"Get up kids, we're gonna be late!" Shota yelled from the other side of our door before walking away mumbling, "I can't believe I slept in again. Stupid Nezu making all the meetings so early in the morning."

I groaned, I'd already woken up before he'd called to us, but my bed was so warm. I don't wanna gooo.

"C'mon sis, up! Up!" Eri tugged at my blankets with a smile on her face.

"Nuh-uh." I mumbled, turning over onto my stomach and burying my face into the pillows. Eri giggled,

"C'monnn." She released her hold on my blankets and instead pulled my arm, with strength I wouldn't have imagined possible for an eight year old might I add. It still wasn't enough to get me to fall off the bed, but,

"Eep!" I shrieked jokingly as I rolled myself off the bed, "You got me." I put my hands up and waved a corner of the white blanket in surrender, staring up at her from the floor. Eri giggled, I didn't think I'd ever get tired of hearing that. Yup, I'll do whatever I can to see that smile or hear that laugh. I decided in my head, forcing a smile onto my own face even as I recalled what I had to do today.

"Are you two up yet?" Shota growled tiredly as he peeked inside the room. Eri immediately hid behind me,

"It's a monster." She whispered into my ear.

"Huh? What'd you say?"

I stifled a laugh. He did look terrible. Only his face was peeking out from underneath a cocoon of blankets, little messy strands of black hair stuck to his forehead, it looked like he hadn't shaved in a while, and there were dark circles under his eyes. Unfortunately, that is what he'd looked like most of the little time I'd known him.

"Sorry, we'll be out in a minute."

He grumbled something about breakfast in response and shuffled out of the room, shutting the door behind him.

After he'd left I crawled to the foot of my bed, dumping out the contents of the still unpacked shopping bags from the previous day. I then shuffled through the pile for a few minutes before sitting back on my heels, exasperated. I was staring up at the ceiling in thought when I felt soft cloth be shoved into my face.

"Hmph?"

"Here, it'd look cool!" Eri smiled, bringing down the clothes she must've picked out from my pile when I wasn't looking.

"Oh- okay." I took them from her hands, turning them over and looking at them. I wasn't sure exactly how being dressed by an eight year old would look, but even compared to her I had zero sense of style. After all, I hadn't worn normal clothes other than the ones Ms. Midnight gave me since I was around eleven or twelve, and I hadn't ever had to pick out my own clothes.

While I pulled on the outfit Eri changed into a little red and white dress with a red headband placed just behind her horn. Once I'd finished I looked down at myself. It seemed to just be a simple short red sweater and some weird jean short things that connected to my shoulders.

"Eri, what are these?" I asked, pulling on one of the straps with curiosity.

"Hehe, those are overalls, silly." She giggled. I mouthed an 'oh' in response before sitting down on the bed to pull on my socks. I wasn't sure how I felt about the strange look, but Eri'd picked it out, so I didn't care if it looked a little weird.

I debated tying my hair up. It usually got in the way quite a lot, but if I was going to be working with my blood during this 'training' then I might like easier access to the little bit of extra healing properties it held.

It'd always bothered me that I had some healing powers. Just a little papercut could kill someone, but to actually heal anyone I'd have to go through all the trouble to extract some of my blood without exposing it to any oxygen, or let them run their hands through my hair for a while. Even that wouldn't help much though. The good versus the bad my powers could do was just so unfairly proportioned, it was frustrating.

I ended up deciding against putting it up, I'd take what I could get. I didn't want to endanger anyone who might happen to come across me while I was doing whatever 'training' Shota had in mind.

(y/n), with her hand grasped in Eri's, jogged to catch up to me as I shuffled past the car.

"We're walking?" She asked. I nodded, noticing her shoulders relax as I did. I guess the kid hadn't been in many cars in her life, I couldn't blame her for being a little wary of the vehicles. We walked in silence for a few seconds, spare Eri's light humming, until (y/n) spoke up again. At first her voice was too soft for me to hear.

