I have returned… after like 2 months. I was on vacation for like a month without internet, so you can see how that went. And between course registration and everything like that (waitlisted on 3 courses despite registering on the dot, yay), I bring you… this.

-SpiritOfErebus

…

Hans felt tired.

It wasn't anything that was particularly troubling. Sure, he probably did forget something that he had promised to a trio of idiots, but it didn't matter that much. They hadn't brought it up within the week of them interacting within UA and it was fine…

Right?

Anyways, on this Monday, the problem wasn't society. It wasn't the irritation of whatever political complaints he normally had targeted towards the hero system. It wasn't even the half broken vending machine this time.

No. It was the time.

It was five thirty in the morning.

As the old man that manned the convenience store (and by 'manned', Hans meant sleep in the store in order to earn a pitiful hourly wage) woke up to him opening the slightly grimy glass doors to the establishment, the newspaper over his face jostled by a startled, cut off snore, Hans grabbed a bag of coffee beans and placed it on the counter.

"I'm pretty sure it's illegal for a person of your age to be buying coffee or something."

Hans slid his hand off of the bag of cheap, probably fake coffee beans. His UA student ID slid off of the plastic-like paper bagging and clattered onto the countertop, which was only clean because the teenagers in the afternoon shifts liked to play cards on the glassy surface.

"It's not illegal." Hans said, "Just not recommended. And I am in high school, just so you know."

The old man drowsily rubbed at the corner of his eyes and looked at the student ID.

"Now, how do you scan this thing again? Nobody has ever come to buy something during my shift."

"Seriously?" Hans said, "How do you still have a job?"

"I buy something myself at a period that no sane person would." The man shrugged. "When it approaches the end of my shift, I wake up ten minutes early and buy breakfast. I get all of the stuff that has just theoretically expired for cheap, and the store has a consistent customer within this time period, so I'll still be needed."

"And if the store owners only get one customer in these hours, why don't they just shut down?"

"Son," the old man smirked, " they run a twenty four hour business. If I sue them for false advertising, who do you think will win the case? An old man waking up at five fifty every day to get to his job, or a big corporation? With the power of social media, and cancel culture as it is, there's no conceivable way that I can lose."

"Why don't you?" Hans asked, partly genuinely annoyed that everything had a public relations angle and partly because he was actually curious.

"Too much effort." The old man shrugged. "I'm too old for this crap. Getting free money off of a loophole is already entertaining enough for me that I'll keep at it until I die of heart failure or something. Besides…"

"...What?" Hans asked.

"In Japan, reputation is everything. How you actually act doesn't exactly matter as long as other people think you look good."

…

The six-o-clock train was already surprisingly full.

With his hero costume-like lab coat in his backpack, along with an empty tupperware container (Iida had guaranteed that there would be free lunch at the agency), Hans was crammed into train carts with the rest of the people that couldn't afford lodging next to their workplaces. Additionally, because many companies expected their salarymen to arrive thirty minutes early as "proper etiquette", the already early start times for their jobs would only continue to stress their sleep schedule even more.

"...At least heroism has flexible hours." Hans muttered, staring at an ad for a hair lotion advertised by what looked like a hero with snakes for hair. What was the point of using hair lotion if your hair was snakes? Wouldn't the snakes accidentally swallow soap and get indigestion or get poisoned or something?

It was probably for the best that for once, Hans didn't think as much.

The seats on the subway were… mildly uncomfortable, to say the least. Not to mention that the plastic was probably never cleaned, his shorter legs meant that …

But at least he didn't have to worry about getting kidnapped. Even criminals didn't work this early.

…They usually worked in the hours when everybody was sleeping.

Villains, on the other hand, were a different story. As Hans scrolled through the patrol routes of Ingenium that Iida had sent to him as a part of a 1-gigabyte file of "getting ready to learn how a proper hero works", he noticed that they were all through the most crowded and populated streets, where small storefronts and the occasional corporate building was.

Then, out of curiosity, he looked up Ingenium's arrest statistics.

…Why were so many people committing crimes in broad daylight?

