Chapter Text
NINETY-ONE PASSENGERS KILLED, FIVE-HUNDRED INJURED AFTER TESTING OF THE J-ALERT SYSTEM DELAYED HEROES FROM RESPONDING TO THE ATTACK ON THE CHIYODA LINE.
SURVIVING WIDOWER’S PROTEST OUTSIDE OF HPSC TOKYO OFFICE STRETCHING FOURTY-NINE DAYS.
HERO, PHASESHIFT, KILLED. POLICE ARE INVESTIGATING TIE TO CHIYODA LINE ATTACK.
OFFICIALS INVOLVED IN J-ALERT SCANDAL FOUND DEAD AT HOME.
RAINBOW BRIDGE COLLAPSE. 200+ DEAD, MANY INJURED. TOKYO ENTERS LOCKDOWN AS MANHUNT ENSUES.
-Headlines from The Tokyo Times, dated five years ago
PRESENT DAY
U.A. HIGH SCHOOL
KORISATO CITY, SHIZUOKA PREFECTURE
Nestled between Jirou Kyouka and Sero Hanta, Unabara Ume managed to only murmur a brief greeting before being drowned out by the loud blonde sitting on her left. Most of the school headed to the welcome ceremony, but Class 1-A awaited their sensei. Ume wondered if it was really such a big deal that someone placed their feet on their desk. Iida Tenya seemed to think it was a crime worthy of a capital punishment.
“These guys sure are loud, huh?” asked the boy on her right, leaning forward to watch the argument. His spiked hair was layered with gel and colored a bright red. He introduced himself as Kirishima Eijirou, offering her a bright, toothy grin. “Hey, cool glasses!”
Ume’s hand rose to push them further up her nose and ensure that most of her vision was dulled. Everything held a muted film of black over it. The dark, round sunglasses hide most of her face from view. Her hair did the rest, effectively giving her a veil in the bright room, but it also made her stick out like a sore thumb. “I’m—”
“If you’re here to socialize, get out.”
Ume’s mouth pinched into a thin line, and she straightened out, sweeping her hair behind her ears and fixing her collar so it was pin straight. Their teacher was here. Aizawa Shōta, also known as Eraserhead, a discreet hero who operated mostly at night and had an incredibly rare Quirk that nullified another person's Quirk.
“This is…the Hero Course.”
U.A. High School was the birthplace of Japan’s future heroes. Long nights spent studying and training had led to this moment. Ume couldn’t claim that she deserved the chance to be a hero, but she would earn it.
A yellow sleeping bag crawled into her field of view as the man wiggled himself out of it. He was wearing his hero costume, a baggy black jumpsuit with a thick band of bandages loosely wrapped around his neck. Ume wondered what they did and if he had come straight to U.A. after a night of hero work. His dead-eyed gaze swept over the room as he began to chastise them for the time it took to grow silent. He introduced himself in the same monotone voice, offering no hint of pleasantries.
Ume preferred this as it matched her own temperament.
He revealed one of U.A.’s gym uniforms and ordered them to change, challenging them to their very first task as hero students: Quirk Assessments.
Ume’s blood ran cold as his gaze fell onto her, a lift of his brow seeming to say, “Got you.”
Unabara Ume was admitted to the Hero Course with the lowest score in U.A. history.
***
“There,” said Aizawa Shōta, pausing the video. He pressed a finger on the screen, pointing to a figure situation atop one of the buildings. “Her eyes. Move forward a frame.”
The image changed, showing an odd hue in her eyes as her glasses lifted.
“One more.”
Unabara Ume was standing in the same spot, but the tight expression on her face had shifted to satisfaction. In front of her was a field full of gnarled robots, twisted and distorted into heaps of metal. The destruction happened in the blink of an eye.
Principle Nedzu moved between the frames again and laughed.
***
She was failing abysmally. Aizawa knew it. She knew it. Her classmates knew it. But, Midoriya Izuku was sweating and panting up a storm next to her as if he was competing for last place. Ume had never been more grateful for another human being’s failure than she was today.
Right below her name, in the 20th slot, was Midoriya Izuku’s. He broke two fingers throwing a baseball, leaving his fingers hanging limp and swollen. Ume looked over to him and was greeted with a soft smile that seemed to say, “At least I tried.”
Her teeth pressed down on the inside of her cheek, threatening to draw blood. If anyone deserved to be expelled, it was her. Unlike Midoriya’s ball-toss, she hadn’t aced any of the tests, so how could she have come before him? Two seconds faster at the 50-meter dash? A few meters more at the long jump? Was that really all it took to make the difference?
