I Don't Blame You (formerly No Outrunning)

by reading16

Summary:

There’s a reason there’s no male hunters.

Because once upon a time a hunter fell in love with a demon.

And that risked everything.

—

Newton’s Third Law: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction

It just so happens that the opposite of Gwi Ma is a traumatised immortal nineteen year old simply trying to parent and teach humans in a country where superpowers are the norm.

---
Nedzu was seconds away from leaving the analysis position empty when Aizawa Shouta drops a CV into his paws and changes the course of U.A..

Especially when a mysterious man shows up with Shigaraki at the USJ with eyes only for the immortal that’s always been tight lipped about the past.

Notes:

Trigger warning for: Child Abuse (Mentioned), Past Alcoholism, Past Drug Abuse (the character these are attached to is sober when the story starts and remains like that, but it will be mentioned so I’d rather warn before hand)

Chapter 1: The Start of Something Special

It started with a message on an underground hero site. 

 

Posted at 2 P.M by a man named Koji Hideo, the message was a simple request for an underground hero willing to do a check of a foster home in Kyoto. 

 

Shouta didn’t do much digging before immediately sending a message on the secure chat function of the site that he was willing. He got a response instantaneously with an address and a code phrase to tell the front desk. With a sigh he got up from their faded couch that had springs sticking out from the thinnest cushions imaginable to pack his duffel bag for the short trip. 

 

He was living with Nemuri, Oboro, and Hizashi in a one bedroom apartment not far from the university Hizashi was currently attending and the agency both Nemuri and Oboro currently worked at. Even then, between the four of them they barely made enough to keep paying the rent and utilities for the place. 

 

Shouta had aged out of the foster system and didn’t have any family to rely on. Hizashi’s parents did what they could, but most of the money they could afford to send from their modest radio station went into his literature and quirk studies. Oboro’s parents were the same, having retired recently and not having enough to support four new heroes struggling to break into heroics. Nemuri’s parents had unfortunately passed away a couple years into high school in a villain attack, so she was relying on the inheritance.

 

It was especially hard for Shouta. Between having no one to help keep them afloat to offer and not being part of an agency, he felt like a huge financial burden on the three others no matter how much they insisted he wasn’t. 

 

The problem was as follows: 

 

Unlike Limelighters (who usually handled petty crime apart from the few raids and villain attacks they sometimes encountered) and Twilight heroes (who focused more on night time petty crime in highly populated areas, raids, and the villain attacks), Underground heroes walked a very thin tightrope to do their job properly. They usually worked in the poorer or red light districts of cities, having to build a network of trust that could break with any wrong move. They were also the ones that worked on infiltration and long term investigations into some of the most dangerous but slippery organisations. Which meant that agencies refused to take in newbies unless they were being backed by an underground pro with at least several years of experience. 

 

Something Shouta didn’t have, because he hadn’t even been able to intern under any unders. His work studies and internships had all been done with Twilight heroes that didn’t have the connections he would have desperately needed to break into the underground scene, and networking had never been his forte. 

 

Shouta was left with freelancing as his only option, except the J-HPSC significantly reduced the paychecks of underground freelancers that didn’t have at least five years of experience as a means to discourage any from going that route. It left him with only enough money to buy jelly pouches in bulk (which cost less than any ingredients he would need to make himself a real meal), the worst patrol routes, and the need to take any jobs he could find that weren’t open only to the more experienced undergrounders. 

 

So here he was, in a packed train heading to Kyoto at the last minute (a note sitting on the counter telling his boyfriends and Nemuri were he was heading and that he wouldn’t be back for at least a day), duffel bag holding all of his gear and two changes of clothes clenched tightly in his left hand that was keeping it from slipping off his shoulder. He leaned against the wall of the train, people coming and going at each stop before he finally reached Kyoto station. 

 

The address he’d been given was a thankfully short walk from the station, so he headed there on foot. 

 

He had to double check the address once he reached the building, brows furrowed in slight confusion. It was one of the tallest buildings in Kyoto, recently finished and owned by the I-HPSC. One of many buildings similar to it located all across the country for when anyone from their commission needed to stay or work there. It also included support labs for visiting I-Island engineers and analysts, and permanent apartments for some of their retired or vacationing members. 

 

The address was correct no matter how many times he checked, so steeling himself he walked into the lobby of the building. 

 

His first thought was that it looked much more comfortable and welcoming than the headquarters of the J HPSC. There was a fireplace presumably for winter around a cluster of heavenly looking couches, signs pointing to various facilities (including training rooms, a pool, work rooms, and a library), and a desk where a middle aged man in a Hawaain shirt and ripped jeans was reading.

 

The man looked up as he approached, putting down the pre quirk comic book he was reading and flashing him a bright smile. Unlike the secretary he’d met when he’d gone to update his full license who’d looked like she hadn’t slept in years, this man looked very well rested and genuinely welcoming. 

 

“Coconut water is best on pizza dough and lemonade?” It came out more like a question than he’d wanted but the man just chuckled, pulling up something on his computer and nodding. 

 

“Can I just see your license please to verify before I send you up?” he asked jovially. 

 

Shouta passed it over and watched as the man’s eyes let out a green light reminiscent of a scanner. He then turned to look at Shouta who closed his dry eyes as the light passed over him, before blinking a couple times once the man chirped a happy “All done!” and passed his license back. 

 

He followed the man behind the desk to a seemingly normal wall that the man approached before pressing his finger on a more faded area. There was a soft whirr of a machine before the wall slid back, revealing a hallway with multiple elevators and an unassuming exit door on the opposite end. The man taped something into the keypad of one of the elevators and shooed Shouta in with a wave, letting the doors close behind him. 

There were no buttons within the space, just an alarm button in case of an emergency. The walls were decorated with beautiful graffiti depicting mythological creatures like dragons and unicorns in vivid colours. Admiring the art was a good distraction from the stress he was feeling until the elevator stopped, the door opening in front of a single large wooden door. There was a keypad under the handle instead of a lock, and a separate doorbell that was painted with tiny jellyfish. 

 

When he pressed the doorbell he heard the sound of sudden waves before calm steady footsteps approached the door. He straightened, loosening his grip on his duffel bag and hoping to give the other person a good impression. 

 

The man that opened the door was old, with grey hair tied back into a loose bun and wrinkles defining his face. His eyes were a mix of gentle and sharp as he looked Shouta up and down before stepping back and motioning for him to follow. 

 

The apartment he was in was almost… clinical. It looked like more of a showroom than anything, with barely any traces of personality added to it by whoever lived there. Everything from the kitchen utensils he spotted by the sink to the pillows looked like they simply came with the apartment. 

 

Perched on the back of one of the couches was a woman that looked about a year younger than him. She wasn’t looking in his direction, instead admiring the city view from the windows that made up most of the walls in the living room. From what he could see she had dark purple skin and matching hair that was braided to slightly past her shoulders. 

 

The man who’d let him in got his attention with a fond chuckle, turning towards him with his scarred and calloused hand out.

 

“Lovely to meet you son. I’m Koji Hideo,” he introduced. “Would you like some tea or coffee before we sit down and talk?”

“Aizawa Shouta, also known as Eraserhead,” Shouta replied even though the formality felt redundant when he’d had to send them his license before they sent the address. “Coffee would be great sir.

 

“Do you take it a specific way?” he asked before turning towards the woman that still hadn’t acknowledged them. “Amaya, would you like something?”

 

“I usually take it black,” Shouta replied. 

 

“If you make yourself a cup of tea I’ll take one,” Amaya called out, her voice devoid of any identifiable emotion. 

 

Koji sent him off to the couch while he went to the attached kitchen to make tea and coffee for them. He started the kettle and the coffee machine quickly before coming to sit across from where Shouta had sat.

 

“I feel like I should introduce myself and our companion a bit more. I’m Kyoto’s I-HPSC J-HPSC correspondent and main overseer. This is Amaya, one of our many international agents. She’s known as the underground hero Iris,” the man paused as the kettle whistled and the coffee machine stopped buzzing, returning shortly with drinks for all of them. “The I-HPSC is currently investigating rumors of the J-HPSC’s attempts to form a young heroes training program and improper regulation of foster homes or orphanages.”

 

“The foster home we’re going to be investigating has been reported multiple times by concerned neighbours but has never been looked into by anything other than planned visits by the social worker that placed the children there,” Amaya spoke up, still not looking at either of them. “I’ve got a warrant for an impromptu visit and entry. The goal is to remove the children immediately if something is wrong and get access to the financial records of the home.”

“We have reasons to believe these homes are kept from consequences because of this program,” Koji took over again. “Amaya will be doing investigations like this all over Japan. If we gather enough evidence we’ll be able to overhaul the current system and charge the president,”

 

Shouta’s eyes were a bit wide as he let the information sink in. 

 

Corruption within the J-HPSC was an open secret. He’d heard Nedzu complain about it often enough times to have an idea of how much it impacted heroics in the country as a whole. It made it more difficult for underground heroes to have open channels with other fields of heroics, outright prevented kids from even trying for U.A’s hero exam if they did not have a desirable enough quirk, and kept any critique of the top ten from spreading online for long. 

 

Being a part of this, even if it was just investigating one foster home, was huge. 

 

Koji made sure he was fully aware of any risks, what he was and wasn’t allowed to do once on the field, and that Amaya was his supervisor for about an hour. They waited until the sun started to set before gearing up, Iris donning a particularly terrifying iris flower mask that covered the top half of her face and a black voice changer. Her hair was tucked under the black hood of a clearly well armored hoodie, and she had matching pants with multiple empty straps to hold weapons. Her hands were covered by reinforced gloves and she finished by lacing up combat books tightly. 

 

They were apparently on the top floor of the building so they took to the rooftop. The warm but cooling air of summer hit them as soon as Amaya opened the door, heading towards the ledge with purpose and looking down at the next building that was significantly lower. 

“You’re not going to have any problems?” she asked, her voice changer making her sound only slightly more robotic than she had before, if a bit deeper. 

 

He huffed, preparing his capture weapon and jumping. The fabric wrapped around a beam attached to the building, letting him land softly on top of it. He turned back only to find Iris standing half a meter from him. 

“Good to know,” was all she said before she swirled her fingers and a purple swirling portal opened behind her. “But we can just use a portal this time.”

 

He nodded, following her through. It was weird going from standing on a rooftop where the breeze was strong to being on a sidewalk in an upscale neighbourhood with small houses with only a couple steps. Iris didn’t give him much time to recuperate from the slight dizziness that came with the sudden change of altitude, immediately heading towards one of the front doors. 

“You know how to pick a lock?” she asked, pulling back so he could take a look at the fairly simple locking mechanism. 

 

He gave a grunt of agreement before kneeling down and pulling his lockpicks out without question. The fact that she was staring off into the distance made it easier, there was less pressure as he moved the tools around in the way that was almost second nature from how often he’d been made to do it at U.A..

 

The door opened with a faint click, and he pulled back to let Iris step inside. 

 

At first glance the place looked normal. There was no trace of any kids living there, but that wasn’t truly a testament to anything. The house was clean, everything was deadly quiet. Shouta spotted some paperwork on the table and went towards it, seeing bank statements and multiple different letters. 

 

From the approving nod he got as he tucked it all away into a neat pile and into the bag he’d been asked to bring along, he was doing things right. 

 

They checked everything quietly. The foster parents were asleep in their comfortable bed on the ground floor soundly. The bathroom was locked (strange since there was no noise coming from inside) but once he’d picked the lock he found nothing of the ordinary inside. In the kitchen he found locks on all of the cupboards and on the fridge which he took note of before joining back with Iris by the steps. 

 

They headed up two at the time, listening for any sounds. There was nothing until they reached the top. Amaya tried the handle to one of the two rooms and found it locked. She nodded to Shouta who picked it with more difficulty this time. It was clearly newer than all of the other locks he’d opened. 

 

The door opened with a creak that had him tensing in preparation. She stepped in before him, letting out a shaky breath of air that came very strange through the voice changer. 

 

Fury filled him the second he followed her in. 

 

There were no beds in the room. It smelt foul, the scent of human waste making him nearly double back to throw up. There were three kids, two looking under the age of ten , muzzled in the room. 

 

A little girl with blonde hair that was choppily cut short, a little boy with gravity defying purple hair, and another little boy whose hair had been buzzed completely. No signs of identifiable quirks for the first two but a very clear mutation similar to Hound Dog’s for the third. They were all looking at them with wide terrified eyes filled with tears, blood dripping around the muzzles that were clearly tied too tightly. 

 

They whimpered as Amaya shut the door quietly behind them, giving Shouta a quick look. He stood by it, listening out to the hallway while she removed her hood, mask and voice changer. Soft purple eyes with black sclera stayed on the three children as she slowly sat down in front of them. 

“Hello,” she said softly. “I’m pro hero Iris and this is Eraserhead. We’re here to help get you out of here. I know this really lovely place with these old people that would love to have you stay with them and the other kids but I have to get closer so I can get these nasty things off you and we can  get out. Is that okay?”

 

He kind of admired the all cards on the table approach. It worked on the oldest first, the blonde girl scooting closer while clearly trying to keep a brave face for the other two. 

“I just need to be able to tap the muzzle, I don’t have to get any closer I promise,” Amaya whispered when the girl hesitated. 

 

She stared for a while, Amaya keeping her gaze calm and directed at the girl while she examined her. Then slowly, so slowly, she leaned her head close enough. 

 

Amaya tapped it quickly, catching it as it fell and dropping it off in a portal that he knew from the debrief went directly to Koji so he could bag all the evidence. She left it open enough for him to drop the papers he’d collected. 

 

The purple boy followed next, trying to hide his shaking as he slid forward. She repeated her actions, letting him back up as far as he wanted once it was done. The third still seemed frozen, letting out very quiet whimpers. 

“You too darling,” she whispered, turning towards him. 

 

After a moment and looking towards the other two for confirmation, he approached as well. Once the muzzle disappeared she closed the portal. The blonde girl pocked at the air where it had been curiously. 

“Would you like to see what stepping through it is like with us?” she asked. “We can either do that to go outside or we can walk down the stairs. It’s up to you.”

The kids all flinched at the mention of stairs. It was the blonde girl who took the lead again, opening her mouth a couple times before asking “Together?” with her painfully dry and dehydrated voice. 

“Together, I promise,” Amaya told them. 

 

And somehow, even Shouta found himself believing it. 

 

***

 

Sunny was an orphanage outside of the J HPSC’s jurisdiction that had apparently recently been opened while the investigation was currently ongoing. They did a more thorough job of vetting both their staff, foster parents, and potential adopters. 

 

Shouta couldn’t help but wish it had existed back when he himself was in the system as he watched from a distance the staff taking the three kids to shower. The place felt warm, with toys and drawings everywhere, a kitchen stocked full of snacks both healthy and not, and the nicest old couple now talking to Amaya. 

 

The kids had already had their statements taken by Koji, had been looked at by a medical team the man trusted, and had been fed. Himiko had nearly cried when Amaya handed her a pouch of blood Koji had immediately gotten drawn for her so it would be fresh. 

 

Now all that was left was for these three to start healing. And everything pointed towards them being in good hands with that. 

 

The sun was already up high in the sky when everything was wrapped up and Amaya, freshly showered and in civilian clothes, asked if he’d like to be portaled back to his apartment. 

“You’re investigating multiple of these places right?” he asked.

 

The other pro raised an eyebrow but nodded slowly. He steeled himself slightly. 

“If you need someone for those like today I’d- like to be a part of it,” he admitted softly, hands tightening on his bag. He glanced at Koji who was going through the evidence they’d gathered and sending it to the person at the I-HPSC overseeing the whole thing. “I’d like to make sure these kids are okay.”

 

Amaya didn’t answer him right away. She just hummed non committedly before opening up a portal for him and turning away to help Koji. His shoulders slumped slightly and he walked through, collapsing in his and his boyfriend’s bed immediately to get back the sleep he’d lost. 

 

It wasn’t until the next day that he realised he’d never given his address to the other pro.

 

That night his phone buzzed while he was on patrol. Pulling it out he glanced lazily at the screen, expecting a text from one of the group chats. Instead there were two notifications that almost made him drop his phone. 

 

The first was a notification from his bank that 1500000 yen had been transferred to his account, with the explanation underneath being that it was from Koji for his help in the investigation. 

 

And the second was a private message on the underground forum from Iris herself. No context or formalities, just an address and the time. 

 

Two hours from now. 

 

He cut his patrol short (not that anyone would notice) and rushed home to pack his duffel bag. He made sure to be quiet so as not to wake any of the sleeping inhabitants. 

 

There was a portal in the living the minute the clock changed to the time he’d been given. 

 

He stepped through, back in Koji’s apartment with Amaya perched on the couch again. 

 

Except this time she was facing him instead of staring out the window. 

Chapter 2: The Start of Something Good

It took them an entire year to comb through all of the foster homes, group homes, and orphanages associated with the J HPSC. 

 

Their work continued even when the I HPSC launched its official investigation. While the higher ups clandestinely examined all of the HPSC’s documents, communications and finances, the two of them continued getting kids out of abusive and neglectful homes into places like Sunny, where they’d be able to start healing. 

 

It took months of them traveling from city to city, working with various agents, for Amaya to start letting small things slip that he stored in a corner of his mind. It took even longer for her to open up to him in a way that his idiots would probably call friendship. 

 

The first time he’d gotten any information past surface level about the other hero had been in Hosu. 

 

The stench of liquor hit them the second he picked the lock. He moved back to let Amaya through as usual, but she didn’t step forward this time. 

 

He couldn’t get a read on her face behind the mask and voice changer, but there was tension in her entire frame. Shoulder’s up, hands balled at her sight and breathing coming out robotic and shaky. 

“Are you alright?” he asked quietly, looking into the home where he could see multiple adults passed on in the living room with bottles of alcohol strewn about. 

 

She exhaled loudly, hands trembling as she slipped one under her hood to tug at her hair slightly. It took another few minutes before she stepped inside, leaving Shouta to search the floor for evidence as she immediately beelined for the stairs. 

 

He shook it off, pulling on gloves and carefully bagging everything he could find, including a couple needles, packs of mysterious powder that would have to go into testing, and paperwork. Everything that could easily disappear before they let the other branch of the I HPSC connected to the police do their thing. He tucked everything carefully within the bag he carried with him for all these investigations.

 

After a while he heard noise coming from outside. There was a child wailing, and Amaya was speaking softly. He could tell she’d taken her modifier off from the way her voice was actively shaking instead of being made more steady with the voice changer. Once he was sure he’d collected everything he went back outside, closing the door behind him as he went to rejoin Amaya to wait for backup. 

 

She was sitting by a child with red wings that was sobbing in her arms, wings wrapped around her like a blanket. Her face was pale, closer to lavender than its usual deep purple. Dark eyes looked up at his approach, giving him a thankful nod as he held up the duffel. Her focus drifted back to the kid basically curled up in her lap, whispering soft assurances protectively in his ear as the sound of sirens started in the distance. 

 

The boy’s name was Keigo. He was part of the child soldier program the HPSC had been running. He wasn’t actually being fostered by these people they discovered in horror as he recounted everything to Himura, the unflappable woman that ran the Hosu HPSC relations and therefore the investigation in this city. He was only there because he’d been bad and they’d decided putting him back in an environment similar to the one he’d grown up in as punishment would be good for conditioning. 

 

The heartbreak and understanding on Amaya’s face was the most he’d ever seen her express. 

 

Keigo couldn’t be transferred to an institution like Sunny. At least not until the investigation concluded. Unlike the other kids where it seemed more like neglect and disinterest, Keigo was an active part in the program they were currently running. 

 

Amaya barely hesitated before producing a fostering license and taking protective custody of the boy that had locked his talons on her with the stress and couldn’t detach himself until they unlocked. 

 

***

The first time he realised that they probably counted as friends was after a particularly difficult takedown of an entire group home that had well above the number of children it was legally able to have inside. Once again Amaya had left the collecting of evidence up to him as she rushed out of the room once she noticed the clear evidence of alcohol and drugs. 

 

They’d gotten all of the kids settled in safe and welcoming orphanages where the staff, while tired, had immediately gotten to work making them feel at home. The paperwork was done, the evidence sent off, but they were only taking a short break to refuel before immediately hitting another one that was too closely connected to not try and hide everything once they got wind of this group home getting shut down. 

 

They were on top of a roof overlooking their next target, the cold breeze of winter ruffling their hair and tickling their faces. He’d pulled out a jelly pouch (he’d grown fond of them over time, and it was still his first instinct to grab or buy them despite the large sums of money he received from the I HPSC after every investigation) when Amaya elbowed him lightly. She held up a steaming bowl of ramen with a pair of chopsticks, another one floating in front of her. 

 

Silence between them was comfortable. They both just weren’t big on small talk. But the peace that surrounded them as they ate there while keeping an eye on any suspicious movement below, felt safe. It felt like when he was around his idiots, or surrounded by a bunch of cats. 

 

He didn’t voice his realisation. It wasn’t necessary. 

“Ready to destroy yet another assholes' get rich scheme?” she asked in the deep robotic voice, stretching her limbs. 

 

Unlike all the people that shook at what they called his demonic grin, Amaya just laughed. 

 

Even through the voice changer, it sounded carefree. 

 

***

“Nedzu is looking for an analyst to teach quirk analysis and help the students.”

 

Amaya paused with her chopsticks halfway to her mouth, raising an eyebrow. 

 

Years after the conclusion of the I-HPSC raid and the overhaul of the entire Japanese commission, the woman had settled in Japan permanently for now. She’d adopted Keigo, who was due to start high school at U.A. soon. Amaya never admitted to being attached, but Shouta knew that had the teen not needed the normality that staying in Japan gave him and the comfort of being with the person he’d imprinted on, she’d probably have disappeared into the wind by now. 

 

It was Amaya staying that had finally helped him get to where he was now in the underground. Her backing had meant everything. Finally getting into an agency while he, his boyfriends, and Nemuri worked on launching their agency had helped financially once he wasn’t getting paid by the I-HPSC anymore. And while she couldn’t join the agency itself once it was started, it was her praise and belief in it that had helped it not only remain but also become as known as it was. 

 

The Rooftop Agency was thriving, they’d all gotten positions at U.A. that kept them stable, Hizashi’s radio show was topping all of the charts, and they’d been able to move into lovely apartments with the kindest landlord in existence. 

 

Even he could admit that things were good now, in a way he hadn’t thought would ever be possible back then. When they’d all felt like they were only able to keep from drowning. 

 

Now here they were, on a short break during their patrol of the Red Light District of Musutafu. Sharing a bento Hizashi had lovingly packed for him and some edamame that a stall owner had given them after they intervened in a quickly escalating situation. Amaya’s chopsticks still hovering in the air, edamame held tightly between them, as she raised a questioning eyebrow at his out of the blue statement. 

“I thought you said he was done with hiring,” she said once she realised he wasn’t going to say more, lowering the edamame back into their small bowl. 

“He was,” Shouta confirmed, because Nedzu had been particularly proud of it. “But Calculate is retiring, so he’s trying to find someone that is as competent, if not more. Not to mention that he wants analysis to be a class that’s taken by every course including heroics now that he can get the HPSC to sign off on it.”

 

Nedzu had been extremely gleeful watching the complete change of the J-HPSC. The entrance exam had been modified heavily, the board investigated and most fired, and classes the HPSC had been against for years with its focus on physical quirks and fighting now approved. Shouta suspected it was part of the reason the rat had worked so hard on getting him to get his teaching license and join the staff. 

