"…"

"…"

The two boys awkwardly shuffled around each other, keeping an Aizawa in distance away. The green haired boy kept trying to talk to the purple haired hero student

Shinsou Hitoshi wondered if Midoriya had forgotten what he did, and if he was going to keep trying.

Midoriya Izuku was desperately trying to remember what he did, and why Shinsou wouldn't talk to him.

Aizawa brought the boys for his evening patrol at Downtown Mustafu, since Shinsou was still fresh and Midoriya was quite familiar around these streets, it would be a perfect place for Shinsou to get some experience and try to resolve whatever issues he has with Midoriya.

"Midoriya! Can you tell me why are we here?"

"Eh? Umm… to patrol?" Midoriya nervously smiled.

Aizawa was not amused.

"B-But also because this is one of the quietest parts of Mustafu!"

Aizawa nodded. "Correct on that front."

"Huh, so this is a kiddy patrol." Shinsou grumbled.

"Not necessarily, it's probably because it's so quiet that Eraserhead chose to patrol here of all places." Midoriya quickly corrected.

"…" Shinsou still refused to answer.

Aizawa sighed, this was going to be harder than he thought. "You're right about that Midoriya."

The trio walked down the dimming street.

"Pro-Heroes are usually assigned to areas with high population densities, so places like these get fewer patrols."

"But you said this place was quiet, implying lesser villain activity too." Shinsou refuted.

"Yes, but it's because they want it to be quiet." Midoriya explained.

Aizawa nodded. "Correct again. Places like this are quiet not because there's no crime, but because the crimes themselves are quiet."

"Silent crime?" Shinsou questioned.

"Arms dealers, drug smugglers, organised crime, the works. Everything under the sun that doesn't attract attention to the public." Aizawa explained.

"And because they don't attract attention the few heroes that come through either don't notice them, or simply don't care because it's not as flashy and news worthy to take out a few back alley thugs." Midoriya elaborated.

"…So Sensei, we supposed to look out for any of these deals going on?"

Aizawa took notice. "Eventually, for now I just want you to learn first-hand what the telltale signs are. Once you progress further we could see into dealing with espionage and interception."

Midoriya sighed. He really had no idea what he did to make Shinsou so mad, maybe eventually…

It would all come back to him.

*Pant Pant*

"Come on! We only have about 2 laps left!"

The purple haired boy behind Midoriya acknowledged by panting harder. Or perhaps that was just him running out of steam.

The pair had been training and studying together for the past few weeks, Midoriya trying to get Hitoshi in shape, while Hitoshi tried to get Midoriya's grades back up. It was truly a struggle for the Gen Ed boys but if the hero course had been juggling this alongside their combat training, and they weren't even at the starting line yet, this would only be a fraction of whats to come when they make it into the hero course. Well, if one of them would.

Unlike the rest of UA, the hero course was separated into classes instead of majors, each acting like a platoon in military school. With Classes 1A and 1B having 20 students each, 36 admitted from the entrance exam and 4 having appealed via recommendations.

But what was truly interesting was to Hitoshi was when he recently found out there was an empty spot in Class 1A. Apparently Aizawa their classes teacher had expelled someone on the very first day of school. Hitoshi originally planned on swiping the seats off one of the students by destroying them so badly in the sports festival, it was undeniable that he deserved a spot. However this empty spot just made it way easier for someone from Gen Ed to transfer.

It wouldn't be that easy though, first they both had to make it past all 40 of the hero students, Gen Ed students like themselves who had just missed the mark in the entrance exam, the support course who were permitted tools of their own creation and the obstacles placed by the teachers for the sports festival itself. It goes without saying winning the sports festival would cement their place in the hero course, after all they would have beaten out the entirety of the hero course and the entire UA freshman year. Of course the strongest student in a hero school would deserve a place in the hero course.

"Gah!" Just as they hit the 10 Km mark, Hitoshi collapsed on the ground.

Hitoshi wheezed as the ground started to rain salty droplets, and suddenly the heavens presented a bottle of water to him.

"Tiny sips, you don't want to stitch." Midoriya warned.

Hitoshi let the water sloppily dribble through his lips, as his mouth no longer had the capacity to do anything but take in the oxygen his body craved.

"Hey! You cut down your time by 10 seconds! Very nice, Shinsou-chan!" Midoriya praised.

"Don't you… sass me… You're not even… panting you fucker…" Hitoshi groaned out.

"You try running from one side of the prefecture to the next one over, just because someone's dog had a speed quirk!" Midoriya complained. "And that doesn't even count the trek back!"

"…There are trains…. for a reason…"

"How was I supposed to!? The whole reason I chased it was because it was chewing on my wallet!"

"…"

"And the worst part? That dog's quirk caused it to fall asleep after burning out, so I had to carry it all the way back to Mustafu!"

"…Couldn't you just have left the dog there?"

"Well… it looked so peaceful lying there with my wallet in it's belly so… B-Besides! The owner was nice enough to pay me back! Even if the old man basically said, 'Oh Midoriya-chan, I'm so sorry that your wallet looked so tasty to my Chouchou!'"

"…Such Misfortune?"

Midoriya sighed. "Took the words right out of my mouth."

Hitoshi knew Midoriya only meant it as a figure of speech, but Hitoshi couldn't help but wince at those specific words.

