The house was quiet by the time the boy made it home. The clock ticked, big hand resting on the six, little hand somewhere between the ten and the eleven. Blinds were open, revealing the empty apartment, floors recently washed, counters recently scrubbed. The faint smell of disinfectant lingered in the air and he did his best to suppress the slight gag that was rising from his throat. That smell of cleanliness, that smell of sparkling linoleum - had he always hated it? It was so hard to tell now.

Dropping his backpack with a thud on the carpeting, Midoriya Izuku drags his feet to the fridge and pours himself a glass of water with ice. A white button-down shirt hangs loosely from his wiry frame, the top two buttons were undone to counter the rising heat of the upcoming spring. It was March now, his final year at Aldera High School fast approaching. He had no strong feelings one way or the other at this point. The setting was a means to an end, a daily ritual of clocking in, tuning out lectures, and then clocking out. Arguments with Katsuki tended to be the highlights of the day, the two boys always finding something to bicker about with their slowly diverging world views and moral philosophy. Bakugou would bring up the impending move out of Japan daily, doing his best to hide the frantic light lingering in the corners of his eyes, able to suppress the lingering urge to scream out whatever feelings were hiding under the surface.

Izuku would suppress as well, he certainly wasn't going to be the first to blink in this running down-the-clock game of cowardice.

Were they best friends? Acquaintances? Brothers? Neither would spend much time looking into the deeper feeling that lingered but they undeniably enjoyed each other's company. And Izuku was leaving.

He was leaving Bakugou and Japan behind for a future with his mother.

A future where she would be safe. A future where they could be happy.

Thinking of the woman, Izuku pulled himself out of his chair and trudged to her room. The door was ajar, like how she would usually leave it. A slight squeak from the door hinges revealed a slumped figure lying diagonally across a ragged mattress. For the rest of the house, the master bedroom was a far cry from the scrubbed tile and spotless living room. Clothes and blankets were thrown around haphazardly, no clear pattern or rule, pillows clinging to the edge of the mattress for life, no clear imprint from a head using it. The scrawny figure snored silently having lost most of the weight she had gained in the past over the last few years. A slight drip draws Izuku to the side of the room. He sees his mother's hand hanging lazily over the edge and recoils slightly at the image before him. Swollen knuckles and blistered fingers look back at him. The drip was from a cut between his mothers' index and middle finger, the blood slowly snaking down and dropping onto the white tile below. It wasn't the first time he had seen her like this. So tired, so beaten down she didn't even bother to clean herself up.

He mused that it was maybe because deep down in the back of his mother's mind, she knew she could scrub and scrub for days on end but the grime on her hands, the grim in her life, will never leave her be.

Izuku slowly walks around and pulls a tissue from the dresser and wraps it around her hand. He raised the frail wrist up to his face to get a better look and inhaled the smell of blood with that same scent he had gotten earlier. Disinfectant.

The boy grits his teeth and finishes the wrapping quickly before leaving the room.

The home phone sits on the counter near the kitchen. A flimsy yellow sticky note clings to the wall above, a giant 'WORK' written at the top in his mom's squiggly handwriting. Without a second thought, Izuku picks up the phone and dials the number.

Day after day he would find Inko like this. Passed out, worked to exhaustion, and day after day he would place a blanket on her sleeping form, clean any open cuts, and then shut her door.

He would walk away.

He didn't like looking at her like that. Seeing her that weak, that frail. So he looked away. Could a child ever be accused of being negligent toward their own parents? At what age did the roles finally become reversed? At what point should this rising guilt of Inko's state feel reasonable? He planned the move out of the country for her, didn't he?

Was that enough? Was that why he didn't give more for her, why he didn't go out of his way to protect her in the state that she was now?

Or was it something else entirely?

Every time he saw his mom like that, every time he saw tear-stained eyes rubbing any evidence of her own inner emotions from his face, Izuku would feel this sick twisted pain in his chest. A pain that would whisper from the area right behind his head, 'Why don't you do something, Izuku?'. He could feel his hands flex by his sides, twitching uncontrollably, the urge to break things apart almost bringing tears to his eyes.

