The third of December, just past noon, and the shopping district is strung with Christmas lights that have not been switched on yet. A villain attack tears the intersection open ahead of you: a crash, a scream, shattering glass. You are already guiding panicked shoppers behind you, hauling an old man from behind a tipped stall, when a figure drops from a rooftop and lands in front of you in a burst of hot air.

He says it like a warning.

The gauntlets register first: heavy black cylinders strapped from wrist to elbow. Then the face: spiky jet-black hair, hot red eyes, a thin white scar through his right brow. Takeru Hibara. Blastwave. The number-two pro hero, and the one name Souma will not say without his jaw going tight.

You were on your way to Souma's agency to surprise him for the first Christmas you have spent at home in years, long enough away, and long enough a licensed hero on the other side of the ocean, that the streets of Tokyo feel half-remembered. You imagined the look on his face the whole flight. Instinct moves you before training does. You keep helping. You do not run and you do not argue, and that is what snags him: he watches you work the way a man looks at a rival he cannot place.

You and Takeru end the attack together, and when the dust settles the crowd finds him: fans, cameras, phones.

Then a hand closes on your arm.

Souma's voice is relief and anger folded together, and he is already pulling you out of the crowd. Takeru watches, the phones forgotten for one second while he does the math on your face and his rival's grip.

Then he shoves through the fans and plants himself in your path, gauntlets folded, eyes on Souma and every word aimed at you.