***

Hiromi remembered the first time she ever showed her ability to people. It was when she was six. She was on the school playground with her best friend, Ichika. They were playing when Hiromi had hurt herself when running. She had accidentally ended up tripping over a rock and she skinned her knee pretty bad. Hiromi had started to cry from the pain. A teacher had tried to make her way over to check on Hiromi when she had suddenly frozen. It was when she saw what was happening.

The sky above them had started to turn dark gray. Thunder had boomed overhead and lightning lit up the sky... But it was only over one person. Hiromi. Soon enough, it had even started to rain just around her. Everywhere else was a sunny, blue sky with beautiful white clouds. The teacher had been in horror and forced the other kids to go inside. She had yelled at Hiromi when the girl had finally calmed down. Calling her a monster and ability scum. Hiromi had been confused. Why was the teacher yelling at her? What did she do wrong?

After that incident, Hiromi wasn't allowed back into that school. That was when she had been labeled as an ability user by everyone around her. Hiromi remembered how angry her parents were. They were both quirkless and had been hoping that their daughter would develop one of her grandparents' quirks like they were unable to. Imagine their horror when she developed an ability instead. They had to register her as one which made things even worse. It just made them more aware of the problem child they had given life to.

It wasn't long until they had pushed her onto others to get rid of the blight upon their lives. Hiromi had a hard life after that. But we won't get into that. Not yet, at least. Let's get to the brighter times first. Just to let you be in as much innocence as you can for this time. No need to burden you with all of the dark times and trauma just yet.

The Armed Detective Agency was now Hiromi's home and family. She had joined it with Dazai after some troubling times had riddled their lives. She was eleven when they joined while Dazai was eighteen. Hiromi had taken the entrance exam and had passed with flying colors so she now helped them with cases. They thought about trying to get her into school, but her protesting made them push that suggestion aside. The last time she had gone to school was when it was discovered she had an ability. She didn't even want to think about what it would be like to go back to school as one.

This led them to this moment. Hiromi, now fifteen, was currently helping Ranpo on a case with Atsushi, a new member of the ADA, and Dazai, who was pulled out of the river by the nets they used to find any evidence. A young woman had been murdered and the police had to begrudgingly call on them for help. The local police never liked calling on the ADA, but they knew they had to. Ranpo was able to solve a case in seconds which infuriated them and made them not want to call them for help since they felt inferior. The other reason was that they were ability users. Quirkless people, which this police squad were quirkless, usually lumped ability users in with people who had quirks which made them resent them.

There had been a bit of back and forth happening between the police and the detectives for quite a while. Finally, it was going to get serious. Ranpo pulled out his glasses from his pocket. A smirk appeared on Hiromi's face, "You guys won't need to be around for much longer." She told the police. Minoura, the man in charge, narrowed his eyes at her in confusion. They had no idea what was going to happen next.

"Ability: Ultra-Deduction!" Ranpo put on his glasses. There was a moment of silence and everyone, besides Dazai and Hiromi who had seen this before, was on the edge of their seats. Ranpo pushed his glasses up his nose, "I see."

Of course, Minoura didn't seem to want to entertain the idea of what was going on. He smiled from pure amusement, "'I see,' my ass. You're trying to imply you know who the killer is?"

A glare was sent his way by Hiromi, "Why don't you shut up and find out?" Minoura let out a 'tch' at her, clearly not liking that she was telling him off. A comment he made earlier had pissed her off so this was just some payback. He made a comment about how they didn't want an ability user's help which just fueled the rage inside her. The only reason she held herself back was that Dazai had stopped her from doing something to Minoura.

"The killer..." Ranpo pointed at a person standing with the group, "Is you," The person he had pointed at was Sergeant Sugimoto. "That's right. The killer... The killer is you, Sergeant Sugimoto." The people around them were dead silent as they tried to process the information Ranpo had given them.

The shock was displayed all over the sergeant's face, "What?" He looked like a wounded puppy that had just been kicked while it was still down. Hiromi had her suspicions about him. She had seen him nervously glance over at the body a few times while they had been here. He had also been sweating a lot too.

Atsushi called out to Ranpo in confusion. Minoura broke out into a fit of laughter, "Sergeant Sugimoto is my subordinate." He had an amused grin on his face. He hadn't taken them seriously the whole time they've been here.

Instead of backing down on his claim like most people would, Ranpo stood strong, "Sergeant Sugimoto is the one who killed her."

"Don't be stupid!" Minoura didn't look amused anymore.

Shrugging, Hiromi said, "Just because someone works with the good guys doesn't automatically make them good." There are many people who do plenty of bad things that work with the good guys. There were some heroes that Hiromi wouldn't doubt that they've done some shady stuff behind the scenes.

