Hey, it me. Ya boi. Coming at cha with a 21,188 word chapter because I thought cutting it up into two or three for quicker uploads was stupid. And I do feel stupid.

This is, however, how I want to continue this story. Moments like the entrance exam, the hero-villain mock battles, USJ, and even the Sports Festival (and I don't plan on stopping there) will all likely be their own chapters, not cut up in parts like other stories do. I do it here mainly to ask you how you think about that, and if this either feels bloated with story or you like having the whole event all at once instead of waiting on big cliffhangers to what comes next before the resting days of the story. I'll ultimately make the final decision myself, but I am curious to hear what other people think about this, so please do comment your thoughts. I'm happy to hear whatever positive or negative comment you have to make.

It is currently 1 am right now, and I can't say I was expecting to actually finish this before my Spring Break ended, but I'm happy I did. I do plan on my next upload being the follow-up chapter to this, though its content will move on with the story by the month like the last few have. After that, I think we're getting an entrance exam. That or one more filler chapter up to it; I haven't decided yet. Depends on the next chapter's content.

Aside from all that, thank you to all who follow and favorite and review on this story. I'm happy I'm still able to keep people interested, even when I'm away for a while. Enjoy a lot of words. And four other characters from the main series making an appearance.

December

Izuku gave the video on his phone another look over, watching the man on it stop around from stance to stance, performing his practiced technique for what must have been his 100th time to have as good of form as he did. Izuku studied the way his arms moved and paused, swung without throwing or limping. Izuku watched as his head moved with the neck, ducking and dipping and leaning and stretching to pose with or dodge the sword in the man's grip. He watched until the video ended and plopped the device on his bag before taking to the stand and starting off as the man did in the video, and copied the performance as best his memory could remember.

While Izuku deeply enjoyed his classes with Ojiro and sensei Teai and the rest of his self-defense class, they rarely worked on weapons. Some training was used, because some people did use knives and guns and clubs and the works, and it was a good thing to know how to disarm and turn the power of their enemy against them until someone of authority could arrest them, if they themselves didn't have the power or position to. But more often than not, people were committing acts of violence with their quirks; their physical, attached body parts and the powers that came with them. Judo and Karate and all other martial arts were from a time long before quirks came into the lives of humans, and had barely adapted to catch up given the sheer diversity in everyone's looks and abilities, so really the techniques had to either be cut or transformed to meet expected standards as best they could knowing no one could ever learn every ability out in the world to counter.

Because of that, weapon training and sparring was bar minimum in the class activities. Izuku's classmates were taught how to use their quirks, in theory instead of practice because Teai did not have a dojo built to withstand all forms of damage, while Izuku was taught instead how to counter his classmates. How to strike faster and where to strike fastest to throw off his opponent enough to try and get close to throw them down and then get away. Given, his classmates didn't like it when a quirkless kid showed them up in class, even when practicing moves for the first time and he was supposed to be the one showing his classmates how to defend themselves, Teai didn't like their attitude about it either, so at least Izuku had a second backing in class on his performance.

But nothing could get them to use and teach more weapons in class, so he had to cover that ground himself. And thank the internet for having such a diverse access to videos and demonstrations on proper wielding and grip and handling of weapons like staffs and bats and swords that Izuku could transfer over to his baseball bat when training on the beach, dragging his feet through the sand and holding each stance for about five seconds until he felt he was copying the images of his head to a solid enough T.

Neither Mei nor Iida were anywhere in sight, and it was a wonder the two still hadn't crossed paths at the beach yet, or at all. Iida had once randomly come to the beach on the weekend, apparently wanting to spend some of his free time training with his potential classmate, and had come just a minute after Mei had to leave early and be at home with her family for some relatives from outside the country visiting. While his engine-legged friend didn't see the same comedy in it, Izuku got a good laugh out of the scenario. But today was a day all to himself, and he wanted to spend it his way.

When Izuku finished the whole performance, he rested himself a few seconds before standing back in his starting pose and going through it again. And again. And again. And he knew it wasn't something he could make applicable in a fight – it just wasn't practical to take so much time to get a good stance when he could move and have a better reaction time – but he practiced all the same to show he wasn't just learning to be a brute. He didn't want to come off as a kid with a blunt weapon just learning how to hit hard, but someone who cared for the craft he was learning and could apply it in his own style to make a name for himself in the hero world.

(It hurt, looking at everything he did from three angles, but he knew it was only practical to understanding what he was getting into by multitasking as often as possible. He probably wouldn't make it as a side kick if he couldn't meet the bare minimum of everything.)

It was a good 2 degrees Celsius outside, nothing but overcast in the sky and the slightest of breezes by the ocean side, but Izuku could work up quite the sweat twisting and swinging and stopping himself sort of throwing himself off balance with every swing of his bat. Two layers of shirts probably wasn't the best workout material, but he'd rather be heated than freezing. And the five bottle of water he packed stacked beside his bag were the only back-up he needed to not pass out on the sand in the middle of the day. The last thing he needed to do before his winter exams was pass out with no one around to help him home—

"You know, when people practice with swords, they usually use a sword." Izuku tripped over his spin and caught himself just in time not to eat the grain beneath his feet. His head snapped towards the pavement and the stairs leading to him to see the silver-haired man in his usual get-up looking down to him with a quirked eyebrow. "Then again you nearly whacked my head off with that thing the other day so I get it."

"H-Hunter, what—how—when"—Izuku coughed into his shoulder and straightened up on his feet—"H-how long have you been standing there?"

"Just a minute this time," the young man responded, swaying in his steps and he descended to the sand. "I remember those shit-head teens beating up on you the last time mention something about a beach, but I didn't think you'd surround yourself with those kids' relatives."

Izuku looked to the one large pile of trash still left on the beach as Hunter looked over at it, and over-extended his neck as he choked back the snicker he felt rise up in response to the older boy's comment. He coughed again into the back of his hand as he looked to the gentleman. "I-I don't think they'd appreciate hearing that."

"Shame that doesn't bother me in the slightest." Hunter walked on in stride as he got closer to Izuku and ended plopping down on a broken washing machine a few feet away from the green-haired boy. "So what are doing spending your time at a beach like this?"

The boy under question rolled his shoulders as he looked over the empty space of sand to his side, stretching out for quite the while. "I'm, uh, practicing what I can for the Yuei entrance exams, since my self-defense classes aren't exactly teaching us how to use weapons to defend ourselves." He smacked the bat lightly into his palm. "And sometimes cleaning up the beach to do what a lot of other people won't. There used to be a whole other pile here trailing to the other end of the beach when I started."

Hunter looked down the stretch of sand before him and the boy, virtually cleaned of trash and scraps minus what must have been some recent littering. He hopped off the broken machine and walked around the rest of the still present pile, looking down to the small but present sprinkle of junk reaching to the opposite end, and whistled as he turned back to the boy. "You cleaned all that up? Wasn't that like two months ago?"

"Uh, no I started long before they brought it up and you saw…that." Izuku didn't really want to talk about the other boys and the 'fight' they had back in his and Hunter's first meeting. It didn't settle in his stomach in the right way, and he didn't want to lash out as his chest told him to. "And I've had some help. There's a girl who apparently likes reusing trash and making gadgets out of them – she's going to Yuei too – so she's been taking some stuff for herself while I throw out what's left. Makes it easier when it's all we do in the afternoon some days. It's quite hard to move what I can, sometimes."

"That's pretty impressive, kid," Hunter commented. His lips curled into an ever-so-slight smile. "Planning on getting this place renamed so everyone knows not to litter on your beach? I'm pretty sure people would think twice about trashing what belongs to a kid swinging a metal bat left and right."

Izuku sputtered out as he waved his hands and head to the older boy. "No, no, I-I don't want to take any credit like that for d-doing this. I'm just t-trying to use this for training. A-a-and I don't s-swing the bat like crazy, I—"

"I didn't mean it like that kid." Hunter tapped his feet in the sand as he stepped closer to Izuku, pointing at the bat in his grip. "You look like you've got some decent form, 'specially for someone teaching themselves."

"Thanks," Izuku stuttered out, eyes diverting away and to the sea shore beside them. "Thought it would be smarter to show that I know what I'm doing if I'm going to attend using this."

"They allow weapons in school?"

"If they're classed as support items." Izuku rubbed his fingers over the top of his bat. "Like how Snipe has his guns and Midnight has her whip, they're technically categorized as support items; so if it can assist in any way to hero work, it can be listed as an item or tool, not a weapon."

"And what about a baseball bat in the hands of a kid without a quirk for it to enhance?" Hunter smirked and slid his hands into his pockets. "Asking for a friend. Some quirkless kid going to school to bash some heads and make some names for himself as a hero. Think they'd let him in like that?"

Izuku decided to cough over a good amount of what he said, twirling his bat between his hands with enough friction to feel the same level of heat on his face. "I've already sent in my application and filled the paperwork I'd have to if I wanted to class my bat as a support weapon. I'm still waiting for it to be reviewed and allowed for the entrance exam so I can actually show it off there, though I don't know what the exam will be this school year."

"Eh, it'll probably be something stupid and easy. You'll probably get in."

Izuku's body snapped straight in surprise at the comment. "But, Yuei's average acceptance rate for the entrance exam is supposed to be as little as five percent!"

Hunter widened his grin. "Then you don't really have that much competition to prove yourself over, do you? Bet that's the right amount of people who might actually give you a run for your money." He laughed at the sputter Izuku gave for the compliment and insult before he looked up and down Izuku's figure. "Do you know how to defend yourself with that thing?"

"Huh?" Izuku blinked and looked down at the bat a moment. "Oh, uh, kinda? I haven't really gotten the practice to use it as much, but I've done some escrima stick training and have tried transferring it over. My self-defense class doesn't teach me a lot with weapon training."

"Then let's start." Hunter's hands rose with the roll of his shoulders, both curling into fists before the younger boy.

Izuku jumped back and sent his hands flying around in front of him, the bat a grey streak in the mix. "Wait! Wait! W-Why do we have to fight?!"

Hunter blinked his golden eyes at the boy. "I meant practice." He punched towards Izuku in the slowest of speeds he could probably manage, telegraphing his whole attack and the rest of his body's movements. "I'll be slow, I promise. Can't go beating up a kid on the beach I've only met twice and call it training when someone walks by, can I?"

With a gulp, the green-haired teen nodded. "N-not a lot of people actually pass the beach though…the trash kinda deters them from coming around…"

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing, because it kinda sounds like you're giving me the go to beat you up without consequences," Hunter commented, giving Izuku another good-hearted (Izuku assumed) laugh before easing his stance to look less battle-ready. "Come on. Let me help you practice. Got nothing better to do today."

Izuku lulled over the offer a moment before accept, because he really couldn't see a problem with letting Hunter help him train. He'd practically done the same with Iida and Mei – and silently wondered if the beach was just where he had to go to keep making friends with some underground magical being watching him that he didn't know about – and Hunter had been nothing but a genuinely good guy the last two times he met him, so what harm was there?

So they practiced, Hunter taking it slow with his strikes allowing Izuku to show his various counters and blocks and parries so he could make it out of a fight relatively unscathed and even get away if he got pressured. Only Hunter didn't seem so impressed with it, and with a moment to explain why, Izuku couldn't really feel bad about Hunter's frown directed his way.

