Meeting

He was five when it happened.

It was a seemingly normal day, laying on his bed after the tiring training and studying, he looked at the clock his room and wondered.

"Mom's pretty late. Probably busy with some friends." Half an hour later, his dad came rushing into his room, told him to get changed and that they're going to a hospital. Needless to say, he didn't feel good about this.

Arriving at the front desk of the hospital, he asked the receptionist.

"Can you tell me where Kurumi Sato is? I'm her husband, Kuro Sato." Checking through the documents, she finally replied.

"Yes, she is at room 404."

Walking through the hallway, Rui looked around and asked nervously.

"Dad... Wh-what happened to mom?" Giving his son a reassuring touch and opening the door to his wife's room, he said.

"Why don't we asked them?" Inside the room were three people, a doctor, a police detective and... his mom, laying on the bed with an iv drip connected to her.

His dad stiffly asked them the important question.

"What happened to my wife?" The detective sweat dropped at the intimidating air the man was giving off. Coughing into his hand to try to clear the atmosphere, he started off in a apologetic tone.

"I'm sorry Mr Sato but your wife was unfortunately caught in a battle between heroes and villains. In the middle of the battle, a rookie hero decided to rush forward and save the hostages by himself. This caused one of the villains to take more drastic measures and blew up a building, injuring a lot of bystanders including your wife." He then bowed down.

"On behalf of the heroes and police forces, I am deeply sorry for the state she is in." His face was just as unreadable as before. Turning to the doctor in charge, he asked.

"How is she?" Giving the family man a sigh, the doctor him his evaluation of her situation.

"When she got here, she had a concussion from being hit on the head by a piece of debris and she was unconscious. Now? She's in a coma and we don't know for how long."

The deafening silence after that was suffocating to say the least.

Until it was broken by the shaking voice of a boy.

"D-dad... Why is m-mom just laying there? Why isn't she saying anything?! Oh! I get it, she's p-playing a prank on us right? She's gonna p-pop up and scared us right?!" The constant shaken and self convincing tone the boy was using was honestly just... Heart wrenching for the adults in the room. Wrapping up his son in a hug, he tried to console him.

"Rui! I know that this is tough for the both of us but you need to stay in control of yourself!" That apparently didn't help much with his son's response.

"Stay in control?! How c-can I! S-she's in a freaking coma because of some idiotic HERO'S actions. And a SORRY is all we get from him while mom is in a COMA!" He continued holding the thrashing form of his son, trying to bring him out of his grief. Though, a part of him agreed with his son's words.

Shame swept over the detective as the words of a grieving and enraged child at the faults of the ones responsible for it, heroes. The child's words maybe brash but it was also the truth.

After roaring out his thoughts, Rui calm down a bit and started to move besides his mother, taking her hand in his and looking at her peaceful smile. No one could tell what the innocent boy was thinking.

A moment of peace passed by before he turned around to face them with a closed eyes smile and started walking towards the door.

"Hey dad, I'm going to take a breather outside. Have some time with mom while I'm out." Throughout this, a thought formed in his mind before it was shaped into a promise.

'Don't worry mom... I'll become a hero good enough to replace these INCOMPETENT heroes.'

Seeing his son acting like that, Kuro ran a hand through his hair before turning to his wife, thinking.

'Rui… I hope whatever you're planning won't make her sad...'

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So deep into his thoughts, Rui didn't notice the other person on the same bench his was sitting until a sobbing noise caught his attention.

Turing to see the source of the sound, he was definitely surprised to see a girl at his age with dual colored pale white and fiery red hair. A bandage wraps around her left eye, and she's crying through it.

Seeing that no one is here to help her, he carefully asked.

"Hey, are you alright?" She clearly didn't expect to see anyone here when she let out a startled yelp at the question.

Turning to her left, she was surprised to see a boy as old as her with messy white hair. She was momentarily taken aback by his hair before noticing that he was still waiting for her answer. Swiping her face, she asked him.

"Wh-who are you?" Giving her what he presumes a genuine smile, he answered.

"Oh? I'm Rui Sato and you still haven't answered my question." Seeing that he was right, she hastily replied.

"Uh, I'm fine. And my name is Todo- I mean Shoko. My name's Shoko." Acting like he didn't notice her slip up, he continued.

"Shoko hmm? You said you're fine but weren't you bawling your eyes just now?"

"Uhm n-no I was-" The stuttering girl stopped when she realized that he was teasing her.

"Hey! That's not nice." Looking at her angry pout, he decided to give her a little gift to placate her. Closing his hands together, he started weaving his threads while Shoko looked on curiously. A few seconds later, he handed his gift to her.

"Here, I hope this will make up for the teasing."

She was holding what appears to be a small stuffed toy covered with bandages with big round eyes, making it look like a mummy. Even though the design is simple but she has to admit... It does look really cute.

"T-Thank you for the gift. But how did you make it? Was it your Quirk?"

"Yup and wanna see something even cooler?" Wanting to see more of his Quirk, she nodded.

Moving his fingers a bit, the smol mummy started to move.

"Eh?! Is it a-alive?" She jumped up at the sudden movement while he had an amusing look on his face.

"Don't worry. It's not alive at all, I'm just making it move." Making it climb into her lap, he made it raised it hands at her like it wants to be hug. She instantly caved in at the adorable mummy. Holding the little thing close in her small arms, she played with it like a little kid.

