Shine and Wally got the address of Toteki before going on their search and went to his house. Of course, they really had no legal right to ask questions, but they decided to try anyway and knocked on the door. His grandfather opened it. When they told them Miss Joke had asked them to help locate the kid, he told them his parents were already looking for him. He was able to confirm no one had seen Itejiro since around 6 am. 

Shine and Wally didn't ask too many personal questions to avoid liability, just what way he had left for school. They then followed that route.

"Did you check his room?" Shine asked Wally.

"Yeah, while you were asking about the time," Wally said, "but I didn't find anything suspicious. It really looks like this must have been unplanned. At least, I don't think it would have been any trouble he got into himself."

"I suspected as much," Shine said, "but thank you."

"We could just try portalling to him," Wally said, "but, the way I see it, if there's any trail to follow, we'll learn more by finding it than just by swooping in a grabbing him."

"I prefer not to toy with his safety, but it's also dangerous to just go to him unprepared, so I'll side with you on that for now," Shine said, "I feel it my core I can portal, so I believe he is not dead."

"If we knew he was untied and alert, we could just open a door for him, but I think he'd have escaped by now on his own if that were the case," Wally mused, "Don't worry, Shine, this is what I do. We'll find him."

"I'm just worried about being too late," Shine said. 

Wally kept checking the area. Shine eyed things more close and tried to use her Insight Gift, but she was getting nothing.

Wally finally found something just before they got to the train station. It only took the about 8 minutes, but for a super fast man and a woman who could portal anywhere in a few seconds, that felt like a long time.

Wally was the one who went down an alley and found something spray painted on the wall. "Hey, Shine," he called in a low voice, "come take a look at this."

Shine was peering at the street, but she turned and walked over. There was blood red and black kanjis sprayed on the bricks.

"Do you know what that says?" Wally asked.

Shine looked at it long and hard. "I know that one," she said finally, "Momo taught me that right away. It's hero... and that one there looks familiar too...Hang on." She pulled out a pocket dictionary. "Good thing I never take this out during the day time...Let me see..." She started running her finger over a section. "It means... death. No, that can't be right."

"I think it can be, Sunshine," Wally said grimly, "Sounds like a gang... Death Hero."

"No, see those markings in between, they mean something else," Shine said, "I can't be 100% sure I'm remembering right, and the the way they did it, it could look different, but I want to say it's either saying Death for heroes, Death in heroes, or Death to Heroes. All those little symbols blur together for me, but something like that." 

[According to Google, this is how it would be written, but of course, not in a graffiti style: ヒーローへの死, the order of it is more Hero is Dead, if I am reading it right, but Google Translate is not very reliable, and if you speak Japanese, I apologize for my very limited knowledge of it. I just thought someone might like to know how it could potentially look--If you watch the show, you probably recognize the first symbols ヒーロー as I believe it is the same word, or part of it, as the title uses for hero, though there are alternate spellings of it.]

"That's... creepy," Wally said.

"Uh huh," Shine said, "but why did you call me over here? There's plenty of graffiti around here."

"Because it's fresh," Wally said.

Shine looked closer. "Oh... it is... still tacky."

"Yeah, and this one part looks smudged, like someone dragged their clothes through it. Could have been leaning on it or shoved against it. See," Wally pointed. 

Shine held up her sword and shown a light on it. "Yeah, I see it now... Not bad, crime detective."

"Just what I do, doll," Wally struck a noir film tone and pose.

"Where's Batman when we need him to know an insane amount of information on whoever might be behind this?" Shine said.

"I'd settle for a computer we could actually use," Wally sighed, "but follow the clues. I'm going to go down this alley."

"Hey, look." Shine bent down and pried out a spray can from a corner behind a trash bin. "I guess this fell-- did you check the trash?"

"Oh... right. I forgot to do that." Wally lifted the lid of the bin. They found more empty cans in there but nothing else noteworthy.

Wally went off to look down the alley. Shine regarded the message with a sense of foreboding, then she followed him.

"Well, no signs of a scuffle," he said. 

"But the ground sure is uneven here," Shine said, tripping, "Was it this bad before? Geez... Where do we go now?"

