AN: This chapter was reformatted on 9/26/2021.

This chapter was over two years old and was in need of some editing. If you are a prior reader, don't worry, the content is the same plot wise. I have just made corrections to character delivery and narrative voice. If any discrepancies strike your eye as a reader, please let me know and I will be sure to correct them.


When Chisaki Midoriya opened her eyes, she was met by an unfamiliar ceiling and a rush of shock. This wasn't her ceiling back home. Where was she? What was she doing here?

She'd almost died. Two men —two sketchy men, had saved her.

Fuck. This wasn't the cement tunnel and it wasn't a hospital. They had taken her somewhere and she wasn't safe.

She shut her eyes and tried to keep her breathing steady.

They were probably nearby, keeping an eye on her. If they knew she was awake then who was to tell what they'd do.

No. It was best to play dead and pick up what she could. She needed every advantage she could get. If there was anything her life at the bottom of the food chain had taught her it was to always play the field and hold every bit of leverage to her chest.

The first thing she noticed as she lay there was the intense stench of cigarette smoke that ran thick in her throat with every inhale. The second were the voices, just close enough that she could discern the conversation, but not so close as to be directly on top of her. There was a scraping sound of wood on… something; probably a chair being pulled out.

"Why did you bring her here?" It was a hissed whisper of disbelief. "I thought we agreed to bring her to her house!"

"Well, I didn't want to go searching through her things for an address, that would have been impolite." This second voice was calmer but still notably hushed.

"God! We already saved her." There was a shuffling sound, and the voice became a peeved whine. "We don't save people Kurogiri, we're villains, that's just not what we do."

Villains? Her mind recoiled at that thought, she would have flinched if she hadn't been working so hard to keep her body still. These people who saved her were villains? Not Heroes. Villains?

Why would a villain save me? Wasn't I attacked by a villain before? Do villains kill other villains? Are they going to kill me? Just where am I?

She needed to open her eyes to better understand the situation…but if she did they'd know she was awake. This was her only protection at the moment she couldn't give that up yet.

There was a pause and then a sigh, "…Well we've done it, Tomura, and it's our responsibility to help her."

"Responsibility my ass!" The first voice said in raspy retort. "Leave that bullshit to the heroes."

There was a rustle of material and a clink of glass. "Tomura, keep your head on straight. Need I remind you that you're the one who suggested we kill that slime man?"

There was a new shift of material and the creek of a chair.

"He was overstepping his bounds as a mere pickpocket and thief, and he was drawing too much attention in our direction. That thing was just a loose end that needed cutting…and this mess with the girl is just a stupid, complicated, byproduct!"

"Will the two of you be quiet!" This was a third voice that came from her left, and it was much closer than the other two; in fact, it was so close, that Chisaki would have guessed that it was only an arm's length away. "You're going to wake the damn girl up."

Should she respond? Say 'Don't worry, I'm already awake, I heard everything you just said.'?

No, these were villains, and she didn't want to play a smartass with people who were dangerous enough to kill people; especially not when she was in their home turf.

Instead she should act like she'd just woken up from all the noise…Yeah that sounded like a good idea…

She shifted her weight a bit and grumbled, making a very conscious effort to move slowly; she didn't want to spook these people, but she also wanted to get an idea of her situation. She propped herself into a sitting position and clutched her head, letting her eyes scan her surroundings.

She was sitting on the red leather seat of a booth, in front of her was a table and in the booth on the other side of it, was a man. He wore a worn-out brown suit and little round tinted glasses that only partially obscured the shifty eyed that peered over them. His appearance was poorly kept, with greasy grey hair, week-old stubble, and shaggy clothes. The cigar in his hand twinkled weekly in the dim bar as he raised it to his lips and took a drag.

"And, would you look at that. I was right." He grinned and let out a lungful of smoke.

Chisaki made the mistake of inhaling.

"Where-" The smoke clung to the back of her throat and sent her coughing. The words that she meant to sound strong and self assured fell from her lips, crippled by her heaving into little more than a croak. "Where am I?"

She gave another racking cough, and glanced around as the smoke cleared.

The room beyond their booth was lit by weak lamps that hung from the ceiling and spilt just enough dim light to see that across a few feet of checkered tile there stood a bar. A figure stood behind it, polishing a glass in his shadowy hands. Upon sight he struck Chisaki as someone intensely familiar. This man —or she assumed he was a man since she couldn't properly tell— was dressed in a well-tailored and neat suit. What parts of him were visible seemed to be made of black colored smoke. Oddly enough his smoke body seemed to have no trouble handling physical objects, like the glass that he passed deftly between his hands, and the presence of two expressive pinpricks of light that watched her curiously from where his eyes should have been, suggested that this well dressed man had a physical body of some sort. She had gotten little more than a glance at him before she'd passed out earlier, but he had certainly been there to save her from the sludge monster.

