Midoriya Inko was tired. She was used to the feeling, but it seemed to be growing more on her lately. Like a fog, she couldn't see through. Or a blanket that she couldn't shake off. The feeling wrapped tightly around her and refused to let go. Refused to let her breathe.

The mother grabbed the railing of the staircase to steady herself. The rain that had been coming down in the morning made the metal cool to the touch. She took another breath and tightened the jacket that she had on. She didn't have much love for the winter.

The ragged woman finally made it up to the gray door and bronze doorknob that greeted her after every shift that she put in.

Cleaning, cooking, calling, greeting.

Every shift was different but like snowflakes in the fact that regardless of what the specifics of her work brought, it still felt the same - cold and unforgiving. She had been working at a regional office of Sonoco for ten years now.

The hours were long, and the work was difficult. It didn't help that Inko watched people that were hired after her surge past her in the office hierarchy, passing her as if it was a race. She was stuck on the bottom rung of the corporate ladder and she had figured out years ago that there was no path up for her.

Was this a fair outcome for her? She studied hard at Nagoya University and had dreams of running a public relations or communications firm. After finding a crappy entry-level job at Yoroi Musha's hero agency, she looked forward to the years ahead. What heroes would she work with next? Or would she end up more in the business side of things?

Inko never knew at the time how blissfully unaware she was of how the world worked. While Yoroi Musha might not have been the top hero in the country, he was known for being incredibly welcoming to people with all kinds of quirks and mutations. Inko was lucky to have landed a job at that specific agency, at that specific time. Life was pleasant for her for a while, hanging out with old college friends and new friends from the agency.

She still remembers the night like it was yesterday when she laid eyes on Hisashi. Shaggy dark hair shook lightly at a joke she told. An overcrowded bar drove them out to the alley next door. Hearing the music through the walls and dancing in each other's arms in the summer moonlight.

She always thought that night was the best of her life. That he was the best thing in her life.

The more she learned about Hisashi though, the more questions she had. At first, he seemed so simple. An architect who worked in Tokyo with a fire quirk. The man wore large glasses and baggy button-down shirts. His favorite color was emerald. Like her eyes.

Over time Inko was able to peel back the layers of the man she fell in love with. Did she like what she found when she finally reached the center? When she finally saw the man with snow-colored hair and sharp red eyes?

Or she supposed eye would be more of a proper term.

Inko always thought the violet coloring in the opposite iris was mesmerizing and intoxicating. She could stare at it for hours if she had the time, watching as it would sometimes pulse warmingly at her as if trying to silently communicate some sort of bond.

As if the eye had a mind of its own.

Hisashi didn't show her the true purpose of the eye until after Izuku was born. She was aware of his criminal past but believed that this 'Revelations' quirk had somehow changed the man that used to be the most feared face in the Japanese underworld.

Was she a bad person for falling in love with such a man? A man who had cruelly murdered those in his way with a grin on his face? She figured a good person probably wouldn't have ended up in the position that she did.

But she also liked to think she fell in love with Hisashi first. The man who just turned out to be a shade of the true man underneath him. And for all his faults, Inko still found some good in the figure known as All for One. A man desperately clawing against the changes of the world. A man who no longer fit into the place that used to be his home. A man who chases after the one piece of his past that he had left.

All for One had educated her enough on how the world truly worked for her to shrug at the actions that the man had taken after Izuku's birth. Inko had grown numb to the world around her. Finding the right work after her son was born had drained her of her remaining optimism for the future country that she once loved. The country that allowed her to go out dancing with her friends and make a difference at a real agency.

Quirks became a bigger deal than they once had. Those with stronger abilities found themselves on the fast track to the top of the food chain in whichever industry they found themselves in. Why? Since when did quirks outweigh experience or aptitude for the job? When did some mutations become actively sought after and some mutations tossed aside like rotten milk? The anger in Inko's chest burned as the years dragged on at Sonoco. As she saw things go from bad to worse over time. As she saw the way that her child was treated at school for his 'supposed' lack of quirk.

