Oh my god. This guy was so infuriating. The only thing holding back her anger was the fact that he had been stabbed and that she was sympathizing with the pain he was most likely feeling. Still, that sing-song tone was grating on her ears. ''This 'hero shit' is what we're all about! Why even become a hero student then? -Hey I told you to stop moving!'' If it wasn't for the criminal still standing, Freja would have one-hundredth percent chased Sebastian down and put pressure on his wound herself.

Turning back to the mugger, Freja used the now broken cane to move in closer and deliver some more hits to the mugger, not relenting until she was sure he wouldn't get back up again. She was panting by the end, if only she had some more muscles. She looked back over her shoulder just in time as Sebastian yeeted himself away, jumping due to what was most likely some kind of quirk. ''Ah- wait! Sleepy guy!!'' She extended an arm out towards him but he was already gone. She didn't even catch his name, shit that was embarrassing. If he bled out somewhere in Tokyo she was going to feel really guilty about it... Speaking of guilt, after the mugger had been successfully subdued and taken away by the police, Freja had to face the elderly gentleman, you know, the one she had borrowed a cane from. That cane that used to be intact.

One thing was for sure, if she saw Sebastian around school again she was going to demand an explanation of some kind. Why was he so mysterious? What was with the napping and the blindfold? Perhaps most puzzling, why was he wearing a penguin pajamas into town??

Sebastian Sinclaire

A few hits was all it took as Freja, panting looked over to Miroru, smiling as she caught the other girl wrecking her gun guy just in the nick of time. Freja was ready to move on to the final thug, however, she felt a sharp pain in her ankle just as she was about to take another step. Had she twisted it somehow when she was getting out of her cover? Crap. The adrenaline in her body was probably suppressing the pain now, but it was about to hurt a whole lot more once her and Miroru got out of here. Curse her mortal body and its mortal limitations. Why couldn't she be super tough like Emilia?

''Hey, hey, easy! Let the man go!'' Freja held up her bat with both hands, showing that she wasn't about to hit him and that she could drop it any moment if he commanded it. Hopefully Freja had somehow managed to look more imposing. Taller build and a big weapon, as opposed to her fox friend who was smaller, held no weapons, but was by far the scarier of the two. Still, if Freja could draw his attention, maybe Miroru could figure something out? Hostage exchange situations wasn't exactly something Freja was equipped for, but she was ready to let these armed idiots go if it meant saving the civilian. The shopkeep's life was the top priority right now.

''We're not gonna fight you, okay? Let the guy go.'' She kept her eyes locked on the knife wielder, but offered a quick glance towards Miroru. What did she think? How were they going to get out of this one with no casualties? Miroru could stop guns from firing bullets, sure, but unless she could melt the knife or move faster than him, they were in some real trouble.

Miroru

Freja sighed, “Okay okay!” She finally conceded, “Your insistence is making me embarrassed.” She looked away, feeling the warmth flood her cheeks. Miroru wasn’t just pretending, she was the kind of person that really cared, and her teasing was way too effective! “Unpleasant? Like more tests?” She cooed, putting her arms behind her back. Although, maybe for Miroru that wouldn’t be so bad. She came across as a brainiac after all. If anything she probably found the time to enjoy tests.

Two with guns? She swallowed her nerves as she prepared herself for a tricky situation. It always felt way scarier when guns were involved. “I don’t even want to think about it. They already sound horrible.” She shivered, so three guns total that Miroru could make out. Seeing Miroru’s face grow pale too, Freja quickly tried to take her hand and give it a firm squeeze. “Yeah! Together, we’ll get through without a single shot being fired.” She smiled, trying to act braver than she was. “That guy on the right.” She pointed with her bat. “I’ll take him.” She had already planned out how to do it too.

Charging in Freja, raised her bat a few feet from him, just in time for one of his allies to notice Freja and take aim. If Miroru wasn’t able to stop bullets, this would be the part where Freja died for sure, but she had to put her trust in her friend to capitalize on the gamble that could win them the fight in seconds. Aiming her bat at the guy on the right, she clicked a mechanism to fire her grappling hook at him, trying to have it smack into his gun and knock it out of his hands. Unfortunately for Freja, the hook was just a glancing blow, enough to make the ruffian stagger, but not enough to disarm him.

“Shit!” She ducked behind a shelf as he fired in her direction. Panting, Freja weighed her options before giving her bat a yank, turning the grappling hook wire into a tripwire, making the shooter stumble over himself and drop his gun. As soon as he fell to the ground, Freja would roll out of her cover and kick his gun away, before bashing him over the head and retracting the grappling hook back inside of her bat. “Miroru! You and me!” She called out, turning her attention to the final guy. Hopefully they would be able to tag team him together.