Another man was there, slumped over at the bar with his back to her. Unlike the smoke man behind the bar he did not show any interest at the disheveled man's announcement. Instead he hunched further away from her, ignoring her stubbornly and cementing himself as an utter mystery. All she could infer was, based on the severed hands that gripped his arms and shoulders, that he was the other man she had seen in the tunnel.

Somehow these two had saved her.

This whole situation could not be real. Villains. Villains had saved her. These Villains had saved her!

Chisaki whipped back around to the disheveled man sitting across from her, "W-who are you? Where am I?"

The man cocked his head, his small eyes still watching her with an unnerving curiosity as he took an infuriatingly slow drag from his cigar.

"Hey, Shigaraki, are you good with us giving names?" He called out loudly towards the bar with little more than a tilt of his head. Chisaki gave a little involuntary jump at the rise in tone, half expecting it to be hostility towards her before she processed the words and turned stiffly to eye the bar again.

Which one of them was Shigaraki?

The man slumped on the stool gave a grunt before he snarled. "Do whatever you want."

The man across from her gave a small grin to reveal his crooked, yellowed teeth, and leaned forwards.

"Well my name is Giran. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, kid." He smelled sweet and bitter; like alcohol and tobacco. Was that what was stained on his shirt? Chisaki pressed her lips and tried not to breathe "What's your name?"

She swallowed hard and sat straight and tense. This was weird. Beyond weird. There was no way that she was handing out her name to these villains. Even if they had saved her. But the man was watching her expectantly. He could be dangerous and who knew what he could do if she didn't give an answer.

Well, a first name was fine, right? Chisaki was a common enough name. They couldn't track her down with that, right?

"My name is Chisaki…" She said slowly, still trying not to breathe too deeply.

"Well it's nice to meet you Chisaki." He grinned, tapping his cigarette against his forefinger.

Suddenly, a gloved hand swooped in and snatched the cigarette from the man's hand.

"Giran! I'm sure that I've told you not to smoke in here! It's a fire hazard, and it makes this place smell like a dump." The man made of smoke appeared at the edge of the table to exclaim disapprovingly as he crushed the butt of the cigarette into an ashtray that he held in his hand. Then he seemed to notice Chisaki and cleared his throat in embarrassment, quickly arranging his face into something she thought might have been a polite smile but she couldn't quite tell. "Forgive me for presenting something so unsightly. Allow me to start over." He put the ashtray onto the table and set next to it a coaster and placed atop it a sparkling glass of water. "Hello young lady, it's nice to meet you. I'm Kurogiri. Forgive me for overhearing, but I believe that your name was Chisaki, was it not?" She nodded tentatively, astonished by the lighthearted admonishment and confused by the sudden polite attitude. "That's a wonderful name." The smoke man said kindly, before he motioned to the glass of water. "I thought that you might be rather parched after your ordeal. If you'd prefer something more to drink, I can get it for you."

Chisaki swallowed hard, suddenly conscious of how much her throat felt like sandpaper. The glass did look appealing. She could not deny that. But before she could reach for it, it occurred to her once again what kind of people she was dealing with. These men were all villains. They could have easily put something in her drink.

This Kurogiri man must have noticed her hesitation.

"Please, don't worry about the drink. I promise you that it is just normal tap water." His eyes turned upwards in the corners reassuringly.

Now she was certain that that was a smile. A smile for her.

He was being kind; thoughtful even. She wasn't sure how to take that. She could count on one hand how many people had been thoughtful to her. She should have been skeptical, especially given the circumstances, but Chisaki couldn't help but feel a small burst of joy in her chest.

She took the glass and brought it to her lips for a tentative sip, still rolling the water over her tongue skeptically. Only to find that it tasted completely normal. Perhaps it was just tap water after all. She smiled into the glass, relieved.

Chisaki eyed the Kurogiri man as she drank, once again struck by that intense familiarity. As if she had seen him somewhere. Maybe on the street?… Did villains just walk on the street with civilians? She had a hard time imagining that. He was probably wanted, wasn't he? Plus, she was sure that she would have remembered seeing someone with such an interesting looking quirk —if that even was what gave him his smoke form— …So, what was it? Where had she seen him?

This continued to poke at her mind as the conversation shifted.

"Shigaraki," Giran called over to the bar. "Are you ever going to come and introduce yourself?"

The man on the stool shifted in blatant discomfort. "Kurogiri, I think I'll just… go upstairs." He said in a raspy voice.

Kurogiri turned to chide him disapprovingly. "Tomura! At least greet the young woman you saved. What's she going to think after we dragged her all the way back here?"

Her heart skipped a beat at his words. That guy, —The one who can't even bear to look at her— was he really the one who had saved her? This villain with creepy hands all over his body?

She would have laughed if she were anywhere else. Instead her mouth hang slightly ajar and she had to remember to breath.

"Well she can think what she wants. —And for the record I didn't make you drag her back here, that was your decision." Shigaraki slid down from his stool, a glass in his hand. He shot her one look of utter disgust from behind the hand that clung to his face, before he turned and trudged towards a hall beside the bar. "I'll be upstairs." And he disappeared out of view.