These feelings were getting harder to contain. The urges when he saw mutants being discriminated against or kids beating up the one with the 'villainous quirk'.

Why did the world end up like this? Why did no one do anything about it? Were heroes really heroes if they weren't stopping the larger societal issues at hand, instead choosing to follow All Might's lead in saving who they can and ignoring the rest?

The more Izuku thought about it though, could the heroes really do anything? The way the world was shaped, these people were forced into roles with little wiggle room, little ability to fight bigger issues at hand. Because the people who made these roles, the people who really made 'heroes' to begin with, had no intention of letting this world truly change for the better. Because the chaos and calamity that would occur to fundamentally change the way Japan worked was too much of a risk to these people at the top. So they chose to keep the heroes attached to the strings that they held and continued their roles as the puppet masters of the whole charade.

It seemed that the continued rise of the Kaiju attacks also aided this control - the public depending even more on heroes to stop the demonic creatures and kids flocking to the cheap HPSC academies in order to learn how to fight them themselves. Izuku was skeptical of the academies, the control that the HPSC had over the kids while there and the heroes, once they graduated, was concerning, but ultimately it didn't seem to stop any students from poorer families attending, who dreamed of being the next All Might like anyone else.

It was all a sick cycle really, and nothing ever seemed to change. Is this how life would be? Is this how Japan would be until it collapsed in on itself in the Quirk Singularity event that was slowly creeping ever so closer to the present?

"Hello? Who the hell is calling me this late?!"

Ah. He had forgotten he had dialed the number. How long had he been lost in thought?

"Midoriya Inko won't be able to work tomorrow."

"M-Mido- what the hell are you talking about?! Who is this?!"

"She can't come in. Find someone else."

His voice was colder than the ice that drifted idly in the glass of water he had poured.

"She can't just cancel like this! Who the hell am I speaking to?! Answer me!"

"Her son. Find someone else. I'm sure there are others that you treat similar to her at the company."

"Treat?! What the hell are you getting at?"

"She's trash to you, is she not?"

The man sputtered.

"Trash?! Wh-what the hell is wrong with you?!"

"What is wrong with me? This isn't about me; this is about Midoriya Inko. She can't come in."

"I-I need her here! I need her to come in so whatever the problem is fucking fix it kid!"

Izuku's hand flinched by his side, the glass creaking carefully in his grasp. The man was nowhere near him but Midoriya Izuku still bared his teeth at the voice. If his mom was awake at that very moment, the mannerisms and wording of her son would have caused an eye to twitch. It was all so similar. It was all so very close to him.

He was his fathers' son after all, wasn't he?

"Fix? What do you think I am, a repairman? Let's be clear on something; I hate you. I hate you more than most people and I really don't like most people. The way you treat her. The way I'm sure you treat others; it's all disgusting. Do you understand what that makes you? What I truly see in you?"

"W-What the fuck do you think you are, punk? Do you think you can waltz in and change things? Do you know how many other maggots I have begging for work? You think your mom is special enough to skip the line? The drift above it all?! Give me a fucking break! You're nothing. Your mom is nothing."

"You're pathetic. You're no better than me. You're no better than Midoriya Inko."

Was this his voice? Were these his thoughts? His hands were spasmodic by his sides. As if they were relishing this change in their master.

"'You don't think I know that?! Do you think I want this kid?! I hate it! I hate it all!"

"Then cry to someone else. And after you do that, find a replacement for my mother tomorrow. She will not be coming in."

"F-Fuck you! I'll take your mother, and I swear to god I'll fucki-"

The phone exploded with a flex of his hand. With a blank stare, Izuku turned and looked at what remained of the device. Frayed wires and bits of plastic littered the floor near him, He looked back to the hand, holding the device, fingers still twitching wildly, and grimaced. A piece of plastic, less than two inches wide, was buried in his palm. The boy watched curiously as a streak of crimson lazily crawled to the top of his wrist. Izuku knew pain intimately by now, this was nothing new.

Fix it.

