Tomura watched on silently (as silently as he could, at least) from the cameras. Sensei requested that he leave, but he'd never said he couldn't eavesdrop.

The golden-eyed kid was standing now, mask on the floor, making blindingly obvious the young age and lack of experience controlling his emotions. His pale features were narrowed and pinched into an impressively animalistic snarl that would have made any lesser man flee from those sharp canines and cat-like golden eyes.

"Fuck no! Bastard," Fullmetal growled out through gritted teeth. "Even if I knew, I wouldn't tell you, jackass. Let me. The fuck. Go. Before I make you."

Sensei looked on calmly, undisturbed by the loud and brash threats. "Ah, my boy. Don't be so crass. You're free to leave at any time. Besides, it is… unwise and unbecoming of you to make threats you can't follow up on."

"Liar. I'm not stupid. If I leave now, you're just going to follow me home and catch me later, maybe kill some of my friends in the process." Those eyes narrowed even further, just little rage-filled slits. "And you're right, I shouldn't write checks I can't cash. Good thing my bank account is full then, huh?"

"Hmm. True, but I doubt you have quite near enough money to cash that particular one. Looks like it will bounce after all." The vigilante was quiet, and Sensei smiled as much as he could. "See? A nice, civil conversation. At least hear me out before you go."

The boy sat down warily, but he was much calmer than before. Tomura was glad for that, at least. He knew Sensei could take care of himself and he would never dream of trying to protect him, but he'd rather not deal with a fight.

"Let's see… you're a vigilante, right?" The kid nodded, obviously willing to listen at least. "May I ask why that is, before we begin?"

"It's simple, really. Becoming a hero takes too long and is far too restricting, but being a villain is very… is edgy the word? Yeah, edgy, and I refuse to kill."

All For One cocked his head a little bit in though. "I see. Well," and here he paused to gather his thoughts, "what do you think of this society, this world, my little anomaly?"

The vigilante was more loose now, and answered after a second to think over his answer. "I think that it's… stifling, I suppose. Unjust. Unfair."

"There you go." Sensei spread his arms magnanimously. "Now what if I gave you a way to change that, without killing? Or maybe just disposing of one person. One false symbol to create a new world. How about it? With your obvious power you can help me fix everything. Be a true hero."

There was a moment of silence. Tomura was ready to turn away from the cameras, having seen this many times over. A wonderful deal to someone pushed out of society, and they always took it. But then there was laughter.

"Oh, man. That was the most fun I've had in ages," the kid said, still chuckling. "Alright. A few things to thank you for, before we begin. First, thank you for letting me know why you were after me; second, that you are in fact who I'm looking for; and third, telling me just how much you know about me."

In the blink of an eye he was standing, the crackle of sparks highlighting the sudden blade where his arm had been. He took a ready stance.

"But I think you misheard me, you baked-potato looking fuckmunch. I'm only not a hero because becoming one takes too much time, and I don't give two shits about your society. I'm here to kick your ass, drag you back to face Truth, and go home. Let's start the first step, shall we?"

9 months earlier...

A stack of papers slammed down onto his desk before he had even sat down, and Naomasa raised an eyebrow as he settled into his chair. He blew over his coffee to cool it off, and looking over the top page, he almost regretted coming to work today.

"An incident report? This early in the morning?"

Sugara collapsed into the chair opposite and slammed her head into the desk with enough force to shake the whole thing in lieu of a response. Judging from the timestamp, the poor woman must have been woken up before dawn to come deal with it, and he knew for a fact she had been on late shift last night, too. She probably hadn't slept a wink. He silently held out his coffee, and she eagerly lifted her head to drink about half of it before burying her face in her arms again. Naomasa took a small sip in understanding. So it was one of those.

Her voice was muffled by the wood, but he could still hear her tired voice well enough. "Two kidnappers and a kidnap victim were dropped off at the station very early this morning." As she spoke, he picked the first sheet off the pile and began to read. "The kidnappers were restrained, and the kidnap victim denied any involvement in detaining them. He said… he said he was rescued, but we're absolutely positive that no heroes were in the area at the time when he said he was attacked."

"Have you checked with the underground heroes?" he asked with a frown, finishing off his first cup. Judging by the way this was starting today, it wouldn't be his last.

She lifted her head just enough to give him a sleepy glare. "Of course we did, idiot. My team isn't that incompetent." He coughed sheepishly, and she huffed, slamming her head back into the table before continuing. "So, yeah. That's a thing. Now everyone's thinking vigilante, but the dude refused to give any details on appearance. Probably thankful to whoever it was that saved him."

At this part she shifted so her chin was resting on the crowded table, giving him a small relieved smile. "Thankfully, the kidnappers weren't so reluctant."

"So you got a description?"

"Um…" Now it was Sugara's turn to look sheepish. "Not- not exactly." Naomasa gave her a look, and she frowned at him. "They were willing to talk once they regained consciousness, of course, but they didn't have much of anything useful. Said they weren't sure if it was a boy or a girl, just that they seemed young. Apparently wearing a mask, so nothing on eye color or skin, and no way for us to get a sketch artist out here anyway, so-"

He held up a hand to stop her, staring intently at the papers he was holding. "You said… unable to determine gender?"

"Yeah. Both witnesses said that they were very short, but with long blonde hair tied back in a braid. I think the term used by the woman was 'golden', actually, but same thing. The voice was deep enough to be a teenage boy, or a college-age, early-twenties girl. Costume was red coat, black clothes, white gloves, and boots. Mask was metal and intricately made. No skin was shown, so that's out, and while they supposedly have an accent, they didn't speak enough to determine exactly where it was from."

Naomasa listened intently to her statement, but his eyes were fixed onto the report in front of him. "What concerns me most is the… well, the quirk aspect. This report says that neither of the witnesses discussed the quirk, and when asked about it, were noticeably hesitant to talk and didn't go into much detail. Is there a reason for it that we know of?"

She sighed again, long and heavy. "I'm afraid not. The only things we know are that they're skilled enough to capture two adult villains with dangerous quirks-"

"Hang on. What I'm looking at here doesn't mention the perps' quirks."

