The long awaited night had finally arrived for the group of heroes, Inspectors and police officers. After ten days of planning, organizing and investigating, it was finally time for them to take down this group of criminals known as 'High Point'.

Overall, the plan wasn't nearly as complicated as one would imagine. Quite the opposite actually. The entire operation was as cut and dry as it could get. Everything pretty much boiled down to speed and precision.

'High Point's' members, along with all of its leaders, were currently inside of a warehouse at the base of a large hill directly in front of a wide area of trees. There were no other buildings for another nine hundred meters in either direction. Which meant that the place was pretty much isolated from anything else. It was the perfect spot for evildoers to handle their business in secret. Unfortunately for them, this also worked to their own disadvantage.

The game plan was exactly as follows. The first group of police officers and detectives would approach from the main road leading up to the warehouse and completely cut off the criminal's chances of escaping in that direction. Which would force all of them to try and retreat into the forest. There, a second group consisting of Shiozaki, Shinji, Yu and the remaining group of police officers will use all of the confusion box the rest of them in and take them down. All in all, it was a standard raid operation. The kind that heroes participated in all the time.

At the moment, everyone was getting ready to move into their positions. The heroes were standing alongside Chief Inspector Kaniko and the Police Chief, who were going to be monitoring everyone's movements from an armored truck at the end of the road. Hoping to iron out any last minutes details before they headed out.

"So your other guy is still in there?" Shinji asked the crab-themed woman who was fiddling with her microphone.

"Yeah, but he already knows what's going to happen." Chief Inspector Kaniko smiled. Almost like the woman wasn't worried about the fate of this operation in the slightest. "He'll make sure to stay out of the way once we get started."

"And Inspector Midoriya is already on the way down there, correct?" Shiozaki was the next to speak. Noting the absence of a certain green haired individual. Neither of the heroes had even seen the young Inspector at all that day. But based on what they knew, he was already moving into position.

Step one of this operation was for Midoriya to move ahead of everyone else and get inside of the warehouse to meet up with their undercover Inspector. After that, they would shut off all the power in the building. However, if there was one part of the plan that Shiozaki and the others were completely in the dark on, it was how Midoriya was going to get inside the building in the first place. For some reason, that little detail was completely left out. It wasn't like she was doubting her new partners. But she did find it concerning that they were unaware about such a crucial part of the plan. That and she was curious about what method the man was going to use to infiltrate the warehouse. Maybe it had something to do with his quirk?

Now that she thought about it, Shiozaki still had no clue what Midoriya's quirk actually was. She knew that Chief Inspector Kaniko had the ability to cut pretty much anything in between her fingers and limbs. And that was only because she watched the woman do so with some papers a couple of days ago. But Midoriya's abilities were a complete unknown. The vine haired woman would be lying if she said that she wasn't interested in knowing what he was capable of. Especially since it had to be a factor in why he was granted so much freedom in this operation.

"He should be in position right about now."

"Is he going to be okay?" Yu then asked.

"Oh definitely! My assistant is an expert at sneaking into and around places. We don't have to worry about him at all." Kaniko gave the 'gigantification' user a thumbs up.

"You seem very confident in your subordinate." Shinji stated.

"Well, he is pretty awesome. Don't tell him I told you this, but he's probably one of the most talented people in our bureau. A few of the other Chief Inspectors were pissed that I convinced our director to bring him out here to Kanagawa with me."

That was certainly an interesting piece of information to hear, Shiozaki thought to herself. She didn't know that Midoriya was so highly respected among his peers. Granted, he already seemed like he was a fairly competent and diligent person. But the notion that he was sought after by other SIU's only added to the woman's assumptions.

"So how is he going to get in there? Is there another entrance into the building that wasn't in the blueprint?" The vine haired woman then asked.

"Oh no, he's just going to walk right in through the front door." Kaniko said nonchalantly.

…

…

…

"What?"