Izuku's eyes widened at the thought. Fix it? Could he really succeed in something like this? Would this really work? The plastic went through his whole hand. No doubt nerves and veins had been damaged. Wasn't this all a bit too much? Could he actually fix this? Did this all make sense?

Do it.

The voices in his head were getting louder. His tone and words were one thing but these feelings were bubbling to the surface and Izuku struggled to hold everything back. Was this always him? Was this always who he was? Was he suppressing his true nature this whole time? The voice on the phone; was that his voice? Is this who he really was? Beneath the blank stares, were these twisted thoughts truly who he was? What he was?

Use it.

Tears pricked his eyes as the blood continued to flow from his hand. This ability, these thoughts, what was it all for? What was the point of it all? For him to read and read and read and never do anything? To run away with his mother? To be a coward? Wasn't he supposed to be the hero of the story? The one who could change everything? The one who will change everything? An army at his back and the abilities that have limitless possibilities? Where was that story? Where was that person?

He hissed when he pulled the piece of plastic out of his palm. Crimson flowed faster as if the dam had been broken. He watched with wide eyes as his other hand slowly made its way to the wound as if it was a snake surveying its prey. His fingers twitched and his breathing thundered in his ears. He couldn't hold it back anymore. He had to try it. He had to do it. He had to fix it.

Overhaul it.

Bile spills from the teen's mouth as unimaginable pain filled the left side of his body. He had thought he had known suffering but this was something else entirely. The feeling of individual cells being ripped apart, the very fabric of his being torn at the seams.

Izuku's next coherent thought was the feeling of the rough carpet pushing against his cheek. He must have collapsed onto the floor but had no specific memory of it. Those feelings and thoughts were gone now, his eyes no longer filled with unshed tears.

He raised his left arm and his breath caught in his throat. The hand that had been gauged looked back to him without a single scratch. Even the blood that had stained his palm and wrist was gone, nothing remaining of the incident besides the broken phone itself.

In an instant, Izuku was hit with a sudden feeling of euphoria, stronger than he had ever felt before.

He could do it. He could fix it. He knew his quirk and understood it. There were no true limits. There was nothing holding him back.

All this power that resided in his hands, all these thoughts in his head, he couldn't turn away from it anymore, could he? He couldn't hold down these feelings any longer. It all had to be changed.

Maybe it really did all have to be overhauled.

~Revelations~

Inko awoke the next morning with a shriek when she looked at her clock. It was two hours after her start time. She was late. She had never been late before. The woman stumbled out of bed, frantically lunging for the phone by her bedside. As she picked it up with shaky hands she noticed the sticky note that was placed right beside it.

No work today. Sleep in.

She stared at the note for what felt like an eternity. Her fingers bent the paper and surveyed the penmanship. It had been from her son.

Had he done this?

A slight smile spreads from Midoriya Inko's lips as she rolls over back onto the bed. She knew what it all meant. She knew what was coming next. Mixed emotions swirl in her throat and she turns to the faded picture that she had hidden away on her bedside.

A broad-shouldered man with white hair and crimson eyes holds a small child in his arms. A woman with emerald eyes has both arms wrapped around one of his, a smile on both of their faces. They were happy. They had been together.

Midoriya Inko places the photo back on her bedside.

'It's almost time, isn't it Hisashi?'

~Revelations~

Yaoyoruzo Momo winced at the sound of a body smacking the gym mat beneath her feet. A bitter chuckle echoed from the room as Usagiyama Rumi looked down at a defeated Shimura Nana.

"You think you're strong?"

The room was quiet. The pro hero took a step forward and nudged the slumped figure with her foot.

The rabbit heroine turns to Kiriyama who stands a few feet away from Momo. Her face is expressionless.

"This is the best you have for me? What am I, a fucking babysitter?!"

Kase looks back to the slumped figure of Nana, whose only movement is the slight shudder of her shaky breath.

Usagiyama ripped her foot off the body and strolled over to Kase, and jabbed her index finger into the woman's chest. Both sets of eyes were filled with ice as the two stared each other down.

"Both of them are jokes, Kase. Cut them both before they really embarrass themselves."

