Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When Momo Yaoyorozu had been a small child, one of the first social lessons her parents had taught her was that what other people thought about her was important.

"We'll always love you as our baby girl no matter where your life leads you," Her parents had told her, "but there are other people out there, people who don't know so much about what you're really like. If you do things that they don't like, or if you don't do things they want you to do, those people could think bad things about you." A four-year old Momo, so young that she hadn't yet realized her quirk had already manifested, had asked them if this meant she would be a bad person for not acting like what other people wanted her to act like. "No, it doesn't mean you'd be a bad person," they kindly explained, "But it would make other people think you are a bad person, so they'll treat you like a bad person."

It was a lesson that her parents had impressed upon her over and over again over the years, even as they constantly reassured her that they themselves could never think badly of her and had proven willing to overlook her missteps. As the heiress to Yaoyorozu Support Inc., she'd been in the limelight from a relatively young age. That made her especially vulnerable to outside criticism regardless of whether it was warranted or not. What other people saw of her affected the way they thought about her, which in turn would affect the way they treated her. Unlike her parents, other people had no reason to unconditionally love or accept her at face value. If she did not make a good enough impression on them, she would be overlooked in favor of someone else who did; it was that simple.

For this very reason, Momo had spent her elementary and middle school years striving to excel, especially once she had decided being a pro hero would be a more fulfilling career choice than being the next owner and CEO of her parents' company. Choosing a career in heroics meant that she would have to build up a reputation for competency from the ground up, instead of being able to succeed in life simply by inheriting the family business. Everything from her academic scores to her bojutsu competition results were scrutinized by people whose views on her could determine the course of her life. She may be able to study long and hard to memorize thousands of molecular formulas so she could recall them to use her quirk, but that would mean nothing unless she demonstrated her quirk and impressed the faculty of various hero academies. It was ultimately up to others, rather than her own efforts, to decide if she'd receive the opportunities she needed to set her on track for a successful hero career. If she hadn't paid so much attention to how she'd be seen by others, she might never have been given a shot at attending U.A under recommendation. Yet, once she had made it to her dream school and then moved into Heights Alliance at the start of her second term, she had pushed this concern to the recesses of her mind.

Now, at almost seventeen years old and more than halfway through her second year at U.A, and with her adult life fast approaching, Momo was harshly reminded of the importance of public image once again.

The day had started innocently enough, with the customary morning classes unfolding normally-or at least, as normally as one could expect for a class of hero students who had been involved in the greatest conflict between heroes and villains since the rise of All Might. The press were starting to call the rise and fall of the League of Villains "The Paranormal Liberation War", after the villain organization that had emerged once the League defeated and absorbed what turned out to be a rebuilding Meta Liberation Army and became an existential threat to society. Even though the main conflict had ended several months ago and things were gradually returning to normalcy, much work still remained to be done if Japan was ever to recover. The damage inflicted on various cities all across the nation would take years to be repaired; the most heavily damaged areas such as Jaku and Deika City would require complete reconstruction over the course of many decades. The Japanese economy had all but collapsed, with rampant inflation having driven all but the absolute richest into a state of poverty. The Hero Public Safety Commission had seen virtually all of its staff and senior members slaughtered, and it was a miracle that the new HPSC President Mera had kept the organization alive for now. Public faith in the hero system was only just starting to recover thanks to their ultimate victory, in no small part thanks to her fellow hero course students, but it was unlikely that it would ever return to the level of public approval during All Might's heyday. Many heroes were dead or retired, including some beloved teachers at U.A. Momo was still haunted by Kayama-sensei's last words, and Aizawa-sensei was gradually losing vision in his damaged eye, in addition to having sacrificed a leg. To make everything worse, the power vacuum left in the underground with the fall of so many prominent villains had led to chaos, as a new wave of villains arose to take advantage of a world in turmoil.

But all of that was why the students of what was now Class 2-A were training to become heroes, to be there for other people when they needed someone to help them. Their class had the misfortune of being the most frequent targets and opponents for the League, starting with the USJ Incident only a week into their high school careers. For all the misery and grief these attacks had put them through, however, they had learned and grown from these experiences. Their innocence had been stripped away over the course of the previous year, but it had been replaced by determination, experience, maturity, and increasing awareness over the fundamental problems that had led to the war in the first place. They had faced real villains, including the most powerful villain the world had ever seen, and managed to come out on top. Having made it through their trial by fire, they were ready to take on the world.

Right now, however, Momo was concerned less about having to take up the mantle of a future hero, and more with being the best keyboard player in the school. She needed to be, since she was the keyboard player for the Class 1-A band, the name having stuck even though they had moved up a year. The small group of five consisted of herself, Bakugo, Tokoyami, Kaminari and, best of all, her dear friend Kyoka Jiro-one of the only people who she referred to by their given names. The motley gang had been a regular fixture at the school ever since they'd wowed the audience during last year's Cultural Festival, and they planned to do so again this year. Practice was held weekly, after the Friday lunch period, in U.A's well-furbished music room. With people's hearts and minds so shaken up by the war, it was more important than ever before that festivities would allow the audience to relax and have fun, free of concerns. Being a member of the band also gave Momo as good an excuse as any to enjoy the company of her best friend.

As Momo went through her paces behind the keyboard, her eyes were constantly drawn to by her violet-haired classmate behind the singer's mic. Fittingly for someone with a sound-based quirk, Kyoka had a beautiful voice, one that she never tired of hearing. Theirs was an odd friendship; Momo was the tallest and most "well-endowed" girl in the class, while Kyoka was the shortest, skinniest, and, as she'd occasionally complain, the "flattest". Momo was the heiress of a vast corporation and acted the part outside of training, while Kyoka was the daughter of two punk rock musicians and was proud of it. Yet, in spite of their differences, they had become the closest of friends over their time at U.A-More than friends, she mentally corrected herself.

Momo had been afraid that her parents would tear into her when she recently came out to them as bisexual, but to her great surprise, they didn't mind and in fact were happy that their daughter had resolved any internal struggles she may had had with her sexuality. They already had made plans to hand off direct management of Yaoyorozu Support Inc. to another branch of the family and only install her as the company's future owner once she had made her future career choice clear, so it wasn't as if succession was a serious problem. Not only that, once she'd told them that the girl she had fallen in love with was Kyoka, her mother had been ecstatic, telling her that she had a nice chat with her classmate back when she'd invited her over to the Yaoyorozu family estate. Who knew that her mother was a closet punk rock fan?

But it hadn't been their shared involvement in the band that had driven the two girls together. It had all started much earlier, during the USJ incident only a week into high school, where they had had to work together to survive, forging a bond between them that had held firm ever since then. During the I-Island Incident, the two had worked in tandem against Wolfram's mercenary crew. When Sero-kun had accidentally insulted Momo at the training camp by comparing her quirk to defecation, a far more personal insult than he realized, it had been Kyoka who had defended her honor. They had ended up fighting side by side during the first half of their Provisional Hero License Exam, and both Momo's intelligence and Kyoka's surprise attack had been instrumental in snatching victory from the grasp of Saiko Intelli. In between these events had been numerous group study sessions, band practices, and numerous other little interactions that had, over and over again, re-affirmed their bond. The heightened emotions during the Paranormal Liberation War had only intensified Momo's feelings towards her best friend, and those feelings had become almost unbearable over the past few months. It was then, and only then, that she had finally realized she'd been harboring a romantic desire for Kyoka all this time.

As the practice session wound down, the five students began to pack up, ready to head off to get some free time in before the start of the afternoon Heroics classes. It was at this point that Kaminari asked a question she desperately wanted to not answer. "I guess this is the last practice we're doing before we become all busy with our work studies. So, who's everyone going with?"

"I'm going to be at Gang Orca's again," Kyoka replied. The violette had worked as an intern for the Killer Whale Hero once before, and he had proven himself to be both a wise mentor for her as well as a valuable connection to the upper ranks of hero society. Momo was genuinely happy that her heart's desire had such a desirable mentor; Kyoka was one of her more capable classmates and deserved to be noticed by such a powerful hero.

"Hawks has sent me another invitation to Fukuoka." Tokoyami said. He had interned under Hawks during his first internship and had never chosen any other mentor. Hawks had made it to the Number Two position on the Japanese hero rankings just prior to the war, and even though his reputation had taken a major hit due to his actions during the Gunga Mountain Raid, he was still considered a highly effective hero. According to Tokoyami, Hawks had taken a special interest in him immediately after the Sports Festival and planned to bring him on board as a sidekick the moment he graduated, giving him a near-certain chance at making it to the Top Ten himself later down the line.

"Enjoy your work studies, shitty extras. I'm still on fucking probation." Bakugo grumbled. He had been injured to the point of clinical death during the final battle against Shigaraki. It had taken the sacrifice of a Top Ten hero to save him, and he had to go through intense physical therapy afterwards to recover to the point of being able to do physical exercises again. Only once Recovery Girl cleared him for fieldwork would he be allowed to partake in work studies once more. Even with this setback, however, Bakugo had already made enough of a name for himself to be seen as a promising future hero. Plenty of pro heroes still questioned his attitude, but few of them doubted his combat capabilities or his keen mind. "How about you, Ponytail?" He asked, turning to face her.

"I....." Momo had finished packing up her music notes and was about to slip away, hoping to avoid the entire conversation, but now she was cornered. If she left now, when it was obvious she hadn't missed the question, it would look very odd to her classmates. If she stayed and came clean, however, it could cost her reputation within her class for academic brilliance.

"Come on, Yaomomo, you pretty much have to have someone who would be willing to take you in, right?" Her best friend was all but pleading now, and what kind of friend-girlfriend-would she be if she refused to be more open about the details of her life?

"Promise me that you won't say anything about what I'm about to tell you, Kyo." She replied, before addressing all the others. "This applies to the rest of you, too."

"We'll keep quiet, so spill it, Ponytail. What's the big secret with your work study?" Bakugo pressed. Momo took a deep breath-There's no escaping this now-and told them something she wanted to keep hidden from the rest of the world.

"....I'm not allowed to do work studies, either." She admitted, crestfallen. "Technically I am, but all my work study requests were rejected by the heroes I sent them to." This was, in fact, the second year in a row where Momo found herself unable to participate in a work study. Last year, shortly after meeting the Big Three, she had applied for work studies right away but failed to find a single mentor willing to take her in. She could still recall all the times she'd receive a response from one of the pros she had sent a work study application to, only to be dejected as hero after hero turned her down. She had even gone as far as to ask Amajiki-senpai to introduce her to Fat Gum for her work study, on the grounds that the former's versatility and the latter's lipids-based quirks were both connected to aspects of Creation, only for Amajiki-senpai to reject her in favor of Kirishima. None of the heroes she'd reached out to this year had accepted her requests, either. She was being left behind in terms of field experience as her classmates were pulling ahead, further taking away connections and opportunities that could have gone to her.

Her bandmates started at her as if she'd lost her sanity. "But why?" Kyoka asked, "How is it possible that I can get a work study under a top-ranking hero but nobody wants you as a work studies intern, when you're so much better than I am? You have a stronger quirk, far better grades in both academics and heroics, and you got in on recommendation!" She scoffed, indignant that her best friend was not receiving the attention she deserved.

Tokoyami also expressed his sympathies. "When the top student in the hero course is not able to get in any field experience, one can truly observe that the state of U.A's education has dimmed due to the war." The raven-headed goth had become one of Momo's strongest supporters within U.A. He greatly admired her for her tactical and strategic acumen, and he was more than eager to point this out whenever students from Class 2-B or the other courses questioned if she truly belonged in the hero course.

Which was ironic, as Tokoyami was the reason Momo's qualifications were being questioned in the first place.

Had anyone cared enough to ask, Momo could have told them exactly when and where this all this trouble for her had begun: her defeat and public humiliation at Tokoyami's hands during her first Sports Festival. Had she been merely defeated by him, things wouldn't have been too much of an issue-Dark Shadow was a very powerful quirk, after all, and losing to it was no great shame. But the way in which she had lost, being pushed out of the ring in seconds without even having time to create an appropriate weapon to fight with, meant that she had appeared to be incompetent and pathetic from the perspective of the audience. It was an awful way for any hero-in-training to make an impression, and it would go on to affect all of her studies in one way or another.

Being humiliated on the international stage was bad enough, but her defeat had much more dire consequences for her future career. The first-year Sports Festival was what determined the first batch of internship offers, and by extension it was the first and most important opportunity for an U.A hero student to earn public recognition and make connections within the hero industry. Students who had performed well received more and better internship offers from higher-ranked pro heroes, heroes who could hire them in the future as sidekicks or introduce them to other high-ranking heroes. On the other hand, a bad first impression at the Sports Festival meant that a hero student would receive fewer and less reputable internship offers, putting them at a significant disadvantage when it came to networking. With only a limited number of internship offers that a pro hero could send out at a time, it was inevitable that students who were-or appeared to be-lacking much future potential as heroes would be overlooked in favor of students who had put up good showings during the Festival.

So when Tokoyami had pushed Momo just over that boundary line, he'd instantly invalidated all her efforts over the years to prove she had what it took to be a hero, as well as the prestige she had earned from entering U.A as a recommendation student. She now appeared to be a foolish rich girl with a weak quirk who was ill-suited for a career in heroics, and that was all that the audience-including the pro heroes-knew or cared about. She didn't have to guess to know this, because she had spent the next two days at her family estate, hiding from the world in her spacious room. Even there, she couldn't escape the long reach of negative publicity. The U.A Sports Festival was an internationally broadcast sporting event with a global audience in the billions. Like the Olympic athletes of old, every student who made it to the tournament round was subject to the whims of public opinion for at least the next couple of weeks, whether that be for the better or for worse. For Momo, said attention was overwhelmingly for the worse, and the fact she was defeated after being introduced as a recommendation student only led to more public discourse about whether she deserved her place in the hero course. Hundreds of social media posts, many left on her own public accounts, either mocked her for her defeat or questioned just how someone so incapable ever made it into U.A, with one post outright demanding that she transfer out of the hero course so that someone who "actually deserves the spot" could take her place. One blogger called her a sore loser for supposedly trying to fight after she'd already lost; another, who had apparently not seen her use her quirk during the match, claimed that she had cheated by bringing in support items illegally and so deserved to be defeated and humiliated. Her parents were not spared from negative publicity either, as they received several letters accusing them of bribing U.A to let their incompetent daughter into the hero course.

Somehow, those two, torturous days had still ended up being a relative reprieve from what had come afterwards. When Momo had taken the train to Mustafu for the first day back after the festival, more than a few people aboard had recognized her and stared at her, looks of disapproval clear on their faces. Several of them had been eager to tell her to her face exactly what they'd thought about her. A much smaller number of people had been more sympathetic, pitying her for being matched up against such a powerful opponent. As if she wasn't powerful in her own right. As if she wasn't capable enough to be in the company of such peers.

When internship offers had been handed out at school on that day, she'd been disappointed, but unsurprised, to see her name close to the bottom of the list with only 108 offers. She'd told herself that 108 offers was still more than most of her peers-over half the class had received no offers at all-but that was still a disappointingly small number of offers for a recommendation student. Even Kaminari had received more offers than she had; he'd been taken more seriously by the heroes than her despite not even being able to control his quirk. The relatively few offers that Momo had received had come from obscure heroes who were desperate to get their hands on any intern from the U.A hero course, or from those who simply wanted to get into the good graces of the powerful Yaoyorozu family. At least one had come from someone who planned to take advantage of her at the expense of her agency and self-worth. Unfortunately, that had been the option she'd chosen, though she couldn't imagine the alternatives would have been any better had she gone with them instead.

At the start of the year, Momo had been confident in her own abilities, not afraid to criticize others for their mistakes or to assert herself when people disagreed with her. But the onslaught of negativity following the Sports Festival, combined with the knowledge of how her new reputation for failure would affect her in the future, had led to her confidence taking a nosedive as she asked whether she had overestimated her own abilities. If so many people saw her as an imposter who should never have been part of the hero course, maybe they were right. Even if they were wrong, what good would it be for her to remain in the hero course, when her odds of making it as a successful pro hero had already been shot? It wasn't until the practical exam where she'd faced off against Aizawa-sensei that she had realized that her initial confidence had never been misplaced, and that what other people assumed about her had little to do with her own capabilities. But even knowing that she was much more capable than she gave herself credit for had done nothing to change what other people thought about her, and it meant little as far as her future career prospects were concerned. That much had become clear the moment she found herself unable to participate in work studies after getting her Provisional Hero License.

"There is no goddamn way you, Ponytail, of all people can't find a work study." Bakugo's sudden shouting snapped Momo back to the present. The blond had finished putting the school's drum kit back into storage, and was now getting confrontational with her. "Either you're hiding something, or you're a lazy excuse for a recommendation student. You think you're good enough to coast by without putting in any effort?" He demanded, now all but glaring at her. Momo was suddenly reminded that, out of the very large list of things that angered Bakugo, a rival who wasn't giving it their all was near the top of the list. Tokoyami came to her rescue, summoning Dark Shadow to create a barrier between her and the Explosion user. Normally, she would've been glad for anyone who would stand up for her, but when it came to Tokoyami she found herself regretting that she had never confronted him for ruining her public reputation. Maybe if she had, he'd have realized just how much harm he'd done to her. Maybe then he'd have tried to make amends, instead of trying in vain to defend her from a problem he did not realize he'd started.

"What the fuck, Bird Brain?"

"Cease your quarrel with Yaoyorozu-san. It is through no fault of her own that-"

"If she wanted a work study so badly, maybe she should have bothered to-"

"-do not blame our vice-representative for the dim minds of those who should have seen her wisdom-"

The embarrassment of having to admit she was unable to find a work study had already put Momo on edge over the course of the conversation. Bakugo's in-your-face attitude, and Tokoyami's attempts to defend her without realizing he had put her in this situation to start with, proved to be the breaking point. She couldn't bear to be in the same space as either of them, and she all but slammed the music room doors open before speed-walking away from the music room as fast as she could risk without being punished for running in the halls. Bakugo yelled after her, but she paid him no mind. Her thoughts were too preoccupied elsewhere to be concerned about how her bandmates would react to her abrupt departure.

I have to find a way to prove myself to a public audience, and soon, if I am to ever make it as a successful hero. For all his callousness, Bakugo did have a point. Most other students in her class had either proven themselves in the field during various battles with villains, or had made a good enough impression during the Sports Festival to attract attention from established heroes and agencies early on. In the hero industry, such displays of competence or power were important; they were the defining moments that could make or break a hero's career, the foundations for their reputations starting out. Asui had been involved in a raid against drug smugglers. Bakugo had his defiant last stand against an empowered Shigaraki. Tokoyami and even Kyoka had engaged All for One in person during the war and come out on top.

Meanwhile, all Momo had achieved during her time at U.A was helping other people to accomplish their goals.

Yes, sure, she had been the one who found the League's Nomu Factory in Kamino Ward by creating a tracker and placing it on the Nomu that had nearly killed her, but she had been reduced to a mere spectator in the subsequent clash of titans that had occurred as a result. And sure, she'd devised the plan to poison Gigantomachia during the Paranormal Liberation War, but her fellow students had done the physical work, and the result had been not only horrifying but made her a scapegoat for having caused the villain to actively rampage. The media cared not for brilliant strategies or investigative skills. They were all about the "sharp end" of heroics, the awe-inspiring or terrifying battles between powerful heroes and equally powerful or skilled villains, or the heartwarming last-ditch rescues; all of the background work that was necessary for such events to occur were largely ignored, and the men and women behind them underappreciated.

It didn't matter that Momo was at the top of all her classes and had never been academically surpassed by any other student in her year. It didn't matter that, at 95 out of 100 possible points, she had the highest Provisional Hero License Exam score out of all examinees for that exam (she would later find out that she'd received the highest all-time score). As long as she continued to be overshadowed by her fellow heroes-in-training in the line of duty, established heroes had no reason to believe in her capabilities.

It wasn't until late into her second term at U.A that a top-notch hero had paid her some attention. During that same internship week when Kyoka had interned under Gang Orca, Momo had at last managed to find a proper mentor under Majestic, a well-known hero who was respected within the industry for his abilities and had also proven to be an enthusiastic teacher. Perhaps, in some parallel universe, Majestic would have made it to the Top Ten as he'd been projected to do before the war, and she would have gained a vital connection in the upper echelons of the hero industry. But that lifeline was now gone. Majestic was dead, killed in Gigantomachia's rampage during the Gunga Mountain raid. With his passing, Momo had returned to being seen as the incapable rich girl who had only managed joined the hero course thanks to money and good looks.

Of course, few of her classmates and virtually none of the U.A faculty would agree with that assessment. They had seen more than enough of her in class and during training to recognize her intelligence, her drive, and the versatility of her quirk. But neither the U.A student body nor the U.A faculty had the rights to decide which and how many internship offers she got, so the fact they believed in her potential was just as irrelevant as whether she herself did. The friends she had made at U.A had repeatedly reassured her about her future, that everything would somehow work out for her if she only believed in herself. I had dared hope they were right, and look at where I am now, being left behind as they move onto greater accomplishments in life.

Even during the regular in-class hero training exercises, she was being increasingly overshadowed by her classmates, not only as a fighter but also as a leader and strategist. The last time Momo could remember playing any sort of prominent role during a training session was back in first year with her Joint Training match, which, although it had been a very close battle, her team had lost-

-because of Tokoyami not following through with my plan completely!

Just like that, an idea began to click into place. She had lost that match on the verge of victory because she hadn't been proactive enough, having focused on supporting the rest of her team and expecting that Tokoyami would deal with Komori-san on the enemy team. The Jet Black Hero-in-training had, out of the same warped sense of respect for women that had led to her earlier humiliation, refused to attack Komori with all he had. It was a fatal error, as the then 1-B student took advantage of the opening to turn the tide of the battle. But if I had been the one to attack Komori, instead of trusting that Tokoyami would finish the job, I could have made sure that she had been truly defeated, and then my plan would have worked without her around to interfere with it.

Ever since the Sports Festival, Momo had opted to keep her head down and focus on providing support for others, only being an active combatant if forced to by circumstances. Now, however, she had to wonder if she hadn't been wasting her talents by doing so. She thought back to her practical exam against her homeroom teacher, which she had previously thought of only as an attempt by Aizawa-sensei to restore her confidence, but now it was clear that there was another lesson there; that she should not sit back and let others do the fighting on her behalf, as she'd tried to do earlier in that exam. The same lesson had been taught to her during the Provisional License Exam. The Seiai students who had faced off against her group had quickly gained the upper hand by forcing her to wear herself out defending her classmates, and it was only after she came up with an offensive strategy that the tables were turned, the bold decision throwing the Seiai students off and ultimately allowing her entire group to defeat them and pass the exam.

With the benefit of hindsight, she could now find a pattern to her experiences. She performed at her best when on an offensive footing, and especially when she herself was leading the attack, as the practical exam had shown. In this capacity, not only was she supposed to provide effective leadership, she also had to serve as an effective fighter to regain the initiative and ensure her plans would be followed through. Even if her quirk was arguably better-suited for providing backline support, it was apparent that her personality was never meant to remain overshadowed on the sidelines.

At the intellectual level, Momo knew that support heroes were important, probably more so than any other group of heroes. Support heroes ensured everything ran smoothly behind the scenes. They coordinated other heroes and police, formed plans for major rescue or anti-villain operations, and provided equipment to everyone else so that they could play their parts more efficiently. They were the reason heroes as a whole were able to operate at maximum effectiveness, Yet, in spite of all that, the vast majority of them never received nearly as much acclaim or success as the other heroes who were dependent on them. Support heroes were seen as being closer to sidekicks or agency staff, best relegated to helping from the sidelines while the real heroes handled the villains or rescued people from disasters. They were usually not highly ranked on the Japanese Hero Billboard Chart. They were paid significantly less by the Hero Public Safety Commission, or at least what was left of it after the war, since their contributions to incident resolution were not ranked as significantly as those of heroes who were more directly involved with incidents. All of these factors compounded to limit their effectiveness, which further ensured they were dismissed as "inferior" to other types of heroes.

Some might have called her self-centered, but Momo wasn't interested in being treated as a hero of lesser status. Not because she particularly cared for fame and prestige, but because it was an unavoidable means to the end goal of helping as many people as she possibly could. The hero industry was a fiercely competitive arena where making a powerful impression was paramount for success, as her late Kayama-sensei had taught them. Prestige meant greater public cooperation during incidents, a better chance of being able to team up with other heroes as necessary, more freedom to act independently and investigate various cases, and-this is one of the only useful things Uwabami ever taught me-better funding from the government. Even as all heroes ultimately worked to achieve the shared goal of maintaining peace, they were rivals for the most part, competing for the financial resources and public and government support necessary to do their work.

Her classmates had learned that working together, collaborating rather than competing, was more effective when the chips were down, but the hero system was slow to change. Furthermore, their class was already in the limelight due to their prominent involvement during the Paranormal Liberation War, with different students being treated differently as a result. It hadn't escaped Momo's notice that most of her classmates had directly engaged villains and were being praised for their actions, while the key role she had played during the final confrontation in maintaining the floating trap for Shigaraki had gone completely unmentioned in the media. If she continued to be relegated to support and thus overshadowed by her peers in this manner, she would be dismissed as an incapable or at most less capable hero as an adult, and thus be unable to help as many people as she could otherwise have.

How was she supposed to support other heroes when she herself lacked any real support? Why was she only expected to improve the performance of other heroes and not her own?

She was more than halfway into her second year of high school; there wasn't much time left to both improve herself as a combat hero and to rebuild her public image from the ground up. In fact, she was now arguably less capable overall than she had been when she'd first entered U.A, back when she had been confident and assertive, back when she could still imagine herself fighting on the front lines voluntarily. Not only had she further reduced the chances that she'd be taken seriously, it had likely also cost the heroes dearly during the war against All for One. Maybe the final confrontation with Shigaraki wouldn't have required Edgeshot to sacrifice himself to save Bakugo if she had been more proactive and added her firepower against Shigaraki-Maybe if I hadn't foolishly restricted my involvement during the Gunga Mountain Raid, Majestic and Kayama-sensei might still be alive-

Furiously shaking her head, Momo forced herself to stop entertaining such thoughts. She couldn't change what had already happened. All that she could do now was to compensate for it by becoming saving far more people than she had gotten killed. Easier said than done, she thought. She'd have to master a completely different role than the one she had tried to force herself into, and there was a limited window of time to do so in. And that wasn't even the greatest obstacle in her path. Even if she did manage to catch up to her peers, it would ultimately prove futile as long as potential mentors continued to remain ignorant of her capabilities. What she needed more than anything else was a way to break out of the rut she'd been pushed into, a way to prove to the world that she merited a second chance to prove herself.

There was just one year left to convince anyone who'd listen that she wasn't a failure. One year left to ensure that Majestic and Kayama-sensei hadn't died in vain.

-----

"I don't think you really need my help to become a great hero. You're already one of the best in our class."

Just about everyone within U.A, and most people outside it, considered Izuku Midoriya to be the star of the hero course, the greatest heroics student to have ever walked its halls. It was a point of pride for most of the current U.A student body that they could consider him to be among their peers. He was incredibly powerful, having the speed and strength to rival All Might during his prime-which was, as his classmates had found out during the war, due to the fact he was none other than All Might's successor, the current wielder of the unique transferrable quirk known as One for All. Due to its nature as a stockpiling quirk, One for All continuously became more powerful, meaning that Midoriya was already well on his way to surpass his predecessor in capability. That was without taking into account that he'd inherited the quirks of previous holders of One for All, making him the only hero student anywhere who had more than one quirk.

What was a less well-known aspect of Midoriya, at least for those outside of U.A, was his passion for quirk analysis. It was an area where Momo conceded he had the upper hand over her, for while she was the superior long-term planner, Midoriya was better when it came to short-term tactics due to his knack for quickly analyzing an opponent's capabilities. He had entire notebooks dedicated to analyzing the quirks of various pro heroes, villains, and his classmates. These notebooks contained information on their strengths, weaknesses, potential abilities, counters, most suitable team-ups, and equipment suggestions, among many, many other important details. If anyone could find a way for Momo to function as a front-line combatant who people would treat with respect, it was Midoriya.

Which was why she had asked to meet him in his room on the very same day she'd realized that she needed to stop letting herself be sidelined.

But now, Midoriya was telling her that she didn't need his help to become a successful hero because, in his eyes, she was already one. Momo wasn't quite sure how to explain that her own capability didn't matter, not as long as potential mentors and future employers failed to realize it. Midoriya always saw the best in everyone, even in many of the villains he had fought, and he subconsciously assumed that everyone else did the same. He couldn't grasp the idea that other people might not hold his peers in as high a regard as he himself did, or that most other people weren't as good as him at seeing the strengths of others. It was just the way how his mind worked.

"Other people don't see things that way, Midoriya-san." She explained. "They think I shouldn't be out there on the front lines, that I should be restricted to support and allow the real heroes to handle incidents. If I want to become a great hero and help as people as I can, I need to convince them that I'm not just a source of equipment."

"But you're already so much more than that," said Midoriya as he got up and walked over to his bookcase, an entire section of which had been filled with his notes. After a moment, he pulled one of them out from its place, brought it to her, and opened it, revealing the entry in which he'd analyzed her quirk. The opening line immediately caught her eye.

Yaoyorozu-san's quirk is possibly the most powerful quirk I have ever heard of, and definitely the most powerful in our class.

When such a claim was being made by a classmate who was capable of punching entire city blocks to oblivion or breaking the sound barrier, it deserved further consideration. "Do you really think I'm the most powerful student in our class?" She asked Midoriya. "What about you, or Bakugo, or Todoroki?"

"Sheer strength isn't the only thing that makes a quirk powerful." He replied. "No quirk is good at every possible situation it might encounter, but your quirk comes close. You can do more different things with your quirk than the entire rest of the hero course combined. You're going to be Japan's most adaptable hero. Not only that, there are a few things you could do in theory that would be as outright destructive as anything I could do."

"I used to think that too, but my poor showings over the past year and a half has convinced everyone else that I'm unfit to be anything more than support." She did in fact know that she could fight . But with only one witness , and said witness being someone who was neither a hero nor a hero-in-training, there was no reason for those in the industry to reassess their views on her based on a detail they knew nothing about.

"Do you mean what happened during the Sports Festival?" Midoriya asked. When she nodded to indicate yes, he gave her a smile. "The tournament isn't like an actual villain fight, so don't think you're a poor fighter because of your defeat. The Sports Festival doesn't let you create weapons to fight with before the match starts. If you did that, it would be considered cheating, since the rules usually don't allow someone to bring in support items unless they're not from the hero course. That means your opponent gets to attack you as soon as the match begins while you're busy creating something to fight with." Momo continued to nod along, recalling that this was exactly how Tokoyami had defeated her. He had forced her back from the get-go with a series of powerful blows, not giving her time to create any significant light source, leaving her only with a quickly-created shield to futilely try to fend him off.

"In an actual villain fight you don't have that handicap, since heroes are supposed to assess a situation before engaging a villain anyways, and most of the time you also don't have to stay within a specific boundary. There's nothing to stop you from creating a weapon before you engage the villain."

Something Midoriya had just said stood out to her. The tournament isn't like an actual villain fight. What she was capable of accomplishing during a tournament round, where she was banned from creating items before the match started and where she only had a limited amount of room to work with, was not the same as what she could accomplish during a mission, when neither of these rules would apply. All this time, she had thought that her defeat was the result of her own failings, that she hadn't trained hard enough or been clever enough compared to her classmates. Even after her term finals had shown her that she was more capable than she had been led to believe, she still though of most of her classmates as being more capable fighters than herself. What she was now being told threw all of that into question.

But that would mean... Momo let out a near-inaudible gasp as she came to a chilling realization. The true reason I lost that match, the reason why everyone outside U.A thinks I'm incapable, was because the rules of the tournament are biased against my quirk.

The best quirk analyst she had ever known had just shown her how the Sports Festival had been designed to eliminate her from the start. How was she expected to win, when the very rules of the game forced her to effectively fight quirkless for the first critical moments of a match? And how many of her fellow students had faced similar issues? There were students like Shihai Kuroiro from 2-B, whose quirk was outright impossible to use during the tournament since there was nothing black or dark in the ring for him to merge with, or Yui Kodai from the same class, whose ability to grow and shrink any non-living solid object was, like her own, hampered by the fact items were not allowed in the ring. How were pro heroes supposed to identify which students would make the most effective future heroes based on the tournament when the tournament took place in a biased arena that wasn't comparable to field combat conditions?

Once she began mulling over these ideas, Momo couldn't escape the inevitable conclusion that the entire hero system had been designed to discriminate against certain quirks, all the way down to the recruitment, training and education of future heroes. What about the Entrance Exam? Wasn't that the whole reason Shinso-kun had to transfer in from General Studies, having a quirk that was useful against human opponents but useless against robots? Even the recommendation exam that she passed to earn her spot in U.A was biased in its own way, being ill-suited to those whose quirks lacked mobility-related applications. Just how many teenagers who could have grown into capable heroes had been barred from receiving the training and experience necessary to compete in the hero industry? How many powerful, skilled hero students throughout U.A's history had been made to perform with their hands tied behind their backs, then judged as incapable by an ignorant audience when the handicap imposed on them proved too much for them to overcome? How many of them had never managed to earn the respect they deserved from the public even as adults, languishing in obscurity?

How many civilians had suffered or died, and how many criminals had been left at large, because the heroes who could have resolved those incidents were denied that opportunity due to being seen as unfit for duty?

Momo had told the rest of her class once that it was their duty to start at the bottom and work their way to the top, but it now appeared that this notion, now matter how noble, had been misguided. The system was biased to prevent some people from attaining the opportunity to advance, leaving them trapped beneath a glass ceiling as the world blamed them for being unable to succeed, and she was part of that statistic.

"Yaoyorozu-san?"

"I apologize. I was lost in my thoughts for a moment," she explained embarrassedly.

"Don't worry, it happens to me all the time, too," Midoriya replied with a nervous grin. "Anyways, a quirk does not need to have direct combat applications to be an effective combat quirk. When you stop and think about it, even powerful heroes and villains often depend heavily on technology. Air Jet is known for his jetpack, not his quirk. All for One could only fight effectively because he had a portable life-support system. Re-Destro used to have a powered suit of armor called Claustro that made his quirk even stronger when he was inside it, at least until Shigaraki destroyed it. Snipe-sensei relies on a gun to fight because his quirk is useless without it. And here's the thing; you can create support gear similar to those and so much more right out of your body, so you can make far better use of technology than any other hero. As long as you can keep getting new blueprints for new support items, you could, in theory, fight a lot like All for One did, combining many different weapons and equipment and using them like several quirks at once."

I can create technology and support equipment to replicate various different quirks at the same time. Momo felt foolish for not having thought about this earlier. Before her self-confidence had crashed and caused her to relegate herself to secondary duties, she had wanted to become a hero who created weapons to fight villains, but never had she considered that she could create weapons so powerful that they could replace quirks. For heaven's sake, she was the heiress to a support gear corporation! Do I really deserve a place in the hero course when I am so short-sighted that I cannot comprehend even something as obvious as this? Were people right to assume I was incompetent after all?

She knew that she shouldn't think so lowly of herself, not when it would send her down a spiral of despair, but it was difficult not to when even those trying to help her out reminded her of all the ways in which she'd become a failure. But such a train of thought would do nothing to change her situation, so she gathered herself and asked Midoriya, "So what kinds of weapons and support equipment would work well for me?"

"You'll probably need to learn how to create and use long-ranged weapons, like lasers, guns or rocket launchers. Keeping a safe distance from your opponent would let you keep creating weapons and support gear without being hit back. I guess you could create some sort of protection around yourself if you needed to get up close, but that would make it much harder to use your quirk."

Such focus on long-range combat made sense for Momo; in fact, it was how she preferred to fight, having used weapons such as cannons and catapults during training exercises and during the war. But the problem with relying on heavy, long-range weapons was that someone with high mobility could quickly close the distance between themselves and her if she failed to target and defeat them quickly enough. Speed quirks or other mobility-enhancing quirks were common enough to make this a serious concern. "What if I have to fight someone like you? I mean an opponent with a mobility-enhancing quirk who can evade most long-range attacks, or withstand many powerful blows, and use their greater mobility to get close enough to me to strike."

"That's the other important thing you want to focus on; you want to practice creating support items to improve your mobility, so you can fight while moving around with your weapons. Remember back during our first day at U.A when you created a motorized scooter to win the long-distance run?" She nodded, remembering that she had achieved the highest overall results for the Quirk Assessment Test.

