Good morning or whatever to you lovely readers! I have for you, this day, from the city of [REDACTED], a new chapter of A Hero's Creed! This one is kind of a major lore drop and timeline development for both the past and the present, so I hope you enjoy it!

CallMeCayde: That was a good guess, but this chapter should reveal when AC Canon was derailed, which should -hopefully- spawn some interesting theories.

Gamelover41592: Thank you. I was quite proud of it.

LEGOBRICK13: Actually, there still is just standard crime in the world. You know, the kind unconnected to either faction? The fact that you never considered that kind of surprises me. No, Grandpa Bakugo had no connection to the shadow war; he just took a standard knife to the chest and sacrificed himself to save his grandson like a true hero. I'm not saying the attempt isn't connected someway somehow, but I'm not saying it is, either. Also, Tomura Shigaraki is not dead... yet. He and Kurogiri are just not relevant to the story at this point in time.

maxperseus130: Great, now I'm hungry, too. I pulled the steak away from you because it was just too juicy to sit on the plate with the broccoli, but this serving should have meat and potatoes, too. Right now, Bakugo, Iida, All Might, and other unconnected characters are like... salt, I guess? Maybe pepper. I'm not too much a fan of pepper, but they're part of the original recipe and I'm trying to stir them into the pot properly. And yes, who doesn't enjoy some good MinaShima in the background?

Monkey D. Conan: I'm stealing that. That idea is mine now and you can't have it back. As for Bakugo, believe you me, he has pain waiting for him in his future. C. S. Lewis once said "Suffering is God's microphone." Well, Bakugo will get a big, ol' shoutout from me in due time.

Pirohiko-Baltazar: As I said above, Bakugo WILL fall at some point. Some things you have to break before they can be fixed.

Shadowwolf1997: Well... this is awkward. And AHC Fanon now. We tripped each other and have fallen up the stairs. Feel free to PM me with ideas or questions whenever you want. I love answering them. Also, yes, MinaShima always thrives in the background.

Chapter 44:

Criminal Contacts

The figure's cloak exploded into a hundred smaller pieces, each one swirling around him like a swarm of bugs before they all settled on his skin and faded back into the natural color of flesh.

"My name is Hiryu Rin, an Assassin of the Chinese Brotherhood, and we need to talk about the Symphony."

Izuku nearly fell out of the tree in which he hid, a similarly-shocked ribbit coming from the other side of the clearing. The apparently-an-Assassin student laughed at their surprise, gesturing for them to join him as he backed toward the trees. Izuku shook his head and followed the tree line, landing on the ground just within the forest's boarder.

"Rin, you're an Assassin?" Izuku hissed as Tsuyu approached from the other side. "How? Why are you in Japan? Why wasn't Mentor made aware of this?"

"Because my Mentor does not like your methods," Rin replied, leaning on a tree. "The way you Osaka do things, it is all so old, even down to wishing your targets peace in Italian. You burn your fingers in commitment despite how screwed you would all be if it got out. You still wear robes while on your missions. Hell, you practically forbid the use of Quirks unless you are backed into a corner."

"Going back to roots is what saved us, ribbit," Tsuyu muttered, Izuku and Rin turning to her. "Our Quirks are distinct to each person. Any Quirk we use during a mission could leave evidence the Templars or the police could use to tracks us, ribbit."

"You are limiting yourself to the ways of the past."

"Conforming to the modern caused the Purge at the turn of the millennium, ribbit, pushing the Assassins to the limit. If it wasn't for the chaos of the Dawn of Quirks and Gavin Banks' teachings, the Templars would have won by the year 2030."

"You all put yourselves at risk of discovery because of your sentimentality for the old ways," Rin argued. "You don't even wear masks."

"He… has a point there," Izuku admitted. Tsuyu made a sound similar to a growl. "Masks are a really good idea."

"And what would happen if one of your Heroes was caught in the middle of a mission by another Hero?"

"So it's not a perfect system," Tsuyu waved off, not having a good answer. "We deal with the dangers as they come and our contacts are spread far and wide, ribbit. We don't do everything the old way. We have hackers, electricians, architects, engineers, designers. We evolved to use our Quirks most effectively and selectively, ribbit. Not only that, but we also don't force the compliance of our contacts with blackmail."

