PassiveNox: Aye. And there will be more heroes/villains than the list, eventually.

Firem78910: Plus more. But yes. There is also Muscular (the unstoppable murdered), Gigantomachia (monster in Niigata mountains), Stain (massacre of the yakuza clan leadership, like he did as Stendhal in Vigilantes manga), and Mustard (gas attack in Shizuoka).

(***)

"So, Kiri." Mina decides that it's enough of freeloading at his house like that. Sure, she realizes she needed a while to stop freaking out at people so much. To return to a state somewhat similar to how she was when she was still happy when her parents were alive. That took some time.

But it was almost a month.

"Yeah?" He asks back when the subsequent words don't come out of her mouth. They were eating breakfast together. She made it. Doing stuff like that was one way in which she was trying to repay him.

He made it clear that she doesn't have to do that, but if it will make her feel better about staying, then he will not fight her over it.

She would probably go insane if she had absolutely nothing to do.

"Do you remember the dance school thing you mentioned on my first day here?" She is fidgeting in her seat a bit. She is slowly getting better, but you don't just forget half a year of hell and come out of it as the same happy-go-lucky person as you used to be.

"Yep, you want it?" Ejirou lightens up a bit. He is probably reassured that she actually wants to leave his apartment, even if occasionally.

His protectiveness towards her? She will not admit it, but she loves it. She used to be a headstrong, independent, and attention-grabbing girl. Now she really needs to lean on someone to pick up the pieces of herself, and she is beside herself with joy that Kirishima was there for her.

She wants to get back to being headstrong and independent; she isn't going to lie. She just has no idea how to even start trying to achieve that.

"I think so." She truly isn't sure about that. But… she doesn't want to parasitize on him anymore. That sounds like a good start. "I trained a bit while you were at work, and I think I'm back in shape, more or less. So…"

He gives her a thumbs-up gesture and a truly infectious smile.

(***)

Izuku focuses on two cases first. The riverside monster and the floating tree. Or, to be exact, he and Mei decide to split their work between each other. Mei was going to investigate the forest remotely (where was she getting all those drones was anyone's guess, really). Izuku was going to check the river on foot.

Unfortunately, this threw a wrench into Izuku Midoriya's plans for regular vigilante activity. Then again, keeping a low profile, at least for a while, sounded like a good idea. Shie Hasseikai was probably on the lookout for someone resembling him. And Overhaul was smart enough to connect Defiant's telekinesis with 'random unexpected mass-trippings' that seemed to be frequently happening through the criminal hotspots in the city.

Thus, Izuku Midoriya ended up spending a few days going on late-evening walks around the supposed areas where the 'riverside monster' was occasionally seen.

He typically left his home after dinner, spent a few hours cleaning the beach (while training his telekinesis), and then he went on a long walk. Returning home after nightfall. Mom was worrying, but…

He hoped he would just randomly run into the riverside monster, but alas, the world wasn't as pleasant as he hoped it to be. The area was deserted. The ruins were rather intimidating.

The situation changed five days later. He was walking on the verge of the river embankment, trying to survey the dark waters. Then he slipped.

It was a really pathetic way for a superhero to (almost) die, really. Not watching your steps, and then being too shocked by the sudden fall to activate your superpower before you fell into the river and took a mouthful of water.

Before he had time to drown (or get his bearings back enough to pull himself from the river), something coiled around his body and pulled him up from the water. He landed back on the embankment, coughing the water out. Despite that, he was attentive enough to see some sort of appendage disappearing into the wat…

Not so fast.

It might have been a nasty way to repay your saviour, but he didn't spend almost a week walking aimlessly around those parts to let the 'riverside monster' disappear on him again. So he grabbed the appendage with his telekinesis (the only visible part of whatever was in the water) and froze it in place.

The creature/person seemed to struggle with that for a few seconds, but then Izuku began to (gently) pull it towards the surface. The creature/person followed the appendage.

Five seconds later head emerged from the water. Izuku immediately realized two things. One, it wasn't a creature - it was a girl. Two, he was pulling her by her tongue (which was incredibly long, apparently).

