City A, I-Island.

Once I had destroyed the device and returned to the hotel, it was just about time to ready myself for the reception dinner. The resolution of the situation with Toru Hagakure wasn’t ideal, and I would need to make some kind of effort to alert All Might to the fact that his secret was now known by the Public Health Safety Commission. It wouldn’t be impossible to deliver that information without invoking Toru’s involvement, though it was something that I intended to put off for the moment—I simply couldn’t keep allowing myself to be distracted, not when my time here was as limited as it was. I’d received several messages from both Eijiro and Tsuyu while I had been otherwise engaged, and I’d made an effort to assuage their concerns about my sudden illness—namely, that it had conveniently vanished right in time for the reception dinner. It wasn’t half an hour later that I responded to a knock on the door of my hotel room and then left soon after in the company of Eijiro.

“—go together as a group, but Mina told me to take a hike,” Eijiro said, his hands folded behind his head. “They’re going to meet us at the entrance with everyone else.”

“Aunt Hayami is already at the reception with both Ume and Minato,” I said, “Apparently, they were invited to an exclusive pre-dinner event at the same location.”

“Adults are so cool—man,” Eijiro said, shaking his head. “I wonder if we’ll get invited to those kinds of things once we become super famous heroes—”

I closed my eyes at the familiar words, and for a moment, I could almost remember the sound of her voice—

“Do you want to become a hero, Nanami?” I asked.

“Yes,” Nanami said, beaming. “You have to become a hero too, and then we can make a team—we’ll become super famous and save the whole world together, okay?”

—but as quickly as the memory had risen, so too did that spark of inspiration fade away until just the words remained.

“We might,” I murmured.

“Whoa—just look at the size of that building,” Eijiro said, whistling. “How many floors do you think it has?”

That was a difficult thing to estimate given the large stretch of smooth metal panelling that ran up the side of the three towers, breaking up the array of window panels and obfuscating exactly where one floor began, and another stopped. But it was easily the tallest thing across the entirety of I-Island, and there was nothing really around that could even hope to contest it. There was a grand courtyard of concrete and gardens directly surrounding the base of the tower, and it left hundreds of meters of open space before the ring of sprawling shopping complexes, densely packed apartment buildings and towering skyscrapers began. This tower acted as the centrepiece of I-Island, and not just because of its location and height.

It played host to factories, machines, gardens, experimental technology, the security system that protected the island, and a hundred other marvels spread across what must have been just as many floors. It was the nervous system and the brain of I-Island all at once, which was no doubt why they’d chosen it as the location for the grand opening of the I-Expo and the public showcasing of the greatest technological breakthroughs of the modern era. Somewhere in this very building waited Susumu Hoshi, whittling away the minutes until her scheduled panel talk.

“—they’re not here yet,” Tenya said, incensed. “Does a proper meeting time mean nothing to you people?”

We stepped through to the lobby and caught sight of the partially assembled group a dozen feet from the doorway.

“I’m so sorry,” Melissa said, laughing. “I hope we’re not late.”

“The agreed meeting time was six, and it’s ten minutes before then,” Shoto said, unbothered. “It’s really not that big of a deal.”

“You should arrive at least fifteen minutes prior to an event,” Tenya said, “That way, you can be sure that everyone is on location at the agreed-upon time.”

“You’re kind of high-strung, Glasses-knight,” Nejire said, impressed. “I almost want to leave, then come back a few minutes late.”

Tenya pressed his glasses up his nose, paused halfway through the motion, and then let out an unimpressed huff of air.

“At least Glasses-Knight is kind of a cool nickname,” Eijiro said in greeting. “I’m still kind of salty over her calling me Try-Harder.”

Nejire clapped a hand over her mouth in an effort to muffle the giggle that slipped out, the suddenness of it apparently startling her enough that she actually looked momentarily embarrassed by the noise. Tamaki, currently standing with his face a few inches away from the wall, actually glanced back over his shoulder.

“You made her break character,” Tamaki muttered. “That’s rare.”

Eijiro just sighed.

“Trying harder isn’t a bad thing, and having the capability to keep on getting back up after being unsuccessful is something that many people cannot do,” I said, speaking up. “Improvement requires focused, repeated effort, and anyone who embodies that should be celebrated.”

“That’s absolutely right,” Mirio cheered, “You should be proud of how much you improved your time.”

“Seeing you down there giving it your all made me want to do better as well,” Izuku said in support. “You were really cool today, Kirishima.”

“Super cool,” Melissa agreed.

Eijiro seemed more than flattered at all of the encouragement and a little bit lost on how to react to it all, but when he caught my eye, I made an effort to smile. As the conversation shifted, I began sending small amounts of sand through the glass doors every time a guest passed through to the hallway beyond them. The actual reception room was gated off by half a dozen doorways, so I took my time spreading my quirk out through the many different rooms, hallways and staircases—if Susumu Hoshi was already on the premises, then I wanted to make sure she didn’t slip out through a side door. The front doors opened a few minutes later, and Mawata Fuwa stepped through. The very moment Tamaki noticed her, he let out a whimper and then went so far as to angle his entire body away from the younger girl as if the motion might serve to hide him from view in a room that was entirely free of obstructions.

Tenya’s concern about timeliness seemed to be warranted in the end because by the time the entirety of the group was actually present in the lobby, it was fifteen minutes past the hours, and the reception dinner was well underway. I watched from three different places in the room as David Shields attempted to convince All Might to take the stage for an impromptu speech—hours before the scheduled one was supposed to take place—and I felt myself growing more tense as the minutes passed by. Though I’d established a presence throughout the vast majority of the first two floors, there was still no sign of Susumu Hoshi anywhere—but the thing that was really starting to unsettle me was the group of five men who’d just emerged from the elevator one room off from the reception hall.

“—sounds like they’re starting,” Momo said, a bit embarrassed. “I’m sorry we took so long, really—it’s my fault.”

“You’re all here now, and that’s what matters in the end,” Tenya said, nodding. “I do hope everyone is ready now—”

The ceiling lights flashed red, bathing the lobby in a faded red glow as the PA system within the building came to life, and I watched as the five men stepped through the doors and into the reception.

“This is an announcement from the I-Island security system. We have received a report that an explosive device was discovered somewhere on the I-Expo grounds, and I-Island will now be in high-alert mode.” The voice said, “Your safety is our top priority, so residents and tourists should return to their lodgings immediately; anyone remaining on the streets after ten minutes will be in violation of the law.”

“A bomb threat?” Shoto murmured.

“Please clear out all public areas; as a precautionary measure, most of the main island buildings will now be sealed off,” The voice said, “I repeat, we have received a report that an explosive device was discovered on the—”

The group of armed men were now inside the reception proper and in the process of taking control of the room. One of the men strode ahead of the others, a handgun dangling from his hand and a twisted sheet of metal serving as a face mask.

“In case you haven’t caught on, the security system is under our control now—I know we’ve got a lot of heroes in here, but if you decide to make a scene, I’ll make sure that the security sentries think the good people they’ve got in their sights are dangerous criminals,” The man said, indicating the footage now playing upon the monitor that dominated the wall. “So, I’d play nice because everyone on this island is now my hostage; naturally, that includes all of you—do it.”

Holes opened up all across the reception floor, and a brilliant blue light emerged, striking out to capture each and every hero standing inside the room—All Might wasn’t spared, the glowing mess erupting beneath him and leaving him upright and bound in the middle of the stage. The very moment All Might moved to destroy the restraints, the man in the mask fired a single shot up into the ceiling—

“Don’t move,” The man said, “If you take so much as a step, you’ll be killing everyone in this room and on the island.”

“Villain,” All Might said.

The man kicked him in the back of the leg, and bound as he was, All Might toppled to the floor, tangled up and unable to move while the threat of the security system still existed.

“There’s a good boy; all of you are going to follow All Might’s lead and do everything that I say,” The man said, “Stay where you are, and do nothing for now—”

—I stood still in the lobby as those around me debated the nature of the bomb threat, none of them having access to what was occurring in the reception room, and that unsettling feeling inside of me began to transform into something else entirely.

“I’m not getting any signal,” Shoto said. “The service is completely blocked.”

“The elevator isn’t working,” Nejire said, frowning. “Front doors and the hallway are both locked as well.”

“It’s strange that the system would go on high alert like this,” Melissa said, shaking her head. “This isn’t the protocol for when explosives are discovered—that would just cause a panic.”

“We should try to get inside the party,” Izuku said, pausing for just a moment. “All Might is in there.”

“That might be for the best,” Mirio said. “Melissa, do you know of a way for all of us to get there?”

“The emergency stairs are still accessible even during lockdown, so we can use them to reach the reception hall,” Melissa said in answer. “We might have some trouble with the other doors, but it will get us close—”

The rising tension that I’d been feeling was sitting in the middle of my chest now, no longer a manageable thing; instead, it was a burning mess of frustration built from all of my careful planning unravelling before my eyes. Susumu Hoshi wasn’t in the building, and while I knew that there was another speaking event that she was scheduled for in the next few days, the likelihood of that occurring now was very, very low. There was an ongoing terrorist attack occurring right now, and they’d already managed to subvert the security system that spanned the entirety of the island. The scale of the attack was unimaginable, and there was absolutely no way that the outcome of this attack—whether it was foiled or otherwise—wouldn’t result in an island-wide consequence.

