Who are you?

“Two days have passed since the events that unfolded between Heroes and Villains in the Kamino ward. For viewers that are unaware, a large-scale battle took place between a group calling themselves the ‘League of Villains’ and some of the nations top Heroes, resulting in a level of destruction that has never been seen before. Japan’s system of Heroes has also been left reeling in the fallout of the battle, with the announcement that the number one Hero, All Might, was retiring. Some additional concern has been raised over the fact that Endeavor, Mount Lady and Edgeshot being placed on indefinite leave. The reasons for this decision are still yet unknown. Additionally a number of Heroes were injured and required hospitalization following the battle, including: Kamui Woods, Gang Orca, Best Jeanist and Mount Lady. With this shake up of the ranks, the relatively young Hero known as Hawks has unofficially become the country’s number one Hero, and he is expected to hold a press conference on the matter later today. However, there is something else that people across the country have been scratching their heads over. And that would be the appearance of what appeared to be a new Hero arriving on the scene. Being the first at the site of the battle, he helped in personally taking down the Villain leader now known as All For One. Some suggest that due to the armor this person wore that it may have been the Equipped Hero: Yoroi Musha in a different set of armor. However the older Hero publicly denied the idea, leaving us with more questions than answers. Who is this new Hero? And where is he now?” What a way to wake up, hearing the results of a battle that you just fought and are still trying to recover from…

“Are you finally awake?” A voice in front of him spoke, and Aurdel opened his eyes. The man in front of him wore a dress shirt with a beige overcoat, fedora and white gloves. If there was anything that the sight reminded him of, it was the stereotypical depiction of a detective from those noire stories. “You’ve been unconscious for two days straight. You were recovered from the battle at the Kamino ward, and we need some answers.”

Aurdel sat up, “I need a few answers myself before I’m willing to say anything. First, where am I?”

“That’s an easy answer. Currently you are being held in Tartarus, the most highly guarded and defended maximum security prison in the country built for the purpose of holding the most destructive and dangerous Villains in the country. Frankly, after the destruction you caused in your fight with All For One it was the only place that you could reasonably be taken.” Aurdel looked around the room.

“For a maximum security prison, this cell doesn’t look very secure. I’m not even tied down or cuffed.”

The detective sighed. “That’s for a few reasons. First, they weren’t able to find any cuffs in your size that could fit around your armor. Second, we figured that even if we had them that you would easily be able to break out of them. Lastly, despite all the destruction that you caused we know that you’re not a Villain. We’ve already interviewed the students from UA and the other Heroes that were involved, so we’re relatively confident in our judgment.”

“Good to know that people can still make fairly accurate assumptions. Now my second question, what year is it?”

“That’s an odd question… but it’s the year two thousand seventy six. Dont you know that?”

“No, I don’t ,” the detective looked confused by his answer. “I know that there’s people behind the glass,” Aurdel pointed towards one of the walls. Most people wouldn’t have been able to pick up on the fact that there was a set of one way glass, but Aurdel knew how to pick up on this sort of thing. He was trained to. “And if we’re in the twenty-first century, then my guess is that behind the glass are CIRO and PSIA personnel, along with the prime minister, the defense minister and the Japanese diplomat to the US. The latter three of which are going to be escorted away because they didn’t expect to be noticed.” Like clockwork, he heard the sound of footsteps as a number of people suddenly left from behind the one way glass. The detective was speechless. “And judging by your appearance, you’re from a local agency in the city where the fight took place. And the only reason that you’re still the one here is because you essentially haven’t left my side in order to keep seniority and avoid having this case handed over to the feds.”

“You… certainly know your way about government agencies.”

“I know my history. Not to mention, the way that governments and agencies work have essentially been drilled into my head. Frankly I would be shocked to find one that I couldn’t dissect.” He swung his legs off of the concrete bed that they’d laid him on, standing up. “Regardless, I’m going to tell you now that I’m going to be released.”

“I don’t think that is even a possibility for you. What you did may have been in order to save the lives of others, but you still took a number of lives on that day. You killed fifteen Villains. Thirteen of which were Nomus, but there was also Tomura Shigaraki and Atsuhiro Sako.” He shook his head, “Just from these charges alone, it would be easy to find yourself put behind bars or even sentenced to death. This is worse than a number of the Villains staying here.“

“If you think that the number of people that I’ve ever killed stands only at fifteen, then you’re making a serious mistake in judgment of character. By any of the standards you or anyone else have set, I’d probably be the most deadly criminal in the country.” The detective noted all of this down, and evidently looked like he was trying to intimidate him. It didn’t work.