"Imagine doing that during a mission, except you have a weapon attached to the scooter so you can shoot at villains as you drive around at high speeds. That way, you could maintain a safe distance by repositioning as necessary while continuing to attack your opponent. It doesn't have to be a scooter, either. Air Jet has proven that jetpacks can be perfectly useful in hero work, and the support department's managed to invent rocket boots, so you could learn how to fly if you wanted. And since you mentioned what would happen if you faced someone as fast and strong as myself..." Now Midoriya hesitated, and Momo wondered what he was about to say that made him so cautious. "Don't tell this to anyone, but there are scenarios where I could be defeated by someone much weaker than I am. Like the time I fought Lady Nagant, for example. She would have killed me before I even found her if she'd aimed for my head."

If the seemingly indomitable Izuku Midoriya could have been killed by someone whose only offensive ability was to turn her right arm into a gun, it certainly should be possible for Momo to take on almost any villain with careful planning, weapons training, and the sheer number of options at her quirk's disposal. Regardless of whether other people knew it or not, it seemed that she certainly had the potential to become an effective combat hero; the questions now were how she could make that potential a reality, and more importantly, how she was going to convince everyone that she should be allowed to do more than sit back and provide items to the "real" heroes.

"You also need a better costume if you want to fight using support gear or ranged weapons." Midoriya told her.

Momo had already been told countless times that her costume was far too risqué, but had always gently turned down offers for redesigns. The fact she would have to expose her skin to use her quirk was something she had long since accepted as the price to pay for what Creation offered her, and she would be far from the first hero to wear revealing outfits. Due to how her quirk functioned, being an Emitter where objects were assembled molecule by molecule from her skin without her body physically changing to accommodate them, a costume incorporating her DNA would not transform to allow her creations to pass through. And while she could, in theory, have re-designed her costume to redistribute which parts of her body would be exposed while still offering sufficient skin exposure, a costume that was open at the front gave her easier access to her biggest lipid reserves-her belly and breasts-while also allowing her to open up her costume to expose even more skin as necessary and being simpler to recreate if damaged.

Then again, a costume change might not be a bad idea for a fresh new start. Perhaps a new costume would give people reason to think of her differently than they currently did, and anything that could help break the mindset that she wasn't cut out to be a "real" hero would be better than nothing. So, trusting that Midoriya would be well aware of why her current costume was designed the way it was, she asked him, "What costume changes would you recommend? Other students have told me that I need to change it because of how...exposed it is, but do you have something different in mind?"

"What you want is a modular costume. Something that incorporates your support equipment as part of the costume so you can carry everything with you. Think about Kacchan's Suppressive Heavy Mobile Unit Strafe Panzer-" Both of them had to stifle laughs at this point before Midoriya was able to continue on. "You can do a lot more things with that kind of costume than Kacchan can, because while he can only fire off various forms of explosive attacks, you can use any type of weapons and equipment by creating different types of modules. You could create a module with built-in missile launchers, carry around spools of capture tape, fire specialized guns with non-lethal ammunition, deploy your Russian doll flashbang grenades to- I'm mumbling again, am I not?" Midoriya paused as he realized that he'd gone off on one of his tangents again. "Anyways, just go and talk to the Support Department about any other ideas you might come up with. Mei and Power Loader-sensei said you were welcome there at any time, and I can recommend Mei from personal experience, as she designed most of my current gear."

"You mean Hatsume-san?" Like most students in the hero course, Momo was already familiar with Mei Hatsume, though she had mixed feelings about the pink-haired support course student thanks to the latter's flippant attitude and lack of concern towards others. But she had witnessed Hatsume's technological expertise firsthand during the Paranormal Liberation War, and had little doubt that whatever she requested from her, she could deliver. "I'll draft some possible designs for a new costume and new equipment tonight, and see if she can work with that." Her mind was now working in overdrive, coming up with various other features to implement into her new costume and equipment. It would be impossible for me to wield so many different weapons and equipment with my hands, so some sort of hands-free interface would be a necessary part of my new costume. I might need to replace the Yaoyorictionary too, since I probably wouldn't be able to read from it, travel quickly and fight at the same time. The greatest issue was in allowing for enough skin exposure for her to use her quirk, but a costume made out of many different components would require many moving parts anyways; if they could open up in just the right places she would be able to expose her skin as necessary, and then cover herself up again.

Of course, all of that wouldn't be of much use if she continued to fall behind in her networking, but with her new green-haired ally, she might stand a better chance. By this point, Midoriya had more and better connections in the hero industry than the rest of the hero course combined; surely, it wouldn't be too much of a hassle for him to introduce her to one of the many heroes who were keenly interested in him. "Could I accompany you to your next work study?" She asked. "I don't believe that any of the pro heroes outside this school would trust me to hold my own during an engagement with villains, unless a more respected student like yourself could vouch for me."

Midoriya seemed to be taken aback at that statement, as if he was trying to comprehend the idea that other people might not recognize the vast potential Creation would bring to a fight. "I'm sure the heroes are already aware of how skilled and smart you are."

Something deep inside Momo's heart was set off by that response, and not in a good way. In stating that the heroes had already recognized her for her capabilities, Midoriya was implying that the problem of being dismissed as incapable, the problem she had been facing for most of her time at U.A, had never existed. He refused to understand that what other people thought about her mattered. So she snapped back at him, her voice much harsher than it had been just moments ago.

"If the heroes had already realized my true value, I wouldn't be having this problem in the first place!"

Instantly, Momo regretted her words. Midoriya had provided her with more help than she'd asked for, and she should be showing gratitude for what he did, not anger for what he refused to do. What kind of future hero am I to lash out at someone who's genuinely trying to provide me aid?

"I-I'm sorry about my conduct just now," She apologized. "You see, I am in a bit of a conundrum; if I want to prove myself in the field to increase my chances of a successful career after graduation, I need an internship or work study with a highly-ranked or well-respected pro, but they'll only consider me worth their time and effort after I have proven myself."

Fortunately, Midoriya seemed to take it all in stride. "We still have the third-year Sports Festival to display our skills before we graduate." This year's Sports Festival had been cancelled due to the money and resources being desperately needed elsewhere, but Principal Nedzu had announced that the one scheduled for the following year would go ahead. "So you're still guaranteed one last chance to prove yourself. Togata-senpai was seen as a total failure in his first two years, but in his third year he won the third-year festival and people took him seriously, and he managed to do work studies in between as well. Granted, the reason Sir Nighteye took in Togata-senpai for work studies and allowed him to get in field experience had nothing to do with his abilities. He wanted All Might to give One for All to him and was training him up for that."

"So Togata-senpai's situation wasn't the same as mine then." Togata-senpai had someone who was willing to train him and provide him with opportunities to show his skills in the field. It mean that once he'd mastered his quirk, he never had to worry about finding a mentor who could be convinced to give him another chance. That was quite a far cry from Momo's own predicament, where she had no such mentor, not even someone like Sir Nighteye who would only let her prove herself to craft her into their masterpiece.

"He was the best example I could think of," Midoriya admitted. "It's still better than giving up just because nobody thinks you can make it as a hero. And even if nobody is willing to give you a shot, the internships following the Sports festival are mandatory, so you can pick someone out of the 40 U.A-affiliated internship providers and then hope they'd let you return for work studies."

It was clear that Midoriya would refuse to budge on this issue, and after a bit of discussion about the specifics of her costume redesign, Momo bid adieu to him for the night and returned to her own, lavishly furbished dorm room. She now had the beginnings of a plan to rehabilitate her reputation; she was to redeem herself in the eyes of the audience during next year's Sports Festival and hopefully convince the heroes to give her a second look. It was still far too much of a long shot for her tastes, especially now that she knew the tournament rounds were stacked against her. Even if she did put up a much better showing this time around, she would be forced to compete for connections against her classmates, who had a major head start and a more established presence in the outside world. But beggars couldn't be choosers. She had to be grateful for what windows of opportunities she could expect to find.

In the meantime, she had a new costume to design and equipment ideas to research. The only limitations to her quirk were the limitations of technology, her lipid reserves, and her willingness to take advantage of her own capabilities. So far, she had been holding back, one of the top hero students in the school but still underperforming compared to what she was truly capable of. That was going to change.

No more holding back, she reminded herself.

Chapter Text

Following her talk with Midoriya on Friday, Momo had spent the weekend drafting various costume redesigns, sketching out and then discarding design after design until, at long last, she managed to come up with a satisfactory blueprint. She had also used the time to finalize her choices of new support equipment that would become part of a set along with her new costume. Having taken Midoriya's suggestions to heart, she'd planned both her costume redesign and her selection of new equipment around high-mobility, long-range combat, intentionally sacrificing some protection in favor of other functions. She was particularly intrigued by the idea of getting some flight equipment designed for herself; being able to move quickly in three dimensions would be better for evasion than moving quickly in just two. Her research had also led her to conclude that she needed at least five different types of long-range weapons, each with ranges exceeding 500 meters. Considering that most battles between heroes and villains occurred at close quarters due to the limited long-range capabilities of most quirks, even this relatively short range should be more than enough to maintain a safe distance from most opponents she could be expected to face.

That was all during the past weekend. Now it was Monday, and it was time for her to pay a visit to the Support Department. Gaining access to new weapons and equipment was the first step on journey to becoming what the public would consider a "proper' hero. It was also the only step where she could not rely on her own capabilities or dedication. By necessity, Momo was skilled at understanding how existing technology functioned, but she was no inventor. She could think of new ideas for what a new weapon or equipment should be capable of but lacked the practical know-how to turn these ideas into tangible form. She needed someone who could bridge that gap, someone who could her concepts into fully functioning technology, so that she could reliably replicate it over and over again in the field using her quirk.

But she was also feeling apprehensive about this visit. Mei Hatsume was not someone who she could expect to be compassionate to her plight. The two had already met during the preparations for the final battle against Shigaraki, and for as long as she lived, Momo would never forget Hatsume's reaction to being told what her quirk was. Upon hearing that bit of information, the inventor had all but tackled her to the ground in sheer joy, asking where she had been all this time and demanding to know why she rarely visited the Support Department. The pinkette saw her as a living 3-D printer that would solve all of her logistical difficulties, rather than as a human being who had her own life to live and her own goals and wishes. To make matters worse, so did everyone else in the Support Department.

As a result, Momo had been assigned to the same division as the Support Department for the final battle against Shigaraki, to maintain and repair the battlefield itself. While Hatsume had been in charge of monitoring the antigravity engines that turned the campus into a series of floating battlefields, she'd been ordered to create as many of the replacement floor panels as necessary to continue maintaining a solid airborne arena against Shigaraki's destructive potential. Even at the time, she'd felt that she was letting down Majestic and Kayama-sensei; they had believed in her potential as a future top hero and brilliant leader, and had sacrificed their lives out of that belief, only for her to reduced to a human supply depot that blindly followed orders. As if I had nothing to contribute to the overall plan, as if I could neither fight nor be a good leader. As much as she'd told herself that it had been a necessary sacrifice on her part, she couldn't convince herself to be happy about her placement in the larger plan, one that she had no say in. It had only been because the plan had fallen apart, allowing a tidal wave of Twice clones to invade the floating facility, that she had seen any actual action during the battle, and that was something none of the adult heroes knew about.

Ever since that day, Hatsume had kept as close an eye on Momo as she could manage, knowing just how much of a boon her quirk would be for her "babies". She had even gotten to the point to the point of closely following behind her for some distance whenever their paths crossed. But her knowledge was absolutely necessary if she ever wanted to receive her costume and equipment upgrades, for she was the only available person who had enough hands-on experience with rocketry or jet propulsion to develop flight equipment.

So Momo took a few deep breaths before she braced herself and opened the door, half-expecting to see Hatsume lunging for her. She did not, but she did find the faculty member who was in charge of the Support Department. "Good afternoon, Maijima-sensei."

"I was wondering when you would pay a visit, Yaoyorozu." Replied the Excavation Hero. "We're glad to have you around here." Are you glad to have me around because you think I'll be a capable hero, Maijima-sensei? Momo mentally asked. Or are you glad because you think I'll support all the other, better heroes? Her past experience with the Support Department during the war indicated it was the latter more than the former. She had to make it very clear to both Hatsume and to Maijima-sensei that she was no longer willing to play a supporting role where she would be overlooked and sidelined.

"I've come with some new equipment forms for myself." Momo explained, handing over the acquisition forms she'd brought with her, along with printed sheets of the necessary specifications. "I'm in need of a significant costume revision and new support equipment based on these concepts and specifications, so that I myself would be able to create and use these equipment for combat during a mission. As such, I will also require the blueprints and the full chemical composition of the completed products, so that I may create them myself later on."

"I'm not sure if someone your age should have weapons like this, even with all that you've gone through over the past year." Maijima-sensei told her, frowning. "I am aware another student in your class has similarly destructive weapons in the form of his gauntlets, but his quirk is far more suited to combat. Frankly, I see it as a waste of your quirk for you to go into battle. Why risk your life when you can serve meaningfully from inside a support studio or the agency office?"

Momo felt her heart drop in her chest. Her entire predicament was the result of others failing to recognize her capabilities and judging her as unfit for front-line duties, and now a member of the U.A faculty was actively trying to reinforce that impression. "With all due respect, I fail to see why I cannot arm myself with my creations in addition to equipping others," she argued. "Do you know what I felt when you assigned me to your unit while facing Shigaraki? I felt ashamed that I was failing to pull my weight, that I was sitting on the sidelines during a crisis while my peers did all the hard work." Logistics won wars, but she was never going to be respected or appreciated as a hero if that was all that most people assumed she was good for. The hero industry wasn't one based on logic and efficiency, but on impressions and appearances. She needed to earn recognition, influence, and support first in order to be able to perform at her peak, before she could afford to expand her attention to more important but less attractive areas. "There were many heroes who actually faced off against Shigaraki on that day and risked life and limb to do so, and those heroes will not see my true value unless they believe I am both willing and able to take the same risks they take. I refuse to ever again be treated as a "lesser" hero than my peers."

Maijima-sensei seemed taken aback at her tirade, and after a moment of deliberation, he relented. "V-very well, you can have these weapons developed and their blueprints made available for your personal use. Come with me while I-"

"Printer-chan!"

A pink blur crashed into the raven-haired heiress, knocking her down onto her rear end. "Some personal space, Hatsume-san," she chided as she got back to her feet and pushed the support student off her lap. It was clear that Hatsume had been working non-stop for days, her face dirty with soot and her hair matted and greasy from a lack of showers. From what Momo has seen before and heard from Midoriya, this was par for the course. Don't get nervous, Momo, she thought to herself. She knew that she needed to assert herself to avoid being taken advantage of.

"I was about to come track you down, Hatsume." Maijima-sensei explained. "Yaoyorozu here has some new costume and support item requests."

Putting on the most confident expression she could manage, Momo asked Hatsume, "Could you design and build these?"

The other girl's reaction was both immediate and concerning. "Wow, those are some crazy babies you got there. Wanna know what would be awesome? If you used electromagnetic levitation instead of jets to take off! How about using antimatter as an energy source? And instead of missiles, I could try to make a railgun that runs on the same electromagnets as-"

"Ahem," Momo cut off the inventor's mad rambling. The last thing she needed was to receive equipment she had never asked for, instead of the equipment that she was desperately in need of. Glaring at "Hatsume-san, if you don't mind, I would very much have you design my new support gear and costume based on my specifications."

"Aww, you're no fun!" Hatsume whined. "What's wrong with making new babies the way you want to, without having to follow any rules?"

"Because I need a new costume and new equipment for a specific purpose, not for anything else, and I need it as soon as possible." Momo replied, already starting to be exasperated. "How quickly could you complete everything on this request form?" Time was of the essence: she had already wasted over half of her heroics education and had been set further back than she'd ever been, and the sooner she received her new equipment, the sooner she could go about trying to catch up to her peers and impress hero agencies. At the same time, however, it was paramount that all of her new equipment undergo testing to ensure they not only met the design specifications, but also functioned reliably in various scenarios.

"Around a month. Maybe faster. That includes the testing." This was good news. Waiting another month until she received her new gear would likely still leave enough time for her to become proficient in its use before she entered her third year. Considering Hatsume's tendency to literally work herself until she physically could not continue, it was likely that she'd be done with this project in a few weeks and then spend the rest of the allotted time for equipment tests. But then came the words she'd been expecting and dreading in equal measure. "I can only get this done that fast if you'd do me some favors, though!"

This was exactly what she had wanted to avoid, a scenario where she would have to make sacrifices in exchange for Hatsume's support. “What favors?" She asked, cautiously.

"You have to make most of the parts for our first baby together." Hatsume answered, grinning.

That's....that's actually reasonable. Many of the individual components for her new costume and new equipment either required materials that the Support Department lacked access to or would be hard if not outright impossible to manufacture, especially at a time when Japan's economy and infrastructure had collapsed. It was only fair that Momo herself would have to supply such materials or produce these components herself in exchange for them being used to provide her with the new costume and equipment she needed. It was supposed to be a mutual partnership. "As long as you promise that you will adhere to my design specifications and can deliver everything on this form in a month's time, I can work with that."

"I promise, I'll be good!" Even with the reassurance, Momo wasn't quite sure if she was making the right choice to trust in one of U.A's most infamous students. But she didn't really have anyone else she could turn to, either. She could put up with Hatsume for a month, or abandon her potential upgrades and thus her dreams for a successful hero career. The choice was, at least at the time, obvious.

"Then I'll look forward to working alongside you for the next month."

Hatsume said nothing to respond to that. Instead, she let out a scream of sheer joy so loud that it was probably heard from Heights Alliance. As Maijima-sensei took her aside to direct her back to her working space, Momo remained behind, pondering whether the decision she'd just made was a good one. She knew that the pinkette was the only person in all of Japan who was likely to be capable of meeting the demands posed by her specifications.

So why couldn't she shake off the feeling that she was, once again, being forced to sacrifice her agency to support someone else's achievement?

-----

Two weeks later, Momo was sorely regretting that she hadn't trusted her gut instinct.

It had started small. Hatsume would request her presence in the labs and ask for a few extra screws here or some particularly hard-to-manufacture component there. Momo was too kind to turn down someone in need her services, and she found herself giving in to her new ally's requests. But as the days passed by, the requests not-so-gradually became more elaborate and frequent: a drone, various rare materials for personal use and research, replacements for equipment that had been damaged in Hatsume's routine laboratory accidents, and copies of Hatsume's existing prototypes that she would tinker with only for her to discard them in a few hours for another, more enticing bit of technology. It had taken only a few of these requests for the heiress to be certain that she was being taken advantage of, but she kept up the act to keep her partner satisfied and cooperative. After all, what kind of future hero would she be if she refused to help others in need just because it was inconvenient for her?

But then, one week after their meeting, Hatsume had asked for an entire tracked, remotely controlled vehicle prototype the size of a large refrigerator, without providing any details as to why such a thing was so urgently needed. This had taken place just after a grueling training session where Momo had, once again, been sidelined while the partner she'd been assigned to did the actual fighting. Being both unhappy and exhausted, she'd told Hatsume that she would only give in to this particular request if she could see how her new costume and gear were coming along. When the support student was reluctant to allow her to see her progress, she'd become suspicious. Further prodding had revealed, to her dismay, that not only was the project behind schedule, but that it now consisted of a completely different set of equipment than those she had asked for. When questioned as to why, Hatsume responded by saying she no longer thought jet or rocket technology was particularly interesting and that she wanted to work with electromagnetic technology instead.

That had been the last straw for Momo's tolerance, and she had immediately informed Maijima-sensei, only for Hatsume to reveal herself as being far more sociopathic and manipulative than even she had realized. "But we were going to make so many babies together! I was really looking forward to it!" She had wailed, as Maijima-sensei and various other students from the support course had looked on. "Please, please don't give up on me, Printer-chan!"

By playing the victim in such melodramatic fashion, Hatsume had all but forced her into a sadistic choice. She could either do whatever she asked of her, or make herself out to be the one going back on their agreement, even though things were the other way around in reality. With her reputation as poor as it already was, she had little choice but to take the first option. There were already some whispers within the U.A student body as to why a recommendation student, who was part of perhaps the most prestigious heroics class in the school's history, seemed to be so lackluster compared to most of her classmates. Furthermore, the Support Department was inherently inclined to take Hatsume's side. Now that she was in her second year at U.A, she had a significant following of first-year students who looked up to her. The other second-year students within the department were also none too happy with Momo's decision decision to focus more on front-line duties, since they had been hoping she would continue to work alongside them or even transfer into the Support Course.

Later that afternoon, when the two of them were by themselves in a corner of the lab, Hatsume had issued an ultimatum; if Momo refused to meet her demands or didn't accept whatever new support item she ended up completing for her, she might as well say goodbye to any possible costume and equipment upgrades. Without receiving new equipment, she could not learn how to recreate said equipment during combat to function as a more active fighter. That in turn meant she would be unable to either successfully transition into a combat hero or impress the audience and make much-needed industry connections. So she had no choice but to accept the demands of her "partner", even knowing that Hatsume was unlikely to provide her with what she'd asked for and that she was stalling to prolong this arrangement for as long as possible.

I should have seen it coming- I did see it coming- and I still let myself be exploited for someone else's benefit at my expense. Even leaving aside her prior interaction with her, Hatsume had demonstrated on numerous other occasions that she only truly cared about her "babies", not about other people or how much she offended or harmed them. During the first-year Festival that marked the start of Momo's downfall, she had proven more than willing to publicly humiliate Iida to promote her own inventions, and on multiple later occasions she'd tried to force her "babies" upon various students of the hero course. It didn't matter whether a heroics student wanted that particular support item, or if it would even function properly with their quirk: she would make them use it, as if she knew more about them and their quirks than they themselves did. But Momo had given her a second chance, trusting that Midoriya was a good enough judge of character to not direct her towards someone who would abuse her for their own gain. That had proven to be a costly mistake.

When she had gone to Midoriya for a second time to complain about Hatsume's behavior, in the hope that he might have enough of an influence on her to get her to stop, he'd denied that she could be as controlling as she had found her to be. "Sure, she doesn't really know how to talk to people-I don't feel comfortable when she touches or gropes me without my permission. But she did a great job with my equipment and I can't imagine why she wouldn't do that for you," he had told her. Of course she'd have done a much better job for him-she doesn't have any reason to exploit him when he doesn't have a quirk she can take advantage of. It was increasingly clear that Midoriya was far better as a quirk analyst than as a judge of another person's character.

For Hatsume, developing new equipment for Momo was merely a chance to exercise her creativity and get her hands on a living 3-D printer. For Momo, it was something that her future hinged on. Yet this little bit of collaboration, which was intended to radically change the course of her future career for the better, was only dragging her down thanks to the one-sided nature of the partnership. Every extra day she had to wait for her new equipment was another day of training wasted. It pained her to know that she had been once more reduced to an on-demand supply depot, while most of her classmates were not only gaining field experience but also proving themselves to future partners and employers. Not only that, Hatsume's demands were physically affecting her health. The raw capacity of her quirk was significant to start with-easily exceeding the combined mass of her lipid reserves-and had increased further over her time at U.A, but she couldn't entirely avoid using up some body fat every time she created something. There were still limits to how much matter she could create without becoming dangerously thin. Hatsume was increasingly forcing her to work well over that limit, and both her health and her physical performance during training had suffered as a result.

And there was nothing she could do about it without further compromising her chances of becoming a great hero in the future.

At least, not until some rumors about an unexpected guest on campus had reached her ears earlier today.

-----

"I am here, to open the door!"

In spite of her desperate circumstances, Momo couldn't help but smile at the former Number One hero as he let her into his office. With All for One finally dealt with and the legacy of One for All entrusted to Midoriya's hands, Yagi-sensei was starting to get used to having a life outside of being All Might, and she no longer referred to him by his hero name in order to acknowledge this transition. All Might the hero was the idol every child and most adults had looked up to, but Toshinori Yagi was the man behind the legend, and the man who, while far from the most adept teacher, genuinely cared about his students and put in as much effort as he could to support them.

Yagi-sensei gestured her towards a visitor's seat and asked, "What you need from me, Young Yaoyorozu?"

"I've heard some stories about Shield-san being on campus." She began by saying. "I was impressed by her during last year's I-Expo, and though I have been trying to work with Hatsume-san for a new costume and a new set of support equipment, I believe that Shield-san might do a better job. If you don't mind, is it possible for you to arrange a meeting with her, preferably as soon as she's available?" Momo knew that Yagi-sensei tended to look down on support equipment, believing that heroes should be able to work effectively even without such "crutches". At the same time, however, he was quite fond of the daughter of his former sidekick, David Shield; Melissa Shield was a niece to him in all but name, and he held her skills as an inventor and engineer in high regard.

After a moment of consideration, Yagi-sensei accepted her request. "It certainly would be nice for Young Melissa to have another friend, especially considering what she has been going through." He replied. "In fact, you might want to take a seat and wait here while I call her to see if she can come right now." He then picked up his phone to summon her. "Yes, Young Melissa, I am here with a visitor......No, it's not the media, it's one of my students who you've met last year.....Not Young Midoriya.....Sure, if you want to see who it is you can come right now." With the call over, he turned back to her. "Young Melissa will be here shortly."

As Momo sat there waiting, she recalled her previous encounter with Melissa Shield. Certainly, she had been far better company than Hatsume, and at least as capable of an inventor. She was already fairly well-known in the United States, not only because of her contributions to support gear designs at such a young age, but also due to being the daughter of David Shield, one of the greatest scientists and inventors the world had ever known. Yet, in spite of her lofty position, Melissa had been rather informal and relaxed around her and the other U.A students who were attending the expo. She had insisted on being referred to by her given name and Momo had done so since their encounter, one of very few people she didn't refer to in speech or in her thoughts by her surnames.

But her most vivid memories from that I-Expo didn't involve Melissa, but rather an armed mercenary attack led by the villain Wolfram. It would become known as the I-Island Incident-the only time that the well-defended facility was successfully attacked and taken over, albeit briefly, by villains. With every pro hero present at the expo restrained by the installation's own security systems, it had come down to the hero students to escort Melissa somewhere where she could hack into the island's infrastructure to free the hostages. Momo herself was among the students present, and it had been the first time in her life where her quirk's capacity for production reached its absolute hard limit, as she'd found herself running out of lipids partway through the battle. As a result, she had been forced to fall back and missed out on the conclusion of the battle.

It was on the flight back that she and most of the other students involved had heard the full story. The elder Shield had seen Yagi-sensei became increasingly weak during his final years as All Might. In a desperate bid to return his old friend to his prime, he had invented the Quirk Enhancer: a helmet that dramatically increased the capabilities of its wearer's quirk. The American government, however, had confiscated the Quirk Enhancer to prevent it from falling to the hands of villains. Desperate to regain access to his greatest invention and turn it over to Yagi-sensei, he had secretly hired Wolfram and his mercenaries to attack his own laboratory and retrieve the helmet for him with the help of his assistant. He hadn't counted on the fact his assistant would betray him or that Wolfram had plans to claim the Quirk Enhancer for himself.

As a result, the Shields' laboratory on I-Island and all of its research had been immediately placed under investigation by the American government shortly after the incident. David Shield was arrested for treason, his career over and his reputation forever tarnished. Melissa herself had been legally declared innocent, but she was seen as guilty by association in the eyes of many, and she was destitute after her family's entire finances became frozen as part of the investigations. With her already-established talent for support gear design and development and her close relationship with her father, the idea that she too had been an accomplice didn't sound unlikely to those who had never interacted with the girl. Things had become even worse several weeks later as All for One gained international infamy thanks to the Battle of Kamino Ward, which inevitably had led to a flurry of public interest about the Symbol of Evil and further investigations on his more recent activities. Said investigations had led to, among other discoveries, the finding that he had specifically aided Wolfram and his mercenary crew in the attempted heist of the Quirk Enhancer. The revelation that All for One had been involved in the I-Island incident had brought further legal charges and negative publicity upon David Shield, and thus inevitably to his daughter as well.

And then had come the twin disasters of the Jaku General Hospital and Gunga Mountain raids, All for One's escape from Tartarus, his machinations to undermine the American government to head off any intervention from across the Pacific, and the sacrifice of Star and Stripe. As the Symbol of Evil entered the international limelight once more, his impact extended far past areas under his direct influence, and the civil unrest he had incited in the United States was still ongoing in spite of his defeat. The loss of Star and Stripe in particular had been a bitter blow from both a symbolic and practical perspective. Symbolically, her death meant the loss of America's own version of the Symbol of Peace. In more practical terms, it had meant the loss of one of the most powerful heroes the world had ever seen, a critical blow during such a major crisis. The American public had needed someone, anyone, to blame for the loss of their greatest hero and their ongoing troubles. Anyone who had provided any sort of benefit to All for One, even unwittingly was now seen as an enemy of the state. That included the now-incarcerated David Shield, and in the eyes of the American public, it also extended to his daughter. Melissa may have been proven innocent by the law, but she had been convicted by the court of public opinion. Her once-bright future had become bleak, saddled with a controversial family legacy.

Before her father had done the unthinkable, Melissa had received dozens of scholarships from numerous prestigious universities, but afterwards those same universities considered her too controversial to enroll. She wouldn't even have received her high school diploma if not for how close she had been to graduation at the time of the I-Island Incident. Without financial support or much likelihood of receiving the postsecondary education she deserved, and with her family name now associated with the worst villain the world had ever seen, she had fled to Japan to take refuge under the one remaining adult in her life who she could trust and where she was more likely to find some anonymity, quietly being brought onto the U.A campus two days earlier in a nondescript vehicle that had been loaned for the purpose. In spite of the secrecy of her arrival, rumors of her presence-and of her alleged association with criminals-had already started to circulate throughout the school. To Momo, however, Melissa wasn't a villain to be feared. She offered a potential escape from Hatsume's grasp.

A knock on the door brought her out of her memories, as Yagi-sensei quickly ushered a familiar bespectacled blonde into the office. For a moment, she was startled by how statuesque the new arrival was. As the tallest female student on campus, Momo was used to towering over other people, but even she had to crane her neck to make eye contact with Melissa. Nevertheless, she offered a handshake and put up a welcoming smile. "It has been quite some time since we've met, Melissa."

"Haven't seen you since the last I-Expo either, Momo. Or do you want to be called Miss Yaoyorozu now?"

It's only fair that she be allowed refer to me by my given name when she's allowed me to do the same for her. "Momo is still fine." As the two girls shook hands, Momo noticed a tired look in Melissa's eyes that had little to do with jet lag. It was a look she could recognize from looking at herself in the mirror, and it further drove in the point that both of them had gone through much suffering as a result of undeserved poor reputations. Hopefully, that commonality would lead to a closer connection.

"Young Yaoyorozu is in need of support gear and costume upgrades, and wanted you to be the one entrusted with that responsibility," Yagi-sensei explained. Momo then told everything-that she was being overlooked by potential internship and work studies providers thanks to a single bad impression caused by a tournament's biased rules, how she had decided to change virtually everything about the way she operated as a hero to improve her odds of being recognized, and how she had sought out Hatsume's expertise only to be forced into an abusive partnership.

"....why am I not surprised to hear that bitch only saw you as a resource?" Melissa reacted, in a deadpan tone that indicated a lack of surprise. Her much-beloved "Uncle Might", in contrast, was in a state of disbelief.

"Young Hatsume has been a great help to all of us over the past year, and we couldn't have triumphed without her," Yagi-sensei sternly reprimanded them. "Young Melissa, Young Yaoyorozu, do not demean or talk badly of her."

"If you had spent time with her, Uncle Might, you'd know what kind of person she really is." Melissa fired back immediately. "You know that I went straight to the Support Department as soon as everything was unpacked, right?" Seeing Yagi-sensei give an affirmative nod, she continued on. "I ran right into her the moment I stepped foot into the building-in hindsight, she'd probably been waiting for me, though I have no idea how she learned so quickly that I was here. I was wearing contacts instead of my glasses and had a hat on to hide my hair, but she recognized me easily. She seemed really friendly at first, if a bit overenthusiastic. She showed me a bunch of her "babies" and how they worked, and I have to admit, much of her work is innovative. But there was something about her made me uncomfortable. Still, it was nice to be able to talk to someone else who was just as knowledgeable as myself about support items and engineering and such, and for a while we had a nice little chat." She shuddered. "To think that all of that was a trick."

It was easy for Momo to understand what had gone down. Hatsume had approached Melissa and pretended to be a new ally, just as she had done with Momo herself. After being driven from her homeland to the far side of the world, it must have been a massive relief for the American to find someone else who spoke the same language of physics, circuitry, and engineering her life revolved around. That, however, had been a ruse to approach Melissa and earn her trust, in the hope of being able to coax information on various technology out of her to be used for her own "babies" in the future. But what information would she have that Hatsume didn't already know or couldn't figure out on her own-Oh. Oh no.

Melissa's next words confirmed her fears. "She said that there were many cases in Japan, especially in the past year, where technology that directly manipulated quirks had been used in combat by villains. And she wanted to experiment with such technology herself to come up with new support items, except the only person around who had information regarding such technology-or she thought had information regarding such technology-was me." A look of horror was evident on Yagi-sensei's expression; no doubt, he was thinking back to that first Nomu he had encountered at the USJ, an abomination formed from quirk experimentation. On top of that, going one step too far in the study of quirks had proven to be the downfall for the Shields and, ultimately, the reason why Melissa had to flee her home country.

"Young Melissa, surely you don't mean she asked for-"

"Yes, I do." Melissa bitterly replied. "Hatsume asked me if I knew anything about the Quirk Enhancer and if I could help her build a second one."

Silence descended upon the trio; one could have heard a paper towel drop in that office. Yagi-sensei knew his honorary niece too well to ever believe she would knowingly spread falsehoods about other people. But if what she was saying was true, it meant that the moral character of the best student in the Support Department, someone who had been so helpful in the fight against All for One, was nowhere near as altruistic as the U.A faculty had assumed. Momo, too, was astounded that Hatsume would stoop that low for the sake of her curiosity and pathological need to innovate.

Eventually, Melissa worked up the courage to continue speaking. "I told her that I didn't even know the Quirk Enhancer existed until I-Island was under attack, but she didn't believe me. She even questioned my credentials, claiming that a real scientist would never be too afraid to reveal new, important information. This was all in earshot of the other students too, so now they might think I had something to do with the attack on I-Island. As if that damn helmet hadn't caused enough problems already."

"Hatsume-san is a brilliant inventor, no doubt, but she's not doing it because she wants to help people; she's doing it because she likes to invent things, without caring about the consequences of doing so." Momo added. "In fact, that's why I came to you, Melissa. She isn't just using me as a 3-D printer, she's also using my request as an excuse to build what she wants instead of meeting my design specifications."

"As much as I am also guilty of wanting to invent crazy new stuff for the sake of it, I would never do that if I knew someone else was counting on me for their support items." By this point, it was clear that Melissa was just as opposed to Hatsume's actions as Momo herself was. "Well, seeing as I'm stuck in Japan indefinitely, I might as well take you up on your offer. It's certainly better than hiding away in Uncle Might's place because I'm too afraid to show my face in public."

"Thank you. I'll be certain to repay this debt." Perhaps the two disgraced heiresses would be able to lift each other out of the mire they'd found themselves stuck in. If Melissa's expertise could provide Momo with the equipment necessary for her to earn the recognition she needed, she would be more than happy to return the favor; Yaoyorozu Support Inc. would certainly be willing to nurture such a promising young mind. "My parents run a major support gear design and production firm. I'll talk to them and see if they're willing to work with you."

"There's no need for that, though thanks for the offer." Melissa replied, her passion for invention reigniting. "It'll be my pleasure to knock down the U.A Support Department a peg. In fact, if you want any further upgrades to your equipment after this, it's on the house. Bring it, Hatsume. Let's see who's the real best support gear developer in the world."

-----

Almost a month later, Momo beheld what was likely the single greatest piece of engineering ever applied to support gear.

Immediately after the meeting in Yagi-sensei's office, the three of them had made a visit to the Support Department. Hatsume's dominance within the laboratory had proven to be no match against the authority of the still-highly-regarded former Number One. It had helped that she had inadvertently incriminated herself by once again pestering Melissa about the Quirk Enhancer-more than enough evidence to convince both Maijima-sensei and Yagi-sensei of her true character and motivations and leading to a temporary suspension. Once Melissa had taken over the reins of the equipment development project and Momo was given much more of a say in the proceedings, things had progressed much more rapidly, and in the process they had kindled an unexpected friendship.

Working with Melissa was a major refresher for Momo after her earlier experiences with Hatsume. This time around, she was dealing with someone who genuinely cared for her clients and would do her best to meet their demands. Like Hatsume, Melissa had suggested changes to the original planned equipment and costume, but she made sure to run them through her partner first, discussing the pros and cons of each proposed revision before coming to a decision. Some of the alterations were rejected, but others were accepted, even though this had led to further delays in the design process. The revisions had been worth the extra time, though, for they'd increased her capabilities even further than her original costume and equipment specifications would have.