Again, Hans supposed that was the difference between a villain and a criminal. Not just the difference between quirk usage (and honestly, criminals sneaky enough not to get caught also wouldn't get caught using their quirk), but also the mentality.

There was… something genuinely wrong with villains. They actually wanted to fight the heroes, even though they were mindful of the incredible amount of heroes that patrolled the streets as a part of Japan's oversaturation. Heroes, on the other hand, mostly just waited for villains to show up. They walked their very predictable routes and expected to run into villains in the near vicinity.

This was… a rather strange dynamic.

However, with heroes on almost every street in major cities, why was there still crime? Why were there so many members of the Yakuza? Why were there still so many cases of disappearances and theft?

Thus, a simple conclusion was reached.

Heroism did not solve crime. Heroism was never aimed at reducing crime in the first place.

…It was a solution to-

"We are now arriving at… Hosu station." the train announcer said in an insufferably polite voice that incited absolutely no emotion in any of the frequent riders. Hans was jostled from his thoughts by the salaryman in an incredibly wrinkled suit standing up, futilely straightening out his tie, and walking out of the door.

Hans looked at the light indicators again, before reading the words again.

Hosu station.

Yep, he was here.

Hans sighed, shut off his phone, and squeezed off the train. Looking down from the elevated platform that Hosu Metro Station was on and down at the city that would probably be a source of constant suffering for him during the next week.

"Well, we best get this over with." he sighed.

…

Interlude: What else has been going on?

…

(A month and a couple weeks ago from the internship, with the homeless people)

Starting a protection racket was a difficult business, even with muscle-brained construction workers under your "employ".

Technically, the former homeless people weren't actually paying them with anything, being just as broke as they were, but with the fake business (the Stationary Distribution Company), they could mandate company field trips and set all of their professions to hired guards constantly on alert during "company field trips".

…Legal loopholes were weird like that.

Anyways, the homeless people from a couple chapters ago that nobody really cared about were… having a difficulty getting customers for their protection racket.

Normally, there would probably be a bunch of customers that were forced into accepting the deal with violent threats, but they pledged they'd be different.

"Remember, everyone!" a blindfolded woman, Yuki, said from beside a printer. The quality of paper for their fliers had gone down from the plain white to the newspaper fodder, given a lack of funds and sales for their supposed company.

"We're trying to be different from everyone else. Do not forget the ideals of the one that inspired us!"

"...What were his ideals again?" Hasanote muttered, her scissor-tipped fingers clicking against a sewing needle as she continued to try and make some more SDC flags. Supposedly, the flags were just merchandise from the Stationary Distribution Company, but given the fact that they neither had nor sold any substantial quantity of stationary, it was really just a marker to which buildings they had to protect when the inhabitants fly their flags from the porches.

"I don't know… Something about how quirk laws are stupid and that people shouldn't be down on people just because of their inconvenient quirks?"

"Exactly!" Yuki said. "And because he's a hero student and firmly against crime, all of our activities will be strictly legal!"

"...What about the guys we replaced? That we lead that 'violent' labor strike against?" Shihiro said, sitting as far away from the paper as humanly possible. His skin, made of molten lava, was still warm enough to turn the low quality paper they were using into smithereens.

"They were a labor union that was technically legal but actually threatened people into continuing their employment, or signing unreasonably long, underpaid contracts." Yuki said.

"...And those same people that were once subjugated by the mob are now working for us." Shihiro muttered. "How Ironic."

"But I guess we'll just keep struggling until-"

The door slammed open.

"Who's up for selling some pens?" Tsukanai said, two packages stacked in one hand and foot extended in the air. Somehow, he had performed a perfect roundhouse kick despite being in a cramped stairway up to an apartment.

"You fucking idiot, Tsukanai!" Hasanote said, slamming her hand into the table and standing up, her fingertips getting stuck in the low-quality wood. "If you break that damn door, we're paying for it."

"We're also paying for that table, violent bitch!" Tsukanai retorted, motioning with his eyes towards the table.

"Well, if we're paying for the table, then there's nothing stopping me from… doing this!" she said, grinning and stabbing both hands into the table, before lifting it up with only her fingertips.