“Who are you?”

“Given what I’ve been told, and what I’ve gathered, that’s a question that you’ll only get a relatively insane sounding answer to. I’m from the twenty sixth century and an alternate timeline, one where there’s no such thing as superpowers called quirks. I didn’t even know that quirk was a name that people used for superpowers until I was told about it.”

“You’re telling me that you’re a time traveling dimension hopper from the future, one that somehow doesn’t know of or has superpowers?”

“That’s one way to put it.”

“Right… Well if you don’t know what quirks are, or don’t even have one, then how can you explain your super strength or speed?”

“I’m a soldier from the future that was trained to be the best of the best, that’s just how I am.”

“Assuming that you’re telling the truth, are all people from your time as strong as you?”

“Like I said, I’m a soldier who was trained to be what I am now.”

“And your skills?”

“I learned them in the military.” The detective noted all of this down

“One of the students, they told us you said your name was ‘Aurdel’. Do you have a full name that you can give us?”

“Full names are for friends, and right now I don’t feel any inclination to share that info.” The detective became frustrated with his relatively vague and uncooperative answers, but Aurdel was making it clear to him and everyone else that he wasn’t going to give out anything that he didn’t think was necessary. He had his reasons to distrust the government, even the ones from this era.

“We found a large aircraft crashed in the woods of the camp you were first spotted at. Was it yours?”

“Personally? No. It’s just one that I happened to use. Officially the craft is owned by the United Nations Space Command’s naval branch.”

“There’s no branch like that in the-…”

“There's no branch like that yet,” he interjected. “Now, I’m looking to make a deal.”

“A deal?” The detective looked up at him with some amount of caution. “Right now, there’s nothing that you can offer the Japanese government that would let you walk free.”

“My compliance,” he simply stated, “If you already know everything that I did in that fight, then you should know that I’m more than capable of escaping from a high security prison. Especially one from the twenty-first century.”

“Are you threatening me and everyone else here?”

“Consider it a statement of fact. If I wanted desperately enough to get out of this prison, then I wouldn’t still be here talking with you. I’d kill everyone that I needed to before causing enough commotion to be able to slip away and out of sight. And if my memory of NATO bases and my tracking of how far I was dragged is right, then the nearest US overseas base and weapon dump is only a little over twenty miles away. From there I could loot as much gear as I want and do whatever I see fit.”

“There are hundreds of trained personnel guarding this prison, Heroes would be called the moment any jailbreak was attempted.”

“You say that like I didn’t already factor that into my theoretical escape. However, that leads me into the second point of my offer. I would work as a Hero.”

“Do you really think that anyone would accept you as a Hero, after everything you’ve done?”

“Do you think they wouldn’t? If my methods are what is being called into question, then just look what happened to the ‘Heroes’ that were called to respond to the fight. Each of them fought with a lot less prowess and power behind their intent. Now most of them have been hospitalized, the top Hero has retired and a number of them have been quietly pushed off to the side because they had their powers taken. But I was there from the beginning of the battle and fought more than just All For One,” he looked at the detective, “Argue with my methods as much as you want, but pick up on the fact that they achieved better results.” The look on the detective’s face told Aurdel everything. He could recognize the fact that he’d been successful in fighting off those Villains, even if he didn’t want to admit it..

“...Theoretically if you were to become a Hero, would you be able to hold back? As in, that you would not use lethal or deadly force unless absolutely necessary?”

“I was trained to kill, but yes. So long as the situation requires injuring and capturing someone rather than killing, then I am fully willing to play by those rules..”

“How would you explain your sudden appearance in Japan?”

“In a perfect world, I would just lie and say that I was an underground Hero from the United States who came over for one reason or another. However, because that’s a lie that can be easily disproved, I will just come clean and tell the public the truth. That I’m a soldier from the future who managed to find his way here and is going to be taking up the profession of a Hero.”

“Do you really think that’s a good idea?”

“If I thought that it was a good idea, I wouldn’t have prefaced it with anything.”