Kurogiri sighed and turned around to face his guest. "I apologize on his behalf. He's not really a bad person, he just…has a lot of…pressure… on his shoulders and he doesn't do too well with people he doesn't know."

Chisaki gave a small smile, unsure of how to respond. In fact she was completely at a loss.

What was with these Villains? They certainly weren't acting like any villains that she'd ever seen. They had been too considerate, too kind. Even that Shigaraki guy had been kind enough to take her here. But she had been unconscious. He hadn't asked to deal with her asking questions. That was, evidently, too far beyond his comfort zone; a step beyond saving lives.

Kurogiri, the smoke man, was looking rather put out and he sighed after the young man forlornly.

Chisaki cleared her throat gingerly, hoping to reassure him.

"Um…I don't mind too much. I can see why he would be nervous."

Kurogiri blinked down at her for a moment, stunned, before he smiled again. "You're very kind, aren't you?"

She froze, caught off guard, and then fought back a smile. –when had she last heard a compliment?– "Um, th-thank you… but not particularly.".

"I hate to interrupt," Giran said, looking bored, "But it's getting quite late."

Kurogiri held up his wrist and checked his watch, "Oh yes, you're right." He looked up at Chisaki. "We should get you home, young woman."

She watched him, bewildered, for a moment.

"Just tell me where to drop you off." Kurogiri supplied helpfully.

"Um…Sakura park?" She said, startled. It was in a residential area not too far from her house so she could travel from there easily, but it was just far enough from home to be indicative of her address.

Were they going to let her go just like that? These guys were Villains, right? This was too easy…They were too nice!

"We can do that." Kurogiri said with his eyes doing their smiling thing.

He then turned away, to face the empty part of the room. He held his hand out and, to Chisaki's amazement, a vortex of black smoke began to form and grow in the air; within seconds it had grown large enough to fit Chisaki herself.

"Wow…" A bright smile of amazement plastering itself across her face.

Was this a transportation quirk?! How did it work? Were passengers supposed to just walk through and show up at their destination? How did someone even determine the destination? Did it ever fail? Were there any limits? Did it drain a lot of energy?—

Kurogiri cleared his throat, obviously trying to get her attention. Chisaki blinked at him. He looked to the disheveled man and they shared a nervous look.

"Are you alright?" The smoke man asked, looking her over with concern.

"Are you sure that you didn't see her hit her head or anything?" Giran said, eyeing her skeptically.

"Um. I'm sorry. What?" Chisaki looked between them in confusion.

"The mumbling. You were mumbling about… my quirk." Kurogiri said slowly.

Her eyes widened in realization and she clamped her hands over her mouth in embarrassment. "Oh! I'm so sorry! I said all of that out loud, didn't I?" Kurogiri gave a little nod. A hole opened up in her stomach. If only the floor would swallow her! "Oh, I'm so sorry! I- I do that sometimes when I get excited. It's probably really creepy. I've been told that its off-putting—"

Giran let out a barking laugh.

"Ha! Kiddo, if that's your only flaw, then you're better off than most of us."

Her face turned beet red. She was about to protest more, when the phone rang, startling everyone.

Kurogiri and Giran shared a look Chisaki couldn't peice. Kurogiri let his vortex dissipate and he went to grab the phone. He held the receiver up to his face, in something Chisaki read as a forced calm.

"Yes Sensei?" He asked slowly.

For a second, he was quiet, then he nodded, and spoke into the mouthpiece. "Yes, sir, I will do that, immediately."

He put the phone back on its hook and turned towards Chisaki. She could see that he was trying to smile, but not quite succeeding.

"There's someone who wants to meet you."

Kurogiri materialized a new vortex.

What had happened? Who was on the phone? Kurogiri had called them 'Sensei'.

Her heart thudded in her chest as a realization struck her —Could that have been the Sensei that she remembered? No. It couldn't be. 'Sensei' was a common label for teachers. It must have been someone else.

And yet she couldn't deny the flicker of hope and excitement in her chest at the possibility of it really being him.

Then she saw the expressions on the villain's faces. Giran and Kurogiri were both looking at her with a mix of pity and apprehension. Was something wrong?

"Just go through there, I'll be right behind you." Kurogiri was motioning stiffly towards the portal.

Chisaki paused and studied the vortex, everything gave the indication that she might very well be walking to her death, and yet her curiosity edged her on. The possibility of seeing her one supporter again, the only person who had ever told her that she could be a hero despite the odds, that's what drove her feet forward.

She was half through the portal when Kurogiri asked her something strange.

"You wouldn't happen to be quirkless would you?" His tone was even in a way that she had not heard it all night. It made her skin crawl.

Chisaki gave a slow nod, a cannonball of dread settling into her stomach.

"I see." He paused, frowning. "Well you best be going. I do not suggest keeping our boss waiting."

She swallowed hard and edged her feet through the dark portal.