What does it mean? Yaoyorozu thought, feeling that she was on the cusp of something.

Why does she have to look so good but be so strange!? Mineta thought.

I don't think anyone will understand that, Merry! Kirishima's internal voice screamed.

Crossing his arms, Tokoyami pondered. I gives an air of mystery...

Couldn't you have come up with something simpler? The bubbly Ashido thought. While she liked her references, this was a bit roundabout.

Uraraka sat there, thinking with a blank expression on her face.

"Well, it sounds like some sort of alias. Not unheard of, but odd... Would you like to explain?" Midnight asked, rubbing the back of her head as she looked at Maribel.

The blonde bowed her head a little. "Yes!" She said, before gesturing to the class, her arms hovering in movement around chest-level for best effect. "Well, Yakumo is the last name that one of my distant relatives adopted when they came here. Yukari... Well, it should be obvious." The girl said, focusing her aura so briefly that she only momentarily assumed a violet aura. Nothing else came of that.

If the names are what we'd like to be, there might be more to it than that. Todoroki noted.

I don't buy it being that simple. The bitch is rarely honest. Bakugo grit his teeth under his lips.

...I've got this feeling that it's not just that. After what she told me yesterday, she probably had more than a handful of things to think about. Midoriya analyzed.

"Well, it seems very inspired!" Midnight clapped her hands, almost excitingly. The boundary girl smiled spuriously but believably and went onto explain. Her hands moved in an almost magical fashion to draw the attention of people.

"Lafcadio, later known as Yakumo was a westerner that became known for investigating the japanese spirit. Because of his studies and writings, we still have an emperor today." Maribel almost happily explained. Even though he's not that important... Either way, my memory's good. "He wrote down many folktales of yore so people could remember them today. So, having such a relative and my odd kind of quirk, I thought it'd be appropriate."

He had an older brother, and that's who I'm descended from.

"It's kind of funny, he's from the west like me, too." She noted, with a concealed and somber tone. Reminded that even her foreign appearance was a target by those girls at school when she was younger. I'll just be another example that you don't have to be one of them to become accomplished.

The teacher seemed mildly interested. After a pause, she sought to further comment. "Hmm... Border of Phantasm, sounds a little strange."

"Ah, does it have to be a hero title?" The blonde looked at her, with mild surprise.

"Well, I haven't seen many titles that aren't hero oriented."

There was a pause as Maribel tapped her chin. "...I can't come up with something else at the moment."

"You're fine with just the alias, girl. Just know that some people might look to the person you're referencing by using that name." Midnight declared. The blonde nodded. "Thank you, Midnight." The gal said, wiping away the title, but keeping the name. Then walking back to her seat.

As everyone gathered to their senses and got their names ready, the befuddlement regarding Maribel's name had died down, but it left something in many of them. Some wanted to think more carefully about their name and give it more meaning.

The second person to get on stage was Aoyama. He seemed confident.

He held his sign up high after taking a moment to reveal it.

"Twinkling Hero: Prismatic!"

Midnight nodded. Though, from his usual way of behaving, they'd expected something stranger.

I may just be able to fire a laser from my stomach, but I want to learn to do so much more... Split the laser into tons of wavelengths!

"LORD EXPLOSION MURDER!" Bakugo yelled as he placed his whiteboard onto the teacher's desk.

"...I don't think anyone will like that." The lady declared.

"DAMN IT!"

"I thought it was stupid at first, so I toned it down." Ashido said as she got into place. Her sign was in completely in English.

"Dissolving Hero: Xenomorph!"

At first, it seemed to weird a few people out. But it was simple, not overly ambitious and reflective enough. Had she put in any character names there though. It might've sat worse.

"From the first one? Are you sure?" Midnight asked Ashido.

Raising a fist to the air, the pink and alien-looking mutant yelled out. "Yes! Come on!"

"This is what I want to be! Unbreakable Hero: Red Riot!"

Midnight blinked a little, as if she'd just gotten some good memories. "Red Riot? ...An homage to the Chivalrous Hero: Crimson Riot?"

"Yes! He's a bit of an old one, but considering what Merry picked for inspiration, I don't think it's too bad. And he's the kind of hero I wanna be, too!"

