He moved faster then Album could react. The only thing Album could do was screw his eyes shut and wait to be vaporized into dust by this guy's quirk. As he was shutting his eyes he'd watched Midoriya try to reach over and protect him but Album already knew his classmate was never going to get there in time.

But Album didn't find himself getting turned to dust because he was saved. By a pro no less. Apparently, All Might had finally decided to show up. Midoriya looked impossibly relieved, but Album felt no such thing.

Unlike the rest of the world he saw things as they were. He and his fellow villains saw heroes for what they were. Humans. Just capable and just as likely to be greedy, to make mistakes, to lose.

There was no such thing as good triumphing over evil.

Leave believing Fairy Tales to the children.

Album screwed his eyes shut and refused to watch the rest of the fight. He wasn't interested in pretending to be heroic along with the rest of his classmates. And he certainly wasn't looking to get himself killed as Midoriya tried and failed to take down the Nomu when All Might was having trouble.

He just hung back with his other, less idiotic classmates and watched from a safe distance, the admittedly epic fight between All Might and Nomu.

And even though heroes didn't always win, he supposed they did this time as the League of Villains was forced to retreat back into their blackhole, back to their hideout.

And they were all herded out of the building and onto the bus as if it had never happened. Except now there was excited chatter about how they had just run into real villains and fought them off. Album didn't even join in though. What was so scary and rare for these kids had used to be every day life for Album. He was used to being around villains and they were all dangerous, but it was usually fairly easy to find out what made them tick and play to that.

Album wasn't particularly smart, and some of his partners had even gone as far as to call him "a fucking moron" but he'd lived this long so he figured he was doing something right.

They got back to school and packed up their things before going home. "You're late." Was the first thing he heard when entering. Adrien looked up and smirked.

"It's not that late." Album grumbled and threw his backpack unceremoniously on the ground.

"You're home!" Daniel said, poking his head out of the kitchen. "I heard what happened, everybody got an email. Is that why you're home so late?"

"I guess so."

"You guess so? Something else happened?"

"No."

There was a beat of silence before Daniel replied, "Alright then. Did you get homework?"

"No." Album said and joined Adrien on the couch to watch TV.

"Alright then."

Album sighed and tried to relax, truthfully, a little shaken up by what had happened, but would never admit it to anyone.


The next morning Album awoke to his alarm blaring in his ear all too soon. He turned it off and slowly got up, showering and putting on the UA uniform.

By the time he was ready for school, Daniel was already gone and there was food in the fridge from the day before. He honestly didn't know how Daniel went to work all day, came home, cooked, and dealt with a little brat like Adrien.

He'd probably snap and kill the kid.

And he still did, but honestly, it was too much trouble now. It wasn't his mission anymore. After all, Adrien had a life now, something he didn't want to lose. If he exposed Album he exposed himself, and Adrien wasn't willing to do that.

He ate and grabbed his bag, walking out as Adrien was getting ready. He was still the last one in the classroom, and Aizawa still didn't arrive until after he had.

He yawned and half listened to Aizawa's tired voice that made him want to fall asleep. "Despite what happened yesterday, we're still going to have the sports festival. You all have a week to train and prepare. This is too big an opportunity for you all to miss out on, so we've still decided to have it this year. And with that said, let's start today's lesson."

Album tuned the rest of the hour out. He was never really awake till third period. Everything before was too early for him to pay attention to anything more than the first and last ten minutes of class.

As Album was walking to lunch, a little later then everyone else because he'd been held after and scolded for falling asleep. He didn't think the teacher was convinced he'd only been resting his eyes and had been listening.

Album didn't really blame him. He wouldn't have believed his poor excuse either. But he saw to boys, as he was walking down the hall, one smaller than the other. Though, not by much as the one trapping him by the lockers wasn't exactly tall. At least, not compared to Album.

The smaller of the two was pressed against the locker and looked like he wished he could crawl inside and shut the door. The other, had a hand on one side of the other boy's head, his other hanging leisurely beside his waist, body tilted forward, as if trying to use his height to intimidate the other.

What Album noticed most though, was familiar blonde hair he'd run into twice before. And it had only been twice, But Album felt like he would've known it anywhere. And again, like last time, the blonde had his face turned away from Album.

Album was walking past them and only caught bits of the conversation they were having, but it sounded like the blonde was grilling the other boy about something. Lots of questions thrown around.

The smaller boy looked past the blonde toward Album, eyes begging for help, only to get a pair of fingers snapped in his face. "Hey, don't look at him, you're talking to me." The blonde, without even turning, commented. "Now why don't you just answer the question."

"But I already told you I don't know anything." The boy said, gulping nervously. The blonde's body language changed from relaxed to annoyed in an instant.