Why did she let these go on? Why did she endure when giving up could have been so much easier? Why did she let her child suffer a cruel life while she glumly watched like a visitor at a museum exhibit?

Inko knew the answer. Inko had seen the answer.

All for One had shown her things in the future that she couldn't even fathom. Battles on a massive scale. Warriors on both sides of a national conflict that slowly tears the country apart. Utter chaos. And then something built from the rubble of the structures that had come crashing down and the spilled blood of those that had fallen.

Even today as she spent her hours scrubbing the men's urinals, she couldn't get those images out of her head. Those faces and lives that resided in the future. A future that was ever so slowly creeping toward the present. A future that she was reminded of when she found Izuku sitting at the kitchen table with a blank stare. He was thinking. She had a pretty good idea of what it was about.

"Izuku." The mother reached out warmly and wrapped her fingers around his shoulder. While he had begun to finally grow taller, he seemed to be failing to fill out like some of the boys in his school. Even though he was no longer short, he seemed to still maintain an aura of fragility that left Inko worried.

"Izuku are you alright? It's getting late, sweetheart."

The teen finally blinked and looked up at his mother. His eyes seem even darker in the unlit room and Inko even had trouble making out the faint scar that zagged across his face. She slowly let go of the boy's arm and turned the kitchen light on.

"Did something happen?"

The boy looked down at his hands and then slowly brought them to rest on the table.

"They closed the Nagoya Sanctuary."

Inko frowned. The Nagoya sanctuary was a run-down building that was part of a government program to help those that feel 'threatened.' They purposefully kept the wording vague because saying the sanctuary was made to help 'those that are being attacked or persecuted due to a culture that we helped enable' seemed like a mouthful. Or maybe they just didn't want to say it.

Izuku continued to look blankly at the table, "The lady would help me when I had burns and bruises from when…" The boy idly trails off and scratches his stomach as if remembering some of the injuries that he had been dealt in the past. Inko knew that he was no longer being bullied but that didn't mean that the scars from the past could just fade away. That the tears that fell could be un-spilled. She swallowed back the bile she felt rising in her throat.

"The lady that worked there had a spider mutation. I was so scared when I first saw her. She had all these beady eyes and her mouth," Izuku raised his hands to his mouth to mimic the fangs that she had and then dropped them, "But I was in so much pain I didn't even care. I don't even think it was Bakugou that did it that time, it was one of his friends that could grow longer fingers. His nails became as sharp as knives when he did that."

Izuku paused again, "I was so scared of her, but she was so kind to me. She knew I feared her. Scared of how she looked. But she worked anyway. She disinfected the cuts I had and applied bandages all while singing a song to calm me down. I could hardly look her in the eye afterward. She was so kind to me, and I judged her based on her looks. Back when I thought I was quirkless and knew how all of the kids looked at me." Izuku grimaced, "It makes me sick to think about that."

Inko could see the anger rising in her son by the way his eyebrows continued to sink, "That place was safe to me. Safe to kids that are being rejected by society. And they tear it down? Where are the kids supposed to go now? How are they supposed to feel safe now?!"

Inko slowly reaches over and rubs her son's shoulders. He squeezes his eyes shut but he can't stop the tears from leaking out.

"What did they replace it with?"

Izuku grits his teeth, "An admission office for the HPSC Academy."

Ah. Inko almost laughs at the irony. It was hard to make their thinking more obvious.

Izuku looks back down at the floor, his face still wet, "What's going to happen to her, the woman who worked at the sanctuary? A woman who showed me more kindness than the rest of the country combined, forced to live with a mutation that she didn't choose. Making the best of her situation by becoming a nurse and helping those who were also hurt by this world."

Inko noticed that her sons' hands were twitching under the table. He didn't seem to notice.

"Why does she have to suffer?"