Hunter argued that, if Izuku was supposed to train to be a hero, he really needed to know how to fight back. Dodging was good and all, but it was only going to get him backed into a wall if he didn't apply his own pressure in a fight. So Hunter had him go through the motions again so he could see where and how Izuku moved, and once they had gone through them all again, Hunter added revisions. He stopped each move short of Izuku throwing their bodies around (or really mimicking how to do so) and helped Izuku move his arms and the bat in a motion that would strike the person he was fighting. He didn't have to whack them hard, Hunter noted just that, but he could at least make the contact to either throw them off their game enough to get in a second stronger hit to try and knock them down or out, or he could just make that first contact his strong blow. When they had gone through each move and each added strike to the front or sides or head or back, Hunter started punching faster, slightly enough that Izuku could still move to counter but forced him to keep up and keep form in their mock-fight to really show off what the older boy was teaching him.

Izuku had to say, he greatly appreciated the help and time Hunter was giving him. The white-haired guy seemed just as pleased watching Izuku counter as fast as he did and kept commenting on the control of his strength every time the bat made contact with his free-to-block hand. It was probably because he wasn't surrounded by other kids with their quirks who had to learn their own styles of adapting to the fights that he had the sole focus on just fighting and not how to counter specific quirks his classmates had. And he only stopped once his arms felt so tired he didn't want to swing anymore. It was probably the most vigorous training he had done with the bat ever.

Hunter didn't seem anywhere close to as tired as Izuku felt, but the older boy sat down beside him in the sand all the same. He rubbed and eased his own hands as Izuku worked to filter in some air, but he watched Hunter ease away the pain and wondered what quirk the older boy had. His hand had pierced solid concrete, stayed strong against the whack of iron, and even forced down a boy whose skeletal structure had been nearly completely covered in iron; he had to have some sort of a strength enhancing quirk. The muscles forming his back, the ones Izuku could see through the skin-tight shirt, made it obvious enough he was pretty strong, but he wondered just how strong Hunter could be. Maybe his quirk was a regular enhancement of power, given his physique was quite natural and basic despite the coloring of his features. Or maybe they were indicators to a metal-esque quirk like Suchīrubōn's, and the man just had the control over it to keep it from showing a physical change when using it. Izuku knew a few heroes and villains who were recorded admitting to that kind of training, just so they could get the upper hand in confrontations—

"You really talk this much?" Hunter piped up, a raised smirk and eyebrow pointed Izuku's way, sending the boy into a blushing an apologetic mess for his disturbance. "Eh, it's fine. Was about as loud as the waves, so it almost blended right in." He looked down at his hands and showed his pink palms to the other boy. "And don't worry about me. I can handle the hits just fine. You're strong but not that strong that I have to worry about it. But I can tell you'll get there one day."

Izuku only blushed more to the praise and hefted himself up to sit instead of lie on the sand. "You-you seem to know quite a bit about fighting," he commented, eliciting a nod from Hunter.

"My…old man taught me how to." He didn't sound too happy saying that, or look to happy either, if his glare to the ocean was any indicator. "'S been useful. I don't see him anymore." And beyond that Izuku didn't question anything else about it; he knew fully well how touchy the 'father' subject could be for himself. Hunter was probably in the same shoes. So he moved on.

"Thank you." Hunter took a second out of his glare to the distance to turn an eye over to Izuku. "For helping me—for teaching m—for—thank you. I'm sorry I'm taking time out of your day to be here. You didn't have to offer that—"

"Midoriya." Despite knowing his name, Hunter hadn't really said it out loud, and vice versa, during their practicing, so Izuku stopped talking when he heard it. "Don't worry about it. I wanted to." Hunter looked back out to the horizon of the sea. "At least if any of those dicks at your school try to pick on you again, you have a way of fighting back and beating the shit out of them."

"No, I would never beat them up!" Midoriya jolted where he sat, waving his hands around wildly. "I-I could get arrested for that! It'd be put on my record and I wouldn't be able to attend Yuei if I did that! A-And besides, they haven't been bothering me for a while now, probably because of you—"

"Oh, well you're welcome for that." A smile graced Hunter's lips again. "And I'm messing with ya again. I know you won't do something stupid like that, don't worry." A hand made its way between them, landing on Izuku's shoulder and pausing his jittery actions. "Good luck getting into Yuei kid. You'll impress them for sure. Knock 'em dead."

A moment of silence passed between them before Izuku smiled, although shakily. "I-Is that another joke?" he asked within a questioned laugh.

"Eh, that's up to you," Hunter responded with a shrug, smiling brighter as Izuku freaked out about the implication of knocking out fellow examinees and getting kicked out for unwarranted and unlawful assault.

Izuku hummed as he walked, but kept his voice low enough as he passed groups of people walking in every which direction. Tokyu Plaza could be quite the busy place over the holidays, and while he wasn't one to enjoy being crowded by a hoard of people he didn't know, he swallowed the courage to go out more and get something for his mother for the holiday season coming up. It was the tail end of his last week of the winter exams, and he and the rest of Japan were moving into the week of break, so he knew he had the time to work and get something fast for her.

He wanted to get something for the rest of his friends too, but he was sure it was probably too late and too heavy on his expenses to get Ojiro, Hatsume and Iida a gift as well. As much as the allowance his mother gave him was helpful when the times came around, it wasn't a bottomless pit. He didn't have that kind of luxury and he was sure he shouldn't have to worry and more than he already did because of it. They hadn't gotten him anything either, so they were probably keeping it a family thing for gift giving, and he was fine with that. It only left him with the question of what his mom wanted most.

Izuku swerved out of the way of another group of adults, tightening the twisted arm grip on his bat so it didn't lean out and whack someone else.

Maybe he could get her something for the kitchen? No, Aunt Mitsuki was already doing that. She'd called him a week ago to look in the kitchen for the mixer they were using, one the Bakugou mother was aiming on replacing for them. In return, his own mother was considering a few different decorations for the backyard patio the Bakugou's had. So that ground was already covered.

Maybe there was a painting she would like, or a picture they had she would like framed. But where was the space in their apartment, amongst all the other photos they had? Nowhere but waist-height on the walls, that's where. So that wouldn't work for her or him.

Izuku took a moment to look up the mall to the layered crowds of other people, and the stores past them for any ideas (on the inside, he wondered how many of the civilians were just heroes on their free time, but he knew that thought could wait for another day). A toy store that wouldn't really appeal to her, a clothing store that probably wouldn't impress her, a candy store he could probably just pass later for something that couldn't really match the appreciation he really wanted to show her, a jewelry store that—

Actually, that could work. Izuku knew his mom liked to dress up. Not doll up, but dress up. Treat the days as thought the father of the family was still around and about to take her on a date, but instead celebrated it with her son. And Izuku liked to indulge in those days, dressing up a bit himself and joining his mom treating a night in like a night out. Izuku just knew he couldn't say that to his mom, who in her best attempts did what she could to convince Izuku it was a just a tradition from his father's side of the family she wanted to keep up.

He stared at the store's sign, looked through the windows on either side of the entrance at the contents inside, and took a step forward to go in. And before he could even snake his way through the sea of people to get there, he saw the one face just out in front of the store staring back at him. Katsuki had almost walked past the store without seeing Izuku approach it, but saw the green-haired teen not a moment too soon.

Izuku said nothing and moved nowhere under Katsuki's watchful eyes, standing like a deer in headlights from the ruby gaze. And Katsuki didn't say a word or move an inch when he saw Izuku notice him. The two boys stared at one another in their own thought bubbles of pauses; Izuku panicking for a brief moment that the boy had appeared only to bring him lower than the thoughts of his father could, and Katsuki looking both confused and as normally unhappy to see Izuku as said boy in question knew him for.

With every passing second, the worry bubbling in Izuku grew and grew. Katsuki didn't take one step his way upon seeing him, and usually his pause of silence meant his rage was building, and that only meant a worse time for Izuku. But instead of the blond teen rushing the other boy, Katsuki scoffed and turned away, sulking down the direction Izuku had come in the store without ever looking back at Izuku over his shoulder. And Izuku watched him stomp away, each breath pushing out the stress worry he had built up. Katsuki hadn't approached him, hadn't said anything to him or called him anything, didn't make a big scene after all the ignoring they had given each other in class; Izuku didn't know which god was looking down on him, but he thanked them for the luck to get out of that unscathed.

With the blond boy now gone, Izuku tiptoed his way through the crowd and into Jewelry Eve. At least inside, the crowd was small enough for him to deal with without having to push his way past others. The first thing he did was circle the island of jewelry in the center of the room, aligned with earrings and necklaces and rings and hair pins that had his eyes bouncing from left to right in search of the best for his mother. There were a lot of crab-decorated pieces, ones meant for the Cancer zodiac that he could probably get her, but they were all designs she had on other pieces of jewelry the Bakugou family had gotten her. There were blue gems too, her favorite color, but no design to them was anything meaningful compared to the zodiac designs. No, he needed something else, probably something she had less of and didn't involve some memory of his dad.

"Hello, sir." Izuku did not almost jump out of his skin as a woman walked up to him, dressed in the same colors as the store's walls with a pin holding the sign's name on the left of her shirt collar. "Is there something I can help you with finding?"

Letting himself catch a breath, Izuku responded, "Uh, y-yes actually." He looked back to the table eyes flickering about from stand to stand before landing on the rack of necklaces in the center. "Do you h-have any necklaces, of"—his free hand roamed past each one, taking into account the designs of each symbol and outline—"bird? O-or parrots specifically?" He turned back to the employee, finger dangling behind a necklace to push it forward as emphasizing his item in question. "I'm—Want to get it as a New Year's present for my mom, and I think she'd like the design."

The woman looked back between him and the necklace he was using as an example – he knew it was of a mountain, so she wasn't looking at him like he was crazy, thank all the gods – before nodding with the smallest of smiles. "We might not have one of the parrot, but I do know we carry iconography of avian creatures. There was actually a rack of them this morning that people came in and out for." She pointed over and across the table, and Izuku followed her finger to the empty bar against the wall. "We should have more in the back to restock. Let me go check for you."

"Thank you. I'll-I'll wait right here. Thank you." Izuku's head turned back to the woman before swinging to the table beside him and his own shoes. Why couldn't he just talk to people while looking them in the eye? She nodded and turned away to the door in the back of the room, leaving Izuku to stand there somewhat awkwardly and look back at the table as if he was actually looking for anything else.

His eyes instead lifted a bit and looked around the room, surveying the other people around him. A man and a woman, most likely a couple, were testing the looks of necklaces around the woman's neck; beside them, two guys, probably also a couple, were doing the exact same test. He looked past them, turning his neck over the several other individuals, and two clerks bouncing between them, all probably doing what he was, though probably not all for their mothers. The other side of the room drew closer into his sight, and by the time he had given the room a full 180, his gaze landed on one waiting on him.

Izuku froze under the girl's stare, unflinching as his eyes caught her own, and took no time in looking her up and down. Given her height and…growth, she was probably a young woman already. Maybe just reaching 20. Her dark hair was nothing but a large plume of a ponytail, adding on another half foot of height, he assumed. Her onyx eyes shared the depth of color in her hair, and matched the intimidation of her unflinching stare towards him. Her attire was neatly elegant, almost business-like with her skirt and her blouse.