-(o)-

~25 Minutes Later~

Once everyone was finally in position, they patiently waited for the signal to strike. Even from her spot high up in one of the trees overlooking the warehouse, Shiozaki could see that there was quite a bit of activity both in and outside of the building. Jobs like this always made the woman feel a bit nervous. Obviously this wasn't her first time participating in a raid. But that experience never made her any less wary or on edge.

'Oh Lord, please allow us to be successful in this trial of ours.' The vine haired heroine clasped her hands together and recited a silent prayer. Hoping that things would go smoothly for all of them.

The moment the woman opened her eyes, all of the lights within the warehouse went dark. Alerting everyone that it was time to move. And just like they had rehearsed, the first team of police officers and detectives rushed the main entrance on the other side of the building. It was times like this where Shiozaki wished that she had some sort of binoculars to see what exactly was going on. But from what she could hear, it was getting rather lively inside of the building. There were a slew of screams and loud crashing sounds all over the place. And a few flashes of light from what she assumed to be people using their quirks.

Not even three minutes into the operation a massive hole was blasted through the back wall of the warehouse, and about twenty or so people came running out of it. But it was hard to tell since it was so dark. However, it was clear that they were heading right for the heroes.

"Alright, now it's our turn." Shinji looked to Shiozaki and his wife before jumping down from his tree branch and using his quirk to spread some branches over the area. While at the same time Shiozaki used her vines to fill in the gaps. This was a combination move that the two of them had used before as an "area of effect" capture technique. And in this scenario, it was going to be rather effective since their quirks blended into the surrounding forest so well.

Just like they predicted, all of the retreating criminals were ensnared within the net of tree branches and vines the moment they passed the tree line. And for good measure, Shiozaki and Shinji made sure to immobilize every appendage that they could see to keep their captives from escaping.

"This is Mt. Lady. Phase three was a success. We got everyone that managed to make it out of the building." The 'gigantification' quirk user said into her earpiece with a nonchalant tone. "Man…I might as well not even bothered to show up."

"Well, we have no idea what kind of quirks these guys have. One of them could have a size altering ability like you." Shinji replied. "But seeing as none of them have broken free yet, they can't be all that strong."

"Let us go you damn heroes!" One of the captured women barked towards the trio.

"Please refrain from speaking. You're already in enough trouble as it is." The vine haired woman scolded her.

"Still, this was way less difficult than what I thought." Shinji continued.

"I agree. The Lord was truly looking out for our wellbeing today. However…I don't see Takeshita anywhere among them."

"Maybe he's stil-"

"Come in Team 2!" Chief Inspector Kaniko's voice suddenly spoke into their ears. "Takeshita and one other person slipped by Team 1 and were last seen 300 meters east of your position heading down the hill. We need someone to cut them off. Inspector Midoriya is on their tail, but he might need some help."

"Shinji-san!" Shiozaki looked towards her boss.

"You're the fastest out of the three of us. I can take care of things here, go help him out." The wooden hero stated.

Without a moment's hesitation, the young heroine began moving through the trees in the direction that she was told. When it came to stuff like this, Shiozaki was practically in her element. Not only could she drastically increase her speed by using her vines to swing from the branches. But she would be able to conceal her quirk with relative ease.

-(o)-

About two minutes later Shiozaki found her target. It was still pretty dark, but under the moonlight she could definitely see Takeshita and another taller man sprinting through the trees while looking around in every direction. She was a bit too far away to try and use her vines to capture them. However, the vine haired heroine caught a lucky break when the villainous duo decided to pause in a small clearing to catch their breath. Which gave her enough time to close in on their position.

"Fuck! How the hell did the cops know where we were?" The unidentified individual huffed out.

"I have no idea, but we need to hurry up and get down the hill. There's no way in hell I'm about to let them plaster my face all over the news." Takeshita said angrily.