"That's odd…" she said with furrowed brows, skimming the page. "Yeah, that… shouldn't happen. I'll work on that, but for now I know that the woman has a powerful touch-based persuasion quirk that even works on inanimate objects. The man has poisonous darts on his shoulder blades that can extend at will and contain a dangerous neurotoxin. The kidnap victim, meanwhile, has a much less powerful jump boost. I really don't know why it wasn't put on file…"

He waved her off. "It's fine, Sugara, I can take care of it. You look dead on your feet, go take a nap in the breakroom. I think Shironoto left a pillow in there, you can probably use that."

"Aw, that's sweet of you. Good luck Nao-chan."

As she left with a tired thanks and a yawn, Naomasa couldn't help but feel a little anxious. Both of the attackers had extremely dangerous quirks and were regular villains. From the report, while the kidnappers had skipped the details of the quirk that took them down, they had both complained at length over the fact that they were immobilised before they even noticed the vigilante. Musutafu had tons of vigilante reports every year, but most of them were one off things. Not only was this guy skilled and had a good quirk, the costume made him think that maybe this one might stick around.

Which meant more time in the station trying to hunt them down. Absolutely fantastic.

Naomasa got up to get another cup of coffee, a newly-formed headache already pounding at his skull. The percolator whirred to life, and before long the scent of coffee filled the air. Waiting for the machine to pour him a cup, the detective cast his gaze around the room, and since not too many people were in yet, it was still blissfully quiet.

After about five hours and four cups of coffee, a new pot was done brewing just before lunch break, and a few officers wandered in to grab a cup for themselves. Naomasa slipped out of the group and back towards his desk, leaning against the edge of the old wood as he stole whatever time he could out of the chair. His papers lay scattered around after a few hours of frustration at his newest headache, and he put his mug (It said #1 Dad-tective on it, it was a joke gift from the archive room for Christmas two years ago. At first he had hated it, but now he found himself using it more and more,) down so he could tidy up a bit. The room was starting to fill up with a bit more chatter as more and more people streamed in to leave for lunch.

One of his newer papers sat delicately on top as he tapped the pile against the desk to straighten all the pages out. He glanced over it curiously, not fully remembering it, but after a moment paused. It was a vigilante report from a few weeks ago that had been caught on camera with no eyewitnesses. The footage was grainy and colorless, but he had printed out a few screenshots that had the best view of the incident and attached them to the file.

His eyes widened. The pictures may have been black and white, but the person in the picture was wearing a blurry cloak, dark underclothing… He flipped through a few more pictures before stopping on one. It was the vigilante mid-tackle, braid straight out behind them and metal mask gleaming with-

Half of his newly tidied up papers flung themselves off his desk to get away from his mad dive across it as he frantically shuffled through papers to get the new incident report from this morning. Sure enough, the descriptions matched, and Naomasa felt his face split into a wide and uncharacteristically goofy grin.

The chatter in the room had stopped abruptly, and in the near silence a timid voice called from the back. "Uh, Tsukauchi? You… you okay, dude? You seem…" They left the sentence unfinished, but he felt a bit too giddy to care. He knew that Eraserhead was working on the other case, so if they were connected then he might be able to just pass it off to him.

And if Aizawa had a lead, then they had struck gold.

The noise in the room slowly started up again as he hurried away towards the front. Naomasa was silently praying that Aizawa had a lead (or could just take the case, why were the vigilante cases always given to him?!) and the free time to pursue it. The detective knew that Eraserhead didn't have classes, so he could just call now.

He slipped into a little unused break room that was fairly quiet, but just as he hit the call button he realized what time it was, and resisted the urge to slam his face into the refrigerator.

"What."

Okay, so maybe Shota wasn't having the best morning. He probably deserved the migraine from getting a grand total of two hours of sleep and then having to deal with kids, so he wasn't going to complain (too much) about that, but how the fuck did he deserve getting an obnoxiously loud phone call on his lunch break?! It woke him up for fuck's sake. Fuck.

This time not being around students has really dumbed down his repertoire of swear words. It was both a fact and a running joke among U.A. faculty that teenagers were the most creative people on Earth when coming up with insults.

Cementoss was currently winning from when he overheard a second year call a villain 'an elementary school water fountain that spews fucking Drano, you lima bean looking fuckmunch' after they blew up the train station and made her late to school. With more profanities.

Fuck. The phone. Was still in his hand. There was someone calling him. Why were they calling him. They needed to stop.

"What. The fu-...hell do you want." He just barely stopped from swearing (too badly) at someone who might be a parent, because he kind of needed his job. Unfortunately, he got someone both better and so, so much worse than some entitled parent.

"Oh, sorry if I woke you up."

"Yes, you woke me up, asshat," Shota growled into the speaker, and there was no reply. Fair enough, he had been just a touch rude there. He forced himself to breathe and think rationally for a moment. He really shouldn't just swear at Tsukauchi, this might actually be important. "... I apologize, that was unbecoming of me. Why are you calling."

A light hearted chuckle filtered over the speakers, and he relaxed a bit. Seems the police officer wasn't deterred by his rudeness, thankfully. "Then I apologize as well. I'm actually going to make this as fast as possible, as I'm sure such a busy man as you has a lot to do." The teasing tone shifted a bit as the voice paused, seemingly collecting his thoughts. "Look, Aizawa… Right now I'm sending you a few files from an incident this morning related to a case you're on."

One of his most used burner phones buzzed right on time, and he fished it out from his pockets. He knew what was coming next and he stayed on the line, as much as he wanted to toss the phone off the seventh floor balcony.

"Let me guess. It's the new vigilante, isn't it?" Tsukauchi made a small sound of agreement with the tone of someone glad there was another person sharing his pain. Shota may have borrowed a bit from that second year in the impressively long obituary he was composing in his head, but who could blame him? Only a few incidents and this was already a major thorn in his side. He almost wished he had students this year so he could pass off the investigation with a good excuse.

His phone buzzed again, and he reluctantly opened the email. This time he was the one to draw in a thick breath to collect his thoughts. Bloodshot eyes scanned the incident report once, then twice as he fully processed the situation.