"You need to learn patience, Rumi. This process doesn't take a fucking week and you know that."

Momo glanced back again toward Shimura who had finally lifted her head slightly; a pool of saliva and blood-forming on the mat beneath her. Seeing the girl in such a state put a twisted sense of relief in her stomach. As she had concluded a number of weeks ago, the key wasn't to reach Shimura's heights, it was to meet her at her lows.

And the girl had dropped off.

Momo wasn't one to pat herself on the back but it had been a few weeks after her plan had been enacted, and the results spoke for themselves. Shimura was a shadow of her former self, dragging her feet and staring blankly at the world as if she didn't understand what colors she was seeing anymore. The bags under her eyes had worsened and judging by the lack of makeup and sloppily tied up hair, her self-care had dropped off as well.

All of this had slipped into training. The girl had become sloppy, unfocused, and reckless. She still beat Momo during most sparring matches but the damage was beginning to pile up. When they had fought two days ago, Nana had shattered her hand. The girl had landed a punch right on a plate of steel Momo was able to create from her stomach.

It looked like her hand imploded from the inside.

Blood and even tiny pieces of bone were found in the days that followed on the mat. After the hit, Shimura had crumpled instantly, emitting a wail that may have caused the entire building to shake. Various scars now crossed over her hands from the repair work that needed to be done. In the back of Momo's mind, she could still hear the sobbing noise that came from the girl when they had to bring in three different healing quirks to fix her.

The light in her parents' eyes when she told them the story had been rapturous.

Everything was coming together. Everything was in reach. She could pass the 'Golden Child' and then she would set her sights on whoever was next in line to the top spot for Japanese Heroics.

She had to become number one.

"Give me a fucking break, Kase. These are lost causes for what you want from them. It's frankly embarrassing that they made it this far, to begin with."

Momo looked back to the two who appeared to still be arguing. The rabbit heroine was strong no doubt but relied heavily on close-range action to do any actual damage. she might not have been able to beat her today, but she had little doubt she could create a situation in the future where she would come out on top.

Kase growled at the dark-skinned woman, "You can't get rid of them that easily, Usagiyama."

Red eyes flash to Momo and then back down to a subdued Nana and the woman let out a scoff, "Your loss then."

The heroine then left the rooms in long strides, taking one last look at Nana who had finally pulled herself to her knees. The swelling on the left side of her face would need more than ice to fix.

Kiriyama looked at both of them and then down to the puddle of blood and drool under Shimura, "Go get cleaned up then visit the medical wing on the fifth floor. Be here earlier tomorrow."

The trainer then exited the room and left the two teens on their own.

Momo looked back to the sluggish Shimura who had slipped back onto her elbows. The faded look in her eyes tells Yaoyorozu the knock she must have taken was serious. Her black hair stuck to her face, some of it twisted into knots with split ends elsewhere.

She still had not spoken a word, still had not uttered much of a sound outside the shaky breaths she was taking. She did not cry for help.

But it was undeniable to Yaoyorozu Momo that Shimura Nana needed help.

And Momo could not help the feeling of warmth that gathered in her chest at the thought.

A titan brought to her knees, a shadow of the wonder girl that seemed to bless the front page of the newspaper more often than the prime minister. All of it was coming down.

Could Momo pull her further?

How quickly would Momo be able to pass her? How many days would it take for that moment of reckoning to come? She could only imagine the words her parents would say to her. The feelings that she would have. The smiles on everyone's faces. It was a day that had to occur. It was a moment that had to happen.

So instead of offering some sort of hand to the girl who was struggling to stand, Yaoyoruzo Momo left the room without a word to the teen.

The locker room was empty. Scrubbed floors and individual cubbies allowed anyone in the room to change and shower in private. A few minutes after Momo had emerged from her shower, she found Shimura stumbling to the sink, shaky hands fumbling for the faucet before vomiting into the bowl and across the countertop.

The heiress watched the scene in mild horror, her body refusing to move as Nana raised a shaky hand to splash water on her swollen face.

The sound of the faucet bounced off the walls in the silent room.

