My Hero School Adventure is All Wrong, As Expected

by storybookknight

Hikigaya Hachiman is the last person on earth who should ever apply to U.A. High School. Yet somehow, he gets in anyway. In a world of irrepressible optimism and idealism, these are the adventures of a young man who believes that idealism is a lie.

31. My Hero Internship Is Wrong: Day 1

A/N: New year, new chapter! As the story has progressed and the various butterflies I've unleashed have started pushing the plot further and further away from canon, I've had to put more and more time into plotting out where things will go and how I'm going to juggle all of the narrative balls I'm keeping in the air, so I took the holidays to plot out the Stain arc in detail and the Forest Camp and Rescue Mission arcs in broad strokes. Now that that's done, hopefully the next few chapters should come more quickly than this one did. Enjoy!

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The difference between a real product and a knock-off is a fine line. Brand name cola, for example, is said to be indistinguishable from the store brand variety in blind taste tests; yet given a choice between the two at the grocery store, most shoppers will reach for the brand name version every time. If there's a lesson to be learned from this; first, it's that with the magic of a multi-billion yen advertising budget, you can convince idiots to swallow just about anything. And secondly, if you want to create a convincing counterfeit of a superior product, the main thing to pay attention to is how it looks.

Looking at my debut video that UA had posted online, all I could say was that the staff apparently understood that philosophy well. After we'd sent out our internship acceptance letters at the start of last week, the rest of the week had been spent on "media presentation", as Midnight called it - or, more bluntly, on superficial appearances. In between lectures on how to interact with the public, how to talk to journalists, the expectations of us as interns, and so on; we also got to learn how to be photographed and recorded for promotional materials. Mostly, it involved a bunch of standing around in costume and wearing stage makeup, doing our best to comply with the third-year Business Course students as they shouted at us to 'pose just a little bit more dramatically' and 'smile like you mean it!'

I didn't know what itched worse - the foundation that they smeared all around my eyes to make them look a little bit less like they belonged on a dead fish, or the fact that we had to put up with three days of that kind of nonsense before the internship. Normally I was a big fan of classes where all we had to do were time-wasting "heroic" activities that didn't involve physical exertion or violence, but when I was this close to getting involved with the Nomu investigation, all of the distractions from learning practical skills felt even more pointless than usual.

The silver lining to our inane schedule was the fact that the relatively light load of work gave me enough time to not only seek out and copy a few of my upperclassmen's quirks, but to fix at least part of the damage I had accidentally done to myself during the Sports Festival. As I once again watched the short clip of my hero-suited self making a dramatic three-point landing and giving a manly nod at the camera (the senior from the Business course had eventually given up on asking me to smile) I noticed with a mix of satisfaction and embarrassment that while you could still count my abdominal muscles through my skin-tight suit, you could no longer count my ribs. Recovery Girl had given me the official go-ahead to resume training yesterday, with the caveat that I was to steer clear of Regeneration until I had built up enough body fat to use it safely.

Naturally, given the fact that I had a full day off before the start of my internship tomorrow, I was making up for lost time. With my family home and poking their heads in to talk to me every once in a while, doing my usual trick of 'meditation' to stockpile quirks would invite questions that I didn't really feel like answering. Technically, I suppose that trying to convince my parents that I had gotten seriously into Buddhism would be an easier conversation than telling them that in order to effectively function in hero classes I was secretly working 18 to 20-hour days seven days a week, but all things considered I'd prefer to avoid both of those options. So instead, I was tentatively doing my best to look like I was engaged in the modern age's version of meditation, also known as browsing the internet.

A few months ago, I wouldn't have been able to get away with it. All Might's quirk would have been so much more powerful than my body that I would have been glowing bright orange, I wouldn't have had nearly the amount of practice at stockpiling quirks that I did currently, and - most importantly - I wouldn't have had so much practice at focusing through distractions. Compared to the nauseating sense of dysmorphia I got every time I took advantage of my Ooze/Mime combination to charge my quirks at double speed, the distraction power of unproductive internet procrastination was pretty minor. As long as I just stuck to the base level of charging Stockpile with just Ooze, I had enough spare concentration to at least act like I was using my computer.

My little sister, on the other hand, was a far more diabolical opponent than mere nausea. "Onii-chan! Are you just going to sit around all day?"

Instinctively, I dropped my connection to Ooze, shutting down the power going to Stockpile before I could accidentally twitch the wrong way and ruin my last hour and a half of work, and glared at the now-open doorway to my room where Komachi stood. She was dressed to go out, wearing a jeans-and-blouse combo that was presumably fashionable - not that I could particularly tell one way or the other. "I dunno," I said heatedly. "Are you ever going to learn how to knock? Also, why do you care?"

"It's a beautiful day!" Komachi said cheerfully, blithely ignoring my sudden hostility. "The sun is shining, the birds are singing; you should get outside!"

"If people wanted to be outdoors for no reason they wouldn't have invented an indoors to get themselves away from it," I said pithily. She rolled her eyes in response. "Anyway, I'm busy," I said, "my internship starts tomorrow."

"You're just watching YapTube videos," Komachi said dismissively. "I could hear them from the living room. If you're gonna just be all nervous about your internship, you should actually do something instead of just sitting around! Like… go out for a walk! Or, you know, you could call Saki-san and get lunch with her," she said innocently.

I raised an eyebrow pointedly at my meddling little sister to let her know that she wasn't nearly as subtle as she thought she was. "I already texted Kawasaki to let her know I was going to be busy with internship prep this weekend," I said bluntly. "We're going to meet up next Sunday."

"Oh, okay." Komachi said, caught off-guard by my sudden proactiveness. "You didn't have any time you could meet her before then?" She asked.

I leaned over and grabbed the paper print-out of Cyberpunch's schedule that she had sent me. "Take a look for yourself," I said. "When she doesn't have office hours or isn't on, Cyberpunch is either teaching martial arts classes or has meetings with, like, the police and stuff." I shrugged. "I mean, technically speaking the martial arts classes are her volunteer work and not something that's officially part of the internship, but I don't want to miss out on them, either."

"Ugh. This is awful!" Komachi said in dismay. "I thought I was going to get to see you more this week since you were interning right here in Chiba, but you're not going to be getting home until, like, after mom and dad usually do!"

"Yeah, sorry," I said awkwardly. "Apparently being a hero is a lot of work; who knew?"

Komachi pouted. "Well if you're gonna be busy all week, that means you should come out with me today! It's nice out, we could go for a walk, maybe stop in at a family restaurant or something!"

I shook my head. "Sorry, Komachi. I was really planning on just taking the day to hang out and recharge," my quirks, that was, "since next week's gonna be so busy. Maybe a little later?"

After a long pause, Komachi sighed in disappointment. "You're a jerk, onii-chan. Fine. I'm going out. I'll be back later."

As she stomped off and her footfalls slowly faded into the distance, I couldn't help but let out a sigh of my own. It wasn't like I didn't want to go out and enjoy the spring sunshine I could see coming through my window, but I just didn't have the time. I knew I didn't. I already knew I didn't, dammit… but wishful thinking made me open up my Quirk spreadsheet anyway. I stared at the list of quirks running down the leftmost column. For years, I'd been dreaming of the day when all 108 cells would be filled with quirks that were so powerful they were indispensable; looking at it now, I couldn't help but wish it was shorter. Between yesterday afternoon and today, I had about twenty-six hours I could spare to stock quirks; twelve of them were late enough at night that I could risk a double-stockpile situation with Ooze and Mime. That effectively gave me thirty-six 'hours' to stockpile; of which two hours were reserved for Efficient Sleep, and another six for Digestion so I could keep putting weight back on, leaving me with only time to get twenty-eight quirks up to a bare minimum usable level.

I could take an hour to go outside, sure. But that would be one less quirk I had ready if I needed it. What if the League of Villains caught wind of the investigation and decided to ambush us? What if Cyberpunch had some sort of test to make sure I was up to par, or the police did? Whether I had to 'prove myself' or just survive, I needed as many combat quirks as I could hold - especially since my usual emergency option of Regeneration was out of the picture. The way my body was at the moment, I couldn't even risk charging Regeneration as a 'just in case' option; the only way I could charge Regeneration in the first place was to let it heal me until I was as healthy as it could make me first, which would completely undo all of my hard work at putting weight back on. The thought of not having healing on demand if I needed it made me nervous, but not nearly as nervous as I was at the thought of having Recovery Girl kick me out of the hero program for being underweight.

To compensate for the lack of healing, I was prioritizing stocking up defensive quirks and quirks that could help me run away; as much as I enjoyed the fantasy of setting All For One on fire with my new copy of Endeavor's quirk - not that I had any idea what he looked like - realistically if I ran into him or any of his minions right now my best option was to run like hell. Between defense and agility quirks, that was seventeen of my available hours spoken for.

