18

The walk from the train station to Ketsubutsu Academy was a little nerve-wracking for Izuku, though he couldn't quite pinpoint why. Maybe it was the idea of entering a rival hero school for his internship, or perhaps it was the prospect of getting one on one training with an actual pro that wasn't either retired or related to him in some capacity. The size of the school as he approached could have also been a contributing factor, although it wasn't as massive as UA's campus. Even so, he was as excited as he was trepidatious, and that excitement grew even more when he spotted the form of Ms. Joke waiting outside of the gates of the school building for him.

"Midoriya!" came the enthusiastic greeting of the brightly smiling pro hero.

The first thing Izuku noticed, beyond her absolutely jubilant disposition, was the prominent musculature of her arms. She definitely did not miss a day in the gym.

"I'm glad you chose me to intern with! Eraser told me a lot about you when he saw that you picked me. You know that you're his favorite, right?" she said with her bright grin.

"Really?" Izuku questioned with surprise. "We don't really interact much outside of homeroom or when he's occasionally present for heroics classes."

"He won't ever admit it," she laughed, "but he wouldn't gush about anyone nearly as much as he did about you. He said you're the closest thing to a completed project that any first-year could be."

Izuku had to imagine that the gushing being described was just a couple of dry remarks about him being ahead of his classmates and a heads-up about his readiness.

"I take it that you two know each other," Izuku commented.

"Our agencies were near each other," she animatedly explained. "As young heroes trying to make a difference in the world, our mutual love bloomed!"

Standing in the P.E. field while Shinso was stretching for the week of hell that the boy was unknowingly about to endure, Aizawa's face crinkled as if he could sense that something was wrong with the world.

"What kind of lies is she filling that boy's head with…" Aizawa muttered.

"Hm?" Shinso looked up at his trainer for the week.

"Nothing, let's get started."

Ms. Joke led her intern into the building and towards one of the smaller, indoor training grounds. Izuku took stock of the rather barren hallways and generally empty-feeling of the building along the way.

"I expected there to be a lot more students buzzing around," Izuku commented. "Did class already begin?"

"UA isn't the only school that send their students on internships," Ms. Joke answered. "It's easier to coordinate if it all happens the same week; otherwise, fabulous selections like myself wouldn't be available to help mold the youth.

"Isn't 'molding the youth' what you already do as a teacher?" Izuku replied with a small smile.

"Yes, but this instance is special," she replied with a smile of her own. "You'll see why in a bit."

When they finally reached the training ground, Ms. Joke left him to change into his costume, and his excitement shot through the roof when he finally put it on. The redesign felt even better on him than the original; he would have to do something nice for Mei after his internship was over. When Ms. Joke returned, she couldn't help the smile that came upon her seeing the fellow green head practically bouncing around and shadow boxing in his suit.

"Having fun?" she ventured with a chuckle, and it became a full-blown laugh when he jumped in surprise and sheepishly tried to make himself presentable.

"So," Izuku coughed, desperately trying to move past what she had just seen, "are we sparring?"

"Sorta," she answered with a smile that Izuku could swear had a subtle edge. "I've already seen a bit of what you can do in the festival, so I wanna take you out of your comfort zone."

Izuku was paying rapt attention to his instructor, or he was at least trying to. For whatever reason, he felt really fidgety and his stomach was refusing to settle.

"For right now, just do what comes to mind," she vaguely continued, and only then did Izuku notice the blue glow about her. "Later on, we'll see what kind of embers develop when you're experimenting."

Izuku didn't know what she meant by that, but he wasn't really thinking about it. He was trying (and failing) to suppress laughter that was forcing its way out of him. The longer it went on, the more difficult it became, and his confused laughter was becoming audible. Before anything could dawn on him, however, he parried and sidestepped the gloved fist that shot into his field of vision.

"Good situational awareness," she complimented, and Izuku now felt the laughs pouring out of him. He hunched over with his hands on his knees, and Ms. Joke was on him again with a punch that he just barely dodged. He could do nothing about the next punch, though, and he felt the entire impact of the golden plates along her knuckles driving into his gut. With the wind knocked out of him, he oddly felt like he was back to normal, and the smirk his instructor donned with her hands on her hips told him all he needed to know.

"Your quirk: Outburst," Izuku began with wide eyes. "So, that's why I was struck by laughter and couldn't concentrate."

"Got it in one," she confirmed, and Izuku felt the giggles return to him. "Quirks often take focus to wield, and I wanna see how well you do while you're disoriented."

Izuku fought to stifle the laugh that escaped him at the same time that her fist cut through the air his face occupied a moment prior. Quickly backpedaling to create some space, he put his hands up to defend just as Ms. Joke closed the distance between them and continued her onslaught. Izuku could keep focused just enough to defend and stay out of the way of her blows, but he couldn't get enough of a grasp on himself to activate his quirk. Still, he did his best to avoid the solid-looking swings.