"Is this what you wanted?"

Momo froze. With her back still turned she found Shimura staring at her through the mirror that hung above the sink. Her black hair hung over her face in individual strands, cutting over her pale skin in clumps like a spiderweb crack in glass. Her gray eyes continued to look at Momo, patiently waiting for some sort of response.

"E-Excuse me?"

"Is this what you wanted, Yaoyorozu? Are you happy with this?"

Did she know? Momo frantically scanned her memories connecting every loose end that was tied up. She was careful. She was meticulous. So how could she have figured out, how could she know what Momo had done? How was this possible? H-

"These training sessions… is this how it always was?"

Ah.

Momo had to bite her tongue to stop the upward twitch from her lips. She could work with this. Mother always told her she had a way with words.

"To be the best they expect the best. Did you really think it would be easy to be a top hero?"

The faucet continues to run as Nana stares back down at her hands. From here, Momo can make out some of the new scarrings, wrapping around her hand like some sort of jagged watch. The heiress struggled to maintain a stoic face as she slowly walked up to the girl and placed a hand on one of her shoulders.

"You know some people just aren't cut out for this, Shimura? There is no shame in walking away. There's no shame in chasing something else."

The taller girl looked back to the faucet and slowly turned it off. Her only response to Momo's statement was a shaky nod before she trudged to her cubby and slowly pulled the curtain shut.

It was all so easy. Pulling the strings, she could turn the girl to any direction she wanted and all that was needed was one final push. The possibilities were endless. The opportunities were endless.

Yaoyoruzo Momo wasn't one to play with her food, but savoring this victory over the girl that had been held above her since they had first met had brought feelings out of her she didn't even know existed. Thoughts that had never been there before.

The teenager had no more doubts at this point.

She would end Shimura Nana's hero career before it even started.

~Revelations~

The UA cafeteria was surprisingly empty for a little afternoon on a Wednesday. At a far table near a large window overlooking one of the training fields, a girl with long green hair stares blankly at the sandwich she had bought. It had been a purchase she had made when in deep thought. It was a purchase she immediately regretted.

Why the hell do they even sell egg salad sandwiches here?!

The girl frowned again and turned her head away from the tragedy that looked back at her from her lunch tray. Her thoughts drifted back to conversations she had in the past, conversations that she couldn't escape after she learned of the boy she once lived with.

How could she sit here at UA, taking classes and spending time with friends when she knew he was out there, in danger, fighting for his life in the underworld? Was he safe? Was he happy? Is this really what he wanted after all this time?

She had tried to dig around in her father's study but found nothing. It was honestly hard to find any evidence whatsoever that Tenko had ever lived there in the first place.

What were her parents hiding? Why did they lie to her? Why-

"MionMionMionMionMionMionMionMion"

Periwinkle blue hair bounces over to the table, the slightly flushed face and a small bead of sweat on her cheek makes her think she might have sprinted here.

Sonozaki Mion blinks at the girl.

"Do I know you?"

The student slumps against the table as if she's been shot. All of the energy that seemed to be bursting from her suddenly disappeared.

"I hate it when you do that."

Mion brings a hand to her face to hide the grin that is starting to form, "Do what?"

She watched the girl try to twist her face into some sort of scowl but it ultimately looks like a pout.

Hado Nejire was not one capable of scowling.

The girl then sat down at the table, lunch tray full of the typical protein-focused meal of an aspiring hero student. Mion glanced at the girl's wrist, covered in various bracelets or wristbands, all colored differently, all having different meanings.

Nejire talked about them often.

"Where are the others?"

Nejire looks up from the salad she was eating to scan the cafeteria. Her eyes darted back and forth in search mode, a common occurrence since she always seemed to beat them to the table. In an instance, a flash of recognition hits her and she looks back at the green-haired girl.

"They're at the fish station!"

"Fish?"

"Amajiki has been working on trying new things for his quirk! We have another training later today so maybe he's seeing what he can accomplish with fish?! Hmm, but then would he grow gills? Would he be able to breathe?! Would we have to throw him into a pool or maybe-"

"Nejire."