For offense, I was planning on strength enhancer and transformation type quirks, since Cyberpunch was a martial artist. There were just six hours' worth of those to charge. With the leftovers, I stocked up on the highest-mileage, most effective quirks that didn't fall into any of the previous three categories. In other words - Heal, Erasure, Explosion, Brainwash… and Endeavor's Hellfire quirk, just in case. And that was it. I didn't even have time to charge the handful of new quirks I had picked up. It was more important to charge my key quirks, because they, plus the handful of quirks I didn't manage to completely use up in the Sports Festival, would be all I had in case of emergencies.

Not that I was expecting any, of course. The most likely scenario was that it would be a perfectly normal, safe internship.

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The next morning, I was on a train headed for the Hanamigawa Ward, which was on the north side of Chiba. It was close enough that I could have biked, and Recovery Girl had signed off on my exercising again, but I had decided to take the train anyways. For one thing, I was carrying a heavy briefcase with my hero costume in it; I technically could have strapped it to my bike's cargo rack but it was bulky enough that I wasn't 100% confident in it staying. Secondly, and more importantly, I wasn't exactly headed to the nicest part of town. I mean, it made sense; Cyberpunch deciding to put her agency close to where the crime happened was totally a smart move - and I'd bet the rent was cheaper, too - but that still didn't make it a particularly safe place to leave my bike sitting around outside all day.

Now that I was getting closer, I was starting to rethink my decision. If I had been only 'kind of' recognizable after the Sports Festival, now that I was carrying a massive briefcase emblazoned with a giant 19 on it (for my seat number, since even a school as over-the-top as UA didn't give out personalized costume cases in the first year) I felt even more conspicuous. I spent the entire train ride doing my best to look like it didn't bother me, mostly out of the vague hope that the old guy from the train a few days ago knew what he was talking about, but by the time I got to Hanamigawa I was already feeling worn out.

The Cyberpunch Agency was about a ten minute walk from the station through one of the more built-up sections of the city. Multi-story apartment complexes nestled next to coin laundromats and convenience stores; family restaurants sat across the streets from bathhouses, gas stations, massage parlors, and pawnshops. The streets were busy with people going about their days; businessmen heading to work, people walking their dogs or mothers pushing young children in strollers, even the occasional gangster-looking person in a cheap suit, though luckily no-one from that last group took any notice of me. It wasn't a bad area, exactly; it wasn't like there were broken windows that still hadn't been fixed from the latest villain attack, or delinquents openly flashing their quirks on street corners to intimidate passers-by. It was just kinda seedy. Still, I did my best to avoid looking around too curiously, afraid of what might happen if I stuck out like a sore thumb even more than I already did with my UA uniform and giant briefcase, and it was with some relief that I finally arrived at the Agency proper.

The Agency was located in a fairly unassuming-looking three-story brick building, barely standing out from the bookstore and the pet supply shop on either side. It even had a storefront on the first floor, with giant windows that allowed passers-by to look in and see that the ground level was dominated by a spacious-looking dojo and gym. Down to the cheap flyers advertising classes in the windows, it looked… honestly, kind of like an ordinary business. The only thing differentiating it visually from a cheap martial arts studio was the sign over the door proclaiming "Cyberpunch Hero Agency - Investigations and Martial Arts Training."

Taking a deep breath, I steeled myself and reached for the handle of the large glass doors, ready to make my formal introductions. Should I bow? Would that be cringy? Maybe just a handshake? Or would that look too cocky? Wait, what was I getting nervous for? It's not like I needed to make a first impression, she already saw me in my pajamas - no, not like that! Bad brain! Never mind, better just to get it over with, so I'm not just standing outside with my hand on the door like a spaz! With one more deep breath, I pulled the handle… and felt the familiar ka-clunk of a locked door. Surprised, I pulled again. Yup, that was a locked door alright. "... I guess it's a good thing I have her number?" I muttered under my breath.

I sent a text to Cyberpunch letting her know the situation, and a minute or so later got a response. "Sorry, I should have mentioned - the agency entrance is around the back," it said. "Come on up!"

Cutting around back through the parking lot, I soon saw a much more nondescript entrance, this one a single door with a window in the center rather than the double full glass doors in front. It had a sign for Cyberpunch Hero Agency as well, but much more unobtrusively placed. True to Cyberpunch's text message, the door opened easily, revealing a sparsely decorated stairwell. The door on the other side of the first floor seemed to lead to some sort of locker room area, while a paper sign taped to the wall read "Investigations", and had an arrow pointing up the painted metal stairs to a solid-looking security door. As I reached the top of the stairs, I saw that there was a weird-looking doorbell contraption mounted next to the door with a visible fisheye camera. My nervous jitters from the front door returned in full force as I pressed the button.

"Just a sec!" Cyberpunch's voice crackled out of a speaker in the doorbell, followed by a buzzing electrical hum and the sound of a disengaging lock. I pulled the door open, and took my first steps into the Cyberpunch agency proper. Honestly… it was a surprisingly normal-looking office. I didn't know what I'd been expecting, maybe a bustling open room with a bunch of high tech crime-fighting equipment lying around and a big wall of computer monitors watching the city or something? Instead, what I saw was a room with a couple of desks in it, paperwork piled high in various inboxes and outboxes. Rather than a wall of computer screens, one wall of the office was covered with a large corkboard that had photos and pieces of paper pinned to it. Instead of high tech crime-fighting equipment, I saw filing cabinets and a water cooler, with a few potted plants in sunnier spots both livening up and emphasizing the mundanity.

As I rounded the corner, I saw Cyberpunch herself leaning up against a wall; she, at least, looked heroic at first glance. Even in this officelike environment, there was something ineffably but indelibly costume-like about the black suit pants, black vest, white dress shirt, and bright red tie she wore. Possibly it was the black leather gloves she wore over her hands, the mirrored shades perched on her forehead, or the spiky silvered arm that her shirt was missing a sleeve to accommodate. It wasn't until I noticed that her begloved hands were desperately clutching a mug of coffee, as well as the clear expression of fatigue on her face, that the illusion broke. "Uh, hi," I found myself saying. "I mean, 108 Stars Hero: Myriad, reporting...?"

Cyberpunch snorted with amusement. "Hey, kid." She smiled at me tiredly, then nodded at the desk set up near the wall opposite the one she was leaning on. "Welcome to the agency. You can drop your stuff off at that desk for now." Between the bags under her clear grey eyes and the fact that it looked like she had only halfheartedly brushed her knee-length straight black hair, it was clear that she had only recently woken up.

"Uh, sure." I said awkwardly, doing my best not to wince too visibly at my flubbed introduction. The desk she indicated was already set up, with pens sticking out of a cup on one corner, papers still in a few of the trays on its surface, and flowery stickers stuck on the edges of the computer monitor, but I suppressed the feeling that I was intruding on someone else's space and did my best to set the briefcase containing my costume up against the wall where it wouldn't get in anyone's way.

Cyberpunch raised her mug in my direction. "It's going to take a minute for this to finish kicking in," she said, taking a sip for emphasis, "so why don't I give you the hundred yen tour to start off before we get into the serious stuff?"

"That sounds good," I said, my nerves slowly starting to ease. "Late night chasing villains?" I asked tentatively.

Cyberpunch spluttered on her coffee. "Uh. Well, something like that," she said. She muttered something under her breath, her face sinking into a glower, but as I hurriedly switched to Jiro's Earphone quirk I only caught the tail end of what she was saying, something like "...courtesy to actually show up." Maybe she had been on a stakeout? "Anyway, this is the office." Shaking her head to clear out her bad mood, she led me down the hall the way I'd come from. Following her, I saw a pair of doors that I'd walked past without noticing earlier. "On the left is the restroom, the right is the conference room - well, I suppose you could call it that, but it gets used for interviews, as a spare desk area for visiting heroes, whatever I need space for, basically." She opened the door, revealing a somewhat cramped-looking room with a table and chairs for six people or so. "Lucky for you, Meguri isn't here, so you don't have to work from in here to have desk space."

"Meguri?" I asked quizzically.

"Shiromeguri Meguri," she said, "also known as Miss Clue. She's one of your senpai from UA. I've been training her up with an eye towards hiring her on and expanding the agency a bit. You won't see her until this evening, she comes in and helps out with martial arts lessons. Luckily for you, UA's third-years don't take their internships at the same time as the first-years." Then, muttering into her coffee, she added "also, some cheeky brat is trying to steal my intern, so Meguri's going somewhere else for this year's spring internship." My eyebrows rose. "But anyways!" Cyberpunch said, pulling her face back out of her mug and turning back towards the other half of the office. "Across the hall from the office," she said, waving off to our left, "is where the kitchen is. Also the coffee maker," she added, taking another sip of her own coffee for emphasis. "Further down are the Shielded Storage Room and the stairs up to my apartment, but you don't really need to mess with either of those at the moment.

The expectant look on her face made it obvious that she was hoping I would ask, so I went ahead and indulged her. "Shielded Storage Room?" I asked.

Cyberpunch smirked. "It's where I put items related to important cases in case I need to check them again. There's a Faraday cage around the outside of it to keep electromagnetic radiation from getting in and eroding the telepathic impressions."

Okay, I wasn't going to lie. That was kinda cool. "I didn't realize that was a thing that could happen," I said.