As the table swung through the small apartment like a hammer, the duo of ice and fire continued to interact.

"...I guess we can keep doing that until some other gang moves into this vacated territory." Yuki said, looking through her blindfold at the chibi version of the blue-haired boy they had made their company mascot. A speck of frost blossomed on said face, but she was quick to brush it off.

"...Yeah." Shihiro muttered, a spark flying from his face and almost setting the cardboard boxes on fire.

From the custom-ordered pens, the child winking and making a thumbs up on the deep blue surface almost seemed to ask a question.

Where the fuck are my royalties?

…

The stationary business was going moderately well.

Well, it only really was going moderately well because of the flags that each of the… coerced… apartment buildings bought. The inhabitants then organized to hang them from the very small porch that the second floor inhabitant seldom accessed, given the fact that the porches in these slightly run-down apartments were probably not exactly the most stable.

With a chibi face on a blue background waving in the wind also came the former construction workers squatting in front of the building and carrying a stack of flyers. Each one was sufficiently muscular, either quirk-induced or labor-induced, to be intimidating enough that the rascals which normally roamed the streets were discouraged from harassing the inhabitants on the first floor… or the apartment managers.

On the streets, Yuki sat on a ledge, some of the scraps of printing paper before her. On top of what could barely even be called a sheet of paper, the various stationary that they had custom-ordered sat, the plastic and the printed images slowly roasting in the bright sunlight.

There was a reason why Yuki was chosen. With her blindfold untied, her gaze was able to slowly frost over the various pieces of stationary, thus maintaining a temperature balance.

"...Honestly…" she muttered, "I could probably find selling popsicles as a career."

Gently, a breeze flowed by. Leaves left behind from last year's fall, surviving winter's frost, spring's cycles, and the street sweeper's diligence, emerged from the bushes they were hiding in. Reluctantly dragged out by the rustle of the wind and their feeble positions, desperately clinging onto the branches that once concealed them, they rustled and rattled as their surfaces, once green and lively, now cracked and disintegrated as their brown shattered against the pavement.

This neighborhood was a bad neighborhood. It was always a bad neighborhood.

As somebody from a solidly middle class family, Yuki had never imagined that she would be sitting on the ground like this, selling stationary… of all things. Her parents had scared her into studying hard when she had been a child by comparing her to the people that were homeless and sold oranges.

She had once thought that it was a faraway, improbable fantasy.

But now? Sitting on the streets? Bypassing her natural shyness and sitting on the pavement, slowly tanning from the late spring sun… just to support her group's failing, barely legal business?

And all of this… just because her quirk slowly froze everything she looked at.

Tightening her blindfold, she could see the truth now, clearer than ever. Maybe her life back then was a faraway, improbable fantasy.

Once, she was happy.

Once.

…

Suddenly, many blue flags were sold. Suddenly, many construction workers were given flyers and told to stand in front of buildings.

The business was booming. Their people were milling in front of the small block that they now called their home.

Yuki's stand was now bustling with activity. Not with customers, but with internal communications. The former construction workers would gather on their breaks, find another person to replace their shift, and then furiously chow down on the boxed lunches that were of… less reputable… sources, but were healthy enough not to cause digestion issues.

"Why the sudden influx?" she muttered.

Wearing a pair of gloves wrapped in aluminum foil, Shihiro flipped through the papers clumsily, his molten rock-like skin and stony joints creaking as they attempted to move rapidly while not burning the papers.

"According to the very sloppily recorded notes sent back to us from… the crew…" he muttered. "There's some sort of other gang trying to move into this territory."

"And?"

"...We've been designated another gang, and thus they've been attempting to attack our supposed territory. After being harassed, the apartments independently contracted our services."

"So, we're in a gang war."

"Yes."

"...God damn it." Yuki shouted. "We've… we've fucked up. By stopping a gang, we've become a gang."

"Cursing?" Shihiro said. "That's very uncharacteristic of you."

"This isn't right." Yuki said, standing up and pacing. "This isn't what I wanted. This isn't what he would have wanted."