"Fine, honestly," he said stepping back and the other boy scurried away as quickly as he could manage. The blonde turned to face him, pale eyes sharp and focused. He reminded Album of a predator or something.

When he saw Album though, the annoyed, angry features slid away with practiced ease. "Hey, you look familiar." He said with a more neutral expression, but Album didn't miss the air of superiority around him.

"We've bumped into each other a few times." Album said, a bit reluctant to give that information up.

"Oh, I see. What class are you in again?"

"We've never really had a conversation before."

"We haven't? I mean, I suppose not. I definitely would've remembered you."

"You would have…"

"Yes, now about what class are you in?"

"Class A, I guess."

"Oh, so you're the one who experienced that awful U.S.J attack yesterday?" Album nodded. "Alright, so what happened?" he came closer, looking interested. And Album wasn't sure how to explain it, but the guy made him want to tell him things, even though he didn't even know his name. "Nothing much, just lots of villains coming out of nowhere and fighting us."

"Fascinating. Now, I can see you have to go to lunch, but I think we should talk later, wouldn't that be great?"

"Yeah." Album said nodding, and watched him walk away. He frowned after watching the blonde disappear around the corner. He'd never gotten the other's name, and he hadn't even noticed but the other had been touching his arm. He definitely had been, Album could feel the tingle of fingertips still lingering.

Normally he was hyper aware of touch and didn't really like his personal bubble invaded. How had he been able to do that? It had felt easy to talk to him, even though his smile was slightly taunting and his tone almost patronizing in a way, he hadn't noticed until after the other had left.

Whatever that was, he hoped never to experience again. It was almost scary, kind of like hypnosis, but it couldn't have been.

"A blonde guy that's not in our class?" Midoriya asked and frowned. "The only one that comes to mind is Monoma, but, he's usually not like how you describe. At least, not to me. He kind of scares me, honestly." He scared Album too. "Though I have seen a few people in a daze after talking to him."

Midoriya fell silent for a moment. "Don't ever repeat this, but Kacchan was one of them. He didn't say he was dazed after talking to him, but you could kind of see it. Nobody here really knows much about him though, just that he seems to hate us and is really annoying sometimes."

Well if Midoriya thought he was annoying then he must be. "Don't worry about it, it doesn't usually happen very often." Midoriya assured. "Oh, except here he comes."

The newly dubbed Monoma walked over but Album could scarcely tell it was the same person he'd talked to earlier. He did have a lot of confidence and seemed to think he was superior, however, the air of pleasantness was gone replaced by something more flippant.

"So, I heard your class was attacked by a few villains."

"How did you find out? The teachers only emailed our parents." Midoriya asked.

"Oh, just rumors, confirmed by a certain someone." He did not name who, but Album did catch his eye, and Monoma's smirk widened slightly. "But just because you fended off real villains, doesn't mean you're better than the rest of us, I hope you know that."

"I never thought I was better than you." Midoriya said at the same time Bakugou commented,

"Of course it makes us better than you."

"Oh really, and what makes you say that Bakuhoe."

"It's Bakugou."

"That's what I said."

Bakugou glared and cracked his knuckles, "Look, if you're lookin to get knocked down a peg, I'll take you down!"

"Oh, simmer down, there's no need for violence." Monoma said, gaze sharpening just a little. "But just know that class B will defeat you in the sports festival and one of us will come out on top."

"No, you won't." Katsuki said, glaring. Album could tell his guard was up and he was on high alert, as if daring Monoma to say one more thing, which he didn't and moved on past him.

Album felt himself relax just a little when he was finally gone and let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.

One thing he knew, the sports festival this year definitely wouldn't be dull, that was for sure.

Album didn't really spend the week training, at least, not like his classmates who were testing the limits of their quirks. But Album already knew the limits of his quirk, and there were quite a lot of them. Instead he spent his time training his body, but not for the sports festival. He couldn't care less about that. He did think it was important to train just in case a situation ever arose where he'd need to fight his way out.

In this school he didn't think there would be any shortage of those incidents. Album sighed, because the fundamental reason he was training was because Daniel insisted and was super excited to attend. Album didn't really know why, because Daniel went every year to scout potential since he was a pro. If anything, Album would've thought he'd get bored of it.

"This is actually only my second U.A. sports festival!" Daniel exclaimed. "They didn't have anything quite like this back in America."

Well Album supposed that made sense. "Me and a few other members of my agency go every year to scout now, and I guess for some pros that have been doing it for so long, it's gotten tiring. But all I can think about is how exciting it's going to be!"

"What exactly do agencies look for?"

Daniel shrugged, "I think every agency looks for different things, ours looks for control and power as well as endurance. Though I suppose other agencies may recruit on originality, intelligence, maybe even how flashy a quirk is. But overall I think most look at how cooperative a person is with their team."

"Looks like you're not gonna get recruited." Adrien said, smirking from the couch.

