The day that followed the tragic dinner at the Bakugos' was unusually calm.

The classroom that Chisaki entered that morning was entirely lacking the usual chaos and noise, instead her rowdy classmates were oddly quiet, as if all of their energy had been drowned out by a heavy blanket of unease. The room seemed to hold its breath upon her arrival, waiting and watching the classroom door for it to open and admit someone… who judging by their crashing disappointment was not her.

She quickly saw why. The reigning king of terror's desk was still empty. Her classmates returned to their anxious waiting and Chisaki joined them curiously.

The first bell rang. Bakugo did not appear through that doorway.

By the second there was still no Bakugo.

The unease amongst her classmates turned inwards as the morning classes passed with no sign of the awaited boy. —The situation before them was unprecedented. This was his second day of absence. And two days was a lot of time in their minds. That was half of a school week, at least a dozen lessons. This was a massive event.— Rumors began to fly across the classroom, each whispered as if they were some wicked taboo. Some of them claimed that Bakugo had gotten deathly ill and that he'd been committed to a hospital. Others, that he'd been kidnapped by someone, or perhaps apprehended by the police for a variety of reasons. Some odd fanboys had posited the extraordinary possibility that Bakugo had been scouted by a hero corporation and was too busy to come to school.

Chisaki's favorite, by far, had been the brilliant jump that Katsuki Bakugo was dead, and that some kid from a rival school had finally offed him. Chisaki just snorted at that absurd thought. Maybe he was dead, but it was infinitely more likely that Mitsuki had strangled him out of frustration rather than some dopey kid getting the jump on him.

Honestly, Bakugo was probably just grounded at home as punishment for their dinner disaster.

Not that Bakugo's lackeys had any clue. They'd both been struck by an uncharacteristic streak of grief over their leader's disappearance, and spent the better part of the day hunched over their phones, waiting for a message back from him.

If she'd liked them at all, which she didn't, Chisaki would have told them to forget about hearing back from him, after all a thorough grounding would mean no phone and definitely no texting. But, feeling how she did about the two inept punks, she didn't inform them of her insight, and was instead content to let them forget about her for another day.

She wound up practically skipping out of class that afternoon, absolutely unhindered when that last bell rang and released her from her seat. She breathed free air as she left that campus, for once she was leaving that building without having someone calling her names or cussing out at her. It was as if some cosmic force had decided to give her a break from her personal hell, even if it was just for a day.

She was still riding that excitement when she stepped into the park and watched Kurogiri's portal open behind the shed.

Smiling brightly and excited to train, she stepped through to find herself returned to the same red room as the last time they'd met.

Her attention was quickly drawn to the center of the room, where Kuorgiri and Giran were clearly in the middle of a rather heated conversation; their expressions grave and voices hushed.

"You can't go easy on her." Kurogiri insisted.

"But, I just- I don't think she can handle it." Giran hissed back.

"Yet, she'll never learn if you do. She doesn't have the time to— " Kurogiri suddenly noticed her arrival and turned to face her with a curt smile. "Chisaki! Good afternoon."

She returned it politely. "Good afternoon Kurogiri."

"Hey Kiddo." Giran said, uncrossing his arms and facing her nonchalantly.

"Hi." She said, approaching with a grin and looking between them curiously. "So… am I interrupting something?"

"Not really. We were just chatting." Giran responded, lips stretching into an easy smile while his eyes followed her from behind his tinted glasses.

That's obviously a lie, she thought, but it wasn't a big deal. She was in too good a mood today to let it get to her.

"I see… So, what do we have planned for today?" Chisaki asked, easing into a new topic with a smile.

"Today, we'll be helping you get a grasp of your quirk." Kurogiri began, sweeping his arm aside to motion to Giran. "But before we get to that, I would like you to spar with Giran." The other man's expression soured marginally. "We're not expecting anything impressive, but we do need to see where you stand in relation to bare handed combat. While my priority is helping you with your quirk, you will still need to know how to defend yourself."
"I understand." She said with a brave nodd.

Kurogiri nodded back, businesslike as usual, and took a few steps back. When he'd put a few feet of distance between them, he gave them both a steady: "Go ahead."
Chisaki turned her attention to Giran.

He frowned, expression vaguely guilty but stance not the least bit merciful, as he dropped into a slight crowch.

Chisaki felt her palms go slick with sweat.

Well, this was definitely going to hurt.

"Sorry about this kiddo, but the smoke man's right."

"D-don't worry about it." She stuttered with a nervous smile as she bent her knees in an attempt to imitate his posture.

Her heart thudded in her chest in anticipation. A few beats passed in which neither of them made a move. It struck Chisaki that Giran was waiting on her, but she had no idea what to do. She'd never fought anyone before.

She took one cautious step forwards in an uncertain attempt to close the ground between them, but quickly realized her mistake when Giran jumped forwards in a blur of motion.

Her senses barely registered when a force snapped her arm into a grip and the ground swept out from under her. She slammed back first onto the padded floor with a jarring thud. Her head snapped back at the force, pain stung through her back, and the air was ripped from her lungs.

