Serena stormed out of the hospital without a word to anyone, the cops let her leave, having gotten all the information they needed out of Ayane and not wanting to pester the girl whose mother had been put into a coma. The hospital staff expressed some concern about her well-being, but none tried to stop her from leaving, and nobody else she knew was present to try and dissuade her from her goals.

Serena walked out the front door of the hospital and paused, there was a man dressed in a brown trenchcoat, a white shirt, and a tie standing in front of her. He seemed innocuous enough, with short and wavy brown hair and glasses. There were bags under his eyes from a lack of sleep, and stubble on his chin as if he'd forgotten to shave that morning. Something about him caught Serena's attention however, perhaps it was how he was standing directly in her path, perhaps it was his body language, perhaps it was the way he was looking directly at her. Whatever it was, it made her stop for a moment and acknowledge his presence before preparing to move on.

"I've been waiting for you Serena" the man said "I knew you'd be heading out soon."

Serena paused again, paying the man more heed now. "Who are you, why do you know my name, and what's your business with me?" she asked, clenching her fists and tensing up for a fight. Was he with Darwin? Was he here to finish of her mom? What was his quirk? Darwin knew she was a physical fighter so he'd have sent someone with a more subtle quirk to deal with her if it was an assassin… so maybe she ought to just attack first and save questions for later? But no, Darwin's organization had been crippled recently, even if he still had lackeys left he wouldn't send them out to kill someone already in a coma, that'd be foolish.

"Relax, I'm an ally" the man said as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a badge. "My name is Takahashi, I'm a private investigator who works with the same police department as your mother."

Serena wouldn't have believed him normally, but she'd seen her mother's badge before, and Takahashi's badge was authentic. Slowly she relaxed, the man wasn't a threat, but that didn't mean he wasn't an obstacle. "Alright, then what's your business with me? Why are you waiting for me?" she asked suspiciously

"Your mother is a dear friend of mine, and we were working together on this case." Takahashi said as he approached Serena "so right now I think you and I have a common enemy that we very much would like to see brought to justice."

Serena nodded "so you're here to help me then? Are you sure? I'm not licensed, anything I do to bring Darwin to justice can be considered a crime. If you come along with me you'll be branded an accomplice" She said

"Don't get me wrong, I'm not planning on helping you fight, my quirk isn't suited for combat regardless." Takahashi said "but I am still going to be of use to you. Unless you already know where Darwin is hiding?"

That gave Serena pause, she hadn't really thought ahead that far yet, but it was true that she had no leads on Darwin's actual location. She'd been planning to return to some of the slums she grew up in and interrogating the local criminals to get leads, but their spheres of influence were small and ultimately worthless, she didn't know who to go to for real information on the underworld. Takahashi probably did though, and that made him an asset.

"Fine, you've got a lead for me then?" Serena said, turning away and beginning to walk.

"The 6th Hell Bar in one of the outer city slums" Takahashi said "I've got a contact there who says he's seen a few of Darwin's thugs hanging around causing trouble after having a few too many drinks. It's probably not their hideout, but if we find his thugs…"

"We can trace them back to him" Serena said "got it, lead the way then."

Takahashi nodded, pulling out his phone and sending Serena the address after a quick exchange of numbers. "Meet me there, if we travel together we'll draw too much attention. And Serena…"

"What?" Serena asked impatiently

"Remember that I'm the expert investigator here. When it comes time to fight, that will be your time to shine, but until then I need you to do exactly as I say. Understand?" Takahashi asked "I've got a network of informants and an undercover persona, relationships built up over years of work and worming my way into the trust of many dangerous people. If you strike out on your own and blow my cover it could ruin everything, my career, our chances at finding Darwin, our safety, everything."

Serena hesitated, then nodded "fine, I'll play along, you better not try and make me do anything weird though. I've spent enough time in the slums to know the kind of roles girls like me usually end up in. I don't give a damn if it messes up your career, I'm not enduring that ever again. Got it?" she asked, holding out her hand.

Takahashi nodded and accepted the handshake "understood, it's a pleasure to be working with you." He said, then typed a message on his phone as he turned and walked away to take his own route to the bar. "S-1, this is Taka-san, investigation has begun, target's compliance achieved, will send details of discoveries hourly." He set the message to send automatically in an hour, then put the phone away and walked off, he had an investigation to run.

- UA campus -

Shin looked to his phone as a text message appeared on the screen, then spoke up "it appears Takahashi and Serena are on the move to begin their investigation, starting with the lead we selected." He said, turning to face the others in the room.

Law, Ayane, Onaka, and Freya were all seated at a table with Shin in one of the school's meeting rooms. Onaka and Freya were visibly distraught, having only just received the news of what had happened the previous night and not having fully recovered yet. Ayane's expression was more solemn, filled with determination now that she'd moved past her initial distress over it all, and Law was implacable, his professionalism allowing him to keep his emotions in check.

"So… you've explained what happened and what's going on with Serena's end of things…" Freya began "but why are we here?"

"Now that the plan has begun, we will explain that" Law said "the short version, however, is as such. We want you three to be the ones to bring down Darwin and the remnants of his gang."

"What? But we're not even provisional heroes! And Darwin is a full-fledged villain!" Freya protested

"Your status as heroes in training means you are permitted to use your quirks in combat if granted permission by a teacher" Shin said "ordinarily, in the case of an emergency we instruct students to run away and leave it to us pro-heroes, but on occasion we do authorize combat depending on the circumstances. This will be one such occasion."