As the men emerged from the shadows of crows, something felt off. The more Freja thought about it, this felt less like an incidental bump into some thugs who were waiting to ambush a passerby and more like a deliberate attack against her and Farrin. Surely targeted mostly at Farrin, right? Unless these were The Spiders, but Freja doubted that since they were a Shinjuku-based gang and would definitely have waited for her to be alone to ambush her. Whatever it was, she could already feel her palms get sweaty as her mind raced. Were they going to be able to fend this attack off?

''F-Farrin!'' She cried out when one of the larger guys snuck up behind him. Thankfully, he was quick to show-off his skills and get free of the hold all on his own. When he adopted that familiar Irish boxing form she grinned. That's the Farrin she knew. It was almost a little thrilling to get to see him actually beat on people for real and not just fighting air. ''You can say that again!'' So he didn't know them either? Well, for the time being she shouldn't deliberate on why or how. She should focus on surviving this night with him. Speaking of, her eyes widened when Farrin kicked his quirk into gear. It was her first time seeing it this up close, and it was honestly kind of scary, just like pretty much every quirk. ''Y-Yeah! I'll back you up.'' She said, as she gave her bat a spin. She had options here, but which one should she go for. Charge right in with Farrin? But she wasn't as durable as him. Not that she doubted he couldn't cover for her, but acting rash wasn't the smart thing to do. Maybe catching the enemy by surprise would be instead?

Lowering her bat, Freja's arms started shaking as she backed up slowly. ''I-I can't.. I can't do it. I'm scared, Farrin.'' She gave him a quick side glance to try and signal she was fine, but otherwise kept her eyes locked on the bad guys. When it seemed like one or more of the thugs might have bought her lie, Freja would angle her bat up and activate the hidden mechanism, firing her grappling hook out of the tip of her bat to try and smash right into the stomach of one of the bad guys.

''I don't see a leader among them!'' Maybe the big guy that had grabbed Farrin? He was imposing, sure, but unless his quirk was some real horror stuff he didn't feel like the right candidate for it.

Farrin

''I guess you fucking don't.'' She crossed her arms. ''My bad for asking, didn't realize that was a touchy issue.'' Speaking with Thea was... Different. She was hard to read, full of mysteries, not that plenty of other students weren't, but there was something about the way she carried herself. It almost reminded Freja of herself. Like she was looking into a mirror, but it wasn't exactly the same, just slightly off, slightly different. She could also just be imagining things. Her mind had been playing tricks on her a lot recently so that wasn't out of the question. How would Freja, the original Freja have handled meeting Thea? Probably with a little less spite and angst, but it was just like Elias to be an idiot at making first impressions. ''Sure. Someone has to be.'' She shrugged. ''We're not all meant to be revered superstars like Leonid.'' Freja was frustrated too, but most of all, she had started to buy in to what the bullies had said to her. Yeah, she could probably make it as a hero if she tried really hard, but was she ever going to amount to anything when she didn't have a quirk?

''I know, right?'' Finally someone else who saw it. Finally a confirmation that Freja wasn't going crazy. ''It's a damn shame they didn't test people on ethics and morals. The message they're sending is pretty clear, isn't it? 'We only care about powers and how you can use them to fight bad guys or save others.' It's exhausting. It's wrong.'' She buried her head in her palms to underline just how irritating it was. She didn't really pay attention to the fact that Thea didn't go into details about her power. Most people didn't in Freja's experience, not that there was anything wrong with that. Everyone had skeletons in their closets.

''Thea...'' She repeated, then the doors to her mind were opened.

Dark city streets and crammed alleyways. They looked nothing like any city in Japan, yet the shape of the concrete jungle was eerily familiar to Freja. The sky above was a black void, not because the darkness filled it out, but because it seemed to be lacking any form of proper texture. A door opened in the wall in front of Thea, beckoning her inside. The superstructure in Freja's mind was full of claustrophobic hallways, many that lead nowhere and some that seemed to overlap weirdly with no rhyme or reason. Almost like two building designs had been copy pasted on top of each other with no thought for either designs in mind. On the ceiling above, faint yellow lights danced, guiding Thea to the room that all the hallways inevitably pointed to. An empty room with a giant screen.

The place that contained her memories.

But not just the memories of Freja, there were memories of someone named Elias as well. Not only that, but Freja was distinctly different from 'Freja', the current one.

