BADGE AND LICENSE

Aizawa Shota let out a silent relieved sigh when he found out that all of his students survived. Some of them like Ojiro, Kaminari, and Mineta needed medical attention but none of their injuries couldn't be solved by Recovery Girl and a good night's rest.

He let his students chatter within themselves as they waited for the police to dismiss them. With him there, the questioning was done immediately. He winced at the idea of picturing his students waiting in their classroom because he wasn't there to supervise them. As protocol says, the students couldn't have been questioned without getting the statement from the supervising adult first and the homeroom teacher's/principal's approval to be questioned. It would've been a messy situation with a bunch of teenagers who had just been in to their first real battle with the last dregs of adrenaline rush in their veins.

"Excuse me..."

The chatterings of the students died as everyone glanced at the officer who was calling Iida's attention.

"Yes, officer?" Iida asked as he turned towards his caller.

"I would like to retrieve the tracker stuck in your armor" The police officer had said as he faced the monitor of his handheld device towards the kid in question.

"A.. tracker?" Iida was understandably confused, as well as the rest of the class. "... in my armor?"

The officer nodded and gestured for him to turn around. And there, on Iida's left shoulder blade, is a single bullet hole that shouldn't be there considering the high-quality material used to create the armor.

"The shot I received before?!" Iida stared wide-eyed at the hole in question.

"We have received a distress signal from Detective Abe earlier this morning but before we could trace her location, she had already disappeared from the radar" The officer explained patiently as he called over another officer carrying a toolbox. "When her tracker re-emerged, we traced it back here at UA."

The class was obviously shocked at the discovery and although Aizawa had already guessed it from what All Might had said to Chizuru before, he still couldn't believe it himself. When he saw his student stumble, he had feared the worst and took his anger out at the person who might as well had saved them.

"So she was an ally?" some of the students voiced their question.

Both officers who are now working on carefully retrieving the tracking device from Iida's armor nodded.

"There~" One of the officers sighed as he pulled out a miniature tracker the size of a small fingernail. "All done~"

"How is she, by the way?" Aizawa asked before the duo left. The last he had seen of Chizuru was when the leaders of the Villain Alliance escaped and she was carted off by the paramedics after she fell unconscious.

The two officers looked at each other before they shrugged and pointed at a certain officer looking over the arrest of the remaining villains. It was also the same officer who took their statements regarding the attack here at USJ.

"The only one who receives information about her current condition is Detective Tsukauchi"

Aizawa remembered him glaring murderously at the villains when Chizuru was carted off by the medical team.

~

Classes were suspended the next day, but that didn't mean that other works stopped for the heroes. Security plans and patrols were increased; and on top of that, they also need to re-adjust the schedule for the whole term.

Investigations were still ongoing inside the campus and security tapes were being reviewed.

Aizawa Shota was ready to hit the bed (or the sleeping bag) any minute now but duty dictates that he needs to go on a patrol... And so he went. Nothing was out of the ordinary and had only encountered petty crimes that were easy to handle. When he made his last round, he decided to pass by a certain route and was surprised to see a familiar silhouette standing on a rooftop ledge.

"Shouldn't you still be at the hospital?" He asked as he landed beside her.

"Uhuh" She replied with a shrug. "No one really wants to be confined in the hospital"

He grunted in agreement.

A small smile curved her lips as she continued to look over the slumbering city. Aizawa took this moment to study her. She still looked beaten up with her head wrapped in bandages. Bruises and scrapes littered every visible skin of her face. She is still wearing loose-fitting clothes that no doubt hid a massive amount of bandages and bruises from that beatdown by the Noumu.

It was quiet for a while before she started talking again.

"I don't think we've been properly introduced," She said as she fully faced him. She grinned as she extended a bandaged hand, "Abe Chizuru, a freelance police detective in the morning and a vigilante at night"

Reaching out a hand, he replied in kind "Aizawa Shota, a teacher in the morning but a full-time Pro-Hero"

And then her words finally caught up on his mind.

What?

The woman in front of him just continued grinning as if she didn't just tell him that she's working two completely opposite jobs. It didn't make any sense at all.

~

The next day, classes resumed but there was no time for dilly-dallying. Aizawa announced the approaching date of the UA Sports Festival. A huge school event that is broadcasted nationwide. Many Pro-Heroes would be watching on-site to scout to recruit for their agency.

Many voiced their concerns about the safety of this kind of event but it was already decided that it couldn't be postponed. UA has to show that they are quick to get back up, after all. And besides, the students only have three chances of appeal to the recruiting agencies. After reassuring the students about the update in security, he let them talk amongst themselves.

Meanwhile, in a conference room, a meeting is currently taking place. Their topic is the Villain Alliance. And especially the ring leaders of the group. It was unnerving that there wasn't any data on them. It felt like they didn't exist at all. Tsukauchi Naomasa was ready to tear out his hair at the idea that some dangerous people were unregistered.

"How about Abe Chizuru?" Someone asked. Everyone turned towards the speaker, Snipe. "What's her stance in all this?"

Naomasa gripped the paper in his hands tighter, analyzing whether the Pro-Hero is suggesting something he wouldn't like.