Within her grip, the face of the chibified student slowly bent as her grip tightened around the cheap plastic.

"...We just have to be better than them." Shihiro said quietly.

"What?" Yuki said, rounding on him.

"It's like competition in the workplace." Shihiro said. "The last gang failed because they were just mercilessly exploiting the people within. If we can appeal to the people who pay us, who are the people living in this block, by defending them for a reasonable and fair price, then we can outcompete this other gang. Eventually, they'd leave."

"But they're an actual gang." Yuki said. "We're just… homeless people and construction workers."

"Don't look down on us, Yuki-chan!" one of thee construction workers grinned, showing one missing tooth. "We're tough! We can take care of ourselves!"

"And what if somebody dies?"

The whole stand fell silent. The people bustling around and chatting with each other, trying to drag each other to cover shifts fell silent. Slowly, they turned to the short, white-haired, blindfolded woman standing and pointing at a rock shaped and clothed like a human.

Despite the strangely comedic circumstances that a spectator would see if they walked past the group at this very moment, the air of seriousness even spread to the people scarfing down their boxed lunches. Their chopsticks slowed in motion as they tried to chew as silently as possible, listening in on their plans for the future.

There was silence for a moment.

Everything was quiet.

Because at its root, the Self Defense Company was only a dream. An ideal dream, existent only in the participant's minds. It was of a dream where none of the would be oppressed or taken advantage of, where they could work and receive their due rewards.

It was where they felt like they were doing something useful.

But at the same time, the dream would be ruptured by the needles of reality. There would be conflict. There would be injuries. There would be death. This would be no bloodless conflict.\

Like it or not, they had entered the fray.

Now, do they stay, or do they leave?

Amidst the fields of silence, Shihiro stood up. Slowly, his stony skin scraped scornfully against the surfaces of his body.

"...I've been rejected from countless jobs." he said. "I've been chasing a dream, an ideal, where I could just work and be paid… for too long. This is my final struggle. I've used up my credit score. I've pawned off even my interview suit to help pay for the stationary and the food when this was beginning."

"...And?" Yuki asked, already knowing the answer.

"I'm not going to run away anymore." Shihiro said. "This will be the hill that I die on. I'm not stopping anybody from leaving, but I'm tired of opportunities leaving me behind."

"...And you all?" Yuki asked, her blindfolded head turning to look at the former construction workers.

"Well," one of them spoke. "Our lives can't really get any worse, right?"

…

(A week from the internship)

…

Hidden in the bushes of the small courtyards separating each individual apartment building… were stray cats.

Orange. Black. Multi-colored. Each little, fuzzy creature hid in the bushes, only approaching the set, plastic food trays that the already impoverished inhabitants of the buildings still lay out, if only for the comfort of seeing the cats on their way to and from work.

Every day, the bolder of the cats would circle around their feets, meowing and looking up to beg for more and more food, their skinny frames longing for nourishment.

That, however, was changed by the existence of a muscle-bound, flier passing, former construction worker.

The hulking figure squatting on the steps, along with the slightly grey, rough skin that bound the man, made him look more like a gargoyle than a human. However, to the cats, with him free of any reptilian facial features, he was just another human. Another very large, quiet human.

These weeks, the giant was a constant presence in front of the building. The fliers frequently lay on the floor, forgotten, as he tenuously reached out to the cats in the bushes. And only under the lure of fired pork and oily meats did the orange cats first slowly approach. Then the black cats. And, only after the other varieties of cats comfortably circled and nudged the giant, did the tabby cat, which blended in with the dead leaves and the ground, approach.

It was a peaceful existence.

Petty thugs were threatened by the mere existence of the man. At nighttime, any thieves were discouraged by the red and yellow eyes shining in the darkness, staring at them unblinkingly.

…That last part of the defense was contributed by the cats.

Eating the plain, white rice while distributing the precious few nuggets of meat to the animals, the giant felt like this was the best he had ever lived.

He was never one to speak much. He was never one to throw his bulk around. After all, he was strong, but compared to those with absolutely bullshit quirks?

