Above the western shore, a point of light flashed against the early sky. A plane sailed quietly.

The hospital lights were bright and prodding, offering no reprieve from the weariness buzzing numbly in the minds of those below.

It was morning now.

Following the events of that previous night, Unknown was rushed to the hospital for immediate treatment, where they soon discovered she bore only a handful of scrapes and scratches: all superficial, nothing warranting significant attention. The blood streaked across her face, soaking her clothes, dripping from her fingertips- none of it was hers, but it wouldn't take long for them to figure out whose it was.

Whispers spread among the heroes and policemen, branching quickly from those who entered the building, who saw what was down there.

"It was like paint."

"There wasn't a body, just mush."

"There were pieces of bone stuck in the ceiling."

"The trail of blood led all the way to the entrance."

"The smell…"

No one had seen her do it, but it was no stretch of the imagination.

"It couldn't have been quick."

"It must have taken hours."

"They still haven't finished cleaning it up."

They found the other children. Amnestica, Horus, Traceback, along with the abducted boy were discovered in an empty mill- one that, according to records, was built atop the remains of an old orphanage that burned down years ago. They were found startled and disoriented, but ultimately unharmed. The man from the Tartarus security camera footage, Amplify, however, was not with them.

They found their missing student as well, or rather, he had found them. He was in rough shape, covered in dirt and bruises sustained from his less-than-heroic escapades that night. Apparently, by his own admission, he was responsible for the attacks on those heroes. It certainly wasn't ideal- less-than-heroic always did suit him- but no one was much concerned with that at the moment. He had been brought to the hospital as well, his wounds mild but not insignificant.

As for Aizawa, whose uncharacteristic restlessness might be, in part, attributable to the lack of sleep, the quiet hero had been waiting in the sterile wings for hours. He wanted to speak to Unknown, but had yet to even catch a glimpse of her since she was taken in. According to the dog-chief, she was being questioned, but he gave no further detail. It seemed they were keeping her out of sight; there wasn't much he could do for her now, but there was another student of his whom, he suspected, could use his help at the moment.

"Sir," a voice called out, drawing his attention up to the door beside him, "you can go in now."

Muttering a quiet thanks under his breath, he approached the door, shuffling past the nurse and stepping into the hospital room. The faint beeping, humming of machinery reached him just as the door clicked shut.

"Running off like that was incredibly reckless, you know."

"Save it. I don't need a lecture."

"It was a stupid move, and you should have known better," he continued, taking a seat beside the half-reclined bed.

"..."

"Well? Did you find what you were looking for?"

Bakugo huffed, eyes cast low as a frown twisted the corners of his lips, his bandaged arms shifting in place. "I didn't even get there in time, remember?"

"Maybe it's better you didn't."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"...did you see it?"

Aizawa glanced over to Bakugo, noting the way his hands curled tightly in his lap, the way his attention remained fixated on something unseen. "See what?"

"Whatever was inside that building."

"No, I didn't."

"It's that Manager guy, isn't it? That's what they're saying, that they found him in there."

"They're not certain who it is yet. It's still too soon to say."

"You know it's him. She wouldn't have done that to just anyone."

"If I didn't know better, it would almost sound like you're defending her, Bakugo."

"...it's not like that. Everyone knows she hated him, it's the only thing that makes sense. You know how she normally is, she wouldn't pull this crap for no reason."

"...yes, I know."

An empty silence fell between them, and for their own reasons, they both hesitated.

"So is she, you know... alright?"

"I've heard she has no serious injuries."

Bakugo half nodded, his lips pressing into a thin line, as if he couldn't decide whether or not that was the answer he was hoping for. His mind seemed to be in tangles, everything was complicated, everything was a gray area, and none of it sat well with him. As he tossed and turned among his own thoughts, his attention scattered in far too many directions, he didn't notice the glace Aizawa cast his way. It was understanding, sympathetic, almost… pitying.

Because not everyone thought it was so complicated; not everyone saw a gray area at all. If mutterings around the hospital were to be believed, the higher-ups had already come to a conclusion. They had made up their minds the moment Unknown escaped from Heights Alliance that quiet night- they had decided her fate long before she was caught and bound and dragged back to that miserable hospital. The blood on her hands merely sealed it.