Chisaki's eyes were teary and her chest burned when Giran appeared in her field of visions, bent over her and a tense smile on his lips.

"Ah, sorry. I was expecting a little more resistance." He extended a hand down to her in apology.

Chisaki took it firmly and let him pull her to her feet while she tried to gasp the air back into her lungs.

"No… I'm the one who didn't know what they were doing." She said with a pained smile.

She was just getting her breath back when Kurogiri strode up.

"Ok…" He began, assessing her cooly. "Obviously we have a lot of work to do. I'm going to get some padded armor and some workout gear from down at one of the warehouses. Giran if you can, I'd like you to teach her some basic maneuvers in the meantime. Does that sound manageable?" They nodded. "Good. I'll see you in a few."

He disappeared and Giran set to work on advising her. First it was how to hold a stable stance, because obviously she'd been standing all wrong and it was a miracle that she hadn't just flopped over at the slightest touch. Then it was how to use her body weight to move another person. Then how to disarm an armed opponent. Then what sort of patterns of movement to look for when predicting another person's movements.

It was safe to say that Chisaki's head was spinning by the time that Kurogiri came back with the equipment. He found her on the floor, dazed after one of Giran's demonstrations had landed her there.

She pulled herself up with a groan.

"I'm going to be super sore tomorrow, aren't I?"

Giran let loose a hiss in sympathy. "Yeah… Sorry about that."

"I hate to say it, but you're going to be in much more pain after this." Kurogiri said as he set down the crate he'd been carrying. "I noticed from your poor excuse of a spar, that you are severely lacking in muscle mass Chisaki. As such I would like to prescribe you a few exercises that you can do at home."

She looked at him for a moment, stunned. Exercise? She hadn't thought that was something she'd be hearing today.

"Um okay."

He proceeded to hand her a pair of weights and instruct her on their use. After setting her up with a few additional movements, Kurogiri seemed relatively satisfied and they moved on to studying her quirk.

Chisaki went about accessing her quirk under much the same method as the first time, and her arm was similarly swallowed into a mass of black smoke. Once again, she was acutely aware that her disappeared arm still existed somewhere under the odd, wispy, haze. So she tried to wiggle her fingers, purely to test if she could, and she could have sworn that the smoke gave a definite twitch in response.

Chisaki had been beyond excited at the sight of it, but Kurogiri steamrolled right through her reaction and insisted that they stay on task. He quickly instructed her to focus on recalling her quirk.

It would take another fifteen minutes, and heaps of advice from both Giran and Kurogiri, but eventually she managed to shut off her quirk.

It happened in a flash of movement and the smoke unraveled to reveal her pale arm, extended in much the same position she'd left it in.

Chisaki had been giddy with excitement and Giran had been ready to indulge her in congratulations, but Kurogiri politely insisted that she reactivate the quirk and repeat the process another dozen times; "You need to commit that feeling to memory. It needs to become as easy as breathing." He'd said.

By the end of the day Chisaki was beyond drained, and she flopped into bed expecting to pass out the second that she hit the pillows. But of course, her mind continued to buzz about her quirk; still reliving that one twitch from the smoke, that one response to her will.

Was it possible that she could control its movements?

The potential that sprang up under this revelation drove her mind to wander in circles. Eventually these thoughts drove her to kick off the covers and sit down with her notebook, ready to prepare inquiries and possible maneuvers. As soon as her mind was on the topic of quirks, it naturally jumped to Shigaraki and the other members of the league.

Before she could stop herself, she was already opening new pages for each of them and spent the rest of the night analysing and studying what she knew.

Countless hours later the sun rose to wake her, spilling across the room to find her sprawled across her desk; bleary eyed and stiff, but readily dragging herself through her morning routine.

She was fully dressed a few minutes later, and she was just filling her book bag at her desk when she happened to glimpse the corner of a forgotten item.

She grasped the edge, and tugged it out from under a pile of books to reveal All Might's cheesy smile beaming back up at her.

It was a themed calendar that had been given to her as an easy Christmas present.

While it was obvious that it hadn't been gifted with any particular care and she'd never even used calendars in the first place, she'd wound up keeping it because, well, it was All Might themed. She couldn't just throw it away.

At least, that was how she'd thought at the time of stashing it here on this bookcase.

The cheesy thing was accurate for the current year and Chisaki found herself enjoying the irony as she flipped it open to two months in the future and circling the date for her showdown with Shigaraki. She left it unlabelled, such that if anyone happened to see it it wouldn't hint to her devious extracurriculars; not that Chisaki really intended on having anyone see a single page of this calendar. She flipped back to the current day and crossed out the corresponding box and all that preceded it.

When she'd hung up the calendar on the back of her bedroom door, and was looking it over in satisfaction, she recognized that there was text under the monthly image of All Might. It was a quote.

"Do your best and fight hard. Only then will you succeed."

It was dumb. Pointless. Just some idealized bullshit that All Might had said in an interview three years ago. And yet… Chisaki found herself smiling.

