U.A. High School, Musutafu.

“It’s a joint class, but with two teachers?” Mina said, leaning forward over her desk. “They’re out here pushing the absolute limits of hero instruction.”

“Double the instruction, crammed into the exact same amount of time as a regular class,” Ochaco said, joining in. “Now that’s dense.”

“The only thing that’s dense here is your head,” Katsuki muttered, “What the hell is taking them so long?”

“I’m more interested in what the contents of the class will actually be,” Momo said, speaking up. “The general trend of both subjects don’t usually have much overlap.”

“It could be any number of things,” Fumikage said, “But considering this is our first day back, I would assume it’s related to our internships.”

“Aw, man, I bet you guys get requests from all over Japan,” Denki said, slumping down over his desk. “Aoyama and I got wiped out in the first round—nobody even knows we exist.”

“That boy’s quirk was truly demented,” Yuga murmured, “I’ve had dreams about eating you all ever since.”

“Yikes,” Eijiro said, laughing. “I don’t think I’d be very tasty—tough meat, you know?”

“I bet I taste like strawberries,” Mina declared, lifting her hand up in front of her face. “Hell yeah.”

“That is absolutely not how that works,” Denki groaned. “Where the heck is Aizawa—”

“I’m right here,” Shota said as he slid the door open with his foot. “You can blame Midnight for the late start.”

Shota crossed the room at an unhurried pace, making no attempt to expand on exactly what had been the cause of the delay. The man snatched up a whiteboard marker from the tray as he went, setting himself in front of it, already writing away on the plastic surface.

“Sorry about that; we had some last-minute—uh—paperwork, I guess,” Midnight said as she kicked the door closed behind her. “Let that be a lesson to all of you about the dangers of procrastination.”

“But we didn’t do anything,” Kyoka said.

“Which is exactly what got us into this mess to begin with,” Midnight said in agreement. “Anyway, this is a very special lesson, and the one I’ve been looking forward to since the beginning of the year.”

Shota’s work began to take form, the series of bars sketched out horizontally across the board, growing shorter in length as they descended downwards—then he began to write a matching series of numbers beside each one.

“It’s a two-part lesson, and the first part is dealing with the thousands of internship requests that have been flooding Principal Nezu’s office,” Midnight said, gesturing to the board. “That’s where Aizawa comes in; he’s going to walk you through the basics and what you should expect.”

“What’s the second part?” Hanta asked.

Midnight clapped her hands together in visible pleasure at the question, eyes bright as she spoke up.

“I’m so glad you asked—” Midnight started.

“Hero names,” Shota said, torpedoing the reveal without mercy. “You get to choose them.”

“Aizawa—gosh—fine, yes, he’s right,” Midnight managed at the betrayal. “You can’t accept an internship without possessing a hero’s name, can you? You’ll be working with pro heroes and interacting with the public—it’s time you all started building up a real presence.”

“Shouldn’t we have picked names before the U.A. Sports Festival?” Fumikage said, frowning. “If we were to capitalise on the publicity we received during the event, we could have already had our names spread across Japan.”

“Yes—that’s exactly what I’ve been telling everyone for years, Tokoyami,” Midnight said, stabbing her finger at him. “Unfortunately, I’m not the one who gets to make these decisions, and every time I’ve brought it up to the board, I get brushed off with some ludicrous excuse about—”

“Midnight,” Shota said, “They don’t need to know this; please stay on track.”

Midnight stood with her fist clenched in front of her face, looking like she was barely holding herself back from forging on ahead anyway—before she managed to pull herself together.

“Right,” Midnight said, coughing into her hand. “Now, I’ll be handling the naming portion, so let’s get the boring part out of the way first—Aizawa?”

The board was filled up now, a series of names beside each of the graphs detailing how many internship requests each person had received. It only covered half the class at most, half a dozen names simply missing entirely.

“I actually received one,” Eijiro said, stumped. “Are you serious?”

“No fair,” Mina complained. “Sero, we’ve been totally scammed.”

“Figures,” Hanta sighed.

“I’m totally doomed,” Denki groaned. “Higawara, let’s split your requests four ways.”

“Very well,” I agreed. “I owe you that much, at least.”

“I don’t think it works like that,” Kyoka said, amused. “It’s a bit lopsided, though, isn’t it—Higawara and Todoroki got two thousand votes each, seriously?”

“There are members of our class that placed as high as Todoroki but have a fraction of the requests,” Mezo said, speaking up. “Hagakure placed higher than him, and she only received twelve—this is unsettling.”

“Kacchan got five hundred votes,” Izuku said, hesitant. “But the only person on his team that got a vote was Eijiro? Even though they were all eliminated at the same time? Do you think it—”

Katsuki’s desk rattled beneath his grip, more than enough of a warning that Izuku decided to cut his losses.

“As you can see by the distribution, the majority of Hero Agencies are incredibly petty and only want to recruit those of you with flashy quirks,” Shota said, sounding annoyed. “It’s despicable, but don’t worry, even if your name isn’t up on this board, you’ll still be participating.”

“I’m saved?” Denki said.

“There are roughly forty Hero Agencies who work directly with U.A. High School to facilitate the internship system, so even if you didn’t receive one from a non-affiliated agency, you’d still have a chance,” Shota said, capping the marker. “As a general rule, first-years tend not to receive very many requests because the bulk of those go to the second-years and third-years—this year is obviously an anomaly.”

It was probably a result of the ludicrous display of power Inasa, Izuku and Shoto engaged in, as well as the attention being directed at Class 1-A in the aftermath of the USJ incident. Our existence as a class had been dragged into the light and even ended up overshadowing some of the other years in the process.

“Hero Agencies are used to this process by now, and each intake pulls from all three-year groups, so no matter which one you end up at, keep in mind that you’ll likely be accompanied by your peers—at U.A. High School or even one of the other schools,” Shota said, “Once Midnight is done, we’ll hand out the stacks of requests, the letters of introduction that they all include and a list of affiliated agencies for each of you to go over.”

I eyed the number that was written up on the board beside my name—two thousand votes or not, if not a single one of them came from Fukuoka, then none of them meant a thing.

“You’ll be selecting a combination of three of them in a first-choice system, and you should make sure you read the letters of introduction so you know exactly what type of skills they are offering to teach,” Shota said, “I want you to seriously consider exactly what you want out of this process because every single agency has a different focus.”

“How should we make that determination?” Momo asked.

“Pick an area where you are strongest or weakest and consider this a short course to help you build your skills in that area; cover for a weakness or refine a strength,” Shota said, “Whatever you choose, I want you to include a written summary of a few hundred words that explains your thought process—and if I think you picked based on popularity, you’ll be interning out on the sports field.”

“More running?” Mina said, alarmed. “Teacher—have mercy.”

“I’m all out,” Shota denied.

The stack of requests that ended up on my desk was a towering monstrosity that was just about in danger of falling over, and that was with half of it stacked up on the floor beside my chair. I started by sorting them by location, shortlisting all the ones that were located within the bounds of Kyushu and discarding the vast majority to the graveyard pile on the other side. I ended up with twelve requests scattered around Kumamoto, Nagasaki, and Fukuoka—and as I stared down at the letter of introduction from the Hawks Agency, I felt a rising satisfaction grow within me. Whether it had been my first-place finish, that I had structured my strategy in a way that would appeal to them, or because Uncle Sajin had put in a good word for me, the end result was the same—soon, I would be going to Fukuoka.

