Makoto’s head was still pounding when she came to it again, her ears throbbing with each beat of her heart and her vision blurry but she knew exactly where she was - the local police station. The police arrived shortly after she was knocked out by the pro hero, taking both her and her friends in, separating them the moment they arrived. Makoto sighed a little, slowly letting herself sink into the chair she had been put in, briefly inspecting the restraints they had put onto her hands before looking around the interrogation room. She had been here a few times in the past for some trouble she had gotten into with her gang. This time was different though. She knew they wouldn’t get away with a slap on the wrist this time around. The girl let her head fall back as she began staring at the ceiling, the realisation of what was going to happen to them slowly setting in. 

“Fuck…” Makoto mumbled to herself, staring at the mirror across the room for her. Her face was absolutely mangled, a veritable river of blood running down from her nose to her chin and onto her uniform, now dried up and dark, the taste of iron still lingering in her mouth. One of her eyes had swollen shut almost completely, the other having a massive bruise around it. “Aren’t you supposed to give me medical attention before we do this whole interrogation thing…? At least get me something for the headache… please.” She grumbled at the mirror, carefully resting her head on the backrest of the chair, trying to take as much strain off her neck as she could. 

 

“Minami-san… it’s been a while, hasn’t it?” A male voice said just as the door swung open, a familiar face stepping into the room, holding a cup of water and a little plastic cup with painkillers in it. He gave her a little bow before sitting down opposite of her, placing the water and pills in front of her. “So, you wanna tell us your side of the story…?” He said with a sigh, adjusting his chair.

“Does it matter?” Makoto replied, slowly sitting back up, wincing a little as a wave of pain pulsed through her head. She didn’t look up at detective Naomasa, instead carefully taking ahold of the medicine and water, downing the pain meds without a second thought. 

Tsukauchi nodded, leaning onto the table between them. “You and your friends are being accused of something quite serious. I’m sure you’ve got something to say about it.” 

“Like you don’t know…” Makoto mumbled out, avoiding eye contact with the detective, keeping her hands in her lap and using her thumb to nervously scratch at one of her other fingers. “... it’s not our fault that that wannabe hero got in our way.” 

The detective let out a sigh, opening an unmarked folder he had brought in, flipping through it for a moment. “This is the 6th time that you’re sitting in that chair this year, Minami-san. You might have gotten around any serious consequences so far, but if you keep this up, you and your friends might not get away with some public service anymore.”

Makoto’s talon quietly stopped moving as her gaze wandered up to the detective. She stayed quiet for a moment, her expression slowly turning sour. “What are you implying…?”

“Well… you’ve been tried as regular criminals so far, but some of you clearly used their quirks today, including you. In the eyes of the law, that does make you villains, you know that, right?” 

Makoto slammed both her hands onto the table all out of a sudden, attempting to get out of her chair. “We’re not fucking villains!” The detective didn’t even flinch at her outburst, calmly looking at the angry teen in front of him as she yelled. “We don’t have any other options! How do you expect us to survive with half of us not even having a place to sleep?!” 

The interrogation room’s intercom turned on before Tsukauchi could answer, the voice of a young man coming from the speaker. “Ah, Detective… Do you mind if I talk to her?”
The detective turned around to look at the mirror, just shrugging a little. “Are you sure about that? Well… this is technically within your jurisdiction.” He said with a sigh as he got up. 

The door opened once more, a boy a little older than Makoto stepping into the room. He gave both the detective and Makoto a quick bow. He was rather plain looking and certainly wouldn’t stand in a crowd if it wasn’t for his severely bruised face. Judging by his wounds and a large bandage across the bridge of his nose as well as the massive bruises around his eyes, it was none other than Zoom. 

Makoto gave him a sceptical look as she slowly backed down. “Came here to rub it in even more?” She snarled at him, her sharp teeth showing as her upper lip trembled with anger.

The provisional hero quickly shook his head, raising his hands defensively. “No, no! They’ve asked me if I wanted to press charges or not.” He replied, pulling the chair back a few steps before sitting down, putting a little distance between him and the girl. “I heard what you guys said before fighting with Armoured Striker and I wanted to hear your side of the story before I made any decision…” 

She slowly released the tension in her claws, leaning back into her chair with a sigh. “You heard that…? Here I thought I knocked you out before the other guy ever showed up…”

“You… did.” He replied, feeling the back of his head where a significant bump had formed from when Makoto had slammed him into the street. “But a video of your fight with Striker is all over the internet! He even posted it on his blog!” 