Rin flinched. "By letting your members lead these double-lives, you only risk being compromised. You take superfluous risks but refuse to train with the Bleeding Effect."

"That what?" the green-haired teen blinked.

"The Bleeding Affect is too dangerous," Tsuyu shot back. "Too much Animus exposure can cause hallucinations and identity crises."

"And that's why I am an Assassin and you two are not," the foreigner shrugged. Tsuyu narrowed her eyes.

"And what would you suggest? That every Assassin in Japan quit their jobs to become full-time killers, ribbit? To leave it so the Templars have full reign over professional Heroics? Oh wait, ribbit. In China—"

"That is not what I said," Rin defended, holding his hands up. "I said that you all risk revealing yourselves with all your outdated rituals and your training methods are hard-pressed to keep up."

"We—!"

"Everyone, calm down," Izuku interrupted, placing himself between Tsuyu and Rin. He turned to the exchange student. "We can go over your opinions on the way we do things later, Rin. I'm sure the Chinese Brotherhood has their own ways that would look strange to us. Such is the way of different countries. I learned that on I-Island. And Tsu, remember that everything is permitted. That includes our ways and criticism."

"Ribbit," the frog-girl huffed, turning away.

"Rin, you mentioned something we needed to talk about. Something other than the Brotherhood. What was it?"

"It is a group called the Symphony," Rin sighed. "The Chinese Brotherhood has been trying to track them for almost half a century, but our relationships with the other Brotherhoods are… strained."

"Nearly antagonistic, ribbit," Tsuyu muttered to herself. "You keep sending Assassins into other countries without saying anything and it stirs up the pond when they get involved."

"When did the Symphony start?" Izuku asked, trying to prevent another near argument.

"Tell me, Midoriya, have you been told about the Instruments of the First Will?"

"Who?"

"The Instruments were destroyed in the early 2000's, ribbit," Tsuyu cut in. "It was one of the few times recorded when Assassins and Templars worked together against a common enemy."

"Most of the Instruments were," Rin confirmed. "Just about all their prominent members, but the rest went underground. Word of them was lost for years because focus shifted elsewhere."

"The Dawn of Quirks," Izuku realized. "The glowing baby, the first recorded Quirk user, was born in September of 2016."

"That is correct," the foreign Assassin nodded. "Most of the Instruments were rooted out and destroyed earlier that year after their attacks on various Templar conglomerates, including Abstergo Montreal in Canada most prominently. Their goal was to revive one of the Isu, one set free by the Assassin Desmond Miles to prevent an extinction-level event. When the Templars learned how the Instruments were manipulating them and how many of their members had been converted, it practically turned into a Templar civil war."

"And we decided to get involved?" Izuku blinked. Sure, we was the newest one of the three of them to the Brotherhood, but even he knew Templars killing each other was doing the Assassins' job for them.

"An Isu coming back to life would have been much more dangerous to the world than the Templars," Rin replied. "Specifically, they wanted to revive the Isu Juno."

"O…kay." Izuku didn't really know any of the Isu or why Juno stood out among them, though she must have been the one set free by Desmond Miles, whatever that meant. "Wait, I heard about this. Minerva helped Desmond Miles prevent a solar flare and then it must have been Juno that ran roughshod through Templar servers, right?

"That is correct. I am surprised you know that."

"And I suspect these Instruments of the First Will have something to do with the Symphony you mentioned?"

Rin sucked in a breath, breathing out slowly. "We… failed," he began. "Juno got away in the chaos of the Dawn of Quirks. She started appearing to Assassins, Templars, and political leaders around the world through the internet, converting countless prominent figures on both sides of our war, and causing a return of the Instruments. When the Chinese Brotherhood found itself compromised in the late 2030's, we…" He sighed, running a hand through his hair. "This is going to sound bad, but we killed everyone even suspected to be in contact with Juno and cut off all communication with the outside."

Izuku started, but Tsuyu only blinked. "You…?"

