Mineta's letter to Tsuyu Asui:

"Dear Asui,

I'm sorry.

And I beg you for pardon for everything I did or said to you since we first met. My hands on your chest, my inappropriate comments on your body, my prurient ogles, my sexual drives I failed to control, my degrading words, unclean thoughts, perverted remarks and disgusting actions. I could quote them all, but I'd definitely run out of paper first. Although it doesn't matter much, as I sense your memory is sufficient in itself.

Treating you that way was unacceptable. You are a great hero, Asui-chan. A wonderful person and a faithful friend, who deeply cares for others and would never let anyone down. And a great classmate. And someone…I cared for too. Regardless of what my behavior said of me, I've always admired you, Asui. And I liked you. I still do.

But you didn't deserve me as a classmate. I swear you won't see me again or have to worry about me being around you. These times of fear and unease are over. Same for the tongue lashes. I earned it. Every single one of them. I've been hit and beaten by a lot of people in my life, but nobody had ever done it your way. It was genuine, benevolent. It was your way to shake me up, make me aware of my mistakes and help me grow out of perversion.

You did your best, really.

But you are not my mother. Not my sister. You're just a human being who's fallen victim to my antics, and sorry seems to be the only thing I can say. No matter how suspicious you thought it was – me harassing and apologizing to you the same day – it is but the truth. I can't pretend otherwise, or it'd be untrue.

It was my job to grow up, I didn't meet expectations and I made myself redundant, for lack of having been suitably sacked by those who should have long ago. You don't want you to have anything to do with an uneducated brat anymore.

Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Each to his own inner battle.

Farewell, Asui, and thank you for trying.

Mineta."

Sunday late afternoon, around 04:00 p.m.

Using his Anivoice Quirk, Koji Koda spent the day commanding birds to patrol over the city and look for the missing two-legged grape. In order to increase chances of finding him in absolute discretion, the five-member team's participants were wearing civilian clothes. Drawing attention from news-greedy journalists, with all incurred media hijacking, was not on the agenda.

Thankfully, hot summer temperatures were long gone, and they still could wear their respective hero suits underneath their casual attire with guaranteed anonymity. Just in case.

Whist Shinso and Midoriya conducted researches in another part of the city, and Koda worked solo from the top of a high-rise, Aizawa-sensei and Asui mingled with the crowd. They interrogated bystanders, listened to their conversations and looked out for clues. The lower the sun went, the more likely they were to return empty-handed.

When Aizawa paused to buy drinks at a refreshment stall, the Frog Hero locked herself up in the girls' restroom and privately read Mineta's letter for the tenth time or so.

She reviewed it, one memory at a time, as Mineta's faithful recounting of the worst night of his life spat her own punitive words back at her face. Asui hadn't believed him back then, not any more than the other girls, despite undisputable concerns buried inside her conscience, which she had miserably failed to hear and translate into heart language. At least, not in time.

She read the letter an eleventh time. It still did not allow Mineta's words to sink in, only highlighting her ambiguous stance. Why won't I let this obsession go? What's wrong with me…and with you?

The short boy's farewell testimony of his past lecherous self – spoken from his heart - bore unsettling similarities with some unconfessed, but growing feelings its female addressee had for the grape in return, or so the emotional innuendos hidden behind each word tended to affirm. Either way, it was about long-overdue time she questioned her uncertain heart about this.

Froppy's on-and-off relationship with the grape boy resurfaced. She meditated on it, and found the whole thing even more absurd than before: regularly tongue-slapping the pervert, out of attention for him? Paradoxical. Distrusting, but supporting him at the same time? Weird. Maintaining both her distance and a cordial understanding? Ridiculous.

It was like she had always wanted to look out for him, but had chosen to reject him for the sake of convenience instead. Nonsensical! she thought. I could have done better.

It wasn't the first time her spirit of friendship was being challenged. Her breaking down in tears at the dorms proved it.

Asui's levelheaded persona tended to backfire and alienate her friends' feelings. She remained a popular, reliable and trustworthy classmate to everybody, but Asui felt otherwise. She had already damaged her relationship with her classmates once, eventually fixing it in the end. Sustaining a casual relationship with Mineta by convention, without exploring what the problem actually looked like, had a taste of stained friendship.

Would she earn the right to fix it again? She hoped so.

"Asui. It is time." Aizawa called from outside.

She obeyed and came out in a second.