The girl freezes and looks back at her friend.

"What?!"

"You were rambling again."

The girl pouts for a second time and turns back to the salad. The table remains quiet for a few more minutes before two sets of footsteps make their way to the area.

"We're here!"

Bright blue eyes plop down to the right of Mion with narrower and darker eyes sitting across from her and emitting a quiet sigh.

Nejire beams at the two and looks to the boy who picks at the fish he bought with a plastic fork.

"What did you get Amajiki?! It looks like fish, is it fish? What kind of fish? Is it-"

The raven-haired boy holds his utensil with a trembling hand before the other student leans over the table, "He got tuna!" Togata then looks back to Amajiki, "You wanted to see if it impacted your sense of smell, right?

Tamaki nods quickly, "Um, y-yeah, Tuna has a pretty good s-sense of sme-smell, so I wanted to see if I c-could replicate it."

Nejire beams, "That's so smart Tamaki! An ability like that could be so helpful in the field!"

Amajiki only chooses to nod as a response, his true feelings being betrayed by the tips of his ears turning beet red.

The three hero students had become fast friends with Mion after she had been assigned to work with Tamaki for a crossover project featuring one business student and one hero student. She arrived at their designated meeting area with both eyebrows raised at the sight in front of her. A boy with dark hair frantically trying to crawl out of a window while a muscular student featuring a cowlick and a girl with wavy hair trying desperately to pull him back inside. She still remembers her first words to them.

"Um, what's going on here?!"

The boy with blonde hair turns to her with a wide grin on his face, "He was trying to make a break for it!"

The girl then turned to her, with one arm wrapped around the boy and pulling him off the window sill, "Don't worry, we'll stay for when he tries to escape again!"

"Again?!"

The four had been rather inseparable since that day.

The cafeteria slowly fills up as more students from the hero class slowly wander to grab their own food and sit with their respective friends. Most of them were coming from classes focused on training which allowed them to use lunch as a time to refuel and rest up for the second half of the day.

Being in the Business Course taught by Midnight meant that she would always arrive a few minutes earlier than her friends.

The thought of her teacher brought a slight frown to the greenettes face.

"What's wrong, Mion?"

Her eyes glance up to Mirio who glances at her with a slight tilt to his head. The three of them were always way too observant for their own good.

The girl looks up from her egg salad sandwich, still untouched, "Do you guys know anyone that's part of the underground?"

Hado's brow furrows, "Underground? You mean like criminals?"

Mion purses her lips, "Yeah I suppose that works as well."

Amajiki looks up from his half-eaten fish, "Y-you know s-someone that is part of the underground?"

Mion nods slowly while she looks out the window, the forest on the edge of the other side of the training field bringing back memories of a boy with crimson eyes, "Someone from a long time ago. I always thought he was dead but…" she trails off lips twitching into another uncomfortable frown.

Most knew of the Underground, it's not like it was some sort of secret group, more of a generalized word to describe those that didn't follow the laws that society put in place. Those that actively did jobs and committed acts that went against what was deemed 'best' for the world.

In a younger grade, she recalled reading a textbook about the various factions in the underground and looking at the sketches the author would provide when talking about these people. Maniacal grins and hollow eyes would always stare back at her but was that really how it was? If Tenko was there, is that what he's become?

Or was there more to it?

There was so little information she could find that portrayed the criminal organizations of this country as little more than the scum that had to be thrown out like her sandwich. She knew it was naive to see everything as black and white, so in order to really understand where to draw the line, where Tenko (or now Tomura) really was, she would need to learn more.

Hado reaches across the table and wraps a warm hand around Mion's wrist, "Was this boy close to you?"

"Stop thinking you're a bother Tenko. We all like having you here! You're part of the family!"

Sonozaki looks down to her right arm, the one that held his hand so tightly that day, "He was family to me."

The table is quiet for a moment before a loud bang of Mirio bringing his hands down on the surface snaps everyone out of their somber mood, "Well, I do research all of the time with Sir on the Underground, Mion! If you give me his name I can keep a lookout for whenever it might come back up!"

