes on a personality of its own. I worked for years to learn to work with it. So when I saw your match at the Sports Festival, when your own quirk ran out of control…”

“You thought your techniques could help me as well!” Tokoyami realized. This internship he chose on a whim could actually bear some serious fruit!

“Exactly! And don't you worry, we’ll visit Itsukushima at the end of the week. Now, the first thing I recommend is to…”

Reiko knocked hesitantly on the door to Nezu’s office.

“Come in.”

Aizawa and Detective Tsukauchi were already in the room as well. She raised an eyebrow at the group. “I didn't think you’d need this large a group to consult me.”

“Normally we wouldn’t! I was planning to ask you what sort of measures could be applied to help secure UA against future attack. However, something occurred to me as I was thinking back on our discussion the other day. Detective, if you would?”

Tsukauchi handed Reiko a folder. Opening it, there was a file detailing a student by the name of ‘Mineta Minoru’, who appeared to be extremely short, with hair that resembled large grapes. Just looking at the picture made her feel uncomfortable, somehow. As she looked through the file, Tsukauchi continued.

“Mineta was originally one of the accepted UA students, with a solid score on both the practical and academic portions of the entry exam. However, he never accepted his invitation to UA - he disappeared off the street without any witnesses, leaving a spot in the Heroics course that was filled by Shinsou Hitoshi. It was investigated by the police as a kidnapping, but…”

“You think he was spirited away,” Reiko finished, not looking up from the file.

“Exactly!” Nezu exclaimed. “You mentioned trying to send Midoriya back - I assume that whatever means you discovered for getting out , you can also use it to get back in .”

“I will be completely straightforward with this: his chances of survival are slim.”

“You survived,” the principal pointed out, “and for two years at that.”

“I didn’t have a ‘consistent history of sexual harassment,’ nor do I ‘lock up during emergencies’,” she replied, reading directly from the file. “Basically everyone important - and powerful -  in Gensokyo is female, if he tried that on the wrong person they could reduce him to a mist of atoms without a second thought. His panicking habit would doom him in the wilderness, too. How'd this kid even make it through the practical?”

“There was a lot of crying and throwing his hairballs involved,” Aizawa said, clearly low on patience. “Can you find him or not?”

“I can certainly try, but-”

“Good. I'm going with you.”

“No,” she replied, shockingly forcefully.

“Miss Yanagi,” Nezu started, delicately, “considering you would normally have an internship during this time, sending Aizawa with you is an excellent substitute for that experience. Search and rescue is a common enou-”

“His Erasure doesn't work on Abilities, and he doesn’t know any youkai-fighting techniques. He’ll just be dead weight.”

She turned to Aizawa. “You want to go with me, into a world you have no experience with, where your Quirk is completely useless and you have no ability to fight the locals. What part of that is ‘rational’?”

“You’re jumping to the worst-case scenario,” the underground hero protested. “From what you’ve said, you weren’t constantly fighting off youkai during your time there, and I have experience in searching for missing individuals that you don’t have. As long as I carefully follow your lead on handling dangerous areas-”

“ Everywhere can become dangerous on short notice in Gensokyo. You’re not coming with me.”

“Idealist never made it back,” Nezu realized.

Reiko abruptly stood up. “I can start looking tonight. Alone. ”

Chapter Text

There were certain things Reiko always dreaded when visiting Gensokyo.

Foremost on that list was the ever-present possibility of encountering Yakumo Yukari. The Youkai of Boundaries was as dangerous as she was unpredictable, and to say that her previous (and, thankfully, only ) encounter with the youkai had gone poorly would be a tremendous understatement.

The second thing was the possibility of ending up visiting the Sanzu River, or the Netherworld. It was an irrational worry, but one she had nonetheless. Taking a peek at the afterlife - she didn't know whether it would be worse if she saw Idealist there or if she didn't.

But those were manageable, unlikely, and  - most importantly - avoidable. The third thing she dreaded about her visits was something she had no real way to avoid.

As Reiko was reflecting on this last one, she was approached by a blue-eyed woman with blue hair tied into two large loops behind her head and fastened with a hair stick. “Good evening, Reiko! Wonderful of you to join me on this most festive of nights.”

Seiga Kaku. An ancient, immortal Shikaisen Hermit associated with Gensokyo's Taoist faction. A proficient necromancer who doted on her pet Jiangshi like one would spoil their dog. Someone whose methods were so unscrupulous and self-serving that Heaven refused to acknowledge her, earning her the title of the “Wicked Hermit”.

And, Reiko's teacher in the field of magic.

Seiga was currently dressed in a red outfit with white fur trim, looking very much like Santa Claus, if he had also happened to be an ancient immortal Chinese woman wearing a fake beard. Her pet Jiangshi, Miyako Yoshika, trailed behind her, a large bag slung over her shoulders and a pair of felt reindeer antlers attached to her hat. Seiga must have found them at Kourindou.

“ Why. ” Reiko flatly asked.

“Whatever do you mean? It's Christmas, so of course I’m getting into the festive spirit and spreading cheer throughout the land!”

“It’s the middle of May.”

The hermit huffed. “Well, it’s Christmas somewhere .”

“That’s not at all how these holidays work.”

“And besides,” continued Seiga, completely ignoring her, “I’m gonna be doing this all night, so you can either go home now and get nothing out of this, or help me and at least get to watch me in action. Your call.”

Reiko groaned.

Their first stop was a bar in the Human Village, a sign outside proudly proclaiming the establishment's name to be Geidontei. A smaller sign placed in front of the door also indicated that it was past closing time and the owner was sorry for that fact.

Seiga shot a quick glance up and down the street to make sure no one was coming. While a decent portion of the village closed down late at night, it wasn't unheard of for shops to cater to youkai and stay open later than usual.

Satisfied, she stepped up to the bar's door, retrieving her hairpin from its place in her hair loops as she did so. In a single, swift motion, she used it to draw a large circle, encompassing the door and part of the surrounding walls. The material within it abruptly ceased to exist, without a single sound.

Chuckling to herself, the hermit stepped through, followed by her undead servant and unenthusiastic student. After a moment, the hole sealed itself back up, leaving no trace that it was ever there.

Now inside the bar, Seiga immediately set to work. Producing a brush and a sheaf of blank papers from somewhere within her ridiculous santa outfit, she laid the talismans-to-be out on the ground and began to ink them.

Where Reiko’s runes and glyphs were meticulous, as precise as if a printer had created them, Seiga’s were elegant and flowing, a testament to her mastery of the craft. Any imperfections from the speed at which the hermit worked were not only smoothed over by the rest of the runes in each talisman, they were incorporated as twists in the spell, actually reinforcing the final product and making it that much harder to counteract. One of the most difficult parts of being Seiga’s student, Reiko found, was managing to properly adapt the hermit’s runes into a format suitable for her own use.

Seiga spoke as she worked, in no particular need of focus due to her familiarity with the matter.

“Tell me, Reiko, are you familiar with the story of Hoichi the Earless?”

“Yes,” Reiko replied, “a musician was bewitched by spirits and made to play the Tale of the Heike for them night after night, until a priest discovered him and wrote the Heart Sutra over every inch of his body, rendering him invisible to the spirits as long as he stayed still and allowing him to escape their influence.”

“Except, of course, for his ears, which the priest forgot to write the Sutra on, allowing the spirits to see his ears and tear them off,” Seiga added, snickering to herself at the priest's amateurish mistake. Reiko was impressed she could laugh, talk, and scribe runes simultaneously. “Anyways, these talismans work on a similar idea - they ward an area from perception for around an hour, provided you have at least four of them. More, if you want to ward a larger area than this.”

Finishing the last runes, she began slapping the talismans up almost haphazardly around the shop. “The enchantment on these is only good for that time, so you need to make them fresh at the scene. Additionally, the ward only works from the outside, so if someone walks into the area they'll see you. Now that that little lesson’s over with - Yoshika! My cute little minion! Be a dear and get the toys for me!”

The zombie girl attempted to comply, her stiff limbs struggling with the bag for several moments before she finally gave up and held the bag open, offering it to Seiga.

“Thank you, dear. Now then, what shall I leave… ah ha! The rock that looks like a frog!”

Grinning, she retrieved a rock from the bag. It in no way resembled a frog.

Slapping the rock onto the bar’s serving counter with no concern given to possibly damaging either item, Seiga grabbed another bag from within the folds of her costume and pulled it open.

“And now for my payment.”

“Do you really have to do this?”

The hermit ignored her student's question, rummaging through the bar's shelves and tossing anything that looked valuable into her bag. Reiko was sure she heard at least a few items break, but that seemed to do nothing to encourage care in Seiga’s eager looting. Eventually, with a quarter of the bar’s dishware and the entire contents of the till stolen, the hermit opened another hole in the building and the trio departed.

After hitting a number of other houses in the village (“Hieda's rich enough to have guards, we’re skipping her”) the trio made their way over to the Misty Lake, Gensokyo's largest body of water, so named for the dense mist that settled over it every noon.

Their first destination on the lake shore was a section of thick snow, with some small ice floes in the nearby water. Someone had built a small igloo, with a snowman diligently standing guard outside. Seiga casually shoved the inanimate sculpture over as she strode for the igloo and drew up another hole.

The hermit stepped eagerly inside, stepping over her next victim, a little girl in a blue dress patterned with a row of white triangles running along the bottom. She wore a blue ribbon in her light blue hair, and six large ice crystals floated behind her back in a facsimile of wings, forcing the girl to sleep facedown on the pile of snow she called a bed.

Reiko already knew who that was. “Master,” she whispered. “Tell me we’re not seriously robbing Cirno.”

Seiga, in the process of examining a frog trapped inside a block of ice, replied, “We are absolutely robbing Cirno.”

The Fairies of Gensokyo were, as a rule, a generally childish and simple lot, and as easy to kill as they were easy to fool - that is to say, very . Cirno the Ice Fairy laid claim to the title of ‘the strongest,’ and her combat ability certainly backed that claim up. However, strongest among Fairies was about the same as ‘fastest among slugs’ - it didn't amount to much.

However, the Fairies did have one thing in their favor - they were inextricably tied to an aspect of nature. As long as that aspect existed, killing a fairy was no more than a minor inconvenience to them, and a weak moron with infinite lives and a fondness for pranks could eventually prove to be quite the nuisance. Cirno was tied to ‘chillness’, or, more specifically, the idea that some things were colder than others. Reiko imagined she’d probably exist till the end of the world.

The ice fairy in question began to stir as Seiga placed the frozen frog down a bit too forcefully. The hermit froze up for a moment, daring not to move a muscle as the fairy rolled into her side.

As Cirno resumed snoring, Seiga let out a breath of relief. “This sort of robbery requires the utmost subtlety, Reiko. I'm sure you'll appreciate it when you’re older.”

Finding nothing valuable on the igloo’s floor, she looked expectantly at her minion. “Yoshika?”

The Jiangshi gave a thumbs-up, reached down, and snapped the sleeping fairy's neck. Almost immediately, Cirno exploded into a cloud of glowing vapor.

“Blasted fairies like to hide stuff,” Seiga grumbled as she began digging through Cirno’s ‘bed’. “Yoshika, be a dear and keep her occupied if she respawns while I’m still searching!”

“Yes, Lady Seiga,” the Jiangshi groaned.

Reiko just rolled her eyes and began floating away from the igloo.

Seiga caught up with Reiko at the gate of an enormous mansion that stood at the lake's edge.

“I think that one went well,” she said cheerily. Her fake beard appeared to be frozen into one solid chunk.

“Did Cirno actually have anything of value?” Reiko asked, glancing at Yoshika. The jiangshi’s outstretched arms had slowly-melting icicles hanging from them.

The hermit snickered. “While Yoshika kept her busy I found where she keeps the money she gets from her festival stall.”

“Wait, people actually buy her stuff?”

“Sometimes you need a snack.”

“She sells shaved ice. Ice-flavored shaved ice.”

“Costs her nothing to make it - it's pure profit. An entrepreneur after my own heart. Now then, what do we have here…”

An explosion sounded from somewhere within the mansion, prompting Seiga to peek around the outer wall and through the main gate.

“Dammit, the gate guard’s sprawled out unconscious on the main path. That explosion was probably Kirisame and her usual brand of ‘stealthy’ burglary. Gotta call this one off - they'll be on high alert.”

“So we’re done for the night?” Reiko offered hopefully - she couldn’t imagine Seiga would try to rob either of the two houses in the Forest of Magic. Magicians had a way of making sure thieves knew they were unwelcome.

“Not quite, we've got one last stop…”

The antique store known as Kourindou sat a distance away from the village, almost exactly half-way between it and the Forest of Magic. Its owner, resident, and proprietor, Morichika Rinnosuke, was a half-youkai, and was never particularly trusted by the residents of the village due to his unaging nature. As with all their previous stops, Seiga drew a hole in the wall, producing an opening for their entry into the shop.

“My door was open , Miss Kaku,” an exasperated Rinnosuke greeted the trio.

The hermit ignored the complaint, placing her bag of stolen valuables onto his counter. “Oh, sure, you always say that, but then you never want me to come in. Got a good haul for you this time, plenty of good stuff for you to pick from.”

“I never want you in because your visits are inevitably followed by a full week of people coming in, justifiably irate, to complain about being robbed and retrieve their items,” Rinnosuke replied. “And half the time they try to con me into giving them something that wasn’t originally theirs.”

“It’s their own fault for being robbed if they don’t secure their goods well enough! You deal with Kirisame fairly regularly, what makes me any different? I come here on a regular basis to-”

Reiko tuned the argument out as she began to idly browse the shelves. Rinnosuke's Ability let him know the name and purpose of an item, though its vague descriptions and his own lack of knowledge about the Outside World led him to wildly extrapolate from that base knowledge and produce some thoroughly ridiculous conclusions.

Like the one she was looking at right now.

Cement Gun, a plaque placed below the item (a strange, round item apparently meant to be strapped to the arm) proudly proclaimed. A device for the purpose of restraining targets with an adhesive projectile. While the residents of Gensokyo more familiar with human technology will recognize a ‘gun’ as a device used to attempt to kill targets at range (and generally useless at its intended role, as far as youkai are concerned), this item does not display any traits from an actual gun. The secret to its name is that it is actually a false cognate, and is generally unrelated to a firearm. Rather, the ‘gun’ in its name is actually a corrupted form of ‘gan’, from ‘ganbare’, or ‘do your best’. The device’s adhesive projectiles are unable to prove more than a minor inconvenience unless the user is able to land many hits on-target. Thus, it gained this name as a sarcastic remark towards the user, instructing them to ‘do their best’ while using something that somehow manages to be the least-effective weapon yet conceived. Recommended as a training device for spell card duels, if you can figure out how to reload it. 5 Ryō.

Reiko had to clamp a hand over her mouth to suppress her giggles at Rinnosuke’s usual ridiculously convoluted (and wrong) explanations. She briefly turned her attention back to the arguing pair.

“You tried to sell me a corpse! A corpse !”

“It was a facsimile made of mud that would've disappeared within the hour, you big baby.”

“That just makes me even less inclined to deal with you!”

Nope, still negotiating. She turned to another item - a small television screen being described as an unwieldy scrying device for non-mages.

Eventually exhausting her supply of easy laughs, Reiko left the shop first, taking the opportunity to just sit and watch the night sky for a few minutes. It was one of the things she really loved about Gensokyo - the brilliance of all the stars normally drowned out by the lights of modern civilization. It was almost peaceful, if you ignored the ever-present threat of Yakumo Yukari appearing to ruin your day.

The sound of Kourindou’s door behind her alerted her that Seiga had finished haggling. Sitting on the grass next to her, the hermit handed her pupil a rolled-up piece of paper. Hesitantly, Reiko unrolled it.

It was a poster of Idealist - a limited edition item, one of a set of fifty signed ones from the only promotional run the Paladin Hero had managed to do. It was somehow in miraculously perfect condition despite having ended up in Gensokyo.

Reiko was speechless for a long while. 

“...How?” She finally asked.

“Rinnosuke’s had that thing in his shop for about a month now. You liked that guy, right? That Hero? He was the one who kept you safe before I found you.”

Reiko wordlessly nodded.

“It means a lot to me, you know. That you keep coming back, I mean. I know you didn’t have the best introduction here, and I honestly didn’t expect to ever see you again after you stole that spell from my private collection - nice job with that, by the way, exactly what I would have done in your place - but you showed up again half a year later and demanded I teach you more.”

Reiko smiled. It had taken most of that time just to convince herself Yukari wasn’t lurking around every corner ready to take her back, and the first conclusion she had come to was that she needed more power, so if anyone else ever became lost in Gensokyo, she could do what Idealist had tried to do for her.

“Miko’s apprentices back at the Mausoleum will say you’re going soft, Master.”

“I’ll boil their guts and call every spirit at my command to drag them to the Hell of Blazing Fires,” Seiga snapped in response. “I was having a moment there, Reiko. It just reminds me of old times, you know? Me and Miko, just striving for strength… I see some of that in you.”

“The two of you manipulated a religious conflict as a smokescreen for your quest for power,” the gray-haired girl replied flatly.

Seiga huffed. “So we’ve got slightly different views on what's acceptable in the pursuit of power, you’ll get there one day. The lovely thing about immortality is you can outrun the consequences of your actions. Don't tell me you haven't thought of becoming a Shikaisen.”

Reiko didn’t have a response for that.

They fell quiet for a bit after that. Flickering lights in the direction of the Hakurei Shrine indicated another concert was going on - that explained the relatively quiet night.

“You know, if the poster was gone and I didn’t find it in any of the houses we were looting I was going to conjure up that guy’s ghost to talk to you.”

“Master.”

“Oh come on, you can’t really think he might still be alive! You last saw him yelling at you to run while he was brandishing a sword like he was gonna be able to fight off Yu-”

“ SEIGA. ”

“Fine, fine, I’ll drop it. I'm heading back home.”

The Wicked Hermit stood up and walked off, her undead pet lumbering after her as fast as her stiff legs could carry her.

Reiko began scribing the rune circle that would let her travel back home - this poster needed to be kept safe.

Chapter Text

Shinsou let out a wheezing breath as he hit the mat. Uraraka immediately moved to help him.

“You okay? I threw you a bit harder than I meant to there.”

“I’ll say,” he replied, rubbing his back. He was gonna be sore in the morning. “You’re way stronger than you look.”

“Good throw, Uraraka, your form’s looking excellent,” Gunhead stated. “Shinsou, a lunging attack like that leaves you overextended and vulnerable to a followup attack if your opponent - like Uraraka - reads your attack and dodges it.”

The mind controller rolled his eyes. “Then what should I do? Because so far I feel like I’ve just been a punching bag.”

Surprisingly, Gunhead had an answer for him. “Focus more on your defense. You get impatient and rush in to try to get a good hit - probably because your Quirk leaves the target disoriented and you usually want to capitalize on that. Remember, we’re sparring without quirks right now, so your opponent will be fully aware. It’s a close quarters fight, you don’t need to rush in. Take a careful approach, so you can keep your guard up. Try it on me.” 

Shinsou did as he was told, carefully keeping his hands up in a fighting stance as he drew closer to Gunhead. As he approached, the Battle Hero threw a quick jab to probe his defenses, which he was able to block without much trouble. The hero drew his arm back before Shinsou could attempt a throw, however.

It was a different sort of fight than Shinsou was used to - in sparring matches back at UA, he had to lean on his quirk and the element of surprise to have any hope of victory. Kamakiri, Tetsutetsu, Kendo... 1-B had no shortage of fighters that would put him on his ass before he could even say ‘may the best man win’. So fighting on even footing, as much as he knew Gunhead was going easy on him for training purposes, was a nice change of pace. After a bit, the hero made a show of overextending on a hook, and Shinsou took the offered opening, grabbing the arm and attempting a throw.

The muscular hero failed to budge, giving an apologetic cough as he did so. “Sorry, Shinsou. My style’s based around my strength. I was worried this might happen.”

“Then why’d you pick me?” Shinsou asked grumpily. “I can’t learn your techniques.”

“You’re learning the basics of hand-to-hand, aren’t you? It's still a foundation you can build on.”

He had to admit that Gunhead had a point. And he probably wouldn’t have picked it up in the Heroics course, either - the training sessions tended to focus on sparring matches and quirk development.

“Keep at it for another hour or so, then we’ll go on patrol. I’m sure Uraraka will be willing to help.”

Uraraka seemed weirdly spaced out, like she wasn’t hearing anything Gunhead was saying. Her breathing was weirdly strained, too.

“Are you feeling okay?” Shinsou asked, tapping her on the shoulder.

She quickly recovered from whatever weird spell she was under. “Yeah, I’m fine, sorry.”

Shinsou wasn’t completely sure of that, but she seemed perfectly healthy now that… whatever that was had passed.

“When are we going on patrol?” She asked, looking at Gunhead.

Gunhead's phone suddenly buzzed with a message. The hero checked it. “Unfortunately, no patrol tonight, it seems. We'll need to cut sparring short, too.”

“What's happening?”

“Just got a request from a nearby prison. You know that convicted murderer, Moonfish? He’s been sentenced to Tartarus. They wanted to know if we were available to provide security during the transfer. We’ll head out in a half hour, so get your stuff together.”

