Staring at the one-sided mirror, first thing I see is not my eyes but the eye bags from the sleepless nights spent watching criminals, analysing them, hunting them. Two years of work. Nine years of training. I don't regret any of it. But I regret the end.
The thought of being arrested had never once crossed my mind. I always thought I would die fighting some criminal, saving lives, making this rotten world a little less rotten. But I guess God is not kind enough for that.
I should have at least put up a fight instead of getting caught like a duck. "Hunter in Green." What a joke.
"Are you going to keep staring at the mirror or are you going to answer some questions?"
The white rodent is being too kind for a police officer. Good cop, bad cop? Or something else entirely.
"Not very familiar with being on the other side, are you? Well, you are clearly intelligent, so I will give you the option to call your lawyer. But that puts this whole thing on official pages, which neither of us wants. Do we?"
Not an official investigation. An average street thug might see that as a lifeline, a shimmer of hope that he walks out of this clean. But I know better. This is an ambush of a different kind. This room, this setup, the cuffs instead of bruises. Someone organised this. A high level gang trying to squeeze information out of me before they skin me alive is not out of the question.
"Still not talking? How about this. You answer my questions, and in return you can ask me anything. One question for one answer. How does that sound?"
A good deal on the surface. But he can lie and so can I. The real question is why he is taking this approach at all. He could simply beat the answers out of me. A flayed man has no secrets. Why is he taking the risk of letting me speak freely? Does he have a lie detection quirk? I need to tell him the truth in a way that endangers no one. Not my informants. Not the people who let me use their spaces as strongholds across the city. No one gets hurt because of this conversation.
This deal is a declaration of a battle of wits. Lie effectively and separate truth from lie in whatever he gives back.
Midoriya nodded slightly to accept the proposal.
"Good. Let's start simple. How did you know I was there? I reinstated your little trap perfectly. Same shape, same material. Was it some kind of fragrance on the paper? What gave it away?"
Why is he asking about something so trivial? Is he hoping to lull me into lowering my guard?
"Simple. I had a second trap in case someone with a brain tried to ambush me. When my door opens, it pushes the doormat inward. I sprinkle a chalk dust pattern underneath it." Midoriya paused. "My turn. Who are you?"
"Ah, my apologies, I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Nezu. I am the director of U.A."
Of course. How could I have been this slow.
As director of U.A, Nezu was one of the most influential figures of this generation. A few years ago U.A had been the number one hero high school in Japan. After quirks began disappearing and villain activity surged, it had transformed into something larger, an organisation that trained young heroes, built their networks and paired them with supervisors to shape them into well-rounded professionals.
"My next question concerns the origin of your equipment. That helmet, the antlers, the mace. Forging that from scratch would cost a fortune. Where did the money come from? Did you steal it?"
"Just because I am an orphan you jump straight to stealing? I built every piece from scrap I pulled out of Takoba Beach."
"Easy, Midoriya-kun. Standard questions, nothing more. Now my next questi-"
"It is my turn." Midoriya said it quietly.
"Go ahead." Nezu replied.
"How many years am I looking at?"
"That depends entirely on how this little exchange of ours goes." Nezu held Midoriya's gaze steadily as he said it.
Stupid. What a wasted question.
"My turn. Your file states that you are quirkless. And yet in several of your recent hunts your movement speed is... unnatural. Is it gear, or a quirk you never registered?"
As Nezu finished the question, a grin appeared on Izuku's face. His posture shifted, subtle but unmistakable, the way a chess player's shoulders relax the moment they see the board open up.
Wait. Did he just slip? He really did. But what if it was deliberate? What if he wants me to take it as bait?
"Something funny, Midoriya-kun?"
"You slipped."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Your last question. You implied you watched my last few hunts. That means you have been tracking me for roughly two to three months. If you had that kind of access, you could have observed me outside of hunts as well. It is very hard to believe that someone of your intelligence watched me for that long and still missed the second trap entirely. You knew the trap existed.even if you did not know the exact pattern. Which means your first question was never about understanding the mechanism. It was about understanding the person who built it. You were profiling me from the moment I sat down."
Izuku leaned forward slightly.
"But someone as sharp as you does not simply slip. You wanted me to catch it. You wanted me to realise this is not an interrogation. It is a test. And the fact that the director of U.A is the one sitting across from me rather than a cop or a C-rank hero means whatever this is about, it is important enough to bring you here personally."
He paused.
"I have answered your question about what I found funny. So here is mine. Is U.A trying to recruit me?"
A faint smile crossed Nezu's face before it broke open into genuine laughter.
