Stepping off the bus felt strange. The crowd was no longer sitting in stunned silence but was cheering instead. Perhaps it was not for her specifically but they were cheering all the same. The screens around the arena showed some playbacks of the first task. She saw the unedited footage of herself fighting robots. She saw Kirishima and his partner Setsuna tag team another team and steal their hostage.

Hell, she saw Todoroki and her standoff at the end.

Most notably, she saw the interesting sight of Mei and Shinsou in a powered suit rushing through robots with multiple hostages in tow. To protect her eyes from the wind, the support course girl wore thick orange lenses.

Kyoka and Izuko stood next to each other as they waited with the rest of the crowd for the next task. They'd gotten twelve points, which didn't sound like a lot at first until one saw the rest of the results. Twelve for Iida and Todoroki as well. Seven for Kirishima and Setsuna. Then It was downhill from there.

"The second task will be done right here in this arena!" Midnight said. "We'll be playing Capture the Flag! Each pair has to find themselves another pair so it's four to tango, ah how I miss my college day-"

Her microphone cut out.

The display rose up once more to repeat her words in bold letters. Then, the image began to shift, showing off a list of the points.

"Let me explain," Midnight said, glaring up at the announcer box where Aizawa was grinning down from. The images continued to shift. The points split up into small flags. "You will receive one flag for each point you earned during the first task."

The flags were not small. They were poles with U.A. logoed flags attached to them.

"Everything's fair in love and war," Midnight finished up. "And the group with the most flags at the end wins. Any group with no flags is eliminated. Do you have what it takes? We'll take a quick thirty minute break and be right back!"

The cameras were turned off. Advertisements, great. Izuko sighed, watching as the groups formed rapidly. Todoroki was glaring in her direction, leaving Iida to make a deal with Momo and Mina.

Before Izuko and Kyoka could even start to talk, Kirishima appeared next to them. Setsuna Tokage, his partner, was leaning one arm over his shoulder. She was dressed in a very lizard-like and skintight suit that seemed to fall apart whenever she used her quirk.

"Wanna team up?" Kirishima asked. Izuko blinked, looking at Kyoka. After a second, her girlfriend nodded. "Welcome aboard. I'm Kyoka-"

"Kyoka Jirou, the fire bender," Setsuna said. Izuko frowned. "Really, there's not many people who don't know about you now."

"Fire bender?" Kyoka asked, raising an eyebrow. "My quirk's-"

"Kyoka," Izuko said, leaning in to whisper something in her ear. Kyoka didn't take many words to have it explained to her. Instead, her face went beet red and she just shrunk into herself, pushing her hands over her ears as she squatted down.

"Oh no," Kyoka murmured. "How am I gonna face my parents…"

"Aaaanyway," Izuko said, turning to Kirishima and Setsuna. "I guess we should come up with a strategy after getting all the flags set up, right?"

"Sounds good," Setsuna said. Her body split up into pieces and began carrying multiple of the flags while Izuko and Kyoka took two each. Kirishima managed four, keeping a tight grip on them with his hardening quirk doing most of the heavy lifting.

Eventually they were settled, it was time to talk.

"This isn't just about having the most points," Izuko explained. "The more people go into the finals, the more fights we will have to do in the tournament. The more fights we do, the more tired we get, the more prone we are to mistakes. Counting the students, out of twelve groups… I think we should aim to eliminate eight."

"Eight?" Kirishima asked, his voice slightly high pitched. "That's… kinda excessive, right?"

"Not us alone," Izuko said, shrugging. "It's divide and conquer. That said, Todoroki has a vendetta so he might come after me and ignore the flags. I think it's more likely that he wants to wait for the tournament, so he might rein himself in. The weakest teams are the one with the non-heroics students."

"Like you?" Setsuna asked, grinning. Izuko grinned back. "Isn't the tournament gonna be easier if we try to eliminate the stronger teams instead?"

"If you want to fight Todoroki, feel free," Izuko said. Kyoka sighed, clearly not looking forward to the clash. "We could also play full defense. It's an uneven game. Some quirks can protect all flags by themselves, the purpose is to test us so we can show off, doing that will just hurt your prospects for an internship."

"Unlike yours," Setsuna said. Izuko scratched the back of her neck.

"That joke stopped being funny, to be honest with you," Izuko said. Setsuna's grin did not slip off her face. "That said, I think we can kill two birds with one stone."

"You're going to do everything alone and have us stand back and protect the flags," Kyoka summarized. Izuko opened her mouth, then closed again, then narrowed her eyes. "It's too obvious."

"I have an actual plan."