Extracts from Mineta's letter to Yaoyorozu:

…I can't help wondering what would become of me, if the Anti-grape Super Moves you wrote down actually existed as means of self-defense against me. Would Midoriya smash me? Would Bakugo burn and kill me? Would Sero choke me to death? Would Kirishima destroy me? Would Todoroki freeze me?…

…Don't mistake it as impromptu sarcasm, but I wish I had a secret Quirk that'd allow me to turn myself into a shovel, which I believe would make my self-destructing work easier. I was already on a rock-bottom level when I first met you. After I saw you for the last time, I had fallen a hundred meters deeper, digging my own grave for my dignity to rest in peace. Now that you're reading this, I must be somewhere deep down under. Not six feet under yet, but very close to being. I just hope the Earth will not have an allergic reaction when I reach its core…

…Never had someone been so right about me, before that one moment you said I was a problematic element. And never had an understatement been so obvious. My name and heroicness don't match, it's obvious. I have forgotten what being a decent man is, it's obvious. I was born to grope girls, it's obvious. I am a liar and a manipulator, it's obvious…

…I honestly hope you won't try to kill every leech on the planet because of how I latched myself onto your back. And I hope you will never, ever be disgusted of having kids in the future. Watching me as I cried like a baby, whined for no reason and made a bratty snort look well-behaved, must have made you immune to crying; something little children do a lot. Please, just forget that I ever existed and live your life, without being afraid of what every human being is at the beginning, only because one of them suffered a growing error…

Farewell, Yaoyorozu.

The Sneaky Little Pervert."

An hour later, Aizawa and Asui reached a big square where a funfair was being set up. Children and parents from all around the city already converged together and flocked to the most popular attractions. A perfect place to hide. The duo split and went separate ways to inquire on their own.

Asui stared passively, as a confectioner made cotton candy for younger and older customers alike. Watching the sugar-made strands spinning into a rotating cloud of sweet cotton rang a bell in her mind. Had Mineta felt like cotton candy, on all occasions when Asui, Sero or Aizawa-sensei had wrapped him with their respective Quirk to silence his foul-mouthed comments?

Probably not. Sugar never was that much sour-tasted.

"Have you seen that boy?" the Frog Hero asked a girl and her mother.

The 6-year-old reacted to Mineta's picture in school uniform with an innocent giggle.

"He looks funny. Look, mummy! He's got big balls!"

Coming from a child, such an awkward sentence would raise a smile. And it did indeed made her adult mother laugh even more innocently.

Instead of scolding her little girl for the inappropriate choice of words, she rewarded her with a tender look and stroked her hair. The happy mother gave a negative nod as an answer to Asui's question, and walked away. Later on, she'd probably explain to her daughter the meaning of her words and teach her how to use them more wisely, with all due kindness and patience.

What would have Asui said, had she been in the mother's shoes? The same thing. To her younger brother and sister, for sure. Not to Mineta. The strong bonds and collusions between the mother and her daughter reflected Asui's fondness for her siblings. She loved, and always would love them. Not out of courtesy, but love. Just love. Nothing like tongue slaps.

For all she knew, a part of herself felt the same regarding the problem child Mineta was. Not just the person, but his personal issues as well. She could sense them, assisted by her well-developed intuition. The hero in her wanted to do more for him. The girl soul hesitated. The former victim downright rejected it.

Whatever her true feelings for Mineta were, she had done things the wrong way. It was the curse of a girl who'd exert perfect control over her emotions, but could experience much more trouble reading into a specific kind of people's feelings. Those she couldn't actually read, who they were either liars, or that she just…couldn't read. But why?

Because my own feelings get in the way! she assumed.

It didn't mean Asui felt indifferent toward everybody, as evidenced by the many good friends she had and was on excellent terms with. She had no issues reading their emotions and showing them hers. In the problem boy's case, however, she was an even bigger problem. More precisely, her heart was. For she didn't actually know how to position herself and where to stand.

Their bonds and relationships – beyond the girl vs boy, hero vs pervert eternal clash – had yet to become clear.

After a while, Asui couldn't hold it anymore. She went to see her teacher, whenever she could spot him in the dense crowd.

"Aizawa-sensei…I have a question. It's about…"

"Mineta?"

She nodded positively.

"Kero…I wanted to know why you asked me to come along."

Aizawa met her demand and gave full details of his intentions. In the end, their mission came down to something even more disappointing than she had feared: yet another instance of making the grape boy innocuous in a restraining cocoon. If not Aizawa's ensnaring cloths, it would be Asui's role to strangle the boy with her tongue and neutralize him as though he had become dangerous.

Quite the opposite of how she had pictured her encounter with Mineta, hence another question that started burning on the Frog Hero's lips.

"Why directly think that Minoru-chan needs to be captured like a villain? Does it mean we actually believe him when he says that he is a bad person and deserves to be treated as such?"

The audaciousness in her honest reaction took the teacher off-guard. His student really was full of surprises, an assessment Asui could clearly catch on Aizawa's wrinkled expression.

She instantly covered her mouth in horror, regretting her bold words and dreading an impending dressing-down. It was happening again; Asui criticizing one's decisions as being unreasonable, and unwillingly causing unnecessary distress. Or maybe not.

"Asui…" the teacher said with a nonchalant, deadpan-as-usual look. "You must not forget that your friend is a student of U.A. High School. He's not the only endangered one. For both his own good and the future of U.A., we need to protect him from himself. However, a lot of things will have to change as well. He won't return if his environment remains the same."

He was now calling Mineta a friend of hers. She had called him Minoru, as if she had switched to a first name basis with him. It was not a coincidence.

Strangely enough, she felt stirred. Asui was good at reading between the lines. She knew Aizawa-sensei was playing his role as an adult attending to the most urgent things: the survival of the school, his students' future and his job. Any human being endowed with rational thinking would do the same. A hero had to know how to be assertive enough, both with the people he fought and saved. Mineta's distress had to be overlooked; putting him to safety, and ensuring his doings caused minimum negative impact, inexorably came first.

