This is the story of how Shinsou Hitoshi unfortunately became acquainted with Midoriya Izuku.

It began with a cat.

(Hitoshi is a cat person.)

The aforementioned cat appeared, one day, on an alley by the sidewalk Hitoshi took to walk home sometimes. Hitoshi, who is such a cat person that he carries cat treats with his person at all times, knelt down and opened his bag to take out the aforementioned cat treats.

"Here, girl," said Hitoshi, shaking the bag of treats.

That's when he noticed something was off.

You see, it's Hitoshi's habit to feed every street cat that he comes across. So, you could say that he is more or less familiar with the cats around this part. This particular cat, however, was new. He had never seen it before.

He had never seen anything like it before.

Hitoshi took out some of the treats and placed it on the ground. He watched the cat poked at one disinterestedly.

Hitoshi was pretty sure that it's a cat.

It didn't really look like one though.

Wait, Hitoshi thought to himself. How many eyes does a cat have, again?

The thing—the cat, Hitoshi corrected himself—pawed at the treat with its obsidian, holographic, twelve-taloned claws and inspected it with its eyes intently. And then it proceeded to eat it.

"Good girl," said Hitoshi, reaching out a hand to pet it.

The cat hummed, something deep and rumbling and indecipherable—do cats hum?—as Hitoshi's hand sank into fur so black that black itself began to feel less like a color and more like a space, and Hitoshi's fingers dragged back into that void and kept sinking, sinking, wow, what a fluffy cat, and for a moment that felt like months everything felt a little—

Hitoshi took his hand back. The cat purred, the treats ground to dust with a crunch under its many, many teeth.

Weird cat, Hitoshi thought.

He put out some more treats and watched it eat every single one, its tails swishing side to side. Cute, though.

The next day, he took the same path home and found the creature—cat, he corrected himself—on the same spot. So he fed it before he went home.

The path wasn't one that he would take often—it's sort of an empty street, and takes several minutes longer than his usual route home—but he came back to it the next day too. He didn't really think about it much, really. It was just a habit, feeding strays. Something Hitoshi did without thinking.

"You got a name?" Hitoshi asked it the third day, watching it nibble on a treat. "Want me to give you one?"

The cat made a low, gurgling sound that echoes in the alley like a dam breaking, or a volcanic eruption, or a battalion of apocalyptic trumpets.

"Geez, just asking," Hitoshi said, giving it some more treats—they prattle to the ground with a soft scraping sound. The bag is almost empty. He should buy more soon. "No need to get all pissy about it."

He didn't think about it much. It's just a thing he does before going home and being on his way about Hitoshi's boring, mundane life. A habit.

(Hitoshi is a cat person.)

The next day, Hitoshi went to a nearby convenience store after school. He knew they didn't have cat food here, but he thought some canned tuna would do fine until he restocked his treats, wouldn't they?

He sighed, bowing down to squint at the lower shelves where they kept the cheaper brands. It wasn't like he felt a necessity to feed the cats everyday … he just did it once in a while. He felt compelled to do so today, that's all. Plus, canned food could be shared..

Huh. He never really saw any other cats other than the on that particular alley. Sort of odd, since the strays usually would flock together for food.

Hitoshi faintly hummed along to the idle, convenience-store-tune ringing from the store's speaker. He scrounged around his wallet for some change, counting the spares. He's kind of saving up right now.

UA's entrance exam was only in three months, and Hitoshi knew that he had one in thousands chance of getting in, but—he supposed he'd be too busy in hero school for part time jobs, wouldn't he?

Hell, he didn't really give a shit if he had one in a million chances. He'd decided he was gonna do it, so he was going to do it, damn it.

The store's automatic doors dinged as a customer walked in. Hitoshi sighed, taking the dubious 300 yen canned tuna, and counting the coins with his other hand—

"Dammit," he cursed a little when a coin fell with a ringing clink. It rolled under the shelves all the way to the other aisle. Just his luck.

Your green eyes couldn't get any colder, there's bad poison runnin' through your veins—

He stood up, and wondered when the store's tune changed into … a rock song. It's an odd choice, but Hitoshi liked AC/DC, old as the band was.

—Evil walks behind you!

"Did you drop this?" said a voice behind him.