“Alright, alright, you’ve had enough time to sort through your requests; now it’s my turn,” Midnight said, clapping her hands. “It’s time to get to the meat of it—hero names.”

“This is going to be great,” Denki said.

Shota grunted at the excitement that was spreading across the room before he sank down into his chair, arms crossed over his chest—it was genuinely odd to see him without his bandages now, and I was left to wonder how long ago he’d been able to remove them.

“Your heroic identity can be temporary, but please keep in mind that if you become famous in the meantime, you’ll likely become stuck with whatever you choose,” Midnight said, “That means you should be responsible when you make your decision, and think about how you might feel—even years from now.”

“What does that mean?” Ochaco wondered.

“It means you should avoid calling yourself something that will age poorly—anything with girl or boy in the name will become bothersome once you’ve become an adult,” Midnight said, “Silly names or inappropriate ones could also damage your reputation, so keep in mind that I’ll be having final say over anything you choose today.”

“So Boy Might is out of the question then,” Kyoka said, teasing the boy. “Sorry, Midoriya.”

“I wasn’t going to call myself that,” Izuku tried, flushing at the laughter the joke had generated. “I really wasn’t.”

“Too Much Might,” Ochaco cried. “That way, they don’t have to ask about all of the bandages.”

Izuku sank down into his chair, attempting to hide his bandaged hands from view by sticking them into the pocket of his uniform jacket. Midnight smacked the stack of portable whiteboards down onto the front row of desks, a single marker dangling from each.

“Yes, yes, very funny,” Midnight said, rolling her eyes. “Now pass these back, and start coming up with names—you’ll be presenting them to the entire class, so pick something good.”

“But that’s embarrassing,” Mina complained. “I don’t want to show these guys.”

“It’s a hero name; whatever you pick is going to be up on the top one hundred rankings one day,” Eijiro said in alarm. “If you can’t show us, then who can you show?”

“You think I’m going to be in the top one hundred?” Mina said, impressed. “You know what? My name is going to be amazing.”

“Less flirting, more writing.” Midnight said, “This is a classroom, not a date.”

“Teacher,” Mina cried. “That’s yuck.”

Eijiro gave a squawk at his sudden denigration as something gross and then smacked his whiteboard down on his desk in a sub-vocal but not at all quiet protest. I was forced to reach forward and take the remaining whiteboard from my row off the empty desk in front of me, the missing boy who’d once sat there entirely unable to pass it along—it took away what little desire I had to participate in the good cheer of the classroom. I’d done very little thinking in regards to what my hero name would be, and so I was left to stare down at the blank board, mind turning over the problem.

“I can see that some of you aren’t writing anything, so try to consider a name that encapsulates the things that make up your personality or personhood,” Midnight said, “What is something that defines you? What is your unique perspective? What are your goals? Your inspiration for being a hero?”

My driving force was both inappropriate to use as a name and something that would reveal to anyone who heard it that I hadn’t moved on from the defining moment of my life at all. I also wasn’t willing to take on the name of something that hinted at my unfulfilled goals, nor my desire to find the people who had reached into my childhood and taken from me the one bright spark that had given it any kind of meaning. I wasn’t sure what ‘my unique perspective’ meant when translated from a prompt into an actual title either—although perhaps perspective was something I could draw inspiration from. The meaning of the word, more so than what Midnight may have been attempting to evoke within us.

My attention could shift, split, and overlap, all of which was something that was unique to me. It was a result of my quirk and how I could process so many different perspectives at once. I found myself looking down at my hand, and the skin of my palm began to lose detail as I allowed it to partially transform back into sand. My body was sand, although when it was drawn back into a very specific pattern, it gained cohesion and became skin, flesh, blood and bone. A million tiny grains of sand coming together, and the sum of all that material was something greater than the potential that any single part could hope to hold alone. Together, I was Hisoka Higawara, but when my body began to drift apart, and the tiny nodes that made up my network of consciousness began to split apart, I became—

“Mina,” Midnight said. “You have something for us?”

“You bet I do,” Mina said.

Mina was already on her feet, the small whiteboard held flat against her chest to conceal the name from view, and she trotted up to the front of the class before spinning to face everyone—she flipped the whiteboard around, revealing the name.

“Alien Queen,” Mina declared.

“Hold on—like that horrible monster with the acidic blood?” Midnight managed, “I don’t think so.”

“Damn it,” Mina complained. “It was really good, too.”

The word I’d written down was small on the whiteboard, placed in the top left corner and rendered in tiny black font, using up just a fraction of the available space, as if I’d left room for a dozen other names to sit beneath it—but I already knew that I wouldn’t find something as fitting as what I’d written down. There was a chance that it had already been taken by someone else, but without my phone or access to the internet, I had no way to check.

“I think I have one,” Tsuyu said, with a rumble in her throat. “Is it okay if I go next?”

“Come on up,” Midnight said.

Tsuyu made her way up to the front of the room and then turned the board around.

“I’ve had this name in mind since grade school,” Tsuyu admitted, “The rainy season hero—Froppy.”

“That’s delightful—it makes you sound approachable,” Midnight beamed, “What a great example of a name that everyone will love.”

“Froppy,” Momo said, smiling. “That’s adorable.”

Tsuyu returned to her seat, looking flustered but happy as the more vocal members of the class began to call out her name in earnest. Midnight scanned the room for a moment, and I found myself standing up, the whiteboard dangling from my fingers as I made no attempt to hide the name I’d chosen from view. I made my way to the front of the room and then turned it so that everyone could see it—

“Provided it hasn’t already been taken, this will be my hero name from now on,” I said, “Granular.”

“It’s a bit plain, but it’s definitely on brand for your quirk,” Midnight said in consideration. “I like it—consider it approved.”

“This is getting me fired up,” Eijiro said, rising to his feet. “I’m going next—”

#

U.A. High School, Musutafu.

“Twelve requests,” Tsuyu said, staring down at her stack of forms. “I really didn’t think I would get any—I’m not sure how to decide now.”

Eijiro dragged his chair over to the huddle that had formed around the girl’s desk, and sunk into it, his singular internship request clasped in his hand.

“Nah, it makes sense that people want to recruit you,” Eijiro said, “Do any of them stick out?”

“A few,” Tsuyu admitted. “But I don’t think I should choose them, not when the only reason I have is that I recognise their names.”

“I think that may work as a starting point to sort them down,” Momo said, seemingly stuck in a dreamlike fugue. “But it’s important that we do research into them to make sure it’s a good fit.”

“Momo says that, but she already threw away all of the lame ones,” Mina accused, “It’s totally not fair, I want to intern with Uwabami too—stop hugging your introduction letter, damn it.”

Momo seemed entirely lost in her own world now; the form clasped tightly to her chest.

“I only got one request, so I’m not really sure I even have a choice,” Eijiro said, bemused. “I suppose they’d let me pick from the forty standard agencies, but Crust is honestly pretty amazing, so I’m not sure I should give up a chance like that.”

I’d more or less sorted through the entire pile at this point and then gone ahead to discard ninety-nine percent of them—there were half a dozen left on my desk, mostly as a distraction to avoid either of the teachers from assuming that I’d picked recklessly or on a whim. Oddly enough, one of those I’d found myself holding onto was one I hadn’t expected to actually find. It appeared that Mirko had actually somehow managed to create her shell-company of a hero agency in time to make an internship request—why she had sent me a request however, was beyond my understanding. From what she had said over the course of that dinner, my ‘sneaky fighting style’ was antithetical to how a hero worked, and I’d only ever evolve into a real man if I started fighting my opponents head on—perhaps that was why she’d sent the request, as some kind of misguided attempt to straighten me out.