"Yup. It can be a real pain in the ass on some cases, too." Cyberpunch said. "Anyway, that's pretty much all there is up here. We'll take a look at the dojo a little later. Like I said, the restroom's back there if you need to freshen up, there's coffee and donuts in the kitchen if you want either - oh, and a kettle if you want some tea, though all I have are cheap tea bags. Get yourself settled in, and we'll get started."

"Sounds good," I said. "Um, should I put my costume on, just in case we have to rush out in a hurry or something?"

"You don't have your Provisional License yet, so if there's something that comes up where I have to rush out in a hurry, you're staying here," Cyberpunch said sternly. "But sure, go ahead and put your suit on. Personally, I spend so much time in my costume that I get excited about chances to wear almost anything else, so if you wanted to hang out here in your school uniform I'd be fine with it, but you do you."

Despite her saying it was optional, I decided to go ahead and get changed anyways, taking my briefcase with me into the bathroom for privacy. The bathroom was clean, and reasonably large; there was a shower stall in one corner, probably so that people could wash up after patrols and so on, and the mirror had a row of extra-bright lights over it which I was pretty sure was to help with touching up makeup. Given that Cyberpunch was still waiting for caffeine to kick in, I didn't bother to change quickly, taking the few extra seconds to fold my school uniform as I put it in the empty briefcase in the hopes that it wouldn't be too terribly wrinkled when I had to change to go back home. I couldn't help but look at myself in the mirror before I left. Compared to when I had first worn the costume, I was definitely looking more muscular, but despite the fact that I was filling the bodystocking out impressively I couldn't help but think that the whole thing looked a little plain. It was a costume that didn't need changing for the name 108Man, but if I was going to go by Myriad it definitely needed an update.

Shaking my head at my wandering train of thought, I dropped the briefcase with my uniform back at my borrowed desk and made a beeline for the kitchen, grabbing a mug of coffee and reaching into the box with a cartoony logo of Shishida the Lion Hero on the top to snag a pair of donuts for good measure. With caffeination and sugar acquired, I sat in the swivel office chair and turned to look at the patiently waiting Cyberpunch, who had taken a seat on a clear section of her desk.

"Okay, so. First things first," Cyberpunch said. "Let's start with some ground level expectations. I know I promised you the opportunity to get involved with a certain case if you impressed me enough." Here it was. I couldn't help but hold my breath in nervous anticipation. "That's still the case. But, I've also made promises to UA that I'm going to do a good job with your internship, and teach you about being a hero." She looked at me seriously, her morning fatigue seemingly forgotten. "So keep in mind, you're here to learn, not just to get revenge. Do you think you can do that?"

I suddenly realized that my hands were clenched into fists at my sides. I took a deep breath and consciously relaxed them, stretching my fingers out. "Yeah. I can do that," I said, doing my best to keep my voice even.

"Good." Cyberpunch smiled suddenly, the seriousness draining out of her face, and picked her coffee mug back up to take a sip. "Mmm. Other than that… oh, I'm not really one for formalities, so while we're here in the office, you can just call me Hiratsuka-san or Shizuka-san, whichever you're more comfortable with. In the field, though, definitely use my hero name, and in the dojo it's sensei."

"Uh, sure, that's fine," I said. "Whatever you want."

Hiratsuka chuckled and set her mug down next to where she was sitting on top of the desk. "Great. So, Hikigaya-kun. What do you think the difference is between a Villain and a Criminal?"

I blinked. "Uh… the legal definition is that a Criminal is someone who breaks the law, whereas a Villain is someone who uses their Quirk to break the law, at least according to Hero Studies class."

"And is that where you think the difference is as well?" Hiratsuka asked, raising one eyebrow.

"I mean…" I trailed off as I thought about the question. "If you're asking about, like, the origins and meanings of the words, then… I guess, Villains are more… evil?"

Hiratsuka nodded impassively. "So, let's say that you and I are both criminals, we both break the law - say we both grab something from a convenience store and run away without paying. Your quirk is low-profile, so unless you do something incredibly obvious to show that you're using your quirk, when the police catch you you're charged with a misdemeanor and get a fine and community service. I, on the other hand, am an obvious heteromorph," she says, pulling off her glove to wiggle shining chrome fingers for emphasis, "and can't help but run faster than an unenhanced human. When the police catch me for the exact same crime, I'm charged with miscellaneous villainy, and get six months in prison. Am I more 'evil' than you are?"

"Um… no?" I blinked a couple of times. What the hell was with this line of questioning all of a sudden? "I mean… I don't think so? We both did the exact same thing, right?"

"But shouldn't people with more power be held to higher standards?" Hiratsuka asked. "You could argue that I knew I was faster than the average person, and so took advantage of my natural gifts to try to get away. Isn't that a case of the strong bullying the weak?"

"I mean, I guess so, but…" I started, but suddenly Hiratsuka cracked a smile.

"Relax, Hikigaya-kun. I don't agree with that particular line of argument, either," she said. "There's some truth to it, but personally I think it gets misused to - well, I'll spare you the political diatribes this early in the morning, but long story short I think it's an argument that's used poorly more often than it's used well." She picked up her cup of coffee to take another sip, seemingly searching for her train of thought. "The point is, for a lot of more traditional Hero Agencies, the Villains that they fight are more commonly Villains in your original sense of the definition. Criminals with strong quirks, who the Police aren't necessarily equipped to handle. The Villains that I deal with... tend to be Villains in the original sense of the word."

Again, I felt my blood heating, my hands clenching into fists unbidden. "That makes sense," I said hoarsely.

"The average Quirk-using criminal," Hiratsuka said, letting my interjection go without comment for now, "that most Heroes deal with on a daily basis, tends to be, well… how do I put it? Someone who's looking for a fight. They want a showdown, the ability to prove that they're superior to society or to a particular hero. In other words, most of them do it out of some sort of combination of narcissism and shitty impulse control." Hiratsuka smirked. "To deal with Villains like that, you need someone visible to the point of being famous to draw their heat away from ordinary people, ideally someone good enough at kicking ass that when a Villain comes to challenge them that they win. Sound like your average hero to you?"

I nodded. "Yeah, I guess. So… you're different, somehow, is what you're saying?"

Hiratsuka waved her hand in a 'so-so' motion. "Less me, and more the Villains I go after. Just like there are Villains out there who define 'victory' as 'beating heroes in a fight', there are also Villains out there who define 'victory' as 'getting away with crimes without getting caught'." She paused for a second. "On one side of the scale, you have your 'trickster' villains, the ones who do dumb shit like declare their bank heists in advance so that they can steal things out from under the police's noses. On the other side… you have serial killers." She paused yet again, eyeing me sternly. "Which you are not getting even slightly involved with before you have at least your provisional license at a bare minimum, so don't even think about it."

"What kind of suicidal idiot do you think I am?" I complained. Seriously, what had I done to make her think I was some sort of risk-taking moron like Bakugo?

"The kind who gets himself blown up on national television because he thought he had something to prove?" Hiratsuka replied archly.

Oh. "Hey, that was - I had a defense quirk up," I sputtered.

"Uh huh." Hiratsuka said flatly. "Anyway, as long as we're settling ground rules and expectations. You don't have your license, and I don't want to lose mine. Every time you so much as use your quirk during anything we do 'in the field' together, I have to fill out paperwork. I hate paperwork. If I have to fill out extra paperwork because you used your quirk without permission or, god help you, you got into a fight with a Villain, I am going to kick your ass all the way around the god damn block, is that clear?"

As I stare, I was beginning to get the idea that I hadn't necessarily made the best of first impressions on my new mentor. "Yes ma'am!" I said, flinching back from her burning gaze.

Hiratsuka snorted. "Good." Then, as suddenly as it had arrived, her threatening demeanor vanished, once again replaced by a smiling face. The sudden switch was, if anything, scarier than the actual glaring had been. "Now, where was I? Oh, right. So, Investigative Heroes face off against Villains who want to stay hidden. The thing is, the Police also face off against Villains who want to stay hidden. Can you see the potential complications?"

"Um, you have to compete with the Police for cases?" I said tentatively.

"Right," Hiratsuka said. "Normal heroes get called in as muscle at the end of investigations, once the police have solved a case and are just looking to make the arrest, while an Investigative Hero actually tries to assist the investigation at the beginning or middle… but in order to get brought in to participate in the investigation, you need to maintain good relationships with the Police. Which also means that sometimes when the local district has a murder on their hands but can't find their own ass with both hands and a map, you have to play nice and pretend that the case was cracked with a 'joint effort' between you and the police." Growling, Hiratsuka picked up her mug to take another sip of her coffee. "Other times, it means that when the Chief's son thinks Heteromorph girls look "exotic" and won't stop hitting on you, but you can't just rearrange his teeth." Actually, isn't that a crime? I'm pretty sure you can't do that anyway, right? As I looked at her dubiously, Hiratsuka sighed ruefully. "It also means that sometimes you get asked for help on the really tough cases, where there just isn't enough evidence to track down the killer, and you're stuck waiting for a serial killer to hit their next target, knowing that every time they get away with it your Hero Ranking is going to get dinged, money's coming out of your paycheck, and then you're beating yourself up over the fact about the fact that you're worrying about not making rent instead of worrying about the fact that someone else is about to die."