"Oh don't you worry All Might. I'll fight as hard as it takes. I'm going to get stronger. So strong that you're going to have to acknowledge just how wrong you are. "

And so she would.

She trained hard, sparring, working out, improving her quirk, she did it all with vigour. The 59 days that she had had upon putting up that calendar passed in a flash. By the time that those days had been reduced to 29, she had not only gotten physically stronger, but Giran had graduated her from basic hand to hand combat sparring to training with knives.

At first the idea of handling a deadly weapon had been unsettling, but Chisaki had quickly gotten over it. She would always need to know how to defend herself, and a weapon was going to be necessary for that. Plus she found that knives weren't too ridiculously complicated; and they had been sparring with blunted blades and paint long before they handed her the real thing.

Ordinarily speed would have been an issue for someone of her size and strength, so the natural course would have been to train her ranged weapons, but all of that was easily remedied with help of her quirk. Its ability to turn her intangible was a huge asset in her matches with Giran. Most blows could go right through her if she was paying close enough attention, and she could make quick dashes around her opponent if she dissolved into smoke.

Of course, despite all of her practice, she'd only had her quirk for a month so inconsistencies and hiccups were inevitable. It wasn't uncommon for her to remarterialize after using it, only to be missing a leg or a few fingers; that had certainly scared her the first few times. More importantly, her lack of access to oxygen had strictly limited the quirk's use to momentary bursts, such that she could only dodge a hit or make a quick maneuver around an opponent before having to come back up for breath.

Yet, despite all of these setbacks, Kurogiri had acknowledged that she was indeed improving at an admirable pace. It had been heartwarming.

Encouragement wasn't something that she got much of.

At the end of the first month Sensie had called Chisaki to his room. At first she'd thought that it had been to congratulate her on her progress in training, but his pleasant greetings were short, only a prelude to the deliberate conversation that followed it. As it became increasingly apparent to Chisaki, he'd called her to his room that day to speak to her not about her accomplishments but about the rapidly approaching raid.

Apparently the league's sources had properly finished scouting out the gang's headquarters. Sensei handed her a file on their findings.

He quickly brushed over its contents by stating that it included a schematic of the building's layout and that the average number of gang members stationed there. It was vague and Chisaki would have loved to actually read it all for herself, but before she could do so, Sensei was already giving her a rundown of the actual event itself.

From what she understood, Shigaraki and Chisaki would each be given a team of five members to lead; all of the villains hired had been instructed to follow their respective leader's orders.

To make things fair, the teams had been drawn so that neither of the leaders were acquainted with their members, and each would be meeting with them just before the competition began. They'd have a five minute window to get to know each other before being portaled to the gang's headquarters.

Each team would then be left at one of two start points. Chisaki's team would be deployed in an alley directly across the street from the building. Shigaraki's team would be arriving on the rooftop. —Upon hearing this, Chisaki immediately envisioned Shigaraki's team rampaging down through the building, and leaving the gang members to run out into the street as an easy catch for her team. It would need refining, but that seemed like a good basic strategy—

Unfortunately, Sensei's next words shattered that sprout of a plan.

He explained that while her goal of causing no deaths still stood, it was secondary. The primary objective would be the capture, or death, of the gang's leader, who was known to be staying somewhere in the building and could be expected to be there at all times. His face and basic description would be in the file he'd handed her. His death would mean the success of Shigaraki's team and his successful capture would mean the success of hers.

Similarly if her team killed anyone, it would mean an immediate disqualification and Shigaraki's team would be handed control over the remainder of the raid.

Chisaki found that to be an unsavory possibility. If Shigaraki was given full command the deaths would surely double. She'd have to find a way to secure as many people as possible and ensure that Shigaraki didn't kill them all.

As Sensei went on to elaborate, he would be monitoring all of this from another location. He would report to both Kurogiri, and the teams if he saw any of them make a decisive move.

Of course, as soon as the leader was handled, they'd need to call Kurogiri over coms and declare their victory. Sensei would confirm or deny the claim. If they were telling the truth, then Kurogiri would organize the necessary portals and transport all members of the operation off of the field.

And that was the plan.

It was far from simple, but it made sense. Sensei asked Chisaki if she had any questions. She responded that, no she didn't. Which was true, she was too busy processing to come up with follow up questions. Plans and possibilities and maneuvers sprang to her mind in a dizzying wave and she needed more time to sort through them.

After Sensei let her go for the day, she went home to start working through her thoughts.

Her first step was to go over the file that Sensei had given her. She was startled to find that he'd left out one crucial detail.

The building they were raiding hosted a highly populated, very active, club on the first floor. That would mean a massive number of civilians tangled in the fight. Not only would they be in the way, they would also be a massive hazard to each other when shots started flying. A riot in a space like that would mean some definite injuries and maybe even a few deaths. A massacre.

Blood. Bodies. Death.

All of that would be on her hands.

No.

No, she'd just have to work with it.

There was definitely no need to panic. She could plan around it.

It's okay, she'd do it. She'd find a way.

She had to.

