Chapter Text
My knee bounced under the table, rattling my frame and not at all releasing my pent-up anxiety. They'd left me in here for what must have been hours now, handcuffed to the table, with the door locked.
Well, they thought they'd left me handcuffed and the door locked. Honestly, I should have ditched this place the second neither were true, but what was the point? They knew my face, they knew my name, and that meant there was no place to hide. If I had to move cities again, it'd be a huge pain in the ass. I didn't have much going for me here except that there were plenty of villains to fight. If I had nothing, then I could give others something.
That was my logic anyway, the thing that kept me going. Even if I was treated badly for being stuck on the streets, I wanted to make sure safety was something that everyone could enjoy. If anyone thought that was too selfless of a desire to be true, then I could throw at them that if people were safe and happy, they were less easily frustrated and aggressive, which was better for me when I needed food or a place to sleep for the night.
I yanked my wrists out of the cuffs with practiced ease, letting them clatter to the table, and skidded my chair back as I swiftly stood up. I didn't make to leave the interrogation room, though. I folded my hands behind my back and paced to exert my nervous energy instead, waiting.
Why was I sticking around? Moving cities wasn't that big of a deal. It was inconvenient but far from impossible. I could find all the new places to sleep or hide easily enough. I could find all the best places to steal or scavenge for food from. I could memorize hero patrol routes again. Those were my bare necessities—anything more could come later.
Hah. Fine. That was my plan.
The door knob clicked, and I stopped in my tracks to look. There were 2 men standing there when it fully opened. One of them was the detective who’d had me arrested, Tsukauchi, and the other was a retired, now teaching, hero, Eraserhead. He had greasy, unkempt hair that fell into his eyes, dark eyebags, and a thin, winding scarf around his neck. He was wearing dark and worn long-sleeved clothing.
They stood there for a moment as if to determine if I was a threat because I wasn't restrained anymore. I crossed my arms and tapped my foot impatiently. “Look, I haven't got all day, gentlemen. I'm willing to hear my sentence. If I don't like it, I'm leaving, pure and simple.”
Eraserhead raised an eyebrow at me, unimpressed. “Sit down,” he commanded, and I rolled my eyes at him for his tone but took my seat anyway. Tsukauchi sat down across from me with no folder in hand, like all the other places I’d been caught and brought to.
It was very hard to hold onto me though—I was something of an escape artist, even without my quirks. I'd been brought in a total of 6 times, and the interrogations were all the same. They'd all waited to unmask me until they had some figure of authority in the room, but by then, I was long gone. Each time I came in, I walked right back out the front door before anyone realized I was gone. I always had to change cities whenever that happened. This run, here in Musutafu, was the longest stay yet, at 2 years and 3 months, but it was time to start the ticker over at 0.
“What's your name?” Tsukauchi asked calmly, breaking me out of my thoughts.
“I don't have one,” I said shortly, and I didn't, not really. People called me ‘girl’ or ‘brat’. ‘Vermin’ was a rarer one. I didn't call myself something either. I just didn't have a definitive name. “Call me whatever you'd like.” I started counting down the seconds until they grew annoyed with me, like everybody else. Annoyed just enough to let me slip by them later.
“You don't go by Photoglare?”
I let my expression fall into deadpan. “Of course not. Whoever came up with that alias was clearly a few brain cells short. It's lame.”
“Why did you become a vigilante?”
“Can I not be spontaneous?” I sarcastically answered his question with a question to screw with his quirk. Tsukauchi’s quirk made him a human lie detector. Anyone else would find that extremely inconvenient. I found it funny. With my circumstances, finding joy in the littlest things was a necessity.
They must have realized that I knew what I was doing and switched tactics on me. Which was new. It went completely unspoken, but it had been like a switch had been flicked. They went from good cop to bad cop on the turn of a dime. I didn't let it rattle me and readied myself to adapt, just like usual.
“Do you know how long vigilantes are put away, kid?” Eraserhead asked.
Try to shorten my temper. That was rule 3 in the nonexistent book of getting what you want. I cocked my head at him, a patronizing smile slipping across my lips. “Enlighten me, teach,” I said sweetly.
“30 years is what you're looking at.”
I smirked, shrugging. “Guess I should buckle up for the ride.” Frustration flickered through his eyes before it vanished, and I smiled wider. “If you’re going to get upset so quickly, you shouldn't be in this business.”
“What business would that be?”
“Failed interrogator, number 2.”
