It wouldn't be wrong for Thomas to say he was a rather busy man. He had groceries to buy, a home to maintain, and a city to save on a regular basis...

While the world may not necessarily know him as Thomas Hendrickson, a large and awkward man with more strength than he knew what to do with and a tendency to accidentally break everything, they knew him better as one of the world's greatest heroes, the Strongest Human; Hercules (Though he never had a chance to duke it out with All Might in a friendly brawl just to see if that title was true before the Symbol of Peace lost his quirk for good). A licensed hero with a quirk by the name of Herculean Strength.

While strength-based powers were hardly anything new, he'd even dare to say that variations of 'super strength' were perhaps among the more common quirk types, his was unprecedented in terms of just how much stronger he became because of it, a strength that theoretically had no cap, no limit, if he kept training hard enough. And it wasn't just physical strength; his reflexes were astounding, his durability marvelous and his speed was so great he may as well have a speed-power. It's important not to skip leg day, after all.

He recalled some kids at an autograph session likening him to a video game character who had maxed out all his physical stats and reached the highest level a player could get.

But it kind of left room for a lot of accidents. Like when he squeezed his toothpaste too hard and the entire thing exploded between his fingers, or when he accidentally shattered his dishes by applying just a little too much pressure when trying to scrub out some sauce that was stuck on tight to it. Thomas had to always be careful, always aware of how much force he applied in everything he did. One handshake mistake and he could completely destroy the other persons hand, pat someone on the back too hard and their spine could be shattered, close the door too hard and he'd need a new door and probably repairs to the wall itself, punch a villain too hard and he may as well turn himself in for murder.

It was impossible to stress how important control was for him. His quirk didn't have an 'on/off' switch, he didn't have the luxury of just deactivating his quirk and not having to worry about his strength. It was because of how much focus he put on control that he had even, unintentional as it had been, climbed to the top rankings.

For the past twelve years, Thomas has held the title of the Number One hero in America. As of seven years or so ago, he had entered into the ranks of the Top Ten heroes world-wide, and had even gotten to meet All Might on multiple occasions, his own hero and the kind of person Thomas had always striven to be like, he'd always liked the worlds greatest hero, their powers were similar in regard to strength, and he wanted to be the kind of person the world could love and respect like they did for All Might. Even with the blonde now quirkless, he was still Thomas' hero.

But for America, Thomas was their symbol of justice and freedom, there to protect the people. An unbeatable hero who brought down every foe he faced, he had charm, humor, a heart of goal and the media just loved him. Though Thomas couldn't say he felt the same towards the media. Too many exhausting interviews and people trying to dig into his private life, not to mention how skewered certain networks liked to tell the story, ah yes, he had a personal disdain for Rox News. Especially after they tried to tell some scandalous story of him having an affair, when all he had been doing was taking his very nice and polite costume designer out to lunch as thanks. She was married and he was sure her wife would have flayed him alive had that story been real.

Honestly, being a big name hero only made for some hectic days.

That day alone, he had been juggling a morning interview with a station reporter for kids on the importance of treating each other fairly and to not bully those around you just because they were different, then a villain with the power to turn into some massive lizard monster began terrorizing a construction site which forced him to cut the interview short to deal with it. And when he was out to pick up some new socks, there had been no less than three robberies. Sometimes it was just boggling how criminals would seemingly choose one day for everyone to go and do some crime, if he didn't know better, he'd say they were planning it, orchestrating it, but he knew well enough that most villains wouldn't work together, and especially not so seamlessly.

And that's not even mentioning the paparazzi that would swarm on him when they had the chance.

The lack of time just for him made Thomas sometimes wish he could have been lower in the rankings. His friend Lee, a fellow licensed hero under the name of Wukong, rarely dealt with this kind of workload and expectations, and he was only ranked 67 in America and even lower world-wide.

But, Thomas had a strong sense of justice and responsibility. If he saw a problem or heard of one, he, perhaps impulsively, needed to help. He didn't regret doing what he could to help others, giving up his personal time to be of use to the world and to help others stay safe, even if it forced him to get most of his private-life things done in the middle of the night. Like right now, for example.

It was currently late at night and he had already hung up his hero costume for the day. Not that it made much of a difference, Thomas was still pretty easy to recognize even without the spandex, the gold braces over his wrists and calves or the lion cowl covering his upper face. It was hard not to recognize a seven-foot mountain of muscle with wild brown hair and bronze skin.

