"Ah!" "what's going on!?"

"There's something here…"

The frightened crowd below could be heard as a shadow over head jumps and leaps from platform to platform above their heads. The casino's security is looking for the infiltrator. It's not long before the man they are looking for is spotted by a civilian for the security to find and start pursuing the criminal.

As they get a better look at them, they can see three notable distinctions of the perpetrator. They have dark green, unruly hair with a white mask on his face and is wearing a black trench coat. before they could attempt to call for back up they leaped away.

"Good, now keep running!" said a boyish voice from the communicator in the criminal's ear.

"This is our only chance!" came another voice who sounded slightly worried.

"Stay calm, you can get away now!" came the voice on a young girl urging the criminal to move quickly.

"We'll retrieve the briefcase on our end." a mature sounding young woman's voice rang through the communicator.

Some interference was coming through on the comms as the criminal was able to hear bits of a conversation from the security guards own comms. "Hm? What was that?" came the curious voice of the young girl.

"Don't worry about it, just concentrate on getting away!" came the same boyish voice as before.

The criminal just nodded and started hopping from one light fixture to another as their teammates praised them for their good job in distracting the guards for the rest of the team.

"But I have to say, showing yourself above that earlier was an excellent move. Nice work as always, joker."

As the criminal now known as Joker jumps past an access door on lighting fixtures, it bursts open with guards running out. Joker keeps going till he makes his way to a set of stairs, but before he can get up them a set of grades trap him on the lone platform and with jittery movements, change into mask wearing humanoid creatures. Joker jumps onto its shoulders before pulling the mask off of it. After having its mask ripped off its face it stumbles forward a little and bends in half backwards and explodes into a black substance before revealing its true form. A monster that joker dubs "sacrificial pyre keeper".

Soon more masked creatures appear and attempt to attack joker but miss when he does a backflip and dodges the attack. After climbing up a couple of ledges he made his way up to a nearby door to escape.

"You should be able to get out that way. Hurry!" said the same young girl's voice from before.

"Can he even hear us?" being said by a gruff boy though the comms.

"Don't worry, I'm picking up everyone's voices. Just go joker!" urged the young girl again. "Hm? What a sec… What the? I'm getting a weird reading heading your way! Come on, run!" she warned.

Joker starts making his way through the narrow spaces and past the guards "Up ahead! Stop!" Joker sees a guard ahead of him and dives for cover. "Hide in the shadows and sneak past when you see an opening!" advised the young girl.

Joker dives from hiding place to hiding place, getting as close as he can and eavesdrops into his conversation.

"...hey, are you sure he came this way? …Understood. I will continue the search!" Soon after the guard finishes his conversation, he runs past Joker's hiding spot without even noticing him, allowing Joker to slip on by.

Joker soon finds another guard not too far ahead of him and has to hide again, but is not able to sneak past this one like the last.

"Is everything ok? The security might rise if you take too much time" came the voice of a new male who sounds very eloquent.

"I know, I know! I'm looking for another route. Just hang on. Oh, perfect timing. Joker look up!" Joker does so and looks up to see a cat walk up above with a divot just below for a hook to grab onto.

"Can you use that thing and just fly over there?" asked the young girl, worried that he may get caught. With a smirk, Joker flung the hidden hook within his sleeve and rose to the catwalk above. "Alright, go straight from there!"

Joker starts moving to the next room but gets ambushed. "Oh no! Jokers in trouble! Even he can't take on this many!"

It wasn't looking good for joker, but as things seemed grim, a light of hope shone through. "I'll end this right now." came the voice of a girl wearing a black mask with silver highlights and has a black ribbon tied to her ponytail of nearly blood red hair. Her main outfit consists of a strapless black leotard with a sweetheart neckline, a chain belt with two silver rose motifs, and a scabbard for her rapier attached to it, a black choker and red gloves.

She pulls out and points her rapier at the enemies surrounding joker. " Joker, it's her! She's the weird reading I've been getting!" the strange girl than throws her weapon a little above herself, making it twirl around before catching it and flinging it into an enemy.

Then as the rest started to pursue her, the girl started to do what looked like ballerina dance moves while firing a lever action pistol and taking down two enemies.

"My weak self relied on you so much. That ends today." she said as she walked up to joker's side. She kicks the rapier out of the chest of the strange creature and catches it by its handle "let's do this, senpai!" With the number of enemies lowered, the two were able to handle the creatures.

"I think, that's the last of them?" said the girl in the black mask "Bad news, enemy backup is on its way! You need to book it right now!" warned the young girl over the comms.

"Please go. I'll make it harder for them to track you. You still have something you need to do as a Phantom Thief, right?" the mysterious girl asked joker. He does not say a word and simply nods his head. "Then I won't stop you. Since I'm not a member of the Phantom Thieves, I'm in no position to interfere." she shakes her head and jumps onto an air duct "however, pleasure don't forget the promise we made, okay?"

she jumps away before he can even respond. Joker, you need to get out of there! Go go go!" He then started to make his way up the stairs and closer to his exit.

Running up the stairs as fast as he could, it soon ran down a hall and through a door leading to a large room with him on the balcony above the people below.

"Is anything wrong? The exit should be up ahead."

"through there?" joker asked, looking at a large stained glass window.

"That's just how it is. After that commotion the bottom floor completely closed off. Hey, can you make it!?" It did not take long for joker to think of a plan. "Over there!" came a gruff voice from behind joker. As he looked back to check, it was a small group of guards "there's nowhere to run!" said one of them. They blocked Joker from going back so the only way though was the stained glass window that was his exit.