Nevertheless, Asui was not the kind of credulous dupe who'd get easily fooled by appearances.

Aizawa unaffectedly wished for Mineta's recovery and well-being. She could count on him to take action, going as far as forcing himself to put his ways into question. Mineta's case would set a pattern to make sure it would never occur twice, and Aizawa intended to learn from it.

"Mineta WILL receive the help he deserves," he repeated, looking at her in the eyes like he was able to read her mind. "Let this serve as an example of what a hero's duty is."

Not so bad for a cold, apathetic-looking soul who struggled to analyze and translate one's thoughts and emotions. He is a teacher. He plays the bad guy for the time being. The one who scolds, she summed up for herself. And I inherited the good role. I…am the one who listens and gives comfort.

On the condition that she reached him, on time. "I must have a serious conversation with him…figure things out once and for all, as a hero, a classmate and a friend of Minoru-chan…I won't have peace until then." words from a past promise rang out. I have to keep that one.

Her motivation came back stronger than ever. She had been given a task of paramount importance; she'd take it to heart like the mission of a lifetime. Question of honor and survival.

"I believe you'll be a better asset to this mission if you gain heights. From the roofs, it will be easier to keep an eye on what's happening down there…and a good reinforcement training to work out your muscles." Aizawa said. "Keep in touch with Koda. If you find something, let me know."

The Frog Hero properly complied, and jumped high enough to propel herself against a concrete surface she had much fun climbing. Up there, she'd be allowed to wear her hero suit without civilians spotting her, and conduct her researches in her comfortable green attire.

Finally, some good news to rejoice about.

In the meantime, Aizawa received a high-priority notification on his mobile phone. Setting an eye on it brought him deep anxiety. A highly dangerous fugitive was roaming free, and Japan's intelligence service suspected him of hiding in the vicinity.

Finally, some bad news to fear for.

With Stain out in the wild, the rescue operation had to be aborted. U.A. did not need another casualty among its ranks. Should media learn that some of their students were out on patrol while a deadly madman hung around, it could spell the end of the game.

"This is not good at all. Not to mention that it is my fault!" Aizawa mumbled worriedly. "If my predictions are correct – and I know they are – there will soon be other young heroes going all over this city. And they may not know…"

Just as he was about to contact the school for further advice, he received a phone call from All Might. It lasted barely a minute, the time for the former N°1 Hero to forward a piece of crucial information and exponentially blow up Aizawa's stress counter.

"Are you sure she has passed away?"

All Might's eyes bid a final farewell to the lifeless corpse, as it was been lifted over and evacuated on a stretcher underneath a white blanket. Rescue workers had officially pronounced her dead, following a failed cardiopulmonary resuscitation attempt by the first-responding team.

"Unfortunately, yes." his depressed voice confirmed. "I arrived too late."

The only possible thing left to do was to undertake some damage limitation. Starting with Asui and Koda, whom the teacher had to call back as soon as could be. He also had the responsibility of monitoring Midoriya and Shinso's whereabouts. Especially Midoriya, first recipient of a message ordering him not to jump into action, and take shelter.

Midoriya knew putting up with Shinso would not be an easy thing. His part-time archrival, sharing the position with Bakugo, had not said a word since their morning departure.

As they methodically rummaged through the streets of an entire district – leaving no stone unturned – the green-haired hero feared his Class1-C counterpart might make life harder than it already was. But the boy's half-closed, deep-purple tired eyes had gone dull. His lackluster walking behind Midoriya triggered a warning signal in his mind.

For the occasion, the freckled One for All Holder revived his altruistic self.

"Are you alright?" he asked him, all while patrolling in a little-frequented narrow alley.

Shinso wasn't in the mood to talk and did his best to avoid eye contact, pretexting street noise to make his ears deafer than they were. Since they were supposed to work as a team, Midoriya wouldn't let go until it hit a nerve and upset the mute boy's patience.

"I thought you had learned your lesson from our last encounter. You should not mess with someone who can make you do whatever he wants…like shutting your mouth!"

The threat of a Quirk use on him didn't stop Midoriya. Bakugo had been the best teacher.

"I have nothing to fear from you, 'cause I know you won't do such a thing."

Shinso's legs sped up, overtaking Midoriya on his left side. He turned over and stopped in front of him to cast a cold, antipathetic glance with enough daggers to pierce through a building. Quirk use on an ally was like friendly fire; illegal and condemned. Although the anger-driven General-Department student seemed to have forgotten about that.

"Really? How do you know about that, Mr. always-so-sure?"

"I know you are not like that. It's enough for me."

Midoriya looked back with a firm, but cool-blooded expression. Shinso turned more aggressive, clenching his fists and frowning hostilely like in the face of danger, or a challenge.