But, he had gone through some effort to look as inconspicuous as he could as he did some late night grocery shopping. He'd hid his hair under a hat and eyes behind some sunglasses and he thought his disguise was pretty clever, until it became obvious that the few people out and about in the area that late at night could recognize him. Thomas had to be quick to hush people before the ones who were too excited could shout out 'HERCULES!' and blow his cover in the middle of the store. Right now he wasn't a hero, right now he was just Thomas, and his priority wasn't saving people it was making sure he had enough food in his fridge to eat something decent and healthy.

His shopping had gone without too much of a problem and the night had been pretty quiet. Save for the cashier nearly fainting from shock at seeing the pro hero face to face, he was pretty content with how normal the shopping trip had felt.

And as Thomas walked home, carrying the few grocery bags in one large hand, he had stopped to pick up some trash off the sidewalk on his way home. Really, why did people have to throw their garbage onto the ground and not into a trashcan? Was not littering so hard? While passing an alley, he tossed the ratty newspaper and empty soda bottles into the grimy dumpster that leaned against the building.

He would have kept on walking had he not caught the sound of whimpers and choked back sobs from within the alley. Thomas turned and stood there, staring into the dark alleyway, waiting in silence to make sure he hadn't just imagined it. He hadn't. The sound grew fainter, as though whoever was emitting them was trying to hold them back, but it was there. Someone was in there. Someone who was trying not to cry, possibly in pain.

Even though he may not have been on patrol as Hercules, it didn't mean that Thomas was going to ignore someone who may have been in trouble. Readying himself, he headed into the alley, keeping his steps slow and quiet so as to not scare whoever was within.

What he saw was not something he had been prepared for.

It was amazing that he didn't smell it first, the overpowering stench of rot, of raw meat and bile.

The first thing that Hercules saw when he entered the alley was the body that was splayed across the pavement. Dyed red hair that was turned darker by the blood soaked into the strands, a gaping hole in his neck. as though someone attempted to behead him but stopped part way. From what Thomas could see, it was a young man, too. Maybe mid or late twenties. But that wasn't everything.

That wasn't the source of the stench of death.

A little ways away from the first body, just a couple of feet was... Thomas wasn't even sure how to describe what he saw, only that he was sure that it had once been a human. But what it was now was a pile of blood, of fleshy, pulpy meat soaked in it's own body fluids, bones broken and torn apart, limbs strewn about the alley, there was even flesh sticking to the wall. It didn't even resemble a person anymore, far beyond recognition.

The mere sight had Thomas fighting back the urge to throw up.

It was as though something had blown up inside of the person... no, not that. Like something had torn it apart piece by piece and continued to do so over and over again, like when a person keeps tearing apart a piece of paper until all that's left was tiny little flakes. But instead of little shreds of paper was a corpse mutilated to grotesque extremes.

He had to take a breath to steady himself, to get a hold of himself. He couldn't go weak in the knees, not here, not right now. This was a murder scene, he needed to call the police, figure out what happened and find the one who did this and put them behind bars. Hope and pray that these were the only victims and there wasn't going to be some horrifying serial killings.

But, no, there wasn't just that, not just the corpses. The horrendous sight had almost made him forget what had drawn him into the alley in the first place, and as Thomas turned his head to look around, he saw the source of the noise he had heard.

It was a little girl.

She was curled up in a corner between the wall and the grimy dumpster, sobbing softly, weakly, her tiny body trembling, blood soaking her clothes. The girl couldn't have been older than seven, a pale face and short black hair tied up. She was missing her right arm, but her left arm clung to herself tightly, short nails digging into her shirt as though she was afraid to let go.

He needed to get her out of here, get her somewhere safe.

Walking past the bodies, Thomas crouched in front of the girl, letting his groceries drop to the ground. "Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere?" he asked in his gentlest voice, reaching a hand out to her.

The girl cracked an eye open and gave such a violent jerk away from him that her body hitting the brick wall made such a loud noise that it had him wince, "G-Get back!" she shrieked, panic in her voice, "don't touch me!"

What happened next went too fast for Thomas to notice until it had happened. One moment he had been reaching out to the girl, to try and calm her, the next there was blood running down his arm, his skin badly sliced and cut all over like he'd stuck it into some kind of shredder, and a powerful ache ran up the limb.

Behind the girl, emerging from her shadow on the wall were long black tentacle like appendages with razor sharp edges, a few arms came out and clung to her as well, pulling her against the wall and against her own shadow. Their skin seemed to flow, pure darkness taken solid form, capable of shifting their form, capable of hurting to defend her.