 

Amaya hummed, picking her edamame back up and chewing on them slowly. 

“I think you should try for the position.”

 

He ducked just in time to avoid getting caught in the firing line as Amaya did a spit take, coughing painfully as she swallowed half of the edamame incorrectly. She caught the bottle of water he tossed her with one hand and gulped the liquid down, clutching her chest before staring at him with wide eyes. 

“Are you insane?!” she growled, voice almost as deep as when she wore her voice changer. 

“You’ve got a quirk license and a teaching license from the I-HPSC,” he pointed out unremorsefully. 

“I don’t do well with kids,” Amaya protested. 

Shouta shot her a disbelieving look. “I have at least a year's worth of evidence to prove that’s not true. Plus testimony from the quirkless support group you started, the kid you adopted, and all the kids you’ve gotten to safety since I’ve known you.” 

“That doesn’t prove I’d be good at teaching in any way-”

“I watched you spend five hours working on calming down triplets with vastly different quirks that all activated at the same time and teaching them how to properly turn them on and off before any counselors could even see them,” he interrupted flatly. “Not to mention that Keigo got the highest score in the recommended exam and you’re the one who trained him.”

 

Amaya groaned, flopping back onto the rooftop and staring at the sky. 

“Why are you even pushing for this? I thought you despised teaching!”

“Sharing the misery,” he responded with a grin, grabbing the abandoned bowl of edamame and pulling it towards him. “Besides, I do want these kids to succeed. And so far Nedzu hasn’t found anyone even remotely close to competent.”

 

Amaya groaned and then went quiet again. They finished their break in silence that was still comfortable before getting back to patrolling with two hours left. 

 

It was as they were heading back to The Rooftop Agency, stretching their sore limbs with satisfying cracks and pops, that Amaya spoke up again. 

“Text me the details for the job position, the time, and the date for the interview,” she said with a defeated grumble. “I’m counting it as one of the favours I owe you though.”

Shouta smiled. A real one, soft and small. “Sure, I’ve still got a lot to cash in. You have a CV I could show him?”

 

He laughed as she lunged at him, the two of them chasing each other the rest of the way to the agency. It was when they reached the door that her phone dinged, and she pulled it out before letting out an exasperated groan. 

“Stop bugging my phone!” she whined into the device, before showing Shouta the CV that had been sent by an unknown number. 

 

The number simply texted back: No ❤️.

 

He grinned his sadistic smile this time. She shot him an unimpressed stare, even more unaffected than the first time. 

“You’ll fit right in at U.A.”

Chapter 3: The Start of A New Career

Unfortunately for Shouta there was a staff meeting the next morning, which meant he would have to inform Nedzu of the interview the next day with all of his coworkers present. 

 

Lucky him .

 

Nedzu’s endless insistence that he hired only the best professional did nothing to convince Shouta that he wasn’t working with a bunch of toddlers. And yes, that included the two men he’d married. 

 

Case in point: Every. Single. One. Of them were currently working on filling out the empty bingo sheets that they printed each year with their predictions. They ranged from food fights in the cafeteria a certain amount of months in, to Shouta having no students by the end of the week, to which class would have the first relationship drama. 

 

Children. All of them. 

 

Ichiro (aka Snipe) was currently defending his choice to add: gain a new coworker, to his bingo sheet. Higari pointed out to his husband that it had been months of Nedzu searching for a replacement for Calculus, and that so far it looked like the analysis position would just be left to collect dust, occasionally being filled by either Nedzu or Hizashi who still held a quirk license. 

 

Even Nedzu had a bingo sheet filled out, though it was turned over so no one could try and copy the rat’s answers because with Nedzu it truly was a losing game. He’d been banned from the actual competition and it was now a game of how many did you have in common with him at the end of the year. 

 

Shouta still wondered how he’d been dragged into teaching there. He blamed getting black out drunk with his band of idiots for being responsible. 

 

The meeting eventually began, with Shouta taking a seat between his husbands and dozing off. It was mostly housekeeping for the current school year anyway. Students to look out for, requested curriculum changes, lesson planning…

 

It was only towards the end of the meeting that he started paying attention, when Higari brought up the issue of the empty analysis position. Before the rat could voice his frustrations (clear in the way his fur bristled and his smile strained slightly), Shouta tossed the CV he’d printed across the table so it fell directly in front of the principal. 

“I called in a favour with a friend-” Shouta started, immediately getting interrupted. 

“YOU what?” Shouta turned to glare at Hizashi quick enough to shut the man’s quirk off before it deafened them all, forcing Hizashi to stop at the first exclamation. 

 

“I called in a favour with a friend-” Shouta rolled his eyes, before being interrupted again by the children masquerading as adults.

 

“Is he saying friends?” Ichiro stage whispered to Nemuri next to him.

 

“I think he’s being sarcastic,” Nemuri whispered back loudly. 

 

“No no no. This is delirium. He’s cracked from being awake all night,” Sekijiro said, slowly rolling his chair back and away from the pro who was glaring daggers at all of them. 

 

“Hey Shouta, all your friends are in this room,” Oboro piped up before quickly hiding behind a cloud. 

 

“I have other friends,” Shouta groaned, rubbing his temple. “You asked me to be more open and make new friends, I was more open and made friends.”

 

“Well I can’t wait to meet them!” Anan, the adorable person they were, cheered. 

 

“I can,” Sekijiro said, slumping to the side dramatically and ignoring Higari’s protests as he landed on the poor man. “Anyone who’s friends with you has to be a lunatic.”

 

Shouta stared up at the ceiling rethinking his life choices for the billionth time since joining this hellish school. “I called in a favour to get her to agree to this interview,” he said before leveling Nedzu with a lethal glare. “So don’t fuck this up.”

 

Nedzu nodded absently, carefully reading through the CV with mounting excitement. His tail was swaying rapidly behind him as his grin returned fully, predator’s teeth on full display. The whole room tried ignoring it, laser focusing on Shouta instead. 

 

“What’s her name?” Hizashi asked, a lot quieter but still buzzing with excitement. “Also I’m so proud of you for listening to us!”

 

“I did it to get you off my back,” Shouta replied but it held no bite. “And you’ll find out soon.”

 

At that moment Nedzu threw his head back and started cackling . All of them paled as they felt a shiver run down their spine. And the feeling that he’d messed up started sinking into Shouta’s soul. 

 

He hadn’t had nearly enough coffee for what he was starting to realise he’d unleashed.

 

***

 

Keigo didn’t remember his childhood before he’d been rescued. 

 

His therapist surmised that it was a combination of his young age and suppressing the trauma. His file was kept in a locked box hidden in the apartment he and his mother had settled in, in case he ever wanted or needed to read the details. The box was probably covered in years worth of spiderwebs and dust by now. He’d never been the best at completely cleaning his room, attention span usually drifting before he hit the hidden spots or got to actually dusting . 

 

So far he was perfectly content with the past being left behind and enjoying the present. Because the present was warm and safe in a way baby Keigo had believed he didn’t deserve. 

 

Temporary custody had quickly become adoption when it became clear that Keigo’s instincts had settled on Amaya being his parent that first night (when she appeared in his bedroom, holding him as she went through all of his endless ouchies and healing them before even mentioning the idea of going outside). Amaya had become mom much quicker than he thought either really expected, and his instincts had finally been given the opportunity to be a part of his life as they were naturally meant to be. 

 

He had a bedroom decorated the way he wanted it (which he changed with his mom every couple of years. Phones turned off, lots of snacks, music blasting, and only the two of them with buckets of all kinds of paint coloured he’d chosen). Currently his room had one wall that was all windows, two that were painted a light blue, and one that was a gorgeous blue phoenix surrounded by fire. A tribute to a friend that was no longer there.  A round bed that was filled with pillows, blankets, and stuffies arranged like a nest. Clothes that were soft and in fibers that didn’t mess with his advanced senses. A pair of dark red noise cancelling headphones he never went anywhere without. 

 

The apartment felt more lived in then it had back when he’d first been brought there. There was at least one full painted mural in each room that they’d done together now, the tradition spreading out from his bedroom when they realised painting at that large of a scale was a great way to deal with his hyperactivity. The living room had an ancient  dvd player along with the television now and a cabinet full of pre quirk movies for all age groups (most from when he was younger that were now kept for the temporary kids that his mom would take for a night or two while they found a more permanent solution). Shelves filled with all the extra trinkets he’d brought home as gifts, some of his elementary and middle school art projects, and a variety of books again for all ages. 

 

There were multiple walls covered in photos of the two of them, or of him and Touya. A memorial to his best friend his mom had helped him set up by the gaming system the two of them had spent so many afternoons using (maybe one day it wouldn’t hurt to play the games again, but it would take time. He hoped he’d be able to play Animal Crossing with his mom again someday though), and a lot of their drawings pinned onto a large board she’d hung up once the fridge had gotten too covered. His acceptance letter was right in the center.

 

To help with his nesting instincts his mom had gone a bit overboard with the blankets and pillows the first few months. So now the living room had multiple scattered around, some forming a makeshift nest around the beanbags he’d begged to get and others just draped over the furniture. 

 

There was another nest in his mother’s room. That one was secretly his favourite. The most comforting one, where he kept the plushies he was most attached to, apart from the one he slept with every night (a black cat plushie given to him by Eraserhead, the other hero that had saved him and one of his mom’s three only friends). It was reserved for especially bad nights where nightmares from the past (or more recently of losing Touya) resurfaced. 

 

But more importantly he had all the physical affection he craved. Someone with endless patience that endured every scream, lashing out, bite and meltdown that came with the difficult healing process. That kept the freezer stocked full of raw meat and took the time to help him hone his skills in the gym when he’d expressed his desire to be a hero. 

 

Someone that was currently in the kitchen, cutting raw chicken into smaller bites despite it being eight in the morning. 

 

Water was boiling in the kettle, the stove was on with pancakes that were being flipped by the terrifying dragon with a head shaped like an iris flower that was one of his mother’s two pets. The second one was Cerbie, a chunky three headed pigeon that was bravely attempting to steal some of his meat for himself. 

 

Amaya was dressed in a forest green hoodie two sizes too big for her small frame. She had darker bags under her eyes than she usually did after patrols, and the fact she was letting the honestly slightly feral dragon be in charge of flipping pancakes said a lot about her exhaustion. 

 

He chirped happily, quickly making his way over and barely giving his mom time to set the knife down before he slipped under her arm, giving her a tight hug. Cerbie took that opportunity to grab one piece of meat and goofily made his escape by hopping across the counter. 

 

There was a clatter as the plate of pancakes was aggressively set down on the table by the irritable dragon before it flew off to go guard a random part of the house and bite the ankles of anyone that came close. 

 

“As much as I love this kiddo the pancakes are going to get cold,” she told him gently, running a hand through sleep knotted hair. “And I’ve got to head to U.A. in a couple hours.”

 

That got him to pull back immediately, pupils dilating and wings flapping anxiously. “Am I in trouble already? Oh no, did they hear about the fight last week and decide to expel me?! I wasn’t going to get involved I swear but then he said something about Touya’s death and-”

 

“Kiddo, breathe. I’m not going to U.A. because they’ve decided to expel you,” she said with a small amused smile that he thought was a bit mean. He pouted as she chuckled, pushing the bowl of meat and the plate of pancakes towards him and effectively distracting him. “There’s an analysis position that opened up at U.A.-” 

 

“You’re applying?!” Keigo interrupted with a mouth full of syrup-covered pancakes. He started bouncing in his seat. “Does that mean I get to have you as a teacher?! Ooh ooh are we going to be able to train more aerial tricks?! I reallyyyyy want to learn how to dive-”

 

“I still have to get interviewed by Nedzu, try it out at least once to see how it feels, get accepted and make my final decision,” she reminded with a fond eye roll at his enthusiasm. “Nothing’s sure yet.”

 

It was his turn to roll his eyes. “Nedzu will totally love you! You work for Auntie Kio! What’s cooler than that?”

 

Having the president of the I-HPSC personally apologise to him for what had happened when he was younger had already been weird enough. Learning that his mom, his hero, worked directly under her and considered her a close friend (even if she wouldn’t ever admit it out loud) had been even more mind boggling. His auntie Kio was his second favourite hero. The woman was badass, probably the only person that could get his mom to look after herself in any way, and took him out for fried chicken at least once a month! 

 

“She’s a bad influence,” his mom grumbled, stabbing her final pancake with force. 

 

Still, Keigo didn't miss the way her eyes crinkled fondly as he moved on to talking about how excited he was for his first day at U.A., mouth almost constantly full of either chicken or pancakes. 

 

***

 

Nedzu was buzzing with excitement as he waited by the gates of U.A.. 

 

Underground pro hero Iris, or Amaya as stated on the CV that his Shouta kun had so generously given him, arrived a few minutes earlier than the given time. 

 

Half her hair was tied up in a bun held together by a red feather (that Nedzu noted was extremely similar to the feather of the top scorer of the recommended exam, Keigo Takami) and the rest falling just short of her shoulders. She wore a purple and black striped coat over a black Victorian ruffle shirt, with a large black belt and black pants. The buttons on the coat were golden. Her hands were covered by black gloves that weren’t too out of place with the cooling weather of spring. She was carrying nothing with her. 

 

She found his eyes immediately, giving him a one handed wave. 

 

“Please scan your license. I already programmed it into the system for the day,” he chirped, trying to remain professional. 

 

The pro nodded, producing her license with a flick of her wrist that had his tail swaying for a moment, before carefully placing it against the scanner. 

 

The massive golden gates of U.A. high school opened, and she walked in with incredibly concealed hesitance. 

 

“I thought since the day is so lovely that we could enjoy a cup of tea in the gazebo instead of heading to my office,” he offered. “The teachers are currently working to finalise everything for the first day of school next week in the lounge. You’ll be able to meet them today if I determine that you’re the right fit.”

 

“As if you haven’t already made your decision,” she said softly, following by his side. 

 

His whiskers twitched. “Oh? What made you draw that conclusion?”

 

“Analysts and Shouta talk,” she told him, an amused crinkle in her eyes. She slipped her hands into the pockets of her coat, admiring the beautiful woods surrounding U.A. and the flowers that were still growing. “I know what the interview process has been like for everybody before. It has definitely not included tea in a gazebo.” 

 

Nedzu cackled, deciding not to say anything else on the matter. The hero let out a small gasp once they reached the iron gazebo that he’d already prepared. There was a large assortment of his best teas, a variety of small pastries, and bowls of cubed meat, fruits, and cheese. Mostly for him though he made sure they were separated and accessible in case his guest wanted any. They settled in comfortably, Amaya eyeing the antique chess set in the middle of the table with a twinkle in her eyes. 

 

“You play?” he asked as he poured her a cup of his favourite and highest quality red berry infusion. 

 

“Used to,” she said with a grin, accepting the cup of tea carefully. “I may be a bit rusty.”

 

“It’s an honour to be the first person you play against in a long time,” he chirped. “I hope you’re alright with black?”

 

She nodded. They played in silence, the only sounds the clicking of porcelain as they moved their cups around, the soft tap of the pieces against the board, the rustling of leaves, and the occasional chirping of birds. 

 

It ended with a tie, only their kings left on the board. Nedzu laughed again, and this time was joined by Amaya’s carefree giggles. 

 

“That was lovely,” she said once they’d stopped, accepting another cup of tea. “Thank you.”

 

“Thank you ! I haven’t had a challenge like this in a long time,” he grinned. 

 

He let the silence linger for a while as they enjoyed their tea, simply analysing each other, before he decided to finally get to the heart of the matter. 

 

“You’re right that I’d made up my mind on hiring you if you accepted the position before this,” he admitted, setting his cup down with a soft clink. “For one, I value Shouta-kun's opinions and judgements and the fact that he was willing to threaten me to not mess this up spoke a lot on your character. Your CV was also quite incredible. But it was talking to Mrs. Ray that really convinced me. She talks very highly of you, you know?”

 

“I’ve been told,” Amaya said quietly, setting her own cup down. She fiddled with her captured pieces, a complicated expression on her face. “I owe her a lot, and I’m infinitely grateful for her trust and support.”

 

“But?” he prodded patiently, leaning forward. 

 

“I don’t think I fully deserve it,” she admitted softly. “No matter how much Kio, Shouta, Knuckles, or even Keigo insist on it, it’s still hard for me to believe that I’d bring any value to your students.”

 

“You don’t think your expertise on the matter and teaching license are enough?”

 

“Is that all there is to a teacher?” she asked back, setting the knight she was fiddling with down. 

 

“Well,” he said, clapping his hands together. “We could always do a test run!”

 

She raised an eyebrow. He grinned. 

 

“The third year heroics students start a week earlier than all courses,” he explained cheerfully. “Normally they don’t have classes but are supervised as they train and study to make sure they remember all they’ve learnt in the past two years. I have arranged for them to be sent to a class for a lesson of your choosing, supervised by me!”

 

He softened, reaching out to place his paw over her hand. “Mrs. Ray, after threatening me at length, let me know a few details she felt like I should be made aware of concerning your recovery and sobriety, as well as your connections .” He left the specifics unsaid but from the way the woman tensed he knew he didn’t need to state anything out loud.

 

“It’ll be kept between me and you unless you make the decision to share it with anyone. And I promise to make sure my staff are on their best behaviour, because I am certain that should you choose to sign on you’d do wonders to these kids' studies and lives.”

 

Amaya stared at him for a while, searching his expression for something. She found it - or maybe she didn’t - and sighed, some of the tension bleeding out of her. She gave his paw a squeeze, more of a grounding gesture for herself he surmised, before standing. 

 

She offered her hand. “Shouta says you like riding on shoulders?”

 

He cackled, climbing up and settling comfortably as he guided her into his den properly, leading her to the homeroom class where the third years were seated. The eleven heroics students left this year looked up, each of them straightening in their seat when they caught sight of him. 

 

“The floor is yours. I already let them know what was going to happen,” he whispered before hopping off and making his way to the back of the class. 

 

He watched as Amaya settled on top of the desk, legs crossed, examining all of them. She took a deep, trembling breath, closed her eyes for a moment, before reopening them as she exhaled. 

 

“Nice to meet all of you. I’m Amaya, and I’ll be teaching you for this period,” she said, loud enough for all of them to hear. “To start I need to get a basis on your knowledge of quirk theory and analysis. So we’re going to go one by one from back to front. You’ll share your name and something you know about quirks and their workings. Let’s start at the far right.”

 

“Izumi Ryoko!” the first student exclaimed. “Quirks evolved around 200 years ago with the first recorded case being a glowing baby!”

 

Amaya hummed, nodding to the next person. “Murata Akemi. Quirks are an additional kind of cell found in the body known as a quirk factor.”

 

It continued like this until they’d all said their names. Amaya then let them go through one more round before she spoke up again. 

 

“You haven’t mentioned anything about Quirklessness,” she remarked. “I’d like you to raise your hand this time to share something you know about it.”

 

A couple hands raised. Amaya picked Sawa Tsuyoshi, a boy with a quirk that gave him the ability to partially and fully transform into a lion. His answers had all been focused on strength quirks until that point. 

 

He met her eyes confidently as he said: “Quirkless people are less evolved than quirked people. They are more prone to physical illnesses, mental disorders, and a lot of other issues.”

 

Amaya hummed again, eyes scanning the class for their reactions. 

 

“Any disagreements?” she asked. 

 

There were none. Nedzu was surprised they’d gotten this far. Contrary to popular belief Sekijiro was just as strict as Shouta-kun when it came to discrimination. Especially after adopting his daughter, Himiko, a couple years back. 

 

“Most if not all of the information that you’ve shared with me, including what you’ve said about Quirkless individuals, is not only extremely outdated, but also funded on flawed and discriminatory research.” 

 

The class all looked up at her, wide eyed. Her expression hadn’t changed. It was still as open as it’d been when she walked in, her eyes revealing nothing.  She didn’t give them a chance to protest, turning towards the first student. 

 

“Izumi mentioned that quirks were first documented 200 years ago. What you failed to mention is that the glowing baby is the first case of a quirk in Japan . Metahuman abilities first appeared in America during the second world war. Nen has been documented for even longer.” 

 

“Those aren’t quirks though!” Izumi protested. 

 

“Only because the term is different from country to country. If you look only at the data from Japan, which has a lot of catching up to do in terms of research since quirks are relatively new historically, then you are willfully setting yourself up for analytical error,” she smoothly shut down that argument. “It seems none of you knew, or at least deemed worth mentioning, that quirks originated from sorcery that has so far not been tracked. You’ve been operating on the basis of it being a natural biological phenomenon, an evolution. When what it is as its core is an accidental development similar to an infection, though with less damaging results.”

 

She took a breath before turning her attention to Sawa. “Quirkless individuals are not unevolved. That belief came from a study by Koizumi Aka after the first quirk war, who later published a far less known study debunking her original findings. 

 

Originally Koizumi had only been able to study the differences between quirked individuals that had either minor healing quirks or mutation quirks. It’s only in those cases that a Quirkless individual is weaker as you claimed. When comparing people with other kinds of quirks it was found that there was no biological or mental difference between the two.

 

It was only found that quirks that heavily mutated certain parts of the body carried higher traces of energy associated with sorcery, which is known to increase immunity. Quirkless individuals with sorcerer parents for instance had the same if not more immunity than those people. And even if they do not develop a quirk 90% still have some residue of that energy if their parents are quirked that improves their immune system.”

 

The students were all leaning forward now, absolutely transfixed. Sawa was a bit red from embarrassment, but he was also clearly paying rapt attention, having manifested his lion ears that were more sensitive to noise. 

 

“Quirk studies are very closely tied to sorcery. Not just because of its origins, but because quirks and sorcery operate in a very similar fashion. Both manifest as cells located within the bloodstream that latch onto blood cells to travel.  In the case of quirks however there is information that has been able to be collected that determines the factor’s ability. Whereas with sorcery the cells immediately die once removed from the body, making studying them impossible.”

 

Mino Saki raised her hand hesitantly. Amaya nodded at her encouragingly. “What about with villainous quirks? Can you actually categorise them based on the information found in the cell?”

 

“No,” Amaya said firmly yet still gently. “The concept of quirks being heroic or villainous is purely sociological. From a biological standpoint quirks are classified based on the kind of sorcery they originate from, and sorcery does not have any sort of morality penchant. I’ve met some truly wonderful sorcerer's that are also necromancers for instance.

 

We classify quirks using terms such as: mental, physical, mutational, external, and internal. There’s of course many other words but those are the building blocks for understanding and analysis of them. Mental means that the quirk is tied to the brain, either in the way it's activated or its effect. Physical means the opposite, that it is tied to a physical action, need, or body part. Mutational simply means that it somehow changes the person's physiology. That can be small, like with Present Mic’s vocal cords, or full body like with Hound Dog. External means the effects happen outside of a body. And internal means it happens inside.” 

 

“So there’s no such thing as villainous quirks?” Mino pressed. 

 

“There’s the sociological concept of villainous quirks which is absurd and originated from a paper written before quirks even reached Japan by a man in Russia that was extremely against metahuman abilities as a whole, but no there’s no such thing as a villainous quirk,” Amaya confirmed. 

 

“Before you even start thinking about analysing a quirk you need to learn how it functions. Which requires a lot of research into sorcery, and carefully examining the sources you use.”

 

“Knowing sorcery makes it easier to analyse quirks right?” a student named Yamaoko Takako asked. 

