The Hero & The Demon

Chapter Twenty-Four

It was about 4:22am, and Sora Kinzoku as still unable to sleep.

She knew that she was supposed to, of course. The coming day at UA would be enough reason to want to be well-rested even if she didn't know about the villainous plots running just under the surface. But she did, and it was that which kept her awake.

"I don't know who they'll send into the school, or where." Kage said, his brow furrowed as he clasped his hands together in a gesture that wasn't quite a prayer. "So, we'll need to be careful. You're weak to electricity, right? If you see a villain with a skull mask, that one has electric powers. Run if he shows up."

"You sure?" Sora asked, though she knew what his answer would be. She was hoping for it, in fact.

"Positive." He said it like it was a joke, so Sora gave a snort of laughter as a courtesy. "I cannot stress enough that we need to be extremely cautious here. These are real villains, and if they see the opportunity, they will kill us."

"They will kill us..." Sora found herself mumbling out loud as she laid in bed, staring at the ceiling. It was painted a deep blue, and there were glow-in-the-dark stars stuck all across it to give the illusion of a night sky. Ordinarily, Sora found comfort in that sight. Seeing a clear sky above her head was much more relaxing than any stone ceiling. She would never describe herself as claustrophobic, but there were certain kinds of enclosed spaces that really left her unsettled.

Perhaps she was just afraid of admitting how scared she still was.

Sora tried not to think about the past. She wanted to live in the moment, be as free as the wind and drift wherever the world took her. Becoming a hero would make it easier to do that, so she had let herself be pulled into their world. It was becoming clearer to her now that she was following storm winds, and a tornado was approaching.

She could be killed tomorrow. Or the next day. Was she really prepared to die just to have a chance of going into the air?

Could she live with herself if she let other people die alone? Just because she wasn't a hero didn't mean she didn't care about her friends. Friends who she now knew things about that no one else was supposed to know. She had secrets to keep and responsibilities to abide by.

"I never explained much about Izuku, did I?" Kage said. There had been a long pause where Sora had waited for him to speak up. He must have needed the time to arrange his thoughts, but this was not where she had expected him to begin.

"You didn't." Sora agreed slowly. "I figured out that he was the protagonist of this whole story, but you never gave me any more details. Are you going to?"

"I think I have to." He said, his voice low and quiet. It was clear he was struggling to draw the words out of his mouth. Each sentence was like wringing blood from a stone. "I didn't say much before because I didn't want to risk involving you too much, but I... I think I was just being a coward. I was worried you'd be less safe somehow, but I think it's probably for the best that you know more. So you can take care of yourself easier."

'So I won't have to worry' went unsaid. Sora read those words in his eyes. She knew he had flipped out somewhat when she had gotten hurt in battle training. He wanted her to be ready for things to get worse.

She didn't know if she wanted that. If she wouldn't have preferred some level of ignorance.

She nodded her head.

"Alright, lay it on me."

Sora pulled herself out from bed and stood up in her room. It was pretty sparse, with only a few old and scattered toys and arcade prizes populating an otherwise near empty space. She couldn't afford much in terms of decorations, and it wasn't something she tended to think about anyway. She didn't do much beyond sleep in the room, so it didn't matter what it had looked like for the most part.

She crept her way out the door and into the living room, hoping to avoid attention. Unfortunately, the man sitting on her couch and working away on a laptop had a keen sense of hearing, and he immediately turned to see her.

"Sora?" Her father raised an eyebrow and looked at her with concern. "What are you still doing up? Are you alright?"

Kurayami Kinzoku was a very gentle man, despite how his name sounded. He had brown hair that was going a bit grey at the sides, and wore a set of rectangular glasses that almost always seemed to be fogged up. His face was lined and worn, making him often look much older than the forty-two years of age he was really at. He was decently well-built, a sign of his strong exercise habits that he did his best to keep up with.

He worked as a data analyst for a large company, though Sora could never make heads or tails of the details. She was pretty sure they were involved with land somehow, but that was as far as she had gotten. Her father was known to get rambly and technical when explaining his work. Said work had brought him into town for a few business meetings, so he had asked if Sora would let him stay at her apartment for that time.