A living shadow, he noted.

It really shouldn't have come as any surprise that she had a power of her own when the majority of the worlds population was born with a quirk, most showed their first signs when they were four or five.

Still, it was a bit surprising for her to use her power to attack him when he was here to help. Thomas drew his arm back to access the damage they had caused. He might need a few stitches, but the injuries weren't too bad, he supposed he was lucky they didn't slice any major veins or reach his bones. He looked back at the shadows, and he could feel the hostile aura they seemed to emit.

They were likely sentient and with their master in such a terrified state, they were attacking anyone they saw as a threat.

In the back of his mind, he had to consider the possibility that they might be the ones responsible for the two dead bodies. But, he didn't want to suspect the child of murder.

As he watched the shadows, he noted how they weren't reaching out to attack him. They only lunged when he got too close, and what they seemed now was a more defensive formation. So long as he didn't reach for her again, they weren't going to go at him again. Good to know.

"I'm not going to hurt you," Thomas said as he watched the girl and the shadows, but didn't dare reach his arm out again. "I'm here to help, I want to help you."

The girl looked up, her blue eyes were bloodshot and snot was dripping down her face, "Wh-who are you...?" she whispered, her voice was hoarse, probably from crying.

"Just someone who wants to get you somewhere safe," he noticed that the shadows had backed off just a little, the writhing limbs moving more slowly. He reached out again, slowly, trying to make it clear he wasn't a threat. "This alley is dirty and scary, do you want to go somewhere warm and safe?"

The child shivered and didn't say anything or even move. Her eyes fluttered shut and she fell limp, her body supported by the filthy dumpster. Seeing her look so small, so weak, he felt his heart reach out for her, the poor girl had to have gone through a lot. The shadows retracted back into the darkness when she lost consciousness, and so Thomas wasted no time bringing her into his arms, cradling her against him as gently as he could as to not hurt her.

Thomas couldn't tell if she was hurt, couldn't tell how much of this blood was from the corpses and if any was her own. He didn't bother picking back up his groceries as he hurried out of the alley, shifting her to rest in one arm as he used the other to find his phone in his pocket.

Thomas spared only enough time to look to make sure he had reception before he dialed for the police. A few rings and he heard the other end pick up.

"Hello? This is Hercules, I need a police dispatch on 15th street. There's been a double-homicide in the alley between Billings Bar and the sushi place that closed last spring," he said, speaking quickly and as calmly as he could given the situation. "There's a child as well who may have witnessed the entire thing, she's lost conscious and I'm taking her to Huerta Hospital," he looked at the girl in his arms as he said that. She was so pale and her skin felt uncomfortably hot.

On the other end, he listened to the officer speak in a frantic voice, answered some questions to clarify where he was at, and then hung up. Slipping the phone back into his pocket, he adjusted his grip on the girl and took a deep breath. He didn't have the time to wait for a taxi or the patience to answer any questions, and even if he got an ambulance to come his way it wouldn't come quick enough for his liking. So he'd have to get her to the hospital his own way.

Feeling his power coursing through his body, flowing through his legs, he took off in a magnificent leap. Jumping through the air, he was covering incredible amounts of distance as he hit rooftops and streets and jumped again.

Thomas reached Huerta General Hospital in a matter of minutes. A few people let out startled gasps or stared at him in awe, but he didn't have the time to answer questions or ease their concern. As soon as he hit the ground he was jogging towards the doors.

He burst through the ER Entrance only seconds after landing, "I need a Doctor, now!" Thomas shouted at the various employees and nurses.

A nurse gaped at him, taking in the sight of the child in his arms and his own bloodied limb, before rushing to his side, her hands were already glowing with her quirk, likely a kind of diagnostic type that were often found in hospitals for when damage was so severe they didn't have the time to ask questions if they wanted to save lives. After a few hasty seconds, she pressed a device on her badge and called out several instructions as she guided Thomas to a room to place the child on one of the prepped beds.

"What happened to her?" the nurse asked quickly as she started attaching monitors to the girl.

Thomas did his best to fit into an empty corner of the room so he wasn't in her way. "Found her at the scene of a murder, I don't know the details, but the girl needs medical attention."

"Obviously," the nurse snapped. "Do you know her name, her quirk or if she has one? I don't see anything obvious."