“A video?! Who took-” Makoto snarled, instantly tensing up and attempting to get out of her chair again. After a sharp glance from the detective she quickly fell back into her seat. “... of course someone did.” She muttered, taking a deep breath while attempting to pull herself back together.

After a long pause Makoto brushed her red hair out of her face with a sigh, looking up at Zoom. He really wasn’t much older than herself judging by his face. He had switched his hero costume for a school uniform - a grey jacket matched with a red tie and greenish slacks. She took a moment to find the right words before speaking up again. “We didn’t start out like this, you know? At the beginning, it was just Mitsuaki and myself… we’d sometimes sneak food from the markets just to fill our stomachs.” She scoffed a little as she recalled the past. “The shit they fed us back at home barely qualifies as food. Even if one of the older kids didn’t take your portion for the day, you’d be left with a growling stomach.” Makoto glanced at the detective for a moment. “But according to these guys, everything is still well within the law, some bullshit that is.” 

Zoom nodded, having relaxed noticeably as Makoto had leaned back as far as her restraints allowed her to. “So you started stealing food to keep yourself fed? Even the most just hero would find a hard time condemning that.” He paused for a moment, thinking to himself. “But that still doesn’t explain how things turned out like what happened today. You were taking so much more than just food!” 

His opponent just shook her head, snarling a little annoyed. “I’m getting there, just be a little patient.” She muttered, looking back at Zoom. “After a while, we teamed up with some other kids that were doing the same thing and over time, more and more of us came together. Some who ran away from home, others who never had one to begin with. Kids who got condemned for the way their quirks made them look. A few who got kicked out of their homes for whatever reason.” Makoto explained in a very serious tone, occasionally glancing over at the detective in the corner of the room. “At the end of the day, we all just wanted a place to belong and we found that with each other. As for the other crap we took…” She paused for a moment, sitting up in her chair, the chains of her cuffs rustling a little. “We already basically live out on the fucking street, don’t you think we at least deserve some semblance of a decent life? Or should we live on the bare minimum just because life kicked us in the nuts?!” She suddenly got loud again, both the detective and Zoom tensing up as Makoto slammed her flat hand onto the table.

Zoom needed a moment to process Makoto’s outburst, moving back a little from her in his chair. “O-of course not, b-but why don’t you work f-for those things-”

He’d be cut off by her getting out of her chair and kicking it across the room, causing the detective to get up and approach her to make her sit down again. “And who the fuck would take someone like me, huh?!” She yelled at the hero who shrunk into his chair, intimidated. “Do you really think none of us tried?! But it’s always the same! We’ll get let go because we ‘don’t fit in with the company brand’ or some bullshit along those lines! Admit it, ‘hero’. You thought the same thing as well.” 

At this point, she had managed to shut Zoom up completely, the detective speaking up instead. “Don’t you think it’s high time you change that stereotype then, kid?” He asked calmly, picking up the chair she had kicked away, pushing it right under her which somewhat forced her to sit down. “As I said before, it all depends on Zoom over here deciding whether or not to press charges about the attack.” He explained, leaning up against the table next to her. “But the owner of the store already decided to let you go off easy. Said he wants you to pay for the window and shelves you broke when you threw Zoom through them. As for the theft you just admitted to…” He sighed a little, crossing his arms and looking down onto the girl they had cuffed to the table. “All of you are minors… I doubt any of you are getting anything worse than community service.”

Meanwhile, Zoom had managed to pull himself back together, sitting back up in his chair properly. “I…” He spoke up but paused for a moment, staring at Makoto’s claws that had dug themselves into the table. “You’re right… I did think that at first. That doesn’t mean that I don’t think you can change though.” He glanced up at her with a confident, if fake, smile. “You’re not a villain and hardly a criminal in my eyes. I think that the world needs to hear what you told Armoured Striker. We need someone like you to open other people's eyes to what heroes should really be!” He got more and more confident the more he talked, an excited sparkle in his eyes. “I don’t approve of what you did today, but I’m willing to drop any charges and even support you… but if I’m to do that, you have to promise that you and your friends start striving to be better… that you’ll stop doing things like what you did today.” 

At first, Makoto seemed almost offended by Zoom’s words, her hands tensing up again as she dug her claws a little deeper into the tabletop, yet, the longer she thought on it, the harder it became to find something to be angry at. “If you really want that… I need to know that the others will get the same chance you’re giving me. I’ll do what you want, but you need to make sure they’re not just getting sent back to whatever they were running from in the first place.” She looked up at him with a serious expression. “The moment I hear of any one of them being tossed back into their old lives, I’m out.”