"Has anyone ever told you that you're phenomenal at dodging?" Ms. Joke complimented.

"You're not the first," Izuku struggled to answer, and that was a mistake that Ms. Joke would ensure he regretted with a left hook to the ribs the second he lost his composure after responding.

"Aw, you were doing so well; what happened?" she asked knowing full well what happened to break his concentration.

Izuku almost responded, but the near eruption of laughter kept his mouth shut, and he backpedaled once again to create more space. Ms. Joke wouldn't let up, though, and the chase was on again. Izuku fought through the laughter to dodged the hits he could and block the ones he couldn't, but the pain from blocking her ridiculously hard punches started to catch up with him after a few minutes of the squabble. He hadn't even realized that he was heating up and glowing red after a while because he was so focused on keeping her away, but she was just as undeterred; her gloves were fireproof, after all.

Pretty soon, she managed to sweep him off his feet and went to capitalize, but her fist only slammed into a flat, orange wall of fire that materialized between them. Izuku, refusing to look a gift horse in the mouth, kicked the wall into her like he did to his alleyway stalker and created as much distance between her and himself as he could.

"That was subconscious, wasn't it?" Ms. Joke asked as she poked the wall a few times before it dispersed.

"Yeah," Izuku hesitantly answered, and he was relieved when no more laughing fits came about.

"Good, I wanted to see if you had anything else up your sleeve as well as if you could keep your cool under pressure," Ms. Joke explained with her smile returning. "You did a great job, might I add."

"All I could do was dodge and defend," Izuku muttered.

"That's more than a lot of people can do in your position," she shot down his self-deprecation. "You kept your head on your shoulders very well the entire time when the function of my quirk is to pretty much mentally incapacitate you. Outburst isn't impossible to overcome, but it takes a level of focus and willpower that many don't have."

That made him feel a little better about it, and she could tell. She patted him on the shoulder and offered him another smile. "Keeping your head on straight is a really important quality for pros, but it's doubly important for you."

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Well, Mr. Beacon," she began with a wry grin, "you want to be a source of light for those in the darkness, right?"

At his nod, she continued, but her grin disappeared. "Then it's crucial to keep in mind that not everyone will want a helping hand. There will be a non-insignificant amount of people who will intentionally try to get a rise out of you, get under your skin, or even attack people close to you specifically to get you to tarnish your own image and expose your hypocrisy. Don't give them the satisfaction."

Izuku could only solemnly nod at that. It made sense, and he wasn't naive enough to deny the existence of crabs in a bucket, and he understood that some people only wished to spread misery. All Might's condition was a testament to that.

"Now, as for seeing what else you had under your sleeves, I watched your Sports Festival performance back last night to get familiar with your quirk a little more. Correct me if I'm wrong at any point, but I saw that green fire enhanced your strength, yellow enhanced your speed, red turned up the heat, and orange created barriers. Anything I'm missing?"

Izuku opened his hand, and a small, pink flame ignited in his palm while a smaller, white one ignited in his hair. "Pink heals, and white enhances my brain power. I recently discovered the possibility for violet, but I haven't been able to try it out yet."

Ms. Joke nodded. "What about when your fire has all of those colors at once? Is that an amalgamation of all of them together?"

Izuku was about to shake his head in response, but he paused and really thought about the question. "Initially, no, it wasn't. It was just the base form my quirk took, and separating it into its individual parts brought on the specific enhancements. I could use it like any other fire quirk, but nothing further than that. However, during the last round of the sports festival, I tried cobbling the powers of the flames together to use multiple powers at once, and… it worked? Sorta?"

"Explain," Ms. Joke said, now very interested.

"Well," he began, "normally, the most I can do with my base kaleidoscopic fire is shoot it in fireballs, project it in a stream like a flamethrower, and make small explosions that are more colorful than powerful. I'm not great at any of those things, and I much prefer close combat anyway."

"Don't limit yourself," she cut in. "If you have long-range options at your disposal, use them. There's no reason not to; it'll only make you a more versatile fighter and hero."

When he nodded and she could tell that he really took the advice to heart, she apologized for cutting him off and motioned for him to continue his explanation.

"Right, well, when I tried to match Todoroki's final attack with one of my own, I remember trying to bring the strength of each color together to maybe empower my base flames and get the best of both worlds. I had experimented with combinations before with some success, so I figured that it was worth a try for a Hail Mary.

"To my surprise, it actually felt like my quirk went into a 2nd gear, if that makes sense. My flames felt way more intense than I've ever felt them be, and I felt a lot stronger than even in my Hulk Mode."

"Hulk Mode?" Ms. Joke quirked an eyebrow.

"Oh, it's the name a friend of mine came up with for my green flames," he sheepishly clarified. "She also made my costume."

"Keep that friend around, she did a fabulous job," she replied. "Back to 2nd gear; how much stronger did you feel?"