"The next generation was raised totally without outside influence," Rin continued. "It was messy, letting the Templars have free reign for that long, but the Xīn gǔzhé, the New Fracture, caused China to break like it had in the past when the totalitarian government of the time couldn't keep up. The next few decades saw the other Brotherhoods having similar purges as they learned, but nothing as major as ours. And then, in 2038, Juno disappeared. Just… gone. And no Brotherhood could claim credit. The Instruments' movements —what little there was between both Assassins and Templars trying to destroy them— vanished. And then they appeared on our radar."

"Wait," Izuku interrupted. "I heard Juno got deleted."

"We could never confirm that," Rin sighed. "Almost 70 years ago was the first time we heard anything about Symphony. They are this… network inside the Templars from what we can tell, secret from even many of the upper echelons and ready to kill themselves at a moment's notice to protect their secrets. We have been trying to crack them since, but all the concrete knowledge we have is that it seems they have some connection to the Instruments before —probably as a new iteration— and that they are based somewhere in America. You do not want to know what he went through to get even that much."

"You believe the Symphony are moving in Japan, ribbit," Tsuyu commented. "Why? What's so important that you'd break your orders to tell us?"

"I am now certain that Pony Tsunotori is one of their members."

"Pony?" Izuku and Tsuyu gasped. "Why?"

"Her admission that she had relatives on I-Island during the attack was the final hint. Between the knowledge I overheard from you, Midoriya, during your talk with Shinso and what our spies were able to get us from the incident report, her family carried out a covert operation during the attack."

"That woman!" Izuku realized, his hand unconsciously going to the bullet scar on his torso.

"Which woman?"

"There was this woman that attacked us and the Shields in the underwater Isu lab," the verdet explained. "But she's dead. She can't have survived the sharks or the destruction of the lab and she didn't take the elevator up."

"Did you see her body? Watch her get eaten?"

"Well, no—"

"Then without Tsunotori's confirmation, she survived. Whether they were successful in their mission or not is another matter. But the Symphony… it practically directs the Templars now like the nervous system of a body, or maybe more like the fungus cordyceps, and Tsunotori is their current link to Japan."

"You really think Pony is one of these Symphony members, ribbit?" Tsuyu interjected. "Do you have any proof?"

"Circumstantial and gut instinct at best," Rin admitted, running a hand through his hair. "There is very little about her family that we have been able to find despite their size. They run a massive ranch in America, but the family is far from normal. To date, the father has five marriages and no divorces, as well as children in four Hero schools across the world and another working in the American FBI. Certainly not exactly the common ranch family Tsunotori has tried to make them out to be."

"That's suspicious," Izuku blinked, "but you don't have anything more concrete?"

"Their ranch is in Texas. The state has practically been a blind spot for the Brotherhood since the second American Civil War in the 2040's."

Izuku winced. That time coincided with Japan's Dark Age of Quirks and a dozen other civil wars and government collapses across the world as the first Quirked generation came into adulthood and rebelled against discrimination. Countries burned, political parties everywhere dissolved into dozens of others, and whole religions fractured as the world was forced to confront the reality of a growing number of superpowered individuals. All of that chaos had stabilized since —China even reunited again— but dozens of smaller, newer, and/or weaker countries of the day were conquered, conglomerated, or practically wiped off the maps. Africa was hit particularly hard as its first powerful power-users took control, formed clans, and proceeded to war for land and resources. Of the 54 African countries from before, none still exist besides Egypt (whose first Quirked leader had declared himself the next Pharaoh) and the continent was divided into 12 powerful nations over the next three decades.

And, if his knowledge of recent American history was sound (at least that beyond the Assassin and Templar involvement he was yet unaware of), then America's war was more of a revolution as a high number of citizens idolized the first generations' "supers" while their government attempted to monopolize them, going so far as to buy Quirked children from their parents to raise them as special soldiers. For a country that thrived on superhero comics for nearly a century, this did not go over well and was the main catalyst for the revolution.

"So the Symphony established its roots during the chaos of America's Meta Rebellion?" Izuku clarified.

"As far as we can tell," Rin confirmed. "There has been a number of Templar-adjacent organizations in the past decades we have destroyed since then, each with files of orders from the Symphony. That or their symbol: a cymbal. At least, until they got smart and stopped leaving paper trails. Phone records are a lot harder to find."