“Hisoka,” Mina said. “How did you go through all of those so fast?”

“I’ve had a Hero Agency in mind for several weeks, and so my choice was already made,” I said, “I am just making sure that there isn’t a more appropriate option available now, though it seems there isn’t.”

“You’re spoiled for choice, and you don’t even want any of them.” Mina accused, “Hisoka, you suck.”

Tsuyu seemed to have noticed the form in my hand, because she leaned forward until she could read the name printed at the top before she raised her eyebrows in surprise.

“Was that the one you decided on?” Tsuyu said with interest. “I have one from the Battle Battle Agency as well.”

“It’s not, but I happened to meet the pro hero who is in charge of it at the celebration dinner,” I said in answer, “Mirko actually mentioned you and Tenya by name; she seemed quite impressed by your legs.”

Tsuyu glanced down at her lap for a moment before giving her legs a preliminary kick back and forth as if to incite them into revealing their secrets.

“Those little things?” Mina cooed.

“Mina,” Tsuyu said with a rumble of discontent. “Don’t call them little.”

“If it’s not the Battle Battle Agency,” Eijiro said, “Which one are you actually going with?”

“The Hawks Agency,” I said, “It’s in Fukuoka.”

“Huh, that’s pretty far away,” Eijiro said, fanning himself with his letter of introduction. “Hawks is pretty cool, though.”

I just nodded in agreement with the words, and then, deciding that I’d waited long enough, I removed another two of the forms from the desk at random, placing them into the discarded pile. It wouldn’t be difficult to come up with a summary to support my choice because there were more than enough reasons to accept—a focus on multitasking as the main skill I was looking to hone would work as the foundation.

“All of you are way too happy with yourselves,” Mina said with a sigh, “Damn it—who’s cooler between Mr. Brave, Death Arms, or Gunhead?”

#

Hayami’s Home, Musutafu.

“The card is linked to one of my free-spending accounts, so you can use as much as you need and on whatever you would like,” Hayami said, “Even if they do pay for your accommodation and basic necessities, you never know if the included meals will be something edible.”

“Something edible—” Sajin said, “Hayami, what exactly do you think they’ll be feeding him?”

“I don’t know what they’ll be forcing on him,” Hayami said, crossing her arms. “That’s why it’s better to be prepared.”

“Thank you, Aunt Hayami,” I said.

“That’s quite alright,” Hayami said, “The hotel certainly isn’t one I would have chosen for myself, but it’s somewhere central, at least.”

“I’ll be at the agency from six until two every day, so the better part of my time will be spent outside the hotel,” I said in an attempt to reassure her. “So long as there is a bed present within the hotel room, it should be more than sufficient.”

“Hardly,” Hayami said with a huff. “But I suppose you won’t be there that often—I know we signed that release form for you to wander about in the afternoons without a chaperone, but please make sure you don’t stay out too late.”

“He’s going to be playing ride-along on their patrols, which means they’ll have him moving around the city for at least a couple of hours a day,” Sajin said, “Keeping up with Hawks is going to take a bit of effort because the guy can move—figure you’ll be trying to get as much sleep as you can find by the time they send you home.”

“That seems likely,” I said. “Uncle Sajin, do you remember the woman who kept coming to find us during the event dinner?”

“Mirko,” Sajin said without having to do any further guesswork. “I remember her all right—something happened?”

“It appears she was able to create an agency of her own before the cutoff date,” I said, “Tsuyu, Tenya and I all received a request from her.”

“I can’t believe they actually let her do it,” Sajin said with a laugh. “Did either of them accept it?”

“Tsuyu accepted it, even though I warned her,” I said, “Tenya chose an internship with the hero, Manual.”

Sajin sat back in his chair for a moment, his hand rising up to tug at the end of his moustache, and his brow now furrowed in concern.

“Tenya was the one from your class with the leg engines, wasn’t he?” Sajin asked, “You’d think Ingenium’s kid brother would get a whole bunch of requests—especially after he made it all the way to the final event.”

“He received internship requests from three hundred and two different agencies,” I said. “Do you think he made a mistake in choosing that one?”

“I don’t think it’s a mistake—Manual’s a great guy, but he’s nowhere near the top of the list, and I have a hard time seeing anyone picking him out of three hundred options,” Sajin said, “The real problem here, is that Ingenium was in Hosu City when the Hero Killer took him out, and that’s where Manual’s agency is located.”

While I’d heard about what had happened to Tenya’s brother in passing, I hadn’t known any of the details beyond that—I also hadn’t had any reason to look into Manual, so the connection had remained entirely undiscovered. He’d overlooked hundreds of agencies—including the one his own brother had led up until recently—to select the one that was located in the exact same city where his brother had almost been murdered. The intention to search Hosu City for the Hero Killer was obvious, and I felt a genuine connection with him at the realisation—the two of us had done almost the exact same thing. The internship requests were just a tool to gain proximity to our individual targets and the freedom to search for them—

“You’re saying that he chose for that reason alone?” I said, a spark of something unknown driving me to speak. “If his brother worked in Hosu City often, then perhaps he was already close with Manual, and the choice is a result of that familiarity.”

“They have worked together before,” Sajin admitted, “I can’t say it’s not that—but it makes me wonder.”

“I can’t imagine a schoolboy being so reckless as to go chasing after revenge like that,” Hayami said, shaking her head at the idea. “He seemed so responsible during the Sports Festival—and he’s your class president, isn’t he?”

For all of the time I’d spent with Nanami, playing in the park, in the courtyard of the manor, or even in the Kureta’s backyard—Hayami had spent it in the company of Hiroshi and Kana. When they had been officially declared dead, my aunt had been stricken with a grief that had far outstripped anything I was capable of externalising. Then, when the search efforts had halted, and the police had declared that Nanami was gone, her pain had only grown. It had taken the better part of the year for her to return to any semblance of her former self, but it seemed that with time, the horrific hole that had opened up inside of her had finally begun to heal—but I wasn’t like my aunt. The hole in my own soul hadn’t shrunk or even scarred over as the relentless march of my life had continued without Nanami being present. It had remained exactly as it had been.

I hadn’t known how to grieve for Hiroshi or Kana back then, and I wasn’t sure how to do it now. I would have refused to grieve for Nanami even if I’d known how to because, for all that she had vanished, I hadn’t yet come to believe that she was truly gone. The only thing I’d found that could work to fill that hole inside of me was to channel all of my mind, time, and effort into finding the girl that everybody else had given up on. Ingenium had sat in a hospital bed, fighting for his life in the wake of the Hero Killer’s attempt to murder him in cold blood, and while such a well-loved hero would have a great many people looking out for him in the aftermath of having his ability to walk ripped away, it would be of no solace to the little brother who he had almost left behind.

“Yes, he is,” I said, “He was actually the person I voted for.”

Tenya Ida might not have lost his brother entirely, but I would be willing to wager that it had been close enough to leave a hole inside of him, too.

#

Mt. Fuji Shizuoka Airport, Shizuoka.