“Then even if this all were to come to pass, then where would you even base yourself out of? Currently you have no home or residency, no agency to work with. Your only option would be to work for the government.”

“That’s where my demand comes in.”

“Your demand?”

“UA, it’s a school where students are training to become Heroes. Right? In that case, I’m going to teach there and base my operations out of there.

“Absolutely not, the students of UA were the first ones to see just what you were capable of and will have justifiably serious misgivings about you being there to teach them.”

“If you think that I’m going to teach them how to kill, then you’re again making another misjudge of character. I’ll mostly stick to whatever curriculum they hand me.”

“Do you have any educational qualifications for such a position?”

“Officially? No. But even if I did I wouldn’t exactly be carrying around university diplomas or certificates, given that I fight on a very active battlefield. However when I was trained, physical training wasn’t the limit of what we were taught. A serious focus was also given to substantial and true academic learning.””

“Can you elaborate?”

“The education that I received was unofficial and completely off the record, but everything we did was enough to effectively earn a doctorate in essentially every field you can think of. We were also taught a number of different languages so that we could more effectively communicate during a fight without the enemy listening in. English was natively spoken, but for a few of the languages that we were taught there’s Japanese, Latin, Hungarian, Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, Serbo-Croatian, Polish, French, Spanish, Greek, Swedish, German, Arabic and Russian. There are a number of other languages we were taught to understand, but I’m more rusty on those.” Aurdel could see the near complete disbelief in the detective’s eyes as he spoke, but he was plainly telling the truth. “For less academic education, we were trained in nearly every fighting style known to man and a number that we invented ourselves. A number of which don’t even exist in this world yet. We were also taught to build and maintain our own firearms and weapons, studied politics and strategy, learned guerilla warfare, learned to survive in any environment and gained the ability to triage ourselves for almost any wound we may encounter alongside performing any procedures that may be necessary. Each of us were kept to extreme health standards, to the point that early on we’d achieved and surpassed what would be considered Olympian athletic standards. The only other people that you could find to be more qualified than me would be the men and women that I trained with, all of which had specific fields of knowledge that they specialized in. I tried to be a jack of all trades.” He stared at the one way glass wall, “How was that for your lie detector?” The men behind the glass looked away, he’d passed with flying colors. “You can test me on what I know if you want, but all you’ll do is reinforce what I’ve already told you.”

“No, we’ll take you at your word for that. However, until a decision has been made you will have to stay here.” The detective stood up and walked towards where Aurdel knew the hidden door was, “Is there anything that you’d like to tell me?”

“Three bits of information, actually. One, I want all of my gear returned to me when I leave. That includes all of my weapons and everything that was in the dropship, I don’t want to see a single thing missing. Second, don’t take too long to decide. If it takes too long for a decision to be made, then I will just let myself out. And third, make sure the goons outside know that I’m not going to talk with anyone other than you.” And with that, the detective left the room.

----------------------------------------

“Izuku! Come here!” Midoriya’s mother called him from the other room.

“I’ll be there in a moment!” He shouted back. Right now he was home, though that was for a few reasons. First, he was recovering from his injuries after what had happened at the camp. Despite the damage that he’d taken he was healing well, even his arms. The doctors did warn him though, that if he continued to use his power the way he had then it was very likely that he would lose the ability to use his arms at all. The second reason he was home was because UA had been temporarily closed after the attack by the League of Villains. Classes would start again soon, but there would still be some time before they could attend again in earnest. However, in what seemed like an odd coincidence, the government had called for an emergency meeting of the United Nations, one that it heavily encouraged the people of Japan to watch. A lot of people assumed that it had to do with the retirement of All Might, as he was the number one Hero of Japan and had some significant sway overseas. However that really didn’t make a lot of sense, because despite his worldwide popularity there was really no reason to make an international announcement over his retirement. Carefully he set down the weights that he was lifting in his room, before putting on a blue sweater to cover his upper body and walking over to the living room.

The TV in the room was on, showing a live video and audio feed of the meeting hall from New York in the USA. It was a large area, made in order to fit the delegates of all of the countries of the world. And while he didn’t know very much about the United Nations in terms of how it worked or what it did, he knew that it was greatly important. It was five minutes before the meeting was to officially begin, a few of the delegates still needed to show up. “What do you think is so important to tell the world?” His mother asked him.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Maybe it has something to do with politics?” he said warily, ”I don’t really know a lot about these things.”