 

“It does,” Amaya said with a small smile. “That’s a very good observation. Sorcery requires finer control and a deeper understanding of how exactly it functions. You have limitless possibilities, unlike with quirks. I’m a sorcerer myself. I could copy each of your quirks or even combine certain elements. But that requires being able to immediately sense the information necessary.”

 

To demonstrate she combined Yamaoko’s scissor hands with Sawa’s lion face when he partially transformed for a moment, making the class gasp in awe. Her form slowly melted back to normal, and she grinned. 

 

“Sorcery mostly makes it easier because you have to get those skills young in order to make any progress. I know many people who aren’t even aware that they are sorcerers or learn it far too late, because they were unable to learn how to quickly pick up on the movements, words, or thoughts needed for each individual spell. It also hones your ability to sense and read magic energy. But it is fully possible for all of you to become excellent analysts simply by practicing and learning with someone to guide you.”

 

“Will you teach us?” Sawa asked loudly, eyes sparkling as he nearly pounced out of his seat. 

 

The rest of the class echoed the same question, faces bright and hopeful. 

 

Amaya glanced towards Nedzu who reflected the same hopeful face. 

 

“Yeah,” she breathed out, voice so soft they almost missed it. “I guess I will.”

 

***

 

Nedzu watched his new hire carefully as he guided her towards the staff room once the class had been dismissed (with a lot of groaning from the students) and all of them sent home for the day. He’d called a meeting as soon as the soft yeah had left her mouth, leaving it vague. 

 

She stopped at the door, listening to the loud happy chatter inside. 

 

“I still don’t think I’m the right fit,” she told him quietly. “But I’ll try.”

 

He leaned against her head gently. 

 

“That’s more than enough.”

 

Notes:

This chapter is a lot longer than the chapters following are going to be (at least hopefully). There was a lot I wanted to get into this chapter. Still hope you enjoyed it! Next Chapter will be a time skip to the present (as in All Might being hired, the entrance exam...).

Chapter 4: The Start of Mending Bonds

Kio Ray was a woman of many talents. She’d clawed her way up and held onto the position of President of the I-HPSC by the skin of her teeth. Her lists of accomplishments were as extensive as the criminal record that had gotten her to where she was. Kio Ray was the woman that had shaped the I-HPSC into the respected institution it was today, the one who’d overhauled the entire system, removed all traces of corruption, and restarted the J-HPSC from scratch. One didn’t stay president of such an institution for fifty years by chance. 

 

Kio had always been known to make moves that no one dared make. Working with certain criminals she knew no one could take in, removing All Might from America, charging all of the members of the J-HPSC for the list of crimes they had committed… Her detractors called her decisions “irresponsible, callous, dangerous gambles”. Kio saw them as calculated risks. 

 

One of those calculated risks was currently sprawled against the sofa in her office, glaring up at the ceiling venomously. 

 

“... he doesn’t even have a teaching license!” 

 

“And as I already told you the J HPSC has determined that the opportunity to slowly ease the Japanese people into accepting his retirement is valuable enough to make an exception.”

 

Choosing to spare Amaya from prison had been her most controversial decision to date. The one that had the board actively calling for her head, with meeting after meeting where she’d been forced to defend her position. 

 

Kio had stood her ground and not flinched at any of the questioning. And her risk paid off. 

 

The I-HPSC had gained a ruthlessly competent fighter, sorceress, and analyst. Even now that she'd settled in Japan and was teaching at U.A., Amaya was still the first person Kio called for high sensitivity cases. For being stuck at nineteen years old, Amaya had a terrifying amount of maturity that showed just how long she’d been alive for. 

 

Once in a while though, immaturity surfaced as a shield for vulnerability. 

 

Kio sighed, pushing her round glasses up her nose, pulling her graying hair back into a low ponytail, and shut her laptop with a quiet tap. 

 

“You’ve been pushing for the reform of the popularity system for years, and now you’re complaining that he’s taking steps towards it?”

 

“I didn’t mean pass on his quirk to one of my students about to fucking graduate and strong arm his way into being a heroics teacher for first years with no experience!” Amaya burst out, bolting up and glaring daggers at her. 

 

Kio simply leaned back with an unimpressed eyebrow raise.

 

“Are you going to tell me why this is bothering you so much or continue glaring at everything and everyone in my office? You terrified Jerry.”

 

She would have to send the poor man an apology gift later so she didn’t lose another intern to Amaya’s pissed off glares this month. 

 

The woman collapsed back on the couch with a defeated sigh. 

 

“I don’t think I can work with him without trying to punch him in the face,” she admitted quietly. “Kio I can’t. Everytime I see his smile I only think about how if he’d called it in, followed any kind of protocol, checked oh I don’t know the fucking body-”

 

“All Might was heavily injured and did the best he could despite his admittedly… poor judgement,” Kio said sternly. 

 

“You don’t think I know that?!” Amaya raised her voice as much as she was willing to, turning on her side to glare at her friend again. “Knowing he doesn’t deserve it logically doesn’t make me want to punch him in the face any less.” She groaned, pulling herself up as her alarm rang. “I should go, I have to be at the staff meeting in five.”

 

“Good luck,” Kio saluted, getting another glare as the younger woman opened up a portal. “Oh and Amaya?” She waited until the immortal turned towards her, eyebrow raised and glare still firmly in place. “I’m giving you official permission to punch him in the face once.”

 

She got a feral grin that rivaled both Eraserhead’s and Nedzu’s before stepping through and disappearing. 

 

Kio sighed. 

 

Now to look into please don’t quit because my best hero and friend is scary baskets. 

 

***

 

Shouta found her on the roof of U.A., staring up at the sky and blasting music as loudly as she could through her headphones to drown out everything.

 

“You want to talk about why you punched All Might?” he asked, sitting down next to her. 

 

He’d learnt a long time ago that Amaya was never really unaware of her surroundings, no matter how much she tried to be. 

 

“It’s classified,” she grumbled. 

 

Shouta snorted, letting her collapse against his side. “When has that ever stopped you?”

 

She didn’t respond, but she did crack a small smile at that. They stayed there in silence for a couple minutes, Shouta just enjoying the sound leaking out of her headphones. 

 

“You’re still coming over tonight right?” he asked. “Even if he’ll be there?”

 

“Yeah,” she said softly. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

 

***

 

The Shirayamazawa house was alive . 

 

There was no alcohol tonight. Just fizzy sodas and a truly impressive amount of snacks scattered across the kitchen counter, kitchen table, and coffee table. A bottle of blood set up for Vlad to mix with whatever drink he chose. Music playing loudly over a speaker, a karaoke machine in the corner with disco lights, and the lively shatter of old friends. 

 

Everyone was there for their annual pre entrance exam party. 

 

Higari and Ichiro were cuddled up together on the couch playing a round of trivia against Nedzu and Amaya. Or more accurately being completely obliterated by the duo while the rest of them howled in laughter and cheered. 

 

Hizashi and Anan were singing their hearts out with the karaoke machine, belting the lyrics at the top of their lungs despite their usually good singing voices. Oboro alternated between joining in and being the backup dancer. 

 

Chiyo, Ken and Ryo teamed up against Nedzu and Amaya after Higari and Ichiro forfeited for a round of poker. 

 

Shouta was discreetly collecting blackmail while also trolling all of them by dropping extremely sour gummies into their drinks before going to sit with Sekijro so they could share pictures of their cats with each other. 

 

Yori, Oboro, and Ken tried having a food eating contest. Rush joined and destroyed them without even a drop of saliva coming from his mouth. 

 

At some point games started. Never Have I Ever was first, which ended when they learned that Amaya had been covering up the fact that she was fully tattooed and had owned a tattoo shop as a cover for a while, leading to the reveal of all of her tattoos. Then they insisted on her giving them each a tattoo. With minimal protest she agreed, leading to several hours of them picking designs and having fun getting easily coverable tattoos healed quickly by her magic. 

 

Rush asked for a bouquet of flowering vegetables on his right shoulder. Nemuri a pair of lips sucking a lollipop with the colours of the ace flag on her left hip. Oboro, Shouta, and Hizashi got matching tattoos: a black cat, yellow cockatoo, and a blue duck cuddling together on their backs by their right shoulder. Ichiro and Higari did the same and got a matching tattoo of a steampunk gun on their torsos. Sekijiro got a cute pink vampire bat by his heart for his daughter. Anan got a cow getting abducted by a UFO. Chiyo got an intricate butterfly on her inner wrist. 

 

Ryo, Ken and Yori were surprised when Amaya told them she could give them one as well. Ryo got a cartoony ghost on his lower back and refused any explanation. Ken chose a quote from one of his favourite books: “No mourners, no funerals” with a black crow on his upper thigh. Yori asked for a rose with some small numbers overlapping on his forearm. Nedzu even got one hidden under his fur, a small anatomically correct heart right where his was. 

 

They even dragged Yagi, who’d been awkwardly lingering in the corners feeling like an intruder into it. He gave Amaya creative liberty, then nearly cried when he saw that she’d done a beautiful but faint outline of Nana surrounded by yellow sunflowers. 

 

Hizashi insisted on trying to give Amaya one, so she also ended up with a very amateurish tattoo of a snowflake with red wings in between some of her more intricate pieces. Hizashi felt bad until she looked at it, beamed, and told him she loved it. 

 

They moved on to doing a pre quirk horror movie marathon with the movies Amaya had brought along, sometimes interrupting for a round of Truth or Dare or to make fun of the movies. 

 

Yagi still stood on the outside.

 

Amaya glanced back at him, watching the way he stood like an outsider trying not to intrude. She untangled herself from Nemuri, who had wrapped them together in a blanket as the asexual gang. The woman whined about losing her cuddle buddy before seeing where Amaya was looking and softly telling her to take her time. 

 

Yagi tensed momentarily as she leaned against the wall by his side with a sigh.

 

“They don’t bite you know,” she said quietly, watching Shouta try to smother Oboro after he commented that Shouta would get along great with Michael Myers, making everyone start to cackle. 

 

“I’m starting to think this may have been a mistake,” he said quietly. “I don’t-”

 

“Think you deserve this?” she asked. Yagi nodded hesitantly. “I said the same thing at first. They grow on you after a while. Like weeds.” 

 

That got the man to crack a hesitant smile. 

 

“Want to spar against me before the school year starts?” he asked suddenly, keeping his voice low.  “No holding back?”

 

Amaya’s eyes twinkled. “I would love to.”

 

He grinned, eyes twinkling as well. She grabbed his hand, dragging him over and forcing him to get down next to her under the blanket with Nemuri. The woman passed them the bowl of popcorn with a wink. 

 

That was how their night ended. With all of them asleep in varying degrees of comfortable positions, scattered around the living room of the Shirayamazawa home. 

 

Yagi was the last to drift off, just observing for a while. Amaya was curled up in Nemuri’s arms, a smile on her face as she pressed more into the other woman’s chest. 

 

He turned away, grinning softly to himself as he let himself fall into darkness for the best, safest sleep he’d gotten in years. Surrounded by people he hoped he’d one day be able to call friends. 

 

He’d been lonely for so long… surely it was okay for him to finally have this. 

Chapter 5: The Start of A New School Year

The entrance exam was always a chaotic day, but it started off relatively calm. With the thorough staff meeting the day before and the fact that they had become a very well oiled machine over the years, there were only a few minor things to do before the start of the event. 

 

Ryo was enjoying the warm rays of the rising sun by the window before he headed to the gate to aid the robots with security. Yori and Higari were looking over the grading criteria for the support course one last time. Sekijiro was sipping a blood pouch while scrolling through the messages his daughter had sent him as she enjoyed the day out with a friend from her support class. Anan and Ken were quietly discussing a new book the two of them were currently reading. Nemuri was filling out some paperwork at her desk, sucking on a lemon flavoured candy. 

 

Yagi and Amaya entered together, both of them covered in sweat. Amaya was dressed in a fresh tank top, her tattoos and the markings that peaked out from under them in full display. It was rare to see her with those darker lines visible, especially those on her face. Her eyes were glowing a bright gold and she had a large toothy grin across her face. 

 

She shoved Yagi playfully, mindful of his bandaged side. The man laughed, something more soft than they would have ever expected from All Might . Despite the large bags under both of their eyes and the exhaustion clear in Amaya’s frame they looked pleased.

 

“You could have invited us to your spar!” Nemuri whined as she looked up and took them in. 

 

“Maybe next time,” Amaya said as she moved to the coffee machine. “This one was for both of us to release some frustration and we didn’t want to have to be careful of spectators. Coffee Yagi?” 

 

“Ah! No thank you Amaya. I can’t with my stomach,” the man told her, sitting down on the couch and shyly joining Anan and Ken’s conversation when he realised he knew the book they were discussing. 

 

Shouta, Oboro and Hizashi were the last to walk in. Everyone tensed, eyeing the underground pro with some level of distrust. Because despite the fact he’d been patrolling with Amaya the night before, and therefore had finished at the same time, he didn’t look like death warmed over. 

 

Actually he looked sort of.. Gleeful? 

 

Amaya, who'd sat down at her desk to get through some last minute prep for her classes, turned around at the sudden tension, eyes narrowing as she spotted Shouta’s obvious joy.

 

Shouta’s grin sent shivers down the spines of every member of the staff room as he locked eyes with one of his best friends and fellow undergrounder.  

 

“I’d like to introduce you to…” 

 

Amaya slammed her mug of coffee down on her desk before going to slam her face. It was only the combination of Oboro’s quick thinking and Shouta’s commitment to stealing her coffee that saved her from a concussion and burns. The latter grabbed the unattended to mug while the former formed a cloud before her head could hit the desk. 

 

Shouta took a victorious sip before continuing. “The new twilight hero: Iris everybody!”

 

“You abandoned me to the vultures!” Amaya screeched into the cloud that was still keeping her from knocking herself out. 

 

Shouta’s grin grew even larger, showing his teeth. He didn’t even bother hiding it as he condescendingly patted her head with his free hand. “Should have run faster.”

 

The woman whipped her head up to glare at him. 

 

“You tied my legs together with your capture weapon!” She screamed, somehow rivalling Hizashi in volume. 

 

Shouta shrugged. “Didn’t see it.”

 

Amaya let out an animalistic growl before launching herself at her patrol partner. The two of them wrestled on the ground, coffee mug having been saved by another of Oboro’s clouds.

 

Yagi stared at the two like they’d grown three heads. Ichiro slammed a hand over his mouth before he could speak. 

 

“Don’t mind the two, just enjoy the show,” he advised before moving to steal popcorn from Sekijiro.

 

“As entertaining as this is, we do have an exam to get prepared for!” Nedzu’s cheerful voice piped up over the speakers, breaking through Nemuri and Hizashi chants of “fight fight fight!”

 

Amaya grumbled but released her hold on Shouta, who was still grinning like a creep. She retrieved her now empty mug from Oboro with a soft thanks before bee lining towards the coffee machine. She stopped before starting it though when Nedzu’s voice came through the speakers once more. 

 

“Oh and Amaya, I have a thermos of tea ready for you if you want it!”

 

Some life returned to the underground pro's eyes before she bolted out of the room without another word.

 

This was going to be interesting . 

 

***

 

“I still don’t understand why these kids even try to cheat every year,” was the first thing Amaya said as she portalled her way into the teacher’s lounge for the lunch break between the written and practical exams. 

 

The sorceress collapsed on top of the couch, smiling thankfully as Yori passed her a personalised bento box packed by Rush before he’d left to handle all of the ravenous teenagers in the cafeteria. She took out her earpiece and tucked it safely into a small pocket dimension before opening the bento, lighting up when she saw that Rush had made solyanka that was placed in a small closed bowl within the bento, along with a large fruit salad comprised of apricots, peaches, cherries, raspberries and grapes. 

 

How many of them did you guys catch this year? Hizashi signed, resting his voice for the practical portion since he also had a patrol early the next day. 

 

Shouta jumped down from the vents onto his desk right underneath in the middle of Hizashi signing but no one batted an eye. Sekijiro just passed over Shouta’s bento (because Rush was not about to let the man survive off of a jelly pouch the day they handled entrance exams, class distribution, and still had their regular patrols) and they all continued enjoying their individual meals. 

 

“I got 14 in heroics, 8 in support, 11 in business, and 2 in general studies,” Amaya answered before grumbling as Shouta fell back onto the couch next to her, forcing her to turn and get her legs out of the way. 

 

“9 in heroics, 3 in support, 7 in business, 10 in general studies,” Shouta said, breaking up his chopsticks and digging into the soba that Rush had prepared for him. 

 

“19 in heroics, 1 in support, 4 in business, 5 in general studies,” Yori sighed after a mouthful of sushi. 

 

The three of them had formed a perfect system for years now when it came down to proctoring the written exam. Between Yori’s ability to be all around a room, Shouta’s ability to erase quirks, and Amaya’s ability to not only turn off all quirks but also scan for any trickery, they made for an impossible to surpass team. Yori surrounded the rooms, Shouta would go from room to room in a different order each time for different lengths of time by using the vents, and Amaya would portal herself to each room the same way. 

 

“Anyone catch you this year?” Oboro asked curiously from where he was eating miniature cupcake after miniature cupcake, frosting coating his mouth. 

 

“Two kids noticed me actually. 1356 and 2498,” told them, causing a round of impressed woos and a lot of teasing from Nemuri about him losing his touch. 

 

“I had two kids notice I was there too,” Amaya mused quietly, which caused everyone to suddenly freeze. 

 

Since the start of their cheating catching system, they’d had a rule that anyone who was able to notice Shouta would get a bonus on the written portion and anyone who noticed Amaya would get two. Because while noticing Shouta was already extremely difficult, finding Amaya was damn near impossible. She still made each of them jump almost daily because they just couldn’t sense her at all. Until now there had never been a student that had been able to notice her presence. 

 

“Which ones?” Yori asked as the most likely to recognise them since he’d seen their faces. 

 

“Hatsume Mei who’s trying for support. She’s a sorceress as well, though very much low level. She’s got very fine control though. I slipped and forgot to mask because we almost never have support sorcerers, so her noticing me still gets her points but isn't that shocking. The other one though…”

 

Amaya munched on some meat from her soup, swallowed, then continued.

 

“Well the other one was from yesterday with the sponsored kids. Shouto Todoroki not only noticed me once, he kept noticing me. He’s got some sorcery, probably from his mother because Endeavour has none, but not enough to actually qualify as a sorcerer. The only other one that got close to catching me was Shinsou Hitoshi, but I think it has to do with his quirk, much like how it is with Sho. He seemed disturbed anytime I was in the room.” 

 

“Mental quirk then?” Shouta asked, leaning over to steal a slice of meat from her soup. 

 

She snatched a fork full of soba in retaliation before nodding. “Probably. He’s 2498.”

 

“Ah yeah with that hair it’s definitely a mental quirk.”

 

“Don’t leave me out when ya start going through the underground prospects!” Ichiro reminded, finishing off the last bite of his burger. 

 

“I am not looking forward to grading the exams,” Sekijiro grumbled. 

 

“Me neither. I am so looking forward to seeing you and Shouta define the classes though,” Nemuri purred. All of the staff agreed. 

 

“You added an analysis portion to the heroics exams this year right Amaya?” Higari asked. The woman nodded. “I’d like to look them over with you.”

 

“You free Thursday? I’ve got the night off if the raid Wednesday goes well. Ichiro, Yori, you're welcome to come as well.”

 

“Grading and gossip day?” Ichiro asked with a grin. Amaya grinned back at him with a twinkle in her eyes. “Count us in.”

 

Yori gave a thumbs up. 

 

“Yagi, you want to join?” Higari suddenly offered. 

 

The man looked caught off guard by the offer, but eventually nodded shyly. Amaya grinned, letting him know she’d text him the address. 

 

You’re still coming over Sunday for dinner right? Hizashi checked with Amaya. 

 

The conversations continued like that for the rest of the break, before the bell rang signaling the start of the practical portion soon. 

 

***

 

The afternoon was split into two halves, one for the support practical and one for heroics. It gave prospective heroic students more time to digest properly before the exam and made it possible for the support judging panel to join in the heroic exam observation. 

 

The panel rotated each year to avoid students passing on the specifics of who exactly would be grading them. The students were given ten minutes max to pitch something that they had either already created or something that they had designed. Support was divided into three classes of eight students maximum, meaning they were only allowed to select a total of twenty four out of the around a hundred examinees. 

 

To make it go quicker and smoother there were three judging panels. One panel was composed of Natsuo, Rumi Usagiyama (Mirko), along with two members of support companies that Amaya had worked closely with in the past. The second had Keigo and Yagi in his deflated form, with the addition of another two members of support companies. The last panel was probably the scariest one, composed of Amaya, Yori, Ichiro, and Amaya’s personal support engineer Hideo Nakamura. 

 

They had three hours to go through all of the pitches. None of them really spoke unless one of them had additional questions, each of them spending the time writing down notes and comments in the notebook they’d been given. All of them would meet up over the weekend in one of the U.A. meeting rooms to discuss their notes and finalise which students would make it to the course. Amaya sensed it would be chaotic this year with the addition of her two kids and Keigo’s best friend. 

 

Maybe she could convince Kio to come along. 

 

They had five minutes to stretch before the U.A. teachers headed over to the observation room to watch the practical starting in a couple minutes. 

 

Shouta and Sekijiro were already seated in the seats with the best view of the monitors. The others spread out around the back with their buckets of popcorn, with the only exceptions being the ones out on the grounds (Hizashi, Nemuri, Oboro, and Ryo). 

 

Amaya took her seat at the controls, Nedzu climbing up on her shoulder. 

 

“GO! What are you all waiting for yo?! There aren’t any countdowns in real life!”

 

***

 

“The zero pointer didn’t malfunction,” Amaya said darkly as she, Nedzu and Higari met up with the other teachers in the meeting room a week later. The pro sat down at her spot, letting Nedzu climb down to head to his place at the head of the table. “Someone placed a small sigil inside that transferred control over it to a third party.”

 

Yagi leaned forward a bit, a worried frown on his face. She nodded at him discreetly, watching his face pale for a moment before he mouthed: later ? 

 

Tomorrow, she mouthed back before turning to Nedzu, trusting the rest of them to mind their own business. 

 

All of them exchanged glances before letting it go easily. They trusted that if this was something they needed to be informed of they would be immediately. 

 

“Well!” Nedzu clapped, getting all of their attention back. “Now that the exam results have all been calculated, and thank all of you for your hard work, it’s time for class distribution!”

 

The tension from the beginning evaporated immediately at the mention of class distribution. Amaya used a quick spell to send all of the desks and chairs against the wall. Oboro used his quirk to give them all clouds to sprawl on. Everyone else grabbed the snacks they’d brought along, spreading them out in the center along with drinks. Yagi was dragged to sit with Amaya on her cloud, the under snatching a pack of her favourite dry meat sausage sticks that Nedzu had imported from France away from Shouta with a glare. 

 

Once they were all settled with their snacks and respective buddies, they got things started. Nemuri sprawled across Oboro’s legs who was playing with her hair while sitting on Hizashi’s lap with his legs thrown over Shouta’s. 

 

“Let’s start with the recommended exam shall we?” Nedzu chirped. “Shoto Todoroki!”

 

“Put him in 1A!” Amaya and Sekijiro said at the same time, leaning over to exchange a fist bump. 

 

“Since when are we putting limelighters with me?” Shouta groaned, leaning against Hizashi. 