For all of my preparation to actually gain access to Fukuoka, I had no way to control for the situation that would greet me upon arrival. The reality was that I had no way to determine if Kaito Habiki would be present in Fukuoka or at his mother’s mansion during the one-week period of time I had available. I’d exhausted Kimiko’s social media presence, and through that, I could tell that if her son visited her, the visits were entirely undocumented. Therefore, I had prepared myself for the most likely occurrence of arriving and finding that Kaito wasn’t present—but just because I might not be able to confront him directly, that didn’t mean that there would be nothing I could learn from the situation. The very first thing I would need to do was to perform some surveillance on the mansion, but that wasn’t something I could do during the day for a number of reasons.

For one thing, I would be busy and in the presence of the members of the Hawks Agency for the better part of the day. But beyond that, I would need to establish what kind of security was present at Kimiko’s home, and acting during the daylight would increase the risk of being seen. That meant I would be acting under cover of darkness, and when she was asleep—tonight, long after the hours of my internship finished for the day, would be the earliest time I could act. Even that might be too early, depending on just how much attention the heroes would be paying to my presence. If my speculation about the source of her income being tied to Kaito’s illicit activities was correct, then it seemed likely that the two kept in some form of private contact. But once I had access to her house, I would need to locate every electronic device—phones, laptops, and other objects used for communication—that might contain an active channel of dialogue between Kimiko and Kaito.

From there, I would need to start immediate discovery of her passwords, pin codes, and other security to establish exactly how I would gain access to the contents of her devices. The ideal situation would be to discover a chat log between the two that had an address or location listed, which I could use to locate Kaito, but even if there wasn’t anything that explicit, there was much I would be able to learn. I only had one week to find out as much as I could, and if it became clear that I wasn’t going to find anything noteworthy, then I might have to do something more risky—speaking to her in person was something I wanted to avoid if possible, but it might not be avoidable. Concealing my identity and then threatening Kimiko was one method I could use to get more direct information on Kaito, but it would also have the outcome of alerting the man that somebody was now looking for him.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Perhaps I could threaten her and then follow her in the aftermath to see what she did with that information. If she attempted to make contact with her son to warn him—well, there was something that could be learned from that, as well.

#

Fukuoka Airport, Fukuoka.

I caught sight of Red Bird long before I made it out of the building, my network of sand nodes locating the hero near the front of the lobby. It would have been hard to miss a hero standing amongst all of the men and women dressed in everyday clothing, his burnished red toga and the sharp-tipped yellow mask like a beacon amongst all of the more conservative colours. The brown lines that tattooed his muscular arms seemed to be catching quite a bit of attention, and I was left to wonder if they were permanent markings or simply body paint he’d applied as part of his costume. Red Bird held a sign in his hand, in what might have been an intentional mimicry of some kind of heroic chauffeur, and upon it was my freshly chosen hero name, written in thick, bold font.

My own costume was still hidden away inside the travel case that Midnight had handed out to the few of us who’d been present at the airport. So long as I was off duty, I was forbidden from wearing it, and so that meant I would be meeting with the heroes in my plain clothes—it left me feeling somehow ill-dressed for the encounter. I stepped out of the lobby, angled in the direction of the hero, and as I made my approach, one of the citizens who had seemed to be pressing the hero for an autograph glanced over towards me—I’d never seen the man in my entire life, but there was a visible recognition in his face as he caught sight of me.

“—should about do it,” Red Bird said, handing the pen back. “How old did you say he was?”

“Turning ten in about three days,” The man said. “You’re that boy from the U.A. Sports Festival—the winner of the first-year bracket.”

Red Bird glanced over, following the man’s gaze and caught sight of me, the sign in his hand no longer held up in a way that made it visible.

“It’s a strange feeling to be recognised like this,” I said, bowing my head in greeting. “Good morning, sir, and to you, as well, Red Bird—thank you for coming to pick me up.”

“Don’t thank me for that; it’s all part of the job,” Red Bird said with good cheer. “Traffic is pretty bad today, so we had better get a move on if we’re going to get back to the agency in time.”

“I won’t keep you any longer,” The man said, bowing for a moment. “Thank you.”

Red Bird said a parting goodbye and then clapped a hand on my shoulder, steering me up the path towards the priority parking spaces. I went without comment, working to match the man’s longer strides and wondering at all of the attention we were now receiving.

“It’s just a rental,” Red Bird said as he smacked a hand on the roof of the car. “I wanted to try for something sporty, but this was all they had—can’t use my own ride for work, you know?”

The man seemed oddly caught up in the whole thing, as if the choice of the rental car held some kind of intrinsic importance, though I couldn’t tell why that might have been—it made no difference to me whether the car was sporty or otherwise.

“I understand,” I said.

I slipped into the front passenger seat at his direction and watched as the man swept his mask up, then to the side of his head, freeing up his vision as he started the car—the man’s face was rather unremarkable, with a strong jaw and a prominent nose. The very tip of the beak seemed to scratch at the top of the window with a dull clicking noise that was lost beneath the hum of the vehicle as he pulled out and onto the road.

“Didn’t think you’d be recognised by people on the streets?” Red Bird asked.

“It’s actually been happening since the attack at U.A. High School,” I said, “It hadn’t occurred to me that my face would become so well known outside of my hometown.”

“The attack on your school—I’ve heard some about that,” Red Bird said with a nod. “You put on one hell of a show at the festival, so you’ll probably get recognised everywhere you go at this point.”

It was just another layer in the ever-growing topology of communication I would need to factor in when I interacted with others. My network of sand nodes moved with us, the packed nature of the traffic making it a simple task to keep them centred on our moving position, and I noted that the roads were actually far busier here than I was used to in Musutafu. Some of that must have been the population density of the respective cities, though the gradient of high rises and office buildings seemed somewhat greater here as well.

“I suppose so,” I said in agreement. “Sir, is it always this busy in the mornings?”

“It can be, but today actually seems a bit worse than normal,” Red Bird admitted, “Hawks will probably tell you about it later, but traffic accidents are one of the most common situations we respond to on patrol.”

“Interesting,” I said, “Does your agency mediate those accidents with the drivers, or do you just act as first responders until the emergency services arrive?”

“Heroes or not, if you’ve ever tried stepping in on an accident and getting either party to listen to you, you’d know the first was just about impossible,” Red Bird said with a laugh. “We mostly get in quickly, make sure everyone is unhurt, quell any fights that break out, and then reroute the traffic if there’s any debris on the roads.”

I nodded in acknowledgment, and the man continued.

“That’s not to say that we don’t do any mediating because we actually get quite a bit of that,” Red Bird said, “You’ll learn about that when you sit down with Velcrow, but we get a lot of call-ins requesting our presence for any number of things—I’d say about ninety percent of them are minor things that could be solved by a police officer, but citizens seem to prefer us showing up from what I’ve seen.”

“I’ve heard about some of those situations in class,” I said, “Having a hero just be visible in an area has the effect of temporarily reducing crime.”

“That’s what they say, but it’s kind of location dependent; there are a lot of crimes that happen indoors and away from sight, so it’s not a cure-all,” Red Bird said, with a nod. “There are also some places in the city where a hero walking past will do nothing more than stall criminal activity for as long as they are present—we’ve got something of a drug problem in the lower-income sections of the city.”

The conversation I’d had with Sajin on the day of his birthday came to my mind at that, and the multitude of sand models he’d built above the palm of his hand shifted behind my eyes. I’d asked Sajin dozens of questions about the topic after our discussion had ended and after I’d had time to process what he’d been trying to tell me—it was all still fresh in my mind, and I couldn’t help but speak up.

