This chapter will start in a more… dark… way. Basically, the first part of the fic is detailing a villain's backstory, and as you all know, those are definitely cheerful. If you catch the reference in this, by the way, you get a virtual cookie.

-SpiritOfErebus

Five years ago, Norikoto's daughter ran out of a bus, mid-highway, and got hit by a car.

Everybody was telling him that she had committed suicide because she wasn't doing well in college. Because she was lying about something and couldn't face the guilt. Because of emotional problems. Because that was just how Japan was.

But he knew better. His little girl, his daughter, would never do something like that without good reason.

So, he investigated.

He worked at her school as a janitor, trying to investigate the rumors. There were none. Nothing about her, other than the fact that she was above average in her grades. She wasn't bullied. She had a good enough quirk so that she didn't face any trouble in the K-12 system, and college wasn't any different. There were no relationship troubles. Ever since his wife died of cancer, there were too many financial woes for her to even attempt a relationship.

What was the reason, then?

Finally, he concluded that it wasn't a suicide. There was no reason to… not that he believed that talk anyways.

Then, he got a job as a bus driver. On the very line that his daughter died on. He drove past the place that she died every day, always collecting fares and greetings with a smile on his face. But nobody here remembered what had happened. Everybody just rode the line regardless, with their faces stuck to their phones, games, and hero news.

But there had to be something on this bus that made her walk out in a panic. Or, not on this bus specifically, but the route that he was driving.

His house slowly got more and more dilapidated. That was okay. He didn't have a family to come back to anyways. His finances got more and more dire. The debts were stacking up. He didn't care either, as long as he could find the reason for his daughter's death.

He practiced with his quirk, and sharpened his mind. If going villain was going to let him get revenge, then so be it. Nothing mattered anymore.

Then, he saw them… Or him, for that matter…

He was a dumpy, middle aged office worker that always rode the bus on this specific time. Within the crowded cars, within this reputation-obsessed country, nobody would stand up for those girls.

Norikoto really wanted to do something, but he didn't want to scare the man off his route.

One day, he sneaked a pressure cooker onto the bus… and put it under his seat, before using his quirk to heat up his bus's engine more than usual.

If that salaryman entered his bus today, he would ask him that question. If the answer was what he expected it to be…

Then the whole bus was going to go out in flames.

With a megaphone and a poster of his daughter's face rolled up in a tennis bag, he began his route that day.

He picked up another college student and her boyfriend. He picked up one of his more frequent riders, somebody dragging a bag full of watermelons to his granddaughter in the big city. He picked up an older woman on her way to work in her flower store.

Then, he picked up the salaryman.

"How long have you been riding this route?" he asked.

"Oh, just about seven years." the salaryman responded, tossing the coins into the fare box. The driver's hands tightened in his white gloves, the fabric's plastic melting around his grip. "Why do you ask?"

"It's a pity I won't be driving this route anymore." Norikoto said calmly. "I'll be off to a better place soon."

"Well, good luck with your employment." the salaryman said, nodding at him before walking into the crowded seats.

Before turning into the highway that would end his career, the college girl suddenly woke up, screaming, begging to be let off the bus.

His heart panged, and he let the couple off. She looked so much like his daughter…

None of the other passengers would be spared. Japan would pay today.

…

"You have been surrounded!" Ingenium said through a built-in loudspeaker in his helmet. "Endangering lives and destroying public property is illegal! If you do not surrender now, we will be forced to use violence to subdue you!"

"Why is it always the highway?" Hans muttered, swerving past a car and ducking to avoid some debris. The Elder Tree Mother used one root to drag a toddler out of the way of a still-moving car, before placing him gently down in his mother's arms. "Why are all these villains so-"

"Three years ago…" a voice said through the megaphone, "My daughter died on this highway. She was assaulted by one of the passengers on Route 57. Nobody stepped in to help her, and trying to get away, she left the bus in the middle of the highway… and was hit by a car."

"Is this your backstory?" Hans shouted. "Because even if your circumstances are tragic, you're literally trying to kill hundreds of people here. That hardly makes you deserving of sympathy!"

"You're right." the villain said. "Nobody cares here in Japan. Which is why… I'll kill all of you… to get revenge!"

"Why did you have to do that?" Ingenium shouted at Hans as he dove from the sky to divert another large piece of debris. "Now there will never be a peaceful resolution! More innocent lives will be lost!"