The most immediate one that came to mind was the potential evacuation of every tourist, followed by a search to discover exactly who had played a hand in helping these men gain access to the island. The moment this attack had taken place, any chance I had of sneaking around and capturing Susumu Hoshi had just evaporated—I glanced down to find that my hands were shaking. Tsuyu, who had been ineffectually trying to get my attention for the past few moments, hadn’t moved with the rest of the group, and that had been enough to cause a kind of domino effect as the rest of them turned to see what was causing the delay.

“Hisoka—” Tsuyu said, trying again. “Is something wrong?”

That fire in my chest—anger, frustration, impatience, fear, disgust—shifted at the sound of her voice, and I found myself speaking up, but the words sounded so distant, almost as if I was underwater.

“A group of terrorists have just taken every single person on I-Island hostage, including the heroes and everyone else who was inside the reception hall,” I said, “They now have control over the security system, and All Might is unable to act because the threat to kill everyone is something that will occur remotely to his current location.”

“No,” Izuku managed.

“How many are there, and where are they right now?” Mirio said.

“There are five men inside the reception hall, two with rifles, three with handguns; every hero is currently restrained by one of the security measures,” I said, “Presumably, they have more allies inside the building, at the same location as the computer that controls the security system.”

“I can get into the reception hall easily enough, but if they have the entire population as a hostage, that’s not going to do anything,” Mirio said, the previously permanent smile entirely missing from his face. “We’ll need to locate that computer, defeat whoever is there, and retake control of it.”

Tamaki came to a stop beside Mirio, his crippling social anxiety somehow crushed beneath an iron will that had emerged right alongside the terrorist threat.

“Melissa, you know more about this place than any of us,” Tamaki said, “Where is the control room?”

“It’s—it’s on the two-hundredth floor—the very top of the building,” Melissa managed, “But these terrorists—they—my Papa is in the reception hall.”

“My parents are also inside,” Momo said, sounding torn. “As is Hisoka’s aunt.”

That fire in my chest surged up in response to the words as I realised that I hadn’t even given her a single moment of consideration, and I clenched my hand shut with all of my strength in a failing attempt to keep it from shaking.

“This is probably grounds for breaking through a few doors, but if the security system is on high alert, then going outside is a bad idea,” Nejire said, eyeing the front door. “We’ll take the stairwell as high as we can, then if we run into any dead ends, we’ll have to make some new doors.”

“They haven’t tried to restrain us yet, so they either don’t know we have training, they don’t consider us threats, or they don’t know we’re here,” Mawata said, “If we start blowing up walls, then they’ll start taking action against us.”

“We can take down a few guys with guns, no problem,” Eijiro said. “Anyone they send to stop us—”

“None of you have your Provisional Licenses yet,” Nejire said, shaking her head. “You’re not doing anything here.”

“It’s too reckless to allow you anywhere near them,” Tamaki said, “Now that we have more information—all of you should stay right here.”

“As much as it bothers me to be sidelined like this, they are right,” Tenya said, speaking up. “Todoroki, Midoriya—you two should understand that after what happened during our internships.”

“But—” Izuku managed. “I want to save them.”

“Which is exactly what will go on to make all of you such great heroes,” Nejire said, “But letting any of you near any form of combat isn’t something we’re going to allow.”

“Midoriya, it’s probably best that we don’t do anything without getting permission first,” Tsuyu said with a croak. “Maybe we could try to get a message to All Might somehow—”

“There isn’t time for this,” I said, voice barely audible. “I’m leaving.”

“Higawara—” Tenya started.

Mirio’s hand snapped out so quickly that I barely caught the motion at all, but it was far too late as the collar of my abandoned suit fell slack in his iron grip. I rose up out of the staircase on the fourth floor, unclothed and already moving upwards. None of the villains in the reception hall reacted to my ascent, but the group of students I’d left behind did.

“The circumstances are dire enough that we may need their help in spite of their lack of authorisation—listen, this is what we’re going to do,” Mirio said, reaching up to begin loosening his own tie. “All of us will move as a group to the top floor, but in the event we encounter any resistance, Nejire, Tamaki, Mawata, and I will be the ones to deal with it.”

Tsuyu reached forward and took my discarded suit from his hands as he spoke, and he flashed her a momentary smile as she took possession of it.

“Mirio—” Tamaki said, “There’s no point in arguing, I suppose; you’ve already made up your mind.”

“The three of us are in charge, so if we tell you to do anything, you better hop to it right away,” Mirio said, rolling his shoulders for a moment. “We’ll be moving fast, so do your best to keep up—”

I tore my attention away from them and back onto the process of trying to find a gap in the main elevator large enough to actually get my sand inside the shaft, but the doors in front of it were sealed so perfectly shut that I wasn’t sure air could even pass through. I shifted my attention again as the villain strode through the centre of the reception hall as he finished listening to something on his earpiece—

“Don’t worry; if you stay quiet, there’s no reason to hurt anyone; we plan to release you safely when the time is right,” The man said before pausing. “Hey, tubby—are you a researcher here?”

Samuel Abraham—the same man who had almost caught Toru in David Shield’s building—appeared to wilt as all of the nearby hostages turned to look at the man.

“Yes,” Samuel managed, “I am.”

“Take this one up,” The man said.

“No—please,” Samuel said, holding his hands up in front of him. “Don’t—”

David Shields rose to his feet from just behind the villain, and though two of the men swung their guns around to point at him, the man didn’t falter—the entire scene felt wrong, though the mess of emotions I was fighting through didn’t allow me the presence of mind to figure out exactly what that was.

“Stop it; that man is my assistant,” David said, apparently without fear. “What do you plan on doing with him?”

“Ah, the famous David Shields,” The man said with interest. “Bring him too.”

“What if I refuse?” David asked.

“Then somewhere on this island,” The man said, “You’ll hear a pretty little blonde girl scream.”

“Wolfram,” The short man said, “You want us to send two more down to replace us?”

“Do it,” Wolfram said.

David took a half step backwards at the words, his confidence eroding beneath the specificity of the threat, and I used the moment to seed a series of sand grains between the man’s shoelaces. The short man with the long gun grabbed hold of David’s arm and yanked the man forward before speaking up—my rise through the emergency staircase found its first dead end on the eightieth floor with a horizontally sealed door cutting off any further progression. I began seeding sand through the hallway, searching for additional pathways that would allow me to bypass it—but when the villains began dragging Samuel and David into the main elevator, I found that I no longer needed to bother with it.

I felt the rising of the sand I’d marked the man’s shoes with begin its long ascent to the top of the tower and then switched my attention entirely to it, abandoning my entire network on the lower floors to deal with the rapidly growing distance. I split the grains of sand, shifting them slowly outwards until I had some positioned in every corner of the box, then settled in to wait, the lack of mass leaving me without any form of sensory input other than the small sense of motion that accompanied the moving of the elevator. The moment I felt the elevator come to a stop, I began expanding the sand pressed against the ceiling of the elevator—my senses snapped back into existence as I watched the five men step out of the now-open door. With the door open, my sand finally managed to find a gap in the floor large enough to get into the elevator shaft itself—

“Threatening my daughter was too much,” David said, sounding bothered. “I don’t believe that was part of the script.”

“Yeah, well, maybe try a little bit harder to look scared next time,” The short man said, “I had a gun pointed at your chest, and you didn’t even flinch—blondie here looked like he was going to piss himself.”

Samuel shook his head, visibly offended by the depiction of his reaction.

“There won’t be any need for a next time,” David said, “Once we’ve retrieved my device, all of this will be over and done with.”

The furious mess colouring my perception continued to grow, and I found myself focusing all of my attention on the back of the man’s head. Between ‘part of the script’ and the additional context of ‘once we’ve retrieved my device’, it was clear that he wasn’t just involved in this attack; he was actually in a position of leadership. David Shields, the man who’d worked alongside All Might at the start of his rising career, was now responsible for organising a terrorist attack on the island that he called home—and in doing so, he’d ruined any attempt of Susumu Hoshi making an appearance here tonight.

The ripples that would come from an attack like this weren’t something easily mapped out, but one thing was now certain—he’d just placed himself directly in the path of my attempt to find Nanami. I began sending sand outwards, individual grains surging forward above their heads and spreading out down the entirety of the hallway. It branched out whenever a new door or hallway appeared as my network rapidly restored itself—the short man pressed his finger to his ear for a moment and then came to a stop in the middle of the hallway.

“You two go on ahead,” The man grumbled before jabbing his thumb at the tall, thin man who had accompanied them. “We’ve got trouble coming up the emergency staircase, and it’s almost at the plant factory, so we’re going to go squash it out before they can get any higher.”

“Fine by me,” The tall man said, shrugging. “This was going too smoothly anyway—I was starting to think we wouldn’t get to do anything.”

“What type of trouble?” David said, frowning.

“It’s not your problem,” The short guy said, “Get going already.”

“He’s right, professor; we should do what we came to do,” Samuel said, hurrying the man along. “Let them deal with it.”

The two groups split up, with David Shields and Samuel Abraham heading further into the two-hundredth floor while the two villains returned to the elevator. One of the men reached out and pressed the button for the eightieth floor, and then the doors began to seal themselves shut—they made it two floors down before sand erupted inside of the elevator, filling all of the available space in an instant. The sand directly around the tall man’s hands suddenly vanished, reappearing in the hallway outside the elevator as it continued its descent—the man’s quirk was some form of matter displacement, but there was a clear limit to the size he could manage, and it didn’t do anything to remove the sand surrounding the rest of his body.

