Chapter Text

The alleys of Chicago felt very similar at times to Tokyo; the homeless, the muggers, the trash…almost home. A young woman, her dirty blonde hair half hidden under a Cubs beanie, got up from her corner, deliberately stumbling a bit to better look the part she had chosen to play.

The homeless were as invisible as that hero from Japan, and no one gave her a second glance as she walked up to the sidewalk. Soon she was on a well-lit street, later on a bus, and finally, the stop at Chicago´s Navy Pier.

The attraction was filled with tourists, who paid little attention to a short woman stuffing a ratty coat on a trash can. Now a tourist among her kin, the woman approached a man in a bench, asking with her, at least on her own opinion, extremely realistic New York accent “Yo, is there one of 'em pizza stands here? I wanna compare to old Vito's in Brooklyn”.

The man, dressed in a blue business suit, with no apparent Quirk in sight, was clearly exasperated by a stranger interrupting him in what could only be his lunch break.

He ran a hand through his greying hair, adjusted his eyeglasses and looked around to point at a vendor, a few dozen meters away. He pointed at the stand, and started speaking, but all that came out his mouth was a garbled squeal.

The man couldn’t feel his legs, he couldn’t move his arms, he felt a cold burn in his throat. As his thoughts grew vague and terror gripped his mind, he managed to hear a whisper on his ear “All for One does not forget, Don Santini. I am really sorry I had to do this.”

Himiko Toga drew her blade from the “retired” mafioso´s neck and positioned his body discreetly. Hiding the knife again, Toga left the scene, completely incognito. Another whispered name in her nightmares would stop.

A few hours later, on a midnight bus to Los Angeles, Toga took a deep breath, and relaxed. She closed her eyes, plugged her earphones in and let her music soothe her, a playlist the Pro Hero Deku had released on an interview a few months earlier.

It had an adorable amount of All Might themed music and a few energic tunes, and the fact that it was almost completely instrumental had her nodding off soon. The bus would take the better part of the night to get anywhere, so she drifted off to sleep, thinking of green eyes.

Toga walked in the grey ruins of what felt like had once been a school. Her vision was clouded in fog, and her feet dragged along the ground. The corridor opened up to a hall, with stately double staircases going upwards.

A faded insignia adorned the balustrade, a red star with details that she couldn’t quite make out. Toga looked behind her, to the reinforced doors of the building, burst open and sliding off the hinges. Dried grass stretched as far as she could see, where a forest of dry trees began. In the horizon, a tower of some kind could be seen.

She turned back to the stairs and climbed the nearest flight. She couldn’t hear her footsteps. A wooden door opened as she approached, revealing a corridor, with windows to the right, and doors to the left. Toga looked out the window; beyond the dusty glass, she could see a patio, walled off in moss covered concrete, with overgrown vines covering the lower half, and reaching upwards.

A swing set, a slide and a sandbox stood in the yard, a rust covered playground, dirt gathered by the wind on every item. As her gaze swept the swings, she heard a faint giggle behind her right ear. A child´s giggle, barely an infant.

She spun around, the hair on the back of her neck on standing, to find no one. She kept walking on the hallway, half knowing where she was going.

The third door on the left. It opened for her. A small room, with chair in the middle. A chair with strong leather and steel straps for hands and feet. In front of the chair, a screen covered the entire wall. Toga knew this place. She had forgotten, but then, she had remembered.

The words had been spoken, the memories had returned. She turned away from the chair, trying to run, but every step was agonizingly slow, and the door grew farther away every instant. A hand grabbed her left arm and pulled. She knew that hand, she knew those tattoos, those rings.

The straps closed in, chafing. She couldn’t move. A contraption was pulled over her face. She struggled, but strong hands held her head in place.

The contraption was settled over her eyes, and it forced them open.

A syringe was injected directly into her spine, and a cold fluid was injected.

A projector was switched on.

The images flashed by faster than she could process them, photographs of people, places, events. Images of war and death. Speakers blasted commands at both her ears.

Kill. Destroy. Replace. Kill. Maim. Dismember. Become. Kill. She tried clenching her hands, moving her feet, anything to distract her from the images, from the commands, but she could not feel her limbs anymore.

And then the images stopped. The commands stopped. A shadow appeared in front of her, flanked by All for One´s silhouette.