Inko sighed. He was asking questions that she didn't have answers to. He was asking questions that she often asked herself.

"Those are difficult questions, Izuku. She doesn't deserve to suffer. Have you tried to reach out to her?"

Izuku rubbed the remaining tears from his eyes, "Her phone line was dead. I'm not sure what that meant but I doubt it's good."

The matriarch suppressed a shudder. There would be news reports on groups that hunt people with unique mutations as if they were wildlife. She wasn't sure if spiders would be valuable, but she had heard of others that had been mutilated or killed because of what they looked like. Lion mutations, seal mutations, she even heard of rabbit mutations. It was one of the least talked about crises in the news, but now and then she would hear about it.

It was terrible.

"Can it be fixed, Mom?"

Inko looked back to Izuku who was now looking at her straight in the eyes.

Inko wanted him to elaborate, "Can what be fixed?"

"All of this. Can this be fixed by me? Can I become a politician or lawyer and fix this? Is it even possible to fix it? Or are we just too far gone now? Have we passed the point of no return?"

The mother ran her hand through her hair. It was time for her to play her part.

"I'm not sure, Izuku. I would love to tell you that if you put your head down and try as hard as you can, everything will work out for you. That the world will help you out eventually." Inko could slowly feel an anger bubble from within, "But saying that would happen would make me a liar. I've put my head down and worked as hard as I can and what do I have to show? What has my work brought me? What kind of life has my effort given to you and me?"

The mother can feel tears begin to sting her own eyes and continues after another breath, "I hate this. And I don't know how you could fix it, Izuku. By jumping into this society and this world, aren't you in some way acknowledging that it's not completely broken? I want to say that you'll rise above and be the change that we need, but you could also get stuck on the same rotating wheel that I'm on. Working hard and going nowhere."

Izuku looks deeply at his mom. The feelings of pain and anger that she desperately tries to repress seem to have all bubbled to the surface. Inko fails to hold in a sob and looks down at her hands. The blisters that the work has given her have made them rough and hard. Hisashi would always say she had the prettiest hands. What would he say about them now?

She suddenly feels two arms wrap themselves around her. She leans into the warmth.

"Then we'll leave, Mom. If I can't make a better life for you here, why should we stay?"

Inko looks up at the warm smile that her son gives her. Her only child. Her only family left.

"L-Leave?! Leave and go where Izuku?!"

The boy pulls her tighter to himself. She feels at peace when she's with him. She takes another deep breath and rests her head against his shoulder.

"Anywhere! I'll start looking at Universities that are in safer countries. In countries where we can be happy. Places where we don't need to look over our shoulders. Places where we can be free."

Inko feels tears continue to flood her eyes again. But these aren't tears for the past, or tears that are from her pain and frustrations. They're for the future. A future that she has seen. A future that she wants to happen. A future that she knew contained this very moment.

Midoriya Inko decided on the day Midoriya Hisashi walked away for good that she would commit herself fully to his plan. She was prepared to sacrifice everything for the future that Revelations showed her.

She just hoped everyone else would play the role that they were given.

~Revelations~

"You look like shit."

Tch. Aizawa Shota lifted his head slowly from the desk that he was sleeping on and narrowed his eyes at the figure that stood next to him.

"Fuck off, Nemuri."

The R-Rated hero smirked as she placed a mug of coffee on his desk. He eyes the cup warily as she struts back to her desk that sat across from him. Shota slowly lifts his hand and wraps it around the beverage, trying to absorb the heat that's radiating from the liquid. He raises his nose to make sure Kayama hadn't slipped anything weird into it (one time when he was cranky with her, she later gave him a mug of coffee that had about three shots of hot sauce in it) and then took a hesitant sip.

It tastes better than he would like to admit.

The blue-haired heroine raises an eyebrow, "Isn't it great?"

Aizawa scowls and lies through his teeth, "No."