"It felt like I transformed in an old shonen anime," Izuku joked, and Ms. Joke snorted. "For the scant few moments I was in that higher gear, I didn't feel any of the strain I normally would if I pushed my flames to their limits for too long, at least not until I woke up."

"Strain?" Ms. Joke questioned.

"Yeah, green strains my muscles, white strains my brain, yellow strains my heart, and pink zaps my stamina," he answered. "My costume was built to address the first one, but the others are a little harder to make adjustments for. The yellow in particular is a consistent problem."

"Is that because you feel that strain sooner than the others, or is it just because you use the yellow flames more often?"

"Probably the latter. I've been able to handle using the yellow flames for longer than I have in the past, and it's certainly longer than when I first activated my quirk, but recently, it feels like I've sorta plateaued. I don't feel like I'm advancing towards lengthening my time wielding the flames without feeling considerable strain anymore."

Ms. Joke hummed in consideration. "Maybe, if you don't feel any strain in your 2nd gear, the issue isn't that you've plateaued. Maybe you've just hit a glass ceiling."

Izuku was confused at the use of that metaphor. "Isn't that pretty much the same thing?"

Her smirk returned. "In terms of tangible development, yes. In terms of pure potential for further development, no. If your base flames have a 2nd gear, then it's possible that your other flames have 2nd gears, as well. In your yellow's 2nd gear, that strain may be nonexistent. Hence, glass ceiling; it can be busted through. Breaking limits like that tends to happen with quirk awakenings."

Izuku thoughtfully considered the idea. The USJ had instigated a mini-awakening that resulted in his blue flames, and he still hadn't explored the full extent of his quirk, so further awakenings that enhanced the potential of his quirk even more weren't outside of the realm of possibility at all.

"I can see that gave you a lot to think about," Ms. Joke commented.

"It certainly did," Izuku agreed. "How am I going to break through that glass ceiling?"

"We have the whole week to figure that out!" Ms. Joke cheered. "For right now, let's continue the spar. You dodge well, but I wanna see you fight back through the laughter."

Izuku sighed, and his face contorted into one of determination. "I'm ready."

"I'm sorry to show up so unexpectedly. Hope you don't mind," Detective Tsukauchi said to Toshinori as the two sat down for tea inside one of the teacher's lounges at UA.

"Please, it's always a pleasure to see you, Tsukauchi," Toshinori assured. "So, how's the investigation going?"

"Well, there were a number of villains that attacked the USJ," the detective began, "but we're puzzled by one in particular: the one you fought that they called 'Nomu'."

"Ah, that strong bird-guy," All Might remembered.

"We went ahead and ran some tests on Nomu's DNA, and what we found was… disturbing to say the least," Tsukauchi continued.

"What exactly did you find?" Toshinori's gaunt face pulled into a serious frown.

"I want to first stress that we're not asking you to be apart of this investigation," he started while looking the emaciated man in his sunken eyes. "For all intents and purposes, this is a leak. I just felt that I owed it to you to let you know about what we might've uncovered. It could lead us to the one in charge."

"Go on," Toshinori calmly urged.

"After several failed attempts at interrogation, it became clear that Nomu can't speak," the detective explained. "He shows no reaction to anything at all. It's as if he literally can't think for himself no matter what's going on around him."

Tsukauchi slid a photo of a mugshot across the table. "We discovered that he used to be a low level thug with a record of assault an extortion. Where this ties into the potential mastermind of the League is that his genetic makeup has been altered drastically. We found the DNA of four different people within him."

"Someone combined people's DNA to make this guy?" Toshinori asked with a hand on his chin. "Is he even human anymore?"

"That depends on how you want to look at it," the detective sighed. "To oversimplify, his body has been altered so that he can hold multiple quirks at once. His brain's apparent lack of processing power probably comes from the burden that causes, but he shouldn't have multiple quirks in the first place, regardless of how much DNA has been inserted into his genetic makeup."

Tsukauchi looked Toshinori directly in the eye. "The only way to accomplish that would be to completely integrate the new quirks into someone's genetic makeup, and we only know of one person with the ability to do that."

Toshinori had been getting more and more pale as the detective spoke, but the last line sent him over the edge, and he shot to his feet. "It can't be! This has to be a mistake! He's dead!"

"It's our only reasonable conclusion," Tsukauchi unflinchingly replied. "It's why I came; I had to let you know immediately."

Toshinori walked towards the window and stared out into the horizon. He slowly started to bulk up as One For All made its presence known. "So, he's back," he gritted out.

'Now more than ever, I need to find a successor.'

Izuku eased himself out of the passenger seat of Ms. Joke's car, and he gingerly followed her out of the parking lot of an apartment complex and up a set of stairs. He had elected not to heal himself with his pink flames until they reached her apartment so that the pain of being tagged set into his memory for future sparring sessions, and she found it amusing enough to leave alone. It seemed like a good idea to him at first, but he came to regret it later when she took him on patrol with her that evening. Luckily, they didn't encounter anything major along the way.