"Their symbol is a cymbal?" Tsuyu repeated. "Really, ribbit?"

"I wish I was making it up. Listen, you cannot trust Tsunotori. I am certain of this. Be wary of her."

"And what would you have us do, Rin?" Izuku questioned. "Assassinate her?"

"No," Rin insisted, apparently missing Izuku's sarcasm. "No, nothing like that. Assassination of a classmate would bring far too much unwanted attention. Just be wary around her. Listen to everything she says and look for inconsistencies. I don't know Juno's connection to Symphony or if there even is one, but in our war, there is no such thing as coincidence. Juno's death was never confirmed, so we cannot throw out the possibility that she is still alive. Anything Tsunotori gives you could be a crucial piece of information."

"Now hold on, Rin," Tsuyu said. "What happened, ribbit? Why are you telling us this now? You've got this long without anyone knowing you were one of us, ribbit, and you clearly don't agree with the way we go about things. Aren't you afraid we'll screw up your…" She gestured at him. "Your everything, ribbit?"

"Disagreements on process is not the same thing as withholding information," Rin admitted. "Now that I am certain Tsunotori is the Symphony spy within our school, I cannot leave her unsupervised. I can no longer handle that in a different class, but you two can. Besides, whatever she is planning, it is for your country. I will not say emotional investment is without risk, but it is a damn good motivator."

"How do you know she's Symphony?"

"Because none of the known Templars have any knowledge about her." He sighed. "Between the information I have and what she has told our classmates, I cannot think of anyone else the spy could be. Process of elimination. So, will you help me?"

Izuku and Tsuyu turned to each other, sharing a silent conversation of raised eyebrows and frowns.

"I guess I need to ask my mom about Pony's siblings…" Izuku said after a moment. "Er, half-siblings?"

"I'll see what I can get out of Iida, ribbit," Tsuyu sighed. "Anything else we should know?"

"Ibara Shiozaki is not a Templar," Rin told them, rubbing his eyes. Izuku didn't know how to read his body language, but his voice sounded… annoyed? "She knows of their existence but refused their advances, which has caused some friction between her and Yaoyorozu. Rather, she wants her cousin to leave the local Rite for her own safety. Just… so you know." He pushed of the tree on which he'd been leaning. "Now then, we need to return before they notice our absence. We've risked it long enough."

Running a gang was not everything Assassin Himiko Toga had hoped it would be, but at least it wasn't boring.

She, Akaguro, and Nascha had dedicated over a week now to reforming and refocusing the renamed Hisha into a proper Yakuza organization, or at least the foundation of what would become one. Fureru had accepted the Assassin chemist they'd brought in to change their Trigger recipe with grace, the cold woman trying to freeze her unwanted partner only three times before they completed the preliminary batch. The results of the tests would take some time to come in —the customers that had done business with the Gin Kyosha weren't exactly regular— but Himi was sure Fureru could handle any minor tweaks to be made in the coming months.

Tweaks like, say, additivity and symptom noticeability. In an ideal world, nobody would need drugs, but in an impure world like theirs, the Assassins might as well capitalize so the Templars can't. If they didn't, someone else would.

Under Akaguro's careful eye, Tatou and Card began whipping the lackies into shape, both revamping expectations for dress and manners as well as putting them through a basic bootcamp so they could be useful deterrents if nothing else. Unlike the "anything goes" mentality they'd had as a gang, the lackies would now be expected to maintain the proper decorum of the true yakuza of old. Making sure they did, however, was a process not completed in a single week. At least they enjoyed the underground bare-knuckle betting ring.

Unexpectedly, the most useful of the Hisha Generals so far had been Yonjo Kodai. As a former businessman possessing experience with computers, coding, and hacking, he had become the official owner of all the buildings on the street and the Assassins' mouthpiece to the construction crews now working to rebuild and revamp the structures nearby into a casino and several different restaurants. By the time winter rolled around —assuming all went to plan— the street would become a hub of barely-legal nightlife and beautiful income for the Brotherhood. Currently, however, the nights here were just as quiet as everywhere else in this district of Kyoto.