“A hero might temporarily scare away those who deal the drugs, but it does nothing to address the underlying problem of people buying them,” I said, thinking about it. “For those who live a life of desperation, poverty, and substance abuse, the presence of a hero does nothing to alleviate the motivation they have for seeking it out.”

There were other, more effective ways for the city to solve those kinds of issues, and maybe it was possible for heroes to play some part in that, as well—like having popular and well-liked heroes act as the face of the social programs that were effective. Something like that would help drive funding towards problem areas, and maybe that would alleviate some of the conditions that caused people to fall into that kind of suffering and desperation.

“You aren’t wrong,” Red Bird admitted, “But just because we can’t fix everything doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to help at all.”

#

Hawks Agency, Fukuoka.

The Hawks Agency took up the top floor of a fourteen-story tall high-rise building, and the sunlight passing through the large square glass panels that ringed the upper half of the walls was more than enough to illuminate the front office. Red Bird spoke to the receptionist at the front desk for only a moment before I found myself directed through to the main room beyond. The hero known as Velcrow was already present, sitting in the middle of the room on one of the three modern couch seats that dominated the floor space, a laptop placed on the coffee table in front of him as the man hunched forward to tap away at its keys—he was far too tall to be working at such an unfortunate angle. Unlike Red Bird, who had no real issue with taking off his mask the very moment we had stepped into the room, Velcrow was in a full bodysuit, with his face hidden entirely from view—the purple and black colour scheme clashed terribly with the bright pattern of the couch, and I was certain that if Hayami had been here, she wouldn’t have been able to stop herself from pointing it out.

“Mission accomplished,” Red Bird said as he dropped down into the seat directly beside the other man. “One little intern ready to be tossed into the Fukuoka grinder.”

“You make our city sound quite dangerous,” Velcrow said without looking up. “Hawks has a meeting with his agent, so he won’t be here for a little while longer.”

“Figured it was something like that,” Red Bird said, “Granular, go ahead and take a seat; we can go over some of what’s happening before he arrives.”

I crossed the last of the distance and took a seat on the couch directly across from both of them. My network of sand carefully threaded its way into the vents in the ceiling, then up onto the slanted rooftop of the high-rise until I had an omnidirectional view of everything around and inside of the building—three bright red feathers were present within the Hawks Agency. One at the front office, sitting atop one of the shelves that sat high on the wall, tucked out of sight, and two in the break room, one resting inside the vent I’d used to access the roof, and one tucked behind the massive flat screen TV that dominated the wall to our right. They clearly belonged to the pair of bright red wings that Hawks was known for, and at first, I’d thought they had been shed and then forgotten, but the placement of each seemed oddly intentional—and then the one in the vent actually shifted, moving to position itself closer to the grating.

“It’s nice to meet you, Velcrow,” I said.

“You, as well,” Velcrow said without shifting his face away from the laptop. “I’ve heard that you hold an interest in the less visible side of heroics—Snatch mentioned it when he called.”

“The process of locating villains and criminals before they can do more harm is something that appeals to me,” I said, “If you have any advice or training to offer me in that area, I would very much appreciate it.”

“Most kids your age just want to throw themselves into fights,” Red Bird said with a sigh. “I mean, that’s what I wanted to do back then, at least.”

A flash of red and gold cut up into the air several blocks away, rising from behind a skyscraper at significant speed, and it quickly resolved itself into a man with a massive pair of wings spread out behind him.

“I would never have guessed,” Velcrow said, with a hint of humour in his voice. “I have a knack for that kind of work, so it’s something we can go over while you’re here.”

“Thank you,” I said.

Hawks touched down on the building a few feet away from the roof access point, and his wings flared outwards for a moment before they folded themselves into a more compact knot at his back. The door opened automatically as he stepped up to it, and I glanced over at the door on the left side of the room as the sound of his footsteps echoed down. Red Bird and Velcrow both came alert at the sound, their posture shifting slightly, but neither made any real attempt to acknowledge it. I watched the hero descend down the staircase, noting that he looked entirely unchanged from all of the footage I’d seen of him in the past.

“Don’t tell me I’m late,” Hawks said as he stepped through to the break room. “I’ve got a reputation to uphold, you know?”

Hawks strode across the room as he spoke, seemingly unbothered by walking into a place that was already populated by people. He dropped down onto the smaller couch at the head of the coffee table and kicked his leg up onto his knee, already sprawled across the seat.

“Then we won’t tell you,” Red Bird said, “Did the meeting with Agent Coldshoulder go well?”

“I’m going to tell her you called her that,” Hawks said, apparently amused. “It went about as well as it always does—I’ve got a meeting in a couple of days with a big brand name, so you’ll be covering my patrol for a few hours.”

“Can I take the intern?” Red Bird asked.

“Might as well,” Hawks said, “Speaking of interns—Granular, welcome to the Hawks Agency.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” I said, bowing my head. “Thank you for having me.”

“Sure,” Hawks said, “Have they told you anything about what you’re doing yet?”

“We were waiting for you, but now that you’re here, we can get everything started,” Velcrow said, speaking up. “You should have received the information packet we sent when you confirmed your attendance—is that the case?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Then, to summarise, starting today, you’ll be here for one week, from six in the morning, until two in the afternoon,” Velcrow said, “Your day will consist of three distinct periods, and you will be shadowing us while we go about our duties during those times.”

I nodded in acknowledgment of all of the information that I’d already gone through.

“You’ll be with me from six until eight, and we’ll be going over call-ins, reports, requests, and current caseloads,” Velcrow said, “I’ll be showing you how to use the system that most agencies work with and how to file it all based on priority and category—Red Bird.”

“Right, you’re with me from eight until twelve, and we’ll be moving around the city to deal with all of the minor disputes, complaints, and requests that Velcrow sets up for us,” Red Bird said, “These are always boring, low-risk tasks that could be handled by other emergency services.”

“You’re really selling it to him,” Hawks said, impressed. “I’m sure he hates it already.”

Red Bird waved off the words with a laugh before continuing where he left off.

“These could be things from rescuing cats from trees, helping people get their keys out of locked cars, to standing around in problem neighbourhoods to scare off troublemakers,” Red Bird said, “The main purpose of these is to get eyes on the agency, which brings in more work and makes us look better—”

“It also helps out the community,” Velcrow said.

“I was getting to that,” Red Bird insisted before coughing into his hand. “It also helps out the community.”

“I’ll be going in and out on patrols over the course of the day, and whenever I get called in by the police for more serious stuff, but from twelve until two, you’ll be coming out with me,” Hawks said with an entirely disinterested smile. “You’ll be cleaning up after me for the most part because we’re not supposed to let you do anything too dangerous—but if you can actually keep up with me, I might let you do something a bit more proactive.”

“I understand,” I said.

“Perfect,” Hawks said before scratching at his chin for a moment. “Anything else?”

“The Hawks Agency isn’t the only one in Fukuoka, and so you will likely encounter other heroes throughout the week of your internship,” Velcrow said, speaking up. “We are unique, however, in how small we are in comparison to the others—the average number of heroes for a single agency is twelve, but we function with only three.”

“So it is an intentional choice to keep it small?” I asked.