Midnight chuckles and takes a sip of her cup. It's quiet in the teachers' lounge since most are out for classes or even patrolling in the area. It usually seems to be just the two college friends who end up together for the hour break. Sometimes Nemuri lets Shota sleep.

It appears that this isn't one of those times.

Aizawa takes another sip of coffee and then looks at the woman, "What do you want?"

"You've seemed off recently."

Shota sighed, it sometimes frustrated him how easily she and Hisashi could read him. How easily they could tell that his mind was elsewhere. With a boy on a roof, stories of the past and secrets he didn't understand. Aizawa had tried digging around for anything that was referred to as 'Kratos' with contacts in the Underground as well as some heroes that worked more closely with the HPSC and other companies that were known clients of Heroics National. He found nothing.

His next job was trying to learn more about the kid that he couldn't chase down. Circling back to the person who tipped him off, it became clear that the contact's goal was knocking the boy out of the picture. It seemed that the teen had been making quite a name for himself in the underworld. People were beginning to grow frustrated with the jobs he had been given and the money that he was pulling in.

The boy was a threat to anyone trying to get the top jobs that information brokers handed out. From the one broker, Aizawa was able to find, he learned that the boy, who went by 'Shigaraki', worked primarily with another broker known as 'Giran'. Last night was the third in a row that Eraserhead went out looking for the man and he still was unable to find anything.

It was beginning to agitate him.

Shota looked back up from his mug, "I'm fine."

Nemuri pursed her lips, "I looked into your recent reports, you seem to be bouncing to a lot of different prefectures on your shifts. Why aren't you just staying in Nagoya like you usually do?"

Damn. It looks like she did her research. He must look like shit this time.

Aizawa took another sip, "I'm looking for an underground broker who might have information on someone."

Midnight tilted her head, "You're looking for a broker that works in the underground?"

Shota nodded and took another sip of coffee. It was becoming cold.

"I thought that would be the best way to find information on the kid. But I haven't found anything on him or the broker yet."

Kayama's eyes widened, "Kid? Who exactly are you looking for?"

Aizawa grimaced. He wishes he hadn't said that.

"You can't stop there, Shota. I'll call Hisashi in to sing on repeat until you tell me the rest."

Shota frowned. It wouldn't be the first time she did that.

"The kid's name was Shigaraki. Some sort of up-and-comer that others in the underworld want to be taken out."

Midnight took a sip of her coffee, "How old is he?"

Eraserhead shrugged, "I'm not sure. He didn't look older than the first years though when I talked to him."

The heroine frowned slightly, "So he was only 18?" She then paused for a moment and then looked back at him, "When did you meet this kid?"

"Couple of weeks ago. I cornered him on a roof after chasing him around for half an hour."

Nemuri blinked, "It took you half an hour to chase down some kid?"

Aizawa slinked his head further into the scarf that was lazily wrapped around him, "He was quick."

She snorted, "And what did this kid say that had you so interested in him?"

Shota paused to think about the question. What was it that he found fascinating about Shigaraki? He'd like to think it was the kids' physical talents but he knew that was a lie. It was the kid's presence. Aizawa understood why people in the underworld were worried about him.

It was because they knew a day would come that they were even serving him or killed by him. Shigaraki was dangerous.

Shota decided to not bring up his thinking and chose to mention something else that would pique Midnight's interest, "He said he lived with the Sonozaki's."

Kayama choked on the sip she had just taken, "The kid lived with the Sonozaki's? How the hell did that happen?!"

"He mentioned that they adopted him." Aizawa looked down at the mug in front of him, "He also mentioned that he was the one who scarred Sonozaki Mion."

Midnight couldn't help the slight growl that fell from her lips, "So this Shigaraki was the scumbag that hurt Mion?! Who hurt one of the sweetest girls I've ever met?!"

Eraserhead frowned, "He wasn't what I expected based on some of the things Akiro implied about the person who attacked her."