Izuku's eyes flicked away from her for a moment before drawing back to her stare. Her stare was far more intense than he would have liked, and what he would have liked was an explanation as to why she was even looking at him. He did the process again, and she seemed to catch on to just how weird she looked to him, and snapped her whole head away, a blush on her face he assumed was of embarrassment. He could feel the same heat on his own as he looked away again.

He was happy when the (he assumed) clerk returned with necklaces folded over her extended fingers, moving his attention away from the pretty girl who'd been staring at him to the quirk use in front of him. She gave him a welcoming smile he hoped he returned convincingly enough not to look nervous, and she presented the row of jewelry in her hand to him. "These were all I could find out back," she informed him, looking over the line herself. "Are any of these to your liking, sir?"

Izuku snapped his eyes away from her, suppressing the urge to ask about her quirk and focusing instead on looking over the options he was given. All of them were birds; though there were only four, their designs were vastly different. A dove he wouldn't get, a crow that didn't really click as appropriate, a peacock of vastly different colors changing under the light, and the perfect design of a parrot with the same color-changing gems filling its outline.

"This one," he told her, plucking the necklace from her fingers and resting it in the palm of his hand. "She'll like this one. Thank-thank you."

She nodded with the smallest comment of "Thought so" and moved to hang them up on the wall, only going back to him when he was waiting at the register for her or her coworkers to cash him out. Lucky for him, the necklace didn't put a huge dent in his allowance, and what chunk was gone he knew his mother probably wouldn't freak seeing what it was traded for. With the necklace packaged neatly and safely, he stuffed it in the pocket of his jacket and fid the clerk farewell before returning to the sea of people he'd momentarily forgotten about.

Geez, the winter break's almost here, but you'd think the crowd would be lower at this time of day. Izuku sweat-dropped and looked around the crowd, still arguing in his head if he should buy something for his friends. That necklace nearly put a quarter of a dent in my allowance, but if it was a real jewel it probably would have taken everything, so that's more in my favor than I thought it would be. What could I get everyone though? His finger drilled on the bat grip in his pocket. Ojiro did mention he was into the Genkoya comic series; I could probably check to see if there's something similar being sold around here. Iida…what does he like? He just talks about his family and hero work and training all the time, yeah…maybe there's some Ingenium merch here I could get him. I doubt he wears much already, but I still need to see him in a tee—does he have regular tees? Yeah I'm definitely buying him one—a rising figure caught his eyes, and Izuku looked over his left to the man standing above the crowd, probably on a bench—probably looking for their friends or something. Mei would build herself anything, so I can't buy her something like that. I'll have to buy her something that isn't buildable, maybe something woodwork or knitted—let's go with something woodwork. Izuku shook out the thought of buying Mei clothing and looked around again. Maybe a little sign for her workshop when she graduates or that she could put on the door of whatever room she has at home. Would she even like—wait.

Izuku looked over the sea of people and noticed a fin sticking out of a collared shirt and a crowd. Oh my god, is that Gang Orca? Oh my god that's Gang Orca. He's actually here. I've never gotten to meet him before. I wonder what he's like as a civilian in person—

BANG!

Izuku stuttered with the crowd and turned to the origin of the gunshot as they did, looking at the man standing above the rest with some pistol in his hands. A few reactions and cries were ringing out over his voice, so whatever he was saying was inaudible to Izuku but not to the few resounding gunshots and shouts that must have been some sort of goddamned war cry because everyone was now running okay Izuku time to move. Only problem was the crowd around him was reacting faster, already bolting past and against him. He found himself shoved back into the jewelry store as the sea of people kept running by.

"H-hey!" Izuku snapped his head around and to the clerk who'd helped him in his hunt for the necklace – he checked his pocket just to make sure it hadn't fallen out, and eased his shoulders feeling it still there – shouting above the screams before them. "Wh-what's going on out there? Was that a gunshot?"

Izuku nodded feverishly. "I-I couldn't hear what they're saying, but I think they're villains!" He looked back to the crowd still running past, and flinched with them as a roar went out and the ground shook. The bat below his arm became unwrapped, hanging in front of his legs. There's no way we're getting through this safely; it'd probably be worse to try and run with this. "Is-we can't go this way. Is there a different way out we could take instead?"

A different clerk nodded her head, turned and pointed at the door to their back room. "There's an outside entrance this way we can take!" She led the small group within the store towards it, Izuku taking one last look at the dwindling number of people before taking long strides in his steps to follow, the voice in his head urging to help lead them out to safety. But when the door opened, bright orange light beamed through the crack, and an explosion blew him back before he had the chance to shout out.

Yaoyorozu Momo was grateful to her tutors and teachers for helping her excel as well as she did in school; she probably wouldn't have the free time to go out if she wasn't so confident in the exams. Given, she was actually homeschooled, her parents had the connections to link her with the exact same course work as any girl her age in the Aichi prefecture, with less of the "bothersome interaction" of rich preppy girls schools were supposed to be riddled with in her area. She didn't believe it for a second, but she could at least make more interactions outside of school too. It didn't hurt her to go out every once in a while. It's why she decided to visit Tokyo for the day.

The district of Tokyo was farther from her home than her parents would probably like her to be without a chaperone or guide to take her around, but going along had a good benefit to it, and that was avoiding everyone who surrounded her. The business partners of her parents, their children, or any other kid around her age who knew half the talk about her family were far from the ideal populous to interact with. A lot less of their talk had to actually do about her and not her 11family name, and it so got bothersome after a while that going out without any big indicator of her family's power or presence was the most relieving feeling in the world for Momo.

Tokyu Plaza wasn't a bad place to visit, if not a tad too crowded for her liking. The hectic and unorganized sea of individuals was a heavy change of pace for her to be around, but it did feel more freeing than walking in a set pact in sync. And little to no one recognized her, so she could at least get away with window shopping and traveling up the many floors the building had.

Realistically, according to those around her growing up, Momo didn't need to shop; her family could either order and ship whatever she needed to their doorstep or their delivery entrance, or she could make the smallest of tool with her quirk. She'd practiced with it enough to memorize the elements and materials of thirty-two different common- and work-place utensils and objects, and among the list of greater tools, devices and objects she was memorizing for her Yuei entrance exam, she considered it a victory to still remember the little things in the midst of it.

Momo had educated herself on the inner workings of the economy – and her own health and physical limits – to know she couldn't just make everything she needed with her quirk, however. She wasn't going to try to, either. The idea was but a flimsy business model that would end in more demand than she could supply. Her family, and herself when she was old enough to take care of herself legally, would have to let the world provide her with the essentials and the entertainment and whatever else she could get her hands on. There were many stores in the mall Momo was unfamiliar with but had one or two somethings that caught her eye, and could probably convince her family to buy. She took notes of their names, designs, offers, locations, and the order of importance to pass on to her parents another time, always stuffed the notebook back in her bag, and continued on from shop to shop until she was satisfied.

Her aimless strolling and genuine interest led her to a jewelry store on the first floor. Momo didn't consider herself a big fan of accessories or jewelry; she owned many that her parents had gifted her, but she really only wore the earrings every day. She didn't hate jewelry, but she didn't see it a necessity the way her mother did. Her mother wasn't a pro-hero, just like the father of the family, so Momo's viewpoint of accessories wasn't a judgement of her mothers, just oriented by a different point of view. That didn't mean she was going to turn away from the shop; maybe they had a design of earrings she could get, or maybe something for her own mother's collection.

Momo knew the store wasn't anything high end or upper-class oriented, but that didn't deter her. She cared more about the designs being offered over the material they were made from. She knew her mother would too. A few caught her eye: several numerical designs, others of birthstones and zodiacs that symbolized all the members of their family, a few of natural objects and imagery that could play off her mother's quirk. She would have to note the store on her way out, just so she could give another look over its selections and make her final judgements.

She turned down the assistance of one of the clerks, stating she was still looking around and taking everything in, and that's when she noticed him walk in. A boy, probably somewhere in his early teens given his height and softer features, dressed in rough and wrinkly clothing and with a baseball bat tucked under his arm. His hair was disheveled and his eyes looked vacant and space, almost uncaring for his surroundings. In layman terms, he looked like a delinquent; and with the weapon in his arms, a dangerous one at that.

Momo did her best to hide the rolling up of her sleeves, leaving more room of her skin to generate a weapon if needed. She knew that she couldn't use her quirk legally in public, but she knew of the self-defense laws that had followed the heroic laws and knew well enough she could make something to fit that bill in time. At best, she knew how to catch people off guard and tie them down long enough for someone else to intervene and arrest him for the ruckus he was about to make. And at a small store too. Momo was still trying to understand why he chose to take into a small store in a heavily populated mall, but she gave the benefit of the doubt that he was just that desperate.

She continued to watch the boy as he circled the center table of the store. While one hand stayed stuffed in his pocket holding onto the bat, his other darted in front of him, leaving only a finger out to point and move from necklace to earring to ring to bracelet, counting what goods he could probably get away with once that bat came flying out into his hands. His eyes moved faster than his finger, taking note of what he didn't point at. After a whole lap his hand came up to cup his chin, and Momo noted he looked a mix between confused and frustrated, most likely not finding what he had hoped to in the collection the store offered.

He looked ready to move, either out the store to take something with him as quickly as possible, and Momo only held herself back from stepping up when one of the store's employees approached him as she had Yaoyorozu minutes ago. The black ponytail-haired girl could notice a level of comfort on her face, probably for the same reason Momo did about the green-haired boy, but she kept quiet on the side as the boy and the clerk chatted.

Apparently he was looking for a specific necklace, and for his mother too – just like she was – so Momo now knew why he had even entered the store. Her shoulders eased as the clerk's did, promising the green boy to look in the back for a design that met his expectations, and the boy stayed in place when she left to the back room. Any stress he entered the store with had evaporated, making the boy more jittery and aware of his surroundings instead of attentive to only what was in front of him. His emotions and expression had done a 180, and his body had too until his eyes met Momo's.

For a brief moment the worry was back in her head, and her hand hovered over her forearm ready to act, but the boy didn't move and only continued to face her. Tension was in the air the several following seconds their eyes locked on. Only the tension was only around Momo as she noticed the boy's eyes dart away and to her several time within the passing minute. He looked more trouble than aggressive, more concerned that battle-ready, and that gave pause for Momo to think.

The boy's showing no signs of aggression other than in his appearance, but he looks more disheveled than anything, Momo noted, taking a second to look over his form again. His eyes are wide open; not to attention, though. He looks like he's barely able to stay up on his own two feet, but there isn't any other sign of physical exhaustion. Or maybe he isn't tired. His other hands moving plenty by his side, so he could just have ADD or ADHD, or he's just in a rush to get the necklace he's looking for and go. She took another look at his face. Now he looks inquisitive, meaning something's confusing him, but what? Is he overheating? He looks to be burning up, but it's fairly cold in this store. Why—Momo stopped her thoughts short as her mind did an overview of the situation—have I been staring at him for ten minutes thinking he's a threat and why am I still knowing he probably isn't?