To conduct the final test for her equipment, she had put on her new outfit and shown up at Ground Epsilon, U.A's ten-kilometer-long racetrack for hero students with a focus on mobility. Her body was currently covered in a sleek, aerodynamic bodysuit in the same colors as her original costume. Much of it was made out of light, breathable metamaterials similar to those used in capture tape, woven into a ballistic weave to defend against small-calibre bullets and small debris while not adding any more weight than normal clothing. A new, much less bulky version of her old utility belt was attached to her waist. In order to enable her to use her quirk, large mechanical apertures were located on her stomach, arms, shoulders, back and legs; made out of light carbonfiber-derived materials, they could open up to expose her skin as necessary, then close seamlessly to cover her up once again. Since the apertures were formed from solid moving parts, they also provided a bit of extra protection when they were closed, but defense wasn't her biggest concern. Her new equipment, and the new fighting style she planned to develop for herself, was built around speed and firepower.

The remainder of the costume was comprised out of various support equipment. The aperture located on her back was specifically designed so she could create a custom-designed, streamlined jetpack directly onto her back, with automated clamps and other attachments firmly locking the device into place. A pair of crimson-red wings unfolded from either side of the jetpack; fully opened, they spanned ten meters from tip to tip, yet they could fold away and fit into a jetpack significantly smaller than the average school backpack thanks to liberal use of the compact folding technology that characterized most of Melissa's inventions. This ability to fold into seemingly impossible configurations was further aided by virtue of the wings being largely formed from numerous independently mobile flight surfaces, thus offering a great degree of control and maneuverability in the air. A parachute was also included in the jetpack for emergencies, and auxiliary rocket thrusters had been built into her new calf-high boots as backup propulsion in case of engine failure. Melissa had originally also planned to incorporate a miniaturized version of the anti-gravity engines that had been used to turn U.A into a floating fortress in the sky, but miniaturizing these very complex devices had proven too time-consuming even for her; they would only be included in later upgrades.

When Momo had been presented with her new flight gear a week ago, she'd been delighted, until she realized that there weren't any flight-capable pro heroes who were willing to teach her how to fly. Why would they be, when they have no reason to believe in my potential? She would have to earn her wings entirely through her own efforts. But considering some of her classmates and even Hatsume had done just that during her first year, within a matter of weeks or months, she remained confident that she could teach herself to be an adept flyer before the end of the year. Already, her practice flights through Ground Epsilon over the past week had shown marked progress. Her first flights had mostly ended in serious crashes that required multiple visits to the infirmary, but her last dozen flights or so-all made within the past two days-were controlled, graceful, and above all, swift.

But that was before the last of her gear upgrades had been completed and handed over to her, which had happened earlier today. Melissa had invented a series of ranged weaponry that could be created directly onto her costume, which was equipped with strategically-placed attachment points and mountings for just this purpose. Now, for the first time, she was about to take flight while equipped with her new weapons. Flying while fully equipped would add weight and drag and thus slow her down to some extent, but it would be foolish to enter combat without any offensive capability. And if there was one thing her new costume had plenty of, it was offensive capability.

The primary set of weapons were a pair of shoulder-mounted missile pods, small and light enough to not be an hindrance in flight, and carrying six guided missiles each for a total of 12 per salvo. If she had used up all twelve, all she had to do was open up the apertures located on her shoulders and create another twelve missiles directly into the missile pods. The guided missiles themselves were based on those mounted on the three-pointer robots used during the U.A Practical Entrance Exam, but modified. The new missiles were much smaller so that they could fit inside the relatively small pods, with the reduced amount of fuel being partially compensated for by the use of much more efficient fuel mixtures; each missile had a range of around 800 meters and a top speed of 2000kmh, with warheads ranging from shaped charges to incendiaries.

Placed directly in front of the apertures on her arms were mountings for three types of custom-designed artillery. There was a dart gun that fired fast-acting tranquilizers; a single-shot missile launcher armed with a significantly larger, faster and longer-ranged version of her shoulder missiles; and her personal favourite, a sniper rifle that could fire various specialized ammunition such as taser rounds, flashbangs or incendiaries. The latter came with a rail mounting that allowed the gun to retract backwards as it fired, thus compensating for the recoil and allowing Momo to fire it in midair without any solid structure to brace herself against. As with the missile pods, she could easily reload all of these weapons just by creating new ammunition from her skin, which would be automatically picked up by a loading mechanism at the back of weapon in question. Further adding to her newfound firepower were two sets of laser arrays that could be created from the largest aperture, located on her belly, and attach to her flanks. The lasers came with fully adjustable power output settings, from nonlethal suppression shots to high-powered, armor-piercing blows, and could swivel independently of each other to take aim at multiple different targets at once if the need arose. There were various other advanced, custom-designed weapons in development, but for now she would have to make do with what she had, which was already enough to instantly make her one of the most offensively capable students in the entire hero course.

Of course, all the speed and firepower in the world would be useless if none of it could be controlled, but Melissa had an elegant solution to this problem. The very first support item she had developed for Momo served as the crux for her entire suite of equipment. Concealed within an unassuming headpiece was a wireless neural interface that registered specific signals from her brain and converted them into digital commands. If she wanted a specific aperture on her bodysuit to open up so she could use her quirk, all she had to do was wish for it to open. If she wanted to alter her flight speed, direction, or orientation, the fly-by-wire system integrated into the interface would adjust the controls of her flight equipment for her, thus allowing even complex aerial maneuvers to be executed solely by mental commands. If she wanted to open fire against a target, the software would automatically aim her weapons at it. Any new weapons she might have to create during a mission would also become connected to the same interface, either wirelessly or via the mountings on her costume. This was all further enhanced by the fact the headpiece could unfold into a HUD, which could display a digital copy of the Yaoyorictionary (which now included the blueprints and molecular formulas for the new bodysuit, jetpack, weapons and even the HUD itself), pick up thermal signatures, zoom in on distant or small targets, and provide targeting data. In flight, the headpiece and HUD could further unfold into a thin, lightweight helmet to protect against airborne debris and wind chill.

The fact all of these individual components had been designed, programmed, manufactured, and rigorously tested in under a month was testament to how efficiently the two girls could cooperate. Melissa had worked herself to the bone to deliver in such a short period of time even though, unlike Hatsume, she wasn't in the habit of working non-stop for days at a time. But she too was smiling at the fruits of her labors, proud of her technological achievement and satisfied that she had, for now, proven herself as a superior support gear developer to her pink-haired rival. Momo knew she was very fortunate to have found such a capable and dedicated new ally. "I don't know how I could ever express my full gratitude to you."

"Don't sweat it. I'm just glad that I'm able to help someone else who has trouble being recognized for what she can do." Melissa replied. "Besides, I owed it to you after you helped fight off those villains on I-Island last year."

Each piece of equipment Momo now had at her disposal would have been effective combat tools in and of themselves, but once they were combined into a single costume they were much greater than the sum of their parts. The bodysuit with its various apertures and attachments allowed her to use her innate quirk to turn herself into an aerial weapons system, while the sophisticated neural interface allowed her to control and deploy that system as an extension of her own body, with every major individual component emulating a different quirk. Furthermore, the modular nature of her costume and her ability to quickly create new components on the battlefield meant that any and all of her weapons could easily be replaced with newer, more advanced versions of the same weapon, or with entirely different weapons or even other tools that may be more suited for a specific situation she may find herself in. She was swift, powerful, and adaptable.

At least, that would be the case once Momo got used to her new equipment. She had already estimated that it would take weeks of practice to be able to grow her secret weapon out of her body "on demand", so to speak. Using Creation to produce any item involved a comprehensive understanding of that item's structure, down to the atoms that comprised all the different molecules that made up the item. It was testament to her innate intelligence and dedication to memorization that she was able to use her quirk at all, and she had proven herself to be a prodigy by managing the feat at a mere five years of age. By now Momo could create several hundred different items entirely from her memory, and she planned to do the same for all of her new equipment, even though they had already been included in the Yaoyorictionary. Which was just as well, since the Yaoyorictionary-in either paper or electronic form-would not be allowed during what would be her final Sports Festival, the last chance she had to earn recognition and rehabilitate her reputation. I've already memorized thousands of atomic and molecular structures and hundreds of blueprints, she reminded herself. I most certainly should be able to memorize another few dozen schematics for my new weapons and equipment in a few weeks.

Learning how to wield every single weapon in her quiver as if they were extensions of her body would likely prove more of a challenge, something that would take several months. She had started receiving firearms training from Snipe-sensei in anticipation of such difficulties, and she was already been proficient with cannons, but shooting at an opponent from a stationary position was quite different from doing so while in the air. Today's test flight would be the final test for her upgraded gear, but it was also her first step towards mastery of aerial combat; this time around, Ground Epsilon would be crawling with robot opponents, and she was required to use all five of her new weapons to destroy them. If she was successful, it would mean that the interface, the bodysuit, the jetpack, and the various weapons could all work in symphony just as she had envisioned. Midoriya had volunteered to remain on standby in case a training accident occurred, and Yagi-sensei was also present. Officially, he was there to provide some teacher supervision, but everyone involved knew that the real reason he was there was because he was very much eager to see the technological marvel his honorary niece had come up with.

Melissa was standing directly behind her, finishing up the necessary last-minute equipment checks. "You're good to go whenever you're ready," she told her.

"I'll be ready as soon as you move away from where the jet exhaust's going to come out." Momo replied. Once she had ensured that her partner had backed off to a safe distance, she issued a mental command: Take off and hover. For this particular flight, she wanted to demonstrate her new equipment by floating above the audience for a few moments before the actual test began. Her gear responded beautifully, the thrusters built into her jetpack humming to life as she lifted off and entered a holding pattern ten meters off the ground, just behind the starting line of the racetrack. At the same time, the headpiece she was wearing below her ponytail unfolded to deploy her HUD and helmet. "Tell me when to get moving."

"I still need to set up the camera!" Melissa replied as she wheeled over a high-definition camera mounted on a stabilized rotary platform, which had been used to record all of the previous test flights. "Okay, we're ready down here. Three...two...one...Go!"

The mere act of thinking Go! was enough. One moment, Momo was hovering in place, and the next thing she knew she was flying headlong into Ground Epsilon, following the course of the racetrack as she rapidly picked up speed. Being airborne under her own power was still a novelty; it was concerning, knowing that if something went wrong the consequences could be lethal, but also thrilling at the same time. Especially since this time, she was armed and ready to do more than just fly over the training ground.

Descend to an altitude of three meters, she thought, and her equipment obeyed, the flight surfaces of her mechanical wings adjusting to bring her closer to the ground. At such low altitudes she had to take care to follow the twisted path of the racetrack and evade the various obstacles placed in and around it for training purposes. Melissa's software did its job superbly, but there was still a near collision while she was swerving through a series of steel pillars that had been erected to test her agility. She didn't dare dwell on the mishap; if she stopped focusing on her flight path ahead, an actual collision would be sure to follow. Sure enough, up ahead was a tight curve to the right, which she negotiated at speed with a banking turn onto the next straight stretch. Noticing that she'd stopped accelerating at some point, Momo briefly glanced at the speedometer on her HUD: It read [482.765 km/h].

That was a slower airspeed than the fastest she'd gone while unarmed, but it was still blisteringly quick; swifter than Iida-kun, and swifter, even, than Hawks, the current fastest pro hero in Japan. Only Midoriya and maybe Yagi-sensei back in his prime could have claimed to have gone faster. And with Melissa already having promised further upgrades that would allow for more efficient jetpack designs in addition to further weaponry and software developments, there was always the chance she could surpass even them in terms of speed in the future.

Up ahead, a small group of one-pointers and two-pointers was walking across the racetrack; mobile practice targets for the new weapons. Swiftly closing in on them, Momo commanded her shoulder-mounted missile pods to unleash their payload, while also preparing herself for a reload by bringing up the missile blueprints and molecular formulas onto her HUD. At a distance of 600 meters, she loosed off a full twelve-missile salvo, equipped with high explosive charges, towards the congregation of robots. The moment the pods were emptied, she activated her quirk and created another full salvo's worth of missiles, simultaneously climbing and banking to make another pass. But as she made her second approach, she saw that her first salvo had already obliterated all of the robots and blasted a large crater into the racetrack itself. It was a level of power one would expect from the more widely recognized powerhouses in her class, but it hadn't come from any of them; it had come from the student who was widely seen as incapable of such destructive potential. She swiftly flew on, ready to face the next set of obstacles Ground Epsilon would throw at her.

There would still be numerous challenges to come for Momo, not just during this flight, but also for the rest of her time at U.A. There were still improvements she needed to make in both creating and using her new gadgets. She still had to go through her last Sports Festival next year, with the rules stacked against her and her quirk. And even a good showing there wouldn't guarantee that the audience would recognize her potential. There was still a quite likely possibility that she would fail to earn the recognition she and her quirk truly deserved, rendering all of Melissa's hard work for naught. But as her flight continued and a group of five two-pointers came into her view, and as the new rifles emerged from her arms in response, these concerns seemed far away. With the use of advanced weaponry and her quirk's ability to replicate said weaponry, she was proving that she could not only fight as long as she focused on ranged combat, she could fight very well indeed.

Melissa had provided her with the weapons, equipment, and blueprints she needed, and she would continue to do so throughout her time at U.A and maybe beyond. It was now up to her to put her new ally's gifts to good use.

Chapter Text

----Six Months Later----

Day of the U.A Third-Year Sports Festival, Semifinals Round of the Third Event

U.A Sports Festival ✔ @UA_Official
After that spectacular clash of the titans, with Todoroki barely overcoming Midoriya via ring-out, we're more hyped up than ever for our second semifinal match!
Explosive in both temper and quirk, the champion of his first-year Festival, Katsuki Bakugo!
VS.
As versatile as a Swiss Army knife and packing some serious firepower, Momo Yaoyorozu!
14,103 retweets | 1,301 favorites
2:45pm - 23 April 2164

Waiting for the hell class to enter the Top 50 @Hell_Class_Stan
It's cool to see how much control Bakugo has over his quirk. Those explosions are obviously far weaker than his strongest attacks, but he's trying to just blow her out of the ring. But it looks like his opponent is using the same trick she used in her previous match.
7,997 retweets | 2309 favorites
2:45pm - 23 April 2164

Vigilantes > Heroes @LocalKnuckledusterFan
Okay, just why does this girl just let herself be beaten up for the first 5-10 seconds of a match before even starting to fight?
525 retweets | 114 favorites
2:46pm - 23 April 2164

The Little Red Dot @SingaporeanBlues
ARE THOSE FUCKING MISSILES
6050 retweets | 998 favorites
2:47pm - 23 April 2164

Heroes were a mistake @cu123
I thought support items weren't allowed in the festival unless you're from the Support Department, so why is she allowed to use a shitton of them? Really seems like the school wants her to win for whatever reason.
11,992 retweets | 904 favorites
2:47pm - 23 April 2164

U.A Sports Festival ✔ @UA_Official
And Yaoyorozu moves on with a spectacular finisher! Rejoin us at 3:00PM for the final round of the Sports Festival!
[GIF: Momo adeptly evades Bakugo's attempt to destroy her equipment in midair, before striking him down with a half-salvo of missiles.]
15,332 retweets | 1,719 favorites
2:49pm - 23 April 2164

The Big Three Is Not An OT3 @Nejiresbian
IAE wondering about Yaoyorozu? Like...if she's this strong, why did we not hear much about her before? Where was she when her classmates were putting their lives on the line? #HellClassHiddenCard or #MissRichWannabeHero?
24,705 retweets | 205 favorites
2:50pm - 23 April 2164

_____ @Ineedanusername
There's also the fact she relies entirely on support items to win, which suggests she's not a good fighter in and of herself. She should really be in the Support Department instead of the Hero Course.
87 retweets | 69 favorites
2:50pm - 23 April 2164

U.A Support Course represent @Hatsumes_Disciple
No, we don't want her here after what she did. She thinks she's so much better than us. She screwed us over, going to Melissa Shield for her fancy new equipment after she'd already made a deal with Hatsume-senpai (who you may recall from the festival two years ago). #MissRichWannabeHero
7,577 retweets | 6,290 favorites
2:51pm - 23 April 2164

Endewhore can suck my vag @hownottomakeitintoUA
@Hatsumes_Disciple Did you just say she got her equipment from the daughter of David Shield? This just keeps getting worse.
10,672 retweets | 7,782 favorites
2:51pm - 23 April 2164

Press F for the Edgy Shinobi @Tribute4Edgeshot
I'm not sure a bad showing at her first-year festival is a reason to assume she cheated this time around. She could be a #HellClassHiddenCard, not a faker. Remember how bad Lemillion used to be compared to how badass he is now?
151 retweets | 103 favorites
2:51pm - 23 April 2164

The Big Three Is Not An OT3 @Nejiresbian
That's just the thing, though. Speaking as a Big Three stan, Lemillion showed legit improvement during his time at U.A and put in the work necessary to improve. As far as I know Yaoyorozu has done nothing to show she's improved since her first year.
[Photo: Mirio Togata in action during the Jaku Raid as filmed by a civilian survivor, engaging the Near-High End Nomus]
45,435 retweets | 4,683 favorites
2:52pm - 23 April 2164

False Hero Watchdog @Number_One_Stain_Apologist
Yaoyorozu is the same student that got pathetically trashed in her first year after being hyped up to hell, and then did a commercial with Uwabami. In all likelihood she's just in the hero course for the fame of it. #MissRichWannabeHero #FutureFakeHero #FakesTeachingFakes
[Photo 1: Still from video footage of the infamous Yaoyorozu vs. Tokoyami match]
[Photo 2: Yaoyorozu, Kendo and Uwabami on stage, filming a commercial]
12,528 retweets | 1,076 favorites
2:52pm - 23 April 2164

Can I pls get some money @ilivetobemiserable
Based off on what @Number_One_Stain_Apologist has just pointed out, everything seems to points towards Yaoyorozu cheating her way to the finals. If the heroes are going to be like this, why should we trust them to keep us safe? Why are we not allowed by law to defend ourselves with support gear or the quirks we have at our disposal? #MissRichWannabeHero
14,093 retweets | 8,868 favorites
2:53pm - 23 April 2164

Neito Monoma | U.A Sports Festival Third-Year Quarterfinalist @OfficialPhantomThief
Just another sign of how awful the so-called "Hell Class" really is. #MissRichWannabeHero #TheSuperiorClass3B
2,034 retweets | 387 favorites
2:53pm - 23 April 2164

Proud to stand against the system @civiliansriseup
Really, the only reason she's even in the hero course is because Yaoyorozu Support Inc. provides much of the funding to U.A. After Detnerat, should we really be surprised another big support gear firm is corrupt? #EatTheRich
21,004 retweets | 4532 favorites
2:54pm - 23 April 2164

Lady Linen ✔ @TheCottonGinHero
I'm disappointed in my alma mater for sucking up to Yaoyorozu. I've ran into her a few times while at U.A and she really didn't strike me as hero material; book smart, yes, but basically useless in an actual battle. From what I've overheard she really, really screwed up during the Paranormal Liberation War, though I can't remember how.
22 retweets | 15 favorites
2:56pm - 23 April 2164

Japan is doomed @wdm
IIRC, she went off on an unsanctioned mission to take down Gigantomachia during the Gunga Mountain raid and took most of the Hell Class with her to do it (exactly how she was planning to succeed is unknown). She just made everything worse by making Gigantomachia angry enough to go on a rampage, getting millions of people killed in the process. It took Best Jeanist and (ugh) Endeavor to do the job.
86,479 retweets | 55,901 favorites
2:58pm - 23 April 2164

Let Children Be Children ✔ @SayNoToHeroSchools
U.A has had a long history of encouraging, even demanding, violence from children during its Sports Festival. Now they've allowed a teenager whose qualifications are questionable to bring deadly support items to the festival and use it against other teenagers. It shows how little concern U.A shows towards ethics, safety, or legality. Is this the school you want to send your children to? #MissRichWannabeHero #DownWithUA
231,235 retweets | 54,604 favorites
2:58pm - 23 April 2164

From hero victims to villains @Justice_for_Rei_Himura
Well, it's not like her next opponent is any better than she is. That's Endewhore's kid, the one who he abused his wife and threw away his eldest child for. His spot in the Hell Class was earned by sacrificing his mother and brother and the lives of his brother's victims. #DownWithEndeavor #DownWithTheTodorokis #LegacyOfShame
152,391 retweets | 11,626 favorites
3:00pm - 23 April 2164

U.A Sports Festival ✔ @UA_Official
This is it! The final battle of the entire tournament! A clash of recommendation students, one wielding nature's raw power and and the other representing technology's triumph!
The Master of the Elements, the synergy of ice and fire, Shoto Todoroki!
VS.
The Mother of Creation, the infinite human arsenal, Momo Yaoyorozu!
9,487 retweets | 856 favorites
3:00pm - 23 April 2164

Stanning Our Bionic Bunny Queen @HandicappedNotHarmless
LMAO at @UA_Official's attempts to hype up a pissing contest between two spoiled brats, whose parents have ruined so many lives to get them to where they are now. #LegacyOfShame #MissRichWannabeHero #WhoeverWinsEveryoneLoses
133,534 retweets | 10876 favorites
3:01pm - 23 April 2164

Hawks is a murderer @HPSC_Conspiracy_Theorist
What is he waiting for? Just ice her already!
678 retweets | 107 favorites
3:01pm - 23 April 2164

Tryin' to survive @bad_neighborhood_boy
He probably wants a flashy show to finish things off and impress people. If this was a real fight he'd have beaten her already.
35 retweets | 45 favorites
3:01pm - 23 April 2164

Waiting for the hell class to enter the Top 50 @Hell_Class_Stan
And now things are really heating up. It's quite chaotic here in the arena and I can hardly see what they're doing, except that both of them are wrecking the entire ring. That's the fifteenth time in this tournament where the ring had be be rebuilt after a match. @CementossDeservesARaise
3,209 retweets | 589 favorites
3:02pm - 23 April 2164

Let Children Be Children ✔ @SayNoToHeroSchools
Instead of paying Cementoss extra to deal with the damage caused by the tournament, how about actually sending him on missions to fix all the infrastructure? Instead of spending this much money and resources for the Sports Festival, how about spending the same amount of money and resources to help fix Japan? Where do U.A's real priorities lie? #DownWithUA
135,307 retweets | 63,692 favorites
3:04pm - 23 April 2164

Deku? Dekiru! @Green_Bean_ForTheWin
Still salty about Midoriya not making it to the finals despite dominating his match against Todoroki, all because of the stupid ring-out rule. Instead we get this nonsense between Endeavor's genetic freak experiment and some rich girl who cheats using support items because she can't fight for shit. #MidoriyaDeservesBetter #TheNextAllMight #NewSymbolOfPeace
370,544 retweets | 54,335 favorites
3:08pm - 23 April 2164

U.A Support Course represent @Hatsumes_Disciple
And the bitch finally lost. That's what you get for ditching Hatsume-senpai. #goodriddance #fuckingdeserved
20,573 retweets | 17,584 favorites
3:15pm - 23 April 2164

--------

Despite having made it to second place at what was her final Sports Festival, Momo had not felt like a winner when it was all said and done.

She had handled the first event similarly to how she did the first time around, doing well but not standing out. During the second event, Capture the Flag, she likewise had handled herself well but not noticeably so, working with the few classmates who could be trusted to allow her some agency during the competition. The decision to not give it her all during the first two events had been a deliberate choice on her part; they were much less important for catching the eye of pro heroes on the lookout for fresh new talent, and she needed to preserve her lipid reserves for when they'd be needed most. Most importantly, she'd wanted to hide her secret weapon from whoever her first opponent would be.

As it turned out, she'd been pitted against Kirishima during the preliminaries. He may have been tough, but he lacked the range and mobility to pose an immediate threat to her even in the confines of the arena, giving her enough time to use her quirk and gear up. Her new fighting style was also perfectly suited to counter him, as it consisted of outrunning and outgunning her enemies while avoiding melee combat entirely, relying on the versatility and logistical capabilities of her quirk to continuously replace ammunition or switch between various weapons as necessary. Kirishima had withstood dozens of her missile hits but could do precious little to touch her, and from then on it was only a matter of beating her opponent down until he'd exhausted himself. Soon enough, the match had been called and Momo landed back on the arena, victorious. But some ominous mutters of disapproval could be heard among the cheers from the audience.

In contrast to her first match, her quarterfinals match against Uraraka and semifinals match against Bakugo had both been hard-won victories. Both of them could have easily abused the biased nature of the match regulations and ringed her out in the first few seconds while she was effectively quirkless-the same humiliation she'd received two years ago. In order to avert a repeat occurrence, Momo had resorted to a maneuver she'd practiced thousands of times in the month leading up to the Sports Festival: growing a barbed steel spike out of her body the moment the match began, with enough force to embed herself to the floor of the ring (merely being weighed down would have been useless against Uraraka's quirk). Thanks to that additional precaution, she'd been able to keep herself in the ring for long enough to finish creating her armaments and swiftly turn the tables.

To her surprise, though, the audience had refused to accept her victories at face value. A surprising number of attendees had booed her after she had defeated Uraraka in the quarterfinals, and after her semifinals match against Bakugo that number had swelled to include nearly half of the audience. There had been little time for her to dwell on this development, however, not when her next and final match would be against Shoto Todoroki-one of the few classmates she was close enough to refer by their given names. Despite their closeness, she had dreaded the prospects of facing him. Shoto was a master of the same fighting style as herself, combining devastating long-range offense and high mobility, while also being much more experienced at this game than she was thanks to having been trained as a fighter for much longer-in large part for all the wrong reasons.

What Momo hadn't expected was for both her and Shoto to face numerous jeers from a hostile audience when they'd emerged for their final showdown. The entire stadium had seemed to be enraged at their very existence. Nevertheless, the show had to go on, leaving her with the unenviable prospect of facing off against possibly the most offensively capable hero course student that U.A had ever seen. The trick of anchoring herself to the stadium to avoid a ring-out would never have worked against Shoto, who could just set her on fire or entomb her in ice instead. Perhaps because he had realized this, and had not wanted to take advantage of the biased regulations, he'd been courteous enough to allow her to arm herself with her quirk before making his first move. What followed had been a match that had taken up all fifteen allowed minutes and leveled the arena several times over, but she had been defeated in the end. Still, second place against such a formidable foe should have been a good enough performance to eliminate any remaining doubts about her potential anymore, either from the public or the pro heroes.

Except it hadn't.

When the silver medal had been hung around her neck at the end of that day, the audience had roared with righteous fury, only surpassed by the sheer disgust and rage directed at Shoto as he'd received his gold medal. Numerous insults had been hurled against them as they stood on the podium. As the entire world watched through innumerable television screens, the two recommendation students of Class 3-A had become condemned for all to see. Students who only made the class because of who their parents were, they'd called them. Spoiled brats. False heroes in the making.

It had been then, and only then, that Momo realized why the audience had been so enraged during their match, or how the two of them had become symbols of the corruption that had led to the ongoing collapse of society.

She had failed to account for was just how much the world had changed since her first, disgraceful Sports Festival performance, and how those changes affected the way people saw her and her much-improved performance this time around. The greatest legacy left by the Paranormal Liberation War was the wholesale loss of faith in the upper echelons of society: the heroes, the government, major corporations, and even U.A as an institution. She may have been a hero-in-training, but now there were many who scorned heroes-in-training as being nothing more than future enforcers of injustice. Furthermore, thanks to her first Sports Festival, she was a hero-in-training who came with a pre-established reputation for incompetence, as well as being the heiress to one of Japan's largest corporations-one that, like so many others, had willingly turned a blind eye to the abuse and inequality of society for the sake of maintaining the status quo.

For most of her life Momo had taken luxury for granted, and she had been puzzled by how her classmates, especially Uraraka, had reacted during all the times she'd invited them over to her family residence. Now she was being harshly made aware of what the lavish lifestyle of her family represented to much of Japanese society, and how that made her a target for individuals who'd had enough of living in an oppressive, fundamentally flawed system that hadn't even managed to keep them safe.

Once the last of the festivities were over, most of the students had gone straight home, but Momo found herself being blocked by angry attendants and even pelted with various debris when she'd tried to leave through the front gates. She had stayed in Heights Alliance until after dark, then flown home as fast as she could manage with her own equipment. Once home, she'd barricaded herself in her room as she had done two years before, but just like back then, she was unable to escape the torrent of social media posts, online articles, Yap!Tube comments, and hate mail, only continuing to wallow in her self-pity. The same mistaken assumptions and controversy that had tormented her two years ago had come rushing back to the forefront at the worst possible moment for her, and they were more threatening than they had ever been.

At least this time around, she wasn't alone in her predicament: Shoto was facing at least as much, if not even more flak than she had to deal with thanks to his association with his villainous brother and disgraced father, never mind that Shoto himself had been the greatest victim of his father's ambitions. Even in defeat, Toya Todoroki-Dabi-had managed to accomplish his goal of ruining his father's legacy for all eternity. The sordid details of Endeavor's domestic abuse had long since become public knowledge, including how he had thrown away his first child for the sake of "his masterpiece" of a fourth child, how he had thus pushed his firstborn down an increasingly dangerous path until he'd seemingly died, only to return as a blazing symbol of his family's crime. It had been well over a year since Shoto had been able to show his face in public without someone demanding to know why he deserved to be born. Dozens of people had come to a fiery demise at his brother's hands because of his very existence, and nobody was willing to see past that.

U.A itself was receiving large amounts of negative publicity. Ever since Kamino Ward, there had been murmurs that the school was putting its students at severe risk. After the Jaku and Gunga Mountain raids, these murmurs had become grumbles. Now, in the aftermath of the Sports Festival, the grumbles rose into shouts, and a completely new accusation was being made against the school-that they had taken bribes from Yaoyorozu Support Inc. and from Endeavor in exchange for allowing their children to join the Hero Course. There was already an online petition demanding the school be permanently shut down and investigated for internal corruption, and it likely wouldn't be long before protestors with picket signs started appearing at the gate.

To add insult to injury, someone from the Support Department had gone and told just about the entire world of Melissa's involvement in the development of her support gear, and suddenly the U.A campus was no longer a safe refuge for the American refugee; Yagi-sensei feared that it was a matter of time before things escalated to the point of violence. Momo felt personally responsible for this new wave of slander towards her newest friend, for she knew that it had been her decision to recruit her in the first place. She planned to visit Melissa and apologize to her, maybe even offer to break off their partnership if the other girl was regretting her decision to help her out.

Needless to say, when returning to U.A for the first week of school following the Sports Festival, Momo hadn't even bothered to take any sort of standard transportation but instead relied on her support items to travel. She'd taken off from her family estate at dawn and arrived at U.A well ahead of the morning commute, making sure to make her descent only once she was over campus grounds; fortunately for both her and the school staff, she still had had the presence of mind to inform the faculty of her unorthodox method of arrival so that she would not trigger the new, upgraded security measures. As disillusioned and worn-down as she was from the abuse heaped upon her by the media, she still clung to a few threads of hope. They would be receiving their final mandatory internship offers today, and if she had a single good offer from a well-respected pro, she might just be able to establish a much-needed industry connection after all. It was far from the massive turnaround of fortunes she had dreamed of, but at this point she was desperate for any break from the living hell that her life had become.

There was nobody around except for a drowsy Aizawa-sensei on the floor when Momo entered the classroom. It was customary for her to show up to class early, but today she had shown up even earlier than usual to avoid any unfriendly encounters with other students. She was therefore relieved to see that the next student to arrive was Shoto, someone who she could count on to understand her plight. They both understood what it meant to be born into the elite of society, how reputations could make or break a person's entire life. They'd met as small children at some high-society event neither of them could remember, and for much of their lives, their relationship had been the closest thing either of them had to a real friendship. Even nowadays, when both of them had found other loyal friends, the two remained relatively close together.

As Shoto settled into his seat, which was adjacent to her own, he expressed concern for her plight. "Are you handling things well?"

"Not particularly," she admitted. "How about you?"

"It's been....manageable," he replied. After that he became quiet. Shoto had never been especially talkative, even once he'd started opening up more during their first year at U.A. He was far more of a listener than a speaker; it was one of the reasons Momo enjoyed her occasional conversations with him, as he could be counted on to not interrupt her or talk over her.

Before too long, all of their classmates had arrived and Aizawa-sensei had taken up his place in front of the class. Once attendance had been taken, he brought up two stacks of paper onto his desk, and Momo could sense the anticipation as her classmates began to take notice. "Before we begin class, we need to discuss your internships. There will still be optional work studies afterwards, but this is the last set of internship offers you will receive." Aizawa-sensei then pressed a button on his remote, and her face fell as the number of internship offers each student had received was displayed on the screen.

Number of Internship Offers

Izuku Midoriya: 6805
Katsuki Bakugo: 2034
Tenya Iida: 918
Ochako Uraraka: 765
Fumikage Tokoyami: 742
Tsuyu Asui: 641
Kyoka Jiro: 425
Shoto Todoroki: 310
Eijiro Kirishima: 305
Mina Ashido: 263
Denki Kaminari: 56
Momo Yaoyorozu: 3

Being the vice-representative of the class, Momo handed out the stacks of internship offers for students seated in one half of the classroom, while Iida did the same for students seated in the other half. As she approached each desk, she lowered her face in shame, afraid that her classmates would judge her for her failure. By the time she got to the last remaining desk-her own-only a few sheets remained in her hands.

"Due to the increased media focus on this class over the past two years and on a few students in particular-" He glared at Midoriya and Bakugo-"the number of offers is not evenly distributed. As this is your final year here, your choice of mentor for the following week may very well determine your future agency postings upon graduation. Choose wisely, and for those of you who have no offers, as before you are free to select from the list of 40 U.A-affiliated agencies."

She could hear her classmates talking about their lists of offers, and she could almost hear them thinking about which pro hero should they pick this time, whether to find new mentors or return to those they had interned for previously. And wondering, no doubt, why their vice-representative had an abysmal number of offers. "Sensei," she heard Midoriya call out, "There has to have been a mistake. How is it possible that Todoroki only has a bit over three hundred offers and that Yaoyorozu-san has only received three, despite both of them placing higher than myself or Kacchan?"

There were general murmurs of agreement from most of her classmates, which was quickly silenced by a quick glare. "The number of offers is reflective of how your capabilities are assessed by pro heroes, not by your performance during the Sports Festival." He explained. "Todoroki is a special case caused by his....family situation. As for Yaoyorozu, her example should be a reminder to all of you that relying on support equipment is no substitute for improving yourself as a hero."

Momo could hardly believe her ears. Aizawa-sensei had recognized her potential all the way back in her first term; it was why he'd gone out of his way to try to restore her self-confidence. It was in large part thanks to that term finals exam that she had decided to switch her role from support to combat months ago. But now, he had all but directly stated to the entire class that one could not become a great hero by relying on support items alone. Surely he wasn't actually agreeing with the other pro heroes that she was cheating by using support equipment, right?

Right?

-----

Normally, lunch period was one of Momo's favorite parts of the average school day. It was a rare break from the hectic schedule of Hero Course students, the only prolonged period of rest and relaxation during school hours. Furthermore, for Momo it was a much-needed chance to stock up on her lipid reserves and take care of her bodily functions before the afternoon training sessions. But due to the fact the entire school shared the same cafeteria, lunch period was also when it was hardest to avoid associating with students from other classes, and on this day, that was more important that it ever had been before.

As Class 3-A lined up to receive their daily lunch rations, Momo made sure to stand in the middle, hoping to disappear amidst her better-regarded classmates. But her height, not to mention the fact her face was everywhere on the Internet thanks to the Sports Festival, meant that no matter what she did, she stuck out like a sore thumb. Throughout the whole process she could feel hundreds of pairs of eyes staring at her in silent accusation, demanding to know exactly why she deserved to be considered even on par with her far more illustrious classmates. Once she'd received her quadruple-sized lunch ration, she swiftly moved off to join some of the other members of her class at their usual table, but on the way there she nearly bumped into a student from one of the first-year heroics classes. "You shouldn't sit with them, senpai," he told her, sarcasm laden in the last word of the sentence. Hurriedly, she moved off in a different direction, hoping to get around the offending student and rejoin her classmates at their table.

Even once Momo had taken her usual place at the unofficial Class 3-A seating area, she remained a focal point for negative attention. Off in one corner, she could see the students of the Support Course, all glaring at her with hateful looks on their faces. In another part of the cafeteria, Monoma was raving and ranting to the rest of his class, no doubt about how his class was "superior" to Class 3-A because they lacked a "cheater" like herself. All around her, her classmates were excitedly discussing their internship offers, seemingly ignorant to the fact that their vice-representative was agonizing over her very limited selection of offers. One was from Uwabami, still trying to recruit her to use as an attractive living prop, while the other two were from heroes she had never heard of. Momo badly needed a mentor who was still seen as a "true" hero by the media and public if she was to gain an adequate connection within the industry, but that was looking ever less likely.