"So you're assuming this isn't just a two-off thing then." When he spoke, all the light-heartedness was gone. This just wasn't a time for playing around. Vigilante acts were surprisingly common, but a regular vigilante was extremely dangerous, for more than one reason. The detective seemed to share his opinion.

"I'm afraid so. Our only chance right now is to get a pin on them and catch them before the media finds out. If that happens, we might as well give up. There are more vigilante supporters in this area than police officers, and most wouldn't hesitate to withhold information or help them escape," Tsukauchi confirmed. "Do you have any leads at all? I heard that you tracked them the first time because you were in the area, did you find out where they're living or operating from?"

"Better. I actually interacted with them, and… they're young. I'm assuming teenage boy, but I could see early-twenties woman too. Definitely foreign. I didn't get to see the eyes, but the other patrons at the bar they supposedly work and live at called them Fullmetal. The pronouns used by the bartender were male, but we can't be positive those are correct."

The police officer sighed through his nose. "So pretty much nothing. Our witnesses said pretty much the same thing. And we can't just storm in there either, they're at a serious flight risk. Can you at least keep a lookout, try to… I don't know, you said you've interacted with them? I guess just keep doing that."

Shota rubbed at his face with one hand. "Yeah, yeah. I'll call you back in a few days if I get anything more, but for now…" he lifted the phone away from his cheek to check the time, "... my lunch break is almost over."

The detective said his goodbyes and the call ended with a final beep. He sat down heavily, pillowing his head with his capture weapon and staring into the fake wood grain of the table. It was a bright, hot day outside, so the industrial lighting was faint against the off-white tiles. He could hear the door gently creak open and Ectoplasm's distinctive footfalls. They paused after a moment before slowly getting louder.

He lifted up his head and mustered up one of his best glares, which according to Nemuri was somewhere between Endeavor getting ranked second for the seventeenth time and her mother. The fellow teacher wisely backed up and hurried out of the room, closing the door with a soft click.

He needed another nap.

The phone rang a few weeks later, and Shota didn't even bother looking at it as he answered, eyes either glued to the screen or searching desperately for his house keys. The blaring noise of his bad-quality television was not helping, and he could barely hear Tsukauchi's voice over the ringing in his ears.

He wasn't surprised. There had been reports of at least six more incidents since the first semi-public case.

"Eraserhead, you need to turn on the news."

"-shit shit shit fuck- up and over, oh fuck no, god fucking damn it, you bastard of a- yep thats another one, holy mother of- ah shit that can't be good-"

Edward slingshotted himself around a streetlight with one hand, kneeing the… was that a man? Whatever, kneeing the man in the solar plexus. The dude behind him tripped over the gagging body, but recovered quickly enough to hurriedly roll right, just narrowly missing the gloved fist where his head had been only seconds before.

Another one of the guys still standing growled at him from where his goons were loading up the van with cash, abnormally large eyes locked onto the swiftly moving blonde. Ed's rapid fire cussing in Amestrian, a few Japanese swears thrown in there for some extra flavor, probably wasn't helping.

He ducked and flipped backwards, landing on his hands so that shark-head just missed grabbing him by inches. Another quick push off of his palms slammed his feet into the stomach of a neon-orange guy behind him, who dropped to the ground like a rock, wheezing. His closest attackers dealt with, Ed took the opportunity to catch his breath and wipe the sweat off his brow.

Teacher would kill him if she saw how out of shape he was, but in his defense, he was used to using alchemy to detain people. It was a lot harder forcing himself to not use it, but it was necessary since he was in plain view.

Of course it was just his luck that he had been working at the time when someone tried to rob a bank in broad daylight. He was technically a vigilante, right? So he had just thought 'fuck it, I'll go check it out.' Now the police were on their way, judging from the slowly increasing sirens, and two heroes were already hovering around the edges of the fight awkwardly as they made him deal with their problems.

Truth he wanted to hit something. Good thing there were about three convenient faces to smash up. He lowered himself into a fighting stance, double checking that his mask covered his eyes, and began to stalk forward towards the now quite terrified boss and his two remaining minions.

The sun was positively beating down on him, and his thick trenchcoat and black clothes were actually getting pretty hot, but he'd rather be sweaty and uncomfortable than get burned by his own right arm.

The remaining goons and their leader didn't even try to fight him, which was honestly a bit insulting, and simply continued packing up the truck at a frantic pace, trying to stuff it all in before they had to leave. Law enforcement wasn't here yet, but it wouldn't be long, and the streets were still full of civilians. He needed to end this fast.

The claw-fingered guy flung himself in the driver's seat and started the engine, to which Ed bolted forward. He dug his metal fingers into one of the tires, easily deflating it. The next one was about to get the same treatment, but he felt more than heard the neon-orange eyesore come up from behind him and ducked to avoid the sloppy punch.

They traded blows for a few moments, before Ed realized he was just trying to buy time and knocked him unconscious with a well-timed roundhouse. Keeping the spin going, he crouched to knock the feet out from underneath shark-head, who was a bit more competent and managed to leap over his feet. Unfortunately for him, he wasn't fast enough to dodge the resultant elbow to the groin and he collapsed like a wet sack of potatoes.

The squeal of rubber on asphalt interrupted him as he was busy choking out the last minion, so with a muffled curse he swung off the guy's back and pulled them both to the ground. He hit the concrete with a roll and discreetly clapped his hands, pulling a pair of knives out of the cement. The truck wasn't that far away, so he judged it carefully and threw both of them. The wings on the handles probably didn't help with wind resistance, but one just narrowly missed the leader clinging to the back and the other shattered a taillight. Damn it, he had been aiming for the tires.

Either way, they fulfilled their role, and the truck swerved just enough to clip a light pole and spin out. Most of the civilians were evacuated to a safe perimeter by now, and a few heroes were cautiously walking forward to detain the ones he had already incapacitated. Ed stalked over to the leader, who was lying sprawled on the ground a ways from the crash. The one who had been driving scrambled his way out of the car, which was a fantastic choice since he hadn't made it ten feet before the thing exploded, lighting up the already sunny day even more and sending everyone nearby to their knees.