Aizawa had been to enough HPSC meetings to hear Sonozaki Akiro guest speak on the need for 'strong' heroes to fight back those that hurt the innocent. It always seemed that the man was speaking about his daughter when he said things like this. However, when someone would probe further about the incident itself, Akiro would always say the same thing.

"She was attacked by someone who should not have been in my house."

Akiro also would say that the situation had been resolved, so no one ever looked further into what happened to Sonozaki Mion all those years ago. Aizawa has also never spoken to the girl, so it was hard to understand what her feelings were on the matter.

Nemuri looked him in the eyes, "How does a kid who was adopted by the Sonozaki's do something like that to Mion?"

"He said it was an accident, that she was the only kind person to him there and he felt that it was wrong that she had to be the one that suffered."

Nemuri seemed to stiffen at that comment. "So, he accidentally attacked her? How does that even work?"

Shota shrugged, "I don't know." He then winced as a sudden thought came to him, "What if we just asked her ourselves? Would she talk?"

Midnight drummed her fingers on her desk thoughtfully, "I don't know. Someone asked her about it once in class and she just said that it was an accident that happened when she was little. She wouldn't say anything else about it, though."

"If we asked, maybe we could learn more about Shigaraki too."

The heroine ran a hand through her hair and wearily glanced at the clock, "We do have time. Maybe if we just make sure to preface with the fact that she doesn't have to talk about it? We have no idea what underlying trauma is there Shota, this is thin fucking ice if we talk to her."

Aizawa nodded slowly. Nemuri looked at him one more time with a slight frown before taking her cell phone out and making a call.

~Revelations~

Sonozaki Mion wasn't sure what she was getting herself into when Midnight called her asking to visit the teachers' lounge. Being the rep for her class, she wasn't shocked to see Kayama calling her since Midnight was the homeroom teacher for the Business Course offered at UA. Mion also felt that she got along well with the professor and enjoyed meeting up with her for tea now and then.

However, Midnight's tone of the phone suggested that this wasn't going to be a regular chat filled with gossip and crude jokes. The teacher's lounge seemed to be clogged with feelings of hesitation and worry as she finally entered, and the teen was surprised to see that Eraserhead was there with Kayama. She didn't know the man very well with most knowledge being through some of the stories that Midnight would tell her of her college days.

Midnight smiled warmly at the girl and gestured for her to take a seat near the two teachers.

"How are you doing, Mion?"

Mion grinned at the professor, "Better now that I chat with my favorite teacher!"

Aizawa snorted at the comment and then gave a slight bow to the girl, "I know we've never met before Sonozaki, but would it be alright if I ask you a few questions?"

Midnight quickly reached out and placed a hand on the teen's knee, "Mion, if you don't feel comfortable answering these questions, please let us know. The last thing I want to do is bring up something that you wouldn't want to talk about."

Mion stared quizzically at the teacher and then turned her attention back to Eraserhead, "Um, I can try to answer the best I can."

The man gave a slight smile and looked down to a notepad he was holding, "Have you ever heard of the name Shigaraki before?"

Mion frowned, "No I don't recognize the name. Why do you ask?"

Aizawa took a breath, "I ended up chasing down a kid with that name a couple of weeks ago. When I cornered him on a rooftop, he told me a story about him living with the Sonozaki family in the past."

Mion's eye twitched.

She looked around the hospital room seeing the smiling faces of her parents. But they weren't who she wanted to see. She was looking for someone else.

"Mion, darling, you're alright! Thank God!" She was surrounded by hugs and tears of joy.

Why didn't she feel the same way?

The two finally leaned away from her to give some space and she cleared her throat, "Daddy, where's Tenko? I need to tell him it wasn't his fault! He didn't mean to do it!"

He saw a slight flinch from her father who slowly wrapped her left hand in his own.

"Tenko ran off after the incident sweetie." He paused for a moment and looked down at the ground, "We tried to calm him down, but he wouldn't come back. We looked all night for him and found nothing. But then in the morning…" Akiro ended up trailing off with a strange look in his eyes.