Sora was always happy to see him, even if the only place he had to sleep was the couch. He didn't mind.

"'m fine, Dad." She yawned, hoping to hide the fact that stress and adrenaline had prevented her from even feeling particularly tired. "I just got up to grab some water. Shouldn't you be asleep too?" Her father shook his head vigorously.

"Oh, I'll be fine. Besides, there's just too much I have to do before the big conference this weekend! The boss needs everything from the last quarter properly arranged into slides for a presentation to the shareholders, and let me tell you they are not easy to please, so I really have to pull out all the-" He stopped himself, his expression softening and his arms lowering from their exaggerated gestures as he noticed something in Sora's eyes.

"Actually, maybe it can wait for a little bit." He said softly. He scootched over on the couch and patted one side of it. It was a cheap thing that Sora had gotten on sale, so the side he was on had damaged springs that meant the cushions sank a little low. He didn't seem bothered in the slightest.

"Come on. I know you've got something on your mind." He gave her a small smile. He was a very perceptive man, and he'd only grown more attentive of Sora as the years went on. He seemed to think of it like he needed her to forgive him for the past.

As far as she was concerned, he hadn't done anything wrong. It was mother's fault, not his.

"You can talk to me."

"You're still sure we can't tell people about this?" Sora asked, with a tone that said it wasn't really a question. "We're just kids, Kage. You're describing some big villain attack where people could die. Hell. ALL-MIGHT could die! Why is it on us?!"

"I know it's a lot to take in," Kage said, holding his hands out in an effort to calm her down. "But we don't even have any proof. Do you really think it's a good idea to go up to UA and tell them we know when and where they'll be attacked if we can't explain how we learned it? I know you believe me – and trust me, I'm grateful for that – but I don't think 'I reincarnated and you're all fictional characters' is a compelling story."

"Then we just need to think of a better one, right?" Sora's tone turned pleading. "There has to be something more we can do, something to make this all even a little easier on us." Kage gave a bitter sigh, and Sora was sure she wouldn't like the answer.

"Even if we could get a perfect alibi, we'd still have a pretty huge butterfly effect to deal with." He explained. "What if they send more heroes to the USJ, but as a result a bunch of UA's staff end up dead to the villains? In the normal story, they show up when most of them have already been hit hard by All-Might. I can't risk giving them a tougher fight where they might go down."

"So, you're risking us?" Kage's eyes went wide at that, as though it hadn't even occurred to him.

"No!" He insisted. "Look, I'm probably making it sound way worse than it really is. As long as nothing goes wrong, everyone should walk out okay. I get it if you don't want to fight, and if we're lucky, you won't even have to. Just find somewhere to hide if it comes to that. I can handle it."

'And if you can't, I'll have abandoned you.' Sora thought. 'Don't you get how that's not happening?'

She didn't say that. She nodded her head instead. Kage was speaking out of genuine concern for her, and she really did appreciate that. It didn't make it easier to accept.

Sora didn't say anything to her dad for a moment, instead simply sitting on the couch. She found herself leaning forward, though she wasn't sure why. It must have made sense to some part of her. Just about everything she was doing had to make sense on some level, but it felt like every part of her had different ideas of what she was trying to achieve.

"Is UA giving you trouble?" Her dad said, trying to coax some more words out of her. He placed one hand on her back reassuringly. She considered her words carefully.

"Sort of." She admitted. It wasn't a lie, just not the whole story. "It's complicated. I guess a lot of it is just not what I was expecting. It's...it's hard, trying to be something I'm not." She let out a sigh. Her father looked at her with a pitying look. She didn't mind it when it was him.

"You are who you want to be." He told her. "If the person you want to be is a superhero, then you're a superhero. If that's not who you want to be, that's fine too. You know I'll always support you, no matter what choice you end up making. It's okay to struggle, too. It's not an easy choice to make. Lord knows your mother and I both struggled with it."

"Mom did?" Sora's voice was a whisper, but her father noticed it and nodded. Her mother was a difficult topic for the both of them. "She always seemed sure of herself to me..." She folded her legs up and curled into a ball on the couch. Her father sighed.