He held up a metal hand to block the searing light from his spotty eyes as he tried to blink the aftereffects away. The general murmur of bystanders increased at the explosion, a wave of heat and paper ash washing over the crowd and blowing Ed's bangs straight away from his mask. Little burnt pieces of paper flitted through the air like raindrops from the still-flaming truck, and there wasn't a cloud in sight so the soot would probably stain the streets for weeks.

See, none of this dimension-hopping stuff, just straightforward fighting. Nothing like the scent of a good explosion in the morning.

Ed looked around, rising slowly off of his knees-

Ah, shit.

The bug-eyed leader wasn't as much of a slouch as he thought he was, and managed to completely topple the disoriented vigilante, who managed to roll away and stumble to his feet as the villain tried to stomp his face in. A blade extended from his metal hand with a flash of light, and he charged in, staying low to the ground.

So did the leader, who didn't have much of a defense after Ed brutally slammed his outstretched knee with a devastating axe kick that had the dude flailing backwards in pain. His flesh arm wrapped around bug-eye's neck to swing himself onto his opponent's back and wrap his mismatched legs around the robber's torso. The weight of two metal limbs and another whole body was enough to tip the guy onto his knees.

Edward gently placed the razor-sharp edge of his blade just hard enough to draw blood from his jugular, and the dude went deathly still.

A police officer cautiously crept forward-ah, so they were finally here- and handcuffed the bank robber none-too-gently. Ed moved the blade so the officers could search him, and backed a few feet away, standing by awkwardly as a few other heroes flowed onto the scene to help the first responders take away the villains and stop the fire.

One of the officers turned to him with a smile on her face. "Are you a new hero? Awesome debut, you took out these guys all by yourself. We can't thank you enough for stopping them."

It was pretty common back home to be thanked, but the gratitude in her voice caught him off guard, and he blushed under his mask, nodding as professionally as he could.

He slowly turned to leave, but as he glanced behind him he could see the female officer tilt her head a bit, a crease in her brow as she looked at him curiously.

"Hey- you look familiar. Are you really a new hero?" He frantically nodded his head, braid bobbing at the nape of his neck, but she frowned anyway, not looking convinced. "That's odd… could you be-"

He couldn't pinpoint the exact moment she realized it, since he had taken off the moment he had seen her eyes go wide. A click from behind him alerted him to the gun pointed at his back, so he did the impulsive thing and rolled sideways before darting onto a sidestreet and down a back alley.

The street he had just left was in uproar, police swarming the area as the crack of gunshots faded away. As much as Ed liked fighting, he really didn't want to go toe to toe with the military, or pretty much anyone with a gun that was any type of good shot.

Getting shot fucking hurt, and he hadn't gained a healthy respect for Hawkeye for nothing.

He took a breather in a nearby sidestreet, reducing his mask to half its size so he could actually, you know, see. At this point he was less concerned with someone seeing him than getting shot.

But the thing is, while Ed may be smart, he was also a colossal dumbass, and forgot all about the bane of his existence. Namely the fact that, here, it wasn't guns he had to worry about.

His feet flew out from under him like he'd slipped on a rug, and he was greeted with a disappointed face.

"Got you," said what was possibly the most dead-inside looking person he'd ever seen, and if that wasn't saying something then Edward would eat his boots.

Oh wait, been there, done that. He couldn't stop himself from snorting at the thought, and the guy gave him just the pinnacle of 'are you shitting me right now' expressions. Which was fair, since it must have looked absolutely bonkers from the other point of view.

Just this upside-down vigilante hanging by his feet, wrapped up in what felt like a scarf, staring into the red eyes of what was apparently a pro-hero and laughing.

Eh, he had laughed in the face of God, this wasn't anything new.

Either way, it was not fun to be hanging like this, and once the shock of the situation and the coping humor had worn off, Ed started to thrash around. He knew he wasn't going to get out like this, but might as well make this guy's job even harder, yeah?

His efforts were not appreciated, and the hero made sure to show this by continuing to carry him around by the feet.

They made it back to the main street with no casualties (shame), and the bystanders and police officers all gawked at the site. Another hero grabbed Ed around the middle, and the man that had caught him blinked, his hair settling down around his shoulders.

Ed narrowed his eyes. That hair, those eyes, that dark outfit that was just no fun at all… he looked eerily familiar.

The dude locked black eyes with hi exposed golden ones, and his voice came out as a tired rasp. "What do you want."

Oh, so that's where he knew him from. Ed bared his teeth, causing the edges of his mask to dig into his nose. "You see, fucker, where I'm from it's considered rude to agree to help someone with a problem and then tie them up."

Fuck he hadn't meant to say that much.

An eyebrow rose, unamused. "Well, where I'm from, it's rude to break the law multiple times and then evade capture," and there really wasn't anything he could say to that, was there? "Oh, and before I forget: thanks for showing me your eye color, confirming you're a foreigner, and double confirming that you're the same vigilante that goes by Fullmetal, even if you're not much of a vigilante."

"Not much of a vigilante?!" Ed felt his blood pressure rise at the jab to his self-proclaimed title, something he had spent three hours at the library choosing. You needed a license to be a hero, and that took too long so he would have to work on that later; villain was too dark and evil, fun as it sounded; and being a regular civilian was just plain untrue, even if it led to the least documentation of his existence here.

So, yeah, saying he was a shitty vigilante was like saying Alphonse wasn't the responsible Elric, if he did say so himself. Besides, he liked a good fight.

"I guess you're not much of a hero then, trash bag! I've only been here for a few months, but that's plenty long enough to know all about the top heroes or whatever, and you aren't even in the top one hundred. How many people do you save, asshole?" Oh, his accent was getting better. He really hadn't noticed.

"I better not be in the top one hundred, and more than you, obviously. I only got put on your case because you're not big enough to need anyone better, and I have a track record of dealing with low-rate vigilantes, just like you." The dude was still agonizingly calm, but it gave Ed a bit of satisfaction to see him rubbing his hand where he was grabbing Ed's metal foot.