"What was that?" I asked. She bit her lip, looking down as she walked.

"I- um. I asked what it was like. School."

"Oh.. you've never been have you?" I questioned, surprised that I hadn't thought of that before. She nodded her head.

"I-i went to daycare and stuff when I was little, but my quirk developed pretty early so I never had the chance to go to real school." Her voice got quieter as she spoke. I sighed, looking ahead, my brows knitting together. I tried to think of a decent response,

"Well the kids are certainly a handful," I started, "Much more than you or Eri. They're kind of bothersome actually, but I guess there's something.. fulfilling about being their teacher and helping them grow into better heroes. And better people. It's also.. nice to see them help each other grow." I admitted reluctantly. I looked back to see her smiling softly, sadly. Great, now you made the traumatized child sad, great job Zaza.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that such a huge part of growing up was growing up alongside peers your age. It made me sad to think that (y/n) and Eri had missed out on that for such a long time. Luckily, Eri had already started making up for last time when I enrolled her in school towards the end of last year, but I wondered if it would be more difficult for (y/n) if I waited any longer. Still, she'd been alone for so long.

"Oh, we're here."

"Whoah. It's huge." (y/n) whispered in disbelief behind me, gazing up at UA in wonder.

"Yeah, it still surprises me, too." I said, drawing her attention, "Ah, here." I handed her the bandages I had stuffed in my pocket. "Walk about five minutes into the woods and then stop, there shouldn't be anyone around there. We'll be about two hours, if you need anything or get into any sort of trouble, come find me, okay?" I then offered a smile before taking Eri's hand and beginning to walk toward UA, leaving (y/n) looking lost. I felt bad about leaving her alone like that, but I knew that this was necessary, more so than she could understand.

"Um, okay. Guess I'm on my own then." I mumbled as Shota disappeared behind the large doors of the school, dragging a pouting Eri behind him.

I turned around heading into the forest surrounding UA to begin my walk.

After about five or six minutes I arrived in small clearing. Taking a deep breath I sat down on the dirt. I wasn't exactly sure where to start, so I began by asking myself the question 'what's the biggest problem?'

Well, the biggest problem would be would be that my blood turns into a ticking time bomb as soon as it's exposed to oxygen, but the only way to fix that is to either just not get hurt, or encase myself in airtight plastic wrap. I wasn't too keen on that idea. So, I suppose even if it has been exposed to oxygen, it still can't hurt anyone as long as it remains touching only my skin or body. So I guess the next biggest problem to solve would be how to keep it from getting onto anything else. I began formulating the beginning of an idea in my head.

I moved to get onto my hands and knees and began crawling around the clearing, searching for something sharp enough to do the job. I wasn't even sure if there was something sharp enough, but I might as well give it a try.

Finally I found a jagged stone, smooth enough on one side to hold onto without hurting my hands, and sharp enough on the other to have a decent chance at doing some damage. It was certainly sharper than the scissors my parents had used.

Once I had it in my grasp, holding it carefully so as not to cut myself, I plopped back down on the ground and leaned forward. I sectioned off enough of my hair that I assumed would be long enough to do the trick, and then positioned the rock against it around just below my shoulder blades. Then with one hand I pulled my hair taught, and began moving the jagged rock against it with the other.

A few minutes of the motion and I was already sweating, but then I heard the first strand snap. I sighed in relief, so this can work, and watched as the thick, silvery strand of hair fell to the ground beside me, slowly turning a deep black color as it twirled through the air. I snatched it up just before it hit the ground, placing it in-between my teeth to hold, and then went back to moving the rock.

After about twenty minutes I'd managed to make some headway, but still didn't think I'd finish in time to test my idea out. Most of my hair was still long, pooling beside me on the wooded floor, but a small handful of it now only went down just two or three inches past my shoulders, and in my lap I'd begun to gather an organized pile of the roughly two foot soot-colored strands that I'd already cut. Every once in a while I'd had to pause to re-sharped the rock on another stone, as my hair was so strong it dulled it quickly. However, just as I was ready to begin sawing away at my long locks again, a soft pain echoed through my head.