Chisaki forced herself to take a deep breath and set herself to focus. Calmly she opened a new section in the notebook and let idea after idea flow onto the pages. It was contingency after contingency. Page after page. What if after what if.

By the early hours of the morning, she was finally satisfied that she'd emptied out enough of her thoughts onto the pages and lay down to sleep…. Yet, frustratingly enough, sleep didn't come. Nerves kept her awake.

There was so much riding on this one event.

Not only would it designate her relationship with the league but also what kind of person she'd have to become in order to pursue this path. That and it would be her first official act as a villain.

There was no coming back from this, whatever the results.

It was happening.

She didn't feel ready.

She wasn't ready.

She didn't have an alias.

She hadn't even named her quirk, for fucks sake!

Sensei had never mentioned the quirk's name and so she assumed that the quirk simply didn't have one. Finding a name for it probably wasn't as pressing as naming herself, but, well, it felt somehow necessary for the quirk to inform her villain name. But with so little time she'd have to hurry… And yet she felt the need to be careful with her selection. For both Heroes and Villains, names were an important part of their identity and they weren't something that could be easily rescinded.

So, after working tirelessly in solidifying her plans and foolproofing her contingencies, Chisaki was left with one week before the competition.

For every waking moment of this week she sat puzzling over what to name herself and her quirk. Eating breakfast? Running through possible names. Walking to school? Crossing out possible names. In class? Renewing the list. Lunch? Reevaluating. Getting yelled at by Bakugo for something she'd done? Much of the same.

And it continued. But she just couldn't come up with anything viable. All of her options had devolved into edgy statements far too embarrassing for human ears.

It was only three days before the fateful night that she happened upon the perfect names. Really, she was sure that it must have been luck or fate or some cosmic force; or maybe she was just desperate.

It had been a movie night at the Bakugos', which was a standard event by this point. They'd been consistently hosting her twice a week, and during these visits they all sat down to play board games, watch cheesy movies, or cook; family things that she'd desperately missed with her mother's rare visits home. Because, as it turned out, Inko's promotion had demanded more time than they'd thought it would and she only popped in on odd nights for a brief hello and a shower before crashing and disappearing again in the morning.

Back in the Bakugos' living room, they were all settled on the couches before the TV, watching an old, corny, low quality, horror movie with some nonsensical plot.

Chisaki was on the floor, wrapped in a blanket and propped against a sofa with some pillows. On that same sofa were Bakugo's parents, each half sprawled on opposite ends and sharing a blanket. Bakugo himself had occupied the other remaining sofa and forced Chisaki to give it up for the floor.

His presence itself was an anomalous thing, since he mostly skipped out on Chisaki's visits with claims of staying at a friend's house or shutting himself in his room to study. Today he had been forced to attend under threat of further grounding, and so he'd come. But he'd made sure that everyone else was in just as much pain as he was by chattering nonstop and commentating across the movie's entire two hour run time.

Chisaki had been tuning him out for the most part, until a little glitch on the recording appeared. It was just a patch of discolored shadow that was moving across the screen as the camera followed a character down a hallway. She was sure it was simply a mistake and thought nothing of it, until Bakugo made an exclamation.

"Ha! Its a fucking ghost! Look at this bitch. Go fucking ghost! Fuck them up!"

Nothing happened of course, and the movie continued unhindered, but Chisaki looked at the pervading glitch with a new appreciation.

Then it struck her. It looked oddly like a grainy rendering of her quirk. As if that were her in smoke form, slithering along in the shot.

And an odd connection formed in her mind. Ghost. Her quirk looked like a ghost.

A Fucking Ghost.

That had to be its name.

Ha.

It was the only thing that worked after all of those days of ill fitting possibilities, there it was, spouted offhandedly by her renegade childhood bully. It seemed impossibly easy after all of that searching, but it just stuck with her. An errant thought posed that this was only because she was feeling desperate. She didn't care.

She could have laughed, jumped in joy, exclaimed at the odd success; but then she remembered her company and dialed down her reaction. If she showed such an extreme expression the Bakugos would want a reason, and she simply couldn't give any. That and she was beyond exhausted, so she just weaseled further into hre burrito to hide her excited little smile.

She would have been content with the night if that was all that came from the mundane encounter; but later, as the ending credits rolled and some solemn orchestral music carried over from the tragic closing scene, Bakugo's whining commentary caught her attention again.

"…Well that was shit. Really, I hope that production was haunted or something, 'cuz there is no other excuse for that crapshow being as bad as it was. I mean these idiots didn't even defend themselves once. It's just not realistic. I mean, wouldn't you at least try to kill the monster stalking you and killing your buds?"

"It's not that bad. It was supposedly shot at the beginning of the Vigilantes era, so quirks were a new thing, and many people were scared about the unknown." Masaru said, coming back from the kitchen with a steaming bowl of fresh popcorn in hand. He frowned when he saw the scrolling credits. "Well damn. Looks like I missed the ending, huh. What happened to that blonde girl and the surfer dude?"

"They died." Chisaki supplied helpfully, gazing up at him backwards because she was far too comfy in her blanket burrito to turn around. "I think that the swamp monster found them in the end."

