Two weeks had passed since the almost disastrous "girls night" at Shiozaki's apartment and the vine haired heroine had yet to see Midoriya in all that time.

At first, she assumed that he might have been avoiding her due to the rather embarrassing events that transpired that night. No doubt Tokage's antics managed to scare him off somehow. But as the days went by, she was beginning to wonder if that was even the case at all.

Of course, what he did and where he went was none of her business. The two weren't exactly what you would consider friends after all. But the good-hearted woman couldn't help but wonder if something had happened to the green haired inspector. He had a pretty regular schedule as far as she could tell. So not seeing him around at all did leave her quite curious. But for now she just chalked it up to him having to do something for his job.

Per the usual with her weekly routine, Shiozaki spent her Sunday morning going to the local church and running errands around town. The weather was once again perfect and she had the brilliant idea to just wander around the city for a bit to stretch her legs and do some sight seeing. After all, what better way was there to enjoy such a lovely day that God provided for the people?

It didn't take long before the woman found herself in the middle of the shopping district not too far from her home. She never came around this part of town very often since shopping wasn't a particularly a hobby of hers. That kind of thing was more up Komori's alley. But she didn't see the harm in checking the place out. And if luck was on her side today, she might even find a new flower or plant to add to her collection at one of the local florists.

While passing by one of the electronics shops towards the end of the street, the vine haired woman caught a glimpse of the television monitor in the store window. Which was playing some of the earlier news footage from around the country. Unfortunately, the primary topic of discussion for that moment in the news cycle centered around one person that she didn't think too highly of.

"Pro hero, Ground Zero, blasts his way to victory once again!" The news ticker at the bottom of the screen read while showing the image of an ashe blonde man with a wicked smile on his face.

To say that Shiozaki wasn't exactly a fan of Katsuki Bakugou would be putting it mildly. Although he was a fellow classmate from her time at U.A., you'd be hard pressed to find anyone inside of the hero industry that found the man pleasant to be around. Even with the massive changes in hero conduct regulations that occurred after the whole "Meta Liberation Army" fiasco and the subsequent riots that followed, the 'explosion' quirk user still presented himself as nothing more than a hot-headed hooligan. Granted, he did seem a little more tame than what she remembered from their time in school.

There had been quite a few rumors circulating that Bakugou had been put on some sort of probation status during their second year out of school. And the fact that he all of sudden moved out to Hokkaido not too long after wasn't exactly helping his reputation. But matters such as that weren't any of her business. And a true follower of the lord's will like herself knew better than to judge others based on trivial things such as random gossip.

So simply choosing to ignore it, Shiozaki continued about her business before finally heading home to kick her feet up and get ready for work tomorrow.

Following her nice and relaxing Sunday, it was back to the daily grind for the heroine known as "Vine". Despite a few minor emergencies and a young child managing to get himself stuck in a tree, Shiozaki was having a relatively uneventful patrol around the southern part of the city. It continued on like this for the better part of two hours before she ended up crossing paths with a rather unexpected person.

"Tetsutetsu!" She called out to the silver haired man known by the hero name "Real Steel" who was walking out of the nearby train station while holding a duffel bag in his hand.

"Oh, hey Ibara!" He greeted her with a smile. "How's it going?"

"All is well."

"Sweet!"

"What are you doing over here? Don't you have work today?" She then asked.

"I have the next couple of days off." He explained. "And since I had the time I decided to come and visit Itsuka before I need to head back."

"I see." She grinned.

Tetsutetsu and Kendou had been officially dating for the better part of a year and a half. And the two were about as in love as Shinju and Yu. The couple had been dancing around the whole thing for a while. Ever since their last year in school. But the silver haired man finally worked up the courage to ask her out after a much needed push from Tokage and Awase.

It truly brought joy to her heart to see that two of her closest friends were happily joined together in a union of the heart. And Shiozaki couldn't help but wonder how long it would take for them to get officially engaged. The only sad part about the arrangement was that Tetsutetsu was currently living in Osaka right now. So the two had to make do with being "long distance" for the time being.

"So what's up? You on patrol duty this afternoon?"

"Yes." She answered. "It's been relatively quiet up until now. But I am thankful for the lack of evildoers who would look to ruin such a wonderful day."