Himi's moments of introspection were interrupted as yelling reached her from the street below. She shifted, looking down from the roof of the General's Rest to the street below. Someone stumbled as a rock pelted them in the back, said individual skidding over the concrete as their tormentors approached on wobbly footsteps.

"Look at the animal!" the man in the lead of a trio commented with a hiccup, another rock in his hand. He and his companions were dressed in button-downs and ties, a step up from their target's grey Detnerat-brand sweatshirt. "He's f… finally on the ground… where he belongs!"

"Go away!" the heteromorph hissed, the dim haze of one of the streetlights showing him to be some sort of lizard person with scaly, green skin and long, purple hair. "Leave me alone!"

"Aw, is the stupid lizard gonna cry?" one of the man's lackies questioned. He too was unsteady on his feet and holding a rock of his own. "Go ahead! Cry! Cry like the pathetic sub-human you are."

"Bastard, you—!" The heteromorph took several steps toward them, his scowl baring sharp teeth, and the trio each took a step back. The leader, however —filled with hateful courage or drunken bravery— laughed.

"Yeah?" he grinned. "G-Go on, Scaly! Hit us! Y-You'll be a Villain i-in no time!" He raised his rock, throwing it. It bounced off the lizard-man's leg. "That's the thing about you morphs! No control! No nor… Nom… Normality. You're all freaks that can't even look like us! Y-You gotta sun yourselves or eat dirt or sand or whatever. You gotta buy special shit, too. One toe outta line and you're gone! Not like us normal guys and y-you can't even pretend! It'd be b-better for everyone if you just—" He bent over, throwing up on his shoes.

"Oh, I'm sad?" their victim muttered with a roll of his eyes. "At least I'm not a sack of shit vomiting on himself."

"You scaly bitch!" the third man yelled, pulling a knife from his pocket. The heteromorph stumbled backward. Rocks were one thing, but a knife was a whole lot more dangerous. He couldn't even fight back, the phrasing of the Quirk Laws making it so that Mutant-types like him were instantly categorized as under suspicion for Quirk use should he try since his Quirk was always "active." "I'll gut you to make a belt!"

Himi had seen enough.

"Y-You wouldn't!" the heteromorph stuttered, taking a step back.

"Why not?" the drunk grinned. The vomiting guy stumbled away while the other pulled out his own knife, the pair advancing toward their target. "You wanna call the cops? I'll just tell them I was defending myself from the scary Mutant threatening us. I've even got proof."

"Proof? You're threatening me!"

"That's not what I saw." The man blinked, an image of the scowling heteromorph stomping toward him appearing similar to a projector from his eyes. "I can show whatever I've seen with Memory Projection, and this certainly looks like you threatening us!"

"Now boys," a female voice said, slim arms wrapping around the two armed guys' shoulders. Memory Projection guy and his buddy turned to find a hooded figure between them, daggers held at their throats. "I think you've had enough fun torturing a poor guy, don't you think?"

"Who the fuck are you?"

"Who cares who she is?" the other guy asked, apparently too drunk to see the knife at his jugular. "You want us to stop picking on this morph? Why don't you join us in that alley over there? Don't care where he goes if you're entertaining us."

"Awe, that's cute," Himi laughed. "You're stupid. I can work with stupid."

"I was giving you a choice to pick the easy way, bitch."

"Yeah, see, I don't really like the easy way." Himi's grip tightened, bringing the men's faces very close to her own, forcing them to recognize the knifes she held without giving Memory Projection guy even a glimpse of her face. She could smell the cheap alcohol on their breath. Her voice dropped to a hiss. "Now you boys listen here and you listen good. This area belongs to the Hisha. You can be an asshole all you want, but if you want to get your sick kicks around here, you have to pay us to look the other way. Your problem is we don't tolerate this kind of discrimination on our turf. This is your one and only warning. If I or any of my boys catch you trying to pull this kind of shit again, being piss drunk won't save you. In fact, the only parts of your bodies they'll ever find are your severed, shriveled needledicks when they get shipped to your Quirkist families. Am I clear?"

The men couldn't find their voices, nodding their heads as carefully as they could on account of the blades at their Adam's apples. Himi beamed, grabbing their inner shoulders and forcing them to spin as she walked through them to approach the confused heteromorph.