"Yeah," said Hitoshi, turning around, startled. Huh? He was pretty sure the coin rolled to the other aisle, though.

"Here you go," chirped the guy—who can't be older than him. He was much shorter than Hitoshi and looked sort of nondescript.

Hitoshi took the 100 yen coin. "Thanks."

"No problem," said the guy—boy, really—cheerfully before proceeding to walk past Hitoshi in the narrow space. That's when Hitoshi noticed the remarkably huge surgical scar on the side of the boy's head—retracting any previous notion of nondescript.

Dark secrets bein' spun in your web—

Hitoshi quickly averted his eyes. That's none of his business, and Hitoshi isn't the kind of guy who stares. He made his way to the cashier.

"Only this, please."

"Oh—of course," said the cashier after a while of ignoring Hitoshi in favor of typing away on her keyboard. She looked distracted. "I'm sorry, something is just, um, wrong with the speaker—is that all?"

With your dark, dark secrets, screamed the speaker. And your green, green eyes!

"That's all," Hitoshi put his coins on the plate on the counter. "I don't need a bag."

In retrospect, perhaps Hitoshi should've had some kind of foreboding feeling that something strange was about to happen.

"Um," Hitoshi said, walking to a stop at the usual alley.

The cat was there, per usual. It was not alone this time, though.

"Oh, hello," the boy said. He was kneeling in front of the cat, eye to eye. The oversized hoodie, the giant scar—it was the boy from the convenience store. "How do you do?"

Hitoshi blinked. He could swear he got out of the store before this guy dod. Maybe some kind of a teleportation Quirk. "Right," Hitoshi said, which wasn't really an answer. "Uh. Is she your cat?"

The boy blinked at him. And then he looked back at the cat. And then back at Hitoshi. "It's not a cat," he said.

Huh? "What are you talking about," Hitoshi said. "Of course it's a cat. Look, it has wings."

The boy blinked again, slowly this time. "Ah, I see," he said then, standing up from his squat. He then looked back at the cat, and said accusingly, "you've been very naughty."

Hitoshi took it as the cat had probably run away from home, or something. Too bad about the canned tuna, but Hitoshi supposed he could cook it for himself. "So she's yours?" Hitoshi walked forward, and the cat stretched and languidly trotted to his legs. The boy from the convenience store watched its movements with some kind of interest in his eyes.

Hitoshi reached down to scratch the cat behind one of its many ears. He guessed it shouldn't be a surprise that it wasn't a stray, since it's so well-behaved. "What's her name?"

"It isn't mine," said the boy. Hitoshi looked up. There is something like amusement in the boy's face as he watched them both. It's a little unsettling. "But its name is—"

The boy said something.

"Come again?" said Hitoshi.

He said it again.

Hitoshi frowned. "But that's my name," he said. And then, with alarm, "how … the hell did you know my name?"

The boy just shrugged, like he didn't care. "That's its name," he said. "Mine is Midoriya Izuku, by the way. What's yours?"

The hell. "Don't fuck with me," Hitoshi glared. "I said, how the fuck did you know my name.."

Hitoshi trailed to a stop.

Midoriya looked at him. In the dark of the alley, his eyes are huge, glinting green. "Come again?" Midoriya said.

Hitoshi frowned. Huh? For a minute he thought he forgot what his name was, which was just ridiculous. Of course he knew what his name was. His name was—

Wait.

What was his name again?

"That's weird," said Hitosh￮, somewhat stunned, feeling like the ground just opened underneath him.

"Hmm," said Midoriya Izuku understandingly. "I thought so."

It was the oddest sensation, forgetting something that should be a given. Hitos￮￮ took out his wallet from his back pocket and slowly pulled out his student ID. There was his face right there—he always hated that photo, he wasn't ready for it—and next to it is his name, typed out neatly. His name. His name..

He couldn't read it.

He could read everything else on the card. His junior high school, his birthdate—everything. But he couldn't read his name. He couldn't read the space where his name was supposed to be.

Hito￮￮￮ looked up from the card. "What the hell did you do to me?"

Midoriya blinked those huge eyes at him again. "Nothing," he said, sounding confused, of all things, by the question; as if he couldn't imagine why he, of all people, was accused. "We just met, didn't we?"

