Sunday morning, 07:00 a.m.

Midoriya had been up since before the break of dawn, like a top student addicted to studying before study time actually started. An honor under normal circumstances.

The previous night, before Midoriya went to bed and caught up on lost sleep, Aizawa had ordered him to go down at 07:00 p.m. sharp the next day, and wait for him behind the doors of the Principal's Office. Locked out on his own in a waiting room, he staved off boredom by biting his fingernails, the pieces of which serving as an offering to his anxiety with the hope of soothing it. Had it been up to him and him only, he would race outside and make a rush in pursuit of Mineta.

The blockage that kept him docilely stuck to his seat was of mental nature. Words. Always words. Mineta had written them. Aizawa had pronounced them…

Extracts from Mineta's letter to his Homeroom Teacher:

… Aizawa-sensei, you are a great teacher. You taught us well. Since you don't really know me and we don't have personal ties, it's obvious you won't let your emotions get in the way and drive you to make bad decisions.

I know many of my classmates can be stubborn. They're heroes, after all. It won't be easy to talk them against running after me, just because they're heroes, but I also know you can do it. Because it's very important.

We both know it is not the best time for U.A. to attract negative attention. From the beginning of our first school year, we've had nothing but problems: security was breached, villains attacked us, students have been hurt or kidnapped, people are wary of your safety measures, journalists criticize you over any little thing, parents think you failed to protect us, and public opinion distrust heroes in general. Now, try to imagine what could happen if reporters found out another student ran away and disappeared. It could bring about your downfall, destroy U.A. and result in catastrophic consequences for heroes. It could be the end of our profession as we knew it.

Without even wanting it, I acted selfishly and might end up doing more harm than I could ever do since I first got my feet in P.E. Grounds. This must NOT happen, or I won't forgive myself.

I never thought I would say that to a teacher one day, but…I'm counting on you, Aizawa-sensei…

Aizawa, too, had been treated to the letter-reading workshop. This extract from Mineta's letter to his teacher - their teacher – was proof enough that the stern man mattered to the boy.

For reasons Midoriya might have already sensed, Aizawa had decided not to read it out loud while in class. Only Midoriya had been granted preferential treatment with a short, but tear-jerking duplicate piece of Mineta's most intimate exchange with the frightening teacher to date.

His eyes were full of shame! Midoriya sadly remembered the previous night, when Aizawa had knocked on his door to let the green-haired boy know about his involvement in the rescue team. Aizawa-sensei…I know you feel guilty too. What Mineta said about you hit you in the heart, but you can't show it, or it would prove Mineta wrong. I understand you more than you think.

As he kept waiting, Midoriya turned on his mobile phone and searched the internet about the psychological fallouts - and their painful sequels - that resulted from child mistreatments. In that specific case, he found himself making links between Mineta's childhood, his own and their classmates', despite sensibly different upbringings.

Midoriya's mother had raised him with love, tenderness and consideration to his needs. She was a sweet, supportive woman who had never failed to maintain him in the path to fulfilling his dreams. Even in seemingly impossible directions for a boy born Quirkless and full of illusions, to the point of achieving the unachievable. He thus saw himself as privileged, despite his unlucky affiliation from birth to a 20% minority of powerless people without a future.

For his part, Bakugo had grown violent and impulsive under his short-tempered mother's influence. A necessary evil, for it had its positive side. Bakugo was an innate genius with a high rate of success in whatever he did. For a young honesty-worshipper who could see through people, constantly being fawned over – mostly because he scared people off with too much rough power - had pushed him beyond his limits to prove his status as a talented hero, and be legitimately regarded as such. His unshakable will to become the best, under his own pressure, stemmed partly from the tenacious family beliefs that he was worth it.

When a light was shed on most of his classmates' past, similar helpful pillars existed in their respective lives.

Iida had benefited from a challenging family background - a highly esteemed lineage and a celebrated brother - with even higher expectations put on him. This hence gave him the lifelong objective to uphold the family legacy and live up to it. Uraraka - a girl born in a modest, low-income but nonetheless caring environment - had grown the will to become a hero who would earn enough to cancel her parents' debts. Todoroki had been brought up the hard way, to become his father's "symptom child" and object of ambitions to compensate for Endeavor's own failures to climb to the top. From this unchosen role of son sick from a dysfunctional family, Todoroki had developed a fierce desire to distance himself from the paternal figure – by becoming a better person and a different hero.

The list went on. In all cases, support existed in a way or another.

More generally speaking, most if not all Class 1-A students had suffered in a way that had propelled them to seek better horizons. Midoriya himself had gone through the mill – at school, in everyday life, when facing the inevitable path destiny had paved for him. In spite of it, he had his caring mother, faith in his dreams and admiration for inspiring role models like All Might to fall back on. Many were the pillars of support he could rest on and draw energy from.