He realized a third thing two seconds after that. The girl wasn't wearing any clothes. What was with Izuku and naked girls recently?!

He altered the direction of his telekinesis and submerged what he really didn't want to see. So, he could only see the top of her shoulders and what was above it. And then he held her by the shoulders, allowing her to retract her tongue.

"Ribbit." She let out, most likely unconsciously. She was eyeing him from the water with a mixture of surprise and fear.

Oh. Is she part frog? That was… kinda cool. Mei was going to have a meltdown over it. Izuku was sure of that. One more completely new branch of superpowers. Telekinesis, impossible eyesight, matter alteration, time rewind, now half-animals? Wow.

"S...sorry for that." Izuku says before he is wracked by another coughing fit. He doesn't break his grip on her, at least not long enough for her to slip away. "I only want to talk with you. If I stop holding you in place, will you stay for a moment?"

Part of him is worried that it's not a human with frog characteristics, but a frog with human characteristics. That would make their first contact incredibly complicated. But instead of not being understood, he receives a vocal answer.

"Yes." It's not much, but he decided to trust it. So he deactivated his power. He is certain that he could reactivate it fast enough to grab her again if she tried to bolt, but as long as she doesn't know that, it doesn't matter.

She stayed there. Floating in the water, with only her head sticking out. Her oddly big eyes are locked onto him with rather surprising ferocity. Uh-huh.

"First, thank you for saving me." He says while bowing a bit. "I should have been watching where I'm going. Also, you can call me Defiant."

She nods, accepting the thanks (or admitting that he certainly should have been watching where he was going). The froggy wasn't very talkative. It was alright with Izuku. A pleasant change of pace from dealing with Mei.

He sat on the verge of the riverbank, with the girl a few meters away from him.

"Second, I was actually looking for you." She tilts her head sideways a bit, staring at him quizzically. "I have an ability that normal people don't have. It's what I used to pull you from the water. I was looking for other people like me. I heard about some creature apparently dwelling around that area at night, and…"

"...and you found me, ribbit." He can see one of her fingers on her lips. Is that some sort of nervous tick or something? "What now?"

"Well…" That was actually a good question. It was one thing that he didn't really have prepared. "Honestly, not much. I confirmed you exist and that you have a supernatural ability. You also don't seem like someone is exploiting you for it. I already had to break someone like us out because of that and it's nice that I won't have to do it again. So all things considered, I guess that… I'd like to be your friend?"

She blinks at him a few times, clearly surprised. That's… kinda sad, now that Izuku thinks about it.

"A friend. With me. Ribbit." She looks at him. She is… sort of expressionless, but not entirely. Her face is different enough that it makes guessing her emotions from her facial expressions rather complicated. "With someone looking like me."

"Err, yes?" She looked a bit creepy. He wasn't going to lie. She hit the uncanny valley rather badly. But it wasn't her fault that she was born like that, yes? And she saved his life, despite not getting anything out of that.

He decides to be honest with her. She saved him, right?

"Well, I might also be trying to become a superhero with my power." He adds. "And I have a feud with a certain supervillain with a powerful ability, and I'm looking for potential allies. But that part is entirely optional. I'm mostly worried that he'll come looking for you. He probably heard the gossip about your existence as well."

"What's a superhero? Ribbit." She asks curiously, and Izuku decides that this is just sad. She seems… wait, is she… like one of those feral kids that grew up with almost no human interactions? How long was she living on her own?

"Someone who has an ability that normal humans don't." He replies. "Like my telekinesis, or your… uhm… frogginess." She seems to be vaguely amused by the way he put that. "Superheroes use those abilities to help other people, while supervillains use theirs to hurt others. Since you saved me from drowning with your tongue, I guess you already acted like a superhero."

"Huh." He really has no idea what she thought about it, but at least she didn't disappear on him. "And that… supervillain?"