"You will not be doing this alone either, I will be accompanying you when we perform the raid on Darwin's HQ and handling most of the thugs." Law said "the point of this is that one of you must be the one to defeat Darwin."

"Why us though? If you guys are gonna fight anyway why get students involved? And why us specifically?" Onaka asked

"For Serena's sake" Ayane said "you two haven't seen her since the incident… she's handling this… exceptionally poorly, to put it lightly."

"I guess that makes sense" Freya said quietly "if something were to happen to my mom like that I'd be pretty upset too."

"It's more than just that…" Ayane said "her mom means more to her than usual, her mom adopted her and got her off the streets, and you both learned part of the kind of life she had before that back at camp right?"

"Oh…" Onaka and Freya said in unison

"Now people from the streets came and took her mom away" Ayane explained "and you know how she is when a fight has personal stakes… she's out for vengeance now… and not just beating him up and embarrassing him like she did to Yabo…"

"Oh… that's bad" Freya said, realization hitting her like a truck "but that doesn't quite explain why we need to be the ones to do it instead."

"It has to do with how close the three of you are to her" Shin explained "we cannot allow Serena to come into contact with Darwin again, if she fights and kills him she'll cross a line she cannot come back from. However, it is unlikely that him merely being apprehended by pro-heroes will provide her with the catharsis needed to alleviate her grief. He needs to be stopped and brought to justice, but not by just anyone, there needs to be some degree of personal justice delivered."

"And as her three closest friends, that means we're the best choices for it" Ayane said "if we go get vengeance for her, it might be enough to satisfy her without her crossing that line."

"To be safe, we're also having Serena take part in the investigation to actually locate Darwin, following some weaker leads while we track down the real leads" Law added "this way she's still contributing to his downfall."

"Of course, the ideal scenario is simply that Leona wakes up from her comatose state" Shin said "if that were to happen it would be much easier to calm Serena down and convince her to restrain herself. While the four of you work on taking down Darwin I will be traveling to the hospital and seeing what my psychic abilities can do about that. However, since there's no guarantee this will work, we should move forward on the assumption Leona will not be waking up."

Onaka nodded slowly "alright, that sounds like a good enough plan to me, but what if Serena does discover Darwin's hideout? Sure she's going to hunt down weaker leads, but they're still leads… and she's smarter than she looks."

"If it comes down to it… I'll confront her" Ayane said "I'll sign contracts with Law to enable me to contain her in a location and stop her from going after him. By force if I have to. "

"You said she's learned to absorb electricity though." Freya said with concern "if you two fight now…"

"I'll be fine…" Ayane said "she won't seriously hurt me… I believe in her… I believe in our relationship together… I will be fine. I know it."

Freya didn't look convinced, but Onaka put a hand on her shoulder and shook her head. With a sigh Freya relented, turning her attention back to Law.

"Very well then, if everyone is up to speed, I have a patient to go try to wake up" Shin said as he stood from the table and walked to the door. He left without another word, leaving the three students and their teacher alone in silence.

"Will this really be enough?" Ayane asked quietly "even if Serena gets her vengeance through us… her mom is still…"

"I believe everything will work out." Law said "I think this plan will satisfy her need for payback… and I have faith in Shin. I've known the man for many years now, and he's never failed to achieve something once he's set his mind to it. I'm not much one for blind faith, but if there's anyone who I'd place it in, it's him. I can only ask that the three of you place that faith in him as well, and in Serena's strength. She's a strong girl, even if Shin fails, we need to believe she'll recover eventually."

Ayane and the others nodded, and Law stood up from his seat. "The three of you are excused from class today, we need you rested and in fighting shape for the raid when it happens. I however do need to actually go teach the others and inform them about what has happened." Law said, then he too left the room without another word.

Ayane, Onaka, and Freya sat quietly in the room, silence hanging over them like a dark cloud for what seemed like an eternity before Onaka spoke up again. "We're going to do it." She said firmly "we're going to save Serena. I know we are." Onaka wasn't sure who her words were meant to reassure, maybe Freya, maybe Ayane, maybe just herself, or perhaps all of them. But she stood from the table, her quills bristling, and slammed her fist into her other hand with a loud smack.

"I swear, we won't fail. The three of us can do this I promise" Onaka said, forcing herself to sound more confident than she felt. "We've already been through worse right? We dealt with those monsters in the forest during camp, and we've fought villains before. We've trained for months through grueling exercises and learned so much from the rigorous studying we did together. We rocked the sports festival despite competing with 2nd year students with actual provisional licenses and field experience."

Onaka held her hand out, palm down, as she walked between Freya and Ayane's seats and held it between them "the three of us as a team, we've got this. All we need to do is take down a lousy villain! We've already gotten through way worse stuff than that, so what's there to worry about? Come on guys… let's crush it!"

Freya smiled, reaching out her hand and placing it on Onaka's, the girl's confidence and enthusiasm catching on quickly. "Right, we're heroes, right? We've been through worse, and we'll go through more by the time we graduate, this is nothing more than a pop quiz for us."

Ayane smiled as well, putting her hand in with the others "of course, our friend is counting on us, there's no way we'll fail. We're going to win, and we're going to save Serena from this nightmare, and we're going to make everything right again." She said.

Onaka looked to Freya, then to Ayane, grinning at both. Her efforts to boost their morale had succeeded, and that in turn boosted her own. "Alright then! On three! We're going to save Serena and go beyond! One! Two! Three!"

"Plus Ultra!" the three girls said in unison.