"She may have been...committed to the path she chose." Her father settled on, after taking a moment to pick the right word. Sora felt it was too light for her. "But that doesn't mean it wasn't a hard choice for her to make. In the end, she felt that people needed her to be who she ended up being. I can't say I don't wish that wasn't what she decided, but I can respect it."

"How can you say that?" Sora said quietly, tears slowly coming forth from her eyes. She looked down, hoping to hide them. "After everything she did to you...to me...how can you respect that?"

Her mother hadn't made the noble choice to take her down to the underground as a child. She hadn't made some brave sacrifice to put herself through hell every day to try and keep a community of freaks and strangers safe instead of raising her daughter and being with her husband. It wasn't a heroic act to push Sora to do the same and keep her down in those tunnels.

Yet that was invariably how her father chose to see it. Sora didn't know if he needed to see things that way to make sense of things, if that was the lie that kept him from breaking apart, but she couldn't bring herself to buy into it. She had done the wrong thing, plain and simple.

Choosing strangers over her family couldn't be right. Tearing your life apart for other people instead of living for yourself and those you truly cared about wasn't something she could ever understand, let alone respect.

And yet, wasn't that exactly what she was doing now? She liked her class, but she barely knew them. Yet here she was, stressing over how she might die to keep them safe, yet wanting to do so anyway.

Was she really any different from her mother?

And what about Kage, who had dragged her into the mess to begin with? She had asked for it this time, but did that make it better? She didn't hate Kage – she didn't even dislike him – but the similarities glared in her mind.

"Hypocrite." She hissed in her head. She didn't know how to make that thought go away.

"I never said I liked it." Her father frowned, his voice turning bitter. Both of them had complicated feelings about Sora's mother. He was simply better at avoiding it, most of the time. "Don't get me wrong, if she showed up at that door right now, I would be giving her a piece of my mind!"

Sora wasn't sure she wanted that, but she smiled and laughed a little to put him at ease. She didn't know how she would react if her mother could see her now. She wanted to hate the woman, but it was hard when she could still remember good times down with her as well.

They were family, still. The roots were damaged, but the tree ultimately still stood. Sora didn't have it in her to chop it down.

"If..." Sora hesitated, trying to figure out what she would be able to say. She didn't like not being able to tell anyone about the danger she was in or the threats that approached her class, but she understood why Kage didn't want to. There was no way of knowing whether or not more people changing things would be better or worse.

"If you felt like you had to do something like Mom... Being something people needed you to be, e-even if it was scary, what would you do?" She finally asked, looking him in the eyes. Her father saw the tears and immediately wrapped his arms around her.

"Oh, honey..." He soothed her, gently rocking her in his arms. It did nothing to answer her question, but it helped calm her down. She wasn't sure he would have the answer she was looking for anyway.

Recovery Girl had said that being willing and able to act for the benefit of others at all times was the defining trait of being a hero. Sora didn't know how willing she was, but she didn't think she would be able to just back out now.

She was needed now. She had the ability to act, as well as the knowledge.

Would she be able to do this? Was it enough?

As Sora finally managed to close her eyes, soothed by her father's comforting embrace, she still found herself with no answers.

Time was all that could provide for her.

Kage Sekai had a plan.

Well, really, he had a few different plans. He had spent most of the previous night brainstorming different solutions to the incoming conflicts he was going to face. He could tell Sora was nervous about them – and rightly so, he thought. He was only reassured by knowing what was coming. Sora was a reminder to him of just how real this whole thing felt to those not as well-read as he was.

He would be lying if he said he was totally calm about everything, but he felt he was coping as well as he could. Frankly, he had enough reasons to freak out on a day-to-day basis that he could probably work out a schedule for it.

Today was not scheduled for freaking out about what was going to happen later, so he was calm and collected. He hung back from the main entrance of UA, which was currently piled up with press reporters desperate to catch a glimpse of the symbol of peace himself.

Kage already knew that All-Might wouldn't be in school that day. Everyone needed their days off, after all, and All-Might was a busy enough man as it was without teaching coming into things. Aizawa would bluntly say as much later, if the press made it through the gate.