"He dragged them into the lake." Mitsuki added with a nodd, her hand diving into the bowl on Masaru's lap for a scoop of popcorn. "Don't know if they're dead tho. It's not like getting dumped into some lake guarantees death."

"Come on." Katsuki groaned with a roll of his eyes. "There's no fucking way they survived! Those punks were quirkless, right? That swamp monster, or whatever, probably just tore them to shreds the moment the credits started. I mean, it's not like a pair of quirkless shitstains like them could ever fight their way out of anything-"

"Katsuki!" Mitsuki warned, her expression sour. "Do you really have to do this now?"

"Jesus Christ mom! You're always so fucking pissy! What did I do this time? Huh?"

"Don't play dumb you little shit. Fucking apologize!" She hissed venomously.

Bakugo glared at Mitsuki for a moment, eyes little balls of fiery rage. Chisaki could have sworn that she saw him calculating and running through the variety of punishments his refusal could incur, before he promptly turned to her. His tone was somehow at once dripping with disdain and entirely flippant as he rolled his eyes.

"I'm so sorry for saying something fucking 'hurtful', or whatever."

Chisaki just nodded mutely from across the room and curled further into her blanket.

An apology was… awkward and somehow drove the insults home. The comments themselves hadn't meant much to her, because she'd heard them all before. But the apology somehow stung more. He never apologized. It wasn't something she knew how to take from him. It wasn't even sincere, but it was new, and served as a fresh reminder of her position relative to him. After all, despite Mitsuki and Masuru's attempts to the contrary, things had remained largely the same between her and Bakugo, and this display of belittlement was standard.

When Chisaki didn't speak, Mitsuki leaned forwards in concern, ready to console her.

Seeing this, Chisaki brought words to her lips in a panic.

She'd never, by any stretch of the imagination, intended to make her worry.

"Ah, thanks. I, um, I didn't take it personally or anything." She said back to Bakugo.

He glared at her icily and she slid her gaze aside, a nervous smile wilting on her lips.

A stiff silence followed.

Masuru cleared his throat awkwardly and stood up, putting aside the popcorn.

"Ok. I think that we deserve some ice cream. I'm taking orders. What do you guys want?"
"Choc-" Chisaki had begun, before Bakugo's voice swiftly cut through hers.

"Chocolate!"

She pursed her lips and amended her answer. There was no point in pissing him off more.

"Strawberry." She said instead with a pinched smile.

"I think I'll take Chocolate too." Bakugo glared at his mother for her answer. Mitsuki simply smiled after her husband as he turned to leave. "Thank you so much honey."

Masuru smiled right back.

"Yeah. No problem."
By the time he'd come back with the ice cream, Bakugo was already ranting again.

"... I'm just saying that there had to have been something seriously wrong with the production of this movie." He said from the couch. "I mean, how else do you produce something so shitty? It's corny, unconvincing, and funnier than it is scary. Like seriously. This? A horror movie? Bullshit." A brilliant idea seemed to strike him as his father settled a bowl of ice cream into his hands. "What if someone died during the production of this crapshow and their bad intentions from beyond the grave, or whatever, just fucked over the whole production. Like it didn't even have to be a proper ghost, just those bad intentions."
Their malice, Chisaki thought, eyeing the pooling pink mess in her own bowl. She struck through it weakly with her spoon.

That was an interesting idea.

Could people's emotions hold that much sway on the world?

Sure it was just fiction, but what if dissatisfaction and anger could take form? What if it was given the agency to enact revenge for misjustice?

Malice…Wouldn't that be the perfect force for unmasking the heroes that had sewn so many lies for their thin veil of peace?

That thought burrowed itself deep in her mind and never entirely faded.

The night wrapped up shortly after this, and Chisaki bid the Bakugos good night with her best smile.

She was so exhausted when she got home that she plopped right into bed and almost immediately passed out. She hadn't even bothered to take off her clothes.

Oh well, she thought as she drifted off. It would just be yet another morning of rumpled uniforms and unresolved tension.

And it was.

She found herself yawning as she got dressed that next morning, her body still demanding sleep even though she'd given it at least a full eight hours. She supposed that it was looking for all of those hours she'd denied it during her mad sprint in preparation for the raid.

When she went to cross off the day on her All Might calendar, as was routine, she found herself staring blankly at its final box. Only one remained before the day marked "A turning point". With a swipe of her marker that last box was filled, and all that was left was the day itself.

There was a sense of finality and determination at the sight of that filled calendar.

Tomorrow. Everything will change tomorrow.

As the day moved along, Chisaki was acutely aware that she should have been overwhelmingly nervous. But she'd been nervous for months, spent countless nights worrying over what would happen, and somehow the day had lost its novelty now that it was practically here.

There was just a vague tingle under her skin; if she hadn't known any better she would have mistaken it for excitement.

The school day passed as usual and when classes were over, Chisaki set her course towards the bar, picking her way across town with a leisurely pace.