“Well it has to be something really important, especially if they needed to call an emergency meeting on what they call ‘A matter of global security.’”

“But what could be so dangerous?”

“I don’t know either, I think we’ll just have to sit and wait for them to tell us.” Five minutes passed by, and all of the delegates to the UN had arrived. Some looked uneasy, some confused and some didn’t show any emotion at all. For the most part over the last fifty years, there had been a relatively long stretch of peace. So for Japan to call a meeting like this must have been a worrying idea for most countries.

The Japanese delegate stepped up to the podium. “Members of the assembly, because of recent events within Japan it was found necessary by the Prime Minister and his cabinet to call for an emergency meeting of the United Nations. However, it is regarding a matter that many would take issue with or view as a joke. The existence of extraterrestrials.” There was a loud murmur among the delegates in the meeting hall upon hearing what this was about. “All nations and people of the world are entitled to their own beliefs regarding the existence of aliens, but as of relatively recently the Japanese government has been shown more than enough evidence to confirm their existence and consider them a threat to global security.” There was an even larger murmur now, though it eventually quieted.

Aliens? The government had found and proven the existence of aliens?. “However, it would do the matter no justice if I were the one to actually discuss and show that evidence. As such, the Japanese government has brought forward an individual that has the relevant expertise regarding the matter. You may take him as his word, or you may choose to ignore everything that he says. However I am here to say on behalf of the Japanese government, and that of my own personal opinion, that you listen to the words that this man has to say.” There was a larger murmur throughout the meeting hall as the Japanese delegate stepped down, and all heads turned to the hall’s entrance.

“T-thats!” Midoriya’s jaw dropped, and he couldn’t get out the right words as he saw who stepped into view. It was the man he’d encountered the night of the Villain attack on the camp, the one who’d help in rescuing them from the League of Villains. He was being escorted by several heavily armed guards, though he knew from firsthand experience that him being guarded was probably completely unnecessary. The hall went dead silent as they watched him walk from one end of the room to the other, the only sound being that of his boots hitting the ground as he walked. Eventually the guards left his side as he walked up the stairs to the podium. He still sported that helmet with a gold visor, looking around the room before speaking.

“Delegates of the United Nations, my name is Aurdel. I am affiliated with the United Nations Space Command, a military branch of the United Earth Government that currently does not exist.” Visible on the corner of the television screen was a viewer count, and it showed that the moment he’d walked into view the viewer count had spiked dramatically. “As difficult as many of you may find this to believe, I am not from here. I come from an alternate timeline and future, one where there is no such thing as superpowers called quirks. One where humanity has spent the last twenty seven years locked in a bloody war of survival against an empire of alien religious zealots known as the Covenant. Over the course of those twenty seven years humanity has been pushed back planet by planet, with at least fifteen billion men and women dying as they burned world after world. The most recent battle to take place was one that I personally participated in, the defense of Reach.” The man let out a heavy sigh, “We lost that battle.One billion men and women, soldiers and civilians alike, lost their lives against the Covenant, with over a hundred warships destroyed in the battle. The Covenant had nearly four hundred of their own vessels, severely outnumbering us and outgunning us. Despite all of our best efforts, the planet had fallen in only a month. Of the battles that took place, this was one of the longer ones.” He paused for a moment, to allow all of the information that he said to set in.

“However I know that there are those among you who are unwilling to hear my words, you disbelieve everything that I have to say. And because of this I requested that the United Nations allow me to provide audio and visual information regarding this threat, but I was denied. So as such,” he tapped a button on his forearm, and a large screen dropped down from the ceiling with a projector turning on. “I went against what I was told to do, and chose to show you what needs to be seen regardless of what politicians and bureaucrats think. The images that I am going to show you all have been recorded and recovered from a set of encounters with the Covenant.” The lights in the room darkened, and the first image appeared. “This was the human outer colony known as Harvest, population of three million. For years it was a simple agricultural colony that had acted as a breadbasket for humanity, but in twenty five twenty five the colony had gone dark. In response a number of civilian vessels were sent to investigate, but it was not until several warships were sent that the truth was discovered. This was what they found.” The image of a lush green planet changed to that of one that had been… burned. “When they arrived they found the planet completely burned, its surface turned to hot glass. It assumed that when this happened, most of the planet’s population was wiped out. However, in the planet's orbit was another vessel. One that had never been encountered before.” The image changed yet again, this time to an oddly shaped object in space. It almost looked like a giant purple insect, one with rounded edges and large prongs at the very front. “The captain in command of the battle group attempted to communicate with the vessel, to determine whether or not they were friendly. This is the response that they received.”