Momo's head snapped away from him, and from the corner of her eye she could see him to the same. Both hands came up to her face, one to unroll her sleeve and the other to pat down the red forming on her own face. She could understand if the green-haired teen was but weirded out and embarrassed having seen someone do nothing but stare at him – she'd felt the same before from other people, though over time she learned a glare back would deter most everyone – and could only hope he didn't approach to question her about it and make the situation worse. She's just on edge, being somewhere new and alone thinking because of her status as a member of a famous and wealthy family in the hero marketing business someone would be out to get her, she told herself.

That train of thought brought down her blush with the shame that followed. Someone who was most likely just some civilian teen, she'd just gone and assume them as a threat because of how they looked. She knew heroics was all about being aware to her surroundings, but it was a meek excuse for what could have dissolved into an unnecessary fight. Not something becoming of a recommended student to Yuei's heroics program, but she vowed to work on that attitude and that mindset then and there before the new school year came to be.

When she looked again to the boy, he was already choosing a necklace from the small selection the store clerk returned with, making his own way to the register and parting ways with the employee as she went back to return the necklace. He paid for the jewelry and walked out of the store with it packaged and in his pocket, not giving the store or Momo another look as he headed back into the crowd bustling through the mall.

Momo gave a sigh of relief, holding herself back from following to apologize, thinking it would only worsen the awkwardness of the scenario more than it already was. She could only hope that if they met again, there wouldn't be any problem in explaining herself and clearing her name of any unease she left him with. But with him gone, she chose not to dwell on the matter any further, and moved on to her original task at hand of finding her own mother a present.

That was, until a shot rang out through the building.

Momo didn't move a muscle, acting as a stopping point as one of the clerks backed into her, watching the crowd outside the store book it like a heard running from the following gunshots. No one else within the store decided to follow the crowd, and Momo had to agree it looked to hectic to run into. And the green boy with the baseball bat was a fine example of its problems, spitting him back into the store with a stumble.

The clerk beside Momo stepped forward, but the boy had already caught his footing before he could collapse on the tile. Instead the woman called out for his attention. "H-hey! Wh-what's going on out there? Was that a gunshot?"

The green-haired boy nodded feverishly, his left hand patting at his pockets. "I-I couldn't hear what they're saying, but I think they're villains!" He looked back to the crowd still running past, and Momo looked with him. The bat below his arm became unwrapped, and the Yaoyorozu child wondered if he had brought the bat for something like this. It was highly unlikely to be the case, but given the situation, her own presence, and the usual bodyguard her parents liked to send her with, she wouldn't be completely surprised if the boy was just another hired muscle in disguise. "Is-we can't go this way. Is there a different way out we could take instead?"

A different clerk towards the opposite end of the room spoke up; "There's an outside entrance this way we can take!" Momo looked back to her and the back room door she was pointing at, and the people in the store began swarming after her. The clerk to her side took ahead of Momo, and said girl gave one last look to the green boy speed up to the door himself, leaving her with little time to react as an explosion followed the opening of the door.

For her own part Momo got off lucky, being the furthest from the door as it blew open and barely being knocked off her feet. The clerk in front of her only stumbled back against her, sending the ponytailed girl down to the floor just to keep the employee from cracking her head on the floor. And being the furthest back, Momo got to see the clerk closest to the door get blown back into the woman and gentleman following behind her and sending all three of them to the wall opposite the back entrance; she saw the two couples and the third clerk opposite the room from her collide with each other and slide away from the blast; and she saw the green haired teen fly back, sliding across the center table and through all the accessories on it, and the roll on the floor back to the store's entrance.

Momo flinched at the scrape she felt on her elbow, but she knew she could produce the bandages to get that covered up and not have to worry badly about it. Same could be said for the ringing in her ears, but that would go away eventually enough. The clerk on top of her swayed, dazed by the blast, and Momo chose to attend to keeping her awake and making sure she was physically stable.

"Next time I tell you to put in ear plugs, put in your fucking earplugs." Momo flinched back and slid away an inch as three men sauntered through the busted doorway. The one in front of the three sneered over his shoulder and the bags piling on his arms to the man behind him. "We don't need to hear you bitching over your hearing problems if you start them yourself."

The man the first was complaining about was slapping a gloved hand over his ears in quick succession. "Yeah well the blast to get inside the building wasn't this loud," he snapped back. "Next time tell me your quirk is louder on the smaller objects, Plode."

The third man with steam rising from his palms snickered at his companion's complaints, flicking small cones out of his ears. "It's 'cause we were in a smaller space, Marker," he chided his colleague. "Sound just had more to bounce off of. Not my fault you weren't listening to us."

"Just shut up and grab more shit, you two." The man in front shifted the bags over his left shoulder to his hands, tossing the empty sacks to his partners as they began shuffling the store's jewelry into them.

Momo watched with baited breath, keeping her hands on the clerk to keep her from running forward as the man with steam at his hands stepping over and sneering at her coworker closest to the back door. He didn't do anything to the unconscious woman or the people with her, but the shifting look he continued to give them didn't settle Momo's stomach. She looked back over her shoulder to the boy with the bat, lying face down on the floor right beside the entrance and on top of his bat. He was struggling to stay conscious, probably having hit his head against the metal bat in his tumble.

The man suffering from his hearing came towards her and the clerk, barely giving them a second glance as he shoved stacks of accessories into his bag until the shelves were bare. Once full, the man zipped it closed and turned away, and then did he look over the clerk and the Yaoyorozu child, flinching both girls back. Instead of advancing on them, he turned back to the man who led them into the store. "You think the boss would mind if we took any hostages?"

The man in the green jacket looked over to his partner and the two woman he was standing over. "Don't bother with it. Boss doesn't want any civilians in our hands to have police prioritize us more." An explosion off in the distance rattle the building, sending the criminal's gazes out the door and leaving Momo to wonder just how many more of them were present in the mall. "Just leave 'em. Got another store to hit, then we go."

The man in the blue jacket looked back down at the two ladies below him before shrugging and stepping to the store's entrance. The man in the red jacket laughed and leaped over one of the store's overturned tables. "It's not like any of these people would fight back anyways. They're civilians, not heroes. Most can't even legally fight with their quirks." He tilted his head towards the store's entrance. "Taibok is dealing with the only one present. You sure we can't take a few to get a few more money out of this?"

"If you know any human trafficking rings, tell the boss," the man in green replied. "Maybe he'll give you a promotion. We have our own shit to do right now. Come on." Green and blue walked out the store's entrance, and Momo watched them walk right past the green boy now lying still on his side, the bat barely an inch in front of him. Her eyes furrowed a moment, wondering when he had moved his position, and noticed as the man in red slowed down in front of the boy, the crunching of beads under his boots ringing out in the silence between the explosions.

He sneered a grin down at the teen and snarked, "Useless lot," before shooting his foot to the boy's stomach. Only instead of hitting his target, the boy's hands shot out to the foot and slammed the handle of the bat against his shin. Momo could see the boy's eyes snap wide in action.

The red criminal swore in pain, swinging his right foot back, but the teen took the moment of the man's one foot in the air to swing the bat handle against his other ankle, tripping him up and flipping him backwards. Momo winced at the crack that sounded as his head hit the floor first, but she felt little sympathy his way. She watched the boy move quick, spinning on his hip to sit up and push himself onto his feet before turning to the entrance and the two criminals who stopped leaving as their companion fell.

The man in the green jacket scoffed as he let his bags drag off his arms to the floor, but the man in blue gave a twisted smile as he took small steps forward. The green teen raised his bat in his direction, but the man continued his slow trek. "Calm down, kiddo," were the words that slid out his smirk. "No need to get so feisty. You'll get someone hurt, and if you aren't lucky, that someone'll be you." The hand by his side slid up, pulling a jagged knife out from his pocket. "You really think your quirk and a baseball bat's gonna help you in an outnumbered situation?"

Momo could see the look of the teen from the side of his face. He blanched by the end of sentence, probably given the train of thought that he probably was outmatched by two adults with their own quirks at their disposal, not holding anything back, against a kid who most likely doesn't want to hurt them as bad as they want to hurt him. But he didn't back down, look away or lower his bat; he stayed right where he was standing, only ever changing his expression into doubt and then into determination. The criminals saw it, the blue jacket man's smile becoming challenging as the knife twirled in his fingers and the green jacket man stalking forward as he let the last of his bags drop to the floor. Momo saw it too, helping the clerk beside her lean against the wall without drawing the criminals' attention before letting her hand glow and thrusting it to the men, launching a short but thick steel pipe from her palm in their direction.

The man with the knife had caught sight of the flying metal object heading his way and leaned his head back just in time to miss it clocking him in the jaw. The boy with green hair flinched back as well, though he was a good few feet away from it actually hitting him. But the man in the green jacket didn't fare as well as his companion, surprised as the steel cylinder slammed into his throat, sending him stumbling against the wall gasping from the new bruise.

While the criminal took a second to snap his eyes between Momo and his falling partner, the green boy took a look towards her only. Staring at the man with a knife looking down at her with surprise, Momo could see the teen turn his head towards her, and she turned hers just enough to lock both eyes with his. She saw only a second of surprise on his face as their eyes met, and a second later he steeled his expression back to the same fire he had thrown the first man down with. A smirk flickered on his lips, but Momo could barely process it before his head snapped back to the criminal and his bat shot at his stomach.

A little too late, however, as the criminal was quick enough to respond to catch the head of the bat in his other hand, still having his knuckles pressed into his stomach. With a grunt he thrusted his blade – Momo took a split second to notice it was longer than it was when he took it out of his pockets – towards the teen's chest, only for the bat and his hand to come flying up in the boy's defense. Just as quickly, the teen stepped forward, his hold on the bat flipping and cracking the steel tool down on the man's nose without a moment's hesitation. The man stumbled back a step, face scrunched in pain, and one step was all he got to take as the teen wrapped his bat behind the man's head and flipped him on the ground back into the store. Though clearly in pain and sporting a possibly broken nose, the man slashed at the teen again, nicking him across the shin and only getting another hit in the face as a response.

Momo pushed herself to her feet, easing her shoulders at the sight of the three downed criminals around them. She could hear the clerk beside her sigh audibly and push herself up to help her drowsy coworkers and customers. The teen with the bat stayed standing over the same criminal, heaving his body with each breath. The cut on his leg barely seemed to bother him, probably only having gotten a shallow cut from the man's knife. He looked over to Momo, giving her probably the best and longest look at his emerald eyes, and in the corner of her own she saw the criminal in green snarling forward, the wall where he touched coming apart and wrapping stone around his arms. "Look out!"

Both teen and criminal reacted on the spot to her callout, the former snapping his head around and the latter cocking his hand back for a punch at the boy's face. Before it could make contact the teen flew his bat out to it, holding it at either end and holding the brunt of the stone punch while skidding back only an inch from the impact. The follow up punch he didn't get to block, the criminal's left fist colliding with his side, sending him spiraling over the store register and into the wall behind it.

Momo had completed generating a staff from her wrist by the time the teen boy collapsed behind the counter, and by then the criminal turned his attention to her. "I've been having a rough day, you little bitch," he growled out between coughs, "and you've made it worse. And just for this"—the man pointed a rocky finger at the bruise on his throat—"I'll return the favor in kind."