Reiko was no fool, and she wasn’t in the habit of lying. Aizawa would have just slowed her search down, and the search itself would probably be either inconclusive, or turn up bad news. There were just too many scenarios in which the missing Mineta Minoru could have gotten himself killed - stayed on the ground of the Forest of Magic for too long, tried to eat bamboo without proper preparation, tried to sexually harass the Flower Master of Four Seasons, tried to sexually harass any of the residents of the Scarlet Devil Mansion, tried to sexually harass one of the Tengu, tried to…

Well, really, judging by the list of complaints against him lodged by former classmates, his normal attitude would be the single greatest threat to his safety. And considering that the alternative, once he realized the very real danger he was in, was apparently just locking up in panic, things overall didn’t look good for his prospects.

Regardless, Reiko did want to be a Hero, even if her exact motivation was slightly unorthodox, and she gave her word that she’d properly look for the boy. It was to this end that she turned up at a wooden cart set up in the middle of the road - the only source of light anywhere in sight. A banner waving from it proclaimed that it was selling grilled Lamprey Eel.

There were only two other people at the stand - a customer, and the proprietor herself. The owner and chef was a grey-eyed girl with pink hair and strange, tufted ears resembling an owl’s tucked carefully under a brown cap topped with a birdlike ornament. She wore a white apron over her brown dress as she worked, adeptly gutting and skewering lampreys while fanning the flames of her grill to maintain a steady temperature. The bird wings protruding from her back, along with her long, talonlike nails, made her inhuman nature clear to any observer. 

Her customer was a stark contrast in comparison. She was a tall woman with pinkish-red hair tied into two ponytails, each fastened with a pair of red hair beads. In contrast to the lamprey vendor’s simple clothing, her own clothing was brightly colored, with a blue vest worn over a white dress, which in turn was layered over a slightly longer blue one, all kept secure by an obi with a large coin tied to the center of it in a rather casual display of wealth. A large scythe rested beside her, its blade tapering off to a wispy ripple.

She paid Reiko no mind as the hero student took a seat at the other end of the cart. “Hey, Mystia, you done with those skewers yet?”

“You can see for yourself that I’ve only just put them on the grill,” the bird youkai replied, not taking her eyes off the grilling eels. “You only ordered them thirty seconds ago, you should have ordered more before you finished eating the first set.”

“Fine, fine. Give me another bottle of sake while I wait.” The customer dropped a handful of mon coins onto the table. Reiko was absolutely positive she was massively overpaying, but she didn’t seem to ask for change, and Mystia certainly wasn’t about to complain as she casually grabbed a bottle labeled ‘Old Hell Special’ from below the counter and placed it in front of her customer.

Mystia whistled as she worked, a strange, haunting melody that seemed to stick in Reiko’s mind. The night seemed to grow darker, somehow.

“And how about you?” Mystia suddenly asked. “Grilled Lamprey? They’re an excellent cure for night blindness.”

Reiko tried vainly to blink the darkness from her eyes - even the well-lit cart was starting to grow dim now. She reached out with her quirk, grasping hold of some dirt in case she needed to defend herself.

The scythe-wielding woman drained her glass of sake and slammed it down on the cart’s counter. “Don’t scam the human, Mystia. You get a decent enough amount of customers as-is, you don’t want to get a bad reputation.”

“I just wanted to know if she was buying something!” The bird youkai defended herself, holding her hands up in front of her in a placating gesture. Sight immediately returned to Reiko’s eyes. “But really, are you going to buy anything? I’ve got a business here.”

“Uh, yeah, I’ll have a...” Reiko’s eyes flitted across the menu. Nothing but varying amounts of lamprey skewers and several different brews of sake. “Double skewer, please. And water if you have it. I was wondering, have you seen a kid recently? Looks like this.” She pulled out Mineta’s file.

The other customer pulled some more coins out of her seemingly-bottomless pouch and poured them on the table in front of Reiko before snatching the file from Reiko’s hands without getting up from her seat. “I’ll pay. Lemme take a look at that.”

Reiko struggled to understand what had just happened before finally recognizing the other woman. Onozuka Komachi, the ferrywoman of the Sanzu River, and wielder of the Ability to Manipulate Distances. Naturally, Reiko sitting fifteen feet away meant nothing to Komachi.

“Well, I don’t recognize him, so he hasn’t crossed into the afterlife.”

“Do you even see what your passengers looked like in life?” Mystia wondered, placing Komachi’s triple skewer in front of her. “I remember when I fought you all the spirits were just hitodama.”

“Yeah, I’m a shinigami, I know what everyone looked like.” the ferrywoman replied, biting firmly on one of her lampreys and extracting it from the skewer with a single, long pull.

“Mmm-hmm. And when was the last time you actually ferried someone across?”

Komachi shrugged. “Six years, give or take.”

Mystia made a strangled chirp and flailed a little. Reiko was slightly worried her lamprey skewer would get burned “Wh- Six years !? You caused an Incident the last time you slacked off! I was there! You’re telling me nobody’s gotten judged for years now?”

Reiko was inclined to agree with Mystia’s disbelief. “How are you even still the ferrywoman?”

“They can’t fire me,” the shinigami chuckled, “I’m the only one who can manipulate the Sanzu the way they want. It needs to be wide according to the weight of the passenger’s sins, and I’m the only shinigami who can do something like that.”

“Just please do your job at some point,” the bird youkai sighed. “Ideally before ghosts start running free and possessing things again. Here’s your skewers, by the way.”

Reiko took the double skewer. “So neither of you have seen him, then?”

“Nope, so he hasn’t been around any of the main roads,” Mystia replied. “And I haven’t heard any of my regulars mentioning anything about him, so he probably didn’t end up in the Forest of Magic or the Bamboo Forest. You’ve got a lot of ground to cover, regardless.”

The hero student sighed. “I figured as much. Thanks for the help anyways.”

A jagged tendril of liquefied ground swept out towards the training dummy. Like a crack spreading from an impact point, it narrowed as it went, and by the time it reached its intended target, it was nowhere near enough to consume the mannequin. It took another ten seconds before it widened enough.

Izuku shook his head at his failure and resolidified the ground. It was the same each time - he had figured out directing his Ability at range, but it still grew narrower and weaker the further it got from him. He was sure it was some problem with his mental image, but he didn’t know what he should be picturing. His immediate thought of blooming plants or fruit growing on a vine just resulted in him creating those - blasted mental image-based power.

As it currently stood, it wasn’t very useful. Ten seconds was more than enough time for enemies to evade at the range he was currently using his transformations at.

“You've made admirable progress already,” Kamui Woods said. “I’ve seen your files - to have progressed this much after only discovering your Quirk a year ago is incredible. There’s no shame in having trouble applying it in a way you haven't tried before. You’ve already figured half of it out.”

“I can't shake the feeling that I’m just not getting something about how my power works,” Izuku sighed.

“That sort of gut feeling often turns out to be right,” the hero admitted. “I spent half a year of hero school unable to precisely direct my Quirk. Turned out I was trying to guide it wrong.”

“You did?” Izuku had already retrieved his notebook and was jotting down new details about Kamui’s life before he even finished the two-word question. “How did you overcome that?”

“Desperation in an actual combat scenario during my first internship. I don’t recommend it as a learning strategy. It was a stupid risk and a hostage could have died if it didn’t work out.”

Though his face was concealed, Izuku could tell from his eyes that Kamui was giving him a comforting smile. “You don’t have to put pressure on yourself to get it perfect immediately, that’s what partnering you with an experienced hero is for. Besides, you’ll have time to try using your new technique in the field tonight.”

“Where will we be patrolling tonight?”

The hero had a habit of mixing up where he patrolled, so that criminals wouldn’t be able to plan around his movements. This had led to some late nights on Izuku’s part. Unsurprisingly, tonight was another curveball. “Hosu.”

“Hosu? Isn’t that a couple hours away by train?”

He nodded. “The Hero Killer attacked Ingenium in that area recently, so increasing hero presence in the city should hopefully stop him from being able to act freely, and maybe even catch him. We’ll need to get a move on as soon as possible, though.”

Working under Komuso was informative but dull, Tokoyami quickly discovered. The hero’s quirk wasn’t suited for combat and he knew it, serving in a more investigative role than anything else. Tokoyami found himself wondering why the man had even decided to become a hero rather than joining the police force. Worse, his ideas for corralling Dark Shadow mainly amounted to making the two of them meditate via ascetic means of varying intensity.

At least he was nice - while the man himself simply slept on the floor of his agency, he had rented a hotel room for his intern. Tokoyami was currently lying in bed, reviewing the copy he had made of his ancestor's diary with the aid of a small book light.

Satsuki 14 - I was approached with a most strange request the other night. Several villagers from Aki province, evidently having heard of my role in the suppression of the traitor saint, sought to hire my services for a youkai extermination. Said that their province’s chief shrine was haunted by a spirit that lurked around the grounds. Could only offer me rice as payment, they said. Patently ridiculous - I have no intention of risking my life trying to take on a monster in exchange for a meal.

Chisaki, on the other hand, was entirely too eager to offer his services. I imagine he would have rushed off then and there if I hadn’t reigned him in. Damn fool nearly lost an eye last month and he still hasn't learned caution. All the gratitude in the world won’t bring you back to life if you get killed, moron. Think before you volunteer to go hunting monsters! Stick to duels and mercenary work!

Satsuki 15 - That fool ran off in the middle of the night with the villagers. Just grabbed his yari and left. I can’t leave him to his own devices - he’d be dead in less than a month. I have to chase after him.

“Dark Shadow?”

The Sentient Quirk didn’t even look up from the romance novel its beak was currently buried in. “Hm?”

“Do you think… is it possible Yanagi could have been right about this? Should I have picked Hawks instead?”

Dark Shadow flipped to the next page. “Pretty sure Komuso would tell you that worrying about the past and ‘what-ifs’ hinders the path to enlightenment.”

“‘To achieve peace with your Quirk, you must first achieve inner peace,’” the bird-headed boy quoted, mimicking the hero’s mannerisms as he did so.

The two of them snickered in unison.

“But seriously,” Dark Shadow added, “the guy has a point. You’ve made your choice. No point in fretting over whether it was the right one or not, just gotta go with it.”

Shrugging, Tokoyami turned back to the diary.

Satsuki 20 - Came across the aftermath of a battle: six dead bandits. Chisaki just left them to rot where they fell. That’s how you get ghosts, idiot. Took some time from my journey to bury them properly. Killed another two bandits who thought I would be easy prey just because I was a woman. Buried them too.

Minazuki 4 - Finally arrived at the village. Chisaki greeted me before I even made it past their farmland, overjoyed at my ‘change of heart’. One bright spot - the villagers neglected to tell the whole story when they first approached. This ‘spirit’ of theirs lurks around the main shrine, has left footprints, and steals offerings left for the gods. He’s also been seen in daylight. He’s no ghost, he’s a bandit preying on superstitious peasants. Easy enough to deal with, though hardly worth the trip. This better be damn good rice for all this trouble.

Minazuki 5 - Set out for the island. Chisaki had wanted to go last night, but I convinced him to wait. Best to travel by day - less risk of youkai attack that way. Neither of us are youkai hunters, and I don’t want to waste the few purification charms I have. I’ve only got three and have no intention of wasting them.

Minazuki 6 - Writing this entry as we’re about to cross over to the island itself. We arrived at the shore last night, but I refused to allow a nighttime crossing. If this ‘spirit’ is a bandit, he’ll be easy enough to handle by daylight. If he’s something worse, then I don't want to waste a charm dealing with a funayurei on the way to the island.

“Yanagi was wrong about one thing, though,” Dark Shadow suddenly interrupted, making Tokoyami jolt. He hadn’t realized his Quirk had slid up to his shoulder. The being jabbed a shadowy hand into the journal entries, back towards the start. “The villagers said they could only pay her in rice and she refused to accept their offer until her partner went with them. A scam artist wouldn’t do that.”

“And this was one of only a few youkai hunts she did,” Tokoyami added. “She always seems to be worried about them. She didn’t want to accept the hunt, she buried the bandits rather than risk ghosts, and she refused to travel at night. Even in earlier entries, when she went to confront the demon saint, she only did so as part of a large group and expressed relief that the incident ended without conflict. If she was a scam artist, why would she bother to keep the lie going in her own personal journals? Why wouldn’t she go on ‘youkai hunts’ all the time, rather than getting most of her money from working as a sellsword?”

He was filled with renewed confidence as he declared, “Yanagi’s wrong about youkai not existing. She has to be.”

“It’s about time we make another move,” Shigaraki suddenly declared.

Kurogiri concurred. “I was thinking that myself, though I felt it prudent to wait until you believed we should act. You are the boss, after all.”

“YuugenMagan’s not quite fixed yet,” Elis protested, lazing around on the couch.

Shigaraki glared at the demon. “Then stop lying around and fix it .”

“It’s not that simple. She’s fully repaired, but she needs to regather her strength, her hate .”

“She needs… hatred.” Kurogiri said in a clearly skeptical tone, somehow managing to raise an eyebrow despite his entire head being made of dark fog.

Elis rolled her eyes. “I’m a human who became a Demon through my Master’s power. YuugenMagan is an Onryo that made a similar transition. And much like her original form, she grows stronger by holding grudges. So yes, she needs hate.”

“She hardly seems strong enough to have been an Onryo,” Shigaraki said. The myths were consistent - Onryo were terrifying foes. The kami Tenjin, in modern times a humble deity governing scholarship, had originally been the vengeful spirit of the disgraced noble Sugawara no Michizane. After blighting the capital with calamity after calamity, the only way the priests could find to stop the enraged ghost had been enshrining him as a god of natural disasters.

“Because she didn't have any hatred behind her,” Elis replied, slowly, like she was explaining things to a child. “She would have won that fight, but that Midoriya kid could actually hurt her and she has a nasty habit of playing with her food. But now? Now she knows him. Now she hates him.”

“And we can’t field her immediately because?”

“She needs to fill up her tanks. Have you ever heard of an Onryo attacking immediately after they died?” 

Kurogiri seemed perplexed. “I haven’t read enough folklore to say.”

Rolling her eyes at his ignorance, Elis simply reasserted, “She’s gathering her strength.”

Shigaraki finally seemed to lose his patience. “ Enough. We can’t bring out the Summon, so what? We’ve got plenty of other units at our disposal.”

“What shall our next move be, then?” the bartender inquired.

“We’ll unleash some of our Nomus onto Hosu,” the young villain confidently stated. “Stain wants to hunt heroes so bad - we’ll add our own hunters into the mix. We’ll show we’re far more dangerous than he.”

“You just want to take some petty revenge on him for getting the drop on you when negotiations failed,” Elis replied, sitting up on the sofa and stretching her wings. “But I’ll go with you anyways. Sounds like fun, and I can check up on how he’s handling Master’s blessing while I’m at it.”

“You won’t be going to Hosu.”

“If you’re expecting me to just sit around the base, you’re sorely mistaken.” The magician said, baring a mouth of sharp, pointed fangs. “I’ve no intention of letting another of your incursions go by without souls for Master.”

After a moment, she muttered to herself, “YuugenMagan’s defeat was already an embarrassing enough failure.”

“You’re not going,” Shigaraki replied confidently, “Because I have a better objective in mind for you. Stain didn’t meet our criteria - he was too weak, and more importantly his precious ‘code’ wasn’t compatible with our goals. There’s a potential recruit I want you to break out who should have neither of those problems. You’ll be able to spill as much blood as you want.”

A cruel smile split the demon’s face. “I’m listening.”

The sun was beginning to set on Hosu by the time Iida went on patrol with Manual. It was as good a night as he would get for his purposes - the Full Moon would minimize the shadows available for Stain to skull around in, and the Hero Killer wasn’t one for daytime brawls. He just needed to slip away from his supervisor somehow, and then he could search for the villain.

The task was easier said than done, surprisingly - he had picked Manual in order to be in the right area to hunt Stain, assuming that the Hero (who was thoroughly unremarkable) would be easy to use. However, the hydrokinetic hero proved to be much sharper than Iida had anticipated. Worse, he wanted to be a role model for new and upcoming heroes, and as such was keeping a close eye on his intern to make sure the internship went smoothly.

As Iida silently hoped for a distraction of some kind - any kind - Manual suddenly stopped and turned towards him. “Iida.”

“Yes?”

“I’m grateful you chose my agency, but I fear you picked me just because I operate near where your brother was attacked. Am I correct?”

Iida couldn’t respond.

“I feared as much. It's good to want justice, to want to hunt down evildoers, but you're still just a student. We have Quirk laws for a reason, you still haven't finished all the training you need to know how to use your Quirk in a public setting without risking collateral damage. Do you understand? Trying to hunt down Stain would not only be extremely dangerous, but a severe crime.”

“...yes, I understand.”

It wasn’t a lie - Iida knew very well what he was going to do went against the law. But he couldn't allow the man who crippled his brother to run free.

Manual’s expression softened. “I’m sorry to lecture you, but I wanted to make sure you wouldn’t do anything you’d come to regret. You can still do plenty of good on patrol, you know.”

The idea was a hollow comfort to Iida. They continued their patrol for another half hour, Manual watching him like a hawk, until Iida got his opening.

A lean, white, muscular creature came hurtling out of the sky like a comet, slamming into a nearby storefront and digging furrows into the cement as it stopped itself with cruel, gleaming claws. It sniffed at the air, relying on scent to find prey due to a distinct lack of eyes.

“Iida!” Manual shouted, as panicked civilians began fleeing the scene, screaming all the while, “Make sure all the civilians are evacuated from the area! Prioritize their safety, not apprehending the villain!”

After a moment with no reply, he turned to his intern.

Iida was gone.

Iida stumbled on Stain at just the right time - the Hero Killer was in the middle of attacking another Hero. Native, if Iida remembered right.

It was a strange sight, though. Native lay crumpled and motionless on the ground, but Stain had dropped his jagged katana and was touching a hand to his nose in apparent bewilderment. Had the hero managed to defend himself somehow? Iida didn’t remember what his Quirk was, but he wasn’t going to let the opening go.

Like a human comet, he streaked in and slammed a knee directly into Stain’s face while the Hero Killer was still distracted. The villain’s nose made a very satisfying crunch as he staggered back from the force of the blow.

Not giving him a second to recover, Iida delivered a firm kick to the Hero Killer’s kneecap, producing another loud crack and sending Stain to the ground. Another kick, and Stain’s weapons were scattered away from him, leaving him unarmed.

“Listen up, criminal ,” he spat at the prone villain. “A week ago you attacked my brother and left him in critical condition. I’ve come to avenge his defeat. Remember the name Ingenium when you’re rotting in Tartarus.”

“Ingenium…?” Stain sneered. “Yes, I remember him. A false hero, like so many others. I have no regrets about cutting him down. He was a disgrace to the field of Heroics.”

“He was an exemplary hero! And once I’ve taken you in, I’ll follow in his footsteps.”

“Take me in?” A murderous gleam entered Stain’s eyes. “Nobody but All Might is worthy of taking me in.”

Like a viper striking, Stain suddenly whipped an arm out, causing a knife he had concealed in his arm wraps to slip out. Clutching it firmly, he drove it through Iida’s foot, tore it out, and licked the blood off the blade. Iida immediately dropped to the ground beside him.

Before his horrified eyes, Stain’s twisted, broken nose fixed itself and snapped back into place. The Hero Killer got up slowly, unsteadily, on legs that definitely should not have been able to support his weight with a broken knee. He walked over to retrieve his katana.

“ Vengeance ,” he hissed, “is not the act of a Hero.”

He drew closer.

“Nor are promotional deals , or signings , or public speeches .”

He stopped in front of Iida’s face. Iida was powerless to even turn his head up to watch the Hero Killer.

“All things you or your brother are guilty of.”

Stain raised his katana.

“I will not rest until all false Heroes are purged from society.”

The blade fell.

“Mommy, look, the Heroes are fighting!”

Sumireko let out an indignant huff. She was already in a bad enough mood - she had been on a train for two hours to look into an internet rumor about a pet shop selling Tsuchinokos   ( Tsuchinokos, of all things! You couldn't find those just anywhere, even in… well, actually she knew for a fact there was at least one person in Gensokyo who owned one as a pet, but still! An actual Tsuchinoko! In the Outside World!) only to discover that it was a distressingly mundane pet shop that overfed its animals to a remarkable degree. She had been hoping she’d be at least able to get some sleep on the way back, so she could visit Gensokyo via her dreams. Maybe even have a duel with Mokou - she wanted to fight something right now after that frustrating outing. Unfortunately, that didn’t seem to be happening now, courtesy of a screaming child.

Hero battles happened all the time - Sumireko never saw the point in watching them. Ooh, the big musclehead beat the skinny dude with sharp teeth, what a shock. She much preferred exploring the world’s great mysteries. So, she turned away from the window, put on her earphones, and queued up one of her favorite podcasts about urban legends as something to hopefully fall asleep to.

That hope was soon dashed as a hapless hero - some moron whose outfit looked like he got in a losing fight with a paint factory, no less - was thrown bodily into the train car, slamming through the metal walls and coming to rest in a broken heap about seven seats ahead of her.

The thing he had been fighting soon followed, leaping into the newly opened hole to finish off its victim. It was a huge, musclebound brute, with a beaklike mouth filled with sharp teeth and strange, matte black skin. Its brain was exposed, though it seemed to show no signs of caring or even noticing that fact as it advanced on the crumpled hero.