Midnight walked closer to him and looked at the name he'd written down. "Well, it's okay. As long as you think you can handle the pressure of making homage to someone."

"I was born ready!"

"I've got a good idea! I want my electricity to hit as hard as lightning, with more millions of volts! SO!"

Kaminari shoved his whiteboard onto the desk.

"LIGHTNING VOLT!"

Midnight had her fingers to her chin for a bit, humming to herself.

Jirou sat, thinking to herself that it's a better name than she thought he'd come up with.

They continued to cycle through names, some were quite creative, some less so. But it left a lot of time to chatter as those who were rejected got to try again. Still sitting down and thinking, getting ideas.

Not just from themselves.

In the far left side of the classroom, with chatter and comments flying about in class. An enemy gave a name to another.

"Little Boy, like the weapon." Whispered Maribel. Bakugo's ears perked and he turned around to stare angrily at her.

A swirl of his hands and a few seconds later, Bakugo appeared by the teacher's desk with his sign held out. "BIG BOY!"

Almost everyone chuckled.

"SHUT UP!"

He got rejected again and returned to his seat.

Maribel rest her head in two of her palms as they cupped her cheeks, balancing with her elbows on her desk. She looked at Katsuki with a mischievous air. "How about Fat Man?"

Quick to the desk it was again.

"SWELL GUY!"

They laughed again, Midnight sent him back.

He sighed angrily and looked back at Maribel. Either he was playing around himself, or just finding a reason to get angry and vent. "Stop fucking around with me."

"Tsar Bomba... Hmm... Bomber?" She said in English. The girl seemed insistent on sticking some kind of name on him.

With his head turned toward Maribel, his ever-present frown while looking at her turned into curiosity. With a raised eyebrow he turned around to tap his pen against the whtieboard a few more times. Slowly, he proudly walked on stage.

"KAKUKOTEI!"

Nuclear Emperor

Midnight looked at him blankly for a bit and the class seemed almost as mystified. "Well... Are you okay with it? I mean it might be old history but it's still nu-"

"OF COURSE IT'S FUCKING OKAY!"

"I want to learn who I should be open or closed to, so I chose the name..." Shouto brought his whiteboard up. "...Equilibrium. My fire and ice work in tandem, just like that." He explained, nodding toward Maribel a little subtly.

"So cool! That's manly" Kirishima couldn't help himself from letting out, shedding a tear or two like he usually did at the sight of stuff like this.

"That's so thoughtful." Yaoyorozu said to herself, overshadowed by many of the smaller voices combining themselves.

He'll do his best to engage people, instead of locking them out. Admirable. Hearn thought to herself.

Before anyone could speak to interrupt Midoriya, he decided to explain. "I know what some might say, but... Well, I always hated this name. But thanks to someone else I've started looking at it differently. It doesn't refer to the useless Deku who can't do anything- It refers to the courageous Deku that gives it his all! This is my hero name."

Uraraka smiled, and everyone seemed to go along. Even Maribel herself seemed quite happy about it, while she wasn't the one who talked to him about the nickname, she felt like his attitude could be her work.

The nuclear emperor scowled from his desk.

Iida, somewhat wearily- or rigidly, his usual fashion, tread up into the center of it all. He put his name on the desk. "...Tenya. That's what I'll go with for now." And looked down at the desk.

He looked worried, or anticipating. That's what Maribel thought. He might be angry, she continued thinking. Iida can't be feeling good, her mind wandered. Maybe it's my fault for what I said before my match with Bakugo? Most of all, it's probably his brother... Maribel mentally shook her head. I need to get a hold of myself. I shouldn't involve myself in everyone's business, and especially not with the way my quirk's behaving.

"Anyway, now that we're all named... The internships will start in a week. Those who were drafted will get a list that they can pick between the agencies that scouted them." Aizawa grabbed each side of the stacked papers. He pulled out one list, and then another. "And for those who haven't gotten scouted, they will be able to choose from a list of agencies that have chosen to accept interns from this school." Eraserhead presented, he then stacked the papers together again. "Do keep in mind that these heroes have their own specialties and work locations, you should keep that in mind when you choose yours. Fighting, rescue, investigation and so forth. Think carefully before you choose."