And then the sentence registered, and he saw red. "NOT BIG ENOUGH?! I'LL SHOW YOU BIG ENOUGH WHEN MY BOOTS GO THROUGH YOUR CHEST CAVITY, YOU OVERGROWN PIECE OF POND SCUM! WHO ARE YOU CALLING A-"

The hero currently holding him proceeded to casually cover his mouth with a bit of extra material as he devolved into scattered Amestrian, and the whole procession began to shift over to the police cars on the curb. With all fairness, the paramedics and other officers were doing a marvelous job ignoring the thrashing, tied-up child screaming profanities in an unknown language.

Wait a quick second. He was about to get arrested.

He can't get arrested!

Okay, okay, okay. This was fine. He's been in worse spots before. Alright.

A pale-haired officer began to read him his rights, but he wasn't very concerned with those, seeing as he wasn't going to jail anytime soon. He interrupted her with a laugh.

"Don't bother. Thanks for the practice, but I'll be leaving now!" He shifted through his library of circles, found the one for carbon-infused polyester, and managed to touch his fingers together.

The air around him sizzled with faint crackles of energy, the power circle on his back itching with the sensation of energy flowing from the air, through the circle, then down his spine and arms to the tips of his fingers. The heroes started forward, but before they could reach him he released the energy, circle gleaming in his mind, with a heavy exhale and a toothy grin.

Nothing happened.

A few beats of silence, then the hero holding him chuckled and pushed him into the car. "What was that supposed to do? Come on, you're not going anywhere." The officer who had been reading him his rights laughed quietly as she got in the driver's seat.

"They always think they can get away," she agreed.

A different policeman opened the door to the backseat with a pair of bulky handcuffs (Maybe quirk suppressants? He had read about those briefly.), saying something to the hobo-looking hero who had caught him. After a moment, Ed felt the cloth binding him pull away, though he was far more occupied with panic.

Why hadn't it worked? The equation was balanced and there was certainly alchemic energy- it should've turned the fabric into dust and let him make a hasty escape. But it- oh.

The scarf wasn't carbon-infused polyester.

God fucking damn it.

The uniformed man slid the handcuffs onto Ed's hands, frowning a bit at the noise the metal made against his hand before dismissing it and closing the door. The engine started up with a rumbling purr as they pulled away from the curb.

Then, Ed realized there was a simple solution. "

"Hey, uh, these look like new… quirk suppressants. Are they different?"

The driver snorted. "I don't know what you mean different, these haven't been changed out for five years or so now." Her partner in the passenger seat mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like "god knows we don't get paid enough for that", and the woman snorted before continuing.

"Yeah, these are older models. Just the standard quirk-treated titanium… um, what was it again?" She turned to her partner, who looked deep in thought for a moment.

"Uh, titanium… steel alloy, I think. Maybe not. Whatever. Why do you want to know, anyway?" he asked Ed with a raised eyebrow, but paled a bit when golden eyes crinkled up in a large, unseen smile.

"Oh, no reason…" with the array for a titanium-steel alloy in his head, his hands met with a resounding clap despite the bulky metal separating them. The handcuffs peeled away with crackle of electricity and reformed into a metal stake.

The car swerved as the driver reached for her gun, but Ed was faster. Another clap and the window sprayed outwards in an explosion of glittering dust. Before it had even settled, the masked vigilante burst out of the window and hit the ground rolling, covering his side with his arm to prevent road burns.

One of the cops behind him was shouting for backup, two more police cars screeching to a halt behind them. In less time than it took to say 'it wasn't my fault,' he had four guns pointing at him and someone else screaming at him to stop.

Oh, hell no. He wasn't just going to give up, that was plain insulting.

He could see another car pulling up behind the ones already there, and… aha! He just needed to stall for a few seconds. Unfortunately for him, a few seconds was a heck of a long time when four heroes were piling out of the newly-arrived car and barreling towards you.

So, Ed did the smart thing.

Fullmetal was just standing in the middle of the road, looking calmly at the lined up officers by the time Shota arrived. He was out of the car in a flash, vaguely registering North Star and Kesagiriman next to him. They all raced forward past the gun-wielding enforcers, and were about to reach the dangerous vigilante when they held their hands up.

"I surrender!"

What. The fuck.

Everyone around him froze in confusion for a moment, but as Fullmetal made no move to put their hands down, they began to relax.

North Star walked forward, more slowly this time, towards the blonde. "Finally. You've caused a lot of trouble, I hope you-"

From this close, Shota could see golden eyes peeking over the carved metal mask, and he made a mental note of the color. And the way they seemed to be smiling. Oh shit, they were smiling, right?

A loud horn blared from the oncoming traffic across the median, and Shota's eyes widened. He dashed forward, but he wasn't quite fast enough to reach the shorter figure.

With grinning eyes and a goofy salute, the vigilante vaulted over the median and practically bounced off a car's hood, landing on top of the sixteen-wheeler in the next lane over. They waved cheekily at the officers and heroes, saying something that was lost over the wind.

Kesagiriman growled next to him. "After them! We can't let them get away. Send a patrol unit to-"

"It's no use."

The fuming hero turned towards Shota with a retort on his lips, but it died at the deadpan expression on the underground hero's face. "You'll never catch them, they've been evading heroes since they debuted," Shota explained calmly, then sighed.

"No, it's not worth the manpower. Just send a report that we lost them."

The first thing Dabi said when Elric walked into the back room was, "You're a cockroach."

The kid paused in confusion, triumphant smile freezing in place, halfway through taking off his mask. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me."

"No, I… what?"

From next to him, Ryōsei barked out a laugh. "Crispy critter over here means you're impossible to kill, kid. It's a compliment." The bartender turned to the man. "At least, I think so. Might mean you're a gross bug, hard to tell with this guy."

"Uh, the first one?" Dabi decided to not take that as an insult.

"We've been watching ya," Ryōsei continued, gesturing fondly towards the old, beat-up television all the chairs were arranged around. "Saw what went down. How'd you get away? Staples over here was goin' all mother hen, worryin' about ya and all that."

"I was not!"

"Boys!" Ijiwaru practically knocked down the door with how hard she came in, scaring Ryōsei right off the stool. "Why aren't you working? I don't let you stay here so you can sit around, you lazy-ass bitches! Get up!" She paused, finally registering Dabi. "And who let him in?"