"Burn in hell."

"I'll take you with me."

Album bit his tongue and hurriedly left before he punched Adrien.

Album was walking down a less populated street, which wasn't uncommon. He didn't like to be crowded in with a lot of people while he was trying to cool off.

He kicked a small pebble as he walked, trying to always keep it ahead of him. Suddenly, a pair of shoes appeared in his vision and he looked up only to come face to face with the hand guy from a couple days ago.

Album quickly moved backward, putting as much distance between the two of them as possible. "What do you want?" he asked. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm here to pay you for helping us out the other day." His voice was still just as raspy as Album remembered.

"Oh, the U.S.J incident."

"You're the only reason we got as far as we did, so I'm here to pay you." He held out a handsome sum of money and Album took it.

"Thanks." He said, only wanting to get out of the alley. He didn't even care if it was counterfeit money, he just knew he had to get out as quickly as possible.

The hand guy took a few small steps back and then turned around and walked away, out of the alley.

Album let out a slow breath. He got money and he was still alive, and if that wasn't a win, he didn't know what was. He was about to hurry out of the alley, obviously in the opposite direction the other had gone.

He turned and nearly bumped into someone full force, but stopped himself just in time. He took a couple steps back so the person came into full view and he felt himself tense again, perhaps even more nervous then when the hand guy had popped up out of nowhere.

Monoma.

He didn't even know why he set him on edge so much, but he did, and Album didn't know how to fix that.

He looked innocent right now, but Album suspected he was anything but innocent. "Why hello, fellow schoolmate. Fancy meeting you here."

"Were you following me?" Album asked.

"Perhaps I was, perhaps I wasn't. But that doesn't really matter." His posture was overly relaxed, a body language no one should have unless they were completely alone. "What does matter, is that I happened to overhear an interesting conversation."

"What conversation?" Album said, a little too quickly.

"Oh, I can't quite remember. Good thing I recorded it to help me." Album heard his own voice and the raspy one on the other's phone. "And look at that, even visuals to help me remember what it looked like. And hey, he looks an awful lot like the guy being described on the news this morning."

"Where are you going with this?"

"Where do you think, Mal?"

"It's Album, and I don't have any fucking idea so just spit it out!"

Monoma sighed and touched his shoulder, though this time Album was aware of it. Even so, he didn't pull away, no matter how much his mind screamed for him to. "You really are a Class 1-A idiot, aren't you? How disappointing, but I suppose that's why you were put in that class anyway. But even with your tiny brain you must understand the meaning of blackmail, correct?"

"What do you want?" Album asked through gritted teeth.

Album barely registered Monoma's hand sliding down to his elbow but he did feel his shirt grabbed and the crushing force that was used to yank him down to the other's level.

Album hadn't noticed before, but Monoma seemed very concerned with showing his dominance. He'd seen it before in the hall, where the other had used his height and body language to intimidate someone smaller. But that technique didn't quite work with someone who was older, taller, and probably stronger, so he resorted to something else.

Album didn't move, and even though he was afraid, now it wasn't of Monoma, but the information he had. But the rising anger inside his chest, that was for Monoma. The express urge to kill him and not feel sorry about it.

But people would notice if he went missing, Album didn't need something like that following him around. "Let's start with that money."

"I don't even know if it's real." Album murmured.

"Oh it is, trust me. Now hand it over."

"Why do you want the money so much, just have your stupid parents pay for whatever."

Monoma's expression was skillfully blank, but Album felt the grip on his shirt tighten. "I guess you don't mind this video getting out to the public then." The other said with an easy smirk that didn't reach his eyes.

Album clenched his teeth and didn't say anything as he shoved the money into Monoma's hand.

"Good, good, that's a great start."

"Start?" Album snarled.

"Yes, start." He repeated. "And you're gonna start paying me every month."

"How much?" Album asked.

"How about 54,700 yen a month?"

"What, I don't have that kind of money!" Album said, with his mouth hanging open.

"Then I guess you'd better find a job." He said and let go, almost making Album fall onto the pavement. By the time he'd looked up, the other was gone with the tape and taking every cent Album might've saved up with him.

So much for this day being a win…


A/N Just for reference, 54,700 is roughly 500 US dollars. And I can't remember if I forgot to mention, but Monoma will be a little OOC here, possibly if he's been shown more in the manga. I only follow the anime and since we have only seen a few rare scenes with him I took a few of his personality traits and added a lot too. Really all I've seen for him is that he dislikes class 1-A and makes fun of them and also wants to prove class 1-B is better, but that wasn't enough for me to make an entire character so I added a few things. And now Monoma's finally been introduced! Hope you like the chapter! Reviews are love!

Also thank you Yeahleash for the kind review, I'm so glad you're enjoying the story so far!