"Sounds good." The man laughed.

Since she was already heading in that direction, Shiozaki decided to join him for part of his journey towards the orange haired woman's neighborhood. Along the way the two simply chatted about how things had been going since the last time that they saw each other face-to-face. As expected, everything was going well.

"Oh yeah, Itsuka told me that you guys had to do a job with some of those NPSC guys a few weeks ago. What happened with that?"

"It was nothing more than a simple raid operation to dispose of some criminals." Shiozaki answered without missing a beat. "I'll admit I was surprised that they asked us to work alongside them. But the lord was looking out for us and they were both professional and very accommodating."

"Well, at least you had a better experience with them than we did..."

That's right, Tetsutetsu did mention to her and the others that the Fatgum Agency had a few dealings with some NPSC Inspectors a while back. She couldn't remember the details about the affair. But from what she could recall, it wasn't exactly what one would call a good time.

"What happened? I don't believe that you ever had the chance to tell us the whole story."

The 'steel' quirk user let out an annoyed sigh as he recalled the events of what happened. "It was a few months after we all graduated from school. Fatgum had me, Ejiro and Yaoyorozu working on a case to track down some guys smuggling drugs out of Osaka. We spent a ton of time gathering all the evidence. Even busted a few small time dealers along the way. Then out of nowhere some guys from the NPSC showed up at the agency and demanded that we hand everything over to them."

"Really?"

"Yeah! I was pretty pissed off about it and wanted to know who they thought they were. But then Fatgum just told us to drop it and let them have their way. It didn't help that one of those guys was a total assho- I mean was pretty rude about it."

"Well that's not good. Do you know who they were?"

"No clue. One of them was a short woman with some weird hairstyle who apparently knew Fatgum. The other guy was tall with freckles and short green hair."

Shiozaki's feet immediately stopped after hearing the details about the two people in question. If gambling wasn't an action frowned upon by her faith, she'd be willing to bet that she knew exactly who Tetsutetsu was referring to. "Green hair?"

"Yeah! Now that guy was a douchebag!" The man waved his hands around. "I asked him why they thought they had the right to just upend our investigation and he just looked at me and said: 'You people just stick to playing hero and posing for the cameras. We'll handle the rest from here.' I swear, that guy was just asking me to give him a piece of my mind!"

Well...that certainly didn't sound like Midoriya at all. At least not based on any of the past interactions that she had with him. For a second she wondered if he was talking about the same person. But the fact that he was with someone who fit the description of Chief Inspector Kaniko made it hard for her to rule it out. The green haired man presented himself as a very respectful person. So it was a bit hard to believe that he would be rude to someone as likable as Tetsutetsu for no reason.

'Then again, I don't exactly know him at that well.' She thought. For all she knew, he might have just been nice to her on account of them having to work together.

Deciding to tuck that bit of information away for now, the duo continued with their talk before finally deciding to part ways once they reached a nearby intersection. Tetsutetsu gave the vine haired woman one last wave before making the rest of the trip to meet up with his girlfriend. Letting her know that he and Honenuki were planning some sort of class reunion and that she would get the invite pretty soon.

And with that, Shiozaki went about the rest of her day as she normally would. But for some reason, she wasn't able to shake the thought of what she heard from her friend concerning a certain green haired Inspector.

~Later That Day~

Once she was finally done with work, it was time for Shiozaki to head home and relax for the remainder of the day. She was back at her apartment building just in time to avoid the afternoon rush and was glad that she didn't need to head out again any time soon. Like usual, she greeted the woman at the front desk and made a beeline right for the elevator. While patiently waiting for the doors to close, a voice called out to her only a split second before they were shut.

"Hold the door, please!"

Without a second thought, the woman pressed the button on the control panel to let the late arrivals inside so that they wouldn't get left out in the lobby. She wasn't looking directly at the two people when they entered, but noticed that one of them had black hair and was wearing a red sweatsuit.

"Thank you, Shiozaki-san."

"It was no problem-" You could almost hear the vertebrae in the vine haired woman's neck crack when the man's voice finally registered in her brain. "Midoriya-san?" She asked while taking in his appearance.

"Long time no see, how's it going?" He greeted her politely.