"How pretentious! What kind of arrogant hero would jump to conclusions and speak his mind about someone he knows virtually nothing about?" Shinso vented, his absence of gestural communication augmenting his gloomy aura. "Oh wait, I know…someone like you. A self-centered All Might admirer, whose Quirk was cut out for the job. Now let me ask you something, and please have the decency of not lying to me: what do you hope to learn about a manipulation expert, whom people regard as a misdirected villain specialized in indoctrination that ended up in the wrong prison? It's pathetic how you still fail to grasp how much I despise you!"

Despite this explicit display of scorn, Midoriya couldn't help noticing the unstable, deep-rooted emotion in his schoolmate's voice. On the outside, Shinso wore a tough, impenetrable armor of insensitivity; having friends was of no interest to him. But inside his eyes, Class 1-A's most benevolent member could read another story. Mostly of disappointment and remorse.

"You are the one lying to yourself, Shinso. Not me. And I still believe you are not like that. Not anymore."

Shinso did not step aside from Midoriya's way, effectively preventing him from walking forward and following through with his task. He looked calmed-down outwardly, and a reticent stance supplanted his previous effusive blowups. He crossed his arms.

"Sooner or later, you'll have to admit it. I have a brainwashing Quirk, I'm a brainwasher and I'm fine with it. I live only for myself, I don't care about anyone and I hope they all get rejected the way I got rejected. And I will never, EVER change. Not until I prove all the people who doubted my heroism wrong."

The shell was cracking. Shinso's muscles and nerves were so tensed up that a fever-like series of quakes rocked his skin. Guilt was spreading all over.

Shinso's acting weird. Minutes ago, we were looking for Mineta. Now, he's making it all about him! What is he trying to say? Midoriya sensed. It's obvious Shinso is feeling guilty. I can't let that happen like it happened to Mineta.

Instead of pushing or bypassing Shinso, Midoriya walked straight ahead, toward a schoolmate more likely to despise himself than he pretended not to – Midoriya was convinced of it. He froze still, casting a shadow on Shinso's face as though he was trying to cool down the boiling frustration on his red cheeks. Their noses came to a stop within a tiny lane of air from each other.

"You're a soul in torment waging war on itself, Shinso-kun. But if you actually weren't a hero inside, I wouldn't have fought you and you wouldn't be here. One cannot just become a hero with a snap of the finger. It is a long and arduous work of every moment. We've all been through hard times to get to this point. You too, Shinso. And Mineta as well. Right now, as we speak, he's fighting his demons. Like many others before us..."

Midoriya knew more than well how someone trying to change looked like. Bakugo was a perfect example.

"Why are you saying that to me?" Shinso asked annoyingly.

"Because that's what you need to hear, not what you want." Midoriya answered. "That little game of guilty consciences has been prevailing on an ongoing basis for far too long! Haven't you had enough of it? You and Mineta are undergoing the same baptism by fire. Not a single great man is immune to that. Life is never easy for us, heroes. We more than often have to learn things the hard way, through challenges and hardships. The same applies to you, Shinso-kun. You try as hard as you can to find yourselves in this world. Just like Mine–"

Shinso suddenly grabbed him by the collar, his anger increasing by an order of magnitude.

"Don't you compare me to…to him!" he hiccupped, hesitantly. "How dare you?"

Midoriya had initially dreaded the worse. Reasoning with Shinso involved a risk of getting brainwashed into submission, and exposed him to potential harm in case Shinso lost his temper. Midoriya could have attacked him for the sole purpose of self-defense, but it would have ruined his efforts.

"That's not what I meant!" Midoriya swore submissively, not trying to remove Shinso's hands.

"But you said it anyway. Mineta and I have nothing in common, got it?"

"Shinso, please!"

"Stop saying these things to me. It's just annoying, and he's no better than–"

That was the last straw and the camel's back was broken. As Midoriya's turn to get upset had arrived, he swept Shinso's hands away in a quick, unstoppable motion. The determined expression setting Midoriya's eyes on fire instantly overrode any hope of changing his mind through intimidation.

"Enough with the toxic jealousy!" he shouted his irritation out. "Don't you think it is more than inappropriate to bicker like kindergarten kids, while we've got someone out there who's in danger? I've never seen someone with so much misplaced dignity; do you really hate yourself that much?"

The indigo-haired boy hadn't expected such brutal cutting-down to size.

"What the heck, Midoriya?" he defended himself. "You're speaking nonsen–"

"Why Shinso? Why lashing out at someone who didn't do anything wrong, especially not to you? Mineta didn't have a clue who you were. He didn't know A-NY-THING about your past and the pains your Quirk caused you. So why him, Shinso? Why?"

Midoriya's wrathful retort was so violent, and powerful, that Shinso's rage vanished almost magically. The over-packed amount of jealousy emptied out of his eyes, immediately replaced with a mournful flash of clarity. Shinso had made a mistake, out of resentment. Midoriya had done it as well, but out of despair. For all the things he blamed on Shinso – making someone suffer in a moment of weakness – Midoriya bore the same responsibility. And here they were, spilling beans and venting on each other for the exact same error.

Shinso's eyelids came close to each other, into a blurry line of salty water, and tightened.

