I honestly don't know what to say at the start for an author's note anymore. So I'm just going to say this.

-SpiritOfErebus

…

"So… Let me get this straight." Stain sighed, sitting cross-legged on the floor. "You got the attention of a cult because your quirk has something to do with fairytales, which their leader apparently obsesses over?"

"...That's the gist of it." Hans nodded. It was honestly better for Stain to draw his own conclusions from his rather nonsensical explanation.

"And how do you know this?"

"She told me." Hans said, pointing at Nursery Rhyme floating in the air. The book bobbed up and down to affirm Hans's statement.

"And they can… absorb the world?" Stain asked.

"I have no idea." Hans said. It was true. He didn't know the limits of magecraft, or how much power Kiara even had. Was the belief energy based on being an actor enough, or did it rely on a lot of sacrifices? "Depends on if there were too many unexplained disappearances. If there were, human sacrifices were probably involved."

"...This is insane." Spinner said, standing up and pacing in an anxious way. "Is this real? Can it actually happen?"

Typing on his computer, Hans searched up the world news. Other than the mentions of purple light beams above movie theaters, there were some mentions of a rise in missing persons cases reported on that day, with a little graph showing the number of cases in the world.

"It might have." Hans sighed. "But, on the bright side, she was able to hijack the ritual, and even though she, well, tried to consume me, we're on the same side now. But that's beside the point for now. The point is, for enough people to disappear on that day, Kiara probably planned this as a world-ending event. Or what Kiara thinks would be a world ending event. It didn't work, so that means that now, she's powerless."

"And what does this have to do with you?"

"Because she thinks that my quirk can help her achieve her goals, or something." Hans shrugged. "And, apparently, she actually wanted to summon the incarnation of the Hans Christian Andersen that died in 1875. Since I happen to share the same name, and my quirk somehow relates to the fairytales, she views me as a successful summoning and wants to use my powers to destroy the world… or something."

Obviously, this was a lie. Kiara just wanted to watch him suffer. But explaining why Kiara knew him personally would be way too far-fetched, expose too much about magic, and possibly dig into his origin story of being a heroic spirit.

"Can your quirk do this?"

"No. She's insane if she thinks that I can do it. But cults are never normal." Hans shrugged.

For a moment, they sat in silence, except for Spinner, who stared out the window with a glassy stare. He was probably still in disbelief.

"...How do you know this?" Stain said. "I mean, it seem so weird that you just… know-"

Hans pointed at Nursery Rhyme.

"Ah." Stain said. "So Kiara will be coming to Japan to capture you or something?"

"Most likely." Hans sighed. "I mean, I'm kind of assuming that since you came to find me, you wanted to do something about it too."

"That was our intention." Stain nodded. "Well, we didn't want to deal with this Kiara specifically, but this is a world ending villain we're talking about."

"And even though I don't agree with your methods or your ideals, we can agree to disagree… for now." Hans said. "There is no definitive way to fix the multitude of problems in society. Still, the very world ending by being consumed by somebody's cult ritual based on a psychic quirk or something is not good news."

"Indeed." Stain said. "We will work together on this. What should we do?"

"...Meet somewhere that's not right now?" Hans said, pointing to his door. "My parents are home. You all should probably leave."

Suddenly, there was a shuffle at the door.

"Hans? You okay?"

"Yeah!" Hans shouted back. "Just… saying some scenes out loud."

"Okay. It's really late, though. You should probably sleep."

"Got it! I'll brush my teeth soon!" Hans shouted back.

The shuffling left the door, and Hans looked at the two vigilantes in the bedroom of, for all intensive purposes, somebody they knew as a fourteen year old.

"...You definitely should leave." Hans said.

As the two prepared to crawl out of the bedroom, Hans remembered something.

"Wait. There's something I said to you inside of her realm that you all probably forgot. Reading it would probably answer a lot of your questions." Hans said, producing glowing sheets of blue paper. Nursery Rhyme kept very convenient, written records of what happens inside her, after all, since she was a living story. The pieces of paper floated into their hands, each holographically showing a piece of text.