Her mother seemed to notice and placed a hand gently on Mion's head, "We found Tenko the next morning, Mion. It seemed like he must have slipped into the river to the south. There was nothing we could do! He.." her mother took a deep breath, "He was already dead when we found him."

Dead? Tenko drowned?

It was her fault. This was all her fault.

Her eyes began to sting, and she let out a shuddering breath.

She tried to raise both of her arms to wipe away the tears, but her eyes widened when she looked down at her right arm. The hand that held on to Tenko. The right hand that felt so warm in his.

It was gone.

An ugly stump looked back at her, with half of her forearm missing as well. Pink skin from the scarring crawling up to her shoulder blade.

The missing hand seemed to align nicely with things that we were now missing that were important to her.

She began to cry harder in the hospital bed. She couldn't help herself. It had all fallen apart. Everything that she was working towards. The family she wanted. It was all gone.

"Mion!"

The teen took a deep breath and looked down at her right hand. A cybernetic prosthetic looked back at her. Her full sleeves hid the rest of the reminder from that day.

Mion felt Midnight lean over and wipe a tear from her face. Had she been crying? She hadn't even noticed.

Both teachers looked at her. Concern was evident in both of their eyes.

"I-It was m-my fault." She chokes out in a whisper.

Kayama places her hand on Mion's left. It feels warm.

"Mion, you don't have to talk about it." The teacher then glances back to Aizawa, "I think this was probably a mistake."

Sonozaki stares blankly at the ground, "I was the one that told him to take off the gloves. It was my fault. He drowned because of me. Because of my mistake." She glances back at her robotic hand. She hates the way it looks back at her. "I just wanted him to be happy."

Aizawa looked at the teen and spoke quietly, "I don't think he drowned Mion."

Mion flinches again, "Who was this person that you saw? Why do you think he's the same that lived with me?"

Aizawa leans back for a moment and checks his notes again, "His name is Shigaraki Tomura, and he's a rising figure in the underworld. I was tipped off by a contact that the kid would be stealing sensitive data from Heroics National and then found him on his way back. He was able to outrun me for about half an hour until he led me up to a roof. Ended up talking a bit about his time with your family and that he had no real choice about being a criminal. He then jumped off and when I went to check on him, the body had become a greyish substance."

Midnight frowned, "Greyish substance…" she seemed to take a moment to think before her eyes lit up, "Wait was it Multiplier?!"

Aizawa nodded, "Yeah, I was as shocked as you. I thought he was out of the business…" Shota looked down at his shoes, "… or dead."

They looked back to Mion who had had her left hand wrapped tightly around the armrest of the seat she was in, "What did he look like?"

Eraserhead looked back at her, "He was about your age with red eyes and gray-blue hair. It seemed like he had some scarring on his face as well."

Mion wasn't sure how to feel. Cerulean hair? Red eyes?

It was him.

Tenko was alive. The boy she thought died because of her had been alive this whole time.

She wanted to be happy. She wanted to cry tears of joy and scream from the mountain tops. But she had too many questions that were filling her head.

Then what happened after I fell down the stairs? Did Tenko survive the river? Did my parents mistake him for someone else? Were they unable to catch him when he ran away originally?

A bitter but more important question popped into her head.

Did my parents lie to me?

"Sonozaki."

Mion was snapped out of her trance when Eraserhead called back to her.

"Does this seem like the person that was living at your house?"

Mion gave a shaky nod, "It certainly sounds like Tenko alright."

Aizawa picked up his pen and notepad, "Tenko? That was his name when he lived with you?"

Sonozaki nodded again, "Yep, he was Tenko." She then frowned at a memory, "He was just Tenko."

Midnight squinted, "Just Tenko? What about his family name?"

"He didn't know." Mion looked down at her feet, "Something happened to him when he was little. The trauma left a patchy image of who he was before he ended up at a foster home."