People began screaming. The train driver made some announcement in a nonplussed voice as the train engaged its brakes and slowed to a halt.

Well, at least she’d get a fight in today.

Sumireko stood up from her seat, letting her psychic power flow completely uncontrolled, shrouding her in darkness and a purple aura. No sense letting people identify her - that would just get police involved, and police were a problem for normal people to worry about.

And Sumireko was anything but normal.

Usami Sumireko was the closest human on the planet to becoming a youkai.

She let her Urban Legend flow into her, gaining power and sustenance from it - a trick picked up over the course of her persistent research into the supernatural, aided significantly by her friends in Gensokyo and one particularly disruptive Incident. A lovely story, that of the doppelganger. The idea that everyone has an exact duplicate somewhere else in the world - yes, that one was nice, that one was plausible enough that it kept going even well after other myths had long died out, leaving a wellspring of power just waiting to be tapped by anyone who knew how.

An exact duplicate of Sumireko came into existence, stepping out of thin air right beside her, and she let loose.

Chapter Text

Every window in the train car exploded into fragments at the precise instant that every seat tore itself up from the floor. 

For a brief instant, they hovered in place, motionless, like a scene from some bizarre dream. The stillness was broken abruptly when they all moved at once, slamming into the monster from every side and cocooning it in debris. Impressively, the beast didn’t budge - if anything, it seemed enraged. Its emotional state, however, meant little as the mass of debris physically lifted it off of the ground and launched it from the train car with a casual gesture from Sumireko. Then, in a flash of light, she and her double both vanished, leaving the train car empty save for the terrified civilians and one severely injured hero.

As she reappeared on the street, Sumireko noticed with some small level of exasperation that a number of bystanders were still sitting and gawking at the fight, staring in awe and wonder at the creature that had just been sent flying from the train.

Rolling her eyes in disgust at their lack of self-preservation - not that they could tell, considering she was wreathed in shadows and venting purple psychic energy - she grabbed her 3D-printed Liberator pistol from her pocket and shot the creature, her shot striking true directly in the middle of its brain matter. It didn't flinch.

The bystanders started screaming and running now, the gunshot reinforcing to them that this was a matter they should not be involved in.

“ That did nothing,” Sumireko muttered to herself in annoyance, tossing the useless weapon aside. A clench of her fist, and the firearm was crushed by raw psychic power. “Why do people even bother with these things?”

Kirishima Eijirou finished beating down another looter. The absolute chaos that had broken out in Hosu had drawn many of the less savory types out of the woodwork, all of them hoping to make some easy money while the Heroes were - they hoped - occupied with more pressing matters. Unfortunately for them, the incident was drawing in more heroes by the minute.

A gunshot rang out from somewhere nearby.

“Snipe doesn’t operate in Hosu,” was all the reasoning Gran Torino gave before launching himself in the direction they came from.

Kirishima had grown to appreciate All Might’s (and now his, he reminded himself) eccentric mentor over the brief time he'd worked with him. Although initially feigning senility, the elderly hero had quickly revealed his true nature, and the moment that the attack on Hosu had begun, he had quickly rushed out the door to help in the response, showing himself to be as sharp and capable as ever.

Kirishima hurried after him.

The beast roared, lunging for Sumireko with inhuman speed and bringing its fist down on nothing but air as the psychic teleported away once more. Its attention diverted, it failed to notice her double making an exaggerated gesture, holding her arms out wide before bringing them together in a large clapping motion. In sync with the motion, the asphalt along the entire street tore itself up and clapped the creature like two enormous hands, cracking from the force of the motion. This time, at least, the creature flinched slightly. Taking a wild backhanded swipe at the doppelganger, it once more hit nothing but air as the duplicate teleported away.

The thing was clearly made to fight a straight-up brawl - get up close and personal with someone who had no significant range options. It was nowhere near suited to fighting a long-ranged psychic. Too bad for it.

As it roared in what Sumireko imagined was rage, she made a casual gesture with one hand, causing the air between her and the beast, and all the way down its throat, to combust in a plume of brilliant flame. The creature shrieked at the unwelcome meal, charging at the high schooler with all the speed it could muster. To its credit, that was a significant amount. It slammed into her before she could react, accompanied by the sound of snapping bones.

As it fell limply to the ground, the doppelganger faded into nothingness.

Before the creature could make another move, the real Sumireko  focused her energy on a point beneath its feet, blasting the creature into the air with a shockwave of psychic energy. While it flew through the air, she conjured up another doppelganger, which immediately made a theatrical gesture almost like she was conducting a symphony. The tattered remnants of the street tore open as sewer water launched into the sky, carrying the creature ever higher and slamming it against an office building. It threw out an arm in an attempt to halt its motion, shattering windows as it dragged along the building. As her response, Sumireko telekinetically tore a half-dozen utility poles from the streets in the area, hurling them at the creature as it finally managed to get a solid grip on the structure.

More screams of panic rose from the surrounding blocks as power failed.

The beast roared in rage as the metal pillars lodged themselves in the building around it. One bounced directly off of its chest, plummeting to earth and cracking the sidewalk. Sumireko levitated herself up to meet it.

“You’re persistent, huh? You’re durable, but that’s about all you've really got going for you.”

The monstrous being leapt from the wrecked upper floors of the office building, latching onto her and trying to squeeze her to death. 

The real Sumireko snapped her fingers.

The beast and the doppelganger were both teleported high into the skies above Hosu. The creature didn’t know what was about to happen. The doppelganger, however, did. Her eyes widened in panic as she realized where she was. “H-hey, me! You can’t seriously-”

The sky erupted in brilliant purple light.

Gran Torino and Kirishima arrived to find a completely devastated city block. The road was roughly torn up, fragments of asphalt littering the ground around a massive chasm that opened to the sewer system. Every utility pole on the entire street had been roughly torn out. All the windows on a nearby office building had been blown out, there appeared to be severe water damage, and the missing utility poles were embedded in the upper levels of the structure.

“It’s like a bomb went off here, what the hell...” Kirishima muttered in horrified awe at the devastation. This couldn’t have been the work of just one Villain - could it?

Standing in the middle of the desolation was a single, shadowy silhouette, radiating purple energy like a bonfire. Whoever the silhouette was, they snapped a picture at the exact moment a massive flash of purple lit up the entire sky.

Gran Torino didn’t waste a second, launching himself off the ground with his Quirk. As with his training, Kirishima could barely follow his lightning-fast mentor’s movements. But somehow, impossibly, the Villain blocked, using a street sign for the turnoff for Hosu’s downtown that had appeared seemingly out of nowhere. The elderly hero was forced to back off as the villain swung it telekinetically with enough force to crack the sidewalk where it struck.

“Not even going to introduce yourself first, old-timer?” She - and yes, it was definitely a girl now that Kirishima could hear her voice - taunted. “Typically it’s polite to give your name to someone you’re about to fight.”

“In that case, shouldn’t you be giving your own name?”

“Now why would I do that? I won’t even be able to call this a decent fight.”

Throwing her arms out, a swarm of zener cards launched from her sleeves and pockets, pursuing Gran Torino through the air as he dodged and weaved. Kirishima rushed to his teacher’s aid, letting One for All flow through his entire body as he had learned the day before. He let loose a massive punch, blasting the air itself towards the Villain as a projectile, just like All Might’s most iconic attacks.

She vanished in a flash of light before it could connect, reappearing right beside him with an iron i-beam floating above one hand before swinging into his hardened form. 

The impact was massive, but nothing his Hardening couldn’t handle. Regardless, the force of the blow threw him several meters down the street. Gran Torino, still trailed by the flying cards, flew in to try to attack only for a duplicate of the Villain to appear to intercept him with the street sign. The cards finally connected as he was blocked, leaving shallow cuts in his legs and back.

“You two are more annoying than dangerous.”

She vanished, her duplicate disappearing a split second later. Kirishima had no idea where she had gone until he noticed Gran Torino streaking into the sky towards her silhouette, still outlined in blazing purple.

“Psychokinesis:”

Computer monitors, fragments of cement, bricks, old boxes - all manner of debris was swept into the sky over Hosu like some bizarre junkyard rapture.

She made a dramatic motion, sweeping her arms out wide.

“ Illegal Dumping. ”

The junk rained from the sky like hailstones.

The drive to Mongaza Prison was an uneventful one, though longer than either Uraraka or Shinsou had expected from Gunhead saying the prison was ‘nearby’. She supposed it made sense not to have a prison in the middle of an urban area, though. The moon was starting to rise by the time they were standing in front of the gates.

It was beautiful, really - a brilliant silver disc hanging in the night sky. Just seeing it there made Uraraka almost forget about the world around her, like she could just cast off her human worries and run wild to her heart’s content. On an impulse she couldn’t understand, she opened her mouth to-

Shinsou nudged her, breaking her reverie. Gunhead was talking to a slightly portly man in a carefully pressed suit. He turned to them.

“Uraraka, Shinsou, this is the prison’s warden, Futokane Akimitsu.”

Futokane gave the two trainees a nod. “Always nice to meet aspiring young heroes! Let me be the first to welcome you to our humble little prison here.”

The massive reinforced steel barrier opened enough for them to enter, ponderously closing behind them after they stepped into the prison’s entrance hall.

“Just like the rest of the world, the prison system had to adapt to the rise of Quirks, as I’m sure you know. We’re equipped with a state-of-the-art security barrier. It’s heat-resistant, acid proof, and designed to withstand most strength-enhancement quirks for a minimum of one hour, if not more.”

“Unless it’s someone like All Might,” Gunhead pointed out, “or the individual who breached UA security.”

“...yes, in those cases it would fail,” Futokane admitted. “But I would hope that the Heroes would prevent such an individual from attacking us in the first place.”

Uraraka decided she didn't like him. He was clearly the sort who liked to flaunt their status and deflect all blame from themselves, and worse, his suit smelled extremely strongly of both detergent and wine.

“This here is our night shift gate guard, Bannin. Say hello, won’t you?”

Bannin, a bored-looking clean-shaven man, offered a handshake to Uraraka, which she politely accepted, careful not to make contact with all five fingers.

“Good, firm handshake,” the guard acknowledged. “Your nails could use a bit of a trim, though. They’re a tad sharp.”

“Oh, like you can talk!” Someone called from the staff room behind him. A mulleted blond man poked his head into the doorway. “Bannin’s Quirk makes his fingernails grow twice as fast, and nothing else. He’s always scratching me by accident since he doesn’t clip as often as he should. Don’t listen to him, I’m sure your nails are fine.”

“She’s practically got claws, Goei! Claws!”

“I don’t wanna hear it, you taloned demon!”

“ Anyways, ” Futokane loudly interrupted, desperate to get the heroes away from the bickering guards to he could continue schmoozing - though for what end goal, Uraraka wasn't sure. It's not like Heroes had much to offer a prison. “We really should get moving. Tartarus won’t wait for its new resident forever, ho ho!”

Keishu Saburou let out a yawn as he scanned the area.

“Quiet night as usual. You’d think they could just replace us with cameras, eh, Shuei?”

“Nah,” his partner replied. “We’d be out of a job if they did that.”

“Fair enough, we’re a couple of fuckups.”

“Can't believe they even hired us but hey, I’ll take an easy paycheck for staring at an empty yard for 360 days of the year.”

“Why only 360?”

“Well something actually happens about five times a year.”

A third voice, a woman's voice, suddenly cut in. “ Avici .”

The watchtower was bathed in immense heat like the inside of a volcano. Keishu heard a sickening crunch from behind him as he staggered to the railing, fumbling for his radio with burned hands. Every part of him was burning - his eyes, his mouth, his lungs - he could barely breathe or speak. He lifted the device to his mouth to try to raise the alarm as footsteps approached him from behind.

“Villain… attack,” he managed to rasp.

The Villain threw him over the tower railing, his burned lips open in a scream he lacked the strength to voice as he hurtled towards the ground.

“And this here is Saibi, head guard for the maximum security cell block.”

Saibi gave a well-rehearsed salute. “Thank you for coming on short notice, we only got news of this earlier today and they want the prisoner at Tartarus as soon as possible.”

“No problem at all,” Gunhead replied. “There’s enough Heroes on the streets that we can miss patrol for a night, and everything's valuable experience for the interns.”

It was a legal requirement that a Hero accompany every prisoner transfer, to discourage Villain attacks. Though voluntary on the part of the heroes, statistically, at least half of all heroes did transport duty at least once in their careers. More, once you filtered out Underground Heroes.

Saibi began guiding them through the block.

“We don’t actually get many prisoners for the maximum security cells. Certainly not enough to warrant the number of cells we have,” he said, ignoring Futokane's indignant huff. “Moonfish is the only prisoner we’re currently holding down here.”

They stopped in front of a cell at the end of the block with two guards standing watch by the door.

“He’s a real piece of work - deranged and cannibalistic, not a fun combination. We’ve had to keep extra guards on shift outside his cell 24/7 to make sure he doesn’t pull anything. I’ll rest easier once he’s off our hands.”

“What’s his Quirk?” Gunhead asked, peeking through the cell window. Moonfish was securely strapped down to a chair, bound in a tight black straightjacket, and gagged.

“His teeth are razor-sharp, far more durable than normal, and he can extend, retract, and direct them at will. Do not remove the gag,” Saibi replied.

“Got it. Well, I guess get him ready to move. I assume the convoy should be-”

An alarm started blaring.

Elis hummed to herself as she mentally scanned the plane she was about to overlap, looking for her chosen tool. Sure, she could just warp herself in and be done with it, but that was boring. Half the fun of Planar Magic was having every toy in the cosmos at her disposal - she wasn’t going to not use that.

She spotted what she was after - a Livyatan, happily swimming the vast depths of the Sanzu River. A quick twist of space, and her setup was complete.

A large, spherical bubble of water sprang into being at the prison’s entrance, one very confused Livyatan at the center of it. The steel barrier groaned in protest - it was made to withstand assault, but the massive pressure of the abyssal depths was another thing entirely. It had simply never been designed for such stresses.

The Livyatan was not having a particularly good time anymore. It had just been out for a quick swim, see if it could grab some prey, when suddenly the depths were filled with blinding light. It let out a roar of rage and pain, whirling around trying to find the aggressor that had attacked it.

Through the haze that was its vision, it saw a massive, dark silhouette.

It charged.

“This is the gate watch! Front gate under attack by hydrokinetic Villain! The structure is beginning to buckle, we need reinforcements immediately!”

Bannin Ichiro was also not having a good day.

His shift had started off well enough. Come in, say hi to the boss, say hello to the Heroes here to oversee the prisoner transfer (and make sure their paperwork was legit, of course). Grab a donut from the staff room - the boss always stocked up on the good stuff when a Hero would be visiting, none of the stale stuff the supermarket sold at a discount at the end of the week.

From there, it had been set to be an easy night of watching sitcoms. Maybe he’d have checked in with one of the guys who oversaw the low-risk Quirk cell blocks, see if there were any updates to the prison drama that he was probably a little too invested in.

But, no, life had other plans. The tower guards had called in the alarm, and less than three minutes later, something huge and heavy had begun to press on the door. Judging by the series of leaks the gate had been springing, somehow a massive wall of water was besieging them. 

He looked over at his partner. Poor Goei. The guy was deathly afraid of dying underwater (and sea monsters, as strange a fear as that was). It was why he had taken a position at an inland prison when he probably could have been absurdly well-paid to crew a submarine.

Goei Hachiro was currently running back and forth from the materials stockpile and the door. His Quirk, Reinforce, allowed him to form an airtight seal over openings in a metal surface by simply pressing plates of the same metal over the breach. An excellent quirk for defensive purposes, though its limitations meant that he had never been able to become a Hero.

Goei slapped another panel over a leak, quickly running his hand over it to the familiar green glow of his Quirk at work. The door sprang three more leaks almost before he had even finished.

“This can’t hold much longer!” he shouted to Bannin. “We keep springing more leaks and we’re running out of plating!”

“I’ve already called for help!” Bannin shouted back. “None of the outside teams are responding, we need to hold out until some teams from deeper in the prison come to our aid! We’ve got heroes visiting today, everything will be all-”

Something massive slammed into the gate, causing it to visibly deform. A three-foot gash formed in the metal, water rushing through it. Some strange, distorted, predatory growl emanated from the other side of the barrier.

Suppressing a sob, Goei sprinted back to the stockpile to grab another reinforcing plate.

Holding his radio in a death grip, Bannin practically screamed into it, “SOMETHING HUGE JUST STRUCK THE GATE, WE WILL BREACH IF WE TAKE ANOTHER HIT LIKE THAT, WE NEED BACKUP NOW !”

As his partner reached the gate again to reinforce it, the massive creature on the other side struck it again, and the gate finally gave way, shearing open and letting the apparent ocean outside rush through.

Goei got the worst of it, being right next to the gate when it breached. The rushing waters slammed him against a stone wall, the immense pressure crushing his bones against the unyielding surface. Bannin could only hope it was at least painless as he was swept away as well.

It was complete chaos in Hosu. Whatever Villain group was behind the attack, they were clearly numerous and well-prepared - it seemed like the whole city was threatened. Reinforcements were being called in from everywhere nearby, and every Hero based in the city was already out and about, trying to contain the destruction. Kamui Woods had restrained one of the attackers - a thin, inhuman-looking man with a Quirk that allowed him to attack by shoving his bones through his skin - almost immediately upon arrival, but the Villain, seemingly feral, raged and lashed out at whatever it could from its position pinned to the ground.

“Midoriya, try to escort civilians to safety! If you have to, you have full permission to use your Quirk to take down Villains!”

“Got it!”

The task was far easier said than done - the seemingly omnipresent monsters meant that the civilians caught in the open had no obvious place to run. As a result, the fear in the air was nearly overwhelming in its sheer quantity. He tried to focus, to sense anyone who was more afraid, who might be in imminent danger.

Fear spiked further down the street as a creature with four extendable arms began to climb down a building towards the crowd, but Izuku could already see several Heroes jumping in to fight the thing. More concerning was two sources of fear about a block away, apparently isolated.

He ran to them.

Surprisingly, Bannin wasn’t dead when he regained awareness. In fact, he was somehow on dry land. Propping himself up - every part of him hurt, so he had to do it slowly - he saw that the rushing water had somehow stopped just past the prison's entry hall, forming a curved wall in the air as though it was restrained to a gigantic bubble. And then, like it was a dream, it vanished, leaving only the devastated entry hall and the broken remains of Goei’s body as proof that what had just happened was real.

A woman walked right into the middle of the destruction, looking around her with an air of amusement. Her enormous bat wings, pointed ears, and the red star tattooed under her left eye were all it took for him to know she was no Hero he had ever heard of. His hand crept to his pistol, slowly, carefully to try to avoid having her notice what he was doing.

“You’re a very lucky man,” she said as she approached him, with a tone to her voice that sounded like she was trying not to break out into giggles.

“I’ll say,” he agreed, whipping out his pistol and firing before she could react.

The bullet struck true, tearing straight through her eye and splattering the ground behind her with black blood. It sizzled like bacon on a hot pan as it struck the ground.

She didn’t even break her stride at the injury, her eye rapidly mending itself as she bent down, bringing herself face-to-face with him. Her eyes were purple, with distinctly inhuman slit pupils. 

“Rejoice.”

A demonic claw danced across his throat, opening his veins to the world.

“Your soul will help to fuel Master’s return.”

Stain had tuned out the panic in the surrounding city - worrying about things other than a fight was a good way to lose. He was an executioner, an arbiter passing judgement on the unworthy. He didn’t lose .

Footsteps at the entrance of the alley heralded another interruption as he was about to end the life of Ingenium’s equally-unworthy sibling. He barely had time to glance in that direction before his hand exploded into pain, the sword flying from his grip and clattering to the ground. He leapt back from his attacker - Midoriya Izuku, the enigma of a student who had managed to earn Shigaraki’s ire despite being, by all indications from his performance in the Sports Festival, quite unremarkable.

Midoriya moved to place himself physically between Stain and Ingenium's brother.

“Attacking others in an alleyway with all the chaos going on… I figured it had to be you, Hero Killer. Sixty percent of your victims have been found in back alleys in less-trafficked areas.”

“So you jumped right in to apprehend me? To seize the glory for yourself? Are you even allowed to be using your Quirk right now, trainee ?”

He bent down cautiously, keeping his eyes on his opponent as he retrieved his weapon. Midoriya’s expression remained resolute.

“I jumped in to protect your victims.”

An admirable response, Stain begrudgingly admitted to himself.

“Midoriya, don’t interfere…” the second of his victims, Ingenium's brother, weakly objected. “This has nothing to do with you.”

“He’s right. Leave now, and I’ll let you go without issue. But if we have to fight, let me warn you: only the stronger of us will walk away. ”

It was a good, menacing line - one he’d used to scare off unworthy sidekicks dozens of times before, and hopefully put them on the right path. But Izuku didn’t flinch.

“Meddling where you’re not wanted is the true essence of a Hero.”

Stain let himself smile at that - maybe this kid was a worthy hero after all.

The two of them had a tense standoff for a brief moment, before exploding into motion when the sky erupted with light.

Izuku rushed in, clearly hoping to put Stain on the defensive from the start. Not a bad plan - get in close, and the length of his katana would make its use impractical at best. But he didn't realize how acrobatic Stain was.