When they finally reached her apartment, Izuku breathed a sigh of relief and finally ignited a pink blanket of fire across his body. "You really do hit hard, Ms. Joke."

"Amateur boxing was originally my backup plan if heroics didn't work out," she casually replied, and she chuckled at the sight of his eyes bugging out at that bit of information.

"That… actually makes sense," Izuku considered, thinking back to her rather impressive footwork during their spars. Then, something else occurred to him. "Wait, what do you mean 'if heroics didn't work out'?"

"Truthfully? It doesn't work out for a lot of people," she answered. "A decent percentage of pros flame out in their first year on the job for one reason or another."

"Why is that?" he asked, finding a spot on her couch.

"Think of heroics as a job with commission pay, no pun intended that time," she began to explain, taking a spot on the other end of her couch. "When a crime is committed and a pro isn't there on the scene already, police contact the server for pro heroes in whatever district they're in to assist. Any available pros that take the request head to the scene, and then we file the reports based on whatever services we provided. That can range from assisting with arrests, rescuing people from danger, crowd control, etc. Afterward, the HPSC looks over the details and decides what we're paid."

"You don't sound terribly excited about that part," Izuku commented, taking note of the way her eyes and usually joyful demeanor dimmed during the explanation.

She sighed, and she took a long look at him. "You're young, so you haven't yet been exposed to the cutthroat business of heroics. You're paid based on the work you do in a given situation, which already incentivizes some people to become glory hounds purely for the extra money, but you're also paid based on what the Commission deems you're worth. Bigger names are generally compensated more for the same amount of work as smaller ones because they're more visible.

"Most pros outside of the Top 10 have secondary sources of income, frankly because they need to in order to make end's meet. Even those within the Top 10 get brand deals or have other business ventures that bolster their income. Sidekicks have the benefit of belonging to an agency and get their paychecks from the agency itself, but many pros that attempt to branch out of that or go it alone from the start oftentimes just don't make enough money to be a hero full-time, and there's no guarantee that they ever would."

"Oh…" was all Izuku could manage in response. That was a sobering explanation. "But… heroics isn't about the money, right?"

"You're right, it isn't, or it shouldn't be," she sighed. "True heroes aren't out there saving people just to get paid, they do it because it's the right thing to do, and people deserve to feel safe, happy, and comfortable. On the other hand, folks gotta eat." Her face took on an annoyed expression. "It's why people like Uwabami lean so heavily into their secondary ventures, although she probably overdoes it."

"That makes sense, I guess," Izuku said a little lowly. It was all he could manage after hearing all of that. Maybe that was why his mother was so jaded.

"Well, on that ridiculously depressing note, make yourself at home!" she declared, her usual cheer back in full swing. Whether or not it was legitimate was up for debate. "I don't have an agency to house you in, so we'll have to make due here. Help yourself to anything in the kitchen; you can have all of the milk left in the fridge since I don't really do dairy. The guest room is down the hall, last on the right. The bathroom is next door to it. Don't be afraid to holler if you need anything at all!"

Izuku gratefully nodded, and he took his suitcase and costume to the guest room. It was pretty spartan which he was mostly expecting. He unpacked his suitcase and slid his costume case under the bed, and after a hot shower, he finally climbed into bed. Everything Ms. Joke had said earlier was running through his brain, and he tried to put all of it out of his mind to get some sleep.

He just hoped that he wouldn't just be trading out those thoughts for another nightmare, but it was to no avail.

The next day, an important business meeting was set to take place. The dingy bar that acted as the base of operation for the League of Villains saw a new patron in the form of a tall, muscular man wrapped in bandages and a red scarf that hid his lack of a nose. The moment he stepped out of the portal that led him there, he laid his eyes on the only other occupants, and his red eyes narrowed.

"Oh, I see," he muttered. "You must be the ones that attacked UA, and you want to recruit me to build up your little group again. Is that it?"

Tomura Shigaraki sat at edge of the bar in front of the Hero Killer: Stain, with Kurogiri standing in his usual place behind the bar. He looked relaxed as he compulsively cleaned the already spotless glasses, but he was anything but. Tomura had been rather ambitious in his pitch to Stain, but he wasn't sure how well "join us so we can kill All Might and burn the world down" was going to go over with the fanatical murderer.

"Yeah," Tomura confirmed. "It'll be great. You've got a ton of experience with this already."

"And what's your mission?" Stain pressed.

Tomura did not immediately respond. He stared at Stain, then his gaze flickered back to the monitor in the room that read "SOUND ONLY". "For now? I really just want to kill All Might. I like destroying anything that pisses me off."

Stain did not miss the way Tomura's gaze shifted to the monitor, and it only confirmed to the man that there was another party listening in on the conversation. Who that party was exactly, Stain didn't know, and he honestly didn't really like the possibilities of who it could have been. Putting that disconcerting thought aside, though, he analyzed the answer he was given. While it didn't quite feel disingenuous, he still felt that there was a disconnect in the young man's mind about his ultimate goals.