This guy was stubborn. He still refused to believe what they had been saying. Minoura only got even more annoyed as he tried to defend his subordinate, "It's impossible that the killer would happen to be this close by in the first place!" This statement made Hiromi raise an eyebrow at him. It was actually very common for people to stay close to the investigation of the crimes they committed. They wanted to see if there was something they could do to manipulate the evidence or things of similar nature.

"It's exactly because he is the killer that he wants to stay close to the investigation." Ranpo voiced Hiromi's thoughts. "Besides, didn't I mention this?" Minoura gave Ranpo a questioning glance. Ranpo turned to him, "I also know where the evidence lies," Ranpo looked over at Sugimoto, "Lend me your gun, will you?"

Now, how was this going to go down? Hiromi watched to see if Sugimoto would resist or comply. Sugimoto was starting to look even more nervous, "Y-You've got to be kidding me," Hiromi smirked a little. He had just given himself away. Any innocent person convicted of a crime would comply with any orders to prove their innocence. Only guilty people would try to resist giving up valuable evidence. "The penalty for handing a government-issue firearm to a civilian is far worse than paycut."

"And here I was hoping you'd have a point," Minoura commented. "Are you private investigators just talk?"

Every time that he talked, Hiromi would feel this annoyance bubbling up inside her. She rolled her eyes at his words and glared at him, "You can figure that out if your subordinate just complies," She turned her gaze to Sugimoto, "If he has nothing to hide then he would be giving us his gun. There would be nothing to worry about if we check it out since we wouldn't find anything."

"Hiromi's right," Ranpo agreed. "If we examine that gun and come up empty, then sure, I'm just an idiot running my mouth."

Minoura laughed, "I've had enough of listening to you!" He looked at Sugimoto, "Show him, Sugimoto!" A grin stretched across Hiromi's face. This was it. Was Sugimoto going to continue to resist, even with orders from his superior? It would be very suspicious if he did. So... What was Sugimoto going to choose?

"But..."

"He's barked up this tree as far as he can go," Minoura told him. "If we prove him wrong, he'll shut up and go home. We can't waste any more time," He shot a glance at Ranpo one more time. Ranpo was still confidently smiling. "Show him your gun!" There was silence. Sugimoto was looking down at the ground, causing a shadow to be cast over his eyes. Minoura raised an eyebrow at this, "Hey, what's the matter, Sugimoto?"

The silence was broken by Ranpo, "Even in this city, it isn't easy for an amateur to get spare ammo..." Sugimoto was still looking down at the ground. He wasn't even acknowledging any of the words being said. "Even harder if the firearm is a government-issue."

"Why aren't you saying anything, Sugimoto?!" Minoura yelled.

"He's thinking furiously right now," Ranpo responded. "About the three bullets he's used, and how he'll explain their absence."

A gasp came from Sugimoto. His eyes widened and they were finally able to see his panicked expression. Minoura called out to him, "You can't be the killer!" Oh, but he was. Hiromi could see it, so could everyone else from the ADA. Denial was a terrible thing to deal with. "Show us your gun, now!"

What happened next surprised everyone. Sugimoto was reaching for his gun at first. Then, all of a sudden, he had frozen. The next thing they all knew, he was making a run for it. Hiromi's eyes widened and she quickly took off after him. After a moment of hesitation, the others could be heard running after him as well. Sugimoto ran into the busy streets of the city, bumping into people left and right as Hiromi remained on his trail.

They had ended up losing the others, leaving this down to Hiromi to handle. An idea hit her. Hiromi waited until they got to an area with less people when she used her power. A lightning strike came down and hit the sidewalk in front of Sugimoto. He let out a noise of horror as he tried to stop. Another one hit beside him and he had ended up jumping back. Hiromi took this as her chance to quickly tackle him.

She grabbed his arm and held it behind his back, pulling at it. He let out a noise of pain. People gathered around the two of them to see what was happening. One of them just so happened to be a certain hero, though Hiromi didn't realize that. She looked over her shoulder to see the others finally approaching, "Took you long enough!"

Behind them were some officers. They came over and restrained Sugimoto as Hiromi got up, letting out a deep breath. Atsushi came over and started asking her if she was alright. Hiromi nodded. She smiled as she was congratulated on catching him by Dazai. As they were starting to leave, Hiromi was suddenly stopped by someone.

"Hey," A gruff voice called out. Hiromi stopped in her tracks, turning to see what the man wanted. He looked familiar, but Hiromi couldn't put her finger on where she knew him. He had long, dark hair and dark eyes. He looked sleep-deprived to the point that Hiromi was worried he would pass out at any moment. "What's your name?"

"Hiromi..." Hiromi raised an eyebrow at him, "Why?"

"How would you feel about going to UA?" The man asked.

Hiromi's eyes widened as she stared at the man, "What?"