Their bartender laughed from the floor. "Oh, lighten up, Iji. He practically works here anyway, we were watchin' the news. Kid over here got himself on T.V., how 'bout that?" They picked up the remote and rewinded it, a blurry image of Fullmetal himself darting across the screen behind a speeding truck.

Ijiwaru paused, then scowled. "First off, I didn't give you permission to be reasonable. Get that logic nonsense out of here. Secondly," and at this she turned to an increasingly pale Elric, "you have two minutes to explain why you're on the news for," she squinted, "'Morning Traffic Update, Pedestrian in Road.'"

"I… um, I mean, it wasn't my fault, really…" he trailed off at the lack of reaction.

The boss rushed forward after a moment of silence, sweeping the smaller figure up with her thin figure. "Oh, I'm so proud of you!"

Dabi swore to all things holy that Elric pulled a very impressive bluescreen at the hug. "What."

She pulled back and set him down. "Your first blatantly illegal act, and they even got it on camera! Such an achievement!" Her eyes sparkled with pride and a bit of sarcasm.

Elric narrowed his eyes comically. "Are you making fun of me?" he said with a bit of a growl creeping into his voice, but he too looked ready to burst out laughing.

"Of course not! Repeat after me: down with the government!"

Ryōsei threw up a fist and repeated her loudly, Dabi did so with caution, and Elric mumbled it under his breath, smiling.

"I couldn't hear you! Let's try this again. Repeat after me: down with the government!"

This time everyone joined in enthusiastically, and the kid was wheezing. "Down with the government!"

"Fuck society!"

"FUCK SOCIETY!" they screamed back.

A knock at the door interrupted them, Shiruko poking her head in curiously, taking in the scene. Elric was on the floor crying from laughing so hard, Ryōsei was well on their way to joining him, Ijiwaru was grinning triumphantly, and Dabi must have looked about five seconds away from a heart attack.

Shiruko ignored this, like only a worker at an illegal back-alley bar or a Walmart's employee could do.

"Iji-san? There's someone out front asking for you, and I need Ryōsei to take their shift soon."

"Yes, yes." The owner sighed, turning back and meeting Dabi's eyes. "I do need you all to start working soon, though. I mean it. I will only hesitate a little bit to kick you out, and that's final."

Both women left, leaving Dabi wondering just where the hell he went wrong in life. Suddenly Ryōsei stopped laughing and turned to Elric.

"Your accent's been getting better. When did you start using the contractions I was teaching you?"

The boy blinked in surprise. "I don't know, it just kind of happened this morning."

"Well, whatever." The bartender threw one arm around Elric's small shoulders and another around Dabi. "How 'bout I show you boys how to whip up a nice cocktail, in celebration of the kid's first 'blatantly illegal act?'"

It had only been two weeks since the bank robbery. Yes, Naomasa counted. Yes, that was the only thing keeping him sane.

"What do you want," he mumbled face first into his desk, but looked up just in time to catch Muramatsu raise an eyebrow.

"Yeesh, Nao-san, hell warmed over for you, huh?" The fellow officer said with a wry grin, holding out a steaming cup of coffee. Naomasa took it gratefully, barely waiting for the cup to cool before downing it, scalding his tongue along the way.

He hissed at the pain, then paused. "This… isn't coffee. What is this?"

"Oh, yeah. Chief said we were going through too much coffee, so he cut our supply for the week. All we have left is decaf."

"Decaf?!" The detective just barely managed to swallow the mouthful he had, looking at the cup with a new level of disgust.

Muramatsu, the asshole, snickered. "Yee-ep. Looks like no caffeine for you, not until Monday!"

Naomasa stared at the mug, looking just about ready to cry. "But… I can't drink… decaf…" his bottom lip trembled. "It's so gross…"

Sugara laughed loudly from across the room. "Mura, you know Nao-chan can't function without his coffee in the morning! Give him a sip of yours." Tamakawa nodded next to her.

The other officer sighed. "You're no fun. He could stop being such a child about it, and it's not like I was lying about the decaf thing."

"Yes, yes, but you don't have to tease the poor man." Naomasa looked up as she walked over. "This idiot is just being a bully. Yeah, Chief's cutting our coffee, but we still have some left before we run out. Besdes, Aruma's cousin runs a cafe near here and she offered to bring some in for us once we run out."

"Ah, you're a lifesaver." And just like that, the tears were gone. Muramatsu turned to Tamakawa.

"See? This man is a manipulator! Breaks out the crocodile tears to get every kind soul in the office to give him what he wants!"

Sugara chuckled under her breath, reaching up to grab the complaining man by his fourth ear. "Very funny. You're just jealous you can't do the same thing." She began to pull him away, but looked back over her shoulder at Naomasa. "Oh, and a few more papers came in for that case you're working on. The press wants to finally cover the story."

Naomasa blinked, and groaned. "Those vultures. I knew the gag order Chief had on these vigilante cases wouldn't hold forever. It was all we could do to have them limit talking about any sort of vigilante when they covered the attempted bank robbery."

"Well, didn't you get a basic description out of it? Golden eyes, right?"

"No, I'm pretty sure it was yellow, get it right Muramatsu, you idiot."

Tamakawa sat down next to him quietly as the two arguing officers left, giving him a concerned look. "You're doing okay, right? You'd tell me if something was wrong?"

"Yeah, I'm just a bit tired. The Fullmetal case is bigger than I expected."

"Well, as long as you're fine…" The sentence trailed off, but the meaning wasn't lost on him. The cat-headed officer leaned back to watch the comings and goings of other officers, the little bell around his neck jingling softly at every movement, almost unheard under the morning hubbub.

"Have you heard from Eraserhead in a while?"

"No… I wonder what he's up to…"

What Shota was currently up to, in fact, was not fun. Correction: Nedzu was not fun. None of this. Was fun.

"I'm just asking if you could check the upcoming applications, maybe ask a few informants at other schools, just the usual."

"Hmm." Nedzu sipped his tea agonizingly slowly, and Shota fought to keep his expression neutral. "And what, perchance, makes you think that this Fullmetal person is of school age?"