The shorter man’s body began to grow larger as he activated his quirk, his now hard skin fighting to press the crushing grip of my sand outwards into the walls of the small space. But he was fighting an uphill battle against the strength of my quirk and the hyper-durable metal of the elevator—I began building a tighter noose of sand against the side of their necks, and within moments, their frantic attempts to escape began to grow sluggish. Deep within the maze of corridors and unaware of his ally's rapidly fading consciousness, a villain with pink hair scoffed as David Shields and Samuel Abraham stepped into the room.

“Stop standing around here and go open the vault,” The pink-haired man said, “You’re wasting time.”

“Right,” David said, “I’ll do that.”

The two men stepped through to a massive, circular room that took up the entire north side of the tower, and I turned my attention towards securing control over the security system. The man with the pink hair stepped out into the hallway with his finger pressed against his ear, leaving just one man in the room, and I kept track of him as he spoke—eliminating him now would alert whoever was on the other end of the call, so I turned my attention back towards the control room. The man with the white hair and the metal device strapped to his left eye was still seated at the computer, and I watched as he navigated what must have been a custom-designed user interface. There was a wireframe model of the entire tower on the screen, and I watched as he typed in the words ‘Reception Hall’ in the search space at the top—a series of video feeds appeared on the wall directly above the computer depicting the reception hall in a dozen different angles.

“Why doesn’t this thing have voice controls,” The white-haired man muttered, shaking his head. “Wasting my damn time.”

The man returned to the search bar, then typed in ‘Plant Factory’, and the camera feeds shifted again, showcasing a massive room filled with greenery—I could see Mirio, Nejire and Tamaki standing right out in the open, as the rest of the group started to move away, and I recognised it as a reaction to the main elevator counting down the floors directly ahead of them.

“Nowhere to run, kiddos,” The white-haired man said, “Game over.”

The elevator opened, the third years tensed up in preparation for combat—and then my sand began to spill out onto the ground of the eightieth floor, carrying the unconscious bodies of the two villains along with it.

“What the hell?” The white-haired man managed. “Wolfram—”

The man’s head snapped upwards as my sand fell upon him, washing him down and away from the computer—I lacked the experience needed to deal with whatever they’d actually done to the security system to make it register every single hero on the island as a villain, so I left it alone. The pink-haired man was already responding to the news of my presence, but I smashed him back against the opposite wall the moment he tried to enter the room, the blades that had taken the place of his forearms entirely useless against the tide. The entirety of the U.A. Contingent was already inside the main elevator, having used the stolen security card that the villains had been carrying with them to begin their ascent—which only left one last thing to deal with.

“—I’ve unlocked it,” David said, breathing out in relief. “Block eleven-forty-seven.”

“Wonderful,” Samuel said.

The rotund man rushed up the stairs without delay, hand sliding across the wall until he found the correct panel—the wall opened up, revealing a metal briefcase lying flat on its side. Samuel took hold of it, then dragged it free, fighting with the weight as he attempted to unlatch it.

“You did it, professor,” Samuel said, “Look, everything is here—it’s perfect.”

Sand began to accumulate on the ceiling, the scattered grains slowly expanding outwards as the man celebrated everything they’d done tonight.

“Finally, I’ve gotten it back.” David managed, fists clenched at his sides. “All of my research, and they just took my device away—but now it’s mine.”

“Just like we planned,” Samuel said, “It looks like the villains are holding things down as well.”

“Thank you,” David said as he ascended the stairs to meet him. “I couldn’t have done any of this without your help, Sam.”

My sand began to creep downwards, threading its way through the gridlock of space between each and every locker that made up the walls of the vault, and the mass covering the ceiling began to sag as a dozen tendrils reached downwards.

“The vault was refrigerated, but considering just how long it was in there, the serum must be approaching a loss of viability,” Samuel said, “I imagine we’ll be needing a fresh sample within the week.”

“Yes, you’re probably right; using it like this—it would be better to make sure it has the highest probability of success,” David said, reaching out to take the case from him. “I’ll contact Hoshi as soon as the actors have finished playing their part.”

The sand stilled less than a dozen meters above their heads, and the sound of the name coming from his mouth sent a sharp spike of something hateful throughout my body.

“That’s—professor,” Samuel said, with some amount of trepidation. “Surely you’ve realised by now.”

“What do you mean by that?” David asked.

“They were never actors, professor,” Samuel said. “An actor couldn’t have done half of the things these men have done in order to accomplish what we have tonight—”

“Sam,” David managed, “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that we hired villains, professor, real ones,” Samuel said, clutching the front of his own dress shirt. “That was the only way we could have ever stolen back our work—”

“Papa?” Melissa said.

The two men spun to face the sound of her voice, and I experienced a moment of dissonance as I realised just how much I’d lost track of my surroundings—more and more of the U.A. Contingent were arriving by the second now, stepping into the room one after another.

“Melissa?” David breathed. “You can’t be here—it’s too dangerous.”

“Is what he said true—” Melissa said, voice shaking. “You did all of this just to steal something?”

“The professor was only trying to get back what was stolen from him,” Samuel pleaded, holding his hands out as if to make them understand. “The invention that’s inside of the briefcase is going to change the world—you don’t—you don’t understand—it can permanently amplify someone’s quirk.”

There was another sharp spike, and my control over my quirk began to deteriorate, large clumps of sand falling down from the ceiling to scatter across the floor and drawing the gaze of most of my classmates in the process.

“Amplify a quirk—” Izuku said, “Is that even possible?”

“Yes, it’s still being tested, of course, but unlike with drugs, the unique base we used for this device can magnify a person’s quirk without doing any damage to their body or brain—and with the professor’s genius design, the effect can now be made permanent,” Samuel said, eyes clenched shut in something approaching rapture. “Yet, despite that, our sponsors decided to confiscate this prototype and our research data, and then they demanded that our project be abandoned.”

Eijiro was staring up at all of the sand now, eyes wide as he took in the titanic mass hanging above them all.

“They worried that something like this would drastically affect the structure of superhuman society,” Samuel said, “Fearing chaos, governments from different nations put pressure on your father to end it—that’s why we did this.”

Samuel drew in a shaky breath at his own retelling, then pressed his hand tighter to his chest, but for all of the man’s weakness, his words were reverberating in my mind like thunderclaps—a unique base that could magnify a person's quirk, without doing any damage to their body or brain.

“So you’re admitting to organising all of this,” Tenya said, sounding horrified. “You’re holding every single person on I-Island as a hostage—”

“No, this doesn’t make any sense,” Melissa managed. “You wouldn’t do this—I—I know my Papa wouldn’t act like a villain—no matter what—so why then—why—”

“I had to, for All Might’s sake,” David murmured, “None of you are aware of this, but his quirk is disappearing; however, if he uses this device, he’ll be his old self again—no, his abilities will be even stronger than they ever were.”

David seemed to come alive as he spoke, and in turn, Izuku seemed to shrink in on himself, shoulders hunching in against his frame even as his head bowed. The man took a single step down towards us, and his free arm came up in a gesture that seemed to encompass the entirety of the room.

“The number one hero—the symbol of peace—can get his strength and light back again,” David breathed, “He can keep saving people, just like he always has—I am going to fix his fading power.”

A terrible pressure began to build in my head as the world narrowed down to a singular point, and I couldn’t seem to take my eyes off the case dangling from the man’s hand.

“Please, please just let me hand this device over to All Might—there’s no time to remake it,” David said, “I don’t care what kind of punishment I receive so long as you allow me to help him—”

I rose up from the mass that had impacted the floor directly in front of him, and the return of my human form brought with it the same involuntary shaking that I’d been unable to gain control over.

“The unique base you used is a quirk byproduct,” I said, voice quiet. “It’s blood.”

There was a sharp silence in the wake of my words, and David looked genuinely stunned.

“How could you possibly know that?” David said, “There are only three people in the entire world who have access to that information, and two of them are in this very room—we even kept it from our sponsors.”

“Susumu Hoshi is the third person,” I said as the sound of blood began to rush through my ears. “She is the one who provided you with it.”

“How do you—Sam?” David asked, turning to look up at the man. “Did you—”

“I haven’t told anyone,” Samuel said.

“You’re using blood?” Melissa managed.

“It’s hardly as unsightly as it might seem, I promise you; the blood was donated monthly by a philanthropic quirk user who wishes to remain anonymous,” David said, sounding unsettled by his daughter's reaction. “Susumu Hoshi is the person who acts as a link between us and the donor, but how does he know—”

I was more certain than ever before that Nanami was somewhere on this island. If the blood was being donated monthly, then either Susumu Hoshi had been keeping it stored here, or she was taking it fresh from the source. If these two were working with her, then they most likely knew where she was or at least how to contact her. Now that we’d taken the control room back from the villains, it was only a matter of time before the island would be swarming with police and pro-heroes, and then I’d never get another chance like this. I was very quickly running out of time; and so I needed to force either one—or both of them—to take me to Susumu Hoshi.

“Papa, these students all risked their lives to get here,” Melissa said, “Do you know how much danger you’ve put us in—or how hard we were trying to save everyone on the island?”

“I didn’t know they were real, but even so,” David said, breathing out. “I won’t deny it—the actions I’ve taken tonight are unforgivable.”