The walk to the bar led her into a noticeably shadyer district than she normally found herself in, but Chisaki wasn't bothered by it. Of course she still kept an eye on her surroundings, but with all of her training she was confident that she was more than capable of handling anyone who approached her with dubious intentions. Besides, this was far from her first trip through the area. Kurogiri had shown her the route almost a month ago, explicitly for the days like today when he'd be too busy to fary her to the bar, and she'd long since memorized the route during her first handful of trips.

Seeing as the raid was tomorrow, Chisaki assumed that both Kurogiri and Giran had been called on to help prepare. She wasn't exactly sure what they had been called to do, but the bar was bound to be empty today either way.

All Chisaki could hope for was that they'd still have time to pick up her list of supplies for tomorrow. She'd discussed them with Kurogiri at the beginning of the week, and he'd mentioned needing more time to acquire them. Of course, she'd offered to go with them to help, but Kurogiri had insisted that she wasn't quite ready to deal with the people they'd be meeting. So, she was just dumped to bum around until the raid actually started tomorrow night.

Despite knowing that the bar would be empty, Chisaki couldn't help the disappointment that welled in her stomach when she swung open the back door and walked down that service hallway, with the bathroom and racks of stored supplies, to find the bar devoid of its tender and the stools vacant of Giran's hunched form.

She gave a huff and settled herself into a booth, finding that her eyes had begun to roam over the polished floor, the flawless countertops, and the pristine red leather on the booths.

The place was completely and irrevocably empty.

Like always.

Some days she found it hard to believe that this was a fully operational bar. She wasn't certain just how open it was to the public, but she'd never seen a soul walk through there apart from the three league mates she'd familiarized herself with.

Chisaki gave another sigh to the empty room. She had too much time now. The nerves would probably start creeping in if she didn't focus on something soon. This whole "coming to the League without anything to do" was shaping up to be a real shitty plan.

It had just become an act of habit. Ever since Kurogiri and Giran had only graduated from training less than a week ago, she'd been coming by to chat with them or get their opinion on some tactics. But now that they weren't here she didn't know what to do with herself.

After a few minutes of waiting she reached over to her backpack and pulled out her notebook, thinking that she might as well review her notes for the thirtieth time.

She was just flipping through the pages when Shigaraki's file caught her eye, and she paused.

It was mostly empty, save for the bits of information that she'd been able to scrape together from Kurogiri and Giran. Chisaki had pursued data collection on him early on in her two months of training and preparation. But he'd quickly gotten irritated with her hounding and questions and told her off. After all, Shigaraki wasn't stupid, he'd probably realized what she wanted all of that information for. But since then he'd been completely avoiding her, such that they only ever saw each other by chance, in the kitchen on late nights of training or in the bar when she came in from school, and he never spoke more than an odd word or two to her.

While Chisaki supposed that they'd never been particularly close to begin with, it was still a shame. At least when Shigaraki had first proposed the competition idea, it had seemed like he was somewhat starting to tolerate her, but now he was just thoroughly indifferent.

Just thinking about him made her brain hurt. All of their little encounters only served to puzzle her even further, and she already knew so painfully little about him that she couldn't make any connections about how he'd act during the raid. All that she knew about Shigaraki could be counted on one hand: 1) he would eventually inherit the League from Sensei, 2) he had a generally sour disposition, and 3) he was a callous mastermind.

But what really stung Chisaki most about her meager file, was that she had no combat data for him, since she'd never gotten to spar with him. For all she knew, he could be a master with a gun or use something outrageous, like explosives. There were just so many unknowns. If there was anything for her to worry about during the raid, it was Shigaraki and his title as an unknown element—

The backside of a hand suddenly appeared an inch from her face, waving over the book in her lap.

Her heart struck in surprise, and she rocketed further into the booth with wide eyes, her notebook clutched protectively at her chest.

"What the hell!" She exclaimed, breathing hard.

Giran looked back at her, frozen with his offending hand still extended. He sucked in the air through his teeth in regret and straightened with a rigid smile.

"Right. Sorry about that Kiddo… We called your name, but you didn't respond."

She looked between him and Kurogiri, who stood a few paces away and gave a friendly wave.

"O-oh." She blinked a few times before nodding slowly, her face flushing when she realized what had happened. "S-sorry about that." She began scooting across the leather seat, back towards him, with a guilty smile on her lips. "So, um, what did you need me for?"

"We were just running some errands, and we picked something up for you." Kurogiri said, as he walked towards the bar. There was a large briefcase in his hands and he set it onto the bar top with a smile. "Why don't you come try it on?"

Chisaki swung to her feet and stopped to look between the two of them, her smile stiffening in confusion.

"Try it on? Exactly what did you get?"

"Well, come and see." Giran said, grabbing her arm and steering her over to the briefcase with an excited smile.

She plopped onto a stool and stared down at the black box wearily.

It certainly didn't look like any of the things she'd asked Kurogiri to pick up for her, and apart from that no ideas came to mind.

What could be so important that it warranted delivering it to her the day before the big raid? —And was precious enough to need a key lock, she realized when she set her eyes on the latch.