 

“Think of him like a baby Keigo,” Amaya explained. “He needs to decide what kind of hero he wants to be independently of Endeavour. If you put him in 1B with the limelighters he won’t ever have that realisation.”

 

“Yaoyorozu Momo?”

 

“I’ll take her,” Sekijiro offered. Amaya threw a pack of crisps at his head. 

 

“Absolutely not! She needs to have good hand to hand combat skills and she wants to be twilight!”

 

“Fine but I’m taking the other two then. Tokage wants to be twilight but she needs long distance training and Honenuki wants to be rescue.”

 

“Moving on to the non recommended students then. Bakugo Katsuki?”

 

“Vlad”

 

“Eraser”

 

The two homeroom teachers glared at each other. 

 

“Have you seen his quirk?! How am I supposed to handle explosion hands?!”

“He wants to be limelight! And you’ve faced villains you can’t handle a student?”

 

“I think he should go to Sekijiro,” Amaya piped up, getting a cheer from Shouta and a groan from Sekijiro. “But with mandatory anger management counselling with Ryo. Some of his answers on the exam were… concerning.”

 

“I’ll make a note of it,” Ryo took out his phone from where he was curled up by the window with Chiyo. 

 

The next few students went relatively quickly. Ichiro, Shouta, and Amaya argued to get Monoma Neito placed in 1A along with the other students needing hand to hand that were going underground: Shinsou Hitoshi, Midoriya Izuku, Hagakure Toru, and Jirou Kyoka. 

 

Once classes were finalised Amaya excused herself so that she could go have dinner with her family, and everyone else disbanded with promises of pictures and texts until the school year started if they didn’t see each other beforehand. 

 

***

 

“I brought the goods!” Keigo cheered as he flew down onto the balcony, right before smashing into the closed glass door. 

 

Natsuo, who had been reviewing some of his notes from last year in preparation for his final year of med school burst out laughing, unhelpfully rolling around on the carpet while Keigo rubbed at his face, food bags dropped to the floor. 

 

Amaya rolled her eyes fondly, heading over and sliding the door open. 

 

“My saviour!” Keigo cheered, wrapping his mom in a tight hug, pointing a finger at Natsuo behind her back and mouthing you’re dead to me to the unrepentant grinning asshole. 

 

“Get the food on the table,” Amaya said, reaching up to ruffle his hair. 

 

“You’re lucky Uncle Shouta didn’t see that,” Natsuo teased, ducking when his brother lunged at him. 

 

Chapter 6: The First Day of School

Apart from her literal first day of teaching at U.A., Amaya had never shown up for the first year’s first day of school. 

 

U.A. had three first days, one for each year group, separated by a week. It helped to get the second and third years back on track before they dealt with the first years, which were often more of a handful. But that third first day coincided with the first day for nearly all elementary and middle schools in the country. 

 

One of her only ultimatums was that she be allowed to skip it. It was better than darting out of Nedzu’s opening speech or Shouta’s quirk apprehension test because one of the kids from the quirkless support group texted that they needed her to interfere. 

 

This year though Keigo was off for the day and desperately wanted to fill in that role. Plus the only kid they had this year that was changing schools was Oe Michi, and she was going to Somei. The chances that Keigo would actually need to head to multiple schools in a short time that day were pretty low. 

 

So for the first time since starting to teach she woke up early that day, getting dressed in comfortable black gym shorts and a mostly black Huntr/x tank top that Nats had gotten her a couple months back. Swinging a duffle bag over her shoulder she opened up a portal and walked right into one of the empty gyms. 

 

***

 

 Shouta was surprised when he walked into Ground Beta to find Amaya lying on the floor - head pillowed by her duffle bag - scrolling on her phone. The surprise quickly turned into sadistic joy when she spotted him and gave him a small wave, the phone disappearing as if it hadn’t ever been there. 

 

“Joining me for the assessment?” he asked once he was close enough, extending a hand to help drag her to her feet. 

 

“Keigo’s handling the support group today and I refuse to be put through the opening ceremony again,” she grimaced, both shuddering at the memory of how unbelievably long the only one either had attended had been. “I don’t know how the others put up with it each year.”

 

“They either sleep, take bets or play games like children,” Shouta said with a snort. 

 

The two straightened as they heard footsteps heading towards them, both of their faces going eerily blank. 

 

The first students to get changed and make it to the field were Midoriya Izuku and Shinsou Hitoshi. Shouta slid a 1000 yen discreetly into her pocket with a very quiet sigh (because they were really not any more mature then others and still bet with each other behind everyone’s back) while Amaya worked hard to fight down a grin. 

 

She noticed that Shinsou was looking between them with a slightly red face, sneaking glances before looking off towards the door. She shrugged it off as the other students started coming in, tuning Shouta out as he went through his usual spiel and then his heroics isn’t fun rant. 

 

Just because she agreed didn’t mean she cared to listen to it. Instead she was busy analysing the students in front of her. 

 

Midoriya was the first to get her attention. The kid was fidgeting anxiously towards the back, a pretty significant gap between him and the others. Shinsou was still glancing at them every now and then though he looked more focused and guarded now. Monoma was also off towards the side, a scowl on his face. 

 

Her eyes then found Shoto. She looked him over quickly, trying to see if there were any signs of injury. He was closed off, seperate from the group like the other three, and his hands crossed over his chest. 

 

Apart from them she didn’t really notice any other issues. She tuned back in when Kirishima was called up as the second place highest scorer for the entrance exam to do the demonstrating ball throw. Watching carefully as he hardened his fist and arm to throw it better. 

 

“Oh and last place will be expelled,” Shouta added casually after tallying up that score. 

 

She rolled her eyes at him behind the student’s back at the uproar, cracking her neck as she floated herself into a sitting position and prepared to watch the events. 

 

Overall there wasn’t … much for her to note she found. None of the kids used their quirks in particularly unique or out of the box ways. It wasn’t surprising, and did give her a baseline for the few heroics classes she’d help with, but other than that it was relatively boring. 

 

It only got interesting at the ball throw. 

 

She paid attention when Monoma “bumped” into her on the way to the circle. Shouta ducked his head down in his scarf to hide his smirk as the teen’s walk faltered slightly. 

 

He glanced at her once with wide eyes before shaking his head, continuing forward, and throwing the ball as far as he could quirkless.  

 

Uraraka got the score of infinity. She saw Shinsou eyeing her for a moment, and prepared for him to get her to fall under his quirk. 

 

“Sensei?” he drawled as he walked forward. 

 

She responded out of habit when she noticed his eyes were on her, not really thinking. 

 

“Yes-”

 

Everything went black. 

***

 

Hitoshi refused to leave the infirmary no matter how many times he was assured by his homeroom teacher (and he would absolutely be fanboying to his parents about both Eraserhead and Iris being his teachers once he got home), Recovery Girl and the self proclaimed Self Care Crew (Ectoplasm, Powerloader, Snipe, and a blonde twig man he didn’t recognise) that his teacher and hero was fine. 

 

It had been terrifying to watch his teacher go from blank to collapsing to the floor with a scream of agony that made a wave of dark pink energy ripple out of her. Eraserhead had canceled his quirk immediately after that but his teacher hadn’t gotten up. Despite hiding his face in his scarf and gruffly going through the rest of the class as a med bot came to collect the woman he could tell the man had been itching to leave them and check on his friend. 

 

Hitoshi couldn’t blame him either. He’d followed him as discreetly as he could (he was sure he’d just been ignored anyway) towards the infirmary once class was dismissed. Now he was just staring worriedly at the unresponsive pro whose face was contorted in an expression of discomfort. His parents sent their support for him staying until she woke up and promised to wait by the gate to pick him up as soon as they could get off work. 

 

It was an hour past the dismissal of all other students that the teacher started to stir. Her nose scrunched as she slowly blinked awake, narrowing her eyes at the bright clinical lights. Recovery Girl immediately moved forward, helping her up into a seating position and planting another quirk kiss on her forehead despite her protests. 

 

“What happened?” she croaked, examining her arms that had faint glowing dark pink patterns underneath the tattoos that had appeared when she’d crumpled. 

 

Eraserhead looked at him and Hitoshi turned to stare at the ground, shifting from side to side awkwardly. 

 

“You reacted strangely to Shinsou using his quirk on you,” he explained.

 

“I’m so sorry!” Hitoshi burst out, trying to fight down the panic. 

 

He’d done this to a pro hero and teacher. He’d be lucky to get sent to just Gen Ed and-

 

“Oh. That happens,” he turned to stare at his teacher with wide eyes as she jumped off the bed, brushing off Recovery Girl with a grumble that she was fine. “I forgot to warn your class that mental quirks and I don't get along. I’m sorry for the trouble, Shinsou, I hope it wasn’t too scary.”

 

“You don’t have to apologise, I shouldn’t have used my quirk-”

 

“I’ll let Shouta give you his QAT talk, I’m sure he’s dying too,” she said, smirking at the glare she got from Eraserhead. “These things happen. I’m the adult here, I’m responsible for setting boundaries especially in heroics where we encourage the most exploration. You did nothing wrong,” she promised, ruffling his hair as he passed.

 

“Are you still good to head to our place?” Powerloader asked, standing up with the other heroes. 

 

She nodded, waving him goodbye before leaving him alone with Recovery Girl and Eraserhead. 

 

***

 

“So I just… follow the given lesson plan?” Yagi asked nervously. 

 

The Self Proclaimed Self Care Crew (missing Hizashi who was with his husbands for an uncommon night where they were all off and Nemuri who was out on a date) was currently sprawled around Higari and Ichiro’s apartment enjoying pizza. They’d finished their self care routine and were continuing to gossip while Yori scrolled for a good shitty show for them to put on. 

 

Enjoying the calm before the storm of the year that would definitely leave them with a criminally small amount of free time. 

 

“Yep!” They all exclaimed at the same time. 

 

Yagi nodded slowly, staring down at his slice of pepperoni. Even with Amaya helping slowly heal his organs it was still so strange to imagine eating something like that again. They all gave him time and space, Amaya and Ichiro playfully fighting over the last slice of parma pizza. 

 

Amaya gave a triumphant shout as she secured the claiming bite, crouching down on the couch like L from that pre quirk manga he’d loved as a teen. She was mid large bite when he spoke again, staring at his pizza with intensity. 

 

“But aren't battle trials a little… much for the first day of heroics?” 

 

Amaya immediately started choking. 

 

Yagi panicked, dropping the slice he’d been holding for almost half an hour down into his plate and rushing over to frantically pat her back. Higari dropped the nail polish he was currently applying on his husband’s fingers, both of their faces turning to stare at him in horror. Yori was clutching the remote like a weapon. 

 

“Battle- battle trials?!” Amaya choked out between coughs, grabbing the cup of water Yagi gave her and gulping it down. 

 

“It’s the first lesson in the plan Nedzu sent,” he explained. 

 

“That ain’t right,” Ichiro said with a frown, helping pick the nail polish bottle up. 

 

“Can I see?” Amaya asked once she’d finally stopped almost dying for the second time that day. 

 

Yagi nodded, pulling his phone out and quickly bringing the email he’d gotten from Nedzu with the lesson plans for heroics up. They all crowded around it, brows furrowed as they read through the plan that proposed battle trials as a first lesson for first years. 

 

“This is pre Nedzu plans,” Yori pointed out, pointing to the name of the teacher who’d written them up. A hero that had died years before Nedzu even went pro himself. “Why’d he send you these?”

 

“He didn’t,” Amaya said distractedly. “There’s a sigil hidden there.”

 

“Same guy who sabotaged the zero pointer then?” Higari asked worriedly. 

 

“Probably,” she said quietly, handing Yagi his phone back. “I’ll talk to Nedzu tomorrow and get Shouta or Sekijiro to give you the plans both in email that they’ll double check and on paper. First lesson is a costume critique and obstacle course with me and Higari supervised by Oboro anyway.” 

 

“Thank kami,” Yagi said, tension leaving his shoulders as he collapsed back, grabbing a slice of pizza and unconsciously finally taking a bite.

 

His eyes widened in joy and he quickly finished it before going to the other slices they’d left for him. 

 

They all snickered. Yori launched a pre quirk reality tv show called Love Island, and they all settled in comfortably, pushing aside thoughts of first years and sabotage.

 

Chapter 7: The First Look at Costumes

“Oh god,” Amaya whispered in absolute horror as she and Higari stared at the atrocities in front of them. 

 

“Be nice,” Oboro hissed at the two of them, sitting on a cloud with a very very discreet bucket of popcorn and his phone recording the whole thing for the rest of the staff. 

 

“I’m finding it,” Higari muttered. 

 

“Hagakure is naked,” Amaya whispered to him, averting her eyes and spinning around. “Please tell her to put on clothes.”

 

“Why- Oh my god. Hagakure put on clothes!” Oboro ordered through a mouthful of popcorn, remembering that the poor woman could see through quirks and couldn’t turn it off. He tossed his jacket to the student who immediately rushed out once she grabbed it. “Crisis averted.”

 

“You mean to tell me all of them have magically gotten even passable costumes?” she asked mockingly, spinning back around. 

 

“How does this get worse each year?” Higari questioned, rubbing his face. 

 

The students shifted awkwardly in front of them. 

 

“I don’t think they’re that bad-” Kaminari started, not noticing Oboro’s terror at his statement or the way he aggressively shook his head before it was much too late. 

 

“Yaoyorozu has no coverage,” Amaya started with a deadpan stare that would rival Shouta’s.

 

“I’m pretty sure you and Jirou are in just street clothes,” Higari grumbled. 

 

“Todoroki has fake ice on half his costume-”

 

“Iida you’re basically a copyright infringement, has your brother not talked about that with you?”

 

“Uraraka are you in heels?! ”

 

“Okayyyy,” Oboro cut in, desperately trying to keep down his laughter. “Maybe go one by one?” 

 

“I don’t know where to start,” Higari snapped, not taking his eyes off… whatever it was Koda was wearing. 

 

“I do,” Amaya grumbled as Hagakure reentered the gym in a gym uniform. “Hagakure and Yaoyorozu, with me. Kaminari and Jirou you’re with Powerloader to make sure you aren’t just in street clothes. The rest of you…” she breathed out carefully, tearing her head away from the crimes in front of her. “Run the obstacle course until we call on you.”

 

***

 

“I want that company burnt to the fucking ground,” Amaya growled as she stormed into the meeting room once heroics and classes in general were over. Higari was right on her tail, holding a pile of costume designs like they would burn his hands. Oboro has a grin on his face as all of their phone’s dinged with the takedown video of this year's costumes. “They only got Asui’s, Shoji’s and Sero’s costumes right.”

 

“Uraraka’s was too skin tight and she requested heels ,” Higari hissed with disdain. “Ojiro, Kaminari, Jirou, Monoma and Mina are all in normal fabrics. Not to mention the lack of upper body protection with Mina. Tokoyami and Aoyama have long capes. Midoriya’s costume would be fine if it had been made with quality in mind, but they didn’t even give him shoes that fit his feet. Shinsou requested a capture weapon and a voice changer. He got a scarf. Kirishima has no shirt. Iida needs to talk to Tensei for a conversation about figuring out his own style. Plus the armor was too heavy. Todoroki-”

 

“Will be having a conversation with me after our quirk analysis class next week,” Amaya cut in. 

 

“Yeah. That. Koda’s was just normal clothes, the mask can’t stay, and I’m throwing both him and Sato to the business students this week because god I’m not sending them on internships looking like this. ”

 

“Hagakure was naked. Yaoyorozu had no coverage at all and was extremely sexualised considering her age. ” Amaya snarled.  “Not to mention the weapons were just in all of their cases despite the fact that none of them have any training.”

 

“That’s just 1A,” Higari said with a sigh. “1B was better. Bakugou was very angry about me removing the literal bombs they taught to give to a child with no training. Kodai’s costume was good. Kendo needs more protection underneath. Her and Kimoko are in dresses but at least they’re loose or easy to move in. Kimoko needs tights at least, shorts would be better. Ibara has no protection and the dress looks like plain white unprotected fabric. Tsuburaba is in normal everyday clothes. Those were the main problems with that class though.” 

 

“They need a class on the fact that practicality and movement should override the look,” Amaya said darkly, collapsing into the chair next to Nedzu’s and accepting the cup of tea he handed her. “I understand some of them want to be in the limelight, but we’re going to be burying half of them by second year with how flimsy the costumes were this year.”

 

“Why did we change agency anyway,” Higari questioned, turning to Nedzu. “The previous three years were great.”

 

“They suddenly did not want to work with teenagers anymore,” Amaya answered instead of Nedzu, rubbing her temples. “No explanation other than it was suddenly too much of a liability. They told us after the exam.”

 

“Something’s off,” Ichiro said from where he was sitting on the couch, cleaning his guns. “First the zero pointer is tempered with. Then Yagi gets lesson plans from years ago that involve battle trials, which would have gone extremely wrong if he hadn’t brought it up to anyone. And now y'all are telling us that the support company we’ve partnered with for years suddenly backed out and we had to use a company that was apparently extremely shit? Not to mention Mirio’s quirk evolution. Which reminds me, when are ya talking to him, Amaya?”

 

The teacher in question groaned. “Tomorrow. Pray for me. I have to ban him from working with Nighteye and you know he’s gonna object to that.”

 

“Why are you banning him?” Yagi asked nervously, rubbing the back of his neck. “Surely-”

 

“No,” she cut him off, shooting him a glare. “Mirio is falling into the habit of fighting with only one style which won’t work with his evolution, ” she spit the word out. “He’ll be doing a work study with either Hizashi or Hawks because he needs someone with a quirk license and a different mentor to vary his fighting style. They both have quirk licenses and are both in the limelight. Unless Gran Torino wants to come out of retirement?”

 

“I can ask him,” Yagi said, sweating over the glare she was still giving him. 

 

“Great! Well if we have no other concerns, I have a meeting with Kio that I need to get to,” she jumped up, stretching with satisfying cracks and pops of her joints. “See you all tomorrow.”

 

It was only long after they’d all wrapped up and headed home that they realised she’d diverted them from addressing the three instances of sabotage that had already happened in the few weeks they’d been back. 

Notes:

If you're wondering about the It get's worse every year comment followed by praising the past support company, usually they just have bad designs but not bad quality. That's the difference.

Chapter 8: The First Cracks Form

U.A. was about to make the news for having two of its teachers become murderers.

 

Surprisingly Shouta wasn’t going to be on that list. 

 

He could already feel a migraine coming and he hadn’t even started teaching yet. 

 

Reporters were crowding at the gate to get any information about All Might teaching at the school, harassing the students trying to get past the gate by shoving cameras and mics their way. He’d been sent out with Hizashi to try and at least move them away from the gate so that students could easily get past. So far only those with quirks that meant they didn’t have to necessarily use the front gate hadn’t had any issues. And it looked like Hizashi was going to have to do a refresher course on media relations for the third years. Just judging by the fact Mirio was just having a conversation in the center of the crowd with microphones all around him. 

 

“Lemilion! My office at lunch! Get to class before Snipe gives you detention!” a voice called out over the crowd, making the student in question pale and turn intangible to get through the crowd. 

 

Amaya - who was in her full uniform, a rare sight for the pro that usually preferred comfortable clothing while teaching - ‘s arms were crossed in front of her chest, hands sparking as she joined him and Hizashi. 

 

Shouta guessed she’d been outside scouting a good place to have her classes for the day considering the nice weather, which explained why he hadn’t seen the pro in the lounge in the brief time he’d been allowed to sip his coffee in peace before all this. Granted he’d assumed she was in the rat's office doing… whatever it was those two enjoyed doing. 

 

“You knowwww… they’re trespassing which technically makes them villains,” Hizashi muttered under his breath. “We would be very much within our rights to-”

 

“No,” Shouta cut that train of thought off immediately, especially with the lethal glint in Amaya’s eyes he’d caught. “They’re still civilians.”

 

“You’re no fun,” Hizashi grumbled. 

 

“Seconded,” Amaya groaned, accelerating a bit and making her way towards Nejire who’d arrived and had way too much of a friendly disposition to remember that certain information was better kept under wraps. “Nejire-Chan! You’re going to be late to homeroom!” She called, sending the reporter talking to the upperclassmen a glare. 

 

“Ack! Sorry Amaya-sensei!” the girl called, rushing off. 

 

“Please get away from the gates,” Hizashi said with extremely forced politeness as Amaya started covering the arriving student’s in protective shields that muffled their conversations and made them impossible to film. “U.A. is private property-”

 

“We’re on the sidewalk!” one of the sleazy reporters interrupted, smirking. “Therefore we aren’t actually breaking any laws-”

“No but you are testing the patience and wasting the time of pro heroes that have too little sleep and packed schedules,” Amaya informed, grabbing an anxiously blubbering Midoriya by the shoulder and gently pushing him towards the gate. “Not to mention that your cameras are currently trained on me and the teacher next to Mic, both of us being underground. Something that I'll remind you is extremely illegal!” She flashed them one of her grins that was somehow scarier than Nedzu’s, holding up her license to prove she was an underground hero. 

 

Because of the grey line they walked and their relations with villains or general people in the underground that could put them in danger if any information was leaked about them, it was illegal to record an underground pro in and out of uniform without consent no matter the location. Risking enormous fines and attempted murder charges if one was caught doing so after being informed. The HSPC didn’t play when it came to its unders anymore, something news stations were all very hyper aware of.  

 

If Shouta wasn’t very gay and happily married he would have married her for that as he watched the reporters pale, realise that they had no intention of leaving, and shut off their filming equipment before retreating. 

 

“Still think you should have let Mic shout at them.” Amaya said as she turned around. 

 

“Still think you should have let me shout at them.” Mic grumbled at the exact same time. 

 

The two grinned at each other and fist bumped, before all three of them groaned as the bell rang and they realised their pre class time was fully used up by this situation. 

 

Those news stations were about to feel the wrath of Nedzu and he held zero sympathy for them. 

 

***

 

“But Amaya-Sensei, Sir has offered me a place at his agency after I graduate I can’t just-”

 

Amaya rubbed her temples with an exasperated sigh. Yagi - who’d also been called in for this meeting considering the quirk transfer - grimaced. 

 

Mirio was a bright kid, and he had no regrets about following Mirai’s advice and passing his quirk to the boy. But as much as he valued their friendship, he valued Amaya’s expertise a lot more. He wasn’t about to fight her on the issue if she genuinely believed it was best for Mirio to work under a different hero. 

 

“Mirio you’re in Snipe’s homeroom class, correct?” she asked after a moment, pushing away a stack of papers she’d been working on when they’d arrived. The boy nodded. “And you read the packet given to you at the beginning of every year in detail I assume?” Another nod. “Then why do you seem surprised that I and U.A. are enforcing the fact that until two years after you graduate you must regularly work with another pro?”

 

“Sir said that considering OFA being passed to me you’d be willing to make an exception!”

 

“And you just assumed that I would approve of that when Nighteye has zero teaching qualifications and does not work at this school?” Amaya asked incredulously. 

 

“He helped so much with mastering my first quirk!” Mirio explained, looking genuinely distraught. “It was already so difficult to get a hold of and now with OFA on top of it I’m worried that I won’t be ready to pass my full license exam or even my finals!”

 

Amaya’s eyes softened considerably. 

 

“Mirio you not passing the license exam or the finals is precisely why I’m asking you to intern underneath another hero that holds a quirk counseling license,” she said gently, reaching into her desk to pull out a pile of papers organised with coloured sticky notes and held together by a blue paper clip.