The doors on the far north side of the building shattered inwards, and my sand shifted beneath the sudden wind that tore through the distant hallway. Despite the fact that the sound had come from half a dozen hallways off from the vault, half of the people in the room perked up at the sound of it. Wolfram strode inside without slowing down, his hand held up in front of him, and the walls tore themselves apart at his touch, leaving him a straight path forward to our position.

“There you all are,” Wolfram said as he reached the vault. “You did well, Sam—but it’s time to hand it over.”

Mirio fell through the floor, his dress shirt and trousers slumping to the ground as he passed out of sight—and then metal erupted from beneath Wolfram’s feet, striking out in every direction. Izuku burst forward, catching Melissa and dragging her out of the way of a steel girder wider than he was tall. Eijiro checked another of the attacks with his quirk active and was sent skidding back across the floor with a grunt of furious effort—one of the metal bars smashed through my body, scattering sand all across the room as I fell apart just as it hit.

David threw his hands up to protect his face as another mass of metal crashed into the wall directly beside him, then tore straight through the wall and out into the open air beyond the building. The weight of the case in his hand dragged the man off balance when the wind caught it, and he barely managed to catch himself before he fell out of the hole. The furious wind rushed into the room, and I caught sight of my discarded clothing—carried all the way to the top of the tower by Tsuyu’s good nature—vanishing out into the night.

“I guess we’re fighting the villains after all,” Shoto said.

“Melissa, we need you to reset the security system,” Momo said, raising her voice to be heard. “Mina—the door is blocked.”

“I’m on it,” Mina said.

“I’ll cover your retreat,” Shoto said.

Mirio emerged from the floor directly behind the villain, hand already striking forward, but he was forced to engage his quirk as metal erupted outwards in a second wave of attacks—the naked boy passed through entirely unharmed but was forced back as the floor began to buckle beneath him.

“Midoriya, Tsuyu, Class Pres—we’re going to back him up,” Eijiro said, breaking free of the debris pinning him to the wall. “We need to push him back out of the vault and make sure he doesn’t get anywhere near the control room again.”

Tenya’s leg engines burst to life, and he caught up to Eijiro in the space of three strides before passing him by completely—a wall burst out of the ground ahead of him, and he was forced to hit the brakes, falling into a sheer slide that further ruined the legs of his trousers and left a trail of sparks in his wake. Tsuyu landed flat on the very same wall and then twisted up into a gravity-defying roll that took her right up the face of it; she was only there long enough for her feet to touch down before she hopped clear across the room in a blur of motion. Midoriya skirted around the attack with his blistering speed, arcs of green electricity crackling around his body as he ran along the face of the lockers—Eijiro just broke straight through the middle, arms raised in front of him as he crashed through everything in his path.

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Mina’s acid managed to melt through the mass of metal blocking the door to the vault, and the three girls slipped out of the room amidst the fighting. Shoto immediately sealed it back off with a wall of ice in a clear attempt to keep Wolfram from going after them. Nejire, Tamaki and Mawata moved to join the fight, but there was so much metal reshaping the room that they seemed to be struggling to find a path forward. A tiny loop of sand, lost amongst the chaos overtaking the vault, lashed itself around David’s neck before dragging the man backwards out of the hole in the tower wall, leaving him to hurtle downwards into the dark of the night—and then I fell apart.

#

City A, I-Island.

I crashed straight into my still-falling trousers, and my body snapped back into existence within them. My momentum continued to carry me forward and down at a sharp angle, and the speed of my descent only increased as gravity sunk its hooks into my skin.

“What are you doing?” David cried out. “My daughter is in there—you need to take me back.”

If not for the fact that there was so much sand in the air and that the man had been mostly swallowed by it, I doubted I would have been able to hear the words—I managed to snatch hold of my dress shirt, but it was whipping around so violently that I couldn’t even begin to pull it on. The tie that had kept my hair neatly held at my back was irrecoverable, too invisible in the darkness to ever hope to find. Without it, my hair was left to stream behind me as we fell from the two-hundredth floor of the tallest building on the island. The streets far below were dotted with a pattern of red lights as thousands of the co-opted security robots flooded the streets. We were too far away for a free-fall to carry us to the closest ring of buildings that surrounded the tower, but that was a problem that was easily solved by partially deforming my body again.

I forced the angle to shift through the power of my quirk, and the wind continued to grow worse as I made a concentrated effort to increase our speed. David gave a cry of terror as the grey mass of concrete below us grew large in the darkness—and then we slammed down onto the rooftop in a shower of sand. I rose to my feet, the liberated briefcase now dangling from my hand and my wrinkled, windswept dress shirt in the other.

“Eight years ago, a ten-year-old girl and her parents were taken from their home in Musutafu,” I said as sand began to drag the shirt onto my body. “Hiroshi and Kana Kureta were found off the coast of Shimoda, restrained, drowned, and deceased, but their daughter was never found.”

“Why are you telling me this?” David managed.

Ice burst upwards from the roof of the tower, followed by a trio of metal posts as thick around as shipping containers. An arc of green electricity traced a pattern across the top of one of them as it raced towards the top, followed by a spark of blue fire that could only be Tenya’s leg engines kicking into high gear—I kept my eyes locked on the man’s face as he turned a horrified gaze up at the destruction occurring above us.

“Their daughter was placed on a cargo ship that was destined for this island by an organised quirk trafficking ring,” I said, as he turned his head back far enough to look at me. “They did this with the help of a scientist who opened a hole in the security from the inside—a woman called Susumu Hoshi.”

“But she—” David said, without comprehension. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

I unlatched the briefcase, and the lid of it fell to hang beneath it, the contents exposed to the air and in danger of slipping free if not for the deep cushion of foam that lined the interior—David gave a spirited attempt to lean forward, perhaps to get his hand beneath it, in case something fell, but he couldn’t stretch his hand out far enough to manage it.

“Then I’ll make it very clear for you,” I said, “Nanami Kureta had an amplification quirk, one that worked on direct contact with another person, and the source of that effect was her blood.”

I caught the moment that everything slipped into place in the man’s mind. It would have been impossible for anyone to have missed when he’d actually physically recoiled. There was a flash of something inside my chest that I couldn’t recognise but that I thought might have meant I’d made some kind of mistake here—the man hadn’t known the information I’d just told him, and he seemed viscerally discomforted by the knowledge of where his ‘unique base’ had really come from. There hadn’t been enough time to run my decision to abduct him through any kind of moral filter or give it any real serious consideration—but I’d already come too far to turn back.

“I believe that Nanami is still on this island, and now you’re going to help me find her,” I said, breathing out the rising doubt. “Tell me where Susumu Hoshi is, and I will return this to you unharmed.”

“I warned her not to come to the reception dinner,” David managed, “I didn’t want her to get caught up in all of this, not after she’d helped us—she spends almost all of her time at her lab—I—I can only imagine that she’s there.”

I snapped the briefcase shut, the threat no longer needed, and then lifted us up off the rooftop on a platform of sand. David fell to his knees beside me, no longer restrained, and he dragged the briefcase up into his arms as I dropped it in front of him.

“I do not know where that is,” I said without turning to look at him. “You will direct me.”

“It’s on the west side of this city plate,” David said, sounding torn. “Listen, you arrived with my daughter and All Might’s student—but who are you?”

I hadn’t arrived with them, but it was a distinction that didn’t matter right now. There was more than enough information for him to identify me to anyone who might have asked—the police, for instance, when they questioned the man about the night's events—and so there was no real point in keeping my identity concealed from him.

“My name is Hisoka Higawara,” I said, “I am a first-year student at U.A. High School in the same class as Izuku Midoriya.”

Either the sudden lack of threatening behaviour or just the success of his question seemed to spur the man to further enquiry, and soon after, he spoke up again.

“Your story—the abduction—how do you know that she’s involved in all of this?” David asked. “Susumu Hoshi is a strange woman, but I’ve never once thought she would be capable of something like that.”

My own future was now in a very tenuous balance, just as I had predicted it would after I’d first decided to interrogate Susumu Hoshi. My own illicit actions would be dragged into the light after everything was over, and the only real chance I had of avoiding that was to bring this man entirely over to my side. While he had organised a villain attack on I-Island to steal back his confiscated technology, he’d done it to save All Might from losing his powers. The fact that he’d been under the impression that they had been actors wouldn’t serve as any kind of legal defence for the man in the aftermath, I was certain, but in conjunction with his goal, it was enough to determine that he had some level of morality remaining—or, at the very least, that David Shields was willing to take a morally reprehensible action in pursuit of a greater good.

“Susumu Hoshi, Kaito Habiki, Katsumi Fueki, Akamai Hiro, and Daruma Ujiko are those I’ve identified as members of the trafficking ring that abducted the family I spoke about,” I said, “I have evidence that they were watching the Kureta’s several days before the abduction took place, and I have more that places Kaito Habiki as present and using his quirk at the Shimoda docks at the exact time the victims were speculated to have passed through the area.”

“Katsumi Fueki is the name of her assistant,” David said, steadying himself in preparation to stand up on the platform. “The other names are ones I’ve never heard before.”

Sand rose up on the edge of the platform, twisting in on itself until an androgynous figure stood in front of us, her highly developed musculature as visible as I could make it in the low light.

“That’s her assistant,” David said. “We’re almost there, but it’s on the street level—the security system is going to take action.”