"I… see," I said, my eyebrows raising involuntarily. Playing politics with the police for media exposure sounded tedious at worst, and in order for me to be sexually harassed by a police chief's relative someone would have to find me sexually attractive first, but I could all too easily picture the guilt that an open case could cause.

At my slightly intimidated expression, Hiratsuka blinked, then coughed bashfully. "Uh, anyways. The point that I'm trying to make is, being an Investigative Hero is hard. A lot of times you're working cases instead of patrolling the street, so it's harder to stay visible and in the public eye; you have to share credit for a lot of your cases, a lot of the usual corporate sponsors don't really want to get involved with someone who works on dirty investigations with risks of failure… I'll be honest, if I wasn't young and beautiful, I don't think my Hero Ranking would be anywhere near as high as it is."

Oi, is that really the sort of thing you should be saying about yourself? "I don't really care that much about my Hero Ranking," I said. At the hint of exasperation I immediately saw on Hiratsuka's face, I realized my mistake and hurriedly continued, "I mean, even before… the USJ happened, being famous and stuff wasn't really my priority." Okay, I wasn't going to lie to myself, even if I was stretching the truth a little here. The benefits of being rich and famous had in fact crossed my mind once or twice. But if anything, I had wanted to be a hero for the simple reason that I wanted to prove that I was better than society thought I was. The fact that Hiratsuka had described the same thought process as being common to Villains probably should have come as more of a surprise.

Luckily, Hiratsuka didn't ask me to elaborate. "Well, if you're thinking about a career as an Investigative Hero, you're in the right place," she said instead. "And even if you're not, a lot of heroes wind up attached to investigations occasionally during the course of their careers, so learning what you can from here is definitely only going to help you."

"I have." I said. "Thought about it, I mean." Mostly in the context of coming up with plausible-sounding excuses to my teachers as to why I wasn't taking the offer from Crust, but even they had to admit that given my quirk and my limits, it was a viable career option.

Hiratsuka smiled. "That's good to hear. Hopefully you still think that way after the week is over," she said, before suddenly pushing up off the desk and standing. "Anyway, now that you have a better idea of what an Investigative Hero's role is, we should talk about what the actual work looks like… but we don't necessarily have to do that here, do we?" She tugged her glove back on, slid her mirrorshades back down over her eyes, and reached out to grab her white trench coat. "Come on," she said. "Let's go for a walk."

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Walking through the streets of Chiba was an entirely different experience with a Pro Hero walking next to me. I never really noticed the anonymity a crowd provided until it was suddenly absent. The effect was subtle, for the most part; most passers-by were cosmopolitan enough that they didn't visibly double-take as Cyberpunch and I walked past them. But all of them noticed us, long enough to look at us for at least a few seconds. It kind of made my skin crawl. More evident, and a little bit amusing, were the occasional tough-looking guys in cheap suits, who did their best to sidle out of our walking path or otherwise gave us wide berths. They did their best to pretend they didn't notice us at all, but after we passed them I could practically feel their eyes boring holes into my back.

"You might be surprised to hear that I don't actually go on patrol too often," Cyberpunch said, apparently totally used to the way people reacted to her.

"Really?" I asked. "Is that another Investigative Hero versus, uh… regular Hero thing?"

She nodded. "By definition, the types of Villains I usually target aren't generally just running around obviously breaking the law in public," she said. "So there are usually better uses of my time. Patrolling is a good fall-back for when things are quiet, though, or for when there's been some unrest recently and people need to be reassured." She paused for a second, adding "or when I just want to get out of the office and stretch my legs, like now. This doesn't quite qualify as a true patrol, though - if I were patrolling seriously I'd have brought my radio so I could listen to the police scanners while I moved around."

"That makes sense," I said. Suddenly, a thought crossed my mind. "Um, am I going to be keeping you from doing important stuff this week? Like you said, I don't have my provisional license or anything…"

"I wouldn't have offered you an internship if I wasn't ready for it, kid," Cyberpunch said dismissively but not unkindly. "There are one or two things I'm moving around, but other than that it's not really a factor. Besides, going out together like this lets me show you the ropes before we go out on patrol for real. What do you already know about how to look out for trouble on the streets?"

"Uh… not a lot," I said. "We haven't exactly covered that in school yet."

"Right, no, you wouldn't have," Cyberpunch said thoughtfully. "Okay, so. Generally, when a hero sets out a patrol, we tend to try to route it through known 'hot spots' or trouble areas where there's a lot of crime. Partially, you can identify those ahead of time by looking at arrest records and so on, but the problem is that areas can change over time. I personally like to structure my patrols around gang turf."

Idly, I contemplated the fact that she was implying that she went into gang territory on purpose, which frankly sounded like a pretty terrible idea to me still, but I guessed maybe when you were a full-fledged hero that sort of thing stopped bothering you. "Because that's where the troublemakers hang out?" I asked.

Cyberpunch snorted in amusement. "Sure, that's a big part of it," she said. "But it's also the fact that right now, organized crime has receded into the background of the criminal ecosystem. You see, none of the full-blooded Yakuza want to tangle with Heroes, so they've moved into the 'grey-market crime' industry," she said, making air quotes with her gloved fingers. "Gambling, prostitution, fraud, tax evasion, loan sharking; basically the nonviolent stuff, the stuff that's easier to hide."

"The stuff that needs an Investigative Hero to deal with, you mean?" I asked.

Cyberpunch nodded, smiling. "See, look here," she said, pointing at a piece of graffiti - a spray-painted wisp of black flame surrounding "B" and a "D" in Romaji. "If we were on a real patrol, and kept heading that way, we'd be heading into Black Dragon territory," she said, frowning slightly. "They used to be a pretty harmless group of high school delinquents on bikes, but recently they've been expanding dramatically and acting more aggressively. I'm pretty sure that one of the local Yakuza groups is bankrolling them in exchange for getting a deniable asset, one that's not afraid to act violently. Part of that fearlessness is because teenagers are idiots," she said with a sly grin in my direction, "but there's also the fact that juvenile offenders tend to catch a break when it comes to Villainy charges."

We kept walking, moving on past the gang-tagged area. Part of me was relieved that we wouldn't be wandering into a biker gang's turf and provoking them (at least not yet, anyway - she did say something about going on a patrol together later, which was an increasingly alarming proposition) but more than that, I was overwhelmed. Up until now, I'd only ever thought of the 'criminal underworld' as something that existed on television, or in a manga. But now, with just a few sentences, Cyberpunch had brought that world to life in my mind's eye. I was about the furthest thing you could find from a delinquent - but somehow, the thought of a bunch of hardened criminals using kids my age as pawns managed to offend me on a personal level anyways. "You're doing something about it, right?" I asked her.

"What I can," Cyberpunch said ruefully. There was a sudden lull in the conversation, as I waited for her to explain in a little more detail. Even with her mirrorshades on, I could see from her face that it wasn't exactly an easy subject to talk about - or maybe she was just looking for a good place to start. When she next spoke again, though, it wasn't to volunteer information. "We should turn here," she said, motioning down a street to our right.

Just as I was about to get fed up with her lack of response and say something, we passed a bar that was in the middle of unloading bottles of beer and sake from a small truck. The young man doing the unloading looked to be a few years older than I was, and had a shoulder-length canopy of two-toned leaves sprouting from his skull in place of hair. His arms and legs had an outer appearance of vine-like stems, but looking at them I could easily tell that there had to be muscle underneath - even concealed by the bar's black uniform, his physique was too well-toned for those bulges in his sleeves to have come from anything else. His face lit up as we approached. "Shishou, what brings you by?" He asked, smiling at Cyberpunch.

"Oh, not much," she said. "I was in the area and thought I would introduce you to my new intern."

Startled at being suddenly put on the spot, I managed to stutter, "Uh, hi. Um, Hikigaya Hachiman - that is, Pro Hero in training Myriad, nice to meet you."

"Izawa Masaki," The young man said, extending a hand in my direction. I reached out and took it, of course - I didn't get into UA by not taking any and every excuse I got to poke people I met for their powers. As expected, though, he was a heteromorph, without anything identifiable in the way of quirks that I could actually use. "Nice to meet you," he said. When we shook he put some strength into it, as if trying to test me out; used to Bakugo making literally everything a contest, I instinctively did the same. The too-tight handshake lasted for a few seconds, during which Masaki looked me up and down, before he backed off, satisfied. "Not bad. You're in good hands with Cyberpunch-shishou," he said, a confident smirk on his face. "She knows her stuff."

"You're welcome to stop back at the dojo if you ever think you need a refresher, Masaki-kun," Cyberpunch said. "Don't be a stranger."

Masaki's smile got warmer. "Thanks," he said. "I will."

