Chapter Text
In the early 23rd century the annual sports festival was coming to a close, with the third year's finale seeming to be quite a unique experience among the fights. However, it stopped before it could begin, as a monster of artificial design erupted from the stands, in their rampage the death toll numbered in the early four digits, admitted to 1,036 loss of human lives.
It was stopped by many heroes on the scene, as well as by the help of a mysterious assailant that many pro-heroes trusted. But that isn’t important, what is important is why it occurred. To answer that one would have to look back at the life of Kanashimi Tokage’s life.
Four years ago.
<--->
He moved onto the highway, increasing his speed while keeping his eyes on the road, all while having a lovely discussion about the future with his passenger. Kanashimi Tokage was a middle-aged man that stood at a menacingly 6'6, he had no hair of the sort and his skin had what seemed to be some scales that were a byproduct of his lizard-like quirk.
“I keep telling you Setsuna, you need to focus on your school at the moment!"
“And what do you know?” She snapped back, putting her feet up against the top of the glove box. “I knew you barely made it out of high school,”
“Because I needed to! I had three younger brothers to feed! You know this!” Kanashimi “And stop dirtying the airbags please,”
Begrudgingly listening to her father's demands, Setsuna put one leg down and grunted as she looked out the window. Kanashimi knew that was the most his daughter would listen to him, but it did mean he only needed half the time to clean his car.
Setsuna Tokage was 10 years old and was already a promising individual in almost everything. Academics, Sports and what many believed to be a powerful quirk. Known as Lizard Tail Splitter, it allowed her at the moment to detach and reattach limbs, also allowing her to grow them back.
But right now, everything in her life sucked.
Her mother had recently left the picture, not due to her untimely demise but because she decided she had enough. Although not before draining most of the bank accounts and visiting a variety of body-altering quirks before fleeing the country.
Just like any other normal person instead of just separating and getting a divorce.
“Listen, Setsuna,” His dad sighed. “You know what it’s like for my quirk to do… Trying to find and job and it took me even longer for me to-”
“To get one that didn’t kick you out after a week, yeah I know Dad !” She spat out. “And I'm happy for some things that happened to you ages ago can still be met with the same bias now!”
“Why are you like this?” He asked the paternal question.
“Because Mom left? Because my life has become shit ever since we moved here?”
“But that doesn’t mean you can just bludge everything and hang around with those new friends… You know I see every single withdrawal ever since your mother decided to do a spending spree… A... a spa-day? Really?”
“Well, Asui needed the cash! She-”
“You breach my trust! That’s the point!” He gave a quick glance. “You breach just about everything I know about you for what?” He looked at her. “Spite? Popularity!”
“Keep your eyes on the road!” She yelled at him. “No, it's not that it’s… I don’t know, it's just…” She couldn’t answer the question.
Kanashimi sighed. “When I was your age I know how it feels to… want to lash out, and I’m not saying don’t it’s just…” He reworded the next sentence in his head. “Just make sure you have your future in mind, alright?”
Setsuna looked out the window, pouting. “Fine… I’ll think about it,”
Kanashimi smiled. “That’s all I can ask,”
<--->
Meanwhile, On the other side of the road
<--->
The States of Matter is a villain quartet made out of four identical twins, all of which a similar quirks, able to create matter they touched. And in the fact that their truck was filled to the brim with specific yellow barrels three of them were shocked as they saw a hero.
The Road hero: Tarmachia, whose quirk was to control the Tarmach jumped over the barricade separating the two directions and raced after the States of Matter. Quickly talking on his intercom he sped up the pursuit by sliding on the road and propelling him forward and starting a high-speed chase on the highway.
Brother Plasma seeing this quickly took out a taser and stuck it on himself for a moment, right before his fist began to glow yellow. Tarmachia swerved through the small bolts of electricity as he got closer. To them, Plasma was about to hit Tarmachia but stopped due to his brother slapping the back of his head.
“Idiot!” Liquid yelled. “Be careful!”
“What do you think I’m doing?” The small beckoning between the two gave Tarmachia enough time to clap his hands and slam them on the table.
“SUPER MOVE!” All of a sudden the asphalt raised over the truck and slammed the brakes, holding all of the barrels down. “ASPHALT BINDING!”
The brother known as Solid had quickly slammed on the breaks, able to break out of the bindings and jump across the lanes.