"This was planned, you idiot." Hans shouted back, creating an ice shield as the villain touched another gasoline-filled car with a quirk that probably heated objects up, making it explode into a fiery mess as well. "This is a revenge-against-society villain that's already in the middle of his supposedly glorious revenge! There won't be a way to talk them down."

"Remember her face!" the probably insane, balding middle aged man shouted, making another car explode while waving around a poster with somebody's face on it at such speeds that actually seeing the face was impossible. "Remember the name Sakura Norikoto as you're sent down there with her!"

"Are all the civilians evacuated in the area?" Ingenium shouted.

"Yes, nii-san!" Iida replied. "I observe no other civilians! And with Enigma-san's quirk, she won't cause collateral damage while trying to immobilize the villain."

Suddenly, the rather short, pale girl's transformation… got larger… and larger… and larger…

There was a gigantic, gel-like mountain that slowly surged forwards on top of the cars. The mask wobbled in the front of the mass, but the result was that the villain was now totally trapped in what Hans assumed to be pretty strong and organic gels. The villain's megaphone fell from the air and shattered on the pavement, and his poster was flung off the bridge, blown away by winds and the updrafts of the roaring fires.

Then, the gel blob exploded as it glowed a dull red for just a second. Enigma's form rapidly shrank as she recoiled from the injury, trying to minimize the matter loss from the puncture in the slime-like body.

"Did you really think that you could contain my vengeance like that?" the villain shouted.

"What?" Hans shouted from a hundred meters away. The blob had really crossed the distance fast.

"What did you say?" the villain shouted back.

"I said…" Ingenium said coldly, from behind the villain. "That if you didn't stand down, we would be forced to use violence.."

One quick aerial spin kick finished the job, knocking the former bus driver out. The barely conscious body skidded on the pavement, the faded bus driver's uniform tearing and revealing aged, frayed clothes. One person's final struggle was forever defeated.

"As expected of nii-san!" Iida said, eyes sparkling. "Executing a flight under the highway's bridge while Enigma-san was restricting the villain!"

Hans, however, paid no mind to this. He walked past the burning wrecks of cars and destroyed windshields, past the shattered glass and twisted metal fragments, and past the celebrating heroes and cheering civilians.

He knelt down before the average civilian, and sent a sheet of blue paper sinking into his forehead.

…

"So, you failed." Hans said. "You've tried to enact revenge in a very public location and were stopped by the heroes."

"You were one of those people that tried to stop me! You're no better than the…than the… bastard that started all of this!" the nameless villain shouted in the deep black void. He felt like he was falling. Like winds were howling and swirling around him… Like his life was slipping before his eyes, each colorful, bright image of what once was happiness drifting above him. So near and visible, yet completely out of reach.

"Well, you were trying to kill me." Hans shrugged. "It was just a matter of circumstance. But what would have happened if you succeeded?"

The black void shifted. Ingenium was dead. Hans was melted. Enigma was reduced to nothing but slag.

Endeavor was defeated at his feet. Even All Might was done, a heated hand stabbed through his chest.

Everybody in Japan knew about him. Everyone looked at him in horror. The poster of her burned, and his daughter's printed expression, assailed by the ashes and the heat, seemed to be wilting.

"Did you really solve anything?" Hans asked before the scene of hell. Before the nameless villain's eyes. "Nothing would have been solved by violence. Everything you did, your actions, your efforts… were pointless."

The nameless villain sobbed.

"But were you wrong to take revenge?" Hans asked.

The villain looked up.

"Is it really right for whoever you were taking revenge for to be exploited like that?" Hans said. "Did you feel like what you were doing was worth it?"

"...Yes." the villain muttered.

"And thus, you will meet your end." Hans said. "Known as nothing but yesterday's villain. Society didn't change, and all you did was prove yourself to be a homicidal maniac. Cases like this will still continue regardless of what you've done."

"But what could I have done?" the villain roared, grabbing Hans's illusionary collar with both of his hands. "Nobody would have done anything! That bastard rode the bus for years, harassing and assaulting ki.….kids! Kids just like my daughter… If nobody would do anything, then I will! I've killed that bastard! I'll… I'll…"

Hans merely stayed silent, watching as the villain's mindscape was projected into the void. The exploding bus. The innocent people that occasionally rode the bus. His anger at some of the frequent riders for not doing or not noticing anything.

"...What have I done?" the villain sobbed. "That old man… carrying watermelons for his granddaughter… That old lady, just going to her own business… I've gotten revenge, but now they're dead too. I've just caused more blood feuds."