“Midoriya, don’t let him cut you! He immobilized me and healed himself when he stabbed my foot!”

And there went the advantage of his Quirk being unknown. The healing was a new one, though - had the League’s witch done something to him while he was hallucinating?

It didn’t matter, he had already leapt into the air before the warning had been given. As he spun in mid-air, he brought his katana up, following the spiral of his motion in an upwards swing to attack from an unexpected angle.

The blade turned to rust in his hand as it came into contact with Izuku’s body, crumbling rapidly away as it failed to leave a mark on the trainee hero’s back. The moment he touched down on the ground, it began to liquefy into mud. Thinking quickly, he kicked off of Izuku’s back to launch himself to stable ground, sacrificing a boot in the process as it crumbled into dust upon contact with the boy.

So he had made a breakthrough with his Quirk after the Sports Festival. That was troubling.

Izuku whirled around and let his power flow through the ground again, forming spikes from the earth to try to pen in Stain’s movements.

The Hero Killer was a canny foe, however, and hadn’t enjoyed such a long career by being defeated the first time someone thought to try using area denial. He swept out his remaining booted foot to break the spikes and clear some space to maneuver, frowning when they grew back almost immediately. Izuku was actively maintaining them - he had to break the intern’s concentration somehow.

He lobbed a knife at the prone form of Native.

Predictably, Izuku dove to intercept it. Stain was quick to take advantage of the opening, drawing another knife and stabbing him in the stomach.

Both knives failed to make an impact, blowing away as sand. Izuku immediately slammed Stain in the stomach with an elbow, striking as though the Hero Killer was unarmored. He staggered back from the blow, his costume and padding falling away as water where he had been struck.

He barely noticed cutting his foot open on the spikes - compared to his nose, which he had cut off (and freshly regenerated, somehow), he was used to pain in the rest of his body. Far more concerning to him was his current situation. He was injured, fighting someone his weapons and armor meant nothing to, and  was running low on weapons to use if someone else showed up. He needed an opening to flee.

Suddenly, as if responding to him, debris began to rain from the sky. Izuku was forced to use his transformation powers on the walls of the alley, creating shelters to protect Stain’s victims from a downpour of bricks and damaged computer monitors. Wasting no time, the Hero Killer fled the alley, intent on fighting another day.

As he ran into the main street, bursting from the alley entrance, the wooden branches of the hero Kamui Woods clotheslined him.

The main cell block was a sweltering furnace by the time Shinsou, Gunhead, and Uraraka arrived to reinforce. Shinsou felt slightly guilty - he was the slowest of the trio, he had held them back - but the Villain attacking the prison had apparently been taking her sweet time advancing.

“Ah, more tributes! Welcome to my little slice of Raurava.”

She projected a bizarre air of innocence, a combination of her outfit looking more she was going to a fancy dinner than storming a prison and the fact that she was brandishing an extremely stereotypical-looking magic wand, a thin rod topped with a large five-pointed star. The numerous bodies littering the ground around her, as well as the blood still staining her hands, wingtips, and the points of the wand's star said otherwise, though.

“Hey, you’re Heroes, right?” A prisoner in a nearby cell shouted. “Help us! She’s crazy!”

“Uravity, Mind Blank, spread out and stay on guard!” Gunhead barked as he rushed the Villain.

Elis bared her claws as he approached.

“Come on, man!” The prisoner continued begging, “Let us out first! I don’t wanna die here!”

Gunhead deftly dodged a swing from Elis. “So what would you prefer,” she taunted, “Should I kill you first and let your apprentices watch you die, or do you want to watch them die?”

He slammed a fist into her completely unguarded face. She barely flinched.

“No banter, really? I had expected at least a ‘stop, evildoer,’ thing. The other humans certainly had their speeches rehearsed.”

“You're assaulting a prison,” he replied as he dodged a swipe from her claws. “I imagine you already know the consequences when I catch you.”

Her latest swipe left her open - he grabbed her arm, slammed a knee into her stomach, and flipped her in a textbook throw. Before she could hit the ground, she transformed into a bat, which flew a short distance away before reverting.

“Fine, have it your way.”

She threw her wand at Shinsou before Gunhead could react, aimed perfectly to strike between his eyes.

Uraraka intercepted it at the last second, the star’s sharpened tip sinking deep into the palm of her open hand as she dove to shield him. She let out a cry of pain as she dropped to the ground.

“Uraraka!”

“Don’t take your eyes off me.”

Momentarily distracted, Gunhead wasn’t able to dodge Elis’s swipe in time. Her vicious claws tore his helmet open and knocked him to the ground with a spray of blood.

She pointed at Uraraka and Shinsou.

“ Padma. ”

Immediately the oppressive heat was replaced with biting cold, frost nearly immediately forming on the ground around the pair as though it hadn’t just been so hot it was uncomfortable to touch. Strangely, this effect only applied to a small area, about ten meters in diameter - further away, there was no ice and the prisoners still seemed to be in discomfort from heat.

With an open wound, Uraraka suffered the effects of the cold faster - the injury froze and began to crack open in a pattern like a crimson lotus. Shinsou knew he didn't have long before the same happened to him.

Elis approached the duo.

“S-s-s-stop! D-d-d-don’t c-c-come c-c-closer!” Shinsou managed to get out through chattering teeth.

“And what will you do to stop me, morta-”

She stopped dead in her tracks, eyes blank, arms dropping to her sides.

“C-c-cancel y-your a-attack,” he commanded.

Gripped in his Quirk, the magician complied. Though she made no visible movement, the cell block returned to normal temperature immediately, the prisoners cheering from their cells at the Heroes’ victory.

“I’m going straight for good the moment I get out!” Someone shouted.

“Nicely handled, Shinsou. I’m sorry you had to compensate for my failure,” Gunhead said, having staggered to his feet. His head wound was bleeding quite severely, though he seemed unconcerned. “How’s Uraraka?”

“Not good.” Her now-thawing wound looked extremely nasty after the biting cold, and she was feverish and barely responsive.

“Shit. Alright, grab some medical supplies, there should be some at the checkpoint we passed on our way here. I’ll call this in and make sure whatever Heroes they’re sending us are equipped to transport this Villain.”

Shinsou practically sprinted off before Gunhead had even finished his second sentence, tearing through the checkpoint’s medical supplies while mentally checking what he needed. Water, towels, bandages, antiseptic - he grabbed it all and ran back as fast as he could. Gunhead was still on the phone when he got back.

“Well find someone , we’ve got an extremely dangerous Villain and multiple casualties! Hosu? What the hell does Hosu have to do with- OH. Yeah, makes sense. Send someone when you can.”

The Battle Hero ended the call and gave an apologetic look at Shinsou. “Seems help’s going to be a while. Something big going down at Hosu, maybe related to our Villain here. The transfer was actually rescheduled because they needed the convoy’s guards to help with the response to that, but we didn’t hear about it for obvious reasons.”

Shinsou was barely listening, focusing instead on applying first aid to Uraraka’s grisly wound. Applying pressure to her forearm to try to slow the bleeding, he began pouring water over the injury. It had apparently bled a tremendous amount - the injury itself didn’t seem nearly as bad as he had feared, probably only half the size he had thought it was when he had watched it rapidly deteriorating under the Villain’s icy cold. He turned away to grab the cloth, to wipe down the area in preparation for applying the antiseptic.

What he saw when he turned back made him pause - her wound was even smaller than before.

Her eyes snapped open all of a sudden, and she staggered to her feet, using her injured right hand to support her as though it was completely unharmed. Shinsou flinched at the sight.

“Uraraka, you’re injured, don’t-”

She growled , glaring at him out of the corner of her eyes. There was something animalistic, predatory, in her eyes. Shocked, he flinched back. Hair was creeping its way up the backs of her hands, what little he could see of them, forming a thick coat of fur.

Faster than he could react, she suddenly lunged at Elis. Gunhead tried to throw his arm out to stop her, but he, too, was too slow - she slashed her sharp fingernails - no, they were proper, vicious, claws, now, Shinsou realized, they had left gouges in the cement floor when she had dragged herself to her feet - across the mind controlled villain’s face. Black blood flew everywhere, hissing as it hit the ground. Shinsou threw an arm up to shield him, wincing as the droplets sizzled on his skin like hot oil.

Elis recovered far faster than anyone Shinsou had ever used his quirk on before, her confusion lingering for only a split second before she realized what had happened. Clutching a hand to her bleeding wound - strange, hadn’t she healed rapidly from everything else? - she began laughing maniacally.

“This is too good! I haven’t seen one of your kind since the middle ages!”

A sadistic smile spread across the demon’s face. “I know just what to do with you.”

“ Avici. ”

Shinsou braced himself for another temperature-based attack, but nothing came. Uraraka, on the other hand, yowled in pain as her body erupted into flame, taking a blind retaliatory swipe at the magician. The smell of burning hair filled the room. She caught nothing but air, Elis’s body shimmering like a mirage.

“I’ll leave you to quarrel among yourselves. Have fun!”

The demon vanished.

Uraraka howled in animalistic fury, whipping her head around trying to find where the enemy had gone. Wolf ears sprang up from where they had been hidden by her hair, trying to detect any sound that could give her prey away. With a sickening lurch in his stomach, Shinsou realized that the damage from the last attack had left her unable to properly distinguish friend from foe by sight. Locking onto him, she leapt, claws ready to rend flesh.

Chapter Text

Gunhead slammed into Shinsou, knocking him to the side as the frenzied Uraraka sailed past. The scrape of claws against concrete rang through the cell block as she stopped herself, digging furrows in the ground as she slid to a halt. She looked back and forth between Shinsou and the door heading deeper into the prison before apparently coming to a decision. Growling, she began to pace a wide circle around the duo, watching them warily.

“Shinsou, get behind me,” Gunhead urged. “Those claws she grew gouged up the cement, it’s my responsibility to keep you safe.”

“What's wrong with her?”

“I can’t be sure, but there must have been something on that wand the Villain threw. Dosed it with Trigger or a mutating agent, or something.”

While they had their hushed conversation, Uraraka stopped pacing and turned fully towards them.

“Uraraka,” the Hero warned, “if you can understand me, stay back. I don’t want to hurt you.”

She snarled at him, showing distinctly pointed teeth. When she tensed for another leap, Gunhead let loose a volley of projectiles using his quirk, forcing her to jump to the side to avoid it. Unfortunately, far from a deterrent, the attack only seemed to enrage her. The moment she touched the ground, she lunged forward.

The Battle Hero threw his guard up as she leapt, and her jaws closed around a mouthful of metal as she bit into his armored gauntlets. Grimacing, he wrenched the arm from her grip and swung a fist at her, missing as she leapt back. Shinsou could tell just by looking that the barrels built in for the Hero’s Quirk were too critically damaged to be of use anymore.

He ducked back from a horizontal swipe of her claws, trying vainly to retaliate with a punch. It was a marked difference from sparring - where she had previously been slower than the hero, she now outstripped him in both power and speed, turning what had been a decidedly one-sided fight into a roughly even matchup where Gunhead had to rely on his superior skill. Shinsou didn’t want to see what would happen if the hero slipped up, considering what those claws did to cement.

Elis shimmered back into reality within the only occupied cell in the Maximum Security wing. Really, she could have done so from the start - she knew her destination and the prison, like nearly every place in the modern world, had no wards set up to stop regular magicians from teleporting in, let alone a skilled planar mage - but then she wouldn’t have gotten to kill people.

“Now then, let's see what you have to say, ‘new recruit’,” she muttered, removing Moonfish's gag.

Immediately, the straightjacketed prisoner lanced his extending teeth directly through her, skewering the demon in no less than seven places. Sizzling blood soaked the door.

“Meat,” the cannibal gasped, his teeth latching onto a portion of Elis's face and tearing it off to deliver to his waiting maw.

He spat it out the second it touched his tongue.

“Rotten.”

“It’s perfectly fine, really,” Elis protested, the right side of her face already regenerating. “Demon flesh just isn’t fit for human consumption.”

“Woman still alive?”

“If the likes of Hakurei couldn't put an end to me, you certainly can’t. I should thank you, actually - I was worried the werewolf wound was going to scar.”

She ran a hand over her now blemish-free skin.

“As a show of my gratitude, how about this: I’ll free you, and also tell you about something a ‘friend’ of mine is planning. You'll be able to feast to your heart's content.”

The saliva dripping from the Villain’s mouth was all the answer she needed.

Bestial claws raked deep into the metal of Gunhead's gauntlets as the battle hero blocked another pounce from Uraraka. The moment they stopped, lodged in the armor, he yanked hard, taking advantage of her stumbling and her brief moment of surprise to throw her to the ground in a textbook demonstration of his Gunhead Martial Arts. He had used the move on the first day of the internship when showing how to handle a knife-user, if Shinsou recalled correctly.

Uraraka snarled angrily as he held her down, snapping at the air with the sharp teeth of a carnivore.

“Shinsou!” he grunted. “Get some cuffs - we can worry about the villains later, we need to make sure Uraraka's okay.”

Before Shinsou could act on the order, Gunhead’s visible eye widened in surprise as the werewolf beneath him forced herself to her feet with inhuman strength, throwing him from her back before he had a chance to adjust his hold. Seizing him by the leg, she flung the now-weightless hero across the cell block, leaving Shinsou alone to stare her down.

“Uraraka,” he said, trying to keep his voice call and his body language nonthreatening, “we’re going to help you. We're on your side, you don't have to be afraid-”

She growled - a response! He activated his quirk and-

Felt the mind control slip off her uselessly.

Now realizing she was in a completely animalistic mindset, Shinsou had barely gotten his guard up before a furry backhand slammed into his raised forearms, lifting him off his feet and throwing him against a cell filled with cowering prisoners. Sheer panic gripped him for a moment as one of the cell’s occupants grabbed him from behind, clamping a hand over his mouth.

“For the love of any gods out there, man, stay down,” the prisoner hissed into his ear. “You can’t fight that, she threw that hero like a ragdoll.”

For a tense moment, Uraraka stood there, seemingly searching for something as she scanned the cell block.

“Please…” the prisoner muttered.

Apparently not finding whatever she was looking for, she stuck her nose into the air, sniffing a few times before catching a scent. 

Dropping onto all fours, Uraraka sprinted off deeper into the prison.

Shinsou immediately whirled on the prisoner, who had released him the moment Uraraka was out of sight.

“What the hell?”

“Hey, kid, show some gratitude, yeah?” The man said, raising his hands to show he had no ill intent. “I put myself at risk for you.”

“...I’m not freeing you, if that's what you mean.”

“Wouldn’t dream of asking it,” the prisoner replied, to the protests of his cellmates. “But if I’m stuck in here, I’d prefer the hero fights be taking place somewhere else , you know? I don’t intend to die in a cell.”

Gunhead clasped a hand onto Shinsou's shoulder, causing the prisoner to shrink back.

“We have to go after her.”

It would have been a more assuring statement if the hero wasn’t currently weightless and clinging tightly onto him to prevent himself from drifting away, Shinsou thought.

“Sir, you’re injured and under the effects of her quir-”

“It’s my duty to protect my interns,” he insisted, “and that Villain is likely still in the facility - she was after something.”

“Fine.”

Shinsou began to tug Gunhead in the direction Uraraka had gone, wishing her quirk also negated inertia so he didn't have to spend quite so much effort moving the grown man through the air.

The moment the heroes were out of sight as well, the prisoner produced a lockpick to the cheers of his cellmates.

“...and we’re planning to make another move soon - Shigaraki specifically sent me to headhunt for recruits. You interested?”

Moonfish made no signs of paying attention to her as he messily devoured a severed arm. The cell’s guards hadn’t realized the threat was inside the cell before it was too late for them.

“It’s fine, you don't have to answer immediately. I’m sure you’re hungry after they locked you up for so long.”

He continued his grisly meal.

“People just don’t understand folks like you or me, you know? We want to live our lives the way we want, not being held down by others. You wanted to eat other people, I wanted to become a demon. Where’d that get me? Well, the church almost burned me at the stake for heresy, but ultimately, far . Far is where it got me."

“...eat more,” he said at last.

“Hm?”

“I want to eat more.”

“That can absolutely be arranged,” Elis replied, grinning widely. “In fact, I have an idea - how do you feel about-”

She was cut off by a howling that echoed through the entire cell block.

“Meat?” the cannibal rasped.

“Yeah, meat. Time to see you at work.”

Gunhead bounded down the halls as fast as he could, Shinsou clinging to his back. At some point it had occurred to him that he could use Shinsou to weigh himself down, allowing him to benefit from the increased mobility without drifting away from the ground the moment he touched off.

They arrived, rather unsurprisingly, to a battle in progress. Moonfish had been broken out and was currently engaged in a mid-air battle with Uraraka, using elongated teeth as stilts and Spears to fend off the frenzied werewolf, who had figured out how to use her quirk again and was bouncing off the walls as a clawed, furred missile. The bat-winged woman, meanwhile, watched the fight with a general air of disinterest.

Gunhead shuffled Shinsou off his back, taking care not to deposit the student too roughly and warning, “Stay on guard, Moonfish is extremely dangerous and the winged villain has already demonstrated her ability.”

He then launched himself into the air to try to help Uraraka against the cannibalistic convict. Shinsou dodged out of the way of several enamel skewers the villain directed his way - Moonfish was clearly used to fighting against superior numbers.

Elis jeered at the newcomers, taunting, “You came to help your ‘friend’, huh? I wonder if you’d be so eager to help her if you knew what she was!”

“And what is she, exactly?” Shinsou shot back.

Elis just wagged her finger in reply.

One of Moonfish’s skewering teeth hit home, spearing Uraraka through the shoulder and pinning her to the ground, but before he could follow up, Gunhead had already intercepted and managed to land a strong blow to the straightjacketed Villain’s face, spiraling off from the recoil. Snarling viciously, she snapped the tooth off with her claws and tore it from her shoulder, slicing her palm open without displaying any sign of discomfort. The wounds began to close before she had even discarded the fragment.

“Hey, Moonfish! You ugly cannibal!” Shinsou tried.

Alas, the villain continued babbling to himself about blood and flesh and battle - he was clearly too unstable to be paying much attention to what was said during a fight. That left the demon woman, who had already learned how his Quirk worked, as the only real target. Apparently realizing this, she folded her arms behind her head while reclining in midair, showing her utter lack of concern for anything he could do.

A gunshot rang out throughout the cell block, blood exploding from Moonfish’s shoulder. Silence reigned for a moment, its only interruption the click of Head Guard Saibi pulling back the hammer of his revolver. He fired five more times, striking Moonfish with each shot, but never fatally. The injured villain fell to earth, Gunhead already kicking off the ceiling to pursue.

“Right,” Elis declared, “That’s our cue to leave. But before we go...”

She pointed at Uraraka again. Shinsou braced himself, knowing what had happened each time before.

“ Sañjīva .”

The heat was nowhere near as bad as before, though the floor appeared to have become hot iron. Saibi began to reload his revolver as Elis flew to Moonfish’s downed body and knocked Gunhead away before he could reach the prone villain. Then, all hell broke loose.

Beasts with iron claws and flaming weapons materialized from thin air, looking every bit the part of a traditional demon, horned figures with red skin. They rushed for Uraraka first before more broke off to attack Saibi and Shinsou. Uraraka snarled at the new attackers, tearing into them with tooth and claw, fighting through the myriad cuts they inflicted on her. Saibi, meanwhile, quickly drew a knife and began fighting as best he could, acting more defensively than Uraraka at the cost of not striking back at his attackers nearly as often.

Panicked, Shinsou backed up, trying to find a position where he didn’t have to defend against attack from all sides. As suddenly as they had appeared, the demons attacking him vanished as if they had never been there.

At the same time, Elis and Moonfish shimmered like a mirage in the desert, vanishing entirely. Was that her secret? Was the villain an illusionist who tricked the mind into feeling pain?

Saibi shrieked as a demon tore one of his eyes out. Not an illusion, then. Uraraka, too, was beginning to falter under the assault. Shinsou scanned the cell block, trying to find some explanation for why he had escaped the attack, when he noticed Gunhead trying to get a good foothold on the wall to launch himself into the fray to try to help Uraraka and the beleaguered guard. Completely unharassed by demons.

“Gunhead!”

“What?”

“That Villain’s attack has a range to it! If we’re not in the area, the demons vanish!”

Nodding in acknowledgement, the hero pushed off the wall, diving for Uraraka like a torpedo before landing next to her, scooping her up, and kicking off again in one quick motion. Though she weakly resisted, she displayed nowhere near the vigor she had possessed earlier that night. As the demons that had been attacking her vanished, Shinsou darted into the area again, grabbing onto Saibi’s arm and dragging the guard away from his attackers. At last, there was peace in the cell block.

The guard was in bad shape - he had lost both eyes, one leg at the knee, and had suffered deep cuts to his arms that were bleeding profusely. Shinsou began to tourniquet the wounds as best he was able.

“Fuck, that hurts…” Saibi moaned as Shinsou worked, “sorta wish I had let myself pass out.”

“You’re going to be okay, help should be here soon.”

“Shinsou?”

“What is it, Gunhead?”

“Uraraka’s barely breathing.”

“I know I told you that you were allowed to use your Quirk if necessary, but taking on the Hero Killer is a little…”

“Should I have just let them die, then?” Izuku asked pointedly.