Joker, deciding to just go for it but with style, starts running on the hand railing to the window. "See ya!" he gave as a farewell before jumping through the window with a few flips. "What a show off" came one of his teammates. "You're so reckless. You know that?" came another.

With a roll, joker is able to safely land onto the ground and make it out of the casino. But just as he's lowering his guard, he finds himself surrounded. "Capture him!" said one of the officers before started running. He makes his way to a fire escape but finds it's covered by police as well, leading to Joker getting hit by the butt end of a rifle and falling onto the ground.

With Joker being held down one officer walks up and talks to him "didn't expect it to be some kid. You have your teammate to thank for this. You were sold out" soon after Joker was cuffed and locked into an interrogation cell for questioning. Being beaten and drugged just to make him talk.

Secret interrogation cell

"Guess the drug was too strong. Wake him up." called the callous detective to a nearby guard who threw a bucket of water at the unconscious young man.

"No dozing off." Joker blinks his eyes to help clear up his vision before trying to move his hands. "You still don't get it, do you?" said the detective before kicking the chair bound joker. "Give it up!"

with joker on the ground the detective proceeded to place his boot into the young man's head. "Come on, cooperate. Or what, you want another shot?"

Joker gazes over to the camera nearby. "Huh? What about the camera? Are you thinking it can be used as video evidence?" The detective lifts Joker's head by his hair. Joker does not speak a word. "didn't you hear my question? Answer!" said the detective as he proceeded to kick the boy in the stomach, causing Joker to cough and wheeze.

"Obstruction of justice, black mail, defamation, possession of weapons…" the detective lists off while looking away from the boy on the floor before turning around and continuing "manslaughter too yeah? Talk about the works. To think all those crimes were led by a quirkless punk like this… and you seemed to be enjoying every second of it, huh?" This made the Joker start to wonder if that was true as he couldn't think with how bad the drugs were affecting his mind.

"...You should know your place." the detective mentioned before having the young man's hands uncuffed and handing him a confession for him to sign. "sign here. It's a confession under your name." Joker was about to swat it away, but hesitated and figured he'd be beaten more if he didn't cooperate a little, so he grabbed the confession to sign his name.

The detective handed him a pen and told him, "don't expect to get out of here in one piece. We're going to make you understand. One must take full responsibility with their actions…" the joker gently grabbed the pen and started to sign his name. It read izuku midoriya.

Outside the interrogation cell, a business woman was walking down the corridor leading to his cell. "Excuse me, but this area is off-" before the man could finish he was interrupted by the woman "I'm Niijima, from the Prosecutor's Office." she replied.

"The Prosecutor's Office? What business do you have here?" the man gave with a slight scowl on his face.

"Let me through; it's urgent. There's something I need to confirm with the suspect." she replied back with a sharp tone.

"Niijima-san, I believe this case is no longer in your jurisdiction. Besides-" and before he could finish another man was just arriving behind Niijima.

"Are you Prosecutor Sae Niijima?" came from the older detective "I just got off the phone with your director. Get it over with. To be frank, you're being an inconvenience."

Sae then got a call on her phone. It was the director's voice. "I thought I told you to stand by."

With an angry tone of voice sae responded, "I'm responsible for this case, yet I'm not even allowed an interrogation!?"

"I'm calling because I knew you'd bring it up." replied the director.

"I will not be convinced unless I confirm it myself. This is MY case."

The director sighs, "good luck to you then. I won't be expecting much though…"

"Ah, prosecutor. I forgot to mention something important. Your time will be cut short. We can't permit you to talk to him for long." mentioned the older detective.

Prosecutor niijima looks away, disappointed at the news.

"It's for your own sake. His methods are unknown. After all, we don't even know if it's safe to simply meet and speak with him."

"...I understand." relented sae.

Izuku lost track of time and only came too again when a woman entered the interrogation room. She looks at Izuku with bewilderment in her eyes, "I never expected it'd be you…" she took a seat on the lone chair in front of the young boy.

"You will be answering my questions from now on." 'those bastards…' she thought to herself as she saw a needle laying on the floor.

"Can you hear me? It seems like you've been through a lot. Almost anything can happen here, and I can't stop them." She rests back on the chair "That's why I need you to answer me honestly. I don't have much time either." she looks up and focuses on izuku, "what was your objective? Why did you cause such a major incident?" She tilts her head to the side. "I didn't think it was a prank from the get-go, but I couldn't assemble a case for prosecution. It's because I couldn't figure out the method behind it."

"Of course you couldn't…" Izuku couldn't recall too much at the moment, but he could remember that there was a very good reason why they were never caught.

"True." agreed the prosecutor. "There's no way I could be convinced of such a… "world" just by reading the reports."

"It seems like you're coherent. When and where did you find out about that world? How is it even possible to steal another's heart? Now, tell me your account of everything. Start from the very beginning." asked the prosecutor, wanting to finally understand what is going on.

Izuku has to put a hand up to his head as he tries to think of where it all started when he begins to hear a voice.

"...you are held captive. A prisoner of fate to a future that has been sealed in advance." spoke a voice from the ether with a slight sound of a female. "This is truly an unjust game… your chances of winning are almost none. But if my voice is reaching you, there may yet be a possibility open to you…"

"I beg you. Please overcome this game and save this world. The key to victory lies within the memories of your bonds-the truth you and your friends grasped."

"It all began that day. When the game was started half a year ago. For the sake of your world's future, as well as your own, you must remember." Izuku could see a butterfly, bright blue, flying around him as the voice spoke to him as he started to recall the events that lead him to this point in life…