Cyberpunch started walking again, tossing a casual wave over her shoulder to Masaki as we left him to his unloading. Once we got out of earshot, she finally spoke up. "At the end of the day, gangs are just places for kids with nowhere else to go," she said solemnly. "Heteromorphs who're discriminated against for their quirks, kids from broken homes, even just kids who are sick of being bullied - like it or not, for a lot of kids like that, the gangs are all they have. If I or the police took down the Black Dragon gang tomorrow, by the day after the Tokyo Manji gang would be spraying over their tags to fill the vacuum, scooping up any of the kids we didn't arrest or couldn't prosecute." The corner of her mouth curled up wryly. "Even for Pro Heroes, there are some problems that you can't just solve by punching them until they go away."

That wasn't exactly a surprise to me, but I was a little bit surprised to hear an actual Pro Hero saying it. "I see," I said to show I was listening.

"What you can do is give those kids a place to go," Cyberpunch said. "You can find a way to give them confidence, give them the ability to protect themselves without relying on the gangs. Give them someone to look up to - not that traditional heroes like All Might don't do great jobs of things like that, but some kids need a hero more like them, someone who they feel like they might be able to reach."

"So you started a dojo," I asserted, many things suddenly making a lot more sense to me.

Cyberpunch smiled. "So I started a dojo." After another second or two, she looked back over her shoulder with a smile. "Masaki-kun's one of my graduates. He used to be just a punk kid who liked to fight; now he's a punk kid who gets paid to fight." At my look of incomprehension, she smirked. "He's a professional mixed martial artist now - working at the bar's just a side gig."

Or, phrased another way, fighting on its own without the celebrity status of a Professional Hero attached didn't make enough to pay the bills. Still, it was probably a better option for a violent delinquent than prison. "That's cool," I said, impressed despite her student's clear lack of financial success. Especially since Masaki's quirk had been nothing special - mild Plant or Tree-like alterations to his skin, muscle, and hair, with no transformation or emitter components. If he was a professional mixed martial artist with a quirk like that, it meant that he'd picked up some serious skill from somewhere. I eyed Cyberpunch greedily. "Is mixed martial arts what your dojo teaches?"

Cyberpunch waved her hand back and forth in the air. "Sort of. Traditional martial arts don't do much good when you're fighting someone whose quirk makes them four times your weight, or gives them super strength, and so on, you know?" She asked rhetorically, her eyes sparkling with pride. "My primary style is called Mandalore, and while it does borrow from mixed martial arts it also steals a lot of dirty tricks from Systema and some passive force redirection from Aikido."

I didn't know nearly enough about martial arts to have any basis for comparison, but that certainly sounded like it would be handy. Maybe some heroes had the luxury of winning without using dirty tricks, but I wasn't one of them. "Sounds useful," I said.

"Oh, it is," Cyberpunch said, puffing herself up a little with pride. "Masaki had to unlearn a few things when he went pro, though. Mandalore's a little bit too vicious for sport fighting. I don't usually teach anybody but the advanced classes all of the really nasty moves, of course, but since you're a Pro Hero in training I figure I can probably make an exception for you." She grinned at me savagely.

While I had to admit that learning martial arts made sense - I'd seen the gap between my hand-to-hand skills and Yukinoshita's, among other peoples' - I wouldn't exactly have called myself a martial arts aficionado. Seeing Cyberpunch's pride and excitement, I could tell that she was expecting me to act like one anyway. I winced in anticipation at all of the bruises that I was almost certainly going to collect. Of all the weeks to not be able to use Regeneration. "I can't wait," I made myself say with mock enthusiasm.

"We've got a ways to go before classes start this afternoon," Cyberpunch said. "For now, we should get back to the office. It's time you learned how to investigate a case."

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"You know, when you said you were going to give me an opportunity to help with the Nomu case, this wasn't exactly what I was anticipating." Cyberpunch had been true to her word. After we got back to her office, she had gone through the process of setting me up with a guest account on the National Police Agency's databases. Of course, it wasn't as simple as just getting a login and a password; I had to sign official paperwork stating that I wouldn't misuse the tool, watch an hour and a half of mind-numbing training videos designed for people who had no idea how to use a computer, and once I did log in I could tell that a lot of the tool's functionality was being restricted. What I did have access to, however, was more than enough. I had a list of every quirk in the entire nation of Japan, and some basic information like the name, age, and mailing address of each quirk's owner. In short, it was a quirk copier's wet dream - although there was no way I could risk misusing it for my own personal gain, since my activity on the database was almost certainly being tracked. Still, it was impressive as hell, and I was even looking forward to poking around in it.

Unfortunately, Cyberpunch didn't know that. "Don't complain," she snapped. "Do you know what the difference is between ill-advised personal vendettas against crime lords and boring police work like this?" She asked sarcastically. "Boring police work actually gets shit done."

"No, I wasn't-" I stammered, my eyes going wide at Cyberpunch's sudden vehemence. "I just didn't think you would let me get access to something like this, I thought it was cool!"

Cyberpunch looked at me closely for a second, her dark brown eyes scrutinizing me over the rim of her mirrorshades, before she sighed and pushed them back up onto her forehead. "Oh," Hiratsuka said with a sheepish laugh. "Never mind, never mind. Yeah, if anybody asks, technically you're a "civilian expert" who I've asked for assistance with the investigation. The paperwork is meant for quirk counselors and so on, not high school interns, but nobody bothers checking things like that, right? Anyways, are you clear on what I want you to do here?"

"Go through the database for the other quirks that the Nomu had, and try to find people whose quirks could be a close enough match," I parroted, eyeing her nervously in case she started shouting again.

"Good." Hiratsuka sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose tiredly. "Make a list of possible matches, and once you have a good selection, you can cross-reference the names against the national list of missing persons."

I frowned. "Wouldn't it save time to take the list of missing people and cross-reference it against the big database, so that we're only searching through the quirks of people who are missing?"

"Yes, yes it would," Hiratsuka said dryly. "Unfortunately, the database of missing people belongs to a completely different agency with a completely different database from the Master Quirk Repository, and there's apparently 'too much red tape' involved to get the two systems talking to each other." The amount of sarcasm that woman's fingers could pack into a set of air quotes was nothing if not impressive.

"Oh good," I said, my tone of voice equally arid. "Well as long as there's an important reason like red tape."

"Welcome to the exciting world of investigative heroism," Hiratsuka said consolingly, clapping me on the shoulder.

And then there I was. Left alone with a government database, tens of millions of quirks at my virtual fingertips. As I started poking around, I slowly realized that Hiratsuka had given me a much more challenging task than I initially anticipated. "Um, Hiratsuka-san?" I asked, pulling my gaze away from the computer. "All of these quirks are labeled by the name on their official paperwork. Is it just me, or could, say, the Adrenaline quirk that the Nomu had also be called something like 'Bullet Time', or 'Slo-mo Mode', or something else entirely?"

Hiratsuka laughed, not unkindly. "Noticed that, did you?"

"Great," I said in disgust. "So, how the heck do you actually find anything in this database?"

"Beats me," Hiratsuka said cheerfully. As I turned to stare at her in horror, she burst out laughing. "I'm kidding, I'm kidding. You should see your face, though!"

I rolled my eyes. "So how do you actually do it?" I asked.

"There's a trick to it," Hiratsuka said, "but you'll learn more if you figure it out for yourself. Give it a try, and if you still haven't figured it out by, say, lunchtime, I'll give you a hand."

Being unceremoniously thrown into the deep end, without so much as a clue as to what the right way to do something was? It was like I never left school. Were all Pro Heroes addicted to watching their students suffer? Sighing, I got to work. At first glance, the task was so overwhelming that I didn't know where to start. There had to be a way to search the database in a meaningful fashion, but despite the fact that I'd watched over an hour of training videos, I still had no idea what I was doing. So what if I started from something I did know well? My eyes narrowing, I put my own name into the search bar and hit enter.

As expected, my "108 Skills" popped up in the results. I clicked on it and saw a familiar description pop up; the language used to describe it seemed like it came directly from the official quirk paperwork that my parents filed when I was a kid, right down to the lie that my copies required skin contact. That was good to know - I would have to include near-matches, too, because there was always the chance that whatever Quirk Counselor filled out the paperwork for their quirk didn't get it quite right. For all that he had been a lazy ass who would rather give me fake consolations than actually help me find a way to improve my quirk, Dr. Kobayakawa had known his stuff when it came to quirks, and even he had said at one point that he didn't get quirk classifications right every time. Luckily, the official description wasn't all that the repository entry had. There was a section for medical notes, which in my case had Recovery Girl's notes on potential health complications my quirk could cause (potential scarcity of macronutrients, blood testing recommended in case of emergency) as well as a list of metadata tags. The tags immediately caught my attention. I was tagged as "Quirk Copier", "Emitter", "Semi-Permanent Duration," "Weak effect," and "Multiple Quirk Expressions."

Clearly, the tags were how this database was actually meant to be searched. It was also good to note that this quirk paperwork wasn't exactly an accurate representation of what I could actually do - someone building a dossier on me today would probably make lists of the quirks I had, or mention that I could 'overcharge' those quirks, but since I hadn't talked to a quirk counselor since middle school, nobody had bothered to update the repository.