What the hell kind of Quirk is this? Hit￮￮￮￮ swallowed dryly, mind racing back. Some mind altercation, memory Qurik? When had the Quirk taken root? They met in the store—right, the coin! Skin contact? Or maybe … maybe just like himself, through verbal communication—

He straightened himself. "What the fuck do you want?"

"I'm sorry," said Midoriya, sounding almost genuine. Almost. "But that doesn't really work on me."

Hi￮￮￮￮￮ stared, astonished. His Quirk didn't work.

No, it was more than that. He felt his Quirk dissipate—or rather, he didn't feel his Quirk. For a moment, it was as if his Quirk was erased—like it never existed. Like he was Quirkless. The helplessness was horrifying.

This was the first time he felt truly and honestly scared in his life. Weak-kneed, dry-throated, cold-fingered.

"Ah, I see," said Midoriya, and he didn't even notice when Midoriya came so close—kneeling in front of him. When had H￮￮￮￮￮￮ fallen down? Midoriya looked down on him from where he stood, his small figure towering over Hitoshi's knelt form. "So that's why. Interesting."

"I'm going to call the cops," ￮￮￮￮￮￮￮ threatened, even though he wasn't sure if he could move at all. Everything felt heavy. Everything felt wrong.

"Sure," said Midoriya kindly, pulling a crumpled pack of tissue and handing it to ￮￮￮￮￮￮￮. "Here."

"What?"

"For the nausea," Midoriya helpfully added.

￮￮￮￮￮￮￮ stared, before a wave of unbearable nausea crashed through his body from head to toe and proceeded to have the most hardcore vomitting session he ever remembered.

Someone was patting his shoulder as he threw his guts out. It was Midoriya Izuku. "Let it out, man," said Midoriya. "Just let it out."

"What the fuck is happening to me," said ￮￮￮￮￮￮￮, though it came out sort of ineligible and unthreateningly hoarse.

"You just lost your name," Midoriya said, as if ￮￮￮￮￮￮￮ needed a reminder. "Your brain is having trouble processing your celestial displacement in the universe. Want a tissue?"

"Shut up," ￮￮￮￮￮￮￮ moaned. He had never felt so terrible in his life—his head felt like it was a chewing gum ran over by a tractor and deep-diving into an acid vat before being launched into space. "Don' touch me."

Midoriya Izuku tilted his head, as if inspecting him. From this close, ￮￮￮￮￮￮￮ could almost count his freckles—his eyes, bright and green, were distortingly vivid despite the headache. "Lucky you. You really don't have any Affinity with the Fabric whatsoever.."

Midoriya's voice sounded almost wistful when he said that, as if the string of words meant anything at all. He stood up. "Guess that's why it latched itself to you. Smart thing."

"Fuck," ￮￮￮￮￮￮￮ said. He blinked stars out of his eyes, trying to get his brain to work again—he's barely comprehending things. It's slow, but he could feel his fingers again.

"What the hell is going on? What is—what—" for the first time in his sad 15 years old life, ￮￮￮￮￮￮￮ was genuinely, honest to god speechless. "I'm—I'm.."

I am—?

He didn't have a name.

It's just gone, like it was never there, like he never were. If he didn't even remember himself, then—then did anybody?

"Names are very powerful things, you know," Midoriya's voice rings above him, a clear tenor. "They stick. They linger. You shouldn't give one away so freely."

What could he say to that?

It was ridiculous, thinking back. The whole thing. But at that moment—at that precise moment, a moment that he could never even attempt to explain to anyone—the reality of the situation was as heavy as gravity. He had lost something intricate, something essential—￮￮￮￮￮￮￮ could feel that a central piece of him just wasn't there.

What's in a name? ￮￮￮￮￮￮￮ felt ill, off-kilter, like he wasn't meant to be. Like he wasn't quite right. Like he was the missing puzzle piece that the universe didn't need—

"You do want it back, don't you?" said Midoriya. "Your name."

￮￮￮￮￮￮￮ stared. "Yes," he said, suddenly with clarity. That's right. He'd lost his fucking name. "Of course. That's my fucking name."

Midoriya smiled. It was not a very nice smile.