"I was a fool to think you could offer me anything." Stain darkly growled. "It turns out, you're the type of person I hate most in this world. What's the point of killing without any conviction? Your mission is that of a child throwing a tantrum! What are you even seeking to accomplish? Who even are you? What do you represent?"

As Stain unsheathed a knife, Kurogiri turned to the screen. "Sensei, should I step in?"

"Let it happen. I'm curious to see how Tomura will handle this. He must mature to reach his potential, and this may be the kick in the pants he needs in order to refocus and stop asking frivolous questions."

Kurogiri reluctantly stayed his hand as Stain stalked toward the unnervingly silent Tomura.

"What's on the agenda for today?" Izuku asked Ms. Joke as they strolled through the largely empty halls of Ketsubutsu.

"There's something I want to show you," she vaguely responded with a grin.

He was intrigued, but he knew that he wouldn't get any hints from her, so he didn't ask any further questions and just followed her lead. As they walked, they ended up exiting the building entirely through one of the rear exits, and they walked down a path leading to another, smaller set of buildings.

"These are dorms set in place for any student who wishes to attend but lives too far away or is an exchange student of some kind," she explained. "I wouldn't be surprised if UA has something similar."

"It does, but only a few people use them to my knowledge," Izuku replied.

"Well, ours are a little bit unique," she said as they approached a dorm building labeled "VR-1."

They entered the building, and Izuku noticed that the lobby was buzzing with activity. Teenagers ranging from ages that were slightly younger than himself to clearly in their early 20s were abound. Some were socializing, others were sitting quietly in front of the TV watching live news coverage of Mirko beating up a villain near Ketsubutsu, and a few were separated from the crowd, content to sit by themselves. It was clear that they were all called to the lobby beforehand, as a few mutters of "finally" were heard when the two entered the lobby.

"Hey guys! I've got an intern!" Ms. Joke happily announced.

The collective attention of the room was now on them, and, while most in the room were simply curious about what they were called to congregate for, a few of them recognized Izuku.

"Hey, isn't he the kid from the sports festival?" one of the younger boys pointed out. "The one that blew up the ring with Endeavor's kid!"

"Stop calling people who are clearly older than you 'kid', dude," an older boy reprimanded. He had the same spiky, brown hair as the younger boy, and they both had bright orange eyes. Perhaps they were brothers?

"Not just the sports festival," came a soft, feminine voice from the corner of the room, and Izuku saw a shorter girl with the head of a black cat and a black bow in her fur beside her ear approaching him. Izuku's green eyes met the dim, yellow sclera with slitted, black pupils, and the two silently observed each other.

"Vanta approaching someone? That's new," came a hushed voice from across the room, but not hushed enough for Izuku to miss it among the crowd.

"You're the boy from that interview," she softly spoke, and nothing else really needed to be said, as many others in the room were paying close attention now.

"Yeah, that would be me," Izuku answered calmly and extended his hand. "Izuku Midoriya, it's lovely to meet you."

The girl stared down at the offered hand with mild apprehension, and she met his gaze once again, searching his eyes and face for any signs of deception whatsoever. Izuku only offered her a soft smile in return, and he patiently waited for her to make any decision she felt comfortable with. After a few more seconds, she tentatively met the offered hand with her own, gently wrapping her clawed hand around his for the handshake.

"Just call me Vanta," she finally spoke. "Do you know where you are?"

"I haven't told him yet," Ms. Joke answered from beside him. "Midoriya, welcome to the Villain Rehabilitation Program at Ketsubutsu. We find at-risk youth that are, by circumstance or opportunity, diving into criminal behavior and provide them with resources that will nip any descent into villainy in the bud. Just as well, we provide a place for villains attempting reform to get any help, support, or education they may need. Those resources can come in the form of counseling, therapy, psychiatric help, drug treatment, general stability in the form of a guaranteed place to sleep and meal to eat, and a place to build positive relationships."

She looked him in the eye with more seriousness than she had previously. "You said that you wanted to extend a helping hand to those lost in the cracks of society. Well, this is what some of that looks like."

Izuku turned a thoughtful eye back to Vanta, and she could no longer meet his eye. He would not have any of that, so he took her clawed hand once again in both of his hands. "It makes me happy that you're doing well, Vanta. All of you. I don't know your individual situations, but I'll gladly sit and listen to each of your stories."

That got many in the room to relax, and some even smiled. Vanta, meanwhile, was really glad that her pitch black fur hid her blush, and she refused to meet his eye for different reasons. "Yeah, well, 'doing well' is the operative phrase. 'Doing better' would probably be more accurate."

"Let's pull up some chairs," Izuku prompted. "Tell me anything you'd like."