As the two nodded at Hans leaning out of the window and began their ascent to the top of the building, Hans went and prepared to go to bed.

Today had been a long day.

…

Sitting outside a convenience store, the two oddly-dressed men silently consumed their light snacks.

Having had their costumes taken from them, they were just dressed in slightly ill-fitting clothing that the police had provided to them, in order to replace their torn rags. Their weapons were all left at the scene of the theater, as well, and there was no possibility of retrieving them.

Besides, it wasn't worth it.

Still, retrieving their weapons wasn't on the top of their priority list. Reading the essays that included Hans's internal monologues, the description of them as a melty-wax-monster-thing in the book demon's world.

It also turned out that the book demon was actually another dimension. Wasn't that something to think about?

But actually reading Hans's character analysis of their ideals and their actions, it was… a little jarring.

"...You finished?" Stain muttered, chewing on a ball of takoyaki. It was a little cold already, and the sauce was a little oily. But it was food.

"Nearly done." Spinner said, furrowing his brow. His lizard pupils almost seemed to zoom in and out as he furrowed his brow and kept reading.

Stain looked out into the streets. This place, close to where the kid's apartment block was, could be described as a slum if you stretched the definition by not quite a mile, but definitely at least by a hundred yards. The roads were unkempt, there were weeds growing out of the sidewalk, and a lot of the shops had unusually shiny shed doors that were well-maintained.

This place wasn't a very good place to live.

It shouldn't be like this, right? Heroes should have done something, right? There were way too many heroes in Japan, but not enough heroes to really make a difference. Heroism was a new system as well, right? The police force certainly hadn't shrunk. Stain read enough official documents to fuel his own ideological changes to know that. So, with heroes, why couldn't the areas here be solved?

His mind immediately jumped to clout chasing heroes, only stopping villains in areas that were more populated, or televised by more popular news channels. But he stopped himself before he went down that train of thought again.

Ultimately, the issue was more complicated than fake heroes not doing their jobs. Not to mention that heroism was honestly just a career. Some heroes, like All Might, and only All Might (in Stain's opinion) took it further than being a career or a vehicle to obtain fame and fortune.

All Might was a true symbol of peace.

Still, like Hans had said, was that a good thing? Why would our society need a symbol of peace? Would society collapse if there were no hero like All Might? Those were all questions Stain didn't know the answer to.

Or, well, he knew, but didn't want to acknowledge. Accepting that you were wrong was difficult, and Stain did not want to think that what he had been working towards wasn't practical, at all.

Like Hans said, heroism was a bandaid fix to the problem of quirks. But even quirks weren't the problem, since crimes happened before people had readily available tools like their quirks to commit crimes.

Everything was involved.

The education system. The welfare system. The justice system. Japan's conviction rates, work culture, and community values all contributed to the current state of just Japan.

It was one country. Out of a total of a hundred and ninety five. Each with different cultures, systems of government, and people with different values and economic statuses. All having different problems in the end.

The truth was that the truth was complicated. And committing murder over a goal that Stain wasn't even sure about now was definitely not the way to go about it.

Obviously, he had tried to do what he thought was best. But killing all false heroes… probably wasn't a great idea. After all, it wasn't exactly their fault that they acted like false heroes, right?

That was a new and dangerous line of thought for Stain.

Stain needed to think.

"I'm done." Spinner sighed.

The two contemplated existence for a while. Behind them, the storeowner shrugged at the two oddly dressed men seemingly having a philosophical discussion, before they returned to swiping around on their phone. After a couple minutes, Stain spoke again.

"...What do you think?"

"Do I really not have any original thoughts?" Spinner said, staring up at the night sky. "Am I doing this just so I can feel better about myself? Do I actually care about anything?"

Stain shrugged.

"Just think about it more. That's what I'm going to do."

Stain was the lucky one. He only had his ideals dissected. Spinner had his entire identity dissected, despite the fact that the kid had never actually spoken to Spinner before.

It would be a long weekend for both of them.

…

Determinism was an interesting philosophy. It believed that all events happened independently to this silly thing called free will, and that everything had been predetermined.