The confirmation only strengthened their connection to both the other members of the trafficking ring and the crime itself. Just as he had said, dozens of red dots shifted in response to our descent as the robots flooding the street reacted to the breach of curfew. We touched down in front of the building’s main entrance, but the massive iron shutter that had been brought down in response to the lockdown stood before us, barring the way inside. The platform shifted out from beneath us, rising up on either side and then I recycled it into a rain of sand pellets that struck the advancing robots. The sand splashed off without doing any significant damage before it transformed into a cage of thick bars that ran the width of the street and prevented them from reaching our position.

“This is it, but—” David said, looking hesitant again. “Hisoka, what exactly do you intend on doing here?”

“I’m going to find Nanami,” I said.

I stepped forward to place my hand flat against the iron shutter, and sand began to spread on contact, pressing against the surface hard enough for the metal to creak in response. It crawled outwards, searching for cracks, gaps and empty space, rising up over the walls towards the rooftop. A fractional gap between the shutter door and the frame holding it in place was the first point of entry I found, followed by a series of small vents on the rooftop. I packed sand into the gap at the top of the door and then began to expand it outwards. A bolt at the very top snapped, and then the door began to bend inwards with the sound of tortured metal as I built a series of thick pillars between it and the wall. The entire shutter ripped free of the frame, and the far less durable wall behind it broke beneath the force of my quirk. I stepped through the hole in the front of the building—and then something hit me in the chest hard enough that what felt like every bone in my torso shattered.

“Hisoka—” David managed.

I smashed back first into the shutter that barred entry to the building on the opposite side of the street as a very familiar person stepped out onto the sidewalk. Through the pain wracking my body, I noted that she possessed the same two-toned hair and androgynous facial structure as the teenager I’d seen the night of Nanami’s tenth birthday party—I fell apart, then rose up out of the ruined mess of my clothing, once again leaving it all behind as I strode forward towards the person who could only be Katsumi Fueki.

“He got back up,” Katsumi said, finger pressed to her ear. “Do I kill him again?”

The sand that was now behind her and inside the lobby struck outwards towards her back, rising up out of the floor in a series of four spikes, each one aimed at a different limb—I watched from a dozen different points of perspective around the street and inside the lobby as she blurred in place, and what I thought might have been her leg sheered through the base of each spike. There was so much speed behind the kick that my sand was sent scattering away, unable to cling to her as the wind-force whipped outwards from the motion. The woman burst forward at a speed I wouldn’t have been able to follow with my natural eyesight, and it was only because I was not yet completely reformed that she didn’t kill me outright. My head erupted around the shape of her fist as it passed straight through without slowing down. Though my body erupted into spikes the second I recognised her presence, they hit nothing but air as her momentum had already carried her straight through my body and out the other side.

She was obscenely fast and durable enough to strike at that level without destroying her own limbs in the process. Unable to reliably track her, I was forced to reconsider my strategy. A humanoid mass rose up out of the ground directly behind her, its hand already outstretched, and a torrent of sand crashed forward with all of the force I could muster. It shattered the entire front of the building, but the target of my attack wasn’t even there anymore—I caught the moment that Katsumi smashed into the wall directly behind the false-me, feet first against the already destroyed shutter. The false-me exploded before I could even consider shifting its form into something more dangerous, and she reappeared on the ground, sliding across the road on a trajectory that meant she had once again broken straight through the middle of it. Her face was twisted in a rising fury, the expression entirely inappropriate given how little I had managed to do to actually stop her.

“I hit him in the head twice already,” Katsumi said in frustration. “It didn’t work.”

Unlike Sajin, my full body transformation didn’t leave my legs or any other convenient parts of my body behind to target. Destroying my head while I was in my human form—and thereby eliminating my active consciousness—would most likely prevent me from being able to manually reform my body, and as far as I’d discerned, it was the most successful method someone could use to kill me permanently. The fact that she—or perhaps the person she was currently speaking to—had somehow figured that out within seconds of discovering that I even existed bothered me a great deal.

“Don’t tell me to calm down.” Katsumi snarled. “You’re just telling me to do the exact same thing—”

It was clear to me now that there was something wrong with the person in front of me, and when I recreated the facsimile of my body, her fury only seemed to grow at the sight of it. Considering that she was being coached on how to most effectively exploit my weakness and that I couldn’t actually track her, there would be no benefit found in retaking my human form in this engagement. My sand began to spread outwards from multiple points around the area, both inside the building and out on the street, as I sought to remove the areas in which she could safely stand—the very moment it got anywhere near her position, she vanished.

The sand was sent scattering away from the speed of her movement, and I began constructing long, thin cords between the buildings in an attempt to hinder the pathways she could move. She passed straight through three of them without even slowing down, and the trail of destruction started to curve around—sand erupted around David as I violently expanded as much of it as I could manage, and Katsumi veered off a moment before impact, apparently unwilling to brute force her way through such a thick shield to get to the man. It had been the natural next step for her to take, given that she couldn’t target me directly, but I almost hadn’t managed to intercept it.

The woman tore something small and black out of her ear with a genuinely unhinged cry of frustration and then stomped down on the road. The street shattered beneath the force of it, and then a massive chunk of concrete skated across the surface of the road, washing away my sand with its passing before it crashed through my newest false body. Gone was the vanishing speed she’d possessed only moments ago, and in exchange was a level of strength I’d seen from a rare few people, and I was certain that if she had targeted the wall surrounding David, it would have been entirely insufficient to protect him.

A second mass of concrete followed the first, gouging a trench across the face of a dozen buildings as she targeted the body reforming on the side of the wall—even if she hadn’t already removed the earpieces, it was clear that she was no longer following the directions of whoever had been speaking to her; instead, she’d devolved from fury and frustration into complete irrationality. My sand rushed forward to meet the next projectile, scattering away from the impact but managing to ground it for long enough that the friction with the road prevented it from spreading David Shields all over the surrounding buildings. A new body rose up behind her, and the second she spotted it, the woman went after it with a sort of feral ferocity that went entirely beyond my understanding.

“How is she doing this?” David managed as I dragged him further away from the rampaging villain. “She isn’t even supposed to have a quirk.”

I partially emerged from the sand coating the ground, well beneath the eye level of the woman, and with only enough form to regain access to my voice.

“I assumed she lied about that part,” I said, “David, I have searched all four floors of the building, and there is no sign of Susumu Hoshi.”

“All of these buildings have basements and sub-levels, but you can only get to them from the first-floor elevator by using a key,” David said, “If she’s not on any of the floors above ground, then I would imagine she has to be down there somewhere.”

There hadn’t been any buttons within the elevator to indicate sub-levels or a basement, but there had been an unmarked keyhole. I bypassed the need for a key by sending my sand straight down through the gaps in the floor and into the elevator shaft—sand erupted ahead of us as the shutter door Katsumi had just ripped off a building was sent spinning up the street. It spun like a buzz saw, and a trail of sparks followed in its wake as it scoured a line through the coating of sand to grind against the surface of the road. The impact was enough to send it three meters deep into the six-meter-thick cube of sand I’d erected in front of us.

The mechanics of her quirk escaped me, but it was clear that there existed some kind of impractical division between her ability to generate speed and strength—either she had traded one for the other, or she lacked the ability to use both at the same time. I also couldn’t discern if the loss of rationality was a result of her quirk usage or if it was something she was dealing with irrespective of the involvement of quirks, but I was starting to think that she wasn’t really even targeting me anymore, rather, she was just lashing out at anything that moved in her general vicinity—a flash of yellow high up in the air caught my attention, and then All Might crashed down onto the road directly beside us.

“I am here to save you, old friend,” All Might said as he came to stand upright in the middle of the street. “Young Higawara, you’ve—where did he go?”

I retreated from the street at the sight of the man, the sand coating the road evaporating as I rose up out of the crushing mass that was shifting throughout the seventh sub-floor of the building. The six floors above me were entirely filled with my quirk, but I’d already determined that there was not a single living being within any of it. Sand poured down the emergency staircase in search of the final level, and I strode down in pursuit of it, not quite willing to reform entirely. My sand hit a solid metal pair of locked doors and then shattered them inwards to reveal a massive room that seemed to take up the entirety of the eighth sub-floor.

I split the tide into two parts, sending them outwards to follow the wall on both sides of the room. The waves crashed around in search of obstructions and buried everything that attempted to impede its progression. In the centre, taking up what might have been two hundred square meters, was a large room made of steel supports and thick, one-way glass panels—it looked like nothing more than a compact living space with no real regard for individual rooms. There was an entirely transparent shower stall against one corner, and sitting beside it was a toilet. On the other side of the room was a treadmill and a small benchtop. A large medical bed sat against the wall in between them both, along with a wall-mounted desk that had a large flat-panel monitor sitting on it. The last remaining wall contained the only break in the uniformity of the structure, with a tall rectangular box adorned with a set of doors that seemed to act as some kind of airlock to grant access to the interior.

My sand completed its lap of the outer room, roiling and shifting as it swept inwards to trace the outskirts of the glass cage, and I finally allowed myself to turn my attention towards the two occupants that were inside. They seemed entirely unaware of my presence outside of it, nor could they perceive the rising tide of sand that was beginning to crawl up the pristine panels of glass. Susumu Hoshi sat on the very edge of the bed looking exactly as my research had depicted her: a brilliant mess of bright pink hair and her mouth stretched wide in a permanent, forced and inappropriate ear-to-ear grin.

