Chapter Eighteen: Restless

Aizawa awoke. He knew the kids would be a good alarm, but he now cursed his past drowsy self. Class A were louder than usual as they shared stories of their internships so now he had to suffer through the noise for yet another 10 minutes.

"How was your placement?"

Minami rapidly switched between browser tabs and the refresh button when a pink blur appeared between her and her phone causing Minami to jump backwards in her seat.

"Mina?" Minami now realized that pink blur was Mina's hand.

"Uh, you okay? I meant to grab your attention not startle you into next week." For a moment Mina really thought Minami was going to tip the chair and fall backwards. "I wanted to ask how your placement went. You stayed in Musutafu right? Though now I'm more curious what you're looking at on your phone with such intensity."

Mina watched as Minami's thumb froze over her screen before her fingers twisted her phone around and pushed the off button. "Nothing." That was a horrible lie and only made her more curious as to what she was hiding.

Just as curious was Todoroki's own confused expression as he glanced their way.

"Internships right? Nezu gave me a lot to think about." It was clear Minami was trying to change the subject and while Mina was still curious she let it be.

Besides, that was another interesting thing. "Wait, Nezu? Like Principal Nezu? You were stuck at school?" That sounded like a nightmare. She shivered at the thought. Minami had so many options and she confined herself to school. That wasn't cool at all.

Minami nodded. "Yeah. We went over scenarios and did some training and stuff. Probably the same as most people."

"Urg. Same. I was allowed to train and join on patrols but nothing happened." Minami didn't know why that was supposed to be a bad thing. Nothing happening meant there was likely more peace. "What's the principal's quirk anyway?" Mina tried to think back to USJ but while she thinks she can remember him being there she couldn't remember what he did. That was probably her own fault. Everything had been so disoriented. It's got to be a mutant quirk right? "It's got to be a mutant quirk. A dog? A bear?"

Minami frowned and Mina felt defensive. How was she supposed to know? "You shouldn't say that." Mina was very confused. What was wrong with what she said? "Wait. Do you really not know?"

"Know what?" Mina knew she wasn't the smartest but what was supposedly so obvious she was missing?

"I think his quirk is called High Spec. Don't quote me on that. It supposedly gives him intelligence that surpasses humans."

That wasn't flashy at all! "So like a rat?" Rats were supposed to be smart, right?

Minami twirled her thumb around her index finger as she tried to even her breathing. It wasn't malicious. Mina truly didn't seem to know since she talked about his quirk like she would talk about Tsu's. How was she supposed to bring up that while a person he wasn't technically human to someone who seemed completely oblivious to the issue? The principal's catchphrase was beginning to make more sense. She wondered if even he knew his parental origins.

"I think it would be easier if you put his name in a search engine."

"Huh? So search… actually is Nezu his surname or given name?"

"He only has one name."

"Eh? Really? How'd his parents get that approved."

Minami placed a hand on her face.

"He really only has one name?" Ochako said as she placed her bag on the side of her desk.

Ochako too? Actually, even Koda, Tokoyami, and Todoroki looked towards them as they listened into the conversation. Did none of them know?

Minami found it uncomfortable to talk about. It was easier when you didn't know the person and you could treat it like the news or some textbook note. "He…" Her voice clumped in her throat. Nezu. The person she read way too much about before even applying to the school. Nezu who made a minor exception for her to write the written exam. Nezu who took her under his wing last week. Who offered guidance. Who always smoked outside her vicinity. Who gave her the support she needed. No longer did it seem like an academic discussion but an invasion of privacy even though it was public information. "You can look it up yourselves. What about you all? How were your internships? Tokoyami, you interned with Hawks, right?"

"Hawks?! How was he?" Mina gushed.

"Even his shadow stands in the light," said Tokoyami sounding tired and defeated.

Minami didn't know what that meant but no one else questioned it, so she kept silent. Mina did prod a little more trying to get some more personal information out of Tokoyami.

"What about you, Ochako?" Mina asked and for a moment regretted it when Ochako's body stiffen and her eyes looked crazed as she started punching an imaginary person.

"It was very fruitful."

"Ahahahaha. For real? No, but for real Bakugo?!" Two familiar booming voices echoed through the room. Sero and Kirishima had been boxed in Minami's '1-A loud disruptive group' and had become accustomed to their burgeoning tones.