The shadow spoke a series of words and asked her to repeat them. Toga heard herself repeat the words, and then the shadow stepped back. All for One stepped closer and Toga saw the list of targets on her mind’s eye.

Only three remained. A senator in America, a philanthropist in South Africa, and the president of a megacorporation in Singapore.

“Nothing can stop me. Not All Might, not his students, not even Shigaraki. My victory was secured before my foes were born, death is only the beginning” said All for One, his voice barely a whisper. “You will remember the cost of failure”.

Toga found herself outside the building, walking on the dry grass. From the outside, the building was imposing and monolithic, made of grey cement. She walked away from the building, making for the treeline with as steady a walk as she could muster.

She heard the child´s laugh again, to her left, and turned to face a completely empty patch of dry grass. Toga kept walking, despite more laughter and new sounds, mechanical sounds, the kind old machines made, whirring and whining.

Every time she looked, she found nothing, so she kept going. The strange tower loomed and at this distance she could see some sort of industrial plant around it.

As she looked at the tower, she heard a soft sound like, a gas stove firing up, as a flash of light erupted. Her whole body disappearing, consumed by the flash, burnt to the last atom.

Himiko Toga opened her eyes. She was on the ground of the midnight bus, surrounded by people. A man with a black eye held her hands as tenderly as possible, while keeping her restrained.

A stout woman with a curly afro stood behind the man, and seeing her open her eyes, said “Are you alright, miss? You started screaming in your sleep and kept going for five straight minutes, we had to hold you so you wouldn’t hurt yourself. You can let her go now, Mark”.

The man let Toga´s arms free, and they limped to her side. Her eyes were bloodshot and her breathing ragged.

“I´m fine, it just…felt too real.” She managed to finally say after a few moments as she regained her composure. She implied being an armed forces veteran to get the people off her and get some rest at least, if she could not have sleep.

As the stout woman left her after saying to ask for help if needed, Toga slumped back onto the seat, trying to get comfortable again.

Not only had the nightmare thrown her to the ground while thrashing around, tensing her leg muscles into some nasty cramps, but she had also lost the sweet spot on the seat. With public transportation methods comfort was hit or miss at best, and now she could barely rest her back on the ugly seat.

Sighing, she grabbed her phone from where the people had placed it, on the sit next to her. At least she hadn’t broken the screen, like the last four phones she had had. The Pro Hero: Lemillion case had been as tough as the hero when hitting the floor, it seemed.

She looked at the time and date, to see if she had actually managed a decent sleep time, but it had barely been two hours. Seems the dream was quick.

Toga had learned a lot about sleep in the past year, trying to make the best out of dreamless periods, while doing her utmost to avoid the times one dreamt, with varying degrees of success.

It was 3 AM of March 30th, the last official school day for most high schools in Japan. Unlocking her phone, Toga checked all over for news of Izuku Midoriya, his friends, his class, UA, even about retired All Might.

Class 1 A´s graduation would be a huge event, the brightest new stars of the hero world, far surpassing the exploits of their European or American counterparts.

Even before graduating, Izuku´s classmates Todoroki and Bakugou were already the number 26 and 25 heroes, Shinsou was supposedly involved in raids on terrorists globally, even the ones Toga had barely considered, like Aoyama and Koda, had grown to have substantial fanbases.

As the real news started repeating, Toga looked at the latest gossip, spread by the teen magazines Mount Lady and Midnight edited.

“Todoroki and Yaomomo together again, KiriBaku confirmed (with pics!), conspiracy photos (Bigfoot Style!) of where Hagakure has been, a poetry column by Tokoyami…where´s my Izu-Izu?

Gossip about class B, nobody cares! After scrolling past a few spicy posts discussing Hawks and the Todoroki family, and a ton of Hatsume Industries ads, she found no new gossip about her Izu-Izu.

With a sigh she opened up a video from her favourites tab, a video where Midoriya played with a small girl and a slightly bigger boy, whose cap had two horns. Izuku laid down on the floor, his eyes closed as he said “Help!”.

Both kids came running, their miniature capes fluttering, and yelled “We are here!”. Midoriya laughed as the kids “saved” him. The video ended with the hero hugging the children.