Tomura Shigaraki was not having a good day. He had been inspired by Spinner's ridiculous cosplay to scour the internet for any info on the Hero Killer. He found a few forum posts that were talking about him and his message. Many of them were old, so it was clear that he had been at it for a while, and many of those forum posters were fanatically behind the sentiments he touted. It seemed like a no-brainer to offer him an invitation to the League of Villains.

It ultimately resulted in him on the floor of the bar with a serrated blade in his shoulder and the man himself hovering above him poised to finish him off. He was nearly out of his bandages from the USJ, but his arm was still a pain in the ass, so he couldn't really defend himself. All the while, he was being pressed with questions that he would admit to having in the back of his mind but refused to address in full because they brought up even more uncomfortable questions and lines of thought that he really shouldn't be having.

"You want me to join your crumbling, little league, but you won't accomplish anything without true conviction and desire," Stain spat. "Hell, I don't even get the feeling that you have any real identity to yourself. Without those, you'll always be an aimless weakling that achieves nothing; that's how you ended up like this in the first place."

"Hey now, you're being a little rough, don't you think?" Tomura gritted out with a chuckle. "At least buy me a drink, first."

That took Stain completely off-guard, and he momentarily froze in bemusement. That was more than enough time for Tomura to grab the blade with his non-injured hand and turn it to dust, and Stain leaped backward off of him.

"Kurogiri, get this guy out of here," Tomura instructed.

"I'm sorry, I can't move," Kurogiri struggled. "It must be the Hero Killer's quirk at work."

"The word 'hero' has lost all meaning in this society," Stain began, seemingly prompted by the warp user's utterance of the word. "The world is overrun by fakes and criminals like you who chase petty dreams and utter nonsense."

He readied himself for another strike at Tomura. "They must all be purged-"

"You sure talk a lot," Tomura interrupted as he stood up, much to Stain's chagrin. "Conviction… maybe I don't have anything as loaded as that right now, but I can tell you for sure that what I desire is to do whatever the hell I want to do for once. And maybe what I want to do is to kill All Might and everything he represents. If this world wants to worship trash like him, I'll destroy their beloved Symbol of Peace and then crush them while they're in shock."

Stain went wide-eyed at the statement, but Tomura wasn't done.

"Symbol of Peace," he practically spat. "Peace for who? Certainly not for everyone. People are tossed aside and forgotten about all the time, and no one cares about them. The other supposed heroes turn their noses up since it's not convenient for them, and the civilians look the other way because 'a hero will come to help for sure', but no one ever does. Not All Might, not anyone. It all needs to crumble."

Stain considered him much more carefully now. What he was saying painted the villain in a much more 3-dimensional picture than he could see initially, and he could even empathize with the sentiment. However, it still felt entirely too disconnected.

"The last of my injuries were so close to healing up, save for this arm," Tomura lamented. "You shouldn't play around with knives, you dickhead; we don't have healers in our party."

"I see now," Stain lowly began. "You… you have conflicting ideals. No, not ideals, but your mind and spirit are in conflict."

"Huh?" Tomura scratched his neck. "The hell are you talking about?"

"You truly believe what you're saying, but your actions speak a different tune," Stain continued. "I can see your nature, as well as the box you're inhabiting. Our goals fundamentally oppose each other, but this was not in vain. We agree that we need to destroy the current order for any change to be possible."

"I'm over this," Tomura sighed. "Just leave. Drop dead. I'm the kind of person you hate the most in this world, right?"

"I was testing your resolve," Stain countered while sheathing his blades. "People always show their true colors when on the verge of death, and I got my answer loud and clear. There is a warped sprout of conviction rooted deep inside you, but you'll never be able to access it until you find out who you truly are."

There was that phrase again, and it was really pissing Tomura off.

"Find that out, and then come find me," Stain instructed. "We'll see how that conviction blooms, and if I like what I see, we'll do business. If not, I'll just snuff you out."

"You think you can get rid of me?" Tomura growled, now reaching his last nerve with the older man.

"I'm free," Kurogiri interjected before Tomura could do something everyone would regret.

"Get him out of here," Tomura commanded. "We don't need a griefer like him in our party."

"I strongly suggest you reconsider," Kurogiri urged. "This man will be a great asset if he joins us."

"My business here is done, now return me to Hosu," Stain gave a command of his own. "There are still false heroes I must attend to there."

Meanwhile, All For One was listening to the interaction with a frown. Tomura wasn't supposed to remember what he had referenced just yet. He was curious to see what would come of that if he did remember; it could either hasten his development or cause him to self-destruct entirely. Either way, he'd have to "gently" guide Tomura back onto the correct path.

Back in Hosu, Iida had just finished his daily patrol with the hero he was interning with, Manual, and they were back at his agency. Iida was a little perturbed that he hadn't caught hide nor hair of Stain, and that was largely because the entire city was on alert after what happened to Ingenium. Stain would probably only show his face in an alleyway, and Iida couldn't just break off from his mentor to search every alley in the city.