“Of course. That much is only fair.” Zoom nodded, his smile becoming more genuine as he heard her response. “I believe we have a deal then.”

Her friends were sceptical about the deal their leader had made but none of them could really say no to the chance they had been given. Of course being given a chance didn’t mean their lives were suddenly a cakewalk. The videos of the gang’s fight with Armoured Striker had spread like wildfire. It was only through Zoom’s active support that the gang’s true story spread throughout the district. While the people around the kid’s neighbourhood knew the real story, most people who saw the fight online sided with the pro hero, often harassing the gang on the open streets or calling for harsher punishments online.

Some of the gang’s member’s lives actually improved significantly once the police and other officials picked up their cases, yet others had to fight for it. After a thorough investigation of the orphanage that Mitsuaki and Makoto stayed at turned up nothing of note, the two decided to pick up part time jobs to afford their own place to stay. 

 

Once Makoto had paid off the damages she had caused, the convenience store’s owner had decided to let Makoto continue working as a part timer. “You’ll scare off any wannabe villains just by looking at them!” He had told her before giving her the closing shift. Makoto didn’t really mind as barely anyone came by so late and she could just sit back until closing time. 

She let out a tired sigh as she locked up the store’s door, switching off the colourful ‘Open!’ sign in the window before lazily gathering up her school textbook and study notes and tossing them into her bag without a second thought. Part of her deal with the police and Zoom was that all of them had to make it through their exams, so even the most serious delinquents of their little gang had to study properly - nothing Makoto couldn’t beat into them.

After quickly walking through the store for a final check, she swung her bag over her shoulder and stepped into the rainy night through the back door, sighing quietly to herself before walking out into the street. There had always been something she hated about nights like this. It wasn’t the rain or even the dark itself, but something deep inside of her just felt wrong about it all.

She shook her head, lost in thought about work, her friends and everything else that had happened recently, absentmindedly navigating the streets toward her apartment with music blasting in her earbuds, drowning out the sound of the pouring rain. Makoto buried her hands in her jacket's oversized pockets, not even bothering to look up as she knew the way even with her eyes closed. 

As Makoto was nearing the apartment block she lived in, she suddenly heard a high pitched scream break through the music, ripping her right out of her thoughts. Almost instinctively, she’d yank on the wire of her headphones, popping them out of her ears as she looked about for the source of the noise. She felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up as the drumming of the heavy rain got broken by the voice of a young woman.

“A-Anyone!! H-Help-” she shouted out, being cut off before she could even finish her sentence. Makoto spun around to where the noise was coming from, perking up and slowly moving toward the source of the noise - a small side street snaking through two buildings. 

The alleyway was lit only by a dying street light and a lone vending machine further in, but the scene in front of Makoto was clear. A boy around Makoto’s age was dragging the girl that had called out for help out of the light, gripping her by her hair with one hand and covering her mouth with the other. 

“Shut your fucking mouth, Amano. I don’t wanna hurt you, you know?” The boy barked at the girl, not having noticed Makoto yet. He was a little shorter than Makoto and certainly weaker than her. The girl he was dragging by her hair however didn’t stand a chance to fight against him. He pushed her against the vending machine, pinning her head to it while keeping her mouth covered. 

Makoto slowly wrapped the cord of her earbuds around her phone as she stepped down the alley, quietly watching on as the attacker rifled through the girl’s school bag, stuffing her phone and wallet into his pockets greedily. 

Amano-san was first to notice Makoto approaching, giving her a pleading look while her attacker went through her belongings. 

“Come on, your parents are loaded, everyone knows that! This can’t be everything you have?!” He complained, turning the bag upside down, spilling its contents onto the wet road.

“And what the hell do you think you’re doing?” Makoto suddenly said, standing only a few feet away from the two of them, stuffing her phone into her pocket. “You got any fucking idea who’s turf you’re on?”

The boy gasped and quickly straightened up, letting go of his victim as he stumbled into a fighting stance. He looked Makoto up and down, a smirk forming on his lips as he realised who he was facing.

“Oh I do… who doesn’t at this point? You’re all over the internet Minami-me.” He got visibly more confident, loosening his shoulders and straightening out his fingers. It wasn’t clear at first, but the moment Makoto saw the edges of his hands shift into blades, she finally recognized Kimura Sora, the same boy who had made her life hell before, the very same one that had broken off one of her horns only a few years prior. Her claws tensed up that very second and she instinctively shifted into a fighting stance herself, putting everything she had into restraining herself.