"It looks like it needs a key or something." She reported, looking between the two villains that had delivered it.

"Oops. That's on me." Giran said with a chuckle, plunging a hand into the breast pocket of his worn suit. "Here you go." He said, upon producing the key and handing it to her.

"Thanks." She took it and stuck it into the lock. As she did this, she realized that the key was strange. It hadn't needed to be turned, instead, the second that it was in the lock, a series of whirrs and grinding sounds emanated from the container.

It clicked as something released and the lid sprang open without her touching it.

She stared down at its interior in wordless surprise.

"So? What do you think?" Kurogiri asked with an expectant tilt of his head.

What did she think?

She didn't know.

Sitting there on a bed of sculpted packing foam was a gas mask.

It was a sleek black face with large chunks of tinted glass for the eyewindows, small black canisters for filtering air, and a solid grate as the mouthpiece.

It was obviously more high tech and stylized than the one she'd used last time.

When she picked it up, the material was malleable but solid and lightweight in her hands. And while the old one had stunk of molding leather, Chisaki quickly realized that this one was made of something synthetic and seamless.

She turned it over, looking for straps or some fastening apparatus, but found nothing obvious. It was when she was just holding it up to her face, and attempting to look through the eye holes, that it suddenly just snapped onto her face. Panic struck her a brief second, before being quickly replaced with pleasant surprise.

The mask was impossibly comfortable. It fit her face like a glove and breathing was easy behind the mouthpiece. This was all a pleasant change from the old gas mask, which had been suffocating and a little rancid smelling, thanks to her vomiting incident two months ago. Not to mention that the glass viewing holes, which had been old and warped in the previous mask, were clear and well tinted in this one.

Despite all of her wonder with the experience, Chisaki couldn't help wanting to get it off.

In running her hands up and down the length of the mask, looking for the unfastening mechanism, her fingers hit a point of give and something shifted in the material of the mask. Suddenly the glass went dark. Just as quickly, a series of brightly colored shapes had appeared before her eyes, shapes that stood where Kurogiri and Giran had. Her fingers searched again for the trigger mechanism, and shut off the function.

"You ok?" Giran asked, leaning towards her. "The eye bits went black."

She blinked back at him and gave a little laugh of surprise, "Y-yeah, I'm fine. I just think that… that this mask apparently has an infrared feature…." She slowly stopped speaking in confusion. Her voice was oddly pitched, suddenly deeper and noticeably distorted. She cleared her throat and tried again. "I-is that my voice? Is there a voice filter on this thing?"

Giran groaned and rubbed his neck in exasperation.

"Smoke man, I thought that we told them to make it simple. Just a normal gas mask. Nothing fancy."

"We did." Kurogiri said, leaning against the bar with a smile. "But we knew what we were getting into with this request. The Tinker is notorious for being a little eccentric. I'm not surprised that they still put their touches on their product… Speaking of eccentric, I believe that this mask came with a note." He leaned over the bar and pointed down to a folded piece of paper in the bed of the packing foam.

"Oh. Cool." Chisaki said, picking it up.

Curiosity about this mysterious Tinker person drove her to do nothing less than unfurl it and read it aloud.

"Please take good care of my baby. —The Tinker." Chisaki just stared at it in puzzlement for a moment. That was all? She turned it over looking for more and quickly found another set of writing. "P.S. To release, press down at jaw and then up at temple. You will have a three second interval." It was punctuated by a severe grease stain that didn't at all match the neat presentation of the box.

All she could do was reread the words again and again. They were clearly instructions, but they didn't answer any of her questions.

All Chisaki could bring herself to do was attempt to execute the combination. After a little bit of feeling around, she found similar points of give on either sides of the base and the top of the mask; just as the instructions had stated. When she'd done as it instructed, the mask loosened and popped off her face.

She took a breath of fresh air, smiling from ear to ear.

"So? How'd you like it?" Giran asked expectantly, leaning against the bar.

"Its fucking amazing!" She exclaimed, still marveling at it in her hands. When she looked up again, her confusion had returned. "But, uh, why did you get it for me. It clearly wasn't cheap."

Giran shrugged nonchalantly. "The old one looked, well, old. It wasn't the best fitting on you and clearly it wasn't going to be holding up for much longer."

"That and we wanted to get you something special. Think of it as a debut gift." Kurogiri added kindly.

Right. Her debut. Her first official mission as a villain.

"Well, thank you both so much." She beamed at both of them in excitement, "I'll be sure to wear it tomorrow."

"You're very welcome Chisaki." Kurogiri said, before he tilted his head thoughtfully. "Speaking of tomorrow, I acquired all of the articles you asked for." A portal formed above an empty stretch of bar top, and a plain looking black backpack dropped through and onto the counter. He pushed it towards Chisaki with a smile. "Everything should be here. Feel free to look through it and confirm."

She unzipped it and shifted through its contents. It all looked right.