Kage kept his eyes peeled for any sign of a man with many hands, but Shigaraki seemingly either hadn't arrived or was better at staying hidden than the original series had presented. The show and manga had shown him pretty obviously at the back of the crowd as a bit of foreshadowing, but Kage reasoned that things were likely a little less dramatic when this world was a real place.

Either that or he had just arrived before Shigaraki did. It was the early morning, after all, and the press would stay until at least the afternoon. The man had plenty of time to make his appearance, and Kage couldn't wait for too long.

He may have been the saviour of the world, destined to use his knowledge to stop all evils, but he was still a high-schooler who couldn't afford to miss class. Plus, actually fighting Shigaraki was A) a terrible idea and B) technically vigilantism. His caretaker was a cop, there was no way he could risk doing anything illegal right now.

Fortunately, Kage had come up with a different plan. If he was lucky, he could get rid of the press crowd before Shigaraki even showed up, thus removing the distraction he needed and stopping the League of Villains from getting a class schedule in the first place!

It wasn't foolproof – he'd have to make a not to keep an eye on Aoyama, even if his plan worked, for instance – but it was the best he could come up with. All he needed to do was make a sufficient distraction to keep them busy and away from the school.

"You can do yellow, right?" He asked his power. It still wasn't communicating with him, but it was helpful for him to speak as though it listened anyway. He found comfort in speaking as though he had an audience. "You did it before with the mask. I want you to help me out a little here."

He slipped into an alley a little further back from the school, though close enough that the entrance was still within plain view. If he was seen executing his plan, it wouldn't work. He pulled out his phone. It may have been old, but it was still able to handle a few voice recordings.

Editing them together just right was the real time-sink. Kage hadn't had a chance to sleep much last night.

He first focused his power through his veins, as though going for his standard full body enhancement. Even now, he still wasn't totally sure what the limit on that was. Not that it mattered now, he supposed. So long as he didn't burn up too much, he would be fine.

He pushed the energy out from his veins, focusing as he converted it into one large construct, something that wrapped around his entire body. He had this as an idea before for his hero costume, but it seemed too difficult to maintain, especially for long periods. Even now, he felt the whole thing tingle his skin. It wasn't quite painful, but it was like having pins and needles all over his body. He manipulated the construct as best he could.

It went from forming just a basic wrap around his body to increasing his size and width significantly. He needed to be taller and wider for this to work, so he pushed the construct's size. Next, he had to finely adjust its shape. This was probably the hardest part – he was able to make large and simple things since the day he got his powers, it was easy enough to manage. But precision with them was still a struggle. The larger an object he tried to create, the harder it was to increase its complexity.

"Go for the Silver Age look." Kage instructed himself as he focused the energy. He wasn't sure if this was really happening, as he was surrounded by darkness within the shell he was making, but he imagined wispy dark tendrils touching his body and reacting to his movements and intentions.

He had made sure to look up pictures of All-Might's costume in detail as much as he could before he showed up. Izuku had been very helpful in sending him a visual database to work from, though Kage's phone was now much lower on storage space thanks to all the All-Might pictures he now had.

Still, it seemed to work. The arms of the construct touched each other, and Kage found they seemed to line up reasonably well. It probably wouldn't be an exact match, but it would do okay from a distance. That was all he needed.

"Now for the finishing touch." He said, raising the arms to where All-Might's iconic hair would be. "Remember, yellow. I know you can do it." Kage forced his power to cooperate, focusing his mind on the golden yellow that his power had recently shown itself to be able to replicate.

It was a struggle. He could feel the yellow being positioned at where his eyes would be normally – so around the All-Might shadow's chest. Forcing it up to the top of the head and actually shaping it was much harder than usually shaping his energy. It almost seemed like the gold-coloured parts were a side-effect, and that he wasn't supposed to be able to use them like this.

There was no way that would stop him, though. Rules were meant to be broken, especially rules no one had told him about.

"Okay, I think that'll do it." He said. He opened his eyes and then channelled the power into them. He noticed immediately that his vision was coming from a point above him. He was now seeing out of the All-Might hair tufts, like they were the periscope on a submarine.

The gold represented eyes, then. Interesting. If his power had eyes, did it have other features he couldn't see?