“Yes, and each of us has a primary task that we excel at; I handle the casework, Red Bird handles the civilian interaction, and Hawks handles the patrols,” Velcrow said, “By being selective in what tasks we take on, and then completing them with efficiency, we are able to routinely exceed the contributions of the other agencies.”

“I’d say most of that is thanks to Hawks here,” Red Bird said, “He covers more ground per day than most of the other agencies combined.”

“Oh, come on, you guys,” Hawks said with overtly feigned modesty. “You’re going to make me blush.”

“That is pretty much everything that needs to be said—oh, your mother has signed the no-chaperons waiver, so you are free to spend your time outside of our allotted hours doing whatever you please,” Velcrow said, “Keep in mind that your safety is our top priority while you are in our care, and so I will ask you not to put yourself in any unnecessary danger while off the premises.”

“It was my aunt that signed the form,” I said out of reflex. “But yes, I’ll make sure to follow all of the rules you’ve set out.”

#

Hawks Agency, Fukuoka.

“—the information gets partially filled in by the software, though it isn’t always perfect, so make sure you double-check it against the call log,” Velcrow said, “The address and priority categories are the most important sections, so make certain they are accurate—take a guess as to why.”

“If the address is incorrect, then the response will be delayed, and that could turn a minor issue into something more dangerous,” I said, “Assigning a priority that fails to accurately describe an incident could also end with someone being hurt, or not receiving assistance in time to prevent an avoidable injury.”

“Exactly,” Velcrow said, “Assigning a cat-in-the-tree rescue as higher than it would normally rate would end with the cat being rescued more quickly—but assigning a person being stuck in a tree as a lower priority might end with them breaking their neck before we arrive.”

I nodded in understanding.

“Take a look at the notes for the call-in I just took, and tell me where you think it should go,” Velcrow said, angling the monitor so that I could better see it. “The categories are here—Trivial means a response time of one-day maximum. Low Priority is six hours. Medium Priority is two hours. High Priority is within the hour. Critical is immediate response.”

I scanned through the notes he’d taken from the call in and then again through the data that had been prefilled into the programs—a sign had been damaged during a fight between a hero and villain and had ended up on top of a woman’s house—the request was for the Hawk’s Agency to remove it because it was in danger of falling off.

“Medium Priority, though it’s impossible to determine the state of the sign and whether someone is currently at risk with the available information,” I said, “Is it possible to shift incidents like these higher if there are no other pressing matters that outrank it?”

“Yes, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do,” Velcrow said, “Red Bird is already out, so we’ll ping this to him now, and he can deal with it ahead of the other tasks he already has.”

“Beyond the involvement of a hero and villain,” I asked. “Is there a reason this task was sent to a hero agency?”

“Any damage that is caused during the course of heroic duties can be reimbursed by the government, and that means reporting it to an agency first is the best way to fast track that,” Velcrow said, “We’ll be passing a notification with the address to the department that deals with that sort of thing, and they’ll fix her roof at zero cost—the client was likely aware of that, and that’s why she called us first instead of a handyman.”

Velcrow answered the incoming call, and I listened as the person on the other end spoke up—unlike the other times, the hero minimised the programs and pulled up a new one that had dozens of incident reports. There were almost a hundred tabs within the programs in regard to a singular case, and my eyes flitted across it all in an attempt to establish what exactly I was looking at.

“—please check your purse for anything else that might be missing,” Velcrow said. “I’m happy to wait.”

I watched as he created a new tab and started typing in a series of bullet points in regard to the call-in—a stolen credit card that had been used three times over the course of two days before the owner had noticed that it was missing. The owner had already contacted the bank and had the card shut down, but they were encouraged to pass it along to the Hawks Agency as part of an ongoing string of similar thefts in the area. One of the bullet points noted that the PIN code was used for all three withdrawals and that the owner had no idea how they had managed to discover it. I found myself reading the titles for the other tabs for a moment in order to gain some further context—there were two hundred and twenty different incidents over the last three months, all fitting the pattern closely enough that Velcrow had collated all of it together into a single case file.

“—please confirm that you had not written your pincode down on a piece of paper and that it was not inside your purse on the day the card went missing,” Velcrow asked, “I understand, and you did not speak about, nor say out loud your pincode prior to this event?”

I watched as he wrote it all down in neat notation before he started questioning the person about where they were on the day it went missing. He started shifting the new tab around, moving it into a category with several others, and as he clicked through several of them, I noted that the location was a match on all three incidents—Momochi Seaside Park. The date above each of them was extremely recent, within the last few days, and the bullet points for the incidents were almost identical.

“—yes, thank you for reaching out to Hawks Agency,” Velcrow said, “I will make certain to notify you in the event that we make any progress—have a nice day.”

We sat in silence for several minutes as Velcrow went about organising his notes on the case, and I continued to read it all over his shoulder. The program he used to maintain all his files was far more sophisticated than the one I was using to hunt down Nanami’s abductors, and I found myself making a note to see if I could purchase a copy of it for myself.

“A thief who pickpockets credit cards with enough skill to remain undetected and then, through an unknown method, is able to discover the victim's PIN codes as well,” I said, speaking up. “It sounds like a difficult case.”

“The difficulty comes from the fact that we don’t get reports about it until days after it’s happened,” Velcrow said, apparently unbothered that I’d been helping myself. “I’ve been putting in requests for the security footage for the hot spots, but every time they get around to checking it, we find that someone has deleted it.”

“They’re covering their tracks,” I said in understanding. “The only way to catch them would be to actively survey the location where the crime is taking place and witness it first hand.”

“Exactly, and I guess sometimes being part of such a small agency has its downsides because we don’t have the manpower to watch the areas for any significant amount of time,” Velcrow admitted, “Hawks and Red Bird check the hot spots whenever they have the time, but we haven’t had any luck yet.”

“Have you been able to establish whether or not the crimes take place at a common time?” I asked.

“It happens more often in the late afternoon to early night, right around when it gets dark,” Velcrow said, “But that isn’t always the case either, so it’s hard to set up anything to catch them.”

Velcrow brought up the overview tab containing his main insights into the case, and I scanned through the list as he adjusted a few of the numbers beside them.

“Pickpockets work by making physical contact with their victim, either bumping into them or squeezing past in a way that makes it easy to cover the attempt at theft,” Velcrow said, “There are also quirks that make it more difficult to pinpoint when it happens, but for the most part it’s consistent.”

“A noticeably tall girl with brown hair styled in a high ponytail,” I said, repeating one of the bullet points I’d seen. “Your notes suggest a teenage girl is the pickpocket.”

“That’s what I thought at first, but the timelines for a lot of these events don’t match up,” Velcrow said, “The girl has bumped into almost every single one of the victims, but she’s not the one doing the pickpocketing.”

“How were you able to determine that?” I asked.

“We’ve had reports where she’s bumped into someone in the morning, but their cards only went missing hours later after they’d used them a few more times,” Velcrow said, “It’s speculation, but my intuition is telling me that she’s the one responsible for getting their PIN codes, and someone else is doing the theft afterwards.”

For someone to learn such a hyper-specific piece of information about a person from only a few moments of physical contact—

“Do you believe she is reading the minds of the victims?” I asked.

“That’s the conclusion I’ve come to,” Velcrow said, “It explains how the actual pickpocket knows where the victims are later on in the day and when to strike—she’s picking the information out of their heads.”

“One person discovers the PIN code, and one person performs the theft,” I said, “Is it possible that a third person is responsible for deleting the footage?”