 “Still a punching bag even after so long, huh? I thought the beating I gave you put you in your place.” He said with a chuckle in his voice. “What are you gonna do? Everyone knows you’re but a neutered dog now! The moment you get in trouble, they’re gonna toss you right back into the hole you came from!” 

Makoto visibly tensed up, clearly knowing the predicament she was in. She grumbled a little and flexed her claws, her eyes wandering over to the girl that was laying on the ground besides Sora. She let out an angry sigh, turning back to face her opponent, baring her sharp teeth in a grin. “Just gotta hit you hard enough to make sure you won’t be able to tell anyone I was even here.”

“W-Wait what?!” Sora gasped, clearly a little shocked by her unwillingness to back down even after his very real threat. He needed a moment to gather himself again, shaking off the shock. “Should’ve figured you’d be too stupid to listen to common sense. Go on then, I’ll take your other horn as well… maybe you’ll look somewhat normal then!” He laughed to himself, making a step forward, swinging the sharpened edge of his hand right at her face. 

His opponent didn’t even flinch, taking a quick step to the side to avoid the attack and giving him an unimpressed look. She grabbed his wrist with one hand, twisting his arm to the side before clamping her other hand onto his neck, lifting him off the ground without much effort. Makoto slammed Sora against the vending machine that the girl was hiding behind, smashing him right through the glass and causing a few cans to fall out. 

“It makes no fucking difference what I do. You’d just pin this shit on me one way or another.” She snarled at him through clenched teeth, her claws slowly digging into his skin as shards of broken glass and bent metal pieces tearing through his shirt. Makoto pushed him further into the ruined machine, actually beginning to choke him. Her eyes slowly began to shift in colour, darkening until they were almost red. “Why should I let you run if I could get you back for everything you did to me in the past?” 

Sora was struggling to pry her hand off his throat, writhing in her grip like an animal trying to escape from a hunter’s trap - all to no avail. 

“All those stories you made up about me, the rumours you spread.” She continued, slowly extracting him out of the machine and tossing him to the other side of the narrow alleyway where he collapsed on the asphalt. “Oh, how many times you and those leeches you call friends beat me up. Not to mention…” Makoto squatted down in front of him, briefly touching her broken horn. She just scoffed a little watching as her opponent desperately tried to crawl away from her, the red glow in her eyes fading as she stood back up. “But you’re not worth the trouble. Run away like the pathetic worm you are.” She glanced at the girl cowering between some trash cans now, then back at Sora. “Should I ever see you around here again… or if I find out you do as much as looking at her funny, I’ll find whatever little hole you’re hiding in and I won’t stop short.” 

At this point, Sora was a mess of tears and blood, scrambling to get onto his feet and away from Makoto as fast as he could. He just gave her a terrified nod before running off into the street, leaving Makoto and his victim standing in the rain.

Makoto just let out an exhausted sigh as he disappeared out of sight. Taking a deep breath, she turned around to check on the girl she had “saved”. 

The girl was curled up just a few feet away from her, shielding herself from the fight with her school bag. Even with Sora gone, she was still shaking and sobbing, not daring to come out of cover. 

“It’s uh… it's alright.” Makoto did her best to sound reassuring. “I'm not gonna hurt you, I swear!” She quickly buried her hands back into her jacket’s pockets to hide her claws, squatting down in front of the girl to make sure she was alright. 

The girl just let out a scared yelp, jumping a little as Makoto got closer. Her terrified expression didn’t escape her saviour however, who just shook her head a little before giving the girl some space.

“If you’re worried about him… don’t be. Asshole tried to mug you, he can count himself lucky that he got away with a few scratches and a pair of pissed pants. No way he’s gonna tell anyone about what happened… or ever lay a finger on you again.” As Makoto talked, the girl slowly came out of her hiding spot, beginning to gather her things, stuffing everything back into her bag as fast as she could, not saying a word. Makoto just shrugged a little, picking up some of the girl’s things as well. “I understand that you wanna bring this up to the cops… but I’d appreciate it if you left me out of the story… just tell them it was too dark to see whoever beat him up or some bullshit like that.” She added, handing over the items she had picked up. The girl just quickly grabbed onto the things before running off without saying a word.

 

“So much for doing the right thing…” Makoto mumbled to herself as she pulled her phone back out of her pockets, unwrapping her earbuds and stuffing them into her ears. She glanced around the scene one last time before turning her back. In a puddle just in front of her, between broken glass and scattered cans she spotted something that the girl must’ve forgotten. She carefully pulled the wet piece of paper out of the puddle it was floating in, giving it a closer look. It was some sort of flyer for a school, two big, golden, letters adorning the front - “UA”.