"You can be whatever you want to be, Shoto. Don't ever let me hold you back."
With her words ringing in my ears, I had seen that I had to accept the inevitable. There was no avoiding the fact that my old man was ranked as the #2 hero, and that objectively speaking I had an offer from the second highest rated agency in the country.
My old man operates out of a top-class skyscraper in the nearby city. It's set up like an office building, the top floor being the main office and all the lower floors managing the files, paperwork, and sidekick housing. He's got his own private office, fancier than most hero agencies, set up in a nook behind gilded closed doors next to the main office.
They already know me around there. I've been dragged in to the place over and over again for job shadowing since I was five. I've avoided the place ever since Mom…well, since it happened, but I still remember it like yesterday.
Miss Burnin, the old man's prime ranked sidekick, saw me as I came in and grinned.
"Don't expect any special treatment just cause you're the boss's son, Shoto," she said, referring to my new Hero name. "You're just another intern here, got it?"
"Well done as always, Todoroki."
"These offers are probably because of my father…" Yaoyorozu, Bakugou, Midoriya…all of my impressive classmates who had to fight for recognition and earn it…
The old man looked thrilled of course, as soon as I entered his office.
"I'm glad to see you here," he said in what, for him, is a cheerful tone. "It's good to see you've put aside your rebellious sense enough for this. I'll lead you down the path of the mighty here."
"I have no intention of following any path you've created," I snapped. "It's up to me to decide what I'll be."
He frowned a bit, but I had the sense he didn't understand my point. In any case, he stood up in business mode.
"Very well. If you intend to learn, then we may as well commence."
A typical day in the old man's office generally involves the sidekicks filtering hundreds of action requests. The old man goes out on patrol around the area, resolving any incidents that occur - there's generally countless numbers coming every hour - and moving on immediately to the next problem. Nobody stands still for long.
As an intern, of course, I am not allowed to use my quirk. My only role that morning and afternoon was to observe.
The old man gave me a training regimen to start that evening for my fire, in a printed list he'd probably been saving for years. It made me flinch at first to think of, but I had to go through with it.
Your power is your own.
You can be what you want to be.
With those words in my mind, I diligently sat down to practice the new training regimen.
This is just a quirk training assignment. You're only doing what you need to do to make your power the best that it can be.
When I returned from changing into my costume, I tried not to wretch at the look of satisfaction on the old man's face. Since talking with mom, I'd decided to change my outfit to better accommodate my power. The cooling device now regulates my temperatures for both sides, and my belt has first aid devices; the whole thing is tighter and more streamlined. But I think what the old man is smiling about is the color. It's now deep blue.
A few days into the internship, the old man decided we needed a field trip.
"We're going after the Hero Killer. He's in Hosu city, wrecking havoc. We're taking the initiative and tracking him down before anything else happens."
The ride in the company car with the old man and his driver was long, quiet and uncomfortable. The only conversation was the old man reviewing the Hero Killer case. As he spoke, my mind went to Iida, and his brother.
The Hero Killer was the villain that had attacked and it seemed disabled for life the Turbo Hero Ingenium. I'd never really talked a lot with Iida about his life or his home, but undoubtedly his brother was important to him - and ever since Ingenium had been attacked, Iida's face had been very different. He wore a look that I knew only too well…
All the more reason to capture this villain. I hated to admit it, but the old man was right here; taking initiative to defeat the Hero Killer would probably prevent more lives from being ended.
When we arrived in the Hosu ward of Tokyo that night, however, we found something if possible even worse was going on.
At first, it looked like a series of explosions - smoke, damaged buildings, and panic in the streets. It soon became clear that the cause of the chaos was a group of super villains - and as we ran through the streets, looking to resolve the incident, one of them flew overhead.
I almost stopped on the spot. I only had a brief glimpse of it, but the thing had brains spiller out of its head and sharp, lethal teeth..it looked like a light-colored version of the…
Nomu. From the USJ. There can't be that many creatures with their brains spilling out and opposite staring eyes, not to mention the chaos. So the League of Villains is back in action. They must be nearby, since the Nomu needed Shigaraki's instructions to -
"Come now, Shoto. I'll show you what a hero is!" barked the old man, interrupting my thoughts as we ran. In my back pocket, my cell phone buzzed for the first time in a few days.
A group message from…
Midoriya?
"Stop looking at your phone, look at me Shoto!" I ignored him.
Simply a location on a map, no text. 4210 Eko street in…Hosu City. Not five minutes from where I was standing right now.
What?! Midoriya…must be here. In the middle of this mess. But why would he do that? No, Midoriya wouldn't…unless…oh. I've got to hurry, then.
I turned about on my heel and ran.
"Where are you going, Shoto!?"
"An alleyway at 4-2-10 Ekou Street. When you're done, if there are any heroes who've got their hands free, I'm requesting backup. I'm sure you can handle whatever's going on in no time. And…my friend might be in trouble."
I said that last part more to myself than to him.