He was just another mook.

And now, looking down the barrel of a gun, staring at a silver-haired man with tiny blades protruding from his arms, he knew that he would die just like another mook. He would disappear, like the rest of his class did after middle school when they couldn't test into a high school. Just like he did, when he forsook his study time to try and feed himself and his voracious appetite alone.

"...So it begins." he muttered.

Would this be the hill that he died on? It was like Shihiro had said. He was tired of running too, tired of dreaming for better days and receiving nothing.

He would be the first to fall in this conflict, no... this gang war.

"Yeah, the boss wants you all dead." the silver-haired man said. "No hard feelings."

A single bang rang out in the middle of the day. Slowly, he fell to the ground, almost in a haze, before feeling two more bullets sink into his ribcage and abdomen like spoons cutting through jell-o, making sure he was dead.

As a bloodstained bird beak mask was thrown at his feet, a symbol of a war between factions, the giant chose instead to look towards the bushes.

"Goodbye… Orengi." he whispered, his hand, roughened by years of back-breaking labor and holding tools, reaching out for the silkiness of fluffy animals one last time.

The orange cat, the first one to approach him and the scent of food, walked out of the bushes, peering around for any enemies, before lowering its nose and sniffing at the man's fingers, before rubbing its cheek against them.

One last time.

The last time.

…

(Monday, Meta Liberation Army)

…

Geten… was a bit disgruntled.

It wasn't because their plans weren't going well. It wasn't because his training had been stalled. Both thigns were proceeding extremely quickly, and though the Meta Liberation Army had been silenced on many occasions in history, now?

They were simply too big to fail. Too ubiquitous to write out of the internet.

Thus, they were allowed to persist, though protested and stalled by the hero association at every turn.

However, this came at a cost. This wide scale, undeniable spread of his beliefs… came at a great cost indeed.

It was his own usefulness.

Geten's fingers twitched, and out of the air, a small, crystalline object fell. Catching it, he noticed that the gem he was trying to form was missing a surface.

"Tch." he muttered, flicking the construct away and allowing it to disperse into mist. He wasn't as strong as he wanted to be.

The future in his dream, the future of meta abilities determining your status… also was in danger. And it wasn't because he wasn't strong enough.

It was because their platform had changed.

"What are the organizers doing?" Rikiya Yotsubashi said into the phone. "I thought a protest would be happening today, right over there. I thought that we had an agreement, Hanabata!"

There was some muttering on the other side of the phone.

"Yes, I know that what you're doing is a political protest, which is of a slightly different nature. But why the delay? Our series of protests, to show Japan that the fire of awareness is spreading, cannot be slowed down by you! By then, media portrayals will change! The heat after the UA sports festival will fade!"

And there was this… protest-mongering. Geten had participated in the first one, right outside of UA's doors after the boss had encountered a strange, blue-haired child on the streets, using his meta ability in plain sight. He had thought nothing of it. It was just another way of getting their message out there. Soon enough, they would return to their old ways. Scuttling in the dark, preparing their forces, readying the overthrow of-

"Geten."

His head snapped up.

"Re-Destro sama." he said, bowing his head.

"You wanted to see me?" the hooked-nose businessman said, smiling easily. His teal-and-black striped suit was ironed to perfection as he turned to look out the tower.

"Yes. I wanted to… ask as to my degree of involvement within the army."

"What do you mean?" Re-Destro asked.

"I… I don't feel like I'm living up to your expectations. I don't feel useful anymore."

"Nonsense." Re-Destro said. "You are one of the most valuable members in the Meta Liberation Army. Nothing can change that."

"But what if… the Meta Liberation Army is changing?"

"What do you mean?" Re-Destro asked. "Come, let us sit down and talk."

Slowly, the thick-coated man was led to a velvet couch. Gently, he sat down, not wanting to disturb his leader's residence.

"Well?" Re-Destro said, pushing a cup of tea towards him. "Here, have some tea, as well. I find it helpful with the stress."

"Re-Destro sama!" Geten gasped. "But your meta ability! Does it not gather strength from stress?"