Calm. Rational. "The obvious lack of height, the accent, the high pitched voice. Most of the investigators on the case have tentatively settled on a teenage boy, which I agree with from past encounters, although the possibility of a late-teenage woman is possible. Besides, checking can't hurt."

"You're right, it can't…"

Nedzu set down his cup with a definite click, pulling out his tablet. "I can look, but I'm not promising results. Applications are only starting to come in, I suggest you come to see the exam, maybe administer it, that should help more. Until then, good day."

It was a clear dismissal, but not an unkind one, and Shota bowed thankfully, leaving and closing the door behind him with a soft click.

Maybe he should go visit that bar again. They didn't have terrible drinks...

It was a shaky video on a bad quality camera, the holder being jostled by crowds. It was sent in weeks after the bank robbery that had barely made the news, and no one paid attention to it because the news report had cited the robbery as a normal villain vs. hero situation, with North Star taking the credit.

But the video was still there.

Actually, it wasn't even the video that mattered, not really. It was grainy and not zoomed in enough, people showing up as vague colored blobs. All For One wouldn't have given it any thought either, had his head technician not rushed to him that same day with energy readings off the charts.

One of the newer recruits had found the video, or more accurately the audio, and hurriedly turned it in. The doctors had then sent it to their boss, who had dismissed it initially. Good thing All For One had asked to see it anyway, because one audio line had stood out to him.

It had taken multiple hearing and sensory enhancement quirks for him to finally make out what was being said, but once he did it was unmistakable.

A little red and gold figure with a mask, golden eyes just barely visible (according to his doctor), saying something… odd.

'I've only been here a few months.'

He had showed the technicians the audio file and had them look up the energy readings for that day, around that area, and found out that it was one of the biggest spikes so far. Another check at the official reports yielded an interesting little fact about an intervening "bystander" who "helped" detain the villains.

Golden eyes, small stature, long braid…

He would have to send some people out to look for them. Vigilante, that was good. Not quite good, not quite evil. More easily swayed to his side.

"So, Fullmetal, let's see how long this takes, shall we?"

"Boss? She's here."

All For One smiled, his scarred face crinkling with the widest grin he could make. "Yes. Send her in."

A door at the far end of the hall creaked open, quiet footsteps echoing across the tile. The sound paused in front of him. An X-ray quirk mixed with a thermal vision quirk gave him a rough outline of the room, and of the woman in front of him. His smile settled.

"Ah, my dear. Do you know why I've called you here?"

"Who is it?" Right to the chase, as usual.

"You see…" He gestured for the doctor, who gave her a grainy printed-out screenshot of a small, golden eyed figure. "This here, is-"

"Fullmetal…" she breathed out, interrupting him, but he didn't much care. Not with her skills. Eyes he knew from memory were slitted sideways blinked with two sets of eyelids, slow and precise, like a predator.

"Oh, you know him?"

"Of him, yes. He caught one of my contacts, Mesmer."

A shame, that woman had utilized a dangerous quirk. He would have liked to have it. "Hm. Then avenge her."

Those pale blue eyes, so vivid in his mind's eye he could almost see them, narrowed with a tilt of her head, night-vision green hair vibrant even in shades of red and blue.

"How much?"

"Say…" He paused. Of course they both already knew what the price would be, but the old routine was familiar. "How about this. You capture and bring Fullmetal to me, alive, and I'll give you another one. Help me out a bit with recruiting and taking down All Might, and I'll give you two. Fair?"

"... Yes."

"Good. Your task starts now."

As she left, the door was held open for an extra moment, another set of footsteps clacking in on the tile and stopping just inside the doors.

"Ah, Giran, perfect timing."

The broker took a few more lazy steps forward. "Now, what would you need her for? Does your little protege need a hitman, or is it for you?"

The arid smoke from his cherry-red cigar flooded the room, and All For One considered what to do. He really shouldn't let anything slip, brokers such as him could easily be bought… but then again, loose lips sink ships, and there were quite a few vessels that needed to be brought down.

He smiled, eye sockets crinkling up in a cruel mockery of a warm smile. "Oh, my friend, she has a small… errand, I suppose, that only someone of her caliber could achieve. Of course, I'm paying her quite handsomely."

Giran smiled too, but his heart raced increased, both at the slight to his capabilities and the mention of money. "May I ask what, or who, you need someone like Feral to retrieve? People like her are ever so capricious."

"And you aren't?" The heart rate spiked, and the villain made a show of looking disinterested. "But you are right. It's a simple job, hard for someone to mess up. Just a simple retrieval. Say… you haven't heard about the… Fullmetal vigilante, have you? I would appreciate any information."

Two birds, one stone. Or, more aptly-

"Old friend, I know everything about everyone!" Yes, he does, one of the reasons he was still tolerated. "But information costs money."

"Done."

"Pleasure doin' business with you. Let's see, Fullmetal… they work at an illegal bar in Musutafu with Iji- ah, I guess you would know her by Typhoon. I would advise against a frontal assault, Fullmetal is a tricky, slippery little bastard with an unknown quirk. I can plant a few regulars, but that'll take time. A few more bucks and I can provide regular updates."

-whole flock, one bullet.

Perfect.

"Now, for the real reason I called you here… how's the recruitment going?"

Bang.

The applications were due in a few weeks, and there were still spots left blank. Ed felt like slamming his head on the desk, but he really didn't want to fix it for the third time that week. The circle providing him with alchemic power was being incredibly tingly and had been for awhile.

"Yo."

He looked up from the idiotic motherfucking papers to see Dabi standing in the doorway, a small smirk dancing across his scarred features. "Fuckface," he greeted cautiously. "Why are you here?"

The stupidly-gigantic man pushed off the doorway and walked inside, leaning over Ed's shoulders. "Still working on your applications?"

"Still here? Seriously, why are you here? Did Ijiwaru just give you blanket permission to come in at whatever ass-crack time of day you want? Just leave already, go home."

"Kid, I live in the shittiest apartments this side of Tokyo. On one hand, they don't care that I sometimes sneeze and set the wallpaper on fire, on the other, there's no heat or running water most days. I came here all the time before you got here, and since she adopted you I guess she just gave up and adopted me too."

Ed felt his face heat up. "Bastard. She did not adopt me. I'm not six, you know."