“No, of course not,” Kamui Woods replied, shaking his head exasperatedly, though the smile was clear in his eyes. “I’m proud of what you’ve done here, really. Though, if I had known it would turn out like this, I probably wouldn’t have given you free reign.”

“Excuse me, excuse me!”

A well-dressed woman ran up. The microphone she held marked her as a reporter for the Hosu Times.

“I was wondering if you had any comment on the absolutely devastating villain attack that’s struck our fine city tonight, and- is that the Hero Killer!?”

Kamui Woods had finished binding Stain in thick vines, carefully ensuring there was no way the notoriously slippery villain could get out of his bindings under his own power. “Yes, I suppose it is.”

“What a tremendous scoop! Would you mind if we interviewed you about the incident? We were going to report on the massive battle that’s taken out power to half the city, but Shine News on channel 4 sent a truck over there and it got totalled by raining debris so we were hoping for a better option.”

Izuku looked questioningly at his supervising hero.

“No,” Kamui replied. “You cannot ask us about the incident. You are welcome to consult the official police statement for details once one is made, but at the moment this matter is still under active investigation.”

Not paying particular mind to him, she began reporting on it anyways.

“We come to you live with a shocking development! Just now, during the chaos of the attack on our fair city of Hosu, the notorious criminal known as the ‘Hero Killer’ has been apprehended after an unknown altercation! While none of the individuals involved have chosen to comment on the matter, it’s clear to see from the scene before us that…”

A massive radio tower began to tip and fall, the metal of its joints protesting vehemently as it fought valiantly against forces it was never designed to take. The airborne, shadowy villain cackled maniacally as it lost its war with gravity.

“Seriously, is that all you’ve got, ‘Heroes’? I thought you were supposed to be the best society’s got, but I’ve fought tougher opponents in my sleep !”

Kirishima let the power of One For All flow through him, reinforcing his entire body as the metal structure crashed down on him. Grunting, he shoved the tower’s wreckage aside before beginning to tear a chunk of it off. In the skies above Hosu, Gran Torino continued his duel with the villain.

“You can’t keep this up forever,” he warned. “There’s far more of us than there are of you.”

“You really think you should be telling me that?” She taunted. “You’re slowing down, changing directions less often. Your Quirk runs on your breath, doesn’t it? A drawn out fight like this is the last thing you want, but I’m too good-”

Cutting herself off, she quickly zipped backwards, telekinetically grabbed a large fragment of radio tower as it flew past, and lobbed it at Gran Torino, forcing the elderly hero to dodge.

“-For you to end this quickly.”

He grimaced - she was right, he was tiring out, and with the fight as high in the air as it was, the number of heroes who could intervene was extremely small. Then, he saw a brief glimmer of hope - unmistakable flames down at street level. While anyone who personally knew Endeavor disliked the man, his effectiveness was undeniable. If Gran Torino could just keep the villain’s attention long enough for him to join the fray…

He took a deep breath, already mentally plotting a route through the field of debris the villain was maintaining. If he could bounce the floating pieces of detritus off of each other just right, he might be able to overwhelm her defenses.

Kirishima was already tearing another chunk off of the radio tower when a gruff voice addressed him.

“Boy.”

“Hm?” he grunted in reply, not taking his focus off of his work - his teacher needed him.

“Don’t throw that debris.”

“Wha-” he stopped what he was doing to focus on Endeavor in outrage. “My teacher is up there! I have to help somehow , even if I can’t physically reach him!”

“You’re going about it wrong. Gran Torino is a veteran, he’ll have a plan in mind. But just attacking carelessly will be worse than useless. Attack on my signal. A big punch, like the one you used on my son. The ones that send out shockwaves like All Might does.”

Gran Torino kicked the debris into motion, launching the cloud into a veritable shower of rubble. As the cloud bounced around, he shot into motion as well, bouncing from point to point and carefully intensifying the attack. At his carefully chosen moment, he shot straight for the villain striking when she used her powers to halt the whirlwind of trash. As he had anticipated, she still managed to whip her cloak out to defend, reinforcing it with her telekinetic abilities. Kicking it was like hitting a battleship’s plating.

“Not a bad attack for someone like you,” she laughed. “I’m starting to see why Suika likes fighting people who’re way below her level. But now you’re in range. Dodge this - Psychokinesis:”

He launched himself away with Jet, trying to dodge the attack he knew was coming.

“ Psychexplosion .”

Shit, he thought, as he felt the atmosphere compress itself around him, I’m not far enough.

The air rebounded, the shockwave hitting him like the blast wave of a bomb. Gritting his teeth through the pain, he managed to force one last spurt out of his quirk before the unmistakable, brilliant orange spiderweb of Endeavor’s Hell Spider technique cut through the air. Fueled by the burst of air from one of Kirishima’s shockwaves, it was far faster than normal, slicing through the shadowy villain before she could react.

Gran Torino fell from the sky, too exhausted to use his quirk anymore. Now, he could only hope someone below was equipped to catch him.

Sumireko’s doppelganger fell to pieces, laughing all the while as she faded into nothingness.

Kirishima watched in horror as Gran Torino tumbled through the air. Endeavor barking orders into a microphone went unnoticed by the horrified redhead as he realized what he was about to watch - try as he might, nothing he had developed during his time under the hero had been able to compete with the old man’s aerial mobility. Saving him was beyond his power.

Nevertheless, he sprinted desperately for the falling hero, hoping against hope that by some miracle he could arrive in time to save him. Only a block away from the landing site, his stomach gave a sickening lurch as he heard a loud, wet thump.

Dreading what he’d find, he ran to the impact.

Gran Torino lay faceup and unconscious on a massive pile of crumpled cardboard boxes, broken and bloodied but still clearly breathing. Crushed Taiyaki surrounded the entire mess. As medics arrived to the scene and began shouting instructions, Kirishima allowed himself to cry tears of relief.

“They’re both in stable condition,” the doctor confirmed, “But Saibi’s injuries are severe - he’ll likely never see again, and he’ll have nerve damage in his arms.”

“And Uraraka?” Gunhead asked.

“We’re… not sure what’s wrong with her, really,” he admitted. “The wolf ears she’s got are thoroughly attached - if you hadn’t mentioned otherwise we’d have assumed they were always there - and her claws also simply seem to have always been that way. You’re sure she didn’t have some kind of hidden mutation Quirk? Something she might have kept secret just because she’s sensitive about it?”

Shinsou shook his head firmly. “I saw her in the loser’s lounge at the Sports Festival, there was nothing like this.”

“Hmmm. Well, outside of that, she’s perfectly healthy. Not an injury on her when we looked at her. We have no idea why her breathing is so weak, or why she’s not responding to any stimuli - it’s like her body’s just giving up on her.”

“How long do we have to save her?” Gunhead asked, pain clear in his voice.

The doctor just gave him a look of hopelessness. “I don’t know.”

Chapter Text

The attack at Mongaza Prison ended Shinsou’s internship early, even though he hadn’t been badly injured. Gunhead had collapsed after hearing Uraraka’s condition, the injuries from the fight finally catching up to him. Apparently the hero had broken several ribs on top of a large amount of blood loss, but powered through for the sake of his interns.

Regardless, without a supervising Hero, Shinsou was now left with some free time until UA resumed. Nothing better to do, he found himself wandering the streets of Musutafu on a Friday, looking for something interesting to take his mind off the disastrous events earlier that week.

Passing by Dantuin Station, he noticed a gathered mob of protesters. Strange - he didn’t know of any major scandals, so it had to be something new. From the signs, they were protesting some hero lying about their actions, but they didn’t seem to be camped outside an agency or anything.

“They’re protesting the retired hero Afterburner,” a familiar voice told him. Turning, he realized that Izuku and Kamui Woods were standing there watching the protest. Presumably, the green-haired boy’s internship had gone considerably smoother.

“Afterburner?”

“He retired about a year ago after a fight in Saitama prefecture that destroyed half the city. Didn’t take long for people to realize Hosu’s ‘mystery villain’ matches the one he claims to have defeated almost exactly and that he lied about defeating them back then. This protest started around lunch and more people have been trickling in slowly. The police wanted us on deck just to ensure things stayed civil.”

It made sense - heroic presence at protests had been an established fact since the chaos that surrounded the rise of Quirks, when it had quickly become clear how powerful some could be. Especially if Afterburner had lied about taking down a villain that had now caused severe damage once again, oversight by heroes was a definite requirement to make sure things didn't get ugly.

“Honestly, I’m surprised this sort of thing doesn't happen very often.”

“It does, actually - about 10% of low-ranking heroes have submitted erroneous reports of stopping villains,” Izuku replied, ever the source of heroics trivia. “The thing is that usually it’s minor stuff, like claiming someone was engaged in villainy when they weren’t, or relatively harmless lies like claiming they were held up chasing a nonexistent villain to avoid admitting they slept through their alarm. This is the first case I’ve heard of where someone tried to claim credit for a takedown that wasn’t theirs, and even more notable because Afterburner got catapulted up to rank 110 in the last hero ranking before he retired.”

Shinsou shook his head. "He lied for fame? What's the point?”

Izuku shrugged. “Some people just want to bask in the limelight. I know you don’t really want that, but there are some people out there who are just in heroics for the publicity. The Hero Killer somehow twisted himself into thinking he was doing the right thing hunting those types down.”

“Oh yeah, you took that guy down, didn't you? The paper said your supervising hero authorized you to help during the attack.”

“It- it was nothing, really! I just got lucky that my quirk countered his.”

“Still better than we did. That villain just walked right over us like we weren’t there. Considering the shape Gunhead was left in, it might have been better if we hadn’t been there. She broke out Moonfish anyways, after all.”

Izuku looked at him in horror. “You were at Mongaza…?” He realized.

Shinsou slowly nodded.

“Is… is Uraraka okay?”

Right, he probably knew she was with Gunhead.

“She’s in bad shape and the doctors don't know what's wrong with her. She blocked an attack for me before growing wolf ears and claws and just going completely berserk. After the villain escaped she collapsed and hasn't responded to anything since.”

A brief flash of confusion crossed Izuku's face before it lit up like he had suddenly realized something.

“What’s that look for?”

“I, um, just realized there might be a connection between the Mongaza attack and Hosu. Where is she? I'd like to visit, when I have time.”

Shinsou raised an eyebrow skeptically. “She’s unresponsive.”

“She’s my friend. ”

He relented. “Ibana Hospital. I don't think they let you in to see patients unless you’re related, though.”

The look on Izuku's face got the boy’s gratitude across better than any words could.

Nightmare in Hosu , read the bold headline of the newspaper that Shigaraki slammed down on the table.

“Look at this,” he growled.

Kurogiri calmly picked up the paper, unfolding it. Below the article, smaller headlines advertised, “ Mongaza Prison breached by unidentified intruder - Page 3 ”, “ Hero Killer's reign of terror ended by Hero Student - Page 7 ”, and “ Doomsday cult enjoys rapid rise in membership - page 11 ”.

All in all, not a bad spread of articles.

“What seems to be the problem?”

“The problem ,” he ground out through gritted teeth, “is that we aren’t getting the credit for anything! That ‘unknown villain’ at Hosu dominates the narrative, Stain’s arrest grabbed the rest of the media attention, they haven’t tied us to the prison break, and that cult grabbed the last piece of front-page real estate!”

“Oh, that one’s mine,” Elis called from the sofa, YuugenMagan’s eyes shut and slumbering beside her. “I tipped them off about the Hosu attack and now they’re riding a surge in recruitment thanks to my figurehead’s ‘prophetic visions’ coming true.”

You could practically see steam rising from Shigaraki as the lanky villain fumed over this revelation. Kurogiri quickly placed a glass on the counter next to him, which was promptly disintegrated, sparing anything more valuable from the immature Villain’s wrath.

“You stole our attention with that side project ?”

“Miss Elis,” Kurogiri cut in, “I had been under the impression you were a mere member of this ‘Church of the Winged Void’. I realize that your relationship with us is a mutually beneficial alliance rather than direct membership in the League, but if you truly are at the organization’s head, it would have been useful for us to know sooner. The USJ, for instance.”

“No, it wouldn’t,” she replied immediately. “We didn’t have many members at the time, sending them would have just wiped the group out before it could ramp up recruitment. I contributed what I felt was necessary to the attack, and your ‘sensei’ agreed it was a fair contribution.”

She leaned back on the sofa with a huff. “Don't go trying to blame me for your failures.”

Kurogiri raised an eyebrow “And the injuries suffered by Moonfish during your retrieval?”

“Were treatable by you and, as you yourself noted, will be healed well before you need him.”

Shigaraki straightened the paper, looking over the front-page article more closely. “Fine. We’re still in good shape. Stain and this unknown did us a favor, actually. Stain’s fans will want revenge - we just need to position ourselves to recruit them.”

Kurogiri nodded. “I’ll get in touch with Giran.”

Reiko bent over and plucked a brilliant, luminous orange mushroom off of a tree root, popping it into her mouth as she continued searching the forest of magic. It was about the temperature of freshly brewed tea and made her vision swim, but it also made sources of magic give off a faint light for about an hour after consumption. She doubted this would lead anywhere.

After about fifteen minutes, she was proven wrong - a scrap of purple cloth, standing out against the glowing backdrop of a tree root like a drop of ink on fresh parchment. She snatched it up with her quirk immediately, channeling magic through her to purge the mushroom’s effects now that they were no longer needed. While the fabric’s presence boded poorly for Mineta’s survival, there was one way she could be certain.

Recalling the instructions Seiga had given her years ago, Reiko turned to a nearby tree and focused the internal energies of yin and yang to reach out to the crevices in the bark, linking them to the hidden realm her master called home. She stepped through the glowing gateway, passing through with ease even though the aperture seemed impossibly small for a human.

The brilliance of Senkai was that it was a secret realm created through hermit arts, created by the genius of one Toyosatomimi no Miko and accessible from anywhere in Gensokyo - provided one knew the trick, of course.

As expected, Reiko arrived directly within the courtyard of the splendid structure known as the Divine Spirit Mausoleum, her appearance idly noted by the practicing Taoist apprentices. She floated directly towards the side chamber that Seiga dwelt in, sending novices scattering at her advance - nobody wanted to deal with the student of the Wicked Hermit.

Even if, Reiko reflected to herself with a snicker, their own teacher Miko was also a former apprentice of Seiga’s.

She threw the chamber door open with her mind, floating inside. “Seiga, I need you to- what in the hells are you doing?”

Seiga didn’t even look up from the muscular body she was in the process of scribing spells all over. It was a nightmarishly complex work - Reiko could spot runes to imbue the subject with speed, strength, and regeneration, as well as something apparently meant to bleed off energy from incoming attacks.

“Thought experiment,” the Wicked Hermit replied. Mercifully, she was back to her normal outfit, consisting of a teal dress with floral print and a white vest decorated with blue patterns. A translucent white cloth floated behind her, and Reiko had always suspected it was enchanted to do so entirely for aesthetic purposes.

“What- you know what, doesn’t matter. I need you to summon up a ghost for me.”

She held out the scrap of fabric. Seiga snatched it with her free hand while continuing to scribe spells with the other.

“Anything in particular for me to be looking for? You know how humans like to pass clothing down.”

“Young man, short, purple hair. Should be around 14 or 15 years old. I have a file on him if you need it.”

She waved the folder away, quickly chanting an invocation while continuing her scribing work. “No need, I can see him. He’s still got a strong presence, I don’t think that lazy shinigami’s gotten to work yet. You wanted to speak with him?”

Reiko thought for a moment, then remembered the comments the file had on his personality and shuddered. “No need, I just wanted confirmation he was dead.”

“Glad I could be of use.” Seiga finished scribing her runes and looked over the corpse appraisingly. “You think this thing could fight an oni?”

“Fight? Sure. Win? Absolutely no chance. I’d be surprised if it lasted more than twenty seconds.”

“That’s not bad, actually. Maybe if I got a bunch more…”

“ No, master.”

Higashifukami High School was a humble setting, especially when compared to UA. Izuku supposed it only made sense, since Higashifukami was a normal high school and not a heroics school. Though it was closed for the weekend, the school was the only lead he had on Sumireko’s location - the only school remotely nearby with that distinctive purple plaid uniform. He needed to find a student registry and see if she was on it.

He reached for the sheaf of papers at his side - a component of his hero costume he tended to keep on him even when not in uniform, due to its usefulness - trying to work up the resolve to make a ladder and jump the wall to trespass onto school grounds.

“If you’re thinking of investigating the Seven Mysteries, I can tell you they’re all depressingly mundane and have boring explanations.”

He whirled to face the familiar voice. Sumireko, clad in the usual purple plaid outfit, had snuck up right behind him. Somewhat strangely, she wasn’t wearing her cape or hat.

“Like the disappearing step on the stairwell to the second floor, for instance - there’s just a lot of idiots who can’t count. I’ve checked those stairways every weekend for the year and a half I’ve gone here and the amount never changes. There’s twenty of them, both up and down. And the wall with a face is just because that idiot Ishikao head-butted it for 200 yen and left an imprint.” She shook a fist at the sky, yelling at nobody in particular, “We had an assembly about this, people! They told us not to do things like that! So yeah, sorry, nothing occult here.”

“I was actually looking for you, Miss Usami.”

“Oh, because I’m the seventh mystery, the ‘Girl who sleeps through every class but still gets straight As’? I’m just smart and already know the courses,” she replied, apparently playing dumb.

“Wha… no, I was looking for you because I need help with something about Genso-”

She slapped a hand over his mouth, looking up and down the street.

“Not here. I think I know what’s happened here, but we need to go somewhere more private to talk.”

Whatever was up with Sumireko, she still had her love of the occult, as evidenced by the shop she led him to, a small bookstore labeled 'the Spookstore' that seemed to only sell books about ghosts. She led him through a winding maze of shelves - he boggled at how they seemed to have such a large inventory despite their extremely narrow theme - before finally coming to a halt at a small junction. The entrance was tucked firmly out of sight, and the mass of literature would doubtlessly absorb any sound before it went far.

“Alright,” she started, “let me guess: you want to know what happened with the cape and hat.”

“I… what?” It was a question he had, but definitely not the main one he had.

Like why she was still playing dumb, for instance.

“The original Sumireko is the one with the cape, she didn't wear it when she created me because the faculty gets on our case when she wears it.”

“Created? What are you talking about, you helped me when I almost died from lack of belief! Mamizou asked you to watch over me because I’m her son, remember?”

A look of supreme annoyance crossed her face. “And she didn’t tell you about me? Rude. She’s been working on the youkai thing herself, using the urban legend of doppelgangers to give herself stronger powers and hopefully make a full transition. I'm a copy she made to go to school while she does other things.”

Izuku took a moment to let the revelation sink in. “Wait, so will you even get the powers if she gains new ones?”

The clone shrugged. “I might? That was the last big development we really had powerwise, and ultimately it's like uploading your brain in sci-fi, you know? As long as one instance of you exists, you still do.”

Izuku was struck mute by her casual dismissal of philosophical questions of self.

She whipped out her smartphone, ignoring his stunned silence. “Anyways, let me see if I can find the original for you.”

Got 99 Sumirekos but a Witch ain’t one. No but seriously it’s sorta weird we haven’t gotten on that whole ‘magic’ thing yet.

Schoolmereko: yo
Schoolmereko: @SumirekOG
Schoolmereko: got someone here looking for you

RealSumireko: I haven’t seen her online lately.

SumirekoTimesTwo: didn't she block you after you bodyjacked her for a whole month last summer?

RealSumireko: Oh yeah.
RealSumireko: Good times.

SchrodingersSumireko: speaking of, how’s the fallout from that going?

RealSumireko: Ugh, don’t get me started. Fucking Doremy hasn’t let me or @TheSchoolNightmare out of her sight ever since.

TheSchoolNightmare: why the fuck did you ping me
TheSchoolNightmare: i hate you all so much
TheSchoolNightmare: do you know what it does to someone?
TheSchoolNightmare: to know youre a clone of a clone?
TheSchoolNightmare: im the dream world version of a doppelganger copy of the original
TheSchoolNightmare: and not even one of the cool doppelganger copies like the one we have who managed to score an internship researching the pyramids
TheSchoolNightmare: no, im a copy of the doppelganger who exists to make sure we all have an alibi for when OG finally fucks up and gets identified while blowing up half a fucking city

Schoolmereko: hey

SumirekOnryo: This is why nobody likes you, doppelganger-dream-Sumireko.

TheSchoolNightmare: oh, so now the crazy one who lives in a cave on the side of mt fuji and studies ghostville is going to criticize me?

SumirekOnryo: It’s called Aokigahara and it's a notable hotspot of spectral activity.

TheSchoolNightmare: DID I FUCKING ASK, BITCH
TheSchoolNightmare: @everyone
TheSchoolNightmare: good luck finding OG now, assholes

Several Sumirekos are typing…

‘Schoolmereko’ groaned. “Sorry, this is going to take a while.”

Izuku raised an eyebrow. “‘RealSumireko’ isn't the real one?”

“I don't know why she’s even still using that name - she’s the Dream World version of the original, she got powered up a while back and was able to temporarily steal the original body. Real mess.”

“How many of you are there?”

“I stopped keeping track a while ago. We started with OG, and I guess everyone has something called a ‘Dream Soul’ that's sorta but not really them too so I guess that means we really started with two?”