"Is that Bakugo?" Ochako came back to earth to stare at the explosive blond.

Minami was peaking back at her phone when she heard the faintest 'pft' noise leave Todoroki's mouth. Minami peaked around Koda to see what everyone was worked up about.

That was not what she was expecting. His usual wild hair was pressed down like a stereotypical prep student.

"Don't laugh! It's stuck and washing isn't fixing it!" Bakugo snapped back looking murderously towards Kirishima and Sero who continued to goad him.

That sucked. Minami didn't know how it got that way but felt the pain. She once put product in her hair to keep it flat and unfrizzy for a photo but it froze outdoors and turned her hair a powdery white. She ended up washing it out in the bathroom but there was forever a photo of her looking like a drowned orangutang.

It was inevitable that people eventually turned their attention to Iida, Midoriya, and Todoroki.

Uninterested in the conversation she briefly glanced around the room before going back on her phone. Refreshing various missing persons pages at a national and local level as well as a few news sources. She had reported three of the kids to child services. Regardless of the results, it was protocol to not inform those who bring concerns forward. If they didn't show up on the missing persons pages then it meant they were fine at home, right?

Minami didn't feel assured. Especially when one of the kids, Mayu Saionji, had been listed as a missing person for six years. She handed what information she had on the man and Mayu to the local trafficking agency. They worked with the government and probably knew how to handle it best.

Still, a part of her wanted to chase the man down herself.

Her refreshing pages paused once more when Kaminari mentioned that some parts of Chizome Akaguro's, otherwise known as Hero Killer Stain, speech was cool.

"He was certainly a man of conviction, so I understand if people find him "cool". However, he chose to advance his cause by means of a purge. Whatever beliefs you may hold, that and that alone is an error." Iida lowered his hand in a chop motion. It was a tic of his but oddly in this moment it was like he was drawing a line.

For once, Minami mostly agreed with him. It was a topic she was tired of as the news had been littered with him for several days now, yet it was a topic she couldn't keep her mouth closed to.

"Akaguro can't separate the ideological word of old to the current professional usage. They can both exist together, but that doesn't make them the same. The reason some find support with him is simply from cherry picking simplicity. A simple message that offers no nuance, but is easy to rally around. The world is filled with mobs supporting that type of thing." Kyoka laughed and nudged Kaminari with her elbow claiming that meant Minami was calling him simple minded.

"It might be hard to swallow but awareness, support, legacy, and volunteers all matter to a degree." It shouldn't. Public safety should have a designated budget and shouldn't have to rely on public support to maintain. "I may dislike when people prioritize it over the core of their job, but the contractual nature of the industry makes it dubious to enforce."

Midoriya opened his mouth to say something but covered his mouth with his hand.

Aizawa slowly got himself out of his sleeping bag. He would have rather gotten a few more minutes of sleep but it had been unintentionally useful. It seemed his class needed a lecture on 'sympathetic villains.'

…..

Hitoshi had entered class B. He was nervous, but he didn't want to come across that way. He wanted to be here. He just didn't want to hear jeers from any of his classmates. It got worse when he actually entered the class because they had to make a new row just for him.

He recognized Tokage who talked with the vine girl, and Yanagi who was talking to the boy who sat behind her.

He recognized several others from the Sports Festival, but didn't know their names.

Except one.

Neito Monoma. Hitoshi recognized him from the beginning of the year when he clashed with Hanajima. He couldn't help but feel the irony as Monoma was the first in class to speak to him or acknowledge his existence in any capacity.

Most people seemed to be talking about their internships, but Monoma was willing to 'invite him into their abode' and give him the breakdown of the Heroics classes.

As expected, the Heroics Department had more time to focus on heroics. He wasn't surprised when Monoma told him that All Might always let them do 'fun stuff', though Hitoshi was a little surprised to know that Foundational Hero Studies was split between All Might and their homeroom teacher. Even more so when there wasn't a 50/50 split but more like All Might would show up maybe 20% of the time. Probably less.

Did 1-A monopolize his time? Hitoshi didn't want to believe it because class A and B weren't divided by rank, but…. Doubt crept in his mind. Maybe 1-B was right that 1-A gets preferential treatment.

….