With so many troubles to contend with she wouldn't have had much of an appetite, had it not been for her overwhelming quirk-driven hunger. But her physiology overrode all concerns and, after one of the most awkward twenty minutes of her life, she had scarfed down every morsel that was on her plate. Momo left the cafeteria entirely the moment she was finished with her oversized meal, heading for the sanctuary of Heights Alliance.

As she passed by the Class 3-A common area on the way to her room, she happened to catch the tail end of a conversation, and she could swear she'd heard herself be mentioned. Curious, she stopped to listen in.

"I don't know what to do to help her out, Jamming-Whey. Everyone thinks she's going to be a terrible hero, when they're so obviously wrong, but how do you change the minds of so many people, especially when they're right about so many other things?" That's Kyoka-I'd recognize her voice anywhere-and she's obviously discussing my current circumstance with Kaminari. This was far from the first time Momo had witnessed her friend interacting with the electrifying blond; Kaminari was probably second closest friend the violette had, in spite of the fact she didn't have much respect for him. Momo herself had been somewhat closer to Kaminari than to many of her other classmates, if only because their shared participation in the class band had led to a greater sense of camaraderie with him. If the friendship between her and Kyoka transcended social classes, the one between both of them and Kaminari was downright bizarre. Nevertheless, the three of them had had their share of interactions and shared hours over their time at U.A.

But never before had she heard her friend open her heart out to him in this manner.

After several sniffles, which Momo could hear clearly from the hallway, Kyoka continued: "It would be nice to at least be able to talk to her to work something out, but she keeps shutting people out!" She felt a twinge of guilt as she recalled just how little time she'd actually spent with her best friend over the past several months. That time had instead been spent on training in order to catch up with her peers-for all the good it did for her public standing in the end-and it meant that she rarely talked to her best friend and prospective lover these days.

Things became quiet for a few, pregnant moments after that outburst. Considering how much of a chatterbox Kaminari tended to be, Momo was surprised that he kept his mouth closed now, as if he was digesting what their mutual friend had just told him. This was more akin to the conversations she'd occasionally have with Shoto, where she would open up about her feelings and he'd listen.

When Kaminari eventually did reply, she was in the perfect spot to hear what he had to say. "Kyo, sometimes what you need is to give people some space to work things out on their own. Do you really think she wants to be around other people right now when she doesn't want to be laughed at or pitied?"

Momo didn't bother listening to the rest of the conversation. She had already heard enough.

As she moved off towards the stairwell as quietly as she could manage, she couldn't get over the implications of the very first word in Kaminari's response. He had referred to her best friend by a nickname-one that, until now, had only occasionally been used by Momo herself. It indicated that something had happened between the two of them in the past several months while she had been busy training.

It raised two possibilities that, until just now, had seemed so remote that she hadn't even taken them into consideration.

Did Kaminari have eyes for Kyoka as well? And, even more importantly: Was she willing to give him a chance?

-----

It was Momo's third day of interning under Gang Orca, and the Killer Whale Hero was proving himself to be a mixed bag as far as mentors went. Both Kyoka and Shoto, having had prior experience with him during the winter mandatory internship and the remedial course respectively, had told her that he was rather harsh and strict towards even the best hero students, but also that he was a capable hero. It wasn't exactly a description that led her to believe he would recognize her true potential; plenty of other capable heroes had failed to do so, so why should this one be any different?

Indeed, it was only thanks to her friends that she hadn't been kicked out the door when she'd first shown her face at his agency. He had sent her no offers after the Sports Festival, and he wasn't on the list of U.A-approved internship providers. But her friends had used their connections with him to convince him that she wasn't, in fact, an incompetent who was cheating her way through the hero course, resulting in him sending her a very late offer that arrived at U.A mere hours before the deadline for submitting internship request forms. Given that the alternative involved returning to Uwabami and being forced to smear her own reputation even further, it had been an easy decision.

But even her friends' efforts could only get her so far. Gang Orca had made it clear from the get-go that he expected little from her. Under his supervision, Momo was not to intervene in villain fights, and during incident resolution she was expected to follow orders without coming up with decisions and ideas of her own. He still took her out on patrols, but strictly in the role of equipment resupply. Thus, her newfound martial talents were rendered irrelevant for the purposes of her internship, as were her formidable strategic and tactical skills. The entire arrangement had struck Momo as worse than pointless; even if she was to be restricted to a supporting role, she still actually had to be present on-site to be able to see what was going on and provide equipment to the "real" heroes as needed. Keeping her out of combat therefore failed to keep her away from danger, and it would have been more logical to allow her to engage hostiles so that Gang Orca wouldn't have to worry about defending one extra person in addition to any potential civilians caught in the crossfire.

It was all reminiscent of the way she'd been treated by her classmates, her teachers and by the assembled heroes during the final days of the Paranormal Liberation War. In spite of her efforts to never again suffer that particular fate, it seemed that there was no other destiny for her. It was testament to just how bad her first internship under Uwabami had been that this was still a vast improvement over her treatment under her "mentorship".

At least Kyoka is having a much better time than I am, she consoled herself. Gang Orca considered her friend to be capable enough to not require constant supervision, and had granted her the authority to engage villains as needed, in addition to allowing her to figure out how best to handle a situation on her own-as long as she double-checked her plan with him before putting it into action, of course. Kyoka had been one of the students who ended up personally facing off against All for One during the final battle of the Paranormal Liberation War, and that had brought her some much-needed publicity, as well as considerable respect from various high-ranking pro heroes. Momo had been happy for her friend, but every bit of attention any of her classmates received was leaving her further and further behind when it came to making connections and building up support for her own career. Now, she was seeing this principle in action.

Then again, Kyoka probably merited more attention from their mentor anyways while on patrol, if for no other reason than her safety. One of the biggest outcomes of the Paranormal Liberation War was an increase in anti-mutant sentiments, something that had previously only been a major problem at the local scale. Now, however, anti-mutant mobs were a dime a dozen on the streets, as frightened citizens took matters into their own hands to "preemptively defend themselves" against anyone who "looked like a villain". Hardly a day passed by without news of someone being assaulted or murdered for having a mutation quirk. There were even rumors of the Creature Rejection Clan becoming more powerful once again, using the uneasy atmosphere to their advantage and preying on the fear of civilians. Much of Gang Orca's work since the war had thus been focused around countering the increase in anti-mutant sentiments; as a mutant himself, he had personal stakes in this struggle, especially since he was considered one of the most "villainous-looking" heroes around.

On a daily basis, Gang Orca would take both of his interns out and patrol the area around Hosnian Square, which had become a regular location for peaceful protests by mutants demanding an end to the persecution. There had already been cases of other civilians antagonizing the protestors or even assaulting them with their quirks or with illegal support items. This patrol, like the last, was intended to be a show of force to deter anti-mutant activities, while also serving as a reminder to the gathered mutants that the heroes hadn't abandoned them. Given her recent experiences, however, Momo had to wonder if this wasn't just raising tensions further. Her presence probably wasn't helping, as several members of the public had already harassed them over the fact she was allowed to be on duty-even if she might as well have been left back at the office for all intents and purposes.

It wasn't only these acts of aggression towards her that was keeping her two companions on edge, however. Between Kyoka's quirk and Gang Orca's naturally enhanced hearing, the team was well-suited for scouting and gathering information, but it also meant that they were forced to listen to every insult being hurled against the mutants that they were here to defend. As the patrol wore on, Momo continued to check her friend's facial expression as a gauge of how volatile the mood around the mutant demonstration was, and it had continued to get worse as time passed.

But it was only two hours into the patrol that she realized something was about to go down, as a sudden feeling of dread swept over her. "There are at least a few dozen people who are quickly forming into a large group facing the demonstrators," Kyoka breathlessly reported. "I heard what sounded like a signal to start something. We need to move-"

A piercing scream coming from the general direction of the protest caught everyone's attention. An alarming number of villains were emerging from the frightened crowd and rushing the protestors, brandishing whatever implements they had on hand, wielding various emitter quirks ranging from laser eyes to corrosive spit, and wearing skull-faced masks. The significance of this last detail wasn't lost on Momo. It gave away the identity of the villains, and a shared glance with Kyoka told her that she'd figured it out as well. "Looks like the rumors about the Creature Rejection Clan were true," their mentor remarked.

Without skipping a beat, all three of them headed towards the centre of the rapidly growing mayhem. They were the closest heroes to the scene, and it was their duty to step in and hold the line, at least until backup could arrive. Gang Orca was quick to form the basic outline of a plan as they made their approach. "I'm going to keep them occupied and lure all of them into the square and away from the protestors, while my sidekicks handle civilian evac. Earphone Jack, take up defensive position on the other end of the square and await further instructions, and listen for any further trouble on the way there. Creati, go with her and do whatever she needs to help her out. Do not engage unless absolutely necessary."

He then charged into the mob of masked faces, knocking several CRC members down onto the ground and grabbing one of them, then quickly turned tail and headed in the other direction with more than half the remainder in hot pursuit-exactly as he'd wanted them to. It was a sight that left Momo awestruck: it was hard to believe such a big man could move that swiftly, especially while carrying a captured villain.

"Come on, you heard his orders. Let's get moving." Kyoka urged on, and in spite of her desire for combat, Momo followed her. The last thing she wanted was to jeopardize the outcome a mission, and so she merely did as she was told, all the while wishing that she'd been granted some agency of her own. This was the ideal opportunity to prove she had what it took to be a "real" hero, but once again she was being forced to sit out of a fight on the false basis that she couldn't handle it.

"Yaomomo?"

Momo almost didn't realize that her friend had broken basic protocol by using her nickname rather than her hero name while on duty; at any rate, she was too distraught to care by this point. "What is your request, Earphone Jack?" It was then that she noticed that her friend had stopped, with one jack plugged into the ground-a sure tell that she was listening for footsteps. Perhaps she had noticed something that Momo had not, and was investigating whatever it was.

After a brief pause, her friend breathlessly explained the situation. "I'm hearing another big mass of people approaching the square, and fast. We need someone to get back in there and keep an eye on things." Then, giving a wink, Kyoka gave her an order she had been waiting to hear all afternoon. "And you need to to stop the newcomers from causing even more trouble if necessary."

"But Gang Orca said-"

"He told you to do whatever I tell you to do to provide support; right now, I'm telling you to go in there and kick ass."

And that was all the permission that she needed.

Mouthing a quick thanks to her dear friend, Momo doubled back towards the heart of the square, briefly stopping along the way to create her flight gear onto her suit-this was something that was best taken care of ahead of time. For all her newfound offensive power, she was in no way cut out to handle a melee brawl at close quarters, and it was imperative that she prepared a method of escape ahead of a villain fight so that she could quickly reposition herself to continue fighting from a safe distance if things went south.

Her earpiece crackled to life as Gang Orca admonished her. "Creati, what do you think you are you doing? Return to your designated post alongside Earphone Jack," he ordered. Momo expected another verbal beatdown to ensue, but Kyoka was quick to explain the situation, just as she'd promised.

"She did it on my orders, which you'd told her to follow. I don't really need her help with anything, and I think you'll be surprised at just what she can do on her own." Apparently that was enough of an excuse for him to back off, though the grumbles audible through her earpiece clearly indicated he wasn't too happy about it.

There was a brief lull in communications right afterwards, during which time Momo assessed the scene unfolding around her. By now the attack on the protestors had slowed to a grinding crawl, partly thanks to the police intervening on their behalf. One group of officers had formed a wall of riot shields between the villains and the protestors, with various CRC members using their quirks or support items to gradually chip away at them, while others were moving to outflank the defensive line but were hampered by the crowd of panicking civilians. Off in the distance, she could make out Gang Orca's sidekicks set up a cordon around the square while directing civilians out of the area.

And then a knife plunged into the top of a police officer's head as they were trying to join the fray, only fifteen meters from her current position.

It was testament to how much death and destruction Momo had already seen during the Paranormal Liberation War that she was unfazed at the sight of someone being murdered. She doubted any of her classmates would have been more disconcerted if they'd been the ones to witness the act instead. Even so, the knife throw had caught her off guard, because it had come not from within the square, but from one of the rooftops surrounding it. And as murderous as the Creature Rejection Clan tended to be towards mutants, it was very much out of character for them to target a police officer without any obviously visible mutations.

Moments later, more knives were landing amongst the now-terrified civilians just as a second wave of villains rushed into the plaza. It was evident that Kyoka had been right: there was more than one group of hostiles. This new group was smaller and less organized than the CRC, and lacked their skull-shaped facial masks, but still causing plenty of trouble by adding to the confusion. As Momo recognized their bandanas and domino masks, her heart all but leapt into her throat. Stainists.

In the immediate aftermath of the Paranormal Liberation War, one group of extremists began to blame the failings of hero society, and thus the collapse of Japan, on a supposed overabundance of "false" heroes, eventually coalescing into the Stainists. They followed the mantra of Hero Killer Stain (who still hadn't been recaptured after his escape from Tartarus), down to the idea that the only way to fix society was to purge it by killing anyone who was "unworthy" of being a hero. It had apparently never occurred to them that one didn't attract sympathy towards their cause by committing murder, or that Stain's ideals weren't worth following in the first place-he may have been right in that many heroes were indeed less-than-heroic, but he had missed the forest of a corrupt system for the trees that were corrupt heroes, and most of her classmates agreed that his standards for what a "true" hero should be like were often ridiculous.

A change in priorities was needed. While Momo was no fan of the Creature Reaction Clan, the Stainists were by far the more immediate threat to the public at large. The CRC wanted to kill those with mutation quirks, but that was the extent of their murderous intent. The Stainists wanted to kill everyone who didn't fit their image of the perfect hero, such as vigilantes, other villains, heroes who had abused their authority, or heroes who failed to live up to impossibly high standards of heroism. And hero students who are-or appear to be-working to become false heroes. she realized with a start. It was definitely time for her to skedaddle.

"Creati reporting in. A loose gang of Stainists have entered the square and are attacking both the Creature Rejection Clan and the civilians, with at least one police officer casualty," she reported back to her mentor as she picked up her pace. "I am currently repositioning to better respond to the increased threat level."

There were plenty of side alleys connected to the square, and she ducked into the nearest one, finding just enough room to take off. She wasn't the only person who had the idea of using these alleys as a refuge, however; a stampede was headed her way for that exact reason. If she wanted to avoid being swept on in this tide of humanity, she had to take off now, before the crowd would reach her. Taking off in the middle of a dense crowd would risk accidentally setting someone on fire with her jetpack's engine exhausts; the last thing she needed was a civilian death on her hands as collateral damage.

"Over there in the alleyway! It's the false hero in the making! Kill her!"

And just like that, there were around a dozen Stainists heading straight for her-or at least, as straight as they could manage in such crowded conditions. But the villains were too far away to reach her in time. Her jetpack had already been prepared for takeoff, and months of relentless practice meant that flying now came to her as naturally as walking. In a single smooth motion, she leapt off the ground right as all her engines kicked in, propelling her like a rocket towards the skies. Once she'd cleared the rooftops she unfolded her wings, banked back into the open air above the square, and began to circle over the Stainists who had just missed her.

For a fleeting second, Momo had the thought that she could quickly erase this gaggle of wannabe villains off the face of the earth; it would only take a few missile salvoes loaded with high-explosive warheads. But killing, especially indiscriminate slaughter, was anything but heroic. It would only further prove the Stainists right about her being a false hero. So she settled for a decidedly less lethal option: the dart gun.

It took less than ten seconds for her to produce the weapon and its ammunition, and only two to take aim at her first target as she swooped down onto them. Her first shot found its mark, followed by the next, then the one after that. With each of her passes, one or more Stainists fell to the ground as each dose of fast-acting sedative struck home. The police were initially confused, looking up at her as she flew overhead and wondering what exactly she was doing to the villains, but in short order they decided that the important thing was to take advantage of this opening to arrest as many incapacitated villains as they could.

In less than a minute, she had brought down nine Stainists, but many more were trying to come after her. To them, she was the most deserving target of their wrath out of everyone in their current vicinity. Of course, since none of them could fly, all this did was to make it easier for her to draw them away from civilians by flying low over them. She would bait them into trying to attack her, traveling above them just slowly enough and close enough to the ground to tempt them, all the while charting a flight path to parts of the square with no civilian presence. Then, she would accelerate onwards and upwards, pull a midair loop to get behind them before they could react, and pepper them with more shots from her dart gun. It was almost laughably easy: she was horribly outnumbered, but against a mob of uncoordinated, ground-bound opponents she might as well have been unopposed.

After another five minutes, Momo had well over two dozen takedowns under her belt, having rained down her sedative-equipped firepower on both the Stainists and on some of the CRC members, who mostly ignored her in favor of battling the police. She refused to let her guard down, however, knowing that things could change in an instant if someone who was equipped with any sort of powerful long-ranged offensive quirk, or even a particularly large firearm, was to take a shot at her. Her new costume could handle a stray bullet or two, but against heavier firepower it wasn't anywhere near adequate protection. It was why she kept on the move, for her best line of defense was to not get hit in the first place.

Fortunately, it soon became apparent that she would only have to hold out for a bit longer. Various heroes, sidekicks, and student interns were converging onto the area, along with police reinforcements from other districts. Shiozaki from 3-B made a dramatic entrance alongside her mentor Kamui Woods, the two working in tandem to trap a group of CRC members that had foolishly opted to attack them. Gang Orca had apparently dealt with the last of the villains that had taken off after him when he'd used himself as bait, and was now heading in her direction, barreling through CRC members and Stainists alike. While Momo couldn't see Kyoka from her current position, she knew that her friend had to be doing well for herself, since there was a shimmering wall of sound protecting the last of the mutant demonstrators as they evacuated Hosnian Square in orderly fashion. Some particularly persistent CRC members beat against it in an attempt to breach it and attack the "subhumans", but with no success-after all, this was the same defensive barrier that even All for One had been unable to penetrate during his final stand.

It wasn't long before her mentor caught up with her, and she slowed to a hovering stop as he addressed her. "Creati, you've done a better job than I expected, but it's about time you got out of there." He ordered. "Let the combat specialists handle it."

"I already have a good handle on the situation," she fired back as she put a dart into the latest villain in her HUD's targeting sights, a Stainist who was armed with some sort of tentacle quirk growing out of her forehead. In the moments before the sedative could fully kick in, she tried to reach upwards and ensnare her in her coils, only to be pushed aside by Gang Orca and straight into the grasp of the police.

"Why protect her?" The villain demanded to know. "She's a faker who doesn't deserve the chance to get her license! She should pay for her corruption!"

"That doesn't mean she should die for it!" Gang Orca shouted back as the sedative finally put her out of commission.

A heroine with yellow-and-black hair, who Momo didn't recognize, appeared on the scene; seconds later multiple Stainists and CRC members collapsed to the ground as lightning engulfed their immediate vicinity. Something about the woman seemed familiar, and she quickly realized why when another, much larger field of electrical currents heralded Kaminari's arrival to the battlefield. He'd casually remarked once that his mother was a pro hero of moderate rank, and it seemed that he'd managed to wrangle a position as her intern. His mother turned to face him, but he was running off on his own into the evacuating crowds before she could say anything, seemingly without a plan. It was a rather concerning development to Momo: If Kaminari ended up frying his brains out here, as he'd done numerous other times, he'd be easy prey for almost any villain.

Be concerned with your own survival first; it's the responsibility of every first responder, she reminded herself. By now most of the remaining villains-whether CRC or Stainist-were far more concerned with not being captured and arrested than with carrying out their original missions, but five of them had somehow lasted long enough to still be coming after her, and she was more than willing to oblige them. Good, she thought. Let them waste time trying to bring me down from the sky while I lure them towards-

A flash of green lightning almost blinded her as Midoriya landed in front of her, Blackwhip lashing out to seize hold of all five of the villains, the entire exterior of his body sparkling with the raw power of One for All. It was a completely unnecessary assist, but Momo had to admit that Midoriya struck an imposing figure, every bit the image of the ideal hero. The remaining Stainists seemed to agree, as they fell back en masse, with an almost reverent look on their faces. Of course. Midoriya had been specifically named by Stain himself as a "true hero" according to his warped logic. More than anyone else, he would be capable of wrapping up the battle without the need for further violence. Already, his very presence was having an effect, with some of the police cheering him on as he began reassuring the few civilians that were still present and checked them for potential injuries.

Roughly ten minutes later, with the threat neutralized and every captured Stainist and CRC member in police custody, Midoriya was being swarmed by reporters who were all clamoring to interview the "new Symbol of Peace" about his latest exploit. The sight made Momo realize that she shouldn't expect much media recognition for her actions today. It didn't matter that she had been the first hero or hero student to throw herself into the fray, holding the line as most of the civilians were evacuated. Midoriya would get the credit for putting an end to the Stainist rampage, while her own involvement-and those of many others-would be glossed over.

"Creati?"

She looked down to find Gang Orca still standing there below her, signaling for her to come with him. "We need to pick your friend before we head back to the agency to file the report. Can you try to locate her from up there?" Momo nodded, and then began to methodically scan the opposite end of Hosnian Square, where she'd last left Kyoka behind. With her aerial vantage point, it didn't take long for her to find her.

"Yes", she reported back, "she's all the way on the other end of the square with...."

No.

It couldn't be.

For the briefest of moments Momo froze in midair, incapable of averting her gaze from what she was seeing right now through her HUD. It was now clear where Kaminari had run off to; he'd gone to try to find Kyoka on his own, and now, in broad daylight, in a public setting, he was holding her by the shoulders and kissing her on the lips-

And Kyoka was reciprocating, leaning into his kiss and even kissing him back as he started to pull away.

After what seemed like hours, but was really just a few moments, Momo was shocked out of her near-catatonia by a civilian passing underneath her. "Hey, aren't you that girl from the Sports Festival?" In her stupefied state, she could only nod dumbly. "You really should thank your classmates for bailing you out. These riots are no place for someone like you," the man remarked.

Chapter Text

As Momo came in for a landing over the finish line of Ground Epsilon's racecourse, Melissa hurriedly ran over to give her a post-flight examination, putting on insulating globes as she did so. "I just need to make sure that your new equipment is still holding up and fully operational after what you just put it through," she explained. "I didn't expect you to fly that fast!" A brief checkup revealed nothing serious had happened, and they walked off the training area to review the footage from the test flight.

Even though it had been less than a year since Momo had received her updated equipment, Melissa had devised a series of planned updates for them from the get-go; once she'd been told of what had happened during internships she had quickly begun work on the first of those updates, finishing it just in time for the second half of the school year. To keep track of this and any future upgrades, Momo had designated the current version of her costume-including the equipment-as the Flight II version, while the version she had used up until this point was retroactively designated Flight I.

Attached to the back of her bodysuit this time was a new version of her jetpack, identical in appearance externally to the initial model but with much more efficient engines that allowed for for greater speed, flight time and operational range. During the flight Momo had just completed, she'd logged an airspeed of 750km/h, which was actually above the intended design speed for the new model. In addition to the improved speed, this equipment update added a new weapon to her growing armory: a 20mm autocannon modification of her arm-mounted sniper rifles, which traded a bit of range for a far greater volume of fire. Like the rifle, it could fire various specialized forms of ammunition such as taser rounds, incendiaries, and even bullets with built-in electronic equipment. Her pre-existing weapons had also received minor upgrades, especially in range, and the software for her HUD had been updated to incorporate a wider array of mental commands.

It was a shame that she was in no position to benefit significantly from any of these upgrades.

When she had first embarked on her partnership with Melissa, she still had some hope that she'd be able to make a good enough impression during her final Sports Festival and turn her life back around, and provide Melissa with an escape from her father's shadow in the process. But that opportunity had come and gone, and proven to be more curse than blessing for both of them; worse still, it had resulted in their respective problems becoming intertwined. Their association with each other was seen as further confirmation of their vices in the eyes of the public, the various false accusations surrounding them having coalesced into the story of how a heroics student who'd cheated her way into the Hell Class using family connections was working alongside the main accomplice of David Shield during the I-Island incident. It was a completely false story, but it was a good yarn that the public ate right up and believed in. Showing their faces in public was now a dangerous, possibly even fatal, proposition for them. Melissa hadn't left the U.A campus for months, and Momo nowadays only left it after dark and usually via flight.

Inside the relative safety of the campus, the misaimed wrath of the populace was somewhat less of an immediate concern, but new threats were emerging from within. The more time Melissa spent to develop new equipment for Momo, the more hostile the Support Department became towards the presence of some gaijin who they assumed to be a villain that hadn't received proper judgement. Hatsume in particular was resentful of Melissa for "having stolen away my Printer-chan" as well as for causing her to be suspended for a week the previous year, and a fierce rivalry had developed between the two genius inventors as they attempted to outdo each other. With a significantly worse reputation both on and off campus, and with limited support, the blonde was very much getting the worse of it.

Yet somehow, in spite of the slow-motion catastrophe their lives had become, Melissa was still willing to work with her after all of that. Momo had offered to cut off their ties to allow her to fade away from the spotlight, but the American had gently rebuffed the offer. It had put all the more more pressure on her to somehow pull through, for Melissa's sake if not for her own, even though it was already clear that it was a forlorn hope.

It was now the second term of her third year at U.A, the final semester before graduation. Things would become truly hectic over the next several months as her classmates finalized their post-graduation plans and secured their future postings at various hero agencies across Japan. Momo envied them, for their busy schedules were evidence they were being taken seriously in the outside world. Most students what the media had now dubbed the Hell Class were being hailed as the heroes of the future, the generation that would correct the mistakes of the past and rebuild a new, stronger, righteous hero society. But not everyone in her class was basking in prestige. She certainly wasn't.

If Momo wanted to prove to prospective employers that she was capable in the field and worth taking on as a sidekick, she needed to find a mentor who was willing to both take her in for a work study and allow her to work on the field in more than a supporting role, and do so within a few weeks. Given her current reputation, however, it was unlikely to say the least that she'd stand any chance of success in that endeavor. Nor was it likely she would find herself able to compete with her peers when it came to sidekick positions after graduating. Her career as a hero was slowly but surely sinking into an ocean of negative publicity before it had even begun, with her still onboard.

And she was dragging Melissa down with her.

So far, her American ally had not suffered quite as badly in the Japanese media as she had, in large part thanks to Yagi-sensei using his influence to discourage various sources from perpetuating the rumors surrounding her, while simultaneously encouraging more truthful articles about the I-Island incident to be published to try and clear her name. But even with the major news outlets remaining silent on the issue, her undeserved infamy was still growing as falsehoods were spread across blogs, forums, and social media platforms, over which not even the former Number One Hero had any significant control. Melissa was keenly aware of this. She considered herself to be a burden to her beloved "Uncle Might", and she'd confided to Momo that it had been a major reason why she refused to stop helping her with her equipment, so that she could continue to help someone else out in any way she could instead of being nothing more than a hindrance to her current legal guardian.

That put Momo in a dilemma. If she severed her connection with Melissa, it would leave her with nobody who would be willing to work with her, but if their current partnership continued it was only going to drag both of them down further. The window of opportunity she had for proving her value to outsiders was now closed. Failure was all but inevitable. It was the exact scenario her parents had warned her about, where denied opportunities and lost chances compounded upon each other and led to yet more denied opportunities and lost chances.

The sensible decision at this point would have been to abandon her dreams, no matter what Melissa had to say about it and no matter how much she wanted to become a great hero. But there was immense social pressure placed upon her to somehow succeed even when nobody was willing to give her the chance to do so.

Because heroes had to try no matter how hopeless the situation.

Because giving up would only prove her naysayers right about her supposed incompetence.

Because she couldn't let down one of the only people who still believed in her.

Because it would be unbefitting of an U.A student-let alone one from the Hell Class-to roll over and submit to the limitations of reality.

Such was the cruel, unspoken truth about trying to go Plus Ultra.

------

The field of heroics still remained one that was dominated largely, though not entirely, by males. This was reflected in the demographics of most heroics classes at most of Japan's hero academies, and the Hell Class wasn't exempt; there were only six girls to fourteen and eventually fifteen boys. Not all of the female students were close to each other, but they were often treated as a collective unit simply due to their gender. By their second year, this had become a self-fulfilling prophesy as their shared experiences of being part of the "fairer sex" in a male-dominated field inevitably caused them to draw closer to each other. While Momo was only particularly well-acquainted with Kyoka, she was on fairly amiable terms with all of the others.

Even so, it wasn't every day that all six girls would convene together and socialize separately from any of the male students. From time to time, Uraraka, Ashido or Hagakure-the three socialites among their number-would organize a girl's night, but these were relatively rare, especially now that graduation was fast approaching. They still made the most of the few opportunities they had to get together, however; each girl's night was several hours long at minimum and often extended into sleepovers. Because Momo had been stupid enough to drag her oversized bed from her family estate into her dorm room at Heights Alliance, her room tended to be the most popular spot for these occasions, since it was the only room with a bed big enough to accommodate all six of them at once.

This was one of those nights, likely the last time all six of them would be able to convene together and away from any male students before their graduation. Starting next week, most of them would be headed off to various work studies, and other demands would keep them apart for much of the remaining semester.

It wasn't even an hour into their get-together at this point, but the conversations were already taking a turn towards the unmentionable subjects. "So, how's Sparkie in bed?" Ashido asked Kyoka, much to the latter's visible embarrassment.

"Mina!" Uraraka chided. Relationships were a prominent topic whenever Ashido or Hagakure were involved in a conversation, especially once the latter had found out that Kyoka was part of a relationship. Hagakure herself had ended up on the receiving end of a relationship reveal a few weeks later, when it had somehow come out that she and Ojiro were together. And of course, there was the mutual but unspoken attraction between Uraraka and Midoriya that had been in the background for over two and a half years by this point, often with Asui being roped into it as well.

"Like you're one to talk, Chaks," the pinkette retorted. "You're just waiting for that perfect chance to invite Izuku to your room." That was inflammatory enough for Uraraka to grab the closest large object-a pillow-and smack Ashido upside down in the head with it.

"Seriously, we're not dating yet!" She yelled. Uraraka had a permanent, almost cartoonish blush, so it was often hard to tell her mood from looking at her face alone, but in this particular instance her entire face was lit up in a deep shade of red. "W-we're focusing on preparing for our adult careers!"

"Not dating yet?" Kyoka asked, swinging the conversation away from herself. In spite of her shyness when it came to her own love life, the violette wasn't above teasing others about their own romantic relationships, and she was no longer as introverted about discussing such topics as she used to be. Knowing that someone of the opposite gender was sexually attracted to her had done wonders to alleviate Kyoka's issues with her body image. As heartbroken as Momo was, she wouldn't-couldn't-bear the idea of potentially risking her friend's newfound happiness, and so had promised herself that she would take the secret of her first love to her grave.

That didn't mean it hurt any less to see Kyoka often holding hands with Kaminari during after-school hours, or to listen to her stories from the most recent date she'd been on with him. It should be me in his place-maybe even would have been her, if she hadn't been so preoccupied with other matters.

"And speaking of secret relationships, Yaomomo, when are you going to come forward about whatever's going on between you and Todoroki?"

"I'm not in a relationship at all, Kyo," she hastily replied. Shoto had always been relatively close to her, especially once they'd become part of the same class at U.A, but he had never been quite as close to her heart as Kyoka had been. He was one of the best friends and confidantes she'd ever had, nothing more, nothing less.

"Oh, please. Don't pretend that you don't spend more time with him than with anyone else in our class, except maybe me. And the two of you have been especially nice to each other for the past few months. He even emailed Gang Orca and convinced him to give you a chance!"

"But Kyo, you played a a bigger role in that." She pointed out. "Gang Orca knows and trusts you more than any other hero-in-training, and it if hadn't been for you being there with me, he'd probably have cut my internship short." It certainly was true that Shoto had been particularly concerned with her well-being recently and she with his, but that was entirely due to the fact they were facing similar problems that jeopardized their entire adult lives. Said problems meant neither of them were in any position to enter a relationship until everything had been sorted out, if ever. Besides, she doubted that Shoto would ever be willing to get together with anyone considering the tragic result of his parents' marriage.

"Speaking of which," Uraraka interjected, "Who else is looking forward to their work studies?"

Just like all the other times when this particular topic became the subject of a conversation she was part of, Momo felt the desire to be anywhere else but in the company of her classmates. Even though she had low hopes of actually managing to find a respectable pro hero who would be willing to take her in, she had dutifully filled in dozens of work studies requests and even taken the extra step of writing letters to many of the agencies she had applied to. All she had received were negative responses; some had outright questioned her credentials, while others had claimed they wanted her to work for them but then come up various excuses to avoid doing so, and still others hadn't responded at all. "I'd be looking forward to work studies if any agency would bother to take me in," she complained to the other girls.

Hagakure was quick to try to comfort her, for all the difference it would make. "I'm sure everything will work out, Yaomomo. I mean, I'm literally invisible, and Mount Lady still noticed me." This sort of response was what she'd come to expect from her classmates, regardless of gender, on the few occasions she'd try to vent about her life issues to them. They didn't understand that whether she got a work study or not was determined not by her own merits, but by complete strangers whose perceptions of her were determined largely, if not entirely, from what they'd heard through various forms of media. No self-respecting agency wanted to be associated with her and risk having their reputation tainted, especially at a time when faith in heroes was at such a low. The only worthwhile connection in the hero industry she had left was Gang Orca, but it wouldn't do her much good: he had firmly told her that he had plans to focus exclusively on Kyoka as his apprentice, in part because his increasing workload meant he had less time to dedicate to subordinates, but no doubt also influenced by the fact Kyoka had a better reputation in the industry than she did. Once again, she had been dismissed and cast aside while her peers received praise and admiration.

"Maybe Yaomomo could focus on stuff like photoshoots if she wants to attract attention from an agency, ribbit." You have no idea of how beauty can be a double-edged sword, Asui. While Momo could fully understand where she was coming from, she now regarded her physical attractiveness as a curse rather than blessing. For her, it meant that she was now being seen as someone who sold her sex appeal to earn undeserved popularity, even after her costume change. It was one of the most frequently raised points against her in the litany of false accusations she now faced on a daily basis. Beauty was a hindrance rather than help in this new, post-war world, where the keys to succeeding in the hero industry was not in sexual appeal, but in how capable and heroic one was-or rather, how capable and heroic one appeared to be.

"If we're being frank, we all know the Golden Trio is going to get the best offers anyways." Ashido pointed out. The "Golden Trio" was the Hell Class's own equivalent of the Big Three, comprised of Midoriya, Bakugo, and Uraraka. How Bakugo had earned a place on such a pedestal would remain a mystery for Momo. His behavior was standoffish and crude at the best of times, and he had been downright despicable when she'd first met him: she still remembered when he ignored Yagi-sensei's warnings during their first training exercise and used what would have been a fatal attack on Midoriya if the latter hadn't evaded in time. Uraraka was rather more understandable as a candidate, though she generally remained humble about her newfound acclaim within the school.

"Aw, thanks! But I'm already set on Ryukyu. She gave me an invitation to work for her whenever I wanted!"

There was bitter irony for Momo in knowing that Uraraka, the girl raised in poverty who had clawed her way to the best hero academy Japan had to offer, was now someone of much higher overall social status than her. While the heiress to one of Japan's largest zaibatsu conglomerates was languishing under a wave of false accusations, the daughter of a couple who owned a failing construction company was rising to prominence as a promising future heroine, with a Top Ten hero in her corner to provide her with all the opportunities she needed. If Uraraka had ever secretly resented her for her lavish lifestyle-she was ashamed to realize that the brunette was still not comfortable around her, even after two and a half years-she was certainly getting her payback and then some.

Kyoka added her own two cents. "I'm going to follow the trend of sticking with mentors we're used to and go with Gang Orca; after the Creature Rejection Clan attack that happened during my internship there with Yaomomo, I feel I have to do something to help others with mutation quirks, whether they be heroes or civilians."

"Wasn't Midoriya the one who handled that incident, ribbit?" Asui asked. Momo was disappointed, but not at all surprised, to hear that her ranine classmate had little idea of what really had gone down that afternoon. Just as she had feared, media coverage of the incident had revolved primarily around Midoriya's last-minute intervention, as well as the efforts of the police who had intervened in the first critical moments and stood against the CRC. Little mention was made of most of the other heroes, and no mention whatsoever was made of her; it had been simply too awkward for the media to acknowledge her own important role so soon after she'd been lambasted publicly.

"He was the one to really put a stop to it, but there were a lot of other hero students present. I was there, Yaomomo was there with me, I think Shiozaki from the other class was there as well. All of us played our part."