Eraserhead narrowed his eyes at me. “Do you know who I am?” he asked lowly, and I laughed.
“You're going to pull that card?” I exclaimed, pleasantly surprised. How funny. “Please, you can do better than that!”
He stared at me for a moment longer, unimpressed, and then shared a glance with Tsukauchi. And the detective repeated one of this previous questions. They’d switched tracks again. “Why did you become a vigilante?”
“Are you expecting a different response?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “Look, how about, you give me my sentence and send me on my way to Tartarus?”
Tsukauchi frowned at me. “You don't really want to go to prison, do you? We have a proposition for you that'll make this all go away.”
My brain stalled. A what? “Huh?” I said eloquently.
“A proposition,” Scarf repeated, serious. “A choice, really, between 2 options. One, you spend the next 30 years in prison for vigilante-ism.” He paused as if waiting for that to sink in, but I didn’t react. It wasn’t anything I couldn’t escape from because I was that good, but they didn’t have to know that. I just waited for him to go on, to reveal that other option, my ‘way out.’ “Or, two, you give up vigilante-ism and attend U.A. High School.”
I stared at him for an extra 3 seconds or so, processing what he’d said, blinked, and side-glanced Tsukauchi for another long moment. I opened my mouth and shut it again, forming the words in my head. “I… Dude, I…I have questions…” I shook my head, slumping a bit. A headache was threatening to form due to the sheer amount of confusion ricocheting around in my skull. “One, I can’t pay any entrance fee or whatever the fuck tuition you guys press me with. Two, I couldn’t guarantee that I’ll be able to attend consistently. I have to work on the side. Three, why?”
Eraserhead crossed his arms, looking down at me. His expression didn’t change. “You’ll attend free of charge.” He stared back at me, square in the eyes. “Someone decided you were hero material. It’s easier to train a hero when they have some prior experience. As young as you are, mistakes are made, and we recognize that. I’m sure you don’t want to spend the next 30 years of your life in prison. This deal is a take-it-or-leave-it.”
It wasn’t that I didn’t want it. I was just confused. I hadn’t thought that anyone would have stopped to really think about it. Honestly, heroes here were pompous attention addicts. The fact that one of them, one with a high enough authority to make this happen, actually paused in their tracks to well and truly decide that giving a kid this out was a good idea seemed like such a far-out idea that there was no way there wasn’t a catch.
“You’re…serious?” I asked quietly, looking between both men. “You’re just giving me this? What’s the catch?”
“No catch,” he answered immediately with a short shake of his head. “Make your choice.”
I didn’t hesitate this time. “If I'm going to agree, I have one condition.” Eraserhead glared at me, but I continued before he could stop me. “Do not treat me like a child. I will do my best to follow your rules, but it's been a long time since I've needed to follow any. I may be a kid, but I've long matured past my age.”
The detective flicked his head back to me from the ex-hero, eyes widened the slightest bit. Eraserhead didn't break eye contact with me, so I noticed his patience return. His expression didn't soften, but his eyes did, just a little. “We will do our best,” he answered and stood straighter, serious again. “The term starts on Monday, a week from now. You will receive the required uniforms and your class schedule in the mail before then. You will also receive some paperwork that must be completed prior to attending classes.” He pulled a notepad and pen from his pocket and slid them across the table to me. I wrote down an address that I lived next to that I knew I'd be able to snatch my mail from—the old man never came out of his house and never checked his mail, so it always piled up in front of his door for days.
I lived in the tool shed next to his house, but these people didn't need to know that.
I slid the notepad back to Eraserhead, and he glanced briefly at it before slipping it away again. “A supply list will also be included, but most of it is optional. Don't be late.” With that, he turned and left, leaving the door wide open.
Tsukauchi guided me to the front door of the station and sent me on my way with a soft wish for good luck.
It didn’t feel real, the experience I’d just gone through. I expected to have been sneaking out the door by the time Eraserhead had gone bad cop on me. I had my ways. They hadn’t exactly fitted me with a quirk dampener, which really was an oversight on their part, but they hadn’t even been concerned. Sure, Eraserhead’s quirk switched off the ability of anyone he looked at, but all it took was for him to blink for the effect to wear off.
I was fast and I could turn invisible, but damn, they'd been lax.
Did I really want to go to school to be a hero? I could disappear right now and not have to worry about any of that. I could go to America where all the heroes were loads more incompetent.
Right, that was settled. If this didn’t turn out how I wanted it to, then I’d leave, pure and simple.