As every time, she felt butterflies in her stomach watching her hero, as well as the flashing commands. Kill him. Hurt him. Cut him. BECOME HIM. The suggestions had ruled her mind for so long…but now she knew their source.

The need to hurt Izuku Midoriya, to kill and replace him, it fought against her admiration for the all-loving hero. But her mind was not strong enough to be fully hers yet.

Extracting a book from her Chicago-themed backpack, a recent acquisition, she settled down to read. An old book, about a war of families in a fantasy realm, with dragons and ice zombies. It had taken a great effort of medical Quirks to keep the author alive in the sixty years he took to write the last two books, as far as Toga knew.

It made her sad, as she had finished reading them all in a few months. On her second read now, she barely noticed how night became day and the bus stopped, half way to Los Angeles.

The middle of nowhere, USA, seemed dusty and rather cowboy-y, she noticed.

Using cash from one of her “borrowed” wallets, Toga bought herself some breakfast and a newspaper at the gas station.

American heroes are boring…always having drama and twelve-man “Civil Wars”. The local news included the sale of cows, a rodeo coming to town in two weeks; national news bored her as well, she could not care less about the President´s son being an internet mastermind behind his father´s election.

Toga looked up from the paper, noticing a man on a nearby field staring in her direction. Her instincts flared up. Fight or flight.

Outwardly calm, she climbed back on the bus. It would leave soon, and even if whoever was following her attacked, she could pretty much take out three quarters of the world´s heroes, soldiers and policemen in close quarters combat.

Or at least that was her educated guess. Still, she checked her weapons and prepared for a fight. A polymer fighting dagger, a synthetic garrotte, a toothbrush shiv taped discretely should she be searched. She was ready.

Three hours passed, then four, then five. The megacity of Los Angeles came into view, and soon caught them in traffic. Hunger gnawed at Toga´s belly; she almost preferred having to fight heroes to being in sight of street food stands but not being allowed to just leave the bus to buy some.

The gridlock was ridiculous. This is why Japan uses trains. After seven hours on a bus, Toga stretched as she finally arrived at the station.

The target this time was Senator Darren Simpson, a supporter of American heroes meddling with international villain activity. Toga could see how All for One would have such a person on his post-mortem hit list.

Thankfully, the Senator´s office was listed on address books, and no one gave a second glance to another businesswoman on the area.

After changing on a nearby bathroom, Toga took the opportunity to check herself out on the mirror.

Having an “active lifestyle” for as long as she could remember had kept her in good shape, perhaps not the peak condition a hero´s nutrition could afford, but she still felt confident.

Wearing high heels, a business outfit with a grey pencil skirt and eyeglasses, and her hair swept back to hide her uneven bangs, she kind of liked this look. Maybe Izu-Izu will like this when I see him next. A part of her mind replied to that: When we kill him.

Staking out targets was almost as boring as being on a bus. With a partner it could have been exhilarating, fun, intimate even. At last, at 6 P.M., the Senator left his office, and climbed into a limousine a clumsy businesswoman had slipped onto earlier.

After apologizing for her clumsiness to the bodyguard that had helped her from the floor, Toga had left the area and activated the tracker, disguised as a humble chewed bubble gum, placed just on the inside of the bottom of the front bumper. Tracking it with an app, Toga thanked the villain smuggler Giran, in whatever prison he might be; she hoped he at least had good rations.

The car took the Senator to a large town house in the suburbs, gated, with heavy security. That was good progress for the moment, Toga had a couple hours more to buy supplies and prepare for another kill.

At 9 P.M., Himiko Toga stood on the third-floor balcony of a building a kilometre away from her target. Glass gates rarely had alarms, and the apartment´s owners were not particularly cautious.

Climbing up had been easy enough, opening the door easier still, and the alarm had never even been armed. Setting down her new stuff, Toga took off her shoes and armed it for herself, reminding herself to turn it off after leaving.

The high heels she had mugged a woman in the morning for had left her feet, used to flat heels, rather sore. The professional looking pantyhose came after, with the rest of the business outfit.

She tossed it all in a corner and unpacked her new gear. Mid-heel combat boots, dark fatigues, the kind she had seen American SWAT teams using, with built in kneepads and elbow pads, a Middle Eastern men´s headscarf, and a nice belt where she could stuff all her weapons in.