A plot structure perfectly orchestrated this. Characters were but chains of events and character traits that collided and bounced, each with their own set formula of interaction. Sure, the traits could change, but even those changes could be predicted through looking at the plotline and the people that they would interact with beforehand.

Given that Hans was not supposed to exist in this particular world as a heroic spirit, anything that happened because of him was the result of his actions influencing the plotline.

So, sitting in the sterile environment of the hospital, Hans was hard at work.

"You didn't have to come back here." Shihiro said. The man made out of lava looked at the remains of his legs, still in a bucket, right besides his bed.

Doctors were considering whether or not it was possible to weld the legs back on and let the man's quirk use its own heat to melt the legs back onto his body, since quirks like this were rare, and somebody having a quirk that gives them the level of durability of a rock… usually didn't suffer from losing a limb.

"...It's kind of my fault that this happened in the first place." Hans said.

"No it wasn't." the man said, confused. "If anything it was the Shie Hassakai's fault, starting a gang war and… well… being a gang in the first place."

"You wouldn't understand." Hans sighed, before putting Nursery Rhyme down on the bedside table again. The words that were written glowed blue, and, catalyzed by Hans's quill, caused one piece of the rocks in the bucket to levitate into the air. Moving his fingers delicately, first analyzing the structure to see which side was actually supposed to be "flesh", and then reinforcing the lingering vitality on those areas, the piece of Shihiro's leg floated to where the rock man's shins were exposed.

It didn't work. After meeting the corresponding area, the rock clattered onto the bedsheet. Thankfully, with the influence of magic, it didn't crumble further as the rock impacted the bedsheet lifelessly.

"Okay, so that doesn't work." Hans muttered. "There's more resistance here than previously anticipated. But there shouldn't be, right? The flow of the story shouldn't have been affected by any of my actions… unless the villains and the circumstances they create are canon."

Perhaps Overhaul was a villain that actually existed in the story that Hans had intruded upon, and they had also permanently injured or killed one of the main… or side… characters. Since this circumstance wouldn't happen again, since Hans had already triggered this 'arc', the corresponding effects were then mirrored on the version of events that had Hans's interference.

"But that's not the way it should be." Hans muttered. "Why does it matter whether or not it's canon, anyways? This worked on the reformed villains, too."

Perhaps that was it. Perhaps, he needed a vector. The reformed villain that Hans had healed after the court case had a quirk that was very similar to Fran the servant, but out of the singularities and servants, there was no story that this man could match.

If there was an equivalent, he would be a golem. There were no golems that Hans had healed, and so, there wasn't exactly a way of reattaching his legs.

Perhaps his train ride to Hosu was meant to be

"I appreciate the effort." Shihiro sighed. "But you really don't have to be guilty. We chose to act. We chose to interfere with your attack on the Shie Hassakai in order to maintain our new way of life and opportunity. Any one of us could have died, but we all chose to step into the situation."

From the next bed, another severely injured construction worker chuckled.

"Yeah, kid, it isn't your fault."

Bandaged from head to toe in scratches which resulted from the telekinetic leaf villain, Hasanote chimed in as well, her knife fingertips clicking together.

"You all tried your best to stop us from going, so if it's anybody's fault, it's ours."

The only uninjured 'leader' of the Self Defense Company, SDC, or Stationary Distribution Company, or whatever they wanted to be called, also nodded. The woman that had been tricked into negotiating the false surrender with the Shie Hassakai stood up, turning her head so that she was facing Hans, and although she was wearing a thin blindfold, Hans could tell that she was looking at him.

"We really are grateful for your help, but you shouldn't feel obligated to do anything for us." she said, bowing. "Thank you for giving us a direction in the first place."

Those words felt like knives, but Hans just turned and walked out of the hospital, waving a hand behind him. He walked through the halls, his eyes generally looking forwards, but still seeming unfocused. After bumping into a businessman and apologizing absent-mindedly, he turned to the hotel lobby, where Stain and Spinner were waiting.

"Finished with your visit?"