<--->
As Setsuna was looking through the window, she looked up seeing a pickup truck barrelling towards them. Before she was able to do anything it slammed into the car causing the windows to break and the glass to work like Shrapnel, stabbing into her face.
The next thing that she heard was her father yelling her name.
“SETSUNA!”
Then all went black.
<--->
The force had caused the two vehicles to jump off the road and onto another lane down below. Tarmachia knowing the roads jumped down and immediately bound each of the villains before they could do anything else.
He saw all of the barrels scattered across the other car, while he heard banging. The car door quickly opened as a man with an obvious mutation quirk got out, dragging out another girl by the hair. Tarmachia saw the man try his best to drag the girl out before he grabbed both of them and then laid them out of harm's way.
But what was noticeable was how the girl was partially covered in the semi-florescent liquid that stuck to her. Tarmachia immediately called emergency services, only to see the man literally black out the shards of glass from his body.
“Sir! Please don’t pull the glass out of your skin, the EMTs are already on their way," He tried to explain calmly.
“Don’t worry about me! My daughter’s covered with that stuff she…,” Tarmachia looked down and saw how bad it was. Cuts and bruises riddled the girl, with the liquid seeping into her. He swore as he activated his quirk to try and wipe away the liquid all while placing a hand on his comm again.
“Tarmachia here again! A girl is in critical condition! She has come into contact with some… The GLowing liquid that the States of Matter had… I need an immediate evac now!” Tarmchia turned to the man and knelt down. “Don’t worry sir, she’ll be fine… I’ve labelled it as a top priority,”
The man finally began to peel off some skin, showing no injured underneath. “Thank you, sir, thank you so much!” he grabbed the hero and shook his hand while standing up.
“Don’t worry about it, the Mustafu Road hero agency will take care of all medical expenses from this event,”
The man began to cry. “Thank you.” he looked at the ground and bowed. “Thank you!”
“Just doing my job sir,” he smiled.
<--->
“Don’t worry sir, she should be waking up any minute now,” Setsuna was able to hear some sort of commotion just outside of her vision.
Her sense of feeling quickly returned as she stood up, feeling what seemed to be a hospital gown covering her instead of her clothes. As she slowly got up, Setsuna groaned and by that point, all of her vision came back to her.
"Setsuna!” her dad ran towards her. “You’re awake!”
“Dad?” She yawned. “What happened? The last thing I remember is the car ride and then…” Her eyes widened and she looked at him. “A car crash… Are you alright?”
“You’re very lucky Ms and Mr Tokage,” The nurse stated. “Your family's minor healing quirk seemed to accelerate your basic healing process… So you should be released by the afternoon… However Ms Tokage you will have to stay the night to see what the adverse effects of the liquid are,”
Kanashimi began to get up. “Well thank you, nurse… But money-wise I have-”
“Nothing you should worry about at the moment sir,” The nurse turned a page on her binder. “It seems that the Mustafu Road hero agency has decided to reimburse you fully due to the fact that it was Tarmachia’s quirk that caused you to be batted off the highway,”
“He was so sorry, I didn’t really know what to say,” he laughed. “In all honesty, I’ll see if I can send him a fruit basket after this,” He gave a small laugh at his own joke.
“Anyways,” The nurse explained. “For whatever reason, we cannot tell you of the mysterious fluid due to an… An unknown government facility,”
“Unknown government facility?” Setsuna asked. “So… I had some sort of sludge on me?"
The nurse nodded. “We’ll keep you for now, just to make sure that there are no side effects on your body,”
“So like… I just have to stay the night or?”
“I’ll leave it up for you two to decide,” The nurse bowed and exited the room.
Kanashimi watched the door close and sighed, turning towards his daughter. Setsuna had grabbed the remote from the side of her bed, allowing her to lie down in a more comfortable position. He looked down a little and just sat there for a moment, with Setsuna looking out the window.
“It’s not your fault,” Kanashimi looked up, seeing her daughter still looking out the window.
He just smiled. “Thanks for seeing it that way,”
<--->
Nageta Ishi, also known as the hero Tarmachia, was walking out of his office late at night. He was pissed, not extremely pissed, just pissed.