''I did it! I got accepted, I'm going to hero prep school!'' The black-haired Freja from the past celebrated by punching the air.

Then another memory played, a young man handed Elias a knife. ''Take a life. That's your final test, then you're one of us.'' Elias hesitated, but eventually took the knife.

Then, in another memory, an impossible inferno raged around them, a figure obscured by the smoke of the fire looking towards Freja and Elias as they bleed out, before yellow lights, similarly to those on the ceiling earlier begin to emerge from his unconscious body. Elegantly, meticulously, the lights seep into the dying body of Freja. Before the hotel burned down, Freja and Elias's bodies were saved from the fire.

''Freja!'' Freja woke up in a hospital bed covered in bandages, her black hair burned away. ''Where's my sister?'' Freja took a hand to her throat and nervously looked down her body, then over to a mirror. ''Freja?'' She put a hand up to the mirror. ''Why? I-I don't understand.'' Freja, or rather, Elias in Freja's body, would continue to mourn the loss of their sister for a long time, haunted by the fact that he was stuck in her body. No one in his family believed him either, everyone thought Freja survived and that Elias passed away.

When the time came to cremate Elias, Freja just stared into space at the headstone that had been erected in their old name.

Back outside of Freja's mind, she squeezed Thea's hand. ''Lucky me. ~'' She cooed, ''I've never met a Thea before, so that'll make it easier to remember your name.'' Completely oblivious to Thea's quirk having triggered.

Thea

''W-Well..'' She muttered out shyly as Miroru taunted her. ''You didn't ask for any of that trauma dumping.'' Even if Freja had desperately needed someone to open up to, it wasn't like Miroru had signed up for any of that. It was even more embarrassing that she had opened up to Miroru the first time they really spoke together in private. Talk about carrying a lot of baggage. She smiled at what Miroru said next. ''Yeah. I'll look forward to it.'' She nudged Miroru's shoulder gently. In a way, this was kind of the perfect solution for her. She would get to talk about her problems, get to hear about Miroru's and through all of it, she got to hang out more with her, which she really liked.

''..Right, there's nothing worse than being misconstrued.'' She whined, finally calming down at Miroru's reassurance. Her anxiety gone just like that. She would have liked for them to stand like that for a while longer, but sadly fate had other plans. Much more sinister if Miroru's senses were right, and Freja was pretty certain they were.

Exothermic reaction? That some kinda sciency stuff right? That checked out! Miroru knew these things better than her. She was panting just to keep up with the fox girl, how did she get so fast?? Note to self, do more cardio when she gets back. ''O-Oh yeah? By all means. I'll follow your lead.'' She used the bat as a support as she caught her breath. ''Do you see it?'' She whispered, watching in awe as Miroru used her quirk in creative ways yet again. Seriously, her talent couldn't be understated.

''This'll be the debut of BBB.'' She gave her bat a confident pat with her hand. ''You're faster than me so if you need me to run in and distract them I can do that.''

Miroru

''Y-You?'' She asked sheepishly, ''I've already bothered you plenty with my problems.'' She looked down at the ground as they walked. More than plenty. She hadn't told anyone else her secret yet, and it was completely unprompted too! It's not like Miroru asked to be told something that personal, but honestly? Freja didn't regret that she had. The only way she could regret saying it was if knowing somehow bothered Miroru, but that didn't seem to be the case. ''Well, likewise anyway.'' She glanced back up at Miroru and flashed her a brief smile before looking back down again. ''I've always been a better listener.''

''Either or, maybe both depending on how much they bothered you.'' She grinned wickedly. Just because she was a hero student didn't mean using dirty tricks were out of the question! She was a former delinquent after all. On the fast track to become a young criminal until fate had decided otherwise.

''Yeah.. Sometimes we don't notice the progress we've made until we look back at old pictures? Then I think to myself, 'wow I looked completely different back then'. Uh- n-not because of what happened with my quirk or anything, it still applies from before the swap!'' She hastily put her hands up to clarify. It sounded like Miroru had been through a lot of tough times. She could only sympathize with her plight.

Oof. That way insecure people saw themselves definitely fit the bill for Freja. She blinked her eyes and glanced at Miroru's hand as it touched her shoulder before looking back into her eyes. They were so pretty, she swore they were sparkling somehow. Wait, don't get distracted!! She smiled, feeling a light blush coming on before Miroru stopped. ''Huh?''

Her face grew pale as she whipped her bat up, ready to bonk the nearest evildoer. ''A gunshot?'' She followed behind Miroru. ''You felt it? How did you feel it?''

Miroru