“The green sticky note is for the beginning of a full breakdown of everything I have on the previous users. Detailed analysis of all their quirks considering Blackwhip, their activations requirements, and my analysis on how you can learn to activate and control them.

 

Purple is a diet plan developed with Rush and Recovery Girl to meet the requirements of both of your quirks as well as easy recipes for you.

 

Blue is a detailed planning of your quirk counseling lessons from now on, with room to adjust based on your work study. Yagi does not have a license, so you’ll mostly be working with me during the quirk counselling lessons I have each week.”

 

“Aren’t those for first years?” Mirio asked, staring at the packet. 

 

“They mainly are, but I always have a couple second and third years,” she assured, making sure she held eye contact with him. “Mirio this isn't a special case. You aren’t going to be a lesser hero for needing help with what is essentially an overpowered quirk evolution. It’s my job as an analyst and your teacher to help you with all this.”

 

The boy nodded slowly, still looking overwhelmed.

 

“Now, orange is a list of heroes with a quirk counseling license and a very different style of fighting than Nighteye’s that I think you’d benefit from learning from. Do your own research, contact them with the information I gave you if you need to, but get back to me at the end of week. Yes they have to be on the list, no Yagi isn’t on there, and neither is Nighteye. And finally,” she taped the pink sticky note.

 

“Pink is a letter from Nighteye affirming that you will not lose the position at his agency by interning under someone else. He wants the best for you, Mirio. So let us help with this, okay? I promise I have full faith that you will do wonderfully at the final exams.”

 

Mirio nodded, mumbling a teary thank you as he took the packet and pulled it to his chest. Amaya smiled, opening her arms in an invite for a hug. The boy immediately took it, muffling quiet cries of stress into her shoulder. She took that moment to glare at Yafo, clearly conveying that she was still extremely mad at him for passing on his quirk. 

 

Despite their new friendship he realised he’d probably have to work years before he could regain that trust back in any capacity. 

 

The moment was interrupted when the alarms blared, making Mirio jolt back still clutching the packet. Amaya raised a hand to her ear, before snapping at Yagi to “stay here with him until the alarms stop!” and portalling herself out of the classroom. 

 

***

 

Ryo met Amaya at the door to the teacher’s lounge, the other pro back in her full gear and grimacing as he slid up to her side. 

 

“Everyone else is either dealing with students or the press outside,” he said quietly, holding back a growl at the smell of an intruder behind the door. 

 

She didn’t respond, simply trying to turn the knob. Her brows furrowed as it wouldn’t budge. Stepping back she hovered her hand over the handle, forming a bright pink sigil. 

 

A resulting wave of darker energy made them lose balance, skidding back and falling painfully. Amaya growled, something that sounded much too similar to his own growls due to his mutation, patterns glowing underneath her tattoos. 

 

“Same sigils as the zero pointer,” she told him, walking back over to the door. “It has to burn out… I can’t break it for some reason.”

 

Ryo nodded, joining her side again. Once the handle stopped sparking she reached out and turned it without any issues, pushing it open quickly. 

 

Just in time for them both to see a figure in a dark grey hoodie holding a piece of paper step through a dark purple portal that looked… way too similar to Amaya’s portals. 

 

From the shocked expression on his coworker’s face as the portal closed, he wasn’t the only one who’d noticed. 

 

***

 

“The talk with your mentee went well,” was Amaya’s first words instead of a greeting as she and Shouta dropped down by Nighteye’s side that night. 

 

The under had gotten an alert for a development in a case he’d been on for months, and Nighteye had seemingly decided tonight was the night to get her involved. So here they were, at one in the morning, standing in front of an unassuming house just outside of the city. The street was deadly quiet, the sirens on the police cars around off. Nighteye hummed an acknowledgement, heading inside without responding to them. 

 

The corpses of a family of three laid in the living room. From the looks of it they’d been watching something on the now broken television before they’d been brutally murdered. 

 

“They’re all missing limbs that would be essential for their quirks,” Nighteye explained grimly, pointing to them one by one. “Strength enhancement, super speed, faster strength enhancement for their child.” He paused, looking at Amaya for a moment with hesitation. “The quirk factors are also missing. Tests show them to be quirkless.”

 

“The quirk cancelling bullets from the Shie Haissaki?” Shouta guessed.

“Impossible. Those only suppress quirks for now, they don’t destroy the factor,” Amaya whispered. She turned to him. “Your shift is over anyway. Go home. I have to go see Kio before heading back so waiting for me isn’t worth it.”

 

They waited until the Eraser hero (who knew there was something neither was saying, but also understood that that was the game in heroics) disappeared from view before Amaya turned back to him with a somber expression. 

 

“He’s planning something,” she confirmed. Nighteye rubbed his face tiredly, staring at the bodies one last time. “Keep Mirio working with Yagi under wraps. Him being at another agency will help.” She started walking away, stopping for a moment at the door. “And Nighteye? Call me if you find anything else like this.” 

 

With that she disappeared into the night, the faint glimmers of a fading portal all that was left behind. 

 

Nighteye looked back at the family as they were finally taken away by police, the blood still covering the entire room. 

 

He couldn’t help but wonder why none of the three had moved from the couch at all during the attack. 

 

Afterall AFO may have survived the fight with All Might but he would still be too injured to be there in person to use a quirk on them. And he’d already checked the registry after all of the previous attacks that had followed a similar pattern. He couldn’t find any quirk that would be capable of doing that. 

 

“Wait!” he called, walking towards the gurney holding the body of the father. 

 

Pulling back the fabric covering the man that had had his arms and legs removed, he scanned the visible skin. When he found nothing he asked if they could flip the man over. 

 

There, on the man’s back, was a fresh sigil that was slowly starting to fade.

Chapter 9: The First Trip to the USJ

“I still maintain that we should have cancelled the USJ or at least moved it up a couple weeks,” Amaya grumbled as she brushed through her hair in the teacher’s lounge with a lot of vitriol. 

 

“Don’t  take it out on your poor hair,” Hizashi expertly grabbed the brush and pulled it away from the pro, jumping up so that he was sitting on the desk behind the woman. 

 

She rolled her eyes but let him work his magic on her hair like he had with Shouta last night. Getting caught in a fight between drunk individuals was already a pain, but they’d also had quirks that created a bunch of debris and strange substances. She’d had to burn her bedsheets that morning before heading to work, and obviously last night was one of the few nights where neither Keigo nor Natsuo were home to help her with the damage done to her hair once she’d thoroughly cleaned it. 

 

“It’ll be fine,” Shouta assured from where he was drinking that morning’s third cup of coffee. “We added you and we already had All Might, Thirteen, and me.”

 

“If Yagi shows up on time-” she cut off with a purr as Hizashi scratched behind her ears gently, letting out a chuckle before he started braiding her hair. 

 

“Trust in the rat god,” Oboro said with a chuckle, looking up from his desk where he was grading his placement tests to figure out everyones’ general science knowledge. “If he thinks the USJ is safe and a good idea, then I’d bet money everything will be just fine.”

 

“Famous last words,” Shouta grumbled, chugging the rest of his coffee. “If one of the kids does something unhinged I’m blaming you.” He turned towards Amaya. “You’re meeting us at the USJ right?” 

 

She nodded, leaning back into Hizashi’s hands as the man continued braiding her hair. Shouta snorted, heading out so that he would be there once the bell rang. 

 

He didn’t remind Hizashi of his own homeroom. It was the idiot’s fault if he didn’t notice Shouta leaving. 

 

***

 

“I like Yagi but I can’t believe we have to work with him,” Amaya groaned once Shouta had joined her and Anan. The two had excitedly been discussing the newest outdoor learning area Nedzu had approved when 1A finally made it, conversation halting as they heard the bus park outside. “He’s already almost used up his three hours apparently.”

 

“Nedzu needs to give us a raise,” Shouta grumbled, shoving his hands in his pockets before turning to face his class. “Class these are pro heroes Thirteen and Amaya. No I won’t tell you her hero name, figure it out yourself for all I care. You will be respectful and listen to their instructions. Understood?”

 

“Yes sensei!” the class chorused. 

 

Midoriya and Uraraka looked like they were about to explode from excitement. 

 

Amaya and Shouta both perched precariously on the railing to watch the class as Thirteen started her talk about the danger of quirks. Shouta noticed the way Kaminari’s attention drifted first, about to call the student out when the student pointed towards the plaza below. 

 

“Umm sensei? I thought we were doing rescue training?” he asked nervously, his hands sparking with electricity. 

 

The three pros tensed, whirling around. Shouta somehow twisted into a crouch that made him resemble a gargoyle, Amaya was fully levitating above the railing, and Thirteen stepped back towards the students as a barrier. They watched as portals that looked terrifyingly similar to Amaya’s opened down below, letting villains flood through. 

 

Shouta felt his blood run cold at the last three that settled on an elevated area below near the fountain. One of them was absolutely covered in dismembered hands, the largest one serving as a mask to hide his facial features. There was a towering inhuman thing with very faint dark purple patterns running across it. 

 

But the one making all of his instincts stand on the edge the most was the one responsible for the portals. He was leaning against the creature lazily, eyes locked on Amaya’s. Short curly brown hair that fell just short of his eyes, freckles covering his face, something similar to vitiligo that was oddly making certain patches of his skin look the same shade of purple as Amaya’s. Left eye glinted bright gold. 

 

The strangest detail though was that while the golden eye sparkled with amusement and the right corner of his mouth was tugged up in a smirk, the other corner was pulled into a worried line. His pale blue eye reflecting an emotion Shouta could only describe as panic or grief.

 

Shouta turned to his friend, taking in the way her hands were shaking and her mouth was clamped shut. 

 

“Has the training started alre-” Kirishima started to ask, shutting up with a squeak when Amaya’s hands started to spark with gold that was radiating heat they could feel despite the distance between them. 

 

“No,” Amaya grit out, not taking her eyes off the man still leaning against the beast. Her uniform and voice changer appeared out of thin air on her, though she left out the mask. “Eraser, Thirteen, get the students out.”

 

 “But there’s too many of them!” Midoriya burst out, shoving forward with wide panicked eyes. 

 

Amaya didn’t respond to him, turning back to Shouta. “Get them out. Please.”

 

Shouta felt like something large had been lodged in his throat at the desperate plea, only capable of nodding in response. 

 

He watched as his friend turned back to the plaza, warping down. It snapped him back into Eraserhead mode, posture straightening and capture scarf weaving expertly between his hands in the next few seconds. He turned to his frozen students, his voice sharp. 

 

“Everyone get out-”

 

“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that.”

 

His eyes snapped up from his class and locked onto the man now leaning against the wall, watching the doors to the USJ start to come down too quickly for any of them to get through…

 

“Iida!” he shouted, turning towards the speedster that had been glancing between both. “Run back to the school!” he watched the teen hesitate, letting a growl slip through his clenched teeth. “Now Iida!”

 

The boy finally moved, managing to duck under the door right before it slammed down with an echoing bang. 

 

“Kaminari try to get in contact with someone,” he ordered, not even sparing the mentioned student a glance. Thirteen was moving the students back behind them, hands up and ready for their quirk. 

 

“There’s no signal,” Kaminari whispered loud enough for them all to hear, more sparks from his quirk getting set off in his panic. 

 

“Don’t worry,” the villain told them with a grin, clapping his hands as he pulled himself off the wall. Shouta activated his quirk, his heart sinking when his theory was proven right as the man didn’t falter. Portals started opening up under students, Shouta’s capture scarf only managing to grab onto Uraraka, Mina, Sato, and Sero. “They shouldn’t hurt too bad.”

 

“What do you want?” Thirteen demanded, pushing the remaining students away so they could finally safely use their quirk. 

 

“All Might. But since he’s… late … well Shigaraki has decided to keep entertained,” the man shrugged. “It’s not personal, ” he added quietly, looking away from them towards the plaza. 

 

Shouta shook off the tunnel vision that had been keeping him focused solely on the students, and then immediately regretted it when he heard the screaming that was coming from the plaza. None of them sounded like Amaya though, so he forced himself to trust his friend could handle the situation. 

 

Thirteen raised her hand up, a black hole opening up towards the villain who just smiled…

 

“Thirteen stop-”

 

A portal opened, pulling the hero with force before they could cancel their quirk and slamming them brutally against the wall. Their suit was torn up, dark matter dripping out. Shouta cursed, watching his remaining students rush towards their fallen teacher. When he turned to try to wrap the portal villain up despite how he’d never even succeeded with Amaya despite the years of learning how she fought, the man was nowhere to be found. He spun around, finding the man waving from his spot near the leader of the group. 

 

Amaya was barely out of breath, surrounded by the knocked out bodies of the villains, keeping a careful distance between herself and the hulking beast that had turned a bit towards her sometime while Shouta wasn’t paying attention. 

 

The leader was rambling loudly about All Might, NPC’s and about Shouta being cool? All while scratching at the back of his neck with a pinky held carefully up. 

 

The disintegration quirk from the break in, Shouta realised. 

 

“Stay here,” he ordered his remaining students, praying that the others were safe. 

 

He jumped down onto the plaza, carefully eyeing the knocked out thugs in case one of them started regaining consciousness. Halfway there he froze as the leader’s head snapped towards Amaya, a deranged grin spreading across his face. 

 

“Maybe All Might will show up if we kill one of his friends!” the man cheered, turning towards the large thing that was unnervingly still. “Nomu!” He pointed a finger towards Amaya, who was rapidly backing away with widened eyes. “ Kill her!”

 

“Iris!” Shouta screamed, watching in horror as the creature - that was way too quick for its size and he was suddenly reminded of the family that had brutally been killed, quirks taken - rushed forward. 

 

It managed to keep pace as the woman warped around the building in a panic, creating sparks of golden fire that she immediately had to extinguish when the creature got close. 

 

She almost had a small flame when she miscalculated, Shouta’s warning shout not giving her enough time to move her hands in the desired motion. The creature roared in pain as the small flame burnt through some of its flesh, black goo dripping from it. Still it locked its claws around her and slammed her into the ground. 

 

Over. 

 

And over. 

 

And over. 

 

Shouta didn’t even realise he was moving, except the second he got close to his unmoving coworker the leader seemed to finally remember his existence. 

 

“Nomu!” Shouta barely had time to brace before he was also grabbed. 

 

He caught sight of Midoriya, Shinsou, and Tsuyu creeping along the edge of the plaza as he was picked up after the second slam, his head swimming. Unfortunately the leader seemed to follow his gaze. 

 

“Well maybe All Might will show up if we kill some students!” the man shouted, rushing forward with his arms held out. 

 

Two things happened at once. 

 

Shouta activated his quirk right as the man wrapped his arm around Tsuyu’s throat. 

 

Amaya managed to wrangle broken fingers into forming a certain pattern that caused an inferno of fire to rush towards the nomu still holding Shouta and about to throw him onto the ground. 

 

The creature dropped him with a roar of agony as the fire wrapped around him, pale blue orbs of light getting torn out from it and flying over to where Amaya had passed out. Shigaraki shrieked, raving about NPC’s destroying his nomu but thankfully backing away enough that Shouta could drop his quirk. There were black dots dancing around his vision and he felt like he was seconds away from passing out. 

 

“Don’t worry, for WE ARE HERE!”

 

Oh great. 

 

He could join Amaya in passing out now then. 

 

***

 

Portals took away the leader after Snipe shot him in the hand to keep him from trying to hurt one of the students that were still too close for comfort. The portal villain himself lingered for a moment, staring at the still body that was lying within the crater before vanishing when All Might got close. 

 

Hizashi and Oboro followed Shouta as he was rushed out to the hospital in an ambulance. Nemuri did the same with Amaya after confirming she wasn’t needed. 

 

Amaya may have known Shouta longer, but Nemuri was determined to gain best friend status with the only person that matched her experiences and personality quirks. Plus she knew from Amaya’s adorable gushing that Keigo was currently on patrol and that Natsuo was in class. She didn’t want to distract either of them by letting them know immediately that their mother was currently in the hospital. 

 

She also wanted to stay with the youngest Todoroki. Nedzu had cancelled all classes for the day and sent the kids home with parents, but Endeavour was currently involved in something a couple cities away. His older sister was listed as an emergency guardian, but she was also in a completely separate city (She’d found a job closer to her girlfriend’s place once the two had officially entered the moving in stage of their relationship, and couldn’t get there any time soon). 

 

Amaya’s injuries were already starting to heal on their own, her room filled with the sound of bones getting snapped back together. The pro would absolutely take the youngest Todoroki home once she was discharged in a couple hours after she woke up, so Nemuri just used her license to bring him with her to the hospital. They sat on the comfortable chairs by the bed in the hero ward, Todoroki watching his teacher heal with an unreadable expression. Nemuri left him alone, focused on getting updates on her other best friend and letting Tensei know everything. 

 

“W-w-what-” she jumped at the half growled half slurred words, eyes snapping towards the woman trying to pull herself up. 

 

“Take it carefully, I know you self heal but you took quite the beating,” Nemuri said quickly, pressing a gentle hand to the other’s chest to stop her from aggravating anything. 

 

Todoroki reached over for a bottle of water and offered it wordlessly, though she thought she saw a faint smile as the boy helped his teacher drink and she purred. 

 

“The demon?” she asked once she finished the bottle. One of her bones snapped back into position and they winced at the sound. 

 

“They’re calling it a nomu,” Nemuri informed. “It’s destroyed. You melted it completely.”

 

“Shouta?” 

 

“He’ll be okay. He’s got a concussion and a few broken bones but he was slammed a lot less than you were,” she told her. “You weren’t… Amaya you weren’t even recognisable.”

 

Amaya flinched, before pulling herself up into a sitting position despite Nemuri’s protests. Todoroki sat back down in his seat, just watching them in silence. 

 

“The press?” 

 

“They know,” Nemuri said with a grimace. 

 

“Even about the demo- nomu?” the pro asked, something almost like fear flashing in her eyes. 

 

Nemuri nodded, getting distracted when Recovery Girl slipped into the room to check on her patient and grumbled about Amaya not sticking around for observation “like a reckless worse version of Shouta.”

 

***

 

“A demon being ordered by humans attacked a hero school in Japan today,” Mira spoke up suddenly. 

 

Rumi froze where she’d been petting Derpy while laying on both of her girlfriends’ laps. Zoey dropped her phone, cursing as it slid away from the couch and under the table. 

 

“Are they okay?” Zoey asked. 

 

“Three of the teachers got taken to the hospital but will recover. Apparently one of them managed to burn the demon,” Mira told them, scrolling through the rest of the article with furrowed eyebrows. “They’re calling a nomu but from the description it sounds like a new type of demon or a Frankenstein demon.”

 

“Sounds like we should plan a tour in Japan soon then,” Rumi said with a sigh, mourning their vacation. She’d finally started enjoying them now that she was no longer trying desperately to fix herself. 

 

“I’ll text Bobby.”

Notes:

Hope you enjoy this chapter! I'm very excited about what's to come. As always please leave a kudos and/or a comment if you enjoyed!

Chapter 10: The First Dinner with Shoto

Natsuo had been eight the first time he met Amaya. 

 

Endeavour (Not father. Not even Enji, too familiar for a man who’d thrown him aside the second his quirkless diagnosis was given. Endeavour would always be how Natsuo referred to the man if he was using bastard or sperm donor.) never noticed when he started slipping out of the window to go on walks outside of the estate at night. He was still in the security system, so no alarms were ever triggered when he jumped over the gate and onto the streets of Musutafu. 

 

Rei never noticed either, usually too busy with trying and failing to protect Shoto or keeping up a semblance of normalcy. While he understood, it didn’t make him any less bitter. It was for a different reason, one he could now look back and have sympathy for, but at eight he just felt abandoned. 

 

Recently left behind by Touya, and years ago by both his sperm donor and his mother. 

 

So he wandered. If he was going to be alone he preferred to be alone out on the buzzing streets, buildings towering around him. Occasionally passing other people that were walking by themselves past midnight, their steps usually hurried and their attention set on their destination. They never noticed the unaccompanied eight year old that they sometimes bumped into, only exchanging quick apologies before scurrying off on their way. 

 

It was on one of those nights that he found the support group. 

 

If the lights hadn’t been warm and bright in the dead of night he would have passed it without a second glance. But at two a.m., when every building was shrouded in complete and utter darkness, it was like a lighthouse. It was winter, his teeth were chattering and his hands shaking despite the gloves. So he crossed the deserted street, pushing the door open quietly and peering inside. 

 

There were a lot of soft looking fabric couches around coffee tables but no counter to indicate that this was what the place was. Apart from one kid covered in blankets on a futon and another that was curled up on one of the couches, there didn’t seem to be anyone else. He sighed in disappointment, starting to slowly close the door when a voice spoke up from behind him. 

 

“You’re going to let all the cold air in if you do that. The door doesn’t make a sound, you can just let it go.”

 

He yelped, letting go of the handle and spinning around with his fist raised. The woman behind him had a small amused smile on her face as she leaned against one of the small black poles lining the sidewalk. She had a duffle bag slung over her shoulder, dressed in a coat that he couldn’t help but feel would be out of place in Endeavour's traditional estate. Her hair was tied up into two buns, some strands falling down to frame her face. 

 

“Hi?” he said quietly, before glancing back at the door. “It was open.”

 

“It was,” she agreed, still looking pretty amused. “I’m Amaya. And that,” she waved towards the place with the hand that wasn’t keeping her bag from slipping off her shoulder. “Is the quirkless support group.”

 

He furrowed his brows. “Leaving the door open for that doesn’t seem very safe.”

 

“It’s enchanted,” she replied, pushing off the pole and dusting off the back of her coat. “Anyone with a quirk factor just walks past, and only those without one can open the door.”

 

“So you can’t open it?” he asked, eyeing the woman’s purple skin. 

 

She gently moved him aside instead of responding, swinging the door open with one fluid movement before beckoning him inside. He followed without arguing, immediately getting enveloped in warmth once the door was closed behind him. 

 

“It’s too late to be wandering around,” she told him, setting her duffle bag down and taking off her coat, revealing a plain black tank top and leggings underneath. “I’m off patrol, so I can either call a hero to pick you up and take you back or you can stay and I’ll walk you home in the morning.”

 

“Off… patrol?”

 

The grin he got in response revealed too sharp teeth, but for some odd reason it only made him feel more comfort. 

 

It was only after he’d been snuck back inside by the woman at six in the morning and was laying in his bed (after trying to hide his hurt that no one seemed to have noticed even with how late he was to breakfast) that he realised he never really got an answer to what that meant. 

 

He would when he was ten. 

 

Going to the support group had become both a nocturnal and day thing even before Rei was no longer there. No one wondered where he went once he was free of his tutor and could slip out of the estate. Fuyumi was too busy trying to keep some sense of normality. Shoto was too busy being abused in training. 

 

He swallowed down the bitterness and shoved any resentment over being forgotten as far as it could go. He understood. It wasn’t their fault. 

 

It still hurt that only his new friends at the support group remembered his birthday when it came. 

 

During the day the place was lively. There were quirkless people of all ages. Teens his age, parents, kids, grandparents… The walls were covered in drawings, shelves filled with boxes of toys, and the seats always occupied. People came here to have fun, to work, to sleep. Amaya wasn’t there often (her quirked son was there more often, and while it hurt to see Keigo after Touya was no longer there, they’d both been grateful for the understanding). 

