The night was silent. A time of rest and peace, the moon shone in elegance as the leaves swayed with the breeze.

It was also the time when the underworld was most active.

So it stood to reason that it was also the time underground heroes were most awake and patrolling around the seedy underbelly of the city, hunting for the immoral evil-doers or the poor schmuck dumb enough to get caught dealing drugs and other assorted illegal shit.

Of course, not every villain looked like your average slob of a scumbag. You'd think of men in suits next. Of well-dressed ruthless men with all their numerous guards and limousines and dirty money.

And yes, you might be right. They might well be the most powerful men in the criminal world if you didn't consider one tiny detail.

No true boss would ever be caught dead out in the open, especially at night.

No, the truly dangerous ones, the ones in the upper echelons of the underworld hierarchy, were the ones who looked normal. Unassuming. Ordinary, for a given value of the word.

The ones you wouldn't suspect if it weren't for the slight sharpness of their smiles or the carefully hidden glint in their eyes.

Those masterminds wouldn't be where they were without their spies, and the best ones were those who didn't exist. Knowledge was power after all, a power the bosses used ruthlessly.

It was one such spy Eraserhead was hunting down tonight.

The guy was good. Really good. In fact, no one would have ever found out that there was a traitor in their midst. It was just pure luck the man blew himself away with a heated argument on his phone about the leak on a supposedly secure file while the Pro-Hero was passing by.

Which led to the merry chase Eraserhead was going through. It was the same damn spy whose ghost he'd been tracking and chasing down for weeks. The man was so damn slippery.

Kicking against the wall, Eraserhead took a sharp turn into the alley Phantom ducked into after dodging Eraserhead's capture tape. He chased Phantom like a bloodhound as he jumped over a fence, through empty streets and filthy alleys, and into the forest.

The man was clearly getting desperate and headed to an extraction point -out by the harbour maybe-, which meant he had to capture the criminal now.

And that's when Eraserhead broke through a clearing just in time to see the Phantom get judo-flipped by a teenaged girl in a shrine.

...

She felt the dagger draw blood as it shook against her throat. She felt the villain –lithe figure, slightly taller than her, a bit hunched-over, slightly trembling all over– try to capture his breath. The man was exhausted from a long chase it felt like. His grip on the blade was a bit loose and the limb was trembling.

Her pride was wounded.

Caught off guard while she was too busy paying her respects to be aware of her surroundings. How humiliating. She was a kunoichi for gods' sake! She wasn't going to suffer the indignity of being a hostage of all things! The jerk wasn't even doing it properly if you asked her.

She slammed her head backwards, breaking his nose before twisting out of his grip and flipped him to the ground with prejudice.

"Show some respect, Asshole! Dishonour on you and your cow!"

For a moment, her eyes were stuck on the familiar gleam of the knife.

Ignoring the familiar urge to [stab the man in the eye– slit his throat–] maim, she kicked the knife out of his hands. An illusion was already sparking at her fingertips, ready to knock him out when bands of –were those bandages or not?– wrapped around the villain and pulled the man away from her.

Finally. Thank the gods.

...

Katsumi grunted as she sat down. She woke up later than she'd like, had to rush through her routine, and to top it all off, she missed her morning coffee.

Her coffee.

She glowered down at her perfectly arranged desk, unsatisfied, before turning to glare at her chuckling best friend, ears flattening back. She must look like a petulant cat.

She inwardly waited for the caustic reply in her head that would never come, making her mood even worse. It's been years since she noticed the abnormal -terrible- silence in her head and found the mindscape bare of any gigantic foxes. It was the first time Kurama was partially merged with her physically and it worried her that she hasn't heard a peep from her prickly partner in this Cycle. It frustrated her and never failed to raise her hackles whenever she thought about it.

She never realized how big a part Kurama played in her existence until he went silent.

It was like living life half-blind [or half-functional]. She did her best to distract herself from it, fill her head with all sorts of things, and just keep herself busy. Her head slowly met the desk as she slowly brooded.

Her musings were interrupted by a disgustingly chirp greeting.

"Morning Katsumi-san, did you-"

The poor naive soul was cut off by a plastic folder shoved in her face and a cold smile.

"That's chapters one and two finished, Minami-san. I expect you all to study this and make a report. If you haven't finished by tomorrow...", Katsumi trailed off, eyes glinting threateningly.

Minami squeaked out a 'Yes, ma'am!' before scurrying off, folder clutched to her chest. Katsumi stared after her classmate, the cold smile still on her face, pleased at having shared her misery.

"Are you okay? I know you were going to the shrine last night. Did you get to sleep?"

Katsumi hissed at being reminded of the incident at the shrine, "No. Some stupid asshole ran in and tried holding me hostage in the shrine. The shrine! Shame on him for his audacity."

"...Here, have some coffee."

"You're an angel, Momo, a godsent~"

...

Katsumi looked up from the oversized cocoon to find her saviour in yellow goggles and a black suit, long unruly hair levitating as the bandages around his neck pulled the criminal in.