"...Yeah." Hans sighed. "Now, let's get to actual planning."

No more people would be hurt just because of him existing in this world.

Kiara was going to come to Japan, now that she probably knew where he was, and she didn't have too much time before the authorities found her after a cult related to her would be discovered. So, she would go abroad and come to Japan, both making her goal of tormenting him easier, and also leaving her previous country behind, thereby evading the authorities for longer.

And by taking care of Kiara before she powered up by amassing another cult, the problem would be cut out at its root.

Then, after that, it would be time to make his existence in this world a net positive.

…

A hand knocked on the hospital doors, and Yuki walked to the door, blindfold still over her eyes.

"You don't have to knock, nurse." she sighed, opening the door. Taken aback by the appearance of the man wearing a white suit, she took a step back.

"Uh-uhm, hi. What are you here for?"

"I am Rikiya Yotsubashi, and I'm here to offer you and your organization an offer. How would you like to work for us?"

"What, are you looking to hire a bunch of grunts to do your dirty work?" Hasanote yelled from deeper within the room.

"No, no." the businessman said, grinning. "I've also talked to Hans Christian Andersen, and I believe that on your fliers, you even feature a version of him as a mascot. Clearly, we possess similar ideas about the potentials of quirk usage on maintaining our own civil liberties. Should we discuss further?"

"Let him in." Shihiro said, waving his one remaining arm. "He kind of agrees with us."

"You all were the perpetrators of the labor strike against those corrupt construction companies working with local heroes… during the USJ villain trials, correct?"

"Yes." Yuki nodded. "We had to help people out of their contracts by utilizing some… business related quirk usage loopholes."

"Good." Yotsubashi grinned. "Now, what if we didn't need these loopholes to defend ourselves? That's what me and my organization are here to talk to you about."

…

Himiko Toga had been in this place for a week now. And it was really, really boring.

There were no people. Just people looking at her through a glass window, jotting down notes as she answered stupid questions. Why did she like blood? Why not? Why did she murder so many people? She wouldn't call it murder. It was just her getting acquainted with their blood. If they, well, stopped moving, then oh well! At least she had their blood.

After the initial wave of questions… nothing was happening. They did come in and ask questions about her quirk, sure, and made her transform into one of them, but Toga was incredibly bored.

Nothing was happening!

There was nothing for her to do, and nobody for her to… well… sample. Now, she didn't even have a knife.

Despite what the woman promised when she was taken off the streets and into this shady facility, although some of the hallways even saying "hero public something something", none of her wishes were being fulfilled.

That was, until, the door in front of her was unlocked, and somebody finally walked into the containment cell.

"I've read your files. Your quirk and your abilities are… very interesting. It comes with a lot of potential. Tell me, just how similar are you to the people that you transform into."

"Another person asking about my quirk?" Toga sighed. "Just… Didn't you all ask this before?"

"Then I'll assume it's the same as the file states." the figure said. "How very… very interesting. Toga Himiko, come with me, and soon, you'll be able to be anyone you wish."

Toga looked out of the glass. There was nobody there. Walking to the windows, she looked from the right to the left.

Nobody was there. The hallways were suspiciously empty.

The figure dangled two vials of blood from their hands, and Toga's eyes immediately tracked the liquid sloshing in the vials. It was blood. Actual blood. Blood that wasn't just her own.

"This is the blood of the woman that tricked you a week ago. She had a persuasion quirk. That's why you listened so easily, and that's why you followed their tricks. I am different. You will know exactly what you're getting into."

"And how will I know that this isn't another trick?" Toga said.

The blood vials rolled to her feet.

"Well, if you don't trust me… why not trust the blood?"

As Toga's form rippled and transformed, she noticed a smile on the figure's face.

But that didn't matter to Toga at all. After all, she was finally getting out of this place and getting more blood! Everything was going to be just great.

…

More things are coming to the plot now. Just because the internship arc's over doesn't mean there won't be action or things going on in the background.

Okay, next arc. It'll be back at UA. Hopefully next weekend.

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-SpiritOfErebus