Because taking the words out of people's mouths was something he was quite literally born to do.

As a child Hitoshi didn't understand why they found him so scary, sure he had the brainwashing quirk but it wasn't like he was going to use it on everyone he could. He was still Shinsou Hitoshi, friend, classmate, someone who wanted to become a hero like every other kid.

But whether they intended to or not, they showed Hitoshi why his powers were so terrifying.

To be unable to control oneself, to be left in the dark until they suddenly realised the predicament they were in, to be unable to get others to understand that they weren't in control, that it wasn't them.

That's what Shinsou Hitoshi understood.

Why he couldn't choose what kind of quirk he was born with, why did they suddenly decide that he was destined to be a villain, why he couldn't convince them otherwise that he truly didn't want to become a villain.

But even as the label of villain became wrapped around him like caution tape around a danger zone, the danger levels never rose. What did rise was his burning desire to become a hero, more intense than ever before. So he could prove that he wasn't a villain, so he could prove that his brainwashing wasn't inherently evil, so that he could prove all of them wrong.

That was why Shinsou Hitoshi wanted to become a hero.

That's why he never truly understood what a hero was.

"Come on!" Midoriya yelled. "The more you lie there, the more your muscles will stiffen up. It's time for a cool down!" He reached his hand out to help Hitoshi.

And once Shinsou Hitoshi took that helping hand, he knew what a hero was.

He honestly was quite skeptical of Midoriya Izuku, a scruffy haired boy who was one foot in the line of college dropouts. But over the time they trained together, studied together, Hitoshi started to learn what he really was.

Midoriya Izuku was a boy who didn't know what he wanted to be anymore. He was a boy that came in and helped Hitoshi when he didn't really need to, just like he did with little Eri.

His life was a complete mess and he was barely keeping together, with training to outpace heroes, a trimester of overloaded college work and struggling to take care of a girl with an unstable quirk who went through horrors that Hitoshi's sheltered little mind couldn't even start to imagine. And to top it all off, the worst luck he had seen anyone have.

But in spite of all that Midoriya pressed on with nothing but his will and a strange power in his right hand that was apparently not a quirk.

No matter what nonsense he said about failing or being too weak, Hitoshi knew the person who truly fit that description was himself.

That's why he never saw the true meaning of what a hero was.

Not a strong, flashy superhero that would swoop down and save thousands, nor a dark force of vengeance that would serve justice and disappear into the night. No, that no longer was the image of a hero in Hitoshi's mind.

Hitoshi took Midoriya's hand and stumbled back up.

"Let's just get this over and done with, I'm dead beat…"

"Sure! Then after we're done, dinner?" Midoriya suggested.

Hitoshi lazily shrugged. "Sure, got nothing else going on."

"Great! Now let's start with stretches, and a one, two…"

But Midoriya Izuku was more than any hero to Hitoshi.

He was a complete mess, someone who no longer thought of himself to be worthy of the hero course, a quickness fool that was always told he would be just so.

"And change! One, two, three, four… Come on, Shinsou-san!" Midoriya cheered.

For the first time in his life, Shinsou Hitoshi had found someone he could perfectly understand, and that person could perfectly understand him. Hitoshi felt a strange sense of connection, as if the world was telling him that he wasn't the weird one, he wasn't a mistake in god's making, there were others just like him that felt the exact same feelings.

But that was where Shinsou Hitoshi was wrong.

The evening sky had dimmed down to complete darkness.

The trio who were patrolling through the peaceful streets of Mustafu came to a stop.

Aizawa breathed a sigh of relief, nothing of note had happened on this patrol. With Midoriya around Aizawa almost expected a meteor to fall out of the sky or something.

But unfortunately that also meant no progress had been made between the two. His student was still ignoring the green haired problem child, as if he were simply a brick wall in his way.

"Alright, our shifts over. It's time for us to-"

*BOOM*

A large truck crashed to the side of a building.

Aizawa deadpanned for a moment, before quickly leaping into action. "Keep alert! Don't panic! You two stay back, I'll gauge the situation!"

A brown haired caucasian man wearing an eyepatch, desperately crawled out of the wreckage. "H-elp…me…" He weakly groaned out.

Aizawa immediately rushed to his side. "Sir! Please hold on!" Aizawa whipped out his phone. "I'm going to call for reinforcements so h-"

*BANG*

The phone that connected him to the Hero Network had been shattered.

"Oh I don't think so…" A woman wearing a green hood lowered her bow.

Two masked men followed her out of their vehicle, the shorter one wearing a black yukata, and the larger one donning gloves armoured with metal.

The larger one whistled. "I may not be the biggest man of bringing a gun to a fight, but gotta admit that was some fine ass aim you got there."

"Save your words for later, we have company." The robed man chided.

The trio stood their ground, as they met eye to eye with their enemy's.

Midoriya Izuku tensed up, knowing that the masks those men wore were from the yakuza. The same yakuza that the previous Midoriya Izuku saved Eri from.

Shinsou Hitoshi recalled his previous lessons and readied himself to flee or attack, depending on his teacher's orders.

Aizawa Shouta simply sighed, not knowing what he should have expected when he brought them on this patrol.

But all that came out of their mouths was just.

"Such Misfortune."