"Yes, sir!" The class said in unison, and he and Midnight immediately moved about to hand everyone their papers. Simple lists for the ones that weren't scouted, with a decent number of agencies to pick from. Fourty, including everything from the local hero to some that were higher on the charts.

When the teachers came up to the desks of those who were scouted, it seemed as though the lists were larger. But not terribly so, at first.

Kaminari's list wasn't much larger than the ones that the non-scouted were. Tenya's only a little. Yaoyorozu's covered two pages. The same went for Uraraka's. When the papers for Fumikage and Sato arrived, it started to increase by quite a lot. Six pages and nine pages respectively. Midoriya got a test's worth of lists, twenty pages. Todoroki was given fifty-seven. Bakugo, seventy-one. Maribel's papers were then carried on over, almost a book in length, at one-hundred and three.

Ehh... Those with more than fifty seemed a little surprised. Staring at their piles of paper as if they were lost.

Shota Aizawa looked toward each of them as they started fiddling with their papers. "Either you can go the secretary course, or I suggest you look for someone who stands out."

There must be a lot of heroes in these papers! Maybe I could work with Hawks? Or Edgeshot? I'll have to give it a look first, but... Wait! I should go through this with All Might, he'd probably have something in mind. Deku corrected his thoughts.

They're probably all because of my name- my father's name, but I won't let that get to me. I need to learn, one way or another. Still, I'm not sure who I'd like. The newly named Equilibrium thought to himself, he gazed over to the blonde girl who'd helped him before.

She didn't seem to be doing much more than sift through the many papers she got. Spending a second or two on each. It seemed as if she was searching for something.

"Hey, Todoroki." Yaoyorozu chimed in from next to him, managing to catch his attention. He turned himself around to look at her. Compared to how he was before, it looked as if Todoroki had a bit of a happy demeanor. "You're quite amazing."

"Oh, uh... Thanks. I know not everyone can do things equally with quirks, but you were pretty good at using yours." He honestly commended her. To be frank, he also wished he could tell her how to improve. The guy might've been good at using his quirk, but he was also decent regarding his own technique. So, he decided to let himself get briefly lost in conversation.

In the midst of this, Bakugo shoveled through his papers incessantly to find a high-ranking hero. Eventually, he pointed out the name Edgeshot on his sheet. That's the kind of battle power that'd work well with mine. He thought. That hero moved around by folding his body and unfolding it at impressive speeds, he remembered. He wasn't a nerd like Deku, but he knew the current top ten to an extent. An explosion of speed. The experience of that hero should fit. There was very little doubt in his mind that it would be like that.

"Mt. Lady!" Mineta lit up behind Maribel.

Sato sat and rummaged through his own list, talking to Uraraka, who sat next to him. "Shishido sounds good. Strong, probably know CQC better than I do... And so on."

"A CQC hero?" The bubbly brunette looked over her list again. She really felt from her battle with Midoriya that she needed to find some sort of strength in her ability. Someone that could fight would be well-suited to dealing with that. So her eyes drifted to one hero, called Gunhead.

Chatter flew about for a while. There was no class right now, technically, so they were seemingly left to their own devices for all of this. After spending some time talking to Yaoyorozu and actually befriending her, Todoroki had decided to leave the conversation on good terms and go talk to Maribel. He had something to ask.

The girl was a little slouched over as she sifted through the whit and thin sheets. Her increasingly long hair draping over her face and back a little as a result. Occasionally, she would pause to tuck it behind her ears. It stayed there, too, tied together by to the set of red ribbons at the tips.

"Hey, Hearn-san." He said to get her attention, politely. The girl straightened out all of a sudden, bringing a hand to her face to pull back all the hair as she looked over at him.

She looked almost as if suddenly awoken. "Huh? Yes?"

"I know it might appear foolish to go to you, but I'm not sure who to pick." He said, his expression was mild, so this wasn't a demand.

Nevertheless, the girl felt that invisible pressure on her that she didn't quite like. But if it was Shouto, she'd at least keep up appearances. "I can't know what fits you best. I may have helped you, but what caused your problem in the first place?" She both asked and wondered. "From my own experience, maybe you'd like someone to lean on, someone friendly. But if you don't believe you do, or that it will help with your problem... Seek no savior."