Now I just had to figure out a good list of tags for each quirk, check the results one by one, and then start building the list of names…

By the time lunch rolled around, I had figured out what I was doing well enough to make a start of things. Hiratsuka ordered in some sandwiches, and I ate while I worked. As the afternoon stretched on, I finished building my lists of missing people and started checking their names one by one on the missing persons registry. It was dull, tedious work, involving a lot of precision typing to make sure that names were spelled exactly correctly and a lot of tedium as potential candidate after potential candidate turned out to not be on the missing persons list. I started to feel myself flag, but kept plugging away at the list through a combination of grim determination and the Willpower quirk. It wasn't just that I wanted to show my worth; making sure Hiratsuka knew I was a hard worker was important, but it paled before the knowledge that I only had a week before I would be back at UA. If I was going to make any difference at all with the Nomu case, it had to be now.

So it was with some surprise that as the afternoon pushed close to the early evening, I suddenly heard the door open and close. "Yahello, Shizuka-sensei!" A female voice called.

"Shit," Hiratsuka said, starting upright from her focused reading of some sort of case files. "I didn't realize how late it was. In here, Meguri-chan!" She shouted back. "Come meet your new junior!"

From around the corner to the office appeared an older girl wearing UA's school uniform, her curly brown hair tied into messy twin braids. I vaguely recognized her from watching the third-year Sports Festival, but I hadn't gotten a great sense of what her quirk was at the time. As she turned to look at me, I noticed that the irises of her eyes were a clear grey, and perfectly square rather than the usual circular shape. "Ah, Hikigaya-kun?" the girl said, leaning over my desk until her face was just a few inches from my own. I couldn't help but draw back slightly. "It was Hikigaya-kun, right? Shizuka-sensei mentioned you would be starting this week!" Her voice had so much energy and enthusiasm the best way I could describe it was chirpy, her words flying out almost as fast as Tobe's when he really got going. "I'm Shiromeguri Meguri, hero name Miss Clue, nice to meet you!"

"Nice to meet you," I said, standing up reflexively to try to shake hands with her.

Unfortunately, by the time I managed to react to her energetic introduction, Shiromeguri had already stepped back and was halfway down the hall. "I'll be back in just a minute," Shiromeguri said, hoisting her backpack slightly. "I need to get changed for class!"

"Go ahead, Meguri-chan," Hiratsuka said. "I might need you to take over warm-ups today, if that's all right."

"Sure thing!" Meguri said cheerfully.

"How are those names coming along, Hikigaya?" Hiratsuka asked, turning in my direction.

"Um… I found a few potential matches," I said, showing her my list. After five or six hours, all I had was a bare handful of names to show for my efforts, but the fact that I at least had something should keep her from being too upset with me, right?

Her eyebrows raised. "Wait, really?" She asked. "That was fast. I thought it was going to take you a few days at least. Good work."

As much as I wanted to feel smug at the praise, I couldn't help but feel uneasy. "Um, most of them aren't perfect matches, though," I said cautiously. "Um, I kind of had to make allowances for stuff like, 'what if the quirk counselor who filed the paperwork messed up' and 'what if their quirk got stronger over time and it wasn't very obvious when they were a kid', that sort of thing. I put down all of my explanations and stuff next to each person's name."

"Well damn, there goes my plan," Hiratsuka mumbled, reading my list. "I was going to have you go back and do that if you didn't find anything the first time, but okay, guess I didn't need to."

I couldn't help but scowl. Being left on my own to train was one thing, but wasn't she taking it too far? "You were just going to let me waste time? I thought this was an important investigation."

Her cool grey eyes narrowed at me. "It's because this is an important investigation that I was going to let you learn," Hiratsuka said. "There's an entire task force of the National Police Agency working on this. The investigation is going to go on for months, if not years." I grit my teeth in frustration, but I could tell - she was only being honest. "In circumstances like these, taking some time to train you so that you can contribute meaningfully isn't a waste at all."

Grudgingly, I nodded. "Sorry," I said. "It's just -"

"I know," Hiratsuka said sympathetically, "I get it. You want to be actually useful. Believe it or not, though, something as simple as this might be more helpful than you'd expect. For example - even though I might know how to check the master quirk database, it's not exactly something I do often." I must have looked surprised, because she grinned. "I'm an object reader, not a quirk copier, remember?"

"Oh. Right," I said sheepishly.

She shrugged. "For all I knew, you were going to find a bunch of exact matches, and I wouldn't even need to give you advice. Or it would take you a bunch of time and you wouldn't get anywhere, but at least you'd be crossing off a potential avenue of investigation as a dead end." After a few seconds of silence, during which I intensely regretted ever having opened my mouth in the first place, Hiratsuka gave me a reassuring smile. "Listen, since you got lucky today and actually came up with some results, I'll see about getting you something a little more concrete to do for tomorrow." Before I could ask her what she meant, she clapped her hands once, as if to change the subject. "Anyways, class is starting soon, but I promised UA I would remember to feed you," she said.

My stomach rumbled. I probably should have eaten already, but I'd been too focused on generating that list of names to think of it. "That's okay," I said to Hiratsuka. "I brought some protein bars and stuff for when I needed it."

Hiratsuka raised an eyebrow. "If you want," she said dubiously, "but I'm hungry, and I need a snack before I teach, so you'd prefer something hot, I'm offering."

Far be it from me to turn down free food. "Sure," I said.

"Alright, let's see…" Hiratsuka stood and wandered into the kitchen, and I followed. As she reached over the counter next to the sink and opened a cupboard, she asked, "what's your favorite flavor of cup ramen? I've got seafood, curry, chili tomato, soy sauce…"

An entire cupboard of just ramen? I thought Pro Heroes were supposed to care about nutrition! I was torn between being disdainful, and suddenly, ravenously hungry. I hadn't had ramen, instant or real, since I'd started my "hero diet" - or since I'd started recovering from it, for that matter. "...Curry," I said, doing my best to keep my complicated emotions from showing on my face.

Hiratsuka saw through me anyways and laughed in embarrassment, lobbing a curry-flavored package of ramen in a styrofoam cup at me underhanded. I caught it reflexively. "Sometimes I get in from investigations at odd hours," she said defensively. "Having a supply of instant food that's quick to prepare around is handy."

"That makes sense," I said, doing my best not to smirk.

"Sensei, I'm heading down now," Shiromeguri called from the other room. "See you in a few minutes, okay?"

"Okay!" Hiratuska called back loudly, then in a much more conversational tone of voice turned to me and said "shit," looking at her watch. She put the electric kettle on to boil, but looked at me speculatively. "I have a spare gi if you want to change into it while this heats up," she said. "Hero costumes are made to be fought in, so I can teach in this just fine, but I don't know if you would rather change so you don't get your only costume all sweaty and wind up having to do laundry before you come back tomorrow."

I thought about it for a second before I shook my head. "That's alright," I said. I would be up late charging quirks anyways, so doing a load of laundry while I was focusing wouldn't be a problem. "Um, Hiratsuka-san," I said, looking at the kettle, "I have a quirk that could speed that up, if you wanted."

"Will it set fire to my kitchen?" Hiratsuka asked bluntly.

I shook my head vigorously. "It's not a fire quirk," I said. "It should be fine."

"Go for it," she said.

I hadn't been wearing the mask on my costume in the office, but I did have to tug down the cowl of my cloak in order to get it out from in front of my face as I bent over near the kettle and breathed out a feebly glowing cloud of orange gas. As the kettle hissed, it almost seemed to absorb the gas - and no more than a minute or so later, it was boiling.

"Huh, neat trick," Hiratsuka said, before peeling off the lid on her ramen and placing it on the counter.

I followed suit, letting her pour water over my noodles. "It's Lunch Rush's quirk," I said, then breathed out again over my noodles, watching as the uncooked noodles seemingly absorbed the orange gas as they rapidly softened. "My copy of it can't do anything like what his can, but it's probably enough to cook three minute instant ramen in two minutes."

"Seriously?" she said, her jaw dropping. "No fair, that's cheating! Hey, do mine too!"

Naturally, I obliged.

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From the outside, with the lights off, Cyberpunch's dojo hadn't seemed like much. As I walked downstairs after hurriedly slurping down a cup of ramen, I found myself re-evaluating it. The dojo was laid out more like a modern gym than a traditional dojo, with heavy-duty foam mats covering the floor instead of straw tatami. Mounted on one of the walls were a wide array of punching bags and other exercise equipment, while the other wall was covered with floor-to-ceiling mirrors. The rear of the room transitioned to a harder cement floor, where more traditional weight benches were set up. Unlike the cheap, budget-dojo exterior, all of the equipment looked well made, well maintained, and had the trademark ruggedly durable look I recognized from UA's weight rooms as gear that was clearly designed to withstand superhuman levels of strength.