"Because..." he stuttered. "I was looking for a culprit. Someone to blame for my lack of luck, but I was just fooling myself. Mineta was the perfect target; an unpopular boy everybody hated, or so I thought. In the end, Mineta was just a victim and I made myself the culprit. Now that I think twice about it, you were perfectly right to compare me to him."

That was also brutal. From denial to devasted feelings, there only was one minuscule step.

"I don't get it!" Midoriya expressed his confusion. "How did you–"

"Thanks to you yelling it loud enough for me to hear, I just became aware of it."

The heart-tugging confession floored Midoriya, and his verbal poise fell apart.

"Shinso-kun…"

His unstable interlocutor struggled to keep the eye-to-eye line of contact.

"Mineta and I, we…we started from the same point, but went in opposite directions." Shinso explained. "At the beginning, I was not best pleased and felt like life was screwing with me. But then, things actually started to change. I started to change. People noticed me, I was lauded for my performance at the Festival, Pro-Heroes and teachers alike acclaimed me, many classmates got to understand my Quirk better…and I made my first friends, something I truly didn't give a damn about. Mineta, however…"

Wet fragments of spontaneous sadness popped out of Shinso's eyes, until they became too heavy to keep his chin up. As his head went down, so did the hail of tears.

"He came to U.A. without a hitch. With only a limited Quirk to rely on, he was accepted into a Hero Course. But the longer he stayed, the more he got bogged down in his many flaws. Until the day he gave everything up, left his ambition behind…and lost all he had."

Never had Shinso's word sounded so sincere. Midoriya couldn't believe his ears. As a result of his silence, the indigo-haired student let it all out.

"I contributed to his demise!" he cried. "All I wanted was to become the hero I deserved and had worked so hard to be. I ended up behaving like the villain people used to confuse me with. I guess one's destiny cannot be dodged. I won't escape it neither, even if I want to!"

He wiped his face, leaving nothing but an air of regret and sorrowful puckers in his dried skin, and mutely resumed the researches in the same alley.

Behind him, Midoriya stood still.

Twice in a week, the noble-hearted hero had tasted the sour, misleading flavor of vengeance in other people's behaviors. First with Mineta, as he had unsuccessfully attempted to target women as retaliation for the female tormentors of his past. Secondly with Shinso, hungry for justice to put heroes with advantageous Quirk in their place. This had not led to anything good, apart from a divergence in choices: Shinso taking it upon himself to turn the obstacle into strength to reach a higher objective, Mineta failing to overcome it and falling into a spiral of self-destruction.

All the cruelty of the world and human nature resided in this endless circle. A circle that could still be broken.

"Wait!" Midoriya begged. "Listen…I know things can be complicated between us, and we don't get along well. But…"

As he mentally wriggled to find the right words, Shinso slowed his pace, but neither turned back nor brought himself to a halt.

"Never mind." he said. "We're not here to talk about my problems and I shouldn't even have mentioned them. If you think it was inappropriate behavior, all I can do is repent because you were goddamn right. I behaved like a stupid, spoiled brat trying to draw attention. I'm ashamed of myself. "A soul in torment" is not an expression I'd use, but I think you got the gist."

Had he spoken for a second longer, Midoriya would have suffered a guilt overdose. Shinso had endured his fair share of trouble in the past; rubbing it in was useless.

"You were not drawing attention, but only asking for help. It is normal to feel that way when something unfair happens but is not righted." the formerly Quirkless boy declared. "It must have dawned on you that Class 1-A overhead your conversation with Mineta, right? I know he told you about his past, and you know he suffered as much as you did. For all that, it makes neither of you villains. The real problem is…someone who's been hurt can still hurt other people."

The statement hit a sensitive part of Shinso' heart, but not in a negative way. Midoriya was speaking in that language of wise knowledge of someone with quite an experience.

"Mineta figured it out, when the unfair harm he had caused girls became obvious. It was too much for him to handle, and he couldn't forgive himself." Midoriya summed up. "You figured it out too. Now, you're trying your best to change the way you want to make people accept you. The Shinso I met at the Sports Festival – a "selfish brainwasher" like you said – has evolved since. Nothing of what you said about yourself is gonna change my mind about it. "

"It's not so simple…" Shinso murmured with a sorrowful voice, eventually stopping in his tracks. "When I met and confronted with Mineta, I still was full of anger. I didn't feel so much different than someone fundamentally bad."

Midoriya walked to him. Once within arms' reach of his back, he softly patted his shoulders.

"It's just an illusion, Shinso. I've got someone in my class – someone I deeply care about – who used to be more villainous than any people at U.A. He is a different person today, but it took a lot of patience to watch him grow. Nobody changes in a single day."

Much to his own bewilderment, Shinso had a limpid idea of who the villainous-behaved student was. If Midoriya could see the good in him, it might as well bring about major changes.

"Is it…true?" the Brainwashing Boy timorously muttered.

"I told you so: being a hero is a long-term job. You, of all people, know it well. I know it. And Mineta knows it too. He just needs more support than others. Everybody is different."

His wisdom sowed the first seeds of hope, to a moderate result.