"The nice thing about having the whole city on alert is that no villains would dare come out," Manual commented with his usual easygoing demeanor.

"Hm?" Iida remarked, broken out of his thoughts by Manual's statement. "Oh, sure."

Manual's light countenance faded, and a serious look overtook his features. "I got an interesting message from your teacher before you first showed up."

Iida looked at the pro hero in surprise and a bit of confusion. He didn't know what his homeroom teacher could have possibly reached out to Manual about, especially if it concerned him.

"He suspects that you took this internship so that you'll be in the same city as the Hero Killer," he gravely spoke.

Iida's face remained carefully blank, but his body went rigid.

Manual sighed, and he pulled up a chair. "Sit down, Tenya."

Iida did so, stiffly grabbing a chair of his own and sitting at the table across from Manual.

"I know what you're going through," he began, and he put his hand up to halt Iida's protests. "Trust me, I do; just hear me out."

Iida settled down and made no further indication that he'd speak.

"My parents were killed by a villain when I was in my last few years of high school," the man revealed, and Iida's eyes went wide. "Butchered them. Started out as a regular mugging, but they tried to fight back. He had an alligator mutation, and he literally tore them apart."

Iida did not know how to respond to that, but Manual continued on regardless. "I wanted to be a pro hero even before then, but that only fueled my drive even more to get licensed, partially to do what I've always wanted and help people, but mostly to find the man who killed my parents and get justice for them."

A bitter chuckle escaped him. "What justice even meant for me back then, I had no idea. I still don't, in all honesty."

Iida was silent at that revelation. He would never have guessed from his mentor's light, laid back demeanor that he was carrying such pain with him. "Did… did you find him?"

"Eventually, yeah," he answered while looking at the floor.

Another silence followed as Iida worked up the nerve to ask his next question. "Did you…"

"Yes."

A much longer silence came between them. Manual did not bring his eyes up from the floor, and Iida did not expect that answer from him whatsoever. The silence dragged on for a few minutes while the teen processed what he had been told, and Manual finally wrenched his gaze from the ground and focused it onto Iida.

"The Commission was able to write it off as 'unfortunate accident', but there was nothing accidental about it. I knew exactly how much water pressure was necessary to crush a skull, but the fact that he was violently resisting and was an active danger to innocents around him gave me plausible deniability."

Iida was beginning to feel way out of his depth the more the conversation progressed. There was way too much to unpack from that simple statement alone. Still, there was something he needed to know.

"Did you feel any better afterward?"

"No."

The immediacy of the answer struck him right in the gut. There was no hesitation whatsoever; avenging his parents' murder did not do anything for him.

"You're starting to get it, I see," Manual continued after taking stock of Iida's pale, pained expression. "It didn't bring my parents back. They're still gone, and they always will be. The only difference is that I have blood on my hands now, too. I don't feel any better having done it, and I don't think my parents would have wanted that for me, anyway."

Manual gave Iida a long, hard look. "You still have your brother. He's still alive. Don't throw away your ability to live alongside him, because that's exactly what going after Stain will accomplish, regardless of the result."

With that, Manual stood up and exited the room, leaving Iida alone with his thoughts.

Izuku was very much enjoying his internship with Ms. Joke. She recognized right off the bat that there wasn't much that she could teach him as far as combat went, and that wasn't her ultimate goal with the internship anyway. Instead, they spent time in three areas: experimenting with his quirk, working on his outward presentation, and getting more perspective on what circumstances can make a villain out of anyone.

Of all three, he could confidently say that he enjoyed his visits to the VRP the most; the first talk he had with them was rocky, as many of them were understandably cagey about their pasts and what specifically landed them there. However, after some time had passed and a few of the braver souls shared their stories, more people began to open up.

The stories he heard were even more sobering than the salary talk he had with Ms. Joke on the first night. Everyone had come from and with some kind of trauma. The duo of brothers he met on the first day were products of a neglectful and drug-addled household, and on nights when their parents were too strung out to care for them, they turned to attacking and mugging random civilians for cash to feed themselves. One such incident resulted in their mark being left crippled when he tried to defend himself.

Their story was one of the lighter ones of the bunch.

There was another tale from a young man with a snake mutation (in that he was literally a snake with human arms and legs) who ran away from a group home he was in and joined up with a small time gang that made and sold trigger. Apparently, that gang encroached onto Yakuza territory, and a confrontation resulted in him being the only survivor. The haunted look in his eyes when he recounted how the only family he ever really had was reduced to bloody smears on the wall with a single touch stuck with Izuku, and he didn't press the young man any further.

He, surprisingly, didn't get much out of Vanta. He figured that one of the first to recognize and approach him would also be one of the first to open up, but all she really revealed was that she and her best friend were victims of some vicious anti-mutant quirkism at their old high school, and something horrible happened to her friend that led her down a dark path in the pursuit of revenge and venting her anger. She wouldn't go into detail about the revenge or why she even sought it out, and if he was reading between the lines correctly, he didn't imagine she ever would; not to him, at least. He wouldn't push her, though.