It was still difficult for Shiozaki to believe that such a well respected hero was truly participating in criminal activities. But as they say, seeing is believing. He may not have been wearing his hero costume, but the woman recognized the bamboo hero's face all too well. Just when she was about to send some of her vines through the ground to capture the two by their ankles, something happened that threw her completely off guard.

"If you were so worried about that, you wouldn't be committing crimes in the first place." Inspector Midoriya said in a cold tone as he suddenly appeared right behind Takeshita and the other man.

'Wait…what?' A stunned Shiozaki mentally questioned. What just happened? The green haired Inspector quite literally just appeared out of nowhere. He definitely wasn't standing there a second ago. The woman was looking right at the two criminals and he was nowhere to be found. 'How did he do that? Was it super speed, or maybe some kind of invisibility quirk?'

"Who the hell are you?!" Takeshita shouted.

"I'm an Inspector from the NPSC's Special Investigations Unit. That's really all you need to know." The green haired man responded.

It took a moment for Takeshita to absorb those words before the realization hit him like a freight train. "I get it…a 'Hero Hunter', huh? Well if you think that I'm just going to- what?!"

And just like that, Midoriya suddenly vanished again. Shiozaki had to wipe her eyes just to make sure that she was processing this correctly. Was this his quirk? Some type of vanishing ability? Powers like those were pretty rare. Before the vine haired heroine had a chance to blink, the second criminal suddenly dropped to his knees before hitting the ground like a sack of potatoes. Causing both her and Takeshita to search around the clearing.

"Show yourself you damn coward!" The man howled as he pulled what looked to be a bamboo stalk from his green jacket. "Do you know who the hell I am?! If you think that you can just run up on a pro hero an- ack!"

Before Takeshita could finish his statement, he felt a forceful blow to the base of his neck and hit the ground just like the other man a few seconds ago. Falling unconscious before he even knew what happened.

"That title of yours doesn't really impress me. Just be glad that I didn't have to get more forceful with you." Midoriya once again appeared from right behind the man in the blink of an eye. Without wasting any time, he quickly put a pair of handcuffs arounds both men's wrists before letting out a small sigh.

To say that Shiozaki was impressed by what she just saw would be an understatement. Not many people can take down a seasoned pro with as little effort as what Midoriya just did. Nor as efficiently either. She had seen videos of Takeshita holding his own against four or five villains at a time. And now here he was passed out in the dirt without even getting the chance to put up a fight.

Now that the problem seemed to be dealt with, the woman decided that this was as good a time as any to make her presence known to the young Inspector. "Inspector Midoriya!"

"Vine?" The green haired man turned around to see the woman approaching him from behind some bushes. "What are you doing here?"

"Chief Inspector Kaniko asked one of us to back you up. But I guess that you didn't really need any assistance."

"She did?" The man tilted his head in confusion before coming to the conclusion as to why his boss would do something like that. "I guess that makes sense. We have no clue what this other guy's quirk is and a few of the other 'High Point' guys had weapons on them."

"Well that was an excellent job, Inspector. If you don't mind me asking, what did you just do? I was having a hard time keeping track of how you took these two down. Do you have some sort of invisibility quirk?"

"Not exactly." He replied. "I can erase my presence so that people can't see me. It's a bit more complicated than that, but it helps out when I'm on the job. I call it 'mirage'."

"I see…" Was all that the woman managed to say.

"Kaniko-senpai, this is Midoriya. Takeshita has been neutralized. How are we on everything else?"

"Nice job, Izu-chan! Blueberry and the police have everyone inside the building in custody. And the hero team picked up the other stragglers. We're pretty much done here. Bring that sad-sack over to the meeting spot and we'll be good to go!"

"Alright, Vine and I are on the way."

With no time to waste, Shiozaki used her quirk to secure Takeshita and the other criminal before the two young adults began making their way back to the designated meeting spot.

-(o)-

Not too long after they met up with the rest of the members of the operation, Shiozaki and Midoriya were greeted by Shinji, Yu, Kaniko and another person whom the woman didn't recognize. This one was a young man with light blue hair and sapphire eyes that seemed to be around the same age as her. He was wearing some regular street clothes and looked as though he hadn't slept in days.