The other woman on the bed looked nothing like the short, round-faced ten-year-old girl I’d once known her as, but the shape of her face set something uncoiling within me. For a very brief moment, I could almost imagine that Kana Kureta had been the one they’d kept alive, though the impression couldn’t stand against reality, not when I’d seen both the crime scene photos and the ones from her autopsy—there was something wrong with the shape of the bedsheet draped across Nanami’s arm, and it wasn’t until she moved that I realised exactly what it was. Susumu was close enough that she had the potential to inflict a nontrivial amount of harm before I could interfere, and her teeth were a natural weapon that I had no way of removing quickly.

The most efficient way to disarm her would be to demoralise her enough that she simply gave up without a fight, and the most effective way to accomplish that would be by invoking a sense of fear. The glass panelling cracked in a dozen places as shapes began to emerge within the mass of formless sand, and the fingers of a massive hand grew down through the upper right corner of the cage. A monstrous face soon joined it, one gargantuan eye peering through the growing gap in the structure as I peeled the entire wall off the cage. Sand began to leak into the room on all sides, spilling across the floor and rising up towards the bed as the distorted version of my face pressed its head into the cramped space—

“Stop it,” Nanami insisted, “You’re scaring her.”

I stilled at the words—or perhaps just the sound of her voice after eight long years had passed without hearing it—and considered the woman now slumped over her legs, cowering with her face buried in her captive’s hip. There was no fear in Nanami’s voice, and for a moment, I simply watched without comprehension as she attempted to comfort the grown woman shivering in her lap. My desire to inflict some equal measure of suffering upon her was so strong that I could actually recognise it, and the fact that one of the people who had done this to her was right in front of me clashed violently against the words of the girl I’d come all this way to find. Why was she comforting her after everything she’d done? Why wasn’t she angry? The monstrous visage hanging over them shivered for a moment, my control eroding as my confusion grew—and then I decided to do what I always had when I wasn’t sure.

The distorted mass of sand shifted as I turned my mind inwards to touch upon all of the models I’d built up within my mind—and from there, the path forward became crystal clear. The face split down the middle, the two halves rotating outwards as I stepped out of it and onto the floor of the room I’d torn apart.

“Nanami—” I said, then found myself suddenly unsure of exactly what I’d say. “I waited for you at the beach for a very long time.”

“Hisoka, you dummy,” Nanami said, seemingly baffled. “You forgot your clothes.”

#

I-Island General Hospital, I-Island.

I would have expected the hospital to have far more people, given the events of the night, but considering its sheer size, perhaps they were here, just simply spread out across the dozens and dozens of floors. Nanami had been taken from me by the paramedics almost immediately after my return to the surface—as had Susumu Hoshi—though in her case, Mirio had taken her into custody at the direction of All Might. David Shields had apparently been quite forthcoming about most of the things I’d said to him, and I was left in the odd place of knowing that the only thing that was preventing me from some kind of punishment was that nobody had yet found the time to focus on my part in all of this.

The security system was now back in the hands of those who usually ran it, though the lockdown was still in full effect until both the extent of the breach and the damage had been fully assessed. The main concern was all of the damage that had been visited upon the top floors of the tower and in maintaining its structural integrity. I expected that Hayami had already attempted to contact me—likely as soon as the signal had been restored—but my phone had been in the pocket of my jacket, and that had been one of the articles of clothing I hadn’t managed to recover during my rapid descent. As it was, my dress shirt had been torn apart when Katsumi Fueki had put her foot through my chest, and the only real thing that had survived the night had been my trousers.

One of the nurses had been kind enough to gift me with a small brown blanket from one of their many linen cupboards. I had left a message at the front desk of the hospital in an attempt to make contact with my Aunt—and the police, with an abridged version of Nanami’s harrowing circumstances—though I wasn’t sure exactly how successful that had been. The tattered remains of my clothes and my age seemed to have encouraged the nurses to make a rather serious effort to call the police, but the doctor had seemed far cooler to my presence. Of the U.A. Contingent, I’d only manage to very briefly see Eijiro, Tsuyu and Mirio—the three that had apparently been in good enough condition to follow me after the battle—though I hadn’t made an effort to speak with any of them. I’d stolen away with the ambulance that had taken Nanami as soon as I’d seen it moving, entirely unwilling to let her out of my sight, considering what had happened the last time I’d done so. The only person I’d really spoken to in any capacity had been All Might.

Oddly enough, he seemed to have still been under the mistaken impression that I’d saved and then evacuated David Shields from the tower in an effort to prevent the Quirk Upgrader from falling into the hands of the villain. I very much doubted that impression would last much longer, and our next meeting would be something that required far more explanation. It would also likely end with the destruction of my future career as a hero, though I wasn’t sure I had a reason to actually pursue that any further. I had learned—through the news network that was running nonstop on all of the monitors inside the waiting room—that Wolfram and the remaining villains spread throughout the tower had been defeated entirely.

The students of U.A. High School hadn’t been able to avoid being mentioned as the heroes of the hour either. I’d seen live footage of almost all of them in the aftermath of the battle for the tower, and though they’d looked beaten and bruised, they seemed to be, on average, in generally high spirits. The story involving Nanami’s recovery simply didn’t exist because it was entirely overshadowed by the scale of the attack. Not that enough people actually knew about it yet for it to have proliferated to any real extent. All Might, David Shields, and the few staff members who had contacted the police were the only ones who were really in any place to disseminate it. As she had promised—and at Nanami’s gentle urging—Susumu Hoshi had gone willingly into the hero’s custody.

Katsumi Fueki had been unconscious and dangling from All Might’s shoulder the last time I’d seen her, so I was relatively sure I wouldn’t be seeing her again—though if she could actually escape All Might, the returned security system and all of the heroes now roaming the island then she might well have earned her freedom. It was still too soon after the attack and too early in the morning for a police response, but if my estimate was correct, then at most, I had five hours left until I would be—

“Hisoka—” Hayami managed, sweeping into the room. “There you are—where have you been?”

I had little chance to answer as she caught me in a crushing, panic-driven hug just as I had risen to my feet, and with my attention returned to the room around me, I found Ume and Minato Yaoyorozu following in her wake. Hayami got her hands on my shoulders, then pushed me back to arm’s length as if to study me for injuries, and the motion was enough to dislodge the blanket entirely—she seemed horrified to see the state of my bloodied clothing, and I spoke up before she could manage another question.

“I’ve been here for several hours; I’m uninjured, but my clothing seems to have suffered quite badly,” I said in an effort to head off the majority of her concerns. “I found Nanami.”

Minato was the only one to react to the statement, the man pausing mid-step—seemingly startled enough that he actually stumbled—and Ume turned to look at her husband, unsettled by the sudden uncharacteristic display of clumsiness. Hayami seemed incensed.

“Quite badly doesn’t even approach it—” Hayami started and then jerked back for a moment. “What?”

“I found Nanami,” I said, “She’s in a room just through those doors.”

Hayami turned to look in the direction I’d indicated, the motion sluggish and confused, as though she couldn’t quite comprehend what I was saying.

“She’s been seen by several doctors already and is asleep right now,” I said, “I’ve asked to see her several times, but they will only allow family members in right now—they did say that I could see her during general visiting hours.”

That had bothered me quite a bit, mainly because I hadn’t been sure how long I would remain free to walk around, and that chance would only grow slimmer the closer to morning it became.

“I—I don’t think I understand,” Hayami managed, shaking her head. “How could—you found—Nanami—our Nanami?”

“Yes, our Nanami—Kana and Hiroshi’s daughter,” I said, carefully studying her face. “She was abducted by a group of villains who were after her quirk, and since then, she has been kept on this island in a facility in the sub-levels of Susumu Hoshi’s laboratory.”

I was waiting for understanding to reach her eyes and for her to realise what exactly that meant—that I’d spent the last eight years lying to her face—and how it could only shatter whatever trust she’d developed in me. But that understanding seemed far from her mind at this moment. Instead, she seemed just overwhelmed with taking in the fact that I’d just told her that the girl she’d planned a funeral for all those years ago had just risen from the grave.

“You actually managed to find her,” Minato said, breathing out. “Even after all of those people tried and failed—that is—it’s remarkable.”

Though I turned my head towards him, my eyes were still unerringly locked on my aunt’s face. I hesitated in my response, watching as Hayami sank down into the chair I’d just vacated, her legs suddenly unable to support her weight.

“Hayami,” Ume gasped, coming to her side. “Don’t try to stand—just stay right there. Do you need some water?”

Hayami seemed to clutch at the woman’s hand for a moment, still not able to put words to what she was feeling. Minato stepped forward to clap a hand on my shoulder, far more prepared for the conversation than either of the others and apparently unbothered by my lack of response.

“Well done, Hisoka—well done.” Minato said, “The man you asked me about—did he end up being involved?”

“Yes, I believe he was the one who moved the three of them onto the cargo ship.” I said, “That man’s name was Kaito Habiki, and it would seem that he died two years ago.”

“What is all of this about?” Ume asked. “Minato—you knew something about this?”

“I suppose it doesn’t matter now,” Minato said, shaking his head. “Eight years ago, when we were questioned about that girl that went missing—we were in Shimoda at the time, if you remember.”

“Of course I remember,” Ume managed. “We’re talking about the same girl from way back then—she was alive after all that time?”