"Grab your disgusting friend and beat it," the Assassin ordered, not turning around but offering the lizard-man a smile. "You better hope I never see any of you again."

She smelled and heard rather than saw the men take their leave, not wanting to risk what she could do. Some fun in an alley with a girl was not worth risking their lives over, nor was tormenting the morph they'd practically chased here. Soon, the only evidence they'd even visited the area was a putrid trail of vomit.

"I'd ask what brings you here," Himi said, offering a hand to the fallen man, "but I think I got the picture. Better question is why."

"I wasn't watching where I was going," the heteromorph replied, accepting her hand. Himi pulled him to his feet with strength unbecoming of her slim arms. "Just got fired 'caused I looked funny at someone. I bumped into one of them by accident and they started insulting me. I tried to get away before I did something I'd regret, but you saw how that went." He squinted into the darkness. "Thanks for your help, but… who are you?"

"Are you sure you want an answer to that question?"

He considered before offering a smile of his own.

"Why the hell not? Got nowhere to go and you pulled my ass out of the fire there."

"In that case, welcome to Hisha territory. Nothing happens here without our say so. We're not quite established yet, but this will be the highlight of Kyoto's nightlife in a couple months. And I… am Changeling."

"That's not your real name."

"No one gets to know my real name until they know a whole lot more about me."

"Then is that supposed to be a Villain alias?"

"I'm not in any directory, government or otherwise. And you?"

"Shuichi Iguchi," he said. "I don't think I'm in any directory either, much as those guys wanted to put me in one. This Hisha looking for muscle?"

"You don't know what we do."

"I know you don't put up with Quirkist rhetoric." He waved a hand dismissively. "I said I got fired, right? Without that job, I'll get evicted from my apartment pretty soon and it was hard enough to get the first time. Seems like I'm in need of a new life."

"Then I'm your goddamn fairy godmother, Iguchi. How do you feel about Yakuza?"

The lizard-man quirked an eye as he comprehended the question.

"Are we talking suits, money, and unproveable but honorable crime like from the pre-Quirk stories?" he questioned. Himi nodded. "I think I can learn to live with it." He paused, a hand rising to his chin. "You know, I've got a buddy I met a few weeks ago. Real powerful fire Quirk but a face that won't win him any beauty contests. He's been looking for work too since his benefactor went mum but has had no luck. Mind if I give him a recommendation?"

Despite being the central pair to enter, Izuku and Tsuyu were the last ones to leave, the two of them having completely forgotten about the Test of Courage. This, it turned out, was very amusing to some people.

"May I ask," Ragdoll began with her hands on her hips, "where you two have been?"

"We fell behind, ribbit," Tsuyu answered without blinking. "The other pairs were being pretty quiet, so we must have missed them. If we'd heard them, ribbit, we probably would have formed a quartet."

The pro Heroine narrowed her eyes, studying the 1-A students' rumpled gym uniforms. The problem with said tracksuits were they would rumple at the slightest inconvenience, so this didn't give her any hints to their previous whereabouts. And any misbehaviors the two had gotten into, they were smart enough to hide the evidence. She considered using her Quirk: Search, but that only told her where her targets were at that moment, not where they'd been.

"Ooohh, Midori~!" Mina grinned. "Tsu~! I've got questions for you~!"

"We don't have answers for you~!" Izuku replied, mimicking Mina's tone. "We just got turned around in the dark~!"

"Turned around, huh?" Kendo grinned. "Is that what kids are calling it these days?"

"Ohoho!" Pixie-Bob laughed. "You kittens better not have been getting naughty out there. We wouldn't want your careers to suffer an… accident. That'd be a cat-tastrophy!"

"Impossible!" Iida yelled, his arm chopping the air as it usually did. "As our Vice-Representative, Midoriya is one of 1-A's foremost examples of courage, duty, and responsibility! And Asui is solely, uniquely, and similarly focused on our impending careers as pro Heroes! Neither she nor Midoriya would never forego their duty and morals for such fleeting pleasure!"

"I don't know, Iida," Toru commented, the grin audible in her voice. "We are teenagers. A boy and a girl, all alone in a dark forest at night, one jumpscare gets the adrenaline pumping—"

"Yes, I think we get the picture," Izuku said with a roll of his eyes. "But that's not what happened."