He shook his head, which thankfully lined up with that of his construct. Questions for later. He needed to act fast. He didn't know how long he could keep this running.

He pressed the play button on his phone's recording.

"AHAHAHAHA!" The laugh of All-Might nearby quickly got the attention of the reporters, whom Kage now saw as a wild myriad of colours. "IT'S SUCH A SHAME THAT I HAVE TO MISS TEACHING AT UA HIGH TODAY!"

Some of the recording was taken from the messages each UA student had been sent, whilst the rest was pieced together from interviews. The result was a bit of a mess in terms of tone, something he could only hope the reporters didn't catch.

"I'LL JUST HAVE TO GO BACK TO MY AGENCY!" It was at this line that Kage leapt into the air, channelling as much reinforcement into his legs as he could. It still felt weighty and strange, and he was sure that he wasn't flying nearly as well as the man himself would.

"I'D LOVE TO SEE THE PRESS THERE FOR AN INTERVIEW!" That last line had come from All-Might stopping a villain, seemingly just before his time limit ran out. It was an excuse to leave the situation in the moment in return for a public appearance later.

Kage tried to listen back to the reporters, many of whom he could now hear scrambling away.

"Holy crap, he's really not here! We gotta catch him!"

"I can't believe we wasted so much time here! Let's move!"

"Get that informant fired and hire me a new one, dammit! We gotta go!"

Kage smiled. He didn't know how helpful this would be overall, but if he was lucky, he had just stopped the USJ attack altogether with a simple distraction. All he had to do now was leap around for long enough to lure the reporters away, then slip out of sight and dispel the construct.

He soared through the air a few times, though still much lower than All-Might's usual height. Maybe that would be picked up on, though probably not before the fact that he was made entirely of black shadows. Still, an impostor All-Might would make for a big news story to look into.

It would keep them busy for a little while, at least.

Once he had gotten some distance away from UA, he allowed himself to fall and dispelled the construct as he did so. Immediately, his entire body felt sore. He wasn't sure if that was because he had landed in a closed trashcan and broken through the metal lid, or just from how much he had used his powers there.

"Well..." He groaned, picking rubbish out of his hair. School was going to stink. "Mission accomplished."

Izuku Midoriya thought that he would be having the worst day out of his friend group today.

Aizawa had sprung on them the need for a class representative, and everyone had started shouting and clamouring to take on the position for himself. Izuku had to admit to wanting a shot, at least a little, given the prestige that leading a hero class could grant someone. That said, he wasn't really sure he could actually manage the responsibility.

It was Iida's idea to put it all to a vote, placing everyone's names upon the class chalkboard and asking people to pick who they wanted for the role. Izuku was sure his chances were shot then and there, and he was perfectly fine with that. Like most of the class, he had voted for himself, but he didn't think anyone else would. He had the worst results in the fitness test, and his battle training performance was only a victory due to luck.

Izuku accepted that. Which meant that receiving four more votes came as so much of a shock that he had to check that Kaminari hadn't electrocuted him.

It was lunchtime, and he still wasn't sure what to do or how to feel about it. He kept glancing over to his friends, too nervous to outright ask for a second opinion and yet too uncertain on how to proceed without one.

"You've got this, bud." Kage interrupted his thoughts and smiled at him. He was sitting next to Izuku, which admittedly was making it a little hard to keep his food down. For some reason, Kage smelled awful today. He had arrived late to class, which was probably related.

Izuku had a thought about what it might have been when his All-Might news alert – a custom app he had built to alert him of any new All-Might related news on his phone – mentioned a 'Dark-Might', a version of All-Might that was covered in all black shadows, save for his iconic yellow hair. He didn't want to press on that, though. If he was wrong, he'd look crazy. If he was right, what was he supposed to do with that knowledge? He wasn't going to report him for improper Quirk use, at least not until he had more details.

It had seemed random to him, but Kage probably knew what he was doing. He tended to be rather self-assured. His words carried a certain weight from that.

"T-thanks." Izuku said, hoping his nerves didn't make him sound ungrateful. "Honestly, though, I'm still not really sure I've got what it takes for this position. It's a lot of pressure..." Perhaps it was unprofessional for him to be admitting that, but he didn't think he could lie and say he felt fine about it.