Momo knew the odds weren't stacked in her favor. Whilst versatile, her quirk was only powerful if given more time and she simply didn't have that for this fight. While strong, her own physical strength was nowhere on par with the criminal's quirk manipulating stones the way he did, nor as strong as the boy's quirk able to hold back a punch while barely flinching in response. She could hear the instincts deep within her telling her to step down from such an uneven fight, but she pushed it down. She had already hesitated when the men first arrived and made their threats, and she hesitated to step up and help the teen who'd just thrown his life on the line to stop them even when they weren't a threat to people. These men were just wrong in their actions and the boy had stepped up so they couldn't get away with it. He was being a hero, and if she was going to be one too, it wouldn't have been right to just sit by and do nothing when she clearly could.

She swung the staff with all her might at the criminal's head, expecting nothing less when he caught it and yanked it out of her hands. The pull had sent her lunging forward, and she was already forming a shield from the forearm closest to the criminal, ready to parry his next punch and keep on fight. The man didn't seem to care in the slightest, rising his fist up to his head to crash it down on her.

"GRAAH!" Then a bat came flying into the scene. At the last second the criminal brought his hand down just enough to block the strike, but the hit sent him flying across the room and embedding him into the wall across from them. Momo watched his body go limp where he hung, and turned her head slowly down the bat to the standing and highly-aggravated green-haired teen watching the criminal with her. His body rose and fell with each breath, and she could see blood trickling down the back of his neck from where he must have hit a corner, but he kept his eyes wide open and showed no signs of relaxing even with all three criminals unconscious.

As the three robbers showed no signs of getting up, the teen conceded victory, easing his shoulders and straightening his back in relief. It took him a few seconds to notice the eyes on him, slowly moving down to the couples just under where the green jacket criminal was stuck, to the eyes of the clerks and customers in the back rising over the table in front of them to check if the coast was clear, to the onyx eyes right beside and above him.

He blinked rapidly and nodded his head shakily. "H-hey," he greeted Momo, voice expressing the only side of exhaustion in the situation.

Momo nodded back slowly. "Hello."

The teen blinked at her again, red dusting his cheeks from all he had done. "Are…you okay?" His words came out in gasps in an attempt to find his breath. Momo nodded again, eyes flickering to the back of his head.

"I could be asking you the same thing." Her eyes dropped back down to his. "You're bleeding."

If it were possible, he straightened up more at those words, the highest of his height reaching about the level of Momo's lips. His head tilted back, and she could see some red start to trail down his messy hair probably from right where the wound was, and then he looked down at his ankle and hummed. "I don't think it's bleeding," he commented with confusion, sticking his foot out to see where his pant leg was slashed open. "It's just a shallow cut. Huh. Guess he missed with the knife more than I thought."

That rung alarms in Momo's head, staring down at the teen boy with nothing but concern and worry. Blood was streaming down the back of his head and neck, and was probably staining down his back too. Not at a rate alarming of sever blood loss, but enough to show he was losing more blood from one wound than anyone conceivably should. Did he really not feel the wound? Did his quirk not only make him strong, but also desensitize him from pain? That would be troublesome if it eliminated the feeling of near any wound, probably counteracting the brain's fight or flight response to know to keep himself alive and tend to his wounds before his body started to become numb and unresponsive. He would run himself dry before he even realized he was losing anything to being with.

Fearing the worst, Momo bridged the gap between them and fumbled through her bag for a mini first-aid kit. Thank you mom and dad for those lessons. "No, I mean you're bleeding from your head. You must have cut your head against something either time you went flying." She winced internally at her lack of formality saying that to his face. "I don't think it's too big, seeing as how you're still standing, but I should at least cover the wound so you don't bleed out any more than you have."

The teen beneath her hands and gaze practically froze up in compliance as she tilted his head down more and parted his hair to get a good look at where the blood was coming from. Her fingers traced around the inch or two long cut on the back of his head, and the teen barely even flinched at the touch on his wound. Has to be some sort of "power-through" quirk, effecting him in strength and pain, Momo theorized as she covered the wound with a sterile cloth and holding it down with small strips of surgical tape. "We need to get you out of here so we can get it treated properly," she told the teen as she stepped back, allowing him to rise his face covered in red.

His lips floundered as a hand came up to tap on the bandage. "Is-is it that bad?" he asked, running a hand down the back of his neck below the bandage. When his hand pulled back, the two teens looked at his fingers coated in blood. "O-Oh that is bad." The teen looked down at himself, his hand rising and falling as though contemplating what to wipe the blood off on, but instead found a towel dropped in his hand courtesy of Yaoyorozu. "Thanks."

Momo only nodded to his gratitude, her mind still elsewhere as she continued looking him over for any other wounds or bruises from his fights. "You shouldn't have stepped in like that," she informed him, holding back her tone from being as scolding as her parents had given her in the past, but the boy still flinched at the words alone. "It was brave of you, but they were going to leave everyone alone anyways. Fighting them wasn't necessary."

"Neither was letting them get away with it," the boy countered, but his voice sounded weak in his response. His eyes looked over the room to the other civilians struggling to get up from their own wounds, and Momo was doing her own part to look them over and help how she could. "Gang Orca's the only hero on the scene – you heard him. If he's the only one fighting right now, they would have gotten away with…all this, the hurting and the theft. I know I shouldn't have, but I didn't think it'd be right not to step in."

"That's kind of you but that doesn't excuse it." Momo took pause in her words as both teens looked to the back of the store, listening in as one of the clerks told everyone to follow the way the criminals had come in, theorizing there's probably police on scene outside through their shorter route to safety than through the main halls. One gentleman was holding the steaming door open with a blue hand, contrasting from the rest of his exposed red skin, but little other civilians cared to noticed as they shuffled out the store together. Momo took steps to follow, and the boy followed behind her, lifting the bat up to his chest in precaution. "Even if your quirk help to dilute the pain you feel and weaken their blows, you shouldn't have put yourself in danger like that in the first place." The boy made no response to that, and Momo looked back to his flat and confused expression directed to her. Was he surprised she was able to guess his quirk, because Momo knew it wasn't that hard to analyze someone's quirk with such blatant presentation within a fight to act as though he was walking away unscathed.

"Wait what?" The teen's response paused Momo's train of thought, staring down at the boy wondering if he was just unable to follow along or what knowledge he had of his quirk didn't include his ability to negate his reactions and feelings to pain and wounds. Did…did his quirk not cover pain tolerance?

"Daddy?" Both teens stopped before they even went through the back door, turning their heads with one last clerk and the man holding the door open to the store's entrance. Before their eyes was a child, who knows how old, gingerly walking through the abandoned and littered mall's hall, hands cupped at her chest as she looked at her surroundings.

"Shit," the boy in front of her muttered, and though slightly vulgar Momo had to agree with the sentiment. The two teens power-walked their way back towards the store's entrance, catching the eyes of the little girl who looked frozen in place. Before either could make it out the door, a figure walked into frame, right beside the little girl and both teens and the adults behind them bolted into cover and hiding. Momo ducked behind the short end of the clerk's counter, looking back at the two worried faces from the adults attempting to hide behind the far back table without letting the door close. She presumed they saw the assault rifles the man was carrying, too.

"Hey little fella." Momo cursed under her breath as she look around the corner of the counter, seeing the teen boy hiding stiff behind the pillar of the store's front entrance, and beyond that a criminal with two automatic weapons seemingly taped to his arms and hands looming over the child in the hallway. The little girl looked up to him and began backing away, slowly but surely. "Calm down, kid. I ain't gonna hurt you. These are just for show, I promise." Momo didn't believe the smile under his eye band for a second, even as he rose his arms and kept the guns pointed away from the child.

Another explosion rang the building, turning the criminal's head the other way to look at the explosion and commotion at the other end of the mall. The young girl's body shook as she fell off her feet, and Momo could hear the small whimpers she made in response to the violence. God, how Momo wished she could rush over and get her out now. The villain looked back down to her, the same fake smile still plastered on his face as he spoke. "Usually kids are crying right about now about stuff like this, but you look like you're trying to hold it together. Pretty brave kid." The little girl looked up to him as he acted like the gun was able to cup his chin thought. "Tell ya what, girlie. I thought I heard somethin' go down over here, and if you can help me find out where, I'll get 'cha right outta this mess. How's that sound?"

The kid made no motion or sound of agreement, instead looking back over in the direction of the jewelry store and locking her eyes on Momo's. The teen girl could see the worry and fear and the cry for help written on the child's face, and she hated herself for not being able to run forward and provide that. Only she had little idea of how to fight someone with firearms equipped with only herself and her quirk, and if she approached the situation wrong she could end up getting them both hurt. If she was going to save the kid, she had to think about the situation a lot more calmly than she was at the moment.

Momo's eyes darted up to the other teen facing her way and looking right at her. She could see the same conflict in his own eyes, along with the white knuckles around the handle of his bat. He looked more indecisive than she felt, and she worried he would still choose to run forward, even with his wounds. She did her best with her expressions to try to tell him off from the idea, but with his continued struggling expression, she couldn't tell if it was working or not.

She turned her attention back to the gunman to find him gazing in surprise at the man stuck in the wall and the two unconscious on the ground, and Momo hoped she was fast enough when she turned away behind the counter not to be spotted as well. She could hear the movement of his guns, and she wondered a moment if it was a part of his quirk to control them so freely. "Thanks, kid. Wait right here for me will ya?" Momo cursed internally again, already using her quirk to generate a shield from her other arm to give to the teen with her. If she couldn't handle the gunner alone, maybe with this boy and his quirk – whatever it was – would be able to take him down together.

When another explosion shook the room around them, Momo turned round the corner of the counter to face the other teen. To her surprise and horror, she got to see the other teen as he turned 'round the pillar and bolted for the gunman and the girl.

Izuku would've liked to say his actions were specifically reactionary.

He was surprised when the explosion sent him careening over the table, more than he was hurt. That wasn't to say it didn't hurt, crashing his back against the wooden surface and the various edged objects decorating it, and then sliding off to roll across the floor; it just didn't hurt as much as he thought it would have. Hitting his head against his own bat instead of the floor hurt more, and he only hoped it didn't leave a bruise. What hurt more than that was watching the people around him, innocent people, get knocked about and knocked out and bleed by people who had little regard for the wellbeing of others. As cliché as a motive it was – and Izuku had read plenty of comics that used it for their characters – that didn't make it sting any less to see happen right before his eyes.

He used that reasoning as justification for attacking the three criminals responsible, for working as fast as he could to respond and knock them out, avoiding having to draw out a fight he probably couldn't win if it went on any longer. And it went that way for all of about two minutes until he was sent flying into a wall and the villain went after someone else. He didn't register anything beyond "move" as he saw the tall girl's first attack fail right in front of him, shoving himself off the floor and forward to take a swing before the criminal could land his stone-infused punch.

Seeing that same villain stuck in the wall hadn't really helped to settle anything within Izuku, but it didn't hurt more than seeing the civilians around him hurt as well. It was a weight off his shoulders – of which the girl beside him all but told him was his own fault for having to begin with – to see the criminals down for the count, but the last one was with more excessive force than he would have liked to use on another human being. If that man was harmed in any way deemed fatal, Izuku knew he'd be to blame for that, on a criminal or not, in self-defense or not. The police and the heroes would metaphorically have his head for inciting violence on anyone, probably more so because he was quirkless and shouldn't be stepping into a fight at all if the sludge villain incident left anything in the back of his head since.