"Don't worry," Midoriya assured him. "Your existence makes it hard for me to do my job, though, so. Ah, I know," Midoriya cheerfully claps his hands together. "You can be my assistant for this one. What do you say?"

￮￮￮￮￮￮￮ attempted to stand up with much effort. "What."

"Become my assistant," Midoriya repeated nicely. "It could work, with your help. We can catch it together."

"What could work?" his knees trembled a little, but he managed. ￮￮￮￮￮￮￮ looked at the canned tuna on the ground. He'd almost forgotten where they were—the dingy alley, the quiet sidewalk. "What's it?"

"It," and then Midoriya said a name that sounded familiar and did not sound at all at the same time. A name that ￮￮￮￮￮￮￮ both did and did not recognize.

"But that's my name," ￮￮￮￮￮￮￮ said, shakily.

"Not anymore," said Midoriya. He almost sounded sympathetic. "It took it. They do that, sometimes."

"They?"

"Demons."

￮￮￮￮￮￮￮ stared. When he realized that Midoriya was telling the truth, ￮￮￮￮￮￮￮ stared harder. "You're saying the cat is a demon and it took my name."

Midoriya looked pleased. "I knew you would catch on quickly."

The cat—where was the cat? It was just here, wasn't it? He wasn't paying attention before in the middle of the clusterfuck mental breakdown, but something about the alley was different. He didn't know what exactly, but it felt—everything was—stifled. The colors felt muted, the air felt less … everything felt less.

No, he realized. It wasn't the alley, or everything else. It was ￮￮￮￮￮￮￮. ￮￮￮￮￮￮￮ was less.

Midoriya continued, as if unaware of his impending doom. "You're different. You're really weird, actually. You're like, a single atom layered sheet, but a person. You are the most non-supernatural thing I've ever seen."

This was all said very sincerely that he didn't know whether to feel offended or flattered. He didn't know what to feel at all other than cosmic disconcertion and abject horror.

Midoriya didn't seem to mind the lack of response as he just fucking prattled on. "It thought it could hide, taking your name, you see. Well, no worries! We can get you fixed up in no time. You just have to help a little, is all."

It just felt like he was getting punched in the face consecutively while also being vomited on. "Being your assistant, you mean."

"In a manner of speaking. So is it a yes?"

￮￮￮￮￮￮￮ looked at him, a slow, damning realization growing in his stomach. "This isn't a Quirk, isn't it."

This was something else. This was more. This was something … worldly and otherworldly. This was something innate, something imprinted and woven in the strands of Everything that Is. He could feel it in his bones, in every inch of his nameless skin. He could feel that whatever power at play here—it was not a quirk. It was More and Beyond anything any human could wield or imagine.

He could feel bits and pieces of him unravelling. Nothing human could do that.

"Nope," said Midoriya. "So?"

"Fuck it," he said as an answer, and Midoriya smiled again.

"Okay," he said. "All you need to do is trust me for a little while. Trust every single thing that I say. Can you do that, Assistant-kun?"

Of course he can't do that. "I fucking guess."

"Good," said Midoriya. "The cat is in front of you."

"What?"

Midoriya shook his head. "You believe in every single thing that I say," Midoriya reminded him, and then looked at him expectantly.

"..I believe in everything you say," he repeated a little dejectedly.

Midoriya looked pleased by this. "The cat is in front of you," he said again.

"The cat is in front—"

The cat was in front of him.

"There we go," said Midoriya rather cheerfully, as ￮￮￮￮￮￮￮ stared at the thing that just materialized out of thin air in front of him.

You know, he thought to himself faintly. That really isn't a cat, is it?

The thing said something that sounded like a seismic shift.

"Don't be dramatic," Midoriya said, and it took ￮￮￮￮￮￮￮ a while to realize that it was talking to the thing. "Did you really think you could run away? You weren't made for this Side."

And then the thing dissolved. There wasn't really any other way to put it—it dissolved from thin air, particles of dust so black—less like a color and more like a space—scattering all over the ground and into the darkness under ￮￮￮￮￮￮￮'s feet.

He jumped back, startled. But there was nothing under his shoes. "What just.."