"Oh, oh, right." He put his hands up and closed his eyes, but the smirk stayed. "I forgot, sorry. Little baby doesn't like being called what he is, a tiny, miniscule, itty-bitty brat."

This fucker had it coming. "You wanna say that to my face, you burnt toast-looking ASSHAT WITH A-"

"BOYS!"

The fire playing across Dabi's already-charred skin fizzled out of existence as Ed lowered his arm. They both looked at each other in a silent truce.

Oh, fuck me.

But no footsteps approached, and they both tentatively started talking again, this time careful to keep their voices down.

"So, uh, yeah. I was just bored and wondering why you were up at nine in the morning, seeing as your hours make you practically nocturnal."

"Oh, it's nine already? Wow."

Dabi gave him a look of thinly veiled concern. "You need to sleep, really. Before you pass out on the job and Ryōsei draws on your face with sharpie, and then Ijiwaru or Shiruko comes to beat you both up."

"I'm fine. Used to long nights researching. Besides, no time for sleep. I need to find a way back to my brother."

"Is that what you're doing?" Blue eyes swept over the papers haphazardly strewn around. "Doesn't look like it."

Ed huffed. "I need to get into a hero school for the information they have. I don't want to be controlled by the government, and I'm definitely not planning on staying until graduation, but until I can get out of here I need their resources. Everyone knows that U.A. has one of the best libraries in the country, and the best information network besides."

"I mean, I understand that, but I think your brother won't be very happy with you if you burn yourself out before you can do… uh, all of that. Very detailed plan you've got there, huh."

"Yeah, but it's not enough."

They sat in silence for a minute, before Dabi smacked his palms together and stood up. "Well, no moping around. You have a lead, right? That All For One guy you think is connected to the League of Villains? We can go check out their operation tomorrow."

"True…" Ed looked one more time over his desk, and the scarred man sighed, pulling on his arm to lead them out.

"Look, you have time. It's a good two or three months until exams, and you have a solid week before applications are due. You need a break, and a good fight can help with that. Get some adrenaline in you. You've only been working and looking for leads- oh, and the occasional 'beating-up-bad-guys' gig you got. How's that coming for you?"

"Uh, pretty well. Wait, weren't you supposed to be helping me with that? Where have you been?"

"I figured you didn't need much help after I got you rolling with the first one," he replied with a nonchalant shrug. "Looks like I was right, with how many cases you've solved this week alone."

By that time they had made their way out to the main area, where a few bartenders were just closing. The last customer stumbled out of the doorway, and Shiruko turned to them with a lazy scowl.

"Hey, bouncer. What the ever-loving fuck type of a shitstorm have you shoved yourself ass-first into now?"

Ed cocked his head like a bird or a cat, confused, as he slipped on his half-mask. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the fact that two brokers, two, have come in here asking about you. At least six people, once they got drunk enough, mentioned that they had heard something about the League looking for you, and one particularly friendly guy mentioned Feral, so-" She slammed her rag on the counter, making them both jump, "-what did you do?"

Dabi winced next to him. "Oh, shit. Good luck kid, I like making friends and all, but if you have hitmen after you, especially her, then I'm out."

"Who is Feral?" Ed asked with narrowed eyes.

"Just the most successful hitman in years. Only missed a target once, but that doesn't count since he had a heart attack three days later. Her quirk is a natural predator one, though no one's gotten close enough to find out exactly what."

Ouch. "So if she's after me… it's not good."

"Nope," said Shiruko, popping the 'p' and shoving herself back into the conversation. "The good side, however, is that she's cautious. You have weeks or even months before she makes a move, longer if it's a retrieval mission. Bad news either way though. She won't ever give up."

Ed's brain was running at high speed as he paced in a circle, other two occupants of the room watching him carefully. Never gives up, Feral, the League, All For One, brokers… This was a lot. But if the League was looking for him, then that changed the game.

"If the League really is after me, then I think that proves my theory about their leader, their head. I'm after him, he's after me. He has the advantage since I don't know where he is, but I'm still an unknown for him most likely. Let's see…"

"Wait wait wait." Shiruko looked at him out of the corner of her eyes. "You're after the League, and they're after you?"

"Yeah, it's going to make it hard to avoid them. In two or three months schools will start, hopefully I'll get into a hero one, maybe they can keep me away from Feral." He spun around to face them.

Hold up.

The visible parts of his face must have paled significantly, since both Dabi and Shiruko gave him concerned looks, but that wasn't important right now. What was he going to do?

"Um, kid? You okay?" Dabi asked slowly, and Ed groaned in response.

"I… I haven't been to school in years, how am I going to survive high school?!"

Dabi narrowed his eyes at the information, and Shiruko scoffed.

"Just get over it. You can survive school if it will keep you alive, I'm sure of it. I'm more worried about you going to hero school and still living here, you have to be really careful on the applications and shit before you bring a hero back here and get all our asses busted. Not sure if that's a worse outcome than Feral, though."

"Have I mentioned yet how stupid that name is? Because it is. It really is."

"Stalling. Also, really, Fullmetal? You're one to talk." Dabi scoffed and crossed his arms.

Ed was lost in his thoughts, continuing the conversation on autopilot. "Very funny, but I didn't choose that name and you know it, A-... Dabi. Dabi. Avoiding Feral is going to be hard, but not impossible, I'll just have to be careful to hide my… quirk from everyone."

Shiruko was frowning when he turned towards her. "I don't see the problem. If you think you can beat them, then just let them capture you when you're ready and then you can find out where they are. Simple."

"No, that wouldn't work…" Would it? Holy shit, that actually might! He spun towards her with a laugh. "You're a genius! I was overthinking things, I shouldn't be avoiding my targets, I should be chasing them!"

He turned back towards Dabi, his metal mask frozen in a twisted smile with pointed teeth, golden eyes flashing the same color as the sun.

"If they want to catch me, then I guess I'll let them. And then I'll catch them first."

The gunshot startles the flock, but one bird stays sitting. With all the distractions gone, both of our objectives are clear- mine and the bird's. The easiest path is towards me. I won't even have to move a muscle, after all.

The bird in my hand is worth every yen.