Plenty problems were left with Izuku since that day and he hated thinking about each and every one of them.

The wounds he had didn't hurt that much either. The cut his leg received from the guy with a knife hadn't reached bone, and it didn't look like it cut too deep beneath his skin, but it stung a bit to walk on when he wasn't on an adrenaline high. The cut on the back of his head stung a bit more than that, and the blood staining his shirt and jacket and then his hand told him he probably should worry about it more than he was, or about the amount the tall girl who patched him up was.

Izuku was happy she didn't bring up his blush when she saw it. Even with Mei he'd never really gotten close to any other girl, and being shorter than them and so close to their chest without them bothering to notice or think about it didn't help any embarrassment of the situation on his end.

It was reassuring to be patched up by the tall girl he assumed was glaring at him earlier, and it set his suspicions of her at ease knowing he had someone on his side – for all of a minute. It hurt to hear how right she was about his involvement in the fight and how reckless his actions were. He knew it already, but hearing someone reinforce that viewpoint only helped it to settle in. It hurt more than his physical wounds, maybe even more watching everyone around him struggle to move from their wounds, but it found itself topped as the tall girl put all of the responsibility and power on the quirk he didn't have.

Izuku had to bite back his tongue from making a snide comment in response to that; the blood loss was probably effecting him more than he realized, but that didn't matter as much. He had done nothing spectacular in the fight that he could think of that could have been explained by a quirk. All he had done was fight with his own strength and pushed through with his own power – and yes, it was a bit surprising to see that last guy get knocked back so easily, but Izuku credited that to his own strength and all the training he had put in at the dojo, at the beach and more recently the past two weeks with Hunter stopping by the beach to spar with and teach him. And despite doing his quirkless best, all the credit is given to the thought that he has a quirk, and not himself. The reminder of that worldview made his blood boil, but for the sake of not making an enemy out of someone who had tried to help them fight and stay healthy afterwards despite their opinions, he held himself back.

Then a child with white hair appeared in the middle of the ruin and rubble and, of course, Izuku moved to grab her and run – leaving a child at a time like that would've been a heartless act Izuku wouldn't approve of from himself. At least the tall girl had the same mindset while following behind him, until a man with guns at the end of his arms appeared and he and the tall girl rushed to hide before the gunman could fully see them. Izuku stood right at the store's entrance, listening to the one-sided conversation out in the hall as the gunman tried to comfort the little girl without really doing anything to calm her down.

He took one look at the scene in the middle of their talk, watching the criminal – he was teetering on the border between criminal and villain with every second – tower over the little girl just trembling at the sight of him. Izuku only looked away to tell himself not to shout or step out from hiding. He hated the building in his throat, angry at the situation before him being anything but good for anyone and at himself for being unable to do anything about it. He stepped up to fight three guys who weren't being a threat to anyone, he stepped up before when the guy he respected/hated the most was being suffocated in front of a crowd, and yet his first instinct at seeing a child threatened was to step back. Not approach in their defense, not work something out to keep them safe, but abandon them in the face of danger, simply because the other guy had a gun.

What else was he to do? Get shot, standing over the bodies of the gunman's companions out cold from their fight? Get the kid shot or taken hostage as a knee jerk reaction from the criminal seeing a challenge approach? Get taken hostage himself, or the girl behind him instead, if the villain had any plan or idea of what to use a civilian as in their endeavors? Everything wrong Izuku could think of reasoned that hiding was better than fighting, that in the end it spared less, but there shouldn't have been anyone to spare in the first place.

Then his eyes caught the tall girl's, and he could see it – the anger, the self-deprecation, the conflict of reason, the want to just be a hero unrestricted – in her too. He wasn't alone in his desire to step up and help, despite the situation at hand being stacked against them. As much as he wanted to be a hero, so did this girl. Izuku could respect that despite the one flaw he saw, because nothing could overshadow someone's heroism even in spite of situations. Not to him.

So when the building shook from Gang Orca's fight, Izuku hoped the gunman was distracted by it as he was the first time in the criminal's selfish attempt to make sure his work wasn't going to be halted by the fight, and wasted no time in spinning on the ball of his foot and bolting it towards the girl.

To his luck, the gunman was distracted, just long enough for Izuku to step right on in before he was noticed. With the bat in an underhand hold, he swung it forward, whacking the gunman across the stomach and sending him stumbling back. But Izuku wasn't there to fight; he was there to get the girl out, because that mattered first and most. So as the criminal was coming out from the shock and sting of the hit, Izuku scooped the young girl in his other arm, brought her to his chest, and kept running forward into the department store right across from the jewelry store.

The gunman grunted and spat on the floor before turning after Izuku and the girl with a snarl. "You little shit!" he roared, and the last thing Izuku saw over his shoulder was the man aiming both guns in their direction. Izuku swerved to the side and hit the floor, shielding the girl with his body just in time as the bullets went flying over them. Izuku winced as he crawled forward, the young girl fumbling against his chest with her cries and her flailing limbs below him, and bullets ripping through shirts and jackets above him, as he did his best to keep himself and the child from being hit by a single one. He pressed his bat into the ground as an extra limb, helping to lunge him forward and further away from the line of fire, until he was hiding behind a wall and the gunfire stopped.

He would have liked to say his troubles stopped there, but the young girl in his hands was still putting up the struggle. She was still flailing and crying and beating against his chest for him to let go. "Hey…hey, calm down," he tired reasoning with her, dropping his bat on his side as quietly as he could to meet with her own screams having gone silent as the gunfire passed. Izuku could hear the clicking of the man's guns, probably getting ready for a second run. "Calm down, calm down, I'm not gonna hurt you." The young girl blatantly ignored him, growling and crying with each punch that made contact with his palms and each knee and kick that hit his sides and the horn on her head that swung about as she shook, but Izuku only grunted them off. "Calm down, I promise I'm not going to hurt you." He winced internally as she continued to struggle against him. He really didn't know how he was supposed to calm down a kid, how his own mom had handled him or how heroes handled them in situations like this. So he decided to go with the option he wanted to do least.

When she swung at his chest again, Izuku chose to catch her hand and then do the same when the other hand came following. It panicked her a moment, something Izuku knew was going to happen if it did, but he restrained himself from caving in and letting go in favor of getting them both out of this safely. He rose both fists in his clutches to his face, telling the girl, "Look at me. Please. Look at me." She continued to struggle at first, her eyes only flickering to his face every few seconds as her attempts continuously failed, until fatigue caught up to her and she went slack in his hold. He could hear her sniffling start back up, and Izuku straightened where he sat looking down at her. "I won't hurt you. I promise I'm not going to hurt you." Her head tilted back so she could look up at him, and Izuku heard his voice crack seeing her ruby eyes glisten with tears.

"I am going to get you out of here," he vowed, internally pressing down his emotions to try and keep himself calm for her sake. "I am going to get you out, and I will keep you safe. I promise you. I will not let him hurt you."

"I"—she sniffled back a whimper, eyes falling back down away from his—"I want my daddy…"

"I'll get you back to your dad." He brought his hands together, lapping one over the other and keeping both of hers still in his grasp, though softer now. "I will get you out of here, I will help you find your dad, and I will take you back to him. But to do that I need you to calm down, and I need you to trust me and let me help you." He took a deep breath as he finished, held back his own tears, and got her to look up at him once more. "Please. Let me help you."

After several moments of vocal silence between them, only broken up as the little girl tried to compose herself, she nodded her head and agreed. Izuku let out his breath and eased back down the wall, lowering their hands with him. Good, he told himself, one hurdle passed. "Either of you kids still there?" Another one to get over.

Izuku turned his head towards the gunman's voice, his arms wrapping protectively around the girl as she shot against his shirt to hide. He didn't dare peek around the wall or get closer to the corner, hearing the cracking of glass under the man's boots. "I ain't sure if I hit ya enough. Wanna make sure I get the job done, keeping my partner focused only on his fight. Come on out and make my job easier, will ya?"

Izuku could feel his arms shaking at just how lax the man was about what he was doing. He turned his head back to the kid in his arms, finding her looking right up at him in her own fear, and he worked to keep his emotions in check again. He was hoping a bat across the stomach would have sent the man puking out his lunch, but it seems he didn't hit hard enough for that. Now the guns were aimed at him; how was he supposed to fight that with a baseball bat? Izuku doubted he could reason with the man to let him close enough to strike, or if he could even sneak around for a second surprise attack. He'd probably get shot the instant he looked at the man just because of what he did. But he needed to do something, and he had to get this girl to her dad. There wasn't any other option—

Izuku rolled his head to the baseball bat at his side, and he was happy he decided against smacking himself in the face for his thinking, or lack thereof. It's a baseball bat, and what do people usually do with them? Hit things and send them flying. Izuku chided himself for nothing thinking of that sooner, and briefly for not even thinking of it as useful practice material to be a hero. There was probably going to be some day in the future he'd have to work from a long range, and apparently today was that day.

He turned his body away from where the gunman was approaching from, if slowly enough to be threatening and tried to put the little girl on the ground. The instant she felt his body distancing from hers, she panicked and clutched tighter on his shirt with a whimper. Izuku looked down at her with his own worry. "Hey, hey. It's okay. It's okay." He kept his voice low to a whisper, hoping the man's own movements and sounds would keep him from hearing. "I'm not going anywhere. I have an idea, but I need to put you down. I can't carry you into harm's way, okay?" He stayed crouched in front of her, doing his best to softly sit her down against the wall even with her holding onto his so tight. "I'll stay right where you can see me. And when I'm done, we're getting out of here. Okay?" He held onto her hands again, not trying to pry them off but holding them close despite his words. He wasn't going to try and force this part.

She let go of him, albeit reluctantly, and her wide and glistening eyes stayed on him the moment he let go of her. He reached over and picked his bat up slowly, making sure not to clack it against the floor and wall. "Cry out if 'yer bleedin' out, kiddos. I'll make sure to finish the job." Izuku ignored the gunman, looking over in the opposite direction for anything he could use as a ball, and to his luck found an aptly sized chunk of the ceiling lying close by. Gang Orca's fight was helping him out quite a bit against this guy, and Izuku noted to thank the hero extensively if he got to see him by the end of this. He crawled over and swooped the stone into his hand, and rose up against the wall looking back towards the approaching gunman.

He only had one shot at this. Dash out, toss the rock into the air, hit it at the man and hope it hits him where it counts to by him more time to knock him out. Just don't get shot, Izuku. He took one deep breath, looked down at the little girl beside him again, nodded to her – he hoped the action calmed her down enough so they both felt he had this – and took one big step forward into the open. Immediately the gunman was in his sights, and Izuku in his. The smirk on the man's face seemed to dip with aggression, and Izuku turned at the hip to toss up the stone and whack it at him the same time the man rose his guns to shoot him, and a bang rang out in his ears.

The gunman cried out in pain and dropped to one knee, and Izuku froze a second time in the middle of a fight that day, surprised to see the man's leg bleeding out on the floor. That surprise went away as the man shot his head up with a snarl, looking back over his shoulder where the bullet came from before looking back at Izuku. As fast as he could, the green-haired teen let the rock fly out his hand and he clocked it in the man's direction. And Izuku saw one of the man's guns rise in his direction, and he responded immediately by dropping, twisting, and slamming into the wall in front of the little girl before bullets were fired again and a crack and a scream sounded off in the middle of it all.