"It went into your Shadow," Midoriya said. "That's why it took your name in the first place, so it could hide in your Domain. No worries," he added, after seeing whatever befuddled look evident on ￮￮￮￮￮￮￮'s face. "I just need one more favor from you, Assistant-kun. Trust me one more time. You can do that, yeah?"

He watched as Midoriya moved suddenly in this elaborate, almost elegant manner. He shifted his footing, body aimed to the side. His left hand is raised into a fist in a parallel line in front of him, his right hand pulled back in a perfect, methodical posture.

He could see no bow nor arrow on Midoriya's hands, but he knew—just like he knew that he didn't have a name—that Midoriya was holding both.

And the arrow, he knew, was aimed directly at him.

"I won't hurt you, Assistant-kun," Midoriya said.

"You said it thought it could hide," ￮￮￮￮￮￮￮ said. "What was it hiding from?"

"Me," said Midoriya. And then he let go of the arrow and—

The sensation of everything becoming right in the universe hit him like a bullet train as life unbirthed him and birthed him and unbirthed him again, everything falling to their right place like the most wonderful orchestra, chaos and order intertwining in its arrhythmical rhythmic dance, in a strand in time he looked into everything and everything looked into him—

Hitoshi gasped.

It took a moment for the world to align itself for Hitoshi. "Fuck," he said, sitting up—the back of his head hurt like hell. For the second time today, he didn't remember when he had fallen down. Successfully vertical once again, Hitoshi looked to his surroundings.

It took Hitoshi another moment to make sense of what he was seeing.

"Hello, Shinsou Hitoshi," Midoriya said, standing in the middle of the alley, towering in front of Hitoshi. "Nice to finally meet you."

Next to Midoriya was—

It did not look like a door, or a gate, or a portal. But Hitoshi knew it was all of the above.

Hitoshi looked at it, the Door which did not look like a door. And then at Midoriya. "Where does that go?"

"Hell," Midoriya Izuku answered.

And then the door opened.

It didn't physically open, just like it wasn't physically closed. Hitoshi wasn't even sure if it was corporeal at all; it's just that one moment Hitoshi didn't see it—and then, in the next moment, he did.

Hitoshi saw Hell.

There were no words to describe how it looked like. There was no blood, fire, or brimstone. No screaming or tortured souls. But it was Hell. It must be.

Because what was more mortally terrifying than absolute, irrefutable, overconsuming Nothingness?

"Come on, up you go. Don't give me that look; you behaved very badly, you know."

Hitoshi watched as Midoriya chastised something that Hitoshi couldn't see. No, he could see it; he knew there was a Thing there. It did not look like a cat. For a second, it looked like it had too many teeth and too many eyes and too many tails—and yet the next second, it looked like it had much too less of anything at all.

Hitoshi could see it, he just couldn't exactly perceive it.

"You should go apologize to this very nice boy right here. He treated you nicely for the past week and what did you do? You stole his name and tried to possess him. Have you no shame? Yeah, I know you don't, but it's more about the principle of the thing."

Hitoshi didn't exactly see it go inside the door. There was just a blip in time and—

And then there was just Hitoshi and Midoriya and the empty alley.

"Ah, glad that that's over with," said Midoriya, stretching as if he just did a round of extraneous yoga. "Alright, let's go home. Where do you live? I'll walk you back."

"What," Hitoshi said, very quietly, "in All Might's holy ass was that."

Midoriya was still stretching. "Your first exorcism," said Midoriya.

"Exorcism?" Hitoshi repeated. "First?"

"I don't usually do these for free, you know," said Midoriya, as if Hitoshi was supposed to be grateful or something having gone through an event that couldn't be perceived by mortal eyes. "How do you feel? Check your toes, sometimes one goes missing."

Hitoshi gaped for a moment before frantically opening his shoes and socks. He still had all his toes, much to his relief.

"I was joking," said Midoriya. "Nice socks, though. I like the paw prints."

Hitoshi couldn't believe it. "Fuck you."

"You know," Midoriya said. "This wouldn't have happened to you if you weren't such a cat person."

"What?"

"Yeah, not to victim blame or anything," he said. "I was for real when I said you're like, the most supernaturally impenetrable person I've ever seen. If you didn't like cats so much it would never have gotten to you. That being said, super grateful anyway because that demon was a pain to look for so you sorta helped me big time. Hey, do you still know who you are and everything, 'cos you fell pretty hard so you maybe have a concussion. Oh yeah, where did you say you lived again?"