"Everyone is at fault here." Hans said. "And there is no right answer for anybody. They've created a Japanese society where those types of crimes are so common that they mostly go unreported, and you've killed a bus full of people to get revenge for your daughter. But we have a right answer here and now."

"There is?"

"Yes." Hans said coldly. "You're the villain and we've captured you. What you stood for will be forgotten as a news station reports about the traffic disturbance, and the hero that stopped you will get a flash in the spotlight, before another crime and another villain replaces you on the headlines. You lose, and the heroes win."

"...Will I get a trial? Like those reformed villains that went to court?"

"No." Hans sighed. "I'm fairly sure you know more about the Japanese legal system than I do now. The status quo will continue until somebody does something about it."

"I did something about it." the villain said.

"You furthered the problem. You contributed to the villain population and strengthened the position of heroes in society." Hans said. "I'm sorry, but that's really all you did."

"Why are you saying all this to me?" the villain asked. "To torture me? To remind me… of the things I've done?"

"No." Hans said. "I want you to think about what you could have done better. Because at its core… your story is a tragedy. And I do feel sorry for you."

The void slowly faded, going from a glowing, black void to the dark realms of unconsciousness.

"But I feel worse for the innocents affected by you." Hans muttered. "So… have fun in prison."

…

Traffic was completely stalled by the flaming wrecks of the cars, and given the fact that nobody else here could help with the fires, Hans and the Ice Queen had to do literally all the work, trying to smother all of the fires with ice.

Sadly, Hans's ice creation speed… left a lot to be desired.

So, as he walked from section to section, ice creeping from car to car in a straight line in order to contain the fire's spread and trying not to make any more cars explode, Hans got progressively more and more tired.

…And the ice was going to stall traffic. With Ingenium's truck behind the explosion, this meant that even if the firefighters and police arrived to arrest the villain on an impassable road… they would have to wait for everything to be finished, the villain to be arrested, the car wrecks to be identified, and the ice to be cleared away before they could keep going.

To where Hans started the day.

Why was Hans using the Ice Queen? Well, the little mermaid was on vacation, off to whatever adventure she had chosen during the internship period. Being one of Hans's weaker summons in terms of combat ability, he felt like it was probably okay for her to wander off.

And guess where he was now. Putting out fires with ice just because the little mermaid was on vacation.

Hans tapped the last car and an ice spike burst through the ground, impaling the innards and stopping a gas explosion from destroying even more cars. The cars would be counted as collateral, but since it was burnt, had shrapnel punched through it, and it was actually melting… It probably couldn't get any worse.

Then, he sat down on the side of the highway, on top of the rather warm concrete, and sighed.

"Good job, Andersen-san!" Iida said, running up to him and bowing. "Thank you for your efforts."

"It's literally my job." Hans said exasperatedly. "Besides, this getting done faster just lets us solve this entire situation faster. We can be done with this day faster and stop sitting out in the hot sun next to burnt out wrecks of cars."

"We still need to work on your attitude." Iida said, shaking his head. "Being a hero is an honor of public service. We have the opportunity to do our best to help society to our fullest potential."

Hans thought about that nameless villain. About his revenge, which, at its core, was against an issue that existed in Japan even before the rise of quirks. The safety of public transport.

"...I think there are some problems that nobody can solve." Hans said. "And in this case? The furthest thing away from a solution are the heroes."

(Actually, he did know his name. His last name, at least. Because his daughter's name was Sakura Norikoto. Thus, Norikoto, former bus driver, former father, former family-man… a living, breathing human… would either be executed or rot in jail forever.)

(But why would anybody need to know? He was just another statistic now.)

…

"This… is going to be our new office." Tensei said, looking up at the totally normal, but slightly run down office building. "For some reason, the rent's down by a lot, so I'll be able to stay here for longer than I anticipated to hold the fort and intimidate the gangs until another hero shows up."

Hans looked at the cattail plants placed against a pillar of the apartment's first floor and deduced that somebody had probably died there, given the fact that the rent had gone down.

Adjusting his grip on the small bag he was carrying to try and distract himself from that somber thought, he made sure that his summons were properly moving the contents of their truck. The little match girl waddled towards the bushes, having probably spotted some stray cats.

It was now 8 P.M. And he was very, very hungry. Given the fact that they were interns and Ingenium had to give an action report to the police after they saw all of the ice constructs around the burnt zone… they had skipped lunch, which made the issue even worse.