"So... Why were you actually crying here? And don't lie to me cause the mummy will know." Indeed, it agrees with him by nodding it's tiny head at her. Seeing that there's no way out, she hesitantly said.

"I… wanted to see my m-mother." Quirking an eyebrow at her, he asked her.

"She's in the hospital? Then why don't you go see her?" Here, she hugged the mummy closer to her.

"I w-wasn't allowed to see her. Father said I couldn't." That made him snapped his eyes to the burn marks on her eye. Furrowing his eyebrows, he slowly asked.

"W-what did she do?" Tears slowly started to gather in her eyes as the memory surfaced.

"I wanted to surprise her. But then I heard her talking with someone on the phone about how she can't stand or look at my left side anymore. And then she dumped w-water on me." At this point, she was so close to crying that he was afraid her next words will trigger it. Using one of the most effective way to comfort someone, taught by his mother of course, he hugged her.

Tensing up at the sudden contact before relaxing in his arms, realizing that he was just helping her. Like how mom was trying to do for her.

Gently holding her, he continued.

"Why did she do that to you?" Shoko slowly whispered.

"Because of… father." 'Her... Father? But why would-'

"SHOKO!" A loud booming voice startled the two of them.

Intimidating, was what he first thought of the man approaching them. Despite of that, he continued to sit there observing him with calculating eyes and a pleasant smile. All while taking notes on how hard Shoko's hands were clutching at his clothes and the way she was looking at the man, it was a combination of fear and... anger?

"Shoko! I told you that you can't meet that mental woman anymore after what she did to you. You're going home now."

"No!" A defiant look on her face, she refused making the man paused and stared at her with a questioning gaze.

"What did you just said?" "No! I don't want to go back with you. I want to stay here with mom."

That clear wasn't what her father wanted based on the pissed off face he has.

"You will come back with me to continue with your training!" Stepping forward to get to her, he had to flared up his fire a bit at the sudden interference.

"Hmm?! Strings? Boy, is this your doing!" Turning to the other person his stubborn daughter was holding onto, he gave the boy a leveled stare.

"Mister! You shouldn't scare her like that. It's not nice for an adult like you to scare a child, especially your daughter, right?" The brat surprisingly didn't cower at his stare.

"Boy, move out of the way."

"I'm sorry but I can't do that sir. She doesn't want to go with you, I'm sure you heard that right?"

'Besides, I can't really move with how hard she's clutching. And it won't do my conscious any good if I just left her like that. Not when she's depending so much on me.' Moving his hands around, webs of strings started to form around the angry man. He just scoffed at the attempt to stop him.

"You think you can stop me boy? With your petite strings?!" Burning the webs, he trudged forward.

More of them were created and burnt to ashes, he couldn't help but dismissed the small potential the boy had shown at the beginning.

"Don't waste my time with your party tricks boy. Your attacks are useless." That is until a string manages to latch onto him through his flames.

'Hmm? How did one get through? I made sure to cover my entire body.' Increasing the intensity, the string was cut but after a few seconds, another one latched onto him once again. Making him raised the heat again.

While this was happening, Rui was sweating nervously.

'I'm lucky they adapted fast enough to counter the heat. Otherwise, he would have made it to me by now.'

Once he increased his flames to the highest level he can without burning the building down, he just watched as the strings were being burned and then started to slowly but surely recover and wrapped them around him. Seeing the strings withstanding his Quirk that easily, a glimmer could be seen in his eyes.

"Your Quirk allows you to control these threads at an incredible level, not only that, they have the ability to adapt to the environment, right kid?"

'Dammit! Not only does he have a good control over his Quirk, he also has the intelligent to back it up.' From the outside, he just has a pleasant smile etched on his face

"Wow, you're so smart mister HotHead." A tick mark on the burning man's forehead was his reward.

Turning off his Quirk, he decided to ask him a probing question.

"Boy, do you want to be a hero and why?". Rui was going to ask the man why the hell should he tell him until he saw his eyes.

Those eyes, so utterly ambitious yet they were filled with raw determination, the steely gaze molded by a fiery blaze that was his spirit. They bored into his small eyes, waiting for an answer. It was like the man was trying to find something in him or he was judging him, for what, he doesn't know.

Regardless of that, he met his eyes straight on. Neon purple clashing with blue. He steeled himself before giving his answer.

"Yes, I WILL become a hero. A hero good enough to replace the incompetent one's that this society doesn't need." He was satisfied with his answer if the nod was anything to go by. Giving him a slip of paper, he told him.

"Come to this place if you want to train to become a better hero than everyone else. Don't tell anyone about this, brat." Taking the paper, he gave it a glance to see it was an address and a code to enter.

"Let's go Shoko. You'll get to visit her some other time but not today." Giving the confused girl a comforting hug, Run said.

"Don't worry Shoko. I'll come and see you soon."

"Okay. Promise that you'll come and see me?" Holding out her pinkie finger, she waited for him to return the gesture. He just shakes his head at the childish promise but returned it nonetheless.

"Alright, alright. I promise I'll be there for you."

Looking at the retreating form of the two, he just let out a tired sigh.

"What a day."

While they were going home, Shoko couldn't help but hesitantly asked her father.

"F-father, why did you actually invite Rui to our house?"

"Rui huh? Well, he'll be your training partner." While his daughter widened her eyes in alarm at the piece of information, a distant thought came to his mind.

'And hopefully, with the two of you... I'll have an even greater tool to beat ALL MIGHT and claim the number one spot...'