Yet it was the most celebrated member of our class who got all the credit. To be fair to Midoriya, he wasn't entirely happy about the situation either, lamenting that all the tabloids had edited out the parts where he'd praised the works of others during the incident. He had also conducted an interview for a television broadcast a few days later, during which he'd publicly condemned the Creature Rejection Clan for their discriminatory views and had also spoken about the corruption within hero system that had galvanized the Stainists in the first place. Momo recalled that Midoriya started to openly discuss issues with society during and after the Paranormal Liberation War, and it now appeared he was starting to actually do something about it, using his newfound fame and reputation as an opportunity to advocate for much-needed social changes. It was only a matter of misfortune that such a paradigm shift, seemingly towards social equality, was further ruining her reputation as part of its collateral damage.

She could still recall the audience chanting her name at the Cultural Festival two years ago as she performed on the stage alongside Kyoka, Bakugo, Tokoyami and Kaminari, back before the war, back before wealth and glamour hadn't become synonymous with corruption and decadence. It was now a bitter memory. The applause had never been about what she could do as a hero-her first Sports Festival had ensured she would never get her due in that aspect. It had all been about her attractiveness. Now, with her attractiveness only leading to further questions about whether she'd relied at least in part on sex appeal to make it into the hero course, she could not expect to receive any sort of positive reception if she was to perform on a stage. It had led to her dropping out of the band entirely a few weeks ago, forcing the remaining members to find a new keyboard player and further driving her and Kyoka apart.

"Speaking of Deku-" Momo had no idea why Uraraka continued to use that name for him when off the clock- "I've heard from him that there's something big coming up for his own work study, but it's not something he can talk about, so please don't bother him too much about what he's going to be up to."

"Probably something to do with the recent confirmation of Re-Destro being loose again, ribbit." Apparently, the former CEO of Detnerat had managed to escape from Tartarus, which was understandable seeing as the facility had been damaged beyond repair when All for One had broken out. There was much discussion about whether he'd attempt to raise the Meta Liberation Army for a third time, though considering he had been permanently crippled by Shigaraki when the two had clashed and had lost his prosthetic replacement legs during the Gunga Mountain Raid, he was now much less of a physical threat.

They continued talking about various subjects for another few hours before several of them started to become drowsy, prompting Momo to turn off the lights so that they could all go to bed. As the other five female students of the Hell Class gradually drifted off into slumber around her, she found herself unable to do the same. Sleep rarely came easy for her these days; she just had too many issues to occupy her mind with as she lay in her luxurious bed. Even cuddling with her female classmates didn't help this time around.

She was supposed to be the big sister of the group. She was the one who made sure everyone had studied properly before tests, the one who the other girls often entrusted with their day-to-day problems, the person who notified the faculty if one of them fell ill, the person whose responsibility was to help the other female students (and more than a few male students) find happiness or success in their lives. That role didn't address the question of whether she'd be able to find happiness or success for herself.

------

"Class 3-A Group 3, your exercise starts now." Upon hearing the announcement, Momo stepped forwards out onto Ground Gamma, quickly followed by three of her classmates.

Today's training exercise was a relatively complex one. The class was divided into five groups of four (with one group having five members); each group would then be sent into a simulated mass villain attack, where they would have to find an unknown number of automated dummies that were standing in for civilians and direct them towards or carry them to the pre-assigned safe zone within the set time limit of thirty minutes, all the while defending them from area hazards and possible villain attacks. As usual, robots of varying forms would be playing the role of villains, but the greater threat would come from whichever U.A teacher was randomly assigned to play the role of the villain leader. Each group would be evaluated on how well they handled the rescue operation as well as how effectively they dealt with the villains; teams that had destroyed more robots or managed to "arrest" whichever faculty member they were facing would receive higher scores in that regard, but there was a minimum percentage of civilian rescues needed to successfully complete the exercise, and focusing largely on combat would thus result in failure.

The first two groups had already completed their exercises, and Momo had kept a close eye on them, analyzing what they did correctly and where they had made errors. Group one happened to be the only five-person team, led by Midoriya and with Asui, Sero, Shinso and Shoji as its members, and facing off against Yamada-sensei. They passed the exercise in twenty minutes, Shinso keeping Yamada-sensei occupied and eventually provoking a response out of him to end that confrontation, while the rest alternated between combat and rescue roles as needed.

The second group, consisting of Uraraka, Sato, Aoyama and Mineta, had gone up against Snipe-sensei and come close to victory but failed, in large part due to a lack of effective cooperation between Uraraka (the group's leader) and Mineta; even though the latter had matured since his early days, he was still enough of a pervert to take advantage of unexpected opportunities to ogle a female student's "physical assets", even if she happened to be the leader of the team he was part of during a training exercise. Momo had had more than her fair share of experiences with Mineta, including one incident during her first, inauspicious Sports Festival when he'd attached himself to her and wedged his face into her rear. Needless to say, she was glad to not have him on her team.

This wasn't to say that her own group's composition was without its problems. It was comprised of herself, Kaminari, Iida and Hagakure; certainly not a lineup she'd have chosen if she had anything to say about it. At least our group is fairly well-balanced in terms of quirks. There was one generalist who could be expected to cover nearly all scenarios and roles effectively: herself. The other members of the group were far less well-rounded individually, much to her dissatisfaction, but if she could get them to work as parts of a whole they could cover each other's weaknesses. Kaminari was likely the least intelligent student in the class, but his Electrification was one of the most powerful and long-ranged offensive quirks around. More important, however, was Hagakure's presence on the team; she was the undisputed best in class when it came to stealth operations, something that had never been the strongest suite for most students of the Hell Class. That left Iida, the physical fighter of her team and also its most potentially problematic member.

Momo had a long history with Iida. Not only were they vice-representative and class representative respectively, but Iida was, like Shoto, someone she had met on various occasions throughout her childhood due to upper-class societal functions. The Iidas were the longest-lasting lineage of pro heroes in the world, giving them great cachet in the industry. He was academically quite intelligent, and he was one of the best offensive melee combatants of the Hell Class, his familial Engine quirk giving him blistering speed on foot and immense kicking power. In terms of his own abilities, he was actually the most capable member of the group after herself.

No, the problem with having Iida as a member of her team was that he was likely to undermine her authority, especially since she didn't have much of it to start with. With his proven pedigree, commanding stature, loud voice, and immense heroic drive, he oozed charisma. Furthermore, as he was the class representative, there was an unspoken assumption among most of the Hell Class that his word outranked that of any other student unless Midoriya was involved, in which case he would be the one to follow. The rest of the time, her classmates almost always favored Iida over anyone else when critical group decisions had to be made, never mind that the only reason he was class representative was because Midoriya had handed him the position, in spite of the fact Momo had the second most votes after Midoriya and that the position was thus rightfully hers.

Sure enough, the moment her group reached their designated safe zone and took cover in an adjacent building to get organized, Iida immediately assumed that he was in charge and started issuing orders. His plan was to focus almost entirely on civilian evacuation, using his speed to cover ground quickly and carry the "civilians" to the designated safety zone, while Hagakure snuck around in order to keep the enemy occupied looking for her and Kaminari would used wide-ranging electrical attacks to keep them at bay. As for Momo, she would, once again, be restricted to sitting back in the safe zone and providing the others with equipment as necessary.

It was a heroic plan. It was the sort of plan that Midoriya would have approved for being willing to put civilian safety first and foremost. But it was also a risky plan. Iida had come up with his strategy based on the unspoken assumption that whichever teacher they were facing was someone who'd be incapable of handling his mobility, and that was far from a certainty. If he ended up having to fight against Thirteen-sensei, Maijima-sensei or, heaven forbid, Principal Nedzu, his effectiveness would be massively curtailed and the plan would be rendered ineffective. She needed to remind him who the leader of their group was and prevent him from enacting his plan before she could be certain it would be viable.

So, before Kaminari or Hagakure could start acting on Iida's directions, Momo mustered up the courage to challenge the consensus and spoke up as loudly as she dared. "That is a poor plan, Ingenium! It has a notable flaw that, unless it is addressed, could cause it to unravel at a single stroke."

For a moment, nobody said anything. Everyone seemed shocked at the idea she had authority in this situation or that she'd want to exercise it. Finally, Hagakure broke the silence, her normally energetic voice strained as she questioned why she couldn't just head out and start doing as Iida had told her to do. "Uh...what's wrong with his plan?"

Iida seemed frustrated at what he saw as her insubordination. "It must be recognized that our time is at a premium, Creati! We need to start rescuing the civilians immediately before they are put in even greater danger!" He yelled, his arms flailing about as they did whenever he got animated. Momo felt deflated, but she would not back down; she couldn't afford to if she wanted to escape playing second fiddle for the umpteenth time. In spite of nominally being the vice-representative of the Hell Class, she only really had much actual authority over her classmates when Midoriya and Iida were both absent, and this extended into most group training exercises. She wasn't going to stand for it this time.

"How can you be so certain that we're not facing an opponent who can easily counter your speed, Ingenium?" She fired back. "Your plan relies on your mobility allowing you to quickly find civilians and extract them. But some of the faculty at U.A are more than capable of restricting or even negating your mobility. How do you expect your plan to work if we're facing one of them?"

"The purpose of this exercise is not to fight villains, but to rescue civilians! Why concern yourself with trying to stop the enemy?" But it was clear, from the way his arms were slowing down, that Iida was starting to waver. She looked him in the eye, performing her best Bakugo impression as she did so, and proceeded to quickly shut him down.

"With all due respect, I am the appointed the leader of this group. You are not. This isn't our classroom. If you want to rush into things without thinking of potential weaknesses with your plan, be my guest, but don't you dare bring down the rest of the team with you."

Iida tried to say something in response, but he stammered, unable to articulate a logical counterargument. That was all the hesitation she needed to take control. "Invisible Girl, go and try to find where the villain leader is, where the civilians are located, where the largest concentrations of villains are and the paths they could take to move between key positions. Keep an eye out for any enemy infrared sensors or other defenses." In the absence of anything else to do, Hagakure was quick to follow her commands, waiting for a patrolling one-pointer to move off before quickly and quietly slipping out of the building. That's that dealt with, I guess. All Momo had to do now was to keep everyone else under control until she'd received the information she needed to set up her own plan.

"What now?" Kaminari asked her.

"We wait for Invisible Girl to report back," she replied, as she created a drone equipped with a camera, set up part of her HUD to display the live video feed from it, and sent it aloft through an open window. The drone provided an alternative method of scouting that could cover more ground than Hagakure could on foot, albeit at the cost of stealth, while also hopefully drawing enemy attention away from her to further aid her efforts at espionage. Simultaneously, Momo was also using the drone for any potential airborne or anti-air defenses; if the drone came under attack, she'd know for sure that she would have to prepare countermeasures for when she herself would enter the fray.

Of course, the drone not being attacked-which was proving to be the case-wouldn't mean she'd be completely safe in the air. For all she knew, the enemy could just be holding their fire to get her to drop her guard. But that wasn't something she'd be able to confirm until she directly got involved.

So she prepared herself for the battle ahead, keeping in mind that she wanted to create the Flight II version of her suit and not the now-familiar Flight I as her armaments and her new jetpack emerged from the opened apertures of her bodysuit. This time she opted for a pair of her new autocannons to fit over her arms instead of her usual pair of rifles, for she felt it was necessary to get a good handle on how the unfamiliar weapon functioned in a simulated combat environment. Nowadays it took only a few seconds for her to fully gear up, but not preparing herself ahead of time was something she considered a cardinal sin. During a mission those precious seconds could make the difference between life or death, success or failure, victory or defeat.

Just at that moment, Hakagure rushed through the door, panting. "We're up against Maijima-sensei," she reported breathlessly.

The moment Iida heard who their group was up against, his face paled; Maijima-sensei was someone who could directly counter his mobility by excavating into the ground and destabilizing the terrain, as he would know all too well from prior experience. He may have been uncompromising, even authoritarian at times, but he was also intelligent. He knew that there were scenarios where he had to admit he'd been wrong, and this was one of them. There was no longer a question of leadership now; Momo would take over command.

"They likely pitted him against us specifically to counter Ingenium," she began by saying. "But Ingenium isn't who they're going to have to worry about. We're going to win this, without losing any of our own and with the absolute minimum civilian casualties." She then asked Hagakure, "Have you observed where most of the civilians are located?"

"They're mostly located close to where Maijima-sensei is," replied her invisible teammate.

That would mean we have to either sneak them out unnoticed, draw the focus of both Maijima-sensei and the robots elsewhere, or both. "Do you feel confident in being able to head back in there and extract the civilians to a safer location, all while unnoticed?"

"I'm sure I could get in there and find all the civilians, even tell them where to go, or carry them on my back one at a time" Hagakure began, "but I won't be able to get most of them out without the enemy noticing where they're going."

Then someone would need to provide a distraction. Momo now turned to Iida. "Ingenium, I know you have issues facing off against Maijima-sensei in a direct assault, but how well would you do if he was in pursuit of you and you had a head start?"

"I believe that is manageable. I can run much faster than he can tunnel, and while I wouldn't be able to directly attack him through unstable terrain, I would be able to keep him occupied." He replied, appearing to catch onto the gist of her plan.

The pieces now fell into place in her mind. Instead of relying on speed and single-minded focus to ensure a safe evacuation of civilians, she would go for a stealthy approach combined with misdirection and a greater focus on taking the fight to the enemy. Hagakure would be the key to the operation. The robots, equipped with motion-detecting sensors, were not capable of detecting her directly, and this made her ideal for being able to enter contested territory and evacuate the "civilians" there, directing them (at least, those who were still self-motile) into a safe staging area that had been scoped out earlier from the drone survey so that they could be easily brought into the safe zone in convoy-like groups. Such an obvious concentration of civilians would, of course, require a powerful defender, which is where Kaminari came in; he would play a more defensive role similar to what Iida had in mind for him, in addition to serving as a human defibrillator if necessary. Both Hagakure and Kaminari had outgoing, upbeat personalities, and this made them well-suited to comforting civilians and getting them to cooperate with would-be rescuers. They were dealing with dummies here, not actual civilians, but the way they interacted with people was still part of the scoring system, and it gave her another reason to provide these two with roles that would mostly involve working directly with evacuees.

The other half of the team, including Momo, would focus more heavily on combating the villains, though they would assist with rescues as needed. Iida's role was to deal with any robots that may interfere with Hagakure's civilian extraction operation, keeping them occupied and attriting their numbers. With his speed, he could reposition himself quickly to assist either Hagakure or Kaminari if either of them ran into any unexpected developments, and pull them to safety if the need arose. He would also keep Maijima-sensei distracted, always remaining just one step out of his reach while daring him to attack him. While Iida would be unable to outright defeat the Excavation Hero, he wouldn't need to on this occasion; that job would be reserved for Momo herself. She'd have to command and fight at the same time, something that required an extreme level of multitasking, but her greatest asset-the very thing that allowed her to use a quirk as complex as Creation-was her finely honed mind, able to split her focus without losing effectiveness. Let's do this.

Now confident with the strategy she had in mind, she began to give out her orders. "Invisible Girl, try to sneak into the most heavily contested areas and coax out civilians, directing them to the major intersection thirty-three meters from here. Move carefully, and if you find any civilians that have to be carried to safety, report their location and either myself or Ingenium will come for them as soon as either of us are able to." She then turned to Kaminari. "Chargebolt, move to the large road junction I just mentioned and hold position there until civilians arrive. Direct them here, escorting them if necessary, and use long-range attacks to ensure that no villains can outflank either your position or the safe zone." As she said this, she pulled two pairs of infrared goggles out of her arms, handing one of them over to her blonde teammate. "Take one of these with you so you can keep track of Invisible Girl's whereabouts. And make sure to move out that door at the same time as Invisible Girl, and open and close the door for her while doing so."

If Hagakure went out by herself, the door seemingly moving on its own would make obvious that she was on the loose. But if she and Kaminari left their refuge at the same time, with the latter opening and closing the door, it would make it unclear whether she was in the field or not. Small details like this could make a surprising amount of difference, and Momo wasn't about to leave things to chance if she could help it.

Now it was up to her and Iida to enact their own parts of the overall plan. She passed the other set of infrared goggles over to him; she herself did not need one, as her HUD came with a thermal imaging feature. "Ingenium, use your speed to travel throughout the city and draw the focus of the villains away from the civilians. Assist directly with the evacuation efforts only as needed-in regards to the latter, keep an ear out for Invisible Girl's requests or further orders from me. Try to bait a response from Maijima-sensei, but avoid engaging him directly and prioritize supporting Invisible Girl."

"And what would your responsibilities be, Creati?" Iida asked her as he put his helmet on, completely hiding his face.

"I will supervise civilian extraction and evacuation efforts from above and redirect the rest of you to alternative locations as needed. I will jam enemy communications so they can't overhear our movements. I will provide long-range air support to keep any potential attackers off your back. And above all else, I will neutralize the enemy by defeating Maijima-sensei myself."

Moments later, the two of them opened the front door and kicked into action. Their bold approach immediately caught the attention of several robots-all according to her plan. Iida ran out ahead, quickly leaving a trail of wreckage behind him as he tore through most of the robots in the immediate proximity to their safe zone, then headed off towards Hagakure's location to keep her covered. Soon, the first wave of evacuees began heading towards safety in a sizable group, their metallic would-be tormentors far too preoccupied with the future Turbo Hero to do anything about it.

Momo, too, had found herself in the thick of the action. Maijima-sensei, apparently realizing that eliminating Kaminari would allow him to go after civilians that had already been evacuated, was sending various one and two-pointers in his direction. But much like the Stainists she had faced during her internship, these robots were easy pickings to anyone who could both fly and attack from a safe distance. By now, she had completely mastered using neural interface technology, and there was little functional difference between her physical body and her equipment and weaponry. Adjusting her mechanical wings felt no more unnatural than taking a step or reaching out to grab something with her hands. Once fully equipped, and coupled with the ability to replace each individual component with her quirk as necessary, she was transformed into a swift-moving aerial weapons platform that could resupply herself for as long as her lipids remained. She was part human, part machine, and all dangerous, tearing apart most of the robots sent against Kaminari with her new autocannons before they even had a time to target her. The few that did manage to get past her fell quickly to Kaminari's own electrical attacks, and with his position still secure, so was the safety of the civilians he was defending.

In the following five to six minutes Momo began to probe deeper into enemy airspace, picking off a few robots here and there with her weaponry, acting as an eye in the sky for her teammates and redirecting them as needed, providing medical assistant to dummies that simulated injured civilians, and even offering impromptu airlifts for "civilians" that were unable to move on their own or were largely inaccessible on foot. At one point, she flew over Hagakure and was pleased to see her playing her part well, and was notified by Iida that he'd activated Reciprocate Turbo-which he could now maintain for fifteen minutes at a time-to cover ground more efficiently. Everything was going according to plan, but she couldn't shake off the feeling something bad was about to go down, a feeling that only intensified when she saw that Maijima-sensei hadn't moved from his position, in spite of Iida posing a tempting target.

What she noticed next was a sight that sent chills down her spine.

Over twenty three-pointer robots, with all their missile pods aimed as far upwards as they would go, were surrounding Maijima-sensei, alongside a large number of one and two-pointers and even a zero-pointer. She'd been outmaneuvered. He had been waiting specifically for her to show up, having kept much of his forces including his most powerful robots in reserve to greet her, while refusing to leave himself open to attack by going after Iida as she'd expected. She was glad she hadn't yet been noticed, and even more glad that Melissa's work over the summer had included contingencies for scenarios like this, but having to use them for the first time in the middle of a training exercise was not the way she'd wanted to test them.

"Ingenium, the enemy has anti-air missile defenses. I'm confident I can evade them, but won't be available to give orders for the next few minutes. Coordinate with Invisible Girl to evacuate and escort as many civilians to safety as you can while Maijima-sensei is occupied dealing with me. Creati, out." She gave similar orders to Hagakure, then mentally prepared herself to face what would likely be the biggest test of her equipment yet.

Remembering the maxim that a best defense was a good offense, Momo positioned herself for an attack run using her own missiles-not from high above as Maijima-sensei was expecting, but from less than two meters off the ground. Charting a course that would allow her to get off two salvoes before the three-pointers could react, she came in low and fast, firing her first salvo as she flew perpendicularly over a street that provided a line of sight to her targets. Then, still staying low, she took a right turn and accelerated, sending the second salvo of missiles streaking through the air right as she burst through a gap between two buildings, before immediately climbing to safety. She heard many of the three-pointers be blasted apart, but she couldn't tell how many had been destroyed, as she took immediate evasive action the moment she found herself in open air.

Her HUD flashed red, alerting her to incoming bogeys-sixteen in all, approaching from below. They were significantly slower than the missiles she herself was packing in spite of being much larger and thus containing more fuel, testament to how much Melissa had improved upon the design when developing her weaponry. Even unmodified three-pointer missiles were still fast enough to catch her, however. Trying to outfly them wasn't going to work.

The biggest aperture on her bodysuit was located on her stomach, and she opened it up now, releasing Matryoshka dolls from it one after the other. As the dolls dropped, they opened up to release decoy flares. Being heat-seekers, most of the missiles plunged towards the falling decoys, either hitting them and exploding or colliding with each other in the process. But the HUD kept flashing. Momo risked a look back, and saw five missiles still on her tail, much closer than they had been just seconds ago.

Just as three of the five remaining bogeys were about to blast her out of the sky, she entered an aileron roll, causing them to overshoot. She dropped more decoys for them to follow, which they did, and simultaneously descended almost to ground level-the lower she went, the better the odds of the last two bogeys hitting something besides herself. Her greater agility and endurance was the only way she could hope to throw off these missiles. Swerving between streetlights, buildings, and power lines, Momo put as many obstacles between herself and her two pursuers as she could safely risk. All the while, she could hear Iida directing Hagakure towards civilians in the immediate vicinity over her communications and even directly heard the sound of his engines at one point, but she couldn't afford to pay her teammates any attention. She kept going, weaving between apartment blocks and flying through open doors and incomplete buildings, until the warning on her HUD stopped flashing.

Once she was fairly sure that her HUD wasn't being thrown off by her own maneuvers, Momo tentatively risked a spiraling ascent into open air, fully prepared to drop another decoy and run if she, in fact, was still being pursued. But no missile came after her. She'd survived-though she noted that there was now a nasty, discolored scratch on her left wing. I must have cut it just a little too close during one of my maneuvers. It looked ugly, but it wouldn't prevent her from launching a counterstrike to take Maijima-sensei out of the fight once and for all.

Until recently, all of her named moves were focused around support. The only Ultimate Move that Momo had come up with prior to her transition to combat roles, Lucky Bag, was one she used to provide supplies to her allies at a distance, yet another way in which she had helped others and neglected herself. Furthermore, her experience during her internship with Gang Orca had taught her that using just one of her weapons at a time wasn't enough; she needed a new set of named moves to go with her new focus on offensive capability, something with maximum firepower and a large area of effect that was still precise enough to target individual opponents. She had spent much of her summer coming up precisely such an Ultimate Move, and she was ready to put it into action.

"Invisible Girl, Ingenium, are there any remaining civilians in Maijima-sensei's immediate vicinity?" She asked. After a while, both Iida and Hagakure replied back.

"Negative, Creati."

"We managed to find and pull out all of them while that light show was going on above us."

Good. "In that case, both of you should leave the immediate area as soon as possible," she warned them as she climbed higher into the air, circling to maintain momentum once she was at a comfortable altitude. She watched as Iida picked up Hagakure in his arms and hightailed it to another part of Ground Gamma, with Recipro Turbo still in play. The moment they were clear, she entered a power dive, descending like a meteor with all weapon systems online. With gravity on her side she accelerated to a staggering 800km/h according to her speedometer, and when she was only a fifty meters off the ground, she cried out, "Combined Arms Strike!"

At last, Maijima-sensei noticed his mistake and looked up in alarm, but it was too late as Momo opened fire with every weapon at her disposal; a full salvo of twelve missiles now equipped with armor-piercing warheads, repeated rapid-fire bursts from her new autocannons, and laser arrays firing continuously at 100% power outputs. The missiles headed straight for the three-pointers and reduced them to shrapnel, while her guns and lasers swiveled independently to take aim at the smaller one-and two-pointer robots, her HUD making it incredibly easy for her to pick out her targets and inflict precision attacks. Before the last blows of this opening salvo had fallen, she had already climbed up again to regain the vertical room she needed, and in mere seconds she delivered a second, devastating strike, then a third. It was almost cathartic to gaze down upon the destruction she was causing, a litany of destructive, long-ranged attacks wreaking havoc against the mechanical opponents below her until all of them were utterly destroyed.

This was the Combined Arms Strike-an aerial attack where she would create her flight equipment and as many ranged weapons as would safely fit onto her costume, then unleashed all of her firepower upon a large concentration of enemies or against a particularly dangerous or durable opponent. By using different types of ranged weapons or even different forms of specialized ammunition for the same set of weapons, she could adapt the Combined Arms Strike to produce different effects, making it a highly versatile offensive option in addition to being powerful and far-reaching, and with her next costume update planning to include changes to her bodysuit to allow for more and more effective weapons attachments, these advantages would further increase over time.

To his credit, Maijima-sensei had managed to shield himself from the worst of the attack by tunneling underground. But the trail of destabilized terrain he'd left in the process was easy to follow from the air, and her lasers were powerful enough to punch right through the earth and expose him once more. A few more laser strikes cut through his helmet and exoskeleton suit. He was now at her mercy, defeated, though she still made sure to remain just out of reach of his arms and kept all her weapons directly aimed at him. "You're going to create a replacement set of gear for me when this is over," he told her.

"I promise I will, sensei." She replied, smiling, as she generated a roll of capturing tape from her arms and tied up his limbs to his body. "But for the purposes of this exercise, you are under arrest."

Noticing Iida running up to her, she ordered him to gag him and take him away to the building adjacent to the safe zone, before taking flight once more. It was now twenty minutes into the exercise, with ten minutes remaining on the clock. If the reports she had been getting from her teammates were accurate, by now most of the civilians should be in the safe zone. A few scattered groups of robots could be found here and there, and she closed in on the nearest such cluster, trying to find the perfect window for a sure shot. Another few seconds and-

"Invisible Girl here. Chargebolt needs immediate help, NOW!"

Momo quickly abandoned her chase and flew at top speed all the way back to Kaminari's last known location. From what Hagakure was frantically telling her over communications, he'd apparently incapacitated himself with one of his own attacks-a problem he never managed to completely resolve-and now one final wave of mechanical opponents was headed his way, with a Zero-Pointer leading the charge. Iida was currently occupied with the captured Maijima-sensei; it was up to her to stop this last charge of the enemy in its tracks.

She unleashed this Combined Armed Strike so urgently that she forgot to shout out her battlecry, but her silence had no bearing on the effectiveness of her new technique. The Zero-Pointer, being the biggest target and towards the front of the group of robots, took the brunt of her blow. With her missiles punching through its thick, blocky head and lasers cutting through its internal machinery, it quickly lost all electrical power and sensor systems, its metallic frame shattering and twisting into scrap as it fell onto the rest of the platoon. The rest were quickly dealt with as she opened up on them with lasers, especially once Iida re-emerged and joined her in the fight.

For the rest of the exercise Momo occupied Kaminari's defensive position, just in case there were any last-minute surprises about to be sprung on them, but gradually it became clear that the last of the evacuees wouldn't need much defending; between her, Kaminari and Iida, their team had managed to completely eliminate the opposition. They still had four minutes left on the clock when the exercise was declared over, indicating that all of the civilians had been either successfully rescued or evacuated, or become casualties. "Group C, return to the briefing room."

Once their group had made their way back to the viewing area, they were greeted with applause. Momo was asked incessant questions by her other classmates, many of whom had been surprised by the spectacular display of firepower she had used to defeat Maijima-sensei. "That super move was so manly!" Kirishima exclaimed, while both Shoto and Kyoka shook her hands.

Not everyone was as impressed with her performance, however. Bakugo, whose group was up next, frowned at her as he stood with his own team. "You stole that idea off of me, Ponytail, did you not?" She couldn't deny that she'd taken some inspiration from his Howitzer Impact series of moves, but the Combined Arms Strike had much greater range, could target a wider area at once, and could easily be modified to deliver a more potent package of firepower. So, using her greater height to her advantage, Momo glared back at him as she gave her reply.

"My Combined Arms Strike is not an imitation of your Howitzer Impact. It is an improvement."

Bakugo almost looked ready to leap up and deliver an explosive slap to her face, but he dared not escalate, for Yagi-sensei had begun speaking. "Well done, zygotes! Overall, your group did quite well, successfully evacuating seventy-one out of seventy-five civilians; you also successfully captured the villain and destroyed every single one of his robotic minions!" He then stood off to one side as Aizawa-sensei took over and began to address them individually.

"Iida, you were not the leader of your group. Yaoyorozu was. Worse, you nearly doomed your group to failure from the outset by failing to properly assess the risks posed by the villains and the capabilities they may have. Your heroic drive is commendable, but it must be tempered against caution."

Her teammate seemed properly chastised by the criticism. "I will always keep that lesson in mind, sensei!"

Seemingly satisfied with that reaction, Aizawa-sensei now turned his attention to the other members of the team. "Kaminari, your situational awareness still needs a lot of work. The only two civilian casualties during the exercise that were not caused by the mock villains came from you. If you're going to use destructive, wide-ranging attacks, at least follow your leader's example and make sure there aren't any civilians or other heroes in the crossfire before you make your move. Hagakure, you played your part well, but be mindful to coordinate better with your teammates to avoid friendly-fire incidents." As Momo heard her teammates receive criticism, she couldn't hide her own nervousness. Her own evaluation was coming up next, and Aizawa-sensei was far from the most forgiving of instructors.

"And last but not least, Yaoyorozu. Good initial planning, and you quickly managed to salvage the situation and carry the day when your opponent anticipated parts of your plan and laid separate traps for you and Kaminari. However...." His face gradually shifted into a frown; it was clear that he was unhappy with some of her actions during the exercise. What did I do wrong? She pondered. She knew she hadn't caused any civilian casualties, at least not directly, but had she caused excessive collateral damage during her assault against Maijima-sensei or when she was using the terrain to throw off the missiles chasing her?

She got her answer moments later. "You shouldn't have risked sparking a conflict between your teammates, even if you were right to criticize Iida's planning abilities or to take charge as leader." Of all the things she expected to be criticized for, taking charge of the group she was supposed to be leading wasn't on the list. She had saved the entire group from failure by preventing Iida's ill-conceived plan from going ahead, then enacting a better plan of her own. Just moments ago, Aizawa-sensei had criticized Iida specifically for coming up with a flawed plan and trying to overrule her. Yet he was now telling her off for doing what her position had demanded of her.

Noticing the confused look on her face, Aizawa-sensei further gave her a dressing down. "I consider you to be a highly capable leader and tactician, and you have proven that with your strategy during the exercise, but infighting within a group during a mission is one of the fastest routes to failure. Being a good leader requires that you be able to keep your team together. You should have allowed Iida to take charge, listened, and then presented your case to override him once he had finished." If her homeroom teacher thought that was actually going to get Iida to change his mind or submit to her authority, he didn't know Iida nearly as well as he thought he did, nor did he understand the social dynamics within the class he was supposed to be in charge of. Had he not seen that she wasn't Kaminari's or Hagakure's first choice as the team leader, and that they were already on the verge of enacting Iida's plan before she had interrupted? That she had far less authority over her classmates than most vice-representatives had, because most of them were more willing to follow other students? That she had no choice but to be assertive if she wanted to have any involvement in the decision-making process?

Heedless of what he might have missed, her teacher continued his scathing criticism of her. "Furthermore, you put yourself at unnecessary risk by heading out into danger with the others. In battle you're an eggshell with a hammer, relying almost entirely on offense and evasion without much ability to withstand powerful blows in return. Had things gone even slightly differently when you initially engaged Maijima-sensei, not only would you have risked failing the exercise, you would be looking at a visit to Recovery Girl, possibly followed by an expulsion for reckless behavior. Worse, you're relying on your equipment to fight far more aggressively than what your body can handle. Your quirk is extremely versatile and does have indirect combat applications by creating weaponry, I'll give you that, but what you've been doing with it throughout your third year is not the most logical use for it. You had Kaminari on your team, who is ideal for tackling robots thanks to his quirk; it would have been more logical to have allowed him to go on the offensive."

Two years ago, Aizawa-sensei had been the adult in her life who had shown her she was far more powerful than most people assumed. Now, the decision she'd made in large part due to what he had shown her was being met with his disapproval. It was a betrayal that cut deeply, especially as it was hypocritical for him to demand she relegate herself to the sidelines because of her quirk. His own quirk was ideal for a supporting role, nullifying the quirks of villains so his allies could defeat and capture them, yet he'd rejected such a role in favor of defeating and capturing those same villains himself. She had chosen to do much the same by going from increasing the combat capabilities of others by creating equipment to increasing her own combat abilities by creating weapons for herself.

As her teacher moved off and Bakugo's group headed out to change into their costumes, Momo silently seethed. She had held Aizawa-sensei in high esteem ever since her first-term final exam, but now that respect was rapidly eroding away. What if you end up fighting someone with a mutation quirk, sensei? What if you're ambushed from behind where you can't get a line of sight? Does that mean you should never have become an underground hero who operates alone?

------

Somehow, in spite of seemingly the entire world doing its best to sabotage her, Momo still managed to graduate U.A as one of the most capable heroes it had ever produced.

That had no impact in the slightest as to how she was perceived by society.

Officially, Momo Yaoyorozu was up there with the Golden Trio when it came to overall combined performance in both academics and heroics, and at the absolute top of her entire year when it came to academics alone. Unofficially, but "truthfully"-or so the public thought-she was someone who had cheated her way into the Hell Class on family connections, someone whose final grade had come through corruption, bribery, and sex appeal, someone who was carried to the finish line by her classmates and was at most a useful support member for the more combat-capable heroes.

Despite being one of the most outstanding members of the class on paper, Momo had received no employment offers from well-established agencies. The majority of what few offers she did get were from low-ranked agencies with poor track records, desperate to get their hands on any alumnus of the Hell Class just for the publicity. Once again, she wasn't surprised at the way she was being seen by would-be employers, for it was simply more of the same treatment she had been receiving throughout her time at U.A. Why would any hero running an agency want to choose her, when she had so few internships and work studies in her resume, when they believed that her credentials may be fraudulent and that she was at most another support hero who could only help the "proper" heroes, especially when there were so many other, better-regarded new heroes from the same graduating class?

My parents had been so proud of me for making it into U.A, and look at what I've done to them. Her parents had remained faithfully by her side through the entire debacle, only to be forced to watch as their daughter, their family name, and their reputation were dragged through the mud by the media. What had happened to them when they'd turned up earlier in the evening for her graduation would haunt her nightmares forever. Only moments after they took their seats, they were quickly identified, harassed, and threatened by numerous other visitors, including the parents of her classmates. In the end, they had been pursued all the way back to the limousine they'd arrived in by an angry mob and cornered there until campus security arrived, allowing them to escape from the campus.

Even U.A itself had subtly turned against her and her family. Though Momo was the valedictorian for her year, she had received none of the privileges that a valedictorian of U.A would typically receive. Her award was not presented to her at the ceremony as per custom, but had been quietly mailed to her family estate days earlier; as far as the audience was concerned, there wasn't a valedictorian for this graduating class. The official reason Nedzu gave for this unusual arrangement was that if she went onstage for any longer than a few seconds, the audience may have been riled up enough to try something reckless and endanger her life. Unspoken was the fact the U.A administration wanted to distance themselves from her to save what was left of their prestige.

And the school's reputation was set to rise once more, for the Hell Class had become the most celebrated graduating class of heroes in history. Its most famous and capable students-or at least those who the public saw as capable-had received a flood of requests and job offers from various agencies. Midoriya, in particular, had been so inundated with offers that he hadn't even managed to open most of them yet; some of his classmates had been helping him sort them out for several days now. The greatest offer of all was from Yagi-sensei himself, which would allow Midoriya to take over as the head of Might Tower and all but confirm his position as his successor. It was a choice that he was still mulling over. A much as he admired Yagi-sensei, what Midoriya truly desired was to surpass him and make up for his predecessor's mistakes. It was why he had taken to calling himself the Symbol of Hope, rather than the "new Symbol of Peace" as the media generally referred to him.

Many of her other classmates would likely go far in the future, even if they had significantly fewer offers. Bakugo was skipping the sidekick stage entirely; he had been handpicked by the Genius Agency as a full-fledged hero, since Best Jeanist's failing health meant someone else would need to take over much of his duties. Uraraka had secured her employment under Ryukyu months ahead of time. Kirishima would be working under Fat Gum. Kyoka, as Momo had long expected, had been granted a sidekick position under Gang Orca, but she already had ambitious plans to establish her own agency in a few year's time and to start a second career as a musician. Mineta, of all people, had managed to get himself hired by the Lurkers, though they'd made it abundantly clear that he was expected to be on his best behavior if he wanted to keep his sidekick position. Shinso had received zero offers from agencies, but he was fine with that, since his quirk's parameters all but demanded he work in the underground anyways. Iida was taking over as the new head of Team Iidaten, to no one's surprise, and Momo was secretly offended that he wasn't being criticized for nepotism even as she was suffering under so many false charges of corruption.