She shrugged. “But once we found Gensokyo things got weird - that whole mess ended up giving us something called ‘Dream Fantasy Disorder’ where we go there in our dreams - without outside aid, by the way, you don’t have it, your amulet acts as a catalyst to force the effect - and that's technically a sort of thoughtform ‘echo’ of us that's both human and youkai while being neither, so she’s number three - the one using ‘SchrodingersSumireko’ - and from there things got even crazier because OG developed her doppelganger powers, creating a Sumireko entirely off the doppelganger myth, and she’s got her own Dream Soul and meanwhile OG Dream Sumireko also created a doppelganger of her own, and this isn’t even counting the fact that we can manually create them at will? The occult forums are starting to wonder about us popping up doing research all over the place, even if they think we just have a cloning quirk. We should probably look into wigs or colored contacts or something.”

Izuku took a moment to parse the ridiculous series of events. “Wait, so if ‘SchrodingersSumireko’ is the original when she’s dreaming, doesn’t that mean she was online and responding to you in the chat?”

The Sumireko doppelganger paused for a moment, mouth opening and closing as she tried and failed to think of a reply. She then stood up, slowly and deliberately, and slammed her forehead into the side of the bookshelf.

Komuso gave Tokoyami a wave as the bird-headed boy moved off to explore the island, turning to make an offering to the main shrine after doing so. He had to admit, his internship under the man had been far more beneficial than he had ever dreamt it would be. However, he was now at his real goal for the week - Itsukushima.

"Pretty nice place," Dark Shadow commented from his position in Tokoyami's cloak. "I can see why they felt like enshrining it."

The boy absent-mindedly mumbled an agreement as he rifled through his pockets for his notes. Now that he was on the island, his ancestor's writings were the only real guide he had.

Minazuki 8 - Chisaki is dead. Those damn fool villagers didn't tell the whole story, all right. Their 'spirit' was a youkai, or perhaps even a god of the land. We were not prepared to fight him.

It started well enough - the crossing was uneventful and we found his footprints on the beach easily enough. Once we actually confronted him, that was when the trouble started. Whatever he was, he wore the skin of a man, his inhuman nature betrayed only by piercing golden eyes. He called himself the ‘heavenly sea’ and warned us to leave, saying he didn’t want to taint the island with our blood. Chisaki declined and rushed the monster with his yari, shouting his name like the fool he was.

Tokoyami had read the story again and again - he knew how it ended. He wasn’t going to find his objective just standing around the shrine itself. Checking to make sure he wasn’t followed, he slunk off towards the edge of the grounds.

“You’re clear,” Dark Shadow quietly informed him.

Nodding faintly, he slipped off the shrine grounds and onto the white sand beach with a whispered thanks.

The monster’s touch could warp the world around it - one brief instant of contact and Chisaki's weapon was nothing more than scrap at his feet. A hand placed on the ground, and the earth itself twisted and rose against us, forcing my companion to scramble for cover. Curiously, the demon didn’t use this power on Chisaki himself - whether he was either unwilling or unable to do so, I don't know. I refuse to contemplate the motivations of inhuman beasts.

I was lucky. I was further away from the beast and could avoid the worst of the attack - I got away with only a deep wound on my upper arm. Chisaki was too close to dodge. He took a spire of rock directly to the stomach, tearing it open and spilling his guts across the sand. The monster shoved his dying body into the sea with the earth at his command and decried our actions in ruining his ‘sanctuary’ as though he hadn’t just killed a good man. He told me to leave Itsukushima, that I should be grateful that he saw fit to spare me.

Like I’d just leave after he killed the man I loved.

He scanned the beach for any sign he could use to continue his search. It was far easier said than done - the island had been the site of a battle during the Sengoku period, ensuring that any obvious traces of his ancestor’s confrontation had been wiped out. If anything was left, it would be extremely minor, the sort of thing that would be overlooked and spared.

There, at the treeline - what appeared to be a tree root at first glance was instead a small, arching tendril of rock. Inconspicuous and unnoteworthy to most, with the context his ancestor’s journal provided him, it might as well have been a neon sign.

I hauled Chisaki’s body out of the water. He deserved a proper burial, though I could not give him one at the time. I can only thank the myriad kami that I live to do so now. Pursuing his killed into the forest was an easy enough task - in his arrogance, he made no effort to hide his trail. Finally catching him by a cave deep in the woods, I attacked. The purification charms did nothing (note to self: kill that scam artist for selling them to me), ruining my ambush.

He had no weapon but the earth itself, and fought like the demon he was. Sure of my defeat, I resigned myself to joining Chisaki in the next life for my futile act of revenge. But somehow, miraculously, I gained the advantage. Thinking back on the fight, the key must have been blood - my blood, dripping from my wounds, coated my blade, and Chisaki's blood had likewise soaked into my clothes. The demon would not approach me, and drew back from swings that were nowhere near him.

As he made his way into the forest, he found himself growing steadily more unnerved. It took a moment for him to realize why . It was deathly silent. No birds chirped, no breeze stirred the leaves of the trees around him, no brooks babbled through the greenery to cut through the silence with the burbling of running water. Even the sound of the ocean’s crashing waves had faded away behind him.

“This place gives me the creeps, Fumi,” Dark Shadow unhelpfully supplied.

At last he arrived at his destination - a clearing, nearly unremarkable if not for the cave in the mountainside.

I was able to drive the demon back into his cave, but I would go no further - the earth was his weapon, to surround myself with it was suicidal at best. Instead I prayed to all the gods of Takamagahara, that I might be able to avenge my dear friend. I imagine Omoikane must have smiled upon me, for I recalled the binding spell used to restrain the traitor monk so she could be cast into Makai. I sealed the demon away in that cave, to be frozen in time until I can find someone strong enough to kill him for good.

The cave mouth was an ominous gate, the inky darkness within sending chills down his spine. He had long imagined what he would find when he located it - a shimmering, golden field of energy, keeping an ancient evil at bay? Perhaps a solid wall of stone, entombing her nemesis within the earth itself? But he had never expected it to be so… foreboding.

His gaze ran along the edge of the cave. A series of runes, carved into the rock, ringed the entire mouth, forming a semicircle he could only assume was meant to bind whatever was within. Dark Shadow abruptly reared up and placed himself between Tokoyami and the cave.

“Fumi,” the Quirk tersely warned, “The keystone.”

Though the stone opening was no man made structure, the meaning was clear - the central rune on the top, where an arch’s keystone would be. In contrast to the aged, eroding shapes of all the others, it seemed fresh as the day it was carved.

And, Tokoyami realized with a start, it was unfinished . Looking at it again, it was clear that it paused midway through, an arcing curve stopping unnaturally upon intersecting the main body of the arcane symbol rather than carrying through. There was no way whatever barrier it was meant to maintain was functional.

He mentally readied himself for what he was about to do. He had read his ancestor’s diary countless times, he knew every entry by heart. Her duel with the Heavenly Sea had been her greatest failure.

She had never found someone to finish what she started.

He strode into the cave.

Minazuki 11 - I buried Chisaki in a secluded grove. He always did like to watch the cherry blossoms. I hope he's happy, wherever he is.

“Nue,” Izuku called out to the empty graveyard, “I need your help.”

The gravestone nearest him laughed, becoming the familiar form of the chimeric youkai the moment he blinked. “So Mamizou’s kid finally wants to meet his dear old aunt, huh?”

“You’re… not related to Mamizou.”

“Might as well be, with all the stuff we got up to back in the day!” Nue laughed. “But really, what are you after, that you didn’t think you could go to ol’ Futatsuiwa?”

He took a deep breath before admitting, “I need to break into a hospital, and I need to do it without being identified. Also, do you know how to get someone into Gensokyo?”

A cheshire grin spread across the youkai’s face. “I have no idea what a hospital is.”

“It’s-”

“It’s not important is what it is! You’re finally embracing the true character of a youkai and want to pull one over on humans, so I’m in! I’ll give you however many Seeds of Unknown Form you need.”

“And as for getting yer little abductee to Gensokyo,” added Mamizou, making Izuku jump as he realized she had been there the whole time, “I’ll handle that. Just tell me where to wait.”

She blew smoke into the air. “And of course I’m helping you with this - yer my son, what sort of parent would I be if I didn’t support you?”

Chapter Text

Willing his nerves to stay under control, Izuku walked confidently through the doors of Ibana Hospital. He had dressed up for the occasion, wearing a suit rather than a school uniform or his usual casual t-shirts, as an extra precaution against being identified - few people would see someone wearing a suit and think to themselves ‘Hero student’, and their minds would then fill in the details of whoever they assumed would be wearing a suit while visiting a hospital, courtesy of Nue’s Ability.

He couldn’t just walk straight up to the front desk and ask to visit Uraraka - the receptionist would undoubtedly ask for identification. Instead, he headed directly for the bathroom. Once inside, he transformed the suit he was wearing into a doctor’s outfit, hoping nobody would notice that the businessman didn’t leave the bathroom. The receptionist gave him a wave as he strode towards the elevator with his new disguise, but nothing else.

Once he arrived at Uraraka’s floor, he made for her room, quickly double-checking the room number he had noted on his phone. Once he stood in front of the door, he looked up and down the corridor to make sure he was alone, knocked on the door to check if anyone was inside, then cautiously eased the door open and slipped inside.

She lay on a hospital bed, intubated to allow intake of food and prevent her from starving to death while unconscious. While he certainly wished he could simply sit there until the belief from his amulet revived her, Izuku knew from experience that he had been out for the better part of a day when he had nearly faded away, and that had been with the immediate intervention of someone experienced in the matter. It wasn’t an option for Uraraka, not when hospital staff could show up at any moment to eject him from the premises and doom her. She needed to be moved, now .

Carefully, he snaked the feeding tube out of her throat, moving it as carefully as he could. He dared not use his Ability to ease the process - he had no idea what effects transforming an item while it was in someone’s body might have, and while Uraraka was apparently a werewolf now and thus far more resilient than a standard human, he was still unwilling to risk it. Once it was out, he moved to the next step of his plan.

Withdrawing a small pouch from his pocket, he opened it, allowing a white, ethereal snake to poke its head out - a Seed of Unknown Form, the strange medium by which Nue’s Ability applied its effect. The serpentine entity licked at the air, sniffing around for its target before shooting from the bag, streaking through the air towards Uraraka like a rocket. Izuku’s heart seized for a moment as it coiled around her neck, and he reached out to yank it away before it suddenly sank into her skin, fading away as though it was never there.

With the Seed having hopefully done its job (since he knew it was Uraraka, he couldn’t see any effect it had), Izuku grabbed a blanket and tossed it over Uraraka, to hopefully make her appear to be a corpse in transit. If someone stopped him to check his cargo, he just had to bluff and trust that Nue’s Ability was in effect.

He took a deep breath as he wheeled Uraraka's bed out of her room. 

“Dr. Hikari?” A voice called.

Izuku quickened his pace slightly.

“Dr. Hikari!” A hand grasped his shoulder, leaving him with no choice but to turn to the speaker. He pressed the elevator button behind him as he did so.

He was faced with a young man, clean-shaven and seemingly fresh out of medical school, with nearly combed brown hair. “I thought that was you - I’d recognize that slouch and slightly-too-big coat anywhere! I thought you took the day off?”

“I was going to,” Izuku replied, hoping his nervousness didn't show through, “but there was still some paperwork I needed to do, and one thing led to another - you know how it is.”

“Can’t say I do, you old workaholic! You know I value my personal time too highly for that. What’s with the patient anyways?”

The elevator arrived, and Izuku pushed Uraraka into it. To his annoyance, the other doctor followed.

“He passed away from injuries overnight,” Izuku replied, careful to use ‘he’ so the Seed of Unknown Form active on him would add another layer to the disguise if needed. “I’m bringing the body to the morgue.”

His heart stopped as the doctor lifted the sheet from Uraraka's face to take a peek under it. “Urgh, I’m honestly surprised this guy lasted long enough for us to get him checked in. Half his face is gone.”

At that precise moment, the unconscious Uraraka let out a faint moan and shifted slightly.

The doctor paled, a look of horror on his face. “Oh dear gods, the poor stiff’s still alive. Dr. Hikari, you need to go back and update his clinical notes, I’ll take him to the ER. Do you know what his quirk is?”

Izuku shook his head mutely, terror showing on his face as the plan began to unravel before his eyes, desperately trying to think of some way to get out of this without needing to choke out a medical professional in a hospital elevator.

The elevator stopped short of the basement, doors opening to let in passengers on the ground floor. A man and a woman, both brown-haired, stepped into the elevator. They were intensely worried, enough that they seemed not to notice Izuku and the doctor at first.

The doctor’s face lit up. “Mr. and Mrs. Uraraka! A pleasure to see you again. Have you met Dr. Hikari? Dr. Hikari, these are the Urarakas, their daughter is currently in my care.”

Izuku politely gave a slight bow, as much to introduce himself as it was to try to obscure his facial expression.

The man finally seemed to notice the pair. “Oh, Dr. Seijirou! Sorry, I was a bit preoccupied.”

“It’s understandable, considering what you’ve had to go through. I hope I can bring you some good news soon.”

They stood awkwardly in the elevator for a few more moments before it arrived at the basement, door opening to allow Izuku out. Seijirou stopped him as he began to exit.

“Ah, Dr. Hikari, you really should update the patient’s status. I can handle taking them from here.”

Uraraka’s father cleared his throat politely. “Actually, Dr. Seijirou, we were wondering if we could see Ochako.”

Seijirou nodded, an understanding expression on his face. “Oh, yes, of course. Dr. Hikari, you know the way to the ER, yes?”

Izuku nodded, pushing Uraraka out and down the hall to the right. He could scarcely believe his lu-

“Dr. Hikari? It’s to the left .”

Clearing his throat, he replied, trying to sound embarrassed and not terrified, “Ah, yes, of course. My mistake.”

Seijirou turned back to the Urarakas. “Brilliant doctor, but an awful sense of direction - I’m surprised he manages to make it to work on time. Now then, Mr. and Mrs. Uraraka, I did think of a few more tests we could run to hopefully-”

The moment the elevator door closed, Izuku began moving in the direction of the morgue as fast as he dared - with the Urarakas going to see their daughter, it was a matter of time before his deception was discovered.

The moment he was sure he was out of sight, he ducked into an alcove and used his Ability on the sheet he had laid over Uraraka, turning it into a large garbage bag. Carefully wrapping her in it, he heaved her onto his back and transformed the doctor's outfit he was wearing into a janitorial jumpsuit before beelining for the exit. He had plotted his route ahead of time - there was a small emergency stairwell near the morgue that opened onto a side street where he wouldn’t be as readily noticeable.

As he neared the exit, he sensed a spike of fear and surprise from somewhere in the hospital that made him feel sick to his stomach.

The door was alarmed, but that was no issue to him - he used his Ability, forming a hole in the door itself, then carefully slipped Uraraka through it before following through himself. After fixing the hole, he hefted her back up. He was home free.

He immediately ran into a security guard at the top of the stairs, leaning against the wall and smoking a cigarette. The guard’s radio crackled.

“ All security personnel, we have an issue. Missing patient - high schooler, female, brown-haired. Kidnapping suspected. Suspect should still be on-site. ”

Still staring at Izuku, the guard raised an eyebrow. “Kidnapping, huh? What sort of price you getting?”

Izuku couldn’t find the words to respond.

“Gotta be a good offer if you’re kidnapping a UA student. So here’s the deal: cut me in on a share of your haul, and you’ll walk away scot free. Sound good?”

He swallowed nervously before replying, “How do I know you won’t backstab me?”

The guard grinned. “You don’t. But it’s either I take you in right here, right now, or I send the cops after someone matching your description later, so I think you’ve got more to lose by declining my generous offer.”

“Fine. I didn’t get any advance payment, though,” he replied, trying to sound as annoyed as possible with the ‘blackmail’.

“Geez, must’ve been a real good offer you got, then. That or you were just real desperate. Makes no difference to me, I guess.” The crooked guard shrugged. “Meet me back here in a week. And remember: I know what you look like.”

No, you don’t , Izuku thought to himself as he strolled off to freedom.

Mamizou was bent over howling with laughter as Izuku rushed up to the alley, laying Uraraka on the ground and carefully pulling the bag away from her.

“It all- it all fell apart on you at the last second!” She wheezed out, gasping for breath.

Izuku didn’t see what was so funny, constantly checking over his shoulder for any security, heroes, or vigilantes that might be pursuing him. His silence was all the response she needed.

With a simple snap of her fingers, a whirlwind of leaves sprung up from nowhere, surrounding them and shrouding the world from sight.

“You’ll look back on this and laugh someday, mark my words.”

Uraraka groggily blinked awake to a clear blue sky. It was a pleasant, mild day, with a clear blue sky and a faint breeze. The grass felt soft beneath her, tempting her to just lay there in relaxation.

Needless to say, she was neither still in Mongaza Prison, nor was she in a hospital. She rose to her feet, swaying from light-headedness as she did so.

“Whoa, easy there!”

A girl ran up to steady her, but Uraraka reflexively recoiled from her at first, looking her over before accepting the aid. She had light brown hair styled into two long, twisting, drill-like tails, adorned with a miniature top hat and expensive-looking round sunglasses.

She peered at Uraraka through orange eyes, holding out a purple-sleeved hand expectantly. “You going to leave me hanging, or are you going to let me help you?”

Uraraka took the girl’s hand. It was mildly uncomfortable, as she was wearing a number of gaudy gold rings. As she grasped it, another dizzy spell washed over her, and she fainted again.

“She is welcome to stay here as long as she needs,” Byakuren said as the group walked out the back door of the temple. “You know I would never turn down someone in need.”

“Yer generosity, as always, is appreciated,” Mamizou replied. “With any luck, it shouldn’t need to come to that, but Sumireko hasn’t shown her face at the Hakurei Shrine in a few days, and she’s never been the easiest to pin down.”

The monk gave a sympathetic smile. “I hope things turn out well for her. I know from experience what it’s like to be thrown into a world that’s completely alien to you, even if Gensokyo is undoubtedly a more welcoming place than the corner of Makai I was banished to.”

That caught Izuku’s attention. “You were banished to Makai?”

She nodded. “I spent years traveling Japan in the guise of a youkai exterminator, secretly using my position to protect them instead. I gathered a number of like-minded followers who also hoped to promote harmony between our kinds, only to eventually be discovered. To avoid bloodshed, I acquiesced to being sealed away in the desolate region known as Hokkai.”

“We recently encountered a creature in the Outside World that Reimu identified as a Demon - would you be able to tell us more about it?”

A thoughtful look crossed her face. “I can certainly try, though Hokkai is a fairly remote and undeveloped area of Makai, so if information never made it to Esoteria - the province’s capital - I wouldn’t be able to help you.”

Mamizou lit up her kiseru. “It’ll have to do. The creature that attacked looked like-”

A shriek pierced the morning air.

“Uraraka!”

Breathing heavily, Uraraka rubbed her sore knuckles as the demonic woman from Mongaza Prison stumbled back, clutching her nose and laughing madly.

“Oh, that was great! Better reaction than I could have hoped for! I don’t know what you’re seeing but it got a hell of a rise out of you!”

She rose to her feet, taking a fighting stance from Gunhead Martial Arts to stay on-guard against her opponent.

“Who are you? Where did you take me?”

The woman cackled. “What’s with the fists, wolfy? You trying to make a big show of ‘I come in peace’ or are you just too good to use your claws?”

At the mention of claws, bits and pieces from the previous night began rushing back to her.

Pain.

Confusion.

Fear.

Rage.

Uraraka unclenched one fist, blood dripping from the puncture wounds she had inflicted on herself even as they healed before her eyes. “What… what happened last night?”

“ Now you’re asking the important questions!” The bat-winged woman laughed again, grinning wildly. “You’re dead.”

An expression of utter heartbreak and terror flew across Uraraka’s face. 

“Dead?” She asked, her voice barely a whisper.

It explained some things, most notably her location - She had apparently been laid on the ground in the middle of a graveyard.

“Uraraka!”

Out of the blue, Izuku came sprinting up, followed by two women, one with animal-like ears and a large bushy tail, and the other with hair that changed color in a strange purple-to-brown gradient as it grew longer.

“Deku!” She called back, her voice quavering with emotion. “What happened? You died too?”

The tailed woman smacked the bat-winged villain upside the head. “Dead? What the hell are you telling the girl, Nue?”

Nue just laughed harder.

“Uraraka, you’re not dead,” Izuku assured her. “These are my friends - the one with the multicolored hair is Hijiri Byakuren, the one laughing like a hyena is Houjuu Nue, and the one with the tail is Futatsuiwa Mamizou, who’s also my father Midoriya Hisashi.”

Mamizou offered a handshake. “I saw you at the Sports Festival - nicely fought.”

Uraraka hesitantly accepted. “You… okay. But where is this, anyway? What happened to me? And you!” She whirled on Nue, leveling a finger accusingly. “You’re working with the Villains! Why are you on good terms with Izuku!?”

Byakuren gave her a patient smile. “This is Gensokyo, a world parallel to your own that acts as a haven for youkai like myself. We brought you here because you yourself have become a youkai - our assumption is that you came into contact with a werewolf at some point, which would explain the ears and claws.”