"Sorry about that back there, Midoriya-kun." The new arrival apologized. "Takeshita managed to slip past me when I was helping out those cops."

"Don't worry about it." The green haired man waved off.

"Who are you?" Shiozaki asked.

"This handsome young devil right here is Inspector Toshiro Ishikawa! But we just call him "Blueberry"." Kaniko answered before the blunette could do so himself. "He's the guy that was working undercover for us."

"The only person who calls me that is Chief Inspector Kaniko." Ishikawa bowed politely. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Vine. Thank you for all your help in assisting us in taking these guys down."

"It's a pleasure to meet you as well, Inspector Ishikawa. I'm glad to see that you're in good health after having to go through such an ordeal."

"Man…Midoriya-kun was right. You really are nice." The man joked.

"Anyways…" The green haired man interjected. "How much longer until we're done here?"

"All that's left is taking these guys down to the police station. We pretty much have things all wrapped up."

"Thankfully this entire operation went off without a hitch. And we didn't suffer any losses or injuries on our side." Said Shinji.

"Yes, we were truly fortunate to come out of this unscathed." Shiozaki added with a slight smile on her face.

Kaniko then aimed her attention towards her two junior Inspectors. "You guys are good to head home when we get back to the police station. Don't worry about filling out any paperwork until tomorrow."

Midoriya and Ishikawa simply nodded in confirmation of the crab-themed woman's directions.

With the chaos of the evening finally over and done with everyone hopped into the vehicles and proceeded make their way back home. Just like Midoriya and Ishikawa, Shiozaki was given the green light by her boss to head home for the night. Which the woman was very grateful for. Actually, she was relieved that she wouldn't have to worry about doing anymore work until tomorrow. Nighttime operations always drained her a bit more than usual. Partly because the lack of sunlight effected how much energy it would take to use her quirk. So right now, all the vine haired heroine was worried about was getting back to her apartment and taking a nice relaxing bath.

The following afternoon, Shiozaki was sitting in her office while putting the finishing touches on all of the necessary paperwork that came with participating in the previous night's operation. Just as she was about to put her signature on the last form, Yu came into the room to check up on how she was doing.

"You almost done in here, Ibara-chan?" The blonde haired heroine greeted in a tired tone.

"Yes, I am." Shiozaki answered.

"I seriously don't get how you can just sit in here and do that kind of stuff for so long. My brain practically turns to mush every time I have to look at those stupid forms."

"Well, the sooner I get it done the less I have to worry about it."

"I can't really argue with that." The blonde haired heroine chuckled. "So…that Midoriya guy was the one that took down Takeshita? That's a pretty impressive feat. That guy is pretty hard to deal with on a bad day."

"Yes, he did. I was going to try and assist him, but Inspector Midoriya's quite adept when it comes to handling these kinds of things on his own. He is the one that came up with the entire plan for the operation after all."

"I guess all those rumors about 'Hero Hunters' being total monsters has some truth to it."

"I wouldn't exactly put it that way. But I can't really disagree with you."

The tone of the conversation instantly took a left turn when Yu decided to have a bit of fun at her friend's expense. "It's too bad that we won't be working with them again now that this whole 'High Point' business is out of the way. Now you're gonna have to find another excuse to hang out Inspector Midoriya~." She said while sitting atop Shiozaki's desk with a borderline evil expression on her face.

"What do you mean?"

"Oh come on, Ibara-chan…. You haven't had a boyfriend the entire time I've known you. And from the way I see it, you two seem to get along pretty well."

The vine haired woman's eye twitched slightly at what her agency partner was implying. "I think that you've been hanging around Setsuna a bit too much lately."

"Well anyways…I should probably get back to my office now. Shinji's gonna throw a fit if I don't finish all my work before the end of the day. I'll see you later." Was all the blonde said before taking walking out the room and shutting the door behind her. Leaving Shiozaki alone with her thoughts.