"Come on! It was funny!" Kirishima shouted as Bakugo scouted over after sitting down in the cafeteria. His hair still wasn't better and Shitty Hair, could Bakugo still call him that when his own hair was in such disarray, wouldn't stop the comments.

And people complained about him while others like Shitty Hair and Hound Dog get away with everything!

Bakugo moved over more trying to create more distance when his elbow hit someone. Bakugo looked over his shoulder and – no way in hell.

It was Half-and-Half Bastard.

He should have just upped and left while he could. Now if he walked away he would be mocked for his hair and called a coward.

Across from Half-and-Half Bastard was Deadeyes glued to her phone. The unfortunate 2-for-1 special. Or was it 3-for-1. If Half-and-Half's body proportions didn't look like a normal person he would have assumed somebody merged two people into one.

"Just forgive him already. If it bothers you so much then Kirishima should have stopped when you expressed it, but honestly it's not like you haven't said things that have bothered him and he still spends a lot of time around you. Do you even remember his name?" Hanajima only briefly glanced up from her phone before gluing her eyes back on it.

"Shitty Hair-!"

Hanajima raised her eyebrows and Bakugo shut his mouth.

He knew this. Deadeyes literally just said his name. His name is said in class all the time. Bakugo chose him to be part of his cavalry and had him say his name.

So why wasn't a name coming to his head.

"He's just an extra." That explained everything. There was no need to know the names of extras

"So, commenting on your hair is not okay but demeaning Kirishima's hair every time you talk to him or about him is. Got it." Hanajima's tone was flat and dry like she was speaking on auto-pilot without any investment or care. "At this rate people are going to think you're a chunibyo."

"I'm not!"

"What's a chunibyo?" Todoroki interjected.

"I'm not a damn chunibyo!"

"It's usually used to described young teens with grandiose delusions, desperately want to stand out, and have more or less convinced themselves they have some special attributes like a protagonist of a story."

Todoroki nods and thought over the definition. "Bakugo has power, that's not a delusion, but otherwise I can see the similarities."

"You wanna fight?!" Fuck. He should have just sat and taken the ridicule to his hair. At least Bakugo knew his hair looked stupid. Actually, he should have just walked somewhere else. He didn't have to listen to any one of them.

"You have a brain. It might not be intuitive or easy, whatever it is with you, but if you ever want a sheet with the seating arrangements with names I can give it to you. I don't really have a need for it anymore." Hanajima took another bite of her food still staring at her phone. What was she looking at anyway?

"Why do you have a copy of the seating plan? Wouldn't it make more sense for Yaoyorozu or Iida to have that?" Todoroki asked.

"I made it at the start of term. I'm really bad with names. One year, I didn't know all my classmates names until the third trimester. Didn't want to repeat that." Maybe it was because her brain was elsewhere. Maybe it was because Todoroki almost always took her at face value. Maybe it was because she didn't have the energy to deal with Bakugo. Whatever it was, talking with the two today was lulling.

…..

It wasn't subtle.

Aizawa arranged for their Foundational Hero Studies to be a mix of lecture and documentaries about other 'sympathetic villains' and 'problematic vigilantes'. In Aizawa's words, they were both a problem and burden to the system.

One case was about a friend who had vicarious trauma from her friend who had undergone repeated sexual abuse before eventually killed herself. Said friend took it upon herself to 'rid the world of filth' and attacked and killed people she had even an inkling of belief would commit crimes in the same vain.

Mineta definetly eeped at some point.

Aizawa was being kind too. He recounted the stories ruthlessly, but he spared the class the grotesque images that leaked on topic.

Another example was someone who claimed they saved themselves when no one else would save them. As such society could only blame themselves if they were to act villainous at times because the only example they had was themselves. Such logic doesn't work when committing fraud, theft, and nearly beating people to death.

Then there was a vigilante who interrupted an undercover investigation, indirectly causing one agent's death and allowed the group to get away. They needed another eight months before they could enforce punishment.

It might just be a musing, but it might have been Aizawa's way to tell his meddlesome class to not be that vigilante.

…..

Kaede was bored.

School was boring. She could condense a week's worth of lessons and homework in a partial day. About 6 hours on average.

She knew this. Her dad knew this. The school knew this.

Nothing could be done though. Japan loved uniformity. Being academically advanced was a great thing in their eyes, but there was still the social expectation to grow besides one's peers. If it was brought up, people would just tell her to do more outside school. Participate in more clubs. Find more involvements. That she needed it all to grow into a rounded character.