For a moment, Todoroki didn't seem so satisfied with the answer. But then he looked up, the lights of the room illuminated his face. And he seemed dreamy, instead.

"I understand. I think I know what to do." Todoroki declared, look down at her. Accepting the steer into handling it himself was something she could admire. His hero name was Equilibrium, after all, he can't put all of his problems on others. "Thank you, Hearn-san." He said.

"It's fine to call me Maribel, you know." The girl revealed, he seemed mildly surprised by that.

"Maribel, then." He said, with a decent pronunciation. Then he turned around and walked back to his desk, and the blonde could finally focus back on her own things. Once again, she rotated about and looked back at her page, checking through each name at a rapid speed. But then she stopped and thought.

Nagano. Now I remember.

She was quick to flip through the papers again and began searching once she found the correct region, and then prefecture. Then the girl just seemed to sit there, reading through things for a while. One of her close neighbors in the classroom, Midoriya, took attention to it.

As he got close, she sighed under her breath and looked up at him. "Are you looking for someone?" He asked, having the curiosity of a child on his face.

Waving her hand toward him at a lax pace, she retorted. "Someone came to me after the festival, and I felt it was the right person."

"You felt?" Midoriya wondered out loud, his face adopted a fixed expression.

Lowering her arm, the girl spoke again, close to taut in her voice. "Yes. My quirk."

"Hmm..." The green-haired boy pondered as she went back to looking at her lists. Cycling through by region, the girl landed her finger on one agency.

The Hermit Office, lead by the Horned Hermit. It was located in the Chubu region, Nagano prefecture, the city of Chino. It may well have been the center of the country. She'd have to look at the place through a map later.

For a brief moment, images of the temple she visited in her dreams called back to her. But they were gone as quick as they came with Midoriya's voice cutting through.

"I can't say I remember that hero... At least, not clearly." The boy remarked. Then he straightened out a little, looking at Maribel while his jaw seemed to tighten. Appearing confident, which was what she herself had wanted him to be. Catching her attention. "I'm gonna stop bothering you now, Hearn-san."

She nodded slowly, almost deadpan as he walked away to his seat. A final brief glance was made to her paper, as she recalled the hermit.

I wonder who that mysterious creature actually is.

All Might and his friend, Tsukauchi, were sitting in U.A's break room. They'd just gone over a bit of news from the police department. After a little bit of informal chatter between the two, it was about time for the police detective to return to work. It seemed like they had little trouble learning about the noumu's physiology. No thanks to the spare legs that were left by the courageous girl who almost killed the creature by accident.

"Uh, one last thing." The blond hero raised his hand, the skeletal figure of the man making him look almost pleading in a way. A sorry state, anyway one would look at it, but the detective had seen him like this many times. It didn't bite as much as it used to. The policeman hummed curiously at him after he spoke, about to grab his coat and hat. "You know the situation regarding the inheritance of my quirk. I think it'd be best for him, for the future, to tell the inheritor of One For All about this."

The detective made an indecisive grimace. "I don't know about that. He might accidentally leak it."

"Trust me. I know he will listen."

They had a short staring contest, no threatening looks, but thoughtful ones.

"Well, alright. Fine. Make sure nothing gets out."

The number one hero nodded again and stood up. As the detective readies to leave, he gave the hero a respectful farewell and left the break room. After the fact, the hero stood still, staring at the coffee he held in his hand. His eyes darted to the door again, and after some thinking, he put the mug away. Going back on his promise, somewhat.

I can't let either of them go into the streets without being aware! Especially if he knows about a quirk like hers out there!

As he walked through the halls of the school, All Might inflated to his full size while no one was around to see. Then, turning a corner, he came to face the stream of 1-A students that seemed to be leaving their classroom. The day was over.

He extended a hand and smiled, boisterously announcing his presence to not just the class, but also the two he sought. "Midoriya-shounen and Hearn-shoujo! Come along, I want to talk."