"I don't see anything down the street." Wally had checked it in the time she blinked. "It's like our trail ends right in the alley. What do you think?"

"This is not my field," Shine said, "but, it seems to me there's only two things to think. Either they are very good at what they do and snuck away, or they have a quirk that allows them to avoid detection."

"You sound like Deku," Wally said. 

"No, I'd have to talk a lot faster." Shine pushed her hair back. "But, maybe, it's time to just try what I do."

"Are you sure? It's risky," Wally said, with concern.

"I'll try praying first," Shine said. She paused for a moment, eyes closed. "I think it's all right, and we're losing time." She waved her sword at the alley wall. A door opened in it, and they went through in a rush.

Wally had to go first, and he was bracing himself for impact. He was the only one fast enough to go through a portal and possibly back out again if he saw trouble, without really being seen, but in this case, the room he entered was too dark for him to ascertain the danger levels. Shine ran into his back because he didn't move. They blinked, and her sword lit up the room.

"Who the h--- are you?" A teenager's voice said.

In the light, they saw three teenagers staring at them. They were wearing dirty, ratty cloths and had masks over their faces. They looked like the definition of punks. None of them had obvious quirks on the outside, so it was hard to gauge anything else about them.

Shine spotted another teen tied up in corner. Itejiro. He was gagged and bound, but he blinked at them, so he was conspicuous. He probably could figure a way out of here, if they could distract the others long enough. 

Well, that was no problem for Wally.

"Hey, you kids know where the restroom is?" he said jokingly.

"They must be heroes," said one, a girl, in a mean voice. 

"Where's their costumes then, idiot?" answered another, a boy. 

"Heroes or not, I'm gonna take 'em down," said the third, cracking his fists. Then something shot out of his body over his arms and legs... It looked like metal pipes.

"Ouch." Wally was too distracted by the weirdness of it to realize he was going to attack, but the kid charged. Well, dodging was nothing for Wally, and Shine also evaded it easily.

"Maybe they are heroes," said the first boy, "Switch, take them down."

The girl nodded and snapped her fingers. 

Wally was going to try to taunt them more. "Is that all you got ki---?" then he found himself tripping over nothing and falling over, and he was somehow on the other side of the room. "Huh?" He looked puzzled.

Shine found herself flung across the concrete floor also. She skidded painfully. The Rebar kid came running at her. She held up her sword. "Discombobulate," said the other boy.

A weird, nauseated feeling hit Shine in the head, like someone had scrambled her brain... but she still blocked the Rebar kid's attack, to his great surprise. She blinked, confused. "What just happened?"

"Mixer!" said the girl, Switch. "What? I used it, I don't know why it didn't work!" he shouted at her.

The Rebar kid struck again, but Shine was recovered now, and she kicked his legs out from under him while leveraging herself up and smacking the piping away from herself. But she knew she couldn't really hurt the kid, and she didn't really want to-- he just seemed like a punk. She didn't want to overuse her portals though, so she deflected to keep them busy.

Wally jumped up and gabbed Rebar man at the speed of a gunshot--and the other two also--then he spun them around. Shine raced over to Itejiro and cut him loose. He pulled off his gag. "What are you doing here?"

"Miss Joke asked us to come. I take it you're being kidnapped," Shine said. 

"Those punks wanted to rough me up!" he said indignantly, "They said they'd disfigure my face!"

"If that's all, then it's not as bad as I thought," Shine muttered, "but I'm not sure..." She almost missed Dabi-- at least he would have had a conversation before fighting them.

Wally had the other kids so dizzy they couldn't even see, but he hadn't done anything else to them. "You two ready to go?" he said.

"Yes, we should," Shine said.

Just then something grabbed Itejiro and he vanished into an haze of... paint?

"What was that?" Wally said oddly.

"Spray paint..." Shine saw the walls were covered in it. Then the ground seemed to move under them, and they were flung into a wall. Wally grabbed Shine to shield her from the impact, but it hurt him a lot. 

"You might be fast, but you're not too bright, are you?" sneered the boy, Mixer, who seemed to be their leader, "Discombobulate."