She had wanted a gun too, but the city seemed to be as devoid of gun stores as Japan. L.A. was not the America she had been promised by the movies. Fully kitted up, she posed in front of a nice full body mirror the apartment´s owners had. With the lights turned off, she was very hard to spot.

That business done, Toga tossed all into another corner and, digging from inside her backpack, took out her Pro Hero Deku oversized t-shirt, and threw herself on the bed.

It had been some two months since she had slept in a bed, it felt good. And with the t-shirt, she felt safe from the nightmares. For the first time in weeks, she slept the whole night.

The sunshine bounced up the mirror she had moved the day before, hitting her eyes. “For fuck's sake, someone get that light.” she mumbled.

A few moments later she realized no one was going to get the light and opened her eyes. Grumbling, she turned the mirror around, and got another hour of restful sleep.

At last she woke up completely, refreshed and ready to take on the world, and with a bedhead that made Eraserhead´s “Quirkhair” look well groomed.

The hair could wait, though, as she could almost taste a possible breakfast she could make in the apartment´s kitchen. A quick scan found her some bacon and bread she could toast, and some sports drinks on the fridge that eased the thirst she called “nap thirst”.

On the label she found the Pro Hero Superbowl, a hero dressed like an American Football player in blue and silver. A proper breakfast brought a blush to her face almost comparable with drinking blood back in the day.

As it was almost noon, she still had hours and hours to kill before the senator met his end. Soon she was checking the internet for gossip on Izuku Midoriya again.

From the times they had actually talked without trying to kill each other, she had come to admire how great of a guy he was.

On his position, she would have cut Bakugou's throat years ago, but the green hero had somehow managed to turn his former bully into a steadfast ally and almost a friend.

Toga could easily picture all of the girls in UA falling for her Izu-Izu, even without her obsession, and so had been extremely jealous of them all.

When jokingly Dabi had suggested making a bet for who Midoriya would end up dating, Toga had almost stabbed him, and had actually stabbed him when he had suggested the frog girl, Tsuyu.

Twice had voted for Hagakure, the invisible girl, and then changed his mind to Mina Ashido, Shigaraki had supported the inventor girl Hatsume, Spinner had suggested Todoroki, which earned him a scowl from Dabi, Mr. Compress chose Yaomomo, and finally Kurogiri had stated that he would end up with Uraraka “for obvious reasons”. His mist form saved him from a stab, as Toga yelled that Ochako was as boring as a brick.

A smile had shown up on her face, unexpectedly at the memory. A few months after that moment, the League of Villains had attacked Tartarus, the world´s safest prison, and managed to extract All for One.

If she still had enough room in her broken mind for normal nightmares, that mission could have filled them; clone after clone of Twice getting his head blown up by special forces snipers, Spinner fighting with Endeavor in a ring of flames, Dabi´s duel with Katsuki Bakugou and the collateral damage it caused, Nomus losing control and attacking friend and foe alike…and her fight against Miruko, the strongest female hero in Japan.

A knife in each hand, Toga had fought the Pro Hero with all the technique and speed she could, but she was badly outmatched. The hero was taller, stronger and was trained to fight people much stronger than Toga.

Even with all the dirty tricks she knew as muscle memory from whatever she had been doing before finding herself in Tokyo, she could barely keep up defensively.

When an explosion rocked the prison, Toga took her chance and jumped off the prison, into one of Ujiko´s stinky portals. Alive on the other side, she ran and ran.

When she recovered, she found out all that had happened afterwards; Nejire Hadou had restrained Shigaraki; Shouto Todoroki had confronted Dabi before his fight with Bakugou and Shinsou Hitoshi ended with anyone dying, and had managed to get the villain to surrender; Mr. Compress had been knocked out and captured by Deku and Froppy.

Endeavor had ended up burning Spinner with third degree burns all over as he “subdued” him, permanently crippling the Stain fanboy´s left arm and leaving him burnt worse than Dabi.

Twice had run away after his mask had burned in Endeavor´s fire, quickly losing his mind and throwing himself at the police on instinct. The police had shot him dead. Ujiko had been caught just a moment after transporting Toga to safety, captured by Hawks and his avian apprentice, Tokoyami, and had fallen to the ground, dying.