Maribel's head peeked out from the crowd, it seemed she was having some small-talk with Yaoyorozu. The girl stuck out like a surprised deer as she looked at him, her eyes felt piercing. He did not cave, however. His inheritor was less impersonal and walked away from the class over to All Might. "Yes!" He said, firm in his respect for the hero.

The girl arrived not long after. "Alright..." She muttered, maybe Hearn was expecting to be able to head home already.

Whatever things they had on mind would be wiped away as they entered All Might's office after having rounded a few corners. "We are here!" He declared, then turning into a cloud of vapor as his form turned skeletal in a flash. He coughed briefly. "Ha-... Sit down, please." Pointing at one of the couches, he made his way over to the one on the obverse side. "Now, where do I start..."

They both looked at him, Midoriya seemed most anxious. The girl was curious, tapping her chin with one of her elegantly smooth fingers.

"The noumu." He started with, slow and clear in his pronunciation. Immediately, Maribel's memory turned sour, and the girl very briefly felt a cold chill run through her body. But there was something there that put a stop to it. It wasn't anything the boundary girl felt she could explain, but what would've awoken bad memories once again was immediately put down. It was as if she could just about reach the same emotional state, but stopped just before it became a distinct feeling. Midoriya inclined his head downward and furrowed his brow a little, worried. "Thanks to Hearn-shoujo's attack on the thing, the police had a free piece of DNA that they could analyze. The creature or whatever the hell it is now, was a man once. Now, he is four and his brain activity more than halved. And too did he have more than one quirk..."

This was unexpected news, Maribel thought. She didn't even get to see the noumu fight before she was almost dispatched by it. All she knew is it used a quirk to survive her attack, and that it handled even All Might's blows without much difficulty. Her fellow student, Midoriya was disturbed by those words, knowing it somehow broke conventions.

"That can't be possible..." Midoriya muttered, he knew a lot about quirks. Having two was never a case.

The girl put her extended finger under her chin. "Reality is stranger than fiction."

Nodding toward Hearn, the hero went on to explain as he motioned toward them with his hand. "It's absolutely possible. Just not without consequences. With just technology alone, it shouldn't work, but a quirk. That's why I called you here."

Both of the students straightened out a little and focused on what All Might had to say, even more than before.

"I can only imagine something like that working by using a quirk... A quirk that transfers, like yours." The girl was quick to catch on. Looking down at the table in front of him, All Might was surprised she got that clear so quickly and nodded. His inheritor seemed a tiny bit uncomfortable with having the girl talk about One For All so casually, but up until now, he only knew senior teachers that knew about his quirk.

"Mhm. Where do I start?" He rubbed the back of his head. "Back in my early days, I too had a mentor who had passed this quirk down to me. It's not a young quirk. Unlike the newer generation quirks, it's very simple. From the beginning, it was derived from another quirk. A quirk to pass on a quirk... It turned into what it was now due to a family feud. The original wielder and the one I wanted to talk about."

He paused for a short moment to let things sit in. "All For One."

Flapping his arms about, the hero enraptured them with skillful body language. Mostly noted by Maribel.

"This was a quirk that could take and give, and when by taking, he saved people from this new phenomenon. Mutants unsatisfied with how their lives were with the quirks were helped in exchange for loyalty. The power hungry asked for many quirks and paid a price, as the number of quirks overloaded their heads. Turning them into the likeness of the noumu." With these words, Maribel and Midoriya both started to understand what All Might was trying to communicate. "I thought I defeated him- that's why the crime rate has fallen so much since my advent, but now I'm not so sure..." Toshinori shuddered a little, his voice was stricken with regret or disappointment in himself.

"He may still be out there, and I can't let his malice catch up to you, Midoriya." He stared at his inheritor. "No doubt, All For One would like to do his worst to me, through you. And..." The old hero looked at Maribel. "You and your quirk could be targets for his plans, in the same vein as Midoriya..." All Might kept speaking, twisting his hand about in the air as he tried to bring forth a thought. Snapping his thumbs as he reached the correct thought. "You mentioned a friend during your pledge, correct?"

After processing the idea of All For One, a big problem but yet a problem solver, the girl stared wide-eyed at All Might as she mentioned her friend. Renko is the one he's referring to. I did mention her!