An audio file played over the speakers. “Humans… Your destruction is the will of the Gods…! And WE are their instruments!” The words send a chill down Midoriya’s spine. Part of it sounded human, but there was an air to it that confirmed that it was not human.

“Immediately after sending this message, they attacked the warships.” The projection switched to a video.

“-All hands to combat stations! Repeat, we are moving to Combat Alert Alpha Two! Enemy vessel is-!” The screen shook and the visuals blurred slightly, a bright red light could be seen tinting the screen.

“Holy crap! Sir, the Arabia and Vostok!” The camera moved over to what he assumed to have been two of the human ships. Both were completely wrecked. In a single attack using what looked like an extremely powerful laser, both ships were destroyed. Large chunks of melted metal floated the area in which the ship had been impacted, even bodies could be seen drifting out of the hole.

“LIEUTENANT, FIRE OFF ALL MISSILES WE HAVE!” The screen completely shook as motes of fire appeared on the outside of the ship the footage was taken from, blasting forward and towards the alien vessel. The moment they looked like they were going to impact, a shield rose and stopped all of them. Another red laser fired, the ship shook again. “Jesus Christ! Initiate emergency slipspace jump, we need to get the hell out of here and warn everyone else!” After that the video clip ended.

There was silence in the room. “After a firefight that lasted only fourteen seconds, they were forced to retreat from the alien vessel. Both vessels, the CMA Arabia and Vostok, were lost with all hands, and the ship that this footage was taken from, the Heracles,was heavily damaged. The only victory in the early years of this war took place a year after, when a fleet under the command of Admiral Preston Cole the size of forty ships arrived to take back the planet. Again they were met with only one ship, though this one was different.” The video changed again, and this time the man on stage was commentating over it as events occurred. “Up until that point in history it was the single largest battle group humanity had put together, and it hardly stood a chance.” Lasers beamed from the singular alien ship, lighting up the space between them and the human ships. One after another, a number were struck down. At first the human ships returned fire, doing so by themselves. But they eventually all attacked at the same time, succeeding in destroying the alien ship. “By the end of the battle the UNSC had emerged as a pyrrhic victor. Thirteen ships were lost to destroy a single Covenant vessel, more were damaged and thousands of personnel were killed. Eventually the ground war would begin, and it would be the deadliest conflict humanity had ever seen.” The video switched again, this time to soldiers on the ground. “Tens of millions, and eventually hundreds of millions, of men and women were mobilized in order to protect humanity. Many would not survive. For those that are squeamish to the sights of war, you make look away. However I implore you all to watch this footage, to see what we faced.” The next video was one from the point of view of a soldier on the ground, one surrounded by men and women you could find anywhere else in the world. Cautiously the person behind the footage looked around, before turning to their right.

“We’re punching the dirt in fifteen, get tactical marines!!” A man shouted, probably an officer. A short moment before whatever they were in landed on the ground, a door to the camera’s side opening. Each one of the soldiers drew out a rifle as they emerged into what looked like the ruins of a modern city, rubble strewn on nearly every corner and fires raging in the distance. And immediately after, they came under fire. But not from gunfire, lasers and plasma. In a matter of seconds the person watched as the squad they charged out with was gunned down, men and women being killed before they could respond. Flesh was seared, limbs were shot off. The survivors scrambled into cover, hiding behind a wall of concrete and piles of rubble as the enemy continued firing at them. The person behind the camera peeked over, trying to get a good look at whoever was doing it. And the image was crisp and clear, there were the aliens. The footage showed three kinds. The first was the shortest of the three, though it was obvious that they were also tall as the average person. They wore spiked metal backpacks and masks on their faces, using clawed gauntlets and round weapons shooting green projectiles. The second was one that looked like a bird, it carried the same weapon but stood taller and carried a shield made out of light that seemed impervious to bullets. The third was a monstrously tall creature, wielding a different weapon and a sword that looked like it was made of a similar material to the shield. All three kinds focused their fire on the human soldiers in the video. “Private, get your head down before laser in and-!” The commanding officer was silenced as a volley of pink spikes impaled him in the chest, leaving him to fall dead to the ground.