Thomas worried his lip between his teeth before answering. "I don't know her name, but her power appears to be a sort of sentient Shadow Manifestation, it acts on its own and may attack you if it sees you as a threat," he added the last bit as a warning, not wanting the nurse or rest of the staff to be taken by surprise if the shadows react aggressively, and he took a moment to look back to his own injured arm.

The nurse made a noise of acknowledgement but didn't seem too concerned, as though she'd dealt with patients with more dangerous quirks before. As she finished up prepping the room, a team of doctors hurried in, and Thomas found himself being ushered out by a nurse so that they could work on the girl and he could have his own arm looked at.

As Thomas was led to a room, only half listening as the nurse talked, something about only a few stitches, he found his mind worrying more over the child than himself. He hoped the police could find some information on who she was, could get a hold of her family.

Really, he felt his heart reach for the child, the poor girl.

A few hours later, Thomas was happy to hear that the child wasn't any worse for wear after he'd been given his stitches and the doctors had finished with her. The injuries that she had weren't severe, but there had certainly been a myriad of scrapes and bruises as well as several old and faded scars. The worse that she had been facing was a mild concussion, probably from hitting the brick wall, but that wasn't too hard to deal with.

The doctors were keeping her out with some medication while they ran some more tests on her just to make sure nothing was wrong, and Thomas was more than willing to cover her medical expenses.

While waiting in an empty room the hospital was loaning to him so that he wasn't disturbed by patients and fans, Hercules sat across from one of the detectives from the police department who was on the double-homicide case.

"Akira Kazama, power; Frost Breath," Officer Walt said as he handed Thomas, or rather Hercules as he was dressed at the moment, a photo of a rugged Japanese man as the two sat in the room. It was the red-haired man from the alley, the one with the knife wound in his neck. Walt then handed over a file on the man's criminal record next. "Part of the Yamazaki family."

Thomas took the photo and made an expression of confusion, "The Yamazaki family?" it didn't sound familiar.

His confusion must have been apparent, even with the lion cowl obscuring his face, and Walt gave a nod. "They're a Yakuza family, usually stays in the Kyōto prefecture, but their activities spread through a good bit of the Kansai region. I'm not quite sure what he's doing out here in America, maybe he decided to flee here, what with all the 'League of Villains' business, then again that's mostly over in the Kanto region if I understand the situation right." Walt sighed as he said that, more like he was rambling to himself than telling Thomas anything. "It's more likely than anything that he's here on family business, and if that's the case, we likely have more of those Yakuza types slinking about the city."

Thomas frowned. "Yakuza, huh..." wasn't that quirk-enhancing drug's main distributor a Yakuza group, as well? Same with those quirk-nullifying drugs being sold on the black market. Maybe there was a connection, but... no there were countless yakuza groups in Japan, it wasn't likely that this Yamazaki family was connected to either of those drugs. Shaking the thought out of his head, he looked back up at Walt. "Any reason why the girl might have been there?"

"None," Walt answered and tapped his fingers against his leg, "from what we have found so far, all I can see are three possibilities. She was with either of the two victims, such as an abduction that ended bloody, or she came upon the scene completely by chance," he was still tapping against his leg, but the pace grew quicker, "or, she's involved with the Yamazaki family in some way and was with Akira for that reason. I don't know how likely that is, though, from what we have on that Yakuza group, they focus on smuggling and drug deals, not human trafficking. But I can't say it's impossible."

No matter what, the possibilities weren't that great, they all lead to her being involved in a double murder and ending up in the hospital. He shook his head and looked at Walt again, "What about the other victim? Were you able to get an identity from the corpse?" he asked, blanching as the memory of the bloodied, meaty pulp came to mind.

Walt nodded and was handing out a second folder with a criminal record and photo. "Gregory Hamil, quirkless but has been on the run for a string of thefts and a few assaults. It's likely that he's the one who killed Akira; the knife that was used was covered in Gregory's fingerprints and was on the body."

"And if Gregory killed Akira, any leads on who killed Gregory?" Thomas already had an idea for who that might have been, but he didn't want to say it out loud.

Walt sighed and turned in his chair so he wasn't quite looking at Thomas anymore. "It's more than likely that the girl witnessed Gregory killing Akira, and feeling cornered, her shadows, which from what I understand from your testimony are sentient and more than a little hostile, saw this as a threat and attacked. And that corpse is the end result of their attempt at 'protecting' the girl."