Hitoshi had never heard so many sentences said within a single breath from one person. Hitoshi, who just experienced what perhaps was the most crucial turning point in his life, did not have the emotional nor logical capacity to process any of said sentences.

"Oh, do you really have a concussion?" Midoriya almost sounded worried. "There is a clinic nearby that we can drop by. I think you can get a discount with a student card."

"I think I'm going insane," said Hitoshi.

"I never saw someone stay sane after their name was taken," Midoriya agreed.

"Can you shut up for a second," said Hitoshi.

Midoriya sighed, as if Hitoshi was being difficult. And then he sat down on the ground.

Hitoshi faintly wondered if any passerby could see them—two kids sitting in a nook of an alley, one in uniform and the other in an oversized All Might hoody, both looking unsound in the head.

Now that they are face to face, he really was smaller than Hitoshi. Way smaller. Looked somewhat younger too, but maybe it was just the weirdly big eyes. "You still remember what happened?" he said, which was such a fucked up thing to ask.

"What, the moment I almost ceased to exist?" Hitoshi said, his voice shaking a little. Because that was what happened—he could feel it, the moment he became Unnamed. He didn't have a place in this world. "You're fucking with me, right? I don't think I could forget even if I die."

Midoriya observed him for a while. "You really are weird," he said, which did not help. "But then again, it was an unprecedented situation. Hmm. Well, okay. This could maybe help, but also maybe not.."

Hitoshi, for the nth time in the past half an hour, wondered what the fuck was this person in front of him. This callous, unsympathetic, falsely and relentlessly cheerful person who just ripped open time and space in front of Hitoshi's eyes and turned his life inside out. Fucking literally.

Midoriya, once again, seemed to be unaware of Hitoshi's crumbling psychological defense mechanism. "Well, no harm in it, I suppose. Do you want to Know, Shinsou-kun? It could maybe make it better," he gave it a thought. "Could also make it worse, maybe."

Hitoshi stared at him. "You don't care what happens to me." It was less of a question and more of a belated epiphany.

"I'm not being paid," Midoriya reminded him, which didn't really feel like a confirmation nor a denial. "Well?"

"Fuck it," Hitoshi said.

"He told you," Hitoshi observes.

Yaoyorozu laughs. She sounds a little deranged.

"Told what?" Jirou throws her hands up, exasperated. "In the name of Eraserhead's turtleneck, can someone just for once, for once be straight about things?"

"Is any one in 1-A straight, though?" Kaminari wonders aloud.

"Not the point," Jirou snaps. "Also, nah."

"Do you remember it?" Hitoshi asks her. "What it was?"

"No," answers Yaoyorozu.

"But you know it," Hitoshi says. "You just don't remember what. Everything feels like it's always been there, so you have no fucking idea what changed."

"Yes," she says emptily. "I think I'm going insane," she tells him.

"You'll get used to it," Hitoshi says. "Feeling like you're going insane is sort of the status quo eventually. Also, why are you guys in my room?"

The front door bell rings.

"I'll go get it," says Kaminari, though from the sudden commotion from the living room it seemed like Iida beat him to the punch.

"That's him, isn't it," Jirou says.

Yaoyorozu immediately gets up and barges outside, followed by Jirou. Hitoshi sighs, long and suffering.

"Hey everyone!" says Midoriya Izuku, dragging his giant backpack to the middle of the room. Nearly the entire class is present, cramping up on the sofa and the floor. Midoriya does not seem to be bothered by the spectators, unzipping his bag without care.

Hitoshi could feel a headache forming at the base of his skull.

"So," says Midoriya cheerfully, "are you guys ready for your weekly exorcism?"

"Wait," says Uraraka, "let me set up the tripod first—"

"Hold on, can I redo my make up for a bit—"

"I brought some blessed holy water for precaution!"

"Can someone get garlic cloves from the kitchen, just in case?"

"You know, I think demons are like, kinda hot. In theory, you know."

The chance of Hitoshi entering UA Hero Class was one in a million.

Hitoshi supposes that he used up all his luck for that one in million.