But it was all for naught for the heroes, as All for One was released, and after a quick, undecisive fight with Deku and the yet-unnamed-hero Bakugou, made his escape.

A week later, Toga had been caught by another disaster, this time natural, as an atypical typhoon hit the island she was hiding, Okinawa.

Trapped under a collapsed building, she had been saved by a green hero, and in the end, she had saved him too, in a day they had promised not to ever tell about.

If All for One had not said the words, THOSE words, she would have turned herself in at the end of the month, and maybe she would be with Izuku now.

That thought made her blush again, even harder. But the fact was, she had just spent half an hour thinking about Tartarus and fighting and stuff when she should have been checking her Izuku for any new girlfriends she might have to kill.

Another check and it was all good. Midoriya kept to himself, but Toga was still unsure why he wasn’t just dating one of the girls. She was sure Mina would have asked him out by now, hell maybe even Ochako had finally gotten the nerve, but it seemed nothing had happened.

Maybe he just takes a naked Hagakure on dates? With a click she blocked her phone, connecting it to her peeled off cable charger. She really should take more care of her stuff, she thought, as she tossed some more of her stuff with no care.

It was now 1 A.M. Toga had even gone as far as to do actual exercise to pass the time, she had been incredibly bored, but now it was time. Walking at a leisurely pace, she soon reached the politician´s house.

Two bodyguards protected the east side, compared to the three at the north, south and west, plus the two patrolling the perimeter, and an unknown number inside the house.

Unsheathing her knife, a Fairbairn Sykes dagger she had acquired a year ago, Toga approached the guard post, sticking to the shadows as much as possible.

As one of the guards, a man with a hamster head for a Quirk lit up a cigarette, she took advantage of the glow to rush the last few meters, appearing in front of them like a phantom.

The hamster head man fell first, a well-placed punch at the windpipe silencing whatever cry for help he might have uttered.

With her left hand, Toga used her garrotte wire as a lasso, binding the other guard´s right hand before he could reach for a gun at his side. He seemed to be quirkless, but as Toga grappled him into a sleeper hold, he had no time to prove otherwise.

A swift kick knocked out the hamster head. I'm not killing innocents if I can, Izu-Izu.

There was no time to hide the bodies, or even collect blood for the infiltration. She had to evade the perimeter guards and she had no time to lose.

Trotting while keeping low and in the shadows, Toga came across a one of the patrol guards. His eyes emitted light, what a double-edged quirk!

Carefully evading his cone of vision, Toga positioned herself behind him, kicked behind his knee to lower him to the ground, and choked the man out.

Free guns! She took the guard´s pistol, an integrally supressed 9 millimetre. The rifle was too cumbersome to carry, despite having interesting accessories.

With a running start, Toga grabbed hold of the first-floor roof and mantled over. Silently padding over the roof, she grabbed onto the second story roof and climbed again. On the roof top, she walked silently over to the other side, where the target slept.

Lowering her head in order to see the wall below her, Toga found two sets of windows, and positioning herself over the larger ones, she lowered herself to the windowsill.

Lockpicking the window, Toga heaved herself through the window, scanning the dark room. Her yellow, cat-like eyes gave her slightly enhanced night vision, as an unrelated side effect of whatever quirks her parents may have had.

She looked around, and…gotcha.

The target, Senator Darren Simpson, slept in the bed. His long white hair was unmistakeable.

Toga took out the silenced pistol, and fired at the sleeping man, twice in the chest and once in the head, just like Kurogiri taught us. The moment the third bullet hit, a person rose up from beside the senator. A wife?

The woman had leapt at her, with clearly some enhanced strength. She had reddish brown, featherlike hair but otherwise looked ordinary. Dodging, Toga emptied the rest of the pistol´s magazine on the senator. The empty gun was a lousy weapon, so she tossed it at the woman, feinting for the head but actually throwing it at the knee.

Off balance, the enemy was vulnerable, so Toga tackled her. The woman didn’t have the strength Izu-Izu had on a single hair, so Toga's tackle took her down through the half open window, landing on top of the woman.

Toga rolled over, quickly recovering and drawing her garrotte, ready to catch a punch or kick and force the woman to surrender or risk cutting her own veins.

As expected, the woman threw a punch, but it was too fast, and Toga could neither block it or ensnare her arm.