"I also wish to believe Izuku," Shoto commented. The verdet turned to give his Finals partner a grateful look, Shinso standing behind the dual-haired boy with a quirked eyebrow. "He has shown nothing but honesty and hard work. Like Iida, I am not of the opinion he has it in him to forsake that, even during a game such as this."

"Thanks, Shoto," Izuku grinned, the Hot-and-Cold teen accepting the verdet's offer for a fistbump. "I knew you'd have my back."

"And in the event I am incorrect, good for you, Izuku, though I fear having to inform Yaoyorozu."

"Wha— Shoto, you bastard!" Izuku muttered, said boy with a smile that threatened to sink into a smirk. Izuku punching him in the arm. "Don't give people the wrong idea just because you think it's funny!"

"Why not? Is that not what friends do?"

"Oh Izuku, ribbit," Tsuyu said, her voice flat despite her hands over her cheeks. "I can't believe you'd throw me away so quickly, ribbit. And just when I'd opened up to you so completely."

"Goddamn it, Tsu," the boy sighed, covering a face with a hand as their classmates exploded with noise. "You did that on purpose."

Very maturely, she stuck her tongue out at him.

"Who the fuck cares if Deku's getting some from Frogface?" a familiar voice demanded, Bakugo stomping his way into the crowd. "I, for one, don't want the nasty image in my head. Is it time for our chance to scare the piss out of some people or what?"

"I think I'm going to go sit by the bonfire," Izuku muttered, bowing out and taking his leave while everyone else was distracted with the start of the second round of the Test of Courage. He wandered toward the other side of the clearing, sitting down where the heat of the fire could wash away the cold chill of the air, its soft crackle a calming background for his thoughts. The impromptu band had stopped at some point, their hands and fingers tired, and scatter to participate in the other activities around.

Ibara Shiozaki had seated herself at the puzzle table with Momo, but they were on opposite sides and corners, as far from each other as they could get. Momo noticed Izuku's return, her attention to her Vice-Representative having steadily increased since her parents had assigned her the mission to get the boy to their home for an interview with them.

Izuku Midoriya was an enigma, a puzzle wrapped in contradiction, and the more she'd tried to solve it, fewer things seemed clear. Any headway she'd been making on that mental puzzle had hit a standstill after the I-Island attack and all progress had stilled when the camp started, the students having had no time to truly think.

Until now.

And now that she'd had several days without trying to figure out Izuku Midoriya, Momo found the pieces flipping and turning like the nearly-solved cat puzzle on the table, fitting into each other with connections Momo had never considered before, and the image they painted was not one she liked, all stemming from what her cousin had told her at the start of the week.

"Even if you forsake me, the Assassins are closer than you think. Our own teachers are at odds with each other, and it runs far deeper than any personal grudge."

Her parents had told her Vlad King was one of them, willingly kept out of the loop by some unspoken rule in an attempt to keep the students safe from any Assassins that may target those he helped, but the idea that he was at odds with Eraserhead for more reasons than class rivalry had not even been a thought to Momo. Now, the dichotomy between the two had been shoved to the forefront of her mind in stark contrast, leaving a sour taste in her mouth.

The realization that Shota Aizawa was, in all likelihood, an Assassin had been the linchpin for a number of other uncomfortable theories that made too much sense, all stemming from the USJ and the device Aizawa had taken from her. She remembered questioning the verdet about it over an early dinner at La Croix de la Sagesse. His words had been "I didn't exactly get permission from them to use their idea" in reference to his trainers, a "loose collection of adrenaline junkies."

Her dark eyes drifted to where Izuku sat by the fire. Someone had brought him s'more ingredients at some point, the boy almost laser-focused on his current task. Momo clenched her jaw.

Izuku was being groomed to join the Assassins, she was sure of it, but his words suggested he did not yet know of their business. She needed to get him away from them before they sunk their claws in too deep and corrupted his heroic ideals.

A tiny part of her mind, one she refused to listen to, questioned if it was already too late.