The gunfire was short this time around, though, barely lasting over a second. Izuku still took several more seconds after it had all gone silent to crack open his eyes and look at the terrified child in front of him. His eyes flickered up a moment, looking at the cracks in the wall feet in front of him where bullets had dug themselves before turning his attention back to the girl. "Are you okay?" he gasped out, sighing in relief as she nodded her head in silence. The girl only made a sound of worry as Izuku winced pushing himself up. He looked back over his shoulder and saw the gunman unconscious on the floor. He sighed again as he crouched down and wrapped an arm around the girl, giving her a moment to hold on tight as he picked her up and staring moving out the store. She flinched as they approached the sleeping and bleeding gunner, and Izuku made sure to swerve around him as they passed.

Izuku looked both way down the mall's hall for any signs of more criminals before speed walking across and back into the jewelry store greeted by the sight of the tall girl, the clerk, and the red-skinned man still present. He was surprised to see the gun the tall girl was clutching in her hands, both cupped over the trigger so it couldn't be fired off, and sent a small nod her way as he passed and kept head on to the back door, leading the last of them out of the store and out of the mall without pause.

Izuku sighed as he leaned back on the bench, shifting his arms as the little girl moved to a better seating position on his lap and giving a brief look to his side at the tall girl sitting with him.

When they exited the mall, Izuku and the others were greeted to the sight of a crowd of other civilians and several officers and heroes coming over to their aid, helping to escort them further away from the mall as the latter group pushed on into the store as backup. The tall girl handed her gun over to one of the officers, letting them confiscate it without struggle, giving only a brief explanation that it was used against one of the villains in their leg. With how out-of-it she looked, Izuku wondered if it was her first time ever holding a gun, much less using one.

One of the officers had tried to help the girl in Izuku's arm down, but the girl refused to be let go and threw her legs around Izuku in retaliation. Izuku explained to him briefly what had happened with her, leaving out the details of him fighting at all, and told the policeman that she was separated from her father, probably when everyone was panicking and that he might be somewhere in the crowd instead of the store – Izuku didn't remember actually seeing anyone on the floor outside of the jewelry store, and prayed that he was right in his guess.

In the meantime, as the officer went looking for anyone who had been separated from their daughter, Izuku was guided to the side with the tall girl to a bench not within the crowd of people watching on the sidelines. The two, excluding the child from the equation, were told to wait by the side for someone to come by and ask them some questions before they could leave. Apparently some of the people who had gotten out first had mentioned them stepping up to fight the criminals who came in through the back door. Despite not being told in trouble, Izuku feared the worst with his flashbacks of the sludge villain playing in his head.

The darting yet silent looks from the tall girl beside him wasn't helping any. Izuku couldn't tell if she was as worried as him about the detective coming to question them or if she was choosing to comment on his actions again. He wasn't sure if he could deal with the latter any more than he could the former, but he'd rather something be said over the silence he was given. That said, he was grateful when the little girl hummed and poked his finger, at least bringing his attention out of his musings and worries to let her to make invisible drawings on the palm of his hand. His eyes were drawn to the stub of a horn on the top of her head wondering if it was a mutation or had anything to do with her quirk. She looked old enough that it must have appe ared by now.

The prolonged waiting they had been in ate at Izuku by the fifth minute, the back of his head worrying for the rest of him. They should have found the girl's father by now, he was sure of that. They'd been inside the mall for quite some time, enough for police and heroes to arrive on the scene and definitely long enough for any parents or children to mention of those they were separated from. Her father was probably waiting by the side since he was force out and told to stay back to see his daughter again, so where was he? Fear gnawed at his thoughts, the worst outcomes coming to mind, and the last thing he wanted to think about was seeing another child be without a father.

"Eri!?"

All three heads shot up at the loud voice, and Izuku could feel the young child on his leg vibrate as she looked towards the source. "Daddy?"

Izuku felt his body slack into his smile as a man with a ponytail of hair as white as the young girl's came rushing over, the police man who went looking for him following right behind. The little girl scrambled off his lap, climbing down his leg before running off towards the approaching man, and Izuku pushed himself up to follow behind at a slow pace. He winced slightly as he cradled his left arm against his stomach – he must have swung wrong there at the end of all the fighting or, hitting the guy with a stone are plus that was starting to fatigue on his body. He could put up with it for now.

Izuku watched on silently with a smile as the girl's father scooped her up in a hug, letting her sob against his shoulder as he teared up against her hair. It was comforting to watch, until the man composed himself and stepped forward, taking a hand to rest on Izuku's shoulder. "I was told you got my daughter out safely. Is that true?"

Izuku tensed at the sudden proximity of the tall man, but flushed and fumbled with the hilt of his bat anyways. "Ah, y-yes sir," he responded, pointing a finger over his shoulder to the girl on the bench startled to be acknowledged. "Sh-she and I were able to get her out." He wasn't able to get any more words out as the man roped him into the small family hug, and Izuku could feel the young girl lean against his head to welcome him.

"Thank you," the man vocally cried into his shoulder, not actually dropping tears onto his jacket. "Thank you so much. I don't know what I would have done had I lost her in there." Izuku barely had the time to lift a hand and pat the man on the back before he backed away and held the green-teen at arm's length. "Actually, I – uh – do know what I would have done, but I can't say I would have been happy with myself for it." He laughed weakly and Izuku offered a reassuring smile, though it too felt weak, still feeling frazzled and somewhat sore from the sudden hug. "If there is any way I can repay you for this, please, let me know. There has to be something I can do for you."

"O-oh! No, no, it's-it's fine." Izuku waved the promise away and tried to hide his blush by lowering his chin. "You don't have to do that. I-I couldn't ask for something like that." His mind still listed items of value to Izuku despite turning down the offer, and paused as one item in particular came up. He flinched without warning, darting his hand to his pocket and pulling out the white packaging of the necklace he had bought. He opened it and with a sigh of relief found it still intact despite being thrown around with him. With a small smile, he showed it to the man and capped the box again. "I already got what I need. Thank you, though, for the offer."

The man only nodded, seemingly a bit confused as to the context of the object but not persisting on the topic. "Still, thank you so much for saving her. Can I at least have your name?"

There was a small buzzing in his ear as Izuku realized he'd gone through a few conversations with different people having never really introduced himself. Seemed he finally had the chance to do so. "Midoriya Izuku, sir." He brought the bat up to be caught resting across his stomach with his arm. "Forgot to introduce myself sooner. My apologies."

"I wouldn't worry about it, son," the man responded, and Izuku held his shoulders down from flinching too high at the nickname. "It's not like you were really given the time. Again, thank you, Midoriya. I'm sorry you had to go through something like that so soon."

"I'd relive it again in a heartbeat," Izuku didn't hesitate to say, catching himself off guard for saying it so quickly.

"I'd hope you at least wait a couple more years to get a hero license to do that, then." Izuku and the girl's father looked over to the side at the man in the overcoat approaching them. "Detective Tsukauchi. I'm here to speak with the two kids the officers told me got out a couple minutes ago. I assume they mean you two?" The detective waved a finger between Izuku and the tall girl rising to her feet.

"Yes sir," she answered, speaking up for the first time in a while, and sounding a lot calmer than she was with the officers earlier.

"Is there anything I can do for you officer?" the father of the girl offered himself, drawing the man's eyes over to him. Izuku noticed the brief look he gave the man before he shook his head.

"I assume she's the girl they got out, and you're her father?" The man nodded. "I suggest you go home and rest then, sir. I'm sure these two can give me everything I need. Your daughter doesn't need to be here any longer. It'd probably help to be home."

The man nodded as he looked at the girl resting on his arms. Izuku assumed she passed out from exhaustion, especially if the grown man didn't seem worried to see her asleep. He felt the same. "I'll do just that, then. Thank you, detective." He turned again to Izuku, and then a bit more so face the tall girl too, before bowing without dropping his daughter. "Thank you, again, for saving Eri. I'm in your debt if we ever meet again, and I wish you a good New Year." With those parting words, he turned away and left. For a brief moment, Izuku thought he saw the little girl open her eyes and waved bye to him, and he returned the gesture just in case until the two were lost in the sea of people.

"Seriously, though," he detective interjected, bringing the attention back to him, "I ask you keep safe until you get yourselves some hero licenses, alright?" The two teens nodded, and he responded with a smile and pointed back to the bench. "If it's alright with you two, I can take your statements here instead of back at the station. Make it faster for all of us. That okay?" They nodded again, and Tsukauchi lead Izuku back to the bench, letting the two kids sit on it as he stood before them with a notebook. "Let's start with names, shall we? Who wants to go first?"

Izuku kept himself quiet as he saw the taller girl straighten up beside him. "Yaoyorozu Momo," she introduced herself. The detective wrote her name down and looked over to Izuku.

"And yours? You introduced yourself to the man earlier, but I didn't quite catch it."

"Midoriya Izuku, sir," he responded, looking briefly to the girl beside him. The name sounded familiar but he couldn't quite put his finger on where from. He'd look into it later.

"Let's start from the top, if that's alright with you both," he began, pen scratching along the paper. "Working on a profile for the men currently being arrested in the mall. I've been told that the three criminals found in the jewelry store came in through the back door. I was told you were all planning on going through the door when the attack happened, but I haven't really gotten any information as to how they got in and caused the explosion I've been told about. Would either of you happen to know what happened?"

"It was one of their quirks, I believe," Yaoyorozu answered, turning the detective's eyes on her. "One of them had steam coming from their hands, and one of the men commented on the other's quirk being the cause, so I assume it was because of him."

Izuku fiddled with the bat in his lap more aggressively than before. An explosion quirk used by a criminal minutes after he saw the one person he knows with an explosion quirk trying to become a hero. Poetic coincidence, he thought snidely. They didn't look alike, though, not physically; he remembered that. None of them looked like Katsuki, and he wasn't sure whether or not that relieved him more than it scared him.

The detective wrote down in his book what the tall girl had told him. "Alright, that will make it easier to identify him. And I was told the two of you had a hand in taking them down, is that correct?" Both teens squirmed where they sat at the mention of their involvement, and the detective smiled a bit wider. "It's fine, you two. Despite being kids, what you did can be classified as self-defense given how the men had entered the building. Had you approached them on the street minding their own business, even knowing they were criminals, that would be harder to work around legally. And from what we've found, any injuries they were given don't seem to be too major, and that includes the one you put in the wall." He chuckled a bit as an attempt to lighten the mood, but Izuku couldn't help the nervousness in his own laugh following.

"I just have a few things to ask about that and we can move right along," he continued, flipping another page in his book. "Did either of you use your quirks?"

"Yes sir/No sir."

Tsukauchi's pen paused over the notebook as he looked up to Izuku, a small amount of surprise on his face unmatched by the shock on Yaoyorozu's. His eyebrow rose, but Izuku kept his face steeled, waiting for him to make a comment regarding his denial of using a quirk where he assumed one must have been even though he'd find nothing. However, the detective said nothing to him, turning himself to look at Yaoyorozu. "And what is it you used your quirk for?"