One of Uraraka’s hands flew to her new wolf ears as the monk continued, “As for Miss Houjuu, her ability allows her to shroud her true form from others, leaving their minds to fabricate an appearance for her. I can assure you, she is not whatever individual you perceive her as.”

“I usually see her as the mythological Nue, or as a cloud of dark smoke,” Izuku added.

She blinked in confusion, which only grew as Nue suddenly became something resembling a pixelated censor.

“You were brought here because youkai - which now includes yourself - require belief to exist, and the Outside World no longer truly believes in our kind,” Byakuren explained. “Had we left you, you would have simply ceased to be, fading into nothingness despite the best efforts of any doctors that could have seen you.”

Tears sprung to Uraraka’s eyes. “Then… then I have to stay here? I can never go home?”

The monk gave her a comforting smile. “Of course not. Izuku is able to live in the Outside World with no issue, after all. We just need to track down the person who made his amulet, and get one made for you as well. You’re welcome to stay at my temple until you can go home again.”

“That’s very generous of you, but-”

“ALL RIGHT, WHAT IN THE HELLS IS GOING ON HERE!?” A new voice shrieked from the edge of the graveyard.

Yanagi Reiko, a look of utter fury on her face, was floating towards the group, a circle of glowing runes orbiting her. A white-haired girl followed at a distance, a look of complete and utter boredom on her face. Izuku immediately threw up his hands.

“Yanagi, it’s not what it looks like, I just-”

“Not what it looks like!? Because it looks like you’ve abducted a classmate and turned her into a youkai!”

“I- I don’t know what happened to her, I just learned about this yesterday, I had to help her, don’t try to exterminate me again!”

That got Mamizou’s attention. The elder Tanuki stood up straighter and took a deep puff on her pipe. “You tried to exterminate my son?”

Reiko’s fury immediately dissipated. “Oh, shit.”

She exhaled a massive cloud of tobacco smoke that engulfed Reiko entirely, dispersing after a moment to reveal a plump albino Dodo lying on the ground, looking more than a little disgruntled.

“Serves you right,” she huffed.

“It’ll wear off after a bit,” reassured a strange, echoing voice that Uraraka soon realized was apparently what Nue sounded like to her now.

Reiko paled considerably once Izuku had explained his side of the story to her, along with his plan to locate Sumireko.

“You… you weren’t born in Gensokyo?”

“No? Like I said, I was able to live as a normal human until a little more than a year ago, when I got my half-youkai powers.”

“I tried to banish you,” she muttered. “I tried to do the same thing to you that happened to me.”

“Really, it’s fine,” He reassured her.

“It’s not fine,” Mamizou stated flatly.

“It was a big misunderstanding, you didn’t realize that a half-youkai like me could grow up without issue and you thought what you were doing was necessary to protect our world.”

“That doesn’t make it any better!” Mamizou and Reiko shouted at the same time.

“Miss Yanagi, while my own history with overzealous youkai hunters has not been a particularly good one, I believe the important part here is that you acknowledge your mistake and try to do better in the future,” Byakuren interjected.

“Like by helping us find this ‘Usami’ so I can go home,” Uraraka added.

Suddenly, the white-haired girl who had come with Reiko spoke up. “I haven’t seen Sumi in a while.”

“Damn, if Mokou hasn’t seen her and she hasn’t showed her face at the Hakurei Shrine, she’s probably doing something weird and secretive.” Mamizou muttered. “I’ve got no idea how to contact her in the Outside World, so that plan’s a bust.”

“If letting Uraraka exist as a youkai won’t work, why don’t we fix it the other way?” Reiko proposed. “Lycanthropy is transmitted like a disease, through bites. Wouldn’t Eientei have a cure for it? We’ve got Fujiwara right here, after all, we won’t have to worry about navigation.”

“While I dislike the idea that becoming a youkai is simply a disease to be ‘cured’, the choice is ultimately up to Miss Uraraka,” Byakuren stated. “As long as she has no objections to the plan, I see no reason we shouldn’t try it.”

Again, Uraraka’s hands went hesitantly to her wolf ears, running over them nervously. The sensations from her new body parts still felt strange to her. “I’ll do it.”

“Are you sure?” Nue asked. “Being a youkai’s great - you’re stronger, faster, and tougher than a human, and you’ll outlive them all, too!”

The physical upsides were tempting… but no. “If being a youkai means I can’t live the way I used to, then I’m sure.”

Mokou shrugged, extending a hand for a handshake. “Then I’m your guide. Name’s Fujiwara no Mokou.”

She was hardly the most encouraging sight - her white hair draped all the way down to her ankles and was generally unkempt outside of several red-and-white paper charms tied to it in various places, and she wore a tattered white shirt that appeared to have lost its sleeves to fire. Her red pants were likewise covered in paper charms.

She looked expectantly at Uraraka with red eyes. “Well?”

Uraraka took her hand. “Uraraka Ochako. Thanks for doing this.”

She shrugged. “Always happy to help people through the forest. By the way, a word of advice - don’t give youkai your full name.”

“Why not?”

“Most youkai are prideful, they like to lord their power over others when they can. You tell them your full name and they’ll use your first name unless they really respect or fear you.”

The journey through the Bamboo Forest of the Lost was uneventful and extremely mundane so far, traits which could likely be attributed to their guide. Mokou had a fire going in the palm of her hand, lighting the bamboo stalks around them far more effectively than any natural torch could.

Izuku found something about her unnerving, like something fundamental and extremely important was just… missing. If his companions felt the same, they didn’t mention or show it.

“This place still gives me the creeps,” Yanagi grumbled.

“You too?” Uraraka asked.

“I stumbled in here a while back and got lost. Couldn’t find my way out for months, space itself doesn’t work right in this forest.”

“I think I stumbled on a note you left!” Uraraka realized. “You said there were no notable youkai in the area and then I got attacked by a werewolf.”

“Oh. I might need to update that note, then.”

She gave a hysterical giggle. “I’m still trying to come to terms with the fact that this is all happening. Like, I got bitten by a werewolf, abducted into some crazy magical dimension, and now I find out that two of my classmates already have ties to this world? What’s next, is Miss Fujiwara secretly related to Todoroki somehow? She’s got the hair and the fire.”

Mokou stopped abruptly, whirling on them with a glare. “I never had kids,” She said curtly. “And I know for a fact that my father didn’t have any other than me before he died.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I-”

Mokou had already turned back to the path and begun moving again.

They walked the rest of the way in silence.

At last, they arrived at a lavish estate concealed deep within the bamboo grove. It looked like it had come straight out of a period drama, the home of some elegant, reclusive noble from the ninth century.

“Right, here’s your stop, Eientei,” Mokou said gruffly. “You need to leave again, just find Reisen, she knows the route as well as I do.”

“Wait, Reisen? Who’s Rei-” Uraraka tried to ask, but the white-haired guide was already trudging back into the bamboo forest.

Seeing no other option, she walked up to the estate’s gates and knocked on the door. They opened almost the instant her knuckles touched the surface, revealing the same rabbit-eared, pink-dressed girl she had run into that fateful night in the bamboo forest.

“Well, if it isn’t Ochako! How’ve you been, friend?”

“Wh- I- Please call me Uraraka!” She demanded, flustered.

“Oh?” The rabbit girl asked, a dangerous gleam in her eyes. “Are you going to make me?”

Too late, Uraraka remembered Mokou’s advice. She frantically looked to her companions. Izuku’s stance was hard to judge, but Reiko didn’t seem inclined to try to fight the youkai rabbit.

“I- um-”

The rabbit grinned. “Alright, if it bugs you that much, sure, I’ll call you Uraraka. Nice to meet you! Name’s Tewi. That’s with a ‘wi’ character, by the way.”

“That character hasn’t been used for centuries,” Izuku said.

“I know,” Tewi replied, still grinning. “So what brings you to our neck of the woods today? Spinal injury? Werewolf bite? Just plain lost?”

“I-” “The second one,” Reiko interrupted, sparing Uraraka from Tewi’s relentless assault.

Tewi disappeared into the grounds, leaving the gate open for them. They followed her as best they could, nearly losing her as Uraraka stopped for a moment to watch a pair of rabbit-girls pounding mochi in the yard, and again once they entered the manor as she seemed to delight in zipping through the narrow corridors as quickly and unpredictably as she could. Eventually, they came to a medical ward, cabinets well-stocked with medicines of all kinds. Sitting at a desk was a stern-looking woman in a red-and-blue dress decorated with constellation patterns, long gray hair styled into a braid. Something resembling a nurse’s cap, colored blue with a red cross on it, sat atop her head. Izuku once again felt something off about her, in the same way as with Mokou.

“Got a Werewolf for ya,” Tewi told her before once more zipping off into the halls of Eientei.

She sighed at the rabbit’s antics before addressing the group. “Since I imagine Tewi didn’t care to do so, allow me to welcome you to Eientei. Now, what sort of treatment were you looking for?”

Her eyes seemed to bore into Uraraka’s soul. “I- I was wondering if you could cure me, Miss…”

“Yagokoro Eirin,” she replied. “And, unfortunately, I am unable to do so.”

“You’re renowned for being able to cure any ailment,” Reiko protested.

“And that is where your misconception lies,” Eirin evenly responded. “You believe that being a youkai is an ailment, a negative affliction. Instead, it is a modifier of sorts, that attaches to one’s being and fundamentally transforms their essence. I could no more ‘cure’ your lycanthropy than I could ‘cure’ you of being yourself - to do so would simply be a fancier way of destroying you.”

“But there are noted cures for lycanthropy in European folklore!” Izuku objected. “Use of Wolfsbane, or surgery, or-”

“Senseless butchery, practiced by those who think they know better than they do. The surgical methods do nothing to address the issue and were carried out by fools with no knowledge of medicine, while wolfsbane is extremely poisonous and only ‘cures’ lycanthropy in that it renders the victim too weak to transform, invariably leading to their demise if the regimen is continued. I cannot cure you, Miss Uraraka - there’s nothing to cure.”

Uraraka was on the verge of tears for a moment, before Eirin’s expression softened. “Depending on your exact concerns, however, I may well have something I can do for you. Come with me for a moment.”

Nodding silently, Uraraka followed Eirin into a side room. While they were away, Izuku looked over the shelves, his eyes wandering across the medicines. They were marked as cures for all sorts of ailments, even ones he had never heard of before - what on earth was “Makaian Bloodrot”, for instance? But most curious of all was a strange, brilliant blue liquid in an unmarked bottle kept in a locked case by itself.

“That’s Ultramarine Orb Elixir,” a new voice told him. He jumped as a purple-haired rabbit girl in a long-sleeved black business suit and beige skirt appeared out of thin air directly next to him.

“One of Mistress Eirin’s more troublesome creations. It lets you see every possible future open to you and choose the one where you avoid harm, allowing you to avoid the Impurity of injury or death. It’s one of the greatest tools we had back in the Lunarian military - every Lunarian knows how to make it, and even Moon Rabbits like myself are permitted to use it in combat.”

“I’m sorry,” Reiko spoke up. “You are?”

“Oh! I’m so sorry, I’m Mistress Eirin’s apprentice, Reisen Udongein Inaba! I just got back from a delivery in the village. I assume she’s looking at your friend?”

Izuku nodded mutely, still disconcerted by the moon rabbit’s sudden appearance.

“She’ll be in good hands. Mistress Eirin’s the greatest mind the Moon has ever known, to say nothing of the Earth.”

After a few moments, Uraraka left the back room, looking a fair bit happier. Eirin exited shortly afterwards.

“Ah, Udonge, could you grab the -----, ------, and ------?”

Izuku blinked at the strange language, while Reisen set about retrieving several bottles from the shelves. “It’s Lunarian,” the moon rabbit explained as she worked. “Some of the medicines we have here don’t have names in any Earth languages.”

“The first one is to let me retract my claws,” Uraraka said, “And the other two are to suppress any full wolf transformation - apparently Gensokyoan werewolves can fully turn into a wolf? Weird.”

“Not doing anything about the ears?” Reiko asked.

“I… um… sorta like them,” she admitted, blushing.

“If that’s all you want, Reisen can show you the way out,” Eirin said, smiling. “Come back when those run out and I can set you up with more.”

The moon rabbit nodded and motioned for the group to follow, leading them through the corridors at a significantly more reasonable pace than Tewi had. Near the exit, a side door opened and another woman stepped out.

She was, in a single word, beautiful. Long black hair, styled into a hime cut, framed a youthful face with clear brown eyes, free of any blemish or flaw. She wore a simple, pink, long-sleeved shirt ornamented with white bows running down its front, providing a tasteful contrast with a long, dark burgundy dress decorated with yellow patterns in the form of bamboo and flowers. The only thing that broke the effect was a slight feeling of unease, of wrongness, that Izuku was inclined to ignore.

“Oh! We have visitors, it seems,” she said in a soft, melodic voice. “I hope you’ve found Eientei to your liking.”

Uraraka was the first of the trio to break the spell. 

“Are you…” She asked quietly, in a tone of amazement. “Are you the Princess Kaguya?”

The woman smiled. “I am.”

Izuku could swear that he saw constellations in Uraraka’s eyes as the newly-turned werewolf let out a squeal of delight.

“You’re my favorite character ever ! When my Quirk came in, I got obsessed with space stuff and I had my parents read the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter to me every night for a year straight!”

“You seem fairly quick to accept that she’s real,” Reiko muttered. “What happened to your earlier attitude?”

Uraraka elbowed the ghost-like girl in the gut. “Do not ruin this for me,” she hissed, before turning her attention back to Kaguya. “I would dream of all the treasures you sent the princes after, and the riches the people of the Moon would send your adoptive father as thanks for looking after you!”

Kaguya giggled. “I’m very flattered that you think so highly of my story. But, you know, stories don’t always end up matching reality.”

“They don’t?” Uraraka asked, sounding slightly betrayed. “Then…”

“I knew from the start the tasks were impossible. After all, I had all the items before I even gave my suitors their tasks to begin with. How can you retrieve an item that’s already in the possession of the person you’re supposed to give them to?”

“Then they’re all here? I could see them all right now?”

Izuku wasn’t sure it was possible for someone to sound happier than Uraraka did at that very moment.

“Would you like to?”

Uraraka nodded frantically. Kaguya laughed and led them into a side hallway.

“I’m sorry about this,” Reisen apologized. “You’re not under any time pressure, are you?”

“Considering Midoriya’s friends are searching for this ‘Usami’ character, I don’t think there’s any harm in us spending an extra hour or so here,” Reiko replied.

Kaguya showed them to an empty room, roughly the size of a medium-sized exhibit hall one would find in an art museum. Something about the room increased Izuku’s sense of wrongness.

“There are more than a few residents of Gensokyo who are fond of theft,” Kaguya began, “So I have to take measures to ensure my collection’s safety. My Ability can lock items into a single instant for all eternity, if I so desire. And with a simple thought from me…”

Suddenly, the room was no longer empty. Eight display cases now graced the room, each one filled with a strange artifact, and a massive, ornate golden panel graced one wall.

Smiling at Uraraka’s gasp of amazement, Kaguya motioned to the nearest case. “The Jeweled Branch of the Hourai Tree has always been my own personal favorite of the collection, and an impossible task to retrieve in more ways than one. Did you know that the Hourai tree is actually native to the Moon? It’s used as a security system by the people of the Lunar Capital. It reacts to Impurity, since the Moon is a Pure land, allowing us to detect outsiders whenever they arrive. But the tragedy of this is that most Lunarians will never see its beauty.”

She produced a twig from the folds of her robes. “This is a clipping from a Hourai tree I cultivated in my chambers, using my Ability to draw the brief instant of Purity when it first grew into an eternity. When the Hourai tree is exposed to Impurity, you see…”

Uraraka gasped as brilliant jewels in every color of the rainbow bloomed from the twig like flowers.

“Unlike the rest of my kind, I never viewed banishment to Earth as a punishment. How could I, when the people who adopted me were so kind and welcoming? I always feared Impurity, though. I tried to isolate myself from it, to hide myself away so I would only see the good parts of the world and not the bad. The first time I saw my Hourai tree in bloom was when I realized that the people of the Moon were wrong.”

She handed the jeweled twig to Uraraka, who took it like it was a fragile baby bird. “You can keep that, if you wish. Now, for the next item in my collection...”

Someone tugged on Izuku’s shirt. “Hey, Izuku.”

He turned to see Tewi. “How do you know my name?”

“I have ears everywhere,” she replied, grinning. “But more importantly, I saw that glint in your eyes when I first met you. Who’s got the spinal injury? Relative? Friend? Friend’s relative? Oh, it’s that third one, I’ve been around long enough to read the most minor tells.”

“What do you want?” He whispered, trying not to interrupt Kaguya’s exposition. From the look of it, the Lunarian princess appeared to be in the middle of imitating one of her hapless suitors’ failed attempts to impress her. Uraraka was laughing heartily at the spectacle.

“Nothing at all,” the rabbit youkai snickered. “I just want you to remember that I helped you out, one day.” 

She held out a small bottle. Izuku took it hesitantly. “This is?”

“This’ll fix them up like they were never injured. There’s only one dose in there, so don’t try splitting it, either. Anyways, I’m out. I’ve heard the princess’s stories enough to recite them from memory.”

And with that, the trickster bounced away into the endless halls of Eientei. Izuku turned back to the group.

“It was hard to find more items for my collection, but I was eventually able to find four more items I deemed worthy of inclusion. The first of them was actually acquired from a like-minded collector.”

He looked at the item in the case - a smooth crystal in the shape of a rounded triangle, in a brilliant deep red color.

“It’s a miracle of nature - a crystal capable of refracting light up to a million times, without a single imperfection in its composition,” Kaguya boasted. “From what I’ve gathered, it was at the center of a conflict between two ancient tribes before it was thought lost following a volcanic eruption in Italy in 1939 and eventually made its way into the possession of our own local vampire. From there, I was able to acquire it in exchange for several of Eirin’s treatises on medicine.”

Uraraka suddenly realized something. “Yanagi, Deku, you need to leave Gensokyo and get to Mount Fuji immediately!”

“Why?”

“The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter ends with the emperor burning an immortality elixir at the summit, it’s not originally a volcano! You need to make sure nobody can get the-”

Kaguya interrupted with a giggle. “Oh, you don’t need to worry. Your guide took care of that.”

“She ambushed the emperor’s men and stole the Hourai Elixir for herself,” Eirin elaborated, shocking the trio of students, none of whom had heard the Lunarian enter the room. “Had that not been the case, you would have been right to worry - the Elixir is perfect, created through a combination of the princess’s Ability and my own medical expertise. It imbues the drinker with the very concept of Eternity, removing all capacity for lasting change from their body and ensuring that no force in existence can destroy them. Even if they were somehow annihilated at the atomic level, their form would be restored in a matter of moments.”

“Then Mokou is…” Uraraka started.

“The daughter of one of my suitors, and has held a grudge against me for refusing his hand in marriage for over a thousand years,” Kaguya finished. “I imagine she stole the elixir as some petty vengeance originally, not realizing that I had never left the Earth. She certainly seemed surprised to see me all those centuries later.”

“You never left the Earth? Then the ending of the story, with the Heavenly Feather Robe…”

“I was among the delegation sent to retrieve the princess,” Eirin said. “But my loyalty to her is absolute. I aided her in killing them to the last man before going into hiding, and left that cursed item where it lay.”

“Cursed?” Reiko asked.

“It was said to remove all of the wearer’s empathy and compassion for the people of Earth,” Uraraka explained.

“One of the Amatsu clan’s most vile creations,” Eirin spat. “It was intended as a way to enforce the ‘ideal’ Lunarian mindset onto the wearer. I have no qualms about killing Ushio.”

“Then the robe would still be out there somewhere,” Reiko pointed out.

“Its power only applies when a Lunarian puts it on someone - any human would just find it to be a fancy robe. And no Lunarian would willingly visit the Earth and risk tainting themselves with Impurity.”

“Even if a Lunarian were to be exiled to Earth,” Kaguya added, “They would die before they could do much harm. Exposure to Impurity is the source of all creatures’ lifespans - while Lunarians can live forever on the Moon, on the Earth they’d have just a scant few decades.”

Izuku returned home without incident, Mamizou dropping him off a few blocks from his house. They had, unfortunately, been unable to locate Sumireko, though Uraraka seemed eager to go back to visit Eientei again, so she didn’t seem as upset as she could have been. And, he reminded himself, he had the elixir Tewi had given him in his pocket, ready to be used to heal Iida’s brother and allow his return to the world of Heroics. Overall, a generally successful trip, despite the mess it had started off as. Actually, that reminded him, he’d need to talk to the faculty who were in on Gensokyo’s existence - they needed to know that Uraraka was safe, and also now a werewolf.

He stopped dead as he entered his room, the door swinging shut behind him with a strangely ominous ‘click’. A woman stood there, her back to him, reading through one of his analysis notebooks.

“I’ve never seen the need for notebooks, myself,” she said, turning to him.

“It’s a delight to meet you, Midoriya Izuku. I believe our meeting is more than a little overdue.”

She was unmistakable - long blonde hair tied at the ends with a multitude of red bows, spilling out from under a simple white mob cap with a red ribbon tied into a lemniscate. An elaborate, pale pink dress paired with a purple tabard decorated with the hexagram “Ts’ui”. Golden eyes that seemed to peer into his very being.

Yakumo Yukari.