The graduation ceremony had ended almost an hour ago, but the chaos of celebration was only just unfolding as a massive graduation party got underway in the common area. The less responsible members of the Hell Class had even broken out alcoholic beverages. Normally, either herself or Iida, or even Midoriya, would be trying to reign them in, but both Iida and Midoriya had joined in the celebrations themselves, and at the moment she was still too shaken up by what had happened to her parents. While she lay in fetal position on a couch, Shoji and Tokoyami-both slightly inebriated but still maintaining most of their mental faculties-were discussing their future plans on the other end of the furniture. Tokoyami would be off to Kyushu tomorrow, headed for Hawks's agency in Fukuoka. His new posting was the most prestigious position out of any of their classmates. In spite of the negative publicity he had received for his killing of the villain Twice under questionable circumstances during the Paranormal Liberation War, Hawks had ascended back to the top of the hero rankings following Endeavor's fall from grace, and his recent missions against the resurgent Creature Rejection Clan had seen him shine brighter than ever before. He was the current Number One Hero, and as his most recent sidekick-and a very powerful and versatile one at that-Tokoyami was in a position where he would be very likely to break into the Top Ten himself down the line.

It was one more bit of irony to her life that the one who had led to her downfall chose that exact moment to start singing her praises. "A toast! For Yaoyorozu-san!" Tokoyami crowed, with some of her other classmates joining in. "I could never have conquered the darkness of our time at this school and entered the light of adulthood if not for her. Her brilliance and ingenuity is second to none, and I am proud to have had her as my class's vice-representative." So this is how you treat her? By making her appear to be a failure in front of an international audience? By setting into motion a chain of events that eventually cost her everything she has worked towards? By causing her entire three-year heroics education to be wasted? Tokoyami may have flattered her by calling himself her disciple, but none of that was going to change what his actions had done to her, how he had thoughtlessly destroyed her future in what he still considered to have been an act of mercy. If she said anything to interrupt someone who was complimenting her, however, it would quickly sour the mood of the party. She still had a duty to serve as the vice-representative of the Hell Class for one final night. So, for the sake of everyone else, she tried to calm herself down.

No matter how hard she tried, however, she couldn't find it in herself to get out of her funk and enjoy the party. All around her, her now ex-classmates were in a state of giddiness and excitement in the knowledge their careers as heroes were about to begin, showing little concern for their vice-representative's plight. She had sacrificed so much and gone out of her way repeatedly for her classmates, much more so than Iida had. Some of them would likely have failed the course without her. But now, they were all leaving her behind to start their own, fulfilling adult lives, and they would undoubtably overshadow her in the process and leave her to rot. She knew they didn't mean it-that they simply couldn't understand, would never understand her struggles-but that didn't make it any more bearable to be around them.

So she got up and left the party, brushing aside any startled classmates who happened to be in her way.

Once Momo had reached the stairs just outside the common area, she kept on going, following the stairwell upwards all the way to the rooftop of Heights Alliance. Once there she continued on to the very edge of the roof, only stopping when there was nowhere for her to go any further. Momo sat down on the edge of the building and, free from company at last and no longer able to withhold her emotions, she began to cry.

What had been the point of trying to overcome every setback, putting in more effort than anyone else to compensate for having been held back and forced to regress, if all of my efforts were going to come to naught, rendered irrelevant simply because nobody was willing to recognize my potential?

Why was it that trying to right the wrongs of the past invariably led to new wrongs and created new victims?

She must have been crying for over ten minutes when a dark thought struck her: Maybe I should just end it all. It would be so easy to simply lean forwards beyond that tipping point and fall to the concrete foundations below. The eternal release of death certainly seemed like a more attractive proposition than facing the grim reality of her dead-on-arrival hero career. Perhaps it would even make people realize that she had been a victim of the hero system, not someone who had willingly taken advantage of it for her own gain. Becoming a martyr, a symbol of how society had failed her, arguably had a much greater chance of bringing about positive change and making a difference than trying to work as a hero only to be denied the chance to contribute.

"Yaoyorozu."

She looked up and saw Shoto taking a seat next to her. She had neither expected nor wanted companionship when she'd climbed all the way up here, but Shoto was the only other student who truly understood her predicament, in large part because he had found himself in the same boat. For the next several minutes they leaned against each other in silence, away from their classmates partying far below them. Neither of them were much for conversation, but it was part of why they got along so well.

Eventually her companion broke the silence first. "I might be able to find you a position where you could be accepted as the great hero you've become." Momo snorted upon hearing that. Like herself, Shoto had failed to attract any particularly good offers from established agencies, and it was preposterous to think that he would be able to recommend another, similarly controversial rookie hero to a major agency.

Despite her skepticism, he continued to explain his idea. "Once Endeavor Agency-my agency- recovers to the point it can accept new hires, I could bring you onboard. Not as a sidekick, or someone in the support department, but as a hero on the front lines." Endeavour had been forced into retirement after the war, having been crippled permanently and with his reputation forever stained. His agency had largely collapsed in the aftermath, and as its inheritor Shoto had been shackled with the task of picking up the pieces and starting over from scratch. While nobody assumed that he was incompetent in the way they wrongly believed she was, he was still generally seen as being unfit to be a hero simply due to what he represented.

"You don't have to risk your career by taking me under your wing," she protested. The last time she had collaborated with another promising talent with an undeserved bad reputation, she had only added to Melissa's troubles. She couldn't do that to another one of her friends.

"I know where you're coming from," he acknowledged. "It's not going to be easy, for either of us. With our reputations so poor, we will need to work ten times as hard to get half as far as some of our esteemed classmates. But if there's anyone in our class not named Midoriya who can accomplish the impossible, it's the two of us. My offer will remain open for as long as you want it to be." And just like that, Shoto left her and returned to the party below, leaving Momo alone once more but a bit more relaxed than she'd been previously.

It wasn't long, however, before she heard another student approach her. This time, it was Midoriya. "I thought you might be hanging out up here after seeing Shoto come down the stairwell," he explained. "Congratulations on making valedictorian, by the way; Kacchan wouldn't stop complaining about losing out to you for that spot."

"I don't need company or even my valedictorian position." She growled. "I need a half-decent workplace position and for people to stop considering me as someone who is unqualified for hero work."

"I'm sure you'll be fine. You're one of the best of us. Agencies should be lining up to hire you." He replied, smiling.

"If you haven't noticed yet, maybe because you were too busy digging through your gigantic stack of offers, those same agencies are going out of their way to avoid me," she bluntly replied.

"Maybe your offers just haven't arrived yet," Midoriya suggested, but it was clear that he was saying this only in a vain effort to cheer her up. As well-meaning as Midoriya was-and really, when did he ever bear ill will towards anyone?- she had grown tired of his optimism. It was causing him to fail to understand her situation, even as he made his best efforts to do so. He'd just couldn't grasp that the world was far too unfair for one's dedication and effort to always be justly rewarded.

Momo felt ashamed for having increasingly negative opinions towards one of the few classmates who had tried to help her out. She knew that she had no right to think of Midoriya as a bad person simply because he was too heroic to understand that the world at large was not a heroic place. But right now, she needed more from him that just reassurances and hope. Had anyone ever given him the same lesson her parents had taught her so long ago? Had he ever been told that one's future prospects were not dependent on who they were or what they were capable of, but on how the people who determined their windows of opportunity saw them?

"You have to understand, Midoriya, not everyone is a quirk analyst of your skill level. You knew how much power was at my disposal the moment you realized what my quirk was, but you don't get to decide whether I get hired by an agency or not. As long as the people in charge of that fail to see my worth, my capabilities might as well not exist."

"Then it's their loss for throwing away someone with as much potential as you have." He replied. "All that matters is that you know how capable you really are."

"What I think or know about myself is irrelevant to my future prospects!" Momo snapped back at him. "Yes, it's their loss-but it's my loss, too, because it means other people will think lesser of me, and continue thinking that because I don't have as many opportunities to prove myself. Being a great hero isn't enough to make a difference; other people have to know about what I can do to be able to help as many people as I possibly could."

Then Midoriya asked her a question; "Do you know what everyone at my middle school used to say about me?"

"No, but I can guess." She replied truthfully. She knew enough of the statistics involving the quirkless minority to have figured Midoriya didn't have a pleasant childhood, even if she hadn't directly seen how Bakugo had treated him during their first semester at U.A.

"Everyone at Aldera Junior High figured that I was useless because I didn't have a quirk. So I know exactly how you feel. But look at me now." Midoriya seemed not to realize the false equivalency he was making as he rambled on. What the faculty and students of his old middle school had once believed about him was no longer of any consequence to him or his future career options, but the same could not be said for what the general public at large believed about her nowadays.

She cut off his mutterings and pointed out the flaws in his logic. "The reason nobody thinks of you as useless right now is because everyone knows about your capabilities. You had numerous opportunities to show off, to make it known to the whole world that you were a force to be reckoned with. I never had those chances, and I probably never will."

"You're too pessimistic," he chided her. As if he understood her personal issues better than she did. "I may have One for All now, but I only got that opportunity in the first place because I tried to save Kacchan from the Sludge Villain. That wasn't because I was trying to impress anyone; I did it because it was the right thing to do. If someone who was quirkless like me can be noticed by the Symbol of Peace, you shouldn't have any problems with being recognized for your skills."

No, that's not how it works, she wanted to say to him. It wouldn't have mattered how good you were at quirk analysis, or how skilled you were in using support equipment or in quirkless combat. You would likely never have gotten another chance to prove yourself to others. Midoriya had received the opportunity of a lifetime not because he had believed in himself, but because someone else had believed in him. It was the luck to be in the right place at the right time, and not his undeniably heroic mentality, that had given him the chance to earn his place.

Perhaps she shouldn't have expected too much from Midoriya. This was the boy whose idea of heroism boiled down to its most fundamental foundation of helping others, heedless of the fact that the restrictions and expectations of society might not allow him to, regardless of his inherent capabilities. He'd entered the Hero Course solely on rescue points. He'd shattered every bone in his body to save a child who, mere days earlier, had kicked him in his unmentionables, and had insisted on trying to rescue his tormentor and would-be murderer from the clutches of the League. He was self-sacrificing to the extreme, which was an undeniably heroic quality-if not for the fact he expected the same of everyone else.

Regardless of what price they had to pay to live up to his own lofty standards.

She thought back to Shoto, and the way he was suffering due to being associated with his father. Midoriya was the one who had managed to get through to him and gotten him to use his fire, all for the sake of becoming an even more effective hero who would be able to help more people. He knew nothing about the importance of impressions, how actions often served as statements. The entire reason Shoto had originally refused to use the fire half of his quirk even at the expense of his physical health was to make a statement, to speak out for himself and hint at his father's then-unknown crime in the only way he could safely do so. Midoriya had taken that away from him. Perhaps if he hadn't, perhaps if Shoto had continued to restrict himself to ice, perhaps he would have been associated less strongly with his father and more with his mother. Perhaps then he would be being praised as the capable hero he likely would still have become, rather than being unable to escape his father's tarnished legacy.

It was no wonder that Midoriya had so consistently failed to understand why she was being considered a failure outside of their class, even as he'd gladly provided her advise on how she could become a combat-oriented hero. He didn't know or care about the idea that some of the ways in which she could help others would result in her losing her agency, or the fact she might not want to be seen as nothing more than a one-woman logistical department for the "real" heroes. As far as he was concerned, the only thing that mattered was that she try to help others as much as possible regardless of her circumstances-even if those circumstances meant that "as much as possible" for her meant very little, or if it meant being disrespected and looked down on by the "real' heroes.

As these ideas began to flood into her mind like a dam breaking and giving way, she quickly became overwhelmed by frustration, and then anger. She'd had enough of Midoriya. She could respect his drive, his honesty, and his willingness to do better where past heroes had faltered, but she could no longer expect him to properly address the social issues he was so concerned with resolving, not when he had such a poor understanding of how social norms, restrictions, and expectations were an integral part of those problems. Still looking at her now-unwelcome companion, Momo scooted backwards to bring her feet back onto the rooftop, and then stood up to loom over him. Even in the dark, Midoriya could see a cold, stony expression on her face, and she wanted him to.

"Midoriya, I know that you've already inspired millions. You're going to usher in a new, fairer hero society, and I'm sure that that society will regard you as a new pillar to uphold it. But it has become clear to me, from the conversation we just had, that your desire to help other people is far greater than your ability to recognize how best to do so." As Momo said this, she generated her entire hero costume from her skin, bodysuit, jetpack, and all, while stripping off her dress and graduation gown to reveal her new outfit beneath, leaving Midoriya scrambling to grab them before they were blown away by the wind.

He tried to stop her, but her engines were already firing up, her wings unfolding as she prepared to leave him behind. "Yaoyorozu, wait-"

"You'll never be a Symbol of Hope to me."

And with that, Momo left him on the rooftop with her clothes as she took off into the darkness, quickly disappearing from his sight. By this point she was so used to traveling by air that her regular flight path between Musutafu and Nagoya was as familiar to her as the ground-bound routes she no longer dared to use. Up here on her lonesome, with only the stars and clouds to keep her company, she felt she was above her problems, that she was powerful enough to overcome not only physical imitations but also the false assumptions so many people had made about her. As she flew southwards towards her home prefecture of Aichi, a grim determination filled her.

If Midoriya had no idea how to help her because he couldn't comprehend her problems, if Shoto was unable to help her because he lacked the means to do so, she'd help herself one way or another. She may be unemployed, but she still had her license. She would go pro immediately and work as a freelancer, try to climb up the hero rankings with sheer effectiveness alone to make up for lack of popularity, until, eventually, the world would be forced to acknowledge that they had been wrong about her all along, that she had never been as incapable as they'd assumed.

If even this final, desperate attempt to break through expectations was to end in failure, it would at least be a failure on her terms.

Chapter Text

----Four Years Later----

Setting New Standards for Heroism: New bill to weed out so-called "heroes" who refuse to pull their weight

Article by Takashi Yatsuyaki

The Paranormal Liberation War has made it all too clear that the hero industry has become oversaturated with many so-called "heroes" unqualified for the burden of defending Japan from villainy. In an era of peace where anyone who wished to become a hero could do so simply by making it into a school that provided heroics education, the standards for heroism had declined, as the Stainists-who purport to uphold the ideals of Hero Killer Stain-have repeatedly argued over the past several years. Of course, Stain's personal ideals and the lengths at which he resorted to in order to fulfill them were in no way compatible with the realities of making an income as a pro hero or the morals of a just society, yet it cannot be denied that the world of heroes has, indeed, become bloated and corrupt.

The Heroic Contributions Act, which will come into effect on December 1st, 2169, seeks to resolve this dilemma by focusing on results over fame or popularity. After years of campaigning, the bill has been approved by the Diet, in large part thanks to its endorsement by Pro Hero Deku (#1), who has played a key role in the campaign to pass this legislation.

The new act will examining a hero's track record for incident resolution, crime investigations, villain captures, rescue statistics, and collateral damage or civilian casualties, in addition to looking at the wider impact the hero has had on society for better or for worse. The compiled data will then be used to calculate a score for the hero's effectiveness. Ineffective heroes with scores below a certain margin will have their license revoked and be subject to a program to reintegrate them into the civilian workforce, thus allowing the resources that no longer have to be expended on them to be dedicated to either supporting the remaining, effective heroes, or to fields outside of heroics. Underground heroes will be exempt from the act due to the fact that, by design, a significant proportion of underground hero work never makes it into the Commission's official records.

During a press conference held the previous Thursday, Deku had expressed much gratitude about the passage of the new law, stating the law to be "a big step towards a full reform of the hero system"......

--------

The September skies may have been bright and clear, but Momo cared little for the pleasant weather as she walked through the streets of Nagoya in a casual hoodie, her face looking downwards to keep away from prying eyes. She was much more focused on the current installment of Heroes Weekly, which was dominated by a Special Report discussing a new heroics legislation due to become effective starting this December.

If she'd understood the article correctly, the proposed bill, named the Heroic Contributions Act, would evaluate all limelight heroes using the same system as the one that was used by the HPSC to determine how much a given pro hero should be paid based on their contribution to society. It was an attempt to come to a rapport with the Stainists and anyone else who was frustrated by how oversaturated hero society had become. If this bill separated the wheat from the chaff, the Stainists would have fewer "false heroes" to object to, while the hero system could eliminate some of its inefficiencies and internal corruption. It all sounded good, until one examined how a hero's contributions were measured under the current system.

The system used by the Commission to score heroes on effectiveness relied on the absolute number of times a hero had captured a villain, rescued a civilian, or investigated an incident since they had received their license. As a result, it failed to take into account that the number of incidents a hero had resolved was relative to the number of incidents they had been allowed to become involved in, which in turn was directly correlated with their public image. The more popular and well-regarded a hero was, the more helpful the public was towards them and the more that other heroes were willing to collaborate with them during an incident, and the more they were sought out for specific missions. Because of this, they were able to resolve significantly more incidents, increasing their public standing even further. It had led to stratification within the hero industry, as heroes were left trapped in the lower ranks, having all the capabilities they needed to break into the upper echelons but not receiving the number or quality of opportunities they needed to do so. Now this already flawed system was going to be used to not only suppress and marginalize heroes who were seen as "weak" or "unfit", but to push them out of heroics entirely.

In other words, when this new legislation came into effect, it would almost certainly mean the permanent end of her career. Not that I currently have much of one to start with, she sadly reminded herself.

In the four years since her graduation, Momo had found very little success in her life. For the first several months she'd spent as Pro Hero Creati, she'd scrambled from one emergency call to another, desperately hoping to make a name for herself and receive the recognition she so sorely needed. An unpopular hero who nonetheless managed to resolve a very large number of incidents could make it high up in the rankings based on that record alone, and she had wanted to achieve exactly that, thus forcing the public to recognize her true capabilities and putting an end to the widespread view of her as an incapable wannabe. But her classmates, with their already-established reputations and the resources of their agencies and connections to call upon, were notified of disasters or villain attacks long before she could receive word of those same events, while she was often barred from becoming involved in emergencies on the false basis that she wasn't cut out to handle them. She was thus repeatedly denied even the chance to carve out a place for herself on the hero scene, and all she could do was to watch helplessly as her peers left her behind.

After this inauspicious start to her career, she'd had enough of being a freelancer and had tried to find an employer. But the most successful agencies rarely had job openings, and the few that did continued to treat her as being undeserving of her hero license. Even the few agencies that recognized her talents in some areas, such as her keen strategic mind or the logistical capabilities she brought to the table, avoided working with her lest their own public images be tainted by association. With faith in heroes still relatively low compared to pre-war levels, it was tantamount to suicide for an agency to hire a disreputable pro hero. And so she had continued on with her miserable "career" as a freelance hero, braving hostile glares from civilians during patrols, putting up with article after article that criticized her for her supposed incompetence, and struggling to make ends meet and thus having to rely on her parents for financial support.

Things couldn't be more different for the majority of her former classmates. Midoriya, unsurprisingly, was having the most successful career out of all of them. After a brief stint as a sidekick at the Nighteye Agency, he'd taken up Yagi-sensei's offer to become the new head of Might Tower amidst much celebration from the public. The only reason he hadn't taken the top spot on the Japanese Hero Billboard Chart immediately after graduation was that, due to being a relative newcomer on the scene, he still didn't have quite as many resolved incidents or rescues to his name as a few other, much older heroes. Everyone knew that it was only a matter of time, however, since he was rapidly climbing up the ranks and had already made it to the Number Four position.

The Hell Class alumni in general were being hailed as the newest, greatest generation of heroes. Uraraka had become the second-in-command at Ryukyu Agency after Ryukyu herself. She had become one of most successful rescue heroes in Japan, and was certainly the most popular, with all proceeds from her merchandise sales going towards her parents. Tokoyami, too, had left the sidekick stage of his career behind and was rapidly building up a reputation for no-nonsense effectiveness, as well as working as an advocate for eliminating mutant discrimination. Bakugo was the Number Eight Hero in Japan and the current star of the Genius Agency, and next in line to inherit it once Best Jeanist retired. Iida had raised the effectiveness of Team Iidaten to new heights, having salvaged the family agency from a slump caused by the forced retirement of the previous Ingenium. And Kyoka, her old flame, had made good on her plans to found her own hero agency; now she was the proud owner and head of the Symphony, a small but up-and-coming agency themed around sound-related quirks.

Her classmates were no longer as close to each other as they had been during their three years together thanks to their careers occupying most of their time, though many of them had still remained in contact with at least a few of their former classmates. Momo, however, had mostly remained off the radar of her fellow alumni for years, and she was actually glad for it, for she didn't want to embarrass herself further by having to interact with her peers in her current state. Kyoka still kept in touch with her, but though she sympathized with her predicament, she failed to understand the societal expectations that kept her trapped under a glass ceiling.

Once every few months the two of them met in person for old time's sake, with Kyoka sharing details about her hero career or humorous tales about Kaminari, who-in spite of several rough patches and one temporary breakup-was still romancing the Hearing Hero. For a few years, Momo had secretly harbored hopes that they would break up and she'd at last get her chance to confess to her music-loving friend, but alas, it was not to be. Her heartbreak was worsened by knowing that Kaminari had not only stolen her first love away from her, but was receiving far more recognition and praise than her in spite of being less qualified. All because he had a quirk that everyone could recognize as powerful, while her own power was dismissed as a mere sleight of hand.

The sound of her comms going off in her right ear startled her out of her morose thoughts. "All heroes in central Nagoya, report to ongoing hostage situation close to NTK Hall and adjacent to Furusawa Park. GPS coordinates are 35.146534, 136.902253."

Though the notification caught Momo off guard, she nevertheless kicked into immediate action on pure reflex, throwing off her hoodie to reveal her bodysuit even as it opened up to accommodate her flight gear. Before any of the civilians around her could realize who she was, let alone become offended at her presence, she was airborne. She couldn't let this incident slip by; each and every incident notification, sighting report, or backup request represented one more opportunity for her to break out of the rut that her career was trapped in, something she desperately needed not only for her sake but for the sake of the few people who had faith in her abilities.

In spite of the shame she had regrettably brought to the Yaoyorozu family, her parents still hadn’t given up on her, even as her failure tore their lives apart. Their wealth allowed her to enjoy a comfortable if unfulfilling life in spite of her sorry financial state, but this was causing their associates and relatives to question why their daughter wasn't independent at her age. They now needed an armed escort whenever they left the estate lest they become targets for vengeful civilians. Sometimes that wasn’t enough; three years ago, a mob had managed to overwhelm the now-sparse security of their estate and broken into the main residential building itself. If it hadn’t been for Momo being alerted to the incident by one of the butlers and rushing to the scene, her parents would have been murdered right then and there, and the injuries her mother had sustained had left her paraplegic.

Her reputation was even posing a threat to her family's prosperity, as once-reliable business partners severed their connections with her parents and various employees resigned from Yaoyorozu Support Inc. in protest. It was just one of many changes that were unfolding in the support gear industry: with Detnerat having been exposed as a front for the Meta Liberation Army and Yaoyorozu Support Inc. embroiled in scandal thanks to her existence, public approval for these and some other once-powerful support gear corporations had stooped to a new low. Hatsume Industries had made the most of this power vacuum to become the fastest-growing corporation in Japan, and its newfound dominance was further bolstered by the fact it had formed a close partnership with Might Tower almost since its inception.

Of course, the connection between Hatsume Industries and Might Tower was more than a collaboration between a support gear company and a hero agency. It was the continuation of the personal, if still professional, connection between Midoriya and Hatsume. Logically, it had made perfect sense. Midoriya had been using equipment custom-designed by Hatsume since his first year at U.A, and he was playing things safe by sticking to a tried-and-true designer whose equipment had served him well. Iida had tried to dissuade him from doing so, given his own experiences with Hatsume had wisened him to her true nature, but to no avail.

And with Hatsume on the rise, things had become even more difficult for one of Momo's few allies.

Like Momo herself, Melissa was desperate to prove her worth to a skeptical general public but left with few viable options for doing so. Since her arrival in Japan, she'd been financially supported by Yagi-sensei, who had both an abundance of wealth and little desire to use it for himself. In spite of his generosity, however, the inventor considered the burden she'd imposed on him to be shameful, especially since it had led to him facing major criticism from the media for sheltering a "villain". Even the Symbol of Peace was far from immune to slander in this new, fearful, post-war society. So, for the sake of her beloved "Uncle Might", Melissa had eventually made the tearful decision to cut off her ties with the only paternal figure left in her life. But this had once again left her destitute in a hostile world, especially with her rival's increasing influence in the support industry. The rumors about her being a villain had spread extensively within Japan's underground, to the point many actual villains had approached her in the hopes of having her expertise on their side. It was for this reason that Momo had, with the financial backing of her parents, officially hired Melissa as her support gear technician, providing not only a way for the inventor to make an income but also the necessary resources to continue her work.

The friendship they'd established had eased some of the sting left by the growing distance from Kyoka, but not quite. Momo could never feel for the blonde in the same way she had fallen for the violette; there just wasn't that same spark of desire. More important, however, was the knowledge that with Yaoyorozu Support Inc.'s position in the support market being increasingly tenuous, the financial support needed to pay for both their livelihoods would run dry sooner or later, unless they found a way to prove themselves in their respective industries and achieve true financial independence.

But at least Melissa could lock herself away in her laboratory all day, largely safe from any misguided efforts at retribution. Momo didn't have even that small luxury; she had to face the wrath of the general public on a daily basis, and she was once again faced with this reality as she arrived at the unfolding villain attack. A man who was seemingly made out of living plastic was lifting a little girl by her shirt as they faced off against a small police force. The child kicked and punched as hard as she could manage, but with her captor being made out of a hard material, it had little effect. A large crowd of onlookers had developed, many armed with illegal support gear or Molotov cocktails and other improvised explosives, though fortunately the police were doing a good job preventing the situation from escalating. Unfortunately, the overcrowding meant she would have to land some distance away and make her final approach on foot, a prospect she always dreaded. Whenever she tried to approach an ongoing crime scene in this manner, she was usually told by other heroes or the police to stay back, and each time she refused to do so counted as another black mark on her record.

Sure enough, only a few seconds after she had landed, she was immediately accosted by a high-ranking police officer. "You're not going anywhere, Pro Hero Creati," the man told her, sneering. "You're not cleared for combat."

Sighing, Momo tried to explain that as a pro hero she was, by law, qualified to handle incidents like this regardless of what anyone else thought about her. "I earned my way into the Hell Class, officer. U.A has footage from my recommendation exam to prove it." Of course, she knew better than to expect U.A to defend her, or the police to believe a word of what she was saying. She'd played this game before and had lost consistently.

"What the hell are you going to do to that guy? Pay him to stop?" He quipped, as the other officers chuckled at his joke. "Now get going, because a real hero's shown up to handle this." She turned the way he was pointing and saw that a rookie called Ignition had arrived on the scene, the civilians parting to allow him to approach the villain.

Ignition's quirk allowed him to spread fire to any solid surface without actually burning the material the surface was comprised out of, and he was capable of using his quirk on himself to set parts of his body alight without injury; his support gear consisted of a backpack flamethrower with a pair of nozzles attached to each arm. He now squeezed the trigger on both nozzles and set his arms ablaze, and show of force had an immediate effect as the villain became extremely agitated. Heedless of the fact he was escalating the situation, Ignition moved in for the takedown, wielding his arms like a pair of flaming clubs.

Though the crowd cheered him on, Momo was concerned with his actions; between the flames and the now downright frantic villain, the child being held hostage was put at greater risk. Ignition was a recent Ketsubutsu graduate who had only debuted a few months ago, but despite his comparative lack of experience he was far better-received by the Japanese population than she was. If she tried to intervene and ended things safely, the audience watching the battle would undoubtedly turn on her for "stealing the credit" and "looking down on a real hero"; all she could do was try and offer some instructions and hope that the other hero would follow along. "Keep an eye on the hostage!" She cried out, even as the police and bystanders nearest to her her gave her a look of disapproval. "Try to drive the villain towards our position!"

The younger hero glanced back, having heard her words, and for a moment it seemed he might actually take her advice. But then he turned his attention back towards his opponent, intent on getting the job done alone when he could be working together with the police or herself, so that someone would be able to go for the child while others tackled the villain. In spite of her frustration at being sidelined yet again, however, Momo could understand his position; being a rookie, and having yet to make it into the big leagues of heroics, it was understandable that he'd want to resolve the entire situation on his own. He wanted to make a name for himself as badly as she did, and for similar if less desperate reasons; to prove himself capable to the world at large so that he would have a much easier time functioning as a hero in the field.

Soon enough, the villain was visibly weakened and his movements were slowing down. Momo surmised that this particular villain was especially vulnerable to heat due to being made out of plastic, something that Ignition also seemed to realize as he started capitalizing on his quirk advantage. With his legs starting to bend and give way as they became increasingly pliable from heat, the villain was forced to hold his ground even as his body started to melt. His arms in particular were getting the worst of it, and the arm holding the little girl hostage began to-No!

In a flash, her engines kicked into life, but she never got the chance to take off as the villain's arm fell apart entirely and the girl dropped headfirst to the ground, her skull caving in upon impact.

Ignition froze on the spot, his face betraying a combination of horror, rage, and, to her surprise, remorse. A second later, that expression turned into a grim resolve as he pounced upon the likewise stunned villain, who appeared frozen in a state of shock-whether from being maimed or from knowing he'd just become a murderer, one couldn't say. The crowd fell silent as they realized that the day hadn't been saved. They began to look among themselves, trying to discover exactly what had gone wrong, who was to blame for this tragedy.

If there was ever a point when Momo wanted to avoid any and all human companionship, it was now, but at that moment she was taken aside by the same policeman who had confronted her when she'd arrived. “If you hadn’t kept distracting Ignition, that little girl might still be alive! Stop pretending to be someone who you're not!" The officer roared. "You’re nothing more than a villain in hero's clothing! That kid's blood is on your hands!" Upon hearing these words, the gathered crowd all turned to look directly at her.

Before she knew what she was doing, she began to verbally defend herself. "Ignition ignored my advice. Had he been willing to cooperate with the police or myself as I told him to, he could have saved-"

"Just like you could have saved all the people who Gigantomachia killed because you sent him into a rampage?" A spectator fired back. "You're a far more evil villain than that guy over there," he continued, pointing at the now-restrained villain. "At least he only killed one person. You killed millions thanks to your meddling." There were general nods of agreement among the civilians present, while Momo could only look down in shame, remembering Kayama-sensei's mutilated remains in the aftermath.

A piercing shriek caught everyone's attention as the child's mother clutched her daughter's cooling remains to her body, her face ashen with grief and rage. Looking around wildly, she until her eyes fell on Momo. "You did this!" She screamed, glaring directly at her. "How-How dare you call yourself a hero, when you did nothing but watch as my baby girl died?!"

Now the floodgates were opened as dozens of furious voices spewed out how much they were disgusted by her, their accusations all blending into a cacophony of negativity.

"If only her parents weren't so rich and powerful-"

"-just wants to look good in front of the cameras-"

"-friends with that terrorist Melissa Shield."

"Remember when she attacked civilians to defend the piles of crap that are her parents? She doesn't give a fuck about justice-"

A blur in her peripheral vision alerted her just in time to dodge a Molotov cocktail, and soon several more were landing all around her while other civilians closed in with their support items, some even brandishing their quirks. She knew that instigating a fight with civilians, even those that were outright assaulting her, would only further confirm their idea of her as a corrupt, glory-seeking hero unconcerned with public safety; and so she took off and beat a hasty retreat in spite of knowing that this made her out to be the guilty party. Behind her, she could hear more jeers and insulted being thrown her way, her flight seeming to rile up the crowd even more.

"Believes she's above judgement-"

"-should have left her to die all the way back during the USJ Incident."

"To think she was from the same class as Deku-"

Then their words faded to nothing behind her as she flew out of earshot.

All first responders had their first run-in with a civilian death on the job sooner or later; as part of the Hell Class, Momo had been forced to confront that reality far sooner than she ever should have, and for the most part she was hardened to scenes of even the most horrific violence. Scenarios like the one that had just taken place still did get to her, however, because they were entirely preventable. She knew for certain that if she had been allowed to confront the villain instead of Ignition, or if Ignition had followed her advice, that child could have been rescued. She kept count of how many lives she could have saved if only others had had enough faith in her to allow her involvement. This incident brought up that tally to 51 victims she'd been prevented from rescuing; 51 deaths that were placed upon her hands by the stupidity and prejudice of the hero system.

In the eyes of the general public, these deaths combined with her lack of achievements as a hero had "confirmed" what they had suspected since her third-year Sports Festival, if not since her first-year Sports Festival: that the Yaoyorozu heiress was an imposter and a fraud, one of many so-called heroes who only got into the industry for the fame and prestige without any willingness to actually put in the dirty, gritty work. While the majority of her former classmates had rapidly made a name for themselves in heroics, or were at least taken seriously while in costume, all she had received was humiliation and disrespect. The Commission saw her as a charlatan due to her supposed immoral conduct and lack of effectiveness, when the reality was that she had been prevented from working effectively as a hero because she was seen as a charlatan.

Shoto's offer of providing her a position at the former Endeavor Agency, now renamed Elemental Agency under his leadership, offered her an easy and tempting way out of all her problems. So far, she hadn't given in to that temptation. He'd made it clear that she was welcome to join his agency at any time, but one look at its sorry state was enough to tell her that taking her in would come at an unbearable cost to him. It was already a small miracle that the youngest Todoroki was making any headway at all in his career. Unlike Momo, Shoto had never suffered from being dismissed as incapable and thus had a significantly better incident resolution record than she did, but the sins of his father still cast a long shadow over him and his moral integrity was frequently questioned by both the press and the public. Currently, Shoto was sitting at #24 on the charts entirely through his sheer effectiveness as a hero, but it was unlikely that he'd ever be able to climb much higher and catch up to his better-regarded peers.

But he hadn't given up on his career just yet, and neither had Momo, even if she had to resort to increasingly questionable methods just to get a chance to prove herself.

------

Nagoya was one of Japan's largest cities and the capital of Aichi Prefecture, so it wasn't surprising that it was a major hotspot for criminal activities. In spite of this, it had a relatively minor hero presence compared to Musutafu or the Greater Tokyo Area; it had its share of hero agencies, but none of them were considered quite as prestigious or capable compared to the likes of Might Tower or the Genius Agency. But there were others who were more than willing to use their quirks against villainy or in the defense of the public, regardless of whether it was legal or not.

Vigilantism had been on a sharp upswing across all of Japan ever since the Paranormal Liberation War. As faith in heroes had plummeted, many discontented civilians had decided to take the issue of their own safety into their hands. The debut of the Hell Class graduates had lessened this flow, but failed to stop it entirely. Every day, an ongoing war between heroes, especially underground heroes, and vigilantes was waged in the shadows, an enterprise that currently took up much of the Commission's resources. Some of the more effective vigilantes, however, were begrudgingly tolerated, for the Commission no longer had the resources to hunt down every last vigilante and having that bit of extra manpower helped in the desperate struggle against increased crime rates. The end result was that there were still over one thousand vigilantes across Japan, with a small minority of them being more or less accepted by society.

Under such conditions, it was quite easy for a disgraced pro hero to pretend to be a vigilante.

For the past two years, Momo had been living a double life. During the day, she was Pro Hero Creati, a glory hound with little actual skill or power (or so most people believed). When night fell, however, she became Arsenal, Nagoya's most notorious "vigilante". In this new guise, she was freed from the stigma and shame of being herself. Other heroes, actual vigilantes, and the police were all much more willing to cooperate with her when they treated her as a capable vigilante rather than as a corrupt hero. Civilians who would otherwise condemn her went as far as to provide her with intel when they saw her as Arsenal. It was so much easier for her to actually do her job as a hero when she wasn't being recognized as a "false hero" everywhere she went. She had turned over large numbers of her villain captures to the police and had carried out a fair number of rescues as her alter ego, without anyone criticizing her in the way they would surely have if she'd tried to do the same in her official hero identity.

This, in fact, was the whole point of her ruse. As Creati she stood little chance of being effective at incident resolution, but as Arsenal she didn't face the same issue. Whenever she filed her reports of villain captures she'd made as Arsenal, the captures were recorded as having been made by Creati, and thus her statistics for incident resolution had seen a dramatic improvement. It had allowed her to go from being ranked at #803 two years ago to being ranked at #721 by the most recent hero ranking announcement. Of course, she had a very, very long way to go before she'd be able to receive any real recognition for her merits, but at least it was a start.