Aizawa frowned, "And why did your family adopt him? He seemed to allude to him never understanding why he lived with you."

Mion narrowed her eyes, "I was never able to figure it out either. Mom never seemed to like him, and dad seemed to avoid him as much as possible. I always thought they just wanted me to have a friend since I was hardly ever allowed to leave the estate." Mion paused, "But the more he was there the more confused I got. I tried to care for him and be kind to him, but my parents never really reciprocated. They never saw him as part of the family."

Kayama sighed, "And I'm guessing this kid didn't have a great time in foster care before he arrived?"

Sonozaki nodded slowly, "Tenko didn't like talking about it much. The foster homes themselves were underfunded and I don't think anyone showed interest in adopting him before my father came along."

Shota looked down at this note. He didn't feel comfortable asking about Kratos since he doubted the girl knew anything, but hearing the kid spent a long time in foster care helped paint a clearer picture. Tomura must have known some of the names on the list and put it together. But without the list that Shigaraki had seen, Aizawa was unable to do much research into where the kids are now and how they are connected.

Shota sighed. He felt another headache coming on.

"Professor Aizawa?"

Shota blinked up and looked back toward Sonozaki.

"H-How did Tenko seem?"

He could see the worry that was overflowing from the girl's eyes. He wasn't entirely sure what the relationship had been between the two, but he felt that she deserved the truth and his honest thoughts on the boy.

"He's becoming a well-known criminal. In terms of his physical health, I would say he seemed in good shape outside of the scarring on his face and the dry skin around his eyes."

Mion's mouth twitched upwards. She didn't care much about hearing that Tenko had become some major player in the underworld. Until she was able to find and talk to the boy she lived with, she wouldn't make any assumptions about him. She knew this world had always been harsh and unfair to the cerulean-haired child. But hearing that he was physically healthy made her feel warm inside.

"Were there any scratch marks on his neck?"

Aizawa thinks back, "Not as far as I could tell."

Midnight looked to her students, "Did he scratch his neck when he lived with you?"

Sonozaki nodded slowly, "He'd have panic attacks and scratch it. He tried to hide the marks when I was around, but he was always itchy. I don't know if he was ever comfortable in his skin when he lived with us."

Kayama sighed, "Was the itch quirk related?"

Mion looked back to what was left of her right arm, "He called his quirk decay, even though I told him to change it a couple of times. I hated the way it sounded. I think he thought the name was a good fit. An evil quirk with an evil-sounding name."

Aizawa scratched down notes on his pad, "Decay? And what exactly did it do?"

"Anything that he grabbed onto with five fingers turns to dust."

Nemuri's eyes widened as she looked at Mion's arm, "Is that how? Is that what happened to you?"

Mion looked blankly at the floor. She hated reliving that moment. But she trusted Midnight and Eraserhead. Maybe giving them the truth would somehow help Tenko.

"I asked him to not wear his gloves when we're playing outside. With the gloves, he couldn't use his quirk, but I just wanted him to feel more normal. I think the gloves reminded him of his past. Of his trauma." Mion took a breath, "I tripped over a camera when I was trying to comfort him after he seemed to have some sort of anxiety attack. He saved me by grabbing my hand before I could fall off the staircase that led to my house. But then.." Mion trailed off.

Aizawa and Kayama both shuddered.

It was a brutal story. Too brutal to not be true.

Aizawa looked back down to his notes. He had one last question for the girl.

"And what happened afterward?"

Mion looked back at the man, "My parents told me he drowned in a river when I woke up." Her fingers dug into the armrest again, "Why would they do that? Why would they lie to me?"

The teachers both sighed. It seemed that more research would have to be done.

Aizawa threw the notepad back to his desk and slowly got up and grabbed his chair. He turned back to the green-haired girl, "It seems that your parents didn't want you to find him. Will you tell them what I've found?"