"Kai Chisaki, or Overhaul." He replies. "He can kill or heal people and repair or destroy objects for as long as he touches them. He is the head of the yakuza… do you know what that word means?" She shakes her head, so he quickly explains it. "So if you see nasty looking men skulking around, keep yourself hidden, alright? They'll try to hurt you if they find you."

"Uh-huh." She says with a nod. "I hide from people either way. You're the first one to catch me."

"Okay, can I… can I ask you a few questions?" She nods. "How old are you?"

"Dunno, ribbit." She replies. Izuku has no idea how to calculate that from her face, but he'd say that she is about the same age.

The implications of her not even knowing how old she is are rather worrying. Izuku decides to not dig into them now. At least not too much.

"Alright. Do you… Uhm… are you wearing anything right now?" He freaked out and re-submerged her when he started seeing her breasts, but… maybe there was something under them?

"No, ribbit." She squashes his hopes completely. "Problem in the water. I spend most of my time in the river."

Well, that's just great.

"What do you do during winter, then?" He asks, hoping that she has at least somewhere to go when the river gets cold. She certainly has some acquaintances, despite her odd looks, right?

"I sleep at the bottom of the river." She replies. He blinks a few times behind his masks. Oh. So she can hibernate. And is probably living alone for who knows how long. Great. Just… wonderful.

"I see." Izuku replies, ignoring the overbearing need to give the girl a hug. "So two last questions. What's your name? And if I want to meet you again, how can I do that without spending several days walking around aimlessly?"

(***)

"I found the riverside monster." Izuku announces to Mei a few hours later through their video chat. The girl perks up at his words. "It's a hit. She's an ability user. Actually saved me when I almost drowned."

Mei glares at him. That makes him realize what a mistake he just committed.

"Defiant-kun." Her voice is deceptively sweet. "Please, could you repeat what you just said?"

"It was an accident, Mei!" Izuku replies in a hurry. "And it won't happen again, I promise! I learned my lesson. Now, can we go back to the main subject of the talk?"

"Yes, but you better not repeat that or I'm going to kill you even if you survive." Mei announces. "You can fly! You can throw a car around with your telekinesis! You are a superhero! Don't you dare die of something so mundane, got it?"

"Yes, Mei." He replies obediently because he knows he will not win that battle. "Now, the riverside monster." Mei nods. "Well, it's apparently a girl. Of our age, or so I think. She is from, well, a completely different and rather unique branch of superpowers."

"So, even more of my predictions and theoretical models go to the trash." Mei sighs. "Oh, well. It just makes things more interesting. What's her power?"

"Frog." Izuku replies, and Mei blinks at him a few times in confusion. "She is, errr, part frog."

"What do you mean by 'she is part frog'?!" Mei stares at him in shock.

"By 'she is part frog' I meant 'she is part frog'." This whole talk was getting increasingly deranged. "She can extend her tongue for at least several meters. It is also strong enough to grab me and lift me from the water. She has large and… kinda froggish eyes. She seems amphibious enough to both have lungs AND spend the winters hibernating at the riverbed. She looks… well, freaky with her too-wide mouth and large eyes, but it's something you can get used to. Oh, and she ribbits occasionally while talking." It's kind of cute if he is to be honest.

Mei stares at him in silence for a long while. Then she sighs.

"Well, we already had ESP bullshit, religious bullshit, and chronological bullshit to deal with." She finally comments. "And that's without counting the bullshit that my eyes are, because I'm not sure how to classify them. Now we also have genetic bullshit to deal with. Great. A bit more of that and I'm going to go to church. Or a temple. Or whatever."

"Huh? Why?"

"Because this is beyond the usual level of bullshit we're dealing with." Mei calmly replies. "You can't be born as a half frog. Genetics don't work like that. Sure, we have gene-therapies for a lot of genetic defects, but this is a completely different level of that. Not to mention it being apparently spontaneous. We can fix some damaged genes, maybe change a hair colour if we really push our backs into it. But this?"

She pinches the bridge of her nose, clearly looking exasperated by this whole talk. Izuku expected her to blow up on the news, so he is letting her go through it.