But what did Mineta have, or had had for himself?

Judging from what the fatherless dwarf had implied, close to nothing. Neglect and violence in his family life. No ideas or dreams to bounce back on. A disadvantageous size, unattractive physical traits, a Quirk regarded as useless, a fearful and far too sensitive relationship to life, uninteresting stories to tell and perversion as a one-and-only way to make people notice him.

In fact, the world – a harsh and unforgiving place - had not waited for Quirks to appear to be tough on this kind of beings. Mineta was one of them.

Midoriya drew multiples conclusions from these studies.

"He held his mother in such contempt that he projected her image on every girl he came across!" he mumbled aloud. "Not knowing what a hug is…it's like I didn't know about Quirks!"

Midoriya never confessed it to his mother, but that very early-childhood moment when she held him tight in her arms – being sorry for giving birth to him Quirkless – had proved the warmest display of love he had ever received. How depressing was it to realize Mineta ignored how it felt.

"He lost his father when he was young. By lack of a strong, reliant male figure as a frame of reference, Mineta also lost the ability to ask his males friends for help. Out of shame." Midoriya mumbled again, more controllably. "Kacchan once rejected me out of pride, because he regarded my lack of Quirk as a sign of weakness. He comes from a family where he was encouraged to be the strongest, but as time passes, I sense that our friendship is rebuilding and I think he sees it now but can't admit it yet."

His awareness of this reality was already strong, but he wouldn't cease to repeat it until he can properly assimilate it.

"Mineta…was my friend too and he couldn't see it, because I didn't invest half the efforts I invested for Kacchan." Midoriya also expressed his consciousness of such a problematic failure. "He didn't ask for help, but how could have he? I was the one to give him a speech, in the locker room, about "how we need to stick together as a class"! I lectured him on things like mutual assistance and supporting each other between friends, but I either assisted or supported him the way I acted!"

It felt radically weirder than his previous instances of mumbling. Such overactivity in his mouth usually was for personal passions, or in preparation for a strategy driven by feelings like apprehension, admiration or excitement. Right now though, he was just sad.

"You are still your friend and we mean no harm!" he remembered saying to him. How silly I was! No wonder Mineta blew a fuse and cried his eyes out during the U.S.J. incident. It takes steady nerves to keep one's cool in situations like this, but I yelled at him like a wing nut, whereas he needed support the most. It sucks so bad!

Midoriya was about to open a new window on his screen, for other similar researches about human psychology, when the upsetting vision of a former opponent made him cringe bitterly.

"Shinso." he coldly greeted him. "What are you doing here?"

"Aizawa asked me to come down here and wait for him." the indigo-haired boy answered quite neutrally, taking notice of his freckled rival's hesitation to reply. "Quirks are not allowed in here Midoriya, and I don't bite."

"W-why are you saying that?" Midoriya chuckled nervously, on the defensive.

"Because you look afraid." Shinso said, heaving a bothered sigh. "Are you?"

It actually was a sour-tasting mix of fear and anger. The fear of losing Mineta, paired up with the resulting fatigue, on one side. And his anger on the other side, aimed at Shinso, the incarnation of deceit – a man dying to enter Class 1-A no matter the cost, going for it the merciless way…even if it was synonymous with leaving heroism aside, having been suspected of doing so during the Sports Festival. Shinso might as well have taken on Mineta more aggressively, ask for his spot and openly pressure him out of the school…had the grape boy not done it himself.

Grieved Midoriya remembered what Mineta and Shinso had talked to each other about, on that ominous afternoon. It could have happened for real; Shinso taking Mineta's place. As he gave a piece of his wrathful mind and exposed his views in the brainwasher's face, Midoriya's home truths made their way into Shinso's heart. The latter reacted with none other than silence, unable to retort any hard-biting push lines like he once had been renown for. Discomposure twisted the traits of his pale-colored face. It also worked with the word "despondency".

"Don't blame me for that, Shinso!" Midoriya defended himself. Not after what you did to me at the Sports Festival! he was that close to add, but luckily interrupted himself, having learned his lesson from his muddled chitchat with Mineta.

His words mattered and could have consequences at any time. The indigo-haired student had done nothing bad to him; barely had he used his Quirk in a way Bakugo would have called "freestyle". His defeated Class 1-C interlocutor had been a worthy adversary to learn from, after all. Pointing a finger at him for just drawing on his resources, as if it was his fault, served no fair purpose.

"After I did…what?" Shinso got impatient, reading his thoughts like in an open book.