But it was still well below the cutoff she needed to meet if she wanted to avoid being judged as unfit for service under the Heroic Contributions Act.

If Momo was being honest to herself, she was unsure if she was in the right state of mind tonight, as it had been mere hours after she had seen the death of a child and been rendered powerless to do anything but watch. However, if she was to avoid losing her license and being forced to become an actual vigilante, she absolutely could not afford to slack off, even for a single night. So, after having an early dinner and watching the sun disappear over the horizon, she walked out onto the balcony of her three-bedroom apartment (which her parents had purchased for her), spread her wings, and took off into the darkening skies.

With the current operational range of her gear and the ability to extend it by creating additional fuel or power sources on the fly, she could strike just about anywhere in southern or central Japan. She could fly into Shizuoka Prefecture, or even the Greater Tokyo Area further afield, where she was sure to find some criminal activity going on on any given night; indeed, she had conducted successful hit-and-run operations against several gangs there the previous year. But her primary hunting ground was the Port of Nagoya; not only was it nearby, as Japan's greatest centre for international trade it was a hub for black market activities. It was where she'd made most of her "catches" in the past, and a major group of human traffickers were using it as a major nexus in their activities, smuggling their victims out on nondescript fishing boats or other small watercraft. If the intel she'd received from an anonymous source was correct, they would be doing just that on this night, and she would be waiting for them, fully armed and ready for action.

Thanks to Melissa's sheer dedication to supporting her, her gear was continuously being upgraded. For the past year she'd been wearing the Flight IV iteration of her outfit, the first to be capable of reliably breaking the sound barrier in level flight. Her lightweight helmet and HUD had been somewhat modified so that, when they unfolded and deployed from her headpiece, they now formed a more bullet-shaped "nose" that helped her cut through the air. Her engines were now almost twice as powerful as they had been in the Flight II model, and their air intakes had been redesigned to avoid malfunctions at higher speeds. Thrust vectoring capability had also been implemented, significantly increasing her maneuverability while still allowing for an airspeed of Mach 1.2. The upcoming Flight V upgrade, now only a few months away, would maintain that supermaneuverability and provide further incremental increases in raw speed, as well as finally incorporating the miniaturized antigravity engines Melissa had promised her so long ago.

Speed was far from the only way in which her suite of equipment had become more advanced over the years. Her HUD had gained various additional sensors in addition to its pre-existing functions to allow for operations in poor visibility. From the Flight III upgrade onwards, her bodysuit had been fitted with attachments for weaponry on her legs in addition to on her arms and torso, significantly improving her already-impressive firepower. A second pair of missile pods could be fitted onto the apertures on her thighs; like the missile pods on her shoulders, she could reload them simply by opening the apertures and creating replacement missiles directly into the pods. An attachment point had been added to just in front of her "primary aperture" on her belly, allowing her to deploy a 20mm or 40mm autocannon or an especially high-powered laser from it. A pair of rotating gauntlets, mounted just below her wrists, provided further mountings for some of her smallest weapons. The old, rail-mounted sniper rifles had now been replaced by what Melissa had termed "coil-rifles", which were equipped with an electromagnetic coil running down the length of the barrel to drastically increase muzzle velocity and effective range.

The greatest change to her costume, however, was a new emphasis on hiding her identity. If people ever clued into the fact that she was Arsenal, it would immediately ruin the credibility of her alter ego. It was why Momo now had two sets of her Flight IV costume and equipment, identical in every way except for their color schemes. One set of gear, the one she reserved for use during daytime, retained her signature crimson hue and was easily recognized-and shunned-by most people. The other, which she wore at night as Arsenal and increasingly regarded as her "real" costume, was colored a dusky gray to blend in with the night sky. Her HUD now doubled up as a facial disguise, and and a voice distorter had been added for good measure.

Her tactics had evolved along with her equipment. The basic concept of operating as a swift, long-ranged aerial powerhouse still remained, but it had been further modified and refined through her studies of air-to-air and air-to-ground combat from all across the history of aviation, especially in various night fighter tactical doctrines. Other lessons, less theoretical and more practical, had come from hard-won experience. During her first few months as Arsenal, she had learned that it paid to fly at lower altitudes and pay extra attention during a full moon to avoid exposing her silhouette to potential targets below; to always keep her target between a light source and herself, so that she could open fire while remaining concealed in the shadows; that having someone on the ground to direct her in the right direction could make all the difference when trying to intercept an airborne foe; and that her Matryoshka flashbang grenades were especially useful during the hours of darkness, as they could ruin an opponent's night vision and leave them open to a follow-up attack. These and other lessons had made her significantly more capable than she ever had been during high school, even in her third year.

Aerial combat may have been her bread and butter, but she'd found a need to diversify her portfolio to include fighting on foot as well. Much of her work these days occurred in back alleys or in indoor settings, places where they was often not enough room to guarantee that she'd be able to maintain a safe distance from an adversary. If possible, she preferred to fly above such confined areas and open fire into them, but there had been a handful of occasions in which she had resorted to close combat. Even then, however, Momo relied far more on avoiding an opponent's blows rather than facing them head-on, frequently using staff or polearm weapons to keep her body out of reach; in fact, she had never once punched another person in combat. Regardless of how capable she might be in melee combat, she very much preferred to stay in the skies where she was effectively untouchable.

It wasn't long before Momo arrived at the port, her approach from the north taking her along its eastern boundary on the first leg of her nightly patrol. She hoped that she was the only hero-albeit one masquerading as a vigilante-on the scene tonight. Shinso had been stationed in Nagoya for the past year and made regular patrols of the harbor as the Persuasive Hero: Override. He'd tried to arrest her on vigilantism charges on several occasions, though she'd had little trouble escaping from him during their encounters due to her prior knowledge of how his quirk functioned and far greater mobility. However, that still meant she had to compete with him for every villain arrest, especially as they were trying to bring in the same group of human traffickers these days.

Tonight, though, it seemed that Shinso was very much absent, for only a few minutes into the first leg of her patrol she quickly came across likely villainous activity. Momo had been flying low over the water on a westward heading when she noticed a commotion some distance directly ahead, all the way across the harbor in Minato Ward. A nondescript vehicle was running with its lights out in an area that rarely saw traffic at night. In a fluid motion, she angled her engine nozzles downwards and made a near-vertical ascent, climbing steeply until she was almost a kilometer up in the night sky. Now, with the harbor lights far below her and the moon off to her left side, she was able to hover unseen in the darkness, facing into the wind to help maintain lift and using the zoom function of her HUD to keep an eye on the car.

It didn't take her to realize what she was looking at. If I was involved in any sort of black market and operated out of Nagoya, this is how I would run things, and I am willing to bet that has to do with what I'm seeing right now. Because Minato Ward included the southernmost parts of both the Port of Nagoya and the city in general, it allowed vehicles to drive all the way to the very outer limits of the harbor, where contraband could easily be loaded onto watercraft and quickly transported out into open water. And the fact this particular car was a family van with a large trunk indicated that in this case, that contraband meant other human beings; it was likely that she'd come across the very targets she had been pursuing for several weeks.

The vehicle came to a stop as a boat pulled up alongside. Five figures in casual clothing-two women, one man, and two of unknown gender-quickly hopped off, then opened the trunk; her suspicions were proven right as three bundled hostages were forcefully unloaded, their limbs bound and their mouths gagged shut. Momo had already seen a hostage situation mere hours earlier and had been forced to see it come to a tragic conclusion. This time, however, she was watching the proceedings not as Creati, but as Arsenal. This time, there was no one to prevent her from intervening. The opportunity she'd been waiting for had finally materialized.

Then a second vehicle screeched to a halt just meters away, and in an instant things began to devolve into chaos. The traffickers all refocused on the new arrival, who quickly leapt from the driver's seat and made a run for the captives. One of the two female villains began firing salvoes of shark-like teeth from her mouth, her teeth growing back as fast as she used them up, but it had little impact on her assailant as they charged her other than shredding apart much of the costume they'd been wearing. It was now evident why they were seemingly unhurt by the barrage of attacks; They'd grown a dense layer of a white, fibrous material from the surface of their skin, which was absorbing the teeth like a bulletproof vest.

Everything about the newcomer, from the skilled use of their quirk to the manner in which they carried themselves during a crime scene, told Momo that this wasn't a civilian. Civilians were rarely trained to anywhere near this level of proficiency. Furthermore, the fact they had shown up wearing what seemed to be a proper costume suggested that they were a pro hero, as most villains or vigilantes lacked access to support companies that could custom-design a high-quality costume. But there weren't any heroes stationed in Nagoya that had a quirk anything like what she was witnessing. Curious at who this might be, Momo switched to forward flight and began making her way across the harbor, keeping her speed in control using vectoring so that she had enough time to make observations. As much as she wanted to swoop down immediately and get a piece of the action before the other hero resolved the incident, she needed to account for every variable and identify all the possibilities for how things could play out.

And at any rate, it was becoming increasingly clear that the tide of battle was turning in favor of the villains.

Even though her competition was proving themselves capable in battle, they were outnumbered five to one, and whatever qualitative advantage they had wasn't enough to overcome such odds. While the shark-toothed woman was keeping the hero occupied, the other woman, relying on her support item rather than her quirk, sucker-punched them from the side, hitting much harder than her muscles alone were capable of with the help of her rocket-powered gauntlets. The villain Momo had identified as male took advantage of this opening, picking up the smallest of the prisoners with both arms before leaping nimbly across the tetrapods and then onto the waiting boat. Once the transfer was complete, he returned to land and joined his female counterparts in ganging up on their enemy. Other villains in the group included someone who could grow into a large, scale-covered monster with sharp claws, who picked up the two remaining prisoners and moved them over to the boat with ease, and someone who could grow prehensile wire from their fingertips. That last villain was the one to especially keep an eye on; their reach and control meant that getting within a hundred meters of them would be risky.

The numerically superior villains were gradually wearing their opponent down, and it was clear that Momo would need to get involved after all. Still observing the scene from above, and still completely unnoticed, she quickly formed a plan of attack that would allow her to hit two birds with one stone. Remembering that she wanted to strike from the shadows and only reveal herself at the very last second, she banked right and accelerated, taking her northwest and away from battle but hopefully allowing her to reposition and approach from a better angle.

The missile pods on her shoulders had been already armed with standard explosive warheads and were too dangerous to use against a boat with hostages aboard, so she now created another, larger, longer-ranged missile from the aperture on her belly, fitted with an unusual warhead specifically designed to stun any villains and overload any electronics in its blast radius. At the same time, she opened up the apertures on both of her arms, a pair of tranquilizer guns emerging from them to latch onto her bodysuit before they swiveled 180 degrees, so that they were aiming ahead of her even though her arms were now trailing behind her and held flush against her body. Unlike the single-shot dart gun that had been with her since her Flight I and II days, this new tranq gun was a rapid-fire weapon that allowed her to gun down multiple people at once, though using darts instead of other ammunition meant she had to get closer to her targets before opening fire than she'd need to if she was using her other weapons. She hoped that her speed of attack would prevent the wire villain from making a move against her before she was out of his range once again.

She was now over one and a half kilometers above Arakogawa Park, a fair distance north from the ongoing incident, and still maintaining her current course. Traveling away from the fight she wanted to intervene in would appear counterintuitive to those not in the know, but there was a method to her madness. Aerial combat relied on Energy-Maneuverability Theory; the combatant with the greater combined total of potential and kinetic energy had the upper hand over their opponent, making speed and altitude the two most important factors in an engagement. By moving further away from her target while gaining altitude, Momo was giving herself sufficient height and room to build up momentum, so that by the time she struck she would be traveling more swiftly than sound itself.

Once she'd reached an airspeed of around 900km/h, she executed a split-S maneuver to double back towards her quarry, so that she could switch direction without losing speed. Indeed, she continued to accelerate even during the maneuver. In her mind, she ordered her variable-geometry wings to alter their configuration, and her equipment instantly complied, the wings sweeping back by 50 degrees from their previously horizontal position. She braced herself as she became transsonic, feeling the strain on her body and gear as she pushed hard against her own pressure waves, before she broke through the sound barrier and everything smoothed out once again.

It would only take her seconds, rather than minutes, to join the ongoing battle between the mysterious hero and the five criminals. The engagement was still a few kilometers further ahead, but rapidly getting closer with each second. The hero was making creative use out of their quirk, the material they produced from their body growing out in various shapes to block, entangle, or whip away the attacking villains. The wire villain was equally skilled, the tendrils attached to their fingertips pulling their fellow villains out of danger every time they were put at serious risk of capture, even as their other tendrils coiled around the hero and moved in for a stranglehold. Meanwhile, the boat had pulled away from shore with its captives and was making a run for the open water of Ise Bay-but it would never make it as long as Momo had anything to say about it.

Entering a shallow dive that would take her straight over the villains ashore, she simultaneously gained a missile lock on the boat and deployed the missile attached to her belly; it fell away from her from a short distance before its rocket motor kicked in, darting towards the unsuspecting vessel. Traveling at almost triple the speed of sound, it slammed into the boat's bridge before detonating and sending out high-voltage currents in all directions, taking out the radar and controls. The sudden flash of electricity caught the attention of the villains on land; unsure of what had happened, they scanned the water for any sign of their new attacker, not realizing that the true culprit was closing in from the opposite direction.

Now less than a kilometer away from her targets and making her final approach, Momo noted with some satisfaction that this was about to become one of the best airstrikes she'd ever executed. Everything had gone perfectly: she had her targets nicely backlit against the harbor's lights and the moonlight reflected on the water's surface, while she herself still remained unseen as she came in low and very fast on a shallow trajectory.

At a range of fifty meters, she opened fire.

The villains never saw her coming, for she swooped down upon them from the darker, land-bound side of the port. There was no sound to warn them of her approach, for she arrived before the sounds she produced did. She let loose several rounds of darts as she zoomed past, the fast-acting paralytic literally stopping her targets in their tracks. The wire villain was hit at least once; the two women were hit twice. Before she could confirm any further hits, she was blowing past them and out over the water, pulling out of her dive just in time to avoid plunging into the sea below and using the momentum she'd built up to quickly regain altitude, execute a wingover and come back around for her second diving pass.

She quickly noted that the kinesthetic villain was still on his feet but being engaged by the other hero on the scene, who'd freed themselves now that the wire villain had been dealt with. That left only the scaled villain, whose skin had proved too thick and tough for her darts to penetrate; she'd need to resort to more conventional weapons. This time she no longer had the element of surprise, especially since she was now approaching the target from their seaward side, but it no longer mattered. Coming in hot to face the villain head-on, she fired off several missiles from the missile pods on her shoulders. While nowhere near as powerful as one of her full salvos would've been, it was still more than enough to take the villain out of the fight, their armored hide providing insufficient protection against the force of the detonations.

The moment Momo confirmed the takedown, she circled back around for a third pass, but then realized that the last remaining hostile had been already defeated. The other hero present was using their quirk to produce more of the same, cotton-like material as earlier, tearing it off of themselves and fashioning it into a rope to restrain the villain.

With the boat dead in the water but in no immediate danger of sinking, securing the villains before they recovered now took priority over freeing the hostages, and so she slowly reduced her speed in a series of wide circles before coming in to land. As she folded and retracted her wings back into her jetpack, her inadvertent ally walked over to greet her; now that she was stationary, she could make out more of their physical features, such as their light pink hair tied into a bun. "Well, I certainly wasn't expecting a vigilante to be out here tonight, but I'm not complaining about the extra help. You're Arsenal, aren't you?" Their voice made it clear that this stranger was another woman in her age group, and there was something familiar about her that Momo just couldn't place. She could swear that she had seen this quirk before, if only fleetingly, but she couldn't recall where and when. Intrigued, she extended a handshake, which the other heroine quickly accepted.

"Indeed I am Arsenal, though I'm not quite sure who you might happen to be. Do you have a hero license with you, by any chance?" She asked, using her voice distorter to sound much older than she was and keeping her true face shielded from view. If she wanted to keep her impromptu ally around, she needed to hide the fact she was Momo Yaoyorozu.

"Of course. Pro hero Lady Linen, at your service," the other woman told her as she displayed her license. Taking it, Momo kept her eyes on her companion, realizing with a start that her irises resembled puffs of cotton. Everything clicked into place in her mind all at once, and a quick glance down at the card in her hands confirmed her sudden realization. Fuwa-senpai?!

Mawata Fuwa had been one year ahead of Momo in the U.A Hero Course. Back during that first, tumultuous year of her time at U.A, she rarely had the opportunity for prolonged interactions with the second-year or third-year students during training, but once the school had changed to being a boarding school it had become more common for students from different courses or years to come across each other outside of lessons. Thus it wasn't uncommon for Momo or her classmates to run into Fuwa in the school library, in the gym, or purchasing things from the on-campus snack bar. She'd even seen her try to convince Bakugo to put her in touch with Best Jeanist, though Bakugo had flatly refused.

But ever since Fuwa's graduation, neither she nor any of her classmates had encountered her, even after they themselves had graduated and become part of the hero industry. So what was she doing in Nagoya now?

A scraping sound alerted her to more urgent matters before she could go down that rabbit hole. The boat that she'd disabled had drifted towards shore and bumped against the tetrapods, the impact knocking it back towards open water as it was caught in a current and started drifting in the other direction. "We still need to get the prisoners back off the boat and arrest whoever was driving that thing." She told her senior as she returned her hero license to her. "I could give you a lift if you want, though you might want to create some sort of harness for it."

"I think it would be more convenient for you to fly out and help me pull the boat back to shore," Fuwa told her, as she drew several long tendrils of cotton-like material from her body before pulling them off, wincing slightly as she did so; in no time at all she'd twisted the strands together into a rope. Picking one end of it up in her hands, Momo slowly flew out over the water until she reached the boat, then gently descended until she was hovering in front of its bow cleat, feeding the rope through it before fixing it in place with a knot.

In a few minutes the boat was back alongside shore and tied to the closest mooring she could find, and she moved on securing the rest of the still-unconscious villains while Fuwa got onto the vessel to search for the prisoners. She was finished quickly enough that, for a moment, she was on her own again, with all the villains having been blindfolded as a security measure and the older U.A alumnus occupied. Momo had worked up a fair amount of sweat while pulling the boat towards shore, and she took this opportunity to retract her helmet and HUD back into her headpiece, exposing her face to the world so she could wipe the sweat away.

Unfortunately, it was at this point that Fuwa decided to pop back up on deck. "Do you happen to have any scissors?"

Hurriedly, Momo deployed her helmet and HUD once more while answering in the negative, but one look at Fuwa's eyes told her that she'd seen enough to at least get an inkling of who she actually was. She'd kept up her double life for two years, keeping her true identity secret from the entire hero industry to be able to escape the prejudices that followed her, and now it was all about to come apart because she couldn't wait to clean up her face until she'd returned back home.

For several awkward moments they faced off, one young heroine against another, not in a contest of quirks or skill but in a contest of nerves and minds. Would Fuwa dismiss what she'd just seen as a coincidence, or would she follow the thread to where Momo didn't want her to go?

After a few more seconds, the older heroine broke the silence. "You're not a vigilante."

Momo felt her heart sink in her chest as her senpai finally put two and two together. "You're Yaoyorozu from U.A, aren't you? Pro Hero Creative or whatever."

"Creati." She replied, her face beet red from the shame of admitting to being someone who the world treated as a failure. There was no point to keeping her face hidden from Fuwa now; she once again dismissed her headgear, facing the other heroine, trying to think of something, anything, that could convince her to keep quiet about her identity. But to her great surprise, her senpai didn't display any feelings of derision, anger, or betrayal.

"And to think I never gave you a second look all the times I've run into you at U.A." Fuwa finally spoke up again. "I'm not sure you remember me-"

"I do, Fuwa-senpai. I just pretended I had no idea who you were," Momo admitted. "Now just promise to keep quiet about all this so I can actually do my goddamned job without being driven away by pretty much everyone I run into." Her mind was running through all the possibilities as to how to buy her silence.

"Oh, just call me Mawata. And don't worry about your secret-I owe you at least that much for bailing me out." At that, Momo let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. Even as she was relieved that Mawata was on her side, however, she was confused as to why she hadn't turned on her.

Still maintaining eye contact, Momo opened up the aperture on her left arm and created a pair of scissors from it. Holding it by the blades, she passed them over to her impromptu ally. "I expected you to take offense to my presence when I admitted who I was," she told her. "Most people do. It's why I have to work undercover as Arsenal to get anything done."

Mawata smiled at her as she grabbed the scissors by their handles. "You're in good company then," she told her. "I work out of the Rebound Agency-it's based in Toyota. It's run entirely by heroes like you and I, heroes who nobody will give the time of day to. It might be worth the time for you to drop by." She said, as she went back down into the bowels of the boat.

------

It turned out that the Rebound Agency was little more than an abandoned store front occupied by a team of low-ranked, poorly known heroes.

Two days had passed since Momo had run into Mawata. With nothing better for her to do during daytime other than being persecuted on her daylight patrols as Creati, she'd called the number on the business card she'd been given to let them know she was coming, and now here she was, a sense of trepidation rising within her as she took in her surroundings. But she hadn't come this way for no reason, so she opened the agency's door and walked straight in.

Thanks to the lingering legacy of the war, derelict buildings were very easy to come by in most parts of Japan these days, and their owners often sold or rented them out at low prices to whoever was desperate enough to want them. The state of the building instantly made it clear to Momo that the Rebound Agency would not serve as a gateway to a less dismal future for her. She knew better, however, than to assume anything about the actual capabilities of the heroes within. Certainly, Mawata seemed reasonably capable during their encounter, and if the other heroes here were at her level, they would make for a fairly capable crew.

This wasn't her first visit to the city of Toyota, as she had flown over it on a few of her patrols, but she didn't make it a habit to patrol extensively there due to a seeming lack of crime, or much human activity in general. The city had been on the decline ever since the Dawn of Quirks, and with so few people still living there, there were far fewer opportunities for heroes to show their worth by defeating villains or carrying out rescue operations.

As Momo walked past what passed as the agency lobby, which was nothing more than an old desk placed right behind the front door, she was greeted by a hero who she took to be the head of the agency. "You must be Creati. Thanks for bailing Mawata out the other day," A tall, lanky white-haired hero told her. "Hiroto Shikiyuma, by the way. You might have heard of me as the Hijacking Hero: Mindframe."

"I'd prefer it if you just referred to me as Momo, and there's no need to be so grateful." She replied. "I was only doing my duty as a hero." Shikiyuma was a hero that she'd seen mentioned in an article several years back about heroes with "villainous" quirks. At the time, she hadn't paid him much attention; now she wished that she had. The article had explained that his quirk, Body Surf, allowed him to possess another person's body upon physical contact for up to five minutes. Had he gone underground he would likely have given Shinso major competition.

"There's no need to sell yourself short," a familiar voice spoke up as Mawata appeared from deeper within the building. "Welcome to the Rebound Agency. As you've probably noticed we're in pretty bad shape, but we try to do the best we can to serve what community exists out here. And Hiroto, give me some credit. I did beat one of them personally."

Noticing that Shikiyuma was skeptical, Momo added her own two cents. "She was outnumbered five to one before I got involved and still managed to hold her own, and she did indeed capture one of the villains. Of course, I dealt with the other four, easily if I might add."

"Hey!" Mawata protested, but there wasn't any real anger behind it. "But seriously, we both did a good job that night. Isn't that right, Momo?"

"Wait, you're Momo? That Momo? You were in the same class at U.A as my cousin!" A shorter man with blonde-and-black hair exclaimed as he glided across the floor without moving his legs, his metallic footwear sparking with electricity. "Cousin Denks has told me about you a few times, said you were the smartest person he ever met."

It came as a surprise to see a Kaminari in these surroundings, and not necessarily a welcome one, considering she wasn't on the best of terms with the only Kaminari she'd spent significant time around. Nevertheless, she maintained her composure and shook his hand, feeling the tingle of static on her skin as she did so. Looking past him, she saw another blonde, a petite woman who Shikiyuma introduced to her as Shion Hibiki.

"Is this everyone who works at this agency?" Momo asked. Most hero agencies were bustling with up to several dozen sidekicks and various civilian staff; for an agency to have four heroes and absolutely nobody else was not only bizarre, but concerning. How is this agency even keeping itself afloat?

"Everyone who's available, at least," Shikiyuma told her. He explained that there were seven pro heroes operating out of the agency, but one was recuperating from exhaustion while the remaining two were out on patrol. "Homura's worn herself out pretty badly over the past few weeks and-"

He was interrupted by the sound of pounding feet as someone ran down from the second floor of the building. "Shit!" He exclaimed as the source of the commotion dashed towards Momo and all but tackled her, causing her to blush when she realized that another person's head was wedged into her bosom. Looking down, she was startled by the physical state the woman tightly hugging her was in; her face was pale and sickly, her orange hair stringy and matted to her head from sweat, her body anorexic. But in spite of the fact this girl should have been bedridden, she clung to her with unexpected strength for someone who seemed so frail.

"Sorry about that!" Mawata cried out, apologizing. "Homura, have some sense of personal space!"

"Come on, Mawa! It's the first time in years I've come across such a big radiation source!" Even as Homura said this, she was visibly becoming healthier, her muscles becoming more well-defined and her face becoming more flushed and lively. In only a matter of seconds she'd been transformed, barely recognizable as the same person who had just crashed into her.

Shikiyuma raised an eyebrow. "You're a radiation source?" He asked Momo, incredulous.

"It's how my quirk functions," she began to explain. The fundamental ability that allowed Creation to work was her ability to control the energy that held the subatomic particles within her body together. It allowed her to split apart the atoms that comprised the molecules of her lipid deposits, separating them into a collection of subatomic articles and nuclear energy, and, if necessary, convert that nuclear energy into additional particles or vice versa. This violation of the laws of thermodynamics was what provided her with all the energy and raw materials she needed for her creations, and the side effect of this was the blue-and-pink radioluminescence that appeared whenever she used her quirk.

When she was finished with her explanation, she was startled to see Homura looking at her as if she was divine. "My quirk is Radiation Absorption. I absorb radiation from my surroundings and use the energy to boost my strength and speed, and as you've just seen I can also use it to recover from exhaustion." she told her. "Uh, if you don't mind, could you visit more often?"

Sighing, Momo shook her head. "Probably not, but I can make some radioactive materials for you so you can keep yourself fueled up for a while even if I'm not here." That was far from the only thing the Rebound Agency was in need of: among other things, they needed a better working space, management staff, and a support item studio. "I could also put you in touch with an expert support item designer if you want me to." Certainly, Melissa would be delighted to have some clients other than Momo herself.

"It would certainly be helpful," Mawata told her, "especially because I need a new costume right now after what happened the night we met. We've tried to get in touch with Hatsume Industries, but honestly Hatsume demands far too much money for her work. Her stuff's top-of-the-line but we can't afford any of it."

"If you think that's the biggest problem with Hatsume, you don't know half of it," Momo told her, before she relayed the tale of her own experiences with the pink-haired engineer. That in turn triggered the heroes of the Rebound Agency to open up about their own experiences and misadventures in the hero industry. For the next half hour, she told the stories of her struggles as Creati and of the hatred people had towards Shoto and Melissa due to their parents, while they told her their stories of being rejected by agencies time and time again, of being mistaken for vigilantes by civilians who had no idea there was a hero agency out here, and of often having insufficient income to gain access to basic amenities. They had each gone through nearly as much hardship as she had, and at the end of it all there was a burning question in her mind.

"Why?" She asked them. "What was your equivalent of the Sports Festival, I-Island Incident or Dabi's Broadcast? What started all of this for you?"

"It's all because of Aizawa-sensei." Shikiyuma spat venomously.

During her third year at U.A, Momo had lost much of her respect for Aizawa-sensei, his hypocrisy, disapproval of her new focus on combat, and his inability to observe what was going on in his own homeroom class all having gotten to her nerves. Looking back, she'd eventually come to realize he had never been a competent teacher, unwilling to do anything to reign in Bakugo's temper or Mineta's perversions, and unwilling to provide any actual advice during quirk training and expecting everyone to learn everything the hard way. Even so, she was skeptical that he would actively sabotage the careers of his own students. "What did he do to you?"

"He expelled and re-enrolled every single one of us on the very first day of class we had. Told us that we needed a wake-up call because we had no idea how to be heroes. As if that wasn't the entire reason why we were in the Hero Course in the first place."

Oh.

Everyone in Japan knew that an expulsion was as good as a guarantee of unemployment. It meant a black mark on one's academic record that followed them for the rest of their life and resulted in them becoming a pariah among potential employers. After all, why hire someone whose credentials are questionable when there were so many others in the workforce without an academic black mark to indicate a lower level of intelligence? For this reason, expulsions were regarded as a disciplinary measure of last resort in most academic jurisdictions. It was why, on that day when she'd become a student U.A, she had believed that Aizawa-sensei's threat of expulsion during the Quirk Assessment Test was a bluff; surely no teacher, especially one at a school as prestigious as U.A, would be foolish enough to invalidate the effort their students had made to even get that far.

But now that her experiences at the school and as an adult had forced her to take off her rose-tinted lenses, now that she's been confronted by the reality of what it meant to be considered a failure by society, it was clear that Aizawa-sensei had meant his threat, that all this time he'd been perfectly willing to throw away the future of his students if he believed they showed no potential and had already done so on at least one occasion. That, in spite of the fact he should have known better, he had done the unthinkable and expelled an entire class of his students, and had left it on their permanent records even after they were re-enrolled.

It didn't matter if the threat had motivated them to become better heroes, for the act of expulsion defeated the purpose of the U.A Hero Course. The entire reason behind hero academies was supposed to be to train hero hopefuls and make them competent as heroes, not to arbitrarily decide who was cut out to be a hero and who wasn't based on a single teacher's decisions. Aizawa-sensei may have had good intentions, but in motivating his students he'd only ensured that all of their improvements would go unrecognized and be rendered meaningless.

"We only ever did our mandatory internships during our three years at the school. No hero would take us in for work studies because of the fact we'd all been expelled at one point. No agency would hire us when we graduated." Shikiyuma continued to explain. "And with your class and the Big Three running around, it was hard for us to be allowed in on major incidents and get the publicity we needed when there were so many other, more promising rookies without academic black marks on their records."

The more Momo heard, the more she realized how similar their circumstances were to her own. Like her, they had their dreams crushed before they had even graduated due to being misjudged as incapable. Without any established agencies being willing to look past their expulsions, and finding themselves unable to compete as freelancers much as Momo herself had, they'd been pushed towards starting an agency of their own. But with the Japanese economy still in shambles, they had to pool their resources to purchase even a dilapidated building to use as a base, let alone have any chance of competing with older, much better-known agencies that weren't comprised entirely of rookies with a permanent stain on their records.

"I tried to apply for the Symphony several months ago," Hibiki spoke up. "I even went there to submit my application in person. But one look at my academic record from Earphone Jack, and I was out of there." The story portrayed a very different image of Kyoka from the shy, understated girl that she knew and had once loved, but there was no reason to doubt it. Why would her old friend realize there was more to the applicant in front of her than her academic record, when everyone in Japan had been programmed to believe that anyone with an expulsion on their record was incapable of being a contributing member of society?

From there on, the story became darker still. Many, too many, of their former classmates had decided to end things on their own terms by committing suicide. Some had left Japan entirely, hoping that other nations would be much more tolerant of them. And a few had outright vanished into the tumultuous underbelly of post-war Japanese society. "That's why I was going after those human traffickers," Mawata explained. "I have a hunch they were involved in three of our classmates disappearing, and they operate several rings; we only busted one of them the other day and I'm not stopping until I get my friends back."

Less than an hour ago, Momo had felt almost entirely alone in the world; the number of people who truly understood why her life turned out to be the failure it was could easily be counted on the fingers of one hand. But now, her inner circle had just gained five new members, five other heroes who were fed up with being prevented from proving themselves under the current system. There had to be more such cases in the hero industry. There might even be students in the U.A Hero Course at that very moment whose future had already been stolen from them.

But if there were other heroes like them out there, and they managed to unite into a single force, what then? The same systematic flaws of hero society that had led to their problems also made it much harder for them to get their voice heard, or for the pleas of "unworthy" heroes to not be dismissed as falsehoods by the "real" heroes at the top who benefitted from the system. The upcoming Heroic Contributions Act, moreover, would take away even the right to be heroes from many if not most of them.

The least Momo could do under these circumstances was to provide some solidarity.

"If you ever need more manpower, more firepower, or more brainpower in the quest to find your missing classmates," she told Mawata, "feel free to contact me at any time."

Chapter Text

The letter Momo had received was one that she'd been expecting, but that did little to alleviate the sinking feeling in her stomach as she read it.

We inform you that your hero license has been revoked under the Heroic Contributions Act for your lack of contribution to heroism, quarrels with other pro heroes over jurisdiction, and one recent case of poor incident handling that resulted in an avoidable civilian death. You are expected to report to the new Retired Heroes Rehabilitation Initiative within 30 days of receiving this letter for your re-education as a civilian and reintegration into society.

Oddly enough, the first concern that came to her mind wasn't for herself. How is Melissa going to make a living now, now that I can't have her work for me as my support gear technician? Without a valid hero license, she no longer had legal justification for keeping her around as an employee. She'd introduced her to the Rebound Agency shortly after she'd visited it, and after some initial mistrust, the heroes there had seen past her undeserved reputation and warmed up to her. But that agency was barely capable of supporting itself at the best of times, leaving Melissa still dependent on the slowly-dwindling Yaoyorozu family wealth for virtually all of her financial needs.

Of course, with the Heroic Contributions Act now active, there was a good chance the Rebound Agency was no longer in operation, its heroes no longer able to employ Melissa due to having been forced into a very early retirement.

Like myself.

The tears now started to flow as the reality of her situation sank in. There had only been a handful of other occasions, including both of her Sports Festivals, when she had felt this low. Not even the worst indignities she had suffered during her now-finished hero "career" could compare to this, for this was the final, official, and non-negotiable rejection she'd received from society. We will never believe in your abilities and will never give you a chance to prove them to us, the letter implicitly said. We've now made it illegal for you to even try.

The last seven years of her life, not to mention everything she had done to get into U.A in the first place, had amounted to a zero sum. No, a zero sum would be an improvement on her failure, for her efforts had involved the sacrifices and efforts of so many other people that had been all for nothing. She had failed Majestic, who had given his life to protect her so that she may become a greater hero than him. She had failed Kayama-sensei, who had never doubted her abilities even to her dying breath. She had failed Melissa, who had counted on her success just to keep herself afloat and alive. She'd failed her parents, and they had lost their reputation, their personal safety, and their company's position in the support industry because of her.

All for the want of a win in some tournament.

But as Momo curled up into herself and pondered how her life had gone horribly wrong, her sorrow and shame began to turn into anger. Her wrath began with Tokoyami, who had set all of this into motion on that fateful day almost seven years ago, due to his twisted notion of "respect" for her. She then felt it flare up against the Commission, for creating a flawed metric by which to judge a hero's performance in the field, then at Midoriya, for blindly supporting anything that seemed to offer the promise of reform within the hero industry without thinking of other consequences of his actions, for being too much of an optimist to be able to grasp the realities of heroics.

She felt disappointed at U.A for instituting the Sports Festival, an event that effectively classified its heroes-in-training as either "capable" or "incapable" based on how they performed in a setting that bore no resemblance to conditions found during field operations. She felt resentment towards her classmates, who had contributed to the problem by overshadowing her, unwittingly denying her whatever opportunities she might still have been able to seize upon. Last but not least, she was furious at herself, for having remained faithful to a system that she knew-had always known-was never going to grant her the chance to achieve what it had initially promised her.

The question Momo needed to ask herself now was how to move on with her life from here-that is, if she ever could have a fulfilling life in her current situation. A hero whose license had been revoked was forever tainted in the court of public opinion, and this had never applied more so than in the aftermath of the Paranormal Liberation War, especially if that hero had a preexisting reputation for lack of capability or moral integrity. For her, it not only meant that she could no longer legally work as a hero, it meant little chance of having a successful career at all. Even heading to foreign countries was unlikely to provide a refuge from negative publicity, for the Yaoyorozus were famous enough to be a household name overseas. She couldn't survive off of her inherited wealth forever, but her chances of finding employment were minuscule.

Dealing with this newest personal crisis was simply too much for her to handle on her own. She needed to talk to someone who genuinely understood what she was going through and would be able to do more than offer condolences. Shoto would normally have been her first choice, but he'd been requested for a foreign assignment several days ago and thus wasn't available. Kyoka, the one other classmate she still kept in touch with, was unlikely to understand the full story behind how she'd lost her license, or be able to offer much useful input in the way of resolving the situation. Her new connections at the Rebound Agency would certainly be able to relate to her, but even though they were very much on friendly terms with her, she hadn't known them for long enough to know if they'd be entirely comfortable with her sharing her personal problems with them. That left Melissa, who at any rate needed to be informed that her employer had just gone out of business. So Momo punched in a now-familiar number into her phone, made the call, and waited for her now-former support gear technician to pick it up.