As Midoriya was working up an anxious sweat over the thought of getting expelled, Ume opened her mouth, perhaps to protest over how unfair it was. Perhaps to say that the rankings were wrong and that she should get expelled instead. She would grit her teeth and bare it.
Unlike the others, she had no dreams of grandeur or desire to make it into the Top Ten. All she wanted was a license. Aizawa’s eyes skimmed over to her, and Ume met it squarely, feeling a sudden spurt of defiance rise. “Sense—"
His voice cut across hers, announcing that no one would be kicked out. “I was lying about expelling someone. That was a rational deception…meant to bring out the best in all of you.” His eyes were brighter now, finding joy in their struggling and discomfort, but the look died down when his eyes landed on her again.
Ume wondered if he would single her out and announce that he was lying once more, that he caught an imposter among the group and would expel her, but Aizawa said nothing to that effect. His attention returned to Midoriya, holding out a sheet of paper for the Nurse’s Office. “Midoriya, have Recovery Girl fix you up. Tomorrow’s not going to be any easier.”
With slumped shoulders, Aizawa left them on their own and returned to the school. Ume was the second one to leave, hurriedly returning to the lockers room and changing before anyone could stop her. Her classmates shuffled in after her, chatter filling the room as the excitement of the day ran high. She was slow to change, hoping to stay within the bubble of U.A. for a moment longer.
On her way out of the building, she trailed behind Kirishima and two of their other classmates, unseen by either. She developed a small tendency to eavesdrop, having had very little in the way of friends. It was only urged along when the topic of conversation happened to be her.
“Why do you think she wears those glasses?”
“I don’t know. It’s cool though—kinda mysterious. You think a girl like that would go for me?”
Ashido Mina snorted, shaking her head. “I just met you and I already know your trouble.”
Ume was so busy straining her ears to listen that she turned the corner too quickly and ran into the wall.
Her glasses fell, revealing pale, silvery irises. Ume kneeled, hand skimming the ground to reach for them. Kaminari, Kirishima, and Mina looked back, eyes widening before the hurried away, leaving the echo of their footsteps in her ear.
And so, began the strange and unusual rumor that Unabara Ume was blind.
***
Outside of U.A. reality hit harder.
“Oi, bring another beer!”
“Coming,” said Ume, dropping off two trays of yakitori at one table and rushing back to the kitchen to bring out the requested drinks. Rush hour in downtown Korisato City consisted of Japan’s salarymen emerging from their offices to come get a drink and some hot food before they slugged it back home or more frequently back to the office to pull an all-nighter.
She pulled longer shifts over the last few weeks to pay for her uniform and school fees, to cover her rent and new books. It was a double life. At school, she would maintain the composure of a future hero. Outside of U.A.’s walls, she worked under the table and lived in a basement apartment in the worst part of town. Compared to Tokyo, the worst part of town was ten times cheaper and far less crowded, but she missed it. Missed the 24-hour trains, the lack of stares, the ease it took to blend in and not been seen. Here, everything was too close and everyone too nosey.
“Did you eat?” asked the chef, an old man with shaky hands and worsening vision. He was approaching eighty and had run the shop for nearly fifty years. Ume had wormed her way into his good graces and intended to stay there, causing no trouble for the man.
“Later.”
She rushed back out, uncapping the beers and handing them off. It was a long dance of serving and smiling. Ume’s shift lasted until midnight when the shop closed, and the old man retired to his flat upstairs. As far as her boss knew, Ume was in her first year of university and working part-time to pay for the tuition. She was tall enough to pass for a bit older, sharp enough to dodge any questions that arose surrounding her age.
She thought back to the school day, trying to recall the names of all her classmates, their faces and their quirks. How had she inched in between them? Ume didn’t know, but she was there with them and if she had to, she’d claw her way to getting her license. Anything to be free of this life. Anything to prove that she mattered too.
When the doors were locked and the shutters closed, Ume made her way home. She approached the door at the bottom of the steps, unlocking it and firmly closing it on the other side. To the empty house, she paid a simple greeting, knowing that no one would return it.
The villain known as Vector possesses a Quirk called Distortion. Security concerns surrounding an unidentified child associated with the case have led the police and judiciary to keep the villain’s name confidential and off the public record.
-From The Tokyo Times, dated May 05.