The hunt.

Humans like many other flesh eating species have adapted to hunt for their food. From the simple spear to the multifaceted firearms used today, man has continuously advanced to make obtaining his meal as effortless as physically possible. For self-sustenance or indulgence, the want and need for food has motivated humans to make procuring it as hassle free as pushing a button on their phones.

The long, weary days of waiting out in the treacherous wilderness. Man fighting beasts that could maul them in a single strike has been reduced to scrolling down an app to find something that tickles their fancy on a Sunday afternoon. The essence of the hunt was diluted and bastardised by the forces of technological advancement and commercialisation.

"SUCH MISFORTUNE!"

But clearly that was not the case for Midoriya Izuku.

Izuku was currently waiting for everyone to be back for the weekends from their many internships.

Apparently most of them enjoyed staying on campus, or at least the more social ones did.

But that meant it was just him and Eri on a mid-day afternoon, so Izuku ventured out to buy some groceries for dinner.

But Izuku quickly realised that his already minuscule college student budget was not enough to feed the both of them. Which resulted in him bargain hunting all over Mustafu, going from shop to shop to gather enough discount groceries to feed the both of them for the rest of the week.

But unfortunately for him…

"How…"

Izuku sat on his knees, clenching his fists as the viscous liquid seeped through the gaps between his fingers.

"How could this happen!?"

The key difference between the hunt of the past and the hunt of today was mistakes.

One tiny slip up, one small misguided effort, one single trip up and someone could lose their life. Someone could lose their life in their very effort to sustain it.

But what happened today was simply a massacre.

It all started out with the supermarket close to the east. There was a huge discount on canned vegetables, eggs and somen. A perfect combination with the cheap frozen meats he was going to purchase at the next store on his grocery hit list.

What Izuku didn't account for was time.

It seemed everyone, their mother, their cousin, and their whole family from out of town who came to visit had their eyes set on that grocery deal too. Izuku had waited in line for 2 hours before he could finish his purchase.

But that meant the delicious discounted meat store he was eyeing had the exact same issue.

An issue that was on the whole other side of town.

So after scrambling out of the store, missing his bus, chasing after his bus, and mistakenly running past his stop, Izuku ran back to the store in a desperate dash.

But the poor college student was so fixated on his protein filled prize he tripped up.

*SPLAT*

Literally tripped up…

Izuku had run into the store in a frenzy, bumped into a girl at the cashier and tripped. Causing the groceries he had on hand to spill.

Some more literal than others…

As Izuku held up his desecrated carton of eggs, a single tear dribbled down his eye.

But wait! That wasn't what was important now! He still had to purchase the meats, if not this all would have been for nothing!

However, as Izuku ran toward the deli section he found out…

It was all for nothing.

The herd had been wiped out before he even had time to prepare his munitions.

A soft thud reached the ground as his unsubstantial wallet fell to the ground, and a louder thud followed as Izuku himself fell to his knees.

It was truly a massacre.

They might as well kill him now, Izuku rather that be the case than slowly starving to death.

"Forgive me Eri-chan…"

"What are you blabbering on about?"

Izuku gloomily turned, looking more like he was under a thunderstorm than artificial lighting.

The very girl that bumped into him earlier was standing before him.

She wore a white double breasted blazer with a long sleeve shirt and white gloves. But what really stood out was the monocle she adorned alongside the white beret placed on top her blueish silver hair.

Either she was a hero student or Komiket came to Mustafu.

As flashy and beautiful as this girl was that wasn't what Izuku was staring at.

"AHH! It was you!" He pointed at her.

"Pardon?"

Izuku pointed at the plastic bag of various groceries she was holding.

The bag containing packs upon packs of discounted meats.

"You were the one who cleared them all out! Why did you even need to buy so much meat!?"

"…To eat?"

In hindsight Izuku should have thought this through more thoroughly.

"S-Still! Do you have any idea how you've upset the food chain!?"

"Food chain?"

"That's right! Food gets sorted into premiums and lower quality goods, which then get sorted into unsellable and recycled food, and at the very end of that chain we have the leftover near expiry food that gets put up on sale at stupidly low prices."

"…I still don't see how that's relevant."

Izuku stood up and pointed straight to her face.

"Listen! Ojou-sama's like you should stick to your afternoon tea and steak dinners, discounted sections and weekly deals like this are what poor college students like me live off of. When a high end predator like you feeds off on our cheap food supply, it could lead to disastrous consequences!"

"Such as?"

"Inflation! Trade deficit! Complete market failure!"

"…You don't even know what that means don't you? You're just throwing out words you vaguely know are related to economics."

Let it be known that business economics was not Izuku's strong suit.

"…T-The point is!"

"That you're too poor?"

*SLUMP*

"Such Misfortune…" He laid down depressed on the supermarket floor.