It took her a good three seconds to fully give him the once over and process what she was looking at. Yup, there was no doubt about it. The man she was looking at was definitely Inspector Midoriya. But what she didn't understand was why he looked so different. His usually emerald green hair was now jet black and the freckles on his face were now missing. What exactly was going here? This was her first time seeing him in over two weeks and all of sudden he looked like a totally different person.

However, Midoriya's appearance wasn't exactly the most interesting thing about this. Standing on the opposite side of her neighbor was another person. A woman actually. And one with an appearance that would make any person give her a second look. She had bright, neon green hair and a set of orange eyes with a hue similar to that of the setting sun. But the most fascinating thing about her was her outfit. The best way that Shiozaki could describe it without sounding rude was a mix between pre-quirk era "grunge" with a little bit "goth" mixed in for good measure. All topped off with a military style duffel bag hanging off her left shoulder.

"Wow..." She let out unintentionally. "I almost didn't recognize you."

"Yeah, I bet." He gave her a quick laugh. "I didn't get a chance to wipe the makeup off my face and scrub this dye out of my hair before Kaniko-senpai let me come home."

Although she had quite a few questions, the woman concluded that it would be impolite to pry too deeply into why he looked like this. So she just went with the obvious in hopes of maintaining casual conversation. "I take it that this had something to do with your work."

"Yeah..." Midoriya proceeded to rub the back of his head. "I can't really talk about it, but we have to do this kind of thing all the time."

Something like that wasn't exactly surprising to Shiozaki. Heroes frequently used disguises to go undercover whenever the need came up. She could never really pull it off since her hair was a dead giveaway as to what her identity was. But for someone with Midoriya's talents, he seemed perfect for that kind of thing.

"Well I think it's a good look for you." She said in a joking fashion.

"Thank you."

It was only then that Shiozaki remembered the other person standing there. "Forgive me for being rude, but are you a friend of Midoriya-san's?" She asked politely.

"Yes…" The green haired woman answered flatly.

"I see. Well, it's a pleasure to meet you, I'm Ibara Shiozaki." The vine haired heroine proceeded to give her a bow.

"Togane." The woman replied with her own half hearted bow.

Alright, so it was obvious that this woman wasn't exactly the friendly type. If she didn't know any better, Shiozaki would've said that this Togane woman seemed a bit annoyed at having to talk to her. Although, her seemingly stoic demeanor did remind her a bit of Kodai when they were younger.

"Togane-san's a friend from work. Sorry, but she's not exactly the most...expressive person on the planet." Midoriya explained to her.

"I see."

Before they knew it, the young trio were at their floor. And the two greenettes gave each other one final goodbye while walking towards their respective apartments.

After stepping inside his home, Midoriya shut the door behind them. Togane wasted no time in pulling the neon green wig off of her head and scratching her scalp to alleviate the itch that had been plaguing her for the better part of an hour. Happy that she could finally ditch this ridiculous disguise.

"Thanks again for letting me come by to change, Midoriya-kun." The 'trueshot' quirk user said to her partner. "The last thing I need is the people who live in my building to see me like this. They might think that I'm some sort of call-girl or something."

"Agreed." He nodded. "It's too bad that we don't have showers at the office."

"So…" The woman then gave him a curious look. "That's the hero girl that Chief Kaniko was going on about? I remember seeing her in the news a while back."

"Yeah. Shiozaki-san's pretty nice."

"Noted."

"Though she might think that you don't like her. Not everyone is used to how you carry yourself."

"Why should I care about what some hero thinks of me?" Togane shrugged. "It's not like I plan on being her best friend or anything."

With no reason to argue with her logic, the green haired man stripped off his red hoodie and made his way over to the kitchen to pour himself a glass of water. The moment the cold liquid hit his lips, a sense of relief washed over his body. "Man, I'm so glad that we're finally done with this mission. I got tired of dealing with those guys from Unit Three."

"It would've been much easier if we had Tomioka-kun with us. Flirting with thugs is more up his alley anyway. And I wouldn't have to deal with that guy from Unit Three with the stun quirk trying to make a move on me every ten minutes. How long until he's back from his vacation?"

"Another week according to Kaniko-senpai. Anyways, you can head in the shower first since you need to head home." Midoriya offered his friend.