Roughly two dozen students of various heights and ages were going through some sort of warmup exercise as I approached, letting out various shouts and kiais as they worked their way through the routine that Shiromeguri-senpai was leading. True to what Hiratsuka had said about wanting to help out vulnerable kids, more than half of the students were Heteromorphs, with quirks representing the full spread of animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms. I found a spot to stand off to the side and out of the way as Cyberpunch strode out into the room front and center.

As the warmup finished, Cyberpunch thanked Shiromeguri-senpai and took her place. "Good evening, class," she said in a voice pitched to fill the room.

"Good evening! Sensei!" The group shouted back, more or less in unison. I felt my eyebrows climbing up into my bangs. That was… intense. What the heck had I gotten myself into?

"We have a new student today," Cyberpunch said, gesturing in my direction. "This is Pro Hero-in-Training Myriad, from U.A. High School."

"He's one of my kouhai," Shiromeguri-senpai piped up, "so be nice to him," she added in an admonishing tone.

Cyberpunch smiled. "Hikigaya-kun, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself?"

Nervously, I walked up next to Cyberpunch. I was intensely uncomfortable at being put into the spotlight, but thanks to Hero Development classes I at least had a vague idea of what I was supposed to do in this situation. Biting back a few ums and ahs that threatened to escape from my mouth, I took deep breaths to regulate my nervousness. "Like Cyberpunch said, I'm Myriad, currently studying at UA. Nice to meet you all. Uh…" I stalled out for a second, but caught myself and kept going. "I'm pretty new to martial arts, so, uh, I look forward to learning with you all," I finished in a rush.

Luckily, despite the fact that I'd completely botched my introduction, Cyberpunch's students were a fairly forgiving crowd. I was mostly met with smiles and nods, though I caught a few speculative looks as if some of them were wondering how strong I was. "Meguri, would you mind giving Hikigaya a quick evaluation while I work with the rest of the class for a bit?"

"Sure thing, sensei," Meguri said, sketching out an energetic salute. As she led me over to an out-of-the-way corner of the dojo, I couldn't help but take another look at my senpai. At first glance, the impression that I got from her was… she was fluffy. Attractive, in the way that over 95% of hero girls were just by virtue of the fact that they were all in incredible shape, but she seemed to give off a warm, comforting, big-sister like aura that almost unconsciously set me at ease. As I faced up to her, I noticed that she was a bit shorter than I was, with the crown of her head being roughly level with my eyes, and while the gi she was wearing did a lot to make her look athletic it was still a little bit of a shock when she turned to me and said, "so! The easiest way to do this would probably be… for you to try to fight me, I think!"

What? Just like that? "I, uh…" I stammered for a second, caught wrong-footed. "I mean, I guess so? If you want?" I said uncertainly. I thought she would have, like, asked me to throw a punch while she was watching or something. "Without me using my quirk, right?" I asked.

"Hmmm…" she said, putting one finger to her chin. "I don't think it would make much difference either way, but some of the quirks you have might damage some of the mats or the equipment, so don't use any of those. Anything else you want should be fine, though!" She said cheerfully.

I blinked. If a statement like that had come out of Bakugo's mouth, I would have immediately assumed that he was talking trash. With the upbeat way that Shiromeguri-senpai said it, though, I couldn't tell if she was being factual, challenging, or just mistaken. Whichever way she meant it, though, I wasn't going to take offense. It wasn't like my hand-to-hand combat abilities were anything I'd had pride in from the beginning. Still, just to be safe, I might as well start off quirkless for now. Putting up my fists in a loose boxing posture, I did my best to force down all of my instincts telling me that she was smaller than me, physically weaker, and female. Closing the difference carefully, I threw a punch.

One fast series of parries and a throw later, I was looking at the ceiling. "You should really try to keep your weight centered over the middle of your feet," Shiromeguri-senpai said, looking down at me with a comforting smile. "If you lean too far forward when you throw punches like that, it's easy for the person you're fighting to just go yah! And throw you off balance."

"Duly noted," I coughed out. Slowly, I sat up. "Was that your quirk?" I asked.

"Hmm, what do you think?" Shiromeguri asked, and extended her hand to me to help me up. Naturally, I took it. And by it, I mean her quirk. Given the ease with which she had just thrown me around, I had half been expecting some sort of super speed quirk or some kind of telekinesis, but Shiromeguri's quirk was probably the least outwardly oriented quirk I'd ever seen on a Pro Hero. Almost every other pro I'd met - barring Eraserhead - had something that made them move faster, hit harder, or otherwise let them affect their opponents or the terrain in some sort of way. All Shiromeguri's quirk did was create a spherical zone around her, and then feed her information about the contents of that zone. While the tactical benefits of something like that were obvious, it meant that she didn't have super strength or a force push power or anything of the sort. In other words, effortlessly flipping me on my ass had been all her. As that fact sank in, Shiromeguri-senpai got back into a fighting stance. "Let's try again," Shiromeguri said, "but pay attention to your balance this time, okay?"

Sure enough, the next time we sparred, by following her advice I noticed an improvement. It took Shiromeguri three moves to completely destroy me instead of just one. "Is it really alright if I try it with my quirk next time?" I asked from my prone position on the floor.

"I said it was, didn't I?" Shiromeguri asked rhetorically. "Oh, but I'm gonna start using my quirk then too, okay?"

…Of course she hadn't even been using her quirk yet. In lieu of responding, I attached Mime to Ooze, stuck on Komachi's quirk since I didn't feel like getting nauseous, and summoned 2% Stockpile. As my body filled with that endless well of energy, I used it to directly kip up to my feet. As Shiromeguri took up a stance, the square grey pupils in her eyes seemed to shine slightly. My first instinct was to just charge Shiromeguri-senpai and to try to overwhelm her with speed, but it was possible that her quirk would give her some way of reacting in time. Instead I approached cautiously, paying attention to my balance the same as before.

I hit the mat just as quickly as last time. "So, when you're using super strength quirks like that, you should lower your center of gravity," Shiromeguri chirped helpfully. "If you try to fight like you would normally, you'll wind up bouncing up off the ground too much and you'll be really easy to knock off balance. Plus, then people can use your momentum against you like I just did!"

I coughed. "Is that why it hurt more this time?" I groaned.

"Uh huh! The faster you're moving, the easier it is for someone who knows what they're doing to use it against you," Shiromeguri said. Again, she helped me to my feet. Rather than taking up a fighting posture, however, this time she pointed at where Cyberpunch was doing a demonstration with the other students. "Look at Shizuka-sensei's feet," she said, "see how she's barely lifting them off the mat?" I did. She was half shuffling, half sliding around her target, sometimes looking like she was moving without moving her legs at all. "It's technically based on a technique called 'sliding step' from kendo, but there's a specific way of walking that's really helpful for staying in control if you have super strength."

Sure enough, Cyberpunch looked like she was gliding over the mats, rather than making obvious steps. As I watched, I could also tell that even more so than Shiromeguri-senpai, Cyberpunch was an expert. Any moves that the girl with the Gorilla quirk made were expertly guided aside, parried out of the way in such a way that it opened up gaps in her student's defense that she could exploit if she wanted. I couldn't tell whether it was due to her expertise, or whether she was just that fast, but it almost looked like Cyberpunch knew every move her student made before she made them. "Yukinoshita - uh, one of my classmates, that is - she kind of fights the same way," I observed. "I thought it was just because she liked ice skating a lot, but I guess it was a martial arts thing?"

"It could be both," Shiromeguri said thoughtfully, "And you probably don't want to copy too much from the Yukinoshita's style since you can't slide like they can, but yup, there's some sliding step in there!"

Oh, right. I kept forgetting that Campestris was a Chiba hero, too. I guess it made sense that Shiromeguri knew her. "Okay," I said. "So is this sliding step thing what I should start learning first?"

"Hmmm," Shiromeguri said. "Maybe? You'd probably want to ask sensei. There's another super-strength style where you bounce around a lot on purpose instead of minimizing it, and I don't know whether she wants to teach you that one or the other one." She paused for a second, before getting back into a fighting posture. "Why don't you try coming at me a few more times first?"

I couldn't help but eye Shiromeguri suspiciously. Was it really that much fun tossing me around? "Um, should I try defending instead?" I asked. It was probably a dumb decision, but at least I wouldn't be giving her a bunch of my own momentum to throw me around with.

"Hmm, I don't see why not?" Shiromeguri said. "But be careful, okay?" With that, she stepped in close all of a sudden, her fists tucked up in a boxer's guard to protect her face. I had to jerk my head to the side as a blistering jab seemingly came out of nowhere, her fist expanding in my vision as it got closer until it practically took up my whole field of view. I frantically backpedaled, getting more distance from my terrifying tiny senpai, but to my relief she didn't continue following. "Um, your guard isn't very good," she said. "It looks kinda like you know what one is supposed to look like, but you aren't really used to using it to block, yet?"

"Um, yeah, I guess you could say that," I agreed, laughing nervously.

"Hmm, well, the fix for that is probably to just get you some practice blocking punches aimed at your face, but before we do that we should probably put on gloves so that you don't get as badly hurt when something gets past your guard?" she said. "Oh, and even when you're backing up, make sure to keep your weight balanced and low, just like for attacking."