"Imagine that there is an earthquake." She continues. "You have an old car in your garage. The earthquake pushes a hammer off a shelf, and it hits the car. It might damage the car's body or break the window. It might, miraculously, hit the car just right and, for example, set the damaged car mirror right. That's how genetic mutations work. The girl you met? She is the equivalent of the car in question being randomly hit multiple times by said hammer in a way that alters its body, externally and internally, to that of a completely different car brand. It just cannot happen."

Izuku was relatively surprised that she didn't have that meltdown when they discovered the girl that could turn the clock back. Or Overhaul's apparent touch-limited godhood. Then again, the meltdown was probably brewing up slowly all that time.

"Alright." She exhales deeply. "I'm calm now. Continue with the story." Izuku smells bullshit with the 'calm' part, but hey, whatever she says.

"Not much to say, really." Izuku sighs. "She is… kinda feral. Not even wearing any clothes, apparently. I suspect she was thrown away when her mutations began to be visible. She doesn't seem to know much about the world. I think she was living alone like that for at least several years. I warned her about Overhaul and offered to be her friend if she wants to. I think she does."

"A friend?" Mei blinks at him.

"Yes. Her name's Tsuyu, and she is apparently living in the basement of some abandoned house by the riverside." Izuku continues. "It's partially flooded and one of its walls is broken, enough to be opened up into the sewers. No longer functional and rather narrow, but they connect to the river. I have her permission to drop by if I want, just not at night, because then she is out hunting. I think I'll visit her occasionally, with some books. Or food."

"Well, it's not like you have a secret hero base to invite her to live in." Mei admits. "So befriending is fine enough. I think I'm narrowing the floating tree mystery down bit by bit, but in the meantime, focus on training and befriending that Tsuyu girl."

As if that was going to be easy. He also had to check on Eri.

"Well, I think that I'm going to require your technological expertise first." Izuku announces, and Mei perks up at her favourite words. "I need two… well, not exactly babies, but something close to that. And… well, do you want to know my real identity?"

That takes her by surprise. A bit.

"Oh, well, I guess I do." She says after a second. "I mean, I realized you were going to drop the secrecy, eventually. I was both surprised that it's taking you so long and reassured that you know how to keep your secrets. What changed?"

"Nothing." He replies honestly. "I think I just… got used to hiding it from you? I was kinda afraid of all your family zaibatsu with loads of cash power, but I think I know you enough to trust you now. Especially after your reaction to my fight with Overhaul. Still, if I mysteriously vanish a few days from now on, it means that your family was monitoring our talks and was waiting for me to make a mistake."

Mei chuckles.

"Oh, don't worry about that. We aren't doing that sort of shady biz." She replies. "That's for Todorokis and Yotsubashis." Izuku decides to immediately forget what he heard. He doesn't want to know any of that. "So, reveal time?"

He takes off the hood. Then his sunglasses. Finally, his facemask. Then he looks at the screen to see Mei staring at him.

"You're… kinda cute." She says eventually. Izuku does not know how to interpret the look on her face. He is too busy blushing. "Also, green hair?"

"Changed colour after my power manifested." One of the many mysteries he did not know how to untangle. It's a better thing to talk about than the 'cute' bit, that's for sure. "My eyes changed colour as well."

"Huh, odd." Mei looks at him for a few seconds before continuing. "Your hair looks fluffy. Remind me to run my fingers through it when we meet again in real life, alright? I absolutely need to know how it feels."

Izuku sighs. This is somehow more terrifying than Mei sending a Hatsume Industries death squad after him.

(***)

Three days later, Izuku pays Tsuyu a visit. He takes his backpack, loads his (fully charged) laptop inside, adds a few comic books, and several types of pre-packaged food. Meat. Vegetables. Sushi. Generally understood seafood. He needs to figure out what she likes to eat.

He finds his way back to the abandoned building that Tsuyu pointed to. It looks like a three stories tall apartment building that - somehow - survived the onslaught of nature (and, well, war) reasonably intact.

The windows are barred from the inside with wooden planks. The door is open.