“That’s exactly who we’re talking about,” Minato said, sounding genuinely happy. “Hisoka—have the police been notified yet?”

“I informed the doctor who is looking after Nanami and the receptionist,” I said, “They called the police hours ago, but it would appear they are currently busy dealing with the attack on the tower.”

“No one is in any immediate danger here, so it’s gone to low priority,” Minato said, “I’d expect them to be here first thing in the morning—or at least at a more reasonable hour than this.”

“Yes,” I said, “Minato—have you spoken to Momo?”

“We called her the moment the signal came back on, but we couldn’t get her to pick up; she called us back about an hour after that,” Minato said, “Everyone from your class is safe, though a few of them have managed to injure themselves saving everyone’s lives—I wouldn’t be surprised if they were somewhere here.”

Minato nodded his head back towards the reception desk in an indication of the entirety of the hospital.

“Momo is with several of her classmates right now at one of their hotel rooms,” Ume said, speaking up from her place beside Hayami. “They were worried about you—nobody could find you after you vanished, and your phone isn’t connecting.”

“Both my phone and my wallet were inside my jacket, which is now somewhere near the base of the tower, along with the rest of my missing clothing,” I said, “I didn’t trust them to take Nanami to the hospital, so I followed the ambulance to make sure they didn’t try to take her away again.”

Hayami reached out and caught hold of my hand, her grip tight but also fragile in a way that I remembered from the day of the funeral.

“Hisoka,” Hayami whispered, “Is she—is she okay?”

I shifted my hand until I was the one holding hers and then attempted to return the comforting squeeze she had given me way back then. The truth was that I had no idea if she was okay or not. I’d barely spoken to her, and I’d only managed that in the company of the woman who’d kept her captive for the better part of a decade. Physically, she had seemed healthy enough, but the fact that she was missing one of her arms meant that I couldn’t say that she was fine either.

“She looks very different now,” I said after a long moment. “When I finally found the place where they were keeping her—I actually thought they’d taken Kana instead.”

“Oh—” Hayami managed, crying now. “That’s—I’m sure they do look quite alike.”

“Nanami has an injury,” I said, “It seems to be several years old, and it has long since healed, but she’s missing one of her arms now.”

Hayami’s frail composure cracked at the words, and the sound of her sobbing made me wonder if I shouldn’t have said anything at all. Ume managed to get up off the floor and onto the chair beside her before pulling the woman into her arms.

“That’s barbaric,” Minato said, breathing out. “I can’t believe anyone would do something like that to a little girl.”

The doctor I’d been tracking ever since he stepped into Nanami’s room for the first time over three hours ago passed by the reception desk, and I turned in place, cutting towards him. Hayami almost got up to follow me, but Ume kept her in place. Minato followed me without a word, and the doctor turned at the movement, frowning just as he had the first time I’d approached him.

“I’m afraid I still can’t tell you anything about her condition,” Tamotsu said, “That information is for family members and partners only.”

“Nanami doesn’t have any family, as her parents were killed when she was ten years old,” I repeated, as I had the first time he’d told me that. “My aunt is here now, and I would like you to take her contact information down so that she has someone to contact when she wakes up—I might not be here at that time.”

“You certainly seemed adamant about staying here until the morning,” Tamotsu said, glancing over at the only two women in the waiting room. “You are free to leave that information at the front desk—and you, sir, do you have business here?”

“Minato Yaoyorozu, pleased to meet you,” Minato said, dragging the man into a handshake. “I’m just here accompanying Hisoka, but since I have you here—Chairman Kado hasn’t been called in for tonight’s mess, has he? I’d like to speak with him if I could.”

Something that might have been recognition seemed to flash across the man's eyes.

“Yaoyorozu, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you; my name is Jutoro Tamotsu,” Tamotsu said with far more geniality than I’d heard from him before that moment. “The Chairman is here, but he’s currently in a meeting—I can take you up to see him if you’d like.”

The vast shift in both how present the man seemed to be and the vanishment of the coolness in his voice left me to wonder once again just how well-connected Minato Yaoyorozu really was.

“That would be perfect, and once we’re done, we can come back and make sure Nanami is all taken care of,” Minato said, “Hisoka, I hope you don’t mind, but I’ll be leaving Hayami and my wife in your care for just a little while.”

It would have been impossible for any single participant of the conversation to have failed to recognise both the evocation of his standing, as well as the way he was making a deliberate effort to link both of our families together—it was one of the most clear-cut cases of unhidden manipulation I had ever seen, and yet somehow that seemed to have made it all the more effective.

“I understand,” I said.

Minato laid a friendly arm on Jutoro Tamotsu’s shoulder, and it seemed to jump-start the man into action as he started forward with the intention of directing him further into the hospital in search of the Chairman. I watched them go, feeling far more at ease now that there was someone else to handle the situation in the event that I was taken away before I had a chance to see her. I turned back and caught sight of Hayami’s face—and it was around that time that I thought I’d found that little flash of realisation that I’d known was coming.

#

I-Island General Hospital, I-Island.

When the door opened, it wasn’t either of the detectives who had brought me in from the hospital; instead, it was the gaunt, tired face of Toshinori Yagi. I removed my hands from the table and placed them in my lap, feeling somehow more discomforted by the familiar face than the strangers that had spoken to me.

“Young Higawara, I’m glad to see you’re still in good health,” Toshinori said in greeting. “I was worried after you vanished again.”

Toshinori took one of the empty seats across from me, then sank down into it with a quiet sigh of relief, and I wondered just how exhausted the man must have been after having to maintain his transformation throughout the entirety of the attack.

“I’m sorry for leaving without saying anything,” I said, though I wasn’t sure whether or not that was actually true. “I was concerned that Nanami wouldn’t arrive at the hospital.”

“I imagine so, considering everything that’s happened—Kana, Hiroshi and Nanami,” Toshinori murmured. “I wasn’t present during the original search, but I do remember it; I’m afraid that I, too, mistakenly believed that she perished alongside her family.”

Despite the fact that I’d been in this room for almost three hours, I’d spent almost all of that time entirely alone. I’d shared the minimum amount of details to explain how David Shields had led me to Susumu Hoshi and how I’d searched the building soon after; the threats against David and the force I’d used to illegally enter the building both included. But that had been about as far as the explanation had gone before both of the detectives had been called from the room. I’d been prepared to answer all of their questions, and even now, I found myself willing—perhaps too willing—to rid myself of the burden of all of the things I’d done.

“That was the prevailing opinion at the time,” I agreed.

“Yet you still continued to look for her even all these years later,” Toshinori said, “Regardless of anything else that gets said, you’ve done a marvellous thing, Young Higawara.”

Toshinori’s choice of words was telling, and though the outcome of Nanami returning to safety was marvellous, the rest of the sentence spoke of a deeper understanding of the things I’d done—likely informed, in some small part, by the brief interaction I’d had with David Shields. I studied the man’s sunken face for a long while, and then, when I’d reached a decision on what to do, I spoke up.

“I have lied, cheated, and stolen from people. I trespassed into the homes and private spaces of dozens. I illegally accessed, viewed and made copies of private government databases. I manipulated teachers, members of my family, and even those who decided to call me their friend,” I said, watching him. “I threatened to harm people, and more than once, I have come within a razor's edge of ending a life—all of this, everything I did, and everything I thought I might have to was all because I believed it would bring me that much closer to finding Nanami Kureta.”

The man’s eyes seemed to shiver in place as he stared at me from across the table, and once I was certain that I’d shattered whatever false image he’d once held of me, I nodded, just once.

“Nanami is safe,” I said into the silence. “But I don’t think anyone would consider the things I’ve done to be marvellous.”

In the moment that I’d set my eyes upon Nanami’s face in that glass room, some immense portion of the crushing pressure I’d been living under had fallen away. But now, as Toshinori’s shoulders seemed to sag, I couldn’t help but wonder if my confession had somehow managed to shift that unseen weight right over to him—I watched as the man took a deep, steadying breath before his long-fingered hands came to rest together on the table in front of him.

“It is true that it is our actions that define us, but our motivations play a part as well,” Toshinori murmured, “I might not know the half of what you’ve been through, but I would like to believe that you were not cruel for the sake of it.”

“Pointless cruelty would have done nothing to help save her,” I murmured. “But that doesn’t change anything either; my actions are those of a vigilante at best, and that is not the kind of person who gets to be a hero.”

Toshinori dropped his gaze to the table for a long moment, seeming to struggle to find the right words for such a messy situation and perhaps he might have found something, had he the chance to actually recover after everything that had happened within the last twelve hours. But I didn’t begrudge the man for his exhaustion.

“Now is probably an inappropriate time to bring this to your attention, but it’s time-sensitive, and you’ll need to take action immediately if you wish to get ahead of it,” I said, “Yesterday morning, I witnessed the President of the Public Health Safety Commission instruct a juvenile agent to infiltrate David Shields lab.”

“What were they trying to accomplish—” Toshinori asked. “Were they aware of his part in organising the villain’s attack?”

It was a reasonable assumption, based on everything he already knew, and with the terrorist attack on the island still so fresh in his mind.

“They weren’t, and it was unrelated to the villains,” I said, “They were looking for information about you—and they found it.”

Toshinori sat back in his chair at the words, expression grave.

“They copied a series of medical charts, graphs, timelines and all of his notes on your declining condition,” I said, “I made sure to destroy the drive containing the files, but the agent has most likely already finished giving their verbal report.”