In a way to twirl them both into the topic, he kept moving his arms around where they needed to be. It was working. Although, Maribel continued to take note. "If the League of Villains is still bold, that person might get into trouble just to lure you out. Or even to spite you. That's the modus operandi of All For One."

For a moment, Maribel seemed a little lost as to what she could do, but quickly recalled what her friend spoke of not so long ago. With worrying demeanor, Hearn replied. "T-there's a conference regarding science soon, the most important one in the country. She'll be there, and she asked me to be around... Now I must be."

He nodded at her. "Do whatever you can, especially during this internship Take that as the word of the number one hero. Avoid his grasp, however it may present himself. That Tomura Shigaraki may be one of his associates, even if there is nothing to confirm."

The girl bobbed her head up and down in eager agreement. Even brought her arms to the side as she accepted his idea, but also brought her own to the table. "I don't think their portal guy will do much for a while, but I'll definitely be on guard." She narrowed her eyes. "If I see him again, I might just take another finger of his."

"As long as you protect the innocent." Toshinori looked over at Midoriya now, his brow forming creases as he became even more serious. "Midoriya-shounen."

"Yes!" The youthful hero student broke out of his thoughts.

Lowering his head just a little, the hero spoke slowly, loudly and clearly. "You can't be defeated before you master One For All!"

"I will never. If a challenge stands in my way, I'll strike it down." His face twisted to a grave one, as well. Gone was his innocent visage, mostly. The girl watched as it happened and felt satisfied in a way, but also seemed to realize something. He was embracing the character that others wanted from him.

Well, it's not important. But for me, what is... is...

Her eyes drifted to the sunset outside the building.

All For One...

Her shoes clacked against a concrete surface. Around her was a quiet neighborhood. Compared to where she lived, and where U.A was, she was in the boonies. Nagano was not densely populated, especially not the place she was.

Not may heroes had their agencies in Nagano and had moved where the petty crime was. Most recently, such had been focused in the larger population centers.

In turn, it was a perfect spot for certain villains. The ambitious kind that hid in the forests and mountains. Uncommon it wasn't for some organizations to set up shop and take advantage of the local populations. This resulted in the rural parts of Nagano not being remarkably safe. And in turn, the cities had larger forces of heroes to handle crime and disaster. Cities like the prefecture capital and Matsumoto, Azumino, Suwa, Chino...

The most former was where Maribel had headed for her internship. One of the most rural cities, it wasn't much more than a town, in truth. She'd realized it when she was younger there were cities in Japan not treated much differently from the countryside. They were on the verge of fading into the farmland and woods, with the residents having an easy opportunity to move into the more massive cities. Housing cost less there, and protection was ample compared to these smaller cities. As made clearer by the 'corpses' of old concrete roads on the sides of the large highway that took her through Nagano. Increase in crime prioritized big city life as a way of centralizing administration and crackdowns on crime. Heroes took too long to train to compensate for the police's reach, and to make up for that the people had to be more packed. Thankfully, there was no law made to prevent residence if someone really wanted. The government played more with incentives. The big cities had cheaper housing, and they made transport slower or more complicated to the rural. Whatever police there was packed up and moved closer to the people. A lot of costs were provided by the state if you were in a city, and so forth. The old regime had designed a way to make people get close and make crime that they simply didn't want to cease. Of course, there seemed to be parties that could do what they wished in the background. Probably thanks to the state's work.

A long game of control over minds and society. To make way for the superhuman society, the old roads were shed like old skin. Infrastructure was a significant part of living, even if nobody paid much attention to it.

With her hero costume nicely packed away into her school-issued case, a wind breezed by, and the girl looked above the buildings surrounding her. She spotted one of the nearby mountains, several hundred meters tall. This was Yatsugatake, an interesting place. She'd seen it when she was much younger while going on a road trip with her dad and Renko. A few places gave her odd vibes, but it was unclear in her memory. Spinning her vision about, she saw so much around. Older buildings, the forests, the mountains, and then the clouds. It gave a certain freedom that the big cities didn't.

Strutting about, the girl looked at her phone. She tried to get a good read on the roads she needed to go down to reach the address she'd been given. Earlier, she'd looked online and found an old house. A few decades old. There were a few differences between those and the current popular style of housing that was built, but not as much as the really old. With how capable people were at doing to today, it was almost just a question of economy and luxury. This town, in particular, didn't seem like it had any new buildings within the decade.