“I haven’t been able to confirm that it wasn’t one of the first two, but it’s possible,” Velcrow said, “I’ve got a composite sketch of the girl here—the victims have all confirmed that it’s pretty accurate.”

I studied the image that he brought up, taking note of the small nose and permanently furrowed eyebrows—I wondered if the unfortunate expression was an artistic choice by whoever had drawn it or if she always appeared so stressed.

#

Sohara Park, Fukuoka.

“—have been six muggings here in the last month,” Red Bird said. “The ones that were responsible for that have already been caught, but the people were a bit slow in coming back.”

There were dozens of families walking through the park now, on the coiling footpaths, or sitting on the grass, either unaware of the recent violence that had taken place here or bolstered by the presence of a hero, I couldn’t say. What I did know was that despite my costume, I might as well have been invisible while standing next to Red Bird—everywhere we went, people seemed to recognise him on sight, and the man struck up a conversation with them all without any sign of hesitation. I found myself wondering about Midnight’s disgruntlement regarding the topic of picking our hero names before the festival because, right now, it had become clear that she had been right. Hisoka Higawara of Class 1-A was now far more well-known than Granular, the hero-in-training, though I imagined that might change after I used my quirk for the first time in public and the two identities collapsed in on one another.

“I’ve been coming here for about two weeks now, and it finally seems like things are getting back to normal,” Red Bird said, “It might be that I’m doing some good, or it could be that people just have shorter memories than you’d think—hard to really know.”

“It is a beautiful place,” I said, “It would be a waste if people were too worried to visit it.”

“That’s exactly how I see it, kid,” Red Bird said before clearing his throat. “Granular, I’ve spotted some citizens in trouble—what do you say we get you your first real act of heroism?

I followed the man’s gaze to the pair of kids who were struggling to untangle their kite from one of the trees. Red Bird strode across the grass in their direction, and I went with him, wondering if rescuing a kite was something that could actually be rated as an act of heroism. The two children cried out when they spotted the man’s costume, and the kite string fell to the grass, near-instantly forgotten in the presence of a hero.

“Red Bird,” The little boy said. “What are you doing here?”

Red Bird dropped down onto one knee so he wasn’t entirely towering over the two of them before he reached out and patted the boy on the head.

“I’m on the lookout for trouble,” Red Bird said, “You two haven’t seen any, have you?”

“I have,” The girl said, planting her hands on her hips. “It’s big trouble—Nishi lost our older brother’s kite.”

The boy—Nishi, given his reaction to being tattled on—gave a cry of outrage at the words.

“Nana, you were the one holding it,” Nishi accused. “Red Bird, can you arrest her for lying?”

“I’m afraid not,” Red Bird said, amused. “Granular, why don’t you bring it down for them?”

“Permission to use my quirk?” I asked.

“Granted.” Red Bird said.

A thin, diffused spiral of sand rose up from my palm, slipping through the branches, leaves and twigs until it had located where the string had been snagged—it was a simple effort to untangle it from there, and then the kite descended, guided by several points of careful pressure. Nishi stood up on his tiptoes for a moment, waving his hand through the mess of sand particles without a shred of self-preservation, and I wondered if I’d ever been so unaware.

“It’s sand?” Nishi said, “So cool.”

I brought the kite within range before taking hold of it in my hand and then handing it off to Nana. The girl took it with an oddly relieved smile.

“Thanks,” Nana said, pleased. “I thought we were going to have to go find Dad.”

“You’re welcome,” I said.

“Hey—Red Bird,” Nishi said, “Why did he have to ask for permission first?”

“This is our newest recruit at the Hawks Agency, so I’m showing him the ropes,” Red Bird said without reserve. “Why don’t you two go find your parents? They must be getting worried about you.”

“Oh he’s right, we have been gone for a while now,” Nana said, startled. “Come on Nishi—let’s go.”

“Bye, Red Bird,” Nishi said as he was dragged away. “Bye Gran-you-lar.”

I watched them go without comment, wondering at how familiar the sight of it was to me—Nanami and I had never played with kites when we were little, but the scene could have been something straight out of memory. Nanami had always been the one with the ideas, the plans, and the one to decide what we would be doing, and I’d just been a willing captive through it all, marvelling at how the world felt so alive when she dragged me along in her wake.

“Good job, Gran-you-lar,” Red Bird said with a laugh, “It’s not quite a cat in a tree, but maybe we can ramp up to something like that later in the week.”

#

Street, Fukuoka.

Red Bird was in the middle of pumping out squats by the time Hawks and Velcrow stepped out of the building, though he hadn’t made an attempt at any kind of explanation for why. Velcrow let out a sigh as he caught sight of us, seeming to sag beneath some unseen weight.

“I hope you’ve got your running shoes on,” Velcrow said, “Because these two don’t really do anything at a normal pace.”

“You say that like I can keep up with him,” Red Bird complained.

“What can I say? There are people out there that need my help,” Hawks said, “Red Bird, and Velcrow, you two are on cleanup like normal—Granular, see if you can keep up with me, but if you can’t, stay back and help them.”

“I am not a particularly fast runner,” I said, “Do I have permission to use my quirk?”

“For mobility and defensive uses only,” Hawks said, “Once you have a handle on how the three of us work, I’ll consider letting you do more—but don’t get your hopes up.”

I felt no real drive to interfere in his standard workflow other than to be present and observe how they worked in public, and so whatever hope he imagined I might have in regards to it was entirely misguided.

“I understand,” I said.

“Then, in that case, let’s get this show on the road,” Hawks said with a bland smile. “Make sure your earpieces stay in, but keep the chatter to a minimum—and try not to get a cramp this time, Velcrow.”

“That’s not something I can—” Velcrow started.

Hawks took a single step away from the building, and his wings erupted outwards to their full span, the tip of one brushing against the frontage. Then he was airborne and rising higher as he cut upwards at a steep angle. A scattering of red feathers remained around us before spreading out in different directions—one stayed on the windowsill, resting there without movement despite the breeze.

“—prepare for,” Velcrow finished with a grunt. “Every time.”

Red Bird surged forward in pursuit, and a brightly coloured point of red energy flickered into existence directly between his shoulder blades—he jumped, and a scattering of translucent sparks washed outwards from it, shunting him forward via some kind of propulsion. Velcrow gave another sigh before he started after the two at a fast jog, and I moved to fall in step beside him. I was far shorter and far younger than the man, so it took some serious effort to actually keep pace with him.

“I’ve been the slowest hero at the Hawks Agency since I first joined, and you’re here to learn how a pro hero acts during a patrol,” Velcrow said, “I’m just a sidekick, so you’re not doing me any favours by hanging back here, and you’re not doing yourself any either.”

I allowed my body to partially complete the transformation into sand, just enough to gain control over my movements in three dimensions while still remaining in a vaguely humanoid shape inside of my costume—the ground fell away from me, and Velcrow shrunk back as I surged upwards above the buildings. My network of sand started to expand, with new nodes breaking off and branching out until I had a visual on dozens of different streets—I partially reformed at the node closest to Hawks position, my costume being dragged along by the sand I’d left behind. Despite the fact that I was behind the man and far enough away that he couldn’t possibly have seen me, he still seemed to glance back over his shoulder at my exact position.