"Far be it for me to be pessimistic…but if even I find it difficult to change, despite being raised with the willpower to fight the odds from a young age, Mineta…"

"…will succeed too. That's why we need to work together, as a team, to help him achieve that. Changing is the greatest achievement ever. We're all in the same boat. Though we have some deficits, we fight. We're not heroes yet; we struggle hard to become heroes. The more we support each other, the more…the more…"

Shinso eventually turned over to face his grief-stricken schoolmate, when the sounds of sobbing reached his ears.

"Are you crying too?"

It was already over, erased in a swift motion of the fingers to wipe the eye sockets drier than a desert. But the cries of his heavy heart still moaned in the high-pitched lamentations of his voice.

"I can't believe what I'm saying." Midoriya groaned. "All these "beautiful words" that just came out of my mouth…are hugely different from reality."

"From what I heard about Class 1-A, aren't you bunch of emos famous for being the most cohesive and close-knit group of future heroes in, like, the entire world?" Shinso sarcastically pointed out.

Midoriya straightened his back and stood upright.

"Reputation is a thing, reality is…more flexible." he sniffed morosely. "We, indeed, mutually support each other a lot, but not all of us benefited from it. Some were…excluded."

Just this once wouldn't hurt, Shinso was the first to smile and take matters into his own hands.

"So, we're even."

"Huh?"

"We both made the same mistake, we are about to fix it together and I must say…"

"Yes?"

"…that you helped me realize I could still make a difference. Truth is, I was blind to the bad deeds I had done. I was constantly nursing a grudge against myself and the world in that unfriendly manner of mine. But that was until you put me out of my own resentment with that pathological, ironclad optimism of yours. I wouldn't have been able to forgive myself, had you not once again stuck your nose in where it wasn't wanted. Now, I have an opportunity to make amends. You're doing a pretty decent job, Hero."

To set a precedent, Midoriya found himself being both Shinso's first true confidant, and the first acquaintance to be actually consoled by Shinso. It felt original, bizarre...and refreshing.

"Shinso-kun!" he cried again.

"Today, it is Mineta's turn. He's not gonna forgive himself if we don't do it first."

A second smile reflected the first.

"That's what I wanted to hear!" Midoriya shouted victoriously, fist raised like a flag on conquered land. "Let's go back to work."

So they did.

In the heat of the moment – stormy verbal exchanges and cathartic releases of tension – neither of the boys felt the vibrations from inside their pockets.

"Aizawa-sensei: 3 missed calls, 3 new messages."

The angry mass of disillusioned fans. The judge with the facial surgery gone horribly wrong. The army of grape clones. When Mineta opened his eyes, they were all gone.

"Where am I?"

Still in the same abandoned park. His autumn-colored body was covered in dead leaves. The sun was already far below the horizon. Night was setting. The temperature was dropping. Mineta stretched his limbs back and forth to soothe his sore muscles. The freezing evening air had extracted him from his dreams, right on time before frostbite mottled his fingers.

"Don't tell me I've been sleeping all day!" he cried out in awe, yawning abundantly. "I'm gonna get jet-lagged as f–"

"Run for your life!" a male voice screamed in terror.

The man in question did exactly what he had told Mineta to do. He scurried off past him into the dark at breakneck speed, crossing the park in a split second. Right behind him, following narrowly in his footsteps, a dense crowd of evenly panicked pedestrians stormed the area. A horrified expression of pure fear distorted their faces.

"Don't you stay here, kiddo! There's a powerful villain in there and he's gonna kill you!" one said, pointing a shaky finger at the narrow alley the mass of civilians was fleeing from.

"It's the Hero Killer!"

"Stain is here!"

It came as no surprise, especially not after what Mineta had heard earlier the same day.

"Uh-oh."

Panic quickly spread in the city.

While most citizens fled the danger, some of them actually tried to get closer. Pro-Heroes had yet to come to their rescue. Police forces were busy barring the way to the few admirers of Stain's methods and views – a minority of which could potentially be villains.

Blending into this chaotic hubbub, Class 1-A students went unnoticed without their suits. They were on the run themselves and caution were advised. For the time being, they kept a low profile and hid behind a truck. However, some of them were already dying to duke it out.

"The timing couldn't be any worse. We can't wait for that!" Kaminari lamented.

The Blonde Pikachu only came fourth after Sero, Ashido and Uraraka – already worried about Midoriya's involvement – in the order of the most impatient ones ready to don their suits.

"It is too dangerous!" Iida chopped with severity. "Acting carelessly is the best way to get into trouble. We need time to find our classmate while staying safe. Let's do it the disciplined way."

"I agree." Todoroki confirmed. "People already know us as heroes, sometimes even in civilian clothes, and the Hero-Killer is not anybody. Nasty stuff could happen if he recognizes us."

Both the Class Rep and Endeavour's son had automatically become de facto leaders of the group, thanks to their own unspoken-of experience in surviving an encounter with Stain. Nevertheless, Iida's mufflers quivered in eagerness. The Ingenium Hero champed at the bit to boost his engines and chase after his lost friend. All it took was that self-decided permission he still refused to grant himself.

In the event of a failure to save Mineta, additional causalities were certainly not needed and he knew it. It's so sad for you, my friend… he gave him a solicitous thought. But we'll find you. I promise.