Wally got a strange look on his face and grabbed his head.

Shine got a little mad. "Hey, leave him alone, you little brat!" She flashed her sword at them.

 The kids covered their eyes. Shine ran up to the one, Mixer, and tapped him with her blade. "Block..." she muttered, hoping now would be one of the times she could do that. It appeared to be, as nothing happened.

Then she turned to meet Rebar dude as he struck at her again. "Just go down!" he said in a annoyance.

They were clearly amateurs, Shine thought, or they'd all attack her at once. The other girl snapped her fingers...but Shine had figured out by now she was causing the off balance stuff, and she jumped when the girl did it and came down, unmoved. Then she stabbed her sword into the ground, and a shock wave went out from it, knocking both the girl and Mixer off their feet and dazing them a little. Wally got up and caught Rebar guy before he could hit Shine in the head.

"Thanks, babe," she said.

"No problem," he said.

Shine held up her blade and looked in the reflection at the walls of the room. "Truth," she murmured... "Where are you hiding?... Ah!" She tossed her sword at the wall and it stuck into it.

A girl appeared holding Itejiro by his throat with a knife. She was covered in paint like a camouflage, or maybe the paint had changed colors to camouflage her.

"Huh?" She seemed surprised to find herself visible... and to have a sword sticking through her without her feeling anything. 

Wally grabbed Itejiro out of her grasp before she could even think, then they all three zipped out of there at the speed of light, almost.

The sword vanished a moment later, leaving 4 very spooked punk kids.

Shine and Wally got Itejiro back to Ketsubutsu in two shakes, but getting him to calm down was a lot harder. They got Miss Joke, but she wasn't able to do much either. Itejiro wasn't crying-- he was furious! A couple of punks had abducted him! Just to prove a point!? 

After he had ranted for a while, Wally asked him what happened in more detail, and, omitting his indignant interjections, it was basically this:

As Wally suspected, he'd been on his way to school and seen some punks spray painting the wall. When they saw his uniform, they realized he was from a hero school, and all four of them decide to jump him. He could have won easily, if the Paint Girl (who went, rather unoriginally, by Splotch, in the group) hadn't been hiding and knocked him out while the others had him distracted.

He'd come to, tied up, and they had told him they were a group of people going by the name of Armageddon, who believed that heroes basically sucked, and they were fighting them. Just like the LOV.

It sounded laughable, but Itejiro looked somber. "I think they were serious, Miss Fukakado."

Miss Joke looked concerned also. "What do you make of this?" she asked Shine and Wally.

"We can look into it," Shine said, "but... tell me, are there any copy cat groups of the LOV yet?"

"I've not heard of any, but they must exist. They always do for things like this," Miss Joke said, "They'll claim they are affiliated with the League and try to scare people, no doubt."

"Does that mean this will happen again?" Itejiro said.

"Of course not," Miss Joke said, not very convincingly, "You were just unlucky this time... We'll have to inform the police... uh, but we shouldn't mention Shine and Wally."

"Why?" Itejiro said.

"We didn't have a warrant," Wally said, "We could get in trouble for looking for you and fighting them."

"Though we barely touched them," Shine said.

"I see," Itejiro said, "Well.. normally, I wouldn't let that slide, but, since my face is not disfigured... But what should I say?"

"Say you escaped," Miss Joke said, "That's all they need to know. You're a hero student, after all, Toteki. I'm sure they'll believe that you could win against some punks."

"I didn't even fight," he said, a little deflated.

"We didn't give you the chance. Don't feel bad," Shine said, "It was best to just get out of there quickly... but do give the police descriptions of all those wackos, of course. But you knew that already...and Emi, we have to go, before someone else notices we're gone."

Emi walked them out. "I can't thank you enough. They might just have been teenagers, but teens do messed up stuff too. He could have been really hurt if you hadn't gotten there when you did. I wonder why they waited."

"It's possible they had more members or were waiting for instructions..." Shine said. It struck her as kind of odd they didn't jut beat him up on the spot, too. "That is strange... We'll have to ponder it."

"Hey, if you ever need help for anything, I'm there, no questions asked." Emi gave them a thumbs up. "I hope this got Eraser to trust you a little more too. Good luck."