Becoming a more rounded character wouldn't change the fact that when she entered the first grade she was already at a sixth-grade reading level.

Still, Kaede did more. It only further proved that she shouldn't be in middle school. She couldn't drop out though. There were various paths she considered taking and almost none could be accomplished as a drop-out. It would be permanently on her record. There was technically teijisei, a form of night school, that would let people get their high school equivalent if they dropped out, but it would always be weighed against you.

Of course, in their eyes it was better to have it than not have it, but it was like a lesser blemish rather than an irritated blemish.

Kaede needed stimulation and she wasn't getting it from school.

Kaede was walking home from school when she noticed the familiar figure. She didn't know much about him but he seemed to become a constant in her life.

She needed to shake up her life before it became an even bigger monotonous blur. Why not invite him along?

"Do you want something to do?"

"Will you use your quirk on me?"

"An exchange? With the caveat that I only erase one emotion at a time." That was her boundary, she decided. Kaede didn't want to make people apathetic, but if he wanted help regulating his emotions that was fine.

He seemed a little surprised that she agreed at all. "And what is it that you want me to do?"

"I don't want to be a panda anymore. I think it's time to become a hippo."

"I don't know what kind of comparison you were trying to make, but that makes zero sense," he said as he stood up.

"Not an animal person then," Kaede muttered. "I'm tired of prodding when convenient. I want to see more changes to impact people in my lifetime. I'm tired of pointless destruction. I'm tired of having our country defending the status quo rather then let it change into a better world. I'm tired of the hypocrisy. I'm tired of bandage solutions to terminal gushing wounds. I want action not reaction, and I'm willing to make as much noise as needed for people to take them as legitimate concerns and not as a small civil disruption."

"Were you inspired by Stain too?"

Kaede didn't like the implications of that as a shudder past through her body from the memory of her interaction with Stain. Hopefully he meant the part where he was dissatisfied with society and not all his other dealings. As long as he wasn't inflicting pain on others she could give him a chance though.

"I don't want to tear people down." Though it might be cathartic for some specific people to be torn down. "I want them to tear themselves down." She was sure some would never change their minds, but she needed key people and enough people to change their minds. Not everyone. A harder task than destroying.

"So what? You're becoming a vigilante? A villain?"

"Even better. I don't need to break a single law. Probably. If I do it was probably a poor law to begin with." Kaede didn't have problems breaking stupid rules, but she also never needlessly broke it. "I'm the Queen of Technicality, don't you know?"

"I don't know if I'll stay, but sure. So, Queen of Technicality. Does this mean I finally get your name?"

Oh. After all this time they never exchanged names. That was an oversight on her end. "Kaede. Yours?"

He was silent a moment before he answered. "You can call me Dabi." Not his name then. Well, whatever. It wasn't like she was going to do a background check and she was willing to call people whatever they wanted. Plenty of people lied about their name at some of the places she volunteered.

"Great. It'll be nice working with you."

…..

Minami's throat constricted. The horned girl from the convenience store was officially declared missing.

She went into the draft emails on her phone and sent the ones related to Hitsuko Oda. Even as she did so she couldn't help but feel like she failed.

They were all together right? Would the acknowledgement put them in further danger? Maybe she should have released all the documents to the authorities together? Hindsight was always worse.

But her fears were founded. They were founded and she could have put their lives in danger.

Logical step by step wasn't helping in this case. Maybe she should have just gone to the teachers. It would be hard to explain where they got the information but they could do something, right?

But would have it been better then the other branches of law enforcement.

Minami wasn't sure.

She wasn't sure.

Why couldn't there have been a clear answer?

What had she been thinking?

Minami knew what she thought. That she could treat the case that seemed to have the most arrows pointed at trafficking as leeway to determine whether it was trafficking and if the others were with the girls they could all be saved. Meanwhile, she contacted local authorities to check in with suspected cases of missing children in case they weren't together.

Hero in training? Her actions may have just cost lives.

She needed help.

She needed help getting those kids help.

Tears streamed her face as she ran, and ran, and ran.

Notes: Sorry for the delay! I wrote the next few sections in point form while on vacation and my head somehow turned that into believing it had already been written out.