The plane rolled to a stop on an empty runway, and its doors clicked open.

"She hasn't spoken a word since we found her. Don't you think that's concerning?"

"If it were any other situation, perhaps it would be. Right now… well, everyone has their own ways of coping."

"You saw what she did to him, I'm not sure she has too much remorse about that."

"I doubt it's about remorse, more like… realization, maybe. I can only imagine the state of mind she's in after all this."

"She hasn't asked about the other children?"

"Not once. Strange, considering how agitated she was at the news of their capture last night. Maybe it hasn't come back to her yet."

"That teacher is still asking to see her, should I let him in?"

"No. She's a high-risk captive: orders from the top. No one goes in there. Besides, I doubt he'd be able to get much out of her anyway."

"Right. Well, I can inform the others about the transport arriving this afternoon. We'll get started on the preparations."

"Good, maybe then this can finally be over," the dog chief sighed gruffly, only half listening as his companion uttered something he didn't register before stepping out, the plain white door falling slowly shut behind him.

With only the chief remaining, the observation room was quiet now. The distant whirring of machinery and the soft humming of hallway lights could not reach through these thick walls; the only sounds left echoing here were the steady breaths of its singular occupant, well-timed with the faint rise and fall of his shoulders. His gaze cast idly toward the little observation window in front of him, the one-way glass weakly holding his reflection. The scene on the other side was just as quiet.

A little white room, furnished sparsely with little white pieces, not a single disturbance to be seen. The figure laying on the bed was static, as if the world was suspended, as if everything had paused for a brief while. And perhaps it had, depending on the perspective; perhaps time really had stopped moving for some, or perhaps it had been that way for a long time now. It was hard to tell. As Unknown rested there, spotless in a clean, white hospital gown, hands linked by chains of shining silver binding her to the bed, eyes half-lidded and cast blankly at something the chief couldn't quite see, it was difficult to tell what occupied her mind.

The chief didn't believe she deserved the fate they had assigned to her; he didn't believe she was destined to be a villain as many others did. But then again, he also didn't believe she was purely a victim of circumstance, nor did he believe she did the right thing that night. He didn't believe it was so simple, nor did anyone, really. Those vague, faceless higher-ups who had ruled on her fate did not do so because they were heartless- the nuance was not lost on them- instead they merely came to a conclusion based on facts, and the fact was that they could not take any more risks with her. They had bet on her once before, releasing her back into the world, giving her a clean slate, a second chance, yet their own failure to understand the true depths of those old scars meant their artificial peace was only ever one misfortune away from shattering. And now here they were, left in the aftermath of a proverbial disaster, a basement filled with decomposing flesh, and an inevitable firestorm of unfavorable publicity coming their way, there was no one left willing to bet on her a second time. The chief didn't believe Unknown deserved the fate they had assigned to her, but he also didn't believe they had much of a choice. And so they were mere hours away from that final play, mere hours before the transport would arrive to take her away to some undisclosed bastille where she may or may not ever leave. It wasn't Tartarus, that much he knew, and perhaps that in itself was some small form of mercy. There wasn't much he could do for her at this point, yet he still felt some strange melancholy for this girl who only ever caused him trouble. Perhaps the only thing he could give her now was a few more hours of quiet: some peaceful remnants in these final moments.

Melancholy, isn't it? It seems our morally-complex heroine stayed on the fence until the very end. Perhaps if she had simply picked a side, regardless of which, her ending might have been more significant. Maybe she wouldn't be lying in this cage, cut off from the rest of the world, staring down the silver barrel of judgment for trying to escape a life she didn't choose. Well, perhaps even that would be giving her too much credit. Everyone had their own understanding of this wayward child- her surrogate father believed she was well and truly under his control, too naive and influenced by him to ever stray; on the other hand, the heroes believed she was always up to something- cunning, untrustworthy to the bone; and on the other hand still, her once-friends, some of them, at least, still believed she could be saved, that she was merely a good heart who had been dealt a bad hand in life. And so on and so forth, all had their own unique understanding of Unknown, spanning from one end of the moral compass to the other. As for which one was correct- well, who's to say? Who gets to decide in the end? Does it truly matter at all?