"Oh yeah?" Kirishima asked, leaning in. "What is it?"

"All's fair in love and war, right?" Izuko said, raising her hand to one of the flag poles. Her flames ate into the metal slightly. "It's about owning the flags, she never said that we had to steal them to make other teams lose."

"Geez," Kirishima said, crossing his arms. "Remind me to never piss you off."

Izuko's smile was brighter than the sun.

Dabi was not someone who would leave a debt unpaid. There were three of them, and each one earned his ire one way or another.

The first debt was the one carved onto his body. His father's abuse, his attempts to create the perfect heir, and the immediate dismissal the second that Todoroki showed the traits that he wanted from his ideal child.

The second debt was one carved onto his mind. All For One could have given her any quirk out of his ridiculous repertoire. During his time at the League, he even heard whispers of his ability to clone quirks. Even still, at first, losing his quirk felt like freedom from the burdens of his father's fame. But then the emptiness destroyed him.

And then there was her.

Izuko Midoriya.

His hand twitched just thinking about her. The wound she had carved into his chest still itched whenever he breathed. A girl so desperate to win that she would kill them both before she yielded.

If only she was a few years older...

Today his destination was a mansion in a part of Tokyo that really didn't look like it should still have a traditional Japanese home. It reminded him of his own home, but he knew what truly lay inside.

The gate at the front was guarded, though only lightly, as to not arouse suspicion. He raised his arms and let them check him over, walking in once they waved him through. It was at the door to the mansion that he was greeted with another unfriendly face.

"You brought it?" the man asked. He was bald, wearing a mask with a childish pattern of a teddy-bear smile, and a glare that looked like it could kill.

Considering the state Dabi was left in, that might even be true. Dabi raised the small suitcase he brought with him and shook it, creating a small sound like marbles rolling around. The man nodded, taking it off him to check the contents on a table while Dabi stood by at the door.

"I'm Yu," the man introduced himself. "And if you try something stupid, I will kill you."

Dabi would usually challenge him to try, but he had more important things at hand. Shrugging, he walked in and followed the man down a hallway, the suitcase left behind on the table.

They ended up walking almost towards the back end of the mansion. Empty halls with ripped off paintings. Yu took a deep breath before opening the door to the last room at the end of the hallway to reveal Dabi's target for today.

She was small. No, not small.

Young.

Too young.

It irritated a part of him that Shigaraki would have loved to snuff out, no doubt. A girl like this surrounded by grizzled men with too much blood on their hands. In spite of that, she looked quite happy, sitting on a big comfortable chair. Next to her were plates of sweets and bottles of chocolate milk. Behind her and around here were plush animals and dolls. She wore a white dress with fresh food stains, like she'd been eating before he came in.

Dabi had the feeling if he brought that up, he would not walk out alive.

She turned to him with striking red eyes, and a horn as long as her own face pointed upwards like a challenge to the heavens. The ashen hair bounced up and down as she greeted him with a very formal "Hi!"

"He brought payment," Yu said. The girl nodded. "His case is… special, he's not here for the scars."

Dabi blinked. She hadn't shown any reactions to them, but considering the job she was doing here it was likely that she had healed many injured people before.

"My quirk," Dabi said. "A man took it from me. I believe you can bring it back."

The girl frowned, waving her arm to beckon him closer. She pointed at a pillow on the ground, allowing him to sit. He would have rather stayed standing, but he wasn't sure if that was proper for the kind of audience. Sitting down on the uncomfortable softness, he looked up and waited for her to continue.

"Can you explain?" she asked. Dabi blinked. She reminded him of his sister. Innocent, young, unambitious but always willing to lend an ear.

How the fuck did a seven year old girl become a mafia princess?

He shook his head, shrugging. "The guy who took it, he pulls it out of you and can put it into someone else. I'm not good with the science stuff, quirk factors?"

"If it's physical," Yu spoke up, drawing their attention, "it should work."

Eri nodded. She beckoned Dabi closer, and he obliged. In the end, in the middle of that weird throne room, between piles of sweets and plush figures, he was left kneeling and at the mercy of a girl with a godlike power.

Her horn began to glow as she slowly moved her hand towards him. He could feel it the second she touched him. Something was pushed into him, a strange energy that came from the horn. He could see it physically shrink, so little that if he were not face to face with her he would not have noticed.

Her arm, too, was covered with scars.

Perhaps that was why she did not flinch.

After minutes he noticed a small change. Something in him ignited. Then, his piercing began to fall out one by one, in the reverse order in which he had stabbed them into his skin. First were the ones between his lips and his chin, then came the ones around his mouth and all the way up to his cheekbones.