'Honestly, sometimes I wonder why I even hang out with them.' The woman said to herself before focusing all of her attention back into her work. The last thing she needed right now was to have her friends putting any crazy ideas into her head. Granted, Yu wasn't exactly wrong. Dating is something that Shiozaki never put any real effort into. The bulk of her teenage years were centered around training to become a hero. And her adult life was pretty much the same. There were a few men here and there that tried to ask her out in the past. But she wasn't ready for all that at the time.

Besides, Midoriya didn't really seem like the kind of guy who would be interested in dating either. On top of that, she had the feeling that he wouldn't take too kindly to the idea of getting involved with a pro hero of all people. Especially when part of his job had him come across the worst of them. The idea was probably inconceivable to him.

"Y'know Ibara, the two of you would make a pretty good couple. And you'd definitely have some cute kids together." Tokage's voice echoed in her mind.

'Why am I even thinking about such things?' A slight redness suddenly emerged onto the woman's face. 'I can't be having thoughts like that. Especially not in the middle of work. Get a hold of yourself Ibara!' Was exactly what she told herself before once again diving back into her work.

On the other side of the city, the three Inspectors of Special Investigations Unit Nine were also busy putting the finishing touches on their reports of the 'High Point' raid. One of the benefits that came with working alongside the police on this issue was that it actually helped cut down on most of their work. And since Takeshita was technically taken into custody by the police department, it saved them the trouble of having to transport him to another location themselves.

"Aw dammit!" Kaniko whined while looking angrily at her computer. "Hey Ishi-chan, my computer just froze. Can you help me out here?"

"You know that linking with electronics when they're acting faulty gives me a headache, right? Just restart it." The blue haired man replied.

"Pfft…" The crab-themed woman huffed while folding her arms.

Toshiro Ishikawa, the resident genius and hacker of the team, possesses a quirk called 'technopathy'. It allowed him to mentally link himself with any electronic device or computer within a certain range of his body. Obviously it was a pretty useful skill to have when it came to investigations and information gathering. But it definitely had a few downsides. One of them being that it caused a great deal of fatigue if he used this power for too long. But that fact that he could also access the internet with just his mind made him a rather hot commodity in the NPSC. Not only that, but he twenty-four year old man's quirk was also useful when it came to his gaming hobby.

"I think that you should cut Ishikawa-kun some slack, Kaniko-senpai. He's got a lot of work to catch up on now that he's not undercover anymore." Midoriya said to his boss.

"Yeah…'kay." Kaniko conceded while still fumbling around with her computer.

"Thank you, Midoriya-kun." The blunette smiled. "I'm just glad that we're finally done with that nonsense. Do you know how annoying it was having to listen to Takeshita gloat that he made the front page of the news every other day? I swear, that guy was so full of himself."

"I'm just wonderin' how the Hero Public Safety Commission is going to spin this one. It's going to be an issue tryin' to explain the absence of a popular hero."

"Well that's not really our problem." Midoriya interjected. "All they're concerned about is keeping the public opinion of heroes as clean as possible."

Ever since that whole business with the Meta Liberation Army and how the former number two hero Hawks killed Best Jeanist, the HPSC had made it a point to make sure that the public's trust in heroes was rock solid. Because the last thing they needed was another wave of outrage directed towards them.

"The saddest part about all of this is that Izu-chan won't have an excuse to hang out with Vine anymore. Then again, they are neighbors so I doubt that he'd have any issue with that." Kaniko then shot the green haired man a cheeky grin.

"What?" Midoriya blinked in confusion.

"Oh come on…don't act all cute with me. Living right next door to a beautiful lady like her is every young guy's dream. Since we more than likely won't be working together again, this is the perfect time for you to put the moves on her~."

"Is this topic of conversation really appropriate for the workplace?" Ishikawa deadpanned.

"Not in the slightest…." Midoriya quipped.