"Kage's right, you got this!" Uraraka declared through mouthfuls of rice. Her smile and unrelenting optimism brought a blush to Izuku's face. It seemed strange to him that she had so much faith in his abilities given the complete mess of his battle training performance. It had worked out, but it very easily could have gone wrong.

"Indeed." Iida wiped at his mouth with a napkin as he spoke. He was orderly in all things, it seemed. "You have a sharp and analytical mind, not to mention how you're very decisive when it comes down to it. That's why you got my vote."

"Same here." Kage said, as though he and Iida hadn't just dropped a huge bombshell at Izuku's feet. Kage shrugged. "Although, I won't say I wasn't also biased. You're my friend and I trust you, so that counts for a lot."

"Yeah, same here!" Uraraka also added. Izuku's jaw hung open. Not only did he have two friends who voted him into a position of authority, he also had a cute girl do the same?! Izuku knew high school was going to be different to middle school, but this was insane.

"Although, I'm surprised Iida didn't vote for himself." She said, turning towards the boy in question. "You know, 'cause you've got the look down with the glasses. Plus, you seemed like you really wanted the job." Izuku nodded, though he didn't think the appearance was a good thing to focus on when choosing the class rep.

"Ambition and suitability are very different things." Iida explained. "I'm sure each one of us wanted the position, but there were very few choices I felt would be most proper. I humbly made the decision I felt was correct."

"Well, not all of us." Kage said. Izuku remembered how he hadn't received a single vote. That wasn't especially surprising, but what stood out to him more now that he thought about it was how he had been one of only two students who hadn't put their hands up when Aizawa had asked for a representative.

"That's true." Iida acknowledged. "What made you and Sora decide against wanting the position?" Kage placed a hand on his chin thoughtfully.

"I can't speak for Sora," Kage said. "but I think for me, I just figured it'd be too much responsibility. I've got a lot going on and it's hard enough to keep a handle on things without adding that into the mix. Plus, between you and me, I don't think I'd make a good leader."

"Understandable concerns." Iida nodded in agreement. If Kage was offended by the implicit agreement in his lack of leadership skills, he didn't show it, though it made Izuku frown a little.

"What about you, Sora?" Uraraka leaned forwards and asked. "What made you turn down the role?" She didn't get a response. Sora didn't look like she had eaten any of her lunch at all. She had been silent during the whole conversation and seemed to have only gotten as far as picking up some chopsticks before dissociating.

Izuku knew the look well. He had responded similarly after he thought he had failed UA's entrance exam. Clearly, something heavy was weighing on her mind.

"Sora? Are you okay?" Izuku prompted. Like Uraraka, he didn't get a response. He looked around at the other three members of the group, who all looked uncertain and concerned. Hesitantly, he tapped her leg beneath the table. This seemed to startle her to attention, causing her to drop her chopsticks and look up.

"Huh? What?" She said blearily. She rubbed at her eyes with one arm as she seemed to snap herself awake. "Sorry, I didn't sleep well last night. What did I miss?" Izuku relaxed a little upon realising she was just tired.

"We were discussing the class representative position." Iida explained. Sora nodded her head.

"Right, right. I remember now. You got it, because of the glasses." She half-mumbled. Kage watched her, seeming to still be concerned by her inattentiveness. Uraraka found it funny, giving a small giggle.

"Izuku was the one who won, actually." Kage said, gesturing to him with his head. "The others were just wondering why we didn't vote for ourselves. You remember the vote, right?"

"Uh..." It was clear that Sora didn't. She looked at everyone blankly, seeming to struggle to put her thoughts into anything coherent. "I think I just followed Kage's lead? Sorry, today's been a blur." She apologised.

"It's perfectly alright." Iida said, raising a hand in a reassuring motion. "As hero students, it is only natural that we find ourselves exhausted from time to time. We have a lot to manage in class. Additionally, there were all those reporters outside to deal with."

"Ugh, still?" Kage groaned. "I thought they'd all have gone by now. Also, 'additionally'?" Kage asked, seeming to make Iida confused. The boy raised an eyebrow uncertainly.

"It's an appropriate word, is it not?"