Mion rubbed her eyes. The conversation had left her exhausted. "No. But I want to be updated on anything you find regarding Tenko. I can do my research as well." She looked away from the two and toward the door for the lounge, "I want to see him again."

Both teachers nodded. It seemed that the three of them were in this together.

Mion hoped the boy could stay safe until she could see him smile again.

~Revelations~

Tomura ducked under the glass that had been thrown at his head. It seemed he had underestimated Nagant's arm strength.

"Oi, you think we have a cheat code for unlimited glasses?! You're paying for that shit!"

Takusugi hissed at him and appeared to be looking for more things to throw.

Tomura regretted locking eyes with her as she yelled, "You want more data?! How about I just rip a computer from the main server and carry it out of the HPSC building?! Would that fit your agenda?!"

Shigaraki did his best to stand his ground and look the women in the eye. "Well, it needs to be worth what I'm providing you! Maybe if you were a little clearer on the details of the job when we first met, we wouldn't be in this situation!"

Nagant grit her teeth, "Because you wouldn't have accepted!"

Tomura threw his arms in the air, "No shit! You played me into thinking this job would be a piece of cake when it sounds more like a boss level! This guy is being protected by a triad?! What the fuck?!"

Haruno dared to look at him sheepishly, "I told you that most of the group would be away on the weekend."

The teen rolled his eyes, "Oh great! So, now we only have to kill fifteen members instead of fifty! Are you insane?! We will be hunted down for the rest of our lives if we do this!"

The girl with bicolored hair shrugged, "We'll just leave no witnesses." She paused and looked at the boy in the eye, "Are you saying you can't get this done?"

Tomura winced. He recognized the work that Nagant had already done for him. It would take him weeks to go through everything she had copied from the HPSC with Twice and Kurogiri.

She had done what he had asked.

On the other hand, he also really didn't want to go to Hong Kong and fight a triad.

What would Sensei do at this moment?

"Remember Tomura, every experience will lead to growth. And growth will lead to the fulfillment that you seek."

Shigaraki sighed and looked back at the girl standing at the other side of the bar. He could see the cracks beginning to form in her cool façade. The desperation for someone to help pull her out of the mess that she had gotten herself into. To extend a hand toward her when she needs it most. Would his hand be able to help Takasugi?

Green eyes and seafoam hair suddenly looked back at him, and he quickly glanced down at his red shoes.

It certainly didn't help her.

Maybe he was overthinking it. He'd been looking for a real mission since he had met Giran all those years ago and now he finally had one. This was a chance to test himself. A chance to earn some real experience points.

Shigaraki looks back at the commission hero, "Come back tomorrow night with all the information you have. We'll plan it and then move in this weekend when you said most will be away."

Nagant struggles to contain the smile that was breaking out on her face at him.

It seems like they had a plan to make.

Key Players Log:

Midoriya Inko. Age 40.

Midoriya Izuku. Age 16.

Aizawa Shota. Age 27.

Kayama Nemuri. Age 28.

Sonozaki Mion. Age 18.

Tomura Shigaraki. Age 18.

Takasugi Haruno. Age 20.

Chapter Notes:

-Wanted to show some Inko backstory and then have Izuku shift from thinking he can change the country to realizing that it is probably impossible after seeing the effect that it has on his mom. He also realizes he doesn't owe Japan anything and would rather just be someplace safer with his Inko.

-More Aizawa with Kayama and Mion. These three will play a big role in the story and for reference, Mion is in the same year as Mirio, Nejire, and Tamaki who are all freshmen at UA (which is a university/college in this fic) at this point.

-Wanted to tease the next chapter which will be much more action-based as Shigaraki and Nagant head to Hong Kong.

-As a quick note at the time of the upload, this version of the story is currently behind the version that's on Ao3. If you'd like to continue reading, I'd recommend jumping over to that site while I work to get all of what I've written so far onto here.

Thanks for reading and see you all next time!