"I heard from Eraserhead that she had given him assistance in subduing the enemy and was even the one to initially alert the police about the incident" Another voice chimed in. The mouse-bear principal slowly took a sip of his tea.

"She's still a vigilante" Snipe replied. "A criminal."

Many of them tensed at the reminder.

"Actually," Naomasa spoke up before anyone could further comment on it. "She has recently gained a license to assist the police force."

"How long ago was it?" Vlad questioned. "Last I heard about her was only 6 months ago when Endeavor was trying to arresting her."

Naomasa internally winced at the reminder. It was one of the reasons why Chizuru finally accepted his long-time offer to become a consultant for the police.

"Based on that, then that means that it wasn't that long ago." Snipe commented. "Shouldn't she still be on probation?"

"She's a freelance" Naomasa replied. "She doesn't need probationary period"

"She has a badge" Midnight pointed out. Recalling that moment the female vigilante announced the arrest of the ring leader of the attack on USJ while proudly brandishing the said badge.

"It was approved by the higher-ups" Naomasa replied calmly.

"Does that even make sense?" She asked, baffled. And it doesn't take a genius that most of them thought the same thing.

"It doesn't really surprise me that Abe Chizuru was approved to have a badge and assist in the investigations" The principal, Nezu, said. There was an upside quirk to his animalistic lips as he gazed at the baffled and incredulous looks of his employees. "Although Abe Chizuru is not a Pro-Hero, she actually has a Provisional Hero License"

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"WHAAAAAAAAAT?!"

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Far away from all these commotions, Abe Chizuru sneezed and promptly dropped the box she was carrying, spilling the contents out.

"Didn't I tell you to take it easy?" Gin glared at her in exasperation before helping her clean up the mess she made.

"I'm feeling great already" She replied as she gathered the items back in the box. "Besides, I don't like feeling useless."

"We wouldn't be doing this if you didn't invite a villain into your apartment" Gin grumbled. After the USJ incident, Chizuru immediately gave him a call to go to her apartment to gather her belongings. She was moving out and would occupy one of her safe houses. Thank Kami she invested in one of those.

"No other choice" She defended. "They wouldn't let me out of their sight"

There was a knock on the door and Chizuru abandoned her task to answer it. By the sound of it, it was the landlady of the apartment building. Ignoring the two conversing ladies, Gin focused on gathering the mess of miscellaneous articles on the floor. They were souvenir trinkets from the places Chizuru had been to before and as well as items from Chi's past that she couldn't just let go of. They have sentimental value to them so he was careful about gathering them.

Amongst the pile, buried near the bottom, Gin unearthed a familiar ID.

It was Chizuru's Provisional Hero License.

He looked sadly at the proud smiling face staring back at him. It was a moment frozen in time. One of the few remaining pictures from when Chizuru was still brimming with hope and ambition. It was the last captured moment of Chizuru's genuine smile. And this was also the start of her downfall.

Dispelling the thoughts of the past, Gin immediately shoved the ID into the box, and after cleaning up the last of its spilled contents, he used his quirk to store it away. Isn't she just lucky to have him as a friend? He thought with an exasperated eye-roll.

~

Back at the school, the meeting ended with more questions than answers. And although both Nezu and Naomasa knew the answers to most of them, they weren't willing to answer them. Chizuru's secrets are her own and no one should divulge them without her permission.

While the faculty was abuzz with chatter, Toshinori Yagi slipped out to do his daily check-in on Midoriya Izuku. Ever since their last talk about Abe Chizuru, the emancipated man made it a routine to check how the kid was doing.

It was already lunch and so, he headed straight to the cafeteria. Looking around, it was not easy but he was able to spot the familiar messy green curls belonging to the young lad on the far side of the room. He felt relieved to see that the kid was finally making friends. Beside the said teen is a boy with equally messy lavender hair. From his angle, Toshinori couldn't see Izuku's friend's face, but it doesn't really matter. It looks like they were discussing something and he's just glad that the kid finally found a friend.

So, turning away, Toshinori went back to the faculty. Most of the teachers had gone for lunch and the only ones remaining inside were Aizawa (Eraserhead), Yamada (Present Mic), Kayama (Midnight), and Ken (Cementoss).

Cementoss is currently grading some papers while both Present Mic and Midnight are animatedly debriefing Eraserhead of what he'd missed in the meeting. The perpetually tired man couldn't even pretend to sleep as he listened attentively to the exaggerated retelling of today's meeting by both Pro-Heroes.

Aizawa's dark eyes shifted to him and he could feel the silent question behind it.

Did you know?

Toshinori shook his head in negative. Truth be told, he didn't even know that Abe Chizuru had a police badge, much less a hero license.

This revelation raised the question of whether she was truly a criminal or not. If someone with a hero license (provisional though it was) commits an act of vigilantism, is she still considered a vigilante or a Hero?

If she has a license, why doesn't she use it? Why didn't she became a pro? Why hide behind the title of a vigilante if she could be a Pro-Hero?

So many questions that he wished someone could answer. So many facts that just couldn't fit in the picture. So many things still shrouded in mystery. He couldn't wait to unravel everything and have his questions answered.