The tall girl didn't respond immediately, turning to face the detective as she tried to process the revelation that Izuku never used the quirk he didn't have – the latter of that part still omitted from saying, because Izuku wasn't keen dealing with an officer having that knowledge front and center – before she told Tsukauchi anything. "I created a few things to defend myself and help…Midoriya"—he didn't blame her for struggling to remember his name—"when he was fighting them. I made two poles, one short that I threw at one of the men, and another I used to fight when one of them approached me, along with a shield to block when he was going to hit me."

"Is that all?"

"From fighting them? Yes." Izuku noted how she phrased that, leaving out the gunman they dealt with right after. He was intrigued by her phrasing of her quirk, though. Creating – an object-generating quirk sounded very useful and versatile for heroics. Maybe he could ask her more about it later, if there was a later.

The detective nodded, probably knowing the meaning of her words from the testimonies of the other people in the store at the time. "That would explain the two men unconscious on the ground, because of you two. So how did the third man get into the wall?"

Izuku coughed into his knuckles, looking down at his feet in embarrassment while raising a hand. "That…that was me," he admitted.

The detective looked him over, the smile on his face not dropping an inch. "We found him trapped in the wall by the stone used to make it, almost like it was trying to build around him. You have any idea what that was about?"

Izuku coughed again as he looked up to the detective. "Um, I-uh-think it was his quirk? He had the wall break apart and form around his arm like gauntlets when he attacked us, and I-I hit him back when he was trying to hit her." He pointed to Yaoyorozu, not daring to look over at her for that. "That's why he was against the wall."

Tsukauchi looked him over in a moment of silence, somewhat worryingly for Izuku, but he turned his head to the mall with a hum. "A surface manipulation quirk, huh? Yeah, that would explain it. I'll make sure we cuff him once he's out, if he hasn't been removed already. That's two of the three then. Any idea about the third man's quirk?"

"Elongation, I think," Izuku piped up, though he could see the girl beside him move to answer as well, only cut off by him. "He had a knife with him, one that was longer when he was using it than when he took it out. I think it was a part of his quirk?"

The detective nodded. "I'll make sure to look into that then. Thank you both." The scratching of pen on paper took up the break between his words. "Finally, the gunman. We know who he is already. He's a villain that appeared in China a few months ago before vanishing from the grid. Can't say we were expected to see him here, but that's beside the point." He look down at Yaoyorozu. "The gun you handed my partner earlier? I was told by one of the store's clerks you made that from your hand and used it to shoot the gunman, is that correct?"

The tall girl nodded, lowering her head in shame. "I only shot him in the leg. I hadn't really used a gun before, but I knew how to make one, and I didn't think I'd have to resort to it until he ran forward and grabbed the little girl." She pointed at Izuku as he had to her earlier.

"'Ran forward' to grab her?" The detective looks surprised to hear that as he looked back at Izuku. "Care to explain that?"

Izuku nodded with a gulp. Please let me live just to see mom again. "We were going to leave after knocking out the three men, but then right as we were about to, the little girl – Eri, I think – walked out into the hall. I don't know where she came from or where she was hiding. She was just there, and we went to grab her, but then the gunman showed up so we had to step back or else that could have put her in more trouble, but Gang Orca and whoever he was fighting was distracting him from really focusing on us or her so I ran and grabbed her away from him when he was distracted and ran into the store across and tried to calm her down cause she was panicking from me suddenly grabbing her and then the gunman shooting at us and—"

"Midoriya." The detective cut Izuku's ranting short. "Breathe. It might help you." Izuku did just that, taking deep breaths to calm his chest. "So you grabbed her and ran, correct? That was smart of you, though also really reckless. One wrong step and you could have gotten yourself hurt."

"I know," Izuku hurried out his reply. "I know. I…I did hit him across the stomach, hoping it could have knocked him off his feet"—he gestured to the bat in his lap—"but it really only bought me a few extra seconds."

"And where'd you get the bat from?"

"I brought it." Izuku felt his face flush again as he rubbed his cheek. "I was training this morning, and I kinda wanted to come here last second before I went home. I'm happy I did."

"Alright." Tsukauchi nodded as he looked between the teens. "So let's keep going. You both see the child. You approach, then the gunman appears. Gang Orca causes a distraction so you charge forward, grab the kid, hit the villain and keep running. Then—you said he shot at you, correct?" Izuku nodded in confirmation. "Are you hurt anywhere? I should have asked this sooner myself, and I hope my colleagues did as well. Are either of you hurt?"

Momo shook her head and Izuku only pointed at his. "She already patched this up from fighting the other guys. I'll clean it when I get home, I promise." He hoped he'd get to go home right away once this was all done.

The detective sighed in relief. "That's good. Alright then. What happened next?"

Yaoyorozu picked up where they left off. "The gunman—he followed after them when his guns ran empty, and with him not looking my way, I decided to risk it and make a gun—just to shoot him in the leg, I promise!" The tall girl waved her arms in defense and worry.

"I believe you," the detective told her. "Thank you for complying so easily to hand it over. This would be a different conversation if you didn't. Is that all?"

"And…then I knocked him out," Izuku finished, slowing the speed of his sentence as the attention turned back to him. "Gang Orca's fight broke off part of the ceiling in the room we were in, so I hit him in the head with it hoping to knock him out, and I did. Then we came out here, and now we're here." Great, Izuku. Not at all awkward in the slightest. Stellar job. Izuku humph-ed at his inner sarcasm.

Tsukauchi wrote down more in his notebook before looking it over and closing it with a satisfied nod. "Alright. I assume you were both there to get some shopping done?" Both teens nodded, and the detective returned the gesture. "Then I guess we're done here. Thank you both for your help in apprehending the criminals and villains and save the lives of a few innocent people and a child, and though I hate repeating myself, I do ask you try to stay out of trouble until you get a hero license; then I welcome you both on the field. Are either of you studying to be heroes?" He waved a finger between the two.

"Yes sir," the replied in unison, and then turned to one another with their own surprised looks. The detective only looked pleased to hear it.

"I wish you both the best of luck at getting your licenses then. Will either of you be needing a ride home? I can have an officer escort you if you need it."

Both teens turned down the offer respectfully, the taller of the two saying she could phone her family to send a ride over for her and the other saying he'd be fine taking the railway system back, and the detective left them with one last parting, urging them to start heading home. Both teens listened, picking themselves up from the benches and moving away from the mall, though neither walked away from each other.

Izuku didn't know her reasoning for sticking by his side, but he did want to talk with her a bit more. If she was a potential future classmate, it'd be best to at least leave this event having made a friend of her instead of an enemy or a stranger; he'd make sure to do that even if she wasn't aiming for Yuei too, or was already attending one given she looked a year or two older than him. He kept quiet as she talked on her phone, discussing with her parents about the incident and her state of health before planning on where she could be picked up. When all was said and done, she tucked the phone back in her pocket and ended up waiting at the side of the road, and Izuku decided to stand by her.

He coughed into his hand, urging him to get out of his introversion and speak up. "So, um," he trailed off, giving the tall girl enough time to look over at him. At least she wasn't glaring, Izuku took that as a point in his favor. "You're aiming to be a hero too?"

She seemed surprised at the question for a moment, but quickly caught her composure as she responded, "Yes, I am, actually. I hear you are too." Izuku nodded. "Where do you plan on studying?"

"Uh, Yuei." He patted his bat softly. "I plan on going to Yuei."

"Oh?" The surprise returned to her face. "Really? I am as well. Funny how small the world is."

Izuku gave a light chuckle to that. "Yeah, well, it's not like a couple hundred people try out for the entrance exam every year. Probably more surprising to see someone get in than it is to find them hoping to." It clicked a few seconds after he said it for him to realize his words sounded a bit snarkier than he wanted them to, but the tall girl didn't seem to mind that and was softly laughing at his comment.

"Yes, I guess you're correct. The acceptance rate is quite low, but it is to be expected of the leading school of heroics in the world. Not everyone can just be enrolled because they want to." She seemed to get lost in thought a moment before continuing. "The entrance exam is late in February next year, correct?"

Izuku nodded. "Yeah. I've been trying my best to prepare for it, but I can't really say I even know what it is. I hear it changes every year through a few different ideas. Guess I just gotta hope for the best."

"It will be hard for anyone, wouldn't it?" Yaoyorozu commented to herself before looking down at Izuku. "I wish you good luck with the entrance exam, then, Midoriya."

"Thanks. I wish you luck too." Izuku caught the falter in her smile when she looked away. "What's wrong?"

Momo didn't look to happy when she turned to him again, though only a second before looking forward again. "Actually…I'm aiming to get in through recommendation. I've sent in my application already, and I'm supposed to be hearing back from the next month if they accept it or not. If they do, I don't think I'll be seeing you at the entrance exam."

Izuku stilled in surprise. She was going in through recommendations? Izuku knew a bit more about that than he did the common entrance exam he was going to be taking, only because he knew how hard it was for students to get in the other way. They had to do quite a lot to prove themselves, and he knew it put them in a position akin to having a spotlight thrusted upon them, so there was quite the pressure from it that wasn't in the typical means. But their exam was also a few weeks ago, meaning this girl had already gone in to prove herself.

"I think they'll accept you," he told her, snapping them both out of their dazed states to stare each other in the eyes. "I-With what I saw today, I don't doubt it. It'd be wrong of them not to, considering what you did for me. I think you're already very heroic for them to not even consider turning you down."

Izuku could see the surprise through her red cheeks, and Izuku could feel his own light up as he finished his short speech. "Uh, thank you, Midoriya. That…that means a lot to hear." She gave him a warm smile, and Izuku returned it, hoping it was helping to tone down his blush. "I don't doubt you'll make it through the entrance exam yourself. I think you'd make a fine hero too." His blush didn't go down, but his smile did go up.

"U-uh, t-thank you, Yaoyorozu." He shrugged his shoulders to start composing himself and winced at the spike of pain on his right one. His hand came up to rub it as Momo turned her body to face him more.

"Is something wrong, Midoriya?"

"No, sorry, just-uh-sore." He lifted his right arm the first time in a few minutes and waved his hand to brush away her concerns. "I think I just swung wrong earlier in the fights. I'll make sure to let it rest when I-when I-I-I…" Izuku stuttered away as Momo caught his hand in her own, surprised by her sudden action.

"Midoriya, you're bleeding." Her statement only piled on confusion, washing away his blush as he turned his hand in hers to see a trail of red from his fingertips down to his wrist and beyond beneath his sleeve. He burrowed his brows in confusion and looked down at his feet, noticing the small pools of blood on the pavement between his shoes. Then the dizziness started to kick in. Izuku looked back over his hand, still visibly confused by the blood as Yaoyorozu started feeling down his arm for any wounds. He gave a small cry of pain as her hand ended up at his shoulder and she bridged the distance between them to get a closer look before gasping. "Midoriya, you've been shot!"

"Wha—" Izuku tried to look back over his shoulder with her, but the swift movement he had made with his head immediately rendered him dizzy, sending stumbling as he stood and leaving Momo to catch him as he dropped to the floor. He blinked his eyes hard as he tried to make the world one image instead of four, and the sounds in his ears became overshadowed by the sound of waves, but he had no luck doing so until everything just went black.