“I see,” Toshinori managed. “That is very—unfortunate.”

“They are aware that your power is declining, but it may still be possible to maintain some level of control over that information,” I said, “If you reach out to the President of the Public Health Safety Commission now, it may be possible to develop a relationship with her instead of working in opposition towards a shared goal of protecting Japan.”

“You give good counsel, Young Higawara,” Toshinori murmured, resting his head against his linked hands. “It occurs to me now that this isn’t the first time you’ve gone out of your way to assist me.”

I said nothing to the words, content to just sit in silence with the man who would, for as long as his failing body would hold out, remain the Symbol of Peace that protected Japan.

“You told me once that you had a friend when you were young and that I had inspired her to become a hero,” Toshinori said, lifting his head until I could see a sliver of blue eyes across the arc of his knuckles. “The two of you were going to save the world together—would I be correct in the belief that you were speaking of Miss Kureta?”

“It was Nanami,” I said.

“Yes,” Toshinori said, closing his eyes. “I suppose it would have been.”

“What will happen to David Shields and Samuel Abraham?” I asked.

“They will remain in police custody until the investigation is complete, and then they will have to contend with the legal system,” Toshinori said before blowing out a long breath. “The news of David’s involvement has already spread to the media—despite all the good he’s done, people have begun demanding for both him and his family to be removed from the Island.”

If someone like David Shields could perform a hundred good acts for humanity, and still find himself torn down by the world through the power of a single bad action—then somebody like me had no real right to dream. I’d committed at least a hundred sins in my quest, and even something as bright as lifting Nanami Kureta out of the dark wouldn’t be enough to wash them away.

#

I-Island General Hospital, I-Island.

Some unknowable combination of All Might’s status and Minato Yaoyorozu’s connections intersected in a way that ensured my temporary but continued freedom. However, I suspected that it was a delay of the repercussions and not an outright dismissal—U.A. High School had little use for a trainee who couldn’t follow the laws, and I recalled my enrollment interview with Principal Nezu well enough to know that I’d stomped all over the sentiment of having learned my lesson the first time I’d acted without authorisation. I found Hayami missing from the waiting room when I returned to the hospital, though I’d barely done more than retake my original seat before she’d stepped through the electronically locked doors. Hayami seemed to be dealing with the lack of sleep about as well as I was, though the steaming hot travel mug in her hand spoke of chemical assistance that I lacked. There was a fractional pause in her progress as she caught sight of me sitting there, and I did my best to crush the spark of discomfort that came from the moment of hesitation it caused in her movements.

“Hisoka,” Hayami said, breathing out. “I was just about to try calling the station again.”

“I’m free to walk around, though once they send us home, I’m restricted to the manor until the investigation is complete,” I said, speaking up. “I apologise for causing you so much trouble again.”

“You—don’t apologise to me,” Hayami managed. “I don’t think I can stand to hear that right now.”

I dropped my gaze to my lap and worked hard to push away the rising sting at the corner of my eyes. Hayami’s shadow fell across my legs as she came to stand with me, and I felt her fingers brush across my hair as she settled her hand on the back of my head.

“They let me in to speak with Nanami right after you were taken away, and—well, I had thought I might have been able to prepare myself for seeing her again,” Hayami murmured, “She really is the spitting image of Kana.”

I made a small, wordless noise of agreement in my throat, suddenly unwilling to speak up.

“I told her she’ll be coming to live with us from now on, and she’s agreed—perhaps I shouldn’t have said it, but I think I told her that she should have been there with us all along,” Hayami said, with a shaky breath. “It was such a tactless thing to say, given what she’s been through, but I couldn’t help myself.”

I wasn’t sure I quite understood the mistake she was admitting to making because the sentiment lined up quite well with my own thoughts on the situation. Nanami should have been in Musutafu. If the ones that had taken her—some of which were still out there, even now—hadn’t selfishly gouged a hole out of our lives, then she would have been.

“If she had been any younger, I would have liked to take guardianship of her, but she’s already an adult—and we don’t need it to provide her with a loving home,” Hayami said, content to just carry the conversation all by herself. “Of course, you know I’m happy to provide for her in any way that I can, and I’ll be counting on you to make sure to tell me if you think she needs anything.”

“I will,” I murmured.

“That’s good—listen, Hisoka,” Hayami said with another steadying breath. “I’ve spoken to Sajin, and he is mostly up to date with everything that’s happened here.”

I weathered another uncomfortable pang that traced its way up my neck to fuel the wet sheen clinging to my cheeks, but I couldn’t manage to speak again.

“The news of the attack has already gone international, and he sounded about as shocked as I must have been when I told him about Nanami—he will be waiting for us at the manor when we land back in Musutafu,” Hayami said, still smoothing the knots in my unbrushed hair. “He very much wants to talk to you about everything that’s happened, but I was hoping that later, once we’ve all had time to settle in, the four of us can talk.”

I nodded my head in silent agreement.

“You’re a good boy, Hisoka,” Hayami said, “Now, I’ve got some phone calls to make to try and make sense of all this—so why don’t you go on in and keep her company?”

Hayami gave my tangled hair one last fruitless pat down, then guided me up to my feet and towards the doors she just come through. I stepped through at her urging and watched from the corner of the room as she remained outside as they closed. The nurse that had buzzed me through directed me to the room, though given how much sand was shifting through the halls, I might well have known the way better than she did. I found Nanami lying half off the hospital bed, with her hair dangling down to brush against the tiles and her legs bunched up in the twisted bed sheet.

“Nanami,” I said to alert her to my presence. “Can I come in?”

Nanami’s eyes snapped open at the sound of my voice, and for a moment, she stared up at me from her upside-down position—then she began to struggle back over onto her stomach, her face vibrantly red from all of the blood draining to her head. It took her a moment to actually manage it, and it left her long mess of brown hair tangled up near her mouth—she blew out a breath to dislodge it, then spoke up, her voice sounding oddly strained.

“I’ll allow it,” Nanami said and then let out a groan. “Ugh—I think I might have done that for way too long.”

I stepped over the threshold and crossed the small space towards the bed, eyeing the chair that had been settled up against the wall directly beside it.

“I’m coming to live with you,” Nanami said, laying her cheek against the crook of her elbow. “Hayami said so.”

I nodded at the words.

“Don’t just nod your head, you dummy,” Nanami huffed, “How am I supposed to know what you’re thinking when you don’t say anything?”

“Hayami told me just before I came here,” I said to address her issue. “I think it’s a good idea for you to live at the manor—I’ll be moving back in once we return to Musutafu.”

“Hayami did say that you lived somewhere else,” Nanami wondered “Why do you think it’s a good thing?”

“You need somewhere to stay, and there is lots of available space.” I said, “It makes sense for you to stay there.”

“That’s a terrible answer,” Nanami complained. “It makes it sound like you don’t even care that I’m going to be living there—say something better.”

I considered the request for a moment.

“It’s good because I’ll get to see you a lot,” I said, “The proximity will also make it far easier to protect you.”

Nanami laughed out loud at the revision and then twisted onto her back again, leaving her one rotation higher on the bed and increasing the tangle of the bedsheets around her legs. The shift placed her dangling head almost directly beneath me, and I tilted my head to maintain some kind of eye contact with her.

“I’m still taller than you, so stop trying to loom over me,” Nanami said, “The chair is there for a reason, you know.”

I took the chair as directed and turned to track her progress as she performed another sluggish roll, the angle sheer enough that she was actually laying most of the way back on the bed. Her left arm dropped down to dangle off the side, close enough to my leg that I glanced down at it.

“I want to go outside again,” Nanami mumbled. “The nurses won’t let me.”

“Do you want me to take you outside?” I asked.

“You’ll get in even more trouble if you do that,” Nanami said, shifting her face against the bedsheet as she failed to shake her head. “It’s not worth it.”

“I see,” I said.

“That doesn’t even mean anything,” Nanami insisted. “I don’t want an acknowledgment that I said something—I want to hear what you think about it.”

“If I took you outside, it would most likely make you smile again,” I said after a moment. “The trouble I would get in for doing so would also be relatively trivial in comparison to the trouble I’m already in—that’s what I was thinking.”

“That’s why it’s not worth it, you dummy,” Nanami mumbled, “Hayami said you were in trouble because of what you did to find me, so don’t do anything else, or I’ll be mad.”

“Very well,” I said, “If that’s what you—”

The tip of her finger tapped down on the edge of my knee, and the world sparked to life in a way I hadn’t experienced since I was a child—the mental weight of the network of sand I’d been carefully expanding around and throughout the hospital fell away, as the potency of my quirk grew. The calculated splitting of my perspective was rendered useless as my proficiency increased far above my hard-earned control, and the strength of my perception began to rise along with it until a familiar shift occurred in my clarity of the world—colours, sounds, smells, and a pervasive vibrancy washed through my consciousness. The exhaustion that had been slowly setting in as the hours dragged on, and even the hunger I’d begun to feel after skipping multiple meals evaporated, replaced by a sudden influx of energy that was far above the level I usually existed at.

“—wish,” I shivered, twisting my heel against the floor in an effort to maintain stillness. “Your quirk is much stronger now; you must have practised a lot.”

“There was nothing to practice,” Nanami said, closing her eyes. “The older I get, the stronger it becomes—I never really had anything to do with it.”