"…our last face-off at the Festival had me acquire a few reflexes." Midoriya completed with a healthy dose of diplomacy. "It made me reluctant to answer you, but let's call it a stupid reaction born from being dead-tired. No offenses, it'll get better over time."

Midoriya wasn't as obliging and friendly as usual. The great Midoriya everybody loved bore the brunt of Mineta's downfall, and it reflected on his uncivil mood. So did Shinso.

"Don't you worry about it." he morosely said. "I grew accustomed to being regarded as a dangerous lunatic with a villainous Quirk since I was a little boy. You being the millionth doesn't change much. Just drop it."

Diplomacy was a failure. All nervous and put on edge, Midoriya tried to straighten up by waving his arms and hands to show how much he disagreed with his own tongue.

"Wait, that's not what I meant!" his distressed voice rang out.

"I told you it was okay, Midoriya." Shinso insisted, with a voice as cold as it was sullen. "I'm not here to cause trouble, but to resolve them. Or try to."

Did he really? Midoriya wouldn't call it a lie, though it cost his sense of trust many efforts.

"Me too, actually…"

"That makes two of us, Hero."

They stared at each other sourly, their respective eyes overflowing with shameful bitterness. Neither one of them was the subject of these hard feelings. Both had a common person to apologize to, and working as a team ensured a better chance of being successful.

If they got along well. The answer would come soon.

Extracts from Mineta's letter to Hagakure:

…I'd like to thank you for "tolerating" me. I know it took an entire class to handle such a hard task, but you probably suffered a lot because of me, because I successfully made you feel so uncomfortable that you must have wanted to actually be invisible, despite already being so, in order to get out of my reach…

…On behalf of my dirty hand, I present you with my most heartfelt admission of guilt and request for forgiveness, regarding the way I went through your drawers and tried to rub your clothes. I deserved every lashing and chastising that day, for completely ruining the Room Contest, creeping everybody out and requiring Sero to tape me up from head to toe in order to stop me. Would you mind just offering him my apologies? There are more people in this world I owe explanations to than there is paper and time to write; I have no choice but to issue proxy acts of contrition…

…I forgot to express my regrets to Ashido for yelling out for her underwear to fall off, whilst she danced in the classroom. Thank All Might, you took care of dirty work that day and punished me on her behalf; that athletic girl could have dissolved me into a pool of pure alcohol for less than that. You were a real hero, doing a friend justice and saving my petty life at the same time. Please be reminded that I didn't deserve that, that you girls are way too good for me and karma exists for a reason. Should you need justice to be enforced, it is already done by yours truly…

Aizawa exited the Principal's Office minutes after his two students met up.

In no time at all, he briefed them about what had been told and decided on the previous morning. All except the reason why Midoriya had been chosen to conduct searches by his side.

"We need to go. Right now."

His adamant tone of voice left no room for arguing back.

Both boys agreed to leave as soon as possible and nodded in complete obedience. Aizawa was satisfied. Until he remembered All Might's own regrets, about failing to reckon with warning signs and not sounding the alarm on time. Communication was vital to maximize group cohesion. Mistakes were not to be repeated and bad surprises to be avoided.

"Present Mic will take over from here. Class will shortly start and he will make an announcement to your classmates, to give them more details about our plan. Before we leave, we need to go to the Heights Alliance and wake Asui and Koda up. They'll come along."

"Why them?" Midoriya eventually asked.

The craving to ask the same question about his own involvement tore his insides apart.

"Koda's ability to control birds to find someone may come out handy. And we need Asui's tongue as well." Aizawa perfunctorily explained.

"How so?" Shinso joined his archrival on his quest for answers.

"When we find him, Mineta might react in an erratic and unpredictable way. If we're lucky, talking will be enough to dissuade him from doing anything stupid. However if he tries to hurt himself, we'll have to put him out of danger by immobilizing him." Aizawa summed up. "Your frog classmate is good at capturing "preys" with her tongue and she'll do the trick, if I don't get him first. Let's say it's a less radical alternative to asking Todoroki to freeze him still."

Midoriya's mouth was on fire, burning with thousands of questions on his lips. Among them the obvious: why weren't Kaminari, Iida and Bakugo – Mineta's best friend, the Class Rep who felt responsible for failing him and the most powerful Class 1-A student respectively – included in the search squad?

Todoroki's case was already closed, thanks to Aizawa's funny comparison. For Mineta's sake – each second mattered – both boys would keep their curiosity for themselves until the right time showed up. Too bad for their lips.

"Look at that sluggish sop!" an angry voice groaned.