Then the woman attempted a leg sweep, Toga leapt over it, positioning herself behind the woman and entangling her neck with the garrotte. “I don’t want to kill you, surrender!” yelled Toga, as she tightened her grip around the wire´s handles. Her nose smelled blood; the woman was trying to hold the wire with her hands.

As the woman struggled, Toga let the garrotte go, and leapt as far as she could. The woman would most likely not follow immediately, so she had to escape quickly.

Running towards the eastern entrance, she found no resistance, but behind her she could already hear the guards running toward her, shouting at each other.

She ran like an Ingenium with diarrhoea would run to a bathroom, a mad sprint to the exit.

As she jumped over the unconscious bodies of the guards, gunshots zoomed by, barely missing her. A shot grazed her thigh, making her wince in pain. She made for an alley between two houses and climbed over a couple of fences. Suburbia is shit for hiding.

She heard police sirens, headed towards the senator´s mansion; in a few minutes they would coordinate properly and try to fence her in the area. The only way out of being caught was to be outside the search area and become incognito, at least that had been Shigaraki´s way of explaining it once, before it became a discussion with Dabi over which videogame in the series about stealing cars was better.

Shigaraki, always a hipster, had stood by the fourth game to the death!

Getting out of a search area would have been easier if she could impersonate someone else, but Toga had no blood available, except for the small trickle of her own blood on her wounded leg. And that was no use, obviously. So, she would have to run, and hide and run some more.

Thirty minutes later, Toga was still running. The police sirens were still faintly in the distance, she had passed the circle. But now American heroes would most likely be on the hunt for her. Someone with night vision or infrared could find her easily enough from a height, maybe another blood-quirk user could follow the trail her wound had left, maybe she'd stumble on a vigilante.

Looking around as she caught her breath, Toga found a passable hiding spot, a sewer entrance. Removing the lid, she lowered herself down the manhole, onto the sidewalk on one side of the stream of sewage. She wrapped the headscarf tighter around her mouth and nose; the smell was twice as bad as Ujiko´s portals.

She walked at a sure pace in the direction she had been going before, following the sewer´s twists and turns until she found the sewer equivalent of crossroads. Toga went right, and kept going for a while longer, and emerged at what she thought was enough distance.

On the distance, she could see a police helicopter, its searchlight illuminating suburban houses. A reporter helicopter was rushing to the scene from another part of town, escorted by two people flying next to it; Toga had no time to think about their flight being quirk based or tech based.

Walking slowly, keeping to the shadows, Toga slipped unnoticed into the edge of the suburb. A highway and some privately owned land separated her from the rest of the city, looking both ways, she crossed the highway, sprinting the whole time.

On the other side, she walked beside the private land´s fence for a while, until she saw a dump truck that could conceal her. Jumping onto the back of the truck, she pulled up and got inside the truck´s box, which was filled with construction grade sand.

Toga let the truck carry her for half an hour, and then bailed, rushing over the highway barrier to avoid incoming cars. Now she was well away from the crime scene, and near a low-density residential area.

Hiking over to a nearby strip mall, she called for a cab with an app on her phone. The driver asked no questions as they got to her “borrowed” apartment.

The credit transfer was successful, she waved the driver good bye, and jogged upstairs to the apartment. She bandaged her leg haphazardly; she wasn’t going to bleed out, so she could bother in the morning.

She threw her new gear, which she was sure Shigaraki would have called her “tactical espionage action” stuff, to a corner, put on the Deku t-shirt, and slumped on the bed, exhausted.

Himiko Toga walked through a large gate, the letters U and A proudly engraved on the metal. Glancing down, she could see the UA uniform on herself. Her hands were blurry, like everything on the edge of her vision. Yep, its a dream, but is it a nightmare?

She looked around, she had never actually been inside the Hero Academy, but in the dream´s certainty, she knew where to go. Step by step, she neared a classroom in the beautiful glass towers. 1 A. Part of her knew Izuku Midoriya was no longer on the first year, but she didn’t question the vision.

The door opened, and she saw the whole class, as she had last seen them. Some wore their hero costumes, like Deku and Ingenium II, others the school uniform, the ones she had almost no knowledge of, like the lips guy or the animals’ guy, were little more than blurry figures.