The damn commission gives him a direct order to stop the attack and then makes him write all of the paperwork down when it’s their damn fault that the villains got away with the damn thing in the first place! And now it was even worse due to the fact that he couldn’t reach Mustafu general for whatever reason and he’d have to try tomorrow to contact them about the girl
The Tokage’s seemed like a good bunch of people, just a dad and his daughter that due to his actions were injured. With one of them being splattered with that unknown liquid. He just scoffed and kept walking home as he always does, always preferring to drive home, as he most of the day he spent around them. Some normal exercise always did wonders for his aging body, and with not a single cloud in the sky, it was even better, to see the moonlight shine down on him.
But his late-night stroll back home was quickly interrupted by his work phone buzzing. Grumbling, Nageta picked it up and placed it to his ear.
“Pro hero Tarmachia speaking,” He tried his best not to sound angry.
“Tarmachia, I represent the hero commission and I hear to discuss regarding-”
“Oh, the commission!" It was clear that it was sarcasm. "Look I’ve already filled out the paperwork I’ve needed and I just want to go home… And you’re contacting me outside of my scheduled hours so… Yeah I’m calling your HR department in the morning,”
“You were ordered by the commission not to do any form of quarantine control… and yet civilian and villain eyewitness accounts that you broke that order and helped out two individuals,”
“Sorry sorry, but civilian safety y’know,”
“It was explained by the commission that the mission was prioritized, civilian safety was second-"
“No, I signed a waiver when I came into this job right out of UA! Civilian safety is always first! Check your own government rules before you decide to lecture me! Do you know where I work? I need to always be on edge otherwise that one chase ends up with dozens dead because of me! I don’t have the time to listen to damn orders that go against my bloody agreement!” Silence came over the phone. “Yeah, that’s what I thought, contact me during my working hours next time,” he ended the call with the hero commission and began to walk again.
It was silent for twenty minutes on his way home before it was broken by the scream of a woman from the alleyway. “Get off of me!” he heard a young girl scream. Nageta immediately looked down to the road as a ball of Asphalt floated and stuck to his hand before he ran into the alley, hearing the voices get louder and louder.
“Please! Get away!” he heard the girl yell, before a hit. “Help!”
Nageta heard footsteps run away, seeing a woman clad in black shivering and crouching next to a well. He knelt down and put his hands on her arms.
“Ma’am please calm down, I’m a pro hero…,” He took a deep breath. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah I am,” his voice began to calm down, taking off her hood, revealing pink and indigo hair. “As of now,”
“Lady Nagant what are you doing he-,” Nageta looked down and saw a rifle stick right in front of his face “Eh?”
Blood splattered on the other side of the alleyway as Nageta’s head was now rolling away from his body. Kaina Tsutsumi just got up and rubbed the blood off her hand, sighing.
“Why do you self-righteous types never listen to the commission?” She sighed, right as she began to walk out of the alleyway, leaving a dead hero behind. His blood painted the side of a brick wall.
It marked how the commission's little experiments had been swept under the rug.
Well, almost all of it had been swept. But the commission's personal assassin did have some code of honour.
<--->
“But… we were covered!” Dad yelled at the nurse. “We were supposed to be covered by!-”
“I know what your coverage is sir but the hero you were saved by has been found deceased,”
“Deceased?” Dad scoffed. “So what? I have to pay what you're charging me? What about how the agency would cover it?"
"Well you see sir from what I know only the hero who saved you can help you financially compensate... If the hero ends up withdrawing the statement such as death then the rest of the payments must be dealt with by the original party,"
“It’s millions of yen! Does it look like I’m made of millions of yen!? because of heroes, I'm going to suffer because of this stupid poisoning!?” After the analysis came back, it turned out that the liquid contained a lot of radioactive material and due to the Tokage's regenerative capabilities the side effects not only revealed themselves much faster but was expected to be much more severe as well.
“I’m sorry sir, but I’m not above the law,”
“Get out,” Kanashimi said.
“Sorry?”
“Get!... out!” He opened his mouth revealing sharp teeth from his quirk. The doctor panicked and immediately began to run for the door, shutting it. Kanashimi screamed for a moment, and just sat down, putting his head in his hands. Setsuna just looked at her dad sobbing and just felt guilty, so very guilty.
“Dad, I’m,” she choked. “I’m sorry… I… If I didn’t keep my leg up all of this wouldn’t have happened but-”
Setsuna was cut off by a hug from her dad placed right against her chest and stroking her hair. Both were holding each other tight, just enjoying what lasting company the two of them had at all.
“It’s not your fault Setsuna,” he stated, lightly kissing the top of her head. “It will never be your fault,” he looked out the window.
“Never,”