"Thanks... You too," Shine said, before opening a portal.

"You know, we're like the good fairies or something," Wally said, "Swoop in, swoop out." They were talking down the walkway to the dorms after informing Aizawa they were back and all was well.

"That must be a normal feeling for you," Shine said.

"Yeah, but what's it like for you getting the vigilante experience, Sunshine? Think you might like it after all?" Wally asked.

"No, I find doing things in the shadows frustrating," Shine said, "I'm heartily sick of it, and I can't wait till we can finally tell everyone our real purpose here. The only thing stopping me is that I don't wish to cause them more problems, but that's not a good reason to wait for long... We never know when we might be out of time."

"Well... that is superheroism," Wally said, "but, we could just come out with it."

"Soon..." Shine said, "but, something just needs to feel in place first, I think. I'm not sure what."

They went in the door. A lot of class 1-A were in the common room.

"Where have you guys been?" Kaminari asked, "Normally one of you is in here at least."

"We had a little situation to take care of," Shine said.

"Shine, your clothes," Momo said, "they're torn."

Shine hadn't noticed her pants had gotten a little shredded when she went skidding... Good thing they were thick ones, too. "Oh... wow... am I glad I was wearing these," she said, staring.

"Yeah, that's impressive," Wally said wryly.

"You two got in a scrap?" Bakugo guessed, sounding a little too happy about the idea.

"It's really none of your business what we did," Shine said, "and how would we have done that, anyway? I skidded across a floor hard. That's all."

"How?" Jiro wasn't just swallowing that.

"I think it's obvious how one skids across a floor," Shine said shortly, "If you'll excuse me, I think I need to wash paint out of my hair." She went upstairs. 

"Ditto to that," Wally ran off too.

"They're definitely hiding something," Tsu stated the obvious.

"We shouldn't pry into it," Momo said.

"But they were in a fight," Kirishima said, "I mean, just look at them... You don't think they did some secret hero work off campus without the teachers knowing about it, do you?"

"That's preposterous," Iida said, "The teachers would know."

Especially since they track them, Momo thought silently. She saw Todoroki frown, like he had the same thought.

"You think maybe they got into it with one of the staff?" Sero said.

"I don't know guys. Maybe we should stop asking, huh?" Mina said, "It's none of our business."

"Though it's kind of frustrating not to know," Uraraka muttered.

After a long shower, Shine sat in her room contemplating what had happened. Momo finally came in with some tea. "I thought you might need this... It seemed like you had a hard day."

"Thanks." Shine took it. "Momo... can I use your laptop? There's something I want to Go-Moogle."

"Oh, of course." Momo ran and got it.

Shine typed in the search engine: "Armageddon, graffiti".

What popped up were a few very small posts on some social media accounts, mostly just people thinking it was weird and not much of a threat. All around the same area they'd been in that day.

"What is this? A gang?" Momo looked at the screen.

"Yeah, sort of," Shine said, "I saw something like this today."

"You left campus? Why?" Momo said.

"I went to see Miss Joke," Shine said, "This came up... It's around that area, you see?... I just wonder... Well, she thought people might be copying the LOV, for the street cred. I'll have to look into that further."

"How?" Momo asked.

Shine took a sip. "The way I do," she said vaguely.

"Shine...uh, I know you're adults and all, and I can't tell you what to do, but..." Momo hesitated.

"Oh, that doesn't matter. If you know better, you should tell me," Shine said coolly, "Who cares about age, Momo? It only matters sometimes, but in this case, you're are more experienced than I am in this world here."

That was such an odd way to put it, but Momo nodded. "I just hope you're not doing anything dangerous. I know you and Mr. West are powerful, but it's still not a good idea to do things on your own."

"We are not on our own, Momo," Shine said quietly, "but I understand your concerns. I suppose you've figured out what happened today already."

Momo was not suspicious enough to have really given it much thought beyond what they said, but it was obvious to her what had happened, it was true.

"I don't want you to tell me if it's supposed to be classified," she said.