But instead of the teacher being Eraserhead, as she knew, the pro Hero Miruko sat on the chair, swivelling around to face her. Oh no, not her.

The hero´s eyes burned in dark red flames as she stared at Toga. Toga couldn’t move, her legs shook, her arms wouldn’t go up to defend herself.

She looked around and tried to yell for help, only managing a whispered “Izu…” before a strong kick connecting with her jaw. Miruko stepped back for a moment, letting the students gang up on her.

It took all her willpower to get up and fight. A knife was in her hand, carving up first the blurry students, then the one with multiple arms that had kept her from Izuku in the training camp, she grabbed a dwarf with stupid hair and ran her blade across his throat, almost decapitating the poor bastard.

She could see Izuku trying to get to her, but Todoroki and Bakugou held him. She had only looked away, but Miruko had taken the chance to close in on her and disarm her.

The pro hero punched and kicked her, Toga´s body rag dolling around until she finally fell. The hero held her down and made her look at Izuku again.

Now he wasn’t held back by his two friends, but he was in the arms of Mina Ashido, kissing her. Around him, Tsuyu, Ochako and Momo fluttered, asking for their turn. Tears burned in Toga´s eyes and she closed her eyes, supressing a scream.

Its just a dream, just a dream! I will wake up! Miruko spoke into her ear “There is no redemption for you”.

Himiko Toga opened her eyes. They stung with tears. For a moment she was confused, but then she remembered the dream. She cried in earnest, like she hadn’t cried in a lot of time.

As she dried her tears with the apartment´s bedsheets, she heard a small sound out of place.

The sound of the door opening and a metal can bouncing on the floor.

There was a blinding flash of light accompanied by a deafening bang, and Toga was caught unawares. Disoriented, she reached for her knife and threw it towards where the door was supposed to be.

Her ears rang so she couldn’t know if she had hit anything. A blunt object hit her forehead, and she fell onto the bed. Her hands were held together, to stop her from reaching for another weapon, and she was restrained. “I know my rights! I want my phone call!” she yelled, before an injection of some kind put her to sleep again.

At least this time there were no dreams.

Agent Anna Dobinek removed her combat mask as the villain girl stopped squirming and fell unconscious. The rest of her four-man team looked at her, waiting for orders; Csaba still held the zip cuffs, Anderson adjusted her balaclava to scratch her nose, Talbot tapped his helmet with his baton.

“I´ll call it in, get her on the van. Anderson, grab her stuff, it is evidence.” The team acknowledged and got to the task.

The target, alias “Himiko Toga”, was a young woman, half Japanese if she could guess correctly, of slightly below average height, with a deceptively average build; her casefile had her fighting toe to toe with the Amazonian Miruko for almost three minutes, before being transported via portal by an accomplice.

Dressed in a t-shirt a few sizes too big and her underwear, Toga had clearly not expected the fight, if the capture could even be called that.

Around the bedroom, Anderson was gathering the spread-out possessions of the messy criminal, sensing around with her hands, her hyperactive sense of smell guiding her to every item.

Christa Anderson had been born practically deaf, and as her quirk, a hyper sensitive olfactory system, developed her eyesight had started going too, with myopia so severe it was practically blindness by the time she reached adulthood.

Still, the gray-haired woman had gone up to join the Las Vegas SWAT team, earned a reputation as a one-person breaching team, and gotten a recommendation for further government work.

Anna clicked her push-to-talk radio “Texas Red, this is Holy Diver, target secured. We need clean up at 1547 Roscomare Road, third floor. Requesting cold extract, Van Nuys Airport.”

“Holy Diver, Texas Red copies all, see you at the airport”.

Anderson gave her an all clear hand sign. “Masks on”. The flexible ballistic mask fit Anna´s head like a silk glove, had a simple heads up display, and could take a point-blank shot from a 44. Magnum.

Her partners wore similar masks, fitted to their quirks. A few neighbours had woken up and intercepted the team on the building´s entrance, curious about the noise they had heard earlier.

Anna showed them her Department of Defence badge and said, “We were sent to help the LAPD with a case, no need to worry.” Their questions about the cuffed, unconscious girl, met deaf ears.

The van, a discreet green vehicle of a recent model, awaited them. The door slid open, revealing the support team members, Isaacs and Garza. The villain girl was secured to a seat, and the team took a breather, removing their masks.