Midoriya Izuku was defeated by her a second time.

*Sigh* "Get up." She lightly tapped him with her heel.

"Huh?"

"I'm not giving you any of my groceries, but I'll still compensate you for the eggs dropped earlier."

She flipped her hair in a somewhat pretentious manner, and gave him a peace sign.

"Rejoice poor college boy! You're about to share a meal with the great In-Telli Saiko ."

Midoriya Izuku may not have known much about English food, but he was pretty sure a Full English Breakfast wasn't meant to be this… Full.

"Ano, Intelli-san?"

"Yes?" The girl lightly sipped on her tea.

What originally was a spread of a dozen eggs prepared in 3 different ways, a spread of savoury cured meats and a stack of toast, was inhaled in record time by the unseemly gluttonous ojou.

"Umm… Do you have some sort of food related quirk?"

Her eyes gleamed. "Quite the observant one aren't you! Why yes, my quirk raises my IQ depending on what kind of tea I drink."

"O-Oh… G-Guess I was right then haha…" What he really meant to say was, 'It was the tea!?'

"Well then, feel free to ask me any questions you have."

"For… what reason?"

"It's only natural isn't it? When you go on a date with a cute girl like me-"

"This is a date?"

Intelli stared at him questioningly. "Well, it's the most solace in a woman, a plain looking half-college dropout like you would be able to find."

"But I have a girlfriend."

*THUD*

The ojou shot back up from the ground and slammed onto the table.

"W-What!? H-How!?"

Izuku shrugged, as if to say 'I don't know' which he honestly didn't with his memory loss.

"I-I could have sworn…" Intelli reached over and grabbed his right hand.

Closing her eyes, she concentrated for a moment.

"Impossible, my calculations can't be wrong! How did someone like you get a girlfriend!"

Izuku didn't have the heart to tell her it was probably because of his right hand.

"I don't know which was more insulting, that or the dropout comment."

"B-But it took me years and he never confessed to me!?"

"A-Are… Are you really letting all your issues spill now? This seems a little too personal for me."

Intelli Saiko's eyes widened before she calmed down and fell back onto her chair.

"D-Do you want to talk about it?" Izuku offered.

"Hmph!" The girl haughtily refused.

"Umm… If you like we could be friends?"

Intelli perked up. "What!? What breed of man are you!? What kind of man immediately friend zones a cute girl after she poured her heart out for you!"

'Poured her heart out?' "The kind that's already attached?"

Intelli slumped back into the table. "This isn't like the anime at all…"

'She was basing this off anime!?' Is what he wanted to say but instead Izuku said. "How about we get to know each other a little more?"

She cutely pouted. "…Fine."

The girl straightened her posture and flipped her hair once again. "I am Intelli Saiko, hero student at Seiai Academy!"

That was a little unnecessary. "And I'm Midoriya Izuku, general studies student at UA."

"UA? Let me guess you either live in the area or got rejected from the hero course."

"Intelligence quirk?"

"No, it's just cliche. So cliche my mouth moved faster than my head could think."

"I don't think it happens that often…"

"Trust me, it does. Every kid and their brother is obsessed with being a hero."

"W-Well you are too!"

"No, I'm not."

"You're in the hero course!"

"Please, like everyone in the hero course is in it to be a hero."

Izuku was confused "What do you mean? Isn't that the whole point?"

"Tch, just when I thought you were a different breed."

Intelli twirled her stirrer spoon around her tea cup.

"What do you think a hero is?"

"Someone who saves others in need." Izuku spoke from his heart.

"If that's the case, then why do we call people who parade around in costumes heroes?"

"Because they run around saving people in need?"

"But that's not a deed exclusive to them isn't it? Police officers, firemen, doctors, nurses, paramedics, therapists, even teachers. All these are examples of people who save lives, directly or not. So why are they exempt from such a title?"

Did someone need run around wearing a costume to be a hero?

"But that's not what a hero is, isn't it?" Izuku's limited mind couldn't comprehend this.

"Because that's what the masses think when they hear the word hero. When heroes became a profession, the word became commonly associated with the image of 'superheroes'. The cape bearers cloaked over the very definition of the word with their flashy powers and suits. Of course a doctor was a medical professional, of course a policeman was a law enforcer, so how did these people manage to become the de facto definition of hero?"

Izuku gave it some thought, what did a hero do that the others didn't? Both saved lives, of course a doctor would save lives differently but there were heroes like Recovery Girl as well. So what exactly was different?

The image of a jolly, smiling, muscular man suddenly popped into Izuku's head.

"A hero is someone who inspires people. You can chalk it up to the flashiness that catches attention, but you can't deny it works. Heroes make people feel safe during the darkest of ages or the brightest of eras, they make it so that when people tragedy strikes on the streets, there's a peace of mind that a hero will come and save the day."