"Oh my, oh my. Yes, Midoriya-kun. You are exactly right. I want you to work for me."
———
"Did the prospect of working for me make you so happy that you are too stunned to speak"
Midoriya, who had been staring at Nezu in silence for the past five minutes, finally snapped back. When he spoke, it came out as something between anger, confusion and frustration all fighting for the same exit.
Even though he had seen it coming, the confirmation still hit like cold water.
"Why? Why does U.A want me? And what makes you think I would accept?"
He leaned forward slightly, jaw tight.
"Two years ago I applied for the hero course. You didn't even let me sit the exam. Try the police force, they said. A quirkless kid has no business being a hero, they said. And now, two years later, you are sitting across from that same quirkless kid asking him to join your organisation. So tell me, what exactly changed?"
Nezu was quiet for a moment, letting the question settle.
"Frankly? You did." He folded his small paws together on the table. "I stand by what I said then. An ordinary quirkless person pursuing heroics is not something I would encourage. The gap is too large and the danger too real. But you are not ordinary, are you, Midoriya-kun? You are a hunter. Your intelligence, your patience, your ability to dismantle an opponent's quirk before they have finished using it, those things are far deadlier than most quirks I have encountered. That is why I am here personally. Someone like you does not belong in the margins of this city. Someone like you needs to be a hero."
Midoriya let the words land, then shook his head slowly.
"You praise me with one breath and expect me to forget what you said with the last one. You decided I was unworthy. Now that I proved you wrong on my own, in back alleys, without a licence or a support team or any of the things you gatekeep, now you want me. Why should I give that to you? I have been doing just fine as a vigilante. Why shouldn't I simply keep doing exactly that?"
"Because you are a smart kid," Nezu said simply. "And because you are still not skilled enough."
Midoriya blinked. "You were praising me ten seconds ago."
"I was being accurate ten seconds ago and I am being accurate now. Both things are true." Nezu raised a small finger. "First, you were captured far too easily for someone with your reputation. The Hunter in Green, brought down by a tranquiliser dart at his own front door. Second, you did not recognise me , which means your intelligence gathering on the people who might come after you has significant gaps. Third," another finger, "it took you until my third question to understand what this interrogation actually was. You should have seen it by the first. And fourth, you overthink. Not in the useful way, in the expensive way. In our conversation tonight I noticed the pauses before your answers. You were analysing every sentence I gave you, including the ones that carried absolutely no hidden meaning whatsoever. You are sharp but your instincts are still raw. You run everything through your head when some of it should already live in your gut."
Midoriya said nothing. He wanted to argue. He found he couldn't, entirely.
"So your pitch is that joining U.A fixes all of that," he said finally. "You are offering training to make me better hunter? I can train myself. I have been doing it for nine years. If that is all you are putting on the table I don't see why I should sit down for it."
"I am not offering to make you a better hunter," Nezu said. "I am offering to make you a hero. And those are not the same thing." He paused, and when he continued his voice was quieter but carried more weight. "The fact that you never simply settled, Midoriya-kun, that you did not become a police officer or a security guard or any of the perfectly reasonable things a quirkless young man is told to become, that tells me something about who you actually are. Deep down you do not just want to protect people. You do not just want to fight crime. You want to be something larger than that. You want your presence alone to mean something. You want children to look up to you, citizens to trust you, criminals to reconsider the moment they hear your name. A vigilante cannot give you that. A vigilante operates in the dark and is forgotten the moment something goes wrong." He looked at Midoriya steadily. "You cannot settle for the shadows, Midoriya-kun. You never could. That is why you accept the name they gave you. That is why you built the armour. Deep down you have always wanted to be a hero, a real one, so stop arguing against your own nature. Shake my hand. I will make sure you become the greatest hero you are capable of being."
The room was quiet except for the distant festival drums still echoing somewhere above the city.
Midoriya looked at the small outstretched paw for a long moment. Then he shook it.
A grin spread across Nezu's face. He reached over and pressed a button on the table.
"Midoriya-kun, allow me to introduce the third member of our little partnership. He has been working in a hero support for nearly four decades and frankly the fact that he is still standing is a testament to something I have not fully figured out yet."
The door opened slowly.
The man who walked in carried a cane and used it like he needed it. Age had not been kind to him. He moved with a careful deliberateness, each step considered, his frame thin to the point of looking hollowed out, as though time had taken something essential from the inside and left the rest standing more out of habit than health. His blond hair and blue eyes gave him a vaguely Western look at first glance, but something in the structure of his face told a different story. Japanese, or close enough to it.
"Izuku Midoriya," Nezu said, "meet your operator. Toshinori Yagi."