"Mineta is also in danger out there!" Ashido commented. "If Stain finds him…"

It was equally true. Time was against them.

Whilst the streets echoed with shrieks and police sirens, the students rattled their brains with the insane objective of formulating a plan in less than a minute. As he was getting his head all twisted trying to find a solution, Iida deferred to optimism.

"It's hard to believe, but I place my trust in Mineta. He knows who Stain is like any of us."

"But shall he trust and love himself enough not to tempt fate?"

Fumikage was once again the center of attention.

"This isn't the right time to be witty!" Uraraka exclaimed, looking askance at the Bird Hero with a touch of irritation. "I told you humor lessons would have to w–"

Fumikage shot them a black look.

"Do I look like I'm kidding? I'm being very serious!"

"I'm sorry, Fumikage-kun…" Uraraka scratched her hair in awkwardness. "What did you mean when you said that?"

"Uraraka-kun, I'm a Prince of Shadow. When the world gets dark, my vision expands and I can see things people don't usually see. Whenever someone suffers because of some inner battle between darkness and light, I can feel it. Right now, I feel that Mineta is close, very close and…he's surrounded by darkness. So much darkness! A part of him wants to get it over with life."

The more he gave sordid details of Mineta's suspected suicidal tendencies, the colder the air felt. His classmates shivered in horror, most of them still incapable to contemplate such a scenario.

"What if he decided time had come to face his fears and offer himself a hero's exit?" Fumikage wondered. "The outcome of a battle against Stain is already certain; he is doomed to lose. But a voice deep inside keeps telling me that Mineta would rather go out that way. I can feel it!"

Nobody before him had extended the reasoning this far in that direction. There had to be a first time for everything.

"I still believe it is a bad idea."

"You too, Todoroki?" Sero's disillusioned voice noted.

"Taking on Stain makes us risk death. Had endeavor not saved us last time, we…we…"

The ice-and-fire wielder was about to finish his sentence, when his legs failed him to general surprise.

As he tumbled on his knees, obviously coming against his own disgust, the hideous grimace on his face paved the way for the most fanciful speculations. His classmates suspected Todoroki's vitriolic relationship with his father to have triggered this "allergic response". The mention of Stain's name served as a reminder that the estranged son had been rescued by the very man he hated the most. However, the Shoto in him – yes, still just "Shoto" – burned up in rage as he couldn't save a comrade, all that because of a once-defeated villain nobody had yet made contact with.

"See ya 'round, noobs!"

When Bakugo remained silent for too long, it could only mean he was up to something. The volatile hero explosion-jumped high in the air, propelled by his nitroglycerin-soaked hands, aiming for the roof of a tall building. From up there, he would bounce to other structures and be first to enjoy a better view of the battlefield. Once the n°1, always the n°1 one! Uraraka admitted to herself.

"Bakugo!" Iida screamed. "Where are you going?"

"Saving someone's purple ass. Try to stop me, and I'll beat the hell out of you wimps' asses until they turn the same color."

Iida activated his Quirk and joined him in his aerial parkour with his enhanced Recipro Burst, almost exceeding his past speed record.

"Haven't you heard anything of what we just said? If Stain finds us, he'll–"

"Kill us anyway. Or kill HIM, which is even wor–"

A wall of solid ice appeared in front of the Grenade Boy, who barely avoided an improvised crash and diverted to a neighboring building's rooftop, where he landed forcibly.

"The fuck are ya doin', Half-and-Half Bastard?"

Todoroki used his unequaled skills to model ice into whatever form he wished. He thrust himself upward, skateboarding back down on a wave-shaped landing ramp. He arrived on the roof soon afterward, glaring at the former Sports Festival rival with dagger-shaped eyes exuding a spirit of revenge.

"Walking into the lion's den on your own, with no consideration for others, is a pretty selfish act." the polar boy reprimanded him, boosting Bakugo's irritation.

"What did you say?" he roared menacingly.

Flames and shards of ice gushed from Todoroki's hands. Explosions and sparks sprang up from Bakugo's. A fight was imminent. The Class Rep got between the two warmongers narrowly in time before the sky erupted in chaos.

"Stop it! Stain is the real enemy, not one of us. Bakugo-kun, there must be a way to take part in Mineta's rescue without putting up a fight!"

Something like undercover or infiltration. The Grenade Boy "turned off" his hands, refraining a forthcoming attack he had been carefully planning as a way to commence hostilities. As he regained his composure, he aggressively hit his right temple with the tip of his forefinger.

"Why don't you party-poppers use your fuckin' grey matter for a sec?" he fulminated. "Stain is not just a vampire with blades. He is a Hero Killer. A. Hero. Killer! The motherfucker would murder anyone he sees as unworthy pieces of crap and eat dead hero corpses for breakfast! Tartarus was no match for him. Casual heroes can't do shit to hold him back, and it took your volcano-face of a father to bring him down!" He screamed to Todoroki, with a hint of provocative pleasure. "As long as he lives – free or jailed, I don't fucking care – everyone's in danger. To me, it's more than just "because I let you play in the sandbox unsupervised, while I activate single-player mod and go after him to smash his face without sharing the fun", you ice core sucker!" Bakugo yelled accusingly at Todoroki with gross, crude gestural imitations to make his point.