On her way, she didn't see many people around. It was just past noon, so people were currently working. So that made sense. In the absence of people, she instead got to observe many seemingly decrepit buildings. This lined up with something she grasped, which was that there had been a populated decline that contributed in tapping population from cities like this place. Sure, policy would have to take its blame as well, but this was what the news had revealed. For this place, it might've been intensified even, as they had more resources to out-compete small ones like Chino. A sorry state of things. She sighed.

As she went on the wanderer's path through the city, she peacefully passed across a bridge. Shrouded by foliage and trees on both sides was a river that went below this bridge. Quite a lively place compared to the rest of town, as instantaneously, the girl felt a feeling of unspoiled beauty out of it. Birds chirped, leaves bristling as a breeze blew by. In spite of her irritation with the sun, she could not deny it was beautiful. All was welcoming.

Wandering further, she came to see the fields that were now managed by capable robots. You could almost imagine it, but there were buildings here before. Just replaced and torn down over the century as the population dwindled away. Robots sowed, harvested and watered all that there was. It was efficient, if a bit vulnerable. But this was the plan of the government, making life cheap to encourage people to make more people, and carefully curated immigrants as well. As the vaster cities grew, they grew together with their surrounding neighbors, giving more free space to places like this. Minutes went by until the girl was walking into a suburb, a place that was once farmland, and existed in close tandem with the forests around it. It reminded her of home, to a degree, but nature had even more of a presence here. It felt so mysterious to look at, as if it was about to take her for a fun and treacherous journey... What lurked behind the trees? She imagined. Fairies?

The environments and places brought her to think. Now and then, what was truly better? Outside of the individual's perspective. Society had to be checked by itself on a scale far larger than before, leaving tensions in between. Is an attempt to preserve the status quo like this really wise? Shouldn't we aim for change instead of simple adaptation?

Maribel's face changed from a thoughtful one, to one filled with new ideas she stepped before a quaint house and its front door. The boundary girl recognized it from the photo she'd seen on her phone. According to the text messages from the Horned Hermit, Hearn should call her now. So, the girl clicked the number in and cradled the phone to her ear.

Riiiiing.

Riiiiing.

Riiiiing.

Waiting, the call went to the voice mail and the girl hung up. "Can't you even keep it with you?" Maribel asked, looking at her phone as if the girl was looking through and at the hero she was about to meet.

A voice cut into her personal dialogue. "I'm just not great with those things." It said, and Maribel turned around to glance at the face of the Horned Hermit. The strange creature or woman had moved behind her so suddenly that she hadn't even taken notice. But this didn't shock her, with the radiance of her aura from the sports festival, it didn't come across as odd. At least, not unexpected. It was still odd for a seeming random youkai or hermit- to shine on the same level as the number one hero. The hermit put her right hand, covered up in what appeared to be bandaging, on the student's shoulder.

"Now, we can get to my actual residence."

"W-a... Mea-..." Maribel was lost for a second, thinking she was already at her house. The girl sighed irritably before looking at the hermit. "...Lead the way."

And now I'm starting to get somewhere.

I revealed All For One earlier into the story this time both so I could justify some more obvious things regarding the internship, but also give more motivation to Maribel. You know what she thinks of her quirk, no?

Well, it should be noted that All Might is only suspicious, and Maribel's sheer power and Midoriya being OfA's inheritor warrants a warning because the guy might take interest to both of them. Especially Maribel if she gave the League a lot of trouble when they were last faced with her. The noumu coming along with them also makes them suspicious, but it's not a confirmation.

Aside from that, Kasen's house is not actually her house! It's just a place where they get mail and email. Kasen's essentially a boomer to everything with how old she is, so the question is, where does she actually live in this fic? Well, you may remember from WaHH.

As for the chapter title, it's a cryptic reference as most others. I picked it in relation to Maribel's inner monologue regarding roads and country, though. I think it fits in a sense, because at the source of many problems, simple infrastructure can be.

I hope this was satisfactory to read, as always, I don't think anything I do is perfect.