 

He’d been on his way to sleep there that night. Endeavour was coming home and Natsuo was struggling to breathe in his own room, constantly keeping an ear out for the sound of a car coming into the driveway. It had taken him a couple of hours to cave in and jump out of his window, making his escape while trying to ignore the devouring guilt about leaving his siblings behind. 

 

Maybe it was karma that he’d gotten attacked while walking past a dark alleyway. 

 

Natsuo had always counted himself lucky that nothing had ever happened to him during those late night walks, and was now regretting those thoughts. His head swam after he was shoved down roughly to the ground, a weight keeping him pinned down while another person argued loudly on the phone with someone about getting the van there faster. If he hadn’t been fighting down the nausea that came from his head slamming into the concrete he would have laughed when they mentioned the ransom they’d be able to get. 

 

Everything was a blur for a while. The van never came, instead it was police cars. He distantly took note that the weight had been thrown off his body and that the alley was silent. When he blinked back into full awareness he wasn’t even on the ground anymore. He was on an ambulance gurney, surrounded by two EMT’s while a hero he didn’t recognise leaned against a pole, watching. 

 

Once he was assured he was fine and his statement taken by a cop that kept glancing at the silent pro with sweat dripping down his forehead he was left alone, watching as all the vehicles drove away. Well not alone. The pro was still there, watching him collapse against the side of a building and bury his head in his hands. 

 

They moved to crouch next to him, robotic rambles about something or other spilling through their voice changer as they let him deal with his emotions. The shock, the waves of fear, and the panic that was being kept at bay by the noise. He latched onto it to remain grounded, and the pro seemed to be pleased by the way he eventually slumped against the wall, exhausted. 

 

“Tell me when you want to go home, kid. I’ll walk you,” they told him softly. 

 

“Never.” It slipped out before he could stop it. 

 

The pro’s body language didn’t change. They hummed, before pulling themselves up and reaching a gloved hand out to him. “I’m off patrol in thirty minutes anyway. I don’t think my boss will care if I cut it short now to take you to my place. It’s close.”

 

He didn’t understand why he was compelled to follow until they reached the I-HPSC building, and the pro took off their gear within the safety of the apartment. A small amused smile of Amaya’s face as his eyes blew wide in shock when the mask turned into a small creature that hissed at him before disappearing. 

 

He was so stealing Keigo’s nuggets for never telling him anything. 

 

At first it was slow. Coming home past lunch to find that no one had taken notice that he was absent. It started with sleeping over once a week. Then twice. A couple years passed and he realised that he hadn’t been home for longer than “family” dinners in a while. 

 

Endeavour wasn’t at his high school graduation. Fuyumi couldn’t make it either, having been forced to stay at the estate by the bastard to “keep an eye on Shoto”. He’d mentioned it dejected the night before while playing Mario Kart with Keigo, snacking on crackers Amaya had put out for them before taking off on patrol. 

 

When they showed up with a bouquet of flowers, Keigo’s whistles overpowering the clapping as he was called up on the stage, Natsuo had to fight really hard to keep from crying. He had a reputation, afterall.

 

The last straw was a week later. 

 

He’d applied to a multitude of medical universities all over Japan. Any that took quirkless applicants he was methodically filling out an application for. He’d written so many essays his hands still ached, and his throat was still sore from all the interviews. But it was so worth it when he got his acceptance letter, complete with a scholarship, to his top university. 

 

One of the best in Japan, with a terrifyingly low acceptance rate. And he knew it wasn’t because of his last name, because he’d applied using Himura instead. This was him. 

 

Endeavour didn’t care. Natsuo didn’t even really remember what had happened fully. He had bits: he knew that he’d told them all over dinner, that Endeavour had said he wouldn’t waste his money on something like this, that half of his face was in agony, and that everyone in the support group building had screamed when he stumbled through the door. 

 

He woke up on the couch of Amaya’s apartment, Keigo fretting over him and his face wrapped in bandages. 

 

There was no lasting physical damage thanks to Amaya’s sorcery. It was however the last time he was ever at the estate. 

 

Once he’d explained everything over celebratory cold soba from his favourite expensive restaurant that he’d only gone to on the day Shoto got his quirk, Amaya had waited for him to take a breath before offering to pay for his studies. 

 

No talk of repayment. No expectation. Mentioned casually between bites of food.

 

He realised quickly after that that everything material he cared about was already in the apartment. He’d been changing whenever he went there, so all of his clothes were in drawers in the room that had become his. So there wasn’t even a reason to head back for that. 

 

No one ever came looking, and he tried to pretend that didn’t bother him. 

 

And it worked! He’d managed to push Rei, Shoto and Fuyumi down into a box he refused to think about. Squashed the guilt as best as he could when he started calling Amaya mom and Keigo brother. When his last name on his paperwork was changed to Takami after a couple of months. When he could come home from studying and feel safe instead of on edge. 

 

It didn’t haunt him. It didn’t. 

 

He was back for the weekend, his schoolwork tucked out of sight in his room. Auntie Nemuri (Natsuo knew a losing battle when he saw one, so he’d folded to calling her that remarkably quickly) had called to let them know that their mom had been hurt but was already recovered and was being driven home. He and Keigo had quickly headed out to get some takeout from their favourite places, including double for the heroic’s student that was apparently staying the weekend. They were now sitting on the couch watching a random dating show that Keigo put on to fill the suffocating silence. 

 

The door didn’t make a sound when it opened, so it was the soft voices conversing at the entryway that alerted them of the new arrivals. Both jumped up, shoving each other as they hurried to check that their mom was okay with their own eyes…

 

Shoto was standing behind Amaya, body tense until his eyes landed on the two of them. They widened once he’d finished taking in Keigo and turned fully to face Natsuo. 

 

Keigo didn’t notice, the oblivious bird taking advantage of him freezing to slide past and latch on to his mom, who just wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his hair. 

 

The lack of sass or eye rolls was concerning, but Natsuo couldn’t focus on it because Shoto was still staring at him, face as unreadable as ever. 

 

“We picked up dinner,” Keigo muttered into her neck, pulling back before his talons could stress lock. He then turned to Shoto, giving him a cheery wave. “We got double of each of our orders so hopefully there’s something you like. We have chicken nuggets, cold soba, and-”

 

“Cold soba,” Shoto interrupted, finally breaking eye contact with Natsuo. “Please.”

 

“How about we move to the kitchen? And Keigo, text Rumi that I’m home please before she breaks down our door,” the bird yelped, rushing back to the living room to find his phone. 

 

“Sooooo how come you’re staying the weekend?” Natsuo asked nervously as he and Shoto followed Amaya into the kitchen. 

 

“Attack at the school. Endeavour’s away and Fuyumi moved out,” Shoto replied, taking a seat in the seat Amaya pointed at for him. “The school said I couldn’t stay alone.”

 

“ Are you okay? And what do you mean she moved out?” 

 

“I’m fine,” Shoto told him coldly, picking up his chopsticks and snapping them apart with a bit too much force. “And Fuyumi moved in with her girlfriend.”

 

Natsuo swallowed the building saliva in his mouth with a nervous gulp. “So you’re alone at the estate now?”

 

“Rumi said she’s coming over next weekend!” Keigo came back in before Shoto could reply, jumping into his seat and spinning to face Amaya as she filled glasses of water for all of them. 

 

“I miss when you were little and would ask before bringing people over,” Amaya grumbled, setting the glasses down. “Did either of you check on and feed Cerbie?” 

 

They both turned to their food, suddenly finding it very interesting. She sighed, standing up to go recover the pigeon that was probably stuck somewhere again. Natsuo was tempted to ask if she needed help, but from the way she was swaying he could guess that she’d collapse with Cerbie in her bed. 

 

Keigo came to the same conclusion and sent some feathers to put away her food in the fridge and bring her cup of water to her bedroom. 

 

The silence between them was suffocating. 

 

“So how’s school?” Keigo, Natsuo’s unmannered saviour, asked with a mouth full of chicken. 

 

“It’s only been a week,” Shoto deadpanned, not looking up from his soba noodles.

 

“Who’s your homeroom teacher? I had Snipe!” 

 

“Eraserhead.”

 

“Uncle Shouta, yikes ,” Keigo shivered. “Having a few heroics classes with him was enough.”

 

“I’m telling him you said that,” Natsuo couldn’t help but say. 

 

“You’re just smug because he’s never beaten you into the ground,” Keigo grumbled, turning towards him with narrowed eyes. “Also you’re a coward who went to another high school then U.A.”

 

“Ketsubutsu’s a good school, you’re just sour their U.A. crushing worked the year you took your exam.”

 

“Uncle Shouta is still terrified of running into Ms Joke on patrol.”

 

“And she’s a surprisingly good math teacher-”

 

“You went to Ketsubutsu?” Shoto interrupted, still not looking away from his food. 

 

Natsuo rubbed the back of his head. “Umm yeah…”

 

“He’s studying medicine now. I make fun of him but Ketsu has a much better health curriculum than U.A.” Keigo piped up, feathers ruffling at the perceived slight to his brother. 

 

“I thought Endeavour said he wasn’t paying for your studies,” Shoto asked, finally turning to face him. 

 

“I’m going to go help lure Cerbie out with my nuggets, byeee.”

 

Scratch any past praise, Natsuo was going to murder his feathered brother for leaving him alone. 

 

“Amaya’s been paying for it,” he explained, rubbing the back of his neck anxiously. 

 

Shoto hummed, not adding anything and turning back to his food. 

 

They finished in silence, not speaking as they put everything away and Natsuo was left with the task of showing Shoto the guest room. He didn’t say anything, just walked over and opened the door before gesturing to the inside. 

 

Shoto didn’t look around, nodding in acknowledgment and grabbing the door. Natsuo sighed, turning away. 

 

“I’m glad you’re happy,” Shoto whispered. “I’m sorry for being a bad brother.”

 

“No!” He spun around so fast he almost slammed nose first into the door. “No Shoto you-” he brought a hand up to tug at his hair, trying to find the right words but coming up with only blanks. “Look, I didn't leave because of you. I couldn’t take being invisible anymore okay? For fuck’s sake I’ve been sneaking out since I was eight and nobody noticed,” he looked away, staring down the hall towards his mother’s room. “I wake up everyday regretting that I had to leave you behind, and mom can explain why she couldn’t get you out, but I thought if I stayed I become like- I’d disappear in the same way-”

 

He couldn’t say it. 

 

Touya had been the only one who always saw him. Who understood. And he’d been ripped away in ashes and fire that burnt too hot. 

 

A part of Natsuo had always been worried that that was all he was ever going to become. A pile of ashes once he became a problem rather than a burden. 

 

Would anyone have remembered him? 

 

“I missed you,” Shoto said softly. 

 

“I’m so sorry,” Natsuo replied, tears streaming down his face. He opened his arms up for a hug. Shoto stepped into them, wrapping trembling arms that were much too muscular for his age around his chest. Natsuo buried his face in his brother’s hair. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

 

***

 

Amaya was on the phone on her bed, keeping an eye on the conversation outside. 

 

“We have a date for the raid,” Kio, having finished her very long interrogation to make sure Amaya really was fine, finally got to the important things. “Day of the sports festival. You’ll be able to make it right?”

 

Amaya’s grin would have scared even Nedzu. 

 

“Yes,” she said. “The paperwork is filled right?”

 

“Tsukauchi will be there,” Kio promised. “The second it’s finally over the investigation will be official. Custody?”

 

“Already finalised with Nedzu. He’ll be a ward of the school, and he’s got three options for adoption.”

 

“Including you?” 

 

Amaya hung up. 

***

 

Keigo had been listening to How It’s Done when he got the alert. 

 

His pupils dilated, excited chirps echoing around his room as he bounced up on his bed and lunged for his computer. 

 

Huntr/x was going to be on tour in Japan in a couple weeks. He had to get tickets to every single show now. 

 

He rushed out of his room, interrupting the two brothers’ tearful reunion and sparring them the awkwardness of the aftermath. 

 

Natsuo might not murder his brother after all. 

Chapter 11: The First Analysis Class

Many members of Class 1A were struggling to pay attention to Ectoplasm as their anxiety for the following class made their attention drift. 

 

They were back at school after getting the week off so that they could process the attack and so that U.A. itself could handle the aftermath without any of the first years present. That meant that their first analysis lesson had been moved to the first day back, and both of them were anxiously staring at the clock, watching the hours fly by until their dreaded class. 

 

For starters they would be with Class 1B, and interacting with the students from their follow track felt terrifying after the USJ. They hadn’t been there, their rescue training cancelled entirely following the attack. All of the members of Class 1A had at the very least a mutual sort of kinship now after having to work together in small groups. Adding something new to it made them weary. For Izuku that also meant he’d be in a class with Bakugou again, which made him twitchy. He wasn’t even sure the other teen knew he’d been accepted into U.A. despite his lack of quirk. 

 

Then there was the fact that the class was on quirk analysis. 

 

Mezou kept thinking about his past, keeping his quirk to a minimum as much as possible throughout the day and even refusing to eat lunch so he didn’t have to take off his mask. Denki was sparking continuously and fidgeting more than usual, remembering his past quirk counselor’s remarks over his drawbacks. For Neito and Izuku enjoying quirk analysis had been looked down on at best, gotten them in trouble at worst. Hitoshi couldn’t bring himself to speak for most of the day, too many interactions with quirkists playing in his mind. There were several other members of the class going through the same or similar emotions. 

 

It didn’t help that they had no idea who exactly their teacher was going to be. 

 

Eventually Ectoplasm simply gave up, cursed Nedzu for always putting his class before Amaya’s, and let them have free time. He understood afterall.

 

Amaya was the only teacher that didn’t go to their class to teach. One because she taught both at the same time so she needed more space, and two because her classroom was specifically designed to be the most welcoming one of the school. Quirks were draining, both emotionally and physically, so her, Chiyo and Ryo had all agreed it was best they design the space together to cater to all needs required. 

 

To avoid any unsupervised conflict after the attack Ectoplasm took them down the winding halls to her class a couple minutes before the bell, so any interactions would have with teacher supervision. 

 

Iida nearly cried when he saw that there were no seating arrangements. Apart from a few tables with chairs on the sides for those that needed them or her support students, there wasn’t much that was formal about the space. Instead they’d chosen a very soft rug with lots of pillows and beanbags scattered around. She sat cross legged on her desk, using one of her old books as a table while she added notes to her third year support students’ submitted career plans. Hitoshi felt himself relax slightly. 

 

Todoroki was surprisingly the first to find a place to get comfortable. He chose a beanbag nearest to the front, intently watching as the teacher hummed while chewing on her pen. The rest of them eventually followed, Iida the only one who decided to sit at a desk. Hitoshi himself sat nearer to the back with Izuku, with whom he’d started to form a friendship after dealing with the shipwreck zone together. They didn’t acknowledge how they both sat against the wall, making sure to have eyes on the full classroom. 

 

It wasn’t long after the bell rang that 1B arrived. Most of them quietly sat down among them, exchanging slight stilted hellos before falling into awkward silence. Most being all except Bakugou. 

 

The teen’s eyes immediately landed on Izuku as if he had some sort of radar for the other boy. Immediately he started gritting his teeth, hands clenched and popping as he started storming over with a yell of “ Deku! ”. 

 

Thankfully before Hitoshi had time to shield his friend or do anything, Bakugou's explosions cut off. The teen spun around in shock, eyes narrowing at the teacher that had put down her work and was now staring at him with no emotion, one hand held up with a golden thread weaving between her separated fingers. 

 

“ What did you -”

 

“Bakugou detention for attempting to attack another student and use of a slur. Do it a second time and you will be suspended, a third and I will argue for your immediate expulsion. Now sit down.”

 

Izuku looked up from his hands that he’d brought up to shield his face, eyes wide with a bit of awe as he watched Bakugo huff but do as he was told and grab a seat at one of the empty tables. 

 

The teacher sighed, flicking the thread towards the teen and stretching her fingers and hands for a moment. 

 

“Iida, Kendo, as class representatives can you confirm that all of your classmates are here?” 

 

“Yes sensei! All of us are present!” 

 

“I can confirm, they’re all here.”

 

The teacher let out an amused huff before smiling. “Right, well let’s first establish some ground rules. I’m Amaya, feel free to add the sensei if it makes you feel comfortable, I don’t care either way. Analysis is a class you’ll be getting only once a month during your first year, which is why it’s as long as your heroics class. You will however be seeing more often. Thursday each class will come down to the support labs individually to go over your costumes with the second years. You’ll also be having me as a heroics teacher during certain classes, and some of you will have after school sessions with me if I deem that you need more individualised work on your quirks. Any questions?”

 

There was a round nos and head shakes, so after a moment the teacher continued. 

 

“Now what I do for the first hour of class is open the floor for you to share anything you know about quirks and analysis. It can be a reference to something specific like a theory or a specialist, something to do with your own quirk… anything . I’ll pick on raised hands, but I need all of you to participate. This is to give me a strong baseline of what you already know, okay?”

 

Iida and Yaoyorozu raised their hands first, Amaya nodding towards Yaoyorozu. 

 

“The first case of a quirk in Japan was 200 years ago with the glowing baby?” Yaoyorozu seemed to grow less confident with her answer as all eyes turned to her, a few muttering that everybody knew that under their breath. “But umm… there were cases of people being able to do quirked things before?”

 

Amaya just grinned at her reassuringly. “I think that you’re one of the first to ever add that to the first statement,” she said, making the girl blush and duck her head. “While the first case of a quirk in Japan is the glowing baby sorcery, which is what you’re describing, has been around for a lot longer. And outside of that, quirks had already started appearing in a few countries before this, such as certain places in America. Iida?”

 

“Certain countries are completely quirkless such as South Korea!” the boy exclaimed loudly. 

 

“Completely correct!” Hitoshi couldn’t help but notice how Amaya’s smile had dropped slightly at the mention of South Korea. “Kendo?”

 

“Quirks manifest either at birth or around the age of four.”

 

“Could you elaborate on that?” the teen shook her head. “That’s alright. Can anyone else elaborate on this?”

Only two hands went up. Monoma’s confidently and Izuku’s shakingly. Amaya pointed to Izuku. 

 

“Q- Quirks w-with m-mutational aspects are always at birth,” he reached out to grab Hitoshi’s hand for comfort as all eyes turned towards him, shrinking inwards. “B-but q-quirks that could i-impact somebody’s body are- are often only developed when they’re r-ready.”

 

“Thank you Midoriya. Monoma, do you have an example?”

 

“Present Mic’s quirk is a mutation of his vocal cords so his quirk was developed at birth despite the fact it affected his hearing,” Monoma responded confidently, sitting up so straight it hurt Hitoshi just to look at. “Best Jeanist’s quirk is manipulating the thread composing fabric, which is not only an additional gene that has to be triggered, but as a kid it could also have led to strangulation so it could be self preservation that it only activated when he was eight. All Might’s quirk didn’t come in until he was fourteen because it was so strong it could have exploded him.”

 

“Great response and observations of Monoma, especially with Best Jeanist’s quirk. Does anyone have anything they’d like to share off the top of your head or would you prefer I ask guiding questions? Hold up your fingers please.” A wave of two fingers went up among the students. “I will call on you then. Kirishima, what can you tell me about quirk classifications?”

 

“Umm… there’s mutational, emitter, transformational! And they’re all super manly.”

 

“Tsunotori, what can you tell me about where quirks come from? You can reply in English if it’s easier for you.”

 

“ They come from a gene known as the quirk factor unique to DNA? ”

 

“That’s part of it. Shiozaki can you add on to that?”

 

“Quirks come from sorcery originally, an expansion of God's gifts.”

 

“Ookay. Kaminari can you tell me about quirk drawbacks.”

 

It went on like that for a while before there was only one person left she hadn’t called on.

 

“Bakugou, what can you tell me about quirklessness?”

 

Hitoshi and Izuku both winced, staring at the teen who huffed. 

 

“Huh?! Why would we talk about those useless-”

 

“I will let you know that U.A. 's quirk discrimination policy applies to all quirk statuses including quirkless individuals.” Amaya cut in quickly, her face going from a perfect mask to terrifyingly cold. “As well as inform you that some of your classmates are either quirkless, false negatives, or have quirkless friends and family members. On top of that as a full sorcerer I myself am technically quirkless, and run multiple quirkless support groups around Japan. So I recommend you pick your words wisely. ”

 

“They can’t do anything. They’re just De-”

 

“Finish that word and you’ll be suspended for a week. I think that’s enough, Bakugou,” the teen’s mouth snapped shut, eyes widening as the teacher glared at him. “Quirkless individuals are not unevolved, nor are they useless. They’re fully capable of doing anything a quirked person can do. In fact one of my oldest friends in Japan is a quirkless vigilante-”

 

“That’s extremely illegal! Vigilantes should be brought in for justice not befriended by heroes!” Iida shouted, jumping up from his seat as he chopped his arms. 

 

Amaya sighed, pinching her nose. “I usually save this for a couple lessons in, but since I brought it up I guess I can give you a quick rundown,” she groaned. “Underground heroics is very different from limelight. Since I’m talking about this I’ll first mention that yes you do still have to participate in the sports festival as a first year even if you’re going underground, for the reasons that I will mention. 

 

Now. Being underground gives you more leeway in terms of laws because you’re not working with individuals that are regular citizens. You have to juggle informants, being undercover, cooperating with organisations that can’t be taken in yet… The moral line is a lot less clear, and most unders do work with vigilantes because our numbers are too small for the work we do, or they’re capable of getting more trust. Personally I work with Flare and Knuckleduster more than I work with most unders outside of Eraser, and they’ve even been participants in some of my raids. 

 

You might not be going underground, so this does not fully matter to you, but for those going underground they might even inter with a vigilante. A lot of undergrounders won’t take on interns or work study students because of the risks, so we ask our vigilante connections to do so instead. Flare is actually currently working with one of third years, and even Hawks interned under Knuckleduster in his second year before he decided on going limelight.”

 

Iida nodded, bowing before he sat back down. Amaya chuckled, waving him off before pointing to Hagakure. 

 

“How come you can see through my quirk?” the girl asked, fiddling with her sleeves. 

 

“My eyesight. Anything that makes the user unnoticeable doesn’t work on me.”

 

Hitoshi decided to be brave and raised his own hand, waiting for a nod to speak. “What about mental quirks? You told me they didn’t affect you badly?”

 

He regretted it when he saw his teacher tense, her smile getting slightly more forced before she replied. “A side effect of my specific sorcery. The stronger it is the more… vulnerable you are to anything that interrupts the natural flow.” The bell rang. “Todoroki, Shinsou, Kaminari, Yaoyorozu, Hagakure, Eraser will be giving you a schedule with dates where you will all come see me in one of the gyms to discuss your quirks in greater detail. Everyone else see you Thursday. Bakugou please remember your detention, you’ll be doing it with Vlad. Midoriya could you stick back please?”

Izuku nodded, playing with his fingers as he waited for everyone else to leave the room, Hitoshi telling him he’d wait outside. Amaya turned to him once the door had closed, sliding off her desk to come crouch in front of him. 

 

“I wanted to check in to see how you’re doing, and make sure you know that Hound Dog is available if you want to talk about anything that was said. Also, you can come to any of us at anytime to report if Bakugou or anyone else says something like that to you.”

 

“I’m- I’m o-okay. Thank you sensei,” he whispered. She nodded, gently ruffling his hair before getting back on her feet. He pushed himself up, hesitating at the door. “Umm you- you mentioned a su-support group?”