"Plus you already admitted that you think she's cute!"

"W-when did I say that?" The green haired man blushed slightly at the crab-themed woman's accusation.

"It's practically written all over your face. Y'know Izu-chan, you're pretty terrible at hiding your emotions sometimes."

As if some guardian angel was looking out for him, the sound of the office door opening drew everyone's attention away from this uncomfortable little chat of theirs. The three inspectors then found themselves looking at the new arrival with a set of surprised expressions on their faces.

Standing there was a woman with long, brown hair and orange eyes dressed in a navy blue suit. She wore a rather serious expression on her face and had a duffle bag slung over her left shoulder.

"Togane-san?"

"Hello everyone? Long time no see." The woman greeted them stoically.

Minori Togane, the fourth member of the team. A young woman with a "no nonsense" disposition that typically worked as Midoriya's partner whenever any new assignments came up. She was a police sniper for about a year before being picked up by the NPSC. And her quirk 'true shot' made her one of the best in the business. The two of them were actually classmates back when they both went to Shiketsu. Out of everyone in their newly formed team, she was the one that Midoriya had the most history with aside from their boss.

Kaniko has also made her personal goal in life to get Togane to actually laugh one day. But all of her attempts up until this point have proven to be futile.

"Are you finally all settled into your new place?" Midoriya asked.

"Yes I am. Thank you for asking Midoriya-kun."

"What are you doing here?" Kaniko questioned. "You're not supposed to be in until tomorrow afternoon."

"I wanted to get an early start on getting my workplace in order."

"Translation…she had nothing else better to do today." Ishikawa added with a quick laugh.

"Well I for one am glad that Togane-chan is here! We finally have another girl in this office to level out all the testosterone."

"How did that Takeshita operation go? I assume that it wasn't too much trouble." Togane then changed subjects.

"Not at all. Izu-chan took him out before he even knew what hit him."

"As expected of Midoriya-kun. But I guess that I shouldn't be surprised at this point."

"You really give me too much credit, Togane-san." Midoriya waved off.

The brunette woman quickly sat down at one of the only two available desks in the room before turning back towards him. "Well, you are one of the few people in the entire NPSC with a better record than me when it comes to seize operations. I think that any praise that you get is well deserved."

"You know that's only because I've been doing this a year longer than you have." He laughed.

"I'm not going to argue with that assessment."

The rest of the afternoon went on about as normal as one would expect. With most of the team now officially here, it looked as though it was going to be business as usual for the newly formed Team Nine. Midoriya was actually looking forward to resuming his regular routine. And now that he didn't have to worry about working alongside the heroes, there was no need for him to keep acting overly-professional and polite around them. Which meant that he could be his usual self.

'Oh yeah, I still need to pay Shiozaki-san back for those cookies.' He then thought to himself. 'Maybe I should buy her a cake or something? Oh well, I'll worry about that later.' Was the last thought that crossed his mind before tuning his focus back onto the stack of papers sitting atop his desk.

Little did the green haired Inspector know that him and Shiozaki were going to be seeing a lot more of each other in the not too distant future…

A/N: Sorry update the late update. For some reason I thought that I uploaded this chapter on Thursday, but I realized that wasn't the case a little while ago. And I tried to keep the raid as short as possible since this entire sub-plot has outlived its usefulness.

1. Now that the raid is out of the way, we can finally get to the real romance part of this story. There are still going to be some action scenes here and there. So don't worry if you're into that kind of thing. But I'm trying to limit those in favor of building Midoriya and Shiozaki's relationship.

2. As far as Midoriya's quirk goes, anyone who has read/watched "Ghost in the Shell" probably already figured out what his power was. I'll be going into more detail about Midoriya's past in a few chapters since that's what people seem to be the most interested in. And I'm going to be taking a lot of "creative freedom" with his back story. It won't be as depressing as any of my other fics. But I think you guys will like it.

Like always, thanks for reading and don't be afraid to leave a comment/review.