"Sure, I guess." Kage shrugged. "It just struck me that you talk a little fancier than most of us. You wouldn't happen to come from a wealthy family, would you?" Now that Izuku thought about it, Iida's formal rigidity would make more sense if he came from an upper-class background.

"I was thinking the same thing!" Uraraka agreed with a snap of her fingers. "You do have a private school vibe, Iida. No offence." Iida shook his head.

"None taken, I suppose that only makes sense." He said, his voice going a little quieter than usual. "I don't usually like people to know, in case they treat me differently, but I suppose I can trust you all. Are you familiar with the Turbo Hero, Ingenium?"

"That's the speedy guy, right?" Sora said. She wore a frown on her face. "He recruits a lot of sidekicks, but that's all I know." Her expression and lower tone of voice indicated that she wasn't much of a fan, though Izuku had no idea why.

"Yeah, he's got 65 sidekicks total!" He elaborated. "He holds a record for the largest hero support team operating from a single agency, which is all the more impressive when you consider that he's a relatively young hero from what I hear. His management ability and his record of dutiful following of the rules are commendable!" Iida's eyes were wide, but he nodded.

"You're well informed." He praised. Iida pushed up his glasses dramatically and smiled. "You see, he is my elder brother! We come from a long line of heroes, one that I can only hope to one day be able to live up to!"

"I admire my brother, but I realise I have a long way to go before I can reach his level." He said. He looked to Izuku. "Given that you showed yourself to be the superior candidate at the entrance exam, I find myself more confident in your ability to lead us, Midoriya."

Izuku wasn't sure what to think about that. Iida's drive to be like his brother was amazing, and he seemed like he was already well on his way given his skill and attitude. Izuku was similar in how he wanted to match his own idol, but there was no way he was anywhere near All-Might's level, nor would he be for a long time.

Plus, he wasn't really the 'superior candidate' that Iida thought he was. His actions at the entrance exam weren't a clever plan to win like he had clearly assumed.

He went to say that to Iida, but his words were killed by a blaring siren.

"ATTENTION! SECURITY LEVEL 3 HAS BEEN BREACHED. ALL STUDENTS, PLEASE EVACUATE IN AN ORDERLY FASHION!"

Students all across the cafeteria immediately shot out of their seats and began hastily making their way to the exits. Most insisted on just regular running, but one clearly had a different idea. As soon as the alarm sounded, Sora leapt up, vaulted over their table – an act that caused her still largely uneaten lunch to spill all over her – and activated her Quirk. Sharp wings of metal burst out from her back, her face darting around. Unlike the others, she didn't immediately run to evacuate.

"Avoid the crowds!" Izuku heard Kage call out over the cacophony. Sora nodded as soon as he spoke, then darted off in the opposite direction of all the other students. It was truly baffling, though Izuku supposed he wouldn't have the chance to think about what on earth she was up to.

"You guys go ahead." Kage leaned close to their group so he could be heard. His expression was stern and serious, conveying a deep urgency. "I'll go find the teachers and figure out what's going on. I'll grab Sora on the way and meet you guys as soon as I can."

"Where is she going?!" Iida asked, gesturing emphatically. "We shouldn't be splitting up in a situation like this!"

"Which is exactly why I need to go find her." Kage nodded, giving a ghost of a smirk. "As for where, she probably had the same idea as me. We won't be long, don't worry." Izuku knew that something was off as soon as Kage said that. Kage had told Sora to avoid the crowds, as though he had already been expecting her to move when the alarm sounded.

He had no idea what they were doing, but he didn't have time to ask. He just had to trust his friend.

"Okay." Izuku nodded. "Just...please, be careful." Kage pulled back from the group. Black veins danced across his skin, and he gave a grin.

"Don't worry, I know exactly what I'm doing."

AN: Originally, this chapter was going to be longer, but I've decided to split it up a bit so it's not too long. The start of the next chapter was originally going to be the end of this one, but now I can give it a bit more to account for not needing it to be an ending. Things are getting tense, and we're nearing the climax of what I think of as the first arc of this story! I'd say we're nearing the end of act two of said arc right now. Are Kage and Sora ready for what is to come? Only time will tell. See you all next time!