The Youkai of Boundaries.

Chapter Text

“Take a seat if you'd like,” Yukari offered. “I understand it’s been a long day for you.”

Izuku didn’t dare to move a muscle, acutely aware of just how powerful the youkai before him was. He had no doubt that Yukari could wipe him from existence without any effort if she wanted to.

“No? Suit yourself, I suppose. This shouldn’t take too long, anyway.”

“Yanagi was wrong,” he finally managed to say.

“Miss Yanagi holds several misconceptions, most of which I see no point in correcting. Obviously, if you can find a way to exist in the Outside World, then someone like myself can as well.”

“Uraraka was able to enter Gensokyo and even become a youkai without even hearing of your existence, and by all accounts you tend to be a fairly reclusive individual. Yanagi’s reaction is one that demonstrates that she not only knows of your existence, she is completely terrified of you to the point that she would do anything to stop you from entering our world. Most likely this indicates that you specifically cultivated that reaction from her, but to what exact purpose…”

Yukari gave a slight smirk as Izuku embarked on a muttering spree, retrieving a decorated folding fan from somewhere and opening it to conceal her mouth from view. “Why indeed? Now, I have some questions of my own for you. Firstly: Do you know what this is?”

She held up a small bottle of medicine. It looked somewhat familiar, but for a moment, he couldn’t remember from where .

“No?” She asked, sounding somewhat amused. “I can see why you need to put your thoughts on paper.”

With a start, he suddenly remembered - the elixir Tewi had given him. Patting his pockets, he found them empty. Yukari chuckled from behind her fan, leaning back to recline in a sudden crack that had formed in space-time.

“I’m afraid I can’t allow you to take Lunarian medicine into the Outside World, no matter what intentions you have for it. A miraculous recovery after the finest of modern medicine and quirk-based healing techniques have failed to restore someone’s mobility invites inconvenient questions, you understand.”

Izuku watched with a lump in his throat as the treatment meant for Iida’s brother vanished with a wave of the youkai’s hand.

“With that out of the way, how are you finding Gensokyo, so far? Even though you spend the majority of your time in the Outside World, I trust you’ve made some allies, especially considering your parentage?”

He stayed silent, thinking of the aid Nue and Mamizou had offered him in rescuing Uraraka. If Yukari was willing to directly involve herself to dispose of a single bottle of medicine, then her reaction to the two tricksters directly involving themselves in his scheme would be anything but good.

She responded to his thoughts. “You misunderstand my aims, Izuku. I genuinely want to know if you’ve found Gensokyo welcoming so far - I may take a more hands-off approach to its management, but I care about the wellbeing of all youkai who call my realm home.”

“It’s been… good, I suppose,” he slowly began, still wary of her intentions. “I’ve mainly hung around the Myouren Temple.”

“Byakuren’s crew are an excellent introduction for a newcomer - many of the other youkai groups range from unwelcoming to straight-up isolationist. The Tengu, for instance, would have likely taken exception to you setting foot on their mountain even had you been part-tengu.”

Izuku thought of the Jiangshi that had attacked him, shuddering at the memory of how close she had come to biting through him during their struggle.

“Miss Kaku could really stand to put her pet on a leash, wouldn’t you agree?” Yukari said, a smirk audible in her voice even if it was concealed behind her fan. “Regardless, if a run-in with the graveyard’s resident nuisance is the most notable thing that happened during your introduction to Gensokyo, I’d count that as successful. Most of our newcomers think the best thing to do is cause an Incident.”

He recalled the various Incidents Mamizou had described to him - red fog blotting out the sun, winter without end, an everlasting night. His own Ability seemed paltry in comparison.

“I wouldn’t be able to cause an Incident even if I had wanted to,” he replied.

Yukari gave him a strange look. “Yes, I suppose you wouldn’t. Now, before I go…”

Without warning, a hole appeared in space just inches from his head, her hand reaching out to lazily tap him in the center of his forehead. The world immediately exploded into chaos around him.

“Tell me - what do you see ?”

Nothing had form anymore, not truly. Overlaid over every object in his room was seemingly every possible state of being - burned, torn, shattered, rotting, gleaming, spotless, and countless more besides. The world beyond his window was no better - he watched in  vacant horror as a sparrow landed on an ever-changing, formless branch, singing its song merrily ignorant of the infinite forms Izuku viewed it with, the myriad states of feast and famine visible on its body, visions of its death by countless means causing phantoms of the bird to fall dead at its feet even as it continued to chirp happily.

In the center of everything, Yukari alone remained a constant, her form the only entity in what seemed to be all of existence that remained static and unchanging.

“Well?” She pressed.

Reeling, he tried to steady himself with his chair, trusting it was at least physically present as his hand reached out for the area where its back normally was - the arch of the furniture piece was nearly invisible, as so many visions of the object had the majority of it destroyed by fire or age.

His hand grasped the wood. It was a mistake. The object immediately exploded into blindingly brilliant permutations, no longer content to keep the form of a chair, it surged out into formless chaos of all colors and shapes. He released the object almost immediately, falling to his knees as the world itself overwhelmed him, curling in on himself in an attempt to block everything out.

Yukari watched the whole process with the dispassionate expression of a scientist checking on their control group.

After a long moment, she snapped her fan shut, and in an instant the world returned to normal. He once more lay crumpled in a perfectly intact room, All Might memorabilia lining the walls and shelves, notebooks neatly sorted. For a moment, the only sound in the room was his ragged, heavy panting.

“A disappointing, if expected, result,” Yukari sighed.

She stepped around him as he continued to lay motionless on the floor. Some metallic object clunked against his desk.

“As a show of good will,” she explained.

“Wh- why?” He finally managed to gasp. “Why intervene now, why take measures against me ?”

Yukari gave no response as existence tore itself asunder behind her, unblinking eyes staring out at him from within a black void.

Stepping into the gap in reality, she paused for a moment and turned back to him. “It should go without saying, but you won’t tell anyone I visited you.”

The void snapped shut, and Izuku was left alone in his room. When he finally staggered to his feet, he found an amulet identical to his own lying on his desk.

Izuku ran into Sumireko almost immediately upon entering Gensokyo.

“Hey, long time no see! How’ve you been?”

“You ghosted us,” he immediately replied.

“Psh, it worked out in the end, didn’t it? I can see you’ve acquired another amulet from somewhere.”

“Where were you, anyways? Nobody knew where you had gotten off to.”

She turned her phone around to show him a selfie taken in front of a pile of KOed Oni. “I was charting Hell, if you really want to know. I heard there was some cyberpunk city down there run by animal ghost yakuza guys and wanted to check it out. Lost track of time - turns out Hell’s a real big place when you don’t know where you’re going. Buncha chump Oni who think they’re tough, though. There’s no rules down there, everyone thinks they can be the biggest, baddest boss. Honestly, I think the Gensokyo Oni are way tougher.”

Izuku didn’t have a response to her latest adventure.

“Anyways, giving your friend that amulet won’t work on its own - you need to get her out of Gensokyo manually. That being said, if you let go of it, it’ll stay here instead of going with you, so you can hand it off to her no problem.”

“How does that work?”

Sumireko shrugged. “Beats me. I know it works though, since I took a fish with me one time. Anyways, you’ll probably want Mamizou to handle the whole ‘getting your friend out of Gensokyo’ bit, so I’ll leave you to it. She can be tricky to find sometimes.”

“No need for that,” Mamizou interrupted, dismissing her gravestone disguise. Sumireko was shocked into awakeness, disappearing on the spot.

“Do you just constantly hang around the graveyard?” Izuku asked, puzzled.

“Only when you’re going to be around,” she replied. “I’ve got too many plans going to sit idle all day. Now let’s see about yer girl, huh?”

“I- she’s not-”

Mamizou laughed as the two of them headed into the temple.

“If you happen to see Joon, please remind her it’s her day to clean the yard,” Byakuren requested as they entered.

“She didn’t do it yesterday?”

“I haven’t seen her since yesterday.”

“That’s not good,” Mamizou muttered. “She’s always plotting something, despite yer best efforts to straighten her out. I’ll keep an eye out.”

Uraraka had been given a small guest room in the monks’ quarters, less furnished than the others (though Izuku doubted Byakuren would approve of the decor in some of her disciples’ rooms - he was fairly certain Buddhism frowned upon having a sorted collection of sake bottles on display, for instance). Her face lit up as they entered.

“I was able to get you this,” Izuku said, handing her the amulet. “It’ll allow you to live in our world normally, as long as you don’t get too far from it. Mamizou can take you back home, just tell her where to drop you off.”

“You’re not coming?” Uraraka asked, puzzled.

“I’m actually dreaming right now - it’s a side effect of the amulet,” he explained, showing his own copy to her. “I’m not sure what would happen if I had Mamizou bring me back outside, but I’d rather not risk it.”

She laughed. “Yeah, I can see how that might get weird fast. So, I’ll still be coming back here every night?”

“Yeah, sorry. I’m not sure if there’s a way to stop that from happening. I could ask Usami the next time I see her,” he offered.

Uraraka shook her head. “No, it’s fine. I was actually hoping I’d be able to come back here - I’d like to visit Princess Kaguya again, and I want to find the werewolf who bit me to hopefully learn more about what I have to live with now.”

“Well, I’m here every night if you need me,” he offered.

She smiled. “I’ll keep that in mind. And thanks. For saving me, and for everything, really.”

In contrast to the school week, UA kept its gates closed on the weekend. Izuku briefly considered using his Ability to breach it before realizing just how stupid that would be. As he was considering how to get Nezu’s attention (UA’s phone number had just handed him to an answering machine), his phone rang.

“I assume whatever news you have can’t wait until tomorrow?” The voice of UA’s principal inquired.

Izuku nodded, eyes fixed on the camera watching the front gate.

“Aizawa will be down to let you in shortly.”

True to his words, the erasure hero turned up within a few minutes, opening the gate to allow Izuku in. 

“Follow me,” he said before turning and heading back into the school building.

The moment the door to Nezu’s office closed behind him, Izuku cut straight to the point.

“Uraraka’s a werewolf now.”

“I had wondered if that might be the case,” Nezu said. “Considering the symptoms Shinsou and Gunhead described, as well as the fact that it was a full moon on the night of the incident, it seemed plausible enough. I imagine she’ll have the same concerns you do with regards to keeping her alive outside of this parallel world of yours?”

“Unfortunately, that puts us on a time limit,” Aizawa said. “She was abducted from Ibana Hospital yesterday. We’re still looking for leads, but the immediate trail has gone cold - Hound Dog couldn’t pick up the perpetrator's scent for some reason, but he followed Uraraka’s for a few blocks before it reached a dead end in an alley.”

“That, um, was me, actually,” Izuku admitted guiltily. “Nue, one of my friends in Gensokyo, used her Ability to disguise me so I could rescue Uraraka.”

“I was hoping you wouldn’t be a problem child,” the underground hero groaned, massaging his temples. “Midoriya, you’re smarter than that - UA provides treatment for its students, you could have come to us and we would have arranged for Uraraka to be taken into our care.”

“The main problem,” Nezu pointed out, “is that you were seen. Explaining Uraraka’s disappearance would be easy enough to do if not for that. While this ‘Nue’ person’s Ability let you go unidentified, it puts us in a position where we have to pretend that someone attempted to kidnap a UA student, and infiltrated a hospital with the use of a disguise quirk in order to do so.”

“And that means raising security,” Izuku realized. “I’m really sorry I’ve put you in this position, I-”

“Not to worry,” the principal replied before he could finish his thought. “I had been considering such measures since the USJ incident to begin with. It’s clear that our security is currently somewhat lacking.”

“And the hospital?” Aizawa asked pointedly.

“They would do well to up security as well. While Midoriya’s heist was ultimately well-intentioned, I noticed some disturbing trends when looking for other cases like Yanagi’s. Specifically, many of the hospitals in the Musutafu and Tokyo areas have a habit of misplacing bodies. No reports of wrongdoing - rather, they simply disappear from the records without any documentation after a point.”

“So you think some villain organization is behind it?”

“I can’t say for certain, but hopefully increased vigilance will reveal the culprit, or at least make these events less likely in the future. Thank you for letting us know, Midoriya. I assume Uraraka will be in school tomorrow?”

Izuku nodded. “I’ve sorted things out so she should be safe now.”

“Excellent! You are dismissed, then. Aizawa, we need to get our story straight regarding Miss Uraraka’s physical changes.”

As he was about to leave, he stopped and turned back to the duo.

“By the way, Yakumo - erm, the Youkai of Boundaries - visited and spoke with me last night. I don’t think her intentions are as bad as Yanagi believes.”

Nezu blinked once, a puzzled expression on his face. “Are you feeling well, Midoriya?”

“Yes, why?”

“You just stopped there, like you wanted to add something but forgot what you were going to say.”

“You won't tell anyone I visited you,” Yukari’s voice echoed in his head.

“It’s nothing, sorry.”

The principal blinked again. “Very well. If you remember what you wanted to say, do let me know. Now, Aizawa, I believe that the best explanation for the changes to Miss Uraraka would be to claim that it was the result of a quirk that transforms other people.”

“That’s absolutely ridiculous,” the bedraggled hero objected. “It’s an irrational explanation and I refuse to believe you can’t think of a better one.”

“I have a few announcements before we start the day,” Aizawa declared, sounding even more tired than usual. “First off, Uraraka was afflicted by an unknown Villain’s Quirk during the incidents over this past week, resulting in her current appearance. I expect you all to treat her as you normally would - UA has given her a thorough examination and concluded that there are no adverse effects other than the obvious cosmetic alterations.”

A slight murmur ran through the class, thankfully overwhelmingly sympathetic from what Izuku could identify.

“Secondly,” Aizawa continued, “in light of the recent attacks on UA and its students, the school has decided to begin transitioning to a dorm system.”

He held up a hand to silence the resultant uproar, only continuing once everyone had settled down. “The dormitories won’t be finished for about a month, so you'll all have plenty of time to prepare for the move. Additionally, we are aware this is fairly short notice, and will allow you to opt out of the system for this semester. You will be expected to use the dorms in subsequent semesters unless you can provide a valid excuse, however, so I recommend getting used to them sooner rather than later.”

Iida’s hand immediately went up. “Sir, why the long delay? Surely it should be possible to have the building completed far sooner with Cementoss’s Quirk?”

“Cementoss can only manipulate cement,” Izuku pointed out. “Everything else would need to be manually installed unless someone with a different Quirk helped out. It’s fine for constructing the buildings we use for training, but an actual livable building has more considerations to take into account.”

“One month is already extremely fast for constructing a dorm building - it’s unheard of for companies that don’t have quirk-licensed workers,” Uraraka added.

“I see,” Iida replied, lowering his hand. “I had neglected to consider those factors. I retract my question.”

The moment class let out for lunch, conversations about the announcements at the start of the day opened up.

“I’m so pumped for these dorms! It’ll be great to be able to hang out with everyone more often and get to know them better!”

“Where’d you go for your internship, Yanagi? …Yanagi? Hello?”

“Uraraka, are you okay? I heard about Gunhead on the news.”

“Geez, a Quirk that gives you animal ears? The Villain had to have been a real weirdo, huh? I’m just picturing some perverted little midget. Makes me shiver just thinking about him.”

Tokoyami avoided the conversations, heading straight for the lunchroom with uncharacteristic haste. Concerned, Izuku immediately followed him.

The bird-headed boy had already managed to make his way through the lunch line and grab food with admirable speed by the time Izuku arrived. “How was your Internship, Tokoyami?”

The boy sighed and picked at his omurice.

“Bad, huh?”

“Komuso was mostly a bust,” he admitted. “Sure, I got better at working with Dark Shadow, but…”

“...That was more because the old monk had some real crazy training for us and we bonded over how much it sucked,” the Quirk finished. “Seriously, stuff like meditating under a waterfall in your underwear - who does stuff like that anymore?”

The shadowy being offered Tokoyami a high five, which went unanswered for several awkward moments before being abandoned.

“...Did you at least find what you were looking for on Itsukushima?” Izuku tried.

The would-be youkai hunter sighed. “That was the worst part - I did . Just as she wrote, there was a cave further inland from where the main shrine is. There was nothing inside.”

“Oh.”

Izuku didn’t know how he could offer any comfort. At least, not without revealing Gensokyo’s existence.

“I don’t know what’s true anymore - did my ancestor really fight a demon on Itsukushima? Was Yanagi right that it was all lies?”

“I told you, your ancestor’s story was suspicious from the start,” Reiko suddenly interjected, setting a bowl of rice on the table as she chewed on a mushroom skewer. “Shrines are Pure ground - no youkai would ever choose to settle there.”

“A Tanuki lives in a shrine in the story of the Bunbuku Tea-Kettle,” Tokoyami objected, some of his spirit returning in the face of the ghostlike girl’s challenge.

“But the tanuki in question was only on shrine grounds for a short amount of time,” She countered. “The moment they tried using him to boil water, he partially reverted and they ended up selling him to a merchant soon after.”

“The Tengu, then - they found Minamoto no Yoshitsune when he was in exile at the temple on Mount Kurama and taught him to fight.”

“Tengu myths came about as a result of shugendo practitioners, and they always retained an association with religion as a result,” She immediately replied. “It’s far more likely that Yoshitsune simply learned to fight from a group of yamabushi - they certainly caused enough of a headache during later periods.”

“You’re thinking of the Ikko-Ikki, who were a different sect of Buddhism,” Tokoyami objected.

Reiko gave Izuku a pointed look. “You know as much folklore as I do, if not more, Midoriya - back me up here.”

Izuku threw his hands up as a show of neutrality as the pair continued to devolve into bickering about myths and origins. At least Tokoyami seemed to have cheered up to an extent.

For the second time in as many months, a panel of mixed UA Faculty and Pro Heroes had gathered in a meeting room. Inspector Tsukauchi started the proceedings.

“I apologize for the delay in calling this meeting, but we wanted to give the heroes injured in the recent incident time to recover, since this information is relevant to them as well.”

Gunhead nodded, chest still bandaged. Gran Torino, despite having recovered enough to be mobile, had declined to attend.

“Beginning our agenda, we have the attack on Hosu. As you are all aware, a number of monsters were unleashed upon Hosu city. Eyewitness reports identify the League of Villains as the culprit - the leadership from their attack on USJ was seen releasing the creatures from a rooftop.”

The detective clicked a button, causing an image of two of the monsters to appear on the screen - a white, eyeless creature, snarling at the police officers dragging its restrained form towards an armored vehicle and a black, beaked creature with an exposed brain lying dead on the ground.

“Both of the pictured creatures were recovered. The first was defeated by several of Endeavor’s sidekicks, while the second was found in a crater just outside of the city limits.”

“So someone dropped it from a massive height and killed it,” Snipe theorized.

“I’m afraid not,” Tsukauchi replied. “Analysis of the body indicates that it was dead before it hit the ground.”

“What killed it, then?” Aizawa asked, eyebrow raised.

“As far as we can tell, every synapse in its brain fired simultaneously for an extended period of time, causing irreparable damage. It likely would have survived the fall otherwise - it seemed to have had shock absorption and regeneration.”

“Hell of a Quirk,” Snipe whistled. “The League’s stocking some heavy hitters quick, it seems - they must be planning on making a move soon.”

Endeavor nodded. “We should make sure the unidentified villain doesn’t join up with them.”

“You don’t think they’re dead?” The cowboy-esque hero asked.

“Of course not,” he sneered. “I’m not a fool. They’ve come back from an apparent death before, and I was too far away to confirm their death. They’re just as likely to be laying low to regain their strength.”

“How can you be sure they haven’t already joined forces?”

“No Hero reported fighting that thing, no civilian would have had a Quirk capable of killing it in that manner, and the unidentified villain displayed an ability to both fight at high altitude and bring other objects up to that height.”

“So we keep an eye out for any signs that villain might be resurgent,” Aizawa declared. “Hosu overall seems to have been a net loss for the League - they lost several useful assets for little immediate gain.”

“While that’s true in a vacuum, there’s reason to believe they were looking more long-term with their attack,” Tsukauchi replied. “The individual who attacked Mongaza Prison matches descriptions we got from several Villains captured during the USJ attack, a third member of their leadership. Gunhead?”

The Battle Hero nodded. “She didn’t identify herself during the attack, but she knew where she was going and what to get. I’m ashamed to say it was a total loss on our part and only pure luck stopped things from getting worse.”

“So Hosu was a distraction, then,” Snipe reasoned.  “A way to draw heroes away from their real goals.”

Aizawa shook his head. “A single breakout wouldn’t be enough to make up for those losses, and no similar incidents were reported. More likely, they intended it as a message - a way to say ‘look, we’re big and powerful, join us’ to any up-and-coming villains.”

The rest of the week passed uneventfully, until Friday. Uraraka stopped Izuku as classes let out for the weekend. “Say, um, Deku?”

“Yeah?”

“I was wondering if…”

She found herself struggling with what she was about to do. Sure, she knew it was a nice gesture, but with her meager budget…

Don’t worry about it, something deep inside her said. He’ll love it. It’ll be a great afternoon, just the two of you…

“I was wondering if you wanted to go out together tomorrow.”

Izuku seemed to lock up, and for a long, agonizing minute, Uraraka was terrified she had just ruined their friendship. After what seemed like an eternity, he smiled.

“I’d love to.”