I dropped the rock and placed a hand up to my broken horn, the familiar feeling causing me to look around the area for intruders in my small space. My forehead buzzed as my broken quirk tried to assess the power of whatever human was wandering nearby.

I tried to ignore it, to go back to the task at hand with the hope that I could finish soon and test my plan, hoped that whoever it was was just passing by, but then I heard a voice.

"Um.. what are you doing?"

The meeting ended extra early after only about thirty minutes, and I'd just decided we'd stick around in the building a little longer to give (y/n) some extra time when Nezu called out to me,

"Shota, could I speak with you for a moment?" He chirped in his usual cheery tone.

"Sure principal, just one moment." I murmured. I picked up Eri and handed her to All Might, "Watch over her for a minute, will you?" He nodded his head and I followed Nezu into his office.

"Take a seat, Shota." the principal gestured for me to sit. I looked up at him expectantly. He cleared his throat and hopped up onto his large chair, clasping his hands together. "I understand that you've recently taken in another child, Eri's sister?"

"They're not related by blood, but yes sir."

"Ah, I don't see why that matters. If the children consider themselves family, then why not let them." I nodded, "Anyway, I've been informed that much like Eri, the girl has a rather powerful quirk that she hasn't quite learned to control yet."

"Yes, sir. And her name's (y/n)."

"Yes, well I believe that young (y/n) -if you think it's a good idea of course, since you know her the best- could benefit from UA's hero course."

My eyes lit up as he spoke, "T-that's very generous sir. I agree."

"Good. Well, as you know I don't do things out of generosity, Shota. She'll still have to take an entrance exam like everyone else, though hers will likely be modified a little. And of course I'm not necessarily suggesting this for her, though I do have a soft spot for young troubled children-"

"Clearly." I mumbled under my breath.

"-but more for the people that she could potentially hurt if she isn't taught soon to control her power. And ultimately, I suppose, it's up to her. We can't make her do anything she doesn't want to and if you think she's not ready to be thrown into a school environment just yet I would understand."

I thought for a moment. Surely it would be a shock for her, but this might be her only chance at anything resembling a normal childhood. Not to mention she'd definitely need the help with her quirk, and even showed some curiosity about school earlier today. Besides, I thought, If she learns to make her quirk a tool instead of something to fear, I believe she could become a great hero.

"I'll talk to her about it, I truly think that this could be good for her."

"That's wonderful to hear, now I was also wondering-"

I'd been walking around with Kaminari when suddenly he'd yelled something unintelligible and sprinted off into the woods with his arms waving in the air. I wandered around looking for him but half gave up a few minutes in. I'd just been wandering on my own when I'd come upon a clearing.

Someone sat in the center of the clearing. Sunlight filtered through the canopy and danced across the figure.

She'd been facing away from me, but I could make out that it was a girl, sitting on her knees, beautiful silver hair flowing down her back and spiraling onto the ground. I stared for a few seconds, confused at the scene before me before I was finally able to discern what she was doing. She seemed to be trying to cut her hair with a stone,

"Um.. what are you doing?" I asked, my brows knit together. She turned her head and I put my hand over my mouth, stifling a gasp.

This girl looked almost.. ethereal. It was hard to explain, but she looked so unique. It wasn't like the beauty that you see in magazines or on tv. She didn't exactly fit all the standards I'd grown up hearing repeated over and over. She was her own kind of beautiful, and I felt almost like I'd stumbled upon some sort of mythical creature.

When she saw me her eyes widened, and then she looked down at her lap, seemingly lost in thought for a few moments. Something about her seemed sort of familiar in a way.

I was frozen, but my eyes trailed to the rock in her hand. Before I could think about what I was doing I spoke,

"You need a hand?"