It took less than one full ring cycle before a familiar voice could be heard. "Is there something wrong?"

Inhaling sharply, the ravenette hesitated for a moment before breaking the bad news. "I'm sorry, Melissa. I've failed you." Then she informed her of the letter she had received this morning. Melissa had already been told about the Heroic Contributions Act, and there was no need to explain all the consequences it entailed for both of them to her.

"Good thing I've been saving up all the wages you've paid me for the last six months, then. But seriously, Momo, I wouldn't have lasted even this long without you." It was so characteristic of Melissa to maintain a sense of humor in the darkest of times, while still able to acknowledge the grim reality of the situation instead of trying to overlook harsh truths. "Both of us know that it wasn't your fault you were disqualified from hero work, even if the people who actually make that decision do not. If only more people could be convinced of that so that we could find some employment."

"The only employer I can reasonably expect to take me in is Yaoyorozu Support Inc, and you should know all the reasons why that's not going to work out." Sighing, Momo then added, "Even if I could somehow find a civilian workplace that wouldn't collapse from the baggage attached to my name, I don't know what to do with my life from now on. My entire time at U.A, all of the design work you've done for me, they're all irrelevant now that I am banned from going on any missions or patrols."

"Why would you need to stop going on missions or patrols?" asked Melissa. "You might not be Creati anymore, but the Commission still doesn't know that you're also Arsenal. There's nothing to prevent you from becoming a vigilante for real, Momo."

That thought had already crossed her mind. Her conscience wouldn't let her abandon the people who needed her help or allow crime to run rampant, and she'd come to enjoy the thrill of the chase during her time moonlighting as Arsenal. But vigilantism was illegal: that was a lesson that had been drilled into the head of every U.A Hero Course graduate. "As much as I want to, I can't," she told her, before heading into a segue on the legalities-or lack thereof-of vigilantism in Japan. Up until now, she had no reason to worry about the legalities around vigilantism because she'd merely been pretending to be a vigilante; had the police ever tried to arrest her on vigilantism charges, she would have been acquitted, albeit begrudgingly, due her possession of a hero license. It would still have been a serious problem for her and likely have meant the end of her charade, but at least she wouldn't have become an actual criminal. That protection, however, no longer applied to her, and by extension it no longer applied to anyone who had designed the gear she grew from her body and the weapons she created using her quirk.

"I'm offering you a way out. Whatever happens to me from now on, it would be better for you if you weren't a part of it. It's been my pleasure to work alongside you." She concluded at the end of her tirade. Melissa herself had gone separate ways from Yagi-sensei to protect him from the unwanted attention she attracted, so Momo expected her to understand what she was getting at. But to her surprise, the inventor dug her metaphorical heels in.

"Look, I understand why you're making this choice. Heck, I've had to do the same myself with Uncle Might. But tell me this: is that really what you want to do?"

"Of course it isn't!" Momo all but shouted into the phone. "But I have little choice in the matter when vigilantism is an act of villainy under Japanese law. If you keep helping me with my equipment from this point on, you'll also be considered a villain by association." More than anything else, she didn't want to hurt one of her last remaining friends and allies even more than she already had. The last thing she wanted was for her friend to be branded a criminal for aiding her own illegal efforts as a vigilante.

Which was why what Melissa said next came as a shock.

"If we end up becoming villains as part of continuing to help as many people as we can, maybe it would be worth it."

It took several long seconds for Momo to register what she'd just heard. "Mel-Melissa," she stammered, "did you just-" For as long as anyone could remember, villains were synonymous with evil and cruelty. Not only that, Momo had lived though and been a part of the Paranormal Liberation War, even if she wasn't involved in the fighting nearly as much as she could and should had been. She knew firsthand just how much damage villains could inflict against the people of Japan, and wanted to be involved in no part of it. "Melissa, think about what happened when your father went that far. Think about how much of your problems since then resulted from that."

"Yes, and because of that I've already spent the last six years of my life being treated as a villain in the eyes of the public. I have nothing left to lose by actually becoming one, and neither do you." Even over the phone, she could hear the inventor become increasingly animated and determined. There was real passion in her voice now, years of pent-up anger starting to bubble to the surface. "Sometimes you have to put your foot down and make a stand even if the entire world seems to be against you."

Ever since her third-year Sports Festival, one of Momo's greatest running concerns was that her association with Melissa was to the latter's detriment. It was why, time and again, she had tried to find ways for them to go their separate ways on good terms until it had become clear that the engineering prodigy had nowhere else to go. But now, it was Melissa who wanted to put everything on the line to support her. This wasn't where I expected our call to go. "I may no longer be a hero, but that doesn't mean I'm no longer subject to the rules of the system."

"You shouldn't have to listen to the rules of a system that doesn't even know who you really are," Melissa told her. "I can be your partner in crime. I'll rather become a villain for real than leave you behind to face everything alone."

"But Melissa-" Momo felt herself choke up as she felt a mixture of gratitude and concern. "You don't have to go that far just for my sake," she pleaded. There was no romantic attraction for either of them here, no financial gain to be had. Melissa's loyalty came entirely from a deep sense of solidarity originating from their shared grievances against society. And she wasn't sure if she wanted either of them to go down that route-even as deep down, she found herself in full agreement.

"It's not just for your sake, it's for mine as well," reassured the blonde. "I'm tired of pretending I'm fine with the way I'm treated by the world. If people will only see me as a villain, if people will only allow me to be a villain, perhaps that's who I should be, just to spite them. And if we end up arrested and jailed, or even killed, like so many other villains-so what? You know that we're already heading towards disaster. Our reputations have made sure of that. We might as well send the world a message while at it."

Every bit of Momo's upbringing and education screamed out that what Melissa was suggesting was unthinkable. Villains were evil. That was basic knowledge taught to toddlers who were first starting to walk. If someone had asked her about the idea she could become a villain at any point in the Paranormal Liberation War, during her graduation ceremony, or even just a month ago, she would have adamantly refused to entertain the notion, before telling that person to immediately get out of her sight.

"I'll take it into consideration."

Yet, for some inexplicable reason, she found herself unable to reject Melissa's insane proposal.

------

So much for not becoming a vigilante, thought Momo as she returned from her most recent flight as Arsenal.

It had been almost a week since Melissa had implored her to follow what she felt was right instead of following the law. During that time she had continued her now very definitely illegal undercover work, immersing herself in it in an attempt to escape her internal conflict, but knowing that she was on the wrong side of the law had only raised her stress levels. Time and time again, she'd tried to come up with excuses to quit while she was ahead, before the local police got fed up with her and she ended up with an actual criminal record. There are some heroes who haven't yet lost their licenses in Nagoya, even if they're not quite as good as you, so just let them handle it like the qualified heroes they are, she'd tried to tell herself. You might, with a lot of luck in your favor, still be able to find someone desperate or open-minded enough to accept you as an employee, even if only for a minimum-wage position. If you add a criminal record on top of that, even that minuscule chance would vanish.

But in spite of these attempts to fool herself into thinking she could just leave her old life behind, in spite of knowing that she was now a legitimate vigilante and thus a villain in the legal definition, Momo found herself putting on her Flight IV gear and heading out on patrols night after night. She knew that the people of Nagoya needed her, that every night she stayed in was a night during which other criminals would get to enjoy more of a free hand without her to fall upon them. So her nocturnal activities hadn't ceased, even though there was no longer any way for her to reconcile being Arsenal and not being a villain at the same time. Not only had she knowingly become a villain through her vigilantism, it had become apparent that in this case, being a villain meant helping others, not causing harm (except to the other villains who she went after).

Compounding things further, Mawata had called her just yesterday to explain that every hero at the Rebound Agency had lost their licenses, much as she'd suspected. They, too, had correctly expected her license had become invalid, and in exchange for knowing about her alter ego, they'd told her a secret of their own. The now-former Rebound Agency had been in the process of converting itself into a vigilante network, with a long-term goal of trying to expose Aizawa as an abusive teacher. As Momo was the closest thing to a vigilante any of them personally knew, they wanted her to provide advise and possibly even coordinate their future activities, hence the unexpected phone call. Upon being told that she was pondering the legal ramifications of continuing with her nocturnal crimefighting, they were just as quick as Melissa to tell her that she should embrace her "villainy", and she'd admitted that the idea appealed to her.

The conversation had led her to rethink what it meant to be a villain. There was, of course, the legal definition that she usually tended to use, the one she had been taught in her Hero Law & Ethics classes: A "villain" included anyone who used their quirk in a public setting without a hero license or other official documentation permitting them to do so. In practice, it was entirely up to the heroes and police to determine if a minor case of public quirk usage was grounds for a response, but this was open to subjective interpretations and potential abuses of the law. More crucially, it meant that everyone who used their quirk in public without a license was lumped under the same blanket term, regardless of whether they were a monster like All for One, or a nurse using their quirk to relieve a patient of pain in their last moments.

If the definition of a villain was so vague and subjective, was it really morally wrong for her to use her quirk to its full potential in service of the greater good, regardless of whether it was legal or not? Was it not morally superior for her to be a vigilante-thus also falling under the definition of a villain-than it was for her to not be a villain and turn a blind eye to the people who needed her to fight for them? It had been a chilling realization, one that was making her re-evaluate both her own morals and those of heroism as a whole. The rigid boundaries of "heroes" and "villains" she had believed to be absolute truths for her whole life were in fact social constructs, much like the distinction between "capable" and "incapable" hero students, or "real", "support" and "false" heroes.

Which had brought her back to the root cause behind her problems. The deeper she had gone down that particular rabbit hole, the more convinced she had become that the hero system itself was the problem with hero society. Heroes were necessary to defend civilians from villains, accidents or natural disasters-but would they still be necessary if the system didn't require that they were the only people able to use their quirks publicly and within the bounds of the law? Current legislation almost completely prevented other first responders such as police officers, firefighters, or emergency medical personnel from using their quirks in the line of duty, even in cases where it would make more sense than waiting for an appropriate hero to turn up. A state of enforced dependence on heroes had been forced upon everyone else, all originating from the idea that heroes, and in particular the "real" heroes, were the only people who should be allowed to wield power.

Even amongst the heroes, not all were born equal. The Commission's policy was that every hero would be paid a minimum wage-which was insufficient to meet an adult human's needs-as well as an additional monthly fee based on other factors, especially incident resolution. Intelligence-based or other "support" heroes were officially credited with a smaller role in incident resolution and thus received less additional pay per resolved incident compared to rescue heroes, who in turn received less credit for their actions than the "real", combat focused heroes. This, in fact, was the very reason she had developed a more combat-oriented focus following the Paranormal Liberation War, so that she could attract enough positive attention and prestige to be able to work more effectively than would otherwise be the case. But her efforts had been too little, too late, especially with so many of her peers having been given more and better opportunities to be noticed both within and outside of the hero industry.

The whole thing was nothing more than a thinly-veiled, government-sanctioned form of autocracy. No matter how many people demanded changes and reforms to "improve" it, it could never be truly fixed; not when its very existence depended on granting privileges and the right to enforce the status quo to a small fraction of the population, and on keeping the rest of the population forcibly dependent upon this elite minority.

Was it really villainous to stand against such a system? Was it not more villainous to remain loyal to it even knowing how rotten it was at its core? Was it not more heroic to try and fix the problem at its very source, putting an end to who knows how much misery it was continuing to cause?

Tonight was to be the moment of decision. Freshly returned from yet another "true vigilantism" patrol that had taken six hours, Momo now sat down behind her desk, giving her contradictory understanding of the world a long, deep thought. Villainy was wrong, yet at the same time, heroism was corrupt, and the contradiction between these two ideas kept pulling her in two different directions as she agonized over her future.

Indecisiveness was a character flaw that U.A had tried its best to train out of her, so that she would not falter in the middle of an operation. They had taught her that, should her best-laid, most comprehensive plans fail, to make up a new plan on the fly based on her gut instinct-and right now, her gut instinct was telling her to stop trying to cooperate with the hero system.

Society had deemed her unfit to be a hero, but if she couldn't handle the challenges of being a hero, who could? When one examined the relative number of incidents she'd resolved compared to the number of instances where she had been able to get herself involved, it became clear that she had successfully resolved virtually every incident she had been able to intervene in, usually with minimal collateral damage or bystander casualties. Most of her ex-classmates were being lauded for being effectiveness, in spite of the fact only Midoriya and Todoroki, and maybe Tokoyami, could claim to match her in terms of overall capabilities. Why did people like Bakugo, an attempted murderer with a quirk far less powerful let alone useful compared to her own, deserve to be considered as far more capable or heroic than she was simply because of public perception? How could the effectiveness of heroes be judged objectively when non-objective criteria were used to determine who even had a chance to become "effective" in the first place?

Who had the right to decide whether someone should be a hero or not? Who should have such a right? Then another thought struck her: If there are so many qualified people, now including myself, who are prevented from acting as heroes because they aren't licensed but could easily do as well or better than the "real" heroes, is there even a need for pro heroes to exist in the first place?

Public approval for heroes had hit a low point during the climax of the Paranormal Liberation War, and it was only gradually creeping back, thanks in large part to the Hell Class. But was this restoration of faith ultimately a good thing? Why should people believe in an inherently flawed system? The hero system was a system fundamentally based on promoting social inequality, maintained by government oppression and built on the foundations of a stratified, conservative pre-quirk Japanese society. It was reckless and irresponsible to try and restore such a system to its former "glory". The most disturbing part of all this, of course, was that the one currently trying to accomplish just that, thus allowing these issues to be perpetuated for decades to come, was the one man who had promised to put an end to such issues within the industry: Pro Hero Deku.

It was easy for Midoriya to ignore the unfortunate yet fundamental role that validation or fame played in the hero industry, affecting everything from the funding needed for hero work to how willingly other heroes or the police were to collaborate with a given hero. Because he didn't care for such motivations, he'd overlooked this critical detail when he pushed for the Heroic Contributions Act, failing to realize to realize just how much heroes required external validation to function. His "Just do your best" mentality implicitly demanded that every hero should try to succeed in their goals without any consideration for the causes behind the obstacles they may face, and implied that any hero who failed to live up to their potential had only themselves to blame for it regardless of their circumstances. Most importantly, he idolized the hero industry far too much to even contemplate the idea that the field of heroism should be allowed to die out, even as he himself acknowledged and attempted to correct some of its flaws.

The general public, taken in by stories of his accomplishments during the war and his earnest desire for a better world, viewed him with the same sense of awe they once had reserved for Yagi-sensei. But Momo knew it all too well how imperfect Midoriya truly was. How, in spite of his belief that everyone was equal, he'd insisted on hunting down All for One and his minions personally during the final phase of the Paranormal Liberation War, subconsciously assuming that none of his peers would be qualified enough to accompany him in his efforts. How he hadn't treated her as anything more than the source of the tracker all the way back during that night in Kamino Ward. How he'd passed her over for Iida when he stepped down from his position as class representative, even though, as his vice-representative, the position should have been passed to her.

Had Midoriya truly believed she was as capable as he'd told her that she was? Or had he deemed her too incapable to be trusted in a position of authority even before the rest of the world had come to the same conclusion?

She had already been disillusioned by Midoriya, but now that she realized he had been part of the problem all along, she was convinced that he was exactly what so many people accused her of being-a false hero who preached hypocrisy and didn't live up to his own ideals. He may not have been cruel, corrupt or even apathetic like so many others, but he was far from the flawless savior most of the world assumed he was. If such a person was held aloft on a pedestal he didn't deserve, and thus allowed to dominate the hero industry without anyone to oppose him and to maintain a balance, he could easily have a huge influence on all of society-not only for the better, but also ultimately for the worse in the long term.

Unless someone was willing to make a stand against him and call him out for the negative consequences of his actions.

What Japan needed right now was someone who could stand up to Midoriya and provide a different perspective, someone who was less idealistic and didn't have their entire thought process revolve around heroism. Someone who could actually rival his intelligence, his power, and his relentless drive. Someone like herself.

The first rays of dawn coming through a window reminded Momo that it was almost sunrise; she'd stayed up the entire night, and her body was very much feeling the tiredness of it. But she was now filled with a terrible resolve, and as morning broke she left her apartment for the second time in twelve hours, this time donning casual wear rather than her costume and equipment.

For the past several years, Melissa had been leading a secluded life in a spare Research & Development Lab owned by Yaoyorozu Support Inc. The facility had been dormant for years, having been built as a spare in case the primary laboratories were destroyed in natural disasters or villain attacks, before it had become Melissa's home and workplace. The inventor almost never left the building for fear of misaimed retribution from the wider world, but Momo had been the one external visitor who was always welcome to the facility, and it was where she was headed now, her footsteps charting a direct course towards it.

It took almost an hour of waiting outside the nondescript doors of the building before its sole occupant finished up her morning routine and allowed Momo inside. She was somewhat amused to see Melissa do a double take upon seeing her disheveled state, a far cry from her usual well-groomed appearance. "What the hell happened to you?" Asked the blonde. Momo didn't need to create a mirror to realize that she must look terrible; she hadn't slept at all in over 24 hours, having spent the entirety of the previous night either hunting down fellow villains or debating herself. But internally, she was more alert than ever before, for she was on the brink of a momentous decision.

"I stayed up the whole night, but that's besides the point. Do you know where the most secure, soundproofed location in this building is?" She requested. Thankfully, Melissa was quick to get the hint, and hurriedly ushered her towards the closest flight of stairs, directing her down to the subterranean levels of the building. Every visit to the lab was unique thanks to the ever-changing variety of gadgets, technology, and new designs on display, but just for once Momo's eyes were not drawn to any of them. On this visit she had much greater concerns than merely the latest upgrade to her equipment.

Once Melissa had brought her into the most secluded room in the entire facility, she closed the door behind them, double-secured it, and faced her. "So, I guess this is about my suggestion that you said you were going to think about?"

All of a sudden Momo felt self-doubt rise up within her. This was the last chance for her to reconsider, to turn around, to play things safe. But then she remembered why she'd come to the conclusion she'd arrived at last night and steeled herself to make the single hardest choice in her entire life. I have to do this for their sake.

For everyone who had been left behind in hero society because they were deemed unworthy of having the authority to defend themselves or others, forced to rely on the very system that had kept them suppressed.

For all the people who had been left vulnerable because she couldn't be there to fight on their behalf when they needed her.

For the former heroes of the Rebound Agency, who now had no hope for a successful hero career or any alternative employment options thanks to their misguided, apathetic teacher.

For Melissa, whose talents were being left to rot merely because she was the daughter of a criminal.

And last but not least, for her own sake, so that she may at last be able to go beyond, Plus Ultra.

"Indeed it is." Momo began by saying, "and I've come to the conclusion you were right. I can't, and shouldn't, stop being Arsenal. I've tried to quit, only to find myself out prowling the night just as before, even knowing that what I was doing made me a villain. But it had been a choice between being a villain in the eyes of the law and neglecting my duties in the eyes of my conscience." As she said this, she noticed a look of anticipation and grim resolve dawning on the face of her companion.

The road Momo had chosen to travel down would be a painful, difficult one, and most likely lead to her untimely demise. She had studied enough history to know that individuals, organizations, or nations that attempted to defy the odds generally came out all the worse for it. It was unlikely she'd get a favorable outcome on this throw of the proverbial dice. But she had also run out of other, safer, more acceptable alternatives. She was already doomed to bring shame to the Yaoyorozu name. She at least wanted make a difference to the lives of the many who were being oppressed under the current system.

There was nothing left in her current life to make it worth staying behind, not when she knew she'd never be seen as anything other than a disgrace and a failure, never to be given a chance for redemption. If she couldn't be respected, perhaps she could be feared. If they were going to treat her as a worthless hero and deem her a villain for trying to do her job, she might as well try to overthrow the regime that gave her that treatment. It was the last remaining way in which she could make a decision for herself and take her own life into her control.

Looking up at Melissa once more, and taking a deep breath, Momo finally began to explain the full reasoning behind the decision she had made just over an hour earlier. "The reason I stayed up last night was because I couldn't go to sleep, thinking about how I've ended up where I am now and all the problems with the hero industry that led to it. At the end of it all, I couldn't deny it to myself that all the problems both of us suffered, the reason our reputations have held us back in spite of our talents, was because the hero industry itself is corrupt. It's just like you've said; the two of us will only ever be seen as villains, as failures, for trying to act like heroes."

This was the moment of truth. This was her Rubicon. Her peers, her would-be mentors, her education, and the hero system she had dedicated so much of her life to and sacrificed so much for-they had all let her down and pushed her towards this moment.

"If that's the only way the world is going to treat us, let's make it official."

------

Living a double life had been hard enough for Momo. Trying to manage an entire villain conspiracy was a Herculean challenge.

Things had begun unfolding with alarming rapidity once she had vowed to Melissa that she would bring down hero society for once and for all. Before the day was over, the ex-heroes of the Rebound Agency had been brought in on the secret and convinced to think beyond just their grievances against Aizawa. If they exposed the Eraser Hero as an abusive and incompetent teacher for heroes-in-training, it would bring significant negative publicity to U.A, she'd explained; why not make use of that to bring down U.A itself while at it? If they could topple Japan's most prestigious institution for the training of future heroes, it would be yet another critical blow against the hero system, yet another vulnerability that could be exploited to demolish the old world order. It had quickly become apparent that they had as much love for their alma mater as Momo herself did, which was to say very little, so once she'd explained her long-term plan against the entire hero system to them, they were instantly sold on her cause. In exchange, she promised to assist them in any way she could to help them reveal Aizawa's true colors to the public.

That negotiation had ultimately meant that not even a full day after Momo had resolved to embrace her darker side, she had already organized an entire group of villains with the goal of overthrowing the government. Instead of having only herself and Melissa to rely upon, she now had the various skillsets and creativity of an entire well-trained team that was used to working together at her disposal. Momo may have been one of the most powerful quirk users the world had ever seen, but she was still only one woman who could only be in one place at a time. Numbers provided more operational flexibility, more failsafes, more options. On the other hand, providing for a larger number of people in a conspiracy made logistics so much harder, even for someone who could create virtually anything with her quirk.

It also meant her responsibilities had increased exponentially, because now she was, almost by default, the leader of their fledgling movement; Shikiyuma was the only other contender for the position, but when she'd asked his opinion he'd allowed her to take charge on the basis that her long-term plans were far more comprehensive than his own. All of them had been seen as "lesser" human beings by U.A, by her fellow Hell Class alumni, and by the hero system itself. They were counting on her to take back everything they'd lost, and she refused let them down.

Some ground rules had already been established under her leadership. Momo wanted to maintain at least some of her morality, as did everyone else in the group; they were revolutionaries with a defined goal in mind, not sadists who caused death and destruction for pleasure. Civilian casualties were to be avoided if at all possible. The entire reason she was doing this was to bring justice to those who had been harmed by the system, and killing them was antithetical to that mission. For similar reasons, she'd demanded that collateral damage would be kept to a minimum (though she expected it to be unavoidable), unless the target she was facing was already liable to cause massive collateral damage anyways or was otherwise too much of a risk to leave alone.

The next order of business was to plan and carry out a vanishing act en masse, moving the various members of the group to various parts of Japan without tipping off the authorities as to what was afoot. This wasn't much of a concern for Melissa, who had been so reclusive in the past few years that most people already had no idea where she was, or the ex-Rebound heroes, whose social circles were completely restricted to each other. Things were different for Momo, however. The HPSC would notice something was up when she failed to show up for her "rehabilitation”, dispatch someone to her residence to demand her compliance, and find that she had disappeared. She knew her parents too well to ever believe that they wouldn't hire every private investigator they could sway to their side to mount a serious manhunt for their missing daughter, and some of her former classmates might also come looking for her. To complicate matters further, she already had a secret second identity strongly tied to Nagoya that she was going to use as her villain identity. If Arsenal disappeared from Nagoya and turned up elsewhere around the time the Yaoyorozu heiress disappeared, it would immediately raise suspicions. This risk restricted her to hiding somewhere within Nagoya or its immediate surroundings for now; she planned on gradually expanding her operations to encompass a far wider area until she could relocate herself to another city without it appearing too odd to outsiders, but that would take months at least.

Finalizing the plans for this discrete exodus was why Momo was flying towards the site of the former Rebound Agency at this moment. She had already provided various means of transportation for all the members besides herself and those who would be staying with her in Nagoya, which had been a logistical nightmare to arrange, requiring her to purchase vehicles and train passes under several different identities and carefully map out all routes of travel. Even more difficult had been setting up a network of safehouses, hideouts and strong points across Japan, a process that was still ongoing. The operation had also required the establishment of secure means of communications; thankfully, between a quirk that could create anything and two of the most brilliant minds on the planet, this had proven to be far less of a challenge for them than it would have been for most other villain groups. Everyone had been provided with no fewer than five burner phones each courtesy of Creation, with more to be handed out as necessary. In addition, all of their pre-existing electronic devices were now disguised under layers upon layers of encryption to hide their true identities and locations from any servers or satellites they were connected to, as well as firewalls and other forms of digital security to deter other villain organizations or even the HPSC from hacking directly into them.

As she landed in front of the dilapidated building, she was met by Chie Kobayashi, whose prehensile hair functioned like whips or tentacles, and Osamu Shizuneko, who could copy any information, experience or muscle memory from anyone within twenty meters of them. "You've arrived later than expected, Arsenal," they told her. As a measure of security, each member of the group created a new, villain name for themselves to go by, something particularly important for the ex-heroes on the off chance they ever encountered anyone who knew about her original hero names. Among other examples, Mindframe had become Skinjacker; Lady Linen now went by Fabricator; Levitator had renamed himself Bullet Train; and Gamma Girl now went by Radiovore. Momo, of course, was planning to stick with her original alter ego of Arsenal, while Melissa received a codename for the first time, as the Technocrat.

"Hair-Razor, Copycat, my apologies." She addressed the two as they led her into the ruined building. The remaining ex-heroes, the ones who had greeted her on her first visit, were waiting inside with Melissa, who had just returned with them from what was to become the site for her second secret laboratory if her current one was to be discovered. Upon her entrance they all instantly snapped to attention, and she was pleased to see that everyone was ready to leave at a moment's notice.

"You know the drill: Keep doing your work as vigilantes once you get yourselves set up in your new bases. Use the various hair dyes and facial disguises for you to hide your true identities when out and about. Only refer to yourselves as the false civilian identities the Technocrat has forged and entered into citizen databases for you. For now, avoid engaging heroes whenever possible unless I personally order you to do otherwise, but feel free to fight them if they force the issue as long as you're more focused on trying to get away unscathed."

That was the way things would have to be for the next half a year at minimum, probably for over a year: an underground campaign of vigilantism all across Japan. Momo would continue to operate as Arsenal, initially remaining centered around Nagoya, but she planned to gradually expand her routine patrols eastwards into Shizuoka and northwards as far as the Greater Tokyo Area. Building upon her current notoriety, she would cultivate a formidable reputation in the Japanese underground, eventually making the Arsenal name known aboveground as a particularly well-known and celebrated vigilante. Her partners in crime would work alongside her in various other major cities across Japan, appearing to be independent from the outside but in reality well-connected via various clandestine lines of communication. Melissa, meanwhile, would expose various forms of corruption and systematic discrimination in the hero system via means of cyberattacks, further lowering the credibility of both the HPSC and of heroes as a whole. She would also start working as an underground support item dealer to bring in additional funding, with Momo offering the services of her quirk for materials that couldn't be acquired through other means.

The main goal of all this would be undermine support for heroes by outperforming them in both villain captures and rescues, and making sure these statistics became widely known to the public. If people started to realize that there were vigilantes out there who outperformed most heroes, and in Momo's case virtually all of them, they would start to question if heroes were at all necessary. This would have to happen while faith in heroes as a whole was still shaky; once her former classmates and others in the new generation of heroes had re-established faith in the hero system, their work would get much, much harder.

Eventually, once they had the backing of public opinion and had gained enough influence for themselves, they would move directly against the heroes, defeating them in a series of battles to humiliate them, to show the world how their titles didn't mean they were so much more powerful or skilled than everyone else. Mawata, Shikiyuma, Hibiki, Kobayashi and Shizuneko were capable enough to at least hold their own against most high-level pros, and Momo herself was more than a match for anyone in the Top Ten. It would be at around this point of the overall plan that she planned to reveal her true identity, while simultaneously striking a decisive blow against the hero system in battle. Her target had to be someone both symbolic and strategically critical.

The most ambitious but also the riskiest option involved directly facing off against Midoriya himself. That task, if things ended up coming down to it, was something Momo planned to undertake personally, not only because it would demoralize Midoriya to have to defeat and possibly try to kill one of his old classmates, but because it would allow her to prove to the world that she was as capable if not more so than the "greatest hero of all time". She knew better than to assume she could hide her identity from him indefinitely, or that he wouldn't come after her as soon as she became a thorn in the side of the heroes. If he was going to confront and unmask her anyways, she wanted it to be on her terms, on a battlefield of her choosing, at a time when she was armed with the most fearsome array of her creations that she could muster. I can't defeat him in a battle of physical strength, but as he himself said years ago, I don't have to, she reminded herself. Let's see just how much he can hold out against attacks that he can't just punch or kick away, against an enemy who can create any method of attack to take away all of his advantages.

To truly emerge victorious over Midoriya and avoid turning him into a martyr, however, his public standing had to be thoroughly undermined and his character brought into question in addition to him being defeated in battle. He was the Symbol of Hope, of false hope, and it was about time that false hope was stamped out in favor of real solutions. He wanted to restore public faith in heroes, so she would show the public that their faith in him was unwarranted. She would serve as a warning to the world that blind hope without proper understanding was dangerous, a stark reminder that the Symbol of Hope had failed someone in need who'd been right in front of his eyes. She would become his ultimate antithesis, the Symbol of Despair.

She would be a new, better symbol for the people, one who wouldn't blind them to the world's problems by giving false reassurances. She would expose and then tear down the constructs and barriers that society had created and open the eyes of the public to the truth; that the corruption ran much deeper than they've ever assumed, that even the reforms they were demanding were not immune from it. That they had been right to lose their faith in heroes during the height of the Paranormal Liberation War and should never have given them a chance for redemption. That the only way to right all the wrongs of the hero system was to start over from scratch. And once she had led all of Japan to despair at the current state of things, she would lead them to rebel against the very existence of heroes. Then, and only then, would some true hope for a new, better world order arise from the ashes.

But that was all several years into the future at minimum. For tonight, the immediate goals were in dispersing, in avoiding discovery and capture, and in establishing themselves as a new player on the scene.

Each member would have to support themselves on the funds they had been provided with for the next few weeks, until they could find new sources of income under false identities. Fortunately, money was no object for Momo, and she'd been generous with her finances. Even though the Yaoyorozu fortunes had diminished somewhat due to her fallen public standing, her family was still one of the richest families in Japan, and her parents had been generous with providing financial support for their struggling daughter. Her current pocket change alone was worth hundreds of millions of yen, and in the past week she had set up numerous online financial accounts, each containing billions to tens of billions of yen, under multiple pseudonyms and forged identities. Put together, this wealth was far more than enough to make her the richest person in the Japanese underground, and sufficient to create an underground empire with herself on its throne. And if even this wasn't enough, she could create as much rare metals and other resources as she wanted to further enrich herself, as long as she avoided flooding the market by selling them off only in small quantities.

As the small gathering of fledgling villains looked towards her for directions, she began to deliver them, starting with Homura, Mawata, and Melissa-three of the most important members of the overall team. "Fabricator, Radiovore, you're heading to Fukushima and taking the Technocrat with you. Depart three hour's time from now in Bullet Train's van, and continue to make use of it as necessary during operations in cities closest to the Exclusion Zone. Radiovore, you've been there several times in the past two weeks, so I trust you to keep your companions safe and lead them to where they need to go."

Organizing a hideout in and around the Fukushima Exclusion Zone was a stroke of brilliance on her part. After the nuclear disaster of 2011, decontamination efforts had shrunk the uninhabitable area significantly, but much of the area had still not been resettled when the Dawn of Quirks had occurred and put an end to any further attempts to clean up the most heavily irradiated areas. This left a considerable area around the Exclusion Zone as well as the zone itself not only uninhabited to this day, but also equipped with pre-existing infrastructure in varying states of disrepair-the perfect place to hide even a sizable group of villains. The risk of radiation poisoning was rendered irrelevant with Homura around, who could fuel herself with the abundance of radiation and thus simultaneously prevent said radiation from coming into contact with her companions; Momo herself was also resistant to radiation as a part of her quirk. An abandoned, decaying town hall just outside of the Exclusion Zone itself was already being refurbished into a mad scientist's lair for Melissa's use, with an ample number of Geiger counters monitoring its immediate vicinity just in case the decontaminated area hadn't been as decontaminated as the government reports had stated.

Turning to face Shikiyuma next, Momo told him to head for a specific address in Nara. "Leave in an hour's time from now and take the motorcycle that I've given you on my last visit. Bullet Train has informed me earlier today that he'd arrived there yesterday; seek his help if you need to."

"If I may, boss," he spoke up, "I don't need the motorbike, so save it for someone else. I can just possess someone for an instant, jump to the next person over, and so on until I end up in Nara. I've already had most of my stuff moved over, either by express freight-thanks to the cash you've given me, of course-or with Bullet Train, so the fact I can't take anything with me when traveling this way isn't going to be an issue. You can fly over to the Nagoya train station in under five minutes, boss, can't you?" He asked mischievously. When she nodded affirmatively, he continued: "I can possess you, but leave you in control of your body so I'm more like a passenger, and then have you fly me to the station. Once I'm there I'll leave you behind and switch to another host-preferably one trying to get on a train-and make my way to Nara from there."

Even the mere idea of having someone else's consciousness within her body, with the potential to hijack it for himself, was something that secretly frightened Momo, but from a practicality perspective Shikiyuma's suggestion was actually better than her original plan. "Fine," she answered. "Just don't take this as an opportunity to flirt with me. In that case, then, Hair-Razor and Copycat can take the motorbike all the way to the Osaka hideout. I want the two of you to leave now, immediately." Both Kobayashi and Shizuneko nodded and quickly left the room, heading for where the bike had been parked and hidden.

That left just herself and Hibiki unaccounted for. "I'm staying in Nagoya for now; Myna will be with me. The Technocrat will be rejoining the two of us in a week's time once her second laboratory is set up." She was looking forwards to fighting alongside Hibiki: her long association with Kyoka, both in and out of training, had taught her much about the offensive capabilities of sound-based quirks, and Hibiki's ability to perfectly replicate any sound she'd ever heard promised great versatility, something that Momo greatly valued as the wielder of perhaps the most versatile quirk in existence. "That will be all for now. Any more questions?"

"That's it? No fancy speech?" Mawata teased. "I expected something more from my favorite kohai."

"Fabricator, I'm saving the speech for after we manage to miraculously tear down the entire hero system. Let's not celebrate prematurely."

"We at least need an actual name for ourselves, boss." Shikiyuma complained. "One that's better than the League of Villains 2.0."

That was something Momo had been concerned about as well. When they eventually revealed their existence to the outside world, they would need to market themselves to help convince the public of their cause. They needed a name that would be memorable, concise, and not too off-putting. But between her still-ongoing patrols as Arsenal and the time and energy expended in getting everything set up, she hadn't been able to come up with a name for their movement yet.

"How about the Fallen Heroes Alliance?"

Everyone in the room turned to face Homura, who continued on unphased: "It's who we are, isn't it? Former heroes who switched sides because we saw how terrible the system was."

"I like the sound of that name," Momo said in agreement. "I'll message Hair-Razor and Copycat later to let them know. From this moment on, we are the Fallen Heroes Alliance."

A small but heartfelt cheer went up as Mawata and Melissa applauded her declaration, while Homura appeared smug at having thought of the name. Momo had to admit that she wished she'd come up with the name herself, but she couldn't complain. Not when the new name so perfectly encapsulated their current circumstance, the hardships that had driven them together into villainy.

They were the Fallen Heroes: a group of remarkable people who had been rejected and marginalized by the very system they had once devoted their lives to serving. A prodigy whose bright future ahead had been stolen from her by her father's ill-conceived plot, considered by the world as the villain behind a crime she had no involvement in until it had become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Heroes who had been branded with undeserved black marks on their records on the very first day of their journey into heroism, forever doomed to be judged only by their misleading academic record and not by their capabilities. Standing in the middle of them all was Momo, a heiress whose origins lay in the decadent upper echelons of society but who had been pushed all the way down to the murky depths of its underbelly, all because too few people had ever realized what she was capable of or what she needed to live up to that potential.

Society had only shown shame and disrespect towards her as the Everything Hero: Creati.

She would make them regret ever underestimating her as the Everything Villain: Arsenal.