"There are other means of strength, Geten." Re-Destro said. "Gathering supporters, gaining popular opinion, is that not another method of strength? I grew in power when you joined me, didn't I?"

"But that's all I'm good for." Geten muttered. "I'm just a combatant. A fighter. I won't have a place now, within all of this-"

"You will." Re-Destro said.

"The format is changing." Geten sighed. "Our battles have shifted. I no longer believe that-"

"Take a look." Re-Destro said. "I was drafting this up, but I feel like you can have a look at this. After all, I'll be putting you in charge of this program."

Geten opened the black folder, feeling the printed pages rub through his fingers.

Then, he promptly dropped it.

"The… the Self Defense Cooperative… Disguised as the Stationary Distribution Company… Which mastermind created such an organization?"

"Nobody." Re-Destro said, grinning. "The creation of such an organization was not prompted by anything… save, this. A protest by us from two months ago, where a bystander, who was also a short, blue-haired, UA student… came and spoke up for us."

"And what must I do to aid the growth of this… company?" Geten said.

"Their movement is still young. I know not of how successful they will be, but I know how successful we can be if we take advantage of the same legal loophole that they have. It's still miraculous to think about. To think that we, of all people, overlooked this possibility."

"What?" Geten asked, leaning forwards and whispering.

"What if we could legalize our army? Turn them into bodyguards for our employees, which are somehow always on field trips, on which we are responsible for their safety?"

"And-And would I-"

"You, Geten…" Re-Destro said, smiling widely, "Would be at the forefront of this effort."

…

(Sunday, one day before internships, League of Villains hideout)

…

"...Stain still hasn't shown up." Shigaraki muttered. "I'm just so… so… so bored… I even prepared a photo dossier of the people I hate for him."

Kurogiri's yellow eyes floated up within his misty body to look at him from the bar he was manning pointlessly.

"Perhaps he has already found allegiance."

"In who?" Shigaraki said, spreading his arms wide. "We're the only faction in this server that-"

"The Meta Liberation Army has resurfaced." Kurogiri said dryly. "Along with countless other groups like it. Political groups advocating for repealing quirk laws. The court case of that villain that defected from us. People are rewatching footage of when that UA student walked up on a protest and gave a speech. Stain may have been distracted by those other causes and forgotten about us, the people that ironically got the least coverage by the media despite having started everything by attacking the USJ."

"Damn that brat!" Shigaraki hissed. "First, making me dance at the USJ, then making me dance at the USJ, and then… then… that miniboss really, really needs to die."

"The hero association is moving his internship with Ingenium somewhere rife with gang activity." Kurogiri reported.

"And how do you know this? What sidequest did you complete to get that information?"

"...We do have a spy in class 1-A."

"Oh, right. That NPC." Shigaraki said. "...And I suppose, that with no allies, we probably should… just do nothing?"

"Master has planned to save the Nomu for a surprise attack at a later date." Kurogiri said. "But for now, he says that you must observe your opponents."

"Damn…" Shigaraki muttered, irritating his neck further.

"But don't worry." Kurogiri said. "The gangs moving on each other are… very interesting… and Chisaki is a formidable opponent. The hero association is trying to make sure that none of them return alive."

"Heh. It's just like the hero commission to do something like this. They're always in the background of every plotline."

For a moment, Shigaraki looked at a black screen embedded on the wall. His sensei did not respond.

"Why do they want Ingenium out, anyways?" Shigaraki said.

"They're driven by familial tradition." Kurogiri said, taking a glass and beginning to wipe it down. "Heroism should be available for any opportunistic fool, not just the ones that come from hero families. For them, it sends the wrong message."

The glass was gently put on the counter, and Shigaraki grinned at his horrid reflection.

"Heh… it's just like them to not actually care."

AN

I suffer. Writing this chapter was suffering. BNHA already has a side character problem, and for me to, well, try and advance the plot with more extra characters I've made without it seeming boring (well, at least for the test readers on my discord) kinda difficult. The writing took a while.

Anyways, how's everybody doing?

Discord link: discord . gg / 9t9MK3jHmV

we are desperate for new members