"Hey…" Hans asked, "Hasn't the internship schedule for today ended? Can I just… go home now?"

Tensei checked his phone while adjusting his grip on a box. "I mean, I guess. You all encountered a villain situation and responded according to how you were supposed to as interns. Iida, you evacuated the civilians. You did a good job with it. There were no casualties other than those in the initial blast zone. And Andersen-san, you did good work with containment. I suppose you can leave. Can you just… help me carry those boxes up?"

"Can you just go up to that floor and open the window?" Hans said, looking at the Elder Tree Mother, who nodded back at him. "She can deliver the rest up there."

"...I guess." Tensei said, waving off Iida's silent protests of using his quirk off the clock. Going into the hallway filled with little stickers and stamps advertising various small businesses pasted on the bare, concrete walls, he pressed the defunct button to the elevator several times, before sighing and climbing the stairs.

The three left outside of the apartment building waited… and waited… and waited…

"So." Hans said, trying to break the silence. "How many of those kinds of villains do you guys encounter per day?"

"...Just about once every two days." Enigma signed. "There's always something to do as a hero, though. Not every day is a big fight, and not every fight is in as dangerous an environment or with somebody that has a dangerous quirk. Most of the time, we just stop dumb teenagers from doing stupid things."

"...Like?" Hans asked, while using his hands to motion to his summons where to put the boxes. The Tin Soldier hopped across the bricks like he was playing hopscotch on the one leg he had and attempted to place the full box of instant noodles he was carrying down delicately.

"Delinquency, vandalism, all of that stuff." Enigma droned on. "Occasionally, they think they're strong enough to fight back, but most people just run away from me when I start using my quirk. They think it's pretty villainous. When I go to a new area to operate as a hero, people are always scared of me."

The three stood in silence once again, their talk somewhat saddened by the circumstances of Enigma.

"...I suppose that's why I never wanted to go start an agency on my own."

As a window above opened and Tensei waved, conveniently ending the conversation, Hans directed the Elder Tree Mother to grow up to the window, slowly winding around the building like a gigantic, mutated ivy plant. Then, other branches slowly ferried the goods up to the windowsill, where Tensei lifted them up and placed them down gently. When the whole truck was unloaded and everything was placed, Tensei gave a thumbs up and closed the window.

"Andersen-san," Iida began, "How are you going to clear up this mess? It sort of seems like a-"

Hans snapped his fingers, and the construct disappeared.

"I stand corrected." Iida muttered, nodding to himself. "Of course the vice president wouldn't do something this inconsiderate."

"Well, I'll have to run back home for dinner." Hans said, waving to the two out of social obligation only. "See you two tomorrow. Are we meeting here?"

"Yup." Enigma shrugged.

"Indeed we are, Andersen-san!" Iida said very formally. "Tomorrow, we must also show up at 8 A.M. sharp! Please remember that as you go home today."

Noting the very obvious personality difference between the two, Hans left, pulling his lab coat tighter around his body as the May evening got colder and colder. Given the fact that with the Ice Queen's curse, he was more susceptible to cold, it wasn't exactly out of the ordinary.

He walked past flickering streetlight after flickering streetlight, looking around as the shadows they cast almost seemed to move.

But he was the ghost here. The spirit that had possessed a body. He didn't have anything to be afraid of.

Past the leaves and past a little stand with a sort-of-irritating blue haired chibi child taped to the cardboard, Hans scoffed as he looked at the bad attempt at selling some sort of novelty product.

"Why would any idiot set up here?"

Then, he felt something as what seemed like a very sharp knife stabbed very slightly into the back of his neck.

"These idiots right here would… our mysterious rival gang."

Two people grabbed his arms and clapped a hand over his mouth, before he was spun around to look at a woman with particularly sharp, metallic fingertips.

"I didn't think they would send anybody so short. Bring him back to the base!"

"Oh great, as if my day couldn't get any worse."

…

AN

And that's Monday almost over. I'm sort of breezing through these chapters because I've thought a lot about them during my vacation, but it's going to take a while to actually write them.

Pain.

Discord link: discord . gg / 9t9MK3jHmV

On a shameless note: Stats give me motivation. Every favorite and follow fuels my nonexistent ego and every review gives me mental sustenance. Please… do not let my mind starve to death.

(If you're on spacebattles, do a like or whatever it is forum people like :P)

-SpiritOfErebus