As Garza started bickering with Talbot, Csaba looked at Anna “So this girl just killed a Senator? In the middle of Bel Air? That is pretty intense”.

Csaba was a middle aged, bulky man, with six fingers on each hand and seven toes on each foot. A former DEVGRU operator, his heavy boots now served the government faithfully.

Anna nodded, and said “Still, doesn’t explain why they sent us. America has thousands of heroes, pretty much any team could have caught her with enough support. She´s pretty good, but a quirkless SWAT team would have been good enough, I think. No offense, Talbot”.

The quirkless Brit, loaned by the MI6, just glared in mock anger before giving her a long laugh and turning back to chat with their driver, Garza. “The Director must have some plan with the girl, we´ll ask Texas Red on the jet.”

At the runway, a curly haired man in a dark blue jacket and khakis waited in front of the jet, his hands on his belt loops and his feet spread apart in a powerful pose.

“Himiko Toga, I´m CIA” he said.

Agent Dobinek brought her hand to her face in frustration, the villain wasn’t even awake to hear the agent. From behind “CIA” walked a grizzled old man in a dark “Southern Gentleman” style suit, with a matching dark Stetson.

“Flight Plan, how many times do I have to tell you not to do that every time we pick up a target” said Deputy Director Holden Johns, also known as the Big Iron Hero: Texas Red.

“Nice to see you all again, kids.” he said, giving the team of veteran operators his “kindly grandfather” smile. Flight Plan, the field agent, helped Talbot get Toga on the jet, and the team got to their seats.

“Site Sierra Delta, please” said Texas Red to the pilots, and they set off.

The cowboy hero took a seat opposite Anna, and spoke “Three kills of civilians, including the poor senator last night. Twenty kills of criminals, terrorists and all manner of villain scum. A year and two months of travelling Asia, Europe and America, leaving little trace. The Director has something planned for the Operations Division, the girl´s connections with All for One´s groups can be worth a pretty big buck for the Japanese government, and if the Agency plays its cards right, we may be able to do some pretty big things. You want in on the Project, Holy Diver?”

Anna still wasn’t used to the callsign being spoken like some kind of “Hero name”. The name had come from her weapons instructor at the Agency, as a reference to Ronnie James Dio clumsily wielding a sword in the music video of the same name, as apparently, she fought just as badly.

It was much better than her Green Beret nickname, Craphat, after she had worn her beret all crooked after a night of extra-heavy drinking.

So, Field Agent commander at thirty-five, Holy Diver it was. Anna´s hybrid quirk had been pretty helpful, Night Vision and the capacity to hear underwater, both making her special operations life easier, while giving her basically no drawbacks.

The United States of America had the perfect culture for Anna Dobinek; quirks had appeared in a lower proportion than Europe and a few Asian states like Japan and Singapore, at about 45% of the population having quirks.

The numbers had kept a balance where crime wasn’t overly increased by quirks, while not devolving into discrimination and hatred, as some countries in Africa and the Middle East had.

Some countries had even descended into full blown genocide against quirked and had pretty much cut off ties with the rest of the world. A much peaceful haven for outsiders after quirked heroes took to the streets, America was in a golden age few countries matched, social issues at a much calmer state than before the quirks.

Born to Polish immigrant parents, Anna had taken to the new country and had become extremely proud of it and the progress it was making, and volunteering to fight for it had come naturally to her.

“If it helps the country, I´m in, pardner,” she said, doing her cheesiest Texas accent impression.

“Well then, lass, here´s what I can say now. White Stripe will meet us there and run the tests, and an interrogation. You can be bad cop if you wanna. Before we get there, have you decrypted the phone?”

“The password was just “DEKU”; she left some greasy fingerprints less than a day ago. Apparently, it is some Japanese hero around her age, she runs a fan page and her screen background was one of his promotional pictures. The phone´s caller Id says it was sold in New York to a “Maria Antonia Sanchez”, seems it was stolen a couple months back.”

“Give it over to Flight Plan, he has good techies back at base. She only had that phone?”

“She also had an old flip phone, one number in the contacts, called more than seventy times over the past year. Csaba is checking who received the calls.”

From the back of the plane, Csaba called out “We have a name; Izuku Midoriya”.