He had a feeling that it might have been something like that, but it hurt to hear it out loud. That a girl so young would kill, whether intentional or not. The media was going to have a field day with this if they got a hold of any of the details, and it was a miracle they were able to keep all the reporters from catching wind of the girls involvement at all. She was involved in a murder, likely responsible for the brutal murder of Gregory Hamil. Even though this was a case of self-defense and it'd be unlikely she'd be given any sort of punishment, it was still murder. Still, blood on her hands.

That wasn't going to be easy to recover from.

"Were you find any information on who she is?" Thomas asked. "Any lead on who she is? A name? Who and where her family might be? We need to let them know where she is."

But Walt just sighed again, "Nothing. We ran her fingerprints, checked out the blood samples, but nothing came up. She's not registered anywhere, not even in any missing persons registry. It's like she doesn't even exist. That's usually a bad sign, most likely she doesn't have a family to return too, and if she does, it's unlikely they're in any position to be raising a kid," he scratched his scruffy beard. "It'll take a while to get her put in the system, and we'll need to find a children's home for her to stay at until everything gets sorted out, doubt she'd want to keep sleeping in the hospital. Though I'm not too sure about dropping her in a home with a bunch of other kids just yet, not when we can't guarantee the safety of those around her yet with that quirk of hers."

When he mentioned a children's home, memories of foster care flashed through his mind and Thomas felt his heart drop a little. He knew well how those kinds of places treated kids, the sort of power hierarchy the children formed. Constantly being moved from home to home because your quirk wasn't one that the adults wanted to deal with, constantly dealing with the cruelty of kids who didn't know any better.

Kids didn't get the proper counseling for their powers in foster care, and traumatized ones rarely got the needed therapy. With what she'd already been through... it was a guarantee that she'd suffer. Thomas didn't want that for her, no, he wanted her to have the room and care to recover from this, he wanted to help her.

The officer took one look at Thomas, "Oh, no, no, no, no. I know that face. Whatever you're thinking, just no."

"Walt, I know what it's like in the system, going from foster home to foster home," he's been in a situation like that, he wouldn't have wished it upon anyone, least of all this girl. "They're not going to want to keep her, they'll be scared and wary of her, the adults and kids alike. What she needs is a safe place, not some kind of juvenile system or family who are only doing it because they feel they have to. Those places, they'll eat her up and spit her out mangled and wrong."

The officer stood, staring up at the hulking behemoth of a man, "You can't be serious, Tom. You, taking care of a child? You barely have time to take care of yourself."

Thomas kept his gaze on Walt, determined and unwavering. "I'll make it work. There are lots of heroes in the city that there won't be too much problem if I cut back on hero work a bit. In a real emergency, I have contacts that could help. I have the resources to give this girl what she needs; a safe place with people she can trust, people who won't treat her like a villain just because of her power and history. How can I call myself a hero if I don't do everything I can to help her?"

Walt stared him down for a long moment before he let out a long breath that he had been holding. "Okay, if this is what you want, I won't stop you, God knows that it'd be impossible to if this is something you're truly set on." he closed his eyes and stood up, "I'll talk to some people, see if I can find the right ones you need to talk to about taking in this kid."

Relief blossomed in his chest, warmth flooding through him as though he was biting into ambrosia with the gods, "Thank you, Walt. Really, thank you."

He just waved him off as he headed to the door, "Don't thank me yet, this aint some guarantee that you're gonna get what you want," the officer grumbled, "If she has a family and we find them, and if they are suitable to raise her, then I hope you don't get so attached you're not willing to let her to return home."

With that the door shut leaving Thomas alone in the empty hospital room. He ignored those words and found himself just smiling dumbly as he leaned against the wall.

So, this was a thing now.

He was going to adopt a child. Or at least try to.

Not what he thought he'd be doing at thirty-seven, when he was still single and everything, but, he could do this. He'd give this girl a happy life. It was the least he could do for her.

Authors Note

So I've had the first few chapters posted on Ao3 for a while, just never got around to posting it here. As mentioned on Ao3, I have the first 8 or so chapters written, and a lot of this planned out already. You're gonna be seeing a whole lot of references to BNHA canon in this since all the UA and League of Villains drama is without a doubt going to be talked about overseas with how famous UA and some of Japans heroes are.

So this story is intended to be something that can be compliant with what goes on in canon, with lots of things from BNHA being brought up (Events, heroes, etc), without actually interfering with the canon story. Just think of it as 'While all this is going on over on this side of the world, this is what the other half of the world is going through' kind of thing.