I caught sight of a red feather passing by the edge of the rooftop, and everything snapped into place—he had a network of his own. The feathers I’d been seeing all day weren’t just ones he’d left behind by accident or because he was in a rush; they were all deliberately placed. The three that had been left in the break room had been there to observe my introduction to the Hawks Agency while the man himself was busy elsewhere. Which meant that some facet of his quirk allowed the man a sense of perception through the feathers, even when they were at a remote location—the question was, was it sound, sight, or something else entirely?

“So you can move after all,” Hawks said, raising his voice. “For a minute there, I thought you might have given up—”

Hawks cut downwards without warning, but I was already moving in the same direction, the node of sand I had near the end of the intersection having a clear line of sight on the masked man who had just smashed his way out of a jewellery store window. I located the feather that had alerted him to the theft as it rose up from street level to rejoin the mass that made up the hero’s wings. Hawks banked, spun entirely horizontal, and then burst forward down the alleyway in pursuit of the masked man, the maneuver bringing him within an inch of colliding with the alleyway wall.

I expanded my network ahead of them both, going wide around the block to make sure I could intercept him no matter which way he fled and then left a series of sand markers to guide Red Bird and Velcrow towards the most direct path. The thief didn’t make it much further than the tiny carpark between the buildings before Hawks caught up to him. Half a dozen feathers detached themselves from his wings before swooping down and hooking themselves into the back of the man’s collar.

“Hawks?” The man cried. “You’re kidding me.”

Despite their size, they were rigid enough and could bear enough weight to lift the man clean off the ground—in what might have been an odd, desperate attempt to keep his stolen goods out of the hero's grasp; he tossed the briefcase away from himself. I sent a tendril of sand down from the closest node, threaded a loop through the handle, and then caught it before it could hit the ground. My costume swooped down over the edge of the building, piloted by sand, and I began reforming inside of it as it touched down beside the case.

“Come on, team—why are you so slow?” Hawks said over the earpiece. “The intern is making you look bad.”

Red Bird burst around the corner, sliding to a crouched stop at the entrance to the car park. He moved to intercept the captured criminal as Hawks brought him down towards the ground. The man gave a cry of discomfort at being dragged through the air by his jacket but seemed to realise he was done because he made no further attempt to escape. Hawks tapped the toe of his shoe against the top of the electrical post as Velcrow made it into the carpark—

“There’s a fight at a bar two streets over,” Hawks said, “Velcrow, get the diamonds back to the store, Red Bird, get this guy to the nearest dropoff point—”

“Why the heck are you telling us—” Red Bird started, but the man had already vanished. “Damn it.”

“It’s for the benefit of the intern,” Velcrow interjected, “Granular, I’ll take the case; you follow Red Bird to see how the dropoff works, then catch up to Hawks once it’s done.”

#

Hawks Agency, Fukuoka.

“If I hadn’t been capable of following you,” I said, “What would you have done?”

Hawks gave a hum of consideration at the words before leaning back against the couch until he was staring up at the ceiling, his arms remaining stretched across the entire back of the seat.

“Maybe it seems harsh, but I never planned to stand around and let things get worse just so you could catch up,” Hawks said without care. “If you had started to fall behind, it would have been entirely on you—Red Bird and Velcrow would have looked after you.”

I would have rather sacrificed the additional chance to observe him in action if it meant fewer people getting hurt over the course of the patrol, so his answer fit quite well with my own outlook on the situation.

“Velcrow mentioned that you only authorised a single internship request to be sent,” I said, “Was there a specific reason you chose me?”

“I wanted someone from Class 1-A so I could interrogate you about those thugs from the League of Villains that attacked you at the USJ,” Hawks said without a hint of shame. “It could have been anyone from your class, but that trick you pulled on the wind-kid caught my eye—pretty ruthless.”

I hadn’t expected him to be interested in the USJ Incident, but it wasn’t that surprising that he had questions about it. For the first couple of weeks, the staff of U.A. High School had managed almost an entire informational blackout on the details of the event, but that began to change soon after. A combination of the villains who’d been caught during the event were finally being processed, and several reporters went so far as to make contact with them in prison. None of them had so much as said a single word about the masterminds, but they’d been pretty open about what the goal had been—to kill All Might.

“Then there was the fact that I knew I’d be saddling myself with one of you for an entire week, so to make things easier for myself, I decided to pick someone who looked like they could keep up.” Hawks said, “Now then, why don’t we start with how the first attack went down at the USJ.”

I considered the question for a moment, and who was actually asking it—Hawks was the number three hero in Japan and someone who was based in Fukuoka, Kyushu. He ran an agency here, and if today was any indication of his daily activities, then he spent much of his time here. The League of Villains was a group that had only attacked U.A. High School in Musutafu so far, so any interest he might have held had nothing to do with proximity. There were only two other heroes in Japan that outranked him on the Hero Billboard Chart, and they were Endeavor, the number two hero, and All Might, the number one hero. All Might was intrinsically linked to the attack on the USJ by both his status as a teacher at the school and by virtue of him being the primary target.

It was possible that his interest was purely job-related and that the sudden appearance of a dangerous group of villains who were targeting high-ranking heroes was the reason for all of this. But that interest should have been sated by the information that had been leaking out about the attack since it had happened, and to break his pattern of not participating in internships to gather information seemed like an action that was driven by a significantly more powerful motivating factor—but even if my presence here was really nothing more than a convenient source of information for the man, it wasn’t like I had the justification to be upset. After all, the only reason I had chosen to come here was because of my own personal vendetta, and in that regard, the Hawks Agency had always been as replaceable to me as I was to the man sitting before me.

“We arrived at the USJ a few minutes before one in the afternoon, and considering everything that happened afterwards, I suspect that the security system was already compromised at this time,” I said, “It’s also likely that the kill teams that were present at each of the biomes that make up the interior of the building were already in place.”

I stepped past the coffee table and took a seat across from him, assuming that the man’s interest in the topic wouldn’t be satisfied by a single answer.

“What makes you think they were already there?” Hawks asked.

“Kurogiri functioned as the method of delivery for the army of villains, but his movements were trackable in the aftermath,” I said, “He remained with Tomura Shigaraki and Nomu until we attempted to evacuate the area, at which point he moved to our location and then scattered us across the USJ.”

Hawks tilted his head at the words.

“The kill teams were already in place when my classmates fell through the portals,” I said, “So, in order for them to be waiting for us when Kurogiri was at our location, they had to have been moved there prior to the arrival of the army.”

“Makes sense, given the order of events,” Hawks wondered. “I’d heard the name of the creature that All Might defeated, but I hadn’t heard the other two—if Kurogiri is the portal user, then Shigaraki is the one who beat Eraserhead.”

“Nomu was the one who defeated Eraserhead,” I said, “Though it apparently occurred while Tomura was unsuccessfully attempting to kill him.”

“You didn’t witness it?” Hawks asked.

“Izuku Midoriya was the one who observed the fight,” I said. “He speculated that Tomura’s quirk requires all five fingers to touch something in order to function—it causes anything he is in contact with to decay rapidly.”

“I’d heard some of that,” Hawks said. “Who was the leader?”

“Kurogiri seemed to be following the steps of a plan that had been given to him, and from the news reports about Nomu’s arrest, he seems incapable of functioning without orders,” I said, “Therefore, if the leader was actually present during the attack then it is most likely Tomura Shigaraki.”

“Process of elimination,” Hawks said in consideration. “All right, when did All Might actually arrive—”