"This is the place," Naomasa Tsukauchi said, his police cruiser and another dozen all pulling up around a squat, unassuming building an hour's walk from the hospital where one Dr. Garaki used to work until his untimely disappearance. Their algorithm found that this was the most likely place of his destination the day he disappeared, but any evidence to this was long washed away by time and weather. He shifted the car into park and got out, the tinted windows hiding the way his friend shifted into his well-known Hero form before opening his own door. "Anything to say, All Might?"

"Everyone, be careful," All Might said, directing his words to the other cops around them. "This man is incredibly dangerous. I will go in first and I don't want any of you coming in and risking your life unless you hear me yell for you. Got that? This man will kill you without a second thought."

"Understood!" the cops replied, allowing All Might to approach the door. He glared at the building before rearing his fist back, punching the thick metal off its hinges.

"ALL FOR ONE!" he roared, charging in. "OUR FINAL BATTLE IS… here?"

Tsukauchi shifted, his pistol aimed at the ground and ready to move at a moment's notice, but what he saw through the broken door confused him. All Might stood, seemingly frozen, staring into the room.

"All Might?" he asked. "What is it?"

"I… I don't know," the blond replied, confusion palpable in his voice. "Tsukauchi, I think I found Dr. Garaki."

Tsukauchi breached the doorway, police following him as they moved to secure the room. The detective's eyes instantly fell on the emaciated, decomposing body on the floor. Bile burned the back of his throat.

"Mimoto," he said, gesturing for one of the policemen in their group. The man was a heteromorph with a head reminiscent of a picture portrait of an average —if handsome— man. He stepped forward, placed a hand on one of the less-decayed parts of flesh on the body, and activated his Quirk: Identify.

"Dr. Kyudai Garaki," the cop confirmed, his portrait face changing to show the man's face when he was alive, one of the eyes missing. Statistics from the deceased appeared in the corner, the officer vocalizing the more basic and important ones. "Multiple aliases. Sex: male. Age: 127. Quirk: Life Force (duplicate, stolen). Cause of death: puncture to heart and brain. Time of death: 73 days ago."

"What's that?" another man questioned. Tsukauchi followed his pointer to a pile of dust on a chair, a ragged shirt fraying at the edges draped over it. Mimoto turned to Tsukauchi, the detective gesturing a go ahead. Mimoto let go of the corpse —his head going back to its default image— and walked over to the pile of dust. With another nod from Tsukauchi, the man touched the pile with a finger.

His portrait shifted, showing a face more akin to a mannequin than a human. His nose and one eye socket were grown over, a single eye staring out from weathered, haggard skin.

"All for One," All Might growled.

"Name: Mugen Shigaraki," Mimoto said. "Alias: All for One. Age: 142. Quirk: All for One (transferred), multiple others. Cause of death: rapid aging. Time of death: 73 days ago."

"I'm sorry," All Might blinked, horror entering his voice. "Did you say his Quirk… was transferred?"

Both Tsukauchi and All Might paled at the information, the rest of the cops ignorant to the details but they knew that if something could shake the Symbol of Peace, then it was something to worry about.

"Tsukauchi?" All Might muttered, his eyes arrowing. "All for One is dead. I want to know who killed him. We can't let his Quirk stay out there in the world. I won't let that evil remain."

"All Might, we're on it."

End of Chapter 44

Next chapter wraps up the training camp (which was not attacked due to a lack of League of Villains) and we can start the second semester! We are verging far more into original content here now that the major antagonistic group is practically nothing, but there's still a lot to look forward to! Cultural Festival, whatever this version of the MLF has in store, tests, work-studies, Assassinations and Templar plots. Let me know what sort of missions you all want to see in the future!

Rin reveals the existence of Symphony to Izuku and Tsuyu, but is this group really as dangerous as he claims? What are their plans for the world and is there anything our intrepid Apprentices can do to stop it? Can they even trust the Chinese Brotherhood? Himi recruits Iguchi into the Hisha, but who is this friend he mentioned? What role will they play in the future? Momo puzzles the pieces together, but she's still working with idealist mindsets. What will she do in her attempt to "save" Izuku from the Assassins? And finally, All Might knows that All for One is dead, but his Quirk is still out there. Where will this search lead him? Tell me what you think and:

Read and Review!

-SwordOfTheGods