Perhaps it would somewhere, but not here. This was not a philosophical musing of any consequence, because it didn't change the fact that Unknown was here. Here, sentenced to a fate beyond her control, without a single ally left willing to help. But then again, who could be certain? There were always pieces moving behind the scenes, hidden mechanisms beyond what common laymen are privy to, and hers was a complex machine indeed.

And thus the all-seeing eye of some nebulous other made its first appearance on the playing field: taking the form of a black-suited man stepping into the lobby of the sterile prison. Another man stood next to him, though he was quite less imposing, seemingly nervous, even, easily overshadowed by the other's presence. His stride was steady as they bypassed the main desk without pause, his eyes never wandering from the path before him, cutting towards some unseen destination. His unique appearance drew no small number of passing eyes, following his form for a moment or two before withdrawing themselves mindfully. The shorter of the two, the nervous one, remained tense as they sank deeper into the halls of the hospital, around corners and up stairs, past secure doors and "staff only" areas, all as if they were long familiar with their winding path.

The door clicked open, causing the chief to turn around just as two unfamiliar men stepped into the observation room. He raised an eyebrow, but before he could open his mouth to question them, one of them spoke.

"You must be Chief Tsuragamae. It's nice to meet you," the dark-suited man extended a hand to the dog-chief, his words noticeably accented. "I'm here on behalf of the United Heroes' Federation. You should be receiving word from your superiors about my presence here momentarily, but allow me to summarize: the Federation has taken an interest in Unknown, therefore we will be taking custody of her from here."

The chief raised a questioning brow, the sudden announcement momentarily off-putting him as the strange man's words processed in his mind.

"The... United Heroes' Federation? What does the American government want with Unknown?"

"As I said, we've taken an interest in her. I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to discuss in further detail. We've already come to an agreement with your leaders and have secured the proper documentation for her. I'm only here to escort her back."

"Hold on, I don't know who you've been speaking to, but I haven't heard anything about this. She's under police custody; she isn't going anywhere."

"With all due respect, that's no longer your decision to make," the man spoke without pause, removing a white file from his suitcase and extending it to the chief.

Inside, a long, winding legal document which, in short, fully relinquished Unknown as a ward of the state, ceding her custody to the foreign entity of the "Federation", and signed at the bottom by none other than the prime minister.

"Feel free to make whatever calls you need, chief; you'll find this is already a done deal. I'm only informing you of this as a courtesy, so I hope you'll make this quicker for both of us and let me through."

And he did. The foreign man in his dark suit and tie, who had so abruptly made his opening move, stepped into the little white room, taking a seat next to the bed where the still-idle girl lay. His lips moved as he began to speak, words that couldn't be heard through the thick walls, and he spoke and spoke for a long while, but of what, exactly, no one was to know. Unknown never seemed to reply, never even turned around to look at him, yet she seemed to be listening, if nothing else.

And he continued for some time- some long, static, unfamiliar stretch of time. The artificial quiet plastered viscous layers over the burning white hospital, the ebbing flow of air stung more than usual.

Eventually, the words ceased to flow, and somewhere, a door clicked open.

By the time sunset cast its neon colors over the new buds of that early-spring evening, the police had already vacated the hospital. No one was given much of an explanation: all anyone knew was that the anticipated transport never arrived, and the strange man from earlier was nowhere to be found.

It wouldn't be until the evening news that quiet night that some portion of the truth would come out.

Unknown was no longer in Japan. The country's leaders had made a deal with an unspecified foreign entity, as they called it, arranging the transfer. And just like that, Unknown was no longer Japan's problem. Exactly what the deal entailed was unknown, exactly where she was now was unknown, exactly who they had handed her over to was unknown, yet all these things mattered little to those watching, because it simply meant one less thing to worry about, especially upon hearing the news of the Manager's suicide earlier that same day.

And so this chapter of history comes to an end- an unusually easy, unusually abrupt end, yet who was to question it? What mattered was the heroes had triumphed once again.

Those left in their shadow were of no importance.