When Izuku and Ms. Joke weren't with the VRP, they were in one of the training grounds. Ms. Joke had taken to trying to bring out Izuku's orange flames as more than just a reflexive action. That usually came in the form of her punching him while he was forbidden from moving a muscle to defend. Since his orange flames made a habit of coming out when he truly needed it, he could attempt to become familiar with the sensation and possibly draw it out manually.

He was successful to a point; he couldn't draw it out all of the time, but in the instances that he was able to, he could maintain and even manipulate the size and shape of the barriers rather easily; it just took a bit of concentration.

"Nicely done, Beacon," she complimented after the barrier he maintained blocked a final punch from her. That was another thing; she had taken to referring to him as only his hero name so that he'd get in the habit of internalizing and responding to it.

"Thanks, Ms. Joke," Izuku replied as he dispersed his flames and took a seat on the floor to catch his breath. They had been at it for quite a while, and the day was drawing to a close.

"Now, usually we'd round out the day with an evening patrol, but the areas surrounding hero schools are usually pretty safe by virtue of so many pros being in a small-ish area," she began. "So, since I want you to get a little bit more practical experience in a fairly safe setting, we'll be going on a field trip."

Izuku's interest was piqued. "Where to?"

"Shibuya!" she cheered.

"Wait, Shibuya in Tokyo?" Izuku fretted. "But there are so many people there, and I don't want to potentially embarrass myself before my career even starts."

"That didn't stop you in the sports festival," she replied with a quirked eyebrow, and Izuku had to concede that point. "It'll be fine. You've already made yourself semi-famous, so you're working with goodwill to start. Plus, a larger population density equates to more hero agencies, so their attention won't all be on you anyway."

Izuku nodded, and after a quick break to regain their stamina, the two set off in her car towards the train station for a quicker trip into the massive city.

In the bar that played host to the rebuilding League of Villains, Tomura stewed in one of the booths while Kurogiri resumed his barman-without-customers routine.

"Tomura, what are you thinking about?" came the familiar deep voice from the monitor.

"The Hero Killer… he talks all high and mighty, but he's wasting his time focusing on a small stage," Tomura rasped.

"You shouldn't spurn his methods," Kurogiri spoke up. "The reality is that in all of the cities that Stain has appeared, the crime rates have fallen significantly, be it out of fear or out of a greater presence from the heroes."

"Whoopty fucking doo, heroes are working harder because they'd be killed otherwise," Tomura spat. "Such a noble incentive, right? Absolute horseshit."

"You seem upset about the situation," All For One commented with an unseen grin. "What do you intend to do, I wonder? I, personally, would not take that level of disrespect in my own base, and no successor of mine would, either."

Tomura quickly transitioned from stewing to festering, and, much to All For One's delight, he stood up and slammed his uninjured hand on the table, decaying it in the process.

"Sensei, how many Nomus are ready?" Tomura asked in his anger.

"I will allow you 3 of them," the man answered.

Tomura ignored the mild condescension that came with the non-answer to his question, and he looked to his misty companion. "Kurogiri, we're going to Hosu."

OMAKE

Izuku yawned as he blearily made his way down the hall and towards the kitchen. Upon arrival, he opened the fridge and looked around for anything he could slap together for breakfast. His eyes landed on a carton of milk, and he grabbed it and instinctively put it up to his nose to check the freshness. The sour aroma hit him in the nostrils with a vengeance, and his face contorted before he made to toss the milk out.

However, before he could, he had a strange thought. It was a dumb, completely ridiculous thought, but it was a thought nonetheless.

"Could I heal an upset stomach with my pink flames if I drank this milk…" he wondered aloud.

He looked around the room to ensure that he was alone and no one would catch him in the act, and when he was satisfied that he wouldn't be interrupted, he slowly brought the milk to his mouth.

Suddenly, a bright, yellow light flashed in the center of the room, and a teenage girl with long, white hair, a horn on the right side of her forehead, and wide, red eyes wearing a tattered, blood-stained version of his own hero costume appeared beside him. She frantically smacked the milk out of his hand before he could react, spilling it all over the floor. When he turned a bewildered gaze to her, she lunged and hugged him so tightly that he was certain she truly believed that he would disappear otherwise.

He didn't know what the hell was going on, but he felt compelled to gently pat her on the back, which elicited a sniffle from the girl before she choked her tears back and stepped away from him. Just as quickly as she was there, she vanished in the same bright, yellow light as before. Izuku was left alone in the kitchen and standing next to a puddle of sour milk until he heard the floorboards creak, and he saw Ms. Joke standing in the doorway looking equally befuddled.

She looked at him, then she looked at the puddle of milk, and then she looked back at him.

"Is she coming back to clean that up?"