"Yup, it's all good."
"Great. I'll keep it for now then. I'll return it to you when you come by tomorrow to change into your costume." She smiled and nodded. "Just to reiterate, I'll be expecting you here, tomorrow, at 5:40. That'll give you time to change and get sorted before meeting your team."
"Understood. I'll be there." She said with a resolute nod and an earnest smile.

But as much as she'd meant it, things didn't quite turn out that way.

After staying up chatting with Giran and Kurogiri, Chisaki wound up getting home late and between this and her resurfacing nerves, she didn't get much sleep. So, after coming home from school that day, she plopped down for a quick nap and…. absolutely overslept.

Panic struck her the second that she woke up and found out that her alarm hadn't gone off. Her first instinct had been to check her phone. 5:40. She only had twenty minutes before the introductions with the team started. She'd need at least fifteen minutes to get to the bar. And then she'd still need to change. And then— Fuck, what if she screwed something else up too? What if she forgot something important? What if her costume didn't fit anymore? What if she'd somehow outgrown the adjustments that Kuorgiri had made to it?

Why the hell hadn't she thought of these things yesterday?

Needless to say, she'd bolted straight out of bed, sprinted to the entryway, and fumbled to put her shoes on.

She continued to mentally kick herself as she charged down the street.

How could she be so dumb? How had she even made this big of a mistake?

If she was late to the raid, it would fuck so many things up! Not only would it mean her forfeit and loss to Shigaraki. It would mean dozens more deaths. It would all be her fault! All those lives would be on her hands! Hell, she'd be dealing with orders to kill afterwards too! That toll would keep growing!

No!

No!

No!

She couldn't let that happen-

Fuck!

The street before her was crowded with people, all of them packed and walking shoulder to shoulder. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. She should have expected this! She should have avoided the main streets! —It was a pleasant Friday night, of course couples and families had come out to enjoy the coming weekend.— But now she didn't have time to turn around to take another street, and she couldn't afford to slow down either. All so could do was dodge around people and jostle her way through. In her rush, she knocked into a woman who lost her balance, and she spilled her grocery bags across the pavement.

But Chisaki couldn't afford to stop and help her. All she could offer was a quick, "Sorry!", over her shoulder as she dashed away.

The woman watched her bobb away with wide green eyes. Just as quickly, she blinked out of her shock and stood. She had barely dusted after her nurses' scrubs, before she abandoned her groceries where they lay and charged after the frantic, uniformed, girl.


Inko Midoriya was pissed.

No. Pissed was the wrong word. Too strong.

Concerned.

Perfect.

Concerned. She decided.

She was concerned for her daughter, who had not only failed to recognize her in the crowd, but had also been in such a hurry that she hadn't even been able to spare a second to help her up.

What sort of thing could have had her sweet daughter so frantic? Was she in danger? Was someone following her? Had she lost something?

Inko tried to call out to her in her pursuit, but found that her voice was trampled beneath the pounding of feet and the gasping in her lungs.

Where the hell was her daughter even going?

They'd taken a turn towards the worse part of town. Trash littered the pavement and, as the sun set behind them, the poorly lit streets and flashing neon signs sent shifting, long shadows pouring around her.

What in the world was she doing out here?

Oh, don't tell me that she's going clubbing! Inko thought in her panic.

Her daughter was about that age, but she'd never seemed the type. She'd always preferred reading a book or watching reruns of hero fights to going out. But all of those observations were dated now, Inko realized with dread. If the girl had developed a love of devious activities her absentee mother wouldn't have a clue.

Inko was starting to lose ground as she got winded. Her daughter, however, was sprinting a good half a dozen feet ahead of her, barely breaking a sweat.

When had Chisaki gotten so in shape?

Exactly what kind of things had her daughter been getting up to lately?

Inko had lost so much ground by now, that when Chisaki disappeared around a corner and she turned to follow, the street was empty.

Inko looked around in a panic, her heart thudding away in equal parts panic and exertion.

Then she heard a door slam off to her left.

There was an alleyway, a dead end, she realized when she rushed to follow the sound. There was only one door there. One possible option.

Inko rushed up to it.

Breathing hard and throwing all caution to the wind, she eased that door open and stepped inside.


AN: Dun, dun, dun. Cliffhanger!

So, yeah, hey everyone, its me again. The cringy ass author.

Anyways this chapter was sort of experimental for me. It was like 90% exposition and weird things that don't seem entirely relevant for the plot, but I've written it anyways. In my brain its this spaghetti mess with zero focus, but I can't afford to sit on it for too much longer and I need to move on with the story. If anyone felt like this one dragged or boring/ confusing, I'd love to know. I'm still learning a lot as I go through this story, so any insight would be really helpful. I'll probably come back to this attempt in a year, and be like "eww" anyways, so don't spare me with the criticisms, lol.

Also, I'd like announce that I finally finished a concrete outline for this story! I'm finally on a path to finish the whole ass thing. This is currently the first "Season", so to speak. I'm planning on giving it two as of now, but we'll see how things pan out.

On another note, school is starting soon, so uploads might slow down or get shorter, but I will still be working on this project full throttle.

I'll see you all next time.

Stay safe. Enjoy life. Don't forget to smile.