ENCOUNTER

This is not the first time Aizawa Shota has come across someone out late at night and alone. It happens. They never do seem to realize the danger they put themselves in when they go out this late into the night, or maybe they deliberately seek it out? Many others he had encountered in these hours were at the ends of their rope and are looking for some kind of release.

Without wasting another moment, Aizawa jumped on to the roof where the person stood precariously on the edge of the building.

"Who's there?" Was asked by the other, who turned unhesitantly on her feet to fully face him. Aizawa had been sure that he was silent as to not startle her but she still noticed him approach. She looked to be around his age and probably even near his height. She had on a plain black sweatshirt that was a size bigger than she is. Her black sweatpants were just as baggy as her shirt and for a moment, a thought passed through Aizawa's head that the woman might probably be hiding injuries under that loose clothing. That was a classic approach people tend to use when they hide bruises or any sign of maltreatment. Her black hair looked like it was hacked short by a knife and her amber eyes stared at him blankly.

"I'm Eraserhead" He replied as he took short cautious steps towards her in case she make any unnecessary movements that would throw her over the edge.

"The Pro-Hero?" She asked with shocked wide eyes.

"Yes." He replied. He was surprised she even know the codename. He's an underground hero and one that prefers to avoid publicity. "May I know what you are doing up here?"

That seems to startle her back to reality but instead of answering, she frowns at him and tilts her head slightly to the side.

"What do you mean?" She asks instead. By this point, Aizawa was already directly in front of her.

"I don't want to assume anything drastic but I have to point out that you're standing on a ledge" He replied as he moved to join her on the said ledge to make sure he'll reach her in time when something happens. As he did so, she slowly turned on her feet to continue facing him. They were now both standing on the ledge, facing each other. They were lucky that there were no strong winds tonight or else they would be easily pushed off.

"Oh!" She gasped in realization as she frantically waved her hands in front of her. "You got it wrong! I'm not gonna do anything stupid." Scratching the back of her head, she said, "It's just that I could hear better from here"

"On the ledge?" He asked incredulously.

"The higher the better" She chuckles sheepishly before once again turning unhesitantly on her feet to face the city. "The closer I am to the ground, the more unfiltered noises I hear"

"Is it your quirk?"

She shook her head. "This is the side effect of my situation. I overused my quirk and now I'm stuck here, listening to the world"

She grins wryly. "I feel like I'm some kind of a signal tower now"

"And what kind of information are you receiving exactly?"

She turned her head towards him and stuck her tongue out childishly. "Not telling you~!"

His brow twitched at that. "Huh?"

"I don't really know who you are." She said as she once again faced the city. "I only know Eraserhead by his Pro-Hero name and the few operations he participated in. I have no information on what he looks like or anything general about him aside from his quirk. So I can't trust you with the information I hold."

"Fair enough" He muttered. Instead of feeling offense, Aizawa felt amused. It's not every day that he met someone like her.

There was silence between them for a few minutes before she spoke again.

"If you're really a Pro-Hero..." She said, this time not facing him. "You should go"

"Where?"

"Someone's getting their shit beaten out of them right over there." She points to a certain direction and says. "It sounds like it's getting rougher and wouldn't likely end anytime soon"

"Can you tell me how far?" He asks as he watches her carefully. She has a frown on her face as she concentrated, and he noticed that the amber tint to her eyes slowly diminished.

"Just a block away from here." Her frown deepened as she concentrated further. "It sounds like they're in an alley"

"Okay," He was about to leap off the building to another when he hesitated. The woman was still there, standing on the ledge like everything was fine. And to her, it probably is. "You should get inside." He said.

"I'll be fine" She grins. By this point, her eyes are now color black and distant.

~

It took Aizawa Shota a few days before he met her again on the same roof. This time though there were bandages wrapped around her eyes.

He didn't hesitate to climb up the ledge where she once again stood on. From her stance, he gathered that she was already aware of his presence.

"What happened?" He asked, slightly worried.

"I used my quirk against my doctor's advice" She admitted with a sigh. "I was getting cooped up around the apartment with nothing to do but listen to my neighbors arguing"

"And what did you use your quirk for that you have to go against your doctor's orders?"

But she didn't answer and instead, asked a different question. Aizawa didn't mind but the dark bruise on her left cheek was bothering him.

"How did it go last time?"

"The one you pointed me to last time?" He asked even though he knew it was what she meant. She nodded her head twice and he then continued. "It seems like the police were looking for the guy for quite a while. He was a drug seller and the guy he was beating up was actually a customer"

"What incredible luck they had" She commented dryly and Aizawa silently agreed.