Seriously? If we were supposed to be fighting with protective gear on, why the heck hadn't we been doing that from the beginning? I hadn't questioned it originally, since we didn't really use protective equipment when we sparred at UA either, but since Cyberpunch didn't have Recovery Girl on staff I was suddenly wondering how we had both missed something so basic. Or more specifically, I hadn't ever done this before, so I had an excuse, but what the heck was Shiromeguri thinking? "Uh… should we put on those gloves now, then?" I asked. "Not getting as badly hurt sounds pretty good to me."

"Hmm… maybe?" Shiromeguri said. "But, I'm pretty sure you aren't going to hit me at this rate, and I don't think you're good enough at blocking yet where I would have to punch hard enough to risk hitting you, so I think it's fine for now?"

As bad as my back hurt from getting flipped onto it repeatedly, hearing that I wasn't even good enough to get hurt bruised my ego even worse. It would be easy to say that it wasn't my fault I kept getting my ass kicked. Shiromeguri-senpai clearly had at least two years' worth of training over me, and was apparently hardcore enough about martial arts that she spent her afternoons and evenings training with Cyberpunch on top of UA's already insane courseload. There was no shame in losing to someone that much more experienced than me, especially if I was already hesitant due to years of society telling me that 'boys weren't supposed to hit girls,' and there was also the fact that outside of life-or-death situations with Villains I didn't really have a lot of motivation to hurt anyone… but those were just excuses. The real reason that I was getting my ass kicked was that I had looked at Shiromeguri's quirk, decided that even if it had combat applications they wouldn't be enough to stop me if I 'got serious', and naively assumed that just slapping on Stockpile and cheating my way to victory would be enough. It was the same mistake I'd made against the shapeshifter impersonating Iwato, and it was high time I stopped making it.

"Okay," I said. "Um, I'd still like to keep going," I said, "even though you can probably tell I'm a total beginner just from what we've done already."

"Yeah, but that just means that now we can start practicing ahead of time!" Shiromeguri said. "Oh, I know, how about this! If you actually manage to land a hit on me, I'll give you some super useful training tips!"

All I had to do was land a hit, huh? Well, Stockpile hadn't worked… but I still had a few tricks up my sleeve. "Alright," I said. "Let's go."

As soon as Shiromeguri-senpai got into her fighting stance again, I stretched two tendrils of ooze-mime over to Giant, one over to Big Hands, and did my best to hit Shiromeguri with a crouching hand slap the size of a flatscreen television. Crouching, because if I stood all the way I would wind up smacking my head against even the dojo's vaulted ceilings.

Shiromeguri danced out of the way, seemingly already in motion even before I threw the punch, and as my hand slapped the mat where she had been with a meaty THWAP that made the entire rest of the dojo look in our direction, she took advantage of my missed strike to snap-kick me in the wrist. "Good!" she shouted.

Wincing in pain, I tried to whip my hand sideways to sweep her off her feat, but Shiromeguri just braced one foot against my oncoming hand and borrowed its momentum to launch into a backflip, moving herself effortlessly out of my range. I stopped my hand on the mat, then brought the other one up next to it, and suddenly switched quirks. I shrank back down to normal size, then kept shrinking further as Kushieda Minori's Shrink quirk took hold, compressing me to about three feet in height. I let the shapechange pull me forward, borrowing its momentum to launch myself after Shiromeguri. In midair I added Falcon Flight to the mix, accelerating further and building up momentum.

As fast as I was, I wasn't faster than Shiromeguri-senpai's reflexes. She lunged into my charging leap and used the back of her wrist to redirect me to the side, sending me into an uncontrolled tumble. As I slowly picked myself up, she said, "You're pretty tricky, that was a good try! Um, but moves like that would probably work better if you didn't have that cape. It's creating a lot of drag and slowing you down, you know?"

Well, it was detachable for a reason. I reached up and unfastened it, tossing it aside. New plan. If big moves wouldn't work by themselves, maybe I could set her up for something. I attuned Adrenaline, then rushed forward, no longer aiming for solid blows, now trying for just a touch. If I tagged her with Moon Gravity, that might make her off-balance enough that I could get a hit in!

Unfortunately, as soon as I switched to swipes and pokes, Shiromeguri started dodging me completely, or occasionally parrying me by way of my forearms, never letting my hands get anywhere near her. After one lunge in particular where I over extended, Shiromeguri somehow stepped into me until we were hip to hip, then hooked her leg around the outside of my back foot and pushed, toppling me backwards.

As I caught my breath for a second on my back, I suddenly saw the amused grey eyes of Cyberpunch, looking down at me from above. "Having fun?" she asked.

"Loads," I groaned sarcastically, then sat up, brushing myself off reflexively.

"So?" Hiratsuka asked. "What are we working with, Meguri-chan?"

"Hmm…" Shiromeguri hummed, then clapped her hands in satisfaction. "Basically a total newbie!" She chirped. "He's got a little bit of the basics for normal fighting, but when he tries to use his quirk, it keeps throwing him off and leaving holes in his guard that he doesn't know how to compensate for."

Unperturbed, Hiratsuka nodded. "Okay, I can work with that," she said. "Come on, Hikigaya. I'm gonna walk you through a few exercises."

I was a little bit frustrated at being interrupted - I still had a lot of tricks I could try to get a hit in on Shiromeguri, damn it! - but I didn't want to rock the boat on the first day of the internship, and Cyberpunch was offering training that I desperately needed. As I stood and picked up my cape, holding it rather than putting it back on for now so that I could let the sweat evaporate from my shoulders a little faster, Shiromeguri-senpai suddenly spoke up. "Um, Hikigaya-kun, even though you didn't get a hit in, I'll still give you the advice, okay? Basically, what I do when I practice is I use my quirk to look at my body from the outside! That way I can see myself and know if I'm doing it right or not! You should give it a try with your copy! Remember, only perfect practice makes perfect!" She added in a sing-songy tone.

Sure, why not? Might as well give it a try, I thought, and then attuned two tendrils to the quirk I'd just copied. Almost immediately, a rush of information bombarded my brain. It suddenly felt like I roughly knew where everyone was and how fast they were moving in a sphere that filled up a significant proportion of the room. It was a surprisingly large range, and I realized that Shiromeguri's range must be huge. As I tried throwing a few punches experimentally, I could feel the shockwaves in the air they displaced just like I could 'see' that people were throwing punches behind me, but it wasn't quite enough to give me a clear picture of my own body. "Sorry, I don't think my copy is strong enough for that to be helpful," I said.

Shiromeguri hummed thoughtfully. "Really? Even if you pull in the borders, so that it's real tight around you?" She asked.

Gradually I figured out how to adjust the resolution on her quirk, and as its range narrowed its power grew. When the sphere condensed to a little more than half a meter in radius, just barely long enough to cover the bottom of my feet or the tips of my fingers if I stretched them out ahead of me, I stopped. I turned to Shiromeguri and gave her a thumbs-up, feeling somehow intimately aware of how the air around my arm moved in response to my movement. "It'll take some getting used to," I said, and I could feel my vocal cords vibrating inside of my throat, "but sure, seems like that might work."

"That quirk of yours is convenient in all sorts of little ways, isn't it, Hikigaya-kun?" Hiratsuka said, slapping me on the back. Thanks to the quirk in question I saw the blow coming, and managed to brace myself to avoid getting knocked over. "Come on, I'll show you how to actually throw a punch."

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Jabs, straights, hooks, blocks, kicks, footwork, throws, and falls. Over the next couple of hours, Hiratsuka-sensei walked me through the basics of the basics, and with Shiromeguri-senpai's quirk I managed to make sure that every repetition was done with textbook form. At least for as much as I could use it, anyway - using the quirk gave me a headache from sheer information overload, and the fact that Shiromeguri could apparently use it for the entire duration of the class to make sure that every student in it was doing things correctly was beyond impressive. By the time the end of the class rolled around, I was dripping with sweat, my head was throbbing, and I was starving.

Bidding Hiratsuka and Shiromeguri good night, I showered, changed, grabbed some takoyaki at a nearby stall in the streets of Hanamigawa, and took the train home. When I finally walked through the door and dropped my briefcase to the ground with a heavy thud, it was after ten at night. My parents were still awake, if barely, but as soon as I came in and they saw I was safe, they immediately started getting ready for bed. Komachi was usually awake at this hour too, but the door to her room was closed, so either she was sleeping early, or more likely, she was still mad. Soon, I was the only one awake, the house quiet except for the ticking of the clock on the wall. And I still had to do laundry, eat again, stock up what quirks I could, and be on the road by seven in the morning to be at the agency on time the next day. Just one day into my internship, and I was already exhausted. So as I started going about doing what I needed doing and getting ready to do it all over again tomorrow, I couldn't help but open up my phone and send a text to Kawasaki Saki. Not that I was excited to tell a cute girl about my day, or anything. it was purely out of gratitude. And if I started grinning like an idiot after she responded, well. At least there was nobody awake to see it.