“Shit, they got the Sarge!” One of the soldiers shouted, “We need to- No, wait, grenade!” A light dropped in from the distance, taking the form of a blue ball of plasma that landed at the feet of the other soldiers. Mere seconds later the ball exploded, and when the cloud of plasma disappeared there was nothing left of the men and women who’d just been there. It was a horrifying sight, one that seemed to terrify the person behind the camera just as much as everyone in the crowd that was watching. Eventually the man looked up again, this time to see the larger creature now towering over him. He raised his rifle and squeezed the trigger, and a volley of bullets went out. But none of them actually hit the creature as a shield appeared around it. The alien then slammed the rifle out of the man’s hands, then picked him up by the throat.

“Let me go!” The man begged for his life, but it did nothing to stop the alien. It drew out its sword and speared the man through the chest, letting out a ferocious roar as he stared him in the eyes. It then picked the man off his weapon, tossing him off to the side like a piece of garbage. The video stopped.

“For the sake of this remaining on public broadcasting, I will not show further footage today due to the extreme graphical nature of some of these clips. However, they will be made available to the public for the purpose of further viewing.” Midoriya understood why he’d stopped, chills were going down his spine dueto the sheer terror that the men and women in the video had faced. His mother even looked like she was about to pass out due to the violence. In fact, some of the UN delegates themselves had passed out in the chairs. “But let this stand as a wake up call, and a warning. The universe outside of earth is a large and cruel one, one that has those that would rather die in droves than allow humanity to exist in peace. I myself have seen their acts of supreme violence and cruelty firsthand.” He placed one hand on the podium, “But with that being said, I can offer you no assurances. Because of my circumstances I do not know when they will arrive, or even if they will arrive to face you at all. But the consequences of being unprepared far outweigh those of being prepared too early. I implore all of you to return to your nations and offer to the other countries of the world. Because if humanity cannot stand together against an enemy, then it will fall divided.” The assembly hall erupted into loud chatter as Aurdel looked poised to leave the podium, “I will also say that because of how I arrived to this world, I am unable to return to my own time and place. As such I will remain on this Earth, in Japan. After working out a deal with the Japanese government I will be working as a pro-Hero and a teacher in UA High School, and I will take no questions at this time. ” The man stepped away from the podium and walked away amidst a roaring crowd.

“He’s working where?!”

Making a Statement

“You were not supposed to announce where you would be working!” The man in the car shouted to him, “That was supposed to wait until you’ve already secured yourself on campus, not before.”

“Even among the supernatural and superpowered, a seven foot armored supersoldier stands out. Someone would have found out and leaked it at some point regardless, I was just cutting down on the time loss. Besides, I need the media there to make a point.”

“What kind of point?”

“You’ll see.” Aurdel rumbled down the road on its way to the UA campus. Part of that was because they wanted to ensure his safety, in case some crazy bastard tried to take a shot at him. The other reason was that a normal car wouldn’t be able to support him, as the suspension would literally crumble under the weight of his armor. As they approached he could hear the sound of reporters trying to get near the truck as it stopped in front of the campus, officers and thin barriers were really the only thing that prevented them from barging through. The door swung open and he was immediately hit by the light of flashing cameras and reporters trying to stick microphones in his visor. He gave them a minute to back down, and when they hadn’t he did what he planned to do. He walked over to one of the nearby officers and pulled his beretta out of his holster, then fired it into the air. Everything went dead silent. Then, he leveled it at the crowd of reporters. “You people are a bunch of vultures who don’t deserve your jobs, so I’ll give you this chance now to back off. Otherwise I’ll find each and every single one of your offices and put a slug through your ivory towers. And I can assure you, I won’t miss.” The reporters backed off, lowering the cameras and microphones, and he handed the officer back his handgun before walking through the campus main entrance. After entering the doors would close behind him, ensuring that no one could follow them in.