Mineta was back at his own trial, for a second act. Thousands and thousands of witnesses booing, jeering and shouting down at him. Juries, magistrates and prosecutors on the same side against him. No lawyer to defend the grape boy. Once again, a faceless judge presided over the court from above the fray.

"I hope the defendant is in no hurry. We have a lot more to discuss."

The judge, similar to the accused boy in size and fully covered in grim ripper attire from head to toes, reviewed a list of crimes recorded on a thin, meters-long paper sheet. It felt both brief and eternal at the same time, as it often was during dreams where space and time were distorted.

Each time the judge turned to Mineta – asking him if he had anything to say about the crimes he was accused of – the grape boy cowered in fear and guilt. His buffoon appearance eclipsed whatever honorable or heroic was left of him. The judge's flat head was the only body part visible between the edges of a black hood, unveiling a blank, featureless and milky-white surface that emitted noises despite not having a mouth to talk. The embodiment of terror.

Mineta swallowed his saliva and blocked off his breath, shaking as if a fever was making his blood boil. He was being judged for everything. His lack of honor, unwillingness to acknowledge the wrong he caused, cowardice, uselessness and mediocrity. The more serious cases against him got, the deeper he sunk down a rabbit hole like a tunnel he would never see the end of.

All throughout the courthouse, a maddened audience of people were calling him names. Their insults mirrored Mineta's sins – unspeakable reproaches for so many horrors the purple sheep had pronounced that should never have passed his lips. It was a cat and mouse game of yin and yang.

"You flappy couch potato!"

"Shame on you, softy!"

"Die, fifth!"

"Spineless waste!"

Mineta looked at them sullenly. A glum and morose sensation of defeat seized his whole being. He was nobody and they filled the entire universe.

The screaming crowd was composed of various individuals – more or less acquainted to the world-hated boy. Peddlers spread rumors about the worst kind of things Mineta could have committed, had he not been stopped on time. Random citizens, heroes and even villains with burning embers in their eyes yelled nonsensical hurly-burly at him. Members of the public had voices that played like Mineta's former friends and classmates; their scornful murmurs resounded in an agonizing song of rejection, as they looked down on him from so high that they turned into giants. Similarly hostile were Mineta's ancestors – his father, and ever mother - who were repudiating him. Teachers wouldn't miss a thing of it, looking daggers at him with such precision that he felt his heart cut into piece after a single look at the razor-sharp blades.

All against one. Endless pattern.

Although their voices sounded more than familiar to ring many bells, Mineta had a hard time identifying and recognizing them all. His vision became blurred all of a sudden. It was not the work of tears, but annoyance. As surprising as could be, the boy's fearful aura was vanishing, slowly then rapidly replaced with a boring feeling that things were repeating themselves too many times to his liking. Enough was enough.

Feeling like a tornado was sucking him all the way down to the magmatic planet core, Mineta became resigned to attempt one last shot at glory. If rage and anger were to have the last word in this Judgment Day comedy, he would make one earth-shaking hell of a show and give his public a run for their money.

Hate for hate.

"At least, I'm now done with you people!" he angrily shouted, recovering his courage as he felt flames heating his skin. "Eat those balls, fools! See their zero-like shape? It's the amount of all the fucks I give! Fuck you!"

He knew his trespassing time was only seconds away. For the occasion, his last moment of attention before passing out was ultimately offered as a defying gift to the judge.

"What about you, faceless jerk? Am I found guilty yet?"

His turn had come to be surprised, when he heard the judge laugh eerily while his eyes lost the ability to catch the light.

"Verdict's not in yet, but we'll get to that soon enough, although the answer's already obvious. Rest assured that you will know when the time is right."

On these last words, it all faded to black, sending the boy's conscience to drown in the void of a black hole.

Mineta awoke with a start, his crippled body lying on the concrete floor under a bridge. Stiffened by the pain, his limbs and articulations ached terribly. His hurting back had been worst hit. The purple boy felt like he had awakened seconds after falling asleep on a barbed-wires bed.

"Hello, Mr. Hell."

He waved his hands at the shining sun to block its blinding light from burning his retina, a ray of which had warmed his skin during his dream – right at the moment when he was being vacuumed into the underground residence of Satan. For an initially unknown reason, he felt lighter than usual. Almost naked, if not dangerously close to anorexia like had been on a diet since his birth. He soon found out his body was not to blame.

"Oh what a lovely day, for Mt. Lady's damn sake!"

Some very kind-hearted lad had stolen his backpack during his fitful sleep. Goodbye phone, water, food supplies and headphones. All he had left, deep inside his pockets, were a few notes and coins to buy a ramen soup as a last supper. Even his ID card was gone. From then on, Mineta would be just like the judge in his nightmare.

