Reformed hero characters

[subtle quiver]

Toru:

"Come on, stupid piece of junk!" Sero smacked the top of his footlocker. He tried wrenching it up again but to no avail. "Why did this have to happen at the end when everybody's packing to go home? Getting attacked by bad guys in a big ass forest isn't enough apparently!"

"Where's Eijiro or Midoriya mumbles when you need em?" Denki said crouching next to his friend. "Mineta, you seen them two around?"

"Eh...no, Eijiro could be with anyone, dudes like a golden retriever, and Izuku's still in ER," Mineta said digging his fingers under the plastic to no avail.

"Accurate..." Sero grimaced as he and the other two tried popping it open. "Man are we really gonna have to rip this-"

The crunch of leaves and following voice behind them caused each to whirl around in slight fear, "Having trouble guys?" it was Toru's voice.

"O-Oh...crap it's you, sorry," Denki smiled awkwardly as he saw the shorts and t-shirt but no body or head to speak of.

Sero and Mineta had already gone back to pulling as Toru replied, "Can't get it open, huh?"

"You...really think so Hagakure?!" Sero's teeth tightened as he tugged hard.

"Okay, well you don't have to be like that," they couldn't see her face but each knew she was frowning.

"Do...you have some secret special move never before seen or something?..." Mineta grunted.

"Outta the way!" Two invisible hands pushed the boys to the side, "let me show you how it's done!"

"If she's actually stronger than you two, I'm gonna laugh," Denki shrugged as he helped them up.

They watched her kneel, or at least they thought they were watching her kneel down. "No tools here...so...a little improv will do," she said. A blade of grass was plucked from the ground by the invisible hand, and they saw it then stick inside the lock. It fiddled there for a moment, and while she did that the three gave each other glances.

"There!" She sang cheerfully as the lock unlatched and fell to the ground. "I still got it!" She stood bouncing happily.

They were staring at her.

"What?"

"So lockpicking is just a hobby of yours?" Denki managed to get out.

"Um..."

"Whatever...thanks but...where did you learn to do that?" Sero said walking to the box. He lifted the lid as she responded.

"Well...um...I wasn't that nice of a kid back in middle school."

"How bad?"

"Grand theft bad."

"Woah!" Mineta cried. Denki smacked him in the back of the head, "that sounds like a long story."

"Basic rundown," her shoes clicked together, "I was caught by a infrared seeing hero. Lucky, right? but anyway, when I was in juvie," when she said that they all looked at her. "There was a program for doing hero stuff. It was...kinda just community service, but I did well and...here I am. Really, really, really hard though."

Ibara

"It's not something I enjoy talking about, but perhaps you may learn from my example. I was born in the Kanegawa prefecture, but we soon moved here. You see my parents were criminals, and they were running from yet another spree. But nobody can run forever. They were caught when I was about five or six, by a pro hero of all things."

Setsuna was strangely mute, and the body parts around the kitchen that'd been fast at work preparing food for the shelter returned to their host unconciously. She watched, an intensity in her eyes.

"I was an angry child, always getting mad at little things. Maybe a gift from my mother, if she wasn't screaming she was complaining to my father and I. My father..."

Ibara paused. She glanced down at the heavy pot on the stove and shook her head, "Well this story isn't about my parents is it?" she laughed, Setsuna easily heard the nervousness in it. "Anyway, I was angry, a trait from my parents like I said but then came another trait. Crime. I'd use my quirk to vandalize a whole bunch of things...you name it and I destroyed it."

"How were you caught?" Setsuna asked.

"I wasn't. I was in an area far away from anything I knew. I'd just been kicked out of a foster family, they believed I stole from them."

"Did you?"

Ibara nodded, "Money mainly. It was a new kind of thrill for me, hadn't done it before. I was running because they said they were going to call the police on me. It's funny how the more you try to not be your parents, the more you become them. Wasn't done yet either," she shook her head.

"How so?"

"I slept for a few days on the streets, blew all the money I had by the second, and by the fourth I was so hungry I didn't know what to do with myself. Nobody helped, just some scared twelve year old girl wondering the street-" Ibara stopped again.

She drew in a deep breath and sighed. "Sorry. Now...I discovered from another homeless person that a church nearby served food two days out of the week to our kind. I didn't believe in anything at the time, but free food was free food. They were welcoming...for the...first time in my life..." she swallowed and it was clear Ibara was holding in something she was trying to keep buried, but the grave was too shallow.

After another deep breath, she said, "They were welcoming towards me. They didn't try and get me to pray or anything they offered me food and asked me about who I was. It was suspicious to me at the time because anyone asking questions to me was usually a cop. So I...I stole from them, I was on my way out of the door, fed and I could've vanished like I had so many other times but...but."

Setsuna saw her set the ladel down, "This is going to sound crazy," Ibara sighed, "but I swear to you it's true. When...I passed by a statue of Jesus on the cross, I swear to you Tokage-San he was looking right at me, like his eyes were moving or...or maybe it was a trick of my guilt I'm not sure but I was sure at the time it was real. So I went and...and put what I stole back. Over the next few weeks I kept coming back. I told myself it was for the food."

"And then you found out it wasn't?"

Ibara smiled, "You could say that."

"What about your foster family?"

"Oh, well...I went one day and confessed what I'd done to them. It had been two months since I left so I'd thought they'd have had the time to cool off. However...they reported me to the police. Legally, it was my first offense so what I got amounted to a slap on the wrist. One of the families I knew from church heard about it, and by the time I was out they'd already done the paperwork to take me in. My new brother is into pro heroes big time and...here I am now. It was hard given my background, but God is good. My new family they...believed in my ability every step of the way..."

Setsuna looked at her, then she glanced outside of the soup kitchen's cooking area. People were lined up outside even in the early morning. "Y'know, it's not everyday you hear someone's life story. Is that why you work at this joint?"

"Yes, that and...you can't expect God to do all the work," Ibara said picking up the ladel.