But the flame, it was not bright enough yet.

"More."

The girl blinked, her red eyes narrowing at him as she raised her other hand.

"More."

His voice was almost pleading. Kneeling here, looking up at the face of a child-like devil, he leaned into her hands and uttered not a demand, but a prayer.

The energy coursed through him and he could feel his scars shrink away. The fire became brighter. Blue sparks exploded off his fingers, which he kept off to the side to prevent her from seeing them. His black hair, dyed so long ago he couldn't even remember, was flaking away in a wave of something indescribable.

It was like he could taste time on his lips, and when she let go of him, blue flames roared off his back and died out again. He could feel it in him again. Gone, but not forgotten. Lost, and now regained.

Eri sighed, a bead of sweat on her forehead. The horn was now half its size, and he, too, had changed. The hair was red again, like that bastard's. His scars, they were gone, to the point that he could no longer recognize himself in the mirror if it wasn't for his eyes.

"Did it work?" Eri asked.

Dabi looked around, making sure none of the men was going to jump him before taking a step back. He raised his hand and snapped, creating a small blue flame which danced from fingertip to fingertip. It burned, the lack of scars and dead nerves would be hell to pay, but his quirk was back.

"Yes," Dabi said, his voice less raw than happy. "Thank you."

Eri smiled, then promptly fell asleep in her chair.

"You're… certain?" All Might asked.

"Absolutely positive," Sir Nighteye said. His voice was cracking through the phone. He was in a car, driving through a tunnel from the sound of it. "I confirmed the hospital records myself, and from there it was just asking my contacts at the local news station to get a look. There were… recordings."

"I suppose I can't blame him," All Might said. "Fleeing the hospital wasn't a surprise, though his lack of a quirk makes him less of a threat. These… files, they weren't just records, correct?"

"Physical recordings, media of various kinds. Images and videos, some perhaps too explicit for the afternoon news show," Sir Nighteye counted off clinically. "The worst of the bunch wasn't even bloody. It was just… fifteen minutes of crying and screaming."

All Might took a deep breath. His muscles shook. He would reach his limit soon. He shouldn't ruin the day that the students had worked so hard towards by stampeding through downtown Tokyo and grabbing Endeavor by the throat. "I… don't know what to say."

"Are you not angry?" Sir Nighteye said. "I understand that he's not a friend, but he's at least a co-worker you've spent years with. If you feel the recordings are… perhaps not entirely painting the full picture, I can send you copies."

"No, I am angry," All Might said. His voice was as tight as the knot in his chest. He knew, of course, that Endeavor's ambitions went too far, but the extent of his family's circumstances were not something he could confirm by himself. Now, this wasn't even a matter of the courts. It was a matter of public perception. "In fact, I believe I am as angry about this as I can be. I am also quite irritated, because it sounds like unless the media had gotten wind of it first, this would have been swept under the rug."

"Of course it would have been," Sir Nighteye said, sighing. "For once these hyenas are useful; no prosecutor would charge him for this considering the work he does, but now he has lost face. If he doesn't retire, he'll likely move to a place as far as possible and rebrand."

All Might heard a giggle in the background, followed by a loud yelp of fear.

"No pun intended," Sir Nighteye said after a moment, growling out each word. "They're not blowing the whistle until after the festival, if you want to… interfere, now would be the time."

"No," All MIght said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "I don't think I will."

The line rustled. Sir Nighteye likely nodded. "This will be a mess."

"Yes, but I believe it's a necessary one," All MIght said. "For once, why should we put the needs of the abuser and his… enablers above the needs of those four children and their mother?"

"Alright," Sir Nighteye said. "We will talk again. I will organize a protection detail for his family; it might be better to see what will happen before making any moves but there is no harm in playing it safe."

"Yes," All Might said, reading over the file. Just another thing on a long list of failures that he had propped up as the Symbol of Peace. "Thank you, Nighteye. Have you had any leads on the League yet?"

"No," Sir Nighteye said. "I have found some… other things. But until I can confirm that information, it's useless to speculate."

All Might nodded. He knew that habit. The one-hundred percent certainty principle that the other man lived by. He wouldn't even go on a date unless he knew it was going to go well. It was a sign of unconditional trust between them that All Might never pushed.

He had never been disappointed by the man, after all.

"Then we will talk later. Thank you, Nighteye, again."

"Not for this," Sir Nighteye said. "Never for this, All Might."

Chapter 20, upcoming:

She was not Izuko Midoriya.

She was not the Fire Princess.

Right now, she was Helios. She was sun and fire incarnate.

And she saw that image reflected in Kyoka's terror-filled eyes.