A man without a face. I looked awful in this photo anyway. Even serial killers would run.

Rage drove him crazy. He raised and pumped his closed fist, pounded and smashed it against that cursed hard ground responsible for the awful quality of his sleep. Mineta had been robbed whilst in a passive state that permitted no defense. Attacked in a moment of weakness.

How cowardly of a coward stealing from another coward. Vicious circle.

Yaoyorozu's image came back to haunt him. A girl Mineta had himself abused of in a similar fashion, taking advantage of her own inattention to latch himself onto her back, ogle hidden panties, or acquire target on her forbidden fruits. Same treatment to Asui, Uraraka and the other girls. Same at the Onsen. Same in the locker room. Always the good-old way. Predator glances stolen on the sly, clandestinely, underhandedly. When no one was looking, when the preys were weak, vulnerable, uncovered and naked. Those thieves, who had deprived him of his identity, served this balanced world as knights of justice to restore order by mean of karma judgment.

Return to sender.

"That means YOU may be the villain!" he pointed a finger at himself.

Mineta changed his target and hit himself. In the face, stomach and chest – causing balls to come off and spread around. Bystanders looked at him strangely, as it usually happened as a first contact procedure, whenever someone laid an eye on his weird physical features for the first time. Children laughed hard at him, similarly to bullies collectively taking on a scapegoat smaller than them in a playground, with the teacher passively approving of the stronger crushing the weaker.

The grape boy didn't mind and walked on through the streets. Silence worked on his behalf to express how indifferent he was to the world mocking him. Even when two observing customers, sitting at a sidewalk café, commented his odd appearance…without knowing their faulty sense of privacy were betraying them for Mineta's hears.

"Look at that testicle-haired dickhead over here!" one sniggered scoffingly. "He seems really like that freak student I saw on TV during the Sports Festival, don't you think?"

"They looked the same, indeed." his friend added with a smirk. "Yeah, I remember him too. He wasn't that interesting to watch, in my opinion. Most of the time, he was either hiding or hanging on some hot chick's back. The only thing worth screen time was when these sexy cheerleaders showed up. I remember seeing that foul-looking teenager giving them two thumbs up. Nature sure played a nasty trick on him, but at least he's got good tastes."

They shrieked with resounding, indecent laughter. Two adult males discussing female minors' anatomy with lustful eyes. Mineta was that close to clap his hands and go thank them for making him look like a good person and less of a bad boy, only for a moment.

"I don't know about you, but it's likely he's gonna become a villain in ten years!" one of them pointed the purple boy out with a head nod. "It's troubling how similar ugliness has made them."

Twice the same remark in less than forty-eight hours, about how good or bad a ball head would turn within a decade – and inspired by Mineta's own words. Karma had its reasons, which Mineta knew nothing of. All he could tell, for sure, was that many perverts with television sets by their side had "enjoyed" the attractive curves of Class 1-A's female population, in their own way.

Mineta was not the only one out there. But poor was he, for he truly was the one and only whose pervy traits were publicly known and pointed at. Whatever. I left U.A. for good reasons, right on time before its reputation takes a bad blow. For once, I made the right choice. It was genuine, without a perverted agenda. I'm proud of myself.

The tiny boy entered an even tinier back alley, where no one would disturb him.

After a while, his starving stomach called him to order. Ramen would be for another day. He had to save and put the scarce resources at his disposal on ration. Emerging at the other end of the narrow alley, he walked to a bakery and bought a melon pan. A simple, light meal for a penniless child frugal with his money. In the footsteps of perversion, once the marrow of his bones, penny-pinching was his new original sin. The melon pan was enough to avoid swooning in hunger and keep a clear head, until he figured out what to do with his life.

Deprivation wouldn't derail his thrifty mind. One point for the grape.

"Villains feel ten feet tall nowadays. Their power grows a little more every day. Media coverage of the League's stunts boosted their confidence and exhilarated their pride. They are twice as numerous as last autumn. At this rate, they'll be walking among pedestrians in their suits like they have become normal citizens…"

"You can say that again! The batch of new hires will have a lot more work to do than their predecessors. Poor students; as if they didn't suffer enough this year!"

Two third-year students at Tokyo's Institute of Heroic Studies & Sciences were having a conversation, in a neighboring street while buying drinks at a distributor. Overhearing them from behind the stoplight pole his back was leaned against, Mineta quickly realized U.A. was not done facing problems.

"The Symbol of Peace is gone, but the bigger issue by far is that his enemies are getting united." one warned, inserting a coin. "Back when All Might still was the indestructible mastodon we grew up watching on the news, villains knew they didn't stand a chance."