"Oh, it's more of a matter of your own safety," Shine said, "but I think you may be safer knowing... Only, I don't like to risk it in here, not yet. Suffice it to say, whatever you guessed is probably close to the truth. I assure you, there was a good reason for it... and now, I only wonder, how much more reason will there be before too long... Can we do our real jobs if we can't even be sure of people's safety? I think I am beginning to understand Aizawa's desperation. I only just realized it today, why it's so manic around here... It's because no one knows what to do."

"What do you mean?" Momo asked.

Shine leaned back against her wall.

"The crumbling of Hero society, Momo. It's palpable. It may not be a complete crumbling, but, enough of it is being chipped away to concern the Pros and the school, and they don't know what to do about it. That's why they keep pushing you all so hard. The more they feel guilty for failing, the more they push you. It's classic--  you can't take it out on who's actually responsible, so you take it out on your subordinates. I've seen it a hundred times, even done it probably, though I shouldn't have."

She sighed. "But it's not your fault. It's not fair to you all, either. But they won't stop until they realize there's no use in it. Because it's any plan, even a bad one, over despair, Momo. There is no waiting for the right answer with them. There is no patience... I don't think anyone even knows how to be longsuffering here... I always was told, no offense, that people in these Eastern Countries work harder than we do... and they do... but at what cost...?"

Momo felt oddly sad listening to this. "Shine, I don't understand. Why would the teachers feel guilty?"

"We feel the most shame for the things we can't help," Shine said, "My favorite book, Till We Have Faces says that... It is just because you can't help something that it makes you feel ashamed. Both our strengths and our weakness, we are most ashamed to be what we are. We're not comfortable with it. And so, the teachers are ashamed of what is not their fault... just like you are."

Momo started to cry, quite unexpectedly.

"Are you okay?" Shine sat up, "I'm sorry, I didn't meant to upset you,.I was thinking out loud."

"I don't know why I'm--I'm sorry." Momo wiped her tears away hastily. "I don't know. Something you said just..."

"Resonated," Shine finished.

"Yes..." Momo nodded. "That was it... Things that I can't help. It's true... I feel so embarrassed...and useless... Maybe our teachers do feel the same way.... It's... just ... a lot to think about..." she sniffed.

Shine shook her head. "All right, come on." She put out an arm and gave Momo a slight hug. "It's okay... it's just having feelings, Momo. It's no big deal."

That didn't help Momo stop crying. "I always do this," she sniffed, "I'm pathetic."

"No, just more in touch with your emotions, " Shine said, "Honestly, it's nice to see--not that you're upset, but that you actually show it when you are... Everyone around here is so stoic all the time, it's weird. Except Deku... but that just doesn't seem the same... Anyway, if you need to stress cry, that's fine. I won't judge... I wish I could, myself. I almost never can," she sighed.

After Momo had cried for a while, she finally slowed, and then she had another question.

"Shine... uh, forgive me, but, don't you ever have things you're ashamed of that you can't help too? I mean.... is that why you're... doing whatever you're doing?"

"No, it's not," Shine said, "I have those things, but they don't bother me nearly as much as they did once.... I guess... the Lord changed that for me. And therapy... but, this here, this is where I can feel like I don't have the right words or right timing... That's my problem-- I want to have all the answers... and I have a lot of them, but it doesn't mean anything if no one can listen." She looked up at the ceiling. "Well... anyway, you better go back to your room. Thank you. Are you all right now?"

"Yes, I'll be fine." Momo dried her eyes with a handkerchief and smiled a little more cheerfully. "I keep breaking down in front of you. I don't know what it is..."

"I have a habit of making people cry," Shine said, "Maybe, certain words do it... I don't know. At least, though, I know... Well, nevermind. Good night."

"Good night," Momo said. She wondered what Shine had been going to say there.

After Momo left, Shine sighed. "At least you don't feel so uncomfortable around me." She flopped back on her bed. "But how much time do I really have? What am I supposed to be doing?" She looked at the ceiling. "I wish you would just tell me the next step... but, I know, I can't run on ahead."

She put on music and then went to sleep.

All fan art was done by Onerose, who is quick and awesome at coming up with character designs, which has never been my talent.