He turned to face Iida and pointed a half-critical half-frustrated burning finger at him. The Class Rep had a stealthy approach in mind, but Bakugo misinterpreted it as cowardliness.

"If you lousy four-eyed want to sit at a table and negotiate peace with him holding a cup of tea, suit yourself and be his guest. You're just losing time. That guy will continue to kill until he gets himself killed, or permanently neutralized. Heroes are his favorite targets, we are heroes and he'll find us no matter how well we play hide-and-seek. In case you forgot, the three of you are the strongest in this class…after me. If Stain decided you deserved to die, he won't hesitate to annihilate the rest of the class. If we're gonna come across him someday, it better be us attacking first!"

The duo of classmates paid him a moment of silence, sincerely moved by this avowal.

Bakugo had just deemed Todoroki, Iida and a missing Midoriya his worthier classmates in their status as heroes. All over his taciturn face, they could read the perspicuity of a young man who acknowledged how imperfect he was. Bakugo's hot-blooded behavior came as close as what an antihero with villainous tendencies looked like. Should Stain get into his head to wipe out U.A.'s latest litter of heroes, the arrogant Grenade Boy would be first to fall dead.

Seen from this angle, at this non-return point, peaceful talks led nowhere. In the field of fist diplomacy, the unstable boy with boiling blood was a master of his craft. He'd make it.

He is right. Iida pondered. Stain might have taught me a lesson about how dishonorable it was for a hero to yield to vengeance, but I have a score to settle. Stain was wrong to attack my brother. We, the Ida family, are worthy of serving society under the banner of heroes. I shall prove it to Stain, by beating him for a noble reason – saving a friend. I swear I will not be lying paralyzed on the ground this time. But he will!

Iida looked deep into Bakugo's eyes, finding there the same flames of determination that symbolically made him Midoriya's twin brother. Nobody would change his mind; other people's minds would change for him.

"I think there was a little misunderstanding between us." Todoroki confessed, surprisingly holding a hand to his explosive classmate. "I maintain you're being selfish rushing in by yourself…because others have the right to join you as well. Fun is best shared, as you implied."

Todoroki had yet to swallow having his own victory over Stain arbitrary attributed to his father. This time, it would be his. Theirs. For Mineta's sake – a boy with seemingly as many family neuroses – Todoroki took an oath to ensure the grape boy would live to overcome them. Bakugo neither shook nor rejected his hand, settling for a moderately haughty sigh and a lofty grin.

For whoever knew him well enough, it was an awoval of friendship in disguise.

"Stay behind me!"

"Okay."

"What about me?" Iida groaned. "I'm the Class Rep, you should at least ask for my op–"

"Hey! Don't do it without us!" the rest of Class 1-A shouted altogether from down the streets.

Iida's arms fell back in resignation. Guess I have no choice but to have fun too…

Todoroki walked close to Bakugo's ears, while the latter was scanning the horizon, looking for a potential blaze or distant explosion in the destructive path of the Hero Killer.

"By the way…" he murmured. "What you heard about Endeavour is a lie. WE defeated Stain."

"Todoroki!" Iida angrily reproached. "This was supposed to be confidential! Why did you–"

"I fucking knew it!" Bakugo furiously slammed his fists against one another. "If you small fries made it, it should be a piece of ca–"

"Deku was there too." His icy rival added the snarkiest detail. "He delivered the final blow."

"Todoroki Shoto! What are you doing?"

Bakugo fumed. His jealous rivalry with Midoriya was likely to run and run.

"Stupid nerd!"

He was now twice as motivated to win an even better combat, that no Pro-Heroes would seize upon. Todoroki gave the Class Rep a sidelong look with an unprecedented, smugly sneer of victory.

"Who needs a rousing speech when a bit of challenge and wounded ego suffice?" Todoroki spoke impishly. "Stain may have a powerful Quirk, but we have a Bakugo. Let's use it."

An excellent strategy, indeed.

"Say that again, and I swear I'll give you my seat as a Class Rep."

"Thanks, but no thanks."

The Grenade Boy stood up on the edge of the building. Lost in his thoughts, his broody alter ego made a comeback. I hope this rinky-dink Hero Killer of my ass actually watches the news.

Of all people, Bakugo was best suited to know himself.

He was an impulsive, off-the-wall antihero. His kidnapping, and foiled recruitment effort by the League of Villains, had made headlines and been much debated. A lot were the people who regarded him as a villain in the making who could use a bit of meditation. Stain was a so-called vigilante, righter of wrongs among heroes in need of an old-fashioned moral purge.

He would see the perfect foe in Bakugo, the most problematic of all heroes with issues, hence putting him at the center of the target. As long as I'll stand, it should draw attention away from that Ball Head. While the others save his ass, I'm gonna deal with that two-bit bloodsucker myself and show the damn Deku who's the boss. I'll always be number one, Izuku.

Even as a friend.