Nejire nods as well, "Me too! I don't really know much about the different organizations but I can ask Ryukyu! I bet she would know a ton!"

It's difficult to fight the warmth Mion feels flooding her body at the sight of her friends volunteering to help out. It's not like she should have expected anything else at this point but still, times like these remind her of how lucky she is.

Even after all that she had lost.

"W-who was he?"

Mion is stirred from her thoughts when she looks at Tamaki who fidgets under the three sets of eyes on him.

The boy gulps, "I m-mean like do you have a-any information on him? W-we don't really know what we're looking for."

Mions eyes widen slightly, "His name is Ten-" she cuts herself off with a slight eye twitch.

His name wasn't Tenko anymore, was it? The fact pained her that they were not looking for a loving boy named Tenko but an apparent aspiring criminal by the name of Tomura.

Was the name all that had changed? The voice in the back of her mind whispered about how the Tenko she knew had to be gone, had to have been killed off and replaced by someone else in order to survive in the Japanese criminal underworld. But what if Tenko was still there? The boy that she cared for merely hiding behind a facade that was put up in order to stay alive?

All of these questions were why she couldn't stop thinking about him, couldn't stop thinking of how to find him. She needed to help, she needed to be there for him.

So when she sensed Midnight and Eraserhead pushing her out of the way she knew that she had to find others. The two teachers had been quiet about the boy since they had chatted last but the lingering gazes she would feel when in the sight of either of them told her all that she needed to know.

They were keeping her in the dark. And that was unacceptable.

So she chose to be selfish. All it took was a little transparency around her best friends and she knew that they would jump at the chance to help. She knew they would choose to act heroically in a situation like this. She knew that they wouldn't keep her in the dark.

The questions and doubts that swirled in her head were clouding everything at this point. Using her friends like this left a bitter taste in her mouth but she had no other options at this point.

"Shigaraki Tomura is his name. I used to know him as Tenko but he doesn't go by that anymore." Mion pauses for a moment surveying the cafeteria that's now full with students, "It would probably be best to not talk about what we find here, so I can rent out a library room once a week and we can go over what we've found out."

Hado's eyes light up at the thought, "It'll be like a secret club! Or a secret alliance! Or a secre-"

"Sounds g-good." Tamaki interrupts, subtly ending another one of Nejire's rambling sessions.

She wasn't asking them to investigate the underworld themselves so this was fine, right? Having her friends poking around and asking questions wouldn't put them in any danger. There were certainly some risks, but their rewards were ever more alluring.

The gears slowly turned in Sonozaki Mion's head, the head of a girl who was the daughter of one of the most cunning businessmen in the country. To save Tenko, to trust that there were others out there that would be willing to help, she first needed people to understand the underground. If they were able to understand the setting and swallow the fact that things aren't as clear as some of the civics textbooks explained, then new possibilities would open. Possibilities for real change, possibilities for real saving.

And who would be better to understand these facts, to understand the criminal underworld than the top heroes of tomorrow? By forming this club, this alliance, Mion could already see the potential connections that could form tomorrow. If she could ever get the three that sat beside her to meet Tenko, to hear his story, bridges could be formed and connections would be made. It was all a simple request, but the potential implications were so very far grander.

As she said before, Sonozaki Mion would find the boy that she had lost and find the truth about him that had been hidden from her by her parents.

Key Player Log

Midoriya Izuku. Age 16.

Yaoyoruzo Momo, Age 16.

Shimura Nana. Age 16.

Usagiyama Rumi. Age 22.

Sonozaki Mion. Age 18.

Hado Nejire. Age 18.

Togata Miro, Age 18.

Amajiki Tamaki. Age 18.

Author Notes:

I've also spent some time outlining the rest of the story and providing some context - I would say there are 2-3 more chapters of this "Intro Act '' which is mostly focused on world and character building. After that things will begin to move in a more linear structure with smaller arcs.

Next time we jump back to Tomura and the gang as they begin their investigation in Yonago with Eraserhead and Midnight traveling to Toyama; thanks for reading!