"So, is there anything going on right now?"

"Yeah" She nods. "There always is. It just depends on what you're looking for"

"Anything that needs immediate intervention?"

She concentrates for a while before pointing somewhere.

"Some drunk guys are cornering a woman a few streets away from here" She informed. "One of them had just smashed a bottle on the wall."

"I'll take care of that then," He said. He was already leaping to another building on the general direction she pointed at when she shouted after him. "There are four of them! Be careful!"

~

He sees her again a few times over the next two weeks in the same place and each time, she'll point him to the direction where someone is in trouble. Sometimes she'd be there when he comes back after taking care of the problem and sometimes she's not. Those times that she was, they'd sit on the ledge and talk about random things. At some point, Aizawa realized that he had begun to actively search for her. And it made him pause as he thought about it.

He doesn't know anything about her aside from a name she said one night. He doubted it was even her real name considering how cautious she was. She had never mentioned anything about anything else, not even her age or her job (if she even has any). There was never a mention about family or friends. No mention either of any hobbies or pets.

He doesn't know what her quirk is, just that it had seemed to be an optical-based quirk. And when she had overused her quirk, it caused her to temporarily lose her sense of sight. This, in turn, resulted in her other senses to heighten, especially her sense of hearing to the point of it being enhanced enough to hear the whole block and the surrounding area.

All he knows about her is that she's highly intelligent, observant, and perspective based on their conversations. She also has a good sense of morality and doesn't hesitate to voice out her opinion on the injustice in society. And of course, her obviously fake name.

Chi.

No surname. Just simply 'Chi', as she had said.

Aizawa Shota could only sigh in exasperation. She trusted him enough to share information about the crimes happening around the block and her opinions on things but she wouldn't trust him with her name. He suspects that she still didn't believe that he's the Pro-Hero Eraserhead.

"Something wrong, Shouta?" His friend, Yamada Hizashi, asked as he entered the faculty. "Tired already? It's only the third day of class!"

Another sigh escaped his lips as he remembered his class. There was at least one student he was close to kicking out already. They were lucky he had seen even a sliver of potential in them, otherwise he would've expelled them right off the bat no matter how high their scores were.

And as he was thinking about how he'll straighten them up, a loud blaring noise shook the whole campus.

[SECURITY LEVEL 3 HAS BEEN BREACHED]

Immediately, both he and Hizashi stormed out of the faculty to check the situation. Level 3 means that someone had infiltrated the campus and was trying to get into the building.

[STUDENTS, PLEASE PROMPTLY EVACUATE.]

Arriving at the front yard, they were surprised that the press had managed to get inside the school grounds. Looking at the gate, Aizawa was horrified to see it destroyed. He has a bad feeling about this but for now, they focused more on getting the intruders out.

~

Ever since school had started, Aizawa hadn't seen Chi. The last time he saw her, she said she was going to meet her doctor to get her eyes checked. She didn't say anything else aside from that. He kept coming back to that roof where he met her, but she never appeared again. He worried that something happened to her and decided that he'd look for her when today's classes are over.

He looked over his students who are filing inside the bus. Today's schedule was to give the kids a taste of training with Rescue Operations and their designated area is the USJ. It was an extremely spacious training ground with multiple disaster conditions for perfect simulations.

It was a short ride to their designated area and as soon as they arrived, Pro-Hero Thirteen was there and waiting for them. Aizawa's eyes quickly scanned the surroundings but he failed to see the third instructor that would oversee the training with him.

"Where's All Might?" He asked in a hushed tone and Thirteen responded in the same manner.

"From what I was told, it looks like he was out hero-ing while commuting up"

Aizawa could only sigh in exasperation at their co-worker. He let Thirteen take the stage and explain the purpose of the USJ and the double-edged sword that is their quirks.

As he was about to give his last touches on the pre-training lesson, a dark mass of purple mist appeared in front of the Central Plaza. As the mist spread, a face peaked out of it.

Aizawa instantly felt dread.

Even from this distance, Aizawa could feel the killing intent that was coming from the mist.

He told his students to get back, huddle together, and to not move. He told Thirteen to protect the kids as he watched countless people emerged from within the mist.

.

.

.

For a moment, he felt his heart stop beating when he caught sight a particular individual within the sea of villains...

It was Chi.

She was wearing a baggy black pullover jacket, black sweat pants, and rubber shoes. The bandages around her eyes are gone and her eyes were blazing orange. To others, she was plain and easily overlooked... but not to Aizawa Shota.

.

.

.

Just who the hell is she?