“I wish we could do that,” a blonde man said as he watched them enter. Aurdel had researched the staff of UA before he arrived, so he recognized him as the Hero Present Mic.

“Well you can’t and you won’t, because what he just did is incredibly illegal,” the man next to him said, narrowing his eyes at Aurdel. “But it’s nice to have someone else who won’t kowtow to the media.” This one was Shota Aizawa, also known as the Hero Eraser Head. Aurdel had seen him at the training camp. “I suppose it’s good to see you again, even if our first meeting was under relatively dire circumstances.” The two shook hands, and Aurdel made sure to keep his grip light. “The other staff are already in the conference room, we were in the middle of having a meeting before you arrived.”

“May I ask what it was about?”

“Well aside from discussion about you, it was mostly about the students. Recent events have left us feeling that the safety of our classes, as things currently stand, was uninsured. It was easy for them to attack our students even while they were in our care, and such events have happened in the past. We don’t want to risk them being attacked even while they’re outside of normal school jurisdiction.”

“Then I assume you’re moving them onto the campus, so they can be under constant protection by the school.”

Aizawa looked a little surprised, “That was the idea. The dorms are being built right now. It would be better for both their personal safety and their education if they remained on campus, where all the staff are certified pro-Heroes that can help them or defend them at a moment's notice.”

“It’s a sword that cuts both ways. Isolating them from their family could be a detriment to some of the students, it could also unintentionally leave their families at greater risk to attack by Villains,” he countered, “I’d also like to point out that even by doing this, it doesn’t ensure their safety. Especially if they have been attacked on campus before. In fact it could pose a greater risk, in the case of all the students being put at odds with a group of Villains even if only one was being targeted.”

“The others brought up the same points that you’re making earlier this morning, but ultimately it was decided that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks and the dorms were approved.”

“Were there any other important discussions I need to know about?”

“Hell yes there has,” Present Mic said in a voice that was loud even for Aurdel, “Between you and me, I think that we have a traitor in the school. There is no way that those Villains should have been able to find out where the students went.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Well for one, no one except for the staff was told which camp the training would take place at. Only one of us could have told the Villains where we were going.”

“You didn’t tell the students or their parents?”

“They knew that they would be going to a camp for training, but they weren’t told where it would be.”

“Then you don’t have enough grounds to cry wolf. Who drove them there?”

“I drove my class,” Aizawa said, “And Vlad took the other class. The buses are school property too so that rules out a third party from that angle.”

“Did you keep an eye out for anyone who might have been tracking or following the buses?”

“Not at the time, it didn’t come to our minds that the students might be attacked while we were there.”

“Then it’s more than possible that you don’t have a spy, just someone that could ascertain where they were being taken.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“I will. Is the fact that the camp is run by the Wild Pussy Cats public knowledge?”

“It is.”

“Then my guess is social media. It’s very likely that if the school is being targeted, then the Villains are carefully looking at their online presence. And even if they weren’t being observed directly, it’s possible that a friend, parent or other family member said it online. From there someone looked into what camps would be able to train students who attend a school to become Heroes. They find that camp, watch the buses leave from UA and follow them to confirm their location. If I was a Villain, that’s how I would have done it.” Present Mic grumbled at his rather simple explanation.

“That makes sense, but it doesn’t exactly calm my gut feeling,” he folded his arms, “Right now the only person who can’t be assigned any blame is you, considering the fact you just dropped into existence and didn’t even know what quirks were.”

“Mic, I hope you realize that by your own logic you wouldn’t be clear of any suspicions either,” Aizawa said.

“That may be true, but I still think this is a possibility to look into.” Upon reaching the main building the armed officers that were escorting him on campus disengaged, returning to the entrance where they would pack up and leave. After walking through a number of long, tall winding hallways, he was eventually led into the conference room. Inside the room all of the staff sat at the table, with them was also the detective he’d met before. He now knew him as Tsukauchi.

“Ah, welcome,” Nezu said, “We were just discussing some of the additional terms of your stay here at UA..”

“Anything that I should be concerned about?”

“Nothing really, though there is one important thing that still needs to be discussed. When you initially made the deal with the government to work at UA you didn’t specify which class you would be teaching. Did you have a specific class in mind?“

“I have a class in mind.”

“You do?”

“Yes, the class of students that I met at the camp. Class 1-A.”