 

The teacher brightened, turning a frame on her desk around to show him the picture of her surrounded by beaming children, adults, and seniors. “For all ages. It’s open 24/7 and enchanted so only people without quirks and a select few people I trust with quirks can enter. I can add you to the group chat if you want, it has the address of each one in each city.” He nodded, not able to get words out past the lump in his throat. Had these always existed? “Fair warning that you will be bombarded with excited questions. The younger ones are always excited to make a new friend. It includes people all over the country, they’ll probably add you to the Musutafu specific one I’m not supposed to know about eventually. Now shoo. The day’s over, go have fun.”

 

“Th-Thank you sensei,” he whispered, feeling tears start to gather in his eyes. He hurried out before they could start to fall. Which just ended up with him bawling in Hitoshi’s arms the second they exited U.A. when the purple teen made the mistake of asking if he was alright. “She-she was so nice to meeeee”

Hitoshi could only pat the back of his emotional new best friend, who was sobbing at the fact that he finally, finally had a teacher who cared.

Chapter 12: The First Meeting with Support

Shouta was very much not looking forward to today. 

 

His homeroom block was being taken over to take the students down to the dreaded support labs so that they could talk about gear and costumes with the second years. Which in his opinion was the worst idea anyone had ever had. 

 

Don’t get him wrong. The students desperately needed costume changes. Especially the girls. His class had been especially fucked over by the new company, and the one they were now partnering with had asked that students submit detailed sketches to avoid any liberties. Except first years were still blinded by their preconceived ideas of heroics, so more often than not their costumes were impractical, put style first, and they didn’t have the necessary knowledge to request specific materials. 

 

So instead of throwing them to the support students in their second year after they’d passed their provisional license, they were doing it now. 

 

At least it wasn’t the third years, who were too busy working on finalising their projects and figuring out their next steps after graduation. 

 

Second year support students were… interesting, to say the least. Out of all the courses they were the ones that objectively spent the most time with their homeroom teachers. Amaya and Higari were both experienced engineers and technicians. The two alternated their classes for expertise, but handled most of the core classes. So unlike Gen Ed and Heroics, they had a much deeper attachment to their teachers. 

 

They were also menaces. 

 

Support was kept small. Three classes. Eight students each at the max. Second year was even smaller, most classes getting halved with the highest amount of drop out in any of the courses. The workload for support was astounding afterall. Higari and Amaya had three years to make sure they were nearly experts in the field they wanted to specialise in, so they assigned a relatively high number of projects. Combined with the course work for their mandatory classes such as English, and support shrunk each year. They also had mixed homerooms, with all three years combining for that singular period. It let them share ideas, tips, and created a networking system that helped tremendously once they hit the job market. 

 

The second years were now two classes instead of the three, with seven in one and six in the other. Amaya’s unofficial homeroom this year was 2H, and probably the most nightmarish one if you ignored the third years. Shouta had no hopes of having all of his students make it out of that meeting in one piece, let alone without tears. 

 

***

 

Momo was worried the second they stepped into the support labs and all eyes snapped away from the notes they’d been reviewing to look at them. 

 

There were only seven people in the class, all of them sitting at a separate workbench that had multiple empty stools placed around. Each workbench seemed to have been personalised by the students. Some had been painted, a few had plants or frames at the edges, and most could be separated by the colour of the tools placed on top. None of the students were in uniform, instead all of them were wearing tank tops and work pants of various colours, vests thrown all around the room. 

 

“Okay!” Momo jumped as Amaya Sensei appeared out of seemingly nowhere, jumping up onto her desk. “So there’s twenty of you and seven of us. They’ve already divided you all up amongst themselves, so head over to their work desk once they call on you. Three per desk apart from one that will only have two. Let’s go!”

 

A boy up front with gills on his face and fins instead of ears waved, looking down at the papers in front of him before calling in a voice that was very close to hypnotic: “Shinsou, Koda, and Monoma?” 

 

The three boys in question exchanged glances before walking towards the desk, sitting down on the stools while the boy went back to scribbling notes on a notebook.  

 

Next up was a girl with leaves growing around her eyes and in random spots around her body that had been using a mortar and pestle before they walked in. “Uraraka, Aoyama, Ashido!”

 

The next student had a bat mutation from the looks of the wings, taking Shoji, Asui, and Fumikage. 

 

Todoroki, Kaminari, and Midoriya were called over by a teen with what she’d first assumed were braids but that actually turned out to be snakes instead of hair. They had their feet kicked up on the seat next to them, papers on their legs.  

 

A student who’s every word was accompanied by a soothing backing track excitedly waved over Jirou, Iida and Sero. 

 

Ojiro, Kirishima, and Satou were called over by a guy that was floating upside down over his desk, his face slowly turning red. 

 

Which left just her and Hagakure. They walked over to the last desk. A girl in the back who didn’t have any visible signs of a quirk looked up and smiled, pushing pink goggles up onto her forehead. 

 

“Hi! You two must be Yaoyorozu and Hagakure!” she waved them towards the many seats around the bench. None of the students waited for a go ahead from the teachers, immediately picking up their notes and getting to business. The girl in front of them smiled. “I’m Ogino! I’m going to be helping design your hero costumes so that they are specifically adapted to your quirks. I’m specialising in nanotechnology and DNA fabric, so I promise we’re going to be able to make your wildest costume dreams come true. Now I was thinking-”

 

–

Sero, Shoji, and Asui were mostly there to talk support gear, but they enjoyed getting to listen to the chaos unfolding as the support student’s alternated between tearing apart their designs…

 

“I don’t care that it looks manly!” Hayashi - the teen with the ability to mirror anything including himself so that he could be upside down - groaned in exasperation. “You have no fucking shirt! What if they shoot you before you can harden huh? Or have something that paralyses you and your quirk stops? Think man! Think!”

 

“You’re going to trip,” Suko - the teen with the bat mutation quirk - pointed at Fumikage cape. “Also, it's so easy to get snagged. That’s gonna get caught by a random pipe and boom one hero down. You want that? No? Great. Now if you want to go dark and mysterious what we could do instead is get you an all black suit with a hood that covers your face… And definitely smoke bombs plus light disablers to help with getting you coverage so your quirk can work…”

 

Making them cry… 

 

“Okay so this is my idea for you Momo based on what I was given,” Ogino pushed forward a detailed sketch with notes carefully written all around. “I’m thinking of a wrap around dress made of nanotech with a belt that keeps it in place. We make the belt with a super powerful magnet so it can’t be taken off easily, but add your fingerprints to disable the magnetism so you can slide it off. Kevlar pants up to your waist and high heeled boots to give you more support. Underneath the dress, black Kevlar crop top. Nanotech will stop a bullet but that will give you more protection. For smaller objects you won’t even have to remove the dress. But if you need a canon, boom. Quickly declick the belt. We can program it so the nanotech collects at the belt so the dress disappears but you don’t risk any damage to it. That way you can quickly create what is needed while still having coverage, and reclick the belt to get the extra protection back as soon as that is done. I was thinking we could go with black that has red accents… why are you crying?” 

 

“You want to be as different from your father as possible? Alright,” the snakes in Tanaka’s hair hissed as they moved, tossing one of their designs to the teen in question. “We go for practicality but also coolness. Make people underestimate you. First temperature regulating fabric. Duh. Then for the outfit. I’m thinking plain white with light blue sleeves and a hood that covers your full face. Pants that are pretty loose with several pockets. Solid reinforced boots for landings. Underneath the clothes though? That’s where we pack the punch. Leggings with built in support for stronger kicks and less recovery. Gloves that let you know exactly what temperature you’re at. No duel scheme. We want them guessing. We keep it to white and pale blue. Some chains on the pants that double as quirk canceling cuffs. A few on the hoodie to give it some flair. What do you think?”

 

Everyone panicked when they watched the usually stoic boy tear up as he stared down at the design. It looked like a perfect mix between Natsuo and Touya, with no nods to Endeavour. The man would hate it for how unassuming it was. 

 

“It’s perfect.” 

 

And simply just giving them the coolest designs ever . 

 

“Midoriya. You’re cool. Here’s what I’m pitching,” Tanaka leaned forward, hands clasped in front of him. “Emerald green. Coat with the attached fingerless gloves. Long hood. Tight shirt with a criss cross harness that can easily carry knives. Black pants with straps for more weapons. High rise emerald boots with a very minor heel that won’t compromise balance but can with a click produce a knife. Thoughts?”

 

“Hagakure you’re mystical. I’m giving you mystical. DNA shifting technology so that it will be able to go invisible with you. Light shifting rainbow fabric with sparkles that make it look like you’re wearing a galaxy. Soft blouse. Skirt that doesn’t touch the ground and is extremely loose and flowy, with light pink pants underneath. Light pink gloves and boots to match. All of it will be fully capable of turning visible with your quirk once Amaya sensei teaches you to turn it on and off.” 

 

“How about we go more punk?” Ashikaga asked Jirou, the sound of a violin filling the room with each word. None of the support students even paused. “Black spiked jacket. Half black half purple pants. A black short sleeved top and purple support headphones that have spikes on them as well. Oh and silver chains. We can add spiked boots, one purple and one black with opposite colour laces…”

 

“Ashido here’s what I have,” Ide grinned, pulling a petal away from her eye so she could see clearly. “First layer we go skin coloured skin suit. That way you get protection and liberty with the clothes on top. And we make the colour palette work. Black and yellow checkered tank top with short straps. Dark pink letter jacket made of nanotech so it’ll be acid resistant. Black pants with pink and yellow pockets. Finally, dark pink boots with acid green coloured straps.”

 

By the time it was over most of 1A had either: new support gear, more protection, or an entirely new costume designed. The students helped them fill out necessary forms with information they needed, then tucked everything into each of their respective folders. Amaya grinned proudly at her students once 1A had left, leaving them all to collapse and whine about their throats being sore. 

 

“You handled that amazingly. I’m so proud of all of you.”

 

They all perked up, ducking their heads to hide their pleased blushes. She giggled. 

 

Hopefully Higari was having a good time. Was it mean to pass 1B to him? Maybe. But it was for their own survival. Hopefully Bakugou’s detention would stick and he wouldn’t say anything to Miyoshi. Otherwise there would be a problem. 

 

***

 

“I can’t attend the sports festival,” Amaya announced that afternoon, interrupting Higari’s horrified recounting of how he’d had to calm down all of his support students when Bakugou decided to make a comment about Miyoshi being unqualified to give any feedback. 

 

All of the teachers turned to gape at her, Hizashi looking heartbroken. She’d pretty much been his secondary commentator since she’d started, using that time to get more thorough analysis on all of the students. 

 

“I’m being abandoned!” he wailed dramatically, falling into Oboro’s arms who patted his back. 

 

“Sorry. We finally have a date for the raid,” Amaya explained, turning towards Nedzu. 

 

The rat froze for a moment before his tail started to sway in excitement. “Does this mean?”

 

“The second the raid is over an official investigation is being launched into Endeavour. Everyone is already filled with Kio. Shoto will be a ward of U.A. by the end of the festival.”

 

“Who’s on the raid?” Shouta asked, surprised he hadn’t heard about any of this. 

 

“Endeavour unfortunately, then mostly vigilantes which is why we couldn’t launch the investigation earlier,” Amaya admitted, glaring down at the table. “He slid in before we overhauled the past commission, so it was too late to remove him by the time I could. One wrong move and everything fell apart. But we’re finally ready to take down Star and rescue every victim in one go.”

 

“I’ll keep my phone on if you need backup.”

 

“There should be no need!” Nedzu reassured with a grin. “I’ll unfortunately also be unavailable for the festival if the raid is happening. I believe I’m still coordinating?” He turned to Amaya for confirmation who nodded. “We will however need someone to take over her spot in the booth!”

 

Hizashi turned to Shouta with a glint in his eyes that could only mean trouble.

Notes:

Things are going to pick up next chapter, I'm just building into it. Once we hit the Stain arc everything goes to hell pretty quickly :)

Chapter 13: The First Year Sport Festival

“Snipe tells me you’ve got another quirkless kid in the heroics track,” Knuckleduster mentioned casually as he and Amaya watched the back entrance of the frankly absurdly high end building. She hummed, adjusting her gloves. “I better be introduced to him before his second year.” 

 

“Take that up with your mentee,” Amaya replied. Once she was certain her gloves wouldn’t be an issue she started double checking that her voice changer was secured properly. “He’s taking the kid for internships.”

 

“Thought you’d try to steal him.”

 

“Hard pass. The kid has self esteem issues, a hero complex, and no self preservation. I’m not taking him as a first year student.”

 

“Anyone you’ve got your eyes on then?”

 

“I’ll see after I review their performance at the festival,” Amaya sighed, pulling the hood up to cover her hair. 

 

“Did Keigo get tickets to the Huntr/x concert yet?” the man asked then, noting how his friend tensed at the mention of her son’s favourite singers before forcing herself to relax. 

 

“Every single show,” she confirmed, glancing back towards the door. 

 

“Everyone’s in place,” Nedzu’s voice chirped over the comms. “The informants should be giving you the signal to enter. Stay on the comms and keep me updated. I’ll be focusing on Endeavour’s team.”

 

“Copy,” Amaya and Knuckleduster both said at once. 

 

Amaya then changed the channel so she could talk to Flare, who was watching the front entrance. “How are we looking?” 

 

“Everyone on the list has entered,” Flare’s voice crackled through, their quirk affecting the overall quality despite the comms being Commission created. “Guards went inside. Gluestick is moving in to make sure it's sealed shut.”

 

“Can’t believe Ketsubutsu approved that name,” Knuckleduster chuckled, sliding his brass knuckles into place. 

 

“Ms Joke thought it was funny.”

 

“Are we sure her sense of humour isn’t broken?” 

 

Amaya shrugged, keeping her eyes locked on the door. Gluestick confirmed they’d sealed the door and were now in position to enter by the overhead windows. 

 

Finally after an eternity of waiting, the backdoor opened and out came a tall man dressed in a perfectly tailored suit. Curly brown hair pulled back into a low ponytail, brown freckles covering his cheeks, and faint burn marks around his lips. Amaya moved forward, Duster on her heels as the man leaned against the open door. 

 

“There’s a car waiting for you, Nedzu will direct you there. You’ll make the sports festival,” she promised. “You’ve got paid time off for as long as you want it. Or retirement, fully funded.”

 

Dragon, also known as Hisashi Midoriya let out a relieved sigh. He’d taken on the job right before Inko had found out she was pregnant, and the distance he’d had to maintain had been hell. He nodded towards Amaya before turning to find the car without a word. 

 

It would make Dragon a lot less effective as an underground informant if he was seen aiding the raid, no matter how useful his quirk could be. Plus he had a son to finally get to meet in person and cheer on. 

 

“Dragon is out of the building,” Amaya whispered into her comms as she and Knuckleduster walked in, the taller man immediately leaving the backroom they were in so he could get to the room where the “goods” were being kept. “Move in.”

 

She waited until she could hear the commotion start up in the main room before heading into the hallway, ignoring the knocked out guards Knuckles had left in his wake. Amaya went left instead of right. There was after all a very, very frustrating reason why Star was so difficult to track down. 

 

Where you found misfortune, you could usually find… 

 

“Bingo,” she whispered, pushing open a door that led down to the basement of the building. Low enough that it basically counted as being underground and therefore wouldn’t be sealed by any surface level magic. She pushed down her voice changer so it hung around her neck. No need for appearances now.

 

She grinned, licking her teeth. Unnaturally sharp canines glinted in the faint light coming from below. This was going to be fun. 

 

***

 

Pan was seriously considering giving up vigilantism and picking up a regular night job that didn’t involve having to deal with limelight heroes who thought they knew better because of a popularity vote. 

 

Seriously. Endeavour didn’t even make the top twenty when all fields of heroics were taken into account, nevermind the fact that the guy was blacklisted from almost every intelligence heroes’ list of raid members. 

 

The instructions had been clear. No one moved until the informants were out of the building. They’d been stuck playing nice in this trafficking organisation for close to fifteen years now. The payout was promising. Taking down Star was basically setting them up for life financially if they made it out alive. The agreement was that as soon as the raid started they were out of there, money already getting transferred into their accounts. 

 

Of course Endeavour couldn’t listen to that and had gotten impatient. So now Pan was trapped in one of the warehouses by the dock, shielded by the boxes containing almost every type of drug known to mankind, as Endeavour unleashed his fire onto the armed guards. Nedzu was trying to get back in contact with Iris, but her objective had been different and her comm had gone offline. None of her team members had a way to get word to her that Pan needed an extraction now. 

 

“All buyers and sellers in our location are down” Flare’s distorted voice called through the general comms line. “Once they’re in custody we’ll move to locate Iris in case she needs backup.”

 

“Basement is probably the reason for the comm going offline,” Knuckleduster added. “All the victims are outside. Some of them are unaccounted for, probably where Amaya is at.”

 

“Why’d you send Endeavour alone to the warehouse again?” Pan grumbled, peaking out and swearing when he realised he couldn’t even see the bastard with all the flames. One of the boxes exploded, debris forcing him to roll out from behind his boxes as it came down near his head. “Situation is getting bad over here! Some of the shipment is fucking explosive!”

 

“Basement is clear. Knuckleduster five survivors are heading towards you. Let Tsukauchi know the basement is clear. There's documents of the other victims, but it looks like they were already disposed of. Pan, do you have exact coordinates?”

 

Pan almost cried in relief as Iris’ voice filled the comms. 

 

“I’ve got Pan pinpointed exactly, sending it to you now,” Nedzu jumped in. 

 

Not a second later Iris was grabbing his hand and pulling him with her out of the warehouse and into the open air. He coughed, trying to get the smoke and ash out of his lungs while Iris vanished again. Endeavour came rushing out of the burning building a couple moments before the sound of sirens filled the air, emergency services speeding towards the burning building. 

 

***

 

Kio stood at the head of the table, reviewing everything now that the raid was over. The only absentee was Endeavour who was currently on house arrest pending the conclusion of the investigation Kio had immediately launched once Pan confirmed everything was taken care of on their end. 

 

Including him suing the hero for purposeful endangerment which Kio was all too happy to aid with. He’d have to be careful with his quirk while his lungs recovered, but there would be no issues in the long run. Pipes gave him the ability to hypnotise people by playing the panpipes, so he was extra pissed about nearly having all his hard work taking care of his lung health destroyed. 

 

There were no signs of any bodies from the victims that had been deemed unfit for sale for various reasons. Records stated they’d been disposed of, but there was absolutely no evidence left behind. It was almost like they’d vanished. 

 

When asked about any resistance Amaya just stated that there was none. No guards or captors for the five survivors brought out from the basement. They’d only been there for an hour maximum after no one had bid on them during the start of the auction that they’d interrupted. 

 

Police were already working on figuring out temporary housing and tracking down any living family. Most of the kids had thankfully been snatched up, their parents eager to be reunited. A few had been sold but had existing families that had brought their cases to the police. Only ten of the thousands of recovered victims would have to go into foster care. 

 

They’d hit everything all at once. Every warehouse that housed the drugs used on the victims or sold to the buyers. Star’s notorious auction that happened only once every blue moon practically. As well as every previous buyer’s place that the informants had been able to get information on. 

 

The leader was already locked up in the IHPSC’s prison that made Tartarus look like a nice cottage in comparison. 

 

There was however one more thing to discuss with Tsukauchi and All Might once the debrief was over and everyone could finally head home. 

 

The extensive files of receipts and orders made by one Zen Shigaraki. The only buyer that they hadn’t been able to get a location on. 

 

***

​​The sports festival ended magnificently. 

 

In third place stood Uraraka Ochaco and Midoriya Izuku. 

 

The former had done her best but was matched up against Shinsou in the semi finals, the teen managing to dodge her attacks. His hand to hand was a lot stronger than hers, and he’d eventually managed to wear her down enough to pin her down. (Shinsou had been up against Bakugou from 1B the round before, the pomeranian barely managing to let off one explosion before falling to Shinsou’s quirk. The teen was extremely glad he’d managed to keep it under wraps and that Monoma had lied when asked by another student in 1B what his quirk did.) 

 

Midoriya had been up against Shoto, and no matter how much training Inko and Hisashi signed him up for there were just some matchups that couldn’t be beat. He held up longer than most of their classmates but eventually stepped out of the line when Shoto used both sides of his quirk to create a thick fog keeping Midoriya from seeing how close he was to being out of bounds. 

 

Shoto and Shinsou faced off against each other without using their quirks. Shoto was still trying to re-regulate his temperature after the fight with Midoriya, but he also knew how to avoid Shinsou’s quirk. Their quirkless spar took longer than any spectators had really expected, Keigo and Natsuo excitedly yelling from the stands. Keigo had managed to bring Nats to the hero’s observing deck with him, so they had one of the best views of the fight. A lot of popcorn was spilled, so much that Nedzu had to raise the pay of the cleaning staff once the event was over. 

 

Eventually Shinsou triumphed. He’d been adopted by an underground hero named Nocturne (civilian name Shinsou Toshiko) and a martial arts teacher (Shinsou Nori) a year after being moved to Sunny orphanage. Endeavour may have tried Shoto since he was five, but it was focused heavily in quirk control. During a quirkless spar? Shinsou had the clear advantage. 

 

All four of them stood on the podium with bright smiles despite the dirt and bruises covering their bodies. Midoriya had to be held in place by a laughing Uraraka as All Might came to give them their medals, ruffling the excited green teen's hair as he told him how impressed he was. 

 

It took all of his mental fortitude to keep himself from passing out. 

 

The families of the students were allowed down onto the field while the spectators and observing pro heroes cleared out. Natsuo, Keigo and Fuyumi (who’d been sitting with her girlfriend Rumi who was standing a bit further back to give them space) immediately rushed to Shoto, who for once was actually smiling. It was small, his eyes still darting around as if expecting Endeavour to pop up even though he’d been made aware previously that the man would no longer have custody of him, but it was there. 

 

Midoriya was loudly sobbing as he launched into his father’s arms, Hisashi Midoriya laughing as he hugged his son tight. Inko was bawling next to them, an arm wrapped around her husband’s waist. Toshiko and Nori approached Hitoshi with wide grins, wearing bright purple shirts with a picture of him wearing cat ears on them. He rolled his eyes fondly, grumbling as they pulled him in between them for a picture. 

 

The only member of 1A that wasn’t celebrating was Iida. The teen had gotten a phone call and rushed off, pulling out of the festival for a family emergency. Mic and Eraser sensei had also left quickly once it was all over with Midnight sensei, giving quick congratulations (or a grunt in Eraser’s case before rushing off). 

 

It wouldn’t take long for the news to reach all of them once celebrations had moved to personal houses. 

 

Endeavour was officially under investigation for child and spousal abuse, neglect, as well as purposeful endangerment of civilians and heroes, and use of excessive force. Surprisingly though, the news that made the Todoroki family tear up in relief (and a scarred man sitting in a dingy bar grabbing his coat before storming out) was not the biggest one of the evening. Neither was it the results of the sports festival. Even the takedown of Star was only a footnote, with how much needed to be redacted due to the people involved in the raid. 

 

No all that was overshadowed by the fact that Stain was now in Hosu, and that he’d already attacked a hero. Pro hero Ingenium was in the hospital, facing lower body paralysis. 

Notes:

We are finally getting into the part of this fic I have been SO excited to write. This is the last The First chapter. New arc of the story is starting as of the next one.

Did I dodge having to write the festival by putting a raid in place? Yes.

Also Hisashi is actually a good father in this. He was just busy being an informant. This will not be important for the rest of the story, but I felt like being nice to Izuku in this one. Also explains how he got into the hero course with no quirk (Love supportive Inko).