"This is a shrine, damn it." She blurted out blankly before she shook her head. "Ah, I'm sorry. Here, sir.", She handed him the dagger the man tried to use. Honestly, the nerve-

"You need to come with me," Eraserhead said. For a moment, Katsumi was baffled. Why would he– oh. Her neck, duh. And he probably needed her statement too.

She nodded, "Just a moment, please." She didn't wait for a reply, rushing instead to the little fox shrine behind her and picked up the incense she dropped in the scuffle. Lighting it up, she offered a quick prayer to Inari before rushing back to the underground hero.

The rest was a blur to her weary mind as a nurse fussed while a detective fired questions at her.

"What's your name, miss?"

Bakugou Katsumi.

"Where did the incident occur?"

At the shrine in the forest.

"What were you doing when the altercation happened?"

Paying tribute to the Shinto god, Inari.

"Why?"

Why do you think? It should be rather obvious, no? With the fox ears and all.

"Did you know who the man was?"

Obviously not. If I did, then we would've been here a long time ago. The disrespect-

"Were you in any way involved with the man? He seems to know you."

Was I involved with- Were you in any way educated in how to question victims? [Of course, I was involved, you imbecile. I was his bloody hostage!]

The nurse was already glaring at the man for his insensitivity and you could tell she was contemplating whether or not to throw the guy out of the window when her mother arrived, face furious with worry as she headed straight for her daughter. Katsumi felt vicious satisfaction as she watched the man pale seconds into her mother tearing him a new one.

…

It was still a mystery to the school how the resident spartan perfectionist -who looked fit to rule the yakuza- was friends with such a pure, wholesome, Hero-aspirant from a very prominent family. Or how she even got in their school for that matter.

Some said she bribed her way in with her dirty money. Others would say she threatened her way in. The rest believed she simply strolled in and just never left.

Takuetsu Junior High School was an elite, prestigious school who up until recent years was an all-girls school. The only way you could get in was if you were either the child of alumni or managed to pass their ridiculous requirements for a scholarship.

Katsumi was one of the very few who managed to snag a full scholarship. Her family may have been well-off enough to live very comfortably but they would certainly have never let her enrol into such a school if it wasn't for the scholarship. It never even occurred to them that she'd go to a different school from her brother and cousin, attached at the hip as they were. An epiphany changed that though, and Katsumi got into an elite school for the challenge and independence. [And spite. Don't forget spite, because fuck expectations-]

The novelty wore off quickly after being surrounded by idiots.

Oh, don't get her wrong! The teachers and the curriculum were amazing and her fellow scholars were a treat to talk to. It's just- the legacies.

There was only so much incompetence and posturing she could take before she snapped.

Those spoilt, self-entitled brats [who just don't know any better-, from rich families, were frustrating. The teachers could only do so much to curb the idiocy and instil decency before parents would barge in, mouths foaming with legal suits in hand. So she did her teachers a favour and 'pushed' her class to improve through sweets, glinting eyes, pointed comments, and cold smiles [if she ever augmented it with a few illusions, no one can prove it-].

Now, this wasn't always the status quo because never let it be said that hormonal teenagers were in any way rational and mature beings. Anyone that stands out in the crowd was to be pushed down. Anyone that defies and fails to conform to the social standards of their domain was to be ostracised. To be otherwise is to be a freak of nature and obviously a glitch in the workings of the universe.

Fortunately, Yaoyorozu Momo was one of these few glitches and was all the more precious for it. Coming from an opulent family that practised pragmatism, Momo was spared from the common pitfalls of teenage stupidity.

How they became friends were simple; they were assigned partners in a project their first year and found that they got along. No drama involved.

...

"A-ah, pardon me Bakugo-sama-"

"Just Katsumi, Minami-san, and forgive my demeanour earlier today. I was not myself."

"ohthankthegods- uh, I mean, are we still on today? Some of the concepts were a bit too complex, and you always did explain things much better than the teachers do."

An unexpected benefit of her war against incompetence was that some of the students' parents had approached her to make their tutoring official. And since they were rich people, that meant getting paid. Big time. When word of her class' exemplary performance got out, she and her fellow scholars were making decent money from all the tutoring they did.

Instilling practicality in idiot students' minds paid well [she could see why Reborn of all people went this route-].

"We'll be going over last week's physics and maybe a little crash course on research if we have the time. Oh, and would you please spread the word I wouldn't be available this weekend? Personal reasons, you see, I'm sure you understand..."

Katsumi smiled apologetically at her classmate, ears and tails drooping in an appropriately sheepish manner. It was true, technically. She just wanted to spend more time with her boys and if she just happened to stress eat and drag her boys' shopping, well-

There was a reason why they accused her of sadism.

Hey guys~ I edited quite a bit of the first chapter so it's pretty different from the original.

This update is basically just filler to establish Katsumi's character by the time Canon begins. Thanks for reading! Please review on your way out! -