That was simply how he truly felt.

"So you're saying that there are no casualties? That a hero will always arrive on time? That people should mindlessly go about their day because a hero will solve every issue, will pick up every speck of rubbish off the ground so some misfortunate soul wouldn't trip up on it?"

"Uh…" For someone who experienced that kind of misfortune, those words hit Izuku unexpectedly hard.

"Also do you mean to say that a police arresting a criminal or a fireman rescuing a child from a burning building, they can't inspire people as well? Or is the act of a hero effortlessly saving someone with their quirky superpowers just that much more satisfying to watch?"

Little by little the girl started to chip away at Izuku's naive argument.

"A more personal example perhaps, your teachers, your closest friends, your own parents. Could you say that they'd had a bigger impact on you than anyone else? Or in another way, could they be your own personal 'hero'?"

For someone who knew no one but heroes, the amnesiac Izuku began to question his perception of everyone he knew.

"And how did the perception of hero come about in the first place? Was it the natural second step after superpowers became the norm? If they were the norm then why isn't everyone a hero? In a world where everyone is super, what exactly is the cut off? An exam? A school? A licence? Or everyone like you who gets to decide whether someone is a hero or not based on their own idealised view of a flashy, powerful, comic book cutout."

"What would your next step have been then?"

"To what? Regulating quirks? Controlling the sudden burst of entropy? Of course law enforcement would be in order."

"But we had that, still have that and apparently it wasn't enough."

"Then a military force."

"A system that forces people through a strict mold? With everyone's abilities so different? Each with their own individual 'quirks'? The Japanese education system already proved that wasn't ideal."

"And yet they're doing the exact same thing aren't they? Hero course, general course, support, in the end only the hero course gets to express their own individuality (個性)."

"Then what do you suggest? Making everyone learn and do the exact same thing? A single military force, with a single will?"

"Don't be daft, even a military force is split into different branches. Infantry, medics, reconnaissance."

"So are heroes, with battle heroes, rescue heroes, support heroes…"

"But in such a disorganised fashion? They might as well be all mercenaries only doing what they're individually tasked, teaming up only when necessary. If you think about it they're basically an army based on capitalism, self interest before the people. That's why they have heroes in things like commercials and toy lines, in the end it's all about ego and selfish desires before serving the public."

"…If you think that, then why are you in the hero course?"

Intelli smirked. "Out of simple curiousity, I needed to experience it myself in order to judge it better."

"And that was what you got from it?" Izuku clenched his fist.

"Why, is the UA boy going to throw a fit? Because I'm 'squandering' the opportunity you longed for oh so much?"

"I already knew I wasn't cut out to be a hero in the first place."

"But you tried anyway."

"And I admit that was out of my own selfish desire. But…"

Izuku stood up from his seat.

"That doesn't mean everyone else in the hero course is what you say they are!"

Intelli blinked, before chuckling. "Oh dear white knight, that doesn't mean they are what you think either."

She took a quiet sip of her tea.

"You still haven't answered my question by the way, what do you think a hero is?"

"…"

"Because I'll tell you what I think it is."

The girl got up from her seat and started to leave.

"It's all just a fantasy, a grand illusion."

Midoriya Izuku didn't move an inch to meet her gaze as she walked past him.

"Humans hunt to survive, soldiers fight to defend, and heroes save others to live out their ego boosted fantasy."

"…So what do you suggest then?"

The girl turned back to give her final verdict.

"Do what you will. Do what you will and follow the feelings that well up deep within. Because only those who are free and well natured will gravitate towards good, only those people will move to provide aid and fend off harm before they even realise it. At least, that's what my father used to preach."

With that, Intelli Saiko took her leave.

"One last question." Midoriya Izuku requested.

"Hmm?" Intelli stopped in her tracks.

"What makes a villain then?"

She giggled. "You would say people who commit crimes with superpowers wouldn't you? But it is a crime to use a superpower outside of heroism is it not?"

"To control anarchy."

"A quirk is not a gun, it isn't something that you can create and replace on a whim. It is a natural part of oneself, like an arm or a leg. So in a world where everyone is super, why did such a thing become a crime?"

Even the quirkless Izuku didn't like where she was going with this.

"It's because for there to be heroes in a world where everyone is super, they have to make sure that others can't be. And for the super to be heroes, they needed to make someone the villain in their delusional narrative."

"…"

"So do what you will Midoriya Izuku, for heroes and villains are simply part of an illusion. For those who had been denied such titles shall always go chasing after what they have been refused. Do what you will, and destroy that grand illusion of theirs."

'I don't know if I can, or if you're even right.' Is what he wanted to say, but instead not a single word left Izuku's lips.

And so Intelli Saiko left Midoriya Izuku three eggs fuller, but feeling more empty than he was that very day at the hospital.