"Thanks, I owe you one."

While Togane went to take care of her business, the green haired Inspector sat down in a nearby chair to relax his muscles. Taking a quick moment to remove the prosthetic coating that was used to cover up his freckles. He always hated having to do undercover work since the jobs were always longer than he would like. Even if Kaniko swore up and down that he was perfect for them. But now that it was over, he wouldn't have to worry about another one for a while.

'At least Kaniko-senpai gave us the next few days off.' He smiled. 'Now...what exactly am I going to do for all that time?'

Upon returning to her cozy abode, Shiozaki began watering the precious flowers currently occupying about half the space on her balcony. Taking a little bit of extra time to replace some of the soil and add some new fertilizer that she managed to find while she was out on the town yesterday.

Once she was finished tending to the plants, the vine haired woman spent a good five minutes praying to the small altar in the corner by her dining area then proceeded to flop down on the sofa to enjoy some nice television. As she scrolled through the recommendations list , she couldn't help but notice the almost absurd amount of romance dramas that seemed to plague the majority of her screen. For a moment, Shiozaki began to wonder if Tokage had somehow managed to hack into her streaming account...again.

'Is this really the sort of stuff that's popular nowadays?' She wondered.

Of course the woman wasn't opposed to the idea of romance. She actually did enjoy a light hearted shoujo anime every now and then. But it seemed like every other show that went into production in recent years was more and more raunchy than the last. If it wasn't over-the-top plot-lines and murder mysteries, then it was just a concerning amount of sexual deviancy and flat out degeneracy. Basically the exact opposite of what she would consider entertaining.

Eventually, she was able to find a pre-quirk era movie about two childhood friends who happened to be major otakus that ended up working together at the same company. Thankfully it was only rated "PG-13".

As she laid back and sipped on a nice cool jug of water, Shiozaki couldn't help but let her mind wander off to the topic of love.

The woman was never really concerned about such matters when she was younger. Back then, she was of the opinion that children shouldn't delve too deeply into that kind of thing in hopes of avoiding giving in to their more sinful desires. Something that many of the people who shared her faith would agree with. But now that she was an adult with quite a bit of life experience under her belt, her views one the matter had shifted quite a bit.

It wasn't like she had any reason to really dedicate that much time to it though. It was already difficult enough balancing a decent social life alongside being a hero. And based on the stories that she had heard from her friends the dating pool for those in her profession was slim. Couple that with finding a partner who wouldn't have an issue dating someone as devoted to her faith as she was and you might well as rule out the majority of the population. But stuff like that didn't stop her parents from asking when was finally going to find a husband before reaching old age.

'Honestly...those two are going to drive me mad one of these days.'

Deciding to shift her focus back onto the movie and not her own romance related machinations, the vine haired heroine spent the rest of the hour enjoying her movie before passing out on the sofa. Thanks to her taking over for Yu a couple of times last week, she was given a day off from hero work by her boss. So there was no problem with throwing off her sleep schedule a bit to enjoy a nice mid-afternoon nap. And the matter of how she was going to occupy her newfound free time was something she wasn't going to worry herself over until tomorrow.

A/N: Alright, first update back after being away for so long! I was going to try my hand doing the next chapter for my other fic. But it seemed like a better idea to start off this one to see if my writing skills are as bad as I think they are. I'll admit that I had a different plan for this chapter, but I needed a "bridge" so to speak in case I messed up. So feel free to be as critical as you want. I'll try my best not to go cry in the corner later.

1. I know this chapter felt kind of random, but I'm trying to work out how I'm going to set up a few things that will come up in the story later on. Like I said in one of my previous updates, I don't plan on including a lot of the main cast from the canon story. It's mainly going to be some 1-B guys and some of the characters from Shiketsu. Along with the Vigilantes story line. But most of it will make sense later on.

2. Either the next chapter or the one after that will give you all a detailed explanation of how Midoriya's quirk functions in this AU. I was able to find my notes on how it worked (thankfully) and I think that some of you will like how I switched up the origin story for him. I like to think that it's one of my more creative BNHA ideas.

Like always, thanks for reading and don't be afraid to leave a comment/review. And have a wonderful day!