I promise. Huntr/x is about to become a major part of this story. We're just building up to it (hope I laid out the clues well).

Chapter 14: Interrupted Internship

Momo was looking through her tablet full of offers trying to ignore the feeling of wrongness that had washed over her the second it was passed to her. (She hadn’t made it that far into the final round and yet there she was, with a tablet of offers while Midoriya and Shinsou who’d both placed on the podium only had a thin folder.) 

 

Her parents wanted her to go with Uwabami. That should be the name she wrote down on her form, the one placed right in the center of her desk. Still she was… hesitant. 

 

Uwabami was beautiful, and her quirk was really useful in locating victims! But… she focused so much on her public persona. Commercials, paparazzi interviews, photoshoots… Momo wasn’t sure that was the kind of hero she really wanted to be. She shivered as she thought back to her original costume. Until that day with the support students, she’d kinda just resigned herself to that being what she was going to have to deal with if she wanted to achieve her dream. Except now that she was actually excited about her costume it felt like maybe she didn’t have to put up with it. That made her question the entirety of the carefully crafted plan her parents had hired someone to make. 

 

So she went through the list name by name. Midnight and Mount Lady were crossed off with Uwabami. She admired both women of course, Midnight sensei was one of her idols, but the thought of catering to anyone’s gaze, especially creepy mens… 

 

Fatgum was placed in a maybe column. Their quirks were compatible, it would make sense to intern with him. But UA had a very strict policy about changing mentors every year and if she wanted to score a work study with him then she couldn’t intern. And she also wanted to see if possibly there was a female hero that was more in the shadows or rescue fields. Definitely someone that spent more time as a hero than as a model or doing press interviews. 

 

Halfway through she paused, eyes catching on one name. Iris. 

 

The fact that the name didn’t ring a bell was what gave her pause. Her family were involved in many different fields of heroics, names of heroes having been thrown around ever since she was a baby. She’d known about Eraserhead, albeit only a little and not what he looked like, before having him as a teacher. 

 

There was no additional information. No reason given for the offer like the others, no description. Just that name and the pronouns she/they, with the note: I really don’t care which you use. 

 

Momo looked up, her eyes landing on Midoriya. He was excitedly rambling on about the pros and cons of heroes that had offered Shoto (as he’d asked to be called once news of his father spread to the group chat) an internship, the normally cold teen leaning in and writing everything down in one of his notebooks. 

 

Midnight had left once she’d gotten their hero names, leaving them with Aizawa sensei who was in his sleeping bag against the wall. She grabbed her tablet nervously, before walking towards the trio of Shinsou, Shoto and Midoriya. The three looked up, Midoriya waving brightly, Shoto giving her a nod, and Shinsou regarding her with suspicion. 

 

“Midoriya you know quite a bit about heroes,” she started, clutching her tablet close to her chest. The teen blushed and nodded, making Shinsou snort. “Would you happen to know anything about a hero named Iris?”

 

Midoriya frowned. “Iris?” he asked. She handed him her tablet, pointing at the name in case it would help. “Sorry Yaoyorozu, I’ve actually never heard about them before.”

 

“You got an offer from Iris?!” Shinsou asked, his eyes wide as he peered over her shoulder at the tablet. She turned towards him, watching as he collapsed backwards with a disappointed groan. “That is so lucky.”

 

“Could you tell me about her?” Momo asked, clutching her tablet close again. “There was no description given and I have never heard of her before.”

 

Shinsou grinned. “She’s an underground hero. Like- deep deep underground. It’s pretty much impossible to have any information on her even if you’ve actually met her. All I really know is that she works for the IHPSC. She saved me from a bad foster home when I was a kid. I’m pretty sure she's the reason the whole JHPSC changed.”

 

Midoriya had stars in his eyes. “That is so cool.”

 

Momo nodded. “Thank you Shinsou. Who are you three going with?”

 

“Eraser,” Shinsou pointed towards the man who’d slumped down onto the floor at some point. 

 

“I’m going with Snipe!” Midoriya beamed happily, pointing to his filled out sheet. 

 

Shoto looked down at his tablet. “Hawks.” 

 

They talked a bit longer after that about their internships before she went back to her desk. This time she didn’t hesitate before filling out her form, a small smile on her lips. 

 

***

 

Momo had been sent the address for the IHPSC building in Musutafu that was surprisingly not far from UA, so there was no need for her to join her classmates at the train station the Monday of internships. She came anyway, hanging to the side with Shinsou, Midoriya and Kaminari who were all doing internships at UA and therefore were also only here to say goodbye to their classmates. 

 

Shoto had sleepily grumbled about not understanding why he had to go all the way to Kyushu before his train arrived, glaring down at his phone as if he could scare whoever he was texting that way. It made her smile to see him be a bit more expressive. 

 

The IHPSC building was huge. 

 

She stood in the lobby as instructed, marvelling at the coziness of the building and taking note of all of the different amenities. She desperately wanted to know what books they had in the library…

 

“Creati?” 

 

She turned around quickly, bowing at the hero that had appeared behind her. The woman laughed, the sound warped and slightly squeaky through the voice changer. Momo took the time to admire the uniform she wore. There wasn’t even a bit of skin showing, everything from her face obscured by her hood to her hands covered in gloves protected. Momo was once again infinitely grateful for the support department changing her costume. She felt so much more at ease knowing she’d be in the dress with the crop top and nanotech leggings underneath instead of the first design (that she believed had been burnt after overhearing the second year support students during lunch talk about the evil being gone and some sort of ritual?).

 

“Thank you for offering to mentor me for my internship Iris sensei.”

 

The hero chuckled, waving for her to follow and leading her to the front desk. After a quick back and forth with the woman there they were up in an elevator heading towards one of the three floors Iris explained were indoor gyms. 

 

Momo was shown into the guest rooms they had for students and visiting pros that were directly opposite the gym, sending her off to change into her costume. She didn’t take the time to even glance at the room, placing her duffel bag down carefully and quickly changing. 

 

The gym was completely empty except for Iris who was setting out some towels, bottles of water, and a med kit. The pro turned to her as soon as she pushed open the door. Momo sat down on the floor at her request, the pro following suit. 

 

Then she took off her voice changer, dropped her hood, and waved off the mask which flew off of her face and disappeared into one of the open bags Iris had been going through. Momo’s eyes widened as Amaya sensei chuckled, dropping her voice changer into another bag. 

 

“Sorry about not telling you before, kid. I keep my identity pretty tight lipped even with the students and I don’t usually take on first years. It slipped my mind to warn you ahead of time,” she explained. “Now some ground rules and expectations. You can call me Amaya or Iris, I have zero preference. Same goes for the pronouns I put on the paperwork. 

 

You won’t be patrolling. I want to make that clear off the bat. We will be training during the day, and at night you will get the opportunity to meet Jackson who is my comm and video supervisor at the IHPSC. You’ll get to watch a patrol through that and see how it works, but I can’t risk a first year on patrol. In the unlikely case that I’m called out during the day one of the pros around will be contacted and take over for me. There might be language issues depending on who gets called, so pay close attention to what they do so you can copy it. 

 

Those are the main ones… Actually don’t leave the building. I’m in charge of you while you’re here, and as long as you stay out of the lobby without someone to let you back in you can move through the floors freely. I’ll get you a map. I live here and I’m on the top floor, you have my phone number so contact me for anything. Any questions?”

 

“Why did you offer me an internship?” Momo asked quietly. 

 

She’d asked all her classmates, but none of them had gotten an offer from Iris. It felt weird considering how none of her classmates who wanted to go underground had gotten that offer. Apart from Iris and Eraser no underground heroes had put in any offers. Momo wasn’t even sure she wanted to go underground. It didn’t feel fair-

 

“I don’t usually take on any interns and especially not first years,” Amaya interrupted her chain of thought, leaning back. “I watched your performance at the sports festival. The way you held yourself, where you stood, when you hesitated… It’s all things I noticed. And I think you need to prove to yourself that you can be the hero you want to be. Figured you’d have more space for that with me.” She stood up, walking over to the mats. “First, we stretch. Then you show me what you can do in a spar. Got it?”

 

Momo nodded, quickly joining Amaya to stretch. 

***

 

The week went by quicker than she wanted it to. 

 

She was so glad that she’d made this choice. The first day had left her sore and covered in bruises from repeatedly hitting the mat, but watching someone fight with a strange mash up of various martial arts, dance, and improvised skills was eye opening. Amaya also helped her select the weapon she felt most comfortable with. She settled on a tasered bow staff. 

 

Day two she was dragged to the library so they could figure out some of the best weapons for her to memorise. Her brain was fried by the time she met Jackson, who let her listen in on the comms and showed her how he transferred her from one line to the other quickly. She’d never thought there was a person monitoring and reviewing patrol footage until then. Getting to be the one to warn Amaya of an oncoming attack also made her beam with pride. 

 

Day three was more eating mat, this time with Amaya portalling around the designated space randomly until Momo could figure out a way to take her down. It took a while for her to respond quick enough once Amaya appeared to hit her with the bow staff, but once she finally did, hearing the hero grunt made her fistbump in victory. 

 

That was also the day she asked a question that had been bugging her since their first analysis class. “Amaya sensei?”

 

The hero hummed, looking up from where she was still lying after the hit. 

 

“You said you’re a full blooded sorceress,” Momo started carefully. The teacher nodded. “But those died out 500 years ago,” Amaya tensed slightly, her smile dropping. “So how old are you?”

 

“Old,” Amaya replied, pulling herself off the mat and grinning in a way that made Momo shiver. “Now I think breaks over. Let’s see if you can hit me quicker this time.”

 

Momo groaned, putting the non answer out of her mind. 

 

Day four was interesting because Aizawa took Shinsou over to the agency to train with them. Momo and Shinsou bonded over the torture, both deciding that tej combination was awful and they never wanted the two to train them together again. They learnt a lot, of course. But did they really have to play a game of hide and seek that left them both with nightmares?

 

Being chased by Aizawa sensei shouldn’t have made her nearly succumb to cardiac arrest. Shinsou couldn’t look Amaya sensei in the eyes for a full hour after she kept up with him while walking slowly like a horror movie villain. He was sure she had to be teleporting when he looked forward to be keeping up but he hadn’t caught it even once. The two sadists had taken them for dinner after, both making them shiver at their matching grins. 

 

Day five was derailed when during their lunch break Amaya sensei got information that had her immediately warping out of the room without another word. 

 

One was given by a panicked Hunch, another underground hero that had been working comms that day for a twilight coworker. There were around twenty nomus unleashed from a portal in Hosu. 

 

The second was a text message from Shoto. Hawks had been asked to head to Hosu halfway through the week in case there was another sighting of Stain (if it had been earlier he would have been barred from taking on interns, but at that point they couldn’t pull the two out much to Amaya’s dismay). He’d gotten a location pin from Monoma who was also in the city with Jeanist (Endeavour being investigated and stripped of his license while the hero killer was loose meant a lot of relocating heroes). 

 

Native was dead, Tenya had engaged with the hero killer and was paralysed, and Shoto was on his way to give Monoma backup. After sending his location Amaya couldn’t get in contact with him to tell him to get away. 

 

She left Momo with Hush, who contacted a visiting pro to train Momo so her time wasn’t wasted. Battlecry was a cool hero, but concentrating on the instructions being given was difficult when Momo was worried about her classmates and her mentor.

Chapter 15: Interrupted Internship pt. 2

Shoto was going to die listening to Tenya keep talking about how this wasn’t their fight.

 

Why he hadn’t stopped yet considering both Monoma and Shoto were incapacitated and therefore couldn’t leave him even if they wanted, he didn’t know. Shoto was too busy hoping that Amaya would be there soon to really pay any attention. Besides, Monoma had insulting the decisions the younger Iida had made covered. 

 

“It’s so weird that you believe your brother is the best hero and then in the same thought think: oH I wiLL gEt RevEnge fOR hiM bY KilLing thE viLlaIn hE coUldn’T fAcE! Seriously-”

 

He’d thought they were in the clear once he’d frozen Stain, but noooo of course the hero killer had to be capable of breaking through a block of solid ice. The sword sliced through his arm when he pulled it up to protect his face, and down he went. Monoma went down a second after, not having the time to move away from where he was trying to drag Tenya up while the teen kept yelling. 

 

Native’s decapitated head on the other side of the alley made him want to cry. 

 

Was this really how he was going to die? Right after finally getting what he wanted, the care and attention he’d always longed for as a child. He was supposed to be at a family dinner tomorrow. Meeting Fuyumi’s girlfriend Rumi, who also happened to be Keigo’s best friend. Now it was looking like at best he’d wind up in the hospital, probably paralysed just like Tenya’s brother and-

 

“Chizome. Get your sword away from my kids.”

 

Shoto started to actually cry in relief as Amaya appeared behind Stain, holding a knife in one hand. The hero killer turned with his eyes wide, before grinning. 

 

“Iris! Long time no see,” Stain said, lunging forward. “And without your mask!”

 

Amaya dodged the swipe, switching their positions so she was in front of Shoto and Stain was against the alley wall. “Probably haven’t seen me because you decided to turn. Do you know how helpful you would have been during the raid if you hadn’t?”

 

Stain’s grin fell, turning into a sneer. He jumped up, managing to cut Amaya’s shoulder. Shoto’s stomach dropped, but she didn’t even flinch. It seemed Stain wasn’t surprised, immediately trying to stab her through the heart. She sidestepped with ease, going to swipe his legs from underneath him. He jumped before she could, flipping back onto a fire escape. His eyes landed on Monoma, a dangerous glint in his eyes. 

 

“I thought you of all people would understand. Afterall you were so quick to strip Endeavour of everything-”

 

“Legally, and the bastard is still breathing. So I fail to see your point.”

 

“And how about the rumours of the guards that never made it out of the basement?”

 

“There were no guards,” Amaya hissed. “No traces were found of anyone.”

 

“How convenient-”

 

“Shut up.”

 

Amaya moved before his sword could finish its trajectory - and fuck Monoma would have lost an arm if she hadn’t - grabbing the blade of the sword with one hand. It cut into her skin, purple blood dripping down onto the alley floor, but it gave her the opportunity to push it back. That sent the villain stumbling, and she managed to get a cut into his side before he recovered and started eyeing Iida. 

 

Shoto really wished one of them could move because they were proving to be in the way. 

 

“Shouldn’t you be helping with the nomus, hero?” he hissed, darting forward. 

 

Amaya actually managed to cut his arm while she slid in front of Iida, causing him to drop one of his swords. He didn’t even acknowledge it, holding his other sword up and going for her neck. She ducked, the sword impaling itself in the wall of the building behind her and causing faint cracks on the facade. He left it there, going to grab a knife from his side. 

 

His hands never even touched the handle. Shoto blinked and between one moment and the next the man was just… gone. No trace, no blood. Nothing. Amaya was still there, so she couldn’t have warped him away. The hero didn’t look at them. She pulled her hood up over her head, keeping her gaze towards the exit of the alley

 

“His quirk has a time limit. Once it wears off, stay together and get to the main street. Everyone is evacuating,” she told them coldly before warping away. 

 

Iida’s fingers started to twitch. 

***

 

Things were not looking good. 

 

Jeanist and Kamui were trying to handle the evacuation of civilians while Hawks engaged the nomus and Manual tried to put out the fires that had been started by one with some kind of fire quirk. Jeanist was trying hard to not think about Monoma and Shoto, who’d they’d lost sight of before they could instruct them to help with the evacuation. Dynamite was grumbling about being allowed to fight by his side but thankfully hadn’t run off. Yet. Jeanist would take what he could get as he pulled a six year old out of the way of a flying burning car. 

 

“Hawks go help with evacuation,” a voice he recognised from his school days ordered through the comms. 

 

Hawks didn’t even argue, immediately putting away his feather sword and dodging the nomu he’d been engaging. It screamed when it was stopped from following by being enveloped in golden flames that had a slight purple tint to them. Jeanist gagged as the smell of rotting and burnt flesh filled the air, turning on his line so he could give Hawks directions. 

 

“Stain is out of commission. Your interns are recuperating and should join the rescue efforts soon,” Iris reassured, her voice sharp and more frigid than it had been the time Jeanist had made an impulsive quirk decision during heroics and almost strangled a classmate. 

 

“Manual focus on the burning buildings. My fire will naturally stop once the nomus are dead. Jeanist, Woods, Hawks clear the area. There’s three in the air that are going to come down and could crush people. Dynamite I’m going to need you to block anyone from trying to head back into the zone. Copy?”

 

“Copy,” All of them responded, apart from Bakugou who just let out a tst but did as told. 

 

Jeanist couldn’t focus on what was going on behind him as he worked to complete the evacuation, but there was a lot of screeching. The crackling of flames was amplified by his comms, making him consider tearing them out at one point. It took all of his energy to avoid turning around when he heard Iris grunt in pain. At one point the group he was pushing towards the safety line put up by the cops screamed when there was a loud bang, probably a nomu hitting a car. The flames got louder, snippets of conversation slipping through the comms. 

 

“... risking-”

 

“You… take care… Ma-”

 

“... find out-”

 

Then all of a sudden silence. 

 

Hawks looked up, his feathers bristling. His usually cheerful smile was gone, replaced by very poorly concealed panic. Jeanist knew it was taking everything in him to keep his focus on the people he was helping get away. 

 

“You can stop evacuating,” Iris’s voice came through their earpieces. “It’s over.”

 

They turned around, finding no trace of any of the nomus or of the flames. Manual was leaning against a wall chugging a bottle of water. Part of Iris’s uniform was ripped, black dripping down her arms and chest. She was breathing heavily, her hood having fallen and revealing the top half of her face. Jeanist was slightly grateful that that meant none of the footage would be broadcast or remain online. No one needed to be seeing the fight. Hopefully the footage wouldn’t be played at the mandatory debrief when it happened, because he didn’t want to see what had happened to the nomus. 

 

The stench of burnt and rotted flesh still lingered. It made him gag, pulling the collar of his costume higher to filter the smell. Even if they were no longer human, they still had been once. 

 

It was best not to think about that. 

 

Hawks flew over, letting his mother sag against him. Jeanist noticed that the markings on her skin that were a slightly darker shade of purple were glowing. 

 

“The League retreated,” she said quietly once he was sure he wasn’t needed and could come over to help Hawks support her weight. “Shigaraki and the warper from the USJ were on top of that building.” 

 

She nodded a bit behind them. Jeanist nodded, relaying that information through his comms. He sighed in relief when he noticed that Manual had gotten up and was rushing towards the three teens now emerging from an alley. They were sliced up, all of them holding pieces of the uniform up to cover their injuries, but alive. 

 

Amaya glanced over towards another building. Jeanist caught sight of three figures too high up to be distinguishable. He went to say something in his comms before she grabbed his arm with a tight grip. 

 

The figures were gone when he looked back up. 

 

***

 

Rumi was getting a very strong sense of deja vu as she followed Mira and Zoey up to the roof of one of Hosu’s temples, keeping their footsteps light and unnoticeable. 

 

All three of them had their weapons out, the blades glinting under the light of the city around them. Sitting on the edge of the roof overlooking the temple entrance, dressed in dark red Hawks hoodie and blue jeans, was their target. 

 

Zoey threw one of her shin kal’s but the figure warped away before it could bury itself into her back. 

 

“You know you could say hi before throwing knives at people,” the target spoke up from behind them, entire posture looking exhausted. 

 

Mira didn’t speak, swinging her gok do at the demon’s head. She just warped away to another point of the roof again. 

 

“Are you going to let me speak before you try to kill me?” she asked with a raised eyebrow. 

 

“You’re a demon,” Rumi spoke, rushing forward and raising her blade to the demon’s chin. She didn’t move this time, letting the hunter hold it close to her neck. 

 

“So are you,” the demon replied unimpressed, eyes tracing the markings on Rumi’s skin. “Also really? You came in pyjamas?” she asked, glancing down at their clothing. 

 

“They’re comfortable!” Rumi growled. 

 

It made her sword move closer and the demon warped away again, making her groan in frustration as she appeared on the other side of the roof again.

 

“The money I could get if I sold a photo of Mira wearing those,” the demon said with a grin, looking at the hello kitty pants Mira had put on before they glanced out their window and noticed the demon sitting on the roof of the temple outside. 

 

Zoey threw another one of her knives though she aimed for the ankle. Instead of warping the demon stumbled back, yelping as she slipped on a tile and landed on her ass. Mira moved forward, weapon raised and the demon just closed her eyes. 

 

They all froze when a fluffy blue tiger’s head popped out in front, a bird wearing a hat on its head. Rumi watched as Derpy fully appeared in front of the demon, turning around and nudging at her with his paw. It looked exactly like when he was trying to right an object that had fallen. 

 

The demon opened her eyes, glaring at the tiger gently pushing her side with its paw. 

 

“I can stand on my own, I’m not a baby anymore,” she grumbled in exasperation, slowly getting back up. The tiger brushed against her, demanding pets. Her laugh was filled with exhaustion. “Yeah yeah missed you too big guy. Thanks for saving me from decapitation.”

 

“You know Derpy?” Rumi asked, watching in disbelief as the bird flew off the tiger’s head to land on the demon’s instead. 

 

“He helped my dad raise me, so yeah,” she said, turning back to look at them properly. “Look, I didn't come here to fight. Figured you’d track me down even if I hid and I can’t exactly run to another continent right now, soooo…” 

 

“You’re a demon. With some kind of fire power,” Rumi pointed out.

 

The demon tensed. “Sorcery. I know how this looks but I,” she sighed, watching as Zoey suppressed a shiver when the wind started blowing harder. “I think this is more of a conversation for inside? Unless you want some fans to see you in pyjamas with weapons at one in the morning.”

 

Mira was the one who spoke up then. “If you think we’re letting some random demon into our hotel room-”

 

“I was thinking more about my place. Show of good faith, even if I’m only staying here for the weekend,” the demon sighed, raising her hands in surrender. Derpy rubbed his head against her legs for more cuddles and she smiled sadly, dropping them again. 

 

All three of them exchanged glances, discussing with their eyes before Rumi let her weapon disappear, the other three doing the same. Some tension left the demon’s shoulders, though it was so little that it was barely noticeable. 

 

“Lead the way then, but I’m warning you if you do anything-”

 

“I won’t touch your girlfriends Mira, you can drop the killer glare,” the demon reassured, starting to walk towards the edge of the roof. 

 

“How do you-”

 

“It’s easier to stay off of your radar when I know information on who the current hunters are,” the demon interrupted, jumping down off the roof and waiting for them to do the same. Derpy stayed by her side, demanding attention whenever her hand drifted away from his fur. Though it seemed to be more for her comfort. “My sons also happen to be a fan of yours.”

 

“Sons?”

 

The demon laughed again. It sounded bitter. “Relax. Adopted. Legally.” 

 

“Do you have a name?” Rumi asked, trying to shove down the feeling that the demon’s tone sounded soothingly familiar. 

 

She didn’t look back when answering, scratching behind Derpy’s ears. 

 

“It’s nice to meet you, Huntr/x.

 

 

 

I’m Amaya.”

Notes:

And we have finally reached the point I am SO excited about. Thank you to everyone that's been reading!

Notes:

I hope you enjoy this story! It's my favourite of the ones that I'm currently working on and I'm pretty proud of how it's coming along. Comments are always really appreciated, they help a lot with motivation I'll be honest. :)