"It's true. They used to be individualistic people divided among themselves, without a sense of teamwork, not organized crime syndicates with any strong ideology to draw them closer to each other." his colleague recounted, hands shoved into his pockets. "'Divide and conquer'. All Might wasn't a dictator or an absolute monarch, but he certainly benefited from their divisions to impose his dominance. For once, the right people were the most powerful!"

The coke can rolled into the machine's collecting bin. The second student took it out, handed it to his friend and ordered his own drink.

"Weren't we a bit too reliant on him anyway?" the first student commented All Might's hegemonic role.

"We had no choice. Don't you remember the last badass villain All Might defeated before retiring? He came pretty close to losing his life that day."

"All for One…"

The mention of such a bad-luck name had them shiver in fright. Mineta as well.

"All Might used to be the strongest. He isn't anymore and society is changing. People became more demanding and have lesser tolerance for heroes failing them. Villains have evolved as well, and soon they will outsmart heroes. It's harder now to follow that path in life."

"Looks like we could use some hope in something…or someone."

"Actually, there is one…for the villains."

This improper joke was of such poor taste that it wasn't even raised. With both drinks now resting in their hands, they strolled around the streets.

"What did you mean?"

His schoolmate cleared his throat, a somber aura making his eyes flare with worriedness.

"Villains were different in the past. For the most part, they were outcasts, petty thieves, lame bank robbers or dregs of society, with no ambition in their criminal activities but to flee and hide. And as for heroes, they used to be on a roll and their reputation was enough to make a villain's life difficult. Those who flew the highest competed against each other, so much that they eventually lacked "work" to do. They subsequently turned into popular stars acting in movies, playing songs on TV or performing in advertising. It was like Hero Duty had been downgraded to the rank of part-time student job. Over time, being a hero was dismissed as an option, and many of them…kind of slacked off. Some even sank to levels dangerously close to villainy."

Mineta felt explicitly concerned and directly targeted. Just like Kyoka Jiro could have, regarding her potential as a future famed musician who already knew what to do to top up her income.

"Things have changed a lot since…"

"You better think they did! All Might was like a lighthouse. From the moment it ceased to shine, those who dwelled and reveled in darkness returned. And they have a bone to pick."

"Don't you forget about Stain. That guy breathed new life in the cause of many villains, by showing the world that heroes were not all saints and could not be trusted. And the worse is that it's working, not only for the bad guys! The citizens' and governments' lack of faith in their protectors is increasing. Villains feel stronger and protected, because they have found a spiritual guide to rally with and worth fighting for."

"I get the heebie-jeebies thinking that guy just escaped!"

He was not the only one. Mineta came close to suffering a fatal heart attack in the open, upon hearing the dreadful news. That was unexpected.

"Don't mention that…but you are right. The newest generations of heroes have a great deal of work ahead. They're in for a big surprise!"

And what a big one, more than Mineta bargained for. The news left him devastated and disheartened.

If Mineta was the embodiment of lust, Stain was the same for terror and a great source of despondency for any budding hero - no matter how lustful they were. Stain alone could plunge the country into chaos. He was a man who killed; not only heroes, but what they embodied as a whole. Their models of virtues, their values, their peace, their world.

All it took was a spectacular jailbreak to take the world by storm and bring it to its knees. But as contradictory as it seems, Mineta couldn't regard the deadly fugitive solely as a shadow of pure evilness. For it wouldn't be fair for this unofficial, off-the-record mentor.

The influence of Stain's reasoning had traveled to ears far beyond his circle of enemies. He and Mineta had reached the same conclusion: that not all heroes were worth it. Some were bad, from their deep nature to their intentions. Shinso had sensed it. Many people had sensed it. Mineta was an unpopular boy living off depraved mannerisms, dreaded to the point of infamy, and who had vicariously enjoyed the prestige of being a hero student. An impostor, to put it politely.

But he was no hero and Stain's ideas had him distantly, obliquely become aware of it. A teacher Mineta never had considered learning from. If I ever find myself on his way, I'll have to "thank" him for teaching me a good lesson.

The sun was already up in the sky when All Might knocked. It was here. I'm sure of it. Just open the damn door already!

It was a banal, crumbling residential area for low-income workers. Almost identical to Midoriya's family residence, had it been a century older. Two living places for two very different students, but two books with the same cover in metaphoric language. Yet another misleading appearance, to better evidence that clothes didn't make either the man or the grape.

"Open up, please!"

Still no answer, like no one lived here. Was it his memory? No. All Might wasn't that old. As he kept knocking, doubts and preoccupations stirred up ill feelings in the former N°1 Hero's mind.