Izuku didn't expect that. Most of the abandoned district was already pillaged. That house, strangely enough, wasn't. There is dust on everything, but the furniture is still there.

And some stale bloodstains on the walls. He accidentally kicks what seems to be a bullet shell. He'll have to ask Tsuyu.

He closes the entrance door, finds the stairs down and goes there until he reaches a closed door. He knocks on them a few times.

"Who is it?" He hears a familiar voice coming from inside.

"It's me, Defiant." He replies. "I came to visit you. Can I come in?"

The door is unlocked. He opens them up slowly. His suspicions are proved correct - she opened them with her tongue. Tsuyu herself is standing several meters away, knees-high in water and probably ready to bolt through the hole in the wall if she decides that anything suspicious is going on.

Her posture was odd. She was leaning forward a bit. She was also - because of course she was - completely naked. And apparently oblivious to the distress that was giving him.

Thankfully, Izuku suspected that. So he braced himself for the best of his abilities. Just enough to NOT freak out.

"Hi!" He waves at her and steps inside.

It's… not what he expected.

The basement was pretty much one and a half level. The half level was next to the entrance - maybe ⅓ of the room was a part of it. Then, a few steps down, was the rest. Flooded, about to the level of Tsuyu's knees. There was a hole in the wall to the left of the entrance on the lower level.

Oddly shaped basement. Judging from the collapsed rubble to the right side of the entrance, it was probably a garage of sorts.

He cringes when he sees what he suspects to be Tsuyu's bed. Girls - even part-frog ones - shouldn't be sleeping in dens built from leaves and whatever soft things they scavenged from elsewhere. It was on the upper level of the basement.

At least the place felt reasonably warm. For as long as it wasn't winter, that is. The humidity, in the meantime, was absolutely deadly. But it was probably the point for her.

He also ignored the half-eaten fish. He probably interrupted her meal. Oh, rehabilitating that girl is going to be a hard thing. But he is going to do that. At least to some degree.

Where are professional therapists where you need them? Oh, they are probably busy having anyone who believes in superpowers committed. Yeah. That makes sense.

"Ribbit." She replies. It's probably her version of 'hi'. "Why did you come?"

"Well, I wanted to hang out with you for a bit." He replies. "I brought food. And something fun to do together." She tilts her head a bit.

Eyes on her face, damn it.

(***)

He convinced her that her house was a bit too humid for him, so she followed him upstairs. It was rather obvious that she was ready to bolt downstairs and into the river, if he as much as made too sharp of a move.

"I kinda figured out that those abandoned houses were all ransacked." He says to her while dusting chairs (and table) in one of the apartments. "Why is this untouched?"

"I dunno, ribbit." She replies. "Some people lived here until last year. They didn't come down, because the basement was flooded. I slept through the winter, and when I woke up and came back, they were gone."

Some runaway folks? Small-time criminals? Was it all that important? They didn't even notice a frog girl living in their basement. They didn't sound dangerous.

If only the building had electricity and running water, he would use it for his hero base in a heartbeat. It was pretty much perfect. They could even remake the old shop on the ground floor into some common space.

"Well, please sit down." He says while pointing at one chair. She does it… so at least she knows what chairs are. Small mercies. Then he takes the food out of his backpack and puts it in front of her (the way she is staring at it is rather endearing). Finally, he puts the laptop behind said food.

He brought some cartoons. And films.

He spends six hours watching cartoons with a naked frog girl while answering her endless questions about things she saw. He also leaves her a special phone from Mei - one rechargeable by simply being exposed to sunlight. It can only be used to phone Izuku - it is a way for her to call for help if someone went after her.

He returns home with a photo of hers to show Mei, some additional tidbits of data about her abilities… and something resembling a plan.

She phones him an hour ago, telling him she found the person responsible for the floating tree thing. And she needs boots on the ground to offer them a job. Or friendship.

Joy.

(***)

Tsuyu (like Eri) needs a hug. Thankfully, Tsuyu (like Eri) gets a hug.