U.A.'s definition of student-teacher relationships had always been subject to ambiguity.

On the one hand, a student's private sphere was difficult to access. Teachers were not parents or relatives, let alone psychologists. Their semi-professional approach fell within the framework of education. Distances had to be kept, a safe length from privacy.

On the other hand, those same students were up-and-coming heroes. U.A. shared similar purposes with institutions like the Army. Future alumni would bear heavy responsibilities and lives would depend on them. Should one of them be psychologically unstable, consequences could be disastrous. What better way did teachers have than searching the private sphere? Although intrusive, it was necessary to find whatever purulent pain hid in the shadow of Mineta's past.

As he was about to, All Might slowly found himself as anxious as if he was to perform open-heart surgery. Sticking his nose into Mineta's family life was a risky move, but the wound would only be healed by finding the source of the problem, before it becomes infected.

Time was running out, sowing discord between All Might's patience and apprehension. Something wasn't right and it was still the same obstacle. To hell with patience.

"Texas Smash!" he shouted out.

All Might broke into the apartment. As he came inside, the foul smell of alcohol put his nostrils to test. Dying by asphyxia was worse than being killed by All for One. The sooner he'd find the mother, the quicker they'd get out. His first wish was granted, not the second.

"She is not going anywhere. This is…troublesome."

He stood solemnly for a while, paying respect to the deceased human being in reverential silence. The depressing sensations death was brought to his eyes drew All Might's full attention. The smell was nothing in comparison.

First, he had to let Aizawa know of this bad news. Yet another thorn in the side nobody needed, in addition to three other ones: Mineta wasn't here, no useful piece of information could be extracted from a dead body, and someone would have the harrowing task of announcing a mother's death to a dejected son with presumed suicidal tendencies.

Call it a bad day…

All Might walked through the apartment, looking for clues about the only one left to search for. It was a professional detective's job, not a hero's. All he had to do was calling the police, report the death and leave. For the occasion, All Might's empowered form returned pro forma.

"This is not going to stop me from finding you, Young Mineta! Unless…"

The TV set was broken, but not the radio. Chance had made him the random listener of the right channel, at the right time. A broadcasted breaking news – informing the population of a dangerous criminal-turned-escapee's second holy crusade - threw cold water on All Might's hopes.

"HE is back. This is not going to help our case."

Starvation was back for another round of belly gurgling.

Mineta stopped on a bench in an uncrowded public park, brought to a halt by dizzy spells and alterations of his alertness level. Little did he know that the place was rarely visited, thus not making it an automatism to go lay on the grass for a nap. Fatigue, moral suffering and physical weariness quickly added up to his list of ordeals as honored guests. Thanks to their global offensive against his sanity, the grape-haired runaway experienced hallucinations.

"Leave me alone!" he yelled to nobody.

Someone was observing him. Impossible in such a disused hellhole! Was it in illusion? Yes. An illusion that felt real.

Baaad boy! the wind carried into his ears.

"What the fuck…"

No one behind, no one on his left or right, no one before him. No freaking one. His surrounding felt all but empty though. Voices rose, asking for answers. A parquet circle worth of people besieging the purple sheep. He couldn't see them, but he could hear them.

Fade to black. Rapid-eye movement sleep begins.

Mineta found himself on a stage, tied to what appeared to be an electric chair, with squashed remains of rotten tomatoes and eggs scattered on the wooden floor. An angry audience hooted him badly, asking not only for payback but also for the humiliated performer to give back his life to his swindled Maker. His existence was but a shameful hustle.

Around him, pictures scrolled. It was his future unfolding fast-forward. From student to graduate, from a standard man to hero, from anonymous to fame…and from fame to public scandal, from trial to demise, from tabloids to oblivion. This is what he would have become after U.A. opened its doors to him. A fallen, deposed celebrity whom other stars and Pro-Heroes disallowed and banned. Among them familiar faces, as always, and the subsequent pain it caused the terror boy.

Fade to black. Back to the furious crowd, still insulting and berating him.

These people were former admirers, followers or enthusiasts from a seemingly betrayed fanbase. It didn't look Mineta had been the subject of all this passion beforehand, even less the center of it. Heroes in general were, as though the whole reality had been an ongoing entertaining artwork, a TV show or an Anime series from the very beginning. Was it like the Truman Show? The Mineta Show? Better the former than the latter. Better neither of them, in fact.

It nonetheless seemed to be some kind of counterfeit reality show, with both actors and consumers cemented together by total fakeness. Fans were all here, but none seemed happy.

Mineta owed answers to the entire planet. He had to pay for what he had done to this show, to its reputation. Day of reckoning had come. He obviously was the most unpopular character in the entire lore and timeline. People from around the world disliked, hated, pummeled, despised, bashed him. They wanted him out, written off, dead and forgotten. And they wanted it now.

Act two.

A giant movie screen dropped down from a blurry ceiling, stopping in its fall right before Mineta's eyes. As it turned on and became bright light, burning his pupils in the process, a clip filmed in stop-motion animation started screening. It was his father, the day he had lost his life to protect his son. Over and over, the animated short started and restarted. Mineta saw his father die ten, fifty, a hundred times.

His own memory had turned against him, and it wouldn't stop until he's driven mad.

But the toxic hallucination had other plans for him. The crowd suddenly disappeared. His detractors were gone, all but one remained. His mother.

"You seem to have some memory issues. Let me help you refresh it. Repeat after me: "I will never find a girlfriend. I will never find a girl. I will…""

A voice said it was false. He thought it over and over, until he finally remembered. I can't say that I will never have a girlfriend…because I've already had one.

It was years ago.

In middle school, a kind, open-minded and adorable girl had accepted to open up to Mineta. She had fallen in love with him, he had fallen in love with her. She had been the first not to judge him on the spot, satisfy herself with who he was, and vice versa. In order to seduce her, Mineta had turned into quite a real gentleman and behaved like one. The first and only time in his life.

Unfortunately for the two of them, the School Principal – another woman – was an old-minded being with no tolerance for unruly brats kissing each other in the playground, despite being strictly forbidden to. An "old bitch", his then-girlfriend had brazenly nicknamed her.

The first and only time in her life as well.

For this open-hearted insult, and because acts of sadism against innocent children in love were their harsh teacher's house specialty, both had been punished and their parents informed right away. On the following day, the girl had returned to the boarding school from home with a black eye. "My father is an asshole!" she had cursed him with all the hate in her heart.

It had been her last logical thought, before she openly rejected Mineta and mounted the whole school against him. The choice had not been hers; either accuse him of trying to rape her and ignoring him for the rest of her life, or risk getting expelled and sent back into her abusive father's claws. Survival being more important than love life, she had inflicted herself the worst martyrdom by promising never to approach a boy again. It was no dabbling fantasy, but a promise in the raw.

The girl's whereabouts had been unknown since Mineta had lost touch with her.

But the boy's calvary was far from over. Still not content with his treatment, the Principal had kept him back for another two hours of detention. He'd have to write down lines of absurd lecturing about decency, and live permanently with knots in his stomach whenever he'd meet girls or women again.

And the climax of his hardships was yet to happen, during the boy's reunion with his father – as he picked him up from school for the first time. Not only since Mineta had first entered school, learned to walk or talk. The first time ever. Mineta was to meet his male genitor like he was a perfect stranger, which technically was the case for a man jailed before his birth.

Mineta had expected a punitive paternal roasting upon being freed of his extra hours at school.

Fearing for his cheeks and ears, he had told the truth and prayed for his honesty to limit the damage. His biological father had himself been released from jail a day before, redeemed from his own violent instincts between the walls of his cell. Opting out of the punishment option, the latter had taken his son by surprise - by acknowledging Mineta's account of what had happened to his ex-girlfriend, and allowing his beloved boy to dry his tears against his chest. He even had shown compassion to the purple pupil's deep suffering and regrets, far more and better than his mother had since giving birth. Instead of upbraiding him, the fatherly figure had made him swear to become a hero, who would fight evil men and women of this world mistreating children.

In a first, single meeting, the two had become closer than Mineta had ever been to his mom. And an hour later, his father had died.

Allegedly because of him, according to his widowed wife. His own mother. Another woman.

Fade to black.

"Do you remember, now?" the maternal voice whispered. "What a short memory you've got."

Mineta was now fully aware of how the whole story had unfolded. "Wrong" was the answer.

His mother had used him as a convenient punching bag to do justice herself for the loss of her husband, and she had been wrong. Her son had found females guilty of the acts of psychological torture his female persecutors had committed, and he was wrong.

Like mother, like son. Shinso Hitoshi had not been the only one aiming at the wrong target.

The boy's deviant, perverted and impudent behavior had been motivated by the many inflicted pains from his childhood he barely recalled, forever quarantined in his sub-conscious. Taking a disrespectful approach to women was justified, or so his wounded self thought. It was tempting to affirm it out of convenience, but even that way, it couldn't be every woman's fault if a handful of them had made him suffer. Just a big stroke of bad luck. Murphy's law at its greatest.

His life had been a river of injustice. Everybody